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rel124c41 · 6 months ago

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THE LOST ART OF KEEPING A SECRET. jade leech & floyd leech

The aquarium receives new additions perhaps once every two weeks; usually they are cute little things with rainbow fins and gem eyes. These two are not cute little things; they're huge and they have human faces. "Well I've got a secret, I cannot say" - Queens of the Stone Age, Track 2 on Rated R. a gift for @hallowed-father; based on their beautiful fanart 💕

tags: aquariums, late night conversations, captivity, situational humiliation, dehumanization, mutual pining, dubious ethics, kidnapping, vivisection, nursery rhyme references, eventual happy ending

word count: 12,668

The first two times you try seeing them, all you see is your reflection.

It makes sense unfortunately. With the lack of any light, you are going to have a hard time seeing them. Cloudy black settles over the skeleton and hair shaped vegetation. You can turn your head on a swivel (which you do on the second try) but there is no way to discern what swims through darkness. Instead, all you see in the aquarium tank’s water is your face.

Each uniquely human feature of yours squints in the nebulous, oscillating dark. To an observer, it would seem that you think if you flatten your eyes into pressed almonds something will reveal itself to you. Nose scrunching, you squint in a grandmother who lost her glasses way that is simply laughable.

There must be something inside the exhibit.

Nothing. Nothing but your desolate reflection.

On a small plaque, the words no use of flash photography wags a censure finger at you. Besides the cerulean halo on the corners where the wall meets ceiling, the room must remain dark at all times. Even during operating hours – or so you have heard from Deuce – they refuse to allow any other light in the secluded room.

Besides the ultramarine ouroboros, the oval-shaped room is dark beyond dark. An extreme that is on another level than what you are familiar with. As a nightguard, you are familiar with the dark. Quite familiar.

For example, there is one aquatic animal that you managed to see that other people cannot find nine times out of ten. In the shadows, spider crabs hide. They call their environment interestingly enough: the twilight zone, a part of the seafloor that gets little light and is very cold. With only three crabs in a sizable aquarium, it is understandably hard for others to find them. While the guests that linger after hours or closing staff puzzle over their location, you find them with ease. Behind the ship, by those bones, in the left corner no no higher in the left corner; your eyes have long since adjusted to the nocturnal proclivity of your job.

(One of the closing staff employees joked you were like a cute, little opossum. You think he meant it as a flirt; you found it insulting. Pressing your shades higher up on the bridge of your nose, you clocked in with your head down, vexed.)

However, in the tenebrous depths before you, you are like a disgruntled archaeologist standing in a desert of Swiss-cheese holes. Unable to locate anything. Tilting your head in a slightly different direction, your eyes squeeze into petite slices, searching.

The flashlight in your hand is a heavy temptation. If you just raise it, the absence of light will readily receive it. Melted pinks and greens of vegetation will pop, brown and amber of decorative rocks will shine, and whatever colors lie on these new fishes will certainly look like a gorgeous splendor under visible light. It would take the smallest wrist motion. Your reflection held in black water stares back at you, glaring daggers. ‘C’mon, do it,’ your reflection urges.

Light slugs over your sneakers, contemplative. ‘Perhaps not,’ you think with regards to the penlight. You know that you loathe having any type of light in your face; do unto others as you would have done onto you. The button of your tool clicks off. By now, you should already be down by the stingrays.

‘Third time might just have to be the charm,’ you think with a frown.

In the fishbowl glass, mummified with shadows, your reflection mimics that childhood disappointment.

‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’

Turning to leave, spine to the aquarium tank, you miss the first instance of light emerging out of dark.

It pulls upward like an ember blown skyward out of a campfire pit. The movements of it are languid. Flickers of yellow orbit in a whirlpool, lazy like they have just woken up. That clean circle becomes distorted, shrinking and growing like window-shades are being maneuvered over it. Then, a twin of yellow joins the first, a hair keener than the first. Both circles of light hang in the shadows, not brightening or shining beyond an intensity that is noticeable. Shrewd with their intentions.

When the door to the oval room clicks close, the window-shades pull down like a blink and the aquatic water changes from being speckled with playful yellow back to tenebrous black.

As it turns out, the phrase ‘third time's the charm’ holds an eternal merit. Because the next night, which is the third time you look into the aquarium tank, your wish is granted.

The unluckiest charm; the unluckiest wish.

The aquarium gets new deliveries once every two weeks. As the nightguard, you are not kept on the up-and-up unless Deuce Spade is working. And as an honor college student, Deuce is usually scheduled – during daylight hours of course – on the weekends when exam season is not keeping him occupied. So, you missed the news about this new delivery initially. All you knew about them was from the very insightful texts of Deuce Spade (two in total):

The new deliveries can’t be around light. Think it's anglerfish?

and

Apparently not anglerfish, those have to live under pressured water. Why do people act like that’s common knowledge to know??

Your available information is: they are not anglerfish. That is all.

You really are left with no hints to what hides in murk. After two weeks, no plaque detailing the species is nailed to the wall or statued on a slanted board. The room is void of identification. Perhaps that is the reason your body seems so magnetized towards deciphering this mystery. No identification by now is unusual. Plus, night shifts drag like limping feet; why not try to stall off boredom?

This time around, you power off your penlight before entering the room. Instead of letting the light stamp a circle of itself on the ground, you enter pure darkness. Blue vibrates above you. Not complete darkness, you correct, stepping on the path that limited blue illuminates.

The room and tank resemble an egg with a cut-off top. The room is oval shaped but missing a quarter of its full shape, the top half knifed off to make room for a tank full of about five hundred gallons of water. When you reach the wall, the length is forty feet, this sliced egg-top, you place determined hands in your slacks pocket.

And squint until the muscles in your eyes quiver with strain.

Penguins must be kept in cold waters. Vents are constantly blowing cold air into the exhibit to keep it under forty degrees. As your breath comes out in a puff of frosty air, you wonder deeply just what kind of species can be kept in such frigidness. Deep sea penguins? That would certainly be interesting.

Your reflection challenges you with a mimic of your squinting. Keep dreaming, it says. No matter which way you look over tenebrous shadows of vegetation and rocks, nothing is making itself clear to you. This time you risk inching closer. From this distance, you can count the vertebrae-esque leaves of a winding ludwiga. Ice seems to heartbeat off the glass, kissing your features.

What can you see?

Nothing. Nothing but your desolate reflection.

That is until a little organic lantern – small like a dragonfly– comes alive in the water. Despite your excitement, you keep yourself frozen and still. Your tiny gasp bleeds out your mouth and hits the glass gradually. The dragonfly powers on and off in two blinks. Morse code for ‘I’ but you doubt this animal knows that – you just happened to take a college elective for Morso code. You watch this single, pinprick lantern with great interest.

‘I think it really is an anglerfish. I mean, it makes complete sense. Deep sea water temperatures. The utter lack of light. Maybe, the researchers found some way to replicate the pressures, and the staff just doesn’t know yet. That would be revolutionary.’

Then, a second dragonfly joins the first. On a black-emerald and black-turquoise torrent, the ember dips down low. Glittering like a sun-rays on water, it slithers closer with curious intent. It was leagues keener than its twin, metaphorically hexagonal instead of circular. This dragonfly too powers off and on in quicker blinks. Four blinks which is ‘H’ in Morse code … useless knowledge.

Anglerfish cannot communicate. The entire ecosystem of a brain from fish to human is different, like trying to compare a tropical amazon to a winter wonderland. Just far too different to understand one another.

But, it is impressive that the aquarium was able to get such a deep sea creature to survive in a simulated habitat.

“Hi there.” You wave your fingers. Pressing yourself closer to the glass, you wait for your eyes to adjust and register the razor teeth and fat jowls of an anglerfish brown face. Cold air starts to swim under your jacket, your body’s tilt causing the material to slip. Then, you make eye contact.

Eye contact? Eye contact. Turns out those lantern-shaped dragonflies you are looking at are not the bait anglerfish have attached to their bodies. It is not a hunting evolution you openly leer at. Rather, you look them in the eye.

All the fire of your wonder extinguishes like a pinched match.

As if the vents are working overtime, a sudden chill falls over you. Goosebumps settle over your shoulders. You jump back and misty gray air (your gasping breath) explodes in front of you. It is not your desolate reflection that swims in front of you. Someone else’s face is in there.

There are creatures in there; that is undeniable. What fights to make itself conclusive in your reeling mind is the image of the creatures. Creatures – so completely alien when compared to the mixture of muscles that make up an anglerfish– with human faces. Human features. A nose. A pair of lips. A pair of squinting eyes, staring right back at you.

One of them throws their head back in laughter when you fall to your ass, reeling inward and outward. What the fuck is a human – two humans! – doing inside an aquarium tank at 2 A.M.!

You climb back up to your feet with all the grace of an injured crab. Your left arm feels longer than your right; you feel like the ground has morphed into quicksand and is suckling on your right boot; all of your world has become disoriented. In your jacket, your penlight weighs down your left side like a brick. Pulled by a mental riptide, you wrestle until you finally stand on two (trembling) legs like all bipedal humans should. Earth tilts as you watch the one who laughed move forward, blue blanketing him.

He taps the glass. Exact over the bullseye point of where you stand, reeling, in the glass from his point of view. In intelligent acknowledgment of you.

You two lock spheroid eyes, analyzing each other with hell-bent resolve. Mapping the features of each other in your brain’s fusiform face area so you can recognize each other at later times. His human features settle like all the others before him in your cerebrum. Packaged in the inferior temporal cortex, packaged in the fusiform gyrus. The human visual system that specializes in recognizing faces accepts him.

‘That is a face. I will recognize it later and recall it as one thing only: a face.’ Just like that, your brain, your fusiform gyrus mails you the annotation.

A part of you wants to cry and the other wants to puke. You do neither. You react with a different system of your body.

Muscles press your flashlight’s button on and muscles move it up quickly when the second one starts to move closer to the glass. You do it out of fear. And with strange, instant regret.

The one closest to the glass folds into himself, seething. A webbed, tooth-white-with-green-gradient hand covers his eyes in agony. His other hand slams the tank in a tight fist. It knocks the world back into orientation. You flee the scene with your flashlight swinging wildly back and forth with your sprint.

This time there is no laughter.

You rush out like they are chasing you, laughing over your shoulders. With a harsh crash to the ground, panting in disbelief, you pull trembling knees towards your stricken face. What the fuck – what the absolute fuck! A carapace cloak falls over your brain to ignore knocking thoughts and rationalization. Wordless beyond three words, they swirl in your head. What the fuck – what the fuck.

Your spine lies on another exhibit. Stingrays lie underneath the aquarium’s sand, sleeping and unaware of you. Part of you knows you will not be able to sleep in the morning.

“What the fuck.”

You unlock your phone with your face when you get home.

The lamp glows, allowing your phone to register the face identification. As quickly as the string is pulled on, it is tugged off. Dawn rests against your black-out curtains like zombies pounding on doors sheltering food. Brightness on the screen is kept down to the lowest possible setting. You type the name of where you work into your phone.

‘There has to be information on them. You can’t just have that’ – pale-green faces with matching gold eyes – ‘that living in an aquarium. And if it’s in an aquarium, shouldn't that aquarium be like inside Area 51 or the Oval Office. Anywhere but nowhere!’

You click on the website of your place of employment. The types links are highlighted in white bubbles: GET YOUR TICKETS, WAYS TO SAVE, and ANIMALS UP-CLOSE. Your finger follows the last tab and you come across a Let’s Get Started sheet, asking if you are a member and, if not, to start booking. A colorful curse parts your lips.

You return to the home page. Take in the organization again. Okay, there are some links above too: Visit, Animals & Exhibits, Learn, Research & Conversation, News & Events, Support Us, Shop.

Gravitating towards Animals & Exhibits, you watch as a list unfurls like a scroll. None of them are unusual animals. From beluga whales to steller sea lions, you are looking at a dead-end list of regular animals which you have passed multiple times on your nightguard route. Aquatic animals whose features do not turn your entire morning full of sleep into restless pacing.

This is nauseating. For piscine features to be manipulated like that. Sea creatures come in a variety of features that are unique to them; eyes that reveal the innate instinct to survive above compassion or companionship, dorsal fins that branch off their body like tiny mountains, or those puckering lips that circle to suction fish-feed from the surface of their tanks. Those features you can compartmentalize with the aquarium you work with well. They belong there with the other undersea creatures. Your heart pangs in disgust.

This is immoral. For human features to be manipulated like that. A face you might see walking out of a movie theater, hand in hand with his girlfriend. A face you could have the possibility of getting to know if you were not a college dropout; someone in your biology or english elective or calculus class that would ask for help with a certain question. Staring into that man’s left umber eye and right gold eye, you realized how all those features made him human. Your heart pangs in sympathy.

This is? You take a tranquil breath that soothes you like medicine from an inhaler, and the next thought sets your world back on the correct axis. This is out of your paygrade.

You return because, fucking, of course you do. A job is equivalent to a life. You experience less hardships when you have a good job – which you thankfully do. You have a good job that you must keep.

One: legally, graveyard shifts pay more than others in your state. Two: it was ideal for the degenerative disease you have. Three: “I need money. Money is good. I need money. Money is good. I need money. Money is good. I need money. Money –'' There have certainly been better mantras sung in your car; though, this melody keeps you sane. Most importantly, it keeps your foot steady on the accelerator. So with three very good reasons – really just two overlapping ones and a single unique one – you return to work the next day like nothing is wrong.

Thus, you are going to ignore it. Thus, “I’m going to ignore it,” you tell yourself. Thus, you are going to stand in front of the oval-shaped room’s door for the larger half of thirty minutes, studying the steel. Ah, this is far from ignoring it.

It is just … absent of sentimentality, you know that they are only fish. Fish that you see on guys’ dating profiles, fish that you eat with a medley of dipping sauces, fish that shit in the very water they swim in. You are no PETA advocate that will say fish are like the monkeys of the ocean, learning to use rudimentary tools and are sophisticatedly smart because they form social groups. However, despite this, there is a tiny pebble in the river that manages to disrupt the entire flow; the pebble wants you to apologize to them.

Which is outlandish and pure insanity!!

Which is really why you should not push the door open with your hand. And, which is why you glare at your traitorous fingers and listen to the creak of an opening door, bemoaning how utterly stupid you are to be opening this Pandora box of possibilities.

You let the flashlight sway once in an overarching cut across the room. Then, you point it at the ground and squint at the aquarium again. Besides a few layering shades of ebony speckled with blue, there is really not much for you to distinguish in the stomach of shadow. Putting yourself on an even playing field, you flick off your flashlight and step forward.

Feet shuffle inch by inch. Looking straight, your acuity of vision decreases bar by bar. Gravity shifts like a restless faultline has awoken under your feet. You want to run away while you walk forward.

When you touch a hand to the frigid glass, you finally feel steady again. Once more, your exhale makes itself physical in a small cloud on the tip of your nose. The temperature is graciously grounding.

“I’m okay,” you remind yourself. You blink to stabilize your vision.

Apologize to the fish then you can finally leave. Simple enough.

Yet, as you wait and squint, no glowing eyes emerge in the dark. You hold yourself there, waiting for just a flicker of motion in what seems like everlasting comatose.

This is pointless. Why am I even here? I doubt they remember my face, much less hold a grudge over it. Fuck, why did I let myself get sentimental over some eldritch homunculus that is an affront to biological evolution! Why aren’t they at Area 51 or the Oval Office – why did faith push them here?

Inner seething concluded, you turn your flashlight on and the room brightens. For a split second, your face lies its reflection on glass with a resentful aura. You maneuver light towards the door with determination. Your body follows, making a hasty turn towards your exit. There are rounds around the aquarium to be made, iced frappuccinos in the breakroom you want to drink, and momental, life-altering plots to be ignored forever.

Until the glass behind you thuds in tension-raising noise like when a bird hits window-panes with little to no warning.

Breath caught in your throat, you whirl around to make eye contact with him. He wears such a handsome face, one that could belong to a heartthrob actor if not marred by the fins replacing his ears and the mossy green hue of his skin. His playful inquisitive eyes are entirely human in shape and structure; the black pupil and then the color ring of an iris. Too bad they too are disfigured by rare and nauseating colors, olive-umber and gold.

That right eye reminds you of lighthouses on the coast. Captains are not supposed to stir towards lighthouses; they avoid the light, even if it carries a certain warmth. Why is he looking at you so warmly?

Somehow, you just manage to catch out of the corner of your eye the motion of his hand. An acute nail points down at your beaming flashlight which imprints a halo of light on the carpet floor. Then, he raises his hand up to around his shoulder. His fingers move in the starting shape of someone about to play thumb-war before he starts to move his thumb up and down. Clicking an imaginary button, signaling for you to turn off your flashlight.

Stunned, you numbly do. Light is pulled and magnetized back into the pen’s surface, like an object beamed up into a spacecraft, at a speed unseeable to the human eye. The eye contact between you two is almost an intense lip-lock that both of you cannot part with.

This is one you shined the flashlight at. Right into those encapsulating eyes. The right one is yellow like liquid spilling out of a pineapple. Bright and playful.

“I- I uh,” you fumble with your apology. He probably won’t understand a word. You purse your lips nervously. Are there any words in the English language that can package up your sympathies from homo sapien to fish; is opening your mouth even worth it? “I wuh-wanted to –.”

Your apology withers when the eel-mer starts to tap on the glass.

Intentionally, you listen. Yet irrationally, you expect to see or hear more Morse Code. Perhaps it is his anthropoid features that misled you to the conclusion that he might know the coded language. With a needle-hook nail, he taps a rhythm.

It’s nothing though? The letters are gibberish, with even the number 5 sitting pretty between an O and a C. Of course it is not a code. Coming to your senses, you doubt he could even understand your apology if you gave it to him. There is a fine line drawn in the aquarium’s sand: fish and humans are not equal, one is more intelligent.

With some infinite patience, the fish taps the glass again. You listen and recognize it as the exact same taps and pauses from before.

“This is ridiculous,” you mutter under your breath. You hold eye contact, scrutinizing him. So used to having zero company, you surmise aloud, “I must be so sleep-deprived and loopy that I dreamed you up … A piece of undigested beef like Scrooge said.” As if to solidify his independent self and independent thinking in your solipsistic world, he taps the rhythm again.

This time – you think because of the repetition – you finally understand why he is tapping. It almost sends you flat on your ass once more.

Oh. You throw a hand up to your mouth, faintly covering up a disbelieving laugh of joint horror and amusement. Disbelief crystallizes itself in the air; a tiny cloud of your reeling mind dissolves in front of you as you drop your numb hand. “Hah.”

The fish taps a nursery rhyme. One you know from kindergarten. One you would clap the rhythm of with your hands. You remember vaguely the pattern you’d move your hands to play with another child. The vague lingering sense of being hushed and secretive while playing your little singing games, giggling in the back of the classroom, bites your goosebumped flesh.

How appropriate for a man trapped in an aquarium to know the nursery rhyme A Sailor Went to Sea. He does it again, the lyrics plucked from the cobwebs of your memory: A sailor went to sea, sea, sea; to see what she could see, see, see; but all that she could see, see, see; was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

You don’t know fully how well your sight would fare in the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea. Still, with a hesitant squirm, you approach the frigid glass. The man inside the aquarium waits this time rather than launching right back into tapping.

Raising your arm, you make certain to dig your nails into your palm. A little reality-checking pinch never hurt anyone. One of those pallid nails rises up and taps back. Feeling like you are the spinning ballerina, you listen to the melody of this Pandora box plays unchained and uncaged in the ice cold air:

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

To see what she could see, see, see

But all that she could see, see, see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea

There is no way to get around it. The third shift is lonely. Here in this aquarium? They only require one person to clean all the tanks, turn off decorative filters, and supervise aquatic life. That sole person has been you. With an iced frappuccino and penlight as your pirate’s sword and hooked hand, you have managed the task of protecting this vessel well.

Just because of your longevity of working as a third shifter, it does not make it come easy. Two tabs in your eighteen open Safari tabs are on articles about coping with night work. Coping with solitude when the entire world works in the opposite of you. One article details trying to stay on top of social interactions. All these shifting hours have been mistakenly used up. As you move through hallways like a haunting shark, you roll in your mind all the lost opportunities and all the regrets of having people in your life that you could’ve formed relationships with but never did.

Your metaphorical ailment has been sleep apnea. Eye scorned. Unable to catch your breath. You've been awake for years with no company. Along with being alone, you have been so achingly tired. Circadian rhythms in a body never change.

Your friend plays well in rhythms. The instrument of his disposition is easy to read after a month of ‘knowing’ each other. He has the attitude of a drummer.

It is hard to get yourself used to his existence at first; he remains uncaring to your fretting. Lacking melodies or harmonies, he seems like the type that would rather keep things easy and simple than embellish.

You come to visit? He wants to play. You’re too exhausted to play? He can entertain himself. What you have is very plain sailing and hardly involves any talking unless you start it. Besides, he is still just a fish and thus cannot converse with you.

He really enjoys tapping on the glass. He plays a variety of rhythms; ones you do not know then, very strangely, some that you do know. As night by night moves along in time’s steady march, you grow comfortable enough to play back. He will play a rhythm only once, you copy it back with aid from your memory. You have even started to show him music on your phone, seeing how quickly he can pick up on certain beats and mimic them for himself.

Sometimes though, all he wants to do is simply listen. Which is activity the two of you share in tonight, absent of that third member who you are sure is hiding deeper among the burrows and the oscillating, five ribbed kelp. That distant drummer in your phone floods the cold room with music.

A small booklet covers your heart as you lie wistful. The floor is rough cement. There is no better place to lounge though. Underneath your head, a furry gray seal pup you borrowed from the toy store acts as your pillow. You try to think of yourself weightless like you are in water as you remain close-eyed and contemplative.

Like a siren call, music slithers out of the bottom of your phone’s speakers. Legs crossed over one another, you briefly tap your foot along to the rhythm that you are sure your friend is enjoying. “Look for reeeflections, in yo-our face; canine devotioo-ton, time can’t erase; Out on the cor-ner or locked in your room; I never buh-lieve them and I never assume-uh!”

Speaking of your friend, you have not bothered to check on him in a while. One of your diseased eyes peels open. Face held in a wink, you estimate if your friend is close enough to the glass that you should be able to see him clearly enough despite all the darkness.

You do not expect him to be lounging right there beside you. It gives you a little shock of surprise. A moment passes by and that feeling suddenly intensifies to a shock of the heart. Not in a romantic way but in the way of a death row prisoner being electrified to death.

You bolt upright, skull and hair flying off the seal pup plushie. Prescription sunglasses tilt down from their forehead perch, landing crookedly on your nose. The creature waves a sharp set of gradient-covered claws in your face. The only reason that your electric heart runs above its normal BPM is because that glowing lighthouse-esque eye is on the left side rather than the right.

“It’s you.” The creature, who you have not been becoming friendly with for an entire month, smiles at you and your shocked voice.

Though you are certain he has been watching you – not just while you were resting your eyes on the ground for a much needed cat nap, but for the entirety of these thirty-one nights – his eyes still flutter around the space where you sit in observation. He takes in each individual item around you like trying to find certain objects in spot-the-difference puzzles. After a moment, you ask while pointing to your phone, “Do you not like the music?” His wandering eyes are magnetized to your face when you address him.

Hell, they are intense. Intenser than any eyes you have really looked in before, rivaling even the strictest teachers you had or the meanest secretaries you have known. The colors in his gold and umber iris swirl like tiny galaxies of brown dust and broken stars. Intelligent eyes like those are daunting and, thus, terrifying to level your gaze with.

Despite knowing you will not get an answer, you march on in your one-sided conversation, “I get it that music isn’t everybody’s thing. Does it disturb you?” You wait. The newcomer does not talk either. “Ah, not a fan. I get it.”

You may receive no verbal answer, however you sense he does not want to play patty-cake through a sheet of reinforced aquarium glass. “Whatever yooo-u dooo-oh, don’t tell anyone; whatever yooo-u dooo-oh, don’t tell –” The song cuts off as you press the pause button.

“I should have been more considerate,” you apologize, able to steadily carry on this solo because you have grown used to it. You do talk a lot to the other fish. Almost in the same way one can carry on an unbalanced conversation with a pet cat or dog. “You just swim over to let me know and I’ll turn it off. I would never want to disrupt anyone’s sleep.”

‘Just like I would never again want to shine a light in anyone’s eyes.’ You still regret that with each fiber of your being.

For a silent moment, you two observe each other. Though you are a hundred percent certain this is not his first time scrutinizing you. You realize his hair is a mirror-flip reflection of the other fish’s just as he raises one of his hands.

Maybe he is like the other fish. Despite not giving the impression of a drummer, he might still want to play that rudimentary game of patty cake where you two match and copy each other’s rhythm. Perhaps it is all their fish brains can comprehend. Even though his eyes might seem intelligent, he is nothing more than a piscine creature. However, that thought stalls when a single, black-dyed claw reaches up to his own throat, tapping it delicately.

“Hm?” You tilt your head curiously.

In response, he takes his index and middle finger and taps once more his own throat. Then, he takes those fingers and depresses them over the reinforced sheets of glass.

“Do you want me to,” you trail off, eyes stuttering over the items at your disposal. “I can’t sing if that’s what you’re getting at. I’m no singer.”

Eyes, one of them full of shattered stars and the other full of blown-up planets, stare on. Unchanging and showing you no inclination of what he wants you to do. The other fish will at least whine, squint, or show joy if he thinks whatever words your vocal cords stretch into will entertain him. “Though, I could,” you trail off again.

Trailing off is an awful habit of yours. You rarely can make full, complete conversation after almost half a decade of night shifts. However, those intense eyes encourage you to go on. “I could read to you?” Your fingers point towards the booklet that had fallen off your chest. “If you want?”

Once again, no answer. But, at least you are not staring alone at your desolate reflection. His figure behind the glass – the yellow eye on his left side watching each of your body’s movements – is so very real and alive. At least, you are not alone this time. Though, the company is unorthodox biologically.

“Reading … I can do that.” Only for a little while though. Eventually, your eyes will start to blur at the tiny scripture. However, as you pick up the book and place it in your lap, the first line is big enough that you can read it easily, “Once upon a time –”

As a wedding gift, Pandora received a box from Zeus. Though gifts by definition are simply something given from person to person, the word gift carries with it a subliminal, secondary definition. Gifts are to typically be opened.

Acting against that thought, Zeus warned Pandora to never open the box. You never understood that.

Why would one dangle temptation in front of another’s face? Why even plant an apple tree in the Garden of Eden? Why even craft a box if it should remain shut evermore? Temptation is a seductive thing. It slithers up into a body with shining honey eyes and lures like a hook. Because of this, it is best to keep it under lock and key.

If Zeus really did not want the box opened, he should have kept it as a hidden secret underneath thousands of layer crusts in the mountains.

As the story goes, curious Pandora opens her wedding gift. From it, the four horsemen of Judgement Day leap and gallop out, thick plumes of disease rattle out of the box in shaking coughs, and envy and greed claws their way out with black, knife fingernails, raping Pandora of her beautiful face and stealing her glittering necklace. Bleeding scratches upon her cheek and lungs filling with disease-ridden smoke, Pandora slams the box shut with a regretful hack.

Only one thing remains in Pandora’s box. Hope remains trapped inside the wedding gift. Alone, hope paces the perimeters of the box in their curiosity. Marveling at how much room and space they have to stretch out, hope takes a long, peaceful nap for all eternity.

You wish you could take a long, peaceful nap. You have a lot of trouble managing to fall asleep fully without waking up in intervals. When you work against your body’s natural circadian rhythm that is simply what happens.

Today, you have what Doctor Safari’s helpful tabs are telling you is a third shifter headache. To alleviate them you take no pills. Far too smart of an idea to take those. Instead, you take an iced frappuccino out of the break room’s fridge and turn off every single light in the aquarium, down to the blue LEDs that snake on the ceiling.

“Much better,” you sigh to yourself in relief. In nebulous black, your feet carry you to the place where company awaits and has been awaiting for about two months now.

It has been a slow trail of companionship. Progress is not fully linear. Part of you has forgotten how hard it is to socialize after years of isolation.

To be honest, you feel like a man who has lived up in the mountains alone for years, living and hunting by nomad methods, only to be shown a cellphone as soon as you reach the mountain's descent. However, they must feel the same way. They have lived down in the ocean for years, living and hunting in aquatic methods, only to be brought up and shown the eye of a penlight shining in their face. The three of you are all just struggling along in finding how to make companionship work.

But God, does it work. You hesitate with it, suddenly remembering the fins as placeholders for ears or the tails under their belly-buttons. Yet, human eyes and smiling lips will restore your content in the next moment. Something about them solves your loneliness.

They may never speak. However, you often have trouble navigating the maze of words. In the end, you consider them friends in an unease definition of the word.

By the time you make it to Pandora’s box, your coffee is drunk down to the last drop and you use the chilled glass container as an impromptu ice pack across your forehead. Where you come through is not the typical oval-shaped room. Instead, you venture up a tongue of metal steps to the top of their aquarium tank. It is a circle-shaped room. Designed largely like a pool, the only lighting is three spheres on each wall. The room consists of a gaping black hole of water and a slight drop in floor elevation so staff can stand ankle-deep while feeding or caring for them.

At least, you assume. Because the first time curiosity lured you to the top of their tank, your fingers had been nibbled at. Nothing extreme and more like dogs cobbing to show affection, but it still surprised you when the right-gold-eyed one took your hand in his.

Now, you carry along with a plastic bag of treats and tread into the water without hesitation. Walking in the familiar steps of your companionship as you have done night after night. They are eager to see you it seems.

Too bad the world tilts and you are suddenly no longer looking down on them but eye to eye. You realize what has happened with gritted teeth. A careless trip of unbalanced feet, now you sit on hands and knees in inch-deep water.

You also realize something with more horror than before. The prescription sunglasses that were perching on your forehead have been knocked off and are slowly slipping inside the tank’s depths.

“No, shit!” You cry out before, with one-track-mindlessness, you duck your head underwater like a hungry mallard.

Your eyes fly open as soon as you submerge yourself. You watch as languid sunglasses drift lower and lower. Ribs tight on the cement floor, you spear out your arm in a panic, missing the edge of the glasses by a finger’s width before they go down further and further.

No, no, no! Those glasses cost a fortune!

Stupidly, you consider the idea of diving right into the rest of the tank before you realize another thing. It paralyzes you, shocking and binding your heart. The entire sight of the tank is so easy to see. The bottom of the ocean floor is as clear as crystal, enough where you pick out each gradient of sand. It is comparable to being a person putting on their prescription contacts in the morning, everything clearing up with the right correction lens.

Usually, your vision is always mildly blurry. Enough where you can navigate night to night without any serious medical aid. But that lingering, splitting-headache pain behind your irises dulls like a blanketed sound.

It allows you to watch clearly as delicate, black fingertips scoop up your ebony pair of sunglasses.

Relief fills you as the fish with upturned eyes gently brings them up to you. You surface from water just as both fish break the surface too. It dawns on you that you haven’t been this close, eyes parallel to one another with you on your knees.

No reinforced aquarium glass separates you this time and yet, calmly, you say, “Thank you. I really can’t thank you enough for retrieving those for me.”

A giant grin grows on the one with downturned eyes. Though you hold a hand out to the other, this one seems to think your gratitude is for him for he loops his arms around your neck, squeezing you. He starts to pepper kisses on your cheek, which you suppose resembles how dogs like to lick their owners.

Your outstretched hand never receives the glasses. Instead, the fish with upturned eyes takes to placing your sunglasses back on the perch of your head. The temple tops fit snugly behind your ears. You watch as the fish with shrewdness in his eyes starts to move the tendrils of wet hair out of your face.

As your hair is tucked and your cheek is kissed, you wonder just once more why faith has brought them to you.

“(Name)?”

You smile at Deuce’s surprised gap. Today, you wear Noir sunglasses. The lenses are as dark as vantablack, refusing to allow any light touch your retinas. Even the artificially colored lights of an aquarium during operating hours is too much for you.

Deuce is in charge of the photography printing booth today. Twenty or so different families, couples, groups of teens flicker in rows across the screen he stands in front of.

“You sound almost disappointed.”

“No, no, not at all,” he rushes to amend. “Just haven’t seen you out in –”

“The sun?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Even a vampire needs a change of pace.”

Like an examined showhorse, you show off your plain teeth. No fangs or shark teeth to be found.

“I’ll tell you though. Driving here? A complete nightmare.” And, it really was. Usually you drive one handed. Your right hand lies on your thigh, tapping along to the rhythm of the radio’s drums. Today, you had to grip the steering wheel with both hands.

“Well, it is a summer weekend after all. Sucks to get stuck in traffic. ” Deuce nods his head in sympathy.

“Ah,” you look to the side. “Actually it was kind of just weird driving with other people on the road.”

Deuce’s eyes brighten in particle understanding. He might not entirely comprehend it but he still goes, “Oooh. Because you’re so used to driving at night.”

It is not that entirely. “Yeah,” you give a small, lying smile. When you remember driving, you remember it like a dream. You drive in a single lane, all alone in your white truck. Bordering you, two lanes of heavy, steady traffic move in succession towards the opposite direction. Going somewhere you are not.

Your isolated Chevrolet Silverado was so high up on the ground that you felt a bird. The width of your truck was so wide that you felt you were shouldering your way through a crowd. That is only what felt like happened, not reality. “I just felt a little disjointed.”

The photographs on the monitor keep changing in flickers. Your eyes fall on them. Mother with daughter. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Father and mother and only son. Three girl best friends. Grandfather with two girls and one boy. Blank.

“Did you get your photo taken?” He asks. He must have noticed your gaze. Has to do his job after all.

“Ah no.”

You look at the empty block of spotlighted blue. Dark cobalt around the edges and white in the center. How many photos do you have of yourself? You feel in that moment … if you ran away somewhere, no one would notice; there’s no photographic evidence that you exist.

“Nah; had to fight to let them let me pass. Oh, it’s just mandatory. Completely free of charge. And then, they started thinking I was insecure or something so they started complimenting me. Had to explain,” you tap the side of your sunglasses in reference, “and then, finally they let me go. So much fuss for just a photo.”

“They’re really that insistent on it?”

You nod.

“So what brought you out into civilization anyways?”

“Wow, rude.”

Deuce laughs. You smile strained. Every time you speak, it feels wrong. You are being too mean or not engaging enough. God, why can’t you just talk to someone like a normal person and carry a conversation smoothly? There is no desolate reflection for you to spy on the laptop, just an empty space of spotlighted blue.

“Visiting some friends.” is your reply.

The publicity on them is quiet and hush. So much so that you feel the world has already known about them – two merman pulled from the bottom of the deep sea, sea, sea. It is entirely possible. With how disjointed you are compared to 99.9 % of the population, it is not so far-fetched to think that they have been in the public’s eyes for a long time and wonder over them has died down.

However, this exhibit is still listed as the first one. Out of how many? Well, you suppose you will find out later if more are to come, if this is going to be a big success. You only found out from working the night shift, seeing the date on the break-room calendar.

COME SEE, FOR THE FIRST TIME, CREATURES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON! That is the first message you spy on the aquarium walls, following along with the crowd. Must have been put up by the morning crew. In bright letters, strung underneath party streamers, a multitude of phrases bounce and shout. Instead of being in awe over the pictures of them, your mind focuses on each line detailing: unprecedentedly new; for the first time; never seen before!

Yet, no one shrieks in terror at the sight of them in the posters. Even when you and others are filed into the aquarium auditorium, the crowd murmurs to themselves softly instead of shouting. Under the hypnotic spell of voyeurism, everyone seems more anticipatory than agitated.

You fixate your glasses tighter to your face as you scale up metal stairs, looking over your shoulder at the water. This is where they do the sea lion or seals show. You have not seen a single one in an entire decade. Under the shadowed surface, you can spy two serpentine lengths flowing through currents.

“Bet this whole thing is a scam. We should go back to Disney in Florida next year; it’s warmer there. More stuff to do too.” You cast a glance at the daughter in her early twenties sitting next to her mother before moving further up.

You do not pick the top row but you do pick an isolated section. Sandwiching yourself next to a stone pillar, your butt lands on the rickety metal bench. Just as you are about to readjust your glasses, making sure that sides of the lenses are atom to atom on your skin, you are interrupted by a loud, consecutive ‘woah’ that you are not a part of, that swims through the crowd.

But, you manage to see a glimpse of it just in time.

You are not sure which one of the two it is. Yet, all the same, you watch entranced as one of them breaches that ink pool. Bioluminescence tints his body in glittering blue topazes. It is like watching a shooting star suddenly fly across the dark night skies.

The porcupine quills of black that make up his fins bend and the dragon tail of sapphire that makes up his lower body arches. Aerodynamic, he flies through the air and manages just in time to snag the large, squirming spider crab that hangs from a ceiling beam on a metal wire. He disappears with the same speed as his appearance, taking with him into the black hole of water his meal.

Yet, before anyone can close their hanging jaws or the water can stop rippling with the impact of the eel-mer diving back under, music blares from the speakers, moving spotlights suddenly slide over the water and crowd, and a man comes out of the backroom and onto the stage.

You are just done wincing from the bright flash of a spotlight surfing over the bench you sit on when the man suddenly exclaims, “How are we all doing?” You stay tight-lipped as the crowd cheers. “C’mon, you can do better than that! How are y’all doing today?” The crowd cheers, claps, and responds in a long Goooood!

Cringing with shut lips, you suddenly remember why it has been a decade since you watched an aquarium show. The script is always a bit childish.

“We have two very special guests for you today. The strong guy you saw just a few moments ago was Flotsam. His brother, Jetsam, is here too. Jetsam, why don’t you come out and say hi to everyone.”

You lean forward, enraptured with the sight. Serpentine coils cut through the water, water jetting up with the force of how quickly he swims. Onto the wayward platform that bobs in the black hole, Jetsam pushes his body up onto it. Instead of a pair of flippers, he waves his clawed fingers to the awestruck audience.

“Flotsam and Jetsam are both eel-mers. Found and rescued from the northern waters, they are the first of their kind and are very excited to show you all what they can do!” Thus, the spectacle begins.

They go through a variety of tricks. From doing a few figure eights in the water, shooting balls into hoops, and even a freeze dance to the music blaring through the speaker, the mixture of tricks they do feels almost infinite. When the staff member rolls out a clownfish mailbox, announcing the birthdays of a few children in the audience, you wonder how long they must have been training. Days upon days of practice drilled into their memory.

Birthday children come up to the auditorium’s yellow line as the eel-mers hand out little high-fives to them. One child even proclaims, “Ew sticky!” before his dad tickles him under the arms and picks him up, returning to their bench. Even though it is their first show, Flotsam and Jetsam seem so well-versed in social etiquette.

However, you cannot help but find it a little demeaning. It seems so beneath them to have to perform like this to a leering audience. Sure, the rewards for each trick is generous, a stocky Japanese spider crab tossed and crushed in their razor sharp jaws, but it feels so ignominious.

Despite the horrified joy swimming through everyone’s gasps and aws, your heart is so sad.

Another round of tricks starts up. This time it involves a dual pair of bongos. As the staff member picks up a squirting spider crab from the cage onstage, he speaks into his echoing earpiece, “Now, our here, Flotsam is an exceptional drummer. We often find him playing something new every morning, completely of his own free experimentation.” Flotsam swims and props himself on stage as the staff member continues, “Today, we’re going to have him show off a skill to you fine folks!”

Your heart buries itself deeper and deeper into sadness. Perhaps, he never was intelligent. Perhaps, he is just another dumb fish. Canine obedience hammered in through reward and punishment, rhythms only learned because it is trained in him. As you two lock eyes, you cannot find anything that would dispute this theory.

You wait, as does everyone else, for Flotsam to start drumming away as promised. In addition, you wait for his eyes to flicker away from your unrecognizable face hidden by your sunglasses. Neither happens.

“A little indecisive today. I understand, there is just so much good music in the world,” the staff member stalls for time. He rips off a crab leg, holding out the reward by Flotsam’s suddenly demure face. “Why don’t we start off with something easy, buddy. A bit of the musical scale. Do-Re-Mi?”

‘You want to watch out for his teeth,’ you think, rubbing your fingers over the little scars you have from his nibbling. They really are such sharp instruments to break through the shell of a Japanese spider crab.

Thoroughly entrenched, the audience watches the repercussions of a box that was supposed to remain closed being opened.

Disbelief ripples through the crowd like one subtle wave. It is the only sound you participate in. Finally, in sync with the crowd of awake people. Someone to your left moans out of a low groan of phantom pain. The volume of interlocking disbelief grows when the staff member raises his hand up into the light. His trembling red hand hovers in front of his face to verify the view, his ring and pinkie finger bitten clean off.

Poor bastard’s wedding ring is probably sinking down to the bottom of the tank alongside the crab leg that Flotsam spat out.

Volume pitches and rises. A woman screams. Naturally, that rouses up the attendance like puppet strings. The staff member falls on his bottom then crawls backwards. Crawling away from Flotsam like one, big stumbling crab. Since the seatmate to your right is a stone pillar, there is no one to trip over your feet in their rush to leave but you watch hypnotized many individuals shove and trip their way through bodies blocking the stairs leading down to the exits. Then, calmly, you stand on your metal bench to overlook the crowd.

Flotsam’s eyes are wide as he stares at you. Reminds you of two tunnels branched off in a cave’s stomach. His fusiform gyrus lights up like newly plugged in Christmas lights, recognizing you. The little pea that makes up your fusiform face area– that clocks in every night to a job rarely done, cobwebs on the cubicle's laptop and dust as a seat covering – recognizes him too.

It already was recognizing him, seeing him as what he really is. Your lips crack open, “Flo -.” Then, you start barreling down the metal steps.

Weaving in and out of the disjointed crowd, you race down, sometimes landing on the cement floor and sometimes landing on the metal benches in your hopping steps.A shoulder jostles you so harshly that your sunglasses fall off your face. Between rows of benches, they dive to the floor. You trip, trying to make the leap onto a metal bench. The sound you make as you fall onto metal is so tiny in the cacophony.

The world goes white. It is like flash blindness from a nuclear explosion.

Tears pour out your eyes. You clap a hand over them in shame and to hide from the bright … too fucking bright … lights.

When you finally pick up your sunglasses, marks of shoe soles stamped like tattoos on your upper arms and hands, the auditorium is empty of a single soul. Not even they remain swimming in the tank. Someone must have sedated them and dragged them out. You are alone once more.

That night, you dream a dream that is more memory than a mystified fabrication of wonders or terrors.

Tender like a newborn, you lie on a wafer-thin sheet of paper that unrolls itself from a cylinder like one big, white wave. Perhaps an iceberg is more appropriate. Hospitals are as cold as the arctic. On the paper iceberg, on the fence of girlhood and the fated teenage years, on the tongue of a vivisection, you balance with broken ankles. Under your thin gown, flowing air and goosebump-freckled skin collide. Blue tints your bottom lip.

You are laid down, anticipating future pain.

“Lay down and I will be with you two shortly.” He had said this and nothing more.

The scent at the doctor’s office is ozone with a hint of vanilla. Near your toes, the long neck of a giraffe stretches skyward, painted on the bricks. Under bright, too fucking bright, light, metal tools glitter like slick seashells. You can feel the prescribed numbing droplets in your eyeballs slowly seep in.

You pinch your eyes shut, feeling like there is a cement block lodged and scraping between the bones of your temple. Why wouldn’t they give you something for the pain? When you open them, they are held open by a speculum and hooks like you are nothing past being an animal in a zoo doing your daily checkups.

Oh, and you are sitting upright on the paper iceberg now.

Must be the dream’s altercations. Time skipping forward in intervals.

Dreams are always like a pile of bones. The skeleton all jumbled up and disorganized that you move from femur to ulna. You are not graced with a lot of time to think on the analogy as a very big kitchen knife leans towards your pried open eye.

The muscles in your cheek twitch when it cuts. With the skills of a head-chef slicing an egg, your eye is cut perfectly down the imaginary midline. Both sides are even.

He scoops out one side of your eye like a person pulling back from a whole cake with a single slice. It is more inky black and sickly gray. The hues of your eye-cake that is. Far from the bright blue or pink frosting of a cake, it stays saturated in montone hues. You always thought an eye would look like the diagrams in school, colorful with reds and blues, but it is a sickly ebon and ashen gray.

The cornea is hard as a freshly cut nail and the half globe of retina slimes in his gloved hand like glue. Now looking at it, it appears the flesh inside an eye reminds you more of a bruised plum’s insides. A muted hue of purple-black rather than full ebon.

It is the lens of your eyes that really captures the doctor’s attention. He takes the half-cut marble in a pair of tweezers. Between those lobster claws of thin steel, your lens which makes up a pupil is rotated back and forth in observation.

An eye, though entirely soft and vulnerable, has only one hard bit inside like the tough seed of a peach. It can be cut but it will give resistance. With one good eye and half of your other, you watch the hard material between the lobster claws be pinched in and out to test the give and resistance of itself. Steadfast, it does not bend under the squeezes.

That half-cut pearl glitters.

Time skips again, moving bone to bone like switching channels. Instead of smells and sights, sound takes over the scene. The faint buzzing of the air conditioner as it breathes over the giraffe’s neck. Water oscillating back and forth over rubbing soapy hands cries loud in your ears. Though, faintly, you can hear the blood from your eye that slips down your chin hit the pad of the paper iceberg you sit on.

The tissue in your hand crinkles softly in sound as you wipe away blood tears. In a chair that might as well be across the globe of Earth, your guardian sobs in intervals with a trembling chin. “Guuuh … gah … hu-hu-hugaaah.” You keep soaking up blood, dabbing the tissue against your face as it whispers in light friction.

After he finishes washing his hands of your sanguine, the doctor intones two words like a priest giving the final prayer at the start of Armageddon, “cone dystrophy.” That is the last sound your ears can bear to hear before you jolt awake.

Your current doctor has given you exactly twenty-one little sheets. Ishihara tests; multiple circles with a number made of circles in the center. They are tests for color blindness.

That morning, the colors red and orange permanently fuse into one shade.

You took three nights off work. A little mini-vacation. The first was so you could spend the daylight hours watching the show with Flotsam and Jetsam; the second was so you could attend your doctor’s appointment; the third was so you could clean up what has been neglected in your apartment. Vacations are supposed to relieve the average worker of stress. You find yourself an outlier, once again.

“Blind by thirty? Blind by fucking thirty?” You bundle up the graphic shirt you were trying to fold into a circle and punch your mattress. The pile of already folded shirts tilts and falls in an arch to your right. “That fucking asshole,” you sneer.

Unraveling the graphic-tee-ball, you straighten your hunched posture with a deep sigh. No use taking your frustration out on innocent clothes. The wrinkled shirt joins the tower once you rebuild it. You reach out and grab a pair of socks. Foolishly, you thought organizing your apartment up for a very overdue spring cleaning would help to organize the disorder running rampant in your head.

Forlorn and desolate, you look at the laundry mountain. Too bad that is far from happening.

It is just … A person takes a guess at jars full of jelly-beans or what they’re significant other might have made for dinner, those are the true purpose of guessing games. The audacity of a person to guess when someone else is going to blind. You almost tear the sleeve off your cardigan when you pull in from the mountain’s maw. How dare your doctor estimate your finite health with such casualness.

You suppose it makes sense. The Salvador Dali-esque dream you had the night before, coupled with losing the ability to differentiate between red and orange; all of these were just the bad omens setting up the stage for your doctor’s appointment.

Mostly a homebody and not a frequent traveler, there aren’t many sights you are dying to see. However, the idea of losing your sight causes you to grieve it prematurely. Mourning the death of yourself. To just wither up inside this box-shaped apartment as a tomb, the thought of that is odious. You shudder and fold a towel.

Across the mattress, you look at your CRT television cloaked in a thin, see-through blanket to dim the lighting. On the square, a blue pick-up truck punches through metal and wooden gating. Even though the movie wrongly uses the sound effect of glass breaking, it is still impactful as you watch the pick-up truck reverse into an open boating harbor connected to the ocean. The whale and little boy harnessed to the back slowly sink in.

Freeform is playing Free Willy. To be honest, you are just biding time until the Harry Potter marathon starts up. Thank God, this movie is nearing its end because it is putting dangerous thoughts in your head. You just want to see little Daniel Radcliffe under the staircase and be interrupted by commercials every twenty-five minutes.

The orphaned boy pushes the orca whale out to sea. You fold another article of clothing, unsure if it is orange or red. The hope that Pandora kept in her box begs for freedom.

It is an open secret now. That is a little contradictory, if you do say so yourself.

However, it is the truth. The public now knows them without embellishment. With the shining gandour and seductive metaphorical-lingerie, it comes to their attention that predators are still predators. No matter how human they may look.

The thought saddens you. Slowly and unsurely, you have been starting to humanize them in your mind. When you wrestle with the locked doorknob of the oval-shaped room, you grow sadder.

It makes sense though. Flotsam and Jetsam? They should have been kept in the Oval Office or Area 51; instead they were brought to an aquarium in the middle of nowhere, used for publicity. The crux of humanity rears its ugly head. Sharing each fetish and body part to the audience is the sin of being a curious human. Everyone is a voyeur for something. No one can keep their mouth shut nowadays, always needing to post about their lives. So, they brought Flotsam and Jetsam here to do the exact same thing.

To think there was a time when you were disguised by their humanity. And now, it's all you hope to preserve and keep safe. Ascending the stairs to the circular-shaped room, you contemplate if there could ever be an inch of humanity in an animal. As a set of honey eyes peer at you from across the black hole water, you wonder if it is only canine obedience in their faces.

Two against one, you all take a moment accessing each other. There are no plastic bags of yummy treats hanging from your arms. No thumping rhythms of songs echo on the walls. Instead of familiar friendliness and comfortable companionship, you all seem incredibly wary of each other.

“Ya can come closer … We wouldn’t hurt ya, Shrimpy.”

Who the fuck said that?

Frozen in disbelief, you can do little besides watch the black hole ripple in violent sprays. A harsh slap echoes off the wall as a clawed hand breaches water only to grab the face with a right gold eye. Both drop under the water as your mind reels, spinning around options like a broken, juiced-up carnival ride.

You are tired! You are so tired that you must have hallucinated that! Being awake for so long on the night shift … Why, it must be entirely possible to hallucinate every once and a while! An evolved headache of sorts!

Yes. You grab onto that thought. Those words were hallucinations. Too bad your grip on the thought grows flimsy when Flotsam breaches the water, snarling, “I wanna talk to Shrimpy! Jade, lemme go! Get off!” A clawed hand grips the back of his hair and pulls him right back under.

A vivid hallucination you are having. Yes! A paragon of hallucinations and headaches after so many night shifts!

Despite the fear, you stay rooted in your spot. Not close enough to where the spilling water of the tank touches your shoes but close enough where you can watch the water steadily. Every once in a while, the sound of rocketing water echoes in the room. Dragon tails of green-blue fracture the surface. A clawed hand will rise up like a zombie breaking dirt only to disappear in seconds. Water flies in turrets and towers.

Maybe because of the fear, you stay in your exact same spot and watch. Things start to calm down eventually. Bubbles pop on the surface like they are conversing under there. But, that is impossible because fish cannot speak.

‘Don’t backtrack (Name),’ you think to yourself. ‘Their entire existence is impossible. It’s been impossible since the beginning. This is just another step into that twilight zone. Another unorthodox secret brought to the surface.’ The thought makes you feel disjointed like a pile of bones.

It had hurt. The day of the show. You do not why but it had hurt to know they weren’t yours alone. That the secret had been open for some time and it was not just you and them. Thus, you stay and wait for them to breach the surface one more time.

They both do simultaneously. Water cutting the visage of the rest of their body from the shoulders down. Red returns to the scene, staining both Flotsam and Jetsam’s faces in thick scratches. You barely get a second to analyze the wounds before Flotsam shouts, “It was haaard, ‘kay? I wanted to tell them the pretty nickname I made for them! And tell them I liked the new rocks they put in our tank!” He pouts childishly. “It’s so borin’ not being able to talk. I got so bored! You’re boring.”

Even when Flotsam snaps his sharp teeth at Jetsam, he remains unpulsed. “Forgive me for trying to look out for your well-being, but both of us agreed in junction that we would under no circumstances talk to humans.”

“But Shrimpy’s different from the rest!”

“Under no circumstances, Floyd.”

“I knooow,” Flotsam? Floyd? whines. Then, his downwards angled eyes slide over your comatose form. An excited grin comes up to his face. “Doesn’t matter now though. Shrimpy!!”

You are barely given a second to gather your thoughts before Floyd barrels towards you. Spindly arms wrap around your neck and suddenly you are down on your knees in an inch of water. The kiss on your cheek this time feels much less like a dog licking to show affection; it resembles more a human kissing you on the cheek which causes you to fluster.

“Truly, you make things so difficult at times,” Jetsam? Jade? tuts. The sound of him swimming through the water draws closer. His deep timbre sends a cardiogenic shock through your ribcage as he addresses, “I do apologize for my brother. He was a bit desolate without you here the past two nights.”

For some reason, you wonder how Jade felt in your absence too. Hands holding onto Floyd’s upper arms for a semblance of balance, you reply, “Uh, I took — I took a vacation.” The words feel like marshmallows rolling off your tongue. Gluttonous, fluffy, unreal with their texture. This really is happening, and you have to come to terms with it.

“Told ya it wasn’t because they were scared of us.”

“I never made such a connection. Merely hypothesizing.”

“Mmh, hypothesizin’ my ass,” Floyd grins as he turns to … sniff your hair?

Pushing him away to gain a bit of distance, you address the one you find the least distracted of the two. “You — You can talk? Why — Why didn’t you say anything to me before?” The companionship you had? Was it truly so fragile that you two had to keep secrets from one another?

“Well, you see, (Name),” — your name is so tantalizing coming from his voice that you feel like you are being resurrected from a heart-attack, defibrillator pounding away on your chest — “it was a matter of safety for my brother and I. If we were to say anything —.”

Floyd interrupts, “Everyone’s kind of a bigmouth buffalo fishy here so we keep ours shut.”

“The day to day conversations of the staff, the chatter from the people who visited us in the daylight hours, the unending gossip. We figured it was best to keep our lips sealed for the time being. Who knows how they would have reacted.”

“Nothing’s better than having a few tricks up your sleeve, Shrimpy.” Finally, you are done being squeezed as Floyd falls back into his tank. He rests his hands behind his head and floats buoyant.

“It is an epidemic, I fear. Fufu. Secrecy is such a rare trait to find nowadays.” Jade crosses his arms on top of the cement incline that you kneel in, looking at you sweetly. “Almost a lost art of sorts, eroded away after centuries of geological and evolutionary advances.”

Then, ping-ponging back and forth, they start to slip each secret (that others would probably want under lock and key) they’ve heard.

“Your manager’s wife is infertile thus he avoids conversations about children or preschool.”

“Lucas hit a guy with his car two years ago in a hit-and-run. Didn’t kill him but still.”

“Martha’s daughter just had an abortion. She gripes to Tatiana about how to possibly be supportive about this.”

“Ashley doesn’t like her boyfriend and they’re breakin’ up soon.”

“Deuce is going to fail his statistics class if he scores lower than a 95 on his next test.”

“Patrick is proposin’ to his girlfriend on December 1st.”

“We could keep going,” Jade says with a sly grin. “However, I think the point has gotten across.” He trails one fingernail across your thigh and smiles when you do not flinch. “All that useless prattle makes for some divine entertainment. Besides, matching up with more animalistic expectations can mean others are wildly underestimating us. Having the upper hand is better, always.”

Scrutinizing over his wandering fingernail, you ask quietly, “Is that why you attacked that man?” The question is meant for Floyd. Jade pulls his keen nail back all the same.

“Nah,” Floyd does not look at you as he answers, fixated on the ceiling. “It was humiliatin’. Being looked at that way by ya, Shrimpy.”

You blink in surprise. Shame is such a human trait. Born of social circles and social behaviors that are just uniquely tied to the bipedal species you are. The look on Jade’s face seems to agree with the consensus. You watch green-blue muscles glide through the water, simply drifting to a tame current. You watch black fingernails tap on cement in a tiny rhythm.

Floyd continues, noticing your silence, “Shrimpy’s the only one that talks to us like people. Everyone else just treats us like a spectacle.”

The heart in your ribcage knocks. You cannot Free Willy the entire aquarium. But, your Chevrolet Silverado has enough room in the bed for a kiddie pool or two.

Faintly, you recall a distant memory, when you read to Jade so many weeks ago, just as you open the oval-shaped room with the stolen key:

“The creatures stung Pandora over and over again and she slammed the lid shut. Epimetheus ran into the room to see why she was crying in pain. Pandora could still hear a voice calling to her from the box, pleading with her to be let out. Epimetheus agreed that nothing inside the box could be worse than the horrors that had already been released, so they opened the lid once more.

“All that remained in the box was Hope. It fluttered from the box like a beautiful dragonfly, touching the wounds created by the evil creatures, and healing them. Even though Pandora had released pain and suffering upon the world, she had also allowed Hope to follow them.”

For the past decade, photographic evidence of your existence has been nonexistent. You have found yourself to be an outlier; the world operates to a different rhythm that you have not been able to copy, relicate, or even play along to. Living in perpetual sleep apnea of the soul, you have only found true connection with two other people.

The blue ceiling lights are off as is now the new normal. Without the aid of your penlight, you make your way into the space with confident steps. Sunglasses perched on your head, you find that what has been slowly developing has reached the summit of itself. An impromptu, unorthodox Free Willy plagiarism.

The dark is easier than ever to see through tonight. You smile back when they smile at you.

Floyd is curled up close to the glass, calling for your undivided attention with his placement. Subdued yet stealthy as ever, Jade lingers behind yet close enough to be seen. Floyd crosses his body across the glass-canvas up and to your right. Jade crosses his body to your left, floating demurely lower.

The glass-canvas is painted with a few smudges of handprints. Some are from yourself and others from the only and only drummer. He depresses his dominant hand on the glass, leaning in close. His right hand waves up in dark waters in a fervent, warm greeting. His excitement to see you is palpable. You raise your own.

Both of their eyes shine like spotlights. The only light that you have looked into and found it does not hurt. Jade’s anticipatory smile slithers onto your face in a perfect mimic. You are going to rob the aquarium of those glittering gold dragonfly eyes. Tomorrow, there will be nothing for the staff or customers to find in nebulous darkness.

Nothing. Nothing but their desolate reflection.

#twisted wonderland x reader #jade leech #twisted wonderland #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #floyd leech #twst floyd #twst jade #more floyd centric than jade centric

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strange-dreams-are-made-of-these · 3 months ago

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In The Right Place And Time

Summary: Logan takes care of you after a mission. However, there's a part of the both of you that needs comfort. Tags: hurt/comfort, Logan struggling with his feelings, he deserves domestically and reader is happy to obliged. Reader is gender neutral!, Pet names ( Darlin', Cowboy) Word Count: 1.2k+

The mission lasted longer than anybody had expected it to. Though, with foes like Magneto and his pawns like Multiple Man, things were bound to get dicey. You were just glad to be back at the mansion where you could take a hot warm shower, get out of your suit, and rest in your bed.

What you didn't take into account was Logan following close behind you, catching your arm with his hand before you could even touch the knob of your bedroom door. "What is it, Logan?"

His hazel eyes searched yours, looking you over as he sniffed the air. He turned your hand over, lifting your sleeve up to reveal a nasty gash on your arm. "Let me clean this up." He spoke looking from the wound then back to your eyes.

Logan had stayed back during this mission, at Charles' request. He knew that sending all of the X-men out on a mission like this wasn't the best for the team. Somebody had to stay behind to act as the backup in case things went south. There had been a few times during the mission when he listened to you on the communicator. Times where you sounded calm and stilled your racing heart during fights.

He found your voice comforting, despite hearing about how you were nearly crushed by a concrete wall when you bravely pushed Storm out of the way.

"It's okay, it's just a cut. I'll clean it in the shower." You stated, observing the mutant. He had been much older than you, and just about everybody else you had known. Though he appeared in his early to middle forties while you were in your early thirties.

Logan shook his head. "Sorry, Darlin'. I can't let you do that."

Had he had his cowl on, you wouldn't have been able to see the emotions that were kept at bay behind his golden irises. Every movement between the two of you felt heavy. His hold on your hand was gentle, yet he still wasn't going to let you go. Others often observed the way you two interacted when you were together. Logan would place a hand on your waist or the small of your back if he passed behind you. He often would take up space for two on the couch, but if you were to join him he would happily scoot over and place his arm on the back of the couch just to be near you.

He also hated to see you going on solo missions or missions where he couldn't go. He wanted to protest this last mission, but he had already been in hot water with Charles to even protest.

You knew better than to argue with a man who had a metal skeleton. "Come in then," you told him, opening the door of your bedroom. He let go of your hand, agreeing. As he entered the space, he closed the door. Though you were quick to enter your private bathroom. He knew he couldn't win every fight, but to be in the same space as you and knowing you were safe meant everything to him.

As you showered, Logan took the time to look around your room, something he should have strayed from. Pictures of you and the rest of the X-men. The one that caught him off guard was the picture you managed to take with him, as it was the only picture on your nightstand next to a pair of sunglasses and an alarm clock. The others had been on a dresser, but you and Logan were on your nightstand.

He turned around quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets as he watched you run a towel through your hair. "Everything okay, Logan?"

He cleared his throat, nodding, keeping his questions to himself. "Here, let me help ya."

You handed Logan the med kit you had in your room. You set the towel down next the the bathroom door, knowing you will have more things to clean up later.

The man avoided your gaze as he looked at your freshly washed wound. It would certainly scar by the end of the healing cycle. Just another reminder he had that you can get hurt. He applied a salve to your wound, then dressed it with some gauze and taped the sides down.

"All better, see?" You asked him, as his eyes and hands lingered on your arm a moment longer than necessary.

Logan hummed a little before looking back into your eyes. He seemed lost in a thought, a thought he couldn't quite figure out to word the proper way.

"Logan," He perked up when you spoke his name. "Do you want to stay with me? For a little while?"

Did he want to stay? How I've been waitin' on that question, he thought to himself. He couldn't let his true feelings be exposed that easily. "Sure," he whispered.

You took Logan by the hand, something that he wasn't used to, as you led him to your bed. You crawled into your side of the bed, patting the opposite side for him to get in.

Logan complied, pressing his back to your headboard after kicking his boots off. Once he settled in, you clung to his side, wrapping one arm behind his back and the other over his waist, hugging him like a teddy bear. He looked down at you as you settled in, pressing your head to his chest as you listened to his heartbeat, and how it increased with each passing second.

Logan laid an arm on your back, his hand running over your hair as the other laid over the arm you wrapped around him. His breath hitched as he heard your heart beat slow down. "Dalin', I ain't too good with these things." He spoke, closing his eyes as he felt a rumble in his chest. "I shouldn't have let ya go on that mission."

You felt comfortable in his hold as you pulled a blanket up over you and his lower half. "I don't like going on missions without you. I feel like I'm on edge, like something wrong will happen."

Logan sighed a little, swallowing the frayed groan he wanted to let out. "I seen the way you look at me. Hell, the others think something is going on between us." He thought about Scott and Jean, how they thought you two were the next couple on the team, aside from Rogue and Gambit of course.

You leaned up to look at him, your eyes scanning his. "You don't think something isn't going on between us, Cowboy?" It was a simple question, one that nearly broke the two-hundred-year-oldutant. You closed the gap between the two of you, pressing your lips to his soft, pink ones, taking one hand to cup his face.

Logan was shocked at first, but by the time your lips pulled away from his, he quickly wrapped both arms around you pulling you in for another. The way his calloused hands eased over your sore joints as your silent claim of love sent him over the moon.

He pulled back, dragging the back of his finger over your cheek, tucking your hair behind your ear. "I think something is now." He pulled the blanket back up over you two, wiggling the both of you around until he was laying flat on his back and you were resting high up on his chest. "I think we should lay here a while."

You agreed, resting your head on his chest again as his arms wrapped around you, making you feel instantly warm.

For the first time since leaving for the mission, you felt safe and comfortable again.

#marvel #logan howlett #x men #wolverine #logan howlett x reader #logan xmen #x men the animated series #x men 97 #logan wolverine

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cherrrydragon · 7 months ago

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➤ find something worth saving (it's all for the taking)

CHAPTER SIX: MAKE OUT FAKE OUT

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SUMMARY ↳ An unlikely ally appears! “I know you’re Spinnerette.” . . . What. The. Fuck. pairing: jon kent x gn!reader x damian wayne warnings: (the non-existent) threat of blackmail wc: 4.4k

Victoria’s been acting weird. You suppose it’s normal given the events from last week. Since then, multiple articles have come forth speaking of Robin and Spinnerette saving the day. The people of Gotham seem to be taking to their new arachnid friend well.

But back to Victoria—she struggles to maintain eye contact with you for more than a few seconds. It doesn’t stop her from being a stern teacher though, so you guess nothing other than that has changed. Whatever, you have better things to worry about.

Progress has been… progressing with the badassium. You’ve begun assembling the makeshift particle accelerator, but Karen estimates that you’ve only built three percent. And it took you that long. Have mercy.

You’re currently in the Den, looking over your creation.. The walls are lined with various tools and blueprints, and the centerpiece is the skeleton of the particle accelerator. You sigh, wiping sweat off your brow. This is going to take longer than you thought.

Karen’s voice chirps in your ear. “Perhaps taking a break would help clear your mind, [Name].”

You glance at the clock. It’s already past midnight. Maybe she’s right. “Yeah, I guess so.. Let’s call it a night.”

Robin meets you on the rooftop you’ve perched yourself on. He crouches next you, watching the streets below. Robin’s eyes follow the movement below with a practiced vigilance, his dark cape fluttering slightly in the breeze. The city's nightscape is a blend of lights and shadows, with the occasional sound of sirens breaking the relative silence. He glances at you, his expression giving nothing away.

“Long day?” you ask, breaking the silence.

“You ask, why?”

You groan, stretching out your stiff muscles. Robin tracks the movement. “Surely you wouldn’t come hang out with me just because you felt like it. I doubt one night of ass-kickin’ makes us friends.”

“This is not ‘hanging out’,” he grumbles, making you nod your hand in a ‘you’re proving my point’ fashion. “I am simply taking a short recess, you happen to be in my resting spot.”

“Yeah, uhuh.” You don’t believe him for a second, but you can’t bring yourself to really care.

“Batman wants you on the team.”

You damn near fall off the rooftop. “What.”

“Perhaps you are older than I thought, if your hearing isn’t on par,” he smirks.

“First of all, my hearing is way better than yours, fuck you,” you quip, quickly righting yourself. “Second of all…” you hesitate, “can we take a raincheck on that?”

Robin looks at you. “I… am busy right now. And do not have time for a team… yeah. Also, I just prefer to be alone.” The words come out choppy, as if you’re coming up with them on the fly (you are). That last part is a straight lie, you love your Avengers.

You know Robin obviously is skeptical, but he says nothing. “Why does Batman want me, anyway?”

Robin shifts slightly, his expression unreadable behind the mask. “You share the same goals we do. It only makes sense to join forces.”

Robin's words hang in the air, punctuated by the distant sounds of the city below. You shift uncomfortably, trying to process the unexpected offer. Joining Batman's team? The idea both excites and intimidates you. You've always admired the vigilantes of Gotham from afar, but becoming a part of that world was another matter entirely.

You don’t belong here. It was different when you were asked to officially join the Avengers, but fictional comic characters turned real? Your mind wants to melt. You don’t want to drag them into your mess.

“I really do appreciate the offer, but…” you sigh, and lean back. “...not right now.” And probably never. You clear your throat and stand up, Robin following. “Well, it’s been awkward. See you!” you rush out, quickly swinging away. Robin eyes you until you swing out of sight, thinking.

“They denied.”

Bruce sips his tea, humming. “Did they say why?”

Damian comes to sit next to his father. “Their reasoning was that they were ‘too busy for a team’ and preferred to be alone. It was very obvious they were hiding something, father.”

Bruce sighs, putting down his cup. “We’ll keep trying to convince them, slowly,” Bruce adds as he sees Damian moving to get up. “Stay cautious, but also stay amiable, Damian.”

Damian scoffs. “I am amiable.”

Bruce chuckles as Damian leaves.

Ms. Varley announces a project at the end of class the next morning.. The class groans loudly, of course. “It should be fun for you young folks,” she emphasizes, like it disgusts her. “It is a partner project,” the class lights up for a second, “with your tablemate.” You swear you see a glint of satisfaction in her eye as the class slumps. You and Damian look at eachother. “Together you will explore unconventional perspectives on any known superhero or vigilante of your choosing.”

The projector shows a powerpoint labeled “Hot Takes”. A few snorts are heard. “I want you to to challenge yourselves boldly,” Ms. Varley states, walking around to pass out the rubric. “You’ll select a figure that intrigues you and craft a thesis that challenges the traditional view. Support it with thorough research and present your findings in a persuasive manner."

“It’s not about being right or wrong, it’s about being able to defend your point.” Ms. Varley takes her place in front of the classroom. “This is your final project. From now until winter break, we will be spending our Fridays working on it. Only Fridays, so I suggest working on it with your partner outside of school.”

She sits down in her chair, signaling that she’s done talking for today. Buzz fills the classroom immediately, peers chattering and making plans. You scoot your chair closer to Damian. “I know what I want to do,” you declare.

“As do I,” says Damian, facing you.

“My take is better,” you challenge, crossing your arms.

Damian scoffs. “I sincerely doubt you are capable of coming up with something adequate to the challenge.”

“Don’t be a hater Damian, it makes you look jealous,” you tease.. The bell rings, filling the class with sounds of hustle and bustle as students pack up. “Oh! Before you go,” you say, grabbing Damian’s wrist. You hold out your phone. “Number?”

Damian looks at your phone in confusion. You huff. “Your phone number, Dames. So we can contact each other and plan our project?” you clarify in a ‘duh’ tone.

You watch as he stares for a moment, before taking your phone and putting in his contact info. “You will come home to the manor with me,” he declares.

You blink. “Huh?”

“We will start working on it today,” he elaborates, handing you back your phone. You fumble with it for a second before shoving it in your pocket. “The faster we get it done the better.”

“Um, ok. Yeah, makes sense,” you gulp.

This time you’re the one distracted in ballet. Victoria huffs and snaps at you multiple times, so you figure she must be back to normal. Art class proceeds as norma, Ms. M making you practice your color theory. You hold back on designing new iterations of your suit, something you did a lot of back home out of sheer boredom.

Damian guides you out of the school with a hand on your back, like he did at homecoming. You wonder what exactly he is doing, since you know he feels the eyes and points at the two of you from other students. You sigh, hopefully nobody bothers you about it.

Alfred greets you at the gates, this time you make sure to actually get his name officially. Damian gets in the car first, pulling you in by the hand. Your shoulder bumps into his as you land with an ‘oof’. The ride to the manor is silent, leaving you twiddling with your thumbs. Thankfully, the ride isn’t too long.

The manor looks imposing, standing here looking at it. It’s different from seeing it from WEBBERs point of view or from an inked page. Damian grabs your arm, snapping you out of your daydreaming. He leads you through the grand halls of the mansion, his steps confident and purposeful. The interior is as opulent as you imagined, with rich furnishings and tasteful decor that speak of wealth and history.

"Your family's home is... impressive," you remark, trying to break the silence as you’re dragged along.

Damian nods curtly, saying nothing. You sense there's more to his demeanor than just his usual aloofness.

He leads you to a spacious study lined with shelves of books and a large, fancy desk at its center. Papers are neatly organized, and a computer hums softly in one corner. Damian gestures for you to take a seat. You do, placing your bag down beside your chair. Damian sits next to you.

You take out your laptop and open a new powerpoint. “My idea was that we do it on Batman,” you state, turning to Damian. “I think Batman is part of a cycle of violence. I think that he does help and protect people, but he also enables a lot of the behavior from criminals.” You stand up and begin to pace the room.

“He inadvertently contributes to a culture that normalizes violence as a means to solve problems. I mean, all of his criminals eventually break out of arkham. Scarecrow literally attacked our school a while ago! Criminals respond to Batman’s intervention with heightened aggression and increasingly dangerous tactics, which results in a cycle where each side justifies escalating their actions in response to perceived threats.”

You pause, stopping your pacing. Damian is staring at you. You cough. “That’s all to say, violence begets violence, hurt people hurt people, yadda yadda,” you grin sheepishly.

Damian nods intently. He leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the armrest. After a moment of silence, he speaks, his voice calm yet decisive.

"Your perspective is not entirely without merit," Damian begins, his tone measured. "Batman's methods have indeed perpetuated a cycle of violence in Gotham. His reliance on fear tactics and physical force against criminals often leads to heightened retaliation and more extreme measures from his adversaries."

He shifts in his seat, eyes narrowing slightly. "However," Damian continues, "one must consider the broader context. Gotham City is a cesspool of corruption and crime, where conventional methods of law enforcement have repeatedly failed. Batman's presence, while controversial, fills a void where the justice system falls short."

Damian stands up abruptly, pacing the room with a controlled energy. "His actions, while extreme, have prevented countless tragedies and protected innocent lives. The criminals he faces are not ordinary. They are deranged, relentless, and would wreak havoc unchecked if not for his intervention."

He stops in front of the window, gazing out at the expansive grounds of Wayne Manor. "Batman's commitment to justice is unwavering. He sacrifices his own safety and personal life to ensure that Gotham's citizens have a fighting chance against the darkness that plagues our city."

Damian turns back to you, his demeanor earnest. "Our challenge will be to present a balanced argument," he concludes, returning to his seat. "Acknowledging the complexities of Batman's methods while critiquing their consequences. We must delve deep into both sides of the debate to craft a compelling thesis."

You nod, absorbing Damian's perspective. You’re impressed, but yeesh. He could’ve been more subtle, in your humble opinion.

“I’m impressed,” comes a voice from the doorway. You and Damian turn around to see–

Bruce Wayne. You sigh deeply inside your mind.

“Father,” says Damian, looking a bit lost. “How long…?”

“Since your friend started speaking. I apologize, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I only meant to introduce myself when I heard your compelling argument, I didn’t want to interrupt,” he says, looking awfully apologetic. Of course, Batman himself heard all that.

He turns to you and sticks out his hand. “Bruce Wayne, Damian’s father.” You shake his hand humming in affirmation.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” you smile. Alfred comes in with some snacks and refreshments, placing them down on the table. You and Damian thank him, seemingly on autopilot. Bruce smiles at Damian.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” he says, and then he’s out the door.

You rub your palms on your pants. “Welp,” you hum, sitting back down and pouring yourself a cup of tea. “I think he likes me.” You pour a cup for Damian and pass it to him. He sits back down as well, accepting the cup.

“I think he does, as well,” mutters Damian, sipping his tea.

The rest of the evening is spent refining your argument and laying out the skeleton on your powerpoint. Despite Damian's initial reservation about your abilities, you find that you complement each other well in terms of ideas and research methods. You check the time, it’s a little past nine.

“I should get going, I don’t wanna leave Nari alone for too long,” you say, beginning to gather your belongings. Damian raises a brow. “My cat,” you clarify.

Damian's eyes brighten very subtly. You know what he’s thinking, so you show him the picture you took of Jon holding Nari. “He’s cute, right?”

Damian analyzes your picture like it’s an art. He nods in approval. “You shall have to bring him over to meet Alfred.”

“The.. butler?” you question, as if you don’t know better.

“The cat.”

Damian walks you out of the manor where you find Bruce. His eyes spot you two approaching and nods in acknowledgement. “Alfred is already waiting outside for you,” he tells you. You nod and step outside, feeling the cool air hit you. You thank Alfred as he opens the door for you, stepping inside. Damian and Bruce are standing together on the porch. Bruce is telling Damian something, but he is only looking at you.

You send him a hesitant smile, and he nods at you.

Bruce watches the car drive off. “Still suspicious?” he asks.

“Nothing of note has happened,” Damian begrudgingly tells him. Bruce warmly chuckles.

“Well,” he starts, looking at Damian. “I like them.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “I do not like what you are insinuating.” Bruce shrugs innocently, stepping back inside the manor. Damian stands in the cool air for a moment, before following him inside.

The dance instructor has a headache, so she says that you all can do whatever you’d like, as long as you don’t bother her. You sit against the far wall, laptop on your legs. You’ll use the time to finish the assignments you’ve been procrastinating on.

Victoria surprises you by sitting next to you. She surprises everyone else to, if their wide eyes are anything to go by. They quickly look away at her glare. “Hey, Vicky,” you mumble, unbothered.

She pretends to look interested in what you’re typing. Her eyes watch your fingers as they rapidly move across the keys. She clears her throat.

“I would like to practice some more after school. I expect you to be there,” she says primly.

You raise a brow, still looking at your screen. “There’s no practice today.”

“Obviously,” she scoffs. “I wouldn’t be asking you if there was. I just think… it would be beneficial to us.”

You look at her. She’s crossed her arms and is looking down at her lap. You exhale and nod. “Yeah, okay.” You didn’t have anything planned after school anyway. Victoria nods, sitting beside you for the rest of the period.

Damian suggests that you come over again to work more on the presentation, but you have to deny. “I have a ‘special’ practice session with Vicky,” you wink.

Damian ignores your innuendo in favor of furrowing his brows. “You don’t have practice today.”

“First of all, what do you know?” you huff, putting your pencils away. “Second of all, you’re right. However, Vicky has ordered extra practice. Just the two of us.”

Damian grips his bag a little bit tighter. You wave goodbye as you leave the classroom, heading to the dance studio. Victoria’s waiting for you, still in her uniform. You place your bag down, suddenly tense. Victoria crosses over to you, grabbing your hand. “Shut the door,” she demands.

You obey, curious. “Something wrong?”

She fidgets with your web-shooter-turned-bracelet, like she’s looking for something. You’re not worried, the form it’s in right now gives nothing away, but you are really confused right now.

“Vicky?” you implore, trying to catch her eye.

“I…” she hesitates, before straightening her shoulders. “I know who you are.”

You furrow your brow. “What exactly does that mean–”

“I know you’re Spinnerette.”

What. The. Fuck.

You blink, because that’s all you can do. “What?”

“Don’t try to deny it. There’s no use,” she crosses her arms.

“Vicky, this is crazy. I’m not Spinnerette! Was it the Scarecrow attack? Are you still scared? Maybe you should see someone–”

“Spinnerette called my Vicky!” she snarls, pointing a finger at your chest. “No one calls me that but you.”

Your tongue pokes your cheek, stepping back. You never would’ve thought Vicky would be the first to figure you out. Though you suppose you haven’t been as careful as you thought. Fuck, how could you be so careless? Do you still try to deny it? Surely it won’t be that hard, but clearly Vicky is smarter than you think.

“Perhaps she could be a formidable ally,” suggests Karen. “She may have access to resources we need.”

You straighten at Karen’s voice. She’s right, of course. Victoria’s loaded. She can throw money at people to get you the materials you need. Expensive, high quality material. There’s just convincing her…

And maybe… it’ll be nice to have someone else know in this universe.

You sigh and hold out your arms. “Fine, you got me. I’m Spinnerette.”

Victoria smirks victoriously. “Show me.”

“Show you…?” you mutter.

“Show me some proof.”

You blink at the audacity. She was just accusing you of being Spinner, and when you admit that you are, she tells you to ‘prove it’ to her!? You sigh, tired of it all.

You walk to the wall of the room, placing your foot on it and climbing up. It’s a comical sight, the way your body completely changes rotation effortlessly. You walk along the ceiling, moving back to Victoria. Jumping down, you purse your lips and spread your hands. “Happy?”

Victoria’s got a glint in her eye that makes you nervous. She nods, and you set your hands on your waist.

“Okay listen, you know now, there’s no going back from here. If you tell anybody–” you begin, voice taking on a threatening tone.

“–I want to help you!” she blurts.

You blink. “Pardon?”

“Let me help you do your… saving people thing!” she says, waving her hand around. She steps closer to you, eyes shining. Huh. Well, you were going to threaten her and her parents' credibility as members of society. Rich people always have some skeletons in their closets, and you sure as shit are capable of finding them. This is a surprising turn of events.

Still, you scoff. “This is insane–”

“I can be your sponsor! Like whoever makes all of Batman's stuff!”

“I would’ve never expected this from you—why do you want to help me?” you ask incredulously.

“Nothing I do satisfies my parents!” she growls. Oh dear, backstory time. “They literally left me the company to inherit, but doubt my ability to run it. I pay attention, I get good grades and I do everything they say, but they still doubt me. I even try to get with stupid Damian Wayne.” She throws her hands up. “I don’t even like him!”

“I know I can’t tell them you’re Spinnerette, but if I can successfully help you do what you do…” she curls her hands together. “Then at least I would know that I’m good at something.”

You’re left speechless. It’s like you’re listening to a brand new person. You place your hands on her shoulders. “You already are good at something, dance!” You gesture to the room. “You work harder than anyone else here!”

“Dance isn’t my future,” she scowls.

You purse your lips. You have no idea how she feels. The adults in your life have always let you be yourself. Even if they didn’t you’ve always had the backbone to tell people to step off and let you do your own thing. Rich people like Victoria’s parents can get pretty extreme. You wouldn’t be surprised if they disowned her for not wanting to inherit the company.

You sigh, running a hand down your face. “Okay,” you mutter. Victoria stiffens in anticipation. “You can help.” You’ve been evaluating her this whole interaction. She’s a sheltered rich kid looking for adventure and on a weird journey of self discovery. She isn’t looking to rat you out (she kind of needs you, anyway).

She squeals and claps her hands, before clearing her throat and composing herself. “I look forward to our partnership.”

Arms crossed, you grumble out, “uhuh.”

“How do they work, anyway?” she says, grabbing your wrists, pressing around your bracelet.

“Uh, it won’t work in the state that it’s in–” a web shoots out of it, sticking to Victoria’s blazer. You guffaw. “Karen!” you gasp, knowing in the web-shooters’ bracelet form it wouldn’t shoot unless she made it.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” she asks cheekily. Traitor. God, she’s been waiting for someone else to talk to, hasn’t she?

Victoria looks mystified by the web actively attached to her. “Who’s Karen? she asks as she tries to grab the web.

“Do not–!” you grab her hand. “–touch it.”

“Why? Oh, right. It’s sticky, huh?”

“Yes, Vicky. The spider webs are sticky–” the door to the dance room opens, and you stiffen. Shit, the web–

Victoria closes the distance between you two, jumping on you and wrapping her legs around your waist. You instinctively hold her thighs to support her, looking at her in alarmed confusion.

“What–” she silences you by pressing her lips against yours. All coherent thought goes out the window, because literally what is your life?

Her hands wind around your head, and her lips caress yours with a soft yet firm pressure. Your heart races, pounding in your chest as you instinctively tighten your grip around her legs, pulling her closer. The warmth of her body against yours and the taste of her lips make everything else fade away.

After what feels like an eternity, she slowly pulls back, leaving your lips tingling. She gazes at you with a mix of mischief and satisfaction, running a hand through her hair to tuck a loose strand behind her ear. You stare at her in awe, your breath coming in short gasps. She's got balls of steel, no doubt about it. You just gained a whole new level of respect for her.

She looks to the side. “Oh, hi Damian.”

Oh god. You look to the entrance of the room and sure enough, Damian’s there. He’s looking at the two of you with wide eyes, unable to school his expression. He’s stopped dead in his tracks with your phone in his hand.

Wait… your phone!

You shift so Victoria’s back is facing him. You balance her with one hand, reaching between you two to get rid of the web that’s squished between you. You do it quickly, balling it up in your hand and setting down Victoria on the floor and heading over to Damian.

“Thanks, I didn’t even notice I left it,” you smile casually, internally screaming.

Damian says nothing as you take your phone from him, stuffing it in your pocket. You place your hands on his chest and guide him out. “Okay. Bye now. Talk to you later!” He seems to finally realize what’s happening, brows furrowing and looking at you before you close the door in his face. You lean against it, listening. There’s no sound for a bit, before you hear Damian walk away. You sigh.

“Holy shit, Vicky. What the hell?” You can’t help but laugh. You throw the balled up web in the trash, making your way over to her. She’s got a cheeky smile on her face, hands behind her back.

“It’s like I don’t know you anymore,” you tease. She’s looking at you.

“I like you,” she says, making you freeze for probably the tenth time this afternoon. When will it end?

“I have feelings for you,” she elaborates, pacing. “I know that you don’t feel the same. I just…” she stops, turning to face you. Her eyes peer earnestly into yours. It crushes your heart. “...I know your secret. Now, you know mine.”

You whisper, painstakingly soft, “oh, Tori…”

She sniffs, swatting your shoulder. “Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not in love with you or anything.”

Still, you feel like the worst human being ever. It’s not your fault you don’t have feelings for her, you know that. And yet… you’re probably the first person she’s ever shown this side of her to. Dare you say, her first real friend.

You pull her into your arms. “I’m so sorry.”

She melts into your arms, gripping you tightly. Her light sniffles fill the room.”I’ll get over it,” she promises. You only hold her tighter. After what feels like an eternity, she withdraws from you, wiping her tears.

“Okay, some ground rules,” you say, hopefully providing a much needed topic change

“Number one, you can’t tell anyone.”

She nods. “Obviously.”

“Number two, I call the shots. If I say do something, do it. I know better, it’s for the best.”

“Number three, this changes nothing. We can act like friends if you want, but if your grades start dropping or people start noticing you acting strange, we’re done. Got it?”

“Got it,” she agrees. You heave out a sigh. “Go home, Tori.” You web over her bag and hand it to her. She goes sparkly-eyed again.

“Will you patrol?” she can’t help but ask.

“I think I deserve the night off. The Bats can handle it.” You grab your stuff and turn towards the door. “I’m gonna take a long nap when I get home.”

“Let me take you home then!” she blurts.

“Jesus, do all you rich kids have chauffeurs?” you ask. She shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I just wanna lay down and not wake up for three years.”

Victoria bids you goodbye as you make you enter your apartment. You drop your bag, groaning at your stiff shoulders. You sag your way over to your bed, flopping face first into it. You knock out almost immediately, letting the stress of the day leave you. Spideys never have it easy, do they?

notes: y'all i've had that tori scene in mind since i first made her LMAO

#damian wayne x reader #jon kent x reader #dc x reader #robin x reader #superboy x reader

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peachglazewrites · 8 days ago

Text

𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚘𝚏 𝚞𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛 ⸙ 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗

𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: abby anderson x f!reader 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: smut (18+ MDNI), use of words like cunt/pussy/tits/etc, alcohol mention, arguing, angst 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚜: fluff, making out, dry humping, top!Abby, vaginal fingering (r!receiving), mild dirty talk 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘: no use of y/n or any reader descriptions 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 10,225k

𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: The one where you and Mel come home, and lunch just never seems to go to plan.

: ̗̀➛ masterpost

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ link to fic on ao3 . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝙸: XI

The pain in your leg the next day you expected. The pain in your head, however, is another story entirely. Whatever Owen was making needed to be studied. Nothing has ever made your head throb the way yours is right now, and you barely survived Manny’s birthday party.

Mel woke you up a little later than planned, the two of you sleeping through the shrill ringing of the analogue alarm clock set by your bedside, buried too deep under piles of blankets and a very affectionate Shepard-mix to hear it. The sun had already started peeking above the horizon line, sending warm rays of light across the room, battling the frigid air.

The two of you got ready in a hurry, not wanting to be back at base too late in the morning. You were scheduled for work in the afternoon, but were more concerned about making it back before the morning shift change than anything else. It was much easier to explain away your absence to the night-shift skeleton crew who didn’t really care all that much, rather than the day shift workers who felt like they had something to prove. At least that’s what Mel said.

The trip back to base was rougher the second time around, an unfortunate side effect of your dual hangovers and the straining ache in your leg muscles. It felt like your calf was going to rip in two any time you flattened your foot, which was no help when it came time to jump across balconies or crawl through crumbled walls. Mel was patient as all hell though, offering an elbow for you to latch onto when it got especially rough.

You’d definitely need to rest before work today, maybe see if you can make one of those heated pads Abby had. A hot shower will help somewhat, and god, do you need one, anyways. You’ve smelled the aquarium plenty of times on Mel before, but the way you can feel the salt and musk clinging to your skin and clothes is another thing altogether.

You make it back to the gates around nine o’clock, just after the morning shift change. Mel takes the lead in signing you two back in, curving the prying questions of the patrolman at the station, a man you don’t recognise, but Mel clearly does. She slides the clipboard back to him with a forced smile when she’s done, tugging both you and Alice along behind her.

“They’re always so nosey. It was so much easier when we could plan around when Olivia was on duty,” Mel murmurs to you, walking up the stone path to the kennels.

“What happened to Olivia?” You ask, looking behind you, back at the guard booth.

“Got transferred out. I think she’s at the Serevena now.” Mel shrugs, unlocking and holding the gate to the kennels open for you and Alice.

Alice is an angel as you sign her back in, waiting patiently by Mel’s feet as the two of you talk to Aaron. Eventually one of the trainers comes by, clipping a lead onto her harness and leading her away, probably off to be bathed. She smells almost as much as you two do, the scent clinging to her thick fur.

“I miss her already,” you sigh, watching Alice trot off, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth as she pants.

“You spoil her too much,” Mel chuckles, holding out her elbow for you as you broach the stairs.

You slip your arm through hers, linking them together. The extra support is nice as you make your way up the stone steps, helping you take some of the pressure off your leg as you pull yourself along. “That’s funny, because I don’t think anyone else is taking their dogs out on mini vacations to abandoned aquariums.”

Mel’s eyes roll, a smile playing at her lips. “Alright, keep walking.”

You take it slow on your walk back to the room, shifting your duffel bag from one shoulder to the other to help balance the weight across your body, your limp becoming more obvious. You’ll definitely need to sit today at work, which isn’t ideal, but that’s just how life is for you now. No use trying to fight against it.

Mel trails behind as you walk down the hallway, pushing past the doors leading to the residential suites.

“It’s not that bad.”

“That’s because you’re used to it. I can still smell the algae, like it’s stuck in my nose.” You wrinkle your nose, scrubbing it with the back of your hand.

“Hey, you were the one who tried climbing that fake coral,” Mel says, raising a brow at you when you turn around, walking backwards to talk to her.

“If I wasn’t supposed to climb it, then why did it look so climbable?”

You bump your back into the next set of double doors, pushing it open with your hip. “You just hate fun.”

“And you love complaining,” she retorts, stifling a laugh as you wave her off, stepping into the hallway and letting the door close behind you.

“Hey--!” Mel’s voice muffles as the door clicks shut, separating the two of you. You snicker to yourself, leaving her behind to continue down the hallway to your room.

Well, you would, if there wasn’t someone standing in front of it already.

She’s wearing a pair of belted cargos, dark green long sleeve tucked into the waistband. Her pants are rolled at the ankle, high enough to fit her dark combat boots, the brown leather having been freshly waxed. Her signature braid hangs over her shoulder, the tail brushing the middle of her chest.

Abby.

The keychain burns in your back pocket as you slow to a stop, a pleasant warmth blanketing you at just the mere sight of her.

Abby knocks once more on your door, tilting her head close to the wood, listening. She chews on her cheek as she waits, sighing when there’s no response. Her forehead butts against the door for a moment, eyes closed, before she’s pushing herself back and turning away.

“Kind of hard to answer when I’m not home,” you say, smiling at the way her head whips up to look at you.

The little pout her lips were pressed into smooths out, twitching into a soft smile at the sight of you, eyes roaming your figure. Her shoulders drop, almost in relief as the tension seeps out of them. She takes a couple of long strides to get to you, hand already reaching out for your own, your name tumbling from her lips.

The door behind you opens, just enough for Mel to slip through.

“You’re so annoying,” she laughs, wriggling her duffel through the gap as the door shuts behind her.

Abby stops, steps faltering at Mel’s entry. Her hand slips back to her side, your fingers twitching as she pulls away from you. Her eyes are trained over your shoulder, no doubt to where Mel stands in the doorway.

It’s quiet. Tense. Nobody is moving or saying anything, and you feel the air of the hall get thicker and thicker as the seconds go by.

You startle when Mel places a hand on your shoulder, gentle and kind. You didn’t even hear her approach.

“I’m going to go shower,” she says, voice level as she looks at you, ignoring the other person in the hall.

Abby’s eyes flick to the hand on your shoulder, and you can see the cogs turning in her head as she stares, brows furrowing. You know this look, the one she gets when she’s unsure, confused.

“Okay, I’ll meet you down there in a bit.”

Mel nods, squeezing your shoulder as she walks past. She doesn’t spare a glance Abby’s way, looking down into her pocket to fish out her keys, taking her time in unlocking the door and disappearing inside the room.

The soft click of the doorhandle catching snaps Abby out of her thoughts, blinking them away. You fiddle with the strap of your duffel in the silence, moving to lean against the wall next to you, leg aching.

You break first.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Abby says back, face relaxing as she looks up, taking you in.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” She meets you at the wall, leaning her shoulder against it. Her hand comes out, and as if there was a magnet connecting you, you reach out too, hooking your index fingers together. “I came by last night to see if you wanted to come over, but nobody answered. Thought you were asleep, so I figured I’d come by this morning, but you still weren’t answering.” She looks you up and down, a small smile on her lips. “Now I know why.”

“Sorry,” you apologise, sheepish, squeezing her hand. “I should have left a note or something.”

“Where did you go?” She brings her other hand up, reaching across to swipe a thumb against a smudge of dirt along your jaw. “You leave base?”

“I—”

You’re interrupted by the door opening again, Mel pushing through with her shower caddy in tow. Abby tenses, hand falling from your cheek. She nearly steps away, but you keep your grip on her hand, pulling her back to you.

Mel locks up behind her and leaves the opposite way, making a point to turn her back to the two of you.

“I was out with Mel,” you say once Mel leaves, pushing through the doors at the opposite end of the hall.

Abby raises an eyebrow, letting herself be pulled closer when you tug on her hand again. “And you’re alive?”

You huff, a small smile playing on your lips. “I survived, yes.” You cup her cheek, feeling her smooth skin under your palm. “I don’t want to get into it here, though. But maybe if we got lunch? Tomorrow?”

Abby leans into your hand, lips pressing back into that little pout. It’s horribly cute.

“Why not today?” If you didn’t know any better, you’d say she was whining, but Abby Anderson does not whine. Or so she says any time you tease her for it.

“I have work in a few hours and want to shower and rest beforehand.” Your thumb sweeps over her jaw, across her bottom lip where it juts out slightly. “Need to give my leg a break.”

A small kiss is pressed to your thumb, then a dull pressure as Abby nips at it.

“And this is why I’m saying tomorrow,” you scold playfully, dragging your thumb across her bottom lip. “I have a break in my shifts tomorrow, so you’ll get me for a couple of hours if you want to come over. We can grab some food, and I can fill you in on everything.”

You lean in, pressing a lingering kiss to her pursed lips. You’re both conscious of being out in the hallway, so you pull back all too soon. Abby still pushes back in for another quick peck, hand coming up to wrap around your wrist, holding it gently.

“Okay,” she sighs, breath fanning over your palm. “Tomorrow.”

⸙

Lunch doesn’t go exactly to plan.

You’d met Abby down in the caf, making small talk in line as you waited for your turn to order. Chicken noodle soup was on the menu today, the perfect meal for this particularly cold day.

Your soup now sits forgotten on the dining table, cooling off in the bag Abby used to transport it back to your room.

You also sit on the table, perched on the edge, Abby standing between your spread legs as you kiss.

One of your hands is caught up in her hair, the other pressed behind you, holding you up as Abby leans over you. She’s got a hand on your lower back and the other holding your side, thumb smoothing along your ribs. The kiss is slow, languid, feeling each other as your tongues touch, exploring.

Soft sighs and quiet moans occupy the space between you, the air getting heavier with your warmth. She feels so nice to touch, broad but soft, angles that curve and smooth under your hands. She’s lovely and beautiful and you want her as close to you as possible.

You shift towards the edge of the table, clenching your thighs around her own. Her hand snakes down from your lower back to hold one of your thighs, picking it up and pulling you closer. She hooks it up around her hip, and you can’t help the sigh that tumbles from you lips at the friction. There’s a warmth blooming between your thighs, a low thrum that has you melting against her.

Abby strays from your lips, slowly working her way down your jaw, smirking as you tilt your head to the side, giving her room to mouth at your neck.

“Abby…” Your nails dig into the wood of the table as she slides her tongue along your pulse point, sucking the skin into her mouth. “C-Careful,” you stutter, voice hiccupping as she moves on, grazing her teeth over a particularly sensitive spot. “Don’t leave more marks… embarrassing at work.”

“Nothing they haven’t seen already,” she murmurs, pinching the skin between her teeth.

A moan hitches your breath as you grip the hair tangled between your fingers, tugging. Why was that so hot?

“M’being serious.” You pull her up by her hair, butting your foreheads together. “Not where people can see.”

Abby’s smirk widens, pressing her lips back to your own as her hand wanders back down your thigh. “Okay, okay. Sorry.”

“S’okay”, you laugh, gasping as her hand gropes at your ass, using it to pull you impossibly closer. You sling your other leg around her, hooking your ankles together behind her, dragging her in to kiss her deeply.

The thumb that’s been brushing along your ribs inches slowly higher, and she can feel the way your breathing picks up under her palm. You bite back a noise when she runs it along the underside of your breast, sparks blooming and tingling down to your fingertips. She doesn’t stop there though, continuing higher and higher until she’s circling your nipple, feeling it pebble and harden through the cup of your bra.

“Oh,” you gasp, pressing your chest against her own, seeking more of the featherlight touch. Abby hums, hand shifting to cup you properly, thumb and forefinger slowly working you over.

You can’t help the hitch in your hips, the way you grind up against her. Abby groans into the kiss, pushing it past your lips, shuddering at the friction. She presses forwards, using her height to pin your hips to the table, starting a steady roll against them.

The way you have your legs spread wide to fit her already has the seam of your pants digging delicious up against your cunt, Abby’s shallow thrusts adding to the pressure.

You’d give anything to lay out on this table and let her have her way with you, but you’re not so far gone yet to realise that’s probably not a good idea.

“We should—” A particularly sharp hitch of her hips has pressure focusing on your clit, a moan interrupting your sentence. “S-Should move to the bed… Mel will kill me if we…” you trail off, words dissolving into a soft whimper.

Abby grins against your lips, a small hum your only acknowledgment as she brings both of her hands under your thighs, gripping at the flesh as she scoops you up from the table. Your legs lock tighter around her, hands clinging onto her shoulders and the back of her head, pressing her as close as possible. She refuses to break the kiss, even as she walks you both to your bed, blindly crossing the room as she licks at the back of your teeth.

When her legs hit the frame of the bed, she lets you go, dropping you onto the mattress. You yelp as you land on your back, bouncing in place for a moment, helplessly glaring up at her. She just chuckles, kicking off her boots and crawling to meet you, your hands already coming up to grab at her face to pull her down atop of you.

She kisses you like a woman starved, like you’re the air she needs to breathe. She settles herself along your hips, legs thrown either side of you as she straddles you, careful not to burden you with her full weight. But you’re desperate for it, to feel everything, to be pinned down by her as she kisses you into oblivion.

Fingers tease under the hem of your shirt, dragging it slowly up your abdomen as she smooths her large hands along your stomach. Your muscles flex under her touch, twitching and rolling as she skims along the expanse of your torso. They inch up, up, and up until they’ve pushed your shirt to bunch up under your chin, exposing your chest to her wandering hands.

“So fucking pretty,” she murmurs as she pulls back, a string of spit snapping and falling to your chin when she looks down.

Her hands move to cup you, groping at you through the fabric of your bra. You’re helpless beneath her, left to shudder and arch against her touch, watching as she eyes you hungrily.

Abby angles her head down, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along your clavicle and sternum, any bit of exposed skin she can reach. She’s working her way down, down to where she’s pushing your tits together, exaggerating your cleavage as she teasingly thumbs at your nipples.

The sensation is dulled through the fabric of your bra, a frustrating ghost of her touch. It’s killing you, knowing exactly how those fingers feel, how good the rough pads of her thumbs would be pressing into the fat of your tits.

You arch your back more, hoping she would get the hint, but she’s too content in nuzzling against the swell of you, teeth grazing and nipping along the tops of your breasts.

Fine.

You remove your hands from where they’ve slidden down her shoulders, nails scratching along the rolling muscles of her back. She misses the touch immediately, a soft sound leaving her parted lips, the hum of it pressed into your skin. You ignore her, pressing your hands to the skin of your chest she’s not occupying, sliding them down and into your bra, scooping yourself up and out of your prison.

Abby moves, pulling back from where she was sucking a pretty pink mark into your flesh, watching with rapt attention as you expose yourself to the air, nipples getting impossibly harder from the rush of cold. You gasp, biting your lip at the sensation, the contrast between the frigid air and Abby’s hot, panting breaths that puff across your skin.

She shifts her position, settling on her forearms as she leans over you, tongue peeking out to wet her lips. Her gaze flicks up to yours, blue eyes wide and hungry, before they disappear from your view, head tilting down to suck one of your tits into her mouth.

Her tongue laves over the pebbled skin, flicking over the hardened nub with teasing strokes. It sends jolts of pleasure zipping down right to your cunt, collecting and pooling low in your gut, where your need for her builds. You can’t help but grope at your other breast as she grazes her teeth along where you’re the most sensitive, mimicking her nips and sucks with the pads of your fingers.

“Shit—Abs,” you gasp, hips stuttering up to grind against her own where she’s straddled over you. She grunts, bearing down to pin you against the mattress. It’s almost exactly what you want—what you need. If only she would just move.

“Please—"

She breaks away with a lewd smack, smirking up at you as she nuzzles your flesh, teasing. “What’s wrong, honey?”

That nickname makes you grow hotter, wetter, your underwear clinging to you as you listen to her drawl. The way a hint of an accent slips through, the one you’ve only ever heard when she’s angry or begging for you to fuck her.

“Shut up,” you groan, desperately trying to roll your hips. “You know what.”

“Do I?” Abby asks innocently, pitching her hips down, dragging them roughly along your own. She sneaks a hand up, running over the slick skin of your breast, pinching your nipple between her fingers sharply. You cry out, bringing a hand up to cover your mouth to muffle the sound as she dips down, soothing the burn with her tongue. She keeps her eyes trained on your face, that stupidly perfect smirk still on her lips.

“Abby,” you whine, throwing your head back as she sucks on you, her unoccupied hands dancing down your side, the light touch of her rough fingertips sending electric shocks through your system that make you squirm underneath her. The buckle of her pants sits cold across your stomach, stinging the hot skin of your bare stomach.

“Yeah?” She asks, muffled around her mouthful. Those blue eyes that are mostly black are trained on you, watching the way your own eyes flutter closed as she touches you, teases you.

Her hand creeps to the hem of your pants, her hips lifting just a fraction to get under herself, fingers fiddling with the button and zipper there. You nod, lips parted, letting out a sound close to a squeal when she bites you, teeth indenting around your slick breast.

“Need you to t-touch me…” you trail off, sighing as Abby kisses up your chest, hot and wet as she pops the button on your pants.

“I am touching you,” she says, chuckling as you groan, frustrated.

“You’re so annoying,” you whine, tilting your head back to give her more room to explore. You let go of yourself, hands sliding back up her shoulders, gripping the strong muscles under her shirt. You bunch at the fabric, pulling it up and up until most of her back is exposed, free for your greedy fingers to fondle and touch.

Her nimble fingers slide down the zip of your pants, the small vibration buzzing around your clit. You gasp, nails digging into Abby’s back, breath hitching as she follows the movement down, cupping your pussy over your pants.

Your hips cant up, desperately seeking that friction as she presses her strong fingers against the fabric, it tightening and straining over your cunt. It feels good, but not good enough.

“Abs— Baby, please,” you whine, hand sliding up into her hair.

“… Please, what?” You feel that fucking smirk against your neck as she grinds circles around your clit, muffled through too many layers of fabric.

You frustrated noise catches in the back of your throat, and you tug on her hair, pulling her out from her spot hiding in her neck to press your foreheads together. You’re panting, but your brows are furrowed and lips are downturned and Abby knows enough to see that she’s getting on your nerves.

She finds it difficult to feel bad though when you flutter your eyes open, black consuming them as they glare up at her, breath puffing harshly against her own parted lips.

“Stop playing dumb. T-Touch me… fuck me.”

Her throat clicks as she swallows, mouth suddenly dry. She wets her lips and presses forwards, hand dragging deliciously up to where your pants are undone, fingers teasing the hem of your underwear. “Yes, ma’am.”

It’s teasing the way she says it, but the sharp twist it sends down to your cunt has you gasping, using the hand in the back of her head to pull her down, teeth nearly clicking as you drag her into a kiss.

She grunts, shuffling her hips back to give her space to move, hooking her fingers into the waist of your pants to pull them off your hips. You give her a hand, squirming and lifting your hips to help, kicking them off your ankles and onto the floor.

She settles back, hands roaming up your naked and trembling thighs, snapping the elastic of your panties against your hip, humming at the hiss that snakes from behind your teeth and into the kiss. She indulges herself in sliding her fingers over the gusset, groaning to herself over how you’ve soaked yourself through.

“Abs—” It’s broken off and muffled, a warning between breaths. She chuckles, dragging the fabric up so it bunches and pulls between your pussy lips, that rough friction over your clit making your whine. It’s obscene, the shape of you through the thin and soaked fabric, and you can tell she wants to look so fucking bad you’ve got her in a vice grip, keeping her exactly where you want her. Keeping her on track.

She lets go, pulling away and letting the fabric loosen as she dances back to the hem, fingers finally sliding down and under the fabric, dragging them down your thighs. They only make it down that far, being far too impatient to slide her hand up, curling through the course hair she finds there, wet and clinging to your pussy.

You thrust up, unable to keep still at the feeling of her finally fucking touching you and she grins, index and ring finger sliding down on either side of your swollen clit, dipping into your folds.

“Shit,” Abby breathes, pulling away to look down at you, past your heaving chest and to where her hand disappears. “You’re soaked.”

She drags down, brushing past your clenching hole to collect the wetness there, bringing it back up to your clit where she draws light, lazy circles. Your breathing picks up, stuttering breaths and embarrassing whines getting caught in your throat as you shift your hips, thrusting against her strong hand.

Abby shifts, moving from her spot on top of you. You make a sound of protest at the loss of her weight, the hand still clinging to her shoulder trying to keep her where she is.

“I’m right here,” she shushes, moving to press along your side, arm at a much better angle now. The pressure on your clit grows, her circles tightening as she picks up speed. You gasp, the small of your back lifting from the bed as you arch, moving your upper body to tilt towards Abby. She uses this moment to slip her arm under you, holding you to her.

“There you go,” she hums, letting you drag her down to kiss her again, tongue against tongue, teeth against your lip as she nips and licks. She’s practically leaning over you again with how you’ve got her, allowing to be moved and handled exactly how you need her, letting you have your turn at being strong.

Her forearm flexes as she flicks your clit, her own cunt clenching at the messy sounds that fall from your lips.

When you begin to grow restless, she strays, leaving your pulsing clit behind to inch down, sliding home exactly where she wants to be, wants to feel. She presses, lightly, just enough to feel you flutter against her, hips shifting up to suck her in.

“Fuck—Please… please, Abby.” You’re nodding against her, tightening and scratching at her scalp, desperate noises leaving your throat as you plead, kissing her messily.

She’s gentle, sinking into you and slowly working you open, splitting you on one finger, then two. Her fingers are bigger than your own, longer and rougher, and god can you feel the difference.

You writhe beneath her, breaking away from her lips to hide away in her neck, mouthing hotly at the skin there, inhaling her scent.

“Fucking look at you,” she murmurs, enraptured with the way your body moves against her, the way your hips just cant stay still. “So desperate for it.”

You whimper, nodding against her neck with a mumble of “--yes, yes, just for you.” against her warm, freckled skin.

She quickens her pace, massaging your velvety walls as she sinks in deeper each time, working to that one spot inside you that she knows you’ll go crazy for. Her fingertips brush it, gummy and soft and you tense, a whiny gasp catching and fizzling in your throat.

“Right there—shit, holy shit—” You cling onto her desperately, gripping the bundle of fabric of her shirt in your fist. It’s maddening, the way her fingers reach so deep inside you, deeper than you can ever get by yourself, fucking against that one spot that has you seeing stars.

“Fuck,” she hisses when your teeth lock around her shoulder, biting down with an especially loud, muffled, moan.

Your legs widen, hips thrusting up and she hooks one of her strong thighs over your own, keeping you spread for her.

“A-Abby…” you whine, voice breaking and hiccupping as she fucks into you.

She licks her lips, breaths panting out as she watches her fingers disappearing inside your pussy, hears the lewd slap of her palm. She’s transfixed with the way your tits bounce as you thrust against her, fucking yourself on her hand.

“You’re so—” She grunts, interrupting herself to curl her fingers inside you on purpose, massaging at your g-spot just to hear you wail against her throat. She chuckles, breathless. “You’re so fucking hot like this.” Her fingers leave you to rub your arousal up your folds, the slick noises making your ears turn red as she plays in it, rubbing back down to thrust back into you. “You’re a mess.”

Slipping her thumb up, she brushes along your clit, circling it as she fucks you. It’s like touching a live wire, a cry leaving your lips as that heat in your gut swirls and swirls, cunt clenching around her fingers with an iron grip. “Oh fuck oh fuck…”

“Shit,” Abby swears, eyes threatening to roll back in her head. “S-Sucking me in… So tight.”

She’s being so mouthy, though you can hardly process what she’s saying. The timbre of her voice, the way it husks and drawls is what you’re getting off on, the way she’s getting whiner, breathless as she watches you.

“Mmph--!” You bite her shoulder again, breath hot and panting against her skin. “Gonna fucking—Abs, gonna cum—”

“Yeah?” She swallows, feeling the saliva pool in her mouth at the thought. “Gonna cum for me, pretty girl? Cum all over my fingers?”

You hiccup as you try to swallow, try to breathe, but it feels like all the air has been punched out of your lungs. You buck your hips, no rhythm left as you clench around Abby’s digits, something snapping in your gut as you cry out. Your body tenses, holding still as she keeps fucking into you, the slap of her hand meeting your pussy as you gush around her, soaking her fingers.

It gets too much, her still thumbing at your clit and you bring a hand down, muffling a whimper as you lock around her wrist. “S-Slow…” It’s all you can say, but she understands, removing the pressure from your clit and slowing her pace down, lazily fucking you through the high, hips canting up in shallow thrusts to meet her.

She slows to a stop when you sigh, hips twitching one last time before you collapse back, slumping against her.

A kiss is pressed to the top of your head, then another to your temple. They move down and across the side of your face as Abby pulls out, sweet and comforting. You whimper at the loss, moving with her to keep her inside but you shiver and fall back, legs like jelly.

“Did real good, honey,” she praises, the words blanketing you in warmth. You pull back slightly from her neck to look up at her, just in time to catch her dragging her fingers across her lips, into her the warm cavity of her mouth.

Your eyes widen, lips parting as you watch her, heart thudding in your chest as that familiar churning in your gut stirs, cunt clenching at the sight.

She catches your eye, dragging her fingers out with a wet smack, wiping them on her cargos. “What?”

You pull her in, kissing her deeply and licking that taste off her tongue, sighing into her mouth. “You’re making me go crazy,” you murmur, pulling her to lay back on top of you.

“Sorry,” she apologises, but by the way she nips at you teasingly, the stretch of her smirk on her lips, you can tell she’s not.

You’re laying against her chest afterwards, back pressed against her chest, her chin hooked over your shoulder. After a few minutes of catching your breath and soft kisses, Abby had gotten to work, gently cleaning you up and righting your clothes. Your pants still lay discarded on the floor, but the feeling of Abby’s hands smoothing up and down the bare skin makes you hesitant to put them back on.

“So where did you even go?” She asks, the rumble of her voice vibrating along your back. She watches as you play idly with her hand, turning it over and flexing her fingers. “What happened?”

“I came home to a note from Mel, asking me to meet her at the gates,” you begin to explain. “She wanted to talk.”

“And?”

“We left the stadium. It was a bit of a hike, but she took me to this place where she and Owen go a lot on their days off. An old aquarium down by the harbour.”

You can feel the muscles under you tense, her hand stilling in your lap where you’re fiddling with it. You tilt your head, pulling back from her chest to look at her.

“Abby?”

She blinks, snapping back from wherever she went. “Hm?”

“You okay?” One of your hands comes up to her cheek, fingertips brushing over it. You can feel the way her tongue moves in her mouth, running along her back teeth.

She nods. “I’m fine.”

You’re not so sure, but you know you won’t get much from her. “Okay…”

She squeezes your hand reassuringly, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“The aquarium?” It’s tense when she says it, like she’s holding something back. You want to pry it from her, know what’s making her act so strangely, but she’s got this guarded. You’d have better luck reading her mind.

So, you just nod, tentatively settling back in against her. “She showed me around and stuff, and then we went and just… talked.”

“About what?”

“Everything. The fight, why she reacted the way she did.” You hesitate, the words stuttering on the tip of your tongue. “You.”

“Me?” She shifts, looking down at you.

You shrug, pulling her hand up to rest against your chest, against your heart. “It was kind of hard not to.”

Her hand twitches in yours.

“So… what? You sat and talked it all out and now you’re friends again?”

You frown. “I mean, yeah? I guess.” That sick feeling of uncertainty bubbles low in your gut, makes your pulse race just a bit faster.

Abby scoffs, the action puffing a breath of air onto your neck, making you shiver. “Sure.”

“Hey.” You move, sitting up from her chest and turning to face her, hand still clasped to your chest. She moves with you, not wanting to let you go, to stray too far from her. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Just… hard to believe.” Her face is neutral, the tensing of her jaw as she grits her back teeth the only give away to how she’s actually feeling.

“Why?”

Abby’s expression shifts, a flicker of a scowl. “I don’t need to tell you why.”

You sit back, resting on your calves as you hold her wrist gently, fingers running along her pulse. Her gaze is unwavering, and it’s making you sweat, wanting to look away or apologise. But you don’t.

“Abby,” you start, pressing a small kiss to the back of her hand, locking your fingers together. “I think maybe we should talk.”

She sits a bit straighter at that, expression quickly changing to something more guarded, more concerned. “What about?”

A breath, a chance to back out.

“What happened with you and O—”

“No.”

It freezes you, almost stuns you a bit.

“What?” You ask, dumbly, not having expected her to shut you down so quickly.

She slips her hand out from yours, pulling it back towards her.

“We’re not doing…” She waves the hand in front of her, gesturing to the air between you, “…this right now.”

“But, I think—"

“What?” She interrupts, gaze steely. “Mel didn’t tell you? When you were talking about me?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Then how was it.” Her arms cross over her chest, muscles shifting and making her look bigger, more intimidating. She stares you down, nose slightly wrinkled as she frowns.

“We just— She explained her side of things, why she was so upset. She talked about the fight you too had about a year ago. That’s all.”

She scoffs at that, eyes rolling. “Right. ‘That’s all’, as if it isn’t my business.”

“It’s her business too,” you argue, sitting up straighter. Your cheeks feel hot, the air feels thinner. “And it’s not like you were going to tell me anything.”

“Because I don’t have to. You aren’t involved.”

“I become involved the second you started coming over, when we started hiding stuff from Mel. You and I both knew she wasn’t going to like whatever this is, I just didn’t know why.” You pull your legs from under you, pulling them up to your chest.

“Whatever this is?” She asks, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This.” You gesture between you, much like Abby before. “Us. What we’re doing.”

She pauses, brows furrowing as she looks at you, genuine confusion morphing her features. “Us going out?”

It’s your turn to pause, breath hitching in your throat. “Is that what this is?”

“Yeah? Aren’t we—aren’t you, like… my girlfriend?” She’s almost shy when she says it, having to push the words out. Not out of embarrassment of you, but almost like the words are too intimate to be said out loud.

“When…” You rack your brain, thinking back. “When did that happen?”

“When you came over? After your fight with Mel. What’re you talking about?” She asks, a twinge of hurt coating her words.

“What are you talking about? We never—I mean, we haven’t—”

Abby stills, eyes clouded with understanding. “Oh.”

You both sit there, marinating in the silence that follows.

She clears her throat. “I guess I just-- We’ve…” she pauses, eyes flicking to the pants discarded on the floor. “… we’ve been spending so much time together, having dinner and shit, so I thought—”

You blink, rubbing at your forehead as you try and get your thoughts in order.

“Abs, I’m not saying I don’t want to be, because fuck do I want to,” you breathe out, looking up at her. “But we haven’t talked about it properly. We’ve just kind of been… doing.”

Abby huffs, the ghost of a laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

You nudge her with one of your feet, sliding it across the covers. “You know what I mean.”

The silence returns, stretching thin between the two of you, thoughts racing in your heads.

“You’ve been calling me your girlfriend this whole time?” You ask.

You watch as her ears grow hot and she looks away, drawing one of her own legs up, a protective barrier between the two of you, Between her and possible rejection. “I haven’t really—I don’t talk to people about my personal shit but, yeah.” She picks at her pants, a loose thread around one of the pockets near her knee. Her voice is uncharacteristically small as she says, “Sorry if that was… stupid or something.”

You shake your head, shifting closer to her. “It’s not. But usually you have to ask the girl you like if you want her to be your girlfriend.” You smile, sheepish and teasing, knowing that sympathy would just embarrass her more in this situation. Your own flush works up on your cheeks-- heart beating a little faster, like you can feel it in your throat.

Abbys gaze flicks to you, jumping from point to point along your face. She leans into you, unconsciously or not. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, so close it fans over her lips.

A hand coming up, fingers brushing over your jaw ever so lightly. Confidence blooms in her, revived from where it had wilted. It shimmers in her eyes, beautiful and addictive. “Well, I better go ask her then...”

You lean into her touch, eyes fluttering. “You should. Shouldn’t leave her guessing.”

“Hm,” she hums as she leans closer, lips brushing. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

You’re nodding, heart beating faster. “Of course, stupid.” Leaning the rest of the way, you shift on your knees to kiss her.

You kiss, sweet and languid, sighing as that warmth fills you, the buzz from before, the tingles that chase all the way to the ends of your fingertips. You shift and move, half leaning across Abby’s front, hands placed against her chest as you lean up against her.

“I’m sorry,” Abby murmurs, in between presses of your lips. “For snapping at you.”

You breathe out, pulling away to look at her. She has that wrinkle in her brow, her jaw tensing as she looks away. You reach your hand up, palm cupping her cheek, thumb swiping under her eye. She closes them, tilting her head into your hand.

“You’re alright. But I do think we should talk.” She tenses under you-- you can feel it at every point where you touch. “Not right now,” you rush out, Abby relaxing a fraction. “Later. When you’re ready.”

She lets out the breath she’d been holding, deflating under you. You pull her head down, pressing a tender kiss to that furrow in her brow. “Okay?”

“… Alright.”

She looks apprehensive still when she opens her eyes. Unsure. You know you’re asking a lot from her, but you hope that she trusts you enough to let you in.

“Hey.” You kiss her lips, noses bumping against one another, distracting her from her thoughts. “Do you want your gifts?”

She perks up a bit, curious eyes sparkling, that frown smoothing out. “Gifts?” Her head tilts, and it takes everything in you to not tell her how much she looks like a puppy in this moment.

“Mmhm,” you nod, kissing her once more before sitting up. Her hands stay connected to you, not willing to fully let you go.

You lean over her on the bed, down to where your duffel lays. Its half kicked under the bed, contents spilling out of it. The pants you wore yesterday were shoved in the top, wanting to do this load of laundry separate from your main due to the smell.

A hand drifts slowly down from your back as you lean down, thighs clenching together as it settles over the covered flesh of your ass.

“That’s not what I was talking about,” you say, rummaging around in the pockets of pants, finding the keychain and coin buried within.

You lever yourself back up, moving to kneel again. Abby’s hand still on your ass, she pulls you in, bundling you on her lap. You giggle as she shuffles you around, ducking your head to not hit the top slats of the bunk. You settle, legs caging her in on either side, perched comfortably inn her lap.

“Don’t get too excited, it’s nothing crazy.” You feel the need to preface, downplay the items in your hands.

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” she says, hands on your hips, thumbs working along the fat there.

“Hands out, eyes closed.”

She only removes one of her hands, the other squeezing you gently from it’s spot, like it’s welded there. She holds it up between you, palm flat and facing the ceiling. Her blue eyes slowly shut, looking at you until the last second.

Her lashes brush across the tops of her cheeks, littered with freckles and tiny, silver scars. The light of the room cast shadows across her face, highlighting her prominent nose and the soft curve of her jaw. A couple of strands of hair hang in her face, curling along her temples, accentuating her cheekbones.

She grunts in surprise when you kiss her, a sweet peck on her lips. They twitch up, a smile gracing her features.

“Was that one of my gifts?”

“No.” You sit back, setting back on her thighs. “Just thought you looked handsome.”

She swallows, neck muscles tensing with the movement. A steady heat rises up her neck and across her face, darkening her tan. “Thanks,” she mumbles, flustered.

Smiling, you hold up the keychain, shaking it a bit to get the glitter and starfish moving before settling it in her palm.

“Okay, you can open your eyes.”

She blinks them open, pupils contracting in the light as she looks down. The keychain, her name surrounded by a swirling background of golden glitter sits pretty. You feel nervous, scared she won’t like it. It’s silly. This is your thing, she doesn’t care—

“You found my name?” She asks, smiling as she picks it up with her other hand, holding it up to the light, watching the starfish swirl in its tank.

“It was the last one,” you say, looking shyly between her and the keychain. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” she says immediately, looking back to you. Her eyes are gooey and warm, her hand resting back on your hip. “Thank you. I’ll put it on my gym bag so I don’t lose it on patrol.”

You flush. “You don’t actually have to use it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She asks, genuinely.

You shrug, shy, looking down at the keychain, watching the glitter slowly sink to the bottom. “It was more of a ‘thinking of you’ gift than a practical one…”

She smiles, hooking the clasp around one of her fingers, letting it dangle. “Well, I’m using it.” Abby leans in, kissing you. “And you can’t stop me.”

You can’t help but smile, watching her shake the keychain once more before putting it in her pocket.

“I have something else.”

She raises an eyebrow, lips twitching. “Eyes closed?”

“I worked hard for this one, don’t spoil it.”

She closes her eyes, holding that same hand out, fingers twitching slightly as she waits.

You place the coin in the centre of her palm, warm from your own, plain face up, the fox hidden underneath.

“I don’t know if you have this one already, but...”

She opens one eye, peeking down at her palm before opening both. She doesn’t know what she’s looking at at first, but then her eyes widen slightly, looking up at you, then back to the coin. She shifts it in her grip, flipping it over to take in the fox, the 2002, the Mississippi stamped along the top.

“Holy shit,” she whispers, holding it closer to her face, looking at the details. “I don’t have Mississippi, yet.” She shakes her head, almost in disbelief. “Can’t believe you found one. I’ve been having no luck for weeks.”

You let out a small breath, relieved. “I’m glad. I dug through two whole registers worth of coins. I think my hands still smell like copper.”

The way Abby looks at you, you hardly know how to deal with it. You’ve seen her look at you like this before, soft and affectionate, but this— this is so much more than that. It makes your heart thump like crazy, breath stuttering.

You fall back with a yelp, Abby taking you down with her as she pushes forwards, careful to not put too much of her body weight on you. Giggles escape you as she kisses messily all up the side of your face, pressing her nose along your skin. You wrap yourself around her, arms coming up to loop around her neck.

“Thank you,” she muffles against your cheek.

“i did good?” You ask, locking eyes with her when she pulls back.

“You did.” She smiles, genuine and beautiful, nearly a grin.

You smooth her hair back, scratching your nails along the scalp. She hums, closing her eyes at the feeling and slumping down, burying her face in your neck.

“How much longer do I have you to myself?”

You tilt your head to glance at the clock on the bedside table.

“Another 2 hours.”

She breathes out, settling in, rolling the two of you over so you’re on your sides. “Good.”

“Abby, our food—”

“We can reheat it.” She murmurs, moving so that one of her arms is laid out across the bed, her bicep at the perfect height for you to rest your head against. “Just lay with me for a bit longer.”

You huff, a tiny laugh, settling down against her, tucking against her chest.

“Okay. Just a bit longer.”

⸙

The mess hall is busy this time of day, just before twelve when all the major shift changes happen. It’ll be a revolving door of starving soldiers, lookouts, medics, and farmers for the next few hours until it slows down, just to pick up again around dinner.

You try to avoid coming here when it’s so busy, but your shift just ended and you’ve been on since midnight, not having a chance to sneak away for a single bite to tide you over.

It’s rice and beans today, something plain but filling so that when you scarf it down you won’t die. The stall also had the shortest line, which was more of a deciding factor than anything else.

The container sits warm in your hands as you scan the busy room, hoping for a spot at a table with people who look vaguely friendly, or someone getting up to leave.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot a crop of brown hair and familiar kind eyes crinkled in laughter, over at a table off to your right. You let out a relieved huff. Owen. He’ll let you sit with him.

As you work through the crowd you spot more people at the table, a few you vaguely recognise from prior lunches, but two that you know incredibly well. Manny sits next to Owen, facing you, dark hair pulled back and beard freshly clipped. He’s got his arm wrapped around Owen, laughing together about something.

Across from them, a strong back that you know quite intimately facing you, is Abby. She’s hunched over her food, legs spread wide across the bench seat. She paints a pretty picture, and you have to give yourself a second to calm down, remind yourself that you’re in public before you head over.

“—we nearly left him behind. He was running behind the truck waving for us to slow down, and every time we’d stop so he could catch up, we’d drive away again before he could hop in,” Manny laughs, grinning as he looks over at Abby. “You remember this?”

She scoffs, shaking her head. “Yeah, I also remember getting in trouble for wasting time.”

You shove yourself beside Abby, perching on the small bit of bench next to her spread thighs. “Abigail Anderson getting in trouble? What has this world come to.”

Abby barely startles, fork scraping against her bowl at your appearance giving it away, whipping her head over to glare at you. “What the f—” She stops, eyes softening slightly when she recognises your teasing grin. “Oh, hi.”

You laugh, nudging her shoulder with your own. “Shove over, you’re hogging the bench.”

“Well sorry,” she says, playfully rolling her eyes as she scoots over, giving you room. It’s not a whole lot, and your arms bush against each other as you move, but neither of you say anything.

“Hey, doc.” Manny greets, giving you a tiny salute and a knowing grin.

“Manny, hey,” you smile back, looking over to him. “Owen, long time no see.”

“I know, sorry. Duty calls and all that.” He smiles back at you, apologetic.

“No sweat, I get it. Haven’t exactly been very social, either.” You shrug, shifting your container down in front of you, pulling your spoon from your pocket and digging it into your rice.

“Where’d the hell did you get that from?” Abby asks, looking down at your container.

“Uh…” You twist your body, pointing over your shoulder to one of the kitchens next to the makeshift thrift shop, over at the back of the hall. “Over there. The line was the smallest.”

Abby turns to look with you. “Shit. I always forget that place is there. I waited in line for fifteen minutes for a salad,” she grunts, tapping her fork on the edge of her bowl. It makes a fragile ringing sound that gets swallowed up by the rest of the noise in the mess hall.

“Tony’s salads are good though. There’s a reason there’s always a line,” you say, picking up a spoonful of rice and beans and lifting it to your mouth.

Abby watches your movements from the corner of her eye, stuck on the steam rising from the spoon.

You pause, looking over at her and huffing a laugh, lowering the spoon from your mouth. “You’re drooling, Abs.”

“No, I’m not.” She wipes at her mouth anyway despite her protest, grunting. She looks away, frowning down at her wilting salad.

“You want to swap?”

She peeks over, checking if you’re serious. You roll your eyes and smile, eating the mouthful already piled on the spoon before sliding the container over, grabbing her salad bowl and dragging it back towards you.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” You interrupt, quieting her protests.

That was a lie. You didn’t really want to swap, but Tony’s salads are good, and you don’t think you could put up with a whole lunch watching her pout like that.

“Thank you,” she mumbles, picking up your discarded spoon and planning her mouthful. You feel her leg nudge against your own, her foot moving to hook around your ankle, hidden beneath the cover of the table.

You dig into your salad, humming as you take your first bite, covering your smile.

“Since when did you two become so friendly?” Owen pipes up, looking between the two of you over his canteen. He’s teasing, meant it as a joke, but you can feel the shift in the air.

Abby tenses beside you, leg moving away from where she’s hooked it around your own. You look to her, mouth still full of lettuce as you chew, checking in on her. She’s not looking at you, just at Owen.

It’s been a week since you tried to talk to Abby about what happened, why things ended between her and Owen. And while she hasn’t come to talk to you yet, keeping everything close to her chest, you can tell that she’s been thinking it over. It’s like you’ve pulled it to the forefront of her mind, and she can’t get it to fully go away.

This right now? It isn’t helping.

“What, I can’t have friends?” she asks, digging around in the bowl for another spoonful. She chews on it angrily, not looking away from Owen.

Manny clears his throat, shifting in his seat, looking between the two of them. Mediating from a distance.

Owen blinks, lowering his canteen. “I didn’t say that. Of course you can have friends.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“There is no issue.” He clarifies, not backing down from her. You can tell he’s used to this, her attitude. Handling Abby when she gets like this. “You’re just… busy all the time. You both are.”

“So?” Abby’s barely blinked, spoon hanging in the air between the bowl and her mouth.

“So, I didn’t realise you two had time to hang out.” Owen shifts, addressing you now. “I mean, I only really see you during meals.”

Oh, Owen.

You can’t help but wince. You may not know the whole story, but you remember enough from what Mel has told you to know that that was not the thing to say.

“Wonder why.” Abby grunts to your right, unable to hide the roll of her eyes.

Owen shifts back, hands vaguely gesturing in front of him. He looks from her to you, and your eyes widen a fraction as he drags you into this further. “What did I do?”

“I don’t—” You make eye contact with Manny, cutting off your sentence when you see him shake his head slightly.

“Just butt out of it, Owen.” Abby drops her spoon in the container, spilling some rice onto the table. A single bean comically tumbles out, bouncing to rest in the table between you all.

A beat.

A second one.

A third.

“Fine. I don’t know why I even bother, sometimes.”

Owen stands up, taking his canteen and his trash from the table, stepping over the bench to leave. Apart from a quiet “See you later, man” from Manny, nobody says anything.

Manny looks silently between the two of you, you focus your gaze on the lone bean in the middle of the table. The other half of your group have turned away from the three of you, trying their best to stay out of whatever was going on here.

Abby sniffs, picking her spoon back up and digging into her food.

You drag your gaze back to Abby, studying her side profile. She’s tense, her whole body is as she chews, glaring down at the empty spot that Owen left. You swallow, hesitant as you reach out, placing a hand on her arm.

“You okay?”

She stills, looking down into her food. One of her hands comes up, scrubbing at her forehead as she sighs. “Yeah. Just— not in the mood.”

You pull your hand back, nodding. “That’s okay.”

She takes only one more bite of her food before she stands up abruptly, pushing the container away from herself. “Got training. I’ll see you later.”

You’re not sure who she’s talking to when she says that, but she doesn’t say anything else as she leaves, boots stomping on the concrete beneath her as she departs. You watch her exit through one of the double doors to the stairwell, door slamming shut behind her.

It’s just you and Manny left, sitting quietly at the table, food forgotten between you.

“She really likes you, you know.”

You look up at Manny, slightly startled by the break in the silence. He’s smiling, something small, comforting.

Warm.

“You’re all she talks about. I think I’ve learned more about you from her than yourself.” He chuckles lightly. You give in, smiling shyly and laughing along.

It quiets quickly once more once the laughter dies out. You chew on your lip, thinking, mulling over your words.

“She won’t talk to me. I’ve been trying to get her to open up about what happened with Mel and Owen, but she won’t.”

“Ah.” Manny folds his arms across the table, leaning closer to you, settling in for this discussion. “Do you know any of what happened?”

You nod, just the once. “Mel told me some stuff; about the fight they had. But she told me I’d have to ask Abby about the rest. About what happened between her and Owen.”

He hums, nodding as he listens, scratching at his beard.

“Abby is… she is a very private person. Has a lot going on up here.” He taps his temple. “It’s made her life difficult, and unfortunately has a lot to do with what happened between her, Owen, and Mel. It’s hard for her to… untangle it.

“Her anger, it’s not really about her and Owen, but also is at the same time.”

You sit there, trying to wrap your head around what he’s telling you. It’s kind of difficult to understand, but you think you get it. Kind of.

“Do you think I should ask again? I’ve given her time to come to me, but she hasn’t, and I think it’s really getting to her. Eating away at her”

Manny frowns, giving you a helpless shrug. “I wish I could tell you. But if she’s going to talk to anyone, it will be you. Depending on when you ask her.”

You sigh, letting out all your breath. You look down at your salad, no longer feeling hungry.

“Thanks, Manny.”

“De nada. Don’t let it get to you.” He reaches out, taking your hand. “Like I said, she is obsessed with you. None of this anger is for you.” He squeezes gently, reassuring.

Deep down you know this, know that Manny is right. But there is a part of you that can’t help but take this somewhat to heart.

And while you would never want her to feel like she has done the wrong thing by wanting to keep the things that trouble her close to her chest, you want so desperately to be the kind of person she trusts with those things, the one she goes to.

You just hope that one day she’ll feel comfortable enough to open up to you, even just a little bit.

«« previous ꩜ next »»

#abby anderson #abby tlou #abby the last of us #abby anderson tlou2 #abby anderson x reader #abby x reader #abby tlou x reader #abby anderson smut #the last of us #tlou #the last of us part 2 #tlou2 #abby tlou2 #the last of us x reader #tlou x reader #reader insert #x reader #ao3 #peach glaze writes

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foone · 1 year ago

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Apollo 19 on approach to the unknown Soviet module

You could cut the tension with a knife. Mission Control is furiously chewing gum, like only a man whose recently been told he's not allowed to smoke in here can. The screen is showing mostly static, but there's enough visibility to see that it's definitely a Soviet module that the Apollo 19 mission is approaching.

Albertson, a young guy of about 22, comes in with a couple binders. "I've got those mission briefs, sir." "Great, great. Chaffee is almost close enough to read the insignia, and then we can figure this crap out." Another phone rings. He ignores it. This mission is screwed up enough without some white house bureaucrat breathing down his neck.

Chaffee's radio signal lights up. "I'm close enough to read the markings. It looks like it's C-O-Ю-З... 2. Over." and a burst of static.

Albertson drops a binder on the floor, the sound making everyone jump, like the Space module a hundred miles over their head might jump out and bite them. Control spots the right binder among the ones still perched on the desk, and grabs it himself.

"Here it is. Soyuz 2, launched back in '68, unmanned. It was supposed to be docked with Soyuz 3, but they gave up and the mission was a failure. Says here that it deorbited 28th of October, 1968. Huh..."

He looks up at the big clock on the wall. It's 9:18 AM, 3rd of July... 1972.

He motions to Stevenson. "Give him the go-ahead. He should know how to open the hatch, we covered this in training." He zones out as Stevenson relays the information. What in the Sam Hill is a Soviet rocket doing in lunar orbit, nearly four years after the blasted thing is supposed to have landed? Did the commies cover up what they were really doing with this rocket? Is his information wrong? Is the damn CIA lying to them again?" and he reaches into his shirt for a pack of smokes that isn't there, for about the 14th time today. He's shaken back to reality by the image showing up on the screen: There's a Krechet-94 spacesuit in the module. There's only one reason a spacesuit would be in an "unmanned" module... this mission wasn't as unmanned as everyone says.

On the screen, Chaffee is reaching into the cramped pod. The suit's sun visor is down, thankfully, he's happen for one less scare today. Chaffee is looking at the suit's indicators, but they're all blank. If someone was alive in there... they aren't anymore. He fumbles with the bottom of the helmet's gold-colored visor, and Control vaguely hears Stevenson relaying to Chaffee that there should be two plastic clips by the bottom which can be used to raise the sun visor. Chaffee gets it, and slowly raises the visor. The death's head, the smiling skull... it's always an almost comical image, even when you rationally know that a skeleton is the result of a living and breathing person who has died and decayed. Control saw plenty of dead bodies back in the war, but usually they weren't this far gone.

Chaffee cuts in on the mic, saying the obvious. Yep, Houston, if you can't see this... it's a skeleton. He says he'll check the uniform for a name. Behind Control, Albertson finally stands back up and ends up dropping the binder all over again, and this time even more people jump. "My god!" he nearly shouts. Control needs a cigarette more than ever.

Albertson peers past Control at the screen. "The Soviets... were sending skeletons into space?"

Control tells Stevenson to take over, he needs to make a call. It's a lie, there's no call, he's just not going to make it through today without a smoke break. And as for Albertson... "Albertson, get the hell out of here. You're too damn stupid to be working at NASA. No, they didn't launch skeletons, you complete... GAH."

The mission carries on. Control gets his cigarette. Albertson goes off to be a fool somewhere else.

#my writing #smoking cw

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onlinewordworld · 1 year ago

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Circa 1890 American wall clock by Seth Thomas

Circa 1890 American wall clock by Seth Thomas of Thomasson Connecticut. Completely original and it’s oak case and striking hours and half hours on a gong. 8 Day duration and just serviced. Even has its original makers case sticker and Winding Key…….£1245.

For the finest Antique Clocks at the right price and the best customer sevice in the UK. Plus free storage and safe specialist delivery.

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lanalosty0uu · 3 days ago

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⋆.˚ chapter vi: should i stay or should i go? ᝰ.ᐟ

previously on: 🕰️ BACK TO THE FUTURE 🕰️

"I don't understand... what and where is Hawkins Lab, and how is this lab related to my 'time machine'?"

You recalled the movie Back To The Future. Sure, that movie has a scientist in it, Dr. Emmet Brown. But you don't recall anything about a lab or an organization being involved with it. As far as you know, time travel even should be kept as a classified thing, not being exposed to some organization.

Dustin, Steve, and Robin stole glances with each other. "The Upside Down." They said in unison, leaving you confused.

⋆.˚. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.⊹₊ˎˊ˗

main masterlist!

pairing: steve harrington x fem! reader

warnings: slight cussing

⋆.˚. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.⊹₊ˎˊ˗ ⋆.˚. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.⊹₊ˎˊ˗ ⋆.˚. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊

The drive to the outskirts of Hawkins was eerily quiet, the weight of their discovery hanging between them. The further they went, the more the streetlights became sparse, until they finally reached the edge of town. The factory loomed before them—an industrial skeleton left to rot, its rusted metal siding peeling away, exposing the bones of a forgotten past. The towering smokestacks stretched into the night sky like spires of a ruined kingdom, and the shattered windows stared back at them like vacant eyes.

Dustin was the first to step out, gripping his flashlight with both hands. “Okay, this is... uh- objectively terrifying,” he muttered, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Robin tugged her jacket tighter around herself. “Why do all government-cover-up places have to be so creepy?”

You stepped out of the car last, your fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the pocket watch. The moment you all arrived, you felt it—the same strange pull in yout chest you had felt the night she first touched the watch. A soft hum vibrated against yor palm, so faint that you weren't sure if it was real or just in your head.

Steve glanced over at you, his eyes sharp even in the dim light. “You good?”

You swallowed. “Yeah… I think so.” But you wasn’t sure.

The gang climbed through a gap in the rusted fence, stepping carefully over broken glass and debris. Inside, the air was thick with dust and something else—something metallic, almost electric. The deeper they went, the more suffocating the silence became.

“Alright, let’s split up and-”

“Nope, absolutely not,” Robin interrupted Steve, shaking her head. “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that’s a terrible idea.”

Steve sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “Fine. We stick together. Just… keep your eyes open.”

They moved deeper into the factory, their flashlights cutting through the darkness. Old workstations stood frozen in time, rusted machinery covered in layers of dust. In the center of the massive warehouse floor was what looked like a broken-down assembly line. A large, rusted clock was embedded into the wall above it, its hands frozen at 3:12.

Dustin stepped forward, shining his flashlight at a control panel covered in old documents. “This must’ve been where they ran the machines,” he mumbled, flipping through the papers. He paused when he found something, a thick, leather-bound journal. “Guys, I think this belonged to Harold Whitlock.”

The moment you stepped closer, the watch in your hand pulsed. A deep, low hum filled the air, and suddenly, the hands of the clock above them moved.

Robin gasped. “Did- did that just-?”

Before she could finish, the ground beneath them shook. The rattling was faint at first, but then it grew stronger, like a tremor rippling through the factory. You stumbled back, your heartbeat pounding in your ears.

Steve caught you by the arm. “What the hell was that?!”

Your grip on the watch tightened. “I- I don’t know!”

A deep, guttural sound echoed from somewhere beyond the machinery. It was distant, but it sent an icy chill down your spine. It wasn’t just the factory reacting to the watch. Something else was here.

Dustin flipped through Harold’s journal frantically, scanning the pages. “This isn’t just some old pocket watch,” he muttered, his voice rising in panic. “This thing—it’s connected to the factory. To the experiments. To the Upside Down.”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “Are you telling me this thing can open a gate?”

“I don’t know! Maybe not a gate but—”

Another low growl rumbled through the factory. This time, it was closer. The air grew frigid, and you swore you could see your breath in the dim light.

“Okay,” Robin whispered, “I officially vote that we leave.”

But you couldn’t move. The watch felt fused to your palm, pulsing like a heartbeat. You were supposed to be here. The watch had brought you here. And whatever was in the factory—it was waiting.

Steve squeezed your arm. “y/n. We need to go.”

You tore your eyes away from the rusted machinery, looking up at him. “What if this is the only way to figure out how to get me back?”

His expression hardened, a flicker of hesitation passing through his eyes. “And what if it gets us all killed?”

The growling stopped. For a moment, the only sound was the distant tick-tick-tick of the broken factory clock.

Then—silence.

You swallowed. The truth was, she didn’t know what they were walking into. But one thing was clear—this factory, the watch, and the Upside Down were all connected. And if they wanted answers, they would have to face whatever was lurking in the shadows.

Because something in this factory was waiting for them to make the next move.

And it wasn’t going to wait forever.

˗ˏˋ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹₊ ⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆.˚ ‧₊˚ ⋅ ˎˊ˗

"Okay, what the fuck was THAT?!" Robin freaked out, just like she always does. "Hello?! Explanation please, genius?!"

"Robin, calm your ass down, damnit!" Steve snapped, running his hands through his hair. Even Steve's getting pretty stressed with all this time travelling that TURNS OUT is connected to the upside down! Now, Robin's panic mode is nearly giving Steve a heart attack.

"I- I don't understand... what's the Upside Down?" You asked. Of course, you're completely clueless about the events that happened in Hawkins for years. Supernatural stuff has happened around here. You aren't aware that you just time travelled to a NOT normal place or time.

What you thought about the 80s, especially in this place now... was all wrong. You never knew that this would be one of the dark ages, especially to Hawkins. There was a gate to another dimension... another version of Hawkins, a supernatural and interdimendional version of it. Not just that. You figured that you could possibly killed by interdimensional creatures that lives in the Upside Down.

That's just what you've just figured out. But, neither any all of you know that the experiments at the factory unknowingly disturbed the natural fabric of time. This weakening of time and space contributed to the creation of the first cracks between Hawkins and the Upside Down... years before Eleven opened the first real gate.

"What did you do when you first find the watch?" Dustin asked carefully.

"I did like what any normal person would do to old stuff! Touch it, play around with it, turn or push any features it has... just that!"

Dustin think for awhile. "Maybe... the pocket watch absorbed some of this energy, making it a key artifact tied to the rift between dimensions and timelines!"

"Hey, toothless! English, please?!" Robin scowled at Dustin's choice of words.

"When y/n touch the watch, well... maybe she unknowingly activated some kind of residual energy, triggering a temporal shift that sent her to 1985."

"But, why 1985? Out of all years?" Steve wondered.

"I think... the watch didn’t just pick a random time, it likely took her to a moment where Hawkins’ time-energy disturbance was at its peak. The watch was 'searching' for a time that resonated with its energy... and 1985 was the strongest match."

"And, uhh... explanation to the wonky stuff happened in the factory, please?" Robin requested.

"The Upside Down is just simply latched onto the watch’s energy... the watch isn’t just a time-travel device anymore, Robin. it’s also a beacon, attracting the influence of the Upside Down, which is why we experienced strange shit after the watch is activated in the factory!"

"But... I never even heard about this factory in 2025! The building's not even there anymore. I barely heard shit about this town!" It is true, you don't see any tracks of the building or anything off in Hawkins in your year. Everything seemed like a peaceful and friendly town.

"Perhaps... it's because in the past, someone has done something to it... finally bringing everything down. And that someone could be-"

"Us." Dustin and Robin finished Steve's sentence.

“Alright, so we just nearly got our asses handed to us by a factory with some time-ripping energy—what now? Do we just go home and pretend we didn’t just find out that y/n is literally a walking paradox?” Robin speaks up after a pretty long silence in the car.

You, who is still gripping the pocket watch, glanced down at it. The once-golden surface now looked duller, like whatever power it held was draining. You exhaled shakily. “I don’t know… I thought all of this was just some crazy, messed-up dream. But now it’s real. And if we’re right—if the factory really was the reason Hawkins became connected to the Upside Down—then maybe… maybe this whole thing was meant to happen?”

Dustin, still deep in thought, finally spoke. “We can’t be sure of that yet. But one thing is clear: we need answers. And if no one in town talks about this place in the future, then that means we don’t have a lot of time before something big happens to erase all of this from history.”

Steve crossed his arms, his jaw tightening. “Yeah, well, I don’t like the sound of that. If history is trying to clean up its own mess, that means we’re standing in the middle of it. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather not be erased.”

Silence hung between them for a beat before Robin groaned, throwing her hands up. “Ugh, great! More life-threatening supernatural crap! Can’t we just have, like, one normal summer?”

But you weren't listening anymore. You were staring down at the watch, your fingers running over the engraved patterns along its surface. The gears inside were no longer ticking. The once-faint hum you had felt since arriving in 1985 was gone.

“Guys…” you started, your voice quieter now. “I think the watch is losing power.”

Steve’s head snapped towards you. “What do you mean? Like… it’s broken?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “But I don’t feel it anymore. Before, it was like—like a part of me knew it was still active. Like it was waiting for me to figure something out. But now… I think the factory might have changed something.”

Dustin’s expression darkened. “If the factory was the source of the disturbance in the first place, maybe us activating it again started a countdown. Maybe the watch wasn’t just a way to travel through time—it was a key to something. And now that we’ve messed with it, it could be closing the door for good.”

Robin let out a frustrated sigh. “So what, you’re saying y/n might be stuck here?”

You swallowed hard. You had dreamed about coming to the 80s, about experiencing everything you had only seen in movies or read about in history books. But being trapped here? That was something else entirely. You looked at Steve, who was already staring at you. His face was unreadable, but you could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands clenched at his sides.

“We need more information,” Dustin said, shaking his head. “The factory gave us some answers, but not enough. If the watch is tied to Hawkins, then there’s gotta be more clues somewhere. Maybe in town records, or old reports. Something.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Oh, joy. A research montage. Just what I wanted my summer to be.”

You forced a small, strained laugh. “At least I won’t have to worry about college applications anymore.”

But Steve wasn’t laughing. He was still looking at you, a thousand thoughts racing behind his eyes. If you were stuck here… what then? Would you just try to build a life in a time that wasn’t yours? Would you eventually forget about the future you had left behind? And more than that—would you forget him if you ever found a way back?

“Alright,” he said finally, shaking his head like he was clearing it of all the thoughts threatening to overwhelm him. “We should probably head back to our places and take some rest. It's been draining enough for being around in a possibly haunted time-traveling factory.”

Dustin nodded. “Agreed. Let’s regroup at Family Video tomorrow. I’ll dig around for old newspaper records, maybe find something in the library. Robin, you can help me.”

“Oh, yay,” Robin deadpanned. “More dusty books and creepy government secrets.”

Steve ignored her, turning to you. “You okay?”

You hesitated before nodding. “Yeah. Just… processing.”

He didn’t believe you. But he didn’t push. “C’mon, I’ll drive you to Robin's.”

The four of them tried to lighten up the atmosphere in the car for a bit. As for you, you tried to joined as wel but failed. There's a thought that kept on lingering on yoru head... or at least an image that is stuck in your head. A flicker of movement. A shadow shifting in the broken windows of the factory

You knew you weren’t alone. And something told you that this wasn’t over yet. But for you and your new friend's own safety, you just stayed silent.

note: alright, a new chapter! this one is a serious chapter and im sure all of u are aware of it, haha. slight tmi, i typed half of this in mcdonalds after school ends for the day and i feel like an idiot for sitting all alone, typing roughly on my laptop. but hey, nobody gives a shit! anyways, enjoy this new chapter and sooooo sorry for the really long update :<

hope y'all like it <3

taglist: taglist: @xprloki @pupwrites @gorlillaglue25 @lovestrucklyuniverse @keerysfolklore @www-interludeshadow-com @pleasantsoulcolor @mochminnie @steviespookie @damon-loves-pie @imjustdreamingig @starkleila @2602moon @negomi123 @currentresidentinhell @ucannotcompare @lilgreensunshine @talkativecarnation @bllshtbel

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simdertalia · 1 year ago

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🍎 ACNH School Set ✏️

48 Now 49 items (I added a school bell for the wall) | Sims 4, Base game compatible.

As usual, all original swatches included with lots of extras added by me! ☺️💗 I'm very excited to share the Monarch butterfly Breeding Project, which I made myself. When I was in school we raised some Monarchs and released them when they emerged & matured, it was really cool AND I love to share items that also raise some kind of awareness on important issues when the inspiration strikes me. Saving the Monarch butterflies is definitely one of them! You can read about how to help them here.

Type “ACNH School” into the search query in build mode to find quickly. You can always find items like this, just begin typing the title and it will appear.

Always suggested: bb.objects ON, it makes placing items much easier. For further placement tweaking, check out the TOOL mod.

Use the scale up & down feature on your keyboard to make the items larger or smaller to your liking. If you have a non-US keyboard, it may be different keys depending on which alphabet it uses. (I used this to "hang" the backpacks from the hook on the side of the student desk in the preview image above, for instance. To put it at the correct height, raise the backback 2 times.)

I hope you enjoy!

📁 Download all or pick & choose (SFS, No Ads): HERE

📁 Alt Mega Download (still no ads): HERE

📁 DL on Patreon

Will be public on September 29th, 2023

As always, please let me know if you have any issues! Happy Simming! 💗

✨ If you like my work, please consider supporting me

★ Patreon 🎉 ❤️ |★ Ko-Fi ☕️ ❤️ ★ Instagram📷

Thank you for reblogging ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

@sssvitlanz @maxismatchccworld @mmoutfitters @coffee-cc-finds @itsjessicaccfinds @gamommypeach @stargazer-sims-finds @khelga68 @suricringe @vaporwavesims @mystictrance15 @public-ccfinds

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wr-n · 4 months ago

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The end is never the end.

Warning: contains mind break, psychological distress, and loneliness.

Stag is Ccino

Stag rarely forgot things - he prided himself in memorizing his regular's coffee orders after all. Caramel, two shots of expresso, cream, no extra sugar.... black, exotic, decaf....

But there was one thing he didn't quite remember: Why had the clocks stopped ticking?

He changed the batteries over and over for what felt like hours and was only met with silence. What time was it? Had it really been hours?

Maybe he wasn't well enough to serve customers today. So the sign swung Closed and...

...

Silly him, he must have fallen asleep. What a strange dream about clocks and closing early. But... where are the customers?

Glancing at the clocks confirmed his greatest fears - they had stopped and left askew. He hadn't been dreaming. But then why was he in the store? Hadn't he left the building?

Met with the sudden rush of urgency, he bolted for the door, swinging it open, and...

...

He was back at the counter with his chin resting on his folded arms. How...? One thing was for sure, and that was he couldn't leave theough the front. Maybe the back door? It was worth a shot.

Making his way to the back door, he hesitantly pushed the bar to unlatch the door and...

...

He was back. He can't leave. The people! There are people outside! He could call for help! So he called and called, yelled out, screamed, and cried for anybody! Anyone who could hear him!

But it only proved fruitless. Not a single person through the frosted glass stopped. His voice was raw from effort, leaving him slumped against the display. Was this it for him?

...

The food never ran out, he found. The muffins, scones, fruits, monster candy - they all replenished somehow. Between blinks, they would reappear. The same went for the cups and napkins. Whatever was keeping him here wasn't going to let him starve...

...

Starving didn't work. He felt his last dying breaths quickly escape and return to him as if nothing had happened. He couldn't die.

He tried everything after that. Beheading, drowning, suffocating - he'd done it all.

He would not die.

...

He didn't know how long it had been. There was no night - not anymore. There is nothing to tell time by. Even if he were to try and open the doors to the outside, he wouldn't remember what he saw.

Writing on the walls would be clean the moment he looked away, messes put of cups would be tidied...

Purgatory. Perfect purgatory.

He thinks he's going to lose it.

...

Something new. Anything new was world-shattering now.

Someone. Walked. Through. The. Door.

A human man on his phone, pressed black suit and shoes, expensive watch, freshly groomed hair - but he was NEW.

He reached out to the man and begged him for help, to call the police! But the man only pushed him away and left. As much as Stag tried to follow after them... they were gone. And he was at the counter once more.

...

He thinks maybe it wasn't so bad. He could've been trapped in a gas station restroom. Or a freezer. Or a nuclear powerplant.

And hey, if someone can come in, maybe more will come.

...

Someone will come.

...

........ right?

...

The bell! A new customer!

A tall skeleton monster with a strange purple hoodie walked in.

"Heya, the names.. . . ."

#wraith notes #wraith wrotes #eldritch twins #Stag #ccino sans

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missybee-writes · 4 months ago

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Shadow in the Dark: Chapter One - Cursed

Genre: Sci-fi; Romance; Horror

Warnings: (eventual) sexual content; violence; gore; swearing; alcohol and drug use.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!OC

Summary

In July ‘85, an ambitious realtor sells the crumbling Creel house to a family looking for a new start.

Rose McAllister may be living in a grand and gothic murder house in a small Midwest town, but senior year in high school is the stuff of her nightmares: a last chance at a normal school year without being the odd one out, the sick girl, the weirdo from across the pond. Blend in, make it through the year, and make some friends. Stay unnoticed at all costs.

Hawkins, and one seriously loud-mouthed metalhead, is about to flip that carefully laid plan Upside Down.

---

Chapter two: Munson Magic

Ao3 link

---

Chapter One

Rose was fucked. Some unearthly being had marked her for disaster, she was sure of it.

“This isn’t happening, this cannot be happening,” she chanted over and over to herself. “Hawkins is way too small for us to be lost. I’m cursed. And it’s not even nine a.m.”

Her mother sighed from the driver’s seat. “You are not cursed. I just took a wrong turn at the Memorial Hospital. Maybe if I loop around...”

“How do you explain the alarm clocks? You can’t blame faulty wiring this time, all of the electrics were replaced last week.” Rose gestured wildly.

This morning she had woken slow, bleary-eyed and heavy-limbed, with the gnawing feeling in her bones that something was just wrong. Something beyond the weird disorientation of being in a new bed, and a new house. Wooden beams flexed and creaked - no surprise with half the walls stripped down to boards in the remodel - and it hit her: no radio, no cheery blast of synth or guitar or whatever popular music central Indiana’s finest radio stations had to offer, drifting from the alarm on her bedside table.

One glance at the alarm clock confirmed it; grey pixels where the neon red numbers should be. Dead. Another power cut, she thought. But no, as she sat up, brain-fogged, the light from the floor lamp still glowed buttery yellow, casting a faintly pulsing light on the faces of Simon Le Bon, David Bowie, and the newest addition to the posters that covered the exposed brick wall: Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, his rumpled shirt slightly unbuttoned, fedora askew, whip hooked on his belt.

No time to ogle Indy, she’d thrown herself from bed, a clumsy hurricane tripping, hopping and falling down the winding stairs to the second storey hall. The old clock was just about visible through the walnut bannister, its gold pendulum swinging back and forth and heralding her own personal doom: seven forty six, just fourteen minutes until Hawkins High closed its doors and classes began.

“Bollocks! Fucking hell!” She’d cried out.

One alarm clock dead? Fine, no problem, plausible. But when her mother and Jerry stumbled from the master bedroom, awakened by her foul mouth instead of their own alarm clock - which also happened to be dead, despite the rest of the electrics in the bedrooms working fine - an eerie feeling of the unnatural crept up her spine. After a manic rush to brush her teeth, grab her neatly stacked books and throw on some clothes, she found the washer dryer had stopped-mid cycle, and her carefully planned outfit options all lay in a damp, musty heap in the machine drum. It only confirmed that fate, karma, whatever one might call it, was stacked against her.

“Jerry said it might be a power surge,” her mother said, eyes on the road and foot on the gas pedal. “The plant is running on a skeleton crew until they fix the new conductor...convection...honestly, I don’t understand anything he says, but it sounds important. He’s called in additional engineers from Indianapolis to help.”

Rose chewed her lip, literally biting back the dozen denials and witty remarks that came to her mind all at once. If the power had surged, the old bulbs in the lamps should have been the first to go. But Jerry was no-man’s land in the battleground between her and her mother; though her stepfather’s goofy behaviour sometimes begged for it, he was too nice to mock. After meeting her mother two years ago, he launched an all-out campaign to win her over, bringing her tapes, magazines, and a new VHS player so they could watch her favourite films together. But most of all, he made her prim and proper mother laugh more than she had ever seen, even more than when Dad was alive. Against all odds, Rose kind of, just about, liked him.

“The teachers will understand, Rosebud. It’s your first day. And besides, you’ll only be ten minutes late.”

“Exactly,” Rose’s head thumped back on the headrest of the passenger seat. “It’s the end of the fucking world.”

The streets here were endless, a thick wall of trees speeding past in a blur of green, broken by the occasional driveways of modest one-storey homes. All unfamiliar, and strange.

They turned a corner, passing bright yellow school buses, already empty and relieved of their precious cargo, but were met with oncoming traffic and a chorus of loud car horns.

“Jesus, Mum, you’re on the wrong side of the road. Right, go right!” Rose said shrilly, panic swirling in her gut and sending her voice a few octaves too high.

A sudden jerk of the wheel had the tires screeching and her stomach flipping upside-down; the car tilted as it swerved into the right lane, Rose’s fingers digging into the beige leather interior of the station wagon like a drowning man clinging to a liferaft.

“Oops,” her mother muttered mildly. She had no longer than Rose to get dressed and run out the house, but somehow she looked just as mumsy as always. Hands perfectly positioned at ten and two, not a hair out of place in her blonde bob or a single crease in her frumpy crochet cardigan, despite the chaotic driving. “I don't know if I'll ever get used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Jerry would have taken you, but he has a meeting with the Department of Energy at the plant this morning. About the promotion.”

“It’s OK. I’d rather be here with you. As much as I like Jerry, you’re my mum.” Rose said.

Hawkins High School appeared at the end of the street, its squat, single-storey front building surrounded by bikes and cars. They pulled into the parking lot, taking up a space by the front doors. Only a few stragglers remained in the lot: someone chaining up a bicycle, another girl running through the front doors with cheeks pink from exertion, a teacher with a worn briefcase.

Rose instinctively grabbed her mother’s hand, and they sat for a moment in pleasant silence. It was always like this, when mum drove her to the hospital. A minute of respite before the shitshow began.

“Ready?” Mum squeezed her hand.

Nope. Not at all. American high school, a more terrifying prospect than any hospital ward, or any of the sixth form schools at home where she would be unnoticed and normal...well, perhaps not normal, but only the sick girl, not the new kid with a different accent, with no idea how any of this worked. Too late to turn back now.

She launched herself out of the passenger door, clutching her leather satchel to her chest. “Ready.”

The shiny window of the station wagon reflected her own image back to her, a mess of long, red-brown curls that looked like a bird's nest, no time today to tame it with a brush and half a can of Aquanet. She dragged her hands through her hair in a vague attempt to tidy it up, until something else caught her eye in the reflection.

“We have to go back. The dress...I can’t wear it,” Rose said. It was faded green and floral, with a square neckline, and ending just above the knee. A bit old fashioned, maybe, and not exactly her first choice, but her favourite clothes all sat mouldy and damp in the washer dryer at home. It was bought at least four years ago, before Rose’s last growth spurt, when she really filled out. But it wasn’t the close fit of the fabric or the definite visible cleavage that had her worried.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her mother was leaning over to the passenger side of the car, brows knitted in confusion. But when she realised the source of the panic, her whole demeanour changed. Mum’s hands flew to her own chest, and she unbuttoned her cardigan hurriedly. She flung it off her shoulders and threw it to Rose out the passenger door, who swore like a sailor as tugged it over the green dress, buttoning it all the way to the top. The cardigan was shell-pink with a cream Peter Pan collar. It clashed horribly with the dress, but it covered her all the way to her collarbones.

“I'm sorry, are you Rose?” A sweet voice called out behind her. “Rose McAllister?”

Rose turned slowly. The girl behind her was a foil to Rose, hair styled, blue pastel skirt perfectly matching her eyes. She looked like she’d just stepped from a John Hughes movie in those white leather boots, scarf artfully tied at her neck. Preppy with a capital p.

“Hi?” The girl smiled weakly.

“Hi? Am I?” Rose spluttered. “Hi. Sorry, I am Rose. That’s what I mean to say. That’s me, I am she.”

Oh god. Nought to crazy in under ten seconds. It really was her superpower.

Put-together-girl smiled, seemingly not put off by the bundle of awkwardness before her, and shook her hand. “Great, I thought you’d accidentally ended up at the Middle School for a while there. I’m Nancy. Nancy Wheeler, part of the school welcome committee. If you want to say goodbye to your mom, i’ll take you to register for your classes. Janice in the principal’s office has all the forms ready for you, it shouldn’t take too long.”

Rose gave her mother a final smile. “Thanks Mum. See you at three,” she closed the car door soundly.

But nope, instead of leaving, the drivers’ window rolled down and her mother’s blonde bob leaned out the window. “Just one thing before I go...Nancy, you couldn’t point out the nurse’s office, could you?”

Nancy Wheeler paused for just a second, and nodded toward a small brick building over to the right. “It’s just there, Mrs. McAllister. It’s shared with the Middle School.”

Mum smiled as she got out of the car, and turned to Rose’s guide. “It’s Mrs. Gruber, but thank you, dear.”

“Do you have to?” Rose asked her mother through gritted teeth. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“I won’t be long. I promise, Rosebud.”

Oh god, the shame. She was eighteen, not eight. Nicknames were acceptable at home, but not in public.

“Sorry Mrs Gruber.” Nancy waved to her retreating figure.

Distance. Rose sought it straight away, shiny new sneakers pounding on the cracked pavement beneath the great big tiger poster on the wall, bounding toward the door. Nothing like your mother tagging along on your first day of school to make classes seem more appealing than hanging about outside.

“So,” Nancy caught up quickly, guiding her into hallways striped orange and green. “I should tell you a little about the school. There are almost a hundred students, about seventy per year. We have band, math club, AV club, drama club, and that’s just for starters. Girls have a soccer team. Usual sports, but you should know basketball is bigger than football here. Go Tigers!” Nancy’s little cheer was lukewarm at best, but she seemed genuinely nice. “ I guess it looks a little lame to someone who just moved from England. I mean, the teachers here are good, but you’re probably used to more academic rigour, right?”

“Not really.” Rose eyed her surroundings nervously, big colourful notice boards peppered with hand-drawn signs about pep rallies, someone offering French tuition, and a whole list of dates and match times. “School is school, but I don‘t think we had as many extra curricular activities at home. Except hockey, and the pub.” And definitely not so many weird ones. In one corner, a wad of chewing gum was stuck on the board, pinning up a strange devil-like drawing, letters H E L L interrupted by a pastel yellow flyer advertising auditions for A Streetcar Named Desire. She desperately wanted to lift it up and find out what kind of hell Hawkins High School was hiding.

“Still, must be hard joining in senior year. You must miss your friends.”

“So much.” Rose lied, plastering on a smile. “I’m just calling and writing to them all the time.” Surely her gran counted. And she did call her friend Elaine from the hospital ward, when Elaine could breathe well enough to actually talk back. One benefit to being new? No reputation to overcome. A new slate, a chance to shine. If only shining didn’t involve being so visible. “Thank you for doing this, I know you probably have to, but it’s nice to not be faced with a thousand faces at once, you know?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nancy shrugged it off with a wave.

Janice in the principal’s office gave her a stack of forms, and she went through them one by one with a freshly sharpened pencil whilst Nancy filled her in on the school.

“People here are friendly, most of the time. If you want, I could hook you up with some clubs. I run the school paper and the yearbook committee. It’s a lot, but I plan on early application to colleges - i’m in this fight with my mom and dad about applying to any Ivies - and then i’ll have a lot of time in the second half of senior year. That should tie in nicely with the production of the yearbook.” Nancy was in full flow, working through all the things on her clearly enormous brain. Rose handed back some of the papers to Janice and got a schedule in return, and Nancy led her into a maze of hallways,

“Here’s your locker.” Nancy smiled, patting a metal grill whose beige paint was flaking away. “Your combination is 2-2-6-2, but you can change that anytime. Your first period is English with Mrs O’Donnell. This semester they’re working on classic short stories. Oh, you should know that homecoming is next week. I’m on the committee for that too, since Heather and...uh...a couple of the members left over the summer. And that means I’m probably on the hook for prom committee too, unless Jennifer P shapes up and actually orders the decorations. I know it’s really soon bearing in mind this is your first day, but I could probably get you a homecoming ticket, if you wanted? My boyfriend moved to California a few weeks ago, so i’ll be there stag, manning the punchbowl probably. What I mean is, I don’t know if you have a boyfriend or anything, but girls go stag all the time. Guys too.”

Rose’s face was flushing warm just listening to it. She followed Nancy with her head buzzing, her smile cracking as they stopped halfway down the hall.

“Nancy, I'm going to level with you. I only understood about half of what you said. I have this very vague understanding of the word homecoming from watching a couple of John Hughes films, but what is the difference between homecoming and prom? Isn’t it all just dancing to shit music without alcohol - something which I'm pretty annoyed about, by the way. At home the pubs will serve you from about fourteen, even in your school uniform if the police aren’t about.”

Nancy was shocked, frozen as Rose started rambling. And once she started, it was like a broken pipe, overflowing without any sign of stopping.

“What’s a yearbook?” Rose continued. “Why do you need a committee of people to make a book? College is University to me, but I couldn’t tell you if it’s early to apply, because I have no idea when people actually apply. And you said basketball instead of football, but then you also said girls play soccer...soccer to me is football, so now I'm thinking to myself, McAllister, have you been living under a rock? Do Americans call it football for boys and soccer for girls? Or do the girls get to play football, but the boys don’t - and by that I suppose I mean soccer, not your football where you have to strap on a helmet and thirty pounds of foam padding just to play a bit of bloody rugby. Because at home, girls play basketball, only we call it netball. But not the tough girls, they play hockey. God, when I think about it, everything about sports is so unbelievably stupid, isn’t it? I have no idea why it's life or death to some people. Sorry, I don’t know if you are big on sports.”

Rose laughed hysterically, “You seem really nice, and I can’t believe I'm already proving that I'm a lunatic with no social skils. I feel like I'm trapped in a film or a play and I don’t know the lines, but everyone else does. And at some point, I'm going to end up naked in front of a chalkboard whilst everyone laughs at me, and then hopefully wake up sweating in bed at home in Oxfordshire. Except this isn’t a bad dream, this is fucking real.”

Nancy covered her hands with her face, blue eyes wide with horror. Her gaze drifted from Rose to a point behind her shoulder that suddenly seemed to be interesting.

Rose’s stomach did another flip upside-down. “Someone’s right behind me, aren’t they.”

Nancy nodded. At some point during her unhinged rant they had arrived at an open door. A door to a class full of open-mouthed teenagers gawking at her, like she had three eyes or an extra head.

“Miss McAllister.” A bespectacled woman in a tweed pencil skirt and addressed her, “How nice of you to join us. I’m Mrs O’Donnell, and it seems I'll have the dubious honour of teaching you English for your senior year. Now I don’t know how you do things in Britain, but in America, we arrive at our classes on time.”

Yep, that checks out. All those years wishing for a clean slate, and within moments she’s covered it in dirt. So much for a new start.

“This is my fault.” Nancy bravely interjected. “I’m the reason she was late, Mrs O’Donnell. I just babbled on and on about school, and I didn’t even think about what I was saying. Truth is, the welcoming committee doesn’t really do that much welcoming. We’ve had one new student in the last year, and he was from Illinois. Not counting Billy...” her face clouded over for a second. “Please don’t punish her for my mistake.”

“Hmm.” O’Donnell hummed, fiddling with her tortoiseshell spectacles, clearly swayed by the appeal on Rose’s behalf. “I don’t like tardiness, and I don’t like disrespect. But perhaps I can let you off this time, Miss McAllister. Why don’t you come in and introduce yourself to your classmates?”

With a nervous apology to Nancy, Rose clutched her books and papers, and stepped into English class as gingerly as if it were Dante’s seventh circle of hell. Thirty teens sat expectantly at their tables, books spilling over desks, bags on the floor. They watched her every move , and at least half of them in some kind of sports gear. Which she just insulted, of course. If only the ground could swallow her up, or make her invisible. Anything to take her away from the thirty pairs of eyes that prickled across her skin. Yup, cursed.

A guy with a mullet and one of those fancy green jackets sniggered behind his fist. “Chalkboard’s right there. You gonna take your clothes off, or what? We can do it elsewhere honey, I wouldn’t mind a more private show, if you know what i’m talkin’ about.”

“Nice cardigan,” someone mocked. Rose’s closed her hands in fists, to stop herself from fidgeting with it. Laughter spread across the class like wildfire. Great. Just fucking great.

“Andy, I will not tell you again,” O’Donnell pointed at the lewd-mouthed jock, chalk in hand. “Talk back once more and you’ll join Mr Munson in the principal’s office. Go on then, introduce yourself Miss McAllister. I’m sure the class is just dying to hear more about you.”

Dead. She was dead alright. Deceased. Six feet under. Nancy Wheeler can write her obituary and put it in the school paper. Rose McAllister, gone, and totally forgotten. Cause of death: foot in mouth.

“Hello.” Her voice cracked. “I’m Rose. I moved to Hawkins a month ago, after my stepdad got a new job. Or, he got his old job back at the power plant. He grew up here. As for me, I Iove to read, classics mostly-”

“Nerd alert.” Quipped a girl in a polka dot blouse, just under her breath enough for the teacher not to notice. Cue more laughing from the sporty side of the class.

“I speak French, I, um, I saw Live Aid this summer in London, just before we moved out here.”

A silent pause. A peppy blonde cheerleader clapped her hands together. “Oh my god, that is so bitchin. Who was the cutest? Was it Spandau Ballet? They’re British too, right?”

Relief washed through her, almost as intoxicating as the cranberry and vodka mixers all the cool girls at home drank in the Nag’s Head. Not that Rose was often in the popular crowd, not since she got sick. “I’m more of a Queen or Bowie girl myself. Freddie was unbelievable, couldn’t take your eyes off him. Status Quo and The Who were amazing too. But...uh...Spandau Ballet, yeah. Martin Kemp is cracking to look at, isn’t he?”

“That’s enough, that’s enough,” O’Donnell quietened them down. “I see we’ve devolved into cute musicians or whatever you young people class as music these days. Settle down. We have a lot to work through before this assignment. And before you ask, Andy, it’s due next Friday, despite the interruption.”

Andy, that wonderful mouth-breathing specimen of idiot found in schools everywhere, flipped off the teacher as soon as her back was turned.

“Was Edgar Allen Poe on your curriculum at home, Miss McAllister?” She said, whilst writing on the chalkboard.

“No. I haven’t read any.”

“That’s alright, just take a seat and listen. You can get caught up over the weekend.”

The class returned to their books, and Rose fled the front of the classroom for an empty desk at the back of the room. At least this way she could wallow in eternal shame without eyes on her back. Her bag deposited on the floor, she collapsed quietly into the wooden desk, shrinking down as far as she could in the arse-numbing seat. Pencil tapping nervously on her book, until her neighbour took mercy on her and passed over a dog-eared copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, pages folded over at The Tell-Tale Heart.

Shit. Not one she was familiar with. Give her Shakespeare, give her Hardy or Dickens or any of the Bronte’s - hell, even Tolkein or McAffrey or Pratchett - and she’d be talking a mile a minute about them. Poe, not really in her wheelhouse.

Minutes passed as the class read passages aloud, and talked about the imagery. She scanned the story, reading it through as quick as possible, scribbling down some notes as the class discussed it. Rose flipped over a page and found the story was over already, five punchy pages of compact gothic imagery. Concise. That was a blessing, for her first day.

Behind the battered book, something on the desk caught her eye. A grim reaper in a hooded cowl, hand clutching a gruesome looking scythe. The lines were clean, and it wasn’t just inked on the desk, it was etched, scratched into the wood with a pen or a pin or something sharp. It was good. Clearly someone found O’Donnell’s class so riveting, they turned to the visual arts instead.

“OK.” O’Donnell sighed heavily. “So what do we think about the themes? Someone? Anyone? Becky, how about you?”

Polka dot shirt girl ummed and ahed. “I guess, madness?”

“Yes, Becky. Well done. The concept of madness. Anyone else?”

A hand shot up. Jock number two, sat next to his mullet-haired buddy Andy. “I don’t know about the class, but I have some concerns.”

“What a surprise. I would ask you to share them in private, Mr Carter, but that would be a foolish hope, wouldn’t it.”

“That’s right. Mrs O’Donnell. I think my fellow classmates are counting on me to speak the honest truth, and say what we’re all thinking. I’m shocked that impressionable young minds are being asked to read this explicit material. The narrator killed someone in cold blood, and we’re being told he’s not insane, because he was careful and calm whilst doing it?” Blonde jock paused and looked around, working the crowd like a pro. “I mean, to commit murder, to hack a guy to pieces and bury him under the floorboards...that’s the worst kind of evil.

“And don’t we all deserve to spend our formative years studying something that shows the best of humanity? I don’t know about you, but I turn my mind to Psalms 141: Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers. Mrs O’Donnell, I say we remove this book from the curriculum. My father supports the idea, and he’s willing to take it to the school board next month.”

“Yeah, what Jason said,” Andy piped up, bumping his friend’s fist. “Let’s throw it in the trash, and the assignment due next Friday. I did like the haunted house part though, with the ghost stuck under the floorboards. Don’t know how a ghost has a heartbeat, though. Weird.”

Rose stifled a smile, and turned back down to the grim reaper on the desk. At some point in all the talk of beating hearts her hand had settled over her chest, over the cardigan covering her dress. still buttoned up. A sudden impulse had her grabbing for a red marker pen, and drawing a heart onto the desk, in the path of the grim reaper’s scythe. She was careful not to overlap the original, so the artist could scrub it out if they didn’t like the random addition to their work.

“I’m sure the school board will give it serious thought, Jason,” O’Donnell grumbled, already ground down before second period. “Any more themes in the work? Come on, come on. This will help in the assignment. Miss Buckley, are you with us?”

A girl blatantly napping on her desk in one corner jolted awake at the prodding of a neighbour, her eyes wired, and hair tousled from lying on the desk. “Themes? Right, yeah. Themes. It’s got haunted houses, and death.” The girl turned introspective, eyes glazing over. “There’s guilt, for having lived through something so scary, right? Like he did all these terrible things, and survived. He kinda wants to get it off his chest and admits to murrder straight away, which is a stupid move for someone who calls himself smart, a lot. Reminds me of a dingus I know. He’s so desperate to talk about all the creepy stuff that happened in that house, even though it will get him in trouble. Guilt just eats away at you. Yeah, definitely guilt.”

The teacher looks almost surprised. “Very astute, Robin. If you can keep awake for the rest of your senior year, you might just get an A in this class.”

“Nice,” Robin smiled. “The previously mentioned dingus will be hearing about this later. So much for the senior slump.”

Rose had little time to ponder what on earth a dingus was, as O’Donnell was talking again. “What about comparisons to other work? Does it remind you of anything we studied last year?”

Silence. It was nice and quiet in the back of the room, and being thrust into the spotlight was the last thing Rose wanted. But this was books, this was her element. Something compelled her to raise her hand.

“Miss McAllister, I realise you won’t have covered last year’s work either, i’ll set you up with a reading list.”

“I had some thoughts about this part,” Rose held up the book. “‘There came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart.’ There’s something so gothic and logical about the prose. It reminds me of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Sir what-now?” Polka dot girl muttered.

“Uh, Sherlock Holmes,” Robin added, feigning holding a microscope to her eye and pulling a funny face. “You know, its elementary, my dear Watson.”

“Yes, exactly.” Rose grinned, delighted. “Sherlock Holmes. And Lovecraft too. I think they both came after Poe, so he might have been an influence.”

O’Donnell looked like she’d sucked on a lemon, her thin lips pursed until they almost disappeared. “I thought you hadn’t read the material?”

“I just did.”

“Just now?”

“Yes.”

“And you came to that conclusion within the space of a few minutes?”

Rose eyed her suspiciously. “Yes?”

The teacher looked down over the rims of her glasses. “It would not look good for you to lie on your first day, would it.”

“I assure you, Mrs O’Donnell, I am not a liar. Just a quick reader.”

Snickering floated through the air, disturbing the silent battle of wills stretching across the little classroom. “See? Nerd,” Becky in the polka dots said. “But I thought you weren’t supposed to be smart. My mom said you’re eighteen already, and she works in the office at the power plant. You’re a super senior.”

Desks shuffled, heads swivelled, and now everyone was staring at Rose again. Great, just bloody great.

“In case you were wondering,” Andy said mockingly. “A super senior is someone who repeats the year, cause they failed.”

“Strangely enough, I could deduce that,” Rose said bitterly.

“Enough, class,” O’Donnell tried to regain control, throwing her hands up in the air. “We are not going to discuss the intricate personal lives of our students. Save that for the cafeteria. Back to the book.”

Where was that hole in the ground when she needed it? Rose blocked it all out as best she could, focusing on the cool grim reaper on the desk. Whispers and titters floated across the room again, until Jason the preacher-in-training spoke. “Wait. I know who you are. Your dad - or stepdad, whatever - is Jerry the Goober, right?”

“It’s Gruber, not Goober,” Rose mumbled.

He slapped his jean-clad leg. “Yeah, I knew it. He was class of ‘60, same as my dad. You guys bought the old murder house on Morehead.”

Even O’Donnell stopped, making no further attempt to hold back their stampede of questions

“The creepy old place opposite the playground? Jesus, that place is definitely haunted.” “How many people died there?” “Is there still blood in the floorboards? I bet there is...gnarly.”

Her new home was five times the size of her house in England. Hell, ten times. A wrap around porch, original fireplaces in half the rooms, enough space to swing a family of cats. Three floors and a basement, each room panelled in walnut and grander than the last. True, it was a little...different. Grant, gothic, pretty much in ruins. And yes, Rose had heard there were some horrific acts in the house’s past, something she’d rather not dwell on. But it wasn’t haunted.

“Haunting isn’t real, dumbass.” A guy in a plaid cut-off shirt actually said in her defence, aimed at the one of the jocks. “People watch a lot of Ghostbusters and horror movies, it doesn’t make that shit real.”

“God damn freak,” Andy retorted under his breath. “How’d that place even get sold? Isn’t the old dude that owns it still alive?”

“Someone broke into it last year and cut themselves on a pane of glass,” Rose explained. “The Roane County Housing Board declared it unsafe, so they forced the sale. They said it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

The bell rang out and made Rose jump, each and every teen grabbing up their books and fleeing for the door. Except Jason Carver, who stayed back for a few seconds to glare menacingly.

“Assignments. Friday.” O’Donnell cried out the door. “And will someone find Mr Munson, he needs to pick up his...never mind, why do I bother.”

---

The crush of students in the hallway moving to their next classes provided Rose with a little anonymity, and the map pushed into her hands by Nancy Wheeler, plus the small size of the school, meant she could navigate to her Chemistry class without asking for help or accidentally pissing off an entire class of peers.

Mr Kaminski’s class was far less traumatic. She said a simple hi to the room and sat down at the back once again, working diligently on a hydrocarbon pop quiz that kept the class mercifully quiet, and focused on something other than the new girl. Chemistry was hardly her favourite, but it was material she had learned long before, schoolwork splayed across the sterile white sheets of a hospital bed, one eye out the window on the world below.

Then the bell of doom rang out again, and the most nerve-wracking forty-five minutes of the day dawned. Lunch. She marched to the cafeteria like a soldier to battle, scouting out the exits, the seating hierarchy and potential to hide from enemy combatants in a corner or behind a pillar of a room.

Yes, the student body of Hawkins High School stared at her. No, they did not approach. Either the students didn’t care about the new girl, they hadn’t worked out who she was yet, or her episode this morning had spread so widely throughout the school that no one wanted to talk to her. So she swiped a tray of congealed looking meat in grey sauce and green beans, and found a spot on an empty lunch table in the corner of the room, poking at the food until her stomach calmed down enough to eat it.

The basketball team entered the cafeteria to a round of applause, their green and white uniforms lurid under the harsh fluorescent lights, smiles brittle as they cheered for some kind of game tonight in the gym. She supposed this was what happened when your first day of school was three weeks into September, on a Friday. Novelty worn off by early afternoon.

Justin from her English class held court in the centre of the room, holding a bright orange ball as he worked the room. She heard a thump, thump, thump as he dribbled it up and down by the cheerleaders’ table. They all preened as he spun it around on his finger, and it looked so ridiculous she almost choked on a slimy green bean.

Another thud, another voice, this one louder. White sneakers hit a different tabletop and plastic lunch trays bounced, an earthquake of dark hair, denim and leather, upending some poor kid’s apple and carton of milk. The guy on the table pranced about, spitting out words so quickly she couldn’t make them out. Whatever it was, his friends laughed. His voice dropped mockingly, arms flailing at the jocks dribbling balls across the room.

Denim rocker guy squatted down with the awkward grace of an alleycat, a jean chain smacking against the table, and dragged his knuckles around, grunting like an ape. His friends laughed harder, each one looking up at him as if he hung the moon.

“Eat it, freak,” Jason shouted across the cafeteria.

Denim guy grunted and beat his chest with his fists. It only enraged the jocks; the more they cursed and shouted at him, the more he responded like a monkey. Rose snorted with laughter. His confidence was off the charts, no fucks to give, shame completely absent. It was kind of hard to look away from. Magnetic, really.

“Brutal, but effective,” a voice agreed at her side. “I think that’s the longest I've seen Munson go without talking.”

Robin from English class casually leaned on her table, with a ‘I care so little about this that it's cool’ vibe about her tousled hair, check shirt and an honest-to-god tie tucked into high waisted trousers. Very Annie Hall. “Sup, new girl. What are you doing on the ghost table?”

“Ghost table?”

“The one place in the cafeteria that’s hidden from the view of the jocks table, great exit path to the doors. Yeah. I see your attempts to hide, new girl. Is it OK if I call you that, or is that totally presumptuous? God, it is, isn’t it. Stupid Robin. What about McAllister. Has a nice ring to it, kinda like a detective’s name. McAllister. Buckley and McAllister, one’s a straight-laced pencil pusher, the other’s a beat cop with a dark past who doesn’t play by the rules, together they must solve a murder...or no, old fashioned detectives like Holmes and Watson,” her accent changed to a strangled attempt at a posh accent. “The curious case of the Hawkins High murder.”

Rose beamed, watching Robin’s elbow slip off the table, the girl reeling backward and clumsily righting herself.

“Mystery solved, partner,” Rose joined in. “Victim, one Jason Carver, brutally killed in the cafeteria, bled of his dignity in front of a hundred witnesses. Suspect, one suspiciously intelligent gorilla wearing a curious sleeveless denim jacket. Murder weapon, a crude, yet cleverly executed, parody of his bestial behaviour. And in front of the cheerleaders too.”

“I knew it,” Robin slapped the table. “I knew you’d be cool. I could just tell. And I may have slept through the incident in the hallway, but several reliable sources have since told me it was crushing to the fragile male ego. I love you already. Come and sit with us, you’re not languishing here all alone.”

A flood of warmth spread through her chest. “Really?”

“Really. Come on, partner. And by us I mean Beth and Linda, we’re over here.”

Rose snatched up her tray, led by the frenetic Robin to a table by the stage, walking right around the table of jocks. Jason Carver shot her a look of...disdain? Intrigue? It was something weird, anyway.

Beth and Linda were leaning over the table, whispering in hushed voices when they arrived.

“Buckley and McAllister, reporting for duty,” Robin dropped onto the bench with a thud, saluting at her friends. “This is the legendary new girl I mentioned earlier. Rose, this is Beth Wildfire, retired goalie, with a leg so full of metal she can’t ever go near a magnet,” she waved at a brunette who sat stiffly, with her leg propped on the bench. “And this is Linda Chen, our fearless leader and captain,” she poked the lunch tray of a girl in a numbered sweater, dark hair pinned back with bubblegum-purple barrettes.

“Football girl,” Linda said appraisingly. “We heard about you. So soccer is for wimps, huh?”

Rose winced and choked on a sip of juice from a carton. “Technically, I didn’t say that. I said the tough girls at home played hockey. But everyone plays soccer at home. It’s clearly the superior sport.”

It got a little awkward after that, each of the girls finishing their lunch wordlessly.

Robin cleared her throat. “Oooh, I forgot to mention we’re the girls’ soccer team, didn’t I...” she trailed off. “All the drawbacks of using the sweaty locker rooms, none of the perks of having a letterman jacket or a sweet spot on the social hierarchy. Hey, did I mention Rose went to Live Aid this summer? In London?”

Robin’s contagious smiles and easy banter made it almost easy; the four of them spoke for half an hour and more, Rose cross-examined on her thoughts about every band from the last ten years (Wham was so overrated, obviously) to movies (anything with Harrison Ford) to fashion (in her head, a slightly more punk version of Princess Di. In reality, whatever looked passable at the time). Having the spotlight on herself was not entirely comfortable, but by the end of the lunch hour she may have just avoided being a complete social pariah.

“So,” Robin drummed her hands on the plastic lunch tray. “I admit, I had an ulterior motive in bringing you here.”

Rose braced herself. “Which is...”

“Soccer tryouts,” Linda interjected, rolling up her sleeves. “We’re seriously down on numbers this year. Two of our team were killed in the fire a couple months back...I don’t know if you heard about that.”

“Shit,” Rose said. “I’m so sorry.” The mall had devastated Hawkins just before she arrived. No small place could lose that many of its people without touching the lives of everyone in the town.

“And Veronica’s parents pulled her out of school over the summer; they moved to Maine. Said this town was cursed, which it probably is,” Linda admitted.

“Ha.” Robin croaked. “Yeah, cursed. Like...like that magic shit’s real. Nope, just a regular old mall fire. Nothin’ to see here, except a whole lotta pain and sadness. And ash. From the totally natural fire.”

Linda eyed her suspiciously. “After Beth broke her leg, we’re down to four players. I don’t think we’ll be able to field a team this season, not unless we find another player for a five-a-side. We have tryouts tonight, would you wanna maybe come?”

“Oh,” Rose’s brows raised. “I’m not sure I can. I can’t do gym this year.”

Beth looked confused. “What do you mean, you can’t do gym?”

“I have a note that gets me out of gym for the whole year. I have free periods instead.”

Robin squealed and stood up. “There’s a note to get you out of gym? For the whole year? It’s senior year...that’s all of gym, gym forever, gym never again. That’s an option? What does one have to do to get one of these notes?”

“Major health issues,” Rose said. She didn’t elaborate. It would be nice to go one full day without being sick girl. “Mum had the note signed by three specialists at the hospital, and I think the school nurse.”

Robin sat down again, flushing and averting her gaze. “Okay then, permanent gym-pass is a no-go. Damn, I was excited for a minute there.”

A thousand questions ran around in Rose’s head. “So you like soccer, but hate gym?”

“Yes, and yes,” Robin blurted out. “I can’t face that rope climbing thing one more time. I might be fast, but I have the arm strength of a cabbage and I fall over like a lot. Wait, does that mean you can’t run or move around quickly or do anything strenuous? Should we be watching you carefully?”

“Not really. I’m better, or at least I should be. It’s just my mum, she’s over protective.”

Cogs were turning in Linda’s head, and she chewed and swallowed a forkful of carrot before speaking. “So technically, you can’t do gym. But what about sports teams outside of school hours?”

“Yeah,” Robin clicked her fingers and pointed them like guns. “I love a good loophole. If it’s out of hours, it doesn’t count.”

Rose hummed noncommittally.

“Oh come on,” Robin whined. “None of the other girls want to come, and I won’t even have to explain the offside rule to you. That takes half the tryout! Otherwise it will only be me and Linda.”

Did she want to throw herself into sports on her first day of school? Probably not. In fact, she didn’t really like soccer, and she only pretended to understand the offside rule when the lads in the pub screamed at the telly, cig in one hand, pint in the other. But the vague promise of a friendship group was too strong a lure. “OK. I’m in, i’ll come to tryouts. But I don’t have a change of clothes, i’m completely unprepared.”

“Yes, McAllister!” Robin punched the air, tie coming loose from her pants. “Come to the girls locker room after last period, i’ll find you something. You know where the gym is?”

Rose hung her arms like a gorilla, imitating the rebel rocker raising hell on the table earlier. “If I get lost, i’ll follow the monkeys in letterman jackets.”

“See?” Robin walked backwards out of the cafeteria, tripping over a bench and recovering swiftly. “Knew you’d be cool.”

---

A quick call to her mother on the school payphone by the front door set it in stone. “Pick me up at seven instead of three please, I have an after school club, think I made some friends, love you, bye.” She said it quickly and slammed the receiver down, so her mum couldn't draw breath to argue or question the change in plans.

Rose nearly skipped to her first free period, immersing herself in the library like a drunk stumbling into a bar after a dry spell. She was in school full-time finally for the first time in a couple of years, and she had a year of uninterrupted studying to look forward to. Her fingers skipped over the spines of Chaucer, Austen, Shelley, until she found the works of Hawthorne, Twain, Fitzgerald and Salinger. Most of them were new to her, one of the benefits of moving across an ocean and beginning a new curriculum. The librarian Ms Miller just about died on the spot, having an avid lover of literature to speak to for an hour. Things for Rose McAllister were looking on the up.

History went by in a blur; most of her classmates were not in Mrs O’Donnell’s English class of misery this morning, so she got to introduce herself all over again, without fucking it up with an epicly bad monologue. Her other classes were fine, turns out mathematics pretty universal and if you’re good at it there, you’re good at it here too.

Two forty-five. The home stretch. Her pencil tapped the desk in agitation, thinking about soccer tryouts. Yes, she might be rusty, but she wasn’t half as weak as her mother made her out to be. And she did know her way around a football pitch, even if it was from watching the boys from the sidelines on the rare occasion she was in school and had a few friends to tag along with. This madcap plan of Robin’s might just work.

When Mr Fitz let the class out ten minutes early so he could make an appointment, she was out of her chair like a shot, peering at her school map. Right past the tiger mascot painted on the wall, through the double doors, and into a room...that was dark, and full of shelving. Ah. Definitely not the locker room.

“I just don’t know, Rob.” Linda Chen’s muffled voice sounded on the other side of a cupboard door; clearly the locker room was just next door. “She pissed off every sports team in the school within five minutes of arriving. Basketball, football, soccer...the cheerleaders just by association. If it wasn’t so damaging to me socially to be seen with her, i’d be kind of impressed.”

“Come on,” Robin whined. “I’m a grade-A klutz and I have verbal diarrhoea, and you guys like having me around, right?”

“That’s different,” the other one, Beth, reasoned. “You’re our friend. I know you’ve been a little off since Starcourt, but-”

“Off? Of course i’ve been off. I saw shit you wouldn’t believe, Beth. Forgive me if i’m not as peppy as I used to be.”

“I know you were there, Rob, but we all lost people that day. And I don’t think I have the energy to be all fake nice to this new girl, when i’m just sad and tired, you know? It’s senior year, its too late for that kind of bullshit.”

“Yeah, well clearly this was a bad idea, Forget it.” Robin spat out. “I just wanted you to be happy, but I won’t be making the same mistake twice.”

Doors slammed and voices faded. The darkness was kind of foggy and Rose couldn’t see far ahead of her, but she stood in the dark for a few minutes, still processing what she had just heard. Hopes crushed, balloon deflated. Can't say she was surprised. Don’t want too much of a good thing, that would break a lifelong pattern. Yes, she could tell that Linda and Beth were hesitant, but Robin too? The one person she formed a connection with on her first day?

She crept out of the janitor’s closet, marching toward the front doors of the school...where her mother wouldn’t be for hours, because she had just called to change her pick up time. Shit.

Rose was not above admitting she considered getting back in that closet for a moment, but that would be completely absurd. Instead she trudged back to the library, where tall bookshelves might keep her hidden and their contents keep her occupied for a few hours on a Friday evening.

A steady trickle of people were heading her way, going from classes to the gym for whatever ball-in-hoop sports stuff she had mocked and derided by accident earlier, clearly alienating the more popular half of the student body in one fell swoop.

Head down, with a notebook covering the bottom half of her face, she inched through the thickening crowd and found the welcome fortress of the library doors...closed. Open hours, eight til three.

“Motherfucker,” She mumbled.

More people streamed toward her, but Rose couldn’t face another witness to her shitty day, and ducked behind the lockers.

An unknown guy’s voice floated through the halls. “...I bet Tommy will break up with her, now he’s at community college in Cartersville. Pretty faces are a dime a dozen in college, and Carol P is yesterday’s news.”

“Carol’s hot.” Meathead Andy from English class offered. “I’ll pick up the pieces if her ass gets dumped.”

“You are such a dick.”

“Just saying what we all think, man. But i’m not counting on it. Maybe I should make a move on the new girl. She might be a nerd, but she’s got a couple of redeeming features, if you know what I mean. Probably hotter than Carol.”

“Did you ever think you just have a thing for redheads? Besides, the new girl is irritating as fuck. And she’s not exactly cheerleader material. I thought she was kinda fat.”

Andy sniggered, his voice fading as he walked away. “Nah, she was just standing next to Nancy Wheeler. Wheeler’s built like a broom handle. And I don’t need a girl to be a cheerleader, just give good head.”

The jocks slithered away to the gym, and the garish orange and green walls began to feel suffocating. She pushed hard on the library door hoping it might somehow be unlocked, but it didn’t budge. Her chest was aching, skin flushing and breathing hard. She tried another. Classroom after classroom, door after door, all fucking locked. What is this, a prison?

Her feet pounded the hallways, pushing blindly until one of the doors yielded and she burst into a darkened space. Content there was no one else around, she flung her back across the room like a discus, crashing into some kind of clothing rack, almost exploding in a puff of red velvet and pink taffeta as it dragged some costumes to the floor.

“Aaah,” the roar came out before she could stop it. Some kind of drama room, filled with dark curtains and crowded rows of props, dominated by a big table. She slammed her fist on it impulsive,, scattering some of its contents to the ground in a metallic crash.

This was as good a place as any to wither away and die, so she walked to the far corner, leaned back and slid down the wall, knees folded beneath her.

There was something comforting about defeat. At least, sitting on the floor in a dishevelled heap, she’d hit a literal rock bottom. Nowhere to go but up.

Yes, she could call home and get a ride back home within the next fifteen minutes. But that meant admitting defeat, reliving the entire experience over and over, prodded and poked by an interfering mother. She couldn’t even hope that Jerry would answer. He was far too honest to keep a secret. Nope, she was stuck here amongst the stage lights, costumes, and decaying dreams of Midwestern theatre kids until seven, which was three and a half hours away.

Plastered on the stage curtain was a sign coloured in orange and red, a cool drawing of a horned demon that looked eerily familiar. Just like the flyer from this morning. Sprawled in bold letters: HELLFIRE. Interesting.

Her velvet-lined, backlit refuge from the high school world didn’t last long. Deep voices bickered passionately in the hall, footsteps squeaked on linoleum, and the door was flung open with so much energy that it nearly popped off its hinges.

“...i’m telling you, man, the frozen lair of Iymrith is just a warm up campaign. I needed to test the mettle of you sheepies before the good stuff next semester. I had to see if you knew your ass from your elbow.” Someone breezed into Rose’s view, a mop of dark frizzy hair, just visible over the huge wooden table that dominated the room.

A squeal of laughter followed, a younger guy’s voice. “Or our class from our elbow. Get it, our class? Our characters’ class?”

“Oh my god, stop Dustin,” a third person protested. “He gets character classes. He’s probably been a DM since we were, like, toddlers.”

“Jesus, Wheeler. Crit hit. I’m not that goddamn old.” The older guy spoke, coming into Rose’s view. He stumbled backward with his hand over his denim and leather jacket combo, as if punctured in the heart. The menace from the cafeteria, gorilla boy, now sentient and walking on two legs. “But the DM in me does thrive on this servant-master dynamic, so keep the subservience coming. My ego could do with a little stroking.”

“Ew...” The ‘Wheeler kid’ moaned; he was lanky, with a grown-out bowl haircut and a grimace peeling apart his lips.

Their leader was unperturbed. He leapt onto a heavy carved chair, wobbling, arms outstretched as he balanced on the makeshift throne. “Bow down, minions. Kneel and pledge obeisance. Damn, I could get drunk off this power. I should get a crown, or something.”

“You already have a throne, isn’t that enough? Or have we birthed a tyrant?” A dark skinned guy with braces shook his head, a trace of envy in his narrowed eyes.

Rose froze like a rabbit in headlights. Her position on the floor was hidden by the clothes rack, but not hidden enough. There were more of them, a hurricane of teenage hormones, awkward haircuts and matching Hellfire shirts swirling about the table and taking off their leather jackets, setting up the table with boards and boxes and...game pieces? She had no clue what they were doing, but they had wider grins and more buzz than the all manufactured cheer in the cafeteria put together.

“Uh...Eddie?” One of the older guys says, holding up something beige and cylindrical. “Drama kids have been messing with our stuff again. I can’t find your goblet, and a couple of the candles are broken.”

“Goddamn thespians,” the rocker Eddie’s voice dropped, all gravelly and menacing. “Completely out of touch with the real world, acting out bullshit stories for the man, nothing but corporate message after corporate message. Harris is gonna know about this the next time he wants to buy off me. Touch Hellfire’s stuff, and i’ll add ten dollars to the going rate. S.A.S. Special asshole supplement.”

“I thought you had to be a girl to be a thespian. If Harris is a guy, does that mean he likes girls, or other guys?”

A kid in an eye-wateringly bright shirt over his Hellfire top, and a cap covering his curls, held up his palms in desperation. “He said thespians, not lesbians, Jeff,” he lisped, pent up with manic energy. “Thespians are lovers of the theatre, not girls who like other girls.”

“Ha. Lesbians.” Someone giggled. Laughter erupted. It might appear to be a weird cult, but they were teenage boys after all.

“Silence,” Eddie the rocker snapper. Commanded, even. One word and the group shut up, watching him warily. He dropped to his ripped-denim kees and crawled under the table. “First Sinclair shakes us off for tryouts - I don’t know how big shiny balls have a greater lure than the harsh, yet beautiful, plains of the Icewind Dale, but hey, critical thinking doesn’t really kick in until you at least finish puberty, freshies - and now my goblet has vanished? It’s all stacking up against me, man. I don’t know, i’m not feeling good about this.”

“Careful Dustin,” one of the group warned. A voice she knew, the one from her English class with the torn up plaid shirt. “You do not want to mess with Eddie’s ambience. I did that once in sophomore year. Set up a session in my garage during the holidays. Let’s just say, the more immersed the DM, the nicer he is during the campaign. You guys don’t want to see him grouchy.”

Wheeler scoffed. “Come on, Gareth. This isn’t grouchy?”

“Not. Even. Close,” Gareth crossed his arms over his plaid-covered chest. “Your buddy Lucas really messed up, skipping out on the third Hellfire night of the year. It’s not even October, and we’re gonna have to bring out a secondary character or something. At least the place could look good.”

“Gareth the Great is right, children. Ambience is a key part of storytelling. It’s all about the mood,” Eddie replied, dragging out the last word. He manhandled the bags on the floor, peering into nooks and crannies, nosing around like a stray dog looking for scraps, completely beneath the table, facing away from Rose. Until, abruptly, he wheeled around on his knees.

Doe eyes met hers, liquid dark and wide, framed by frizzy rocker hair. His manic, dynamic presence froze perfectly, like a VHS tape on pause, cogs in that brain working overtime. He stared blankly at the interloper in his domain, who was scrunched up on the floor, hiding all along in the corner. And right in front of her feet, his shiny pewter goblet.

Rose held her breath. She waited for it. Cursing, shouting, orders to leave. Instead, his lips curled up in a grin, one so contagious and earnest that she couldn’t help but smile back. He raised a finger to his mouth, silver rings pressing against his lips, asking for her silence. She nodded back once. Permission sought: request granted.

Ten seconds passed by without either of them breaking eye contact; Rose hadn’t appreciated just how long ten seconds really was, when you were caught in someone’s gaze. Snared like a rabbit, unable to move, unable to look away. Bordering on weird, but not necessarily bad weird. A standoff, destination unknown.

“Eddie,” The Wheeler kid moaned and kicked his chair leg. “Can we find your goblet later? My sister’s leaving school at seven, and she’s not above ditching us if we’re late.”

“Mike’s not lying,” Dustin backed him up. “She has totally done that before. Ruthless. And every minute we lose searching for goblets is one minute less in the frozen wastes of the Icewind Dale. Just think of how much storytelling you can fit into a minute, Dungeon Master.”

That phrase hit her in the chest. She maintained eye contact, and mouthed Dungeon master?

Eddie, still beneath the table, gave her a wolfish grin, split from ear to ear, teeth shining pearlescent white in the light of the candles. He tried to motion something to her, but knocked his head on the underside of the table in the process.

“Earth to Eddie,” the bigger of the guys called out.

The man in question rubbed the back of his head, snapped out of some deep thinking. “Right, goblet. We have a problem. A naughty nymph must have snatched it and run back to her lair.”

He winked at her, dimple etched into his cheek, and she had to stop her shoulders from shaking with laughter.

Jeff sighed a second time. “What the hell’s keeping you down there? I cannot sub again, I was a terrible DM last year when you had mono. I let you guys defeat Asmodeus in fifteen minutes. Asmodeus, ruler of the Nine Hells. It took me five times as long to plan the damn campaign!”

Rose and Eddie conversed in gestures as the guys above them spoke. A full blown wordless conversation captured with a tiny shrug, a smile, a raised eyebrow. He was clearly trying to tell her something, and wouldn't give her up to the group.

A theoretical light bulb flipped on over Eddie’s head, and he flapped his hands wildly, pointing at the rack of costumes just to her side. Implication clear - get behind it. Wait, what? This wasn’t an escape plan; duck back there would lead her further from the door. Did he expect her to stay there until seven?

“Eddie!” Jeff called out.

Eddie’s shoulders sagged in defeat, and he addressed the group above. “Yup, that’s me. But as Wheeler so kindly pointed out, i’m an old man now. Knees aren’t what they used to be.”

Rose peered behind over her shoulder, checking out the fully hidden spot behind the clothes rack. Target acquired. Unfortunately she couldn’t make it without being seen by the minions at the table.

She nudged her chin toward it and Eddie caught on. Another grin, another gleam in his dark eyes. He rolled out from under the table, groaning theatrically, arm held out.

“Give us a hand, Henderson.”

The freshman smiled so wide his braces almost popped out and complied immediately. It was endearing, actually. He stepped forward, forearm grasping Eddie’s, planting his feet on the floor firmly. But not firm enough.

Eddie grabbed him and tugged him hard, toppling the kid on top of his stomach, wind knocked out with a dramatic groan. They landed in a heap of tangled limbs, with the kid’s neon cap flung across the room.

“Oh my god!” He cried out.

“Sorry, Henderson. Shouldn’t have had that second tray of mystery meat at lunch.”

“You only ate half a bag of pretzels, dude.”

They were distracted, backs turned. She sprung into action, launching behind the clothing rack, cursing under her breath as she nudged the goblet accidentally.

A pink costume became her refuge, layer upon layer of taffeta, the size of a small sedan. She felt hot and itchy just looking at the scratchy fabric. A dress for a princess, or maybe the good witch in Oz?

“This is hazing, isn’t it? Mom told me all about it.” Dustin lisped, hands on hips. “Keep it up, Dungeon Master. If you think a little rough housing will deter this halfling bard, you are seriously mistaken.”

But just as the guys finished helping Dustin to his feet, Mike shooting forward to grab his hat, the goblet where Rose just sat began to roll.

“Gentlemen!” Eddie roared, even more maniacally than before, diverting them again. “Before we begin I propose a detour. A side quest, if you will.”

Rose inched out her hand, slowly enough not to attract wandering eyes, and retrieved the goblet, just as they took their seats, wooden chairs scraping heavily on the linoleum.

“What kind of side quest?” Gareth from English class asked.

“Your party is weak. Your ranger Lucas the Fickle-hearted has abandoned you upon the road-”

“That’s not his name!” Dustin protested.

“Yeah, well, i’m rebranding him,” Eddie declared. “Like I said, Lucas the Fickle-hearted has fallen prey to the cheap thrill of a local tourney, drawn to test his mettle upon the melee ground and take his place as a totally righteous, totally boooring knight of the Kingswatch. But you, good sirs, you make it to a humble tavern on the edge of the forest. There you are greeted by an old companion, Eddie the Bard. Tears streaming down his face, he tells you his cherished goblet is gone, a ring of dried crimson wine staining the table where it once sat.”

He sprung forth, grabbing the back of Mike Wheeler’s chair and narrating directly into his ear. “What’s that, you say? Tis merely a pewter cup, worth nothing more than a couple of coppers on the open market? No, gentlemen. This cup is the secret to the bard’s otherworldly music, spelled to give the bearer great luck and fortune. Charisma off the charts, baby. A Goblet of Rock.”

She had no idea what this Hellfire club was actually doing, but it seemed like a cross between a board game and a storytelling exercise. And this Eddie was...good. Really good. But a knot wound tight in Rose’s stomach as he belaboured the importance of the cup in her very hands. A cup he was no doubt trying to work back into the story.

“I say we retrieve the goblet,” Gareth folded his hands under his chin. “Our party is one man down, and we need all the help we can get if we’re going to defeat the storm dragon Iymrith. Maybe this bard will owe us a favour, and give us a companion or an artefact to slay the dragon.”

“Hear hear,” Dustin thumped the table, shaking about some small pieces Rose couldn’t see. “I walk into the tavern at the head of the party-”

“Hey,” Jeff protested, shooting Dustin a jealous look. “I’m the senior member here. I should lead the party.”

Eddie raised a hand. “No one disputes your position, Jeff. But let the little halfling make his move.”

Dustin took a deep breath. “I open the tavern door, toss my hat onto the table, and flag down a serving wench. Our throats are dusty from the road, so I take a few of our silver coins from the last dungeon crawl and purchase six flagons of mead. Eddie brings them to us.”

Eddie leapt onto his chair, squatting on his heels. “Welcome, patron. I would stay and sup a flagon of mead with you fine warriors, but my troubles overwhelm me. Without the Goblet of Rock, my charisma remains too low to wield my mighty Warlock, and shred to my heart’s content. No guitar, no revellers, no coin for Eddie the Bard. I'm in need of help to keep bread on my table and patrons in my tavern.”

Chris chuckled low and ominous. “If it’s steel you’re after, I, the dwarf Thordus Boulderbash, will take my battleaxe and face any man who dares take the Goblet of Rock.”

“Thordus has a fearsome reputation in these parts, my chaotic-good friend,” Eddie pats him on the back. “But this cup thief is no warrior. A nymph of seriously high stealth crept into the tavern as the guests slept, and made away with the cup before dawn’s light woke me from my slumber.”

For a moment, Rose was too captivated by the story to absorb her supposed leading role in it.

Gareth cleared his throat. “This nymph, she pretty by any chance?”

Eddie leaned in, weight on his elbows. “Fairer than the sunrise over the Greypeak mountains.”

Rose’s brain tripped, lights out, power surged. Even someone with her abysmal track record could recognise the flirtatious tone in his voice. Wait...was this just part of the game? Was he like that with everyone? She wished another girl was in the room, so she could get a sense of normality, something to compare this to.

“Niiice,” Gareth drawled.

“Wait, how would you even know it was a nymph in the first place?” Dustin asked, twirling a pencil between his fingers. “She was gone before daybreak, we have no evidence.”

“Well, gentlefolk, I happen to have an enchanted mirror in the tavern. Caught a glimpse of the wild little thing just as she booked it out the window, leaving behind a lock of auburn hair. And we all know that a nymph cannot be slain by steel alone, so break out your charisma, boys, we’re gonna have to find her, and convince her to return the Goblet of Rock.”

They whooped and applauded, more revved up than a crowd of football hooligans, and Rose had to fist her hands in her crochet cardigan to stop herself from joining in. Something was about to happen, and she was hopping around on the scales between terror and excitement, brimming with a nervous energy.

She couldn’t see the table close up, but she heard dice roll and gasps from the guys at the table, Eddie narrating something about scores, determining the outcome of a battle, or perhaps a decision. It was hard to tell, without any context. It took a few minutes, and her brain didn’t take much of it in.

“Adventurers,” Eddie addressed them after a brief burst of action. “The forest glade beckons, a sea of autumn-gold leaves rustles in the wind. You’ve fought hard to get past the elemental spirits, and emerged bloody, but victorious. Now place down your swords, for the final hurdle is one of wit, not one of might.”

“As our party’s bard, I step toward the tranquil pool,” Dustin says gravely, as if the weight of the world lay on his shoulders. “I take out my lute, and play a tune of such beauty that the nymph hiding in the forest must-”

“Hold on there, halfling,” Eddie silenced him. He looked on edge, his silver rings tap, tap, tapping against the wooden table incessantly. “There are some things a guy’s gotta do himself.”

Mike gawped. “DM’s don’t join in like that, man.”

“You’ll live, sheepies,” Eddie said, dripping in sarcasm. “I, Eddie the Bard, thank the halfling for his admittedly awesome lute playing, and step toward the glassy surface of the forest pool.”

He took a deep breath, stood up suddenly, and turned toward her hidden lair behind the costume rack. Oh god. She was going to die on the spot, she was going to combust from embarrassment if he brought her out. But somehow, even stronger, was the fear that he wouldn’t. He stepped slowly toward her hiding spot, eyes scanning the piles of clothes for a rough idea of where she might be.

“Lady nymph,” he began, voice cracking a little. “You fled my tavern before we could meet, my goblet in your clutches. If you would honour this humble bard with your name, we might determine what you desire in return for the Goblet of Rock.”

“Dude, please don’t make me do a girl's voice again,” Gareth begged. “My vocal cords can’t take it.”

Fuck it. This was the most entertained she’d been all day. All year, probably. Rose swept aside the hangers of clothes with a flourish. She stepped out, to a chorus of shouts and an ear-splitting scream.

Dustin shrieked like a banshee, his hat lost yet again as jolted out of his chair and into Mike’s lap.“Jesus! What the hell?”

“Get off me, man.” Mike said, pushing him away.

“Oh my god, a plant?” Jeff roared. “This is fucking unprecedented Eddie. It’s without precedent!”

“I must be high right now,” Gareth mumbled. “You guys see what I see, right?”

Eddie was right there, tall and frizzy-haired and only two steps away, eyes as wide as saucers. Rose barely had time to notice how tall he was before he dropped to one knee like a chivalrous knight, hand outstretched toward her.

Rose gripped the goblet hard, fight or flight kicking in hard. Ten paces and she’d be out of the door, into the night. Or, at least, into the bleak corridors of Hawkins High.

“Hey,” Eddie said low under his breath, ignoring his friends’ drama behind him. “Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

He held out his hand again, palms wide, sleeves rolled back, ink snaking up his forearm. Close up, he was even more intense, with a jack o’lantern grin. He spoke again, this time loud enough for the group to hear.

“The nymph dares to emerge from the forest pool, bearing the goblet. But will she tell a humble bard her name?”

Brain whirring quickly, Rose realised she’d need a story. Her social skills? Dubious. Eclectic book knowledge, and rambling profusely at the worst of times? Proficient. She couldn’t just use her real name, could she? Nymphs...nature, mythology, natural places. Might just be enough to go on.

“Lady Thorn,” she said, doing her best to imitate his dramatic narrative voice. She placed her hand in his; skin warm, rings cool, surprisingly gentle. “But you, good sir, can call me Rose.”

The group were whooping, chaotic energy rolling off them in waves. Dustin was still hyperventilating, and the guys were giving him shit for reacting like a ten year old girl.

“Lady Thorn,” Eddie clutched her hand in supplication. “We seek the return of the Goblet of Rock. Name your price, fair maiden.”

An hour ago, she’d name a one way ticket back to the Shire. Now, the road to Rivendell was starting to look a little interesting. Question is, was this the Council of Elrond, or a table of leather-jacket clad, hormonal, teenage Nazgul?

“Is that his girlfriend?” Mike asked, face scrunched up in confusion.

“Nope,” Jeff answered. “We have sighted a UFO: unidentified female object. Contact made, presence yet to be explained.”

Rose frowned at being called an object, but there was too much going on in the room to be distracted by it. She held the goblet in her free hand up to the stage light, pausing for dramatic effect, and to figure out what on earth she might say. “I am new to the land of...”

“Icewind Dale.” Dustin supplied quickly, braces sparking in the spotlights as he grinned.

“...to the land of Icewind Dale,” Rose continued nervously. “I was torn from my simple hedgerow in the Shire and cast to these frozen forests without hope or expectation of returning home again. I seek...uh...I seek a guide to help me navigate these new lands.”

“A guide, huh?” Eddie pondered, turning to the table behind him. “Can we do that, gentlemen?”

Mike was the first to respond. “No traveller walks the road alone on our watch. But first, we roll. She has to have a skill check.”

Eddie threw back his head. “Uh, kid Wheeler, remember what I said about my omnipotence earlier? Don’t forget who the DM is here. Me, buddy. I call the shots.”

Gareth sighed dramatically. “Besides, what are you even rolling against? She has no stats, no abilities, just a name and a goblet!”

Chris shuts his gaping mouth just long enough to ask her: “You don’t happen to have a character sheet, do you? Do you have any thoughts on your alignment? I’m sensing lawful good, but nymphs are pretty wild. Maybe chaotic good?”

Rose was at a loss. “Wait,” she said, brandishing the goblet. “I can’t believe i’m about ramble at completely unknown people again, because it worked out so well for me in English class this morning, but I have no idea what you are talking about. What’s an alignment? A character sheet? Stats?”

“I truly hate to use a sports term, but time out, people,” Eddie declared. He stopped, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth, weighing up something behind his dark doe-eyes. “Sweetheart, either that is a world class fake accent, or you’re not from these parts. Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are Dungeons and Dragons?”

“What?” Eddie let go of her hand and paced up and down, hands on his hips. “Really? Like, never? Not heard of a dungeon master...the D20...the ‘we’ll sacrifice your firstborn’ brand of satanic panic troubling the hearts and minds of parents all across America? ”

She thought about it. “Is D20 a band? I don’t really watch much MTV, though my stepdad did just get cable. Are they any good?”

He reeled backward until he hit the table, arms flailing in the air. Anyone else would have left it there but Eddie threw himself backward, rolling on top of the table like an invisible hand was dragging him. “No way. No way. That can’t be happening. But you just played along like a pro!”

She burst out laughing. He was really hamming it up, knocking over everything on the table - the candles narrowly snatched by the guys, whose quick thinking prevented the drama room going up in a puff of smoke.

“It’s not a band, it’s a twenty sided dice,” Mike said slowly, like he was talking to a toddler. “There are other numbered dice too. Not just six.”

“Yeah, we use them to make decisions on our actions, the success of our attacks...you know, it’s just how we roll.” Dustin squealed a laugh. “I said, how we roll...’cause it's a dice.”

Groans echoed across the room, second hand embarrassment so strong you could cut it with a knife, but the corner of Eddie’s lips still turned up into a smile. Their teasing clearly stayed on the right side of friendly.

He vaulted off the table clumsily, and staggered back over, approaching Rose gingerly, like she were a flight risk liable to run at any second. “Wait, wait. Before we return to the Icewind Dale I have to ask. Who are you, and how in the nine hells of Asmodeus did you appear in the centre of Hellfire on a Friday night?”

“Hold on, hold on,” Dustin interrupted. “You two really don’t know each other?”

“We go a long way back,” Eddie boasted, chest puffed out. “All the way back to that table incident thirty minutes ago. And trust me, if I'd seen the lady before, I would have remembered.”

That feeling bubbled up again, like warm whiskey coursing through her veins. “I’m Rose. It’s my first day of senior year. My first ever day of high school since we moved. So naturally I've pissed off half the school, some of the teachers, and got trapped in a supply closet whilst the nice girls talk behind my back. My social life has withered and died in a single day, like a fragile desert flower.”

Eddie nodded along. “So a quiet Friday, then.”

“Just fucking fantastic. I found a dark corner to hide my shame, only to find myself in the middle of a satanic cult. Those two John Hughes films that I watched over the summer did not prepare me for this American high school experience.”

“Yeah. It’s less Sixteen Candles, more Nightmare on Elm Street.” He smiled a dopey, lopsided smile, and fidgeted with his hands. “I’m Eddie, by the way. Munson. First days suck, I would know, I've had more than my fair share. The gentlemen behind me here are fellow D&D enthusiasts and members of Hellfire: Jeff, Chris and Gareth are long-time members, and we have some new little sheepies, Dustin and Mike. Lucas too, if he can drop his shiny rubber balls long enough to commit to the campaign.”

A chorus of Hi’s and waves introduced the players to her, but watching them from the corner of the room had given her a decent sense of their personalities and dynamics.

“Come on, guys, shuffle round the table and make space for the lady,” Eddie commanded. He dashed over to the wall and manhandled a heavy wooden chair into place, directly on the right side of his ornate throne. He bowed and gestured at the empty seat, then the colour drained from his face. “I didn’t even ask if you wanted to join, did I. It's not an obligation. You can walk right out of here having nailed the best side quest in Hellfire history.”

“We should warn you,” Gareth imparted wisely, “if you’re looking to be popular around here, this is the wrong place to be. We’re not exactly tight with the jocks or the party kids.”

Eddie pointed to himself with both thumbs. “They don’t call me Eddie the Freak for nothing.”

Her decision was already made, the moment Eddie spotted her from under that table and smiled. Here was a group of strangers going out of their way to make her feel welcome, without knowing a single thing about her.

Rose felt a lump in her throat. “You would put up with a complete idiot who doesn’t know her class from her elbow?”

Dustin’s fist pumped the air. “Yes! Puns are totally cool, I knew it.”

“I don’t mind,” Mike said. “I taught my girlfriend D&D, she had to start somewhere.”

Eddie did a double take. “You have a girlfriend, freshie?”

“She moved to California just before the school year.”

“Ah,” Jeff drew out the syllable knowingly. “Out of state. Convenient excuse.”

“I wouldn’t call it convenient,” Dustin disagreed. “My girlfriend Suzie is in Utah, and that totally sucks. It’s been forty-six days since Camp Nowhere finished, which means two hundred and ninety-nine before I see her again next summer.”

Gareth groaned. “Come on, man. Both the freshmen have girlfriends? How is that even statistically possible?”

Dustin leaned forward intently, “Well if you look at the number of D&D players, profile them by age and cross reference them with the number of-”

Eddie’s hand smothered Dustin’s mouth. “Shh, halfling. He did not mean literally. Besides, the lady hasn’t given us her answer. Sweetheart, do you wanna help us take down Iymrith, the storm dragon? I have a feeling these novices will need a helping hand. It is going to be brutal.”

Rose took a seat at Eddie’s right hand side, and picked up the many-sided lump of red plastic on the board. “I suppose I could join you. Do you know why?”

He fell for it, hook, line and sinker. “Why?”

She dropped the D20 on the table. “Because this is how I roll.”

Dustin dislodged the Dungeon Master’s mouth; fuse lit, laughter exploding from his chest like a stick of dynamite. Groans turned to laughs.

Eddie smiled, and opened his arms wide. “Welcome to Hellfire.”

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