#she also kinda trained me like a dog so whenever i hear a whistle i start searching for her

[myrunawaysweets]

My sister has studied my behaviors and just knows when I'm about to do something before I can even do it.

Earlier i was thinking about all the memes regarding Obama, and I was thinking "Is there fanfiction if him?" And I pull up wattpad and start typing Obama and my sister goes "dont you dare" LIKE SHE KNOWS.

Anywho, I found a thanos x Obama.

[queenof-literature]

Gerudo - LU Request

Hi all! Thank you to my first request! @anantisocialpeopleperson​ who requested Wild telling stories about his time in the Gerudo Desert. This is based off of Jojo’s comic when Warriors finds Wild’s vai clothing. It’s going to be a little different though :). Apparently Oases is the plural for Oasis? The more you know. I also wrote this hyped up on energy drinks so that was fun.

The entire camp was laughing at him, and Wild was an odd mixture of hurt, embarrassed, and pissed. Even after he had poured Goron Spice into dinner, they were still chuckling and smiling. Even Twilight, who when Wind “informed” him of the situation when Wolfie disappeared and Twilight came back instead, laughed his stupid head off. Wild didn’t really mind his vai clothes. It was nice to pretend to be a different person sometimes, even if that other person was a girl who happened to seduce men for boots…

Wild didn’t really feel comfortable talking with all his friends laughing at him, so he decided to whistle slightly to get their attention, and sign a quick dinner’s ready.

Wild smirked slightly as some heroes looked at the dish in disgust, while others tried their hardest to eat it and not hurt his feelings, aka Sky.

“Wild you can’t expect us to eat this!” Warriors squawked, and Wild’s smirk only grew from there.

“Wild.” Time only had to use half of his “I’m Time so you better listen to me” voice for Wild to dump out the food and restart a quicker dish.

“Whose clothes were they anyway Wild? I had no idea you had a lady friend.” Warriors wiggled his eyebrows.

“I don’t have a lady friend.” Wild sighed out.

“Ohhh I see. Multiple lady friends! Wild you sly dog!” Warriors yelled suggestively.

“No that's not it either -”

“I told you Warriors it’s probably a gift for someone.”

“Either way Wild is still getting out there!”

“Why are you being such a pervert Warriors-”

“Pervert? Legend I swear to Hylia I’ll-”

“Enough!” Time commanded. Thank Hylia. At least he could see Wild’s slight discomfort at the attention directed at him. “It is none of our business what is in his bag. Wild is welcome to tell us if that’s what he wants. I won’t stop him if he pours Goron Spice in our meal again. I can handle it at least. Can the rest of you?” The heroes gulped and went quiet for the first time that night.

“Time is right Cub. We’re sorry if we made you uncomfortable, but you’re welcome to tell us if you want to. If not that’s okay too. That is totally up to you. No questions asked.”

Wild bounced the idea in his head. He didn’t like talking about his scars, or his past, or the Shrine of Resurrection that much, he didn’t want to be a burden. But the Gerudo Desert was kinda fun. There were the sand seals, the beautiful oases, the weird fight against Master Kohga… The rest of the boys told fun stories about their adventure around the campfire, and Wild felt his voice would work well enough. Maybe sharing his stories with his new-found brothers would be fun.

“Okay. But let me finish dinner.” Wind cheered which startled Wild slightly. He hadn’t noticed the heroes looking at him with badly concealed hope. Wild barley ever talked long about his adventure! And judging by his Hyrule it had to be entertaining!

Twenty minutes later, the band of heroes were all sitting comfortably around the campfire, looking at Wild as they began to eat.

“So… you know I had to free the Divine Beasts. Naboris, Urbosa’s camel, was the last one I got to. Which is probably a good thing considering the Ganon Blight in there was the hardest of them all.”

“What’s a Ganon Blight?” Hyrule asked, tilting his head. Wild felt something cold strike his heart.

“U-um. W-well when my friends fe-fell… it was because of those things. Ganon made them. They’re why the other champions are dead.” Wild said the last words of the sentence with a mundane voice, as if he tried to feel no emotion when thinking of them.

“Oh… I’m sorry Wild I wouldn’t have asked if I had known.” Hyrule and the rest of the camp looked somber.

“Don’t be sorry. It was a perfectly fair question.” Wild smiled slightly at Hyrule to show that no apologies were needed. Hyrule smiled back at his best friend.

“Anyway, before I could gain control of the Divine Beast, I had to figure out how to get on it. So I had to talk to the chief of the Gerudo, who I later found out was a 12 year old named Riju.”

“12?” Warriors coughed out. “What a young age for such a large amount of pressure.” Warriors trailed off. Everyone could tell he was thinking about his own situation when he became a captain.

“Yeah, she definitely feels pressured. But she is a wonderful chief for her people, and she grows more and more into her role everyday.” Wild stated, pride lacing his voice. “I tried and tried to sneak in, but no matter what wall I climbed or what entrance I tried to sneak into, they caught me everytime and threw me out. I could sneak into the Yiga hideout no problem. But Gerudo Town? Forget it!”

“Wait, what in goddess’ name is a Yiga?” Twilight questioned his protege.

“Oh, um, they come up later in the story.” Wild glanced slightly in Legend’s direction, who knew about the Yiga from a late night heart to heart when Wild couldn’t sleep and Wolfie wasn’t around. Wild never wanted to wake Twilight up if he didn’t have to.

“So I had to find another way in. That’s when I heard that there was a man who would sneak in dressed as a woman…” There gasps from the groups and muffled laughter when many realized where this was going. “Yeah, yeah. The clothes aren’t for a girl. They’re for me. I bought them off the man, er, I actually don’t know if he wants to be called a man or not. Anyway, I didn’t have any other choice!” Wild huffed, avoiding eye contact with the group.

“Well now I see why you seemed so uncomfortable when I told you how I got in.” Time winked at Wild, who flushed further.

“Keep going! I want to hear more!” Wind cried enthusiastically.

“Um, okay.” Wild wasn’t used to people being so enraptured with what he had to say. It actually felt kinda nice. “So I got the vai clothes, and the next morning I finally got into Gerudo Town! It’s really beautiful. There’s a whole market, and a secret store for voe clothes and a place to rent sand seals - oh! Sand seals are seals that you can ride with a shield and they’ll pull you behind them! - and there’s a giant statue above the chief's room with water flowing down and going around to the rest of the town. There’s also a jewelry shop that I got all my earrings and circlets from. There’s also a whole place for the chief’s prized sand seal that will tell a prophecy if you feed her fruit! And there’s the place where the guards train and the throne room which is also so colorful and pretty and-” Wild grew embarrassed and trailed off. He got excited talking about the beautiful town in the desert. Sometimes while he was there he could forget about the looming threat of Ganon for an hour or two. Never more, Zelda needed him. But it was nice there. They welcomed him with open arms, even if he had to be dressed as a girl.

“Um… sorry.” Wild didn’t notice that around him as he rambled on, the smiles of the group only got wider. Wild had come such a long way from the shy and jumpy teen who had barely said a word to them. Wild slowly coming out of his shell was a relief to the entire group.

“Don’t be embarrassed Wild. We love hearing about the things you love about your Hyrule.” Surprisingly, Legend was the one who spoke what the rest of the group was thinking. He hated seeing Wild scared to talk. Scared that they would leave him if he talked too much and “annoyed” them. He’d be damned if Wild thought that he couldn’t talk to his heart's content after being almost completely silent for years.

“Yeah Wild! I wanna see it one day if I can sneak in too!” Wind confirmed Legend’s statement, along with the other boys. Statements of how they enjoyed hearing his thoughts. On the inside, part of him was doubtful, that they were only being nice to him. But Legend had started the conversation, and Legend didn’t say things he didn’t mean if he started the conversation. So most of Wild was bursting with happiness. It felt nice to share the wonders of his Hyrule.

“Oh, um, thank you.” Wild spoke out awkwardly. Not quite knowing how to respond to people caring for his thoughts. “Well once I was finally in, I went to talk to the chief. Her guard’s name is literally Buliara. She is terrifying. They figured out almost immediately I was a voe, but Riju knew that I was someone her people needed. She sent me after the Thunder Helm, a treasure for the Gerudo that was stolen by the Yiga.”

“These Yiga again. Who are they?” Time asked Wild. Time had his usual stoic and mischievous face but on the inside, he was truly happy Wild was talking so much. The more questions they asked, hopefully, the more Wild would talk.

“The Yiga are a group of assassins that are devoted to Ganon. I believe they were once Sheikah who joined forces with Ganon long ago. Their symbol is the Sheikah symbol but upside down. They dress as normal travelers, and get you to stop and talk to them. Then they jump out of their disguise and attack you. And their main goal is to well… kill me.” A beat of silence.

“They what?”

“Wild why didn’t you tell us?”

“You’re being hunted by assassins?”

“Oh my Hylia have they gotten to you at all? Have they hurt you?”

“Wild are you okay?”

“Are they still after you? Are you in danger?”

Wild waved his hands to quiet them down slightly, which they did reluctantly, their worry that Wild would stop talking overcoming their questions.

“I’m okay. I’ve gotten into fights with them before, and some are harder to defeat than others. They are still active somehow even though Ganon is dead, but whenever we’re in my Hyrule I keep my eye out and have us travel off road as much as possible! I promise.” Wild seemed slightly nervous they would get mad if they thought he put them in danger.

“Wild they didn’t ask if we were okay. They asked if you are okay.” Legend reprimanded gently.

“Wait, Legend, did you know?” Sky asked.

“Yes I did. Wild told me one night. I also helped Wild keep and eye out for them in his Hyrule. I wasn’t going to break his trust.” Legend huffed.

“No one is mad at you two. We just want you to be safe, Wild.” Time voiced, calming everyone down significantly.

“I’m okay. They mostly stayed out of cities.” Wild stated, relieved no one was mad at him for keeping that to himself. He didn’t mean to outright lie to them, it just never really came up.

“Is this why you don’t like main roads and crowds, Cub?” Twilight questioned gently.

“Um that’s one reason yeah…” Wild rubbed the back of his neck. The rest of the group looked at each other, relaying a silent message. That was another thing to work on. Getting Wild to grow more comfortable in civilization without chipping away at his instincts. No one minded. It was the least they could do for Wild.

“Um, I’ll continue now if that’s alright?” After a few words and affirmative noises, Wild continued with his story. “The Yiga hideout is kinda built into the mountains near the edge of the desert. It’s a pretty amazing place without all the murderers.” Some chuckles came with Wild’s observation.

“I got there with the help of a sand seal and some rare sand boots that I - um - acquired.” Wild had that look of mischief in his, which only peaked their curiosity.

“Nope. Wild you do not get off that easily. I know that look. How did you get the boots?” Twilight urged.

“Uhhh. I kinda seduced a man who thought I was a pretty woman?” Wild voiced tentatively.

“NO WAY!” Warriors doubled over laughing heartily. The rest of the heroes were laughing so hard, half of them were out of breath within the first few seconds.

“You did what?” Time looked genuinely surprised, also laughing merrily at the image of Wild playing up his disguise.

“Well he was kind of creepy. He kept flirting with me when I didn’t show interest. I made it clear I didn’t want to go out with him, but he wouldn’t have it. So he then bragged about his sand boots that he was showing off for oncoming girls.” Some people in the group gagged at that. “He explained that they were rare and they spread your weight out across the sand, and the inventor died. I asked if I could buy them and he said that he would trade them for a picture of the missing Eighth Heroine Statue. He lended me his snow boots that worked in a similar way and I went into the mountains. I found it, but when I returned he admitted he was worried sick and that he made up the whole thing! He just wanted a chance to bond with me! But I got the picture so he had to give me the boots.” Wild finished proudly. The other heroes were in a mix of awe and pride.

“I am so proud of you.” Legend spoke with a smirk. Wild blushed at that.

“What happened next?” Warriors was still struggling to control himself and stop laughing.

“Well I wanted to keep the snow boots and the Heroine had a missing sword-”

“Oh my Hylia!” Time face palmed while the rest of the group fell into fits of giggles.

“Go back to the Yiga Clan!” Four demanded. He wanted to know what happened at the hideout for Hylia’s sake.

“I found a captured Gerudo guard within the hideout, along with a lot of bananas. The Yiga are obsessed with bananas. Don’t ask, I don’t know either. She warned me that the guardsmen would be too powerful to face on my own, and that I needed to sneak in if I wasn’t going to run away. I snuck all throughout the hideout. Climbing ladders, using stasis and bananas as a distraction, using my runes to cause some damage without them knowing. It was actually a lot of fun.” Some of the older members rolled their eyes. Of course Wild thought sneaking into a highly secure assassin base and wreaking absolute havoc was fun.

“After weaving my way in and finding all sorts of treasure, I found a secret metal door. I used magnesis, only to come face to face with a large open area, blocked by the cliff surrounding it. And in the middle was a giant bottomless hole!” Wild paused for dramatic effect, causing Time and Twilight to look at each other and chuckle quiet enough that Wild wouldn’t notice. It was nice to see the cub having so much fun. Looking around, he wasn’t the only one. Wind had his head in his hands, eyes sparkling up at Wild in excitement. Legend, Four, and Warriors had perked up, waiting with anticipation in their eyes. Hyrule and Sky looked on in both excitement, and worry for their friend. Obviously he was still alive, but hopefully he didn’t get any scars from the ending of this story.

“Then in a cloud of smoke, a yiga clansman in a weird jumpsuit and a big belly appeared! Ranting about being the great Master Kohga, fumbling around, and barely having the balance to strike his ridiculous poses!” Wild finished off his pause with a small laugh. There were mixed reactions. Some of the older heroes grumbled about how anticlimactic it was, to which Wind shushed them since he was still expecting a fight. The rest of the group laughed at the image of Wild facing off against the man he had described.

“He starts to fight me by disappearing behind conquered walls, and summoning giant spheres over his head to throw at me. Then when that didn't work, he hovered over the bottomless pit and summoned metal balls with spikes to throw at me. We battled for a while, I luckily had my runes so I could crash his own weapons into him and attack him while he was stunned. He kept conjuring walls so I had to crash his spheres down onto him over and over and keep attacking. Finally he got fed up. He was going to use the sacred art passed down from yiga master to yiga master. He summoned a giant sphere! One ten times my size! I probably couldn’t use my runes on it. But he kept going on and on. Checking to see if I was there, talking about getting rid of me. I was a little intimidated by the size I have to admit. But suddenly, with the slightest nudge of the wind, the ball rolled into him at the slowest pace I’ve ever seen and he got thrown into his own bottomless pit by his own ‘secret ancient art’.” Wild finished with a loud, light hearted laugh, that caused fondness to grow in all the members of their group. Wild’s laugh was carefree and young. It was like the wind ruffling the grass and the rapids of a stream mixed into one. It was a sight and a sound they all burned into their memories.

“I grabbed the Thunder Helm and left. After Master Kohga’s death, the hideout was completely abandoned. Not another member in sight. The Gerudo guard managed to escape with no one watching and returned safely. I got the helm back to Riju and together we rode sand seals to Naboris and shot bomb arrows at its feet. Naboris could shoot lightning, and Riju’s helm could only protect the area around her. So I had to control my sand seal to stay in her range, and also shoot at the giant camels feet, while not getting crushed!” Wild threw his hands in the air as he talked, a giant smile adorning his face. It pulled on his scars, so it was a little uneven when he grinned that wide, but it was still a beautiful sight for his brothers.

“Finally I could board Naboris and solve the puzzles. I defeated Thunder Blight and I finally had all the Divine Beats free again!” Wild finished off his story with a smaller, but equally happy smile. It seemed the dawn on him how much flare he had put into his story, and he once again realized how much attention was on him. Before he could be too embarrassed though, Wind threw himself at Wild’s middle. Wild tensed for a second. Sky was slowly getting him used to human contact, but it was still a little strange. Not bad or unwelcome anymore, just strange. Slowly Wild’s body relaxed and he gently hugged Wind back, much to the delight of the younger hero.

“That was amazing Wild! You have to tell us more stories! What about the other divine beasts? What other big enemies did you face? Are there any more ridiculous ones?” Wind threw his questions out like a hurricane, eyes shining and smile beaming. It always warmed Wild’s heart to see Wind excited. Wind was capable and brought a variety of skills to the group, but he also brought fun, youth, and happiness. Wild really enjoyed and respected it.

“That’s enough for tonight.” Time said gently. Wild silently thanked him. He enjoyed telling his story, but his throat hurt slightly. He hadn’t talked that much for that long in… well... As long as he can remember actually.

“What? I can’t sleep now! That story was awesome!” Wind cried out, still attached to Wild like an octopus.

“Then you can take first watch.” Warriors teased. Wind squawked in indignation and threw himself from Wild to Warriors, both beginning to play wrestle on the ground. The band of heroes looked on in amusement. Twilight looked at Wild and smiled, winking at him like Time had done earlier that night. Wind was right. Perhaps Wild would tell stories more often.

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas: Puppydog Tails

Also on AO3!

TL;DR: 

Izuku manifests his quirk, and watches his old life burn in front of him in a matter of months. Scared the villains that killed his mother will come after him, he uses his shape-shifting quirk to hide in plain sight as Katsuki's dog. They keep each other safe and sane throughout the years, a duo people become uses to seeing as they jog down the sidewalk each morning.

Izuku doesn't just use his quirk to help Katuski. His heroic spirit can't be crushed so easily. In his wanderings, he meets and helps countless people, from heroes to Katsuki's future classmates.

Let's just say Katsuki's first day of school is a wild one.

basically, izuku is a shapeshifter, but can only change into different mammals. he needs to know their internal organ structure perfectly or he's in trouble too.

he manifests his quirk and quickly goes about learning some common but practical animals like a small cat, greyhound, mouse, bat and rabbit

he and bakugo are friends

his good times dont last long though, his mother is killed for a connection to a villain she didnt know she had (probably dad for one) and the villain group is after izuku as well

they don't know his quirk, he honestly hadn't gotten it registered yet

inko tells izuku to run, hide and be safe, right before shes practically cremated where she stands by a powerful fire quirk. izuku runs, shifts into a small dog and goes the only place he can think: the park he and bakugo play in

now, mitsuki is frantic bc inko's house is on fire and they can't find inko or izuku

katsuki doesn't know whats happening though, and she sends him off to the park in case they start pulling bodies out of the building. katsuki is happy to go, asks if he can bring izuku. mitsuki says izukuis busy

katsuki goes to the park and hears a soft whining sound, he finds izuku, hidden behind a tree, smelling like ash

izuku shifts back to a human and explains that villains hurt his mama and they want to hurt him too

katsuki, crying, tells him to change back into a dog. he'll keep him safe from the villains. izuku agrees, only if he can look after katsuki in turn.

they don't tell mitsuki. izuku is worried she'll get hurt, and part of his is also worried she knew about the villains and said nothing.

Katsuki and dog!izuku run back to the house, only finding charred bones where his mother had been

they both sob

mitsuki finds her son, sobbing as he clutches a tiny dog to his chest, seeing a sight so horrific she herself wants to throw up. when he asks if they can keep the puppy later that night, it's not even a question in her mind. of course they can. Anything to keep that broken expression off her son’s face.

katsuki changes after that. his best friend and friends mother apparently dead, he gets angry, but he's scared to go out where there are lots of people. he's scared of the villains that killed izuku's mum, scared they'll hurt them like they hurt inko

he goes to therapy. they quickly work out the dog is helping him cope, so izuku is trained as a therapy dog. he does astoundingly well, unsurprisingly.

katsuki ends up bullied for his service dog, but the amount they help each other is enough for him to be willing to put up and shut up

the only time he ever explodes is when someone hurts his dog, 'deku' and it's not like izuku sits idly by while katsuki gets hurt either

anyway, izuku likes to wander, whenever katsuki doesn't have school or is feeling particularly good, he'll go on an adventure, normally as a different animal

every animal he shifts into is green, so katsuki sometimes sees him when he's out and smiles

izuku's heroic spirit is undying, even as an animal, which kinda leads to him sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and helping out kids he thinks need the help.

he hears shouting and crying from the foster home down the road, sees a child muzzled

he goes hero watching as a kitten, sees the small child standing too stoic on the front lines as endeavour fights. he follows him home, whistling songs to the kid when he cries, perching on his shoulder when he sees him

ochako remembers the fluffy puppy with its massive paws showing up at her door when the power went out during winter, keeping her warm with its curly green-black fur

aizawa knows of the kitten that ages too slowly and keeps bringing troubled children to him

iida remembers the rabbit that used to race him on the tracks. without his quirk its was honestly a challenge

kirishima knows about a dark colour fawn that would always come over to him when he was upset and let him bury his face in its fur and cry

mina remembers the little green bat that nested in her hair and clumsily copied her as she danced, its colour making her feel better about her own

Tsuyu would often see a little green and black tanuki when she’d take her siblings out. It always kept them safe and out of danger and never failed to make her smile on a bad day.

he earns shinsou's trust as a too-small kitten, along with aizawa's (just out of school, learning to be an underground hero) , until he can drag aizawa to the house during the shouting. shinsou gets out, aizawa gains a son

shouto's best memories from his childhood are of the little cat that always showed up when he felt his worst, who purred like an engine in his arms and was never afraid of him

he also remembers seeing it the day he dyes his hair. its licks his nose

Even heroes know about the little green dog that watches from the sidelines. They’ve seen it drag civilians from danger, look for people in buried rubble and comfort crying children. It doesn’t often approach them, but it tends to do a little happy dance if they pet it, wagging its tail 1000 miles an hour if a hero so much as looks at it.

They call it little green, seeing him basically becomes a good luck charm. Even All Might feels a little better when he sees the little dog catching from the crowd, knowing it’ll keep some too-brave civilians safe from attacks and falling rubble.

When Katsuki applies for UA, his class doesn’t cheer him on. They whisper about the kid so angry, unstable and scared he brings a puppy to class. Izuku leans against Katsuki’s leg in support, unable to do anything for his friend. The teacher pays it no mind.

He’s told not to apply. He’s not normal or sane enough to be any help to anyone, they say. Katsuki flips them off and puts UA in all three slots on his form.

He takes Izuku with him on the day of the entrance exam. He tells himself it’s so Izuku can see the school at least once, if he doesn’t get in. Deep down he knows it’s because he’s scared and doesn’t want to be alone. Izuku doesn’t mind either way, he’s just excited to cheer on his best friend and get to look at some heroes.

He does leave Izuku with the teachers. He can take care of himself, but the idea of dragging him into a situation where he might accidentally burn his only friend? It makes him feel sick. Izuku understands. He’d do anything for Katsuki, but he was still scared to enter the exam location. He never did get over his fear of fire.

Izuku ends up in the monitor room. The teachers are trying not to coo over the too smart, too nice puppy. It’s All Might that recognises him.

“Is that, is that little green? The dog who always shows up at hero fights?”

Nemuri is ecstatic

“It totally is! I love that little guy! Hey little cutie, did you know you were famous? All the heroes around here love you!”

Aizawa, Nezu and Present Mic all separately notice that the dog honestly… he honestly looks flustered. Excited, yes, but almost sheepish. Aizawa draws some internal connections to the green and overly brave ‘stray’ kitten he’s seen his whole career. Nezu looks at the fur colour and thinks “quirked, like me. But was he always an animal?”. Present Mic sees the humanity in those eyes.

All three of them say nothing, filling the information away for later.

Katsuki ends up in the arena with Iida and Uraraka. He recognises both of them from Izuku’s whisper descriptions in the rare moments he let himself slip into human form.

Tall, broad, clearly the younger brother of Ingenium; that’s the stiff boy Izuku raced as a rabbit, trying to get him to loosen up and connect with those around him.

Round-faced, bright cheeks, fierce eyes and a body a little too thin from too many hungry nights? That’s the girl Izuku looked for when it got too cold, just to make sure he heating was working. She’d moved away from home, apparently. Izuku had found her new house and gave it a once over – if he figured it was safe, Katsuki would believe him. Izuku was the most paranoid person he’d ever met.

He almost went to say something. But Iida’s stern glare curdled his nerves. He shot back a snarl and focused on getting ready.

Back in the viewing room, Nemuri and Yagi are not so subtly fighting over Izuku. They are both trying to call him over, offer little bits of food, give him a good pat. It’s a little funny for Aizawa to watch as the poor pup ties himself in knots trying to please the both of them. He notes vaguely that he doesn’t take the food bribes from either of them.

Yagi is winning slightly, on virtue of being All Might, but Nemuri is not above begging a dog. It works shockingly well, with Izuku not wanting to upset a hero. She sends smug look’s All Might’s way as she triumphantly pats Izuku.

Mic yells start, the student's flood into the arena. Katsuki makes short work of the robots, racking up a score of 50 in almost record time. The teachers watch as ‘Deku’ clearly tracks his charge across the screen, whining softly when he pushes himself a little too far or gets a little too close to the robots.

Then the zero pointer is released and all hell breaks loose.

Katsuki sees Uraraka, trapped. He can’t leave her; not one of Izuku’s people. He’d never forgive himself for letting someone important to Izuku get hurt ever again.

He doesn’t realise Izuku couldn’t stand seeing him hurt, either.

He blasts the rubble apart, shielding Uraraka with his body, preventing her from being hailed with slivers of rubble. Uraraka sees not another student, but a hero, saving her when she thought she might die, selflessly giving up time to save someone he didn’t know. She vows to make it up to him, somehow.

It’s not enough, the robot looms too close. Bracing himself as best he can, Katsuki lets out the largest explosion he can muster, uncaring of the damage it may do to his wrists. If he gets crushed, his wrists hardly matter, do they?

The robot shakes, then topples backwards, overbalanced by the blast. Katsuki drops to his knees, both wrists dislocated. He’s hissing swears under his breath.

Uraraka sees a lump of rock flying to him as he sits there, prone from the attack that saved her life. She leaps towards it, leaving it weightless before it can hit him. The action leaves her hand red raw from the force of the rock.

Time is called. They both collapse.

Izuku is off of the door the second the explosion sounds. It’s so big it rattles the monitors in their room. Nemuri tries to stop him, reaching for his collar, but his collar doesn’t fit a mouse. He shifts into the smaller form, scampering out the door upon where he shifts into a greyhound.

He takes off full tilt towards his friend's exam arena. He's panicked and scared – the flash of fire and the pained look in Katsuki’s eyes have totally fried his nerves.

The doors aren’t open yet. He doesn’t care, shifting into a bat until he can clear them, diving down as fast as he can. He shifts again into a greyhound, racing though the robots – broken and sparking.

He sees Katsuki, jaw grit tightly as he fights back tears of pain, and Izuku lets out a pathetic whine, running full tilt towards his best friend, before lingering nervously in front of him, unwilling to touch him lest he hurt him.

“Oh get over here, Deku.” There are tears in Katsuki’s eyes still, but he’s smiling softly. Izuku shifts once more, into the softest dog he can, pressing against his friend as his tail wags like mad.

Present Mic calls time. If he was a solid 30 seconds late as he tried to process the whirlwind of chaos that little,,, dog? Left, well no one was going to notice. Other than Nezu, obviously, but the maybe-rat seemed just a confused as him.

Uraraka turns to her hero, only to see the little dog that would warm her on cold nights. She turns to him, wide-eyed. Izuku sticks his head over Katsuki’s shoulder, making happy yips at her.

Iida stumbles over, confused as to how a dog got in, confuses as to how he clearly saw it change between two distinct dog breeds in its quest to reach the prickly boy he’d seen at the entrance, who had just seriously injured himself to save a stranger.

The dog looks at him, then perks up. It gives a quick snuggle into its owner's hair before trotting over to him. It wags its tail. Iida looks on, confused.

Before his eyes, he watches the dog shift into what is unmistakably the rabbit he remembers from his earlier childhood, the one that would race him around tracks until it’s little legs couldn’t race anymore and would bound over to him as happily was a rabbit could.

He stares.

Katsuki watches this and laughs.

“I see you’ve both met Deku.”

[lovelylogans]

cocoa

part of the wyliwf verse.

the sideshire files | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: mention of puppy mills, dogs, secret-keeping, food mentions, recreational drinking (not to drunkenness) kissing, that’s about it. this one’s mostly fluff, folks.

pairings: moxiety, logince

words: 7,766

notes: bold of you to assume i wouldn’t take the canon dog in gilmore girls WHO WAS ORIGINALLY NAMED COCOA and directly transport it into this verse. picture of the inspiration behind wyliwf!cocoa here as a puppy and here as an adult, btw. she’s a mixed breed, definitely has some chow chow (hence the Fluffy, if u are acquainted w/ mash potato, he is a chow chow) and german shepherd (hence the coloring) along with some other Mystery Breeds in there, so!

thirty-five isn’t exactly a special birthday.

thirty-three, sure, maybe, repeated numbers. thirty? yeah, new decade! but thirty-five—well, it’s just a halfway point, isn’t it? patton doesn’t think there should be much going on in preparation for that. a dinner, a little party/get-together, and patton’d be happy, which he’s told both virgil and logan (and roman, when he wanted an excuse to throw a party.)

so virgil and logan being so evasive over the past couple weeks or so means that patton’s been getting as investigative as logan about what could be going on with the pair of them.

logan, at least, has an excuse—apparently, there was some random, weird deadline for the franklin that logan had run into and had to guide the rest of the staff through—but virgil has just been a little... well, a little strange.

he’s been intent on suddenly patching up the back fence, which he’d been on about when there were rumors of foxes and raccoons getting into trash, but that had been months ago. it seemed like a weird time for this desire to resurface, considering it’s january. there wasn’t really much of a chance of all that when the ground was basically frozen over—patton doesn’t know much about winter habits of foxes and raccoons, but he’s pretty sure they’ve gone for warmer climates, or at least might be sleeping it out.

he’s been reading some kind of articles that he keeps humming at thoughtfully and bookmarking on his phone, patton thinks, except virgil hastily turns off the phone’s screen and turns to smile at patton whenever he tries to peek.

he’s also been furtively ordering things—patton would think it’s birthday presents, except he caught a glance of one of the labels of the boxes and it’s from tiny company that, patton has searched, makes some specialty peanut butter cookies and the like. food is virgil’s thing, he wouldn’t just order it, so maybe patton got the company wrong?

and now...

patton knocks gently on the top of the coffee table, so he doesn’t startle virgil into hitting his head.

“um,” he says. “hey there, honey.”

“hey,” virgil says, forcefully casual.

“can i ask what you’re doing under the coffee table and half under the couch?”

“i, uh,” virgil says, and coughs. “thought i saw something under the couch. cleaning, you know.”

“yeah,” patton says, and settles on the ground. “except you’ve kind of been deep-cleaning the house for the past week.”

“um... yep.”

“i don’t think you could’ve missed something if you’d been trying,” patton says, amused, and reaches out to scratch a little at virgil’s back. the part he can reach, anyway. 

“i’m really deep-cleaning,” virgil says. 

“i kinda figured.”

“really,” virgil says, “really deep-cleaning.”

patton grins, scratches at virgil’s back again. “did you get whatever was under the couch, then?”

virgil withdraws from the couch, an old piece of paper crumpled up in his hands.

“we should really vacuum under the couches more,” virgil says, and patton leans over to kiss his cheek.

“whatever you say, darling.”

(“how do you feel about dogs?”

virgil glances up from where he’s wiping down the counter—logan, in his chilton blue-and-navy, is sitting at his counter.

“uh, i have generally positive feelings toward dogs?” virgil says. “they’re cute. i’ve never had one. wait, aren’t you supposed to be working at the franklin right now, that random deadline, right?”

ever since logan was told he’d be editor-in-chief of the franklin at the end of his junior year, and now that he’s started his senior year and has been at the helm for over five months, he’s been spending lots long afternoons at the school, deep in the journalism lab, fussing over copy and photos and ap style and page design. virgil’d be worried about him overworking himself, but he knows that mel can, has, and will kick him out if he sticks around for too long, plus dee is there to antagonize him into getting distracted, along with some other chilton friends swinging in and out.

“i made it up,” logan says. “it’s going to be a cover story.”

“a cover story,” virgil repeats slowly. “right. okay. for what?”

logan hesitates, glances around, and says, in a lowered voice to avoid eavesdroppers, “dad’s birthday is in two weeks.”

“right,” virgil says slowly. 

“i think we should get him a dog.”

virgil pauses, before he sets aside the rag. “a dog,” he repeats.

“yes,” logan says. “a dog. a canine. canis lupus familiaris.”

“why a dog?” virgil says. “i mean, i know patton wanted one when he was a kid, but, well. your grandparents.”

logan hesitates, just for a moment, before he says, “i’m graduating in may.”

virgil knows this. virgil has had several crises about it. virgil has sat with patton through his various crises about it. virgil could not possibly be more aware that logan is, in fact, about to leave the nest.

“yeah,” he says.

“well,” logan says. “i’d have suggested a cat if he wasn’t allergic, but. he’s been used to taking care of someone or something for all this time. once i’m gone... it just. it might be a good way to cope, that’s all.”

“like the exact reversal of getting a dog to prepare for having kids,” virgil says, starting to get it. “getting a dog to deal with not having a kid around as much anymore.”

“yes. precisely.”

virgil considers this—he considers him and patton in the house, alone. and then he pictures a dog, big, small, medium, resting its head in patton’s lap, patton petting the dog, hugging it. taking the dog for walks and training it—well. it would be hard work. it would be a lot of energy. it’d be a commitment for however long the dog would be alive.

but it would be a comfort, too.

“all right, then. it’s time for me to start researching dogs, i guess.”

“oh, i’ve been researching breeds and training methods and house preparation and shelters in our area for a month now,” logan says briskly, and reaches into his backpack to take out a binder, and virgil really doesn’t know what he’d expected.)

...

(“hey,” virgil says, as logan slides into the passenger’s seat of his car. “how was school?”

“good,” logan says. “i had a pop quiz in latin, i think i did relatively well on it.”

“nice,” virgil says, and pulls out of the parking spot.

this is their second time visiting an animal shelter—they’d dropped by the sideshire one, but realized that they wouldn’t really be able to keep an adoption of an animal secret at home, especially considering that patton sometimes volunteered to walk the dogs there. this time, they were going to a place closer to the city that logan’s research assured them was humane, a nonprofit society, and took part in raids against illegal puppy mills and dog fighting rings—all in all, virgil thought it seemed like a pretty standup shelter.

“okay,” virgil says, as they’re pulling into a parking spot at the shelter. “and we do have a plan for if we find The Dog today, right?”

“they’ll hold a pet for you up to a certain point,” logan says. “i’ve asked mrs. prince and roman, and they said that if we had to bring the dog home earlier than anticipated, they’d be willing to house it.”

virgil nods, absorbing this, and gets out of the car.

“right, then,” virgil says. “let’s go see some dogs.”

they see some dogs. they see a lot of dogs.

they, eventually, see the dog. she’s tiny, and absurdly fluffy, and she eagerly attempts to institute herself in their laps the moment they sit down, demanding pets and treats and love, and she’s too cute for words. she snuffles at them eagerly and wags her tail so hard virgil kind of fears that she’ll fall over to the side, but she’s so energetic she’d probably bound up again immediately, wagging her tail even faster. she’s got big, clumsy paws, and big ears, and a too-long tail, and big, chocolate brown eyes that she’ll probably grow into. when she licks at his chin, he's basically sold immediately.

“virgil,” logan says, in the midst of petting the puppy, examining her temporary plastic collar. “look at her name.”

virgil leans enough to check the little paper sheet full of the information on the outside of the weird room-crate things this shelter’s got going on, and lets out a low whistle. 

“right, then,” virgil says. “that’s that.”

“we have a dog,” logan says, with a smile that he hasn’t quite tamped down—virgil realizes, belatedly, this is logan’s first pet outside of the occasional goldfish and smuggled-in-from-the-outdoors frog or turtle, and maybe all the face-licking and snuffling and puppy eyes had sold logan, too.

“we have a dog,” virgil agrees.)

“oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!!!!” patton hears roman squealing from where he’s in the kitchen, and patton leans his head out in time to see roman holding logan’s phone and cooing.

“what’s up?” patton says, toting the two bowls of popcorn he’d been in charge of preparing and settling back down on the couch next to virgil, and roman and logan both look up from the phone, roman grinning.

“oh—nothing,” roman says, and passes logan’s phone back to him. “just a cute, um, dance picture thing, s’all.”

“can i see?” patton asks.

“it was a snapchat,” roman says. “faded away after ten seconds.”

“oh, darn,” patton says. “what movie were we going to watch, again?”

“maybe we should watch lassie,” roman says, voice in that faux-innocent tone he’s been using when he’s up to mischief for years, and logan elbows him hard in the side. patton looks to virgil, confused.

“did i miss something?”

“maybe best if you don’t ask,” virgil advises him, and patton nods, taking a handful of popcorn.

...

patton’s decided to take a page from his son’s book and keep notes about things he’s noticed that are Weird, partially because he’s bored and partially because he’s now very interested in whatever’s going on here.

there’s the whole fence thing, as virgil had spent a good chunk of his saturday hauling out his and patton’s shared toolbox and grumbling irritably at the fence as he patches up holes and makes sure nothing can get into the backyard, sometimes retreating back into the house to stick his hands somewhere on patton’s person in order to warm up and drinking tea before he went back out there.

(“does this seem secure enough to hold a puppy?” virgil asks logan, when he comes out to the yard. “i mean, she’s really small, but she probably couldn’t fit through any of these holes, right? plus she’s growing.”

“she’ll be on a leash most of the time, anyway,” logan points out.

“i know, but—”

“virgil. the fence is fine.”)

he’s also hidden a variety of boxes away somewhere, labels that he’ll cover with his hands and say “don’t look don’t look birthday surprise!” which only makes patton want to look even more, and really, patton doesn’t think he’s a person that virgil needs to get several boxes of gifts for, so he’s dying to figure that one out when the time comes.

(“how does a dog require so much stuff?” logan says disbelievingly, sorting through the latest incoming purchase. “is this order just entirely collars?”

“harnesses, too, but she’ll grow out of them!” virgil says. “so we’ll have ones for when she does, i’m planning.”

“you’re going to spoil this dog,” logan says. “you’ve bought her bandanas.”

“look me in the eyes and tell me that patton wouldn’t love to accessorize his dog with bandanas,” virgil says, pointedly ignoring the suspiciously familiar black bandana with purple plaid stitched on with thick white thread that logan shakes at him accusingly.)

the whole deep-cleaning-the-house thing hasn’t stopped, and sure, it’s nice and tidy, but really, there’s only so much deep cleaning you can do before you can pronounce a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house with one bedroom he wouldn’t go into, considering it’s logan’s room, fully clean, right?

(“i know puppies chew on things, but virgil, this is getting ridiculous,” logan says. “you’ve puppy-proofed the entire house at least five times. if she chews on something at this point, she’s to be commended for her creativity.”

“i just want to be sure she doesn’t choke on anything,” virgil says.

“i am positive the puppy won’t chew on old paper,” logan says pointedly. “and even if she does, if it isn’t a huge thing of paper, she’ll be fine.”

“don’t come crying to me when she throws up in your room, then.”)

he keeps going to the town library? sure, virgil’s a reader—not as much as logan, but maybe no one could ever be as much of a reader as logan is—but usually he brings books home and sets them on the bedside table and reads them gradually, over the course of a few days, but a few people have mentioned to him that they’ve seen virgil in the library, he’s reading books there and not at home, though no one’s really seen exactly what he’s reading.

(“what... is that?”

“um. it—apparently, it’s—i read that if we give her a hot water bottle and a ticking clock near her sleeping area, it imitates the heat and heartbeat of her littermates and helps her get acclimated to her environment better, so—so it’s a clock. for her.”

“virgil. you went out and bought a clock. for the dog.”

“okay, look, whose idea was it to get a dog in the first place?!”

“i haven’t bought a clock for the dog!”)

and now—

“babe,” patton says, dragging his fist across his still-sleepy-bleary eyes and settling his glasses on his nose, and virgil jumps before he pivots.

“hey!” virgil says. “i—sorry, did i wake you up?”

“no, just woke up and saw the time and wondered where you were,” patton says. he’d like to be coordinated about his affection, but he is very sleepy, so he just plods over to virgil and, essentially, walks straight into him until virgil wraps his arms around him with a soft laugh.

“sorry,” virgil murmurs, and kisses his temple. “i’ll be right up, i promise.”

patton peeks around his shoulder, and says, “was filling up some kind of new cookie jar really a huge priority, this time of night?”

“i—no,” virgil admits. “i just kind of got into the swing of doing dishes and wiping down the table and i ended up—well. filling up a new cookie jar.”

“i didn’t even know we got a new cookie jar,” patton says.

“surprise,” virgil says. patton reaches forward, intending to steal one of these apparently-good-enough-to-stay-up-past-midnight-for cookies, and virgil quickly closes a hand over patton’s wrist.

“um, probably not a best idea at this time of night,” virgil says. “sugar’ll keep you up.”

“that is a blatant lie,” patton says, and virgil leans down to kiss him again—quick, almost chaste.

“then it’ll be too much of a fuss to brush your teeth again,” virgil says, and sets the lid on the top of the jar before physically turning patton around. “let’s get to bed, yeah?”

“you’re being weird,” patton says, then decides, “i’ll deal with it in the morning.”

except in the morning, like it’s some kind of strange fever dream, the new cookie jar’s gone.

(”why did you decide to fill up the jar with dog treats in the middle of the night,” logan hisses at virgil as virgil’s making breakfast, logan looking for somewhere to hide the jar before patton comes downstairs, and ends up cramming it in the cupboard under the sink.

“it just happened!” virgil says defensively.)

...

the thing about instituting house rules for birthdays is that they tend to get thrown back at you.

“but i can—“

“no,” virgil says, from where he’s double-checking that the streamers will stay up if someone leans against the wall. “house rules. it’s your house, you know them.”

“virgil,” patton grumbles. “you wouldn’t be ruining my birthday if i helped with my decorations—”

“nope,” virgil says. “if i wasn’t allowed to cook on my birthday, you’re not allowed to decorate.”

patton sinks back against the couch with a huff, crossing his arms.

it’s been a very nice birthday, generally speaking. virgil made a massive breakfast, eggs and hashbrowns and bacon and biscuits and chocolate croissants and donuts, and didn’t monitor his hot cocoa/coffee consumption, for once, and logan and roman had swung by for breakfast before swinging out again (“i’m under oath,” roman had said solemnly, when patton asked them what they were up to) and they still haven’t come back, even though the party’s due to start in ten minutes.

once virgil has triple-checked everything, and fetched patton a glass of wine, he tugs patton to his feet and wraps his arms around him, smiling down at him.

“hi,” patton says, not quite able to keep the grudging tone he’d been trying to go for.

“hey,” virgil says. “happy birthday.”

a smile breaks out on patton’s face, even when he’s very sure he’d tried not to let that happen. “you’ve told me that already.”

“and i’ll probably say it again,” virgil says, and he leans down to kiss patton, and kiss him, warm and soft and the best kind of overwhelming, and patton really regrets having to break the kiss in order to breathe, but he very much likes the small, needy, breathless sound that virgil makes when he does.

the doorbell rings, and patton groans, leaning his head against virgil’s chest.

“the timing of whoever’s at the door,” he informs virgil’s sternum, “is terrible.”

virgil snorts and drops a kiss to the top of patton’s head, and patton reluctantly disentangles himself from virgil in order to answer it.

he really should have expected who it is.

“patton,” his father says. “happy birthday.”

“thanks, dad, mom,” patton says, and steps aside so that they can file into his house.

“hi richard, emily,” virgil says. “do you want something to drink?”

“stoli on the rocks with a twist, if you can manage it,” emily says.

“richard? oh, patton, here’s your wine,” virgil adds, pushing the glass into his hands again.

richard requests scotch.

“i can—”

“absolutely not,” virgil says, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “stay out here in case anyone comes to the door, yeah?”

patton sighs, and does.

the party fills up in waves—isadora and emily are engaging in some kind of silent stare-off in the corner as richard has, once again, escaped from a party with a magazine in hand—and soon enough, patton’s busy entertaining people and making the rounds. it fills up so slowly that patton almost doesn’t notice until he ducks back into the kitchen to check on virgil, how chaotic it is, how it’s just a bit too noisy—he thinks that most of the inn’s employees have shown up, as well as his friends and neighbors from throughout sideshire. 

and when he gets into the kitchen, the quiet nearly overwhelms him. patton has to lean against a counter and let out a slow breath when it hits him.

virgil glances up from where he’s been topping off some snack bowls, and sets them aside.

“hey there,” he says, and drops a kiss on top of patton’s head—patton’s cheeks flush, feeling warmer than he already is, and he beams up at him.

“hi,” patton says.

“having fun?”

"mhm,” patton says, and winds his arms around virgil. “missing my fella, though.”

virgil smiles down at him, soft, and brushes a curl off his forehead. 

“i have had,” patton informs him, “some wine.”

virgil’s grin grows a bit more wry. “that so?”

“i haven’t caught anyone at it, but someone keeps filling up my glass and i suspect remy,” patton says. 

“yeah, he would,” virgil grumbles.

“i’ll understand what’s going on between you two someday,” patton says—the slightly-joking-but-not-really rivalry between them has bemused patton for years now.

virgil snorts, once. patton’s about to poke fun at him a bit more, but there’s the chime of a text message, and virgil digs his phone out of his pocket.

“it’s logan,” he says. “i’m just gonna make sure that he’s got your surprise all set.”

“it has to be brought into the house?” patton says, and blinks up at him. “but what about all those boxes?”

“you’ll see,” virgil says, and twines his fingers with patton’s, tugging him out into the living room. patton gets parked soundly on the couch. 

“wait here.”

“for my surprise?”

“for your surprise,” virgil confirms, and patton squeezes virgil’s hand tight before he lets him go. 

“a surprise?” dot, his neighbor, asks.

“in five or so minutes,” patton says. “or, whenever virgil and logan come back, i guess.”

“oh, the surprise,” babette says, and winks at morey—neither of them holding cinnamon, which is strange, considering their cat comes with them everywhere. “morey, the surprise is coming.”

“you know what it is?”

“know what what is?” sookie asks, looking up from the tray of canapés she’s brought and is still experimenting with. 

patton’s distantly aware that other people are disrupting their own conversations in order to turn attention to his, but he can’t really care right now.

“my birthday surprise,” patton tells sookie. “virgil’s been acting weird for the past couple weeks, and apparently all the investigative skills in the family went to logan, because i’ve been trying to figure it out and i’ve got zilch.”

“well, it is a surprise,” sookie says reasonably. 

“babs?”

“sorry, sugar,” babette says, and patton sighs. just a little.

“well, i’ll find out soon, i guess,” patton says.

...

“hey,” virgil says.

“hello,” logan says, holding tight to the leash; the puppy is teething at the leash, too, still attempting to walk forward even though logan’s come to a stop. 

“hi,” roman adds, holding the box that virgil had gotten specifically for this. 

there’s a bit of weight on virgil’s shoe—the puppy’s come forward, set her little paws on his boots, and is sniffing eagerly at his jeans.

“hi,” virgil says (he does not coo) and leans down to pet her, scratching behind her ears, before he glances up to see roman grinning at him.

virgil coughs, and says, gruff, “here, give me the leash, i can get her ready for the surprise.”

logan hands over the leash, and roman sets down the box, before he digs out—

“seriously?”

“if you’re getting a dog as a birthday present, you have to put a bow around her neck, it’s practically the law,” roman says. virgil sighs and snatches it away.

“fine, fine,” he says. “go inside, text me when everything’s all set.”

roman takes logan’s hand, and logan pulls him toward the house; there’s a swell of music as the front door opens, then closes.

“okay,” virgil tells the dog. “um. so, you’re about to meet patton.”

the puppy continues to chew at her leash, still looking at him with her chocolate brown eyes.

“patton’s the best,” he tells her. “and he’s gonna love you, and we’re—you know. we’re gonna take care of you, and—and we’ve never taken care of a dog before, but we managed to raise a kid okay, and you’ve never lived with humans before, so we’re both new at this. we’ll do the best we can. okay?”

the dog tilts her head.

“i’m talking to a puppy,” virgil mutters, and shakes his head. “right, then. let’s get you all set.”

he puts the puppy into the box—it’s got a lid and a box, both separately wrapped, it has a blanket in the bottom, and cut-out handles so that virgil can carry her, and so that she gets air—and carefully removes her leash.

“comfy?” he asks.

she sits.

“good girl,” he murmurs, because reinforcing praise is important, and pets her for a bit. he looks at the bow roman had given him—big and red, of course—before he carefully ties it to her collar. she attempts to nip at it, before virgil wiggles his fingers in front of her face, distracting her.

“okay,” virgil says. “we can just sit here and wait until logan or roman texts us, yeah? and i can just keep petting you.”

so he does—at once point, virgil’s practically in the box with her because it turns out the puppy very much likes belly rubs, but it also turns out that fingers are, potentially, the best teething tool of all time (virgil is familiar with this, but it’s been about sixteen or so years since logan’s needed to chew at his fingers) so she is very conflicted between letting virgil scratch her belly and chewing at virgil’s fingers. 

virgil’s phone buzzes, and virgil removes a hand in order to check—logan’s said He’s ready—and leans in to peek at the puppy.

“okay,” he says. “i’m gonna put the lid on, and i’m gonna carry you around for a little, but you’ll be out of the box soon, okay? and you’ll meet patton, who i’m sure will spoil you rotten and pet you until you’re sick of it.”

she wags her tail.

“cool,” virgil says, and carefully sets the lid on the box, and even more carefully picks up the box, making sure that the box stays level.

before he has to consider how he’s going to hold this (frankly kind of absurdly too big) box and open the door, roman opens the door for him, grinning. also, he’s holding his phone horizontally, which means he’s definitely recording this.

patton’s smiling, but there’s a curious glint in his eyes as virgil shuffles slowly forward, very conscious of the tiny little puppy in the box that he doesn’t want to jostle.

the people at the party have also ringed around the room—babette and morey, who have remembered not to bring cinnamon, since he doesn’t know how the puppy will react to a cat, dot and larry, sookie and michel, and emily has somehow managed to pull richard away from his magazine, among everyone else—watching as virgil carefully sets the box at patton’s feet.

"logan just told me that the deadline was a cover story,” patton tells virgil. “you’re in trouble.”

virgil grins. “all of this was logan’s idea in the first place, actually. i thought it was a real deadline too until he brought me in on it.”

patton huffs, put-upon. “well,” he says airily, and elbows logan jokingly, “this better be a good surprise, then.”

“open it and see,” virgil says.

patton leans forward, and begins to pry off the lid. virgil waits with bated breath. 

as soon as he gets the lid off and seems to catch a glimpse of what’s inside, patton squeals in shock, jerking away from the box, and for a second virgil thinks they’ve horribly miscalculated and patton’s actually afraid of dogs, but that’s before he leans right back forward again and reaches down to pet the puppy.

“hi,” patton croons, and then he starts to giggle—before he puts his hands over his face, before he peeks out again, like he was checking to be sure that the puppy wasn’t a hallucination and that she wouldn’t disappear as soon as he took his eyes off her. and then he looks at virgil, eyes bright and eager and excited, laughing the whole time.

“is this real?!” patton demands between giggles. 

“of course it’s real,” logan says, and patton puts his hands over his face for a second, before leaning back forward and reaching down to pet the dog.

“oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” patton repeats, and, with a jolt, virgil realizes that he’s crying, and patton meets eyes with him, beaming hugely, and virgil feels some kind of unnameable emotion swell up in his chest—the closest he can get to identifying it is joy.

“hello,” patton repeats to the puppy, then, to virgil, “can i hold it?”

“do whatever you want, she’s your dog,” virgil points out, unable to stop his own smile.

“she’s a girl?”

“she’s a girl,” logan confirms, “ten weeks old,” and patton carefully reaches in, still giggling all the while, and carefully hoists the dog into his lap, therefore bringing the dog into the view of the rest of the room, which makes a variety of gasping, cooing noises that are really exactly what a surprise puppy deserves.

“oh my gosh,” patton repeats, and giggles even louder when the puppy sniffs at his face, and licks the tears off his cheeks. “oh, my gosh, hi there, sweetheart!”

the puppy squirms, and patton adjusts his grip, staring.

“she’s so fluffy,” he says in awe. “oh, my gosh, she’s like a teddy bear, look at how fluffy she is!”

the puppy is, indeed, very fluffy, and very stuffed-animal-esque in her adorable-ness, and patton sniffles, burying his face in her fur, just for a moment. the puppy wiggles a little, in order to keep licking and sniffing at patton, so patton resurfaces after a few seconds, crying harder than ever.

patton’s grinning, so virgil’s pretty sure he’s crying because he’s happy, but he wants to be sure, so—

“do you like her?” virgil asks hesitantly.

“i love her,” patton sobs, and virgil climbs onto the couch, so that he can wrap an arm around patton’s shoulders and kiss him on the cheek.

“i can’t believe you got me a puppy,” patton chokes out, and sniffles noisily, before pressing a kiss to the puppy’s forehead and settling her on his lap. 

“logan, technically, campaigned for you to get a puppy, i was just the one who was legally able to adopt her,” virgil says, and patton turns to logan, smiling.

“you should check her collar,” logan suggests, before patton can get any more emotional than he already is.

“her collar?” patton says.

“her name,” virgil elaborates. “which the shelter gave her and you can change it, if you want to, but—”

“you won’t want to,” logan says. 

patton adjusts the bow, and takes hold of the little temporary tag virgil’s gotten her, before they can register her with the vet near sideshire and make sure that they’ve got record of all her shots and the fact that she’s been spayed and microchip her so on, and takes a moment to read it. his jaw drops.

“no way,” he says.

“way,” virgil says. 

“her name is cocoa?” patton gasps. “that’s perfect!”

“told you,” logan murmurs.

“hi, cocoa!” patton croons to the puppy, holding her up in a way that’s vaguely reminiscent of lion king, except it’s at face-level and looking toward him. “hi there, my sweet girl! are you cocoa? i think you are!”

cocoa wriggles in protest, attempting to lean forward and lick patton’s face, and patton holds her tight in his arms, face just glowing, and yeah, wow, this was an amazing idea, go logan.

“so you’re definitely okay with the surprise pet,” virgil checks, and patton laughs, leaning forward to kiss him, the puppy attempting to free herself from between them, and it’s one of those amazing, perfect moments that virgil will keep with him forever, not to sound sappy or anything.

the party’s basically permanently derailed, after that.

people approach the puppy in groups, which means that virgil learns a bit more about cocoa: she likes fetch, but only for one or two throws before she gets distracted by something else. she really likes it when you scratch her neck, under her collar, because her back leg starts doing that thumping thing that dogs do when you’ve hit the sweet spot. she likes to play tug of war, which is normal, but she grabs onto pant legs with her teeth and clings even as she gets dragged around the room, so they’ll have to train her out of that. 

he also hasn’t really been able to seen her walk around a room, but since she’s got stubby little puppy legs and too-big paws that she needs to grow into, she practically waddles, which is both hilarious and adorable, and virgil witnesses her trip over her paws a couple times, which is cute, even if his heart stops and he half-lunges toward her in the time that it takes for her to re-establish her balance, tail wagging, and continue happily toddling along her intended path.

patton’s attention to most of the rest of the party is lost, too, since he keeps sitting on the floor and playing with the puppy, following her from group to group and randomly bursting into giggles at the sight of her doing something even slightly adorable, which, considering she is a very cute dog, is very often. he occasionally leans down to scoop her up into her arms and kiss her, which, well, virgil remembers him doing something similar with logan when logan was first able to walk reliably enough but still stumbling every few steps, so he probably shouldn’t be surprised.

patton is also half the reason the puppy is getting introduced to everyone. case in point:

“this is your grand-dog,” patton tells emily cheerfully, holding cocoa out in a way that emily would be able to take him. “you can hold her, she’s very light and very soft and very fluffy.”

emily looks like she’s about to decline the offer, like she doesn’t want cocoa to shed all over her fancy skirtsuit, before she sees virgil mouthing hold the goddamn dog behind patton’s head. she sighs, but she holds the dog, in a way that clearly denotes that she has never held a dog before—hands under cocoa’s armpits, letting her legs dangle in the air.

she stares at cocoa. cocoa stares at her, legs paddling in the air.

“you can hold her like a baby,” patton says helpfully, “that’s okay too” and emily adjusts her grip accordingly. 

and then she just. holds the dog. she doesn’t pet cocoa or anything. she’s just holding cocoa like a baby.

“isn’t she cute?!” patton says happily.

“...certainly,” emily says stiffly.

“i love her,” patton says.

“hmph,” she says, “well,” and passes cocoa back to patton, before she swipes her hands across her jacket, attempting to discard the fur.

“i’m gonna introduce her to dad,” patton says happily, and goes off to find richard as emily continues to sweep her hands across her shirt.

virgil digs the lint roller out of his hoodie, and holds it out.

"ah,” she says.

she brushes it along, and, once she’s satisfied, she moves to hand it back, before she pauses.

“where did you get this dog?” she asks suspiciously, as if virgil has specifically gotten a flea-infested rabid dog for the sole purpose of getting her to hold it, so it can infect her.

“a shelter,” virgil says.

“which one?” she says. “is it reputable?”

“you were on their donor wall,” virgil says, non-chalant. “so i’d sure hope so.”

she pulls a face at him—well, the emily equivalent of pulling a face. so, virgil one, emily zip.

“what breed is she?”

“german shepherd, chow mix,” virgil says mildly. “there’s some other breeds in there too, we think, but—”

“you should have gone to a breeder.”

“she was a rescue from a puppy mill,” virgil says, even more mildly, “so—“

emily sighs, long and irritated, before she says doubtfully, “it was logan’s idea to get a dog.” 

“yep, it was,” virgil says.

“why would logan suggest a dog?” emily says, and virgil glances around—richard is holding the dog slightly better, and tilting his head at it with the same curiosity that he does at a headline about “the youths.” 

“he’s worried about patton empty-nesting in the fall,” virgil says. “he wanted to be sure that patton still had something to take care of, so. dog.”

“and that was logan’s idea,” she says. “not yours.”

“...yeah,” virgil says.

“you must have had some other idea for patton’s birthday,” she says, as if doubting that virgil has not masterminded the whole dog plot and cocoa will eventually be trained into a vicious attack dog that specifically goes for white people in the upper tax bracket, or something, as if she is not currently chasing a ball tossed by richard, and then she slides and wipes out in a hilarious fashion before scrambling back onto her paws, tail wagging, panting eagerly, looking like the clumsiest and least threatening dog that had ever lived.

and virgil thinks about the jewelry stores he’s got listed in his private notes, the inspiration rings he’s got saved in about seven randomly named, nested folders on his password-protected laptop that you can’t find without searching for it specifically, the budget that he’s already schemed out, the various ideas that he’ll probably ask logan to help fine-tune, and he shrugs.

“nothing that can’t wait.”

...

patton’s still kind of in shock, but, like, the best kind of shock.

because. he has a dog. he has a dog!!! the surprise is a puppy!

she’s adorable! patton loves her already! whenever he looks at her it feels like his heart is made of melty gooey marshmallows! 

“no cocoa baby don’t eat that,” patton says, gently removing a piece of wrapping paper from her mouth. she attempts to follow it, despite the fact that he puts it out of her reach, and he puts a dog toy (virgil has been pulling out absurd amounts of dog supplies from every hidden nook and cranny in the house since the party ended) in her line of sight instead, squeaking it. cocoa takes that instead, lying down with a little thump, gnawing it at it.

“so, the way i get you to follow your own house rules is to give you a puppy,” virgil says, amused, picking up the wrapping paper and putting it in the trash bag that he’s filling with trash from the party, “got it.”

patton grins up at him sheepishly. “i could help if you—”

“nope,” virgil says, “absolutely not,” and runs his fingers through patton’s hair, scratching gently at his scalp, before he goes to sweep the coffee table of discarded paper plates and napkins.

“god, she’s so cute,” roman gushes, from where he and logan are sitting across from patton, the three of them kind of boxing cocoa in, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “i love her floppy little ears, and her big ol’ eyes, and her fluffy perfect face—”

“she is an aesthetically pleasing dog,” logan agrees. 

she is. she’s varying shades of brown, fawn and chocolate and chestnut and coffee and taupe, with a splash of white on her chest. her ears are a gradient of the varying shades of brown, and her snout is the same dark color as the edges of her ears. her fluff levels are truly off the charts, and she has pink little beans for toes, and her eyes are so soulful that patton’s genuinely going to get beaten out in the “best-puppy-dog-eyes-in-the-house” competition, though he passively wonders if she still counts considering she is a puppy dog, but—

“jeez, logan, you don’t have to be so sentimental about it,” roman teases.

cocoa squeaks her toy in agreement. it’s shaped like a mallard, with a goofy, cartoonish grin on its bill. 

gradually, naturally, the conversation dies down, and they’re all left in a companionable silence, except for the occasional murmur of “you comfy?” between his son and his son’s boyfriend, and patton softly entreating cocoa with a variety of pet-centric nicknames that he can barely make sense of—sweet girl, fuzzyface, sugarbun, marshmallow, kissyface—and eventually, cocoa flops onto her side and snoozes with a variety of tiny puppy snoring noises, and patton’s heart’s so full it feels like it might burst.

and once the house is relatively clean (a bit impossible to be fully clean, with the clutter that’s so ingrained into the house it’s practically a piece of furniture, patton barely notices it anymore) virgil settles onto the ground with patton with a soft huff, and briefly leans his head against patton’s shoulder, before pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“good birthday?”

“amazing birthday,” patton corrects. “fantastic birthday. really spectacular birthday.”

virgil smiles, just a little. “good.” a pause, and then, “late, though.”

patton stifles his smile—virgil fussing about food and caffeine intake and about his sleep schedule has really been happening for as long as they’ve known each other. “you’re right,” he agrees. “i—d’you think cocoa needs to go out?”

“probably,” virgil agrees. “i’ll go with you.”

patton nods, and reaches out to scoop cocoa into his arms—she stirs a little, before settling in his arms just like a slumbering baby, and okay, patton might cry a little, she’s so cute?!

“remember to sleep out in the living room,” patton reminds. “don’t stay up too late, kids.”

he gets “we won’ts” that he’s not sure how close they’ll stick to, and a “happy birthday” from roman and a hug from his son, as virgil trails him toward the backyard. patton descends the patio steps, before he carefully places cocoa, paw-first, onto the grass. she folds herself up and it seems like she’s content to continue sleeping in the grass.

“no,” patton scolds, in a half-laugh, putting her on her paws again. “c’mon, puppy, do your business, and then you can sleep for as long as you want.”

cocoa seems to sigh, before she toddles forward a few steps, nose firmly stuck to the grass to sniff and investigate, and arms come around patton’s waist. patton smiles, leaning back into the warmth of it—january birthdays meant sometimes white birthdays, which were cool, but the cold was just something else—tilting his chin a little, and virgil obligingly presses a kiss to his cheek.

“you’re seriously good with the surprise pet,” virgil checks, and patton huffs a laugh, leaning back against virgil’s chest and securing his grip on virgil’s wrists, to keep him there.

“i’m seriously good with the surprise pet,” patton promises, and he feels virgil’s warm breath of relief against his ear.

“okay, cool,” virgil says, and admits, “i figured you probably would be cool with a dog, generally, since you walk dogs at the shelter a lot, but—”

“i love her,” patton says, leaning a little to see virgil’s face. “thank you.”

virgil flushes, and patton doesn’t think it’s just because of the cold.

“it was logan’s idea,” he mumbles.

“i know,” patton says, and then, “did he tell you why?”

virgil hesitates, before he shrugs. “empty-nesting,” he says.

“ah,” patton says quietly.

the fact that his baby is going to college has been on his mind every single day, since logan first got back his test scores and started sketching out plans at the kitchen table. patton’s been with him to visit a few colleges, and he’s—well, kids grow up, right? that’s what they’re supposed to do.

it doesn’t mean that the idea doesn’t make patton sad and anxious and really eager for some way to slow down time, too.

patton shakes himself, and says, “his idea, huh?”

“yep.”

patton starts to smile again, and he says, “i bet it wasn’t his idea to get her specialty peanut-butter treats, though.”

“...no.”

“or a ton of bandanas for her to wear. including a custom one that looks like your hoodie.”

“...well—”

“or the tons of harnesses and collars, or the big bed that we aren’t fully sure she’ll grow into, or all the toys, or—”

“i get it, i get it,” virgil grumbles. patton leans up to peck a quick kiss to his lips, turning more fully in his arms and wrapping his arms around virgil’s neck.

“i love that about you,” he says.

“what?” virgil says. 

“you’re a carer,” patton says. “you’re all gruff and grumbly on the outside, but if you see someone who needs help or needs to be taken care of, you’re all like, oh yes, of course, here’s this friends and family discount, what do you mean it’s brand new, this has always been here, or inviting them to your family’s christmas, or helping take care of their son, or offering couches to crash on and shoulders to cry on.”

patton pauses, and allows, smiling, “or cleaning up the house to make sure that they won’t find anything they’ll accidentally choke on, or patching up the fence so she can’t get out and nothing can get in, or doing secret research at the town library.”

and virgil’s flush definitely isn’t from the cold. virgil swallows, and says, in a voice that’s just a little bit shy and quiet, “it’s your birthday.”

“i know,” patton says simply. “i’m allowed to be sappy on my birthday.”

“course you are,” virgil says, and patton leans up to kiss him, before he turns back to squint out at the lawn. or at least, he means to.

because virgil’s fingers around his wrist prevent him from doing that, and before patton can ask, virgil’s bending just a little to press their lips together, cupping his face between both of his hands, and patton feels his heart do that happy little flutter it always seems to do around virgil. patton sighs, and if his eyes weren’t closed—when had he done that?—he’d be sure that it’d be a puff of steam in the cold air. virgil takes advantage of it, pressing in, so overwhelming but so gentle and patton can only wrap his arms around virgil’s neck and hang on tight.

when they part, patton blinks up at him, dizzy and dazed in the best kind of way.

“what was that for?”

“i’m allowed to kiss you on your birthday,” virgil teases him, smirking just a bit, and patton grins right back, hoping it looks as full of promise as he wants it to be. he leans in to kiss him again, but he’s interrupted by the sound of soft snuffling at their feet, and they both glance down.

cocoa’s staring up at them with an expression she could have gotten straight from logan—like, really, dads?

“okay, okay,” patton allows with a slight laugh, bending to pick her up again. “good girl, we get it, we can go back inside.”

virgil does lean in and give him a kiss over cocoa’s head, though, and patton beams at him with his arms full of fluffy, ten-week-old dog.

they climb the stairs, and virgil moves to the closet, and patton collapses onto the bed, letting cocoa down. she paces a few circles, before she curls up into a cozy-looking ball.

virgil glances back, and says, “patton.”

“what?” patton says innocently, sitting on the bed beside cocoa.

“if we want her to sleep in her actual bed, we have to start training her early,” virgil says.

“she’ll be lonely,” patton points out.

“i specifically bought her a hot water bottle and a clock to make sure that wouldn’t happen,” virgil says.

“um—?”

“hot water bottle to simulate warmth and clock to simulate the heartbeat of her littermates, to help her adjust,” he explains, and yeah, wow, patton adores him.

“virgil, i hate to point out the obvious,” patton says, grinning, “but i happen to know two people who get pretty warm in their sleep and who both happen to have heartbeats.”

virgil hesitates.

“just for tonight?” patton says, pouting just a little. “for my birthday.”

virgil sighs. “i know what you’re doing,” he grumbles.

“you can think about it,” patton says, and gets up to tug lightly at virgil’s hand. “we can do some other stuff, first.”

virgil’s eyes start to get that dark, familiar gleam that makes a secret, almost illicit-feeling thrill shoot down patton’s spine.

but later, when they both slide under the covers that night, freshly showered and fully intent on going straight to sleep this time, virgil makes no noises of protest about the cuddly ball of fluff that’s nuzzled her way between their bellies, and even when her tiny paws dig into their stomachs in her sleep, and she wakes them up when she adjusts, and they both have to contort into awkward positions rather than wake the dog and move her, virgil doesn’t make a noise of protest.

she never really ends up trained to sleep in her own bed at night, either.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Real Monsters

Two empty bottles of cheap shoddy beer stood on the bar counter, right next to a cup with a finger’s width of whiskey resting in it. Emily blew a strand of fire-red hair out of her face and, for no apparent reason, glared at the bartender as he collected and removed the empty glass containers from in front of her.

Over the course of the hour she had spent there, she slumped more and more over the bar counter where she sat. Every now and then, she glanced at the flat screen TV hanging over the bar, watching the news flashing across the screen with mild disinterest. The lights of cars on the city’s street outside the bar’s windows drearily passed by. The more she drank that night away, the more those lights outside turned into hazy blurs, contrasted by the soft illumination in this quaint pub.

Emily’s willowy frame and symmetrical features would lead to anybody describing her as an attractive woman in her late twenties—if you could stomach the strong stench of cigarette smoke clinging to her like a dark miasma—so it was nothing unusual for her to have some guy sidle up next to her with a warm and friendly smile. He even did a decent job at holding back from cringing, once he inhaled some of the air in Emily’s vicinity.

“Hey, I was just—”

“Fuck off,” she told him without looking up from the glass of whiskey she was nursing, swirling the liquid inside her glass in one hand. She trained her eyes on the TV screen even though the lines and text on it were getting blurry for her.

The young man’s face turned sour in an instant and he uttered a string of profanities at Emily while leaving her to herself, causing the bar stool next to him to scrape over the floor with a loud noise and prompt some other patrons to turn their heads.

The regular murmurs and conversations and clinking of glasses continued without incident though, as this sort of thing was a common scene in a bar like this.

Emily sighed when she saw a familiar segment rearing to come up on the TV. While some advertisements fired up with obnoxious lettering and white-washed imagery on the screen, she waved the bartender over.

“Can we change the channel? Isn’t there, like, a fucking game on, or something?” she asked him, clearing her throat in between the sentence fragments, taking her voice from raspy to gravelly. She pointed her index finger past the glass of whiskey she was holding.

The bartender, seemingly nice enough all evening, slung a small towel over his shoulder and leaned in over the counter to her. He seemed to register her request with a bit of a delay, then forced himself to smile. He nodded, then pointed to someone at the opposite end of the counter.

“I’ll get right on it after taking care of the gentleman over there,” he said.

She watched him saunter over yonder, taking his sweet time. Stifling a groan with a sigh, Emily muttered to herself, “Happy fuckin’ birthday to me, I guess.”

Right about when the bartender returned to her end of the counter, the ads ended and the segment started. Some shaky, grainy pictures flashed across the screen, commented on by a lady with one of those perms that looked like it was made of plastic. The graphics heralded an exposé about human trafficking discovered on the Canadian border between Vancouver and Seattle.

With a rosy color flushing her pale cheeks, Emily emptied the glass and covered half her face with a hand as if to bury it there, though all she wanted to do was hide.

The bartender leaned down and grabbed something from behind the counter, then froze mid motion of aiming the remote control at the TV set. He blinked as he saw a red-haired reporter with a mean green-eyed glare on the screen—one who happened to look a lot like Emily. Or rather—exactly like her, if you could tell the change in outfits apart. His head went on swivel between the Emily at the bar and the Emily on screen until he lowered the remote and casually leaned against the counter.

“Holy shit, is that you? You some kinda reporter, huh?”

“Fuck,” Emily hissed under her breath, managing to eke out a smile that refused to reach her eyes. She hunched even deeper over the counter towards the bartender and then hushed him with the words, “Yep, that’s me, Sherlock. Let’s not make a big deal out of it, ‘kay? I’m trying to unwind tonight.”

The bartender scanned her face with what was growing interest, but he turned to look back up at the screen again, giving her a curt nod in response.

“Gotcha,” he whispered. Watching the footage fly through, inter-cut with pieces of interviews and Emily being followed by a shaky camera switched into night mode, the bartender still couldn’t help but emit a short little whistle between his teeth.

“Damn, I’m not gonna turn the audio up, but that looks like some rough stuff,” he said.

His features softened as he could spot Emily’s mien darkening. He slid to lean over the counter and keep his voice down as he asked, “You okay? No offense, but you’ve been lookin’ down in the dumps all evenin’.”

“No offense, but whenever anybody starts anything with 'no offense’, it’s gonna offend, buddy,” she said, glaring at him.

“Jeeze, okay, I get it. You’re not here to talk. But I feel like I’d be an asshole for not asking,” he said, absentmindedly scratching the fashionable stubble on his chin.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Brian.”

Emily smirked and said, “Okay, Brian? You keep the drinks coming, we both mind our own business, and I’ll make like a tree soon enough.”

Something sparkled in Brian’s eyes and he shook his head with a strange slowness. Emily struggled to read what it meant or where it was coming from. A couple of drinks earlier and she would have had him figured out easily, but the meds mixing with the booze were doing her signature skills no favor. Her gut instinct swung wildly between him either feeling pity or genuine care for a fellow human being.

“I do have some responsibility here. I wouldn’t let you walk outta here knowing you had to drive after all the drinks you’ve been pounding down on, and I sure as hell am not gonna just pretend you can see that kinda—”

He cast a sidelong glance up at the TV screen, then continued, “That kinda shit doesn’t just bounce off o’ ya. Just seeing something like that on the news is enough to upset me. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be there, and talk to the monsters who do shit like that. Or, y'know, the victims of those monsters.”

The sparkle in his eyes turned wet, glistening with empathy. Brian was good, Emily thought.

“C'mon, humor me. I bet it’ll be a load off o’ your shoulders to talk about it. I hear plenty o’ sob stories and have to pretend that they’re oh-so-tragic, but even all that petty bullshit eventually gets to me.”

Emily said nothing. Continued studying his face.

“Costs you sleep, leads to drinking to sleep more, which leads to—eh, you know where I’m going with this.”

He shrugged and bit his lip, awaiting a response from her after all his rambling. The other people in the bar never turned silent, but the silence that welled up between Emily and Brian became so thick that you could have cut it with a knife.

“Okay,” she said. She put the glass down and repeated herself with another smirk, this one far less convincing and with far less confidence than any other expression she had brandished that night. “Okay. Brian? You might wanna buckle up, because this is a wild ride. Fuck, I don’t even know where to start. Much easier to write these things than to present them.”

She shot a glance up at the TV, conveniently presenting one of the monsters Brian had unwittingly mentioned.

“See that schmuck right there? Married, three children, successful business owner, respected in his community, loves walkin’ his dog in the park, probably tips generously, and also responsible for making twelve Vietnamese women live in a filthy fucking dungeon of a basement for ten years—forced into sex work, allowed out only to assemble and package counterfeit watches. Real piece o’ shit, sub-human, scum-sucking trash with a heart so fucking rotten that it might as well be a black hole. And he wasn’t even the mastermind or anything, he was basically middle management in this outfit of human-shaped turds.”

Emily kept getting more worked up as she swore up a storm and recounted the discoveries from her research. Brian visibly swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat and she could tell he was only moments away from breaking out into a cold sweat just from hearing the fury in her account.

“Her name was Tran. These dirt-bags trafficked her across the ocean to America, together with other girls, in containers that must have reeked to the high heavens of human shit and piss, subsisting on nothing but scraps of rotten fucking food. She was separated from her 5-year-old kid when they took her after promising her a better life for her family, and then these rat bastards on our side of the drink tried to ferry her over the border to Vancouver with some others by sticking her in a fucking refrigerator truck where she froze to death behind some pallets stacked with meat. With fucking meat,” she said with some spittle frothing on her lip. “Because that’s all she was to these monsters.”

Emily crammed a fist into her jacket pocket and produced a crumpled up pack of cheap cigarettes from it. She dumped it on the counter in front of her, together with a smartphone with a display so cracked that it would be close to impossible to read anything on it, and a plastic lighter clattering out onto the counter next to it.

“I don’t even know if they deserve to be called monsters. Because a monster at least acts upon instinct, like a fucking animal. Eat, fuck, shit, sleep, rinse repeat. But these motherfuckers, I swear,” she dug a cigarette out of the pack and swiftly lit it up.

Brian’s face had long fallen into a twisted visage of disgust and despair, paralyzed and incapable of escaping her cutting monologue, and his speechlessness extended into his inability to tell Emily she wasn’t allowed to smoke inside the pub. He feebly pointed at the cigarette she now took a long drag from and then rubbed his face instead.

With the force of frustration, she blew out some smoke before continuing her furious rant. She pointed at the TV screen with the burning cigarette clamped between her fingers. Some heads at the other end of the dive now turned to look at her again, the murmurs likely questioning what was going on there.

“They go home, they go shopping in a grocery store like you and me, they go to barbecue parties, they tuck their kids in at night, and they probably play poker or some shit. All the while they are quietly committing passionless murders; just cold calculated without any remorse. Enriching themselves with the suffering of the human beings they treat like fucking meat.”

More smoke billowed out of her nostrils like a dragon breathing fire when she picked up again, not missing a beat, “By the time Tran was twenty-seven and they recovered her body from the back of that truck, the autopsy showed that all the slave labor and all sex work had given her permanent spine damage. So, she was in constant crippling pain for the final fuckin’ years of her life before she died an undignified death without a single fucking soul to mourn her passing. And don’t you fucking give me that bunch of rotten, disingenuous politicians farcically conveying their condolences while scampering around to cover up for anybody in the police or border control who were in on this whole operation before we popped the lid on the entire stinking cess pool. Allegedly,” she said, letting the final word ooze out with bitter contempt.

Emily stopped herself, arched her head back and released an almost satisfied groan. It did feel good, at least somewhat. Sweet, sweet release.

She looked at Brian the bartender, now staring at her with eyes as wide as saucers, rendered speechless by her outburst of pent-up rage and verbal diarrhea that came from a festering disease that was what Emily’s view of humanity had become.

Her heart raced, but the frayed ends of her nerves had stopped screaming. For now.

After taking a long drag from her cigarette and savoring the next cloud of smoke she exhaled, she dug around in her pocket to get out some cash, spilling it out onto the counter in form of crinkled dollar bills and coins and leaving a pathetic tip because that was all she had on her.

Her voice dropped in volume, “Thanks, Bri. Good talk.”

She patted the money she was leaving on the counter and stood up straight. Or as straight as she could manage, because she drunkenly swayed a bit—which she elegantly masked with her years of drinking experience by slinging her jacket on.

One of the other patrons whose stare lingered on her for too long drew another deadly glare from Emily.

“The fuck are you lookin’ at?” her words muffled as she kept the cigarette clamped in between her lips. His eyes widened and he lowered himself over his drink while the other people at his table went silent with him.

Brian stammered out something, but Emily was too wasted already to really make out the precise words, and too far gone for that night to give a damn. He was probably going to check in on her and see if she was alright, yet again. Bless his soul.

She pushed open the front door. The jingle of a bell overhead caused her to flinch when she staggered out into the drizzle of rain outside the bar and she let the door slam shut behind her. Emily popped the collar of her jacket and wandered off into the city’s night.

After taking a final angry drag from her cigarette, she tossed the butt into a gutter and buried her hands in her jacket pockets while she stumbled on her way home, in the rough direction of her dingy downtown apartment.

She came upon a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk with a cardboard sign right next to him, but the letters written on it blurred into something incomprehensible to Emily’s drunken stare. He was wrapped up in layers of sweaters and jackets and had a hood up over his head, with some newspapers spread out on top to shield him from the rain. But the sheets of paper were turning dark quickly, soaking up the raindrops as they grew in size and frequency.

With the rustling of the newspapers, the homeless man looked up at her, but the darkness concealed most of his features beyond a gray beard and skin that looked like a roadmap of sunburnt wrinkles.

“You should get outta the rain, buddy, s'gonna be a downpour tonight,” she told him.

He just stared at her. Shadows cloaked his eyes and a pit formed in Emily’s stomach.

“I ain’t got any change. Just pissed it all away just now. Sorry, man.”

She tried to lock eyes with him, but found no eyes underneath that veil of darkness over his own. The lack of a reaction began to creep her out. She gave him a bowing nod and walked on with a clipped, “Night.”

A few steps further down the sidewalk, she figured she might regret it, but considered inviting him home. The poor bastard might freeze to death on a late autumn night like this.

“When the world is a prison, there are those who are the prisoners cursed with unknowing, and the jailers who hold the keys to their unseen cells. Which are you?”

Those words rolled out with a fluid clarity and a gravity to rival the weight of the world. There was something about them—a sense of finality—that lent them a sinister air. They came from behind Emily—from that homeless man.

She turned slowly. Her heart raced, this time not with anger, but a growing sense of dread. She feared to see what this homeless man had turned into. His voice was as voluminous as that of a giant, as imposing as a king.

But there was nobody there. Emily looked around in disbelief. There was nobody else in this narrow street. The drizzle intensified until it turned into full-blown rain.

A cold shudder ran down her spine and Emily shivered. She suddenly remembered the pictures of Tran from the autopsy report, pale and lifeless, with eyes closed. An innocence destroyed by the monsters of this world. A horrible truth that Emily had helped unearth.

Emily went home and locked all three locks of her apartment door, shooing her three cats off her bed and crashing onto the covers without undressing.

The dark void of a dreamless sleep enveloped her within seconds and the next day, nothing would be the same, ever again.

This was the final night before her awakening.

—Submitted by Wratts