#so i know i sound like a broken record but... thank you. y'all are holding me together. :)

[tenebriism]

// I'm doing much better today, so I'm gonna try to write! I just wanted to thank you all again for your messages yesterday. Legit made me have to step away from the desk to shed tears in our tiny little gym bathroom because the overwhelming support was... well, overwhelming, hah. I really do cherish y'all so, so much. ;_; Thank you, and just know that, in return, I'm also here for each and every one of you, regardless of how long we've known each other. <3

[missmaywemeetagain]

Broken Glass Chapter 11.1 💔🥂❤️‍🩹

Thank you so much for your patience as I got this up on different platforms due to unforeseen life crap! 💗 Okay, so Chapter 11 got a bit away from me length wise, so for sanity's sake (and so I can make some more revisions to some much-anticipated sexy times 🤭), I am posting part one of the chapter instead of making y'all wait any longer.

Some major, life-altering things went down in Chapter 10 and this chapter from Lori's perspective deals with a bit of the reality and consequences of that. (You can refresh your memory here if you need to!) We jump back in the next morning. She's got A LOT of feels going on in this chapter leading into some more twists and turns in 11.2, so the ending of this might feel a bit abrupt since it will all be part of the same chapter. Sorry!

Also, please excuse my alterations of some of the recording dates a bit to serve the story!

Anyway, as always. I can't wait to hear what you think! 💋

Loves and kisses, Madi xoxoxoxo 💗

TW: So many angsty feels, the Colonel, pregnancy and related symptoms, fear of miscarriage, Elvis and his endless PDA...smut to come in part 2 🤭

Broken Glass Chapter 11.1

“You’re what?!”

You wince at the way Tom Parker spits the words out, his shock and ire so palpable it feels like a slap to the face. The anxiousness skyrocketing through you, paired with the rapid beat of your heart knocking against your ribs, leaves you unable to look at the man, but you know he’s furious.

“We’re getting married. As soon as possible,” Elvis repeats firmly, grabbing your hand and squeezing. It seems unconscious the way he steps slightly in front of you, as if shielding you from the older man’s anger. You appreciate the gesture. No one, save for your mother, has ever protected you.

Elvis sounds so steadfast and sure about all of it. He’s a better actor than people give him credit for, but this performance is going above and beyond anything you’d assumed he was capable of.

Or maybe he means it.

Your heart flips, just the way it did last night when he asked you to marry him.

The last 24 hours have gone and changed everything so quickly that your head is still spinning. The moment when Elvis kneeled on the bathroom floor with you, wiped away your sick, and offered to fix everything, it felt so very real. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in his eyes.  

And despite it being an arrangement born out of necessity and not love, it was nothing like Gianni’s horrific proposal.

Your stomach turns at the memory of that nightmare before Parker’s voice cuts through, bringing you back to the task at hand.

“What in God’s name has gotten into you, boy?” The beady-eyed man glares around Elvis’ broad shoulders at you. You resist the urge to shiver under his accusatory gaze. “Did you threaten to go to the press, young lady? Is this about money?”

“Hey, now, Colonel,” Elvis says, deceptively calm, but his voice is low with warning. “It’s not like that at all. And you best mind your tone.”

Parker’s eyes flicker to Elvis with an edge of surprise, taking in Elvis’ protective stance and words in silence. You get the impression Elvis hasn’t stood up to the man before, not like this, anyhow. The crackle of tension in the air has you all on edge.

The older man’s eyes narrow shrewdly, and you worry you won’t be able to pull this off. You’ve observed enough in the last month to understand the influence he has over Elvis, the slight manipulations he wields, pushing Elvis right where he wants him.

Parker looks at you with scrutiny. He takes you in from head to toe. Your breath catches in your throat and you want nothing more than to disappear and pretend the last day was a dream. But you cannot. Forcing yourself to hold his stare, you remind yourself of everything at stake here.  

There is no doubt in your mind he will throw you to the wolves the moment he senses anything amiss, the moment you threaten the image of his star client. So it has to be crystal clear you are here to stay, even though it makes you sick to lie.

But there are much worse things than white lies waiting for you out in the world. And as heartbroken and shocked as you are about this baby, you already know you’ll do anything to protect it.

You aren’t even conscious of the way your hand splays over your stomach, not until Parker’s eyes freeze there. His eyes snap up to yours and then to Elvis.

“Oh, you didn’t,” Parker groans. “Christ, I picked this one specifically because I thought she was smart enough not to fall into bed with you the minute you two were alone. Turns out she’s smarter than I gave her credit for—she managed to ensnare you and ensure she’d always be tied to Elvis Presley,” he spits.

Your cheeks flame hot with the accusation, and you can’t hold back your gasp at his insinuation, even though it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Elvis squeezes your hand tight and points at Parker, his eyes stormy and livid. “Don’t you dare blame her for this! On the train, you made it clear how she needed to improve her ‘attitude’ towards me and I told ya not to worry. Well, I took care of it,” he shrugs flippantly.

You try not to gape at his blasé attitude, wanting to trust Elvis to do what he needs to make this convincing.

“You damn well know I didn’t mean ‘get her pregnant’!” Parker hisses. “And we had this talk when you were just starting out! I know you know better than to—”

“I’m in love with her,” Elvis interrupts with such conviction your stomach swoops and you need to school your face to look like you aren’t amazed by how truthful his statement sounds. The earnestness on his handsome face takes your breath away.

Tom looks sorry for him. “Oh, son, we both know how easily you fall in love. But I don’t think you understand the gravity or responsibility of starting a family. What it’ll do to your image. Girls want you unattached and available, and they’re the ones buying the records."

From anyone else, it might be imbued with caring and concern, but coming from Parker, it is backhanded and insulting with the way he talks down to Elvis, as though he were still a 19-year-old kid instead of a 25-year-old man. But he does it with the finesse of a snake charmer.

You watch Elvis carefully as he recoils a bit, an innocence flashing over his features you’ve only seen in his most vulnerable moments making a quick appearance. For a second, you are terrified he’ll cave and you’ll have to pack your bags and head West after all. Thankfully, he blinks it away, steeling himself with the stubbornness which usually drives you crazy but just might work in your favor today.

“We’re in love. We’re gettin’ married, and that’s all there is to it.” It comes out as a growl and the sound reaches down to your toes.

Parker shakes his head, grasping at anything to control his client. There’s a carefully veiled desperation in his voice which barely conceals the threat he now lobs at Elvis: “This’ll ruin you, boy! What will your father do when the money is gone, hmm? Your cousins? Your friends? That big house you bought your mother? It’ll all be gone.”

Elvis looks as though he’s been slapped. But not you. Life has made you good at reading people, at seeing through men like this. Perhaps it is the fact you are running on adrenaline or because you have so much to lose, but you find yourself furious at Parker for speaking this way to Elvis.

 “And after everything I’ve done to ensure your success, you’d throw it all away for—”

“How?” You barely register you’ve spoken until Parker’s glare lands on you.

Elvis looks down at you with surprise. It wasn’t part of the plan for you to interject; Elvis thought he could handle Parker on his own.

“How exactly will getting married and having a family ‘ruin’ him? Last I checked, you weren’t a young woman. How do you know it won’t help him? His audience is growing up and getting married, so why can’t he?” you say, a fierceness you usually rely on at work slicing through your nervousness.

“Young lady, you best shut your mouth before you get yourself in more trouble than you’re already in,” Parker seethes.

“You don’t talk to her that way!” Elvis yells, stepping in front of her, pointing in the older man’s face.

Parker looks taken aback, and you wonder if Elvis has ever stood up for himself the way he’s standing up for you now.

Your heart beats in double time, but you gently put your hand on Elvis’ arm to bring it down. His eyes are blazing but they catch yours and you breathe in slowly, hoping he follows your lead. Once he doesn’t look like he’s going to launch himself at Parker, you speak.

“I was going to be around for the foreseeable future anyhow, isn’t that right? Perhaps much longer based on what the doctor said,” you say, miraculously keeping the tremble out of your voice. “It is easier—and more proper—to explain a wife being by his side than a long-term girlfriend living in his house, yes?”

Parker scoffs but doesn’t speak.

“And there’s nothing more young ladies like me want more than weddings and babies, even more so when the groom is the most handsome and charismatic man on the planet, one they want the best for. They will look at pictures of us and imagine themselves as me, I’d bet. And the men will be much less threatened by the family man who served his country and might come around, too,” you continue with fervor, surprised at how easy it is to be assertive when it’s Elvis you are fighting for.

“It doesn’t matter if he is married or has a thousand babies, Mr. Parker. As long as Elvis is alive and keeps doing what he was born to do, they will flock to him because he is an incredibly talented, gorgeous, and kind man. My being by his side won’t change that one little bit. In fact, a wedding will be free publicity for his comeback album, I’d imagine.”

A breath wooshes out of you now your speech is finished. Your fists squeeze to hide the tremor in your hands. Silence hangs heavy and you shift uncomfortably on your feet, but you force yourself to hold Parker’s eyes.

At first, he looks at you with something akin to shock, which quickly morphs into a smirk as he throws a cigar in his mouth, considering your words, perhaps. He holds the silence and your gaze much longer than he should, and you know it’s a show of dominance. You’ve seen a similar look on the men in la famiglia when they seek to intimidate.

It equally makes you want to stand your ground and shirk back into the woodwork. You don’t want him to win, but you also know you must play a role here, and a man like him will want any good idea to seem like his own. You lower your eyes in faux deference.

“Well, Elvis, we may be able to salvage this yet,” Parker purrs, gumming the end of the cigar.

Elvis’ eyes haven’t left you since your speech—you know because you feel them boring into you—but it’s not until you look back up at those depthless blues that you see the unabashed way he’s staring.

He looks at you like he’s smitten. Like you are everything he could ever need. And he’s blushing as if bashful about what you said. His movie star gaze pins you to the spot, with his bedroom eyes at half-mast and his full lips falling open like he’s going to say something.

You would love to be able to say it didn’t make your heart flip over and your knees a little weak to be looked at like this by him; in fact, you are going to chalk it up to your hormones because this is all part of the act, you are sure.

It’s almost painful, the way you tear your eyes away from him to look at your shoes. Suddenly you are winded and exhausted.

He’s just a patient. Maybe even a friend after everything you’ve been through together this past month. A better actor than anyone gives him credit for.

Madone, I will not swoon over a man just because he’s good at pretending he loves me.

Elvis may have acted like a spoiled, sullen child the days prior to arriving back at Graceland, but you’d never in your life seen had a man so entirely consumed with your wellbeing once he knew something was wrong with you. No man had ever treated you with such care.

A swell of emotion sits like a lump in your throat when you think about his proposal. What he’s giving up to save you. To save your baby.

And he’s been so earnest it makes it hard to compartmentalize the fact this arrangement is a quid pro quo and not some romantic folly. Your mind knows this, but your heart is having trouble keeping up. It doesn’t help when he is looking at you like you hung the moon. Like you are precious and beautiful. Like you matter.

You clear your throat and look away, feeling the blush spread across your cheeks. Then, a wave of overwhelm threatens to consume you. Everything in your world has been upended in the last 24 hours, and on top of that, you still have a job to do, yet your body is fighting you every step of the way.

Pregnant.

Your stomach lurches, but you swallow the toast you’d managed to eat earlier back down. Now is not a moment to appear weak by losing your breakfast all over the floor.

Parker is sizing up the both of you, chewing on the end of his cigar like a cow chewing on cud. It makes you want to squirm, yet you force yourself to remain still.

Elvis grips your hand reassuringly, sensing your discomfort. “It’s early, so that means we should do this as soon as possible, yeah?” He says it as if asking, as if the two of you hadn’t already decided it. You can’t quite tell if he’s asking for approval or if he’s smart enough to know it will go over better if the old man thinks it’s his decision. Either way, it seems to work.

“Mmm, yes. Though some are already going to assume the reason based on your impatience,” Parker counters, pointing at your belly.

“Let ‘em think what they want. But I want it public. I want everyone to know who I’m spendin’ the rest of my life with,” Elvis says definitively.

Parker looks at him and narrows his eyes. “Are you sure, my boy? It’s quite the gamble.”

“Didn’t get where we are by always playin’ safe, did we, Colonel?” Elvis counters.

“Hmm, I suppose not,” he replies after another long moment of scrutiny, “and I know you like to charge ahead without looking, but if we give them too much at once, they might be too ravenous. And we must control the narrative.”

Parker looks at your hand. “Get her a pretty ring, then go out and about and be seen. Tell your boys, your family, but no one else. Let them start talking.” His mind starts whirring, you can tell by the gleam in his eye. “We’ll sell an exclusive to the highest bidder, with terms to run the story along with the release of the album. We’ll push the release up, but that means you need to get up to Nashville in the next few days and finish cutting the record. With singles, RCA is going to need…” He pauses to do the math. “At least 11 or 12 more songs to have enough. You think you can do that, son? With everything going on?” The challenge is clear, but you are surprised to hear concern in his voice, too. Elvis is an ill man, after all, despite how gallant he is.

Elvis nods. “Yessir, I’ll get it done.” There isn’t a lick of doubt in his words.

You, however, are worried it’ll be too much for him. It’s a lot of pressure for anyone on a good day, but for Elvis, this could be dangerous. He’s already been pushing himself to the limit with his childish behavior in Florida. You want to say as much, but Elvis must know what you are thinking because he shoots you a stern look before you can get the words out of your mouth.

“Well, then, when you get back, we’ll have a small ceremony at Graceland. A church wedding is out of the question. Safety, timing, you understand,” Parker adds, shooting you a look like he’s sorry when you both know he is anything but.

You swallow and nod, but a snake of disappointment runs through you, nevertheless. You’d been raised to expect a Catholic ceremony but realize it wouldn’t be possible anyway. Elvis isn’t Catholic. In fact, you aren’t sure what religion Elvis is. The fact you don’t know sinks in your gut.

There is so much you don’t know about the man you’re about to marry.

But he’s not Gianni, you think. And he’s willing and able to give my baby the life it deserves.

And that is enough. It has got to be. Arranged marriages still happen every day—this is no different. A love match was never in the cards for you anyway. Not with your father and Gianni in the picture.

He may drive you crazy at times, but at least with Elvis, you and the baby will be safe and cared for.

You’ll just have to quell any expectations he will see you as more than his nurse. Or more than one of the many girls just passing through.

I shouldn’t have kissed him last night.

You blush at the memory. It was a moment of weakness, but you’d been so overcome with gratitude, shock and relief, you’d let your emotions get the best of you. It was too revealing, too vulnerable, considering your roller coaster of emotions recently regarding him.

It hadn’t helped he’d kissed you back with such commitment. Like he truly wanted you.

It scared you. But you’d backed away instantly after accepting his proposal, convincing yourself the look in his eyes was nothing more than friendly and then busied yourself with putting your clothes back into his—your—closet. Then you’d used your very real exhaustion as an excuse to go right to bed after that, ignoring the gnawing feeling of want in your heart.

Elvis would never love a woman like you. A woman who’s been chewed up and spit out by horrible men, a far cry from the actress and model beauties he is used to. He is a good man, helping a woman in need out of the kindness of his heart, out of a need of his own self-preservation, but you best keep reminding yourself that pity and helpfulness is not love.  

Lest you get too caught up in the fairytale you are spinning for the world, you remind yourself that once things settle down, arrangements will need to be made for him to get his other needs met.

It wouldn’t be the first or last time a powerful, famous man had dalliances, after all. They would just need to be discreet.

The thought makes your heart ache and tears prick at the back of your eyes, though you instantly try to push away the uncomfortable feeling. You don’t have time or energy to waste on such nonsense.

It takes a moment to realize the men have stopped talking and are looking at you as though waiting for a response.

“I’m sorry, what?” you say, shaking off your thoughts.

“I asked if you had any family or girlfriends that could assist you in preparations? You’ll need to get a dress and have any family travel in to be here after you get back from Nashville,” Parker says with a raised brow.

Your heart sinks. “Oh, no. There’s no one,” you say, trying not to sound as full of regret as you feel. The few friends from nursing school you had weren’t close enough to stand with you, and while you’d love to have your brothers come, there is no way to do so without alerting your father. And you feel absolutely sick at the idea of him being anywhere near you or Elvis.

Elvis looks at you with surprise. You hadn’t told him directly about the issues with Pop, but you assume he at least expected you to have friends. It’s pathetic, to be sure, but this was the reason you’d agreed to work for him in the first place. You are alone in the world.

Swallowing thickly, you hold your head high, even so.

Elvis, thankfully, takes your cue. “I’m sure Patsy would love to help,” he says with a gentle smile, pulling you into his side, his hand resting high on your waist. His double first cousin had been kind to you in the interactions you’ve had, so you suppose she will do.

You nod in response, hyperaware of the warmth of his hand radiating through your dress. It steadies you, tingling the skin beneath, and his closeness is a welcome anchor in this uncharted territory.

“Well, then, by this time next week, you’ll be newlyweds. I trust you’ll be able to continue to take care of Elvis despite your condition, Miss Cannava?” Parker asks under a veil of concern, but the accusation is palpable.

“I have no intention of shirking my duties, Mr. Parker. I want Elvis to be as healthy as possible.”

“Please, call me Colonel,” he says, an edge in his tone that lets you know your refusal to call him Colonel annoys him. But as much as you want to rub it in, you know you need him on your side.

“Of course, Colonel,” you respond, forcing a smile on your face. “And know I’ll continue to do whatever it takes to help Elvis keep doing what he wants to do.”

“I hope that’s true, young lady,” Parker says, “for everyone’s sake.”

You swallow down the threat, adding to your already churning stomach.

*

April 3rd, 1960

Nashville, TN

“Ready, Elvis?” the engineer up in the booth buzzes in over the com.

“Yeah,” he replies, shooting you a cheeky smile and a waggle of his eyebrows as he steps up to the mic.

You roll your eyes back at him, trying not to show just how much you are appreciating his presence. The secrets you two now share have matured him. You can’t help but worry about the dark circles rimming his eyes, though it is a bit unfair how it somehow only enhances his handsomeness.

Even so, he has been remarkably steadied and attentive these past few days, considering everything going on.

It is a godsend for you. Your nerves are fraying at the edges and more than ever, you want a cigarette, but you know Elvis won’t have it. Considering what he’s doing for you and this baby, you are happy to oblige him on this, despite your cravings.

With everything you’ve gone through in your life, you pride yourself on moving through adversity—for surviving as best you can—without falling apart. But since you returned from Florida, all bets have been off.

Along with putting on the performance of a lifetime in hiding your pregnancy, you’ve also needed to play the gleeful fiancée—a role that hardly feels natural for you, even if your relationship wasn’t a farce. A thousand other girls would be beside themselves to take your place, but for you it’s different. It’s like the ground is constantly moving underneath your feet and you are holding on for dear life, trying to stay upright.

It doesn’t help that your feelings for Elvis are rapidly slipping out of your control. While his poor behavior in Florida tempered them by the time you arrived back in Tennessee, his gallant actions since then, coupled with your exhaustion, have blurred the lines completely. Every touch, every knowing glance, every concerned look sends a cascade of tingles through your body.

You want to blame the pregnancy, you really do, but you aren’t sure you can at this point. Each sliver of attention and affection from him is peeling away the armor you’ve got around your heart, and you don’t have the mental or physical energy to keep rebuilding it.

It’s a recipe for getting your heart broken.

Your fingers twist nervously, still unused to the engagement ring now on your left hand. After telling him about Gianni’s gaudy monstrosity, you’d begged Elvis to keep it simple; he’d reminded you he has a standard to uphold. The compromise was a stunning ring with three large, round stones—a diamond in the middle, with blue sapphires on either side, surrounded by smaller baguette and single cut diamonds in a white gold setting.

You wanted to hate it, solely for its extravagance, but when he had shown you the piece ahead of the “surprise” proposal you both had planned for after dinner last night, you couldn’t drudge up an ounce of dislike. He’d looked so concerned about pleasing you, telling you over and over he could take it back if you didn’t like it, but frankly, it was one of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry you’d ever laid eyes on. It was elegant and sparkling, and the uniqueness of the sapphires set it apart. It didn’t take much acting to “ooh” and “ahh” when he’d gently placed it on your finger in front of his friends and family, cementing the reality of this strange situation. A flock of butterflies had erupted in your stomach as though he really had proposed, like the proud but blushing smile on his face was really because of his love for you and not an act.

Your ring catches your eye for the millionth time today and the sapphires suddenly remind you of Elvis’ eyes. How deep and endless they seem. There is no stopping the flipping of your heart.

Oh, Madone, it’s just a ring, you chide yourself. But it doesn’t stop you from twisting it around your finger again and again like a touchstone.

After a bit of back and forth, a heavy bass line and rhythmic snapping starts, jerking your attention to Elvis. The stripped-down jazzy sound is immediately recognizable—a Peggy Lee hit from a few years ago. Your brow quirks in surprise.

The slow grin spreading across Elvis’ face is sinful as he sinks into the music.

He wanted you in the studio from the start this time around, citing you as his “good luck charm.” Part of you balked at that. The other part was flattered. After the last two times you’d watched him come alive while performing, something deep inside you awakens right alongside the beat, scaring you in its intensity.

Never know how much I love you, never know how much I care…

He starts singing. It’s quiet and deceptively relaxed, but you know him well enough now to understand he’s a live wire under it all. And that makes it even more enticing when he locks his eyes on yours, singing the words directly to you.

You give me fever…

His voice skitters across your skin, lighting fires as it goes. After the beat drops, his limbs shiver with the drums and the movement feels directly connected to the shiver running down your spine.

And he’s just warming up.

Every line, coupled with the sultry timbre of his voice, drowns you further into the depths of his eyes. They don’t let you go for the entirety of the first take. Your face is flaming, your hands gripping the edge of your seat because it feels like he’s about to eat you alive.

Madre di Dio…you’d let him. Willingly.

He wakes out of the spell he’s seemingly cast partway through the second take. You watch him whistle and blink a few times, coming back to himself. He’s slightly more unsure through the third, but regains his original focus by the fourth, sliding into the take like he’s been singing the song his whole life.

You can’t help but feel this is an intimate moment you shouldn’t be privy to, when he homes in on you once again. You are barely breathing the entire last take, a throbbing pulse consuming your heart along with your belly, something liquid and warm heating the core of you.

When he grits out: When her daddy tried to kill him, she said ‘Daddy, oh don’t you dare’, you hold back a gasp, wanting desperately to squirm in your seat to relieve some of the pressure in your body you don’t have any idea what to do with.

Perhaps it is because the line hits so close to your own experience, but it is as if he’s channeling you. Or channeling into you. You aren’t sure anymore, other that you are combusting from the inside out by the end of the song.

What a lovely way to burn… he repeats again and again, and trails off, finally.

Indeed.

He comes out of his near-trancelike state, bringing you with him and you are suddenly not at all sure you’ll make it through the next few days of recording.

How did you forget what happened last time you were in this room with him? With everything that had happened since, you suppose it’s not that outlandish, but those feelings of want, of need, seep back into your bloodstream just like the last time he sang to you in Miami, and here in this very room just a few weeks ago.

Seems like a lifetime ago…

Forcing yourself to breathe, you think maybe you’ll have a reprieve with the next song, but the bluesy Like a Baby is so sultry it does absolutely nothing to quell the fire in your veins. It doesn’t help he looks positively proud of himself every time he drinks you in, gauging your reaction, with every word he sings to you.

The seductive quality of it all is so overwhelming you need to excuse yourself to the restroom the moment the final take is cut. You clutch your trembling hands, splashing cool water across your rosy cheeks.

Get it together, Lori. He’s just doing his job.

Letting out a shuddering breath, you feel an unusual slickness between your thighs that sends your heartrate skyrocketing.

Oh, God—the baby.

Frantically, you hoist your skirt, pull down your stockings, and examine your underwear for any sign of blood. Panic slices through you until you discover you aren’t bleeding or miscarrying—it’s only a clear, slick discharge you’ve not had before. Something hormonal, no doubt, due to the changes in your body.

Then you realize you are relieved.

Your heart stutters.

You’re not sure you should be relieved. If this pregnancy ended naturally, it would save all of you a heap of trouble. It would mean you might be able to put the memory of Gianni’s cruelty behind you. It would mean Elvis wouldn’t have to settle for you. You could break off the engagement easily enough at this point.

But the thought of losing the baby, of losing Elvis, makes your heart ache so much tears spring to your eyes.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

You can’t want to actually marry Elvis. You barely know him. God knows you don’t feel ready to start a family, especially out of such horrid circumstances.

Then why does the idea of losing it all break your heart?

Sniffling, you look in the mirror and hold back the tears starting to well in your eyes.

It’s just hormones. Your body is just protecting itself and the baby, nothing more, you say in your calm and collected nurse voice. Nothing more.

Because anything more means perhaps your feelings for Elvis have truly gone beyond what you can handle right now.

Scrunching your eyes shut, you pray to understand the purpose of any of this. Why Elvis feels more like home than anywhere else, despite his sometimes infuriating nature. Why he has to be so alluring and charismatic.

Why the thought of being without him is untenable at this point, and not just because of Gianni or the baby.

It’s just a crush—a silly little crush.

No.

He’s all I have, you realize.

Of course, you feel connected to him. Right now, he is consuming your life and drawing out a safe future for the both of you. He is the only one truly in your corner. You may not know him completely, but he has not deserted you or thrown you back to your father. He is deep in this with you.

He could’ve easily fired and discarded you and been right to do so.

But for some reason, he did not.

A shuttering breath makes your chest heave. You can’t bring yourself to examine why that might be and you push away the thing you are most loathe to admit. The thing that makes pretending with him so very difficult, yet so sweet at the same time.

Shaking your head, you wipe your eyes, and straighten your spine. You powder your nose and reapply your lipstick. You put yourself back together, locking up the feelings you are trying so hard to fight.

Looking in the mirror, you see a young woman ready to do what she needs to do to survive.

Ignoring the headache brewing behind your eyes, you paste on a cordial smile and venture back to the studio. The light is on because they are recording, so you sit outside until it flashes off. You stand, brush off your skirt, and reach for the doorknob but it whips open before you can grasp it.

Gasping, your heart leaps in surprise as Elvis fills the doorway, looking a tad frantic.

“Little Bird, are you okay?” he asks, brow furrowed. He grasps your shoulders gently, taking you in as though you might be hurt. He thumbs your chin and looks into your eyes. “You disappeared on me.”

You bite your lip, concealing the smile wanting to appear at the fact he noticed you were gone.

“I was feeling a bit queasy,” you murmur. It’s not a lie, but not the whole truth, either.

The pad of his thumb brushes over your cheek. Your heart thumps and you look down to avoid the intensity of his gaze, lest he see more than you want him to.

“Let’s get you back to the hotel then, darlin’.”

“I’m fine,” you brush him off, “And I won’t leave you. You look tired. How are you feeling?”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re tryin’ to change the subject, little one,” he muses. His hands find your waist, burning through your dress. “I am tired. Let’s call it quits for the night.”

Your mouth pops open and your eyes narrow with suspicion. “Has hell frozen over? Elvis, you’ve hardly cut three songs, and the Colonel said—”

“I heard the Colonel, but I’m tellin’ ya it’s time to go.” There’s an edge to his voice, warning you his mood is shifting. “And I’m doin’ what I promised by knowin’ my limits.”

“Okay, I’m just surprised is all. I’m used to you fighting me like a stubborn goat,” you tease, trying to lighten the mood. You can’t discern if he’s doing this for your sake or his, however. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if it gets the job done.

His cheeks are flushed, so you feel his forehead with the back of your hand. “I suppose you do feel a bit warm,” you concede. “Alright, let’s go get some rest, then.”

He nips at your hand playfully as you bring it down, pulling you closer. The flirtation has you blushing and you resist the urge to giggle, rolling your eyes instead. You can’t help but notice there is no one to perform for but remind yourself he’s just an overly affectionate guy. It means nothing.

“Hey, EP, you comin’?” Charlie yells from inside the room.

“Naw, we’re heading out. I’m tired,” Elvis says, giving you a wink.

Charlie sputters but recovers quickly, gathering the group as Elvis entwines his fingers with yours and heads out to the car.

He doesn’t let you go until you arrive back at the hotel, safe in the room you share.

Something is building between you two. You can feel it in the care of his touch, in the warmth filling your chest and your belly with each beat of your heart. It’s in his eyes as he sits on the edge of the bed, releasing the mask he wears for the rest of the world as you check his vitals.

He is tired and a little feverish. You are proud of him for following through on taking better care of himself, even if you think it is because he is looking out for you and not himself. You give him a quick little smile before turning to put away the blood pressure cuff.

“I wish you’d do that more.”

“Do what?” you ask.

“Smile. I don’t think you realize how beautiful you are when you do it,” he says, low and quiet.

It rumbles through you like thunder, your heart skipping a beat. You pay special attention to clasping your bag closed, unable to look at him but feeling the weight of his gaze.

“Elvis—” you whisper.

“I want you to be happy,” he interrupts.

You sigh with the weight of your circumstances pressing on your shoulders, still unable to meet his eyes.

“But I understand why that’s hard right now. I jus’…I-I w-want you to know I’ll do whatever I can to make things easier on ya. Because you deserve to have more of those pretty smiles.”

The clasp of your bag becomes blurry and your throat tight. You clench the leather and force a deep breath. Tilting your head up to blink back the tears, you clear your throat before you can attempt to look at him.

Why does he have to say things like that? It makes it harder to resist the pull you feel towards him. You are teetering on the very edge of being professional and he seems keen to push you over, whether he knows it or not.

“Thank you,” you finally manage out, though so many words linger unsaid on the tip of your tongue. You meet his eyes and fireworks erupt over your skin at the way he looks up at you so openly. The air is sucked out of the room, deathly still, like before a summer thunderstorm. It leaves you buzzing and dizzy.

He stands, slowly, as if not to startle you, and steps forward. With each inch closer he gets, the air shifts, beginning to crackle with electricity. Your heart gallops faster. If he touches you, you are done for, you just know it. The lightning burning bright inside of him has the power to wreak irrevocable havoc on you. And you cannot afford to let your feelings get in the way of your survival because when he breaks your heart, which you know he will, you will have nowhere to go.

You have the baby to think of now. It is easier to sit in the discomfort of your complicated feelings than in the pain of the inevitable heartbreak that will come when he realizes you’re just like any of his other women—you’re replaceable, at least romantically. And God knows you’ve had too much pain in your life related to the whims of men to add more.  

The air sizzles as he reaches for you, tempting you to burn with his touch. Part of you wants to burn—the deep heat swirling unbidden low in your belly dares you to let him—but you jump back out of instinct.

“I-I should get ready for bed,” you stutter, racing to your suitcase to grab your nightgown before hightailing it to the bathroom and slamming the door harder than you intended. You think you hear him chuckle as you lean back on the door to catch your breath.

Your body shakes but not out of fear of him. No, it’s like you’ve refused it something vital and it quakes with the need of release. Like the crack of lightning in him would bring the relief of rain, cutting the heat between you.

It doesn’t make sense. You’ve never felt this before, but you know it is dangerous. Lightning is beautiful but deadly, after all.

As you stumble your way through your bedtime routine, you realize in a few short days, the storm of a man out there will be your husband. And one more boundary between you you’ve relied on to keep you on solid ground will be gone.

And one look in the mirror at the exhaustion lining your features, you wonder if it is too late; perhaps the coming storm is inevitable and will tear you to pieces no matter what you do.

There are worse ways to perish than in the arms of Elvis Presley.

*

The swell of electricity doesn’t go away. It abates some, at times, but your body is hellbent and hyperaware of Elvis’ every move, of every breath he takes.

You desperately want to blame your job—you’re supposed to be observant of him, after all—or the changes in your body because of the baby, but the waves of rolling thunder build under your skin despite the physical space he is trying to give you.

The marathon of a session on Monday does not make things better. You’d hoped it would be a distraction. He needs to be completely focused to bang out at least nine more songs to finish the album. There will be no time for anything but music.

Except you somehow forget music fuels him and makes him glow from the inside out. Instead of dissipating, the storm just builds and builds, like wild thunderheads in the sky. He lives each song so completely, expertly maneuvering through mournful ballads and bouncing pop and raunchy blues like he was born to do. It’s mind-bending and alluring, and every time he draws you in, it feels like he’s singing directly to you, about you.

He's enjoying himself, despite the long hours. Completely in his element. And electricity zings though your body during the playful moans at the end of Such a Night. By the Thrill of Your Love, you think you might combust.

And he knows it, by the sparkle in his eyes and the pull of his defiant but tempting upper lip. He wasn’t offended by the boundary you set last night in the slightest, giving you the physical space you desperately needed unless needed to keep up the ruse of your engagement. But everything he does, every lyric he sings, every twitch of his body, makes you feel as though you are swirling out of control. The more he respects your need for physical space, the more you want him to box you in.

He's doing just that, just not with his body.

You are completely on edge when not absorbed in his performance and technique. God, what an idiot you were to think he wasn’t talented. His stint in Germany only served to strengthen his craft. The world isn’t ready for this new and improved Elvis. Girls will be beside themselves.

You just never thought you’d be one of them.

By the time he gets to the last song, he can’t stave off how tired he’s getting. The marathon session has taken all night and into the dawn. He lets everyone know he’s not entirely convinced he should even sing this Are You Lonesome Tonight? but the Colonel, along with Steve, the RCA rep, press him.

Worry for Elvis’ wellbeing has you voicing your concern, but the men look at you as if you are a silly little girl and not a professional. It takes a moment to remember the only one who really knows your role here is Parker, and despite nearly being asleep on your feet, you are ready to go toe to toe with him. Elvis concedes to his manager, however, before shooting you a look and running his hands down your arms to placate you. The long touch of him distracts you enough to lessen your annoyance for the moment.

This last song is the only time he kicks you out of the room, along with everyone except the musicians, but you manage to sneak into the booth to listen. You can’t see anything through the window because he’s ordered all the lights be turned off, but the result has goosebumps rising all over your body with the emotionally eerie but gentle lilt of his performance.

By the end, tears are streaming unbidden down your cheeks, though you aren’t entirely sure why. You race to wipe your cheeks before the lights pop back on, but he catches your eye through the window and swell of emotion rises again.

You know you are careening quickly towards something beyond your control. The pregnancy is one thing pushing you towards the edge, but this new arrangement with Elvis, the intimacy involved, has your heart racing with both curiosity and fear. It is all so far out of your experience but there is no real choice. It is whatever this new normal is or running for your life.

Being off kilter and filled with feelings you don’t understand is uncomfortable, but you’ll take it versus the alternative, though you can’t help the fear you’ve put Elvis in terrible danger crawling at the edges of your mind.

It’s this that keeps you alert as you all board the bus to head back to Memphis after a quick diner breakfast. Elvis is dying on the vine, the energy of performing all night taking its toll. The darkness around his eyes and the pallor of his skin tells you everything you need to know, but his limbs twitch restlessly all the way home, even when he doses, curled up into you with his head on your shoulder. It’s as if he can’t shut it off even when he is completely drained.

It’s too much for him. Your anxiety builds and builds in the hours it takes to return to Graceland. You are worrying your lips raw between your concern for him and the position you’ve put him in. Guilt swirls in your stomach, making your carsickness worse.

On top of it, your body is desperate to be close to him, as though his presence is a balm to your burdens, but those feelings just bring more confusion. You relish the tickle of his long, soft hair against your jaw and the way his fingers interweave with yours, even in sleep. Despite how ready you were to leave mere days ago, you aren’t quite sure you could do so now without damaging a part of yourself you didn’t know existed.

It frightens you, but the tingle that zings down your arms and into your palm lets you know it is exhilarating, too.

The bus is quiet of its usual boisterousness when it pulls through the gates of Graceland in the early afternoon. It is hard to believe how much everything has changed in a few short days, since the last time you arrived like this.

“Elvis,” you whisper, but he barely stirs. His eyes are closed, and his full lips are open slightly, giving him an air of innocence that tugs at your heart. “Elvis, sweetheart, we’re home.”

Sweetheart? Madone, where did that come from? You blush at your use of the endearment, not having used it since your brothers were little boys and certainly never with a man.

Elvis sputters and his long eyelashes flutter open as he stretches his long arms. “Mmm, ‘sweetheart,’ huh?” he murmurs, his lips turning up in a small, sleepy smile.

“I—you must have dreamed that,” you reply, flustered, but you know your pink cheeks and the way you twist your ring give you away.

He just grins. “You can call me sweetheart all day, Little Bird.” Then, he pulls you down for a sweet, chaste kiss, which surprises you. He tastes of sleep and coffee and chewing gum. The kiss is quick but sends a tremble through you all the same, especially since the bus is nearly empty.

When he pulls back and takes a look at you, his eyes fill with concern. He runs his thumb under your eye, as though he could wipe away the darkness you know is there. “Did you sleep at all, baby?”

You shake your head no, trying to brush him off by getting up to walk away, but he stands and grabs your arm. Pulling you back gently, he wraps his arms around your middle. You give up trying to wiggle away—he’s stronger than you. You’re surprised to find you don’t mind it. If it were any other man, you’d be panicking at the closeness, but it seems you’ve grown used to Elvis’ near constant displays of physical affection.

“I’m fine, Elvis. Let’s go inside.”

“Little one, the doc said you need sleep…”

His vacillation through pet names and endearments should annoy you, but they don’t. Not anymore. You sigh.

“…and you’re gettin’ married tomorrow. You need ta look your best for your husband,” he says, waggling his eyebrows.

Rolling your eyes at his silliness, you try and mask the surprising buzz of excitement running through your limbs at the reality that in a day you will be married to this exasperatingly handsome and talented mess of a man. It’s overwhelming and a little exhilarating, but you can feel exhaustion pulling at you, knowing you’ll be knee deep in preparations in a few short hours.

You resist the urge to lay your head on his shoulder, but he senses your resignation in the way your body deflates. It’s hard, you realize, to let anyone else take care of you.

“How ‘bout I rest with you? Will you at least try to take a nap then?” If he’s conceding to more rest, you know you must look worse for the wear. But it does the trick.

“Alright, fine. I will rest if you do, too,” you concede.

Being back at Graceland—back home—helps you relax more. No one can get to you or Elvis here. You fear you won’t be able to sleep, but once your head hits the pillow, Elvis safe and resting inches away, you slide into the dreamless dark.

*

Taglist Pt 1

@eliseinmemphis@russian-soft-bitch@tattywood

@sassanoe@thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle@carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23

 @littlebitofgreen@paigevis@bugg06@xhannahbananax03@artlover8992

@18lkpeters@frozenhuntress67@girlblogger2002@kendralavon7@misspresley

@be-my-ally @whositmcwhatsit @vintageshanny @ellie-24 @thatbanditqueen @powerofelvis @from-memphis-with-love

 @precious-lil-scoundrel @stylespresleyhearted @prompted-wordsmith @crash-and-cure @elvisgf @lookingforrainbows @fic-over-cannon @godlypresley @ab4eva @whatstruthgottodowithit @elvisabutler @amydarcimarie@idontwanttoputanything @callieselvisobsessed @captainamerica1235-blog  @xenaspace3-blog 

@simplyamberj@claire-elvisgirl@everythingelvispresley@louisejoy86@deniseinmn @madelynpresley

[kikiiswashere]

Children of Zaun - Chapter 29

Pairing: Silco/Fem!OC

Rating: Explicit

Story Warnings: Canon typical violence, drug use/dealing, dark themes, smut

Chapter Summary: Things between Zaun and Piltover go from bad to worse. Katya's attempts to protect Viktor do not land as intended.

Note: Thank you all for your patience with this chapter. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, life has been a lot lately. I truly appreciate all you readers and am humbled by all the kind words this labor-of-love of mine has recieved. Y'all keep me going 💗

CW: Canon typical violence, police brutality, gun violence, murder, brief allusion to 69-ing

Previous Chapter

Word Count: 5.5K

Snowdown season ended. And with it, Topside’s patience.

A week after the skies dumped snow on Piltover and Zaun, three of the Children’s contraband runners were intercepted by Enforcers. Their usual route was gobbed up with snow and slush, forcing them to take a more travelled path.

They were stopped outside Augmentation Alley’s scrap pit. Enforcer’s pressed their fronts against the chain link fence, and searched them. Despite the cold, the air sizzled with the heat of tension. Each of the runners’ bodies was taut with anger and fear. Quivering like cornered dogs ready to bite.

The four Enforcers found bottles of clear Freljordian liquor tucked into their coats, shirts, trousers, and boots. They gently laid them in a snowbank nearby. Excitement bubbled beneath their skin over the find. Over what it might mean.

One of the Enforcers snidely asked for the stamped paperwork that was meant to accompany such product. Of course there was none, and the runners stayed tight-lipped, fuming and trembling.

“If there is no paperwork,” the Enforcer had said, his slippery voice hollow in his mask, “where did this come from?”

The other Enforcers pressed their batons firmly against the runners’ backs, the chain link biting into their skin. They said nothing.

“You steal it?”

No answer.

The Enforcer questioning them jerked his chin toward one of his peers. They knocked one of the runners to the ground – an older teen boy with shaggy blond hair. He grunted as he faceplanted into the dirty snow. The other Enforcers hauled him to his knees and found a revolver in his face.

“We can make it so you actually can’t answer.”

Feeling cornered shuts down one’s prefrontal cortex and the amygdala surges forward. Rational thoughts and actions get swallowed up by the primal need to survive. Which is why one of the runners, still held against the fence, flailed suddenly, her elbow threading the space between the Enforcer’s mask and chest, smashing into his neck. He choked and staggered, and she made to run.

Melee followed.

The Enforcer with the revolver shifted his attention and fired. The bullet embedded itself in the girl’s back, and she fell. The teen on his knees leapt up and tackled him. The third runner bucked against the hold of the Enforcer pinning them in place, thrashing out of their thread-bare coat and escaping. They went to scoop up the fallen girl, but her limp, heavy weight felt like death and they left her, darting for the hellish glow of Augmentation Alley. Two of the Enforcers streaked after them.

The tackled Enforcer and older teen wrestled on the ground, hands clamoring for control of the revolver. It went off without warning, without knowing its aim. The Enforcer’s back exploded in a warm, red shower and the young man gasped, kicking his way out from under the dead body.

The remaining Enforcer screamed, leapt forward, and bludgeoned the suspect with his baton. Between the twists of arms, mists of blood, and crunching of bone, another shot from the revolver blared and knocked the Enforcer back. He hit the fence and crumpled, chest gaping.

Shaking, bleeding, gasping, the battered runner gathered as many bottles as he could and crawled toward the nearest alley. He nestled himself in a snowbank, pouring the clear liquor over his wounds and down his throat. He waited for death to come.

It didn’t.

At some point, a pair of strong arms had hoisted him up. Voices murmured and glass clinked. Then there was warmth. The smell of stale beer and sweat. And astringent. The sound of a deep rumble and a rolling whisper. Something soft wrapped around his head. Something sturdy held his arm.

It would be a week before Dustin became remotely lucid. And even then, his eyes remained dark and drawn. Crazed.

The other runner managed to give the Enforcers the slip in the hot maze of Augmentation Alley. Ran appeared at The Last Drop a day later, covered in soot and burns, to inform Vander and Silco of what had happened. Their usual monotone speaking pitch turned jittery with anxiety.

The Children had been unable to retrieve the other runner’s body. The Enforcers that had pursued Ran came back to the crime scene before they could get to her.

There was a raid of Augmentation Alley the next day. Shops were turned inside out. Owners and their families lined up in the narrow streets while an army of Enforcers ransacked their livelihoods and homes.

Pok attempted to stop his shop from being destroyed, and was struck to the ground. Before Mek could come to his father’s aid, an Enforcer’s knee ground into the older man’s back and wrenched his arms around, slapping brass cuffs around his thick wrists.

“You’re under arrest for obstructing law enforcement.”

“You can’t do this!” Mek raged, advancing on the Enforcer.

“Leave it, boy!” Pok wheezed. Their eyes found each other. Even from the ground, Pok could pin his nearly grown son in place. “Leave it. Take care of things.”

The old augmenteer was hauled to his feet and led away. He gave Mek one last firm look, and his son was sure ‘take care of things’ did not just mean their shop.

Take care of Topside.

Pok was taken to Stillwater and never made it out.

The upturning of Augmentation Alley did not produce the suspect Enforcers were looking for. It technically did not reveal anything of note. But LeDaird had already been feeling Council’s pressure to act, to produce results. And now two of his own officers had been killed. The terrorist attack was already personal, but now the threat of the Children of Zaun had threaded beneath his ribs.

Screenings of goods destined for the Undercity intensified. Suppliers were searched along with their loads. New documentation became required. Small and fast skips patrolled wider and longer sections of the coastline, watching for any unusual activity.

Three weeks after the raid on Augmentation Alley, there was an unheard-of assembly at Rynweaver’s mine. Confused and agitated, miners and other employees shuffled into the facility’s cathedral. The space was rimmed with masked and armed Enforcers. The well-hewn walls glowed with strings of chem-bulbs and flood lights blared. Shadows of stalactites, stalagmites, and thin columns crisscrossed over the floor and walls. Atop the lead foreman’s trailer, Rynweaver stood. He looked coldly down at the Trenchers ambling in. Their dirty faces and dull eyes gazing up at him distrustfully.

Kat hung on the outskirts, shoulder brushing up against Silco’s. He’d positioned himself behind a craggy boulder, and had pulled the kerchief he wore around his neck over his nose. It was a habit he had developed the few times he and Rynweaver ever habituated the same space; born of his mother’s desire to keep her son separate from his sire. Lessening the chance of Rynweaver’s greedy gaze finding her boy in a crowd, and putting two-and-two together.

Sevika also stood with them, thick arms crossed over her chest.

Rynweaver held up a gloved hand and the crowd’s murmuring reluctantly dwindled.

“I will make this brief.” His cognac-smooth voice reverberated off metal and stone, sending vibrations beneath his audiences’ skin. “In light of the terrorist attack several weeks ago, the murder of Enforcers, and the raid recently, this mine will be doing its part to flush out the Children of Zaun. If anyone is discovered to be a member of this terrorist organization, they will be immediately fired and arrested. If anyone is found to have information of them and has not come forth, they will be fired and arrested. If anyone is found in support of the Undercity’s freedom, they will be fired and arrested.

“Thanks to these terrorists, the restrictions and protracted wait-time on imports and exports is causing the mine to lose money. To compensate for this unfortunate turn of events, all workers’ salaries shall be diminished by eight-percent – “

At once, the crowd erupted. They jostled and shifted like a school of fish, scales made of pickaxes and shovels glinting in the light. Kat’s stomach dropped, Silco stiffened. Sevika gasped and trudged forward, throwing her voice into the wails of complaints.

The Enforcers on the perimeter moved as one, stepping closer and herding the crowd with the slender but deadly bodies of their rifles.

“Consider this,” Rynweaver called above the din, “motivation for helping Council ferret out these traitors.” The angry swell of voices ebbed. “The sooner they are exterminated, the sooner this nation of Zaun nonsense is laid to rest, the sooner things go back to normal.”

“Normal is unacceptable!” Silco roared later that night at the Drop, standing atop the bar.

The Children rumbled their agreement. Over the course of the recent weeks, their faces had morphed. Once shining and hopeful, now darkening and angry.

“What is normal for Topside is us breathing smog, rationing breadcrumbs, breaking our bodies to service their needs!” A few of the growls rose into barked agreements. Others nodded, eyes hard and glassy. “Their normal will kill us!”

Kat watched him from her spot next to Enyd, heart pounding furiously. It was different than her first meeting. Her blood didn’t run cold with fear. Now, it boiled with indignation and fury. Her body thrummed with Zaunite pride and a disdain for their Sister City. Her chest swelled as Silco continued railing against Piltover’s abuse. Warm, slithering, smokey tendrils of awe filled the spaces between her organs and bones. His unabashed insistent belief and zealousness wafted from him, feeding her. Feeding the room. Their value, worth, and deservedness served to them on a silver platter with his words. And the crowd gorged.

Kat could even feel Enyd’s slight frame puff with pride at her son’s words and command of the room.

Vander leaned against the bar, watching and listening to his Brother’s ire. His face was a craggy series of lines and shadows, as if he’d been hewn from stone. His own fury was palpable. For the first time since overtaking The Last Drop, he hadn’t been able to pay the building’s rent, nor the other taxes Piltover burdened business owners with. It meant a yellow letter and a warning. Never mind the fact that the reason he’d been unable to pay in full was due to Topside’s chokehold on products coming into the Undercity.

Despite this, Vander listened to Silco and watched the crowd with a small amount of caution, ready to temper any hasty suggestions that would get their movement killed before any progress could be made. His eyes found Katya across the room, irritated that it was always her voice in his head when he thought of his responsibility to the Children. To the cause. To Zaun.

Since walking in on her and Silco, he’d avoided her the best he could. If he had to speak to her, his words were brief and colorless. He didn’t know if she thought he was still embarrassed and cagey, or if she was able to pick up on the undercurrent of envy coursing through him. In any case, she did not let on that she was aware of any shift in him. She appeared too preoccupied with the bombastic unfurling of her and Silco’s new relationship. Rarely was one seen without the other, their fingers tightly intertwined.

“We should gut any Enforcer that dares to step foot in the Undercity!” Tolder roared, leaping to his feet and throwing a fist into the air.

Lu jostled at his hip, giggling and tossing his own dumpling of a hand up. There was a small, angry swell of impulsive assent, frothing and spectacular in its heat. But most of the Children remained a dull sort of red. Their frustration grayed – caked and cracked by many heavy layers of unfairness.

Vander straightened at Tolder’s outburst. His heart hammered as he shot a glance up to Silco. His Brother folded his arms across his chest, lips thinning into a tight line.

“They deserve it,” Vander agreed, stepping forward. “But goin’ after Enforcers recklessly ain’ practical r’ wise. Silco n’ me – “

“So what? We’re just suppose’ta take it? What’re we doing here?”

“No,” Silco said firmly. “We will not take it. Haven’t you been listening?” He hopped off the bar and stepped in line with Vander. “We will not return to their status-quo. Nor shall we be stupid and hasty with how we move forward.”

Tolder blanched at his words, but Silco held the older man’s gaze. Then looked around the room.

“We are still in the cold season. Resources are always scarce. Now is the time to lean on each other. Stand shoulder to shoulder as Brothers and Sisters. We shall not be rattled.

“In terms of action, Vander and I have discussed the following – “

He laid out the development for new safehouses – places those in need could go if Janna’s Temple was full. It had been an endeavor spearheaded by Enyd. She reached out to her clients in the marketplaces and on the Promenade. Calling in favors and utilizing her likability to convince them to shelter Children who needed to hide, eat, or sleep. Thereby curling them into the cause.

Smuggling would continue. It had to. The change there would be security detail. Vander, Mek, Sevika, and other brawlers would flank the smaller, faster runners and take out anyone who stood in the way of their route.

Beckett would head a small crew of other Children – those specifically familiar with the docks – and sabotage Enforcer skips. Cutting fuel lines and puncturing hulls. There was also discussion of luring skips to the coast where a few Children would hide in the shadows of the craggy rocks, and use the few long -range rifles they had smuggled in from a Noxian trader to shoot them down. Although, the practicality of that plan was hotly debated. For one, ammunition was scarce. For a second, long-range marksmanship was a skill, and if the Children missed it would cost more than bullets and gunpowder.

“Katya can shoot,” Annie chirped.

Heads swiveled towards the medic, and while her shoulders stiffened, her eyes remained hard.

“I have never been trained. And firing a pistol is different than firing a rifle.”

“To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to,” Annie countered flippantly. “The ends of both go BANG, don’t they?”

“It is not that simple,” Katya replied, keenly aware that she was not scoffing outright at the suggestion. In fact, she felt annoyed by the idea’s pragmatic blocks. A frown formed on her face.

“We can make ammo,” Mek growled. Since his father had been hauled away, the teen had darkened and grown up fast. His voice had sunk and a heavy black cloud settled over his shoulders. His small eyes shone with rage. “Augmentation Alley can mold bullets.”

Katya swallowed, jaw setting. Her eyes locked onto Silco’s, still standing at the bar, before shifting back to Mek. “What of the gunpowder?”

Unsure murmurs vibrated through the tavern. Then, the most unlikely voice answered.

“The mines have gunpowder,” Enyd said.

All eyes fell on her, and she recoiled under the attention. But she took a deep, wheezing breath and stood as tall as her four-foot-eleven frame allowed.

She looked to her son and Vander before continuing. “The black powder used to blow apart the rocks there is the same as gunpowder. It is a fairly simple compound, too. Charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur.”

Silco took a sharp breath in through his nose, remembering how that rotten-egg scent would linger on her clothes, in her hair.

“We have access to all of those things,” Vander said. “We could jus’ make our own. More work, yeah, but would be one less thing t’hafta smuggle.”

“We will do both,” Silco decided. His eyes shone as he looked at his mother. Possibility pulsed in his chest.

“There are sulfur pots deeper in the cave where the Springs are,” Kat said.

She nuzzled closer, her cheekbone rubbing against Silco’s neck, her left hand idly playing with the fingers of the arm wrapped around her shoulders. A low hum vibrated in his chest as he brought his other arm behind his head. He stared up at her bedroom ceiling in thought.

“Charcoal is easy enough to come by.”

“So is saltpeter,” he added. “It’s crusting every smokestack in Zaun.”

Silence fell between them. Then a thought curled Kat’s lips.

“It is ironic that Topside would shove us underground, only to give us the tools for their own undoing.”

A darkly amused sound huffed in Silco’s chest.

“They’ll choke on their own blood and hubris,” he whispered. “We’ll show them.”

The same warmth from the meeting swelled in Kat’s chest. It felt weighty with righteousness, her lungs struggling a bit under the emotion.

Suddenly, she sat up and made to straddle Silco’s waist. He started at her abrupt movement, but quickly settled back into the pillows. The blazing earnestness in her eyes held him in place. She hinged forward and kissed him, and he reached up to touch her cheek. When she straightened, the hand ghosted over her bare breast and rested on the ribs beneath it. She smiled at him, the dim green glow of the streetlamps outside cutting her into a beautiful shape. Then her smile lessened. Her eyes broke from his gaze and looked to the window.

“What is it?”

Silco watched the muscles in her jaw flex under the chartreuse light as she decided how to articulate whatever she was thinking.

“I have to get Viktor tomorrow.”

A low, short hum rumbled in Silco’s throat. His thumb swept over the mole beneath the swell of her breast. Kat disappeared from his side when she had her brother under her wing. He saw nothing of her between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

“I will not lie,” she said, “the tenser things between Zaun and Piltover become, the more I am worried. I know there is no way forward without violence, but I am scared something may happen to him.”

Silco gently pet her flank, trying to decide what was best and truest to say.

“You cannot hide him from this forever.”

Kat’s brows pinched. “I am not hiding him. He knows there is unrest – “

“That’s not what I am talking about.”

She said nothing for a long moment. Then sighed, “I am not ready to tell him that I am a part of this. I am not ready to tell him anything.”

Her eyes sheepishly found his in the dark, the subtext of that statement settling heavy between them. She did not want Viktor involved in this part of her life – not the Children, not Enyd, not Silco.

Not yet.

Silco did not fight her on it. It wasn’t his decision to make. Viktor was her family, her responsibility. If Kat felt it was safest for him to be kept separate for the time-being, it wasn’t his place to insist otherwise.

Even so, he asked: “When will you?”

“When our freedom is on the horizon,” she said with a smile. Then, her expression sobered. “Or when I absolutely have to.”

Silco’s lips thinned and he nodded once, his eyes breaking away from hers. Kat reached out, running the back of her fingers down his cheek and over the scar on his lip.

“He is eleven. I want him to be a child as much as he can be. I know it is a privilege most Zaunite children do not get to have, but if I can offer some semblance of youth to him, I will. I want him to have better than I did. In every way. You understand?”

He did. Of course he did. A long sigh softened Silco’s body, and he leaned into her hand.

“I understand. I am selfish, and miss you on the weekends.”

Kat’s mouth quirked into a grin. She leaned over to kiss him, her hand threading through the ebony tangle of his hair.

How easily they fell into one another. Her plushness and his angles slotting together perfectly. How much sweeter would it be once Zaun was free, when their angst lifted and floated away on a sea breeze?

She could not wait.

“I miss you, too,” Kat whispered, pulling back. Then that mischievous, secret glint flashed in her eyes. “Shall I give you something to remember me by?”

Silco’s own eyes darkened, his pupils swallowing any of the faint light filtering into the room. A wolfish grin lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Like I said: I am selfish. I will gladly take whatever you’ll give me.”

“And then some.”

“And then some,” he agreed.

She matched his smile before spinning around, diving head first beneath the covers. Silco’s large hands gripped her hips firmly, and pulled her to his mouth just as her lips wrapped around him.

There was a promise of warmth on the edges of the breeze that fluffed Viktor’s hair. He and Miss Ivy stood by the Bridge’s attendance hut waiting for his sister. He hoped the warm season would begin sooner rather than later, if for no other reason than that he could take his lunch outside again. During the cold season he had no choice but to eat in the cafeteria with the rest of his class. They would shoot him prying stares and whisper about the stitches on his uniform and worn shoes. About how the button-up beneath his vest was a dingy grey color, instead of their pristine, crisp white ones. They’d hiss about how he was from the Undercity, and therefore made him a novelty. Not a novelty to be coveted, but one to be gawked at, poked and prodded. The other-ing had only gotten worse since that airship crash several weeks ago. The boys and girls in his classes plied him with taunts thinly veiled as questions. In more extreme cases, he’d be harassed as he walked across campus: older students yelling slurs at him, gesturing rude things.

He didn’t mention it to anyone. Professor Heimerdinger may have been willing to listen, but nothing would change. He had not seen Councilor Bone since before Snowdown. He didn’t tell Katya because . . . because something was off.

The sense of something being amiss he had had several weeks ago hadn’t ebbed. For weeks, his sister seemed a shell of herself. Attentive enough to keep his needs met, but there had been no light in her eyes. None of her smiles brightened her face. Then, the Friday after the Snowdown holidays, something had changed. Katya was bright again, but it didn’t warm him. She seemed happier, but still distant. Like her mind was elsewhere.

When she did not appear distracted, Katya was bubbling with frigid indignation about Piltover’s recent treatment of the Undercity. In the past, she kept their heads low and made a point to skirt around Enforcers. Avoiding them was not an option any longer, and Katya’s nervousness about them had transformed into anger. She kept her face hard when they walked through the Lanes back to the Sump, the grip she had on Viktor’s shoulder commanding and tight.

They had been stopped for questioning a couple of times. Where were they coming from? Where were they going? Had they seen anything suspicious lately? Katya’s answers had been short and sharp. Not rude enough to set the Enforcers off, but she left no room for them to think she would be any kind of helpful.

They’d been searched once. A perfunctory pat-down of Katya and a search of Viktor’s duffle bag. For a split second, he thought she might actually lash out when one of the Enforcers gently patted his body down. Of course, they had nothing on them, so they were allowed on their way. The rest of the evening, Katya stomped around the apartment, pots and pans clanging, her eyes – stuck in a perpetual glare – continually shot to the door and to the windows. As if she was expecting to see something there. She also kept lifting the collar of the shirt she was wearing – one he did not recognize – up to her nose, and breathing deeply. As if it brought her some sort of comfort.

The increased Enforcer presence in the Undercity also meant that he and Katya spent most of the weekend holed up in the apartment. No trips to the docks, the Oases, the Springs, or any of the marketplaces. And despite the close and constant quarters with his sister, Viktor battled a persistent, creeping sense of alienation.

His young heart twisted painfully in his chest as the ability to find solace on either side of the River dwindled.

“Here she comes,” Ivy sighed suddenly, pulling Viktor from his heavy thoughts.

He blinked his gaze back into focus, and saw Katya striding across the Bridge. She beamed at him, and Viktor desperately wished he could feel it. The gate attendant lifted the barricade, allowing him and Ivy to step through.

As usual, once Viktor was within arm’s reach, Katya gathered him up against her chest in a tight hug. Her nose buried itself in the fluffy folds of his hair, and her lips pressed against his crown.

“I missed you.”

Viktor knew she wasn’t lying. Yet, the sentiment seemed to bounce off his heart, unable to sink in.

“I missed you, too.”

She drew back and pet a hand through his hair. Her eyes gleamed as she took him in, an intense look of pride that strangely left him feeling lacking.

“Come. Let us go home.”

As had been the case for the past several weeks, Katya only acknowledged Ivy enough to take Viktor’s duffle from her.

“Have a nice weekend, Miss Ivy,” he offered before limping away.

The aide smiled sweetly at him. “You as well, Viktor.”

“Come along.”

Katya gently tugged on his coat, encouraging him to step away from Piltover. He gave Ivy a meek smile and she waved good-bye.

As they slowly traveled toward the conveyor car station, Viktor eyed the artwork and graffiti that now decorated buildings, walkways, fencing, and lampposts. Blue birds and ‘Zs’ scribbled in varying art styles and detail. Slogans of ‘FREE ZAUN,’ ‘WE ARE THE STORM’S FURY,’ and ‘FUCK TOPSIDE’ were written in manic zig-zags of chalk. It made him feel nervous. Dread brushed gently against his stomach.

The pair stiltedly ascended the few steps up to the conveyor car, and Katya flashed her Academy-issued badge. She and Viktor took their seats, and he fished out one of his steno pads from his school satchel. His sister smiled as he reviewed the notes he’d made that week in Professor Heimerdinger’s robotics class. Sketches of gears, cogs, and possible engine designs covered the pages.

“Still planning on a boat?”

Viktor nodded. “We will get to start constructing in a few weeks. We have to get designs approved first.”

Katya nodded. Her body jostled as the conveyor car began to slide down into the Undercity.

She pet a hand through his hair and said, “I am sure you will have no problem getting your plans approved.”

“I want to make an engine that is not reliant on traditional fuel. Like wood or coal,” he said, eyes glued to his notes and drawings. “Something that is sustainable and renewable. That way, maybe, it is something that can be transitioned to a larger scale. To help out the fishermen at the docks.”

Katya’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and drew him close. She kissed the crown of his head.

“That is a marvelous idea.”

Viktor kept his notebook close the rest of the night. Skimming through pages, adding notes and annotations. Adjusting sketches and scribbling new ones.

Gnawing on his lip, he sat back in his chair at the kitchen table. Katya stood at the sink, washing the dishes from dinner. He looked at his notebook, then Katya, then the living room window, then Katya again.

“Kat?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s getting warmer out. Do – do you think that we could go out this weekend to try and find materials for my boat?”

Katya stilled, the soft scrubbing of her sponge silencing. Viktor watched as her shoulders slumped. Disappointment began smoldering in his belly before she even turned around.

“I thought the Academy was providing materials,” she said, turning to face him. A hand on her hip, her mouth fighting a frown.

“They are. But . . . I want to use things from the Undercity. We could go to the scrap pit by Augmentation Alley. Just get scraps. We don’t have to even spend any money.”

Katya lost the fight with the grimace trying to spread across her face. Viktor held her gaze, but he could not understand why her emotions were being so fickle. He knew things were precarious in the Lanes as of late, but he was so tired of spending his weekends holed up in their apartment.

“Viktor – “

“Please!” he burst. “Please? Nothing will happen. We will not draw any attention to ourselves. Enforcers won’t bother us. Please? I want to go out. I want to find things for my boat.”

A heavy sigh blew through Katya’s lips as she hung her head. Viktor watched as the fingers on her hip tightened, the skin on her knuckles pulling white. His lower lips tucked itself under his incisors as he waited for her verdict.

“We can go – “ Viktor sat up and gasped “ – but if there are more than two Enforcers skulking about, we will come home.”

Her brother nodded emphatically, unwilling to press his luck. Katya’s eyes did not soften, and he tried to not let it bother him. He turned back to his notebook, pretending that his sister was just as excited as he was.

After a beat, Katya wiped her hands on the rag hung over the kitchen faucet before stalking over to her coat, hung on the peg by the door. Surprised, Viktor looked up as she whipped the garment around herself.

“What are you – “

“I need to go take care of something,” she answered, shaking the collar out around her head. “If I am not back before nine, get ready for bed. Yes?” He nodded slowly. “Good. I love you. I’ll be back soon. Do not open the door for anyone.”

Viktor’s brow crumpled as she whisked out of their home. The sharp sound of the door clattering into its frame echoed in his ears. It vibrated against his bones. It inspired loneliness to press against his chest. And frustration to bubble beneath his skin.

Katya kept her promise and they visited the scrap pit the following day. Relief sagged through Viktor’s body when he counted only two Enforcers in the immediate area. Eagerly, he scurried toward the bent and barbed metal gates. His eagerness was quelled as he saw a small pile of candles and trinkets piled against a section of fence a few feet away. There was a framed picture of a young girl leaned against half-melted pillar candles. Dread swiped a cold finger over his stomach. He ignored it and pressed onward. Clumsily, he sat before the nearest tangled heap of metal, and began scouring through it.

Katya lingered behind him, arms crossed over her chest, eyes continually scanning their surroundings. Her lack of interest made him feel self-conscious. A small voice in his head sneered that he shouldn’t have pushed for this. But when his hand landed on a large, uncorroded gear, that voice was drowned out by excitement.

“Kat! Look! I think this will be the perfect size for the motor’s main driver!”

Her head snapped back to look at him. Her eyes were wide and blank, confirmation that she was not actually there with him. She blinked and her gaze focused on the cog in his hand. She smiled.

“Very good. Are you going to put it in your satchel?”

He nodded. “It would be great if I could find another one. Or, at least, one of similar size. Will you help me look?”

The small pull at the corner of her mouth sent a bolt of shame through his chest. But before his face could fully fall, Katya knelt beside him. She held her hand out, and he gingerly placed the gear in her palm.

Inspecting it closely, she asked, “Do the teeth need to be the same, or just the size of the gear?”

“Ideally both.”

Together, they dug through piles of metal. Just beyond the scrap pit’s ridge, Augmentation Alley smoked and burned, its forges in full-force. When the wind picked up, Katya instructed Viktor to pull his scarf over his mouth and nose. The boy grimaced, but complied. He was already sweating. The day and activity proving too warm for the coat and scarf Katya had been insistent on. But his annoyance waned as they continued to sift through scraps together. Every now and then, she would present a particularly interesting looking twist of metal or clean gear, and ask for his opinion.

Slowly, carefully, ease dared to flicker in Viktor’s chest. The interaction between him and his sister leaning much more familiar than they had in several weeks. He held to it tightly, even when they would shift to a new pile, and her eyes would lift and the energy of her presence slipped for a moment. When she hunkered down again, Viktor would sneak a peek in the direction she had looked, expecting to see an Enforcer. There was none. Instead, a slender silhouette swaggered back-and-forth just beyond the scrap pit’s fence.

For some reason, that pricked at Viktor’s nerves more than any Enforcer.

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Coming Up Next: Bone pays the Children a visit

Taglist: @pinkrose1422 @dreamyonahill @sand-sea-and-fable @truthandadare @altered-delta

[katsukikitten]

Part 10 of Irritated. Y'all thank Jo for this being updated lol.

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ This is an 18+ Pro Hero AU, mentions of violence and death. Enjoy

The pungent smell of wet Earth and nose burning chemicals did not pair well with the harsh scent of rotting fruit. Sickeningly sweet as it rouses you, mind hazed as your eyelids refuse to open or even flutter. Weighted by lead and an endless sleep that tries to pull you under again. For once you submit.

More time passes, although you aren’t even sure you understand the concept any longer as that same smell stirs you again, a bang from an adjacent room pushes your eyes to flutter. Flashes of light against the start darkness before your eyes adjust to the low light of the room that seeps in from a few small rectangular windows. The panes are caked with dust while bricks are pressed into the seedy Earth, giving the room a natural coolness, there is only one set of stairs that lead up towards a door outlined in light. The sound of running water makes your throat constrict and your mouth dry, as if you swallowed cotton whole. Making you wonder just how long you had been pulled undertow. It takes your throbbing head a moment to catch up with your senses as a chill settles over your bare skin in goose flesh.

And then it all comes flooding back, the awful taste of his salty skin in your mouth, the fear gripping at your muscles as you finally realize that you are not in the safety of your apartment but somewhere forgein. Thrashing to get to your feet only to hit hard onto the icy concrete, wrists and ankles bound by white cuffs, a small whine escapes your raw throat. Your heart hammers in your chest before you feel a sharp prick in both of your wrists. A warm substance floods your system as your eyelids become heavy, mind trudging through abduction procedures before settling on blissful numb. A blurry figure comes from the only other door in the room that isn’t atop the staircase. You don’t need to fully focus on his face to know exactly what color his eyes are as they burn into your retinas before sleep hushes your frayed nerves. You dream of all consuming green that slowly fades to black.

Bakugou finds himself standing in the kitchen of his apartment, your spare key stares up at him from your paperwork. A sweating glass with melting ice and the reminisce of an amber liquid is his only company. He leers down at the address, wondering why the hell you were on such a seedy side of town, then he thinks of you shaking on the couch back at the hotel during the convention. His stomach churns, your final words and blow cause him to suck his teeth.

“Not my fucking problem.” He huffs to himself, refilling the glass before killing the light in the kitchen to settle on the couch. His grip is too tight on the crystal glass in his explosive palm, the glass threatens to shatter while an infomercial plays in the background. His mind is anywhere but the TV while indestructible pans are advertised across the large screen. Aggressively swirling the amber liquid as his thoughts become more and more loud. He swallows the whisky whole and with it the thought of you. Letting it all burn as it runs down his throat and heats his chest, a warm feeling flooding his veins as he sinks lower into the couch. Flipping channels as he forgets you.

Your key taped to your personal records, that Bakugou stole, do not sit on his fine counter much longer, soon it is swiped and shoved into a pocket. He slams the crystal glass on the counter as he reaches for his own apartment keys and his cellphone. Bakgou slams his apartment door, locking the deadbolt before he rushes down the stairs to catch the last train to you hellish part of the city.

The hour train ride sobers Bakugou and only sets him into further agitation. Glaring at anyone who thinks to look at him more than once, even going as far as baring his teeth. Before glaring at his own reflection, who sneers right back. His black tee is tight and a bit damp despite the cool air, the brim of his backwards cap pulls the hair away from his forehead as his faded sides breathe in the chill of the train. The hat, an excuse to hold in his hair, his hero gloves heating his hands as his fingers twitch, he hopes your apartment is hardwood throughout since he didn't have plastic bags to put his feet in while he looked for something. Anything. He was doing the best with what he had.

But the more he looks at himself the more he realizes he never really was doing his best. At least not when it came to you.

The address to your apartment complex is a few blocks away from the train station, his jaw clenched as he reaches the low lit building. Screaming comes from somewhere far off, his ears perk out of habit, but he was supposed to be off duty right now. Plus that wasn’t his current focus, not to mention should he help it would be suspicious as fuck as to why he was so far way from home tonight. He bounds up the stairs in the dank stairwell two at a time, huffing through his nose as he reaches the top floor. The carpet is worn threadbare and reeks of vomit and water damage. Silence envelopes the top floor compared to the yelling and crashing items on his way up. Slowly it dawns on him that you’re most likely renting out the entire fucking floor. He sucks his teeth, leaning in close to the door of the first apartment on the floor. Nothing comes from the other side of the thin cheap door, musty air flows from between the cracks as if the room had been closed for quite some time. It confirms what he’s been thinking. He finds your apartment door with ease, several bolts and locks lined up perfectly straight. He looks down at the one key and thinks about what happened in the short few years you started at the agency that you would need five, no six additional deadbolts on your door. He half wishes you hadn't made it so obvious as to which door was yours, thoughts creep into the forefront of his mind as he imagines someone else standing in his spot now. He thinks he will need a locksmith, but that would call attention to himself, he could attempt to pick them but he never really had time to practice the shady skill. Just as he is about to turn to brute force as the answer he notices that your door doesn't seem fully shut. He thinks of all the times that you bitched while on patrol about your damn door and how you had to literally slam it shut for it to actually lock. Gritting his teeth he gently pushes the door open with his gloved hand letting it swing open with an eerie creak.

Already things are out of place. Your suitcase stands alone, untouched and obviously unpacked from the clothes peeking out from beneath the zipper, by the front door. Your lanyard for your keys is on the floor instead of the table that is in the foyer and the converse you were wearing the day that you quit are missing. Faintly something gleems in the grainy light from the hallway from beneath the table in the foyer. Bakugou reaches for it tentatively, teeth gritting as he realizes what the glass rectangle is.

Your phone.

Specifically, your dead phone.

His hand hover over the unresponsive screen before deciding to leave it, this would be evidence they would need later but for now he knew he had to do something. Kamisama takes pity on the poor bastard and throws him a bone in the shape of a scrunchie. Your black scrunchie that seems to have been ripped from your arm. As he reaches for it he notices the faint residue smeared on the hardwood. His mind dredges up weeks ago of the guy trying to hide his quirk. Of the carpet by the hotel door in the hall just a touch darker.

He should have fucking killed him, he should not have listened to you. He snatches the scrunchie, heading towards your kitchen to look for a bag, tupperware, anything to trap the smell of you and possibly your assailant. He finds a plastic sandwich bag, shoving the broken hair tie into the baggie before sealing it shut. He heads for your door thinking better of slamming it shut in case he needs to return without the calvary. Pulling his phone from his pocket he dials an old number from memory, the other line picks up.

"Oi, it's time I cashed in on that favor you owe me."

After the short conversation and the long hour and a half in the cold a four door sudan pulls up to the train station by your house. Bakugou eagerly yanks open passenger side door, slamming it shut as he cranks of the heat in the car, giving the driver no room for questions let alone a greeting.

"Oi, I need you to find the owner of this." He flashes the scrunchie as the driver gives him a look, "Inu, you're hound's son aren't you? It's not impossible."

"It might as well be dude. What is this?" Inu snatches the bag from hot fingers, "Do you even know when the last time the owner wore this. And what exactly are we doing? Is this even fucking official?"

Bakugou narrows his eyes, mouth set in a harsh snarl as he leans in close to the driver's seat while Inu leans back.

"I dunno was your shit I helped you with official? Was it ethical for us to take out a mob boss for your now ex wife?"

Inu looks away into the rear view mirror, eyes boring holes into the glass and the blankets in the back seat. Bakugou doesn't notice, he takes it as admission before leaning away into the passenger seat.

"Now get to sniffing." Inu grits his teeth at the hot head's comments before sighing out. Opening the bag just a little to take a whiff. The smell was faint, indicating a large gap from the time it was last worn to now. Not to mention there was an odd smell, so unbelievably faint in the fabric that had Inu not already known what you smelt like he would have missed it. Just barely he could make out past the notes of your shampoo a salty harsh smell, almost like a preservative. Had it been any stronger it would have burned his nostrils. Sweat and...was that formaldehyde?

His stomach churns, slowly closing the baggie before cracking his window, catching the wind just right. He follows his nose, head halfway out the window as the car carries the men late into the night, all the way to the fringes of a suburb that was partly in the country. Inu parks the car on the wide street of the little neighborhood built to mimic an American suburb in the nineties. Homes of various sizes spread out and yet not too far from one another.

"This is it." Inu announces, throwing the car in park as it sits nestled between a beat to hell pick up truck and a dented sudan.

"You're sure?" Bakugou asks as he takes in the old home, it's upkeep is minimal at best, landscaping border line over grown as he can barely make out the small rectangular windows at the base of the house beneath the old dim street lamp.

"This is where both smells get stronger."

"Both?" A tic wounds tighter in Bakugou's jaw while a tremor runs through his arms. Inu nods as Bakugou reaches for the knob.

"Woah, woah!" Inu's large hand clamps down onto a broad shoulder, "Hold up man, if she really is involved then this is nothing like the sting we did bro. We need to call someone."

"Like fucking who?"

"I dunno Director Yami?"

"Yea so he can dismiss this again? Fuck that and fuck you. I'm going." He shoves Inu away reaching for the door again before the blankets in the back seat come to life. A mop of emerald curls with concern plastered across the giant's face appears to Bakugou's horror.

"Kaachan...you can't. We need to do this right, for her." And with that Bakugou snaps, lunging for his old friend, enemy. Climbing past the center console with his hands outstretched before they wrap around a thick column squeezing with all of his might. Deku doesn't do much to stop him, somehow knowing deep down that it isn't really him that the red eyed man wants to kill. He wraps broad hands around thick forearms giving them a gentle squeeze, he could snap them with One for All if he wanted. Instead Inu barks out a breathy "What the fuck?" as he wraps his arms around Bakugou's torso pulling him back into the passenger's seat. In the tussle either Bakugou or Inu hit the horn, causing Inu to panic as a light comes to life in the once darkened house. He forcefully shoves Bakugou into the front seat as he peels into the street, thankfully without burning rubber.

"Are you trying to blow our fucking cover?!" Inu shouts, "Like fuck! And what's killing Izuku-kun going to do?"

Bakugou turns to glare at the behemoth of a man in the back seat, he rubs his throat as red eyes watch bruises form.

"I'm not sorry Deku, fuck you." But Izuku can read between the lines, Bakugou saying he is sorry but still fuck you for trying to stop me while our friend is most likely on borrowed time.

"'S kay. We can help her."

A honk, rouses you before footsteps can be heard overhead rushing through the house before blinding light floods down into the basement.

"Finally you're awake." He flicks on all the lights, scrambling to put your feet under you so you can at least sit. Eyes flickering over the room as you try to give your throbbing, unresponsive mind to collect something, anything you can store away for later to aid your escape. Meanwhile the green eyed fucker monologues.

"It took some time for me to adjust your dose, I need you to be just under enough that you won't fight back, your heart rate spikes easily you know…." His words are lost to you as you glance over your shoulder only to wish you never did as your stomach churns in horror. Lined up against the wall behind you are women, women you had posed with.

But what haunts you is how it starts with your missing friend. Her eyes hollowed out, pitch black holes stare back at you as her skin looks paper thin, like a botched mummification or that whoever was trying to preserve her got lucky. She is still in her last scene clothes that are bloodied and torn. Your eyes struggling to follow the line as they progressively become more and more preserved, until your eyes finally land on your last instagram picture, you and that young girl. With the peace signs beneath your eyes.

She looks to still be alive, until you realize she is unblinking with glass eyes and a permanent smile with the help of a stich or two.

He notices your rigidness and frowns.

"Are you not happy? It's hard to save the eyes." He forces your face to meet him with his fingers on your skin, "I made them for you. They're your friends right? I wouldn't want my doll to be lonely."

Your breath comes in ragged huffs as rage consumes you, you were going to kill him. With whatever little power you had left, you were going to end him and savor it.

All these lives, twenty, that you could see, lost, because of you and you negligence. Your eyes glow before a prick comes at your wrist, the power dying in your fingers.

"No." You rasp out as your vision begins to fade.

"Ah come on, I just want you to be a wake for just a bit doll. Just a while longer before I make you mine."

Your world plunges into the depths of darkness.

Your dream of the girls behind you, of their scream as their preserved bodies animate, their glass eyes fixated on you as they crawl across the concrete. Their mouths smelling of formatihide and rot as they lean close to you, voices beneath water or worn by gravel.

"You did this. You killed us."

[syubub]

ENERGY CHECKUP: YOONGI (again)

Now, I know I've already done an energy check up on yoon but I wanted to see how he was doing now that he's gotten his shoulder surgery!

Disclaimer time: tarot is not to be takes as fact and is my interpretation if the cards :) entertainment purposes only~

SHIT IS STRANGE (it is Yoongi though so I'm not too shocked)

So. For starters, his energy is pretty calm and chill. He's also a bit more quiet?

I wrote a note that tomorrow is exciting... idk I wrote it down and I'm not sure if its exciting for him or for us? Maybe its just a general like, "tomorrow is a good day" type thing.

Now. 11... I wrote this down and I'm not sure why though I believe that he might be seeing 11:11 on the clock or possibly that something exciting is happening for him at 11:11 (I just checked and thats in like an hour and a half from when I'm writing this down(( update i just finished writing the whole post and it is about 11 minutes away)) idk. I make no promises but I wrote it down so there you go.

I also kept seeing plants and I'm not sure if people got him flowers or plants as a "get well" type thing or maybe he's stressing bc someone has to water his plants lol

Okay. Okay. Hear me out. Black bean noodles. It popped into my head and I was told to write it down but I'm also really hungry so take that with a grain of fucking salt. (I even pictured a nice elaborate bowl that was red as well as the take out container. Yum. Send me noodles)

MOVING ON

Here's the actual reading lol. He is bored.

Thats all. Thank you for coming.

Jk

I joke. The cards give me a kind of frazzled feeling? Its the struggle of knowing hes done something good but it comes at a cost. Yoongi works. A lot. All the goddamn time. So what now? He's having this shake up thats forcing him to deal with stuff. Him having this surgery also may have brought back some less than favorable memories/ feelings that hes being forced to deal with now. Over all though he feels like its good. The 6 of wands makes me think that he's thinking of our response when he comes back. Its like he's gonna be so much more confident in himself and his dancing and he can finally move on from the car accident? It happed so long ago but he literally carried this burden with him. Its good. The wheel of fortune and is about a change and the 8 of swords is about self imposed restriction, imprisonment and over all bad/ negative feelings. I pulled the wheel of fortune first and asked what was changing and that was the 8 of swords. This surgery is helping to free him from this restricting, painful thing that may have been reminding him of the past! YES HEALING

Now. For this section I just kinda asked "whats up?" And got, easy does it, divine life purpose l, balancing masculine and feminine energies and uplift your thoughts. He may be resting but he's got his mind working on 3,000 my dude. Its the regular "yoongi is woke af" bullshit but damn. The cards say what they say. He's preparing. I'll come back to this.

Now the 7 of cups and the 3 of swords. I asked how he felt about missing out on promoting. He's heart broken with the 3 of swords. It genuinely pains him. And with the 7 of cups he might feel like there's a lot of ways this can play out and he's considered a lot of options.

I was curious how he felt about me coming into his energy so I asked him what he thought of me. Lol. These each came out separately. We got, 2 of cups, four of wands, the empress, justice, the magician, the sun and the lovers. Ha

So. To add to the mood setting my guide said "he's a drama queen" lol yeah he is.

So so so so so. I was confused? Still am a little confused but I'm like 80.9% sure that he isn't bothered by me poking around in his energy n shit. In fact my theory is that he's using this connection to his advantage? Lol sounds dumb but my best guess is that home boy sees my energy/ what I'm doing as a way to figure out his own shit? Idk maybe he thinks I'm his energetic therapist. Maybe even a matchmaker (I mean... I have been putting a lot of energy and work into finding/ connecting with his soulmate so maybe he's letting me do all the dirty work) I really don't understand but I got no further explanation.

Oki oki oki. Now. I was drawn to 2 books. The kybalion and the prophet. I asked yoon if there was any messages that we wanted to point out through the books and I got a number for each book so I took it as page numbers. 28 for the prophet and 54 for the kybalion

Take what you will from these if it calls to you. I haven't read these since I was around 13? The sentiments for each felt important to me so I'm curious what you all might think/ feel when reading these? ( I also get the feeling that Yoongi has read the prophet idk why)

Okay. At this point I was like cool, let's wrap this up but I need to talk about his pjs? Green/grey? Plaid pj bottoms don't ask me don't ask me don't ask me I don't know but It wouldn't go away so I had write it down? Help.

I had written yoongis brother down too. Theres something about him? I'm not sure what but thats all I got lol

I was very strongly told that I needed to remember 7, that its important. Got it. Worth it down.

Oki. As I was going back to the platform blah blah blah the string turned blue too. The cord is usually white or silver but it was blue so that was a fun thing and then I was like "nice. Cool. Thanks. This was awesome, get healthy blah blah" and go to leave/ end the connection but the cord wouldn't go away.

???

What.

Then the string (idk if I said but that string shit is like on the third eye? Its connected to my forehead and his too.) Kind tightens.

I'm like, "oh shit."

Listen. Usually everything is smooth and nice and I just leave.

All is well though bc my guide is like, "stop being a little bitch" so I just let it happen.

Yoon shoves me back off the edge of the platform. Why he gotta be like that?

Now. This is strange. I had dropped down into a library.

Y'ALL

I almost shit my fucking pants. Dear god.

THE AKASHIC RECORDS MY DUDE

He started walking me around until he found a blue book. His mother fucking book.

Home boy brought me to his fucking Akashic fucking blue fucking book.

I was big mad. "YOU LITTLE FUCKER! YOUVE KNOWN ABIUT THIS SHIT?" And he was like, "duh"

I've never felt more disrespect lol

Also the way the library was presented was way way way different from how it looks to me. So thats an interesting note. Looking at his book, on the base of the spine is a number 7...

Oki. Cool. I asked if I could look and he said, "Sure, when you can find your way back."

This mother fucker threw me out of a meditative state. Have you ever woken up just before you hit the ground in one of those falling dreams? THAT WAS THE FEELING.

?? I'm not sure what the fuck just happened or if it holds actual significance.

Anyway. After cursing the fuck out of yoobi I started thinking what else 7 ment.

I was specifically told to remember 7 and it was on his book. Then It popped into my head (I want to say its because I'm smart and thought of it all by myself but I think that was my guide wanting me to keep my last brain cell safe). What is yoongis life path number?

Now I don't know shot about life path numbers but imma read up on them tonight. I used a life path calculator on Google. HIS LIFE PATH NUMBER IS 7 Y'ALL.

Maybe I'm dumb as fuck but yoobi never disappoints.

Conclusion: Yoon is fine. Hes just being a yoongi and a yoongi does.

⬆️Me after this reading⬆️

⬆️ Yoongi rn playing 12D chess⬆️

[hauntedelation]

Asunder

Description: There was a churning Michael’s gut that morning. He stretched in his bed and felt as if there was something dark, something breathing over his neck. Something waiting to waiting to lunge.

And he wasn't sure if he would ever be prepared.

Pairing: Walter Marshall x Mike (Hellraiser)

A/N: This is the finale to the what I want to say is greatest creative journeys that I have been on. I want to thank @hope-to-hell for showing me and @feralrunaway how wonderfully Mike and Walter go together, and for being the reason this all started.

Both of y'all push me to be a better writer every time I go at it. Thanks guys.

This is a very depressing one. The warnings in this are serious, and I do not wish for anyone to read where they could feel uneasy or uncomfortable.

Please enjoy. If you are reading this, thank you for all of the engagement, the comments and reblogs, and just following along! 💞  I proofread, I hope it reads alright!

Word Count: 5.8k

Warnings: serious warnings ahead!! homophobia, emotional abuse, self-hatred, angst, big sad feelings with this one 

➽─────────────❥

There was a pond located just outside St. Peter’s Cathedral. The water was always still, especially so early in the morning. The body stretched around the side of the large building clear to the back. 

A small number of trees stood around the perimeter, arching toward the water. Lily pads and tall strands of grass sprouted about the surface as well.

In that little ecosystem, you could hear frogs’ croak and crickets’ chirp until the remnants of night hung onto the day. The area seemed to house all kinds of local animals. 

One thing Michael never noticed before about this pond, was that it was home to the occasional family of ducks and even swans.

That dreary morning, after the rain fell and everything was developing in a fog, he sat. His eyes were irritated and sore, but through his thick lashes, he could see. 

He took a seat in one of the less used halls of the cathedral, further away on the southern side, hands clutching a crumpled sheet of paper. 

The window had a view of one part of the pond. This small part was where, next to a tree, appeared two white swans. They had begun gliding slowly across the surface of the water, performing a dance of sorts, before coming to a stop centimeters away.

One swan placed the side of their head to the other, closing the distance between the two. They found each other in a tender embrace and continued to float motionless about the fog.

Michael's eyes followed the two swans and watched how their beaks never broke from the proximity of another.  

He attempted to pull his eyes away, an ache climbed itself into his stomach. His eyes burned hotter than they have been for the past couple of hours. Mike couldn't...

His head drifted toward the floor, the weight between his shoulders nearly taking him out of his seat. In the silence of that hallway, Michael could pick up the ticking of his watch, the seconds’ hand clicked a measured rhythm.

In an anxious fever, he tilted his wrist to take a look—hardly a minute has passed.

Mike's hand returned to its previous position, pressing down on his bouncing knee and suppressing the frantic movement of the leg. But, with all of his effort inside, he had not found a permanent way to settle his nerves. 

The paper was withering in the fist of his other hand, small tears and rips littered the edges of the shape.

Michael couldn't let go of the sheet in his hand. As the moments passed him by, it remained in his fist, the grip around it growing tighter. He subconsciously wrapped that same hand around his middle. He took his other hand off of his jittery knee to hug his body.

If he pinched the skin of his arm, would he be able to feel anything? Was all of the apprehension as bothersome externally as it was internally? 

Would he be as numb as he felt that time in the hospital? 

That seemed so far away, it was a time where he would wake up and not even feel the sensation of his nails gliding across his skin. All of his senses were on delay and everything felt muted. 

So what if?

Michael pinched the skin on his side through the sweater. Yes, he could feel the pull, he could feel the faint jolt of discomfort shoot from that spot to the other parts of his body.

The young man never wanted anything more than to take that feeling away from himself. 

He wanted to take everything away, all of the suffocating breaths, the searing in his eyes, the ache in his clenched jaw. He wanted to forget what it felt like to hold this—this weight settling inside him. 

Michael wanted to erase his mistakes and wipe away the memory of himself from these walls. Everything that man commanded him to do.

It was right after the break of dawn, merely a quarter of six o’clock passing by. Bishop Daniel Franklin arrived to silently interrupt his studies, knocking on the door and giving a sideways glance at Mike's current instructor.

He placed his book and pencil down, eyes watching his instructor's for a moment before they gave him a nod. This had been just enough for Mike, but with the benign expression on the old man's face, he felt confusion swell inside of him.

It was not as if he could deny the request, the demand of someone so high up in the church.

He was led to the western wing in the house of worship, following after the white and cream-colored robe, observing the way the fabric partially dragged on the pristine floors.

The sun was starting to rise when the Bishop began.

"Michael—" the old Bishop had stopped to peer behind Mike's shoulders before continuing. His face grew dour, eyes falling back to the curate's face. He waited a long while before quietly slithering out,

"I know what it is that you are doing. Michael, don't think that I am blinded."

At the time, the young man was not sure of what he was getting at, no alarm bells sounded off. How naive he was to not have caught on sooner.

He remembers gazing down at him and a pinch pulled at his brows before sending his reply, "Bishop Franklin, I'm sorry but, I don't know if I understand what you're talking about."

His voice remained calm and ever-so questioning, for this had come out of nowhere. 

Michael remembered that he slipped his hands in his pockets and felt the strange cloud of uncertainty seep into his brain. He knew that within the church, he was the most hard-working, and understood enough that he followed everyone's orders appropriately. 

With most of the people there, he was able to cordially get along with them. Not even the people who doubted him in the beginning seemed to show animosity toward Mike.

He thought that Bishop Franklin was one of those people. It was in his mind that the old man turned his feelings around about him. 

Michael never forgot the stares he received when he first walked in those church doors. They had lasted for several months, close to every time he was in the Bishop's presence. And yet, as of recently it was this man who congratulated Mike on all of the work he put in, how far the young man had come.

The old man's claw dug out a sheet of paper. The man read through the contents, promptly spitting out each word.

"'Your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's'—I don't need to say anymore. And, I find it impossible to ignore the handwriting of a man who has worked under me for the better part of ten years now."

How could he have been so foolish?

"Whatever is going on, whatever has been going on is irrevocably unacceptable. It is a festering pustule on the face of God. And he, he has the audacity to mention his glory in this—this love letter?"

Michael was quite sure that in some way he was still in his bed, still laying on a pillow and sweating through another nightmare. 

The blue in his eyes began to trace the same colored ink on that paper.

"I have the right mind to disbar Mr. Marshall from this church...To make sure of his exclusion from any facility."

His eyes shot open wide.

Michael reached out; he didn't know why but for any drop of protest inside of him, he gathered it all and reached his right hand out to the old man.

Please. He wanted to say, 'Please just listen to me,' yet his voice betrayed him. As if that would have helped in any way.

Bishop Franklin stepped back, balling up the note in his fingers and tossing it dismissively in the curate's direction.

"I want you out of here...I want you out of here before the noon service today or I will expose the vile behavior that you and he have been engaging in. I will make sure that he never receives another position for as long as he lives."

Michael's eyes had followed after where that paper landed, the balled-up note bounced off of his chest and fell to the ground, right next to the Bishop's feet. 

He forced his lids shut while he blocked back more phrases from his mind, willing that memory of his to close up more. There had been a lot, and in the wake of his delirium, they played on a broken record.

Mike knew that they would stick, for a long time.

In his peripheral, he could see a blanket of white shift, and the man's feet step out of their previous position, kicking the paper. He had forgotten about the evidence entirely.

"It is, of course, your decision...A bus will be arriving at the front gates by 11:15 and taking you to another location—another..."

His ears picked up the man begin to glide away from him. 

Under the old man's breath,

"You should have never been accepted into this building. I don't know how the flames of hell haven't swallowed you up yet."

➽─────────────❥

The young man did return to the classroom, following the confrontation. Michael shakingly picked up that tattered sheet of paper, and walked back to where he originally was that morning. 

On his way to the room, Michael thought back to the day he received this cherished paper.

The note was slipped to him on one of the tables in the library, while he and Walter both sat studying scripture. 

Michael had his books opened and several pages of annotated notes. His nose was deep in the opened pages for the better part of an hour.

He decided to take a break and shut all of the covers, fingers rubbing at his strained eyes. When he had gone to stretch his back, Walter wasn't anywhere in his sight.

It wasn't until he felt a warm hand slip along his back that he was made aware of where that man was. Mike flashed a bleary grin, he knew that he wouldn't be able to restrain himself if he tried. 

On the table in front of him sat a small folded-up sheet of paper. At first, it appeared to him as one of his note cards, but when he heard the older priest whisper to him, "Read it," he did.

“Your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s…The divine magnet is in you, and my magnet responds.”  —WM

Michael took his index finger and gingerly brushed over those written words, feeling the slight indentation at the strokes. With each touch of his skin to the paper, he could feel an anomalous emotion penetrating his soul.

"What do you think?" Walter asked him. The man appeared slightly anxious for his reply having shown with the absentminded play with the hair on Michael's nape.

"I-I really like this…" he tilted his head back and gazed up at the bearded man, "—I didn't know that you were a poet, Walter."

His tone was teasing but for a second there Father Marshall saw a tint along his cheekbones. He waited for a second or two before telling Michael that those words did not come from him, but from a man named Herman Melville—to another man, Nathanial Hawthorne.

Michael's eyes were big when he watched Walter's face, not saying a word but his lips parting at that final phrase. 

"Herman, the author for Moby Dick, had an intense fondness for Nathaniel...this is an excerpt from a letter by Herman to him."

Walter leant down and pressed his lips against Michael's jaw, inhaling deeply. He let his hand rest in the curate's lap, simply feeling the heat of his body.

"I found these words and felt…felt an unfeigned connection with them."

Mike listened to the voice of Walt and took in the weight of each word. 

The young man always hung onto every word he said, regardless if it was a Catholic teaching or helpful advice. That day there was a shift between them, one that was felt but had never needed to be said. 

Walter opened a piece of himself to Mike and the young man willingly followed in.

He pocketed the paper that day. His hand found Walt's larger one, and he squeezed the digits in his. Mike brought Walter's fingers up to his lips and held them there for a brief moment.

"It's beautiful, thank you, Walter."

➽─────────────❥

The rain had picked back up at around 9:45 a.m., hitting Michael's bedroom window with an irregular tapping. His eyes watched the droplets fall down the pane while he placed his clothes and shoes into a black suitcase.

Time drifted in and out of his focus, he hadn't paid close enough attention until he saw the hour and minute hand.

Additionally, Mike wasn't sure if he was grasping the situation entirely. He could feel his mind repeating everything that morning, and he knew those same words sank into the depths of his brain.

He understood what he was to do, but his body protested. 

Mike glanced around and tried his best to gauge what he should take, what could fit in that bag. 

He stopped. There he stood silently by his bookshelf, considering where it was that he was to be transferred to. The discomfort of the unknown began to poke and prod at Michael. His thoughts kicked into overdrive.

Michael knew that this place was somewhere close to four hours away, he thinks the town was Westview? Westlake, Minnesota?

He hadn't a clue of what this facility's history was, what they were exactly known for in the world of priesthood. 

What if he was sent to a far more authoritarian church; one where he wasn't allowed outside contact with anyone, where he couldn't write his mother or—connect with anyone like he had here? 

Michael's grip on the book in his hand grew iron tight. Surely, Bishop Franklin wouldn't say anything about him?

Michael was strolling down a darkening path. The book in his hand was discarded back to the shelf, and in replacement, his hand clutched the wood. His fingers pulled and loosened at his collar, trembling and drifting down to paw at the middle of his chest, directly above his knotted scar.

Always to that spot.

He shook his head and gnawed at the inside of his cheek, knowing that he had no other choice. Out of everything, every decision that he faced and was expected to make, that morning's answer came the instant he thought about Walter.

Father Marshall and all of his grand successes, the hundreds of lives that he has touched, and the dozens more that he improved. Michael knew of his accomplishments, his extraordinary career that he built throughout his life.

He was not going to sacrifice a lick of that. And still, how could he have been so reckless, so dumb and dismissive of their secrecy? 

The letter, now residing in his pocket—he could feel it press against his thigh whenever he bent down. Why did Mike leave it in such a vulnerable place? He knew that Bishop Franklin found it in this very room. Why didn't you do better? Mike asked himself.

You were always a fuck-up anyway, you can't keep anything good in your life.

All he could do was bite down hard, almost injuring his tongue. His head sank and he pressed his forehead against the edge of the bookshelf. 

His fingers slipped from their previous places, one hand went to his hair.

Mike's body tensed up, and he steadied against the support of the self, but he could feel his fingers tighten. Painfully and almost as a distraction, he pulled until he felt that burn return in his eyelids.

He let the moisture slip down his cheeks. He decided to stay there, blurry images racing through his mind that were hastily becoming more distant.

➽─────────────❥

The entirety of his closet had been packed, save for the clothes off of his back. The pictures and pages on his wall were placed neatly into a folder, sitting on top of the clothes. Any remaining objects fit into the side pockets, ornaments and other gifts given to him.

His room was almost bare, close to what it looked like when he first arrived. He didn't bother taking everything.

The suitcase was heavy in his hands, and he found himself exerting much of his energy into transporting it. He sighed as he thought about how he squandered breakfast that morning. 

Even if I'm still not hungry now. It never hurts. Maybe he will be able to find something on his way out.

Michael sat the suitcase down at his doorway, fingers dancing along the side of his thigh. He glanced around the room one last time and pondered his next step. 

Walter's room is just next door. All morning the door had been closed. Mike knew the man was most likely in there, or maybe even out for the day. His nails dug at the fabric of his pants.

There was no way that he could say anything right now, he would never trust his voice and his composure with that deed—not here. 

He needed to feel ready.

Mike felt the note poke his thigh, and without another minute wasted—before Walter could possibly leave his bedroom, the young man rushed to his desk and tore a sheet of paper in half.

In pencil he quickly scrawled a message, folding the paper back up and signing Walter's name on the top of the fold. With his distinctively messy handwriting, he knew that the man would be able to recognize who the writer was. 

Mike did not waste any more time, on his way down the hall, he bent down and slipped the paper under the door. He gathered his suitcase again and swiftly returned walking.

➽─────────────❥

It was colder outside than Mike originally thought. His sweater was layered. Under the material, he had his button down and undershirt, but he could feel a chill creep up his back.

While Michael was bidding his friends farewell, and conversing with other acquaintances, he was biding the weather. It may appear rude of him to not exactly remember what his friends said. With his eyes watching the windows and his mind already filled, he only could tell what everyone's mood seemed to be.

To his surprise, the people were forlorn. They were under the impression that the young man was to be transferred to continue his studies.

Even though this was a very common occurrence, Mike was going to be missed at this church.

He couldn't grasp that.  

The rain seemed to be done for the rest of the day. From his position on the stone bench, he could see the fog increase throughout the property. 

His suitcase sat next to him, leaned against the bench. His hands, chilled and the knuckles on his fingers flushing pink had been shoved into his pant pockets. 

Michael liked the cold, despite being so easily affected by it. He was drawn to the grey and the rain that would cost everything in its path. He supposed that the image of the outdoors today very well fit everything happening. 

But with all of that comfort, with all of the genial faces he said goodbye to and his seemingly calm demeanor, Michael's pulse remained striking in his throat.

He shut his eyes and inhaled the moist air, working in increments to steady his racing heart. His ears pricked up, barely catching the sound of soft footsteps to the left of him.

Through a cracked eye, he peered to the tall, dark figure standing on the sidewalk. 

He had on a near-black sweater as well, thicker than the clouds materializing around them. His handsome face, partially hidden under that beard of his was tense. His lips pursed, and the way that his eyes watched Michael told the young man just how mystified he was.

Mike’s breath still hitched, even at what felt like the millionth time his eyes would see Walter.

The older priest had his arms crossed over his broad chest, and he tilted his head to the side, 

“Michael, what’s going on? Why did you want to meet in the...garden?”

His eyes drifted from the green and the stone around them to Michael’s body. How the young man appeared drained, none of his spirit seeming to reside inside of the vessel. 

Mike didn’t say a word. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and steadied them onto his knees, pushing himself to his feet. The younger male hesitantly closed the distance between them.

The watchful eye of Walt moved down to the black suitcase leaning against the mossy stone.

“Michael...what...”

Walter’s eyes grew pillow-soft. Those shadowy brows frowned at the young man and only deepened with each passing second. 

It was easy, effortless to see how the tension in the air was affecting the older man. And the way that Michael’s eyes were dimmed erupted chaos to his insides.

He stopped a foot away from Walt, back hunched and his face not meeting the priest’s look. Mike could feel them and in a way he wanted to lean closer, to feel that ghostly touch, but he visibly distanced himself away.

His voice was scratchy coming from his throat.

“Walt, I...” Michael cursed, the knot in his jaw working once more. He hadn’t thought this through, how could he? 

The man in front of him reached out, with one of those unbelievably large hands. Those hands that could smash and destroy if they wanted to. They could break Michael, as his vision smeared together the color of Walt’s skin, he thought of just how powerful. 

And, all the young man could remember was how soft they felt against his body, in his hair, on his face. 

He sniffled and choked out, “I-I have to go, Walter. I have to leave. I’m uh, I am going to be sent away...”

Michael interrupted Walter when he heard the man begin to speak. He let the pressure spill over in his head and that familiar moisture trickled down his cheekbones. When he met the man’s eyes he could see the anguish, the astonishment coating his face.

“—Walt fuck, please. Bishop...” he lowered the tone of his frustration and sighed, 

“Bishop Franklin pulled me aside this morning, and he presented me with this—”

Mike reached into his pocket and ripped out the wrinkled note, holding out the item to the older man. Walter inhaled and fell deathly silent, eyes scanning Michael’s opened palm.

“He told me...” Michael began to force the words out of his mouth, gritting his teeth through the venom. In all of those thoughts that he was trying to lasso, Walter’s fingers began to delicately inch along his palm, picking at the worn paper.

“Walter, he told me that I am to be sent away, that he knows about us. H-he must have found this in my room and he had to have read this and he...he was appalled. He was disgusted at us, at me. He told me that if I don’t leave, then you were going to be suspended from your title as a priest.”

He felt the salt mix onto his tongue as he wet his lips. Mike let Walter take the note into his hand and watched him study the crumpled contents.

“If I don’t leave, then he will tell everyone about us."

He began to shake his head.

"I shouldn’t have ever been brought in here, you shouldn’t have taken me in. I don’t belong here and...I-I’m just a waste of space. All I do is ruin everything. Walter, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

The tears were starting to soak the collar of his shirt, it caused a chill to pierce his face and his throat under the autumn air. Walter shushed the younger man, letting his palms surround those red-tinged cheeks.

Michael, in all of his hysteria, hadn’t noticed Walt move closer to his body. He also hadn't noticed how the priest slipped that note right back into his pant pocket.

The heat soothed the bite of the cold air. Michael quieted down soon after the sudden touch. His head and his body leaned closer, wet lashes fluttering shut.

“My darling please breathe for me, that’s it please just...just breathe.”

He dipped down somewhat and touched his forehead to the curate’s, feeling the shiver below his skin. Walter breathed, in and out, to show Michael. To guide him through.

Truthfully, Walter needed that demonstration more than he realized. He couldn’t believe, couldn’t understand—everything was moving far too fast.

Still, he held the younger man in his hands and he felt his labored breathing against his lips. 

“You are not a waste of space, Michael. You never ruined anything...”

He opened his eyes and gazed into him, making sure that he was seeing him. 

“It’s okay, Sweetheart, you didn’t do anything wrong. There's nothing, nothing wrong with you. You understand?”

Michael’s hands wrapped themselves around Walter’s wrists, not pulling away but merely resting there. Walt observed the liquid persistently falling down the young man’s face, and he was sent back to that night in the abandoned office. 

The night when he knew that he could be there and stay there as long as Mike needed. This time wasn't sure if he would be successful, what could he do?

Before he could think of anything else, he guided Mike’s face to his and slanted their lips together.

The curate hiccupped and struggled with returning the kiss. He pressed weakly and put more effort in fisting at the fabric of Walter's sweater. 

Walt dragged him closer, flush against his chest. Yet, the distance never seemed to close enough. He wanted to drink him, desperate and dying of thirst, none of this was enough.

The younger man whimpered into Walter’s mouth. When he relaxed his hold on Mike, Father Marshall's thumbs remained under his eyelids, murmuring on his lips, 

“Dry your eyes, My Love...Hey? It’s going to be okay. Just breathe with me.” 

While he wiped at Michael’s cheeks, the younger man continued to shake his head morosely.

The older priest grew hushed and kept his eyes on Michael. For a long minute the sounds of crickets could only be heard, chirping in and out between them. With one hand staying on Mike’s skin, he reached below the collar of his own shirt to pull out an old, silver necklace.

Michael's interest piqued at the movements and he watched the man remove that jewelry from his body. Walt took both of his hands to carefully place it around Michael's neck, adjusting it's sizing and how it sat on his chest.

His thick finger followed the end of the silver to the tiny crucifix hanging at the bottom. When Walter reached where the charm on the necklace sat, he noticed that the weight rested over the bundled up skin at the center of Michael's chest.

Mike recognized this cross from the times he saw Walter without a shirt on, he never really asked about it, and, truthfully thought it was something the man got and wore under his clothes.

"I want you to have this. This cross was something I've had since I began the priesthood, a long time ago."

Mike hadn't said a word but watched inaudibly, breath slowing the instant that cross grazed the area his scar sat.

"Michael? Look at me—" He gently placed his finger over the charm and pressed into him, 

"It doesn't matter what happens, I will always be here." 

The younger man's attention returned to where Walt's finger was, blinking rapidly and a few more tears slipping down his cheeks.

Walter clenched his jaw.

Oh, how he loathed it, that he was beginning to agree with his impassioned beloved. He could never sacrifice Michael’s privacy, his safety. He thought nothing of his title and each of those accomplishments.

If he could forget all of that, and just keep him safe, keep him right here he would.

Walter gripped the curate in his arms and held him against his chest, inhaling the scent of his hair. The man fought back the itch at his eyes as his hands began to tremble on his lover's back.

For the first time, the man didn't know what he could do to make it better. He couldn't relax his arms to left go of Michael's body.

“Walt, I have ten minutes left. I-I meet the bus out front…”

Walter blinked and slid his palms down Michael’s arms. A glance at his wrist displayed five after eleven. Michael wiped at his eyes and tried to make himself more presentable.

“I...I don’t know if we could while I’m on the bus I-Walter...

He returned his glassy eyes back to Michael's bloodshot ones. Not finding any more words in his throat. "I...think this is goodbye.”

Goodbye.

He could feel his eyelids droop downward when the young man wrapped his slender arms around him. Mike could hardly do so with how large Walter was, but in some way he managed. 

Walt's attention was far off in the clouds when Michael's cheek pressed against his. And, when the curate pressed a kiss to his lips it was him who was left breathless.

"I love you."

The younger man backed away.

He attempted to reach out and grab the curate. Walt thought that he was close enough, but the young man already had his suitcase in his grip. Michael was making his way through the garden and disappeared into the thick fog.

➽─────────────❥

The bus’s engine was loud and rattling over the hushed conversation. Standing outside by the gate was a small group of church workers, each were friends to Michael or people he had been close to since his arrival. 

Mike peered into the distance and saw the Greyhound bus emerge from the low clouds. Soon following, he felt the many warm touches of the people around. He released his hold on the bag and turned to hug each person close by him.

After a glance around, Mike saw the image of Walter standing adjacently to a few other people, jaw hardened and his folded arms back to covering his chest.

Mike met Walter's eyes and both men burned weakly under each other’s gaze, the younger man gave a forced smile and pushed his hair off his forehead.

Walter returned the favor with a tight-lipped smile, offering to help him in storing his luggage.

The suitcase was lifted by Walt with no strain. The both of them walked toward the storage unit on the bus and began loading it.

Deep rumbling of the engine was felt under the men’s hands and between both of their bodies. Through the window, the driver gave Michael a look, and tapped at his watch.

This prompted the younger man to turn and wave toward the people of the church. He shared a look with Walter, lingering longer than he wanted to, and slowly stepped around him to trek to the door.

The weight of a hand found its way to Mike’s shoulder, softly, and he momentarily stopped.

On the shell of his ear was the scratch of familiar facial hair and the muted whispering of final words. Michael could be seen nodding, patting that hand and pulling away to climb into the bus.

Walter stepped from the vehicle and backed toward the people of the church, hands deep into his pockets and his breath steaming the icy air. The people waved, and observed the bus pull away from the church.

A few workers picked away from the group as the bus moved further and further from the property. 

When the tail end disappeared into the fog, and the sound of the engine was no longer audible, Father Marshall was still in that spot. His eyes watched the swirling fog.

.

.

.

That day, he stood on the stretching, gravel driveway for as long as he could stand it. Walter’s lids fluttered closed when the moisture broke through and fell down his cheeks.

He took in a long breath, but collapsed to his knees, fisting the dirt and tremoring.

Walter had been out there long after the ring of the church bells.

➽─────────────❥

Following after that day, all piling together into months, the church continued their services. 

Events were planned. Many popular ones brought money to the church and aid to the citizens. Services were held by all of the leaders and the spirit of the Lord seemed to be felt strongly through the town.

Father Marshall gave his teachings, clearly and elegantly. The man still pulled fully seated pews and many more people's hearts with his warm nature. He seemed to be more righteous than all the years he'd been there.

Nonetheless, people amongst the crowds took notice of his peculiar lack of vigor behind those words.

The people in attendance would say that the man's spirit had been weakened in some way.

The father graciously brushed away those concerns, and remained adamant in his teachings. Walter delved himself more into the work. He spent much more time in his office and placed his attention on various things surrounding the church

.

.

.

One late evening, while the man sat in his room, he watched the candlelight dance on his papers. The moon was low in the sky when he heard a knock at his door.

Upon opening he was greeted with a young assistant, her face laced with a bright smile and crisp white items filling her hands. She gently spoke to the man about the mail being delayed for that day, and that he was to finally have been delivered his postage for the week.

She placed several envelopes into Walter's hands and bid the priest goodnight.

Father Marshall found his way back to his desk, sighing profoundly when he sunk into the chair. The letters were dismissed on the surface of the desk. Many were labeled from other churches and financial institutions.

Walter rubbed at his drooping eyes, deciding that he would pick up those tomorrow and deal with them first thing. Sleep was the one thing on his mind.

As the man loosened his collar and sat up to gather his nightclothes, he left the candle flickering on his desk.

Under that warm amber light, the letters were illuminated, each one layering over the other. If one gave a closer look at that stack of mail, it could be noticed that a singular letter stood out from the rest. 

On the surface, barely showing under the side of another envelope, there was the appearance of scribbled black ink where the return address laid.

'Westbridge, MI 56087'

➽─────────────❥

Taglist: @beck07990 @magdelen69 @rn7rocks  @inthenameofcavill @gearhead66 @oddsnendsfanfics @cavillhavoc @pterodactylterrace @killjoy-assbutt-1112 @mary-ann84 @fuckoffbard @its–fandom–darling @kmuir1 @thelastsock @henryobsessed @eldarwen333 @definitelydenisse @inlovewithhisblueeyes @shy-violet-soul @seriouslygoodlookinggents @coffeebreathy @hope-to-hell @summersong69 @faithiee @madbaddic7ed @artandotherdelights @emyearns @cavillryarchive @bellening @agniavateira @maizyistrash @wiccanmetallicrose @the-soot-sprite @geralt-of-baevia @harrysthiccthighss @luclittlepond @brandycranby @buns-of-steel @worshipping-skarsgard @littlefreya @zealoushound @luna-aestas @feralrunaway @tuckersgirl​ (So sorry I forgot to add you love!)

(@tinylittlebluebird @critfailroll @biblioworm) <- Unfortunately, these tags didn’t work :(

➽─────────────❥

Thank you to everyone who was interested in this! I know I've said it before but this story is dear to my friends and I. We constantly think of scenarios between M and W. Let us know if there should be more!

➽─────────────❥

[bisexualoftheblade-old]

how many wips do you have? like what are they all, and not the number of wips in a fandom? what are all the names?

okay. fuck you. fuck you so much. fuck you.

i’m putting this under a read more cut no one else deserves to see this shit. a lot of these are requests, and for those i will just write out the request itself

Shadowhunters:

domestic polycule fluff with tem, jessa, and will because im not a coward

Supernatural

- hehe hoho i request destiel hehehe

- request 61/? cai cai cai cai i need you to rewrite the destiel scene but yk. GOOD. not like i'm in the know about the spn fandom or anything, it's been years for me. but DO IT

Bright Sessions

- caleb/adam grisha AU

- mark bryant vs. united states aka sue the AM

- caleb/adam college fluff

Umbrella Acaademy

- request 31/? i want a ben and klaus drabble please spare me some brotherly bickering

- AND SO BEGINS NIGHT 4 with request 13/? oooh oooh can i get a raymond and allison playlist??? i think their vibes together would SLAP

- hi there night 2 is technically morning 3 but who's counting not me anyway request 5/? can i get a ben moodboard? gotta rep my tua bb

Percy Jackson

- request 9/? can i get a percabeth moodboard or quote edit?? like god they're the og couple goals take me back to high school cai

- For the 100 follower things :D Jercy getting caught in the rain

- request 29/? a drabble about literally anything to do with pjo. i’ll be happy with anyone and anything i’m love these children

- *somersaults in like I’m a real fancy acrobat* hello ello ello may I request some camp half blood chaos possible involving *does a flip* ✨side characters✨ <3

Penumbra Podcast 

- request 52/? drabble about the penumbra podcast. this is for ren bc ren likes it and i don't actually know anything about it. juno? i think? that's the one ren likes. write it for ren

- Tpp ghost hunting / buzzfeed unsolved au

- sad juno smut

- final resting place fic go brrrr

Marvel

- request 6/? i'm going to my roots y'all can i get a spider-man playlist? if not a playlist then i'd honestly be happy with literally anything involving spider-man

- request 15/? i'm going crazy this is recorded evidence of me actually losing it ANYWAY can i get a quote edit for something from iron man? literally anything that man says is gold so cai's choice :D he deserved better in endgame i'm still bitter

- request 42/? do another spidey thing that differs from the other spidey thing

- request 73/? you have Opinions. rant about infinity way and/or endgame. go.

- request 74/? quote edit for deadpool!!

- spideytorch relationship character study

- peter parker as a tired grad student monitoring the young avengers (send help)

Six of Crows

- okay listen i wasn't going to request anything bc i worry about you but also? if you want to/have the time hit me with a playlist for our girl nina zenik

- request 43/? fuckin give me the ending anya should have had. she is alive and with her new son and having a great time

- request 45/? inej moodboard?

- request 47/? will you make literally any meme of your choosing for six of crows?

- request 48/? write a drabble for kaz, my favorite bastard

- okay so i don't actually like nina or mattias that much but i still wanna hear about your thoughts (and also see if you'll change my mind)

- kaz brekker turning 18 fic. birthday party, everyone singing, whole shebang. i need it stat

- religious trauma fic aka i started shipping kaz/alina/inej and i can’t stop

- kaz trauma soup (he has D.I.D. and you can’t prove me wrong)

- my two redacted fics for @grishaversebigbang​

- wesper fake dating

- six of crows bright sessions crossover: everyone gets therapy

TMA

- uhh... s1 gang having a nice time? melanie getting to have some Pride™️? some "fun" horror thing?

- request 7/? spare steph and jason bonding? please sir? spare some for a humble child such as myself?

- okay so this was meant for night 3 but i had midterm shit SO this is honorary night 3 let's DO THIS request 8/? i want a moodboard of extremely out of context magnus archives shit like i mean confuse the FUCK out of me i don't go here i know Nothing about it

- request 11/? OKAY so i need tim stoker meeting tim drake now i need my timmy to meet your tim plus i want to see character differences no i'm not trying to create a tim stoker in my head so i can read a's fic while NOT thinking of tim drake whaaaaaat you're crazy

- request 18(i think)/? i need a quote edit of every time within the first like. 15 eps of tam where jon is like “sounds fake but go off” thank u bb

- request 40/? i challenge you to write a tma drabble based only on the episodes i've heard. i'm currently halfway through episode 23

- Jon being lovingly bullied into taking a break. I'm aware this has been written a million times but it is one of my favorite things.

- spiral!sasha AU

- extinction martin go brrrrr

- high school era timsasha. they've both been friends for years, and everyone always asks when they will be a couple. they decide to fake date, to prove everyone wrong and show what a bad couple they would be. turns out that's a bit trickier than they thought

- after sasha comes back, tim is broken. he can't let go, scared that if he looks away for even a minute he'll lose her again. sasha suggests shibari as a way for him to give up control

- sasha pov mag 19 au, sacrificing herself to save the others, knows that if she gives herself up to the not!them it will let the others live

- this is the "tim finds a polaroid of sasha" trope

- early archives days,, long nights in research,,, clothes sharing,, somft. late nights and falling asleep at their desks warm and safe in the other's presence

- two parts: timsasha as kids, each picking a constellation that is "theirs". just soft kid antics. tim at sasha's grave glancing up to see their constellations

- continuing your job’s a joke (you’re broke)

DC Comics

- TIMSTEPH HADESTOWN AU,,,

- my redacted fic for @batfam-big-bang​

- request for you to get a decent amount of sleep? serious answer, dickkori, SAL's Venus

- request 4/? timsteph morning after 👀 mayhaps?

- a concept: nonbinary stephanie brown

- teehee hi mom, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but can i request damian angst for your accomplishments 100 followers?

- hi you can ignore my first request if you want, or you can ignore this one. but bls possibly write some bikini ra’s? -the bikini bitch

- request 27/? jay is asking through me for a jondami playlist but tbh i also want it so win win yk?

- "I don't know how to help you but I can help you find someone who does" with bruce and jason? im just craving bruce being a good day to jason for once

- “I am putting you in time out because you need to understand the consequences of your actions.” with steph and jason as dumbass disaster bi best friends pretty please?

- request 32/? timsteph patrol date!!!

- request 33/? timsteph *gala* date? mayhaps??

- request 37/? tim drake drabble but make it Edgy cai

- request 39/? drabble of a prank war between tim and damian

- joyfire cuddly fluff please? or like just any outlaw fluff if joyfire isnt your thing (feel free to add every member of the outlaws, dont feel like u gotta stick with jason, kori, roy i love them all)

- barbara and robin! jason fluff? bonding over books or something?

- request 62/? i need a drabble about the chaotic trio jason, tim, and steph i'm love them ty

- request 63/? batfam x mcu crossover. batfam meets ironfam. give me ALL the cliches. ALL OF THEM

- request 64/? young justice x young avengers - jay cuz idk SHIT about the young avengers

- request 66/? jondami moodboard pls and ty

- request 67/? timsteph moodboard!!!!!!

- request 69/? HEHEHE kinky 😏 i would v much like a timsteph drabble of the almost first time. does that make sense? like i don't want you to go all the way NSFW cuz i know that's against the rules and i'm a rule follower. but like they *almost* go all the way. this could be fade to black or some shit i don't care just make it a lil steamy and have Fun

- i request damian angst! all of it

- hmm... maybe i request? jondami?

- mayhaps,,,,some batfam,,,,,committing crimes? ily be gay do crime <3 - lu

- How about a ficlet with Steph and Cass?

Found Family Bingo Prompts

- no powers au

- tunnel

- first day

- join the club

- hurt/comfort

- experiment

- playing favorites

- hold on

- possession

- 10 o’clock

- singing

- road

- snitch

- curfew

- timer

- fantasy au

- zombie au

- dreams

- campfire

- are you okay

- movie night

- games

- scared

Miscellaneous

- a request: Write A Drabble, Coward

- is it too late to request a moodboard for me?

- request 20/? i’m going off book because i’m in a Chaotic Mood™️ can you just absolutely vibe check me like go off cai demolish me

- request 21/? i formally request that you pick a favorite cai. i don’t care what that favorite pertains to, just pick a favorite something

- request 23/? roast me

- request 24/? can i have a buzzfeed unsolved spoopy playlist but spoiler alert it’s not spoopy bc shane doesn’t believe does this make sense it has been a Day™️

- request 25/50 i want a jake and amy fic make it Soft cai i’m love them b99 is so good

- request 28/? i know nothing about the lord of the rings so make something that will confuse the shit out of me

- request 34/? malvie and jaylos moodboards 😈

- request 35/? a moodboard for the bbb mods!! perceive all of us!!!

- request 36/? moodboard for the tua mods too???? mayhaps??

- request 41/? doctor WHO? idk but i want a drabble of him and the one character i know from doctor who which is rose

- request 46/? make an alignment meme with our group, have fun!!!

- request 49/? i want you to kin assign me a character from every fandom you can/want to. go feral

- request 50!!!!/? this is a special request. the most special request. can you make a bastards tbh playlist? i want our vibes encapsulated. i want us in music form. i want to hear those songs and be like "that's me and cai" and smile.

- requests 51/? i know jack shit about good omens. explain it to me in the most confusing way possible. make me know less by the end than i know now

- request 53/? can you write a mel aesthetic? i'm Curious

- request 54/? give me a list of book recs cai i want some good book recs pls

- request 56/? edit a picture of US together too

- request 58/? oooh can i have a disney edit? like. hm. i just really love disney and i want anything to do with disney. like a quote or an aesthetic or an aesthetic edit i just want disney.

- request 59/? i would v much like a recipe for carbonara. i've never had it but it sounds fucking delicious

- request 60/? ooh hey can i get a makeup tutorial? i know you like makeup, i'm shit at doing makeup. teach me

- request 65/? i need the most emo playlist you can make that vibes with dear evan hansen thank you

- request 68/? i want a superwholock moodboard. this can be serious, with the actual fandoms in mind, or literally what the era felt like. the insanity. the horror.

- request 70/? ooh ooh ooh do you have a good bread recipe?? i wanna get that bread

- request 71/? i want a playlist with the vibes of summoning a demon. please don't ask questions. i don't have answers. and if i do, no i don't.

- For the requests, how about writing something based on a friend?

- request 75/? MMMM i want literally anything to do with natasha, pierre, and the great comet of 1812

- request 76/? i want some healthy recipes. help a girl out

- a feral bbb quote or two?

- you perceive my plant but now I dare thee to perceive mine own visage

- okay this is a two for one request. 1. you did the bee movie script so now we need a shrek two script edit 2. sleep please

- Pansexual mb for my lil queer soul?

- my (probably) final request is just for you to ramble about something, i don't really care what

- HI ILY CONGRATS AS WELL CAUSE IM LATE BUT CONGRATS. could i request a pirates of the caribbean (or just pirates) or whatever you what to do, free range.

- mood board for the beluga whales who got brought to the animal sanctuary in Iceland please?

- 100 follower request: Moodboard for my stuffed cow Oaky?

[nightswithkookmin]

RE JIKOOK IS ESTRANGED

Them

Me

Lol

JUMP CUT ALERT: This is a continuation of an ongoing discussion behind the scenes.

DISCLAIMERS:

Article 19, UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Every person has the right to freedom of opinion and expression which includes the freedom to hold an opinion without interference through any media.

Misinterpretation of my opinion, my words constitute a violation of my human rights. Please do not take my words out of context, share it on another platform in furtherance of your own agenda. If you do hold yourself accountable first. You are the author of your own intentions and interpretations.

I do not intend malice by my words nor do I seek to be disrespectful of any member mentioned in here. I simply enjoy mentally stimulating conversations and thought provoking discussions.

Let the records show.

MATTER OF THE DAY

Thanks to everyone that's shared your thoughts on this matter with me and thanks to that person that brought this matter to my attention.

I haven't looked into it and I don't know how severe this issue is.

I think people have the right to believe in anything they want to believe in. Personally, I don't think Santa is real but clearly others do, doesn't mean I'm sane or that they are crazy.

I don't think discussions of this nature should be about who is right or who is wrong. Everyone's opinion is valid and holds true to their own delusions. Lol.

Frankly, I prefer this kind of ship wars to the slurs and abuses and they are distributing hard core porn now?? What is going on! Chileee.

I have never believed JK and Tae to be anything more than friends. At one point, I wondered if they were even friends at all lol but since they admitted to having had a falling out themselves at one point the topic is now moot.

Tae and JK have- had- have a really special bond. To me anyways. I always saw them as the evil power twins of BTS due their ability to come together to wreck havoc especially on Bang PD's scripts. Lol. I think I have mentioned this a few times now.

I smiled to myself when I heard them call themselves partners in crime. The bond is there no two ways about it- you either appreciate it for what it is or you don't. personally I love their bond. Can't stand their shippers but I love their bond. They keep the drama going for me- love it. Lol

The question has always been whether their bond is as profound as their shippers make it seem. I argue it's not and I will always argue it is not. Lol

I think it's only fair that they also question whether Jikook's bond is as profound as we make it sound. I really can't be mad at that. All is fair in love and war- at the very least we can agree to disagree.

I mean even Jikookers themselves question the extent of JK and JM's bond. Some think they are just very special friends and nothing more. I think I talked about this in my is Jikook real post when I mentioned labels and the degree of love between JK and JM?

We know JK and JM have a unique bond. The question then is how far does that bond go. Is it just platonic, romantic or something in between?

This is the question I was aiming to answer with my is Jikook real post. My objective was to try and dismantle all the nuances that keep us from seeing the 'truth' about Jikook- that they are real. At least the way I see them.

I talked about unrealistic expectations we have of Jikook, false conditionings that often leads us to see Jikook as something more than they are- the amplified Jikook. We get used to highlight reels of Jikook's interactions in edits such that we feel there is something wrong with them when we see them in real time.

I mentioned that Jimin's nurturing nature often also estops people from reading more into his relationship with JK. He is nurturing of everyone, JK ain't special- they argue, just as this person is doing.

I talked about Jimin's Idol persona, the facade of the boy in love with JK- Jimin's role within BTS since debut and how that can equally blind us into thinking Jikook is something more or less than they really are. I have a post dedicated to this topic sitting in my drafts so I will not go into the details of it here. Please look forward to that.

But this person's post touches on another aspect of Jimin's personality that I feel is one of the things that often keeps us from seeing his relationship with JK for what it really is- his inclination for professionalism.

I keep saying this, several times now, that Jimin's Idol persona to me seems well developed, elaborate and very elusive.

I have mentioned a few times how I think during Jikook break ups that they keep it civil and professional for the sake of the team and that you might not even notice the difference especially if you place high value on their skinship.

The skinship would be there, the cordiality and civility would equally be there- except for moments when they are fighting, that gets bloody. Lol. They are best friends at the very least. It is why it's important to reevaluate the metrics we use to determine whether or not they are a couple.

I wish I could dialogue with this person to understand her assessment of Jikook and what she is using to determine whether or not Jikook are a couple and what makes her think Tae and JK are. Know what I mean?

What makes her think Jikook were a couple before 2017? What makes y'all think Jikook are a couple at all? I would like to hear from y'all- but come at me with the skinship bit and I'll block you deadass. Lol

So on this person's post, I think I agree with her assessment of JM's persona but I don't agree with the Jikook have been broken up since 2017. And I think I understand where this is coming from... I think some of us do. Yes they had a few fights that year especially leading up to Jimin's birthday- August was it? but we all know JK more than made up for it with the damn GCFs. Lol. kindly visit the timeline, peruse as many content as you can and form your own opinion on it. This is just mine.

Are Jikook Jikooking all the time? Absolutely not. They are human too. They fight, they make up, they break up they get back together, they have introverted, extroverted moments, they go up, they go down- have bad hair days, it's all part of their dynamics I'm afraid. From my point of view of course.

I feel some people notice these things too and when they sense Jikook aren't in a good place they bow out and Jump ship- I don't blame them. They are shippers not supporters. What Jikook need are supporters not shippers- or maybe both, do you.

Could this person be one such people? DNF shippers? Given up on Jikook before the end of their story? I don't know. May be.

Jikook is not a fantasy that you ship. It's a relationship that you support. You can't escape into them. They are an ongoing love story- chapters close, chapters open, you just have to ride it out till the very end.

I think the challenge of their post for me is whether or not Jikook is a performance. Her post leans into the whole Jikook is fanservice bull especially in light of the recent photoshoot video which some are using as evidence Jikook don't 'click' when the cameras are off- the lies they tell on Beyonce's internet!

I think I have speculated on this and shared my thoughts on this whole Jikook is fanservice bit. I will delve deeper into it in my next post on Jimin's idol persona but as I've already said, Jikook is fanservice is equally a misnomer.

Yes Jikook does fanservice sometimes, but they are not fanservice. Fanservice is the cover for their relationship. It's their glass ceiling- nothing to see here folks just two snakes under glass. Keep it pushing. (Sorry. Couldn't help myself. Lol)

But you do raise a valid question, what is Jikook like when the cameras are not filming?

Is the mood of Jikook in that footage the general mood of Jikook behind cameras as Tuktukkers are claiming? They barely interact, JM doesn't pay much attention to Kook, yadda yadda yadda?

And the part that gives me a complex, that JK only interacts with JM when they are the center of attention. Huh???????????

Sigh.

I feel caught between a rock and a hard place on this one.

The theory you pointed out in support of this assertion isn't mine and I think I made it clear I didn't share the same thoughts on it. I said it was valid nevertheless. Chilee, this is hard. Lol

Yes JK is an introvert, Jimin is an extrovert, JM doesn't live for JK, all that is true and some Jikookers have said that too- so when you ask, if this is who they are when the cameras are off does that mean what they do when the cameras turn on is fanservice-

I-👁👄👁

I don't know the thought process that went into that theory so I can't confidently defend it. I'll ask? Lol.

Personally, I'd like to know whether or not they see the tension in that footage as tension in the first place. Chileee I don't know.

I see it as tension. Not a very serious one though. So we'd have to agree to disagree on that one.

But the part I can argue, the part I agree with is Jikook aren't hyper super duper lovey dovey on each other all the time. They aren't cuddly all the time. They have their moments of quiet- Jimin seems like the more affectionate kind who'd rub all over JK in the comfort of their homes but still...

If you ask me though, I think Jikook are tamer on cameras than they are behind scenes. I always talk about the fear and panic in the members' eyes when they see Jikook gravitating towards each other- it's probably because they know the extent of Jikook's shenanigans. They know how worse it can be because they've seen it all.

And when JK panics sometimes when JM gets closer too you just know dude is scared perhaps because of his Mochi chick's devil may care shamelessly in love policies- Jimin wild. Bless him.

I did say also that Memories 2019 is equally eye opening. These were censored bits. BigHit was holding all of that and giving us crumbs- stingy mfs. Bless.

All that said, again I don't think Jikook are hyper lovey on eachother behind the scenes. Another part I diverge from that view is that this is not exactly off camera. It was just behind the scenes of a photoshoot. Something we've seen a countless times.

This is not BTS's first ever behind scenes photoshoot. It's just a different angle that's all.

They were working. They were at work. This wasn't an alone private space for them so they can't base on this to say Jikook don't interact when the cameras are off.

The cameras were rolling. We saw them interact, JM was interacting with everyone the way he always does on camera all the time except he wasn't interacting with JK the way he does all the time, grainy footage or not- I mean let's call a spade a spade and not a big fat spoon. Lol

As to why he was doing that- let's just say there are many schools of thoughts.

My thought as I've said is JM was freezing JK out. I think with anyone that's recognized and is familiar with Jikook fights, that mood is all too familiar as I mentioned earlier.

If JM was being courteous and not mad at his man then he would have kept it 'professional' and done the 'fanservice' bit with Jk as per usual just as this person is saying since the cameras were still rolling.

Jikook is not fanservice. They are real.

I have refrained from providing a detailed analysis of that '5 minutes' footage for reasons I will explain later when I do share my thoughts on that footage- eventually. Some day.

But my hypothesis remains the same that I think Jikook were fighting or had a minor issue. As to why they were fighting, chileee I don't know. The confirmation bias in me feel it had something to do with JM's birthday but honestly it could have been over anything at all- dumplings, microphones- we all saw that slap on stage, a certain Iphone notification perhaps, did JinMin make a secret VLive without Kook again? Lol

There are plethora of reasons, I can only speculate on a few. And I think we've all seen Jimin when he is not 'Jimining' with the others, JK included. Take his mood with Tae at GDA for example- since this is not a VMin post I won't go into it.

But it seems they squashed whatever beef they were having on stage when JM extended his hands to Tae and they shaked it out.

We've seen him and Suga bicker too- which again, I am not gonna to get into out of respect for their shippers but I can point you to the On comeback VLive early this year when Suga touched JM and JM mouthed Hajima to him- which I think had something to do with what was going on with him and JK at the time but that is besides the point. Every shipper for themselves.

I contrast his 'fights' with Suga and V to show you the difference between Jimin being professional and courteous and Jimin being rah rah. He was sat next to suga, talking and laughing with him but snapped the moment Suga held his back.

He did the same in the Dynamite MV Vlive, smiling and laughing with Suga but the moment JK teased him with the Yoonmin comment his countenance fell.

Jimin is not that good of an actor if you ask me. I have said he is very Kumbaya in nature, often makes compromises for the sake of the team but that don't mean he is a pushover or one to trifle with- he scares me when he is mad. Lmho.

The scene in that footage didn't look to me as that he was being nice and courteous to JK- is that y'all's definition of professional courtesy? Damn.

If they were having a lover's squabble then the 'icy' mood of Jikook we saw in that footage is not the general mood of Jikook when the camera's are turned off.

I have to state again that I don't know much of what goes on behind the cameras and most of the things we see sometimes are equally missing context.

That been said we have seen enough of Jikook 'behind cameras' and they are more intimate than we can imagine. A certain cozy selfie at the back of an abandoned truck comes to mind. Whatever they were doing at the back of the track wasn't intended for the cameras judging from JK's reaction.

We've had glimpses of Jikook when they are not the center of attention enough to have a fair idea of what they are when cameras are off and I don't think it is that mood we saw in that footage.

We saw them at Jingle ball bell, towards the end of 2019. We saw them in their own space doing what they do best- making us feel single as fuck. Bless them.

We've seen them at awards, we've seen JK eating Jimin's ear nom nom to calm him down- like I would have just bought him icecream to calm down his nerves or rubbed his back but whatever JK. He is your man; you know him best. Good for him. Good for both of you. Now come back and feed us.

And the bit about JK only laughing with JM when he noticed he was on the Bangtan Bomb cameras in that footage- now that's nasty below the belts phony ass ass! I felt that one straight in my chest, shit. Lol

Dude was in a doghouse it seemed and I noticed them stealing glances at each other and.... sigh.

I just think JK was looking for an opening to warm his way back into JM's good graces- it's really nothing we haven't seen before.... sigh.

This is 2020 that narrative of JK hates Jimin, JK doesn't like JM needs to stop. It's dead. Pack it up. Chileee, y'all tried it with this one.

Jk is nice to JM only when the cameras are on him? Nice try.

JK is so fake and fraudulent he glared RM down till he stepped away from Jimin- again, in the very same photoshoot footage y'all swear to God is proof Jikook is not real.

Find it. RM stood next to JM. Looks up see's something- or someone. Does his tell- the hand to head thingy he does when JK glares at him over Jimin. He backs away inches from JM.

Cut to JK. Dudes a mood. Jin bumps into him, stares at him but JK wouldn't even look at him and then deadass looks away grumpyly- talk of professionalism. You doing great swidy keep going!

You can hide a relationship, fake it on God but you can never hide the intimacy. Taekook just lack that intimacy, I'm sorry. Even in that 'estranged' moment Jikook's intimacy was still there-

Even in whatever mood JK was in- which again, I believe was just due to their lover's squabble- JK still was claiming his man and exercising his right of authority over him. That's how you know they are not broken up. In my opinion. Chileee. I'm gonna get in trouble. Deep sigh.

Y'all think JK was hovering over Jimin because he was preparing to strike him down like a censored censored censored? Yea, he was preparing to strike alright- All the corners of Jimin's heart. Y'all better stop before I find you. Lol

I said I wasn't going to analyze the footage in this post but damn. This man out here serving us all kinds of brooding assorted jeonlous as his man takes a time out or two to wiggle wiggle wiggle on him Malfroy style and y'all are out here peddling nonsense. Strike one.

He was a mood alright. Did y'all see Tae rubbing his chest, arms and legs, ears did y'all see any body else in there doing that for him? Y'all's falcon cannot hear his falconer give it up and sorry, Jikook can't relate.

As I've posited, JM I feel was mad as hell for whatever reason and wasn't in the space to be that person JK needed him to be- in that moment. Doesn't mean they are like that behind scenes all the time.

And before I get attacked again for causing drama, being toxic etc by Jikookers understand that I am just a delusional person shipping these two in a way that makes sense to me. Write me off as delulu, and go please.

Whatever ambiguity surrounds that moment, to me, Jin and RM's reaction to JK clarifies things a bit. Jikook were boiling hot. JK was still keeping an eye on his man. Lol. Bless them. That's my conclusion. I'm running miles with that. Catch me. Lol

Feel free to come up with your own theory in a way that makes sense to you.

I'm not sure how long that fight lasted but from the rain day incident I'm hoping it wasn't that long. Jikook are fine I believe- I hope. Judging from the way JM drew JK out in his VLive with the whole I miss JK comment? Did that not sound familiar to y'all? And that Mickey mouse thingy- JM ain't slick. Bless him.

JM is the perched akekeke whisperer whispering all kinds of things in JK's ear, feeding JK news of what goes on on social media and what not. Dude don told his man they won a BB on his birthday, told his man Jin wasn't happy he chose his bag over his- definitely told his man Army was missing him- what? I'm going with that too sue me. Lol

Did you or did you not see Jk coming out to do a live log afterwards? And JK seemed less grumpy, in very high spirits? Wedding bells- I'm manifesting it for JK. Manifest with me.

Remember when JM did a log and talked nonsense about JK, and JK did a rebuttal log to respond to JM and address some of the things JM had said about him? Remember that? It's a jikook thing and it's back😌

I have said JM uses social media to connect with Army while JK uses it as an outlet to express himself. Through out his Live he kept talking about how he wasn't prepared to do a live and it shows in the way he kept saying it was awkward, he just kept it business and didn't know what else to share... I wonder who put his paws on him, dragged his ass to turn on the camera because Armys had asked of him- a certain quick tempered chick who dragged his man out on social media to do the whole Chuseok greetings 2020 on Twitter perhaps?

And JK is so whipped he'd do just about all the hoops to appease his man- Jikook AU written by Goldy. High five. No but seriously...

Behind the scenes, JK sneaks into JM's bed at night- Taekook does it too? Please! The look on JM's face when RM spilled that tea is enough said.

There's only two people in BTS that panic and don't want us to know they lay one on God in bed and it's not Tae Kook.

JK: Jimin hyung and I will sleep here

JM: how about we let the others choose first

Everyone shares a room:

Footage:🦄🍲🐯🧀🐺🍟🐓🥛🐑🛏

JIKOOK share a room:

Footage: 🚪👀

Behind the cameras Jikook sneak into each others bed- camera caught them live. You saw JM's face, I can't make this shit up. Lol

Behind the scenes, Jikook do laundry at 1am. *insert JM pervy face meme.

Chileee, y'all making me trip with this one. Deep breaths.

Jikook have their moments. This was one of them. Can they be human? Please. Thank you.

At this point, these folks are not even shippers. They is shoppers shopping a man for their bias. Lol. Just admit y'all want Jeon thick thighs strong butt for your bias and go. Just admit you want some tall glass of Tiger charming face husky voice strong chest for your bunny and go. Lmho

Chilee, when we say Tae and Kook had a falling out we don't mean they freeze eachother out behind cameras. Hell, we don't even mean they fake their bond or interactions. C'mon! Tae and JK admitted they are not lovers and y'all is bitter. That's why y'all is making up this nonsense about Jikook. Speak the truth and shame the devil. Peter would be proud.

When we say Tae Kook is not real, We just mean JM spends JK's birthday with him while every one including Tae is out there cruising for Jesus with friends. We just mean Jikook claim eachother even when they beefing. That ship beefed and didn't even know they was beefing and they are real? Damn.

We just mean Jikook make efforts for each other even when they are having bad days- Had it not been for Jimin they'd still be gnashing on these cold streets. Place some respect on his name, y'all's ungrateful. Lol

Tae and JK don't want each other they both want Jimin- there. I said it.

Thanks for attending my Tedtalk. 👁👄👁

Now where was I? Never mind. I'm just gonna go burn some sage. There's too much negativity going on around. Hakuna matata!

There is nothing wrong with Taekook as a ship. Personally, I'm a multishipper I ship all the ships but I support Kookmin. I don't mind their shippers calling them whatever, but my eyes twitch when people who claim they support Jikook act wishy washy with Jikook. Lol. Like are you going to withdraw your support of Kookmin if JK sits on Tae's lap?👀 Yall make me nervous. How can you think Jikook is real but then look at Taekook and go huh??? What are y'all seeing that I can't see?

Like those are two completely different dynamics. It's the skinship isn't it? Talk to me. Jikookers who see something nonplatonic in Taekook honestly give me trust issues. Y'all have me out here looking over my shoulders.

I am delusional but I'm confident in my delusions because to me it is about the love and support for JM and JK as LGBTQ plus couples. Please stop shipping Jikook, stop shopping JK and JM for eachother and start supporting them because they are real.

IN MY OPINION.

Signed,

GOLDY

[hardcore-evil-regal]

Never Enough

Summary:

The aftermath of the break up between Lin and Tenzin. More specifically Lin's point of view on how things ended.

Notes:

Well I wrote this like a country song - After a fella done me wrong. Make of this what you will, I call it a healthy expression of feelings. It is basically just angst tho, so you have been warned.

You can either keep reading this here, AO3 or FF.net

The words ring in her ears like a broken record. The same sentence playing over and over again.

This isn't working anymore - I've met someone else.

It feels like he's sucked all the breath from her lungs and she's left gasping on her knees. Her eyes burn with the threat of tears but she refuses to let them fall, her pride preventing her from letting him see how deeply his words wound her. The rug has been completely pulled from beneath her feet and she finds herself scrambling, searching to find something to right herself on. She was raised an earthbender, strong, steady, immovable. Never in her life has she so completely failed to be so.

Her fingers shake and her lower lip trembles as she bites down hard, the taste of blood on her tongue as she clenches her hands into fists. His grey eyes watch her, carefully gauging her reaction as if expecting her to fly off the handle completely and a small rebellious part of her wants to, wants to make him feel the intense pain deep in her chest. She won't though, because she will rise above it, as she always does. That doesn't stop her from leaving a massive crack in the courtyard as she storms past him and down to the docks, the earth trembling with every step she takes.

Deep, heaving breaths of the salty ocean air are all that is keeping her from losing all composure as she makes the trek back home. Her apartment is dark and empty when she returns home and the realisation sets in that this is her future from now on, coming home to a lonely, empty apartment. That seems to be the straw that breaks the camel's back as the tears she'd been holding back spill down her cheeks, dripping onto the metal of her armour. Cold fingers cover her eyes as quiet sobs wrack her chest, her shoulders shaking with each heart wrenching sound torn from her lips. She hasn't cried in so long, it feels like she has broken the wall of the dam and suddenly everything is rushing out and she's drowning in the flood. Her lungs struggle for air as she sobs, her cries growing louder as she sinks deeper and deeper into the emotions filling her chest: pain, rage, betrayal, hurt, fear, loss.

She's never felt so alone in her life before, and it aches deeply inside of her.

A part of her wishes she had never met him, wishes she could have saved herself the pain that radiates sharply with every breath she takes. She thinks of his grey eyes, so cool, so calm, so unlike the warmth and love she is used to seeing in them. Was it him that changed, or her? Things certainly hadn't been perfect between them, but she always thought they would be able to work things out together, like they had always done.

It seems this time she wasn't enough.

Her heart clenches at the fact and she wonders if she will ever be enough. All everyone seems to want from her is more, more time, more effort, more work, just more, more of her. So she gives, she gives and she gives, and she gives until there is nothing left for her. But still, it is not enough, and in the end she is left alone, bereft, grasping desperately at the broken fragments she has, trying to hold herself together.

Where is the one that is supposed to hold her and help her fill the cracks in her broken pieces?

Where is the one that takes her hand and tells her that she is still whole, that she is still beautiful, despite the fractures painting her soul?

He left.

He is in the arms of another woman.

She wonders if he knows how lost she feels without him.

She wonders if he knows that he took a piece of her heart as he left her behind.

In the night she allows herself to be weak, to succumb to the sharp pain radiating throughout her chest. Her pillowcase is stained with tears and her dreams are filled with memories of a lifetime ago, when he chose her. In the day, she soldiers on wearing a carefully crafted mask of stoicism. If there are dark circles under her eyes and if her eyes are a little bloodshot, that is neither here nor there.

When she sees them together for the first time her step falters just the slightest bit, breath stuttering in her chest as she bites down on her inner cheek to focus on her physical pain, and not the ache resonating deep within her. They are expecting their first child together and it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. A part of her looks at the couple and wonders what if.

What if that was her by his side?

What if that was her expecting a child together with him?

What if she had been enough for him?

In the end, it comes down to how much more of herself she is willing to give, to lose.

In the end it wasn't enough.

In the end she is never enough.

Yet still, she continues to give. She gives even when he doesn't ask her to. She gives away the last piece of herself for him. It may not be what he asked for, but it is all that she has left within herself to give. She gives up her bending for him.

As she kneels on the wet pavement, rain soaking her clothes and hair, she lets her tears fall disguised by the rain. The emptiness rings through her bones as she clenches her fists but is met with silence. There is no rumble in the earth, no vibrations calling back to her. In the end she gives everything to him, and she is left with nothing, alone and broken, not even the bond with her element left to keep her company.

In the end it is all for nothing.

x

x

Notes:

You know the drill folks - if you'd be so kind as to drop me a comment or leave some kudos I would thank you kindly (tips hat). Also if y'all got any Linzin prompts feel free to hit me up!

[sickviking-fr]

This is a long one, fellows. Buckle the fuck up.

Y'all know I only started this job two weeks ago and was all excited but it all went to shit day one. Well I got an offer from Walmart to start at a dollar more and I took it.

So last night was my last night at this grocery chain and I guess the universe knew it. The manager was happy for me so that was good, he'd been super nice and supportive for the few days since I gave him my resignation so I came in deciding I was going to give my all and do the best I could. I shot down four energy drinks because I knew it was going to only be me and one other on the shift and I was determined.

Those energy drinks took an hour to kick in but once they had I was WIRED and Manager appreciated it. About half an hour into the shift, Manager pulls me and the other guy (we will call him Jack for no reason) to the side, clearly high on caffeine himself, to give us the low down. He gives us a huge list of stuff to do and says he's sorry, its ordering night and he's all alone so he can't help us. And like, I get it, shit is the opposite of streamlined and efficient here, as you all know from my bitching, he's got a lot of work ahead of him. Jack and I have to do the work of 6 people and Manager has to do the work of three.

"Time is our enemy tonight, guys, we don't have a minute to spare standing around talking. lets get to it!" he finishes his speech.

Me, being out of my gourd on energy drinks, yell "NO BOSS! WE CAN'T ALLOW TIME TO BE THE ENEMY! LETS GO BOYS, WE'RE MAKING TIME OUR BITCH TONIGHT!" Manager punches me in the shoulder and says "Heck yeah, thats the attitude I wanna hear, why the fuck are you leaving me?!" and with that he's gone.

Now. When I said that, Time looked over at God and said "Hold my flower. No, hold my fucking flower! Who is making who their bitch? We'll see about that!" And God sayeth unto Time "Kick his ass babe, I got yo flower."

So my first task was to stock Gatorade and the energy drinks which I did in record time, taking only a half hour to do about two hours of work, working three pallets and condensing them down to one AND wrapping it up so Manager can swing by with the forklift and haul it off no questions asked. I'm feeling invincible. Next, me and Jack have to go stock water. He's exhausted, was up all day and feeling sluggish so not a whole lot of help tbh. Thats okay I'm running on four energy drinks and the high of imagining the boss begging me to stay, I've got this!

There's several pallets of various types of water container on the floor to be organized and stocked, and I'm on it like a fly on dogshit. In only fifteen minutes I put up a full pallet worth of gallons (Probably about 60-70 gallon jugs) before Time makes her move.

I don't know where Jack is, I'd sent him to move another pallet a while ago and he's not back yet. I move on to the 2.5 gallon jugs with spigots (Different brand but this same jug tbh) get about twenty up, only have four or five more that can fit on the shelf. Both hands are full of these heavy ass jugs, I lift one up onto the shelf and the spigot comes off. It just pops the fuck off. I drop the second in surprise and its spigot pops off. There's water pouring everywhere, I'm now soaked and panicking trying to gather up these jugs and get them turned in a way so they aren't pouring water everywhere and I am swearing profusely this whole time.

The wooden shelf is soaked, I'm treading water and Jack comes around the corner to see if I'm okay, sees me juggling water and starts laughing his ass off. We double team taking down all the water I just put up so I can mop the floor and the shelf. It takes the two of us over half an hour to dry everything and get the water back on the shelf.

Jack starts in on the 2 gallon bottles while I finish cleaning up. As I come back from throwing the broken containers in Claims, I see Manager has arrived with a fresh 5.5 foot high pallet of these 2 gallon waters (Its also vital to note that these come wrapped in plastic in packs of 6, which we are separating to sell individually), both are laughing, Jack is facing away from me doubled over with laughter.

"All I hear" He says "Is suddenly 'SHIT...SHIT SHIT! FUCK-SHIT FUCK!' and then just 'squeak squeak squeak'. His shoes sounded like Spongebobs boots!!" And at this point I realize my shoes are squeaking in the water but their shoes are not (I still do not know why...) As soon as Manager hears my squeaking shoes coming towards them, he also becomes consumed by giggles. Ha-ha, okay y'all shut up so we can carry on. I'm still trying to be impressive here! But I guess we are opening the water packs too slowly for Manager because he takes his special plastic cutting cutter and starts slicing open packs so we can just grab the jugs and throw them up.

EXCEPT HE'S NOT PAYING FUCKING ATTENTION! He cuts this one pack thats on the edge of the stack, three of the waters immediately start to fall over dragging the whole pack with it and now six, two gallon jugs come crashing onto my foot and also suddenly I'm wet again. Manager doesn't realize it hit my foot, but I shout and he says "Don't worry, its plastic they wont break." This phrase gets repeated ad nauseum the rest of the night to mock him.

"Well that would be great except they all fucking exploded!" he just looked at me stupid, then started swearing too. My foots fine, thanks for asking. Actually its not, my ankle is killing me as I'm writing this but whatever.

All six jugs broke open at the bottom seam and are now spewing fresh spring water onto my newly mopped floor, under the pallet and soaking into my shoes. Again. I'm running around trying to gather as much of these jugs as I can as fast as I can and get them to the sink. Again. Meanwhile my shoes are squeaking anew. Again. Jack cannot stay standing, what between laughing at Manager for busting open six gallons, repeating "It'S pLaStIc! iT wOnT bReAk!" and laughing at my squeaking footsteps running all around the two of them.

Manager has us leave the spilled water and stock, then when we are done he moves the pallet and sends the janitor over with the zamboni to clean up the water while sending us to fill up a display of cases of 24 bottled water other-where. Jack is now awake and still melting into fits of giggles every few minutes, and with his newfound energy he's tossing the cases up onto the display and then punching them into place instead of just putting them there. Toss a case, punch-punch-punch, flex, repeat. (Did I mention Jack is 18? What is it with teen boys constantly wanting to show off? Like bro who are you showing off to? Its literally just me and Manager here.) I keep telling him to knock it off but eventually, you guessed it, he pops a couple bottles.

Its already the four hour mark by the time we clean up all the water and get the rest of the packs all on the display. Smooth sailing from here on out, yeah? We're done with water, everything that needs to be on a shelf is on a shelf. It has to be easy from here. We think so anyway. It can't possibly get worse, we've still got shit to do! Innocently, we go to lunch and I chug down another energy drink. Okay so we are done stocking, its now time to face the shelves(AKA make them look nice). Manager sends me and Jack to the opposite ends of one isle, Jack arranging pickles and vinegar and I'm freshening up condiments. Suddenly I hear Jack yelling and cursing.

For several days, theres been a mystery bottle of vinegar by the Huntz that no one knows where it came from but also no one has bothered messing with. We've just been nudging it to look nice lined up with everything else and if someone buys it good if not, well it seems happy there. Its kinda shaped like this but plastic and not quite a gallon. It's filled full to the lid.

Jack decides to remove it today. He grabs it, lifts it about three inches, and the neck comes off. Just comes the fuck off. Its a perfectly clean separation at that seam where the neck connects to the body. The entire contents are now soaking into Jacks clothes from mid-chest to his shoes and puddled all over the floor. I rush over to see that he's okay and then go to get the mop for him. I can smell the vinegar from four isles away. It takes nearly another thirty minutes for him to get that properly cleaned up and then he has to take a break to change into his spare shirt because the smell is giving him a headache.

By the time he comes back, I've finished that isle and moved on to the cereal + juice isle and the store is now open. I tell him that he must have felt left out that Manager and I both made bigger messes than him with the water so he had to one-up us. This seems to make him feel better. Jack starts working juice while I'm tidying up the snacks and gummy candies. An older couple come up to me to ask about Rice Krispy Treats. I don't know where they are other than the ones I'm holding so I go to ask Jack. Poor Jack. I call out to him as he's kneeling in front of orange juice with both arms shoulder deep in the shelf and as he looks at me, for some fucking reason he squeezes his arms together in a hugging motion around maybe 8 jugs of juice.

Several fall into his lap and a customer must have gotten thirsty yesterday because someone took the cap off one jug and just left it there. Jack is now soaked chin to toes in orange juice. There is a looooot of swearing as I run over to check on him and then run off to get the mop and bucket from the back.

At some point the janitor had taken the mop from where we left it by vinegar and used it to mop up milk that the Dairy folks had spilled (so the bad luck wasn't just towards our crew, Time was taking her frustrations out on everyone). Anyway, the bucket is full of maybe four gallons of milk water and also the vinegar from earlier so it stinks but I don't have time to put fresh water in it because there are customers in the store now and the juice is a major slip hazard.

I'm pushing the bucket through the isles and I run over a drain like I do every day and thousands before me have done, except the drain cover decides TODAY IS THE DAY, NOW IS MY TIME. It kamikaze pops off and the bucket wheel goes straight in the hole, tipping the bucket over and spilling four gallons of stanky milk water every-fucking-where. Also, apparently this POS building wasn't built so that the floor sloped towards drains so the water is just flowing further and further out in every direction. Now I'm panicking trying to push as much of this water into the drain asap so I can get the bucket over to Jack so he can mop up the OJ. And I see the older couple are still waiting, toe tapping and pointing at their watches as soon as they see me. And then get all pissy that we didn't have any smaller packs of Rice Krispy Treats in yet.

Jack fucks off to the bathroom to dry as much as he can of himself while I do my best to hunt down the Janitor to send him and the Zamboni down juice, vinegar and the main pathway where the vinegar-milk-water spilled and is still stinking up the joint. Jack didn't come back for probably 40 minutes, I was honestly surprised he came back at all, I didn't think he was going to.

Manager has no idea any of this shit has happened because he's been darting off everywhere like a squirrel on coke doing his own thing. He's got the rest of those 2 gallon bottles from earlier on the fork lift and has us follow him to the frozen section. He wants us to add what's left to a display over there where we are selling the full 6-pack cases. He drops off the pallet and is gone before we can say anything. Jack, understandably, is beside himself pissed and starts literally throwing the water up onto the display and then punching them into position. Like, he's full force punching these things like gym equipment and chanting "It'S! pLaStIc! iT! wOnT! bReAk!". And of course, he pops two bottles. We still have 2 more hours of our shift left, plus 2 hours of mandatory overtime.

THANKFULLY, once we cleaned up that water the rest of the shift was uneventful, but it took forever because we were exhausted physically and mentally and pissed

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. xii

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xii: splinters

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~11.4k. (ash shut the fuck up challenge has been brutally failed)

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop. Tiny tiny TINY hint of something more explicit for like one second if you blink.

Warnings: uhhhhhhh descrips of an anxiety attack, Elliot turns feral like 2x, Joseph is V creepy (what's new--so I guess like, some Joseph/Deputy if you squint again), brief allusions to assault, also some very very very VERY minor steaminess mentioned but it's like just John being himself inside his own brain so. Yeah.

Notes: "what do you MEAN you're closer to your best friend and actual working partner than me, the guy who tried to drown you like a week ago" - @starcrier​, impersonating john seed

I don't want to sound like a broken record but I mean it when I say: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! This chapter is 11k words long and I don't have anything to say for myself, I just want y'all to know it wouldn't have happened without y'all (which you know by now).

I've been staring at this chapter for like 3 days so I'm gonna keep this short but. I hope you enjoy! Everyone say thank you to @starcrier for proofreading this hot mess and then we can move on to wishing John and Elliot would just bang it out already.

“So what the hell was that?”

Elliot didn’t particularly want to think about it, and she especially didn’t want to discuss the nature of her last John Seed Interaction with Joey. She knew how that was going to go—and even if she didn’t, she’d hardly figured out the whole thing herself. She didn’t think her heart had stopped hammering even after he’d left.

I told you, there’s just the one. This one, El, me.

Boomer’s cold nose pressing against her chin pulled her mind away from the feeling of John’s fingers in her hair, his arm slid around her waist, his mouth on hers, the faded scent of his cologne washing over her. Already she felt the heat crawling back into her face and she swallowed thickly, closing her eyes as she planted a kiss on the side of Boomer’s face.

“It wasn’t anything,” Elliot said, before she could think too much on how the lie coming out of her mouth made her feel. She’d never lied to Joey—not about anything, not about her ex-boyfriend or her mama or anything —but it felt like a losing game to be honest about what had happened, especially before she’d even figured out how she felt about it.

“Didn’t look like nothing,” Joey replied, sitting on the edge of one of the beds. “And you’re doing that thing you do when you’re trying to lie.”

“It was nothing, ” Elliot insisted. There was no heat in the words. She pulled Boomer into her lap and rubbed his belly, watching the Heeler loll his head dreamily against the affection. The blush was starting to fade from her face now, and in its place was the stabilizing familiarity of the hound.

Joey watched her for a moment before she said, “Crazy that Boomer didn’t rip John’s throat out.”

Deciding against answering—because the answer would almost certainly sound like she was defending John , which she did not want to follow up whatever it was that had just happened—Elliot instead pressed her cheek to Boomer’s and shrugged.

John kissed me, something in her mind said, furiously rebellious, and I kissed him back. Fuck fuck fuck.

“El,” Joey said quiet, “we have to get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Elliot agreed. “We will. We can hitch it Fall’s End, you think? And get... Supplies, and a car, and...”

Her voice trailed off. The idea of walking all the way to Fall’s End from the compound, unarmed—because the Seeds would certainly not give them arms if they could help it—exhausted her. While the drugs that the Family had pumped into her were mostly out of her system by now, save the occasional faint wobble in the corner of her vision, her body still ached; her lungs still strained to fight off the sickness she’d gotten just days ago, which had been blissfully tamped down from her senses while she was high but was now back in full force.

“But it’s dangerous,” she added after a moment. “With the—the others still out there. I thought if Ase died it would be the end of them, but—”

“The big one.” Joey’s voice was a quiet agreement. “He’s going to be mad. I thought I heard him last night, when we were getting out of there, after John and Jacob brought you back down.”

Another quiet pause stretched between them. Elliot couldn’t help but think back to what John had said: that he hadn’t shot Ase that second time, but Jacob had. She couldn’t remember for the life of her if John had been holding the shotgun or not when they got down the slope. She couldn’t remember if she saw Jacob with a shotgun. She couldn’t remember much from that night, anyway, besides the dread that had flooded her body when Ase had made her look into the woods, and the strike of the woman’s viscera against her face when she’d been finished off.

Sleep had not come easily to Elliot, in the last twelve hours, and she didn’t imagine that it would any time soon. Her life had become one exhausting blur of blood and panic, with only the occasional respite of quiet, and Elliot felt deep in the marrow of her bones that pattern wasn’t going to be changing any time soon.

“Let’s just take advantage of the quiet while we can,” she suggested after a moment, rubbing her eyes tiredly. Already she wanted another cigarette, the gentle rattle of her lungs on every intake of breath told her to rethink that urge. Joey made a low noise of agreement.

The brunette slid off of her seat on the bed, scooting over until they were next to each other and she could give Boomer’s belly a steady pat. Elliot rested her cheek against Joey’s shoulder. She sighed.

“You think those Seeds are plotting something?”

“I think they never stopped,” Joey replied tiredly. “Not for one second.”

Elliot made a soft noise of agreement. She wanted to ask her what she remembered of the night before—if John was being honest when he said Jacob had delivered that second blow, if she thought that it even mattered who had done it.

It does matter, she thought tiredly. It matters to me.

“We’ll lay low for a few days,” she murmured. “Get back on our feet, and let them think.... Whatever they want to think. And just keep our wits about us until we can get to Fall’s End. Maybe one of us should stay, in case someone tries to call for us.” She closed her eyes, and for a moment, Elliot could almost pretend things were normal; it wouldn’t be crazy to think that maybe this was all just a bad, horrible dream.

But she couldn’t have dreamed up the way John had kissed her—one hand in her hair, the other gripping her hip, like he was hungry. Hungry for her . She had always wanted that, she thought; for someone to be starved for her. How did he know? How did he always know what she was weak to?

“And then we’ll get out of here,” Joey said, her voice soft and tired, too. Elliot couldn’t imagine how tired she was, after it all.

“Yeah,” Elliot replied. She steeled her voice, but her eyes stayed closed. “Then we get the fuck out of here.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The best sleep she’d gotten in days was on a bed in the Eden’s Gate compound, Boomer tucked into her side. It was only an hour or two—certainly not the full night that she needed—but when she woke up she was already feeling better.

Better, and more aware of what had transpired.

She’d yelled at John about shooting Ase, and John had said that was Jacob, and there was no way to affirmatively know that he was telling the truth short of taking his word on it, and if there was one person who she didn’t trust the word of, it was John Seed.

Well, maybe Joseph less than him, she reasoned absently, rinsing her mouth with water that wasn’t contaminated with drugs in the bathroom, splashing it onto her face. Then John, then Faith, then Jacob.

She tried not to think about how troubling it was to consider Jacob the more straight-forward of the Seed siblings, even more so than Faith, but while Elliot felt desperately like she wanted to protect the girl—she knew that was the point. Joseph wouldn’t have picked Faith if she was truly as pure as she liked to put on.

Boomer buffed in the main room of the cabin, nails clicking on the wood flooring. Elliot dried her face and headed out the front door to see what he was fussing about; Joey still slept quietly, probably glad to sleep without drugs weighing her system down and an immediate threat—well, immediately beyond the Seeds—hanging over her.

“Stay,” she murmured. “Stay with Joey, Boomer.”

The Heeler whined, low and exceptionally pathetic, before crouching low to the floor and settling. She closed the cabin door behind her and wiped her hands absently on the front of her jeans, gaze flickering across the yard. Joseph had apparently gathered the members of Eden’s Gate from hiding and they now milled about, heads turning wherever she went, hostile but controlled. For now. It wasn’t unlike the first time that Elliot had walked into the compound with Burke and Whitehorse, as she moved across the yard to the chapel; almost surreal, the world fizzing around her in a white-static as she remembered the way it felt to have Joseph look at her and say, and Hell followed with him.

Dreadful.

Fall was now in full swing, which meant that though the sky was clear, the afternoon had a bite to it that was trying to work its way under her clothes and into the marrow of her bones. From the side of the church, she could see the treeline of the woods that surrounded the compound; against her better judgment, Elliot stopped at the chainlink fence and stared.

The monster in the woods that she’d seen last night still stuck to her—wadded up somewhere right in the hollow of her jaw, locking her mouth shut from being able to talk about it. It wasn’t like she’d know what to say if she could talk about it, anyway; I saw something big, and scary, and it was in the woods and it knows me. What would it matter? It had just been the drugs, anyway. A madness shared by a group of people, seeing what they wanted to see, melding with the things that Elliot hated the most.

Seeing herself, hearing herself, and not recognizing who she was anymore.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was; the slick, rich timbre of Joseph’s voice rattled through her, straight down to the marrow of her bones. If I could have only gotten a good look at it, something in her said, like the monster had been real, like something really was out there trying to slide under her skin.

“Joey and I are leaving,” Elliot said, by way of response; she could feel Joseph’s eyes on her, his footsteps against the packed dirt hitting soft behind her before she saw him stop just in her peripheral. “As soon as I can get to Fall’s End, we’re leaving.”

Joseph was quiet for a moment. And then he said, “You seem troubled, deputy.”

“Well, I did get fucking drugged out of my mind,” she snapped.

“You’ve seemed troubled for a while,” he replied. “Prior to the Family, to all of this.” He gestured vaguely at the compound, absently adjusting the yellow-tinted glasses on his face. Not once did he look at her, pin her with those eyes, but rather kept his gaze focused on the forest where she’d been looking. “I saw you before, Elliot. Before you were even a junior deputy. You were different, then.”

It shouldn’t have felt like a violation to know that Joseph had seen her, known of her, before all of this—but it did. It felt like a violation because she had no way of controlling it. Joseph may as well have flipped through an old yearbook and read all of the things friends had written to her, or pried open her diary.

Elliot said, carefully and meticulously planting each word, “People change.” She was determined not to lose her temper with Joseph, not the same way that she did with John or Jacob—it made it difficult to feel justified, when the man was so hard to rattle as it was.

“People are changed,” Joseph corrected her in his easy cadence, “by the things around them.”

The pressure of her molars grinding together was beginning to make a headache bloom just behind her eyes. What the fuck does he know, she thought furiously, the idea that the person that she was today had been entirely out of her hands making her stomach wrench with something vicious. Joseph was full of shit, and he wore stupid sunglasses and preached hollow, empty words, so what did it matter?

It mattered a lot. It meant that she’d had no hand in who she was now, and that she wouldn’t be able to change it if she wanted to; as though, in the instance that she didn’t want to feel hungry and hurt and needing all the time, she wouldn’t be able to make it change herself. She’d have to wait.

“If I put you in a perfect, empty bubble of a room,” he continued, when she didn’t argue, “and left you there, would anything about you change?”

“You’re the last person I would take psychological observations as truth from,” she managed out after a moment, finally turning to look at him—and he did too, at the same time, like he was ready for it. Anticipating it. Knew that she would do it all along.

For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. He just watched her, his eyes glued to her own, and finally he said, “Elliot, it’s not uncommon in people who are abused to—”

The word abused rinsed her system like an ice bath. It catapulted her mind somewhere else, somewhere far, away, but the muscle memory pulled through anyway, spitting the words, “I’m not abused,” out of her mouth to overrun whatever psycho-babble bullshit Joseph was trying to tell her. She might have tried to swallow down the volume of her voice had it been anything else, anyone else, but she felt it shoot up with hysterical rage.

“Deputy—”

“I’m not.” And now she didn’t know if she was saying it for his sake or something else. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“I know that you have scars,” Joseph replied, his voice firmer now than before. And that dragged her head back, neurons firing off left and right. Red alert, they screamed, abort mission. “Scars that you don’t get from nothing. Scars that—”

“—need to stop fucking talking—”

“—only mean that you don’t become like this without—”

“Like what?”

He stopped. Something passed over his face, but only for a moment—not long enough for her to decipher what it was. Against her better judgement, she stayed where she was instead of walking away from him; perhaps it was a morbid curiosity, to know what it was that the great and mighty Joseph Seed thought she was afflicted with.

And then, with a soft, delicate kind of pity, Joseph placed his hands on her shoulders and said, “Hurting.”

This was all wrong. The pressure of Joseph’s hands on her shoulders did not quiet the roar in her head, did not bring her any kind of comfort. Nausea welled up inside of her like a black bile; her body wanted to purge it, a venom seeping from a wound. Vaguely, she was aware that she wished he’d said something else—anything else, anything other than hurting, anything that could give her the footing to be angry and furious and spit her poison at him.

But there was nothing.

“You don’t have to keep pushing it down,” he continued, his voice low and almost urgent. “Absolution isn’t out of your reach forever.”

“Shut—” Elliot sucked in a sharp breath; she reached up, but her arms felt like lead weights. “S-Shut the fuck up—”

“Elliot,” Joseph murmured, squeezing her shoulders, “you might be able to convince yourself that you’re fine, but I see you.”

Ase’s glassy eyes, her fingers twisted in Elliot’s. Sisters. Do you see?

“Aren’t you tired?” His voice, sliding under her skin, trying her on. He was the monster in the dark of the woods, humming as he lifted the edges of her skin and peeled them back. “Aren’t you so tired, Elliot, of all of this running? All of this anger?”

He was too close, now, his hands on her neck, cradling. Joseph leaned in and rumbled, just against her temple, “It must be so hard, living with it every day. I can help you rest.”

Her brain scrambled for a grip, anywhere; she was only vaguely aware of pushing Joseph’s hands off of her shoulders, that they met resistance for a moment before he gave way for her. Anything, anything but that, don’t fucking look at me, I didn’t say that you could, don’t fucking touch me.

She willed her feet forward. Away from the fence, away from Joseph, away from the church and around the back of one of the buildings.

“It’s not uncommon in survivors, Miss Honeysett. The nightmares , reliving the moment — it’ll get better. I promise.”

But she still felt his hands on her; not Joseph, but him, his hands grabbing her mouth and her hair, pinning her against the door, the taste of copper flooding her mouth when she sank her teeth down and ripped. She still felt the grip when she closed her eyes, and the doctor said it would go away and it would get better, but how long was she supposed to wait? How long was she supposed to feel like this?

I see, she thought frantically, the… The grass, and… I hear… I hear —

“I can see that you’re hurting. I’m only here to help; you just have to let me. I can help, Elliot.”

“Elliot,” John said, sounding surprised to see her come bolting around the corner. He leaned a little, to see where she had come from, and then looked back at her, reaching up. “Why are you breathing so hard? I thought I heard shouting. What’s—”

“Stop,” she bit out, grinding the words between her teeth before she let them out. “Don’t—”

“Okay,” he replied quickly. His hands hovered for a moment before dropping; his gaze drifted again, lingering behind her, before he returned his attention. “Okay, I won’t. Why don’t you sit down?”

I see you.

“No!” Elliot snapped, taking in a shaky breath. The adrenaline wouldn’t stop; not even with the distance between herself and Joseph, not even with John’s voice anchoring her to the ground. “No, I’m not fucking—sitting down. Take me to Fall’s End so I can get—so I can get out—so I can—so I—”

She didn’t think when she grabbed John’s arm to steady herself. Looking back on the moment later, she thought maybe it was a force of habit; he’d been around for a lot of moments like this. In the last few days, they’d gotten through a lot. And—

And he hadn’t had to come back for her if he didn’t want to. And he hadn't had to kiss her if he didn’t want to. He didn’t have to do any of those things, and he did them anyway, and somehow she only felt worse than before; it had been easier when she could hate him blindly.

“It’s supposed to storm tonight,” John said, and if he felt anything about the way she was gripping his arm he didn’t say. Something uneasy flickered in his face, and he added, “You should probably wait until tomorrow, deputy.”

“Fuck. Off,” Elliot said. “Take me to Fall’s End or—”

This seemed to reassure him that she was doing fine. John arched a brow at her loftily and said, his voice a light challenge, “Or what?”

“Hey, John? Hey?”

“Yes?”

“Fuck you?” It returned a bit of normalcy to see him roll his eyes. Her fingers wadded into his shirt sleeve, she said, “Or I’ll walk there myself.”

“You seem to think that relieving me of the burden of your constant verbal assault is a threat,” John deadpanned. “And besides, you’re in no position to be threatening me anyway . You’re the one who didn’t want Joey to know that we—”

Kissed.

“Sh—” The sharp sound coming out of her mouth was enough to stop John. She glanced over her shoulder; if there was one person she would hate more than Joey to find out about that, it was Joseph. Oh, he’d probably just be delighted . As she swallowed back the lump of anxiety in her throat, she said, more urgently now, “John.” Please, she wanted to say, but she wouldn’t.

He watched her for a long moment. She didn’t know how to tell him that if she spent a second longer with his human scalpel of a brother trying to peel her skin back she was going to lose it. She didn’t know how to say that even though she hated him—even though he’d kidnapped her best friend and teased her with that stupid commercial and considered the logistics of drowning her—in the last few days he’d been something close to reasonable, something, and she wanted desperately to keep that streak going.

“Fine,” John said after a moment of deliberation. “But only you. Hudson would spend the entire time trying to eviscerate me, and I only just got you off that kick.”

Bad, Elliot’s gut said. But he was right. Joey would have never accepted help from one of the Seeds, and it was best if she stayed here to rest, anyway; she’d been through the worst of it. She could leave Boomer here to help ease her concern, and if someone tried to radio in—either the Resistance members or Burke—it would be better for Joey to make sure they didn’t get lied to.

“Fine,” Elliot repeated, swallowing thickly. “But—we go tonight. Like, right now.”

“Sure, boss.”

She dropped her hand from John’s arm and took in a deep breath, pushing the hair away from her face. When she looked back over her shoulder to where she’d fled from, Joseph was no longer standing there. She had the feeling that he’d been there for a while. Watching.

But she couldn’t think about it much, because John was turning and heading off, talking over his shoulder. “Tell your Hudson that we’re going, and we can head out.”

Yeah, Elliot thought. Easy enough.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It did not, in fact, go over well.

Or, well, that’s what John could glean from what he heard from the outside of the bunkhouse. Hudson wasn’t pleased—but it was easy to see that it was because she didn’t want to have to say that she owed anything to them. In the long run, even John knew that this was the best option.

Well, the best option was probably not having Elliot do anything. 

“Hudson’s a problem,” Jacob said, arms crossed over his chest as John stood leaned up against the front of the truck. Absently, he swung the key ring around his finger.

“It’s fine.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be convincing Honeysett to stick around?” Jacob muttered. “Seems like giving them the resources to fuck off is the opposite of that.”

“What did you say to Joseph?” he asked, ignoring his older brother’s comment regarding what he was supposed to be doing or not doing. “Before I talked to him last night.”

Jacob slid his gaze to him. For a second, he didn’t say anything, like he was trying to parse out what exactly it was that John was asking him. Because it wasn’t just what did you say to Joseph, it was what did you two talk about, and he wasn’t sure he was going to get even close to the answer that he wanted.

“Just told him what you told me,” the redhead replied, uncrossing his arms and letting them drop to his side. “Burke’s gone. That’s a problem, too.” Another pause, and then: “Seems like we have a lot of problems around here as of late.”

John watched his eldest brother’s receding silhouette. What the fuck does that mean? He wanted to say, but there was no time—Jacob would almost certainly indulge him, and if he derailed Elliot’s plan anymore than it already was, he’d almost certainly get strangled. In the less-fun way.

The door to the bunkhouse opened, and Elliot came out with Hudson trailing close behind. Seeing the two of them together just reminded him, again, of the last time the three of them had been in the same space together. 

I don’t know which, Elliot had said, like there was a John she’d want to kiss, and she needed to find him.

“Are we going?” Her voice, brisk as it normally was, ripped him out of the memory as she reached to take the keys from his hand.

He lifted them just out of reach. “At your leisure,” John quipped, “my liege. ”

“Bring her back, alive and in one piece,” Hudson ground out. “I’m only staying in case the Resistance radios in, and to keep an eye on your stupid brothers. If I had my way—”

“I’d be dead, the Resistance would be flourishing, the cops would be flooding this place, yada yada.” John waved his hand absently. “A pleasure as always, Deputy Hudson.”

“Don’t instigate her,” Elliot sighed. “You sound like a fuckhead.”

“He is a fuckhead,” Joey bit out. “Elli, I’m serious—I can come. You don’t have to—”

And then, in what John thought could only be a surprising act of self-control, she stopped herself. She stopped herself and didn’t finish her sentence, and the moment stretched long and unspoken between the two of them.

More than ever, John felt like the intruder, the interloper. Where he had thought Hudson would need to get used to the tenuous and tentative teamwork he and Elliot had been building, it now felt painfully apparent that the person that was going to be on the outside was him.

“I know,” Elliot replied after a moment. “I know, and I’m—it’ll be okay, I’ll be back soon, okay?  John, I’m driving.”

“I don’t feel like dying.”

“You drive like an old man,” she quipped, and when he arched a brow at her as if to remind her that she’d never once experienced his driving, she said, “ probably, in comparison to me—”

“—right, yeah, the woman who drives like she’s on Monster Jam. I think I’ll pass on the adrenaline rush, but thank you.”

“ Fine, ” Elliot sighed. “You’re so annoying.”

He headed around the front of the truck. Elliot exchanged a few softer, quieter words that he couldn’t quite make out with Hudson and then slid into the seat next to him, buckling up and settling back against the seat with a sigh. As soon as they had pulled out of the compound, she seemed to visibly relax; whatever tension had been holding her shoulders so close to her face had fled.

“Do you want to play a game?” John asked conversationally, after they’d been on the road for about ten minutes; he anticipated her answer but asked anyway. Part because the silence made him uneasy, and part because there was a small chance she’d say yes.

“No.” And then, moving on the offensive: “Do you really believe it?” she asked, and when John waited for her to elaborate, she continued, “All of this—bullshit. That Joseph is saying about the end times, and—”

John cleared his throat. He’d figured this question would come up sooner or later. He’d just hoped to have had more time, first. “I believe in Joseph,” he said after a moment, skimming his hands along the steering wheel. “I always—Joseph has always had our best interests in mind. And he hasn’t been wrong , you know.”

“So far,” Elliot pointed out.

“Yeah, well, that’s still a pretty good record.” He could feel himself getting defensive. “I spent—our parents, they—”

And then the words stopped coming out. They halted in his throat, dragging, shredding inside of him. I spent my whole life waiting for something to say yes to.

“Anyway,” John continued after a moment, eyes grazing the incoming storm clouds, “I would do anything for my family.”

“Ah.” And that was all she said. For some reason, it really dug at him—didn’t she want to push and press, slam on his berserk button until he couldn’t stand it anymore? John let the silence stretch between them for a bit longer before he glanced over at her.

She was about half-asleep in the passenger seat. Every time her eyes began to drift, they’d suddenly flutter awake; without her brows furrowing and her mouth set into a hard line, she looked like she had when he’d seen her in that bar, years ago. Soft, he thought absently as wisps of her hair fell out of her ponytail.

He was reminded briefly of how Jacob had once told him, back when they were kids, that an animal feeling comfortable enough to sleep around you was a sign of trust; and then he thought about how much he was sure Elliot would murder him for even drawing those parallels.

“What were you doing?” he asked, when he saw her eyes stay open for longer than a few seconds. “When I ran into you, I mean. Back at the compound.”

A grimace crossed the blonde’s face. She rubbed her forehead tiredly. “Just thinking.”

“That is quite a chore,” John agreed, and she shot him a scowl.

“Fuck you.”

“If you ask,” he agreed, “politely.”

That bloomed the red in her face, so fair was her skin that it was visible almost instantly. For once, she had no rapidfire response ready. He could hear the gears of her brain grinding and hitching before she finally said, “Stupid.”

John tried not to seem too pleased. Rain began to fall—steady at first, and then pelting the windshield with what felt like baseball sized raindrops. John slowed down as they took a corner, grimacing.

“I don’t want you to tell Joey,” Elliot said after a moment, with no context, though he had an idea of what she meant and it made something sharp and prickly coil in his stomach, right there under his heartbeat. Still, he feigned innocence.

“About—?” he prompted, but before she could clarify he plunged on. “That I’d do anything for my family? Or about how if you asked nicely I’d—”

“The kiss,” Elliot bit out, scoffing under her breath. “You fucking narcissist.”

“That’s still about me,” he pointed out, slowing down more as the wind picked up. “I really don’t think we’re gonna beat the storm.”

“ John.”

“Well!” He exhaled sharply. “What, you don’t want your best friend to know that I kissed you—”

“I’m serious—”

“—and you kissed me back?”

“Yes!” She snapped. “That’s exactly right! Good job, John, do you want a medal for your skills in critical thinking? I know that must have been a real fucking strain for you.”

Great, he thought dryly. Glad she’s back up to full steam. “And why not?” he demanded. “Seems like you and Hudson don’t keep anything from each other.”

“Because she’s going to ask why ,” Elliot replied finally, after she let a long heartbeat wind its way between them, “and I don’t—I won’t have an answer, because I don’t know.”

It was his turn to be quiet. He might have been more discouraged—and fairly—if his brain didn’t keep turning over the fact that she hadn’t denied kissing him back. Not even for a second.

I think you’re doing a great job with the deputy.

In an effort to ease the tension, and ignore Joseph’s voice lingering in his head, John offered, “If she asks that, you could just be honest.”

Elliot waited, because he supposed that she knew he wasn’t done talking; but it wasn’t any fun if she wasn’t going to walk into the punchline, so he waited, too. And when she finally said, “And how would I answer, then, John?” tiredly, he settled back into the seat comfortably.

“That I’m handsome, and irresistible, and there is an undeniable —” He ignored her infuriated groan and plunged on, “—attraction between us.”

“I have an incredible idea. Let’s play the “John shuts the fuck up and gets Elliot to town” game.”

“Now you’re just being mean. ”

A little laugh came out of her at that—the first time John thought he’d heard her laugh in a long time, even considering that they’d only been at this for a little under a week. The sound made a pleasant warmth bloom in him.

“Just focus on getting us to town, grandpa,” she said. “Then we can talk about how mean I am.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

By the time they got to Fall’s End, the storm had started to hit in full force. John barely managed to pull the truck in front of the Spread Eagle before he watched the wind lean a telephone pole hard left.

“We’re not driving back until this storm is done,” he told Elliot, over the screaming wind. Thunder rumbled, rattling deep inside of the cavity of his chest; two seconds outside of the truck had them drenched, clothes sticking to them.

“Then we’ll have plenty of time to collect up supplies,” she called back, pushing the door of the bar open and stepping inside. John followed suit; he even held his breath, just for a second, with the idea that maybe the Resistance hadn’t left when she’d told them to. But inside it was quiet; the lights were down, presumably from the storm, and all he could hear was the faint sound of the rain pelting the windows and the thunder rolling outside. 

Elliot said, in a sigh of relief, “They left.” John threw the lock on the front door just for good measure—not that he thought Ase’s men would be out in this kind of storm—and then followed her further into the bar. 

“I’m glad that we’re able to get… Fireball for you and Hudson,” John remarked as he inspected one of the bottles, and Elliot scrunched up her face.

“Gross.”

“What? You’re a little country bumpkin. Don’t you love Fireball?”

“Um,” Elliot said, “fuck you. Call me a country bumpkin again, John.” She busied herself with picking up one of the plastic crates and filling it with dry foods, muttering crossly under her breath. He watched her deliberate for a moment before she picked up one of the nicer bottles of vodka and planted it in the crate.

“I’m scandalized!” he exclaimed. “Can’t wait to tell Jacob I drove you down here for you to get alcohol .”

“That’s not the only thing,” she protested, “and we still have to stop by my house. Once the storm clears up.”

It didn’t pass John’s attention that Elliot hadn’t argued with him about driving in a storm like she had before, nor that she seemed to be a thousand yards more relaxed than she had been in the compound. Her hands moved with a different surety now, a different kind of confidence that had been missing before; sleep, he thought, and a day or two without getting drugged would do that to a person.

“Well, I’m going to take a shot,” John announced, shivering. “Before I die of exposure.”

She eyed him warily but continued to busy herself; though her clothes were drenched too, her shivering was purely physical, shuddering in her shoulders and back but not once rattling her teeth or hands. The blonde pushed the wet hair from her face on occasion, and sometimes sniffled, but as John poured himself a shot he thought that she seemed much more composed.

John made his way over to where she was packing things up behind the bar, reaching around her from behind to set a shot down in front of her.

“I’ll take back that I called you bumpkin,” he said lightly, “if you take this shot with me.”

“We’re here to get supplies, John,” she replied flatly.

“And we’re stuck until the storm blows over.”

Elliot narrowed her eyes. She was certainly considering a number of things—the fact that they would be leaving as soon as the storm was done, he would assume—but then, as though she had worked herself up to it, she snatched the shot glass off of the table and took it. John quickly followed suit, but not without a noise of protest.

“That isn’t how you take a shot,” he told her, watching her mouth twist at the taste. “You’re supposed to tap the bar first.”

“I was going to lose my nerve,” she defended, and for once that idea that Elliot was admitting that she had nerve that could be lost made John feel a little good. “ Yuck. I told you Fireball was bad.”

“I take it back. You’re not a bumpkin. You’re a very sophisticated, intelligent, beautiful woman, who just happens to want to live in the country, for some reason.”

Something about what he’d said made her attitude falter, disappearing right before his eyes as her cheeks heated up from his words. She said, after a moment, “Why are you trying to get me to drink, anyway?”

The question was a fair one, he supposed, though as he leaned against the bar near to her he shrugged. “Well,” he began, “it’s fucking cold, for one. For two, since Hudson spirited away when we first met, I never got the chance to figure out what would have happened if you’d stayed.”

The blonde returned to keeping her hands busy, moving briskly. “ I know,” she said, more confidently than he would have expected, and he arched a brow at her.

“And what would have happened, then?”

“I would have gone home with you,” Elliot replied, without missing a beat, sucking the wind right out of his sails. And it was that easy, too; I would have gone home with you, she’d said, like it was nothing, like it didn’t matter that this whole time she’d been fighting him at every turn but was now openly admitting that she had wanted him then.

She would have been mine, something wicked in him whispered, pulling itself out of the dark recesses of his mind. I would have had her, all to myself, for all this time. She’d have been my monster of Wrath. Think about how obedient she would be now.

Before John could say anything, she continued, “Because I was young, and stupid, and we should be thankful that I’m not the same girl I was then.”

He studied her for a moment, watched the way that she absently pushed the damp hair from her face, the way the heat spread in her cheeks. And he said, “Pretend, then.”

Her hands stilled, and she looked at him. “Pretend what?”

“We’re in a bar,” John replied, closing what little distance remained between them, his hand on the bar beside her, gently and half-way boxing her in. “You’re Junior Deputy Elliot, as you are now , and I’m me. Pretend that we’re just in a bar together, and that you’re not a stupid, young girl that was just charmed by me.”

There were a few moments of silence; moments where John thought he might have spooked her off, ignited that hairpin fight-or-flight inside of her, but she didn’t seem like she had adrenaline running through her body; she just seemed to be figuring it out.

“I can’t,” she said after a moment.

“You can’t,” John repeated.

“Yeah. Because—” She stopped, and then said, “we’re behind the bar. If we’re customers, we wouldn’t—”

John couldn’t stop the short, barked laugh that came out of him. The absurdity of the moment just struck him too hard; and when he laughed, Elliot frowned, turning to face him fully and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, it’s true!” she exclaimed. “You can’t ask me to roleplay a situation and then put me in the wrong location.”

“Unreal.” John reached up absently, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. “I cannot believe you just completely ruined the moment.”

“It’s not like we were going to kiss.”

“Oh, it’s not?” His hand drifted from where it had been tucking away her hair down, resting at the juncture between her neck and shoulder. The gesture made her eyes flutter; just the sight of that had something pleasant twisting in John’s stomach, this wild little animal blushing from just a little teasing, just a little touch. How touch-starved was his little hellcat, he wondered? How much could he wring out of her, just like this? “We didn’t even go through the whole scenario, you don’t know.”

“I know ,” Elliot said, even as John leaned in closer, even as her arms seemed to instinctively drop from where they were crossed to allow him to crowd in. The meaning of the gesture wasn’t lost on John—he’d seen the way she’d acted when other people touched her, aside from Hudson. The way she threw up a wall or a hand the second someone got in her space. It made it all feel different.

There was a strange moment suspended between them; the air felt thick and syrupy, humid from the storm outside and their drenched clothes and something else, bubbling and fizzing. She would have been mine, that voice said again. Mine, and not anyone else’s. Not Joseph’s and not Jacob’s and and and.

A thick rumble of thunder rolled just above them; John’s thumb skimmed just over Elliot’s pulsepoint. Her heartbeat flickered at the touch, beats after the sound, so that he knew exactly what had caused it. Him.

She still could be our little hellcat. Our little monster. Our little killer.

“John,” she started, maybe by way of warning, maybe for something else; he leaned in, felt her shoulders tighten with tension or anticipation or both.

So good, John, she’d have said, sweet and obedient and his, when he finally got his hands on her, and the sweet cadence of her voice would hitch just the way that he liked. You feel so good, nobody else has ever made me feel like you, I’d do anything for you, yes yes yes.

“I meant it back then.” His hands itched for it, now that the words were turning over and over in his head, now that he was letting the days of frustration and anger fade for just a moment. His voice came out in a murmur. “When I called you beautiful. That hasn’t changed.”

She sucked in a little breath, like she was trying to steel herself. “Don’t fucking play with me.”

“I’m not.” John skimmed his fingers up to her jaw; her chin tilted up like nothing, as though she already knew what he wanted and she wanted it too, and it suddenly all felt like a little bit too much; too raw, scraping against exposed nerve-endings, all of those times she’d spit on his work or bite out an insult into the walkie or dig her nails into him until he’d bled or tried to kill a man for touching her, all blending into sharp edges that caught and tore the closer they got to each other. John would twist and writhe his way in past them, if she gave him the chance—so that he could get elbows-deep in the gore and grit of her, really sink his teeth in.

So much wrath, he thought, when their noses brushed. So much wrath, and look at how sweet she is for me now.

What patience he’d been exerting was rewarded; Elliot closed the last of the distance between them and kissed him. She tasted like cinnamon-whiskey and a little like rain; he wouldn’t have wanted someone less, he thought, someone less wrathful. He liked the infernal in her—he was supposed to be wiping it out, breaking it in his hands and shaping it into obedience, but he liked that when her lips parted and she sighed into the kiss that something felt carnal about that simple, plain gesture alone, because the knowledge of what she was capable of and what she didn’t let others do made this kind of thing feel more.

A heavy gust of wind rattled the front door in its frame; the sound of it, wood colliding and metal shuddering against the strain of keeping it in place, made Elliot jump and pull away. It took all of his willpower not to chase her body heat. Instead, he stayed exactly where he was—perfectly within reach of her, and he thought for a moment that Joseph had been right: she would have never cowed to his methods. This was the only way to—

To what? Break her in? Make her mine?

“I can’t,” Elliot said again, the words brushing their lips together, and this time he hadn’t asked her to do anything so he knew what she meant. “I don’t know what kind of game—”

He felt her pulse jump under his fingers again. “No game.”

“There’s always a game,” she protested.

“Maybe I just want to kiss you,” John offered, and leaned in just a little again, keeping his voice low. “Have you thought about that? Maybe, I just like the way you are when I kiss you.”

Elliot’s head tilted out of reach. He could feel the heat blooming on her cheeks, even in the dark. “Oh,” she said. He waited for an elaboration, and it was several heartbeats before she continued, “You make me so fucking mad.”

John exhaled a sharp breath, hand dropping from her as he lugged most of his weight against the bar top. “It must be so exhausting,” he said, “doing the amount of mental gymnastics you have to do every day to pretend like you don’t want to kiss me back.”

“Well, I—” Her eyelashes fluttered, and she set her jaw, and John could see she was doing that thing where she readied herself for some kind of blow. “It’s—different. When you’re like this.”

“Like…?”

Elliot sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, turning back to the crate full of supplies and nudging it out of the way to make room for a second. As the wind howled outside, and rain pounded against the roof and windows, John thought that the most infuriating thing about Elliot was that she’d run her mouth for days and was now deciding to be tight-lipped.

“No, please, continue,” he insisted, his words coming out tight. “I’m just dying to know your official diagnosis of me, Deputy Honeysett. While we’re at it, why don’t we do the whole group? Jacob, Joseph, me, and Faith. You are the authority on fuck-ups, aren’t you?”

“You don’t owe him,” Elliot snapped. Her gaze was hard when she turned to look at him, her words a vicious parry of his anger. “You don’t owe Joseph your blood and guts all the time.”

“He gave me everything,” John bit out. “He’s my brother.”

“So what?” She ground the words on their way out of her mouth. “So fucking what, John? You think I bend over backwards for my mama while she drinks herself to death every fucking day? No, I don’t. I don’t grovel for her affection, I don’t kiss the fucking ground she walks on just because she brought me into this world, and that’s more than you can say Joseph did for you. So I’ll say it again—so fucking what, he’s your brother? What does it fucking matter?”

I don’t know, John thought, his brain scrambling to piece together a response. But nothing came. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to explain to Elliot that before-Joseph and after-Joseph were so drastically different, and that if he went back to before-Joseph, he didn’t know who he was going to be.

“I don’t,” John managed out after a moment, all of her softness gone. He’d misstepped on his way in, and now those jagged edges were latching on to him; no room to back out and escape her dissection, no room to delve in deep and find refuge in the space between her ribs, either. “Do that, for him.”

“You do,” Elliot snipped, turning to him now. “I’ve seen it. I told you I have. You’re not that stupid, John.”

Her words lit something angry in him—something wounded, something hurt, something that wanted desperately for Joseph to tell him he did a good job and that didn’t want to admit it. “Well, that can’t be true,” he said, “because Joseph didn’t ask me to go back for you at the campground, and I did anyway. So what’s your diagnosis on that , Doctor Honeysett?”

Elliot’s baby-blues flickered for a moment, impatient to exit the conversation but unwilling to relinquish any ground she’d gotten. She is so fucking stubborn, he thought as he watched the tension in her jaw. So fucking stubborn, even when she practically crumbles the second I touch her.

“I don’t know,” she said finally.

“Well I do ,” John replied angrily, “and it’s that outside of my loyalty to Joseph, there’s you, and I want both.”

“Fuck you.” Her words weren’t angry now, but strained, scrambling for a foothold somewhere; not a damsel in distress, but a damsel under duress, Joseph had said. “You sound so—fucking stupid saying shit you don’t—”

He kissed her again—no tentative questioning, now, no delicate pauses between breaths to try not to spook her. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, pinned in the corner of the bar between the terminal and the bar top itself; John waited for any sign that she wanted him to stop, but her fingers fisted the front of his shirt and kept him there.

“I do mean it,” he said against her mouth, fingers threading in her hair, just at the base of her scalp. “I want you too , Elliot.”

“You—can’t,” she said. “You can’t have both. I won’t—”

I can, John thought furiously as he kissed her again, as he felt her tense and then relax against him, like each touch was a potential for vicious impact but it turned out not to be. Not quite, anyway. She still felt sharp, like he had to slide past each jagged every time he went to kiss her, but it was worth it, to hear her say his name against their kiss. I can, he thought again, a mantra. To grip too tight or to hold loosely; he didn’t know, but he was afraid of the departure, so he held tighter. I can. You’re mine, and I can have both.

I will have both.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The storm didn’t let up, which meant that Elliot was trapped—with John, with what she’d done, with what she’d let herself do. Kiss—and enjoy kissing—John Seed.

It had been stupid to indulge again. It had been stupid to let herself take his words— I want both —at face value because John had proven time and time again that even he couldn’t swallow back the duality of his own existence. The bark and the bite. But though she wanted desperately to pretend as though she didn’t want or feel anything, though she wished that she could wipe the memories from her mind forever, John’s hands on her face grounded her; they rooted her to the earth, and he didn’t kiss her like any man had ever kissed her before. It was like he was starved for her.

A vicious gust of wind rattling the front door of the Spread Eagle had broken the moment. John went to the window to make sure it was just wind, and without the smell of him and the heat of him muddying up her conscience, she could busy herself. Loading supplies, gathering whatever she could that Mary May had been holding on to and hadn’t taken with her when they left, because tomorrow she and Joey would be gone, and she would be able to forget about John Seed and the glimpses of goodness and patience she had seen in him, in equal parts with his anger and cruelty.

And she could forget about how she liked those parts, too, because they felt like her own, like someone knew exactly what she felt and was going to accept those parts of her anyway.

By the time they had finished loading stuff up in the truck through quick darts back and forth, the storm had mostly slowed down to rain. John’s teeth chattered as they loaded up into the truck and then pulled around and down the street to Elliot’s house, the heat cranked and the radio flipped off, leaving them with only the sound of the rain to mitigate whatever lingered loud and sharp between them.

“I’ll wait here,” John said, rubbing his hands together. “If you go quick we might be able to make it back before this picks up again.”

“Got it,” Elliot replied briskly, grateful that he wasn’t going to push to come in. He seemed just as deep in his thoughts as she felt, which meant maybe she’d get some peace and quiet on their way back. 

She nudged the door open and ducked into the house, fumbling under the mat for the spare key before opening the door and stepping inside. It might have been a little bit of a mistake to come back home. The smell of her house —a little like pine and her fabric softener, because she’d just ran a load of laundry before all this happened—hit her hard. It sucked all of the air out of her lungs, ripped it right out of her, gutted her instantly.

My home, she thought, with a sense of finality. Because she would never be coming back. She would never come back to this little house, even if Joseph got put down, even if the Family got cleaned out of Hope County. There was a part of Elliot that understood she would never be able to be happy here, not again.

She stuffed clothes, photographs, some books into a bag. She took the time to change into something dry and warm, pulling socks up and lacing herself into some boots. There wasn’t time to take everything that she wanted, everything that mattered, but she had started over her whole life once before and she thought that she could do it again.

It felt like perhaps an eternity had passed as she moved through her house and tried to pick and choose what mattered enough to come with her; in reality, it was probably only ten minutes, but her grip on time seemed to slip away the second she was in the safety of her house, of her own clothes, around her things.

I’m really leaving . The thought swept through her brain violently as she closed the door behind her, zipping up her jacket against the chilly nighttime winds. I’m really never coming back.

Elliot tossed the bag into the back seat, among the other supplies, and then settled into the seat. John looked at the small bag, and then back at her.

“Got everything?” he asked, and what he meant was, is that really all you wanted?

“Got everything,” Elliot replied. She kept her eyes fixed forward, because she thought if she looked over at John and saw the way he was looking at her, she might actually come unglued.

The brunette only waited for a moment longer before he pulled out from in front of her house and then drove them out of Fall’s End. The bar, the church, her house; they all faded away in the rearview mirror of the truck, perhaps the last time she would ever set eyes on the place that had always taken her back and held her—in the way that her mother hadn’t, the way her father hadn’t, the way nobody else had.

John stayed blissfully quiet for the car ride. He didn’t bring up their moment in the bar, or anything that she’d said, but just drove them diligently back to the compound. It was the first time that he’d opted to stay quiet of his own volition, and she was grateful for it.

I want both.

She didn’t know what that meant. She knew what he was saying—in a perfect world, John Seed would have Joseph’s approval and she wouldn’t want to kill his siblings, and she’d stick around and just drop everything she had spent this entire time suffering for. But she didn’t know what it meant, what it really meant to John, when he was saying it to her with his fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth on hers.

It was early morning by the time they got back to the compound, dawn just beginning to creep over the distant mountain range and the rain having slowed. John turned the truck off, the engine ticking as it cooled, and for a second they just sat there, the sound of the rain in the early morning swallowing them up in the cab of the truck.

And then, Elliot said, “I’m really leaving,” at the same time as John said, “You don’t have to go,” and the silence was really awkward then, stretching out endlessly between them. John exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of his neck.

“If you go, it won’t be the end,” he finally continued. “They could catch you and Joey on your way out. Even if they don’t, Burke got out—this whole thing is far from over.”

“So—” Elliot stopped herself, trying to find some composure somewhere inside of her. “—why are you staying , then?”

It wasn’t like she was asking John to come with them. She just didn’t understand the need to stay and burn.

“I told you,” John replied after a moment. “They’re my family.”

The words made her tired. She pushed the door open, a gust of cold wind hitting her and sobering her almost immediately.

“Elliot—”

“I’ve got a lot to do, John,” she said, hauling one crate and then another out of the truck before stacking them and lifting them into her arms. Her muscles screamed at the effort, but it was a good kind of burn—the kind that reminded her that she was alive. The kind that reminded her she was real.

John said, “Okay, El,” as she hauled her things back to the bunkhouse.

Okay, she thought. Okay, okay, whatever you say, John.

It would just make it easier in the morning, anyway.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot spent the entirety of the morning ignoring him. It was probably for the best, anyway; John had a distinct feeling that any conversation between the two of them was only going to end up tense at best, and explosive at worst. He didn’t know how he was going to tell Joseph that they weren’t sticking around.

Another problem for another time.

Once, when the sun came out, he passed Joey on his way to the church. She stopped and looked like she wanted to say something; even when she finally got around to it, her words were clipped.

“Thanks for bringing her back,” the brunette said, watching him warily.

“I wasn’t going to leave her at Fall’s End. You’re not the deputy I want,” John replied dryly, knowing full well that Joey thought he had some nefarious plan to keep Elliot stuck there. Well, she’s not that far off, anyway.

Joey’s lips twisted into a grimace. She said, “I meant before. From the campground. I know you didn’t have to, and Jacob’s pissed you did, so.”

Oh, John thought, not having expected that. He cleared his throat and tried to figure out how it was he wanted to respond—there was no formula in his brain on how to disarm or parry Hudson when she was being genuine.

Before he could come up with something, she said, “Anyway, that’s all,” and turned to head off, walking briskly, effectively ending their conversation and reminding John that their time together was rapidly drawing to a close.

The morning bled into the afternoon. It was a beautiful Fall day, after all of the rain and wind that had been plummeting Hope County into something wretched. John thought that Elliot had to be sleeping off their little adventure in Fall’s End—another event and space in time that he wanted both to lock away forever and keep at the forefront of his mind in equal amounts.

“Hey, fuckhead!”

His head snapped immediately to the front of the yard. They’d been back since early dawn, but he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Elliot, or even Joey after their little run-in; John was still stuck trying to figure out a way to get them to stay—tell them they couldn’t take a truck, maybe, but even though he knew that’d slow them down, he also knew that Elliot and Joey would carry their shit on foot if they had to, and Elliot wouldn’t be staying without Joey.

However, the problem at hand had immediately made itself apparent; Jacob, turning a truck off after having pulled up next to the one that she had just emptied out and Elliot, stalking across the yard, vibrating with fury. He could feel it from here.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, feeling eyes turn to the commotion. Faith watched him inquisitively from the doorway of the church, leaned against it with the dark circles ringing her eyes. He took in a sharp breath. “Hold on, I’ll—one minute—”

“I’m tired, deputy,” he heard Jacob drawl as he opened the driver’s side door, one leg sliding out. “Don’t you think you can wait to...”

Elliot kicked the driver’s side door hard , in a spartan-like gesture that would have been impressive if it wasn’t so alarming, slamming it on Jacob’s leg and drawing from his eldest brother a bit-out swear that made John think perhaps Elliot was going to be hurtling herself toward death imminently; and maybe Elliot knew that too, but if she did, she didn’t care.

Jacob climbed all the way out of the truck and closed the driver’s side door, the frame rattling from the force of the gesture. Bad , John thought faintly, idly, somewhere very far away from himself. Bad, so fucking bad, what the fuck.

“Hey,” John said, coming around the front of the truck feeling something close to panic at the way Jacob’s expression darkened. “Deputy, let’s—”

“Where the fuck is she?” the blonde demanded. John hooked one arm around her waist the second she started taking another step toward Jacob—not just because he thought Elliot might actually put her teeth in Jacob if she got the chance, but because he also thought that Jacob wouldn’t skip out on an opportunity to try and teach her a lesson. Regardless, John’s presence meant next to nothing; she pushed at his arm with vigor, but her vitriol remained pointed at the redhead. “What the fuck did you do with her, you stupid fucking caveman?”

“Muzzle your fucking beast,” Jacob snapped, his words overlapping Elliot’s. The collision of their voices in apparent discord—Elliot’s high, frantic note of hysteria and fury brutalizing the darker timbre of Jacob’s voice—clattered around in John’s tired brain violently; Elliot squirmed in his grip, and the idea that she might try and headbutt him passed briefly through his mind.

“Yeah, John .” Elliot dripped the words in a sticky honey on their way out of her mouth. She was practically sweating poison, her thrashing stilled for a moment as she used that same eerie, cloying sweetness she had before, with Jace. You’d let me walk around, wouldn’t you? Except now it was pointed at him, this saccharine tone, begging him to do it. “Muzzle your beast, poor Jacob’s scared I’ll fucking kill him.”

Not how he wanted this. Not like this. Fuck fuck fuck. “Elliot—”

A half-cocked grin split across Jacob’s face. He leaned forward, almost within grabbing reach of Elliot. “Yeah? You think you could do it, little girl?”

“We’re not doing this,” John insisted, hauling the blonde back a few feet. “Alright? We’re not doing—”

It was only them, the two of them in the whole world—Jacob and Elliot, desperate to rip each other apart, and John was just the poor fool stuck in the middle.

“Get John to let me go,” Elliot bit out, “and fucking find out. I know you did something to her, and when I find out I’ll fucking kill you—you and your stupid fucking brother and every single Peggy that tries—”

“Okay, alright—” John turned, dragging the blonde— she’s so tiny, how is it so hard to take her anywhere —and started walking her toward the bunkhouse. She dug her feet into the dirt, but he thankfully had an advantage on her in that respect. “We’re done here.”

With his arms locked around her, and wisps of her hair sticking to his face, he heard Jacob call from behind him leisurely, “Only one thing to do with a rabid dog, John.”

Put it down. 

The sentence completed itself against his will in the confines of his mind. He knew already what Jacob was thinking, but that was a problem for another time.

“In we go,” John said, releasing one grip to open the door. The bunkhouse was empty , which suddenly made Elliot’s venom and anger make more sense.

“She’s gone!” Her voice was almost a wail, and as she pulled herself out of John’s grip she began to pace, frantically. “She’s fucking gone and I know he did something, what the fuck was he doing out of the compound? He hates Hudson. I know he does. He did something to her, John—”

He held up his hands to steady her, reaching, but she smacked his hand away.

“Move,” she bit out.

“You can’t kill Jacob,” John replied.

“Fuck. You.” For a second, he thought that she might actually try to kill him. Her eyes swept over him in a way that they hadn’t before— calculating, figuring out the logistics of strangling him or not, the same way that he’d seen her regard other members of Eden’s Gate, the same way she had looked just before smashing a man’s face in with a shovel. 

It seemed her brain came to some conclusion, because instead of trying to kill him she moved to go past him again, but he was faster. His arm hooked around her waist again and hauled her back from the door.

“I don’t mean that for lack of trying,” John snapped, “I mean that Jacob will kill you first .”

She made a wrecked, agonized noise and tried to squirm out of his grip again, but he locked it in tight; the noise was enough to rattle his skeleton, enough to make his stomach twist, but he held fast.

Elliot said, distressed now, “I have to find Joey, I have to—what did he do with her—”

A frantic kind of panic was spilling out of her, bleeding into him, too. She was going to go out there and try to kill Jacob if he didn’t put a stop to it, and though there was a part of him that wanted to let her try—to see how much she could actually do against Jacob—he knew better.

“El,” he said, “don’t. Jacob didn’t do anything to her.” He didn’t know that for sure, but that would be a problem for another time.

“I have to find her,” Elliot insisted, her voice breaking. “I have to, John—”

“We will.” His words seemed to cut straight through the panic, right down to the grit of it, and she stopped trying to split past him. Her hands were trembling though, the blood having fled them as she gripped him.

“Find her,” she gritted out. “ Please.”

Please. John couldn’t remember a time that she’d asked him like that, with politeness. With sincerity. Maybe she had—but it was hard to pick out those moments in all the rage, all of the wrath.

“I will,” John managed out, after those baby blues had him pinned. “I will, El, okay? I’ll find her.”

“Promise me.” Urgency flooded her voice; her eyes flickered over his face, as though to check for a lie, some kind of tell that would out him; but she would find none, because there were none. There was no universe, John thought, where he would say he’d find her and he didn’t mean it. To what end, anyway? She’d leave if he did. “Promise me, I can’t do it by myself.”

“I do.” He took her face in his hands; all of the blood which had fled her fingers was in her face, feverish with panic. Her breath wobbled in her mouth frantically; it was the first time he’d seen her so close to tears without the horror of a bad trip dragging her down.

John knew that he was toeing a fine line between helping Elliot and keeping her. He knew that he couldn’t say he wouldn’t, or he’d risk ruining everything that had been so delicately built between them—but finding Joey would enable them to go. And then what would he do?

Anything I have to.

“I promise.”

[billhaderlovebot]

vampire barry hcs.

@gazebros and i put together our collective genius again and created some self indulgent vampire hcs for our Babey.

after barry leaves the army, he's greeted by fuches.

a very old and very rude vampire who's never quite adapted to modern life as well as he thinks he has.

he turns barry himself, so that barry will have to do what he says. sire bond, and all that.

twilight wasn't lying about the excruciating pain stuff.

barry actually is pretty chill with being a vampire.

he's forgotten a lot of his time as a human, so he doesn't have much to compare it to.

he thinks it's cool that he doesn't have to sleep as much, and he can sleep for actual weeks at a time if he wants to.

the sunlight thing is a bummer.

he doesn't die, or anything, and he's usually okay if it's cloudy, but staying out too long in direct sunlight kinda hurts.

he's okay, apart from the whole, uh, blood sucking part.

he's okay with doing it to survive, but then he finds out what fuches really wants from him.

to kill for the sake of killing.

to get people out of the way.

and he has no choice.

he joins the acting class, he supposes, as an escape.

he hates how easy it is for him to kill.

he hates his own strength.

he's put his foot through the floor more than once while running down the stairs, late to class.

he's torn off the door and broken quite a few light switches, tearing them out of the ceiling.

he hates that he can sink his teeth into a human's throat as easily as if it were butter.

he hates that draining the life from someone is as effortless as it is. second nature.

he needs to be around humans, he finds.

he needs to remember that there's a reason for him being here.

not just to kill.

to live

and experience

and create a new life separate from the one he's forgotten so much about.

and in the acting class, he meets you.

and you're so wonderful.

you make him feel like he's alive.

his heart doesn't beat any longer, but he seems to forget about all that when he's with you.

and apparently, the thing about vampires being hopeless romantics is not a myth, because he falls for you so hard.

it doesn't take you long to figure out he's a vampire, either.

it was small things, really.

he was cold. and sometimes he didn't move for like... a solid hour.

also, um, his complete lack of reflection threw you.

but you were too far in love with him for it to bother you.

"so, were you waiting for me to ask you about your obvious vampirism?"

"huh?"

"barry, you're dead."

"oh. yeah. will you be my girlfriend, by the way?"

"fuck yeah."

the first time he kisses you, he ends up pushing you through the drywall of his apartment.

"holy shit, are you okay?"

"yeah, yeah, fine, i'm just... inside the wall."

"sorry."

"you're a good kisser."

you forget he's a vampire, sometimes.

when he's coming to stay at your house, and you go inside to make coffee or whatever, and notice that he hasn't come in with you.

he's just standing on the doorstep.

all polite and stuff.

just waiting.

in the rain.

"bear?"

"hm?"

"what are you-- oh!"

"yeah, you gotta invite me in."

"shit, sorry. come in."

"it's chill. wanna watch zack galifianakis?"

and then you spend the whole night debunking vampire myths.

it's 3am, and barry is ok because he doesn't need sleep for another few days.

you're sprawled on your bed, and he's running his fingers through your hair, and you're just staring up at him with The Biggest Heart Eyes.

and he knows he would do anything for you.

the human girl he fell in love with.

"your eyes are so beautiful."

that kinda stops him in his tracks.

"are they? i don't know what they look like."

"wait, you- don't you remember?"

"my human life is kinda... fuzzy? like trying to see through dirty water. and it's been about seven years since i've seen my own face. fuches burned all the pictures of me, all my records. took me off the grid."

and you lost your absolute Shit™

because that's fucked up.

because barry is the most beautiful man you've ever seen and he doesn't know what he looks like.

"they're blue. like, the softest blue. and kinda grey, too. and sometimes... when you laugh... you get these little eye crinkles-"

"im in love with you."

"that's the first time you've said that to me, barry."

"well, i am."

barry doesnt care much for how he looks, but he loves the way you describe him. so he lets you continue.

"your hair is brown. really... fluffy looking. i just want to touch it all the time, you really make shit hard for me."

he grins

"and my lips?"

"oh... soft."

"mhm."

and he kisses you so slow and soft and Your Heart Falls Out Of Your Ass.

barry is cold. he doesn't have blood. so. he's cold.

but he does feel it sometimes.

and there's not much he can do about it when he does.

"hi, i can't come to work today because my boyfriend doesn't generate body heat and hasn't slept in two weeks so i need to warm him up."

vampires don't sleep, my ass.

he's always falling asleep on your chest, or with his head in your lap listening to you talk about your day.

he can go without it for a long time, but he loves waking up next to you. he also just loves watching you sleep. listening to your breathing and your heartbeat. the rush of blood.

let's be real, sometimes he finds it hard to not, like, drink your blood.

but one feed and he's good for a couple weeks.

let's address the elephant in the room.

the sex thing.

y'all watch twilight and you're laughing because edward won't have sex with bella.

and barry completely has a straight face.

"no dude i could literally kill you."

"yeah, uh, that's never once stopped you."

breaking the bed Every Other Night.

his heightened senses and vampire awareness means he's So Good at sex.

his attitude to changing you is so relaxed.

he's kinda like. "yeah. if it happens, it happens. you get to be my girlfriend literally forever. that's pretty rad."

"so if you go at it too hard and snap my spine just change me quick."

neck kisses are his Thing.

they're so fucking hot.

vampire neck kisses? that's the dream.

barry can't eat garlic. it makes him sick.

apparently, he gives ZERO FUCKS.

he eats some of your homemade garlic bread and you spend half the night sat on the bathroom floor with him patting his back while he throws it up.

"barry, you stupid bitch."

he tried to drink animal blood once, too.

and again, he threw up.

"babe, i don't care if it's ethical, it's fucking disgusting."

he's always riled up when he comes home from a hit.

you can't be mad at him, because you know he doesn't have a choice.

it's considerably harder and more dangerous trying to calm down a vampire, though, so sometimes you sit there while he smashes things, and wait for him to finish so he can come and cry on you.

the circumstances under which he changes you are not pleasant.

fuches finds out about you. he finds out where barry has been hiding, and he beats you within an inch of your life.

and barry finds you in your apartment and he knows what happened.

you're beaten and broken and bloodied on the ground and he has to stop breathing because he can smell you and he could drain you right there if he doesn't watch himself.

and he's never been bothered about changing you but now it's happening.

now he's faced with your imminent death and he could very well lose you and he freezes up.

your eyes meet his frantically but he's not sure if you know he's there.

he presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, and he can taste the blood, and it almost pushes him over the edge.

he dips his head down to your neck, and the rush of blood he's become accustomed to is so much weaker.

your breathing is shallow.

"im sorry."

he knows this will hurt.

and it does. he has to take you somewhere, quick. because you scream until the screams don't sound like screams anymore.

he takes you to the same place fuches took him when he turned. it's a bunker, far enough away from anyone to rouse suspicion.

and he holds you to him while you writhe in pain and beg for him to kill you as the venom changes every cell in your body.

he can't do anything about it.

at some point, he doesn't know when,

you stop screaming.

you stop moving and breathing and he's worried that it hasn't worked.

that he's done it wrong.

but the change is visible.

your features are the same, but different.

your skin is as smooth as marble and almost as cold.

the way you move and speak and hold yourself is different.

but you're still you.

and you're alive.

and he kisses the remaining life from you as soon as you sit up.

"hello."

"hey, bear. that fuches guy is a bastard."

"i know."

"no, he really ripped into me."

"i know."

"thanks for not letting me die."

"no problem."

"i love you."

"i love you too."

though barry only has eight years of experience, it's still eight more than you have.

but you adapt to vampire life very easily.

somehow, you find your feet faster than he did.

"i think we should invest in a space heater."

"mhhm."

now that barry doesn't need to hold back, you have to retire to remote cabins for days at a time to fuck. because you don't get tired easily and you're very loud.

desks and walls and bedframes being literally obliterated.

really

at one point the bed falls through the floor

with the two of you on it

and you don't fucking notice.

you keep pretending to move countries to throw fuches off your trail.

it's kinda fun, setting up elaborate scent traps and making him think you're somewhere in europe when you've not actually left the state.

everyone at the acting class begins to wonder why the two of you look so good, but also so washed out.

"they're vampires, im telling you."

"shut the fuck up, man, what if they can hear us?"

y'all are so extra. drinking blood out of capri sun pouches and going out in the sun in huge sunhats and clout goggles.

going as stereotypical cloaked vampires for halloween and spending hours freaking people out in the hall of mirrors.

soft vampire love, guys.

y'all have napped for literal weeks at a time. just holding each other.

you just love each other so much.

let vampires be SOFT.

because you are.

barry just holds your face and looks at you. he's never going to be able to get over how fucking ethereal you are, even his heightened vampire sight can't take it in

"do you think that we're going to be this in love forever?"

"yeah."

"how are you sure?"

"because i can't function without you."

[seb-owns-these-tatas]

Barely Alive (Chris Evans) (Pt.1)

Characters: Chris Evans x short reader

Summary: A zombie apocalypse happened on earth. You've decided to do something impulsive which will lead you into a life or death situation. But despite that, an unexpected savior came to rescue you and he was far more scared for your life than his. (Part 1)

Warnings: Cuss words with a little bit of violence?

Words: 1,500 (Kinda short I think? For me? Hehehehe.)

A/N: Btw, English isn't my mother tongue. So, if y'all find some typos or wrong grammars please do correct me if I'm wrong. 😊 Thank you very much! 😊 FEEDBACKS ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT AGAIN!

Disclaimer: PNG's used in edits are not mine even the GIF's too. However, the edits and oneshots are definitely from moi.

Dedicated: @readermia​ @mcuclintasha​ @itsallyscorner​

"No, no, no, not my hand please--it hurts!--you fucktard!" You exclaimed, mentally weeping from the pain you were feeling. Basically crying out when the only last man standing was stepping on your broken hand to stop you from getting your pistol.

You have shot a bullet through his friends skulls because they were being disrespectful and when you say disrespectful then you meant that he had other wicked things in mind as he found you scavenging supplies for the whole team. Out of all the people that were left in your group, you were the most precised shooter than the rest and you decided to leave all on your own because nobody dared to.

They were too frightened to step foot out of the base besides the other set of people who comes in and out of the base to rescue survivors or bring in supplies which included you in that set of people who weren't scared for the outcomes of meeting an infected.

Target the head. That was all you guys needed to know to save yourselves from them. However, it's a different thing if you were about to encounter humans.

Nothing good happens when you leave alone, yes? Bad things always happen when you act impulsively without even thinking and you know this was karma for that.

"You little stupid bitch," The man seethed as he stepped on your hand a lot more. Igniting a brash scream out of you as drops of tears fell on the sides of your cheeks. It was stupid for other people to see however the pain was already too much.

It was tormenting.

Your body was already feeling all types of pain, from the way blood fell on your nose as the man named 'Caesar' kicked your face and stomach till the way he was torturing your broken right hand. You've made a stupid ass decision and deep inside you know it was.

In Chris's point of view, you surely did made a very big mistake.

"I've got eyes on the asshole," You've heard a very familiar tone in his voice. It was deep, low and sultry as it echoed out loud inside the huge abandoned mall. A helpless sigh left your chapped, bloody lips as you heard footsteps. Caesar's boots momentarily leaving your hand as he lifted his foot off the ground. Your eyes began to close, feeling the ache engulf on every part of your body.

A loud pitch scream left your lips when you felt somebody tightly grab onto the roots of your hair, tugging it rough enough till your head started to ache too. "Take your filthy fucking hands off her. I swear to God, I'm going to fucking kill you," Chris threatened as he slowly stalked forward. Voice frighteningly low. His gorgeous blue eyes turning a shade darker with the toughest expression that could make the earth wilt in fear.

The expression he had on his face became unreadable. From the way his eyes scanned your suffering body, he felt his blood run cold and felt his heart beat drop because of your bloody face. You were just fine before he last saw you, but because you were an impulsive one for not even listening to him, you were now in pain.

You were in pain. Chris bore in mind, watching you in the midst of fading.

He gritted his teeth as his jaw turned too tight to even notice, cocking the gun he had in his hand as another survivor suddenly came out behind 'Caesar'. Another healthy human who was included in your group and who came with Chris. He aimed the pistol at Caesar's head. Lips forming a thin line at the realization that some human actually hurt his friend to the bones.

Your savior uttered something incomprehensible before your eyelids fluttered shut and a loud shot of a gun came after. Subsequently, your head dropped on the floor with a loud thud and your heart began to soften its beat.

Indecipherable chatters and shouts followed. You could feel your face turning numb. Eyes never threatening to open because of how tired and painful everything felt from all the injuries you've gotten. The broken hand that was stepped was turning more insensible rather than the excruciating pain not a little while ago. Suddenly, you felt somebody hold you. Warmth wrapped you in a hug which made you moan out in pain, gibberish sounds coming out of your mouth as you couldn't form proper words because you could feel as if you were too tired and helpless to even talk.

"Hey? Y/N? Can you hear me?" Your body was lifted off the ground. Another incoherent moan was sent to the latter and with that, it made Chris more worried than he ever should. More worried than your boyfriend who happened to stay back at the base because he was too scared to even encounter an infected.

"She's not responding, Anthony! She's not responding, she's not talking, she's fucking bleeding! Damn it, she even broke her hand!" Chris panicked, his anxiety trying to grope him like he was being choked. There it was again. He was constantly checking your vital signs as he held you tight at the back of the truck, bringing a hand in front of your face to feel you breathing or even resting his ears on your chest just to check if you were still alive.

You were, but with the slightest beating of a heart. It was faint, certainly not normal for a healthy person.

"Chris," Anthony calmly started, yet driving faster than normal. He kept glancing at his rear-view mirror, keeping notice at how his close friend was going nuts for Y/N. A lass who was the same age as the kid named Tom Holland who happened to be his friend too and was staying at the base.

Anthony had his eyebrows cinched together as he drove as fast as he can. Never forgetting to look at Chris who had his fingers on her left wrist, checking her pulse. Both of his hands never letting go of hers which made Anthony grab his attention.

"Yo, Christopher."

Cuss words were on repeat, "Shit, shit, shit," he exclaimed like a broken tape recorder and Anthony repeated himself, his face serious yet calm. The actual opposite of what Chris had written on his face.

"Chris! Calm the fuck down,"

"I am! I am! I'm trying! But how can I?!" The panicked man replied with a threatened look on his face. Holding in deep breaths as he caressed your hair in the most tender way. You slightly groaned, hands weakly squeezing his which made him double-check your suffering state. His hands full of blood and dirt. Nevertheless, he never cared because all that mattered at the moment was keeping you alive and breathing.

You could hear everything, though you don't have the strength to do anything about it. Despite of the screams running inside your head, yelling a loud 'I'm okay,'. With how bruised you were, you just couldn't.

"We're close. Don't let her sleep. We don't want her risking a hemorrhage," Anthony Mackie uttered, his voice deep as he made a right turn. Entering an old, abandoned factory that had tents, gates and bonfires surrounding the place.

They were finally safe, yet Y/N was in critical condition.

COMMENT OR REBLOG IF YA’ WANT A PART TWO, TATER TOTS! Tell me what ya’ think about this one shot! 

XOXO, TATA

[rynhaswritersblock]

tiktok famous (hc) - part four | p.p.

summary: episode four of tiktoks with y/n and peter ayooooo

warnings: cussing. what's new LOL

+ + +

- BACK AGAIN

- these are the imagines that i can pretty much just pump out because the plot line is like already layed out for me

- in conclusion i like writing these lol

- okay SO

THESE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE IDEAS::: spideybparker starbabez mrose12623 elliedevotee lilcassipuff buckybigbutt

THANK U! <3

^^ if you've changed your username i'm so sorry whenever i get requests i write down the username and it's lowkey difficult to track who is who and if they've changed it ahhhhh

- aight

- lets get into it

- yuhhhhhh get into itttttttttt

- i'm gonna be saying yuh get into it so much in this imagine i apologize in advance

- like it's kinda bad

- oops

- so y'all know those audios that are like the fake calls

- it's like that man's voice he's like "hey whassup shorty your man around?"

- THAT ONE

- so naturally

- y'all know where this is going

- you and pete are just chilling (this is how all of them start. i feel like a broken record. help)

- you're like FUCK IT LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS

- you start recording

hey whassup shorty

- peter goes into FIGHT OR FLIGHT MODE

- he's just playing video games (fortnite aye) but the  S E C O N D  HE HEARS THAT RANDOM MAN'S VOICE

- fuckin RIPS OFF THE HEADSET

- EYEBROWS FURROWED AS HE LOOKS AT YOU HE'S LIKE

- huh wHAT NOW

- ????!!!!!!!!!!

- you fail at keeping a straight face cause the fucking AUDIO

your man around?

- a wheeze FLIES out of you mouth as peter SHOOTS UP FROM HIS CHAIR

- big "FUCK NO!" energy

- mans practically jumps on top of you

- he's like angry and confused at first but then he sees how hard you're laughing and just gets even more confused

"what was that?"

- his voice is all high cause it does that in tense situations

- puppy face is loud n clear!

- babey

- meanwhile you can't catch your breath for SHIT

- so you show him the video as you continue to literally die

- as soon as he realizes he just melts

- he's like laying on top of you and buries his face in the crook of your neck before bursting out into laughter and holding you tighter

"you can't do that!"

- god me thinking about that happening irl is giving me BUTTERFLIES

- sexc

- okay this one is another fake phone call

- just gonna jump into it it's pretty much the same situation

- in this one you two are over 18 btw

- for ~legal reasons~

- the audio starts playing with the ringtone and peter just glances over

- he's too busy watching b99

- naturally

hey this is dr. alvarez! we received your pregnancy test results

- WHAT

- peter has never jumped so hard in his LIFE

- tv is PAUSED even captain holt has the shocked expression (who am i kidding it's holt his facial expression is as dead as a brick)

- 🅱eter literally yells

"WHAT"

- audio keeps going

is there a time next week you could come in and talk?

"y/n what"

- he runs over to you and you bust out laughing as he looks at your phone and realizes it's a tiktok

- an annoyed smile pulls at his lips and he groans and wraps his arms around you

"you had me there for a second"

- let's just say peter parker had family on his mind a LOT more since then

- wink wink

- k SO

- queso

- haha

- anyways

- y'all know that one sound

pussy so good i could save that shit for later

- welcome to straight tiktok!

- so y'all just chillin on his bed as best friends do

- on ur phones and shit

- and peter parker is a basic bitch so he has the led lights

- which i want SO BAD btw ugh my room would be such a vibe

- update i'm editing this and i just ordered some ayooooo

- anyways they're currently blue so like

- innocent

- chill

- but THEN

- the audio starts playing from peter's phone

pussy so good-

- you gAsp as the lights turn red

- ur like

- holy shit i didn't know parker could do that

- next thing you know peter's hand is on your chin/jaw (just about ur neck OOPS)

- his mouth is practically ON your ear

- you see him holding his arm out in front of you recording and you can't help but laugh

- but DAMN

his jawline is out and everything and he's fucking SMIRKINGGGG as he whispers the lyrics into your ear

- BUTTAFLIESSSSSSSSSSSSS

- big mattia vibes (btw that man is NOT attractive i'm sorry)

- moving on

- i know i've written one of the ones where you kiss your best friend

- but time to turn the tables

- oh how the turn tables

- time for y/n to be a bad bitch cause WE MAKING THE FIRST MOVE!!

- hell yea!

- so it's late right

- like late late

- at least midnight (sleep schedule is MESSED from quarantine though so honestly late rn is like 2 or 3 in the morning yikes)

- and ur hella bored

- on tiktok

- the fuck else do you expect?

- and you start doing the thing where you start thinking about getting up and doing something and you think about it so much that you physically can NOT sit there any longer and must Move or Die

- i KNOW i am not the only one

- so that happens

- and you're like FUCK IT

- so you walk out of your room and into peter's next door

- oh to live at avengers headquarters and live next to peter parker

- you just fucking stroll in

- peter's fat ass just goes "hey thanks for knocking"

- meanwhile you can't even stand to look at him because you're afraid that if you do all of your confidence will VANISH

- so you set up the camera and start recording

- at this point peter's sitting up and just watching you cause he's so confused

- and

- (HERE WE GO)

- it takes everything in you not to RUN OUT

- but you walk over to him

- wrap a hand around his neck

- tilt your head and lean down

- when peter realizes what's going on he's like OH MY GOD

- fight or flight response HITS except its JUST FLIGHT

- HIS BODY CHOSE FLIGHT

- he fucking REELS back

- can't even process that his best friend and crush since EVER just tried to kiss him

- sdfjksdkfjsdfg

- DKJFNHSKDFNSLA

- you're like fuck! so you turn to start  r u n n i n g   a w a y

- but then his hands wrap around your waist

- you FLY backwards and laugh as the two of you flop into the bed

- and he kisses you

- mwah ha ha haaaaaa

- don't ask why the evil laugh just accept it

- i am tired yes it is only 8:43pm i am still tired

- NEXTTTTTTT

- so y'all know those povs where it's like you find out your soulmate's first words on your bday

- well

- ha

- you and peter are bored because ~ q u a r a n t i n e ~

- chilling at headquarters

- bored in da house and i'm in da house bored

- and peter's like "imma make a pov!"

- okay!

- so i'm just gonna lay it out for you HERE WE GO

- he has the generic countdown thing (text boxes saying 3...2..1! you know the deal) and then he looks at his wrist and it says "hey spider-boy!" and he gets so flustered - next clip it's him running into "you" (obviously you're not actually in it but he does the text box thingy) - you're asking about what it says and try to get a peek but he pulls away - next clip it's right before your bday - and then you find out your quote and it says "it's spider-MAN! cause i'm a man!" - and peter is just looking anxiously/happily at the camera

- PERIOD

- i hope that was a good visual idk i tried

- and uhhhh yeah that one stays in the drafts bc he doesn't wanna expose himself

- moving right along by the way it's raining rn and i'm listening to my kind of woman by mac demarco and UGH this song makes me so...... jkdfhsdk

- OKAY THIS IS ANOTHER STRAIGHT TIKTOK ONE

- but it's cute so

- fuck it

- y'all know it

i wanna put you in seven positions for seventy minutes babe

- mischievous as ✨hell✨

- oh my god i got another idea okay i'm writing that after this one

- anyways!

- you and peter are chilling

- note: i yell at myself every time i write that because the AMOUNT OF THESE THAT START THIS WAY GOD

- he's watching netflix or something idk

- fyi outer banks is overrated sorry not sorry

- yell at me if u want but

- it's riverdale for vsco girls

- you set up the camera and start recording

- audio starts playing and you climb into his lap and he's like WOAH

- you like put your hands on his cheeks/jaws lol and you start mouthing the lyrics

- but the THING IS (pt 1)

- homeboy catches on pretty quick

- and

- fuck

- he starts MOUTHING THE LYRICS BACK

- you deadass have to take a second and reel back to catch your breathe

- but the THING IS (pt 2)

- HE'S GOTTEN ALL INTO IT

- SO HE PULLS YOU BACK IN

- UR FUCKIN FOREHEADS ARE TOUCHING AND YOU BOTH JUST START REALLY AGGRESSIVELY MOUTHING THE LYRICS

- kinda hot doe

- something for u to think about at night

:)

- hey bitch this is a reminder to write about the fairy comments

- thanks past me

- SO

- hmm lemme think

- okay

- so

- okay yes

- so peter-man posts a tiktok of him doing flips n stuff

- like very generic white boy look at me doing things

- and it's very impressive

- but

- you decide to just GO AT IT IN THE COMMENTS

- LIKE TOTALLY ANNIHILATE HIM

- i'm just gonna write some examples

- fuck me for writing this on a computer finding all these emojis on here is very difficult

- oh well

- here we go:

- oh my god a squirrel just climbed up the tree in my front yard and it caught me so off guard my heart skipped a beat

- wait okay irrelevant

- for real this time here we go:

you ate that 💕🧚‍♀️⚡🌟next time make it me instead 💖🧚‍♀️✨ omg peter you came on my fyp 🧚‍♀️💖✨but make it on me next 🧚‍♀️💕✨🦋 a necklace 💕✨🧚‍♀️⚡but make it your hands ✨💖🦋😌

- and so on

- lets just say when peter saw those

- his face got SO RED

- TOOK HIM AT LEAST TEN MINUTES TO COMPOSE HIMSELF

- AND THEN HE RAN INTO YOUR ROOM

"y/n what is this"

"uh fairy comments"

"but they're so-"

- you just stare at him and like

- shrug

- but knowingly

- HAHA OKAY NEXT ONE

- okay i took a break to go sit in the rain and eat hawaiian rolls 10/10 experience def go do that next time it rains

- i think i wrote one like this but with the supalonely dance

- so this time

- we doing the savage dance

- first of all that song is a BANGER

- second, the dance is SO FUN

- so it's the same thing as last time

- you set up the camera but have it face peter instead of u sneaky sneaky

- and then u start doing the dance of course

- and obv peter is like yuhhhhhhhhh get into itttttttttt

- clapping along and smiling and whooping

- supportive bby

- but THEN

- YOU THROW IT BACK

- HOMEBOY DIDN'T EVEN SEE IT COMING

- HALF OF HIM IS LIKE OH FUCK I SHOULD'VE STOPPED HER

- OTHER HALF IS SAYING holy shit !

- once you finish you look at peter and he's just like 👁👄👁

- lol

- anyways

- you watch that video MULTIPLE TIMES afterwards

- okay in this one you and pete are 18+ because

- we like being legal 😌✋

- but it's one of those where you walk out in front of your boyfriend naked

- so peter just got home from patrol and climbs in through the window of y'alls shared apartment

- oh to live in an nyc apartment with peter parker UGH

"y/n? i'm home babe"

- the camera is shaking because you're laughing so hard and kinda nervy

- but you walk out of y'alls room and peter just turns to you

- nearly drops his fucking mask

- he's shocked for a second before he gets such a big smile on his face and throws you over his shoulder

- hehe

- okay last one i love this one sm this tiktok came up on my fyp and i immediately though THIS IS Y/N AND PETER

here it be::

https://www.tiktok.com/@wizqueifa_/video/6826567570116611333

god i hope that works and y'all can watch it lmk if u can't like if the link doesn't work or anything

- okay basically it's that tiktok but u and peter

- like that video EXACTLY everything about it is perfect

- that's it lol

- and i recommend watching her other tiktoks with her boyfriend bc their relationship is adorable and it's totally y/n and peter

- okay i think (hope to god) i've written all the ones that y'all requested

- i think i might only do just one more part of these???? idk i feel like if i just keep going on with them (cause obv trends keep coming) half this book would just be the tiktoks lol

- ANYWAYS

- peace out homies i love each and every one of you

- be kind to urself and try to be productive

- i'm gonna go try and write some more so

- yes

- MWAH <3

+ + +

hi i hope you guys are doing well

ily

[blackcatanna]

Okita's Route Part 2: Still on Kyoto Winds because I didn't realise that I'd ramble so much

Predictably, I'm enjoying Okita's route a lot more than Kazama's. Also, I'm skipping a lot less than when I played Kazama and Iba's routes, which makes a lot of sense because Okita is actually in the Shinsengumi and, therefore, gets a lot of screen time. So far, he acts like an asshole but this isn't backed up by his actions. Apart from the casual child cruelty X_X

Chapter, uh, 3? I think...

I feel like Hijikata sticking up for Sanan is just making things worse X_X . Saying that he's not useless because he's a swordsman is just plain wrong. It makes it seem like he's just saying it out of pity. I'm sure that Sanan has plenty to contribute, besides slicing people up.

"Sanan is quite the beloved member here, isn't he? It's nice to see such a tight-knit group." -_- Itou is such a master of shade. Gently implying that they only keep Sanan around because of their relationship. You evil bitch X_X

"Ugh, who brought those bastards into the Shinsengumi?" RIGHT?! Glad to see that Okita's not blindly following Kondou's lead here.

"He is easily deceived by silver tongues, those who appear virtuous... but are real scumbags." As the great Roisin Conaty once said: "Charming is just lube for evil." However, this is kind of backing up what those asshole kids were saying earlier about Kondou being an idiot X_X

SNOOP SNOOP 👀

AH! OKITA CAUGHT ME TALKING TO MYSELF! AGAIN X_X

"Trying to run away behind our backs." -_- You know that's not true.

"Heh, I'm just messing with you." No shit. "I mean, unless you were escaping, then I'll slit your throat." -_- You just couldn't resist the opportunity to throw out another casual death threat, could you?

Is he worried about my safety? I KNOW YOU'RE TRYING TO BE FLIPPANT BUT I SEE THROUGH YOU.

"Good girl." -_-

"It sounded like something out of a fairy tale." Oooooooooh hooooooneeeey... Have you not been paying attention?!

Welp, Okita told me to scream so... AAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Oh, apparently, not that... OKITAAAAA! Bet he loved that.

"Aaaaaaaaaaagh!" Everyone, please stop screaming.

Ngl, Sanan looks good with white hair.

Apparently, Okita likes hearing me screaming his name... Good to know...

"Don't worry your little head. It would be my pleasure to help you die." O_O ... Isn't that a little hasty!?!

"You're not serious, are you?" HONEY X_X

"It's really annoying, you know. You think you're part of the Shinsengumi?" </3 Ouch X_X You're the ones who took me prisoner, y'know? However, Chizuru does often act like she's the only one who cares about the Shinsengumi members, which must be annoying af.

"We only keep you alive because you're useful. You are NOT one of us." Uh... Thanks for calling me useful? But is that seriously your attitude? Anyone who's not useful to you should just die? -_-

"His words shattered my already breaking heart." Aw! </3 Poor Chizuru bae!

"Seriously... You can really be a pain, you know that?" RIGHT. BACK. AT. YOU.

"It'd be easier to just kill you," Broken record much?

"Had their last thoughts as men been hope they might survive the madness? It sounded horrible..." YUUUP.

"Sano! Make something up!" Definite DnD vibes again! When you make the low charisma character roll deception X_X

"You're a miserable actor. Keep your mouth shut." I'm sure that this exchange won't seem suspect at all X_X

"Oh, Sanan... Who cares what you are? You're alive!" Bless Kondou's pure and simple heart :')

"Yukimura, you go back to your room. I know you didn't sleep much." Why am I the only person in this game who requires sleep? -_- Just a trend I've noticed...

"*Cough* *Cough*" O_O OKITA, ARE YOU OKAY!??? O_O

"You owe us a lil' booze! Or maybe even, heh, a little... company?" WHERE'S OKITA'S MURDEROUS INSTINCT WHEN YOU NEED IT!?!?

"Suddenly I felt a hand on my arm." BWOOOOOOAAAARP!!! PHYSICAL CONTACT ALARM!!!

"Calm down, kid." ... NO. I HAVEN'T BEEN TOUCHED IN MONTHS.

"Hey hey hey! Looks like she's got the hots for you, Souji!" Oh Heisuke X_X

"No matter what, I won't buy Ishida Medical Powder." XD Got to admire Okita for staying true to his convictions :')

"I'm using the hell out of you" O_o Calm down, Hijikata X_X

Guess I'm going to have to put stalking Okita on hold for now...

Harada and Shiranui should just kiss already.

""Huh? Chizuru?" Okita looked up from cleaning his sword as I entered the hall." OH, HE WAS POLISHING HIS SWORD, EH? ;P YES, I AM TWELVE. Tbf, his face really does look like he's been caught in the act...

"Oh shut up, will you? It's all your fault. The medicine you gave me totally doesn't w..." >:( I'm hoping that the reason that sentence trails off is because I give him a verbal smack down!!

"*Cough* *Cough*" O_O WELL, I GUESS NOW I CAN'T CALL HIM A CUNT!

BLOOD O_O

"It's nothing." ... BOI!!

This game is totally a forcing-stubborn-men-to-rest simulator X_X

"I'd been given instructions to stay away" from the physical examinations but ho's gotta ho', amirite?!

"Oh my... So you WANT to see those savages? What peculiar taste..." Itou, don't call me out like this. Although, I still feel like we should respect their privacy X_X

"Oh! Oh..." ALRIGHT, YOU THIRSTY BITCH, CALM DOWN.

*Camera zooms in on Nagakura's tiddies* -_-

"Your body's fine, Shin." - Heisuke.

"Don't you wanna order a slice of this beef cake? I got two meaty servings on a plate, right here." Aaaaaagh! X_X My eeeeyyyeees.... Can't... un-read... sentence... please... fetch.... brain... bleach...

"A medical exam is for finding problems, not showing off. Now move." PREACH, SAITO!!!

"I feel like it's rude to intrude..." AND YET HERE WE ARE X_X

"It grants immortality" ??? Except for the part where you turn to ash???

"You're forcing your body in ways the eyes can't see." LISTEN TO THE DOCTOR, GUYS!!!

Everyone's just... RIPPING Takeda to shreds XD

"I'm scared shitless, believe me." :'( Poor Okita

No smart comments here... this is just really sad :'(

He's seen me? It's been nice knowing y'all...

Finally, Chizuru calls out Okita for threatening to kill her so much.

"Desist, you hooligans!" Sen is such a Queen! I want a Sen route!

Chizuru and Sen standing up to these arseholes is giving me LIFE! :') PREACH, GIRLS, PREACH!!!

"What were you going to do if they hurt you gravely?" Regenerate, biatch! >:)

"C'mon, was she that pretty?" UM, YES. But I think that she gives off too much of a domme vibe to be Okita's type :P

Chizuru is getting VERY distracted by Okita's hair. You know those scenes in movies where the woman takes down her hair and it's all slow motion and super sexy? This series has a lot of that. Plus when they get their Western makeovers :')

"That's funny... You don't LOOK like an especially nosy, hand-wringing version of my mother." XD I mean, -_- That totally wasn't hilarious.

"I grabbed his towel and began to scrub his head." ... We totally are his mother X_X

"I feel like I remember a time when you were nice and quiet..." NOT ANYMORE, BITCH! AND NOW, I'M ARMED WITH A TOWEL >:)

"You're really good with your hands." O_o ... What?

"You tied your hair up so quickly..." Why don't you show me what else you can do with them? ;)

Now he wants to know what I think of his hair? :/

OMG, HE'S TRYING TO COPY KONDOU'S HAIR XD I HAVE NO WORDS (for once)

Oh, you're surprised that I kept my promise? I'll have you know that I am an honourable woman, good sir! >:/

But Chizuru's claiming to only have done it out of fear of being sliced and diced? :/Uh, sure?

Chapter 4:

"They're small potatoes." This game has some excellent phrases in it X_X

Itou wanting to change the Shinsengumi uniform because it's not "fashionable" enough is the kind of genius that I'd expect from this game's most relatable character :') Although, I personally think that the blue uniforms are pretty <3

Awe, Chizuru thinks that Okita's joking about killing Itou :')

Kaoru just VERY BLATANTLY giving away that he was involved in the notice board incident X_X

:O I'm slightly jealous to discover that Okita's casual death threats aren't just reserved for me!

I get the sense that Okita knows that Kaoru's a boy but I'm sure that it wouldn't stop him if Kaoru was really a girl. Hooray for gender equality!

"I felt embarrassed for even doubting her for a second," O_e SERIOUSLY??!??

We're just going to let him go now!?!

Now Okita's having a coughing fit D: It was so stupid to run off and make him come after us :(

"What if she had accomplices nearby" GOOD. POINT. Chizuru would be so easy to lure into a trap X_X

"Without me around, you're just a useless kid." But I have a great personality! So, together, we almost make one complete, functioning adult :)

"Stop being so timid." I wish that I had that power :'(

"You can rely on us when you need to." Aweee! ^_^

"even compared to the weakest Shinsengumi foot soldier, I was pathetic." HEY. STOP THAT. WHAT DID I SAY? GREAT. PERSONALITY.

"Did you need something?" "Blood." O_O AH. Well, at least he doesn't beat about the bush! O_O

"What the hell? That's a little cold of you, having that pass for a good-bye, isn't it?" YEAH! :'( MIKI IS RIGHT! </3 :(

"Saburo. Watch your mouth." I'm sure that Miki is sad when Itou dies but 90% of their interactions are Itou telling Miki to shut up. X_X

"Is... Is that okay?" NO. IT IS NOT OKAY. SAITO AND HEISUKE ARE LEAVING, ALONG WITH LITTLE PIECES OF MY HEART. D'X

"would that mean I could never see them again?" *sobs*

"We're going to keep relations amicable between our two organisations." AHAHAHAHAHA HA.

"Okita...?" "... Hm? Damn." Uh, nice to see you, too?

"Next time we run into 'em, we'll probably have to kill each other." O_O Don't be so flippant, you ass :'(

"Swords don't think" damn, I didn't realise that you were sword-kin. Everyone thinks and has feelings. I'm sure that no power could convince Okita to kill Kondou.

"Takeda also left" and not one single fuck was given. :')

Just going to ignore Okita making fun of my "bed head" -_-

"I've come to take you" orly? ;)

"Look, lady, you're not part of the Shinsengumi, so I'd appreciate it if you could keep your nose out of our business." So, now that it's convenient for you, I'm part of the Shinsengumi? -_- I still haven't forgotten what you said before, asshole >:( Remember? HEART = BROKEN.

Sen knows that I'm a SLUT ^_^

"I can't tell if you have guts, or if you've got rocks for brains..." It must be the latter if I'm staying because of you XP

*Terrible decision immediately has lethal consequences*

LEMME GO! >:(

See Kazama post for my COLOURFUL feelings on this cunt >:(

Kondou can be so badass when he wants to be :')

Why... Hello there ;)

"Gotta admit, I didn't figure you for this type of girl." Then you haven't been paying attention ;P

Oh yeah: BWWWWWAAAAAAAARRRRP!!! PHYSICAL CONTACT ALARM!!! And then some X_X

"Didn't think I'd be getting pushed down into bed tonight, least of all by you." Oh yeah? Who else did you have in mind? Kondou? -_-

"Oh no! No no no!" Chizuru, we know you're thirsty and it's okay! Embrace the thot within! :')

"Tell me... How is it? On top of me. Does it feel good?" PLEASE SAY YES, PLEASE SAY YES, PLEASE SAY YES!

"I hadn't realised I was still on top of him." Uh-huh. Sure. And what a terrible shame that was.

"If I go out, Kondou will get mad at me." And then no more bum fun :( (me@me: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!??! me: XD Sorry)

"Okita's eyes shone with admiration for Kondou." X_X The fanfiction writes itself...

Just to be clear, I think it's pretty gross to ship people with their guardians, even if they're both adults at the time, because that's called GROOMING.

"He isn't going to need the Water of Life. I'll make sure of that." ... How, Hijikata?! He's literally DYING of tuberculosis!

And now he's not eating :'(

"I just don't want to. Is that really a problem?" Yes, because you'll starve to death.

"Hm, you are a doctor's daughter... Maybe you just can't leave a sick guy alone?" Or maybe I just don't want YOU to die, ass >:'(

I WILL MAKE YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT, JUST EAT IT!!! Ooooooh! He's blushing :O

He doesn't like bitter stuff but wants me to put grated radish in his porridge? O_o Well, I'm glad that he's cooperating :D

"I'm only going to eat it if it's delicious." Well, if you don't like it, I'll try again! :D

"Don't think I've given up or something." Okay D': <3

EAT THE FOOD, OKITA >:D

"It makes me feel good..." Hooray ^_^

"Could you keep me company for a while?" :O Okey! :)

"What would I talk about?" HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND...

"He wasn't afraid to die," um, weren't you eavesdropping on his conversation with the doctor? -_-

"I want to help... But I'm getting weaker every day." Of course you do :'( This is more heartbreaking than him saying that you're not part of the Shinsengumi and just annoying DX

Maybe tell him that everybody likes having him around and that the Shinsengumi is where he belongs? Or, we could just leave him to wallow in misery... I guess that works, too X_X

"I couldn't see someone like Okita succumbing to a mere disease." ... Why, exactly? Is he supposed to fight it off with his sword or persuade it to fuck off with the force of his personality?

"He'll be fine. Right...?" NOOOPE.

SAITO 😍 I mean, uh, whatever... Totally not bothered at all...

WAIT, HOLD ON: SPY-TO. Yes, thank you. I am a genius :3

Finally murdering Itou for realskies! :')

I get that Hijikata and everyone are trying to look out for Okita but he's terminally ill. Keeping him out of the action is only going to keep him miserable until his inevitable demise. :'(

"Saito'll be here for a few days, so you'll have someone to play with." -_- Bit patronising, Hijikata X_X

Kazama being his usual, charming self X_X

Let's go find Okita and... Tell him to go back to bed? Okay...

What the fuck!?!! Kaoru!?!!

Do we ever get a decent explanation for why Kaoru was sent to live with some abusive fucks?

Kaoru... Why are you so short? I bet you were malnourished X_X

Okita's just watching this unfold, chomping on imaginary popcorn...

"Do you just plan to use her, like Kazama does?" O_o... I fucking hope not, because that would be INCEST!!!

"... No," OH, THANK GOD.

"What would you have done if I'd said yes?" Ugh, you said no already! Can we please move this conversation in a less incestuous direction X_X

"... No. You're free to take her." OKITA!!! HE'S MY BROTHER X_X Not that I'm expecting you to leap to my defense but this conversation is WEIRD as FUCK.

:O The Ochimizu! Is Kaoru trying to help Okita?! Misguidedly, but still.

"But... if their plan is to simply use my dear sister as some sort of demonic broodmare... I can't allow that to happen." ... Kaoru... :'O That's... Actually really sweet XO This is the first time that someone who claims to be part of my family has actually looked out for me :')

Oh, so Kaoru wants to use Okita to protect me from Kazama! I have a feeling that he's going to be disappointed if he thinks that Okita will do what he tells him to but I appreciate the gesture :')

"Please don't do anything that would hurt Kondou so, Okita." Ugh, even as he lies dying, he's supposed to be worrying about upsetting other people? >:(

"Okita the Fury; Okita the beast." X_X Bit harsh but okay.

"He had traded away his soul." Um, since when? XD

"Happy now, Kaoru Naguno?" "Yes I am." ... Fair.

"... For falling into my trap." Wait, what?!? O_O

"I'm happy I got to make my sister suffer." Kaoru, why? D': WE COULD HAVE HAD IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAA-AAALLL!!! DX

I'm glad that Kaoru did away with the Nagumo fuckers >:( But still, why take it out on me?!

Even dressed as a boy, Kaoru still looks prettier than Chizuru...

*Sigh* looks like I'm being choked, as usual X_X

I feel like Kaoru could easily have given Okita something much worse than the Ochimizu if he REALLY wanted to make me suffer.

"I'd run out of things to say." X_X Again?!

"This was my decision and I don't regret it." That is good to know :)

"You shouldn't get involved with a guy like me." Oh, here we go X_X

"That came out of nowhere," Too right!

"No" uh, does that mean "no, I won't get involved with you" or "no, I won't do as you say"???

Uh, is he crying?! "Hey! You can't just act like you're sick when you want something!" XD What the actual fuck is happening right now???

"I'm dead" ... Uh... Really? Because... You seem very much alive...

"I don't think Kondou wants you around just because he wants you to do things for him." FINALLY, some sense!

Aaaand, apparently, it's earned me The Unblinking Stare of Doom >:(

"Do you mind not trying to speak for Kondou." Do you mind not assuming that he's so much of an asshole that he'd kick you out just because you're inactive during the day?! >:(

"It's not like you're capable of knowing exactly how Kondou truly feels." YES, YUKIMURA!!! GET HIM!! >:D

"Do you think Kondou would still need me... Even if I can't hold a sword anymore?" YES.

"You're right." I know :3

"I'm just jealous of you, Okita, that you have someone like Kondou by your side." Yeah. >:'( Fuck you, Kaoru, fuck you, Kodo :'(

"Oh yeah, huh... I totally forgot." Ffs, Okita XD

"They just happened to be there when you were born, you know?" Yeah! >:( And they can all go to hell!

"Somehow, my chin had acquired something of an arrogant tilt" yaaaas! You live your best life, girl! Let go of the haters, cut out the negativity! Stick it to 'em!

Chapter 5:

"How dangerous could foreign weapons be?" Oh, my sweet, Summer Sanan X_X

"Why are you going on night rounds with us?" ... Wait, what?! Why am I going on night rounds?

AS IF putting myself in danger is going to help Okita in any way X_X

DAMN, KONDOU... Nice, uh, blood you're accessorising with, there. O_O MEDIC!!!

"Lucky for us, they're idiots." Hooraaaay!

Okita's not going to be happy when he sees this...

Speak of the devil...

HIJIKATA, STOP BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH.

"I thought for a moment that Okita was going to grab Hijikata and shake him." :O :D Please yes!

Okita is suuuuuper keen to blame Hijikata for this -_-

"If he dies, it's your ass in the fire, Hijikata." Another excellent image but this pointless conversation has gone on for too long X_X

"I will find you, no matter where you may be, and I will kill you." O_O OKITA!! I THOUGHT THAT YOU SAID YOU WERE CALM!!! Bloody hell X_X

Oh no... What has Okita done now X_X

Killing spree, mad science, aggressive interrogation, Hijikata murder? The possibilities are endless with this stabby boi.

Where exactly am I running to? "I had finally found him." HOW?! With the power of love?! O_o

Looks like "Killing spree" it is X_X

"I'm about to murder you." Ffs Souji X_X

"I'm just doing my job." OH YEAH?!? THEN WHY DID YOU FEEL THE NEED TO GO BEHIND EVERYONE'S BACKS, HUH?!

"What's wrong with me doing what I'm doing?" Yeah, what's wrong with sadistically slaughtering a bunch of virtually defenceless men as they attempt to retreat?! -_-

"I just killed people, no matter who it was, as long as it was what Kondou wanted." *Sigh* Kondou's not going to be around for ever, you know? X_X Maybe TRY think about why your doing what you're doing. Maybe learn from Kondou's example?

"Do not ever act out and worry the chief like that again." XD You tell him, Saito!

"Idiots." XD Hijikata

"I didn't wake up until evening had arrived." Oh look, it's me :)

OH, FUCK. That looked like a Kaoru silhouette :O

Why do they keep saying that Kaoru "tricked" Okita into drinking the Water of Life?! Kaoru offered it and Okita drank it. No trickery here!

"They wanted to avenge Itou. You remember him? The man you deceived and murdered?" XD Can't argue with that :')

"shoot the weaker target first." UGH. Why do I always get SHOT!?!

"Call me what you want." Oh, I intend to 3:)

Omg, I didn't get shot! :O BECAUSE OKITA USED HIMSELF AS A HUMAN SHIELD O_O ... BUT WHY?!??

NO, DON'T CHECK UP ON ME! WE NEED TO MOVE BEFORE WE GET SHOT AT AGAIN!!!

Oh no! O_O Doesn't look like he'll be moving any time soon O_O

"Okita! Okitaaaaa!" O_O

"It kills me to see you hurt, just as much as it kills you to see Kondou hurt!" O: <3 :'(

"What an idiot.. " No, Kaoru! You're the idiot! Because you will never be happy while you continue down this sadistic, evil path, wasting your own life trying to destroy someone else's and refusing to let go of your spiteful jealousy >:( At least Okita's risking his life for something good.

"The more despair and anger you feel, the more you look like me." ... Silver linings! :)

D: Did they use silver bullets?! :O

Wait, when did Yamazaki get wounded?! :O

Bless Hijikata for letting me stay with my crush XD

Final Chapter:

Yamazaki is fine :D Hooray!

"They need men, so we need to go now..." Uh... Then why aren't you dressed? X_X

"... I want you to remain calm as I tell you this." That is... NOT AN ENCOURAGING WAY TO START A CONVERSATION O_O

D': Inoue has fallen. :'( It hurts every time DX

Aw, he looks really sad :'( and no wonder...

"as soon as we arrive, I'm gonna swing my sword at anyone and everyone." Uh... That's the spirit X_X

ONWARDS TO EDO

[musicmeisterandtheinbox]

Somebody Sure As Hell Messed UP (Part 1)

((Hey everyone, sorry about the long absence until now. This is an RP event with @darcimasonusb @askthetoyman @asktheonearmedbandit with Dennis being caught up in this stupid divorce drama. ugh. Mondays, am I right? Thanks for reading! Hopefully, Dennis doesn’t die. you know how that goes.))

Tonight was a night per usual in Gotham City. A frosted air brewed in for Winter was just around the bend. Two peculiar young people rode along in a calmer part of the city thanks to a moped in the shape of an 8th note, for they had quite an adventure planned. 

“You know what you’re doing, right?” Dennis muffled, covering his mouth with his lime green scarf. 

“Yes, I’ve done this before!” Darci chuckled. Her blonde hair caught bits of frost as she analyzed the series of closed stores. 

They stopped somewhere interesting and took a gander at the locks. “Just thought I’d ask cause-”

 "Cause what?“

 "Well, you’re so… normal. I don’t mean that in an insulting way either. It’s just, no powers, no backstory, you just showed up!”

 "If that’s your definition of normal then it wouldn’t be normal, would it?“ 

“I guess it isn’t… huh?”

As he lurked through the sewers beneath the street, the cowboy tried to place himself in the near pitch-black environment. A right turn, a hair left, straight for a couple hundred feet. Don’t fall in the water; it takes too damn long to clean that stuff out. ‘Nother right, and up the access ladder. It should let right out to the back alley. The businesses connected to it ain’t that fancy, but they’re easy pickins. But which to choose?

Maybe that Lil’ liquor shop? Eh, done those too many times to count… That bakery’s already closed; no fun in that… oh, now ain’t that a beaut? A Lil’ ol’ diner! Maybe a little slow, but just enough people. Oh, now ain’t this gonna be a hoot? The cowboy cops a squat in the alley to wait for his proverbial “high noon.”

Dennis and Darci had a long look at the locks and realized, there’s just too many people around to do a good robbery. “Do you wanna just wait it out a bit?” Darci asked 

“Yeah that sounds good” Dennis fixed his bright red hair a bit, “What do you wanna do in the meantime?” “Hm. I’m not particularly hungry but do you wanna grab something?”

Dennis crunched the numbers in his head, “I had some cantaloupe around 4… or was it honeydew? Either way, I could eat.” It was 10 PM.

“C'mon we can go down to that honky-tonk around the block, bet there’ll be something fun too.” And to the diner, they went. Dennis parked his stupid awful moped scooter near the entrance and both walked inside. Business there was slow but the atmosphere screamed the 1950’s. The checkboard floor, teal booth seats, and Crosley brand Jukebox were all dead ringers for this notion. A woman in around her mid 30’s called out to the two “Sit where ya like and staff will get right to ya!” And so, they did. A booth somewhere near the jukebox and a hall leading into the restrooms.

Reuben watched the customers coming in and out of the building. That music note scooter immediately drew his eye. He shifted over to get a better look as the riders dismounted. Dennis Prowell: “the Music Meister.”

“This really will be interestin’!” The second one, a woman, was partially obscured. Before he could get a better look, they had both moseyed in. A waitress came up to their table with two menus. “Hi! My name’s Jannette, I’ll give ya a minute, but first just wanna let you know that the soup for tonight is Chowda.” They thanked her in an awkward unison and flipped through the selection as she walked off to help another group of guests.

“Soooo.” Darci started.

“Hm?”

“How’d you end up the way you are?”

Dennis looked up in a bit of confusion, “What do you mean?”

“Like, how’d you become a villain?”

“Oh! Like a tragic backstory! Right. Yeah, my powers are genetic.” She looked up.

“…that’s it?”

“Yeah, had some bullies, dealt with that.. then I just went out and did crime. It was a primal urge… like arson!” They continued to chat, unknowing of what lied ahead.

Now seemed like a good as time as any! 

B L A M

A shot rings out, shattering the glass door. A boot busts the rest of the glass out. The cowboy steps in and tips his Stetson. “Alright folks. This is a stickup. Y'all know the drill! No quick movements. lay yer wallets and jewelry out on the table. Let’s make this short an’ sweet and no one’ll get hurt.” He sticks his six-shooter in the face of the waitress behind the counter. “And you. Empty the register into’ this sack.” He lowers his weapon and tosses her a bag, then poises for attack again.

Dennis whispered over to Darci “…Weird, but I got this.”

She knows he doesn’t got this.

Dennis got up and put his hands in the air, whistling to the tune of an old Western movie. …

Darci stood still, analyzing the scene, waiting for an apt time to act.

“Ah ah ah, don’t come another step closer, Mister. I’ve got you dead to rights. And what’s that tune? You deridin’ me?” Mocked the Bandit.

“…ohmygoditsnotworking.” He looked around in a panic. The people around him were frozen to his tune. Maybe I could? NO that’s a death wish you promised there’d be no body count. What if… Darci knew he’d be a dead man if she didn’t do something quick. Without thinking, she grabbed Dennis by the arm and started bolting down the hall to find an escape

“What in Sam Hill? Hey! Get back ‘ere! The both of ya!” He glanced around the diner at the spellbound customers. “DAMN IT!” He grabbed the sack and the register’s till and cautiously ran down the hall in pursuit.

They darted into the women’s bathroom and locked the door behind them.

Good news: The bandit can’t get in! Bad news: They can’t get out!

“Holy shit..” Dennis caught his breath, holding his scarf “Any clue who that is?!” Darci stared off into nothing, listening in on what the Bandit is doing outside. Dennis ruffled his fiery hair in an anxious scramble. “He wasn’t affected, he could be deaf.. but then he wouldn’t have heard…”

He slowed and held his hand over his holster. “I know y'all are back ‘ere!” He kicked the manager’s office door open. Not there. The storage room. Nope. He continued down the hall, spurs clicking against the linoleum.

Darci leaned in and listened to how he kicked the door open. That sound. The clang you get when you hit the wood with… no.  That’s can’t be it. It’s… It’s exactly what it looks like.  "Darci, over here,“ Dennis called her over pointing to a patriot hopper window.

Men’s room. No dice. Women’s? Locked. “Knock knock? Is this room occupied?” He blasted at the lock twice with the revolver. “Now, come on Mr. Prowell. I don’t wanna hurt you or yer lady friend.” He pushes the door open.

That plan didn’t go far. Dennis raised his hands up again. Darci stood her ground by holding Dennis’s waist and staring the Bandit down. “Oh great, he knows my name. Listen, … ‘cowboy’ you obviously got a lot to do. Loads of places to see, and I just want to say… You really have a…” Dennis went off on a slow and shaky tangent while the gun was pointed at him.

Taking a step into the room and looking at them both, the Bandit gasps and immediately staggers back. “Y-you, uh, y'all are lucky! I’m willing to, ehm, go easy on yah. Uhhh… Sorry, Ma'am.” He high tails it out the back door and silently down the manhole.

Dennis couldn’t exactly process what had gone on. “…What was that?” “Let’s get outta here.” Darci let go of him.  “That’s.. that’s a good idea.” They stepped out and walked out of the hallway, everything was deafeningly silent, whoever was left there was packing up their belongings. When going out, Dennis gave a sheepish wave and Darci continued to scan the area. Both of them got onto the scooter and went back to going about the city. “…so uh. Where to next?” “Somewhere far away from there.”

WHAT!? YOU SAW HER? WHY DIDN’T YOU CAPTURE HER? “I’m sorry, boss! She had someone else with ‘er! That “Music Meister” feller. And I was right in the middle of a stick-up! I couldn'ta just picked her up. It’s kinda hard when you only got one arm!“  Fine. Get to the safehouse and wire me the funds you got. I can take care of this. “Good luck, boss…”

The ride felt endless. A horrific feeling welled inside both of them.

“I knew it, god damn it. I knew it..” Darci’s hair flowed in the wind.

“You mean the cowboy?” Dennis had a tired look in his eyes.

“Who else?” she lied through her teeth.

“That guy was kind of an odd-ball.”

“He’s got some scheme brewing. We need to just get out of here before he comes back with some new weapon.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I believe that this cowboy’s looking for trouble, it’s just this guy’s got one arm and came in with just a revolver. Guys like that can’t just miraculously get the funds from a mob boss without a damn good reason.”

Darci wanted to tell him the truth, but that would just add on another layer of unwanted confusion. So she just nodded in agreement.

“You know, Gotham isn’t as Dog eat Dog as it seems to be,” Dennis started.  "It’s more like… Your connections prevent from getting lobotomized by a guy in a mask. You keep each other safe from a bigger present danger! If that makes sense…  Just know I got your back if you need it.“ "Same here..” She replied, chilled by his example.

“Maybe we should try again?” Darci asked, “like go around to another store. Not around there though..” She pointed in the direction they’d left from. “The nights still young..” Dennis didn’t want to quarrel with the cowboy again, but God he itched for this to turn into a fun night. “I don’t see why not!” he turned right, the businesses there were all closed at that point. It’s as if the stars aligned once again!

Dennis pulled in near a clothing store. “Where do you want to start?” Darci asked. “Well, you gotta start with the locks right?” Dennis replied. “And what if there are security cameras?” “I’ll just do what I always do.” he shrugged. “Well aren’t you a broken record.”

Darci got off the scooter and examined the lock. She took out a bobby pin from her hair and started fiddling it inside. Click! She gave a thumbs-up as the door creaked open.  They both walked inside, skulking around to see if anything was of interest or present danger. Dennis caught his eye on a necklace with a black quartz pendant. Selina would love that. So he stuffed it away into his pocket, humming a tune.

Meanwhile, Darci was grabbing a handful of chapsticks, shoving them into a white purse she grabbed nearby. “That’s-” “Chapsticks? Yes :)” Darci put on a funny sort of smile. “That’s a lot of chapsticks…Okay, it’s what your heart desires.” “My heart also desires… this!” she snatched a leather jacket from a clothing rack and promptly threw it over her shoulder.

Knock knock knock.

Their hearts dropped. Dennis pointed over to behind the cash register. The two hurried to crouch behind the counter.  Darci signaled to stay quiet, trying to keep some level of composure. But her mind was racing.  Maybe we should call the cops… No! Are you out of your mind, Darci?! The cops will just haul your shell to a junkyard and turn your code into Dopey-Doh in Arkham!

Knock knock knock.

Dennis murmured “H. How?” Darci collected the pieces together already, this was happening again! Why does he want to torment me?! “Let’s go out from the front..” They foxtrotted over to the entrance and creaked open the door. A quick and speedy escape was just around the corner!

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

“Let’s get outta here..”

Darci hurried Dennis out the door. 

Uneasy silence as they step through the door. 

“T R I C K  O R  T R E A T !”

A heavily synthesized voice croaks. Laughter like something from a cheap Halloween decoration blast around them. A massive bowl sits in the middle of the street in front of the store.

They shook by the creature that stood in front of them like a hungry predator.  “RUN!” the two scattered back inside for cover.

Two rubbery green arms explode out from the inside and pick the bowl up like a grotesque pair of legs. It scuttles onto the top of the building and begins knocking so rapidly, the building shakes on its foundation.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Dennis shouted, shaking to the rhythm to the knocks. “I DON’T KNOW!” Darci yelled over the rumbling. The ceiling started to break apart. “JESUS, IT’S GONNA KILL US BEFORE WE GET OUTTA HERE!” “LIKE HELL I’LL GO TO HIM AGAIN!” Darci refused, but Dennis had already run outside in hopes to get hold of his getaway scooter. We gotta get outta here! “DENNIS YOU OAF!” Darci called out, trying to usher him back in.

The shaking stops. Another dreadful silence, occasionally broken by the drop ceiling panels falling from the commotion.

Dennis realized what this thing was after. It wants her. But why? “What are you doing?! Get back inside!” Darci called out again. “G E T. O U T.” Dennis mouthed to Darci. He stared at the creature, trying to decipher its next move. Dennis reached in his jacket pocket and started shuffling through…

The bowl sits atop the roof completely still. The arms appear to have receded back into the bowl and it has shut down for the time being.

Ah-ha! Now’s our chance! Dennis pulled out his keys and started up the scooter! “Darci. Let’s get outta here!” he shuddered in a whispery tone. “Please trust me on this.” She had to take this leap of faith. If the bowl didn’t catch her, the police surely would’ve. Darci darted outside, took the keys, and started up the scooter! Dennis joined her in a hurry.

As soon as the woman peeled out of the crumbling structure, the voice whined out again. “T A G,  Y O U ’ R E  I T !  H E H E H E H A H A H A H A H A ! ! !” The bowl hoisted itself back up and trotted towards them.  With one more cackle, a third rubber arm bursts from the inside of the bowl and snatches at the pair. “G O T C H A !” The bowl pulls the extra appendage back inside before tearing out of the way like a bat out of hell.

As Darci attempted to drive to safety, Dennis felt his body pulled away from the scooter. He screamed. Darci looked back only to see that the worst possibility was now her reality! Her loved ones were being taken from her once again by him! But fear overcame Darci that night. She drove out of sight of the bowl and behind a few cars; peering over and regretting her choice already.

The hand grasped around its prisoners until the moment it got into the bowl. Almost immediately after, the sounds of machinery began to whirl and plastic sheeting was being pulled up around Dennis. A heating element crimps the ends and seals the whole box up tight.

Darci looked on in horror, hastily hiding away from its line of sight. “WhatdoIdoWhatdoIdoWhatdoIdoWhatdoIdo?” Her hands were shaking. “God! You can’t even protect your own friends! You’re! so! hopeless!” She reached for her phone in her left pocket. “Maybe I can- No! That’s an awful idea!” She tugged her hair. “I shouldn’t get people wrapped up in my business more than they already are! I don’t want to lose Edward either!” “Go out there and save him! You can’t keep living like this!” Tightening her hands into fists, Darci turned around to face the creature! … But. It had already fled.