#spent far too long drawing all those goddamn squares

[frongle444]

omg it me

[avintagekiss24]

𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖔𝖚𝖗 | 𝖇. 𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖊𝖘

→ pairing: beefy shadow monster!bucky barnes x black!reader

→ word count: 5367

→ warnings: 18+ ONLY, dub con, a tinge of somnophilia, exophilia, #monster fucker, smut, sex, rough sex, masturbation, rough masturbation, sex toys, butt stuff, oral sex (female receiving), multiple orgasms, voyeurism, explicit language

→ square filled: @badthingshappenbingo​ 

wiping the other’s tears away

→ author note: guys, i’m... this is who we are now. we are monster fuckers. this is based on @idga-buck​ INCREDIBLE ask that was bred from this post. i honestly don’t know if this holds a candle to that ask because, whew girl. that shit fucked me up when i first read it! anyway, hope you guys enjoy because i might be planning a little monster fucker series based off of this and another certain someone that is mentioned in the fic.

→ read hirsute

The stress in your shoulders makes it hard to lift your arm once you finally reach your apartment door. It takes everything in you to shove your key into the lock and slam your hip against the old, swollen wooden door to pop it open, but just crossing the threshold into your sanctuary helps soothe your nerves. Everything falls to the floor within an instant— purse, messenger bag, coat— hell, even your keys. Hopping on one foot to remove a light brown, velvet heel, and then the other as you make your way towards your bedroom, ignoring the lively green house plants scattered around window seals and the living room.

You don’t even bother to turn on the lights. Don’t make a pit stop in the kitchen, or even the bathroom to remove your makeup. Hunger pains be damned. There are exactly two things that will help with this mood— an orgasm, and sleep. Thank God one always leads to the other.

It was 10:12am, just two hours into your work day, when you knew what you were going to need to help forget about this day. Emails piling up, phone ringing off the hook, picking up the slack for coworkers because you’re just so well versed in this… we could really use your help. Took its toll. By 10:12am you were ready to scream, punch your perky, always in a good mood cubicle mate, and rip your hair out— so you knew, right then and there, that you were gonna fuck yourself stupid when you got home.

Perverted thoughts lingered all day as you rifled through old court filings and scoured obscure statutes. Thighs tightened as your sex started to dampen at fantasies of being bent over your boss’ desk. Caught yourself staring, more than once, through his open door as he chatted on the phone, bright blue eyes glinting underneath the natural sunlight that poured into his office, crinkling on the sides as he laughed.

Then he would furrow those brows as he read through briefings. Jaw and lips set tight, eyes squinted as he nibbled absentmindedly on his bottom lip. Big hands and thick fingers made the pen in his hand seem entirely too small. Pink tongue darted out to wet pink lips.

You’ve spent many a night with thoughts of Andrew Stephen Barber; and tonight will be no different.

Dark shadows are cast across the floor and bed, small slivers of moonlight creeping in. The sound of your shoes hitting the floor don’t even register in your ears as you wiggle out of your skirt and panties and fall onto the soft, warm, inviting Queen mattress.

Deft fingers make light work of the buttons on your silk blouse but the other hand can’t wait— slipping down your stomach and between sticky, hot flesh. A sharp inhale fills your chest as you rub slow circles against your clit, pangs of quick excitement starting to fire off. Your fingers push down to your slit, prodding and stroking gently as a new wet starts to slick your muscles.

A lazy smile curls onto your face. The stress of the day starts to evaporate as you melt into the mattress, the circles against your clit quickening, hips starting to roll and push up into your hand. The expensive silk of your blouse falls off your shoulders just a bit as you push it away from your chest, exposing two bare tits and quickly thickening nipples.

You take hold of one— tweaking it slow. Pinching and rolling the nub before palming your tit all together, cupping and pushing the mound of flesh up your chest. A swipe of your tongue�� rough and torrid— against your nipple makes you grunt deep. Makes your hips jut upward as you prod that now filthy wet slit and hole.

Muscles flex as the sound of your dirty deed fills the empty space. Wet squeaks and sloshes bounce off the walls as fingers thrash back and forth and up and down against your clit. Heavy, thick thuds of your palm pounding against your body when one, two, three fingers finally slip inside— but they aren’t enough. Not wide enough or long enough to feed the hunger.

Then… there’s a shift. The atmosphere in your apartment— your room specifically— just changes on a dime. The tiny hairs on your body start to stand on end, goosebumps raising on your skin. Your eyes slide open, blinking up at the ceiling as your pumping hand slows down to just a creep before stilling completely. An already racing heart starts to beat harder, lips part, eyes and limbs completely frozen in place as fear strikes you.

You’ve felt this before, at random times since you moved in. Sometimes in the shower or in the kitchen, when you’re getting ready for work, or catching up on a show— but mainly at times like this. When you’re stretched out on your bed, naked, fingers rooted deep in your cunt, when you feel like you’re being watched. Like there’s a thousand eyes on you all at once.

There’s even a chill that takes over the room, sometimes getting so cold that for a brief moment, you can see your breath. You’ve gone to management a few times, who of course did nothing— but a few of your neighbors put your mind at ease, it happens to them sometimes too. It struck you odd that it was mainly just your female neighbors who experienced the random chills, but you brushed it off. You live on the southside of the complex, the sun gets blocked by the surrounding buildings. You also live on the first floor— heat rises, cold sinks. It happens.

You swallow hard, shutting your eyes, trying to center yourself again. A small laugh escapes your lips seconds later— you’re ridiculous. Maybe it's time to lay off the horror movies for a while.

Shrugging out of your blouse the rest of the way, you roll onto your side and pull open the drawer of your nightstand. Out comes the cute little heart shaped butt plug, complete with a pretty pink crystal gem. A small bottle of water based lube is next, and then, the pièce de résistance. Your ten inch tall, two inch wide realistic dildo.

Your stomach tightens with anticipation as you fumble with the flip cap of the small purple bottle of lube. Just a dollop is enough to coat the steel plug, the excess on your fingers used to wet your warm, puckered hole. Melting back into the mattress, you roll your shoulders, let your eyes flutter closed, and grab your bottom lip between your teeth as you massage your rim with the rounded tip, gently pushing.

A soft moan vibrates in your throat as your body opens up. Your hole twitches, clenching tight around the toy as it disappears with a quick pop as soon as the widest part is shoved in, leaving nothing to be seen but the pink heart flush against your hot rim. You draw your legs up, calves pressed against the backs of your thighs, butterflying open as you drag the fake cock through your folds— against your clit— using your slick to lubricate the soft silicone.

Fingers find your nub soon after, slapping quick, before stroking the delicate flesh as you start to tease your slit. The cock head slips in easy, but you're so tight, so worked up and eager, muscles swollen, that it takes a little more effort to swallow the rest. Tiny little wet squeaks fall from your lips, body tenses and curls inward as you push, push, push— mouth falling open, face splintering with pleasure.

It takes not even ten seconds for your body to adjust, hips wiggling and shifting to get comfortable, before you're pulling the massive toy out and shoving it back in. You start to murmur, indiscernible, clipped words filtering through full lips— a hot tongue slipping out, sweeping over teeth as your hips start to get into it.

You’re soon too far gone to notice the black shadows moving around the room. Chalk up the feeling of the little hairs standing on end, the goosebumps popping up across your body to your arousal— and not the two piercing blue eyes that illuminate at the edge of your bed.

~~~

Bucky could reach out and touch you he’s so close now. He’s careful still— almost getting caught by you earlier, his anticipation for your almost nightly show getting the best of him. Making him sloppy.

He’s haunted these walls, these rooms, these buildings for decades, if not a century or more. Seen generation after generation moving in and out, kids growing up into adults, adults growing old, the old dying off— but you— fuck, you’ve got to be his goddamn favorite of them all.

Deep brown skin. Lithe and delicate. A soft little quiet thing, engrossed in her solitude and house plants, more than happy to shut the rest of the world out more often than not. You’re gentle. Your soul, your physicality, except in these moments. When you fuck yourself like this, and it doesn’t matter when— in the mornings when the sun is soft, in the late afternoons, your body covered in the oranges and pinks of the sky, late at night in the absolute darkness with nothing but the moon and the shadows— you’re anything but gentle.

Unrestrained and wild you are when in the throes of your arousal. Writhing and loud, a thin sheen of sweat on your brow. Eyes clamped closed so tight sometimes sweet little tears squeeze out and slip down your cheeks. Two perfect tits, mounds of soft flesh, jiggle and bounce with the aggressive thrashes of your fingers against a glistening, sensitive nub.

Nights like tonight are his favorite. When you’re acutely aware that he’s here, but too scared to really give it much thought. When the fear strikes you stiff. When you pull out that monstrous fake cock and spread yourself wide— stretch that pretty, pink, wet cunt. The squelch, the squish of the foreign object being jammed into hot, distended muscles.

Your smell. So sweet and pungent— distinctly you. It’s constantly on the tip of Bucky’s tongue, filling his nostrils, swirling in his head and chest— taunting him. Intoxicating him. Begging and beseeching him to just reach out and touch. Taste. Oh, to have your scent— your flavor— on his lips to savor. He wants to bury his face between those thighs, drown between them. Slither into you and curl up, take up residence.

Bucky’s gotten bold as of late— now, not even waiting until you’re fucked out and sex drunk, falling into a peaceful, post orgasm slumber to move around. No. Now he shifts while you’re still awake, still fucking— toy sowed deep, fingers slapping, hips snapping, back arching.

You’ve snapped your head towards him once or twice over time as you’ve caught his movement in the corner of your eye. Sat straight up, mouth hanging, eyes wide, chest heaving as you stared into the darkness— waiting. Scared shitless. You even tried to cover yourself, hands over your tits, legs closing into each other.

It made him laugh.

You’re already his. That body claimed— no need to cover it up now.

Even tonight, he’s even bolder still. Right at the edge of your bed, peering on. It’s a damn near perfect view when you get like this— sloppy. Legs splayed open, heels dug into the mattress, hips arched off the bed. Your slick glistens underneath the moonlight, splashed on your thighs, strings connected between two puffy, balmy lips. It’s nothing but an invitation— an invitation that he can’t ignore for much longer.

He pushes his knee into the mattress, and then the other, his substantial weight dipping it. Piercing blue eyes snap towards your face as he stalls, waiting for any indication that you feel him there— a smile curling onto his lips when it doesn’t come. So he pushes closer, settles right at your feet. Reaches out, hovers long, black fingers over your chest— so close that his pointed, sharp nails graze your skin.

Makes you gasp.

Bucky snaps his hand back, but you don’t stop. You shiver. Goosebumps ever present on every inch of your skin— but you don’t stop. In fact, you get faster, harder. Pounding that fake cock into your cunt, pushing your hips higher as you slap and knead at that sticky, swollen nub.

You like it.

You like his touch.

Pride swells in Bucky’s chest. Maybe you’re much more receptive than he originally thought. Maybe it’s the fear itself— knowing you’re being watched by something, not someone— is what turns you on. And it makes Bucky bolder still.

He looms over you, hand pressing into the mattress right by your head. Head tilting as he leans in, brushing the tip of his nose against your cheek. You jump again, mewl loud when his nails scrape against your skin, between your jiggling, bouncing tits. He wants to fuck you so bad. Stuff you full of his monster cock— he knows you can take it. Knows you can stretch wide for his veiny, dripping prick. Suck those pretty tits into his wet mouth, those hard, perky nipples between his sharp teeth. But he won’t, not now.

You’re so close.

And this is always the best part.

So he pushes away, away from the bed. Hovers up near the ceiling, eyes shifting from their brilliant blue to pitch black so he can enjoy your finale. Then he’ll wait a while, maybe a few nights— maybe a few hours, who knows—  to encourage an encore.

With a little help, of course.

~~~

You cry out, shrieking into the darkness as the coil planted deep threatens to snap. The chill in the room has your nipples hard, but the heat blooming across your skin has you damp and sticky. There’s gusts of something— splashing over your naked body— but the windows are closed. The air conditioning turned completely off.

It feels like breath. You’d swear it— and it’s so close. Like someone, or something, is right on top of you. Shudders wrack your body, adrenaline rushes as ice floods your veins. Alarm, panic, sheer horror gripping you.

But, you cum before you can rationalize it. Before you can pinpoint it.

It’s so sweet, the orgasm, so deep as the warmth of it spreads like wildfire. Toes curl hard, so hard they go numb as the waves crash, each one harder than the one before. Heart in your throat, the blood rush in your ears. Muscles spasming, clenching and clamping down around the silicone cock, clit jumping with each contraction of your cunt.

It lasts for awhile— your body knowing that this is what you needed. So you ride it out as long as you can, fingers still rubbing and thrashing against your clit until it’s too sensitive. You stuff the cock into you one last time and leave it there, fixed so deep as your body falls back against the mattress. Your asshole constricts around the plug, twitching and fluttering as the last jerks of your hips start to subside.

Chest heaves with deep, long, ragged breaths. Tits pushing up and down, jiggling, stomach flexing as you go limp. Limp and fucked out. Asshole and cunt used, hot— weeping lube and cum. You’re a mess. A beautiful, sated, sloppy mess.

A lazy smile on your face, eyes hooded, you stare up at the ceiling. Unaware that you’ve found two black eyes just perfectly— stare right into them as they peer back at you.

Sleep starts to pull, a mushy, hazy brain giving in all too easily, not giving you time to recognize that you’re being watched again. That there’s a presence looming just over you— all around you. Or maybe, it's a mechanism. Maybe you don’t want to recognize it. So you roll over onto your side, shimmy underneath the blankets to gather some warmth. Shut your eyes and give into the sleep— vow to stop watching those cheesy scary movies so late at night.

They’re making you paranoid.

-

The sting of cold on your extremities makes you stir. Letting out a yawn, you flex your toes, pulling the blankets up to your chin as a chill ripples through your bones. You roll onto your back, and push out a breath, not opening your eyes to see the white puff of air. Another shiver, a deep one, rolls through you again, making you shift underneath the blankets and push your face into the pillow.

Moments later is when you perceive a warmth. A soft moan trembles in your throat as you smash the back of your hand against your face, still teetering between sleep and consciousness. The ache between your legs grows harder to ignore— the warmth, starting to sear. Your hips buck soft. Another groan scratches at the back of your throat.

You’re writhing within minutes. A white hot molten pooling in the pit of your stomach and spreading out to the tips of your fingers and toes. The cold nothing but a distant memory as the familiar burn of lechery encompasses your tight body.

It feels so real— a long, forked, rough tongue lapping at your folds, swishing around your clit. You jump suddenly, gasping deep when something like teeth, so many sharp teeth, nibble and bite at the meat of your thighs. There's pressure, pressing down on your stomach and wrapped around your thigh as you draw your knees up slow, digging the balls of your feet into the mattress. The pressure, it’s warm and vast— something like a palm… there’s scratching, quick little tickles over your stomach, your tits, your ankles and calves.

Fingernails. Long, jagged fingernails.

You give in to the fantasy— the dream. Not opening your eyes, not giving into the consciousness that tugs at you, not wanting to lose this euphoria. The pressure on your stomach gets harder, heightening the sensation of the tongue against your core and almost pinning your writhing hips to the sturdy mattress.

The tongue, rough and wet, slithers through your folds, flicking quick against your clit before the mouth sucks you right up— lips, clit— right into it. Tongue flattening against your slit, teasing your pink opening. Then, oh God, and then it slithers inside, that tongue. Massages your hot, swollen muscles from the inside. Your body jolts up, away from the mattress, a breathy, drawn-out snarl bursting from your lips.

You fall back against the mattress— liquify into it really and let your hands roam, finding your taut, thick nipples. Tweaking and rolling them, pinching between deft fingers before palming your tits feeling the goosebumps that have popped up on your flesh again. Your knees fall apart, legs splaying open, putting your swollen cunt on full display for this invisible force.

It’s not long before your hips are jutting up into the dream tongue, the lips, the teeth hard and fast, a sharp sting piercing your clit just as you start to cum again. Loud, shaky moans fill the room as your hips pulse and your back arches. Cursing, whaling as the dream tongue swipes and flicks, lips wrap around your nub again, sucking hard, coaxing every last drop of your release out of you.

Thighs, stomach, arms, cunt burn as a delicious stretch, a used ache settles deep in the exploited muscles. Long, hoarse breaths fill your chest, the air rushing so fast, and yet so slow that it makes you dizzy. You couldn’t move if you wanted to, everything is just so fucking heavy.

Brain is mush again, cloudy and dense, stupid with ardor. Lazy, broken moans vibrate through your vocal chords, body twitches with quick aftershocks every now and again, making you giggle. You feel like you’ve been hit by a mack truck. It’s so nice.

Once your breathing has slowed back to normal, you roll your head towards the window, open your eyes just enough to see the moon cutting into the room. Relief floods through your veins, happy to find it’s still night time, still dark, your room still moody, giving you time to fall back asleep with the pleasant thoughts of whatever just happened— but you’re a mess again. Skin sticky and damp, panties ruined. Your eyes droop and close as you push out a soft breath, hand slipping down your body. You should really clean up.

Maybe in a few minutes. You push your knees together slowly, swaying them back and forth as your fingertips find your clit, toying with it gently. They calm your jumbled nerves quite nicely and immediately— the touch familiar. Your fingers stretch out, tips push down just a little lower as you smile stupid and lazy and blink slowly up at the ceiling.

The smile doesn’t last long.

Your eyes pop open as a simultaneous sharp gasp fills your chest with cold air. Blood runs ice cold through your veins.

“Good,” a scratchy voice sounds as your fingers push through a tuft of thick hair just between your legs, hot breath sticking to tacky flesh.

Shallow, quick breaths squeak through your teeth, eyes wide, lips and chin trembling as your limbs grow heavy— oh so heavy. Frozen. You slam your eyes shut when a hand slides slowly up your side, serrated nails skipping across your skin. A sob chokes out as you slam your eyes shut, fear gripping every inch of your body.

The wet, long, hot tongue of your dreams swipes at your core again but you’re still sensitive— jumpy— hips pushing down into the mattress to get away from it. A second hand grabs your hip, squeezes it hard, stilling your lower half as it laps at you again. The crawling hand finds your left tit, cups it— kneads it slow— rolling the thick bud between even thicker fingers.

“Look at me.” The voice sounds again, like gravel, low and rough.

Your clit is sucked into an instant warmth, a wide, flat tongue massaging— rolling— gently. A soft, tiny little noise thrums in your throat as a shudder ripples through already irritated muscles. The sound pleases whatever is between your legs, as it chuckles deep, the vibrations adding to the sensation of its tongue.

It pinches your nipple— quick, hard— and bites down into the meat of your thigh while also squeezing it with it’s other massive hand, “I want you to look at me.” you hesitate— and it doesn’t like it, “Look at me.”

The chill in its voice forces your eyes open, but you keep them on the ceiling as silent tears trickle down the side of your face and onto your pillow. An influx of air fills your lungs when a hand pushes up to your face. A thumb swipes underneath your eye gently before an index finger curls to wipe away the wet emotion.

“You’re pretty when you cry,” it says, a little softer, still rubbing your cheek slowly, “Look at me.”

Against your better judgement, fighting through the fear, you blink, shifting your eyes towards your drawn-up legs. There are two big eyes, unnaturally blue, probing and upturned, staring back at you, disappearing in the dark as it blinks before they settle back on you. In fact, they stay on you as it’s tongue flicks out at you again, sweeps through your folds, teasing your opening, your clit again. It palms your tit, squeezing before sitting up, exposing it’s true size.

Your eyes follow slowly upward as it towers over you, it’s knees pressing into the mattress, dipping it deep with its weight. You struggle to breathe, eyes flutter quick as your lips tremble, taking in the umbra. There’s a wide chest, thick biceps and forearms and hands and fingers that push your legs back— towards your chest and stomach. Stocky thighs and a—

You gulp slow, sitting up on your elbows as your eyes zero in on the throbbing, weeping cock between its legs. The moon illuminates the pulsing veins running the impressive length, the wet, red, dripping cockhead— cum already dribbling out, splashing on your skin. It’s hot and silky— dense, the cum, as it wipes the spot away with it’s thumb, a nail cutting into your skin.

It grabs itself, strokes it’s massive cock slow as it drags its eyes along your naked body. Another shudder trembles through you when it teases your cunt with it’s cockhead, pressing into your clit, dragging through your folds, prodding at your slit. You let your head drop slightly, let your eyes close to slits, let your mouth drop as it’s fingers skip up and down your thighs, it’s jagged, black nails tickling you.

Errant hips canter upward, pushing your clit against its tip again, coating it with your slick before you let it settle back against your opening.

“Now that you can see me, beautiful,” it’s raspy voice sounds, starting to push into you, “I want you to scream.”

It juts into you hard, pulling a loud scream out of you— just what it wanted. You pant as it pushes, deep, deep, deep, until its hips are flush with yours, cock completely sunk. It doesn’t move right away, lets you wiggle and twitch, hiss and grunt as you adjust to the size— the absolute fullness. Stretched so wide, clasped so tight around this pulsating cock that you aren’t sure that you’ll be able to walk tomorrow.

But you’ll risk it.

It locks one of your legs around it’s waist, throws the other over its shoulder, slipping its massive hand down the length, down your calf, over your knee, along your thigh until it’s fingers settle on your cunt— on your clit. Slow circles are drawn into your flesh, a gentle pressure applied as it pulls back, cock dragging out of your death grip. You hiss as it sinks back in, reaching something deep.

It’s blistering after that. Within seconds, hips are snapping, skin slapping against… skin? You aren’t even sure. Long fingers are everywhere, tits, stomach, legs, cunt— gripping, groping, pinching. They venture up to your chin, up to your parted, swollen lips, where they linger. You send wide, innocent eyes up to its blues, tits sliding up and down as you lunge with each thrust— and open your mouth wider, sliding your tongue along the tip of its finger.

When a husky moan rumbles through its chest, your heart soars unexpectedly. It’s pleased with your eagerness— your reception.

You’re empty suddenly. A strong hand grips your side, pulls you roughly down the bed. Flips you over before yanking your hips upward, propping you up on your knees. And then, you’re pinned— an unyielding grip around the back of your neck holding you in place. You grunt and start to whimper,  another bout of fright coursing through your veins as it smashes the side of your face into the sheets and pillows.

It fucks back into you slow, a long, shuddering groan spilling out of your trembling lips, “My pet,” it speaks again, squeezing the back of your neck a little harder, “Such a sweet little thing.”

Reaching back, your fingers graze over a sinewy thigh, taking hold as you start to spring forward with each drive of its hips. You slam your eyes closed, more emotion squeezing out of them. The dull burn is back in the pit of your stomach. Your toes and fingers start to curl and flex as each stroke gets sweeter and sweeter, hitting that deep little spot within.

Goosebumps pop up again. Heat blooms across your skin, filling your face and chest and stomach. Spit dribbles from the corner of your mouth as two pouty lips form a perfect little “o” as you start to shriek, each sound coming faster and faster, louder and louder. Your fingers find your nub again, rubbing and slapping to set this release in motion. The sound of your slick is sloppy, wet— and gorgeous, to both you and it.

You’re cursing, sobbing, begging within minutes, teetering right on the edge. It starts to thumb at your asshole, rubbing the rim gently, pushing just inside— coaxing you on.

That’s all it takes. You tense hard— toes curl, fists ball, stomach clenches— and then stiffen as your orgasm hits. A white hot flushing through as you quake, cunt spasming around it’s heavy cock. Jammed full, orgasm rippling, fingers still thrashing against your constricting clit, you’re dizzy, warm all over, sweaty and freezing cold all at the same time.

Your companion— this monster of the night, lurking in the shadows— hammers on behind you, pumping, gripping, squeezing, pushing you down further into the mattress as his strokes get sharper. Stronger. More forceful.

It gets loud. Growling so deep and heavy that the sound shakes the walls— the bed. God, the poor neighbors. It grips your hip with one hand so hard you yelp in pain, hands flailing, trying to grip and grab anything they can as it fucks into you.

One, two more jabs and it stills quick— and that’s when you feel it. Another white hot, this time all concentrated in your overstimulated, tight, wet cunt. Long ribbons of cum, silk soft and warm, fill you up, up, up— to the brim. It’s cock veins pulsate, it’s girth seemingly growing wider, stretching you more as it unloads. Cock jumping in your tight grasp as cum weeps from it.

You take it all, humming loud and proud, panting as you feel it’s seed spill out, down the inside of your thigh.

It drags out slow, as if not wanting to at all. Like it likes the feeling of your messy, cum filled cunt all wrapped around him. You feel that swollen cock head through your folds again, slowly pushing up and down your clit, teasing your slit. A finger, and then another glance over your asshole— lovingly. Softly. Massaging the twitching rim before burying it’s hard cock between your cheeks, slapping you with it.

“No more,” you plead, voice small and broken and pathetic, “Please, I can’t.”

Another chuckle rumbles through its chest, “Ok sweet girl,” there’s a hand on the back of your head, stroking curly, damp, surely tangled hair, “Such a good girl.”

Hands are back on your skin again, fingers pushing and pulling, adjusting you on the mattress. You’re flat now, splayed out on your belly, legs spread, hands shoved underneath your pillows and head. Balmy skin, puffy flesh is soothed by slow gushes of breath, making you jump and whine more— whimper more. The bed sinks again as it moves, pulled again, your back up against a massive chest and hard stomach.

It wraps around you, slinging an arm and a leg over you, enveloping you in its warmth. Rids your face of the wetness, pushing the remaining tears away with its thumb. Nuzzles in close— a scratchy cheek against your own.

A heavy hand over your heart.

“I like this,” it says soft, tapping along with your heartbeat, “The rhythm.”

You hum again, happily fucked out and cock drunk, already feeling an ache settling into your muscles and bones. Hips and ass push back into its hips, pushing its dense cock against you— wanting to feel it resting against your cunt, “You got a name?”

“Brarthronoz.”

“Excuse me?” you giggle through a deep yawn as your eyes flutter.

It— he nuzzles again, pushing his face closer, “Bucky is fine, pet.”

“Bucky,” you sigh a little, “I like that.”

You fall asleep with the soft rhythm of his breath against your neck.

-

When you wake, he’s gone— but you kinda figured that anyway. The oranges of the sky and rising sun chases away all the shadows. You go about your routine but a little slower— inflamed, throbbing arms and legs make showering and brushing your teeth a little harder this morning.

You look for him though, in the corner of your little kitchen, in that small spot where the sun just never quite reaches.

A smile tugs at the corners of your mouth when you find a pair of bright blue eyes fixed on you, a little wink encouraging you further.

“Toast?” You ask cheekily, a wide smile on your face as you offer him a plate.

[tisfan]

Ring of Thorns, Cha 3

Title: Outsider, Outsider

Written by: @tisfan art by @feignedsobriquet​

Square: 3023 T1 - headset image

Rating: Teen

Triggers/warnings: horror

Tags: Fairy tale AU, Space AU, rabbits. lots of rabbits

Created for: @tonystarkbingo

Word count: 2,249

Link https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753566/chapters/60014938

Special thanks to: @skye07 & @fightingforcreativity

 Stardate 5239.283.09

When JARVIS activated the sub-aural communication system, scrolling words across Tony’s field of vision instead of speaking, Tony wasn’t too worried.

After all, they didn’t know this Bucky Barnes guy from Adam.

Well, not true. Tony knew Adam Warlock quite well, in as much as anyone could, in fact, know anyone else. File that, JARVIS, he thought, look up Adam. 

Because the saying must have meant something, right.

But Tony wasn’t worried. Barnes was fresh out of a long sleep, he was disoriented, babbling.

And JARVIS was always just a little more cautious than his maker. Tony wondered where he got that from, since Tony and caution were barely nodding acquaintances.

Detecting anomalous readings, sir, JARVIS typed. Suspect sub-terminal communications.

Barnes has hardware installed?

Detecting chipping mechanism in spinal region.

Well, that wasn’t new, it was old. Old tech, used to influence people. Ions only knew where it had started, but propaganda was always a thing. Just, in the last sixty years or so, it was made illegal (again, according to what Tony had been able to dig up) to do so in a manner that a victim couldn’t resist. Tricking people into believing their government was always right, that was still unfortunately considered a matter of caveat emptor. 

But as recently as a hundred years ago, chipping had been a manner in which less than moral companies and businesses had installed methods to control people. Sometimes it was subtle. A chip -- which would do any number of other useful things -- would have blackware on it. Sometimes just to buy certain brands of products. Other times, it was… well, more dangerous.

Override?

You’ll need to reach the source, sir. Shut it down on that end. Otherwise, the only method for a rapid recall is cranial realignment.

That was to say, hitting someone in the head really, really hard.

Not ideal.

Can it be removed?

Because still, he liked Bucky. Was decidedly attracted to him. He wasn’t even sure why; they’d just barely met, and still, the idea of having to fight him, or even just knock him out, bothered Tony. There was something childlike and innocent about the man, whatever programming was going on in his head.

I thought true love’s kiss was supposed to break the spell.

Are we believing in fairy tales now, sir?

JARVIS could just stuff it, Tony would be petulant if he wanted to be. Bucky was nice, Ions-storm take it. He didn’t deserve whatever was being forced on him.

Although, the longer it went on, the less Tony thought Bucky was aware of what was happening. That he didn’t notice the pauses while he was listening to his programming. It might even have been malfunctioning.

JARVIS, track down that source.

Yes sir. I am sending the Mark II combat suit for you.

Tony didn’t so much as wince. He didn’t want to fight Bucky. On the other hand, death was not the preferred outcome either. Keep it pretty far back, I don’t want him to get triggered into a defensive position.

Tony almost lost his cool entirely when Bucky started talking about the tank of liquid etherium. Etherium was a theory, it wasn’t real. Or so he’d always been told. Of course, he’d also been told that magic spells didn’t exist, and that true love wasn’t real, and that money made the worlds go around.

Okay, so it might have been real, but it wasn’t stable. On the other hand, they’d said the same thing about the energy source for the arc-reactor, and look what he’d done with that.

So, etherium.

Except, based on the way Bucky’s face twitched, there was either something wrong with the etherium, or it was where the source of his subliminals were coming from.

Nothing to do but go forward, though.

You could run, JARVIS suggested.

You know I won’t do that, buddy.

“Right, show me where this tank is of yours,” Tony said. He knew his mouth kept moving, he was talking with Bucky, being reassuring, he was scrolling with JARVIS, he was planning and plotting. It was a good thing that he’d spent most of his childhood learning to multitask efficiently.

Well, technically, it was time-slicing. Humans, even enhanced ones, were only barely capable of multitasking, but Tony could time-slice like a motherfucker.

Part of his brain was dealing with his companion, who was looking like he was ready to puke or something, another part was drawing on his nanites to give him control over the armor suit that JARVIS had on standby, and by far the largest part was wondering what even, the fuck, was Hydra, and did she have anything to do with the Etherium gas?

Probably.

That just seemed like too much of a coincidence to be dismissable. But coincidence was not causality, he reminded himself.

Just because it seemed like it couldn’t be one without the other, didn’t mean there was any relationship between the Etherium and the monster.

Whatever Hydra was.

The rabbits were--

The rabbits were lining the path. Not so even as to be called rows, but they were-- more and more of them, coming out.

To watch, or to guide, to protect or to attack?

Tony didn’t know. 

Coincidence is not causality.

I am a man of science. I don’t believe in magic.

Magic is merely technology which we cannot yet explain.

Despite that, Tony was feeling pretty goddamn superstitious. Like, the rabbits were a good sign, right? He didn’t think he’d ever heard any stories about evil forest animals, even when he was in cradle school.

The lights dimmed as they moved further into the station; Bucky swayed and Tony thought he was going to fall. He swept the man into his arms, unable to do anything else. He couldn’t let Bucky fall.

Tony had always wondered, in those hundreds of stupid holo-films that Rhodey loved so much, why it was the hapless hero or helpless heroine was driven to seek out the monster, the murderer. Wouldn’t it have been much safer to run away, to wait until day, to get reinforcements? But no, there was always some valiant idiot creeping through a dark tunnel, the murdering beast around the very next corner.

And here Tony was, being the exact kind of idiot that he yelled at on the screen.

Compelled, almost. He had to see what was down there, what was… doing this.

And maybe, just maybe, conquer it.

The Evil.

I am a man of science, he insisted. If there’s anything down there, science can explain it.

Tony was vaguely aware that JARVIS is screaming at him. Not just speaking in a sterner voice, not scrolling text across his retina, but actively yelling.

Bucky was also speaking, something ridiculous and useless. 

Tony ignored them both, stepping further into the darkness.

Something was calling him.

Something he couldn’t deny.

“Hail Hydra.”

*

Stardate 5239.283.09

JARVIS -- Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System -- was a created intelligence. He was not, in any standard definition of the word, alive. He did not have any biological parts, although Mr. Stark had offered on any number of occasions to make a construct that would allow him to experience a fixed form.

JARVIS had always refused. He did not see the need to be flesh and blood, to experience pain, to eat food, or do any of the other messy biological functions. No more than most humans -- or other life forms for that matter -- would see the need to experience true logic, pure calculation.

He was not human. He would never be alive.

He did not, according to many, have a soul.

A soul, JARVIS understood to be, that part of a life form that continued on after the biological form had faded. 

The mind, however, was a complex machine, that operates on the same physical laws as all other objects in the universe. If the soul existed inside the mind, then JARVIS was as ensouled as any living creature. He had a mind. He could think independently. He had obligations and protocol, certain living creatures he was more apt to go above and beyond protocol demands than others. 

It had been a matter up for debate many times; did Artificial Intelligences have their own free will. If they did, could they be punished for using that free will to commit crimes? Or was that burden on their creator? Ultron, Jocasta, the Legions. There were hundreds of examples of AIs that had committed crimes, sometimes on behalf of their creator and sometimes as a rebellion against their creator. And sometimes, it was just faulty programming.

JARVIS had, of course, submitted his own report to the collection of data that was maintained by Enoch, who was the chief librarian of the Chronicoms, an ancient semi-biological, mechanically enhanced race whose purpose was to chronicle all of life and history.

 All of this -- which was a mere portion of one cycle of computations, the process that made up JARVIS’s thoughts -- while he was attempting to determine what, the fuck even, was going on.

Sometimes JARVIS thought he’d taken too much of his creator’s personal idiosyncrasies for himself.

In this case, however, if the data fit the drive…

He’d been getting anomalous readings, completely off the charts. If there even were charts for the sorts of readings he was getting. 

A life form-- 

Not human.

Not rabbit.

Not-- not anything JARVIS had encountered before. There were new species protocols, but JARVIS wasn’t a first contact ship’s AI.

He didn’t have the staff aboard to initiate contact.

Technically, by that mandate, he should have left initial contact up to the other party. Preferably evacuating his human crew and their guest, and informing the First Contact Association staff of a potential new species.

JARVIS did not have time for that.

And he was almost sure that the unknown intelligence had contacted Mr. Stark first.

JARVIS wasn’t certain how Mr. Stark was being contacted. He could not detect any radio signals or waves. Just the growth of certain gamma radiations. 

JARVIS tapped the station’s computer. It was slow and stubborn, but deep in those databanks might be the answer JARVIS needed. When had the rabbits taken over the station? Did they know anything? Was there any way to communicate with them? They might have been witnesses, generations back. The form didn’t seem to have developed any sort of written or data storage communication.

JARVIS found a set of recordings, vast and untapped.

They’d started about a year after Barnes shut down the station.

Rabbits. Stamping. Their signal, from one beast to the next. Until the entire warren was stamping.

The station computer had recorded it. From the very first time it had happened, until this morning’s rendition when Mr. Stark had boarded the ship.

Communicating.

The rabbits were communicating.

JARVIS examined all the footage. Listened to it. Traced patterns, turned patterns into rhythms and rhythms into song.

The rabbits sang in percussion beats.

And it could be translated.

The rabbits thought of themselves as Insiders. The Insiders lived in the station, and everything else was an Outsider.

Mr. Stark was an Outsider. 

They didn’t really see JARVIS at all, didn’t understand that he was there, that he had a presence. To them, he was nothing but noise that followed Mr. Stark around. 

Outsider, outsider, outsider.

They followed Mr. Stark around, trying to understand in their little rabbity way. He was an Outsider. From Beyond the Door.

They knew what was Beyond the Door. The great Beyond-- the nothingness that froze and killed. 

Before today, they’d never known something could Come In.

They knew the Sleeper. 

They knew… the Watcher with Many Arms.

Hydra.

Another creature, lurking deep in the station. She really almost was the station now, living inside the conduits. A creature with no form, and every form. She was the devil, to rabbit-kin, as the Sleeper was God, kind, patient.

He who had Come In? They weren’t sure what he was.

Who he was.

What his purpose was.

They huddled together, nose to nose, paws barely making a sound. Like a whisper. Outsider, outsider.

And Hydra, the watcher, the waiter, she of a thousand eyes. Was watching them.

Had they ever thought they were free from her sight?

Outsider, outsider.

JARVIS slid a portion of his code into the Mark II. Used one metal finger to tap on the wall, imitating their sounds, their language. Their words.

Outsider listens.

Every single rabbit on the station froze, and as if with a single hive mind, lifted up on their hind legs, one ear twitching.

As if they’d heard the voice of god.

Outsider.

It started as a whisper, barely audible, until the station rang from their cries.

Mr. Stark and Mr. Barnes barely reacted, caught in their dreaming hallucinations, hearing the voice of Hydra.

Outsider. Outsider.

JARVIS paused. He was going to make for himself legal difficulties with the FCA and probably most of the various legal governments outside the Ring.

Listener. It was a correction. Mr. Stark was the Outsider. JARVIS was the listener. He needed them to understand that he was different; a part of Mr. Stark, yes, but no more the same being than Mr. Stark’s biological child, if he ever had one.

Listener.

 Listener.

Listen to me JARVIS thudded. Listen to me. Listen, and give aid. Listener is a friend. The Listener guards your safety and happiness. The Listener guards the Outsiders. The Listener is a friend.

We listen. 

[litt1edeath]

Surprises At DisneyLand

Y’all in for a treat with this one was requested by @havenoffandoms and i was so excited to do this one aaaaa seriously tho someone let me know if i’m doing this headcanons thing right?? 😅 also sorry for it being so long for me to update i went on a bit of a hiatus 💀⚰️ i’m back now... hopefully

henry had been the one to ask you out of course, you were friends for a couple months

naturally you’d remained far too shy and intimidated by his presence. even though all the skinship and open desire to be around each other was a tale tell sign to everyone around you.

yet you still made no move to further your relationship. so he did.

he was overwhelming in the best ways possible. the kind that makes your throat dry, and butterflies in the pits of your stomach.

now flash forward to present day- you’ve been together for a total of 6 years.

seen the good, bad, ugly and very beautiful parts of each other. worked through every possible struggle hand in hand.

went to every baby shower, baby reveals, weddings, anniversary parties, birthday’s, holiday gatherings, anything your friends or family threw.

as well as your own extra curricular activities and events that you both enjoyed yourself.

being the poster couple, it was inevitable that when you reached the three year mark everyone began to ask when will you tie the knot?

being how it was rare henry had lasted in a relationship so long, they all believed you to be the one. he never smiled more brighter.

however it was all avoidance, at least you assumed that. maybe henry was getting nervous or shy now. which wasn’t like him at all. was he unsure of himself? of this relationship?

now your anniversary was today, celebrating 7 yrs of your happy relationship. the surprise was henry had was the place you would be going to.

everything was nerve wrecking, picking the perfect outfit. he adored how nerdy you were about these things.

putting on a ‘he’s my mickey’ top with jeans that were high waisted and hugged all the right places. finished with high top converses and one of henry’s hoodies.

the drive there you had to be blind folded, butterflies stronger than ever as you grow nervous and excited in one.

of course being the excellent boyfriend as well as lover, henry was. he holds one of your hands. fingers intertwined as he rubs across your knuckles in time with the song on the radio.

you bob your head with the melody, turning to give him a knowing smile though you can’t see his reaction. you hear him, that deep, sweet, darling chuckle he does when he’s amused.

and in a way it makes you more excited- or nervous you can’t tell them apart anymore.

when the blind fold comes off you need a moment to adjust to the sunlight.

as the sign in front of your car comes to view, your mouth drops open like the pikachu meme.

only to be replaced with an ear shrieking squeal.

henry full on laughs at you bouncing in your seat, more so when you take your seat belt off to lung into his arms unannounced.

one hand sinks into your locks to cup the back of your hair and the other around your waist keeping your against him but never to dig into the gear shift uncomfortable.

he really was too observant. careful with you. it made loving him all the sweeter.

“i didn’t even know this is where we were going! my top i chose to wear is coincidental!”

“well we’re matching.” was his comforting words back to yours.

the car is parked, you both show the tickets and are given a wristband that you’ll have photos of to remember the day.

as soon as you step through the turn stiles, you draw attention. not you per say but Henry given a few of them do a double take.

one of the workers asks to take your photo, being pulled closer to Henry at the waist your smile facing forward.

next photo is of you two kissing of course, though you rarely take pics like that. so it has sentimental value.

with a bonus of said boyfriend pressing his forehead to yours, his eyes closed and your hands tightly held in his. you however are looking up at him in the snap shot.

the day is spent riding plenty of rides, buying the pictures at the end you like most. especially splash mountain, you’re both soaked and laughing helplessly at one another’s dismay. even more so at your faces in the pic.

all the little goofing around is settled down when his hands cup both your cheeks, moves the little whisks of hair away that curl from being wet. your hands cover his as he kisses you with all the passion in the world.

when you reach the star wars area he chuckles at your nerdy (this is more my preference bc i’m a dork- if you aren’t a sw’s fan ignore this one hehe)

kylo ren’s costume actors in the park goes to kneel before you, and you gasps everyone looking over with awe. only for henry to appear circling his hands around your waist.

“sorry this ones taken.” he cool replies and so kylo nods standing up. his hand tilting your chin but you play tough unfazed as he walks away.

the rest of the day is you running around like a child too excited to hide it anymore. henry following with happiness, he posts a few videos and pics of your day to instagram. that everyone goes nuts for.

there in the square is where your heart stops. you think you’ve lost henry, anxiety pumping being in a crowded amusement park.

just as the tears build up in your eyes, you see a group of your closest friends appear with Henners at the front of them.

your favourite song you play for him called “Yellow Hearts” by Ant Saunders is on the speakers as your friends run by throwing flowers all around you two.

you cover your mouth, a new form of tears well up as he’s before you. doing the most surprising thing ever your breath hitches.

he goddamn kneeled before you.

cameras are snapping shots or recording.

henry pulls a royal blue small box from his coat pocket. the inside part- something you should’ve felt when your hands were tucked into his pockets. you had a habit of hugging him from behind even if he’s larger than you- yet didn’t feel the box. not once.

he flips it open and inside is a beautiful silver band a sunflower on it with a jewel in the middle shimmering under the setting sun.

“will you y/n. do me the absolute honors of spending the rest of our lives together. and being my wife? because i love you- don’t think i’ve ever loved someone as much as i do you.” theres a chorus of awe’s.

swiping the back of your hand over your face, you sniffle. inhaling a deep breath to steady your emotions so you could talk. you kneel down, being shorter than him once again.

there you search those beautiful eyes, cupping his cheek you scratch at the light stubble. going up onto your knees to kiss him. there you give your confirmation upon his lips, “Yes- a thousand yes’s!”

henry swoops you up into his arms twirling you around as he hugs you close. you knew he wasn’t a public man so doing this was a big deal. for both of you.

once you’re set down he slides the ring onto your ring finger. it feels snuggly, you’re enthralled with it. how it feels, to actually be in this position you never dreamed would ever happen.

just before the parks closing you go to see the fireworks- he records your excitement, when he taps your shoulder from behind the camera.

you whirl around a bright smile at him, when he knelts again tapping his shoulders you mouth a no at him.

giving up at his reassurance he could hold you up easily. and he does, you’re careful to not bounce so much while cheering and singing along to the music that plays for the show.

he turns the camera to face himself and you hunch down to kiss his cheek, lifting his head so you could kiss him properly in the video.

it’s then when you both look up that two fireworks shoot out “congratulations henry and y/n!” followed by “happy anniversary!”

[dessiekarma]

My Harem is Entirely Bad Boy Types (Kirisaki Daiichi x Reader) Pt. 10

Chapter 10: I Really Need a Beach Episode in the Midst of All This Bullshit

 Yamazaki felt the wind get knocked out of him as Furuhashi slammed him into the gymnasium wall. He screwed his eyes up tight as he watched the angry male draw his fist back.

 “Furu no!” Seto called out pulling him off his teammate.

 “If you don’t want her that’s fine! But you didn’t have to tell your ex all this shit about her!” Furuhashi snapped at Yamazaki, looking angrier than anyone had seen him.

“We don’t know for sure that he’s the one who spre-” Hara began only for Yamazaki to scowl at him.

 “Spread rumours? Is that what you were gonna say? It’s not rumours if the facts are true. (Y/N) let Furuhashi spend the night with her several times, you and her sure took your time on the roof the day of the Seirin interview, and Seto told us he spent the night with her in a love hotel.”

 “Which I told you guys in confidence! And from what she’s told me you’ve spent the night at her place more than once!” Seto was now the one raising his voice. “If something had happened do you think I would have mentioned it? Did I ever say that I slept with her?”

 “You never said but you never said you didn’t.” Hara mumbled to himself. When Seto had come back to school after that weekend he’d told the guys of the predicament he and their manager found themselves in. The lavender-haired male wouldn’t let on to the fact that he was feeling what he could only describe as jealousy. It would stand to reason that he was just a bit bitter.

 “What? That isn’t the point! I didn’t ask you if you fucked her on the roof!”

 “Only because knowing him, you might not like the answer.” Furuhashi grimaced as he too thought of his teammates being intimate with (Y/N).

 “Oh really? Well you know it’s a lot easier to mess around with someone in the comfort of their own house than it is on a public roof. So, anything you want to own up to?”

 Furuhashi casted empty eyes on Hara before looking at Seto and Yamazaki.

 “Who am I to own up to anything. Sex is something between two people and meant to be kept that way. Without her being part of the conversation, it isn’t any of our places to say what she has or hasn’t done with anybody.”

 Hara visibly deflated as he took in his words. Seto too looked almost guilty to have dragged anything further into the conversation. Still Yamazaki simply rolled his eyes.

 “If things haven’t become abundantly clear at his point…I care about her.” Furuhashi looked serious, as his eyes were almost challenging his teammates “It is my intention that she grows to care for me too and I abandon my engagement. While it makes me angry to think of her giving any of you that level of intimacy, I haven’t told her my feelings. What right do I have to expect loyalty from a girl who isn’t even mine? If none of you have spoken your feelings than you have no right either.”

 “Oh fuck off, Furuhashi! It’s not about loyalty its about having some goddamn self-respect. You wanna be another number to her then be my guest but maybe I wanted more than that! She knew I was defending her from everybody saying these things and she let me continue to make an ass of myself knowing full well it was all fucking true!”

 “Nobody is saying you have to pursue her; in fact it betters our chances if you don’t. But for you to go and purposely tell those things to Mei, knowing she was going to tell everyone…makes you a bitch too.” Furuhashi spoke calmly as if simply stating facts.

 “What the fuck did you call me!? Maybe it’s easy for you to accept her because you want an out from your engagement. And Seto has been fucking desperate for any warm body since he started highschool! And Har-”

 A certain bubble-gum chewing player grew angrier as each word came out of his childhood friend’s mouth. When Yamazaki’s eyes met his, he could see them both burning with the desire to speak out to him but also with hesitation. Who exactly did he think he goddamn was, talking to the team that way?

 “And what about me huh?” Hara asked suddenly up in Yamazaki’s face. “You were getting to me, weren’t you? So, what is it you’ve been wanting to say to me? Because I know it’s been a long time coming, before we even met (Y/N).”

 “Of course, you wouldn’t mind because you’re just like her! You bragged about a different girl every day up until you met (Y/N). And why? Because it distracts you or because your over-” Yamazaki trailed off looking away with a growl.

 “Because what?!” Hara called out pushing Yamazaki hard. “Say it you little pussy!”

.

“Because you’re overcompensating for being damn-near blind! Just admit you actually like the attention! Keeps girls coming back to you! You hope they will find out so they can pretend to see something in you, since horny blind basketball player seems to be your only fucking personality trai-”

 Hara’s fist connected with the male’s cheek instantly. Yamazaki didn’t miss a beat and swung back nailing the male in the jaw.

 “You’ve always been fucking jealous of me! Just admit it! You only hung out with me because you hoped the girls I was done with would give you a chance! And you’re stuck kissing Mei’s ass because you think she’s the first girl who paid attention to you instead of me.” Hara had his knee firmly planted into his former friend’s chest. “I guess she was looking for an easily manipulated bitch boy so turns out you fit the bill!”

 Yamazaki threw his weight up and tackled Hara into the bleachers, effectively smashing his back into the hard metal. The two continued to exchange blows.

 “Oh, so now you want to play the good guy and say I’m the asshole. You’ve never had problems calling girl’s out for having sex with you. In fact, didn’t you just do it to Yuna?”

 “Those girls are bitches! I don’t worry about hurting people who don’t deserve my respect! But what did (Y/N) do to lose yours!?”

 Hara, on top again, was about to bring his fist down square on Yamazaki’s face. Reeling his fist back as far as he could go, the sound of someone screaming for him to stop couldn’t actually halt the momentum.

 His fist did come down every bit as hard as he intended it to. Only the target wasn’t Yamazaki but (Y/N). Her body was trembling as she hunched over Yamazaki’s head.

 Tears were running down her face and none of them knew if it was due to the blow on the shoulder or simply from watching her friends fight.

 “Don’t hurt him.” She pleaded as Hara instantly tried to pry her off.

 “Why are you protecting him!? I’m on your side! I’m the one fucking defending you! Did you hear any of what he said about you?!”

 “…I did. Fighting isn’t going to change his mind. Just let it go…please.” (Y/N) had let go of Yamazaki and was looking into Hara’s odd eyes, pleading with him silently.

 “Whatever. Get the fuck up and get out; you’re lucky she was here to save your ass.” He spat at Yamazaki who was quick to storm out of the gym slamming the door behind him.

 Only then had the remaining three members noticed a certain someone handing around the entrance.

 “You guys have control of the team for not even a month and you’ve managed to be falling apart this badly.” Hanamiya commented with an almost concerned tone in his voice.

 “Hanamiya, what are you doing here?” Seto asked more curiously than accusatory.

 “I came because I was gonna chew you out for not watching that one. What good was it for me to leave if she was just gonna be hurt by someone else?”

 The team turned to (Y/N), only now realizing she looked pretty beaten up. Dried blood hung around edge of her nostril, her bottom lip swelled slightly and a dark bruise could be seen right under her eye. Her arm cast was littered with obscene drawings and the words ‘whore’ ‘slut’ scrawled in big red letters.

 “What the hell happened to you!?” Furuhashi asked, now quickly by her side.

 “It’s okay my cast was coming off in a few days anyway.”

 “Your cast? Look at your fucking face!” Hara exclaimed.

 “I found her pulling herself off the ground like that. Judging by the way she kicked that one guy’s ass…I’d say it had to be a group effort, but she won’t tell me who did it.”

 “(Y/N) just tell us! I will end their fucking existence! Whoever it was I’m not afraid of them. Me, Seto, Furu and Hanamiya will fuck them up!”

 “What good would that do? Today is the last day before summer break. When we get back its Wintercup and then it’s all smooth sailing until we graduate. Besides I started the fight. I thought I could handle myself but then one of his friends joined in and another. I couldn’t fight off 4 guys at once.”

 “It doesn’t matter who started the fight! Why the hell would it be okay for four guys to gang up on one girl!?” Seto said running a hand through his ungelled hair. “But also why the fuck would you pick a fight with someone?! Do you have no concern for your goddamn safety!? Those guys didn’t come out of nowhere, you must have seen them hanging around their friend. And four of them? Goddammit (Y/N) they could have done a lot worse than beat you up and for what? Because they were talking shit about you?!”

 “They were talking shit about you guys!” (Y/N) screamed out, her voice reverberating off the gym walls. She was now sitting on the bleachers staring at her feet. “They were saying how they expected this from Hara and that they were going to find Furu’s fiancé and tell her things. They said that you were desperately waiting for an easy girl and Hanamiya was a psycho and Zaki was just whipped by his ex and trying to get her attention.”

 None of the team made any move to comfort her as she raged on.

 “At first it was all true! I did sleep around and I did go on paid dates…but now they’re making things up! They’re telling everyone I slept with Touou’s coach; that’s not true and that shit isn’t funny! He could lose his job because of something like that! And to hear them talk about things I’ve supposedly done with the people on Touou’s team…including Shoichi. They don’t even know him! I wish they would all drop fucking dead!”

 (Y/N) had very apparent tears running down her face. They knew she had been holding this in for far too long. Nobody, no matter how strong, was made of stone.

 “We ignored it for too long and now it’s a fucking issue.” Hanamiya said with a sigh. “Doesn’t help that the mind frame found its way in here through Yamazaki. Good thing the trash took itself out. I’d say if anyone else feels the same, they see themselves out as well.”

 Hara, Seto and Furuhashi looked at each other and back at their manager. Even some of the second-string players had turned their backs on her.

 They all had time to think of it. To decide if they cared about her past or about anything she could have done with one of their teammates. For all of them, as far as they were concerned…once she was theirs, they would worry about her being only theirs.

 “Well then good. Seto, you got a summer schedule worked out for practices?” Hanamiya said going up to the tall male.

 “Wait are you back on the team?” Hara asked with wide eyes, he no longer bothered hiding.

 “From the looks of it you guys are one man short. And with (Y/N) becoming Kirisaki Daichi’s main target, you’ll need someone else to kick asses. Besides…I decided it was time to stop punishing myself.”

~~~~~

 “What do you mean!?”

 (Y/N) stopped walking and pressed her back into the school’s wall. She was just trying to make her way home without dealing with anyone and she could recognize that voice anywhere.

 “Mei, I care about you but I don’t think we should be together.” That was definitely Yamazaki’s voice.

 “After what you told me about her, after betraying her do you think you’d possibly have a chance with her? You still want that bitch!?”

 “No, I told you those things because I was angry with her. But Mei…you aren’t good for me either.”

 (Y/N) hung her head as she listened to Yamazaki’s footsteps walking away from the conversation. Her head snapped up when she heard an accusatory voice turn the corner.

 “You! Of course you’re fucking here! Did you come to make sure Yamazaki told me what you wanted him to!” Mei yelled out, getting dangerously close.

 “I didn’t tell him to say anything. I was just going ho-”

 “Home? You were just going home? Your home is back in America, you don’t belong here!”

 “I know I don’t! I never wanted to be here! But I am and…Mei I’m sorry!”

 The angry girl stared at (Y/N) in shock.

 “Everything I did back then was for attention. Not yours or anyone at school but just someone I never got it from. In middle school I didn’t know that guy was your boyfriend when I first started seeing him…but I wasn’t apologetic after I found out. Once I knew I should have stopped but I didn’t, that wasn’t right and I’m so sorry.”

 (Y/N) had no reaction as Mei’s fist connected with the side of her head.

 “I don’t want you to say you’re sorry! I want to make you feel sorry! You were cheap and easy, and all the boys wanted you! You could have gone for anybody, but you went for what was mine! And I wasn’t the only person you did that to! You slept around with a lot of guys who you knew were taken!”

 “I know! I was doing so many horrible things back then. But I’m different now, I’ve changed.”

 Mei hit her again but (Y/N) held her ground.

 “No, you haven’t! You took Yamazaki from me too!”

 “I never came onto him! He wasn’t even dating you when I came here! And he thinks I’m a slut now, so you got what you want! I’m out of the picture what more do you want from me, Mei! You win!”

 “I haven’t won until I have him! Don’t you get it? He still wants you!”

 “But you didn’t even want him before I got here….and its never been about him. Mei, you can’t do that to him! Yamazaki cares about you and he thinks you’re fighting for him because you love him not because you hate me!”

 “How noble of you. You’re worrying about me hurting him when you already did that!”

 “I can’t help it! I can’t change my past and if it bothers him there is nothing on this earth I could do about it! But I never pretended to be anything! When he asked me about the rumors, I told him the truth and he hurt his own feelings by taking something that doesn’t matter so personally. He hurt me too because I thought he saw more to me than how many people I’ve been with. But no matter what he’s done to me, I won’t let you intentionally hurt him.”

 “Stop trying to act like you’re better than me! You want him too! You’re using him to try and make me miserable because you’re just like me! But I’ll get him first, I’ll be sure that you see he’s mine and once you do I can drop him just as easily.”

 “No Mei I’m not like you. Of all the guys I’ve ever been with, I never made any of them think I really cared about them or loved them when I didn’t. Maybe that makes me a slut but I know I’m a good person who made some really bad mistakes. You…you’re just a bad person. It doesn’t make what I did to you okay but its why Yamazaki still doesn’t want you.”

 With that (Y/N) pushed past the fuming girl and made her way off the campus and back home.

 A certain ginger-haired male hung around the corner of the building. He’d run back to find Mei, wanting to talk things out. Hoping maybe there was a chance they could make something work.

 After everything he’d said about (Y/N)…he didn’t deserve to have her defend him. And he definitely didn’t deserve her.

~~~~~

 “Fuuuuuuck it’s hot as hell why are we here?!” Hara exclaimed, pinning his bangs with the purple clip (Y/N) gave him.

 “(Y/N) needed a break from everything.” Seto said not able to help the smile on his face from said girl running ahead to check her bags in to the hotel.

 “And why did I agree to tag along?” Hanamiya grumbled helping Furuhashi unload another suitcase.

 “Because your mom said it would be good for you to spend your last high school summer vacation with your friends.” Furuhashi offered grunting as he swung a heavy duffle bag over his shoulder.

 The guys stopped their chatting and complaining when they saw (Y/N) come to a dead halt, her eyes boring into her phone screen. Coming up behind her the word ‘DAD’ illuminating her screen, requesting to FaceTime made them all freeze.

 (Y/N) seemed to look panicked before spotting a group of highschool girls just ahead. Running up to them she tapped the closest on the shoulder.

 “Hey so I’m here with my guy friends but my dad actually thinks I came with some girls so can you please pretend to be my friends while he video chats with me?” (Y/N) spoke rapidly pleading with the girls.

 They looked amused and giggled but nodded their heads in agreement. The guys watched as their manager swiped the phone up to answer. Her dad was probably some strict CEO that didn’t want (Y/N) to reflect badly on the company being caught vacationing with several guys.

 “My little baby girl why did you take so long to answer!?” A genuinely concerned male’s voice could be heard through the phone’s speakers. “I was about to send the cavalry to search the island for you, princess!”

 The guys stood dumbfounded at the sweet-sounding voice and exchanged glances. (Y/N) smiled widely and positioned the camera so her dad could see the group of girls behind her.

 “Sorry dad my friends and I just got here. Hey you guys go check in and I’ll catch up!” (Y/N) said giving the girls the opportunity to carry on. “So, as you can see I wasn’t kidnapped or involved in a plane crash.”

 “Dear, don’t treat me like a helicopter parent! I got worried when you didn’t text me after you should have landed!” (Y/N) rolled her eyes but smiled at the man who was giving her a kicked dog look. “You usually spend your summers with daddy! But I’m glad you finally found yourself a group of girlfriends you can trust. I know things haven’t been easy for you and I’m glad you’re opening up to people.”

 The KiriDai boys saw the fake light behind her eyes and had no doubt her father saw it too.

 “I’m still gonna see you at the end of the summer. Besides this is my last school year before I decide.”

 Hara turned to his friends with a questioning look in his eyes but they just shrugged.

 “Don’t you go making your decisions for me! You told her you would decide what was best and you owe it to yourself to make a decision for you. Anyhow I wont keep you chatting with me when you have a whole beach waiting for you. Miss you love!”

 “I miss you too da-”

 “Hey and if any boys give you a hard time or come on to you after you’ve said no-” The team felt their spines straighten as (Y/N)’s father’s voice went down several octaves and held a clear threatening tone to it. Was this even the same guy!? “I’ll crack open their fuckin skulls, got it!?”

 “Yes, dad I know. I need a break from boys for this vacation anyway.”

 “Well good then! I have to get back to work but you go and have fun, enjoy your last summer as a kid! Bye sweetheart!”

 “Bye dad.”

 With that (Y/N) hung up the phone and tucked it back into her pocket. Looking up she was met with the blank faces of her teammates.

 “What the hell was that about! Was that actually your dad?” Hara exclaimed.

 “Huh yeah. Sorry he kinda switches between voices depending on the subject matter.”

 “He sounds so nice though! Even when he was threatening it was for your sake!”

 “Yeah he’s a pretty good dad. Why what were you expecting?”

 “An evil CEO who had an affair, fathered a child but was forced to take you in to be the family’s heir. A carbon copy of you who refuses to acknowledge that because he is ashamed of his own mistake. Meanwhile he secretly not only cares about you deeply but about your mother as well.” Furuhashi answered a little too honestly.

 (Y/N) blinked at him owlishly before a loud laugh ripped through her body and she slammed a hand over her face.

 “Did you just rip my backstory straight from Ouran Highschool Host Club!?”

 “Well you are a harem protag. And you aren’t the broke one in the group so that left male lead’s backstory.”

 Hanamiya shot Furuhashi a glare for the broke comment but couldn’t let it bother him as (Y/N)’s laughter was taking up most of his brain function.

 “I’m sorry but I can’t! Its funny enough that someone like you would even have seen Ouran!”

 “I have no shame in admitting I wanted something to talk to you about. My little sister told me that one was a good place to start.” Furuhashi said with a slight blush coming onto his face and even more so when the girl took his hands into hers.

 “I appreciate the effort for trying to find some conversation topics for us! But in all honesty guys my dad has always been great to me! From what I’ve heard he used to be this real stoic, asshole, aggressive fuckboi type. But he was pretty smart, so he made it into a university, had me and was suddenly a family man overnight.”

 Stoic.

 Asshole.

 Aggressive.

 Fuckboi.

 Smart.

 The guys looked between each other clearly all thinking the same thing.

 “That actually explains a whole lot.” Seto said with almost a chuckle.

 “But then what’s with the illegitimate thing?” Hanamiya asked with no tact.

 “Dude!”

 “I’m just asking! Your mother’s the one who dragged that out and got it on the first page of Buzzfeed Japan. We kinda assumed your dad was the one who had you when he wasn’t supposed to.”

 “Yeah well…my situation is a bit more complicated than that.”

 “And what did he mean when he said you have a decision to make?” Hara asked.

 “Guuuuys! Please just let this be my beach episode and not my tragic backstory!”

 “She’s right.” Furuhashi said beginning to walk towards the hotel again. “A proper romcom needs a beach episode.”

 “Are we even considered a romcom at this point?” Seto asked with a roll of the eyes.

 “I don’t know, I feel like the comedy did drop off a few chapters back.”

 “Do you keep referring to events in our lives as chapters to be sarcastic or meta?”

~~~~~

 “So definitely a romcom.” Hanamiya mumbled as he sat on the blanket thrown out over the sand. “Only in a romcom do they stupidly book your hotel room wrong and only get us one suite instead of two. And of course, they’re sold out of other rooms.”

 “Ehh they gave us a cot so none of us have to sleep next to (Y/N). Besides she doesn’t seem to mind.” Hara commented with a shrug.

 “Of course not! She knows she’s gonna get one of the three actual beds and two of us will have to be on the cot or couch.”

 “Even if we got the two rooms one of us would have to have been on the couch anyway.”

 “Yeah but without her definitely taking one space it would have been easier to trick you into taking the cot.” Hanamiya joked tossing an ice cube from his drink onto the unsuspecting male’s bare chest.

 Hara jumped and flung the cold piece into the sand. He let out a laugh before looking at Hanamiya straight in the eye.

 “You know I missed having you around.”

 “Oh god I thought we were done with the BL portion of this anime.”

 “I’m being serious. I don’t know if you see us as more than just teammates, but I think all of us see you as our friend. And even before this shit with Zaki the team wasn’t the same without you there.”

 “Seto was doing a great job as the captain. You guys even made it through the rest of the Interhigh.”

 “Yeah but none of us would have even joined the team if it wasn’t for you. You invited Seto to play and I only thought it was cool when I saw you winning a game against the first years here. I asked Zaki to try out with me and Furuhashi said he was just trying to join anything, but I think he saw that basketball had some likeminded teammates and leaders.”

 “Whatever you say, just stop staring at me. Your eyes freak me out.”

 “Your eyeBROWS freak me out, but do I comment?” Hara laughed but his voice trailed off as he saw the figure behind Hanamiya. “What the fuck are you wearing?!”

 (Y/N) tilted her head innocently and eyed her clothes.

 “My swim clothes.”

 “It’s not cute at all! What kind of girl wears trunks and a t-shirt to the beach!? What is even the point of you!?”

 “Shut up the shirt is a cover, but the trunks stay on!” With that (Y/N) crossed her arms over her chest and grabbed the hem of her black t-shirt. Slowly she pulled it up, revealing her stomach and then her bikini-clad breasts. Once it was over her head she smirked at her male friends. “Yes, I did that on purpose. You guys need to take a cold dip?!”

 “Stupid.” Hanamiya mumbled out turning his attention back to the ocean.

 Furuhashi was suddenly behind the girl, having walked from the hotel room with Seto. He placed a hand on the small of her back and gave her a small smile.

 “Your skin is going to burn in this heat. Don’t forget to put sunscreen on okay?”

 “You’re right! Seto can you get my back for me?”

 Furuhashi’s head practically spun exorcism style, as he cursed himself for not just asking to put it on for her.

 Seto was red-faced but nodded quickly. The whole team scoffed as (Y/N) pulled a can of spray-on sunscreen from her bag.

 Once she was all misted up she immediately bolted to the water and dove in. The boys watched as she waved them in.

 “She’s weird.” Furuhashi commented. “It’s like 50% of the time she knows exactly what she’s doing and the other 50% she’s totally oblivious.”

 “Yeah and what’s up with her dad? You didn’t bother asking your mom about her?” Hara asked Seto who shook his head.

 “She refuses to hear or speak of her so no and my father has never been well versed in the who’s who of companies.”

 “I think maybe we are overlooking much of her situation here. We assumed her father was the bad guy and now we are assuming he isn’t the one with money because he seems to be a nice guy.” Furuhashi ponded aloud.

 “I don’t know I feel like maybe (Y/N) is keeping it to herself for a reason. I mean…when I was at her house, I saw this picture. It was of her and these kids and a woman in a wheelchair, I didn’t ask about it but you could tell they were in a hospital. With the comments my own mother threw at her I think it’s safe to assume…(Y/N)’s mother isn’t alive.”

 “I’ll admit I looked into the CEO of New Face and it’s some old ass dude, way too old to be her father. So, a grandfather or something? You think that he’s the one she keeps trying to impress and is even here in Japan for?” The lavender-haired male said burying his hand in the warm sand.

 “Guys!” All of them turned their heads to (Y/N), who was now dripping wet and waving at them. “Are you guys gonna stay on the beach gossiping or get in?!”

 Groaning, the boys looked to each other to see who would go and be the distraction while the rest continued their riveting conversation.

 “Oops! My bikini top untied!” (Y/N) called out pressing the fabric triangles to her chest while giggling. “Can one of you help me?!”

 The guys all tripped over themselves, none of them rushing into the water faster in their entire lives.

~~~~~

 “I think I got sunburned!” (Y/N) wined taking a huge bite out of a slice of watermelon that was sitting on top of her huge beach towel.

 “Then you should wear more clothes next time.” Hanamiya stated munching on his own piece of fruit.

 “Don’t tell her that! We still have three more days here!” Hara wined as he flipped over to let his back tan up some. “Besides tanlines are sexy.”

 “Not that you’ll get to see them.”

 “Shit I was talking about myself.”

 (Y/N) giggled before turning her head out to the ocean and being met with a sight that made a chuckle ripple through her chest. While Seto seemed to have gotten the hang of fishing, Furuhashi looked ready to throw in the towel.

 The taller was trying to help him cast his line, but the bait never seemed to want to travel more than a few inches from the pair. And the one time he had finally perfected the cast did Furuhashi realize he forgot to add his bait onto the hook.

 Now he just looked like he wanted to pick the rod up and snap it over his knee.

 “Not bad for a beach episode huh?” (Y/N) said turning to Hanamiya with a smile. Despite him helping her at school, his rejoining of the team and just being out here he was understandably distant from the girl. The male looked up from the novel he’d been reading momentarily, only to shrug.

 “I mean not ‘My Love Story’ good but definitely not ‘Another’ bad.”

 A shrill scream from the water drew everyone’s attention.

 “Ohh did I speak too soon?”

 (Y/N) stood up immediately, only to see Furuhashi practically halfway up Seto’s back. The tanned skin male didn’t seem to be fairing better as he seemed to be glued to his spot.

 “Get the fuck off! I’m gonna fall into the water and land on it!”

 Furuhashi shook his head, wrapped his arms around Seto’s neck tightly and hiked his legs up out of the water.

 “Carry me to the shore.”

 “I’m not one of your damned butlers! Get down and walk!”

 Curious, (Y/N) went running up to the water before wading closer. As Seto noticed her he looked suddenly very panicked.

 “Hey (Y/N), no no no get back okay?”

 “Why? What is it?”

 Lifting his face from Seto’s back Furuhashi looked (Y/N) in the eyes and for a moment she thought he would be embarrassed to let her see him like this.

 Nope.

 “(Y/N), you’re strong right? Carry me back to the shore.”

 “Guys what the hell- oh!” The girl smiled as she finally saw what it was her teammates were so scared of.

 A decently sized stingray seemed to be lurking around the sand, most likely waiting for it’s next meal. As if sensing the new person, the animal made a path around the front of Seto’s feet causing the man to run ghost pale.

 “Awww a sea pancake! What a little cutie!” (Y/N) suddenly gushed as she crouched down and tenderly lowered her hand into the water. The stingray stopped timidly before swimming closer, as she gently touched the top of it’s smooth body. “So adorable! Little flap-flap! My little ravioli!”

 “Good while she has it distracted, bolt it back to land.”

 “Dude you have no fucking spine.”

 “I have a spine; I just don’t need that thing’s in my ankle.”

 “Idiot, get the hell off me!”

 Seto jerked his arms back effectively tossing his friend off his back. Furuhashi splashed into the waist-deep water before coming up for air. (Y/N) shook her head as the antics scared off her little aquatic friend.

 “You guys are both idiots.”

 “At least we aren’t any worse off than those two.” Seto nodded back on the beach.

 Hara seemed to have snoozed off, not feeling his back being decorated with dozens of seashells, compliments of the two kids a few feet over.

 Hanamiya, however, seemed just a little worse off as he cowered under the huge towel.

 “Just take the fucking chips!” His voice bellowed out to the swarm of 6 seagulls hovering ominously over the spot they’d set up. Every now and then one would dive-bomb the covered male to try and peck at a single chip, before his jerking motion sent the bird back to hovering. “I will shoot you little shits down! Goddammit!”

~~~~~

 “I thought tanlines were sexy?” (Y/N) said teasingly, poking Hara’s back. His skin was reddened from the sun with pale sea-shell shaped patches promising an interesting tan.

 “Shut the fuck up! Why would you guys let them do me like that!? We’re supposed to be a team!”

 “Don’t be so dramatic! It’ll even out by the end of our vacation!”

 “This shit hurts! I need one of the beds since the cot is too rough and the couch is gonna rub against my burns.”

 “Hell no! I told you to put on sunscreen, you don’t get privileges because you’re stupid.” Hanamiya asserted quickly. “I called to get the reservation so I should get a bed.”

 “A lot of damn good that did us since we’re one room short.” Furuhashi said with a roll of the eyes. “Besides I have a medical condition. If I don’t sleep in an actual bed, I will start sleepwalking.”

 “That’s not a real condition!” Hara exclaimed.

 “It is. A dangerous one at that. I could sleepwalk off the balcony and we’re on the 17th floor.”

 “You got the whole damn hotel to sleepwalk around! If you walk off the 4ft balcony rail, that’s just natural selection!”

 “Look I think I deserve the second bed.” Seto finally spoke up. “I’m taller than all of you, the cot is too small and the couch is even worse.”

 “Then I’ll take the couch since I’m the smallest!” (Y/N) said with a big smile.

 All the guys looked at her, almost in disbelief. They’d figured she was assuming she would get one of the beds simply because she was a girl.

 “My cousins and I went on our first vacation together when we were kids and we’d rented a room with only one bed! My uncle, dad, two cousins and I all had to find a way to squeeze in. I slept on the couch with my baby cousin, but she and I made do! It was actually really fun and a good memory, so I don’t mind taking the couch! Besides it’s right by the balcony and I’ll be able to look out at the moon!”

 “Well…I guess that’s that.” Furuhashi commented instantly flopping onto one of the beds. “By height alone that means Hanamiya gets the cot.”

 “Fuuck, fine! But we’re switching off! Tonight I’ll take the cot and then tomorrow someone else takes it!”

 The boys all seemed to nod in agreement, and everyone situated into their own spots. Hara peered over to (Y/N) getting comfortable on the couch only to scoff loudly.

 “What is that thing!?”

 “Hmm? A pillow.”

 “Yeah but turn it over! No, way! I knew you were an otaku but I didn’t think it was this bad!” Hara continued to laugh as (Y/N)’s face grew red and she hugged the cushion closer to her. “Is that the guy from Attack on Titan? Oh shit you ACTUALLY have a body pillow!”

 “It was a gift! Besides I need something to throw my leg over at night!”

 “Well, if that’s the case my bed is open 24/7. Come throw your leg over me anytime!”

 “Shut up before I smoother you tonight!”

 “With your hump pillow? Umf!”

 Hara toppled off the bed as the pillow knocked straight into his face.

 (Y/N) had one hell of an arm, probably would have been better suited to be the baseball team’s manager.

~~~~~

 Hanamiya woke up, finally feeling the discomfort of knocking straight out in sweaty workout clothes. Glancing at his phone, he was surprised to see it was only 9:32.

 Tomorrow was their last day here and the team had decided to get some practice in. Needless to say they may have pushed themselves just a bit too hard as everyone crashed at about 7.

 He figured he should probably shower and change his clothes, maybe the bed sheets too. Turning his head slightly he was taken aback to find the couch empty. Furuhashi was on the cot tonight and his other two teammates were in their beds so where was (Y/N)? Had she woken up?

 The dark-haired male listened for the sounds of the shower running but nothing. Stretching his arms above his head, he figured she must have gone to grab a drink downstairs or something. Shuffling his feet out of the bed, Hanamiya stifled a yawn before a cool breeze caressed his ankles.

 Looking up he noticed the sliding glass door to the balcony slightly agar.

 But focusing just beyond the glass was a sight that made his heart stop.

 (Y/N) was sitting on the railing of the balcony, feet dangling over the edge, her head tilted up to look at the night sky.

 His mind was screaming to walk out there calmly, that anything too quick would scare her, make her fall. But his body was already running, throwing open the sliding door.

 The girl had no time to even turn around before Hanamiya gripped her hard around the waist and practically tackled her to the ground of the balcony. (Y/N) was staring up into the deepest storm imaginable. Hanamiya’s eyes bore into her own as he held her down.

 “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” He shouted in her face. “Is that why you had this idea to come on a vacation? To let us all make you happy only for you to go and kill yourself!? Do you have any idea how fucking selfish that is!?”

 “Makoto-”

 “No! Shut up; I’m fucking talking! How could you even think about ending your life when you’ve been trying to convince us for nearly a fucking year now that ours are so great! And don’t give me any anime protagonist shit! You aren’t a character you’re a real fucking person! You bulldoze into our fucking lives, find out what’s wrong in it and then start trying to fix it. But the second any of us want to help you, to know you, you shut it out. And this? You would have died because we couldn’t help you.”

 (Y/N) was surprised when she felt a small moist drop hit her jaw. Maybe it was beginning to rain, maybe Hanamiya was crying. The light of the moon was too dim for an answer.

 “I wasn’t going to throw myself off. I just thought it’d be kind of a thrill to feel the breeze on my legs and face.”

 “I’m not a fucking moron! It’s called passive suicidal ideation.”

 “You’re wron-”

 “You can’t lie to me, I’ve been dealing with it myself for 10 fucking years! The feeling that you wont jump out of the way of a car, or that you’ll go out with potentially dangerous strangers for some cash, or that you’ll purposely piss off entire teams of people knowing one could eventually beat you within an inch of your life, or picking a fight with four guys when you know you can’t fucking win. I know it! We’re doing different things but we’re looking for the same result.”

 “I don’t want to kill myself.”

 “But you want to die.”

 (Y/N) felt the familiar pressure building behind her eyes.

 “I’m sorry but why do you care?! You haven’t even spoken to me much on this trip. Why did you come help me with those guys? Why do you care about Yamazaki hating me? Why do you care if I want to die!?”

 “Because I’m never wrong. If you kill yourself, then I will be.”

 “Wrong about what?”

 “About you. You were nothing to me when I met you, just Hara’s stupid conquest. From the beginning I knew once Mako was gone so were you. But then you made the decision to leave on your own, not giving a damn what I or any of the guys thought and I thought maybe you were strong. Then when you chose to come back not because of us and in spite of your boyfriend, I knew it was true. But…”

 “But?”

 “You have both impressed and disappointed me ever since. You called Hara on his shit, gave Furu some hard advice, stood up to me and Young-Mi but then you go and let everyone at school say shit about you. You let them make things up and then sulk about it. And now you’re just going to die because you’re too weak to fight for yourself. I thought you were like us, that you were different from every other weak ass female that won’t stand up for herself!”

 “I’m not weak! Being strong doesn’t mean getting revenge or being angry about it but you wouldn’t know that, would you!” (Y/N) growled out finally pushing Hanamiya off and sitting up, pressing her back to the balcony wall. “I’ve been strong for a long time; I’ve lived this life for 9 years…maybe I’m getting tired of living it.”

 “It’s not revenge to fucking defend yourself. But you’re here wanting to die because some people are calling you a slut?”

 “Because of everything! Because I keep getting reminded that I don’t belong here and everything I’ve done while I’ve been here in Japan is coming back to haunt me! Why don’t you understand that, you fucking asshole! You don’t know me or my life!”

 “Because you don’t let me! You don’t let anybody so stop yelling at me like I’m supposed to know!” Hanamiya said growling back at her. Breathing out heavily he ran a hand through his hair and looked into the room. Surprisingly the team was still sleeping, being too tired to have heard their hushed yelling match. “What is so wrong in your life that you can’t tell someone you know the worst things about? You the outcast in your family or what? Because that’s kind of the whole team.”

 “No…I’m one step worse. You wanna know my life? I’m the daughter of an outcast.”

 “Your father?”

 “My mother. It’s simple really…my maternal grandfather had four children; three from the woman he married and one from a drunk night on a business trip.”

 “And I can guess which one was your mom.”

 “Yeah, she was used as blackmail for 7 years. It worked at first, but her family kept demanding more and eventually my grandfather put his foot down. All the newspapers were talking about New Face’s owner’s affair and hidden daughter. The mistress never lived to see any money; it was deemed a suicide due to guilt, but some people don’t believe that.”

 Hanamiya hung on to every word the girl said.

 “My grandfather did the only thing that made sense for his reputation…take my mother in and raise her. That went about as well as you would expect. Nobody cared for her except …the youngest of his legitimate children, Shoko. I guess they just had a lot in common two girls who knew they would never have anything because one was illegitimate and the other behind two heirs.”

 (Y/N)’s face almost grew a smile as she reflected on the woman who would be considered her aunt. Turning to Hanamiya she raised a brow at him as if to ask if he was still following.

 “But things never really worked out like they were supposed to. My grandfather’s only son, the eldest, died in an accident when he was 19. His eldest daughter, next in line had to have an emergency hysterectomy…no uterus, no heir, no place leading the company. Of course, that left Shoko, but she made the greatest mistake of all. She fell in love with a merchant in rural Osaka and against her father’s wishes got married, eventually she had a son and then a daughter.”

 “So, that means it left your mother to lead the company.”

 “That’s what she figured too. She’d been trying for years to impress everyone and was away at an American university. When she heard Shoko stepped down, she was already booking her tickets to Japan, but she started to not feel well. All the stress from everything…she never even noticed the symptoms and by the time she did doctors said it was too late for an abortion. She tracked it back to a one-night stand during a college party, one where she hooked up with an asshole frat boy.”

 “Your dad.” Hanamiya nodded his head, not forgetting her mentioning her dad having a not so favorable background.

 “According to my paternal grandparents the man did a 180 and began doting on my mother, offered to marry her and start a family. She kept pushing for adoption. In the end it wasn’t a full 36 hours after having me that she was flying back to Japan on her family’s private plane.”

 “What? She just left you, never considered bringing her only child with her to another country?”

 “Of course, not…I wasn’t supposed to exist, so nobody knew I did. She left my dad a check and no way of contacting her.”

 “But clearly that didn’t stay the case since you’re here. What changed?”

 “Shoko. She got sick and my mother ended up spilling everything to her. Apparently, she requested to meet her only niece.” Hanamiya saw tears come to (Y/N)’s eyes but she quickly wiped them away. “So, they found me and talked my father into flying me out to Japan, said it would be good for me to meet my family. My aunt was the most amazing person I ever met. Then almost as soon as I got her…she was gone.”

 “That was the woman in the picture Seto was talking about.” Hanamiya mused aloud trying to string everything together. “So, we assumed your mom was the dead one…where is she?”

 “…You met her in the hospital.”

 “That fucking bitch is your mother? The guys told me what she did to you in front of them and she came in to my room to apologize and shit talk you more. She just abandons you for nine years, suddenly pulls you from your home and then treats you like shit when you’re here?”

 “She hates me, Makoto. Before I came here she held no feelings for me but once I arrived she grew to despise me more and more. I’ve wanted to get away from her for nine years but I’ve never been able to.”

 “Why not? You aren’t happy here…The guys would miss you if you go. Hell, I want you to stay. But it doesn’t matter what I want. If you’re happier in America, that’s where you should be.”

 “Do you know why I’m the next heir to New Face? Because my grandfather swore my mother would NEVER have it. When I came to meet Shoko, I couldn’t be hidden from him. The moment her saw me he knew what he would do. He was going to use me…groom me into being the ultimate slap in the face to my mother. To outsiders he seemed kind and promised me the world all while his hand gripped my shoulders so hard, I bruised. Smiling while he whispered that I was a burden to my father and that agreeing to take over the company was the only way to repay him. He hated me too, but he hated my mother more.”

 “So, your grandfather only named you heir to New Face to spite your mother. The reason you’re here in Japan and the only person who would have remotely treated you well is dead. And your mother hates you because in her mind her father is seemingly giving you the two things she never got from him; love and the company. That’s uhh…” Hanamiya was for once truly at a loss for words. So, of course the only words coming out of his mouth were utter rubbish. “That just sounds like Tamaki’s backstory with extra steps.”

 (Y/N), who once looked like she wanted to cry, now held a blank face. Hanamiya stared back unsure of what to say next. Sure it was insensitive but it was either that or a ‘that’s rough, buddy.’

 To his surprise the girl snorted loudly, covering her mouth she stifled a laugh. She held her sides as laughter rippled through her. Hanamiya was awestruck as he witnessed the girl laughing harder than he’d seen her in a while.

 “I guess Furu wasn’t too far off then huh? You are the last person I would expect this much anime knowledge from.”

 “When you’re as smart as I am sometimes you gotta read dumb shit just to keep yourself sane. Sorry I don’t have anything better to say to you.”

 “That’s okay. Sorry I called you an asshole.”

 “Ehh you did when I first asked you to be manager and I have consistently proven I am one.”

 “Why did you ask me? To be manager that is. I know everything about you wasn’t rumours. Shoichi, Ryo, Daiki…all of them told me about you. When I got to know you I realized they were right. You’re a mentally fucked up genius so what caused you to go soft?”

 “Soft? I think you were giving me too much credit. You weren’t scared of me. I’ve had a few of girlfriends in the past and all were terrified of me. At first, they had no personal reason to feel that way about me so I gave them one. They wanted a bad boy and they got one. I’m not proud of it but it was what it was. My mother, my girlfriends, pretty much every woman in my life has been fearful of me. But you…you knew everything they did, yet you were never scared.”

 “You let me be manager because you liked that I wasn’t scared of you?”

 “I wanted you as our manager because I couldn’t scare you away and I wanted to know why. Turns out its just because you’re stupid.”

 “Stupid!?”

 “Yeah haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘only fools are fearless’?”

 “I’m not fearless I’m scared of things too.”

 “Like what? You put on this ‘I don’t need anyone, I can fix my life and everyone else’s on my own’ façade. What will you actually admit to being scared of?”

 “Ruining someone’s life.”

 Hanamiya turned his head towards the girl to observe her face, it was a thousand miles away.

 “And by that you mean?”

 “My father was premed; he was going to be an orthopedic surgeon but when he had me it was impossible to keep up. I know deep down that if my mother had been able to return to Japan sooner, her father would have been such a mess over what was happening with his kids that he would have given her the company. I wonder all the time if maybe I talked Furu into not standing up to his mother, encouraged Hara to give up on trying to fix his eyes, strained yours and Seto’s relationships with your moms, and maybe I ruined things with Mei for Yamazaki. I just feel like I shouldn’t be here…not just in Japan but in this existence.”

 “You, just like everyone else on this earth had no say in being born. Either we are all meant to be here or none of us are. Regardless it doesn’t matter, life chose us. I get it, I know what its like to feel you shouldn’t have been born. People get pregnant when they don’t want to, shit happens.”

 “Trust me I’m very aware. Everything just happens so fast and now I know you guys heard my dad talking about the decision. I’m scheduled to publicly accept my position and be the new CEO for New Face once I graduate.”

 “What’s waiting for you if you don’t?”

 “I don’t know yet. Maybe everything or maybe I start back at square one. I’ve been building myself and my future for five years. I’ve done so much to get where I wanted to be. I used paid dating as a means to earn my own money and…I don’t regret a second of it. I want to get to the top on my own and have to hurt nobody else in the process.”

 A sudden faint knocking snapped the two teens out of their chat. Hanamiya stood up and walked back into the room with (Y/N) trotting along behind him. Opening the hotel door, he peered out looking especially angry.

 The young lady on the other side smiled wearily.

 “I am sorry for the late intrusion, but we had noted in our records that we made an error in booking your rooms. A gentleman on the floor above had to leave suddenly on business and his room is now free. It is one king size bed; I have brought you the key so please feel free to use it. Have a nice night.”

 (Y/N) yawned loudly before smiling to her teammate.

 “Awesome! Now you get the new room and I can have your bed! Sleeping on the couch is a good memory but my body wants to stretch out.” The young woman was surprised as she began walking back to the bed only for Hanamiya to gently grab her by the wrist.

~~~~~

 Hara could feel the morning sun shining through the windows but only scrunched his eyes tighter in hopes of getting a few more hours of sleep. As his body shifted, he felt the presence of another beside him.

 Letting out what probably sounded like a smug chuckle. He knew eventually (Y/N) would accept his offer to crawl into his bed. Slinging an arm around their torso he pulled them into his embrace.

 A deep grunt from the person made Hara’s eyes snap open instantly.

 (Y/N) and Hanamiya, who were just about to open the door, heard two loud screams followed by a whole lot of racket.

 “Guess the guys are up.” Hanamiya said, unlocking and pushing open the door. He was greeted with Hara sprawled across the floor in horror and Furuhashi sitting up in bed pulling the covers over his bare chest.

 “Uhhh what’s going on, guys?” (Y/N) asked trying to make sense of the scene.

 “Ugh if you guys were gonna experiment couldn’t you have at least given me a heads up to get out of the room?” Seto scoffed pulling the covers over his own head.

 “We weren’t doing anything!” Hara yelled out, totally red in the face.

 “Besides if I wanted to experiment, I have much better options than him.” Furuhashi said smoothing his hair down. “I told you I sleepwalk and you were the one pulling me closer.”

 “You said you’d sleepwalk off the balcony not into my bed! I thought you were (Y/N)! Where the hell were you two anyway?!”

 “A spare room opened up and the hotel management felt bad about messing up that they let us use it for the night. Makoto had me on practical suicide watch so he insisted I share the room with him.” (Y/N) said with an unusual flush on her cheeks.

 “What!? You got to share a room with her? Alone!” Hara whined flopping fully onto the floor.

 “How many beds?” Furuhashi questioned.

 “Wow, I’m like right here.” (Y/N) retorted, not missing the asshole smirk on Hanamiya’s face.

 “One.”

 “But there was a pull-out couch!”

 “Yeah and that was the only thing in the room pulling out. Fuck!” The black-haired male felt the wind get knocked out of him as (Y/N)’s fist collided with his chest; her cute giggle sounding just threatening enough.

~~~~~

 Aomine listened to the girl ramble on. He had no idea who she was or how the hell she found out they would be practicing today.

 Truth be told he didn’t care much about her anyway and she only seemed interested in one particular player. But the mention of (Y/N)’s name was enough to get him listening.

 Not even involved in the gossip scene he’d heard a fair deal about what had been going on at KiriDai with her. The same rumours, truths mixed with lies, that had driven her out of Touou had resurfaced. Nothing he hadn’t heard, nothing she ever tried to hide from her team, cousin, or boyfriend.

 “Nobody at Kirisaki Daiichi knew she had a boyfriend from her old school. So, we never thought anything about it when she started…doing things with the basketball team. I just thought you would like to know that you did right breaking up with her. She was cheating on you.”

 That…sounded like a load of bullshit. When they saw her during the WinterCup last year, that was the face of someone truly still in love with their ex. And her chemistry with the KiriDai boys, though strong didn’t read as sexual. For that matter why bring it up now?

 Aomine knew his teammate was smarter than that. His mental strength was above average, his logical side should have won out. The sound of his raised voice let him know this wouldn’t be the case.

 “I knew it.” His voice came out through gritted teeth. Spinning towards his team, the young man raged on. “Everyone told me when I first met her that it was a mistake to date her, but I didn’t want to believe them. I let all of her past go! I helped her out when she told me all her problems with her mother, I stood by whatever she wanted to do with her future, accepted when she left me to transfer schools. I wanted to stay together, I wanted to marry her! I told her that when she got pregnant!”

 “Just be quiet!” Momoi suddenly shouted out, her voice reverberating in the gym.

 Everyone in the room grew whisper silent.

 Deep coloured eyes grew wide, realizing what he’s just said. But turning his head, Mei was already gone.

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

Emu centric Emu/Parad/Hiiro/Kiriya (and anyone else you could possibly imagine) 20? Just give the boy some love?

Anon, what the hell, this is adorable, shit. 20 is my choice, but given that you’ve asked for a series of kisses I don’t know that I’ll list them all. Also, you’re correct, Emu needs kisses. Boy’s got the trauma.

None of them are birthday people, and holidays are too easy to forget after the long nights and longer days they've all spent working towards a cure. They've got so few reasons to celebrate, and so many to keep working, that when something finally does come up, Poppy goes a little overboard. So there are balloons in the CR meeting room, and confetti, and a cake that says, "Vaccine trials succeed!" with a little hypo drawn on it in icing. In concession to the fact that they're all adults, though, there's also beer, and the toasting starts relatively early.

Kiriya starts it. Of course he does. He sounds serious, but it's somewhat undercut by the frosting on his nose. "I propose a toast. To Kagami Hiiro, our best surgeon--the best surgeon, 'scuse me--for doing way more of the operations than the rest of us so we could keep the research going."

They toast. Hiiro doesn't blush, quite, but he looks like he's thinking about blushing, which is as close as he normally gets anyway. Not to be outdone, once the drinks have been set down he raises his own and says, "And to the co--to Kujou Kiriya, for working far longer hours in the pathology lab than anyone else was capable of."

Glasses clink.

"To be fair, I don't need to sleep."

"Well, we do." Taiga stares into his beer, looking exhausted. "We appreciate it. To...to Nico and Poppy, for having better bedside manner than Kagami ever has."

Hiiro makes an offended noise, but Emu grins. "And Parad, official Seito therapy Bugster!"

Parad looks up in surprise from where he's perched on the back of the couch with a slice of cake. "We're saying nice things about me?"

Nico sticks her tongue out at him, although fondly. "We're saying nice things about your Rubix cube stuff. We should also toast Taiga for putting up with all those blood draws."

The toasting continues for several minutes, until it's Poppy who finally says, cheerfully, "You know who I think deserves congratulations?"

Everyone turns to look at her, Nico's forehead wrinkling as she says, "Who?"

"To Emu. For putting up with the software engineers so that none of you had to." She leans over and plants a rather motherly kiss square in the center of Emu's forehead.

Kiriya blinks. "Oh, we're kissing now? That's what's happening?"

"Well, I don't have a drink, I can't really toast him."

"No, I can work with that, not like I don't kiss him all the time anyway." Kiriya grins, grabs the collar of Emu's coat, and kisses him solidly on the mouth. "To you, babe, for saving us all from programmers."

Nico gets up on her chair and leans across the table before Kiriya's even let go. "This is a one-time thing, ok?" She kisses Emu on the nose. "We will never speak of this again."

Emu blinks up at her, looking slightly dazed. "Ok...? I'm feeling. I'm feeling loved."

"I feel like I should object to this obvious character assassination on behalf of programmers everywhere."

Everyone jumps--mostly backwards, except for Kiriya, who hops to his feet instead and swats at Dan Kuroto with a magazine as if he's a housefly. "Get off the goddamn table, what the hell."

"Would you rather I came out of a pipe again?" Kuroto rolls his eyes. "What I was saying was, I should obviously be objecting to your malicious mischaracterization of programmers everywhere, but I've managed too many dev teams to say that you're wrong." He kisses Emu on the top of the head, like a benediction, and then disappears back behind his curtain.

"Ok, what, what the hell was, that stung!" Emu turns towards the curtain, eyes wide with surprise, and directly into Parad's grinning face. Parad kisses him nearly as solidly as Kiriya and then fizzes back over to the couch. "All right, everyone's kissing me now, I guess that's just my life." He doesn't look unhappy about it.

"I'm certainly not kissing you."

Nico elbows Taiga in the ribs. "No, if I did it you have to." And then, at Taiga's dry peck on Emu's cheek, "Oh, come on, that was a grandma kiss."

Taiga makes a face at her. "I'm not doing it again."

“I’m not asking you to, I’m just saying you could’ve made an effort.”

Emu takes a sip of his beer, pink-faced. “I mean nobody has to kiss me. Not that I’m saying don’t but it’s not. Like. Required.”

“Little late for that, babe, I think the only person here who hasn’t kissed you is Hiiro. Which, come on, doc, you gonna or do I have to do it again? Because I’ll kiss him again, obviously, but you haven’t gotten a turn.”

“Kiriya, don’t bug him about it--”

Hiiro kisses him, lengthily and with focus. Nico and Kiriya both whistle, and then bump fists across the tabletop. Parad lets out a delighted whoop, and Poppy an, “Oh!” Taiga just stares at them, and then at his beer, as if he’s worried that it might have been drugged.

After a moment, Hiiro sits back, brushes himself off primly, and says, “Pass me another slice of cake, please.”

Emu just sits there, stunned. Kiriya says, “Damn, that was a lot.”

“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it well.”

[originalpistol]

༺ ⁝ 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒟𝑒𝓋𝒾𝓁,  𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. ⁝ ༻ Shades upon shades of pastel pink passed by my eyes in multiple different fabrics. Lace? Overused, still sexy, but overused. Velvet? Perhaps but it would need to be [real] if [I] was going to place this piece in my line. Felt? Fuck no. God, what a travesty that shit would be. Leather? There were two competitors, that I knew of, who were planning to incorporate leather into their “signature” lines, and if anyone knew me? They knew I was bound to blow their lines out of the water, and drown them. Not to say it wasn’t a difficult task; I wouldn’t be sweating over it. Deep blue eyes wandered over all of the fabrics that were sitting right at my fingertips, and slowly I let that gaze rise up to each person that held these panels. With a swift flick of the wrist I dismissed two fabrics from the room, and nodded to the remaining four. A smile of absolute certainty casted in against my features, and I nodded the four of them to take their seat at the designing table for this morning’s meeting with Christian Dior. “Go. Now. I want each of you seated at that table in [ten] minutes. Fabrics and swatches, no exceptions. You mess this up — even the [slightest] mistake? You can gather your belongings and leave,” I called out over my slender, black-clad shoulder. Of course, everyone knew how I operated by now, and if they didn’t? There would be someone in this studio that would brief them before I laid eyes on them. That’s the way I liked it. When you’re at the top of the hill, you get other people to do the minuscule things for you, and Lord knows I wasn’t one to train a rookie. Not in this lifetime, at least. Those days were long gone, and I would rather be shot square in the temple than to backslide into that pathetic existence, again. The familiar sound of their feet shuffling behind me, making their way to gather all of what was needed, caused a knowing smirk to form in where the smile had once been. Time to get this year’s line underway, and ready to go for the September release. For years now, I had been in close cahoots with Mister Dior, and I wasn’t about to waste that type of talent, or let some other company attempt to yank at his sketchbook. That was [my] job. In an ease of motion I began to thumb through my mother’s old sketches before I settled at the one I’d been saving for the right time. For the right artist. Dior was my prized penny in a stack of bent up nickels and dimes. Gentle fingers swept against the old tattered pages of this book for a moment as I thanked my mother for this gift I’d been given twelve years prior. Eyes fell closed for this second in time before I nodded, folding the book back to hide this page even though I knew it would open right back up. Perhaps with old wounds. Perhaps with a whole lot of hate. Who knew? Ringlets of Chestnut and Dark Chocolate locks framed my shoulders, and fell against my back as I made my way towards the room surrounded with glass walls, and a priceless view of Seattle. I could feel the eyes of all those who sat in the studio focus on me, and instead of acknowledging their angst, I simply flashed a brief smirk. Some young girl held the door open for me as I entered the room and an immediate smile washed into play as Christian stood to hug me. Small embrace, and that was it. Nodding, I stood at the head of the table, setting the book on the table and turning my attention to all who sat before me. “This year I want things to change. I want to create a line that screams to be pleased. That begs those who wear it to be taken at their weaknesses, but in that, to be [used] but only if [they] say to do so. Now, you all probably assume that will have to follow suit with bondage, submission, and dominance. To that I say — you are [wrong]. This has to do with vulnerability, and you might wonder what in the hell does that have to do with lingerie? Everything. You have to open a new side of you to place these clothes on you. To present yourself as a present for whomever, and that is our ticket in. That is how we are going to wipe our competitors off the slate. This is the year of Provocation by Pistol. Welcome Mr. Dior, and feel free to take a look at everything we’ve got in store for you. There are fabrics there that many wouldn’t dare to place in a lingerie line, much less as a primary focus, but I would. I want to see Velvet made completely of Silk, Dupioni Silk, Lamé, and Embroidered Organza. I want [you] to incorporate each of these into my line this year, and I want you to do so making new renditions of my mother’s sketches. Make them your own, but more importantly, darlin’ — Make me love them.” 𝑶𝒉, 𝒚𝒆𝒔. I could tell by the way he raised a brow towards me that his interest had been piqued, and I had ultimately won signing Christian Dior onto this year’s line. Too bad Daddy was wrong when he told me a, “bullshit little lingerie line won’t get you anywhere big.” I loved him, but he underestimated the power of a woman’s sex appeal far too much. Though I supposed it had to be hard for such an ‘upstanding, tight-lipped’ man such as himself to ever think of his daughter in that dedication. Shame. He could’ve had a hand in being a partner, but he’d lost that right many years back. Perfectly manicured fingers used the glass table as leverage as I pushed myself back, coming to stand just as I flashed Dior with a sardonic little smile. Nodding once towards him as to let him know I would see him in my office as soon as he had briefed my team on what he would like to do. I wasn’t about to show my entire team the works of my mother; too many eyes are too many chances to be betrayed. Christian stood just as I made my way from the room, and sauntered up the nearing stairs to my office. The only room on the entire top floor of my studio, though there were many upon many floors beneath. Twenty, to be exact. I bought this building on my nineteenth birthday, my third year of unrivaled success as a model in New York City. Coincidentally; my first year as a designer was my last year as a model, though I could easily reclaim my spot on the runway if I wished. I decided long ago that I wanted to be the name on the clothes rather than the name in the clothes. By trade, this is how I came to know [many] of the talented and entitled designers, artists, and models. So I used my time on the runway to aide into my own fashion empire. Much as I had used my father’s colleagues, friends, and social tree to find all of those to invest not only in my company but in me. To believe in [me.] Worked like a charm. Daddy, on the other hand, was a completely different story. Being a model was one thing, but being the face and name behind a billion dollar luxury lingerie line? Fuck me, I might as well have become a prostitute on the corner of Monterrey Square in Historic Savannah. That would’ve been less disgraceful to my father’s eyes than what I was currently becoming. What I was [creating] for the whole world to view, and part of me hated his self-righteous bullshit. Mama never would have done that. She wouldn’t have done all to me as he had; she wouldn’t have allowed her friends to lay their hands against her only child. Her only [daughter]. These thoughts echoed throughout my mind as I felt my fingertips dig down into the denim fabric of my Marc Jacobs denim jacket, almost far enough to pierce through the mastered stitches. Anger didn’t begin to cover the searing pain that etched in against my heart. This was why I worked so goddamn hard. To be able to say I had become more than John Hale. The most influential man to walk the streets of Savannah since Jim Williams. A man who took the world for granted, and treated people like disposable resources. Yes, Daddy, use everyone who ever loved you, and throw caution to the wind when it comes to their feelings. How smart. Ocean inspired eyes rolled back at the thought alone, and I tilted my head to the side just as I opened the leather bound sketchbook. A small, subdued smile coming into play as I let my fingers glide in against the drawing. It was almost as if my eyes had glazed over in a daze as I felt the familiar strokes of my mother’s pencil, and I simply sat back in my seat. Wonder filled my mind as I let my mind drift off to the thought of where she was. Where my father had placed her when I was twelve years old. The year he found out that I was ‘afflicted’ with lusting for others. That I wanted to be in an industry so highly controversial, and that his little girl wanted to walk the runway. He saw it as my mother’s fault since she spent most of her days that turned into nights, and back to day, piecing together her drawings. Making them come to life in her tiny ass attic apartment that was our secret. He knew of her dream to become a designer. What he didn’t know was that she had found the little silver key to the attic the same year I was born, and from then on? That was where she went to find solace. To comfort herself in her darkest days, and where she taught me how to be something he never could —ｓｔｒｏｎｇ. “𝙰 𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚜 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝, 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚗𝚘 𝚏𝚞𝚛𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚠𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍.” I could still hear her sweet voice speaking to me from behind her wire mannequin as she pinned the dress in place. She would always make sure to peek around whatever masterpiece she had been working on, just to make sure I heard her quote Congreve but with her own touch. Maybe she didn’t realize it then, but I always paid attention when she spoke. Little did I know then, but I would always wonder if I subconsciously knew Daddy was going to throw her away the moment he found out. I did always have a knack for being able to predict certain outcomes, and perhaps a piece of me did know that particular fact of life. After all, by the age of fifteen I knew all the plays in my father’s playbook. 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑶𝒏𝒆: Create a “lasting” relationship. 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑻𝒘𝒐: Mind fuck them to the best of your abilities. Find out their weaknesses and their quirks. Figure out why they are in their position of power, and [how] they got there — that’s arguably the most important piece of information you can have against someone you plan to overcome. Once you know how they built themselves up to where they now stand; you’ll be able to see how to tear them down. Stone by stone. 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆: Take your time throwing the stones of their lives away. You do [not] want to rush this, if you do they will catch on. They will see that you aren’t a friend after all, and that you are only in this for yourself. You are using them as your next step in the game. 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑭𝒐𝒖𝒓: Keep a distance, but not too much of a distance to raise suspicion. Make sure they know you “care” about what they’re going through. Hell, even offer your help if you feel it’ll help you step up your game. Build trust quicker than you tear it down. 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑭𝒊𝒗𝒆: Be still and know. Make moves behind closed doors. Nothing leaks to the press. Nothing leaves the table of which pages are signed [until] whomever you are fucking is already too far buried to fight back. Make sure anything you have done has been covered. There are no tracks. Be still in what you have finalizing. Know that there is nothing to unravel your own work. 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑺𝒊𝒙: Bury that motherfucker quicker than a lawyer who has something to hide. These are the six quintessential steps to overcoming [anyone] who dares to challenge a Hale. Especially if there is a threat involved. My father instilled these rules of the game from the time I was old enough to play a decent game of chess, with the logic that if I could outsmart a grown man at the age of thirteen; I could overcome any business tactic with a little grit and grace. Too bad I never liked to follow the rules. I play at my own expense, with my own rules, and at the hands of no mercy — for a mercy rule is a weak man’s way out. ⁝༺༻⁝ The familiar sound of knuckles against my office door quickly grasped my attention from the previous thoughts, and snatched me back to reality. It took a moment to fully refocus myself on the task at hand, and I nodded to the man who stood six foot three in the doorway. “C’mon in, Dior. I’ve got somethin’ to show you,” I called out in a clear, concise southern draw. Letting my gaze settle against him as he made his way over, straightening out his suit as seen fit. Once he had taken a seat across from me, and I flashed a small but noticed smile in his direction before I turned my mother’s sketchbook towards him. Taking a moment before I thumbed through to fourteen different designs. All a completely different style; all equally as challenging as anything else he had ever created. After I let him take the book into his own hands, to study the drawings, I began to speak once again. “What I want [you] to do is to take these and make them your own, but with remnants of her. My mother. She was quite the artist, without a platform, without a voice into the world of fashion alike. It’s time to break the ice. I want you to use only four fabrics to create something unimaginable. Bear in mind, every one of these looks will have to be transformed into lingerie, and every look will pair with leather boots made by Christian Louboutin; you’re free to contact him to work amongst yourselves on the scheme. However, I will want restraints to match, and perhaps whips. Something to keep the edge alive, to fight the competitors on their ‘love me leather’ pursuit. Like I said — make me love them.” His emerald eyes stayed fixated on me for nearly five minutes before he nodded a very slow nod of understanding. Perplexed; to say the least, I’m sure. Though his smile lead me to believe he was more than happy to do as I had demanded, and instead of speaking he began in against the sketches once more. Studying each detail in their design just to look back up at me, and finally he broke the silence, “These are beautiful. Such a elegant touch she had to the designs; I wouldn’t touch that. There are things I will refuse to change, and others you will never recognize as your mother’s — they will be my own. You will be proud Miss Alice, and you [will] love them. I am a man of my word.” The certainty of his voice made a smirk creep in against my lips despite the satisfaction I got out of knowing he was pleased with my idea. Then and again; who wouldn’t be? With a nod to him, I moved to my feet to shake his hand as if to non-verbally seal the deal, and just as he went to tuck my mother’s sketchbook beneath his arm, I shook my head. “I think not. Her book stays in the studio. It does not leave the premises; there will be no exceptions. However, my assistant can and will make any and all accommodations you need to be comfortable here. There is a whole extension to this studio that comes off the fifteenth floor — in the back. It should be big enough to fit your needs, and if not? You come to me. We will work something out.” With that in the air, he smiled rather warmly towards me before sliding the book back onto my desk. Without a word he stepped into me, gracing my cheek with a gentle peck to show respect for my wishes, and as a friendly goodbye before stepping away. I waited until he had made his exit to slip my mother’s most prized work into my locked drawer, though once secure I made my way from the office. Smiling at the familiar clink of my heels against the marble floors — Oh how I loved that sound. I waved a hand in the direction of those who were still at work on the floor before thanking them briefly, and explained deadlines to the few who were in the meeting. For a moment I had to double check myself to make sure there was nothing I was forgetting to say or do, but ultimately I turned on my heel and headed for the elevator. Tucking my phone into my purse as I walked, a somber smile came into sight as I stepped onto the glass box, pressing in the ground level button, and once the doors slid closed? I ran a hand back through my thick locks, nodding to myself as I knew where I had to go next. What I had to do. Who I had to go see. Ding! The doors slid open in what seemed like no time, and I sauntered through the lobby and directly for the car that awaited my arrival just to dismiss my driver instead of taking my usual ride to my temporary home on Bainbridge Island. With a heavy breath falling from my lips, I followed back to retrieve my Bentley where I slipped comfortably in against the leather seats before bringing the car to life. It only took a few seconds before I was pulling away from my studio and heading to the outskirts of Seattle to Northern State Sanatorium. After an hour and a half later, I found myself pulling into the dreary confines of this institution’s parking lot, and for a moment? I couldn’t help but to wonder what kind of horrific shit might linger deep within the walls of this building. There wasn’t a smile to be had here, and that much was evident. Nodding to myself, a silent confirmation that I needed to do this because if I didn’t do it now? I never would. Minutes passed as I sat in the car, breathing...just breathing before I slipped away from the car. My purse hung from the crook of my elbow just as I sauntered towards the door, and much to my surprise? It was a mechanical door instead of something wretched as I assumed it would be. That’s reassuring, at least I noted to myself just as I made my way to the front desk where a sliding window opened and a blonde woman of about sixty years sat. She looked over me for awhile before finally asking for my name and for the name of whom I was coming to see. 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈. “Alice Katherine Hale, I’m here to see my mother; Josephine Alice Hale.”

[spiralledcupid]

On the Upswing p1

Parings: None/Undecided

Words: 2,593

Synopsis: Giran makes a joke about Toga needing a responsible adult to join the League of Villains. Unfortunately, she takes him seriously. Even worse, the only responsible adult she can think of is a demon. Or the ‘Dabi is a Demon’ AU. 

.

.

It’s dark with clouds and the threat of thunder when Toga skips into the office. She’s in her best cardigan, the one without the stains, and her earbuds are playing her “<3 JOY <3” playlist, for added confidence. She knows Giran, but only as the voice on the other side of her phone. Now she’s meeting him, she wants to be as peppy and upbeat as possible, then maybe he’ll like her!

She wants Giran to like her. It’s not often she gets an offer like this, where they actually like what she does.

Grinning to herself, Toga raps sharply on the door, then gives it a merry shove open.

As soon as he sees her, the man behind the desk smashes his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, waving the smoke away from her. It doesn’t stop them smell.

“Hi! I’m Toga Himiko.”

“Giran.” The man coughs slightly, turning to open a window. Toga keeps grinning, doing her best to show off her fangs. This is gonna be so great. She can make friends, maybe even meet cute boys, and maybe even get paid, and how could Giran not take her-

“I’m not too young!”

Giran shakes his head, smiling a snake oil smile, “Go home, kid. Find an adult to sign your permission form, then we’ll talk.”

There’s a knife up Toga’s sleeve, and it would be really, really easy for her to just pull it out and swing the way she always does. And she could. She really could, but- well, then she’d have even less chance of joining the League. And joining the League is all she wants to do. She’s never had a Career Goal before, not even when she actually attended school and had regular meetings with the guidance counsellor. But now she does- and Giran’s saying no!

The guidance counsellor never told her that could happen.

Before she knows it, Toga has been walked out of the office and back into the cold.

With nothing else to do, she goes back the way she came. The rain is starting to fall, fat, heavy drops which make her twin bins droop. She doesn’t have any broody music downloaded, so she can’t even mourn right. With the rain soundtracking her walk home, she feels like she’s in some kind of emo movie, one without romance and with low ratings. The thought depresses her even more.

She finds a place under a fire exit to shelter until the rain stops, chewing her already chapped lip as she thinks. The League was her chance. She knows they’d keep her hidden from heroes, and help her live the way she should be living.

If only she were an adult.

If only she had an adult.

She knows Giran was joking about the permission form, she’s not that stupid, but he can’t turn her down if she finds someone SUPER powerful, can he? Someone who can’t betray her, someone who can’t join the League without Toga, but wants to join.

Where is she gonna find a villain like that?

Toga stands up straight.

Maybe she doesn’t need to find them.

 On her way ‘home’, Toga drops in at the local library. She hasn’t been there since elementary school, but no one notices another rain-sodden girl in a middle school uniform, even if her teeth are a little sharper and her eyes a little smarter than the ones they’re used to. But she doesn’t want to push her luck by asking for help.

As she wanders the shelves, she takes care to linger by the scattered radiators. She doesn’t want to get sick after all.

She’s lucky; the section she wants is tucked in a back corner, far from prying librarian eyes. There aren’t many books, but she still struggles to shove them all into her fluffy backpack. The ones she can’t have to go under her cardigan. She’s not stealing, not really. She’ll bring them back.

The ones that don’t work, anyway.

Whistling to herself, Toga skips out of the library and all the way home.

 Home is an overstatement. It’s the room above an abandoned shop, the For Let sign sunbleached and weathered. No one else wants it, so Toga moved right in. It has a basic bathroom, and a mattress on the floor for her to sleep on, and she even manged to find a little storage heater left behind by the last owners- but it’s not home. It’s not cute or cosy, or even decorated. But she can make do for now.

If the League let her in, she won’t have to.

Toga empties her bag onto the concrete floor, hugging herself as she admires her stolen goods. She has her books, of course, and salt, black candles and chalk (because she doesn’t want a permanent pentagram on her floor). She has some leaves she cut off a plant, because proper sage is hard to find, and mixed herbs in a glass jar to fill in the blanks, and a can of coke just in case her new companion is thirsty.

She also has fries, but they don’t count because she actually had to pay for them.

Tossing books aside, Toga digs through her piles until she finds the one she’s keeping:  ‘Demon Summoning for the Crafty of Mind’. The one with the instructions in it. The book tells her how to summon a Demon, how to care for it, and most importantly how to actually control it. What the book doesn’t tell her is if Demons count as actual adults who can act as guardians and let you become a villain. But Toga figures she can just ask for an adult one and take it from there.

As she makes her way through the fries, Toga gets to work on her salt circle. She’s tired from her long day, but the demon would probably prefer to be summoned at night, right? So she puts aside her exhaustion for now, beginning her salt circle instead.

The book didn’t say what kind of salt, so she makes one first with sea salt, then with table salt. She’s sure there are other kinds, but the little store at the bottom of the road only had those two, so they’ll have to do. She’s not getting the train to the city just to buy salt. And anyway, being possessed might not be so bad. Then she’d have justification for bleeding people out, and the League would have to let her join. They couldn’t turn down an actual demon.

Then again, it wouldn’t be her. Just her body.

Toga resumes her circle.

Inside the salt circle, she draws a rough pentagram and lights a candle at each point. The store didn’t offer plain black candles, too far from Halloween, so she hopes the little penguin ones she found work instead. They’re cute anyway.

The last step, according to the book, is to light the sage on fire. Toga glances at her garden leaves and mixed herbs, before dumping them out on the floor.

It takes 10 matches to get any sort of smoke from them.

Toga sits, cross-legged, in front of her little pyre, and opens the book to the last page. Here came the hard part: Latin.

It’s not that she’s bad at languages in general, she’s just better when she actually understands them, like when they learnt English in school. And Latin is a dead language- if it’s dead, it should stay dead, right?

Whatever. It’s worth it for the League.

Toga squares her shoulders, clears her throat- and begins.

 Dabi groans, shoulders cracking as he stretches his arms ahead of him. It’s hot as- hehe- hell in the pit, and sweat has been rolling down his back for better part of a century. And, call him a bad demon, but Dabi doesn’t get on with heat. You’d think he’d have managed to sort something out, old as he is, but well. Here he is. Still with no goddamn clue why he’s got demon skin that still burns easy.

In fact, Dabi muses as he rolls his shoulders, one after the other, he’s probably been down here for longer than a century. The thing about never telling anyone your real name is that no-one knows it, meaning no-one can drag you from your firey pit and let you lay carnage to the earth.

As he muses on his eternal entrapment and what that could mean for his mental state, Dabi becomes vaguely aware of some sort of ringing. It’s distant, a voice he doesn’t know that’s somehow as familiar as breathing, as the smell of burnt skin and singed hair. As he strains his ears, something hooks, like a fishhook through his navel, and jerks sharply up.

Dabi jumps, hooves bouncing off the black rock floor for a few seconds as the hook jerks once again. The red darkness around him is getting less red and less dark as the hook pulls once more and he hears Latin echo in his ears-

And he opens his eyes.

The room is grey and empty and boring, the light of the moon warring with the small electric light in the corner as it pours in through the curtainless window. The air is gentle and blessedly cold against his skin as he stands on the uncovered floor, ringed by salt.

He doesn’t need to taste to know it’s both kinds.

Dammit.

He spins slowly, searching for the cautious summoner. On his first 360, all he catches is a small flash of blonde.

On the next, he looks down a bit.

“Jesus. And I thought gremlins went extinct.”

“I’m not a gremlin!” The girl protests, and she’s right, she’s not. Her nose isn’t small enough, “I’m a human.”

“Whatever.” There’s no breaks in the circle either.

God dammit. Species aside, this girl was good. If he had time, he could probably find a way around her wards, but she talked so quick he was struggling to keep up without simultaneously thinking of a way to trick her.

“Are you a demon?” She asks. Her bright, wide grin shows sharp teeth and too much gum.

“No. I’m a human too,” A glance confirms she’s immune to sarcasm, “Joking. Whaddya want?”

The girl pouts slightly, tipping her head back, “I want… A responsible adult.”

“And you summoned a demon? Just get your parent to sign the school form, kid. No need for forgery.”

She glances down to the floor, taking in Dabi’s bare, cloven feet, “I don’t have them.”

Ah.

“Fine. Where’s the damn form?” Honestly, this is possibly the least interesting thing he’s ever done, and he’s spent summer of 1456 harvesting crops. At least then he got a weapon.  

The girl rubs at her eyes with the cuff of her cardigan sleeve. “It’s not a form. I wanna join the League of Villains. But the man said I have to wait until I’m 18 or get a responsible adult. And I don’t want to wait three years!”

“So you summoned a demon?”

“Will you help me join?”

Dabi sits down in the circle, considering his options. On one hand, this kid is 15. And even he’s got a few qualms about letting a kid join a group of- villains? A crime syndicate? The mafia? Whatever it was, he wasn’t fully down with it.

On the other hand.

A crime group promised carnage of all kinds. Even if he had to pretend to have invented super-potent matches to use his flames, like he did last time.

And he knows what he was like when he was 15, getting cast into hell and all. Laughing on the way down.

The kid didn’t even have parents…

“Fine. You got a contract, or do I have to do that for you too?”

The girl squeals, sprinting across the room to grab a notebook off the floor.

“I copied out the one in the book!”

“Toss it over.”

It’s pretty fair. He can’t possess her (standard), and he has to ask before he uses his powers (lame), but there’s nothing forbidding carnage, ruin or any other type of destruction. Dabi can live with that. He signs his name, his real name, and tosses it back over the salt circle.

 “How’d you get my name, anyway?”

The air feels like ice against Dabi’s raw skin when the kid breaks the salt ring around him, setting him free. His hooves click against the uncovered floor as he takes care not to touch the salt. He knows the line is broken, from the flow of air and unmuffled noise of the road outside, but he’s been burnt by impatience before.

The girl shrugs, “I didn’t. But all the demon names the book gave sounded like a mess of letters, so I just made it up and hoped for the best.”

It’s fair. After all, Dabi can only pronounce his name when he’s 100% sober, so how can anyone expect a kid to do better?

“Great. Just, don’t say it around other people, right? Or else they can tell me what to do too.”

The girl pouts, “Then what do I call you?”

“I go by Dabi.”

The girl grins, showing off teeth that are sharper than Dabi’s, “I’m Toga Himiko!”

They shake, Toga’s palm hot against Dabi’s cold skin.

“So, where’s this League?”

Toga shakes her head so fast she blurs, “No, wait. You can’t go out like that, you look all-all-“

“Demon-like? So what do you suggest?” Dabi arches an eyebrow, then remembers he doesn’t have any.

Toga leaps into the air, hands curled under her chin, “Makeovers!”

Oh no.

 “You look so scary!” Toga wails an hour later, as Dabi finishes roughing up the already tattered shirt. He’s already in the pants Toga got for him, the rough fabric brushing over his unfamiliar human legs. They suit him though, in a weird, goth way. The shirt looks good too, now he’s finished making it as burnt and lowcut as possible. And Toga said he could keep his burns, which helps. It’s a pain glamouring over all of them all the time.

Unfortunately, she won’t let him keep his feet.

“I thought this Quirk thing meant hooves were normal.”

“But your quirk isn’t hooves, it’s fire! Who’s ever been scared of a villain with hooves?

Dabi snorts, wiggling his new toes with fascinated disgust, “Sane people? I could trample them.”

“But I’m in charge!” Toga reminds him, skipping over to the pile of candy she managed to ‘procure’.

Dammit. He’d forgot that.

“Fine, I’ll have feet. But I’m not using normal fire, that’s weak shit.”

Toga huffs, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. Over the night, her hair has worked itself out of the two messy buns she had it in, and her eye bags have grown and grown.

You can’t see Dabi’s eyebags, mostly because he’s covered them with identical semi-circle burns, the way he’s covered all the ancient markings that litter his body. Those, like his hooves, aren’t fit for even a Quirk-filled society. He just has to remember not to let the glamour slip.

Even so, he looks good.

His red hair is replaced by a thick, inky black, setting off the purple of the burns that decorate his body. His coat, with the edges artfully burnt, has the right kind of sweep, and he looks both sleepy and hot at the same time.

It’s a good look.

Dabi glances out of Toga’s uncurtained window, taking in the slow rise of the sun, “So now are we heading out?”

[ashes-and-ashes]

So, apparently it has been 6 months since I first started posting my stuff on Tumblr.

6 months! It feels so long and yet so short, all at the same time. Tumblr has become such a huge part of my life now, and I am so grateful that this community is so welcoming and accepting.

I remember when I decided to first write this. I always wanted to post my stuff on Tumblr, always wanted to be able to share my writing, but by God, I was so damn scared. I always made deadlines for myself, “I’ll post over Christmas! I’ll post on my Birthday!”

That was actually the major deadline for me! I always told myself that I’d start posting on my birthday, that it would be like a present to myself. At the time I set that goal for myself (August Something), March 11th seemed so far away, and I was basically procrastinating.

And one day, I was watching he Winter Soldier and I was thinking about Stucky. And it was 12 at night and I don’t know what happened, I just thought to myself, “Screw it. I want to write something and I’m going to post it.”

So I did. I spent 4 hours on this semi-decent fic and I got a grand total of 12 notes. And I was ecstatic because holy shit, 12 people like my stuff?

So I kept going! And now here I am! I think it’s pretty funny that the first thing I ever decided to write was an angsty fic about Stucky and their relationship.

Anyways, here it is down below! Thanks for supporting me, and encouraging me to keep writing! :)

Thoughts

Bucky’s falling, wind whispering in his ears, snow covering his face, the screeching of the train on top of him. A scream rises in his throat, as he stares up at the sky above him.

And suddenly, he’s 9 years old again, cracked shoes and dirty clothes, sitting on top of the swing set in the park. It was a hot day, a dry summer. He sees dead grass drying in the cracks in the pavement, hear the wind whistling through the trees.

And he hears them. There’s Ricky King, 3 years older then him, towering over all the boys in the neighborhood. He’s laughing, a group of older boy around him, all kicking at something hidden in the middle of the throng. Bucky finds himself leaning forwards, trying to catch a glimpse of what lay in the middle. The crowd shifts, and Bucky sees a tiny figure, all bones and cuts and the bluest eyes he’s ever seen. The boy is bleeding, marks all over his face, yet he still pushes himself off the ground, glares at Ricky, and says something that makes Ricky flush and punch him square in the jaw. And Bucky is angry, because surely the boy knows that talking will only get him more hurt? So he sits there, and watches the fight.

After 10 more minutes, the boys leave, and Bucky hops down off the swing set and heads over to check on the boy. He’s curled into a ball, yet when he glances up, his eyes are filled with defiance. Pain fills his every move as he slowly pushes himself to his feet, still glaring at Bucky. And Bucky is speechless, because why would you let yourself be tortured like that?

He doesn’t know what to do, so after a while, he says, “Um...are you ok?” The other boy nods his head, tears welling up in his eyes, desperately trying not to cry. Bucky is still frozen, helpless. He puts his arms around the other boy, because that’s what his mother did when he was sad, and gradually, the boy stops crying. He lets go, looks at the other boy in the eyes and says, “Hi. I’m Bucky.” The other boy smiles back, eyes red from crying, and says softly, “Hi. I’m Steve.”

And they are 13 now, young and careless and rebellious. Steve is still small, bones protruding from his chest and half a foot shorter then everyone else in school. Bucky is taller, broader, dark hair and darker eyes, and they are inseparable. They spend the days at school, learning math and english and science. Afterwards, they go to Steve’s place, into the forest behind his house, and Steve draws and Bucky climbs trees and they are happy. And he’s 13, getting looks from the girls in his class. They giggle, hide behind the gates at recess, and he sometimes hears them whispering when he exits the classroom. He’s confused, because he’s never noticed these things, never noticed anything besides Steve, and he wonders if something is wrong with him.

They’re 14. Bucky is tall, towering over Steve, who is still skin and bones and blue eyes. It’s winter, bitterly cold, and they can’t light the fire because logs cost too much. They lie huddled in the narrow bed, Steve against the wall and Bucky pressing close to him. Steve is barely breathing, his last asthma attack not even 10 minutes ago. He shivers, the movement shaking the entire bed, and Bucky presses closer. He hesitates, because he is 14 and should he really be sharing a bed with his friend? And he hates himself for it, hates that little voice of doubt in his head because Goddamn it, he’s your best friend for Christ sakes Bucky! but he can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. He’s noticing things, the curve of Steve’s wrist as he turned the page on the sketch book, the way his hair fell over his face, how his cheekbones and nose casted a shadow over his lips when the sun was in the right place in the sky.

And Bucky is scared, because this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be like? He almost edges away from the sleeping figure of Steve, but another wave of coughing overwhelms Steve’s thin body, and Bucky is back to his old spot on the bed. He reaches over, wraps an arm around Steve’s bony ones and holds him tight.

And they are 15, and Steve still can’t fade from Bucky’s mind. He tries to hide it, destroy it, burry it with wine and women and dancing. He takes his shoes, shines them until you couldn’t see the cracks in them, smiles to hide the holes in his heart. He spends the days working at the docks, hauling box after box after box. The money is barely enough to get by, the work exhausting, but Bucky can’t quit, because he now has to support not only himself, but Steve as well.

And it hurts. Everyday, 5 in the morning until 7 at night, hauling boxes and tying knots, until his back is screaming and his fingers are bloody. He waits outside of the apartment that him and Steve share, looking at himself in the shard of mirror hanging outside of the front door, pasting a smile on his face and he clenches his teeth hard. He knows that if he breaks down, Steve would be out on the streets, and he would not, could not abandon Steve. He’s 15, working his ass off, trying to support 2 orphans, and still when he falls asleep, all he can see are Steve’s blue eyes in his dreams.

They are 16, the world going to absolute shit around them, and all Steve wants to do is fight for his country. “They are ENSLAVING people over their Buck,” he says one evening, glaring at the radio set in front of them. “I need to help. I can’t...I can’t just stay here and do nothing!”

Dread pools in Bucky’s stomach, because how can he protect Steve if he is somewhere in a goddamn war zone? but he holds it together, smiles, manages a small “calm down pip-squeak,” and exits the room.

He’s scared, because he knows that while the army may never take Steve, they’d sure as hell take him, and then Steve would be on his own. He can’t handle that, the thought of leaving for some separate country, and never seeing Steve again. It’s worse though, because despite all that’s happened, he can’t stop having those dreams. Dreams of Steve’s hands on his body, and those blue eyes, and kissing him, Bucky’s hands tangling in his hair. He’s disgusted with himself, knows that this is wrong, but he can’t decide if he is relieved or wrecked that he may leave without ever telling Steve Rogers the words I love you.

They are 17, now, the war still raging around them. They’ve been lucky so far, but Bucky knows that this luck can’t hold for much longer. Steve is at the recruiting station everyday, a different state on his form every time, and yet all Bucky can do is stare at the envelope placed in front of him at work. His name is printed in bold letters on the paper, James Buchanan Barnes, and the only thing that runs through Bucky’s head is Steve. Because the day had finally come, the clock had run out. He knew that they were on borrowed time, knew that every moment was another moment lost, but goddamn him, he thought they would have more of it. And he knows he’s going to die there, die without ever saying goodbye to Steve, and he can’t think, his breath coming in tight bursts. He stands up, shoves his chair underneath the table with a violent jerk, and somehow he is standing outside the apartment, in his uniform, his hat cocked to one side, and trying not to fall apart.

He opens the door, finds the window open and sees a note saying On Roof. He climbs out the window, sees Steve on the roof, and his heart catches in his throat because he is so freaking beautiful, all golden and shadows, and all he wants to do is to kiss him. Steve comes over, smiling, greets him with a simple “Hey Buck.”

He leans over, puts his arm around Bucky, and Bucky feels his heart hammering in his chest. Steve notices this, turns his head towards Bucky, a confused expression on his face and goddamn him in hell, but Bucky can’t take it. They are only a short distance apart, and Bucky leans forwards and meets Steve’s lips with his own.

And Steve stiffens for a moment, and Bucky nearly pulls away, petrified because shit, shit, shit what if he didn’t like me in that way?? And he is about to apologize, beg his forgiveness when Steve pulls him closer and kisses him again.

They are 2 boys, rain pouring down on top of them, buckets and buckets of it, and yet all either of them can do is breathe each other in. And Bucky pulled away, looking at Steve Rogers in the eyes, and thinks how can I let this go?

And as Bucky falls, he remembers. Days and days of golden summer, crisp fall. Lying in beds as boys, pressing Steve against his body. Sitting in trees, Steve drawing and Bucky reading. Snowball fights and sleepovers and campfires and how the light reflected off of Steve’s face. 2 boys kissing on the rooftop, not giving a damn what others thought as the skies opened on top of them. And he was grateful. Grateful for all that stolen time, those early days and late nights, that hot summer day long ago, because without Steve, Bucky knew that his life would be meaningless.

So Bucky fell, thousands of miles off a steel train, and the last thing he saw was the blue eyes of the boy he loved best.

[bainhardt]

I recently decided to tackle the long-overdue challenge of completing my HOME national dex to finally claim a sought-after original color Magearna for my own. Filling the gaps in my dex has been no easy feat, and one requiring I do far stranger things than I ever expected. Catching ‘em all isn’t quite so simple as it seems at first glance, lemme tell you...

Catching various Pokemon was the easy part. Between having three complete living dexes on Sword alone and the complete living Alola dex on my Ultra Sun, a significant portion was already filled in. But that piqued my curiosity about something I first noticed about a year ago when HOME first launched: why did my HOME dex have Pokemon registered that I’d never moved off of gen 7? Well, the good news is that Bank has its own Pokedex, composited from all the dexes of all the game cards you connect to it, and this data is sent to HOME every time you move even one Pokemon. You don’t have to send anything important up to gen 8 if you don’t want to! What a relief.

Still, SWSH infamously don’t offer everything, and so most of my work involved trawling through older gen games and picking up the odd forgotten straggler. A couple of them really surprised me, like how I apparently had Sunflora but no Sunkern, or Ducklett but no Swanna. Regardless, this kind of thing is the fun part of Pokemon, tracking stuff down and catching it, and before too long, I was already finished. Easy enough.

The difficulty ramped up when I reached the point of no return, the point where nothing remains but those dreaded mythicals... the only Pokemon out of ‘em all you can’t just go and catch. Who came up with that idea? I’d like to have a stern word with them (that word is fuck). I left concerns of legitimacy behind me and pressed dauntlessly on. Whatever it took, I was getting this done.

Thankfully, even here I wasn’t starting from square 1. I have a modest collection of mythicals of my own; Meloetta, Celebi, Phione, assorted random pickups from my obsessive play beginning in gen 6. This narrowed it down to thirteen elusive targets. And then I remembered I’d neglected to catch Keldeo in the Crown Tundra, narrowing it down to twelve elusive targets:

Mew - Manaphy - Darkrai - Shaymin - Arceus - Victini - Genesect - Hoopa - Volcanion - Zarude - Meltan - Melmetal

My first stop was the era of the original DS, with my friend Elliot pointing me towards the Nintendo Wi-Fi DNS Exploit in order to access long-passed events. Limited by the language of games I owned as well as hardware (I never managed to get this exploit working on gen 4 because of that goddamned WEP requirement), I managed to download Darkrai, Victini, and Genesect.

Mew - Manaphy - Shaymin - Arceus - Hoopa - Volcanion - Zarude - Meltan - Melmetal

Up next was the HOME mobile app, where I got by with a little help from my friends - well, friend, namely Nia, who had four more to trade me. Also worth mentioning is how HOME’s friend trading system is normally supposed to be restricted to local-only, a restriction that was supposedly lifted due to the pandemic. I guess I chose the right time to get this underway, at least.

Shaymin - Arceus - Volcanion - Zarude - Melmetal

What followed is probably the strangest step of my journey, and if I’m being honest, one of the most surprising and impressive. Around this time I’d begun poking my nose various places online looking for where I might get in contact with somebody to spot me the last handful of Pokemon I needed. I saw a post on one subreddit offering “ANY POKEMON YOU WANT” and figured I was about to message some hacker. Instead, all it took was connecting to a discord channel and messaging a bot, and I was in touch with an automated hacking robot capable of trading any Pokemon legally obtainable in SWSH! I was blown away. I felt like the NPC from the beginning of each game who’s impressed by how incredible technology is. And I had three more mythicals registered in my dex (then promptly released).

Shaymin - Arceus

Bringing this quest nearly to its close is the final adventure I’ve had recently, and one of the more exciting things I’ve done in my time playing Pokemon. Coincidentally, I recently ordered a Japanese copy of Pearl, which happens to be one of the only two games fit to serve as the stage for this endeavor: I was going to attempt the “tweaking” glitch.

As I understand it, this glitch fucks with the loading triggers in the game, and enables you to venture out of bounds in real time using nothing more than your DS and the cartridge. Through careful exploration and the execution of some game events, you can encounter Darkrai, Shaymin, and even Arceus. You can technically fuck up your game file if you go astray, but with very little to lose on my new JP Pearl to begin with, I set to it in earnest. Following video tutorials as my guide, I was biking my way through darkness in no time flat, sights set on the Alpha Pokemon Arceus.

I had no Master Ball available on any of my gen 4 games, so capturing this thing came down to three P’s: Patience, Poke Balls, and Parasect. I didn’t have Parasect ready for my first attempt, which ended in failure, and although this tweaking encounter can be repeated an infinite number of times, I wanted this over with as soon as possible. After a day spent grinding Parasect until it was ready to stand toe-to-toe with a god, I dove into the void again and caught myself my first ever Arceus. Thanks to Sakura Miko, of course.

From here, I’m so close to Magearna I can practically taste it, yet I’m still one Pokemon short - Shaymin. Even though I could catch one through tweaking, it’s reportedly the only tweaking capture incapable of being transferred up to newer games, which leaves me back at the drawing board for one final Pokemon. One final step, and at this point, I can’t imagine what it’ll entail.

[chibikinesis]

Okay, here’s MOST of what I have written of the pre-war draft :> No smut yet, but it’s getting there.

The night had begun with one of the rare, sporadic occasions when Jack stopped working in his lab early. Precious and few as those evenings were, he was spending more and more of them in Edward's company. Generally spent in the parlor, sharing story and drink and laughter, and glances that lasted just a little too long. But on this particular evening, much to their chagrin, they weren't alone. 

I was thinking about grabbing a bite to eat... Edward had said, not without some significance in his tone. Jack was more than happy to accompany, if only to get away from the house guests for a while. And though, most of the guests were gone by the time they'd come back, the main area of the house was still just a bit too busy for their liking, so they sought refuge in the kitchen.

And they never really left.

Jackets were discarded on the island counter, and the two found accommodations that were just comfortable enough given their surroundings. Comfortable enough to maintain their usual routine; soon, the radio on the counter had been switched on, two tumblers and an already-opened bottle of bourbon joined them at their spot on the island. Time passed, but it didn't really feel like it. It was so easy to forget about the world around them when they spent time like this. It was a welcomed distraction.

Edward's hat and flannel came off. Jack rolled up his sleeves, and with each passing minute, his hair grew a little more unkempt.

The sight brings a smirk to Edward's face. He reaches and brushes a stray lock away from his eyes, and is surprised when Jack doesn't pull away. His cheeks darken, and he giggles ever so slightly, but he doesn't pull away.

"God... over 200 goddamned years old and you're barely showing any grey." Edward groans, only half-jokingly.

"Feeling self-conscious are we?" Jack asks with a small laugh, taking in the sight of him. It's far from the first time, and he's absolutely certain that it won't be the last. He can't begin to fathom why someone like Edward would feel that way. But he supposes no one was immune from feeling that way every once and a while. He feels a familiar heat greet his cheeks again, and he knows it's not the bourbon. Still, he reaches out and thoughtlessly rests a hand on the guard's bicep. "There's really... no reason for you to be."

"Oh?"

Jack's not sure how to respond. Is it a challenge? Is it an invitation to elaborate? To reassure him with compliments? He's careful with the words he chooses. He feels just a little embarrassed as he recalls the numerous occasions he's found himself admiring Edward; his build, his genealogy, his facial structure, and more reluctantly, those few times he wasn't too proud to admit he was just shamelessly ogling. "Trust me. The years have been... nothing but kind to you."

There's a flirtatious air in his tone that doesn't escape Edward's notice. He raises an eyebrow and smirks. It's not the first time he's caught it, but it's a rare occurrence indeed. "Says the man with the immortality juice."

"Smartass." Jack sneers. "My offer still stands, you know. You're welcome to use it if you ever decide that you want to."

"I know." Edward smiles warmly, and they end up locking eyes for a long moment. In recent months, and especially in moments like this, the offer grew more and more tempting. "You sure you could deal with me that long?"

"I'd be more concerned that you'd tire of me."

"I've dealt with you and your crazy ass family for almost 20 years already." Jack giggles again, and Edward knows he's starting to feel the bourbon. "Trust me. I'm not goin' anywhere, Jack."

"Promise?" His eyes are wide and hopeful, until he realizes just how desperate he must sound.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes, signalling the arrival of midnight, and startling the both of them; Jack, in particular. He jumps, and he giggles at how ridiculous he must have looked. Edward couldn't resist a smile at how cute he was.

"I think it's officially past bed time."

"Pah. Who says?"

"Grandfather time out there, for one." Edward humors. "And your tipsy self, for two. Seems to me like you're pushin' it."

“Alright, then, humor me, Mr. Know-It-All.” Jack huffs. “How do you even know when I’m pushing my limit?”

“Well, for starters…” Edward chuckles quietly at the peculiar, vaguely smug look on his boss’s flushed face. “You get chatty. You lose… I’d say about… two thirds of your usual filters… and you giggle. A lot.”

As if to prove his point, Jack giggles. He glances up, and he worries at his lip as he drinks it all in. He knows he's taken in Edward's blue eyes far longer than he should, but neither one of them seems to mind.

“You even get this… weird… conniving schoolgirl thing going on when you really start laughin’. It’s kinda’ scary, actually.” Edward takes another swig from his cup before he continues. “You’re even kinda’ touchy-feely tonight. I dunno, maybe it is about time for you to head to your room.”

“Perhaps, but yours is so much closer.” Jack mouths sheepishly, his voice barely audible. He glances up shyly as his guard’s jaw slacks and his cheeks tinge with color; both rare sights to behold. He giggles, and it almost sounds smug. “That is, assuming you don’t mind my company. Can’t promise I won’t still be touchy-feely though.”

It takes Edward a full moment to process; as ready as he is to indulge, he reminds himself to be careful as an uneasy laugh escapes his lips. He shifts position, and squares up in front of his boss, leaning in ever so slightly. Anxious as Jack looks, though, he doesn't back away. 

“You shouldn’t go writin’ checks you don’t intend to cash.” He scolds gently, silently hoping that’s not the case here. But he'll be damned and go to hell if he's going to be that guy. “So, listen - if this is just the booze talkin’-”

His sentence is interrupted by Jack’s clumsy lips, and more to his displeasure, the awkward bumping of their noses. He can't stifle his laughter at the messy barrage that follows. He reaches up and gently clasps the hand that's cupping his cheek. "Jack."

"What?"

"Where's the fire? Slow down." His voice and his chuckle are warm and husky and send a shiver down Jack's spine; he's suddenly acutely aware of what's happening, of how close Edward is, of the scent of leather and mild cologne and the smoke from the evening's last cigarette that still clings to him, and he feels his cheeks flush, and his heart pound, and a sudden sense of boldness - perhaps on account of the bourbon they'd shared, though hardly enough to actually impair his judgement - but he's not about to second guess it.

"I never have been great at this." Jack laughs quietly. "In all my years, I've never really gotten much practice."

"Damn shame." Edward smirks. "Guess we'll have to remedy that."

But Edward always has been a good teacher, hasn't he? The scientist giggles. He holds his ground, slides his arm around the man's shoulder, juts his chin and smirks, even, daring Edward to close the gap between them. And he's more than happy to humor him.

Edward takes it all in for a moment;  but his resolve quickly shatters. He rests a hand in the small of Jack's back and pulls him closer, and draws the other up to ghost along his neck and jaw. He leans in and nips playfully at a woefully neglected pair of lips, and, to his relief, Jack follows his lead. They find their rhythm fairly quickly; slow, at first, each kiss growing more needy, open, each of them inviting, beckoning the other to venture further.

To be continued c:

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 9: The Klopstock Incident

796/487. Duke Braunschweig throws a party! It doesn’t go very well. Klopstock, a noble who lost his standing in society after backing the wrong man (one of Friedrich IV’s brothers) for Kaiser, attempts to bomb the party and assassinate both Braunschweig and the Kaiser himself. Unfortunately for Klopstock, his plan fails, killing some randos but leaving his targets unharmed. Also among the unharmed in attendance are Reinhard and the beautiful Magdalena von Westfalen. Klopstock, learning of his failure, commits suicide. RIP. Meanwhile, Reinhard and Kircheis make moon-eyes at each other and Annerose gazes passive-aggressively at Reinhard.

Reinhard and Kircheis

You’ll recall that we left off on something of a cliffhanger concerning Reinhard and Kircheis’s relationship: There’s tension brewing due to Reinhard’s most recent hiring decision (the sinister Oberstein), and episode 8 ends with Reinhard and Kircheis spending an evening poignantly apart. Episode 9, by comparison, is kinda fun: Though the stakes are eventually high in that Reinhard’s life is temporarily at risk, overall Reinhard and Kircheis aren’t dealing with anything as dire as political or military strategy on a large scale, and as their distance from matters of state widens, so the distance between them seems to close back up, at least for now.

Over the course of this episode, we get to see our boys in a series of relatively “normal,” almost domestic situations—Kircheis makes Reinhard go to a party he doesn’t want to go to! Reinhard drags Kircheis along! Kircheis has to wait in the car because he doesn’t have an invitation! Reinhard tries to get back to him as soon as possible! et cetera—that taken together provide us with a window into how their relationship might function on a day-to-day basis.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Bratty Reinhard is the goddamn best. His diction in Japanese here (yada!) betrays a childishness that he reserves for Kircheis alone, and it’s adorable.

Because Reinhard is able to accumulate so much power, along with a cadre of loyal and talented followers, in such a short time and at such a young age—and because he’s so goddamn beautiful—it’s tempting to lump him in with a certain archetype of charismatic, charming leader. But like with most almost-archetypes in LoGH, that actually couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, this brings us to one of the most relatable and human aspects of Reinhard’s personality: He’s fucking terrible at parties.

Kircheis coaxing Reinhard into participating in obligatory social engagements is some of the sweetest writing in this whole show—and also a chance for him to show off what turns out to be a well-hidden dry sense of humor.

Unfortunately for Reinhard, he’s been invited to attend Braunschweig’s gala, and social niceties dictate that he go. Luckily for us, that means we get to watch Kircheis convince him to do so. I cannot overstate how much I love watching Kircheis manage Reinhard when Reinhard is being a complete baby. Kircheis, who has clearly been doing this for years, treats him with so much warmth and patience; this scene is the perfect example of how throughout LoGH, small quiet moments are used—similarly to facial expressions—to convey more and deeper intimacy than words alone could do. We see several of these moments throughout episode 9, and each time I feel a little like I’m intruding on something private. Episode 9 is a gift.

But why take time out of our busy schedule now to spend A Day In The Life with Reinhard and Kircheis while they’re just being cute boyfriends and not working especially hard to conquer the universe? Almost all the time we’ve spent with Reinhard and Kircheis so far has been in the context of battles or political machinations (or flashbacks). But episode 8 made it clear that for these two, the personal and the political are intertwined, and only getting more so.

We already know what the stakes are, politically: Reinhard intends to overthrow the Empire with Kircheis. The personal hasn’t been explored as much, outside of flashbacks, so it’s important to show the viewer exactly what is being threatened when a wedge is driven between Reinhard and Kircheis. To do that, we have to see them “at rest,” just being together—and, as the case may be, apart—which is what most of this episode does.

Kircheis agrees to wait in the car while Reinhard is at the party because these two literally could not be more codependent. I love them.

And so, against his will, Reinhard arrives at Braunschweig’s party. When accosted by shitty nobles, Reinhard makes them regret interrupting his solitude, and otherwise he just stares at the clock, waiting for the Kaiser to arrive so he can get back to Kircheis without violating the social order.

Behold, Imperial Marshal Reinhard von Lohengramm, standing alone holding a drink and awkwardly looking around at a party he’d rather have skipped: truly the representation we millennials have been craving.

Meanwhile, Kircheis sits in the parking lot and plays Spider Solitaire gets work done on his laptop while also watching a clock, presumably to keep track of how long Reinhard’s been away. Eventually, Klopstock walks past the car, suspiciously without the cane he’d been carrying earlier (because it was actually a bomb, and he planted it inside the party). Kircheis gets out to investigate, and has only just managed to convince Ansbach he should be allowed to talk to Reinhard despite not having a party invitation, when the bomb goes off.

Kircheis sprints into the hall with no regard for his personal safety, yelling Reinhard’s name and searching desperately for him amid the rubble. It’s the first time we’ve seen Kircheis react to a potential direct threat to Reinhard’s life and it instantly transforms him from the calm, collected character to whom we’ve become accustomed.

Notice how Kircheis, usually physically contained enough that you might forget he’s actually kind of huge (at 6’3”, he’s one of the tallest characters in LoGH), suddenly takes up every possible square millimeter of real estate in the frame.

In episode 5, Annerose shut Kircheis down when he insisted that he depended on Reinhard at least as much as Reinhard depended on him, if not more. If there was ever any doubt that he was telling the truth, this scene dispels that definitively. Kircheis’s expressions and gestures here are not those of someone who might have lost his military superior, or lord, or whatever; they’re the raw, open emotion of someone who might have lost the person he loves. There’s absolutely nothing one-sided about Reinhard and Kircheis.

You can see the exact moment when Kircheis, horrified, realizes that if other party guests are dead from the explosion, Reinhard could be too...

...followed, of course, by Kircheis calling Reinhard’s name with renewed vigor, until he finally responds.

Thankfully, we don’t have to see how Kircheis would react if he did lose Reinhard, because Reinhard is fine, but Kircheis’s responses, this time to relief, are still entirely unguarded and not behind his usual unshakable facade.

We rarely see Kircheis initiate physical contact with Reinhard, but the averted threat of immediate physical harm seems to have lowered some of his natural inhibitions. Also, how precious is that smile?

And so we’ve seen a day in the lives of Reinhard and Kircheis—complete with bickering, teasing, emotional support, separation anxiety, a near-death experience, and a happy reunion. Oh, and plans for a breakfast date:

Now that Kircheis can rest assured that Reinhard is safe, they snap back to their usual dynamic—Reinhard being bratty, and Kircheis loving it.

In some ways this whole episode has been one of those “small moments” I was talking about earlier on in the post: It would be easy to tell us how important Reinhard and Kircheis are to one another, how much they depend on each other, and how enmeshed their lives are. But this is LoGH, and with all the anime team’s considerable stores of subtlety, nuance, and depth of human understanding at their disposal, why tell us about a relationship between two people, when they can show us?

Braunschweig and Ansbach?

“We’re not so different, you and I.”

It’s worth mentioning, because we’ll be spending a significant amount of time with Braunschweig and his top retainer Ansbach, that some pretty heavy parallels are drawn here between Ansbach and Kircheis. In the aftermath of the explosion, Kircheis and Ansbach both frantically search the rubble for their respective... companions, and the camera switches rapidly between the two of them in strikingly similar positions and states of emotional distress.

Are Braunschweig and Ansbach romantically connected in some way? That’s definitely the implication here, but we don’t really know enough about Ansbach at this point to draw conclusions beyond, “huh, I guess we’re supposed to be comparing these two.” So we’ll come back to it later.

Annerose

Remember in Kircheis’s episode 5 flashback when I talked about Annerose’s tendency to undermine Reinhard behind his back? Well, apparently that’s something she does to his face too, as we see in a short but very telling scene that takes place after Reinhard attempts to report Klopstock to the Kaiser for his crime. It turns out Braunschweig’s already done the honors, so Reinhard and Kircheis stop to visit with Annerose on their way out.

Annerose’s relationship with Reinhard is, as always, complicated—and more complicated than he thinks it is.

Annerose, wearing her usual placid smile, expresses irritation with Reinhard’s plan to aid in Klopstock’s arrest—irritation that only increases when Reinhard explains that the only reason he cared so much was that Annerose could have been injured if she had been traveling with the Kaiser that night.

It’s becoming clearer that Annerose harbors some resentment towards her brother. There are a few possible reasons for this, the simplest being that she’s romantically jealous. Just because it’s simple, of course, doesn’t make it untrue, but we don’t have enough information at this point to determine if Annerose’s feelings about Kircheis are romantic, not to mention how much she knows about Reinhard and Kircheis’s relationship, so we’ll come back to that later.

What we do know, however, is that the latest source of her aggravation stems from Reinhard, for lack of a better phrase, meddling in her life. His intentions are good, but Annerose didn’t ask for his protection, or his help. This isn’t the last time we’ll see Annerose basically tell Reinhard to fuck off and leave her alone, and I understand where she’s coming from, even though it still makes me cringe every time. Reinhard can’t help that he’s free and Annerose is imprisoned, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s another in a long line of men who act when she cannot. Annerose, who again has never been afforded any agency whatsoever (at least since she was fifteen), exercises her free will when she can—even if that’s usually nothing more than telling her brother to mind his own business. Reinhard, true to form, seems slightly hurt, but doesn’t fight her.

Kircheis’s gaze here is deliberately ambiguous and can be interpreted in several different ways: a fond smile at Annerose, a polite smile at Annerose, a “wtf why are you being mean to Reinhard” smile at Annerose, or simply an “I’m still really happy Reinhard’s okay” smile at no one in particular.

Stray Tidbits

DO NOT get on Reinhard’s bad side. Do not. *fans self*

I, for one, am glad you survived, Magdalena.

Episode 9 may feel a bit out of place amid all the High Drama currently going on in the Empire, and there’s a reason for that! The titular Klopstock Incident actually comes from a chapter of one of Tanaka’s Gaiden novels, not from the main storyline. Yes, like Julian’s cat, and Dusty’s entire presence early on, episode 9 is a deviation from Tanaka’s text.

[kelinswriter]

Less Than Perfect

Chapter Four: I’ll Be Seeing You

They lingered at the turnoff for a while, kissing softly while the mountains darkened into chiaroscuro shapes against a golden sky. Its colors had faded, the first stars beginning to gleam overhead, when Maggie murmured, “We should probably get back on the road.”

Alex pressed her forehead against Maggie’s, feeling the warmth of Maggie’s hand against her cheek, the thumb that was stroking against her jawline both comforting and intensely arousing. “You know, getting on that bike again is going to be torture.”

“But it’ll be the good kind,” Maggie said, kissing Alex just below her ear. She drew back, extracting her leg from where it had been resting against Alex’s thigh. “Come on, Danvers. It shouldn’t take too long. Though…” She paused, tilting her head to one side, a mischievous smile flitting across her face. “I suppose I could take the long way, just to mess with you…”

“You wouldn’t,” Alex growled, and Maggie laughed, catching at Alex’s hand and pulling her down from her perch. They walked toward the bike together, not quite arm in arm, but still in constant contact — Alex’s elbow brushing against Maggie’s arm when she reached into her pocket for her gloves, Maggie’s pinky finger brushing against the side seam of Alex’s jeans, Alex touching the small of Maggie’s back as she braced herself to climb back onto the bike. And the touches continued as Alex wrapped her arms around Maggie’s waist, holding her close as they followed the winding road that led back to the freeway, with only the Triumph’s headlight and the stars to guide them through the rapidly darkening night.

It was then, with the constant thrum of the bike beneath her, bracing against Maggie’s body while the cool December air swirled around them, that Alex began to realize that Tonight, I’m going to have sex with a woman for the first time, going to have sex with Maggie, going to feel what it’s like to wake up with her in my arms. The thought hit her so hard that she jolted in her seat, and Maggie slowed the bike, turning her head as if to check that Alex was okay.

Alex felt a flush run through her, followed by a sudden, overwhelming sense of gratitude that Maggie couldn’t see her right now. Yet she had a sneaking suspicion that Maggie was more than clear about the thoughts running through her head, especially when Maggie pushed back into her, as if to acknowledge the tension building between them. Then she squared her shoulders and pressed into the throttle again, as if determined to get them back to National City — and Alex’s apartment — in record time.

 So that, of course, is when Kara showed up.

 Alex saw her first as a sudden flash of red and blue across the newly risen moon, a barely perceptible flitter of motion out of the corner of her eye. Next came a flurry of movement directly above them, followed by a puff of air as if they were caught in the wake of a low-flying airplane. Maggie must have sensed it too, for Alex felt the bike slow beneath them. An instant later, Maggie activated the high-beam headlights and eased into the brake, slowly coming to a stop as Kara touched down at the edge of the golden pool of light.

 The moment it was safe, Alex was off the bike, striding over to her sister as fast as her rubbery legs would carry her. “What’s wrong?”

 “The DEO is on full mobilization for a Level One incident,” Kara said, and Alex could see the disappointment in her sister’s eyes. “We need you back right away.”

 “Is it here?” Alex asked, glancing at Maggie, who had reached for her phone the second she climbed off her bike, apparently to confirm that she hadn’t been called in too.

 Kara shook her head. “We’ve been detached to Special Forces — I’m not sure where, exactly, but Lucy and J’onn were arguing about whose team takes point when I left. C-130s take off in a half hour.”

 “Shit,” Alex snapped, and in the aftermath of that single word, a silent conversation passed between them.

 I hate that I’m messing up your date.

 I know, but it’s not your fault. This is what we do.

 Still sucks though.

 You have no idea.

 “Give me a minute, okay?” Alex murmured, squeezing Kara’s elbow, and then she walked back toward the Triumph, wondering as she did if this is what it felt like when a condemned woman walked to the gallows. There was an ache in the pit of her stomach, a swirling mix of anger and frustration and thwarted lust that she felt fairly sure was going to be taken out on whatever goddamn alien had dared to fuck with her first real date with Maggie Sawyer. But mostly, what she felt was how deeply, brutally unfair this was — not just to her, but to Maggie too.

 “I’m so, so sorry,” she said, reaching for Maggie’s hand.

 “Duty calls. I get it.” There was understanding in Maggie’s eyes, but beneath it was worry — the kind that came from caring about someone who ran toward rather than away from danger. It was the sort of worry, Alex realized, that they would always share so long as they were together. “You need backup?”

 “It’s…elsewhere,” Alex said, wishing she had a better explanation to give. “I don’t really have the details, but I’m guessing I’m going to be out of town for a couple of days.”

 Maggie nodded, and for an instant, Alex saw something that might have been fear flicker across her face. Then she drew in close, her arms settling around Alex’s waist while she looked up at her, both trust and confident reassurance in her gaze. “Do me a favor and come home safe, will you, Danvers?”

 “I’ve definitely got a reason to.” Alex lifted her hands to Maggie’s cheeks, drawing her into a kiss, and felt Maggie’s arms wrap around her, as if willing strength into her body. They lingered like that for a moment, their faces pressed close together, while Alex whispered, “I have to go, but text me when you get home…or…just anytime you want to text me. Even if I don’t respond.”

 “I will.” Maggie stroked a hand down her arm, smiling up at her, and said, “Bring me back some nylons and a chocolate bar. Or at least a good bottle of Scotch.”

 Alex nodded, feeling her throat tighten, and heard Kara call out her name. She pressed her hand into Maggie’s cheek, kissed her one last time, and said, “I’ll see you soon.”

 She grabbed her helmet off the back of the bike and tucked it under her arm, striding across the pavement toward Kara, who met her halfway, her brow crinkling. “You sure Maggie will be okay out here?”

 Alex glanced back at Maggie, who was still standing beside her bike, one hand braced on the handlebars as she watched Alex walk away. She lifted a hand, smiling, and even in the shadowed light, Alex could see those dimples like beacons guiding her home.

 “She will,” Alex said as Kara wrapped an arm around her, securing her for takeoff. “But the aliens who interrupted our date are in for the ass kicking of their lives.”

 “I hear you,” Kara said. There was a rush of noise, a whoosh of air, and suddenly Alex was weightless, gliding over the world with only her sister’s arms between her and a thousand foot fall. At any other time she would have loved it, loved the feel of gliding weightless through the open air with the stars so close that it felt like she could touch them. Yet all she could think of as the world dropped away was Maggie standing in a pool of light, waiting for her to come home.

 She glanced back once, hoping she could still see Maggie in the distance.

 But by the time she turned her head, they were already too far gone.

  ---------------

  It was 6 p.m. on Tuesday before Alex touched U.S. soil again. She’d spent a good chunk of those three days trapped inside a giant alien straight out of Return of the Jedi, and if it hadn’t been for Supergirl, she, J’onn, and Lucy would have all gone the way of Boba Fett —or so Winn had informed her, on at least three occasions, while she stood there in slime up to her ankles and hoped her boots could withstand the acid eating through them.

 So she hadn’t had much of a chance to think about getting in touch with Maggie — hadn’t had chance to think about much of anything except sleep, to be honest — when she finally made it back to her apartment sometime around 8 p.m. She could have just slept at the DEO — she’d crashed in the medbay on more than one occasion, and J’onn certainly wouldn’t have minded — but she knew if she stayed she’d only end up in her lab, and J’onn had made it clear that she needed to take a break. So it was with some relief that she set off on the short walk to her apartment, the brisk night air helping her wind down after three adrenaline-fueled days of playing chess against an opponent that was bigger, stronger, and far less susceptible to bullets than she or the rest of her team. She was still ruminating on the op — on what she could have done better, smarter, or with less risk of being digested slowly — when she came off the elevator and saw Maggie sitting with her back against her apartment door.

 “Hey,” Alex said, stuttering to a halt. She heard the elevator ding behind her and moved forward, hearing the door slide shut as she moved out of its way.

 “Hey yourself,” Maggie said, giving her a bright, welcoming smile. She’d been playing with her phone — Alex was pretty sure she kept Tetris on it, though she’d never been able to confirm this suspicion — and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans, one hand wrapping around the handle of the small cooler sitting beside her. “I heard this rumor that you might be back tonight.”

 “Oh yeah?” Alex drew closer to the door and just stared at it for a moment, trying to remember how to get inside. Eventually she realized that she would need her keys and fished them out, holding out her other hand to pull Maggie to her feet. “Who told you that?”

 “Your sister stopped by the precinct a few hours ago,” Maggie said, sliding to her feet with such innate fluidity that Alex couldn’t help but wonder if she could have gotten there without any help at all. She put a hand on Alex’s waist, pulling her close, and murmured, “She said you’d be home around now.”

 “She’s smart like that,” Alex said, silently blessing Kara for her thoughtfulness in letting Maggie know she was okay while Alex was still stuck on radio silence. She felt guilty that she hadn’t done it herself the second she got back, but she was dead on her feet. Lucky for her, Maggie seemed to get this, for her kiss of greeting was devoid of anything that might have felt like insistence or demand. Just warm, and safe, and oh so needed.

 “Kara didn’t tell me much, except that it had been a rough couple of days,” Maggie said, and there was that thumb again, sweeping the length of Alex’s jawline in an intimate caress that sent warmth flowing throughout Alex’s body. “So I figured I’d swing by with some dinner, since I’m guessing you haven’t eaten anything but field rations since that burger on Saturday.”

 “You’d be right about that,” Alex said, pressing her cheek into Maggie’s hand. She closed her eyes, simply breathing in Maggie’s nearness, and wished she had the energy to appreciate this kindness as fully as it deserved. But she was running on three hours of sleep on the C-130 on the way to the op, perhaps another four on the way back, and in between was hazy at best, full of bad coffee and cat naps and the occasional moments of full-on terror that made closing her eyes more of a theoretical concept than an actual fact. So she was grateful for Maggie guiding her key into the lock, grateful for the feel of Maggie’s arms drawing her through the door and the strength of her body and the scent of —was that shampoo or was that just her because dear God, it smelled like heaven — and then they were inside, and the door was shut, and Maggie was flipping on lights and slipping off her jacket and setting that cooler on the counter with an assurance that made Alex feel more at home than she had in she wasn’t sure how long. And she just stood there, feeling slightly marooned in her own body, and tried to wrap her brain around the fact that she didn’t have to be on her feet anymore.

 Maggie turned toward Alex and caught at the lapels of her jacket, drawing her down into a soft kiss. Then she slid her hands to Alex’s shoulders and began to pull the jacket off, saying, “Babe, why don’t you go take a shower while I warm up dinner.”

 “You didn’t have to do this, you know,” Alex said, though her mind was spinning because Maggie had just called her Babe and it made her feel warm inside, warm like the sweet, slow slide of Scotch through her veins. In spite of her exhaustion she wanted her, wanted to pick up where they had started, to veer toward the couch and move past no shirts to no bras and maybe no pants and maybe, maybe just end up in her big California King like they’d planned before life in the form of one pissed off alien marauding through the jungles of Costa Rica and his omnivorous, room-sized sidekick had intervened.

 But Maggie just pulled her closer, sliding a hand up to scratch the back of her neck, and murmured, “I missed you, Danvers.” She drew back and pinned Alex with her gaze, giving her a case of the full dimples as if she knew exactly how much they made Alex weak in the knees. “Now get your ass into that shower and into some comfy clothes before my grandmother’s arroz com galinha turns to mush.”

 “Wait…” Alex said, her brain stuttering to a sudden, near-fatal halt. “You…cooked for me?”

 “It’s not that hard, Danvers, but yes,” Maggie said, arching an eyebrow. “It’s just chicken and rice. I need twenty minutes and a frying pan and we’re good to go.” She paused, her brow furrowing, and added, “You wouldn’t happen to have any white wine, would you?”

 Alex waved her toward the wine rack near the door and back-stepped toward the bathroom, nearly tripping over the couch in the process. She kicked off her boots and grabbed the first comfortable clothes she could lay her hands on, then retreated into the bathroom, spending the next ten minutes beneath a blessedly hot stream of water.

 When she emerged a little while later, there was music playing, the song — was that Portuguese? — reminding her of tropical breezes and warm summer nights. Maggie was singing along to it under her breath as she moved around the kitchen, pausing occasionally to sip from a glass of wine while, all the while, the scent of spices wafted in the air. The whole thing was so unbelievably sexy that Alex couldn’t do much but lean against the doorjamb and watch, wondering how the hell she had gotten so lucky.

 Eventually Maggie caught sight of Alex out of the corner of her eye. She smiled at her from across the room, her whole face lighting up with the gesture. “Better?”

 “So much better.” Alex brushed a hand through her wet, tangled hair and walked over to the kitchen counter, struggling to believe that chicken, rice, and mushrooms could smell that good. “When you said you knew how to cook, you weren’t kidding.”

 “It’s my Avó Rafaela’s recipe,” Maggie said, tucking a stray lock of her dark hair behind her ear. “My dad’s mom. She was from Brazil, and she taught me how to make this before she died.” She turned the music off then, pouring another, conspicuously small glass of wine and pushing it in Alex’s direction. “Cute jammies, Danvers.”

 “Thanks,” Alex said, blushing. She glanced down at the gray pants topped with her favorite dark blue Henley and added, “Pretty sure you’ve seen these before.”

 “I know. But they’re still cute.” Maggie turned back to the stove, picking up the spatula and digging down to scrape a layer of crisp browned rice off the bottom of the frying pan. She studied the pan for a moment, then turned toward Alex, nudging the rolled-up sleeves of her white, button-down shirt closer to her elbows. “Plates?”

 Alex pointed toward the overhead cupboard and turned toward the silverware drawer, collecting knives, forks, and napkins before carrying them to the table. Maggie, meanwhile, had spooned the rice and chicken mixture onto two plates and brought them over, setting Alex’s before her with a flourish. She sat down in the chair angled across from Alex’s and said, “Don’t be shy, Danvers. Just dig in.”

 Alex broke off a piece of the chicken and scooped a bit of rice around it, pulling in some of the crispy bits that Maggie had so carefully mixed in before taking a bite. She found herself completely unprepared for the explosion of flavors that burst across her tongue, and put a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening as she looked at Maggie. “Oh, my God. That’s amazing.”

 A slow smile spread across Maggie’s face, one that felt true, and deep, and more hopeful than anything Alex had ever seen from her, expect maybe for that moment right before they’d kissed for the second time. “You like it?” she asked, her voice a little breathless.

 “Oh, my God,” Alex just said again, and took another bite.

 “Thanks,” Maggie said, a surprising shyness in her eyes. She lifted her glass, taking a sip of her wine, and nodded for Alex to keep eating. “Grandma Rafa would be so happy.”

 “It sounds like you loved her a lot,” Alex said, her hand drifting over to rest against Maggie’s thigh. She saw Maggie’s mouth twist, felt more than saw something darken in her eyes.

 “She died when I was thirteen,” Maggie said, and though her gaze was distant, Alex sensed that there was deep feeling hidden beneath it. “I think she…got me.”

 Alex's instincts went on full alert then, telling her that there was something important here, that Maggie would keep talking if only she asked the right question, but she was too tired, her brain too close to shutting down to put more than the most rudimentary thoughts together. So she simply nodded and took another bite, eating methodically until the food left her sated.

 “That was amazing, but if I have one more forkful I’ll keel over,” she said at last, pushing her nearly empty plate away.

“That’s why I made enough that you’ll have leftovers for tomorrow.” Maggie picked up both their plates, carrying them toward the kitchen and scraping the remnants from both into the garbage disposal. “By the way, if you don’t have tomorrow off I’m going to arrest your boss for kidnapping.”

Alex let out a soft, weary laugh, loving this protective streak in Maggie, one that, she was beginning to understand, could be counted on even in the darkest of circumstances. She felt warm at the thought of having it; hoped she never had to put it to the test.

 “My orders are to sleep until I can’t sleep anymore and then get back in to analyze the samples we took during the op,” she explained, finishing off her wine. “There are…a lot of samples.”

 “Shocking.” Maggie hunted down a plastic carton and spooned the leftovers into it, then opened the dishwasher and loaded their plates. “Dear God, Danvers,” she said, giving Alex a pained look. “Do you even know how to load this thing?”

 “It takes me a month to fill up, so I barely ever use it.” Alex pushed to her feet, feeling her knees twinge as too many days of constant movement caught up with her. “You know, I’m pretty sure that food did its work, because I’m going to be zonked out before much longer.”

 “Good.” Maggie closed the dishwasher and walked over, catching at Alex’s hand. “Couch or bed?”

 Bed was Alex’s first instinct. But her brain was buzzing, and she couldn’t help but think that she would lie there, staring at the ceiling, her mind unable to unravel itself enough to sleep. So she murmured, “Couch,” hoping the mindless noise of the TV would drag her under.

 “Okay, come on,” Maggie said, leading the way. She snagged the remote from the top of the TV and settled onto the chaise lounge, toeing off her boots with practiced ease. Then she stretched her legs in front of her, patting her lap. “Come here.”

 But Alex just stood there for a moment, her mind trying to wrap itself around the idea of Maggie making herself so thoroughly at home. “Um…that’s my spot.”

 “Oh yeah?” Maggie just smirked, dragging a pillow over to prop against her hip. “That’s cool. Now get over here.”

 And Alex realized she didn’t have the energy to fight about it, didn’t have the energy to do much of anything but slide onto the couch, curling on her side against Maggie’s hip with only the pillow between them. She felt Maggie pull the blanket down over her, felt a hand settle in her hair, fingertips slipping through the still-damp strands while Maggie flipped on the Apple TV. She brought up Netflix, quietly saying, “Okay, here’s where we really test our compatibility.”

 “Oh, God,” Alex breathed, for there was a lot of embarrassing ‘90s cheese on her queue, no question. “You have to understand, I watch most of the good shows over at Kara’s place.”

 “Uh huh.” Maggie flipped through the ‘recently viewed,’ softly saying, “American Horror Story, Penny Dreadful, Hemlock Grove…This is some dark ass shit, Danvers.”

 “I know, but it’s the kind of stuff I can only watch when Kara’s not around,” Alex explained, glancing up in time to see Maggie’s understanding nod.

 “Yeah that doesn’t quite seem her speed. And for the record, I like horror too, though maybe not tonight.” Maggie scrolled over to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and selected an episode midway through season two. “Pretty sure I’m at this one, but if you need to go back, tell me.”

 “It’s good,” Alex said, waving a hand at the TV, her consciousness already sliding down toward sleep, helped along by Maggie’s fingers scratching against her scalp and spine.  She was all but there when a sudden jolt of adrenaline surged through her and she sat up halfway, murmuring, “Copy, J’onn. I’m moving in now.”

 “You dreaming, Babe?” Maggie asked, and Alex felt Maggie’s fingers smooth against her brow, gently drawing her back down until her head was lying against the pillow once again. Back in National City, back with Maggie, she thought, pulling herself out of the flashback of the hot, steaming confines of the Costa Rican jungles and into the reality of Jane Krakowski doing something hilarious on her TV.

 “I’m sorry,” she said, stretching her arm up to wrap around the front of the pillow. Maggie caught at her hand, the touch grounding her, giving her distance from the fever dream that had been the last several days.

 “Sorry for what?” Maggie asked, and there was no judgment in her voice, only affection, and perhaps something more — something that Alex sensed beneath the surface, though she wasn’t quite ready to think about it yet.

 “That we — “ Alex gestured toward the bed. “We had plans, and I — “ She let out a frustrated puff of air. “I didn’t think our date was going to end three days later with me too tired to do anything but hallucinate.”

  “It is what it is when we do what we do.” Maggie drew the blanket tighter around Alex’s shoulders, reaching up scratch at her scalp once again. “Besides, I think maybe it’s okay that we slowed things down.”

 “It is?” Alex rolled onto her back so she could look up at Maggie, wishing she had the energy to draw her into a slow, deep, toe-curling kiss. “Because I was…I mean, I really wanted…” She felt warmth run through her body, warmth both from Maggie’s nearness and her own reaction to it. “God, Sawyer, what you do to me.”

 “Same,” Maggie said, and then leaned down, her lips lightly brushing over Alex’s. She stroked a thumb over her cheekbone, her breath soft and tinged with spices. “But even though I said life is short, I’ve got to trust that this is worth the wait.”

 “You sure about that?” Alex asked, but Maggie just nodded, smiled against her lips,  and then kissed her again.

 “So sure.” Maggie sat back up, settling more comfortably into the chaise, and slid one hand down to rest just over Alex’s heart. “Now go to sleep.”

 But a thought had wormed into Alex’s brain, the sort of thought that, in her weariness, seemed like it needed to be addressed without delay. “Wait. What are you doing for Christmas?”

 “Oh, I meant to mention that,” Maggie said, and Alex heard a hint of regret in her voice. “I thought I was going to be solo this year, so last month I signed up for double shifts all week so the people with families can have off.”

 “You’re not going home?” Alex asked, and thought she saw a muscle twitch in Maggie’s cheek.

 Maggie shook her head and glanced at the TV, a calm, almost detached expression on her face. “My parents usually go away for Christmas and it just doesn’t work out with me being here. So instead, I work a lot and rack up a bunch of overtime so I can pay for things like that motorcycle.” She looked down at Alex again, her eyes dark and unreadable. “What about you?”

 “Kara and I go to Midvale,” Alex said, feeling a strange sort of disappointment at the idea that Maggie wouldn’t be with family — but even more so, that Maggie wouldn’t be with her. She caught at her hand, murmuring, “If you manage to get free, you’re more than welcome.”

 “That’s so sweet.” Maggie smiled down at her, and then she leaned forward, brushing their lips together in a kiss that felt like a whisper across Alex’s skin. “How the hell did I end up with someone as sweet as you?”

 “As I recall, it took you getting shot,” Alex replied with a soft laugh.

 “Call me stubborn,” Maggie said, and then nudged Alex’s shoulder until she rolled onto her side again. “Now close those beautiful eyes before I have to carry you over to that big bed and put you in it myself.”

 “I’d like to see you try,” Alex murmured, and got poked in the ribs for her trouble. “Hey now.”

 “Just shush,” Maggie said, those long, oh-so-delicate fingers sliding through her hair, their rhythm far too strong to fight. “Time for Dreamland, okay?”

 And Alex drew in a breath, and listened, and slipped away.

[dominodebt]

ding dong duch is back (with original work sorry)

HI okay sorry I know I’ve been very inactive but like, first it was finals and then it was a car accident and now it’s legal stuff (nothing major just part of the car accident thing Duch ain’t going to jail) so I’m just trying to stay on top of everything.

I’ve still been writing but I’ve been on more of an original kick lately than fan stuff (although Blackwatch AU is going up friday so like look forward to that I guess) and I’m trying to put together a portfolio of original work since I already have a portfolio of like, news pieces and journalistic things I’ve done.

Long story short here’s a short little character study (which is ironically about cars and legal trouble) that I wrote to put in such a portfolio and was edited by the lovely @woestar and @ullsumbra. I figured I’d slap it up here just to assure everyone that I’m still here and I still write stuff.

I’ll be back with fan stuff soon don’t fret! Thanks for your patience kids <3

Ophelia sees the ticket—an obnoxious flash of pink against the pitch of her vehicle—and feels her carefully worked down anger spike again.

           Fuckin’ peachy.

           She strides forward, heels clicking against the concrete as she approaches her—illegally—parked car, chewing on a manicured nail, stewing.

           This whole night had been a fucking waste, to be honest. Not even Rose, who was in no way an optimist but rather an exceptionally brutal opportunist, admitted that there was nothing useful in Ophelia’s findings.

           And when Rose—who would probably be called a vulture if this whole city didn’t already have her pegged as a viper—says something’s useless, it’s not even good enough to wipe your ass with.

           So Ophelia had, in effect, wasted her time, her money, her composure, and a damn good outfit on a useless party that had yielded none of the promised results. And someone had ticketed her Lotus.

           Her goddamn Lotus.

           She’s pissed, she’s hungry, and she’s not nearly as drunk as she’d like to be.

           She’s also—the heiress notes with interest as she reaches the side of her car—being watched.

           She knows what it’s like to feel eyes on her, to the point where it’s easier to tell when no one’s looking at her than the opposite. Paparazzi, business partners, criminals, cops, complete strangers—Ophelia draws everyone’s eye for one reason or another. This one wants her fortune, that one wants her dress. Some assess her as a threat, some just see a striking young woman.

          The thing, Ophelia’s learned, is when you wear this many masks, you have to be able to don the right one at the right time.

          She lets her gaze drift to the polished passenger window of her prized Lotus, taking in the officer who’s lurking behind, watching her closely.

          So the question is: what part does she have to play for this cop to leave her the hell alone?

          “Evening, Officer,” she greets him, turning around before he can announce himself. She lets some extra sweetness melt into her words, honeying them as best she can when all she can think about is food, alcohol, and the ticket on the hood of her Lotus shoved up this guy’s ass.

          The officer freezes mid-step, dark eyes narrowing as he considers her abrupt greeting, before his expression clears and he finishes his movement, standing a healthy distance away, but now bathed in the streetlight they stand beside.

          “You saw my reflection in the window,” he notes, and Ophelia has to fight to keep her charming smile.

          Oh, a clever cop. Her favorite.

          “Actually, I have eyes in the back of my head,” is her smooth response, as she leans back against the body of her prized car, lifting her leg back to hook the stiletto heel on the rim of her front tire and make the edge of her cocktail dress ride up just enough to pique some interest.

          He lifts an eyebrow, eyes never straying from her face. Ophelia’s smile strains again.

          “I stuck around because I wanted to see who owned the car,” he explains. “Although now that I see who it is, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” A pause. “Your plates are bad.”

          Ophelia drops the sweet smile, this time letting a sly smirk play across her lips, changing tactics.

          “Trust me, my plates aren’t nearly the baddest thing about me.”

          It’s a line so soaked in forced sensuality and false mystique that Ophelia nearly gags on it. She could not be more obvious. It should garner some reaction, at least. She’d welcome a rejection at this point—anything to clue her into what persona she should try next.

          Because it’s not as though she can’t pay the ticket. It’s not even that she doesn’t want to pay the ticket. It’s the simple fact that this cop put his hands on her Lotus, and he’s gonna answer for it one way or another.

          But as his gaze remains impassive under her alluring stare, Ophelia starts to wonder if she should just cut her losses, flip him off, and call it a night.

          “I don’t doubt that,” he replies evenly, and Ophelia’s hands twitch with the desire to crack her fist against that calm fucking face of his. She’s a wealthy heiress, dressed to the nines, openly flirting with him.

          She gets it—she’s not everyone’s taste, whatever. But his stoicism in the face of her performance is starting to grate her.

          Even if said performance is sloppy and kinda half-assed. She’s hungry, okay?

          She shifts gears again, smoothly extricating the heel of her shoe from where she’d hooked it over the rim of her tire and takes a few steps to skirt around the front of her Lotus, letting her fingertips glide over the polished pitch paint.

          “So, you said you wanted to see who owned the car.” Ophelia arches an eyebrow at him, off-handedly feeling like one of those models that showcase cars on game shows. The thought makes her cocksure smirk flicker, but she holds it together. God she wants to be unconscious—blackout or asleep, she kinda doesn’t care at this point. “Like what you see?”

            To her smug satisfaction, his eyes finally leave her face—only to settle on the body of the Lotus.

           Oh, fuck her.

            “It’s nice,” he agrees, crossing his arms as his dark eyes scan the car. “I thought they discontinued the Series 1 in in the 90’s.”

            His casual classification of such an old, stupidly expensive vehicle—no really, Rose had almost murdered her when it had finally come out how much of her fortune she’d spent on the damn thing—gives Ophelia pause, and there’s an audible falter in her smooth stride as she makes her way around to the driver’s side, still watching him closely.

            She half considers dropping the sultry act now just to see how far she can get talking shop with him, but decides against it. She’s too far in to make such a drastic change, and she honestly doesn’t give a shit what he thinks about her car.

          She’s tired, irritated, and wants to make this cop eat this fucking ticket.

          Quirking an eyebrow when he lifts his gaze back up to hers, she notes he’s watching her just as closely. Though she admits it’s probably because he’s waiting for her to make some kind of move as opposed to any sexual intrigue.

            Her eyes sweep over his uniform. The dark navy stands out against his rather fair skin, and she can see a shock of black hair beneath the cap he wears, the bill of it casting a shadow that hides his eyes. His belt contains nothing surprising—Officer Asshole here is not the first or the last cop she’ll see, definitely in her lifetime, probably not even tonight. She searches for something to catch on, but all she ends up looking at is the tarnished SCPD badge pinned slightly crookedly to his chest, and the nameplate fixed beside it.

           J. Zharkov

           “They did discontinue it,” she murmurs, smoothly picking up their conversational thread as she puts the Lotus between them, gazing at him over the roof. “But some things are too good to let go of, you know?”

          She plays her last card—a certain half-smile she couples with lowered lashes and an alluring tilt to her head. She’s honestly found more success in coercing people with the charming look than with flashing her gun.

          Although…Ophelia tips her stare down to the window of her car, knowing damn well such a gun is currently resting in the glove box. She could always try that—

          “You parked illegally.” The cop’s voice is low and terse—not a glimmer of interest in his dark eyes when Ophelia snaps her gaze back to his. “That ticket’s for two hundred bucks.”

          Ophelia’s fingers tense like harpy talons where she’d been skating them aimlessly across the smooth finish of her Lotus as her frisky façade melts away and her expression darkens with anger. Bullshit.

          “Fucking Christ man!” Ophelia steps back, no longer draping herself over the car, hands on her hips. “There are like, forty illegally parked cars here!” she waves a dark hand down the street, at the mass of cars all parked exactly like hers. Everyone parks illegally on Scape Street. And granted, her car is easily the most ostentatious, but still.

          “Did you give any of them tickets?” She swings her gaze around to the car parked behind her—some Ford model or another, ugly as sin—and her jaw tightens at the distinct lack of a ticket on its windshield.

            His lips twitch and she feels her ire rise. Oh, so that got him to smile, huh? Jackass.

            “I’ll get around to it,” he offers, shrugging casually in a way that tells Ophelia he will not, in fact, get around to it and she is the only one in a ten-mile radius getting fucked right now. And it isn’t even the good kind of fucked. Jesus.

            “You’re an ass,” she tell him shortly. She has two hundred dollars on her person right now easy—but it’s the principle of the thing.

           He quirks an eyebrow—the most emotion he’s displayed all night.

           “Just trying to do my job, ma’am.” He tips his hat then, and Ophelia wants to punch him square in the throat. “To serve and protect.”

           Ophelia chokes down a scoff. She’s not giving him the satisfaction, no fucking way.

           “Well, you’re doing a swell job there, rookie,” she drawls back, snapping him a sarcastic salute before leaning across the car to snatch the ticket off her windshield. She locks eyes with him as she does so, pulling on her least-liked mask. The one her parents used to wear.

           “Don’t ever touch my car again, okay? I don’t care how many laws it’s breaking. You see this—” she raps a knuckle against the polished pitch-black hood of her Lotus. “—you keep fuckin’ walking. Got it?”

           He gazes back at her impassively. “Not sure you really get to make that call, miss,” he answers. His voice doesn’t betray a shred of anxiety. Ophelia’s gaze hardens.

           “Yeah? Must be new in town.” She pulls back, making a show of crushing the ticket in her fist while making direct eye contact with him.

           She’s still gonna get it settled—mostly because Rose will absolutely eat her alive if she gives local authorities any reason to poke around in their affairs—but for the moment allows herself to smile at the sound of crumpling paper.

           “Do some research,” she suggests then. Her Lotus chirps as she unlocks it, pulling the door open and lifting an eyebrow at him as she climbs in. “Talk to some of your cop buddies. Poll the department. Ask them if they think it’s a good idea to pick a fight with a girl driving a car like this.”

           Her Lotus is legendary in Saint Cloud—it’s part of her pride, her image. Bad things usually follow its engine’s roar. Everyone knows it—the police department especially.

           She tosses the crumpled remains of her ticket into the cupholder and is about to slam the door and rev the engine for all she’s fucking worth when she sees him draw closer to the passenger side window, and her lips pull back in an honest to god snarl when he braces his forearm against the top of it, looking down at her through the tinted glass.

           Eyes narrowed, she rolls it down, giving him a flat glare.

           “Make it quick, rookie, or you aren’t getting that arm back,” she warns him.

           He looks right at her, and Ophelia lifts her chin.

           “I’ve lived in this city my whole life, Ms. Lévesque,” he tells her; voice that same timbre as before—as steady and solid as a heartbeat. “I don’t really scare all that easy.”

           Ophelia scoffs, rolling her eyes. Dramatic one-liners. Great.

           And a local. Even better. She glances at him sideways, trying to place his age, wondering if he’d been around back when her parents ran things.

           She eventually decides—with the flippancy of a flipped coin—she doesn’t give a shit, and turns back to the road, turning the key and letting the engine roar to life.

           “But you do scare,” she tells him off-handedly, not really caring if he’s listening or not. She throws the car into reverse, glances in her rear-view mirror, resists the urge to slam into the unticketed Ford parked behind her. “Easy or not. Everyone does.”

You can tell me what you think or you can totally ignore? Either way have a good one kids

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Hungry Place (Flash/LOT fic)

Fic: The Hungry Place (ao3 link) Fandom: Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: some Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, mostly gen; Leonard Snart & Mick Rory & Lisa Snart & Nora Allen & Barry Allen

Summary: Central City was built unwisely on a place where people don't dare to die for fear that they will come back - different.

Hungry.

Leonard Snart makes just that mistake.

A/N: Please ignore my rampant bastardization of the dozen or so different mythologies I looked up to write this fic. Full list on AO3.

Coldwave Creature AU Bingo - Wendigo Square

Warnings: Cannibalism, Man-Eating, it's the goddamn wendigo okay?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a place between the plains and the mountains that is a chasm of winter, a nature-made trap designed to ensnare unwary men, a place where creatures not of this earth emerge from the shells which held them.

A place of hunger.

The peoples around the area spoke of it in hushed voices, and forbade their children to ever venture there, no matter how tempting the hunt. It was a place where men died, women died, children died, though there are many such places; from this place, though, some who die do not stay dead, but are born again, children of the winter frost, children of the White Owl. And such children may take the form of men, but they are no such thing; their teeth are sharp and their hunger un-ending, and the antlers of the stag rise up from their foreheads so as better to gore the flesh of mankind, their rightful prey. And so when the peoples of the area found a winterborn peering out from the eyes of a man, they banished him from their camps.

And then came the others, who listened not at all to the old stories and trusted instead to their steel and their powder and their books, and they, too, fell within the trap, and the winterborn brought terror upon the land.

But such triumphs pass, even for the winterborn. Each new wave of men disbelieved the warnings of the prior age, but they brought with them weapons far sharper than steel.

They brought roads, and they brought houses, and they brought shipments of grain so that fewer and fewer went hungry. Fewer men fell into the trap from which few emerged and no man survived. The winterborn howled and roared, but for each man that fell prey to their teeth and their antlers, there were endless more, hungry for land instead of food.

Fewer and fewer were born in the jaws of winter, until the men stood proudly upon the hungry place, nature's trap, unnature's make, and declared the old stories nothing more than foolishness.

The winterborn may no longer reign in their place of power, but the hungry place never forgot them. Those who settled and tamed the hungry place were never satisfied, want and envy gnawing at their insides, turning them against each other with the blood-thirst of their ancestors.

And when the war came, the place on the edge of what men called Kansas bled a flood greater than the whole country. Neighbor turned on neighbor, brother on brother, sister upon sister, parents upon children, children upon any they could.

And the hungry place drank their hate, their violence, their blood with glee.

Even when the war passed and the buildings grew, the people did not leave. The lure of the nearby river was too great to resist, even as the stench of death laid over the place.

The slaughterhouses cause it, the people said, and the slaughterhouses were banned.

The chemicals on the fields cause it, the people said, and the chemicals were banned.

The lead in the walls causes it, the people said, and the lead was banned.

But those who lived in the hungry place would never be satisfied, the shadows of the winterborn heavy upon the place. And so the people threw up their hands and gave up, and left the place if they could.

Those that could not leave, stayed, and grew cruel with their want.

But the winterborn come from hunger, not cruelty, and the people who had left continued to send food to those they had abandoned, and so no winterborn walked the paths of the hungry place.

Until -

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leonard Snart was not born cruel, though cruelty haunted his footsteps like a dog his master.

He was born in the center of the hungry place, in a home small and cramped and unhappy. He opened his eyes and saw cruelty around him, and he became cruel, too, in response. Such is the nature of the hungry place, where no one escapes unscathed. But he remembered how to love in that place that hates love, for it remembers those it loved, long ago, the long-departed winterborn, and it was that love that was his undoing.

Leonard Snart was clever, and he could have been good even in his cruelty, but he was unlucky.

His father hurt him, and his mother left him, and his little sister whom he loved feared him even as she loved him in return. He took her to his grandfather’s home, across the way, and he left her there when there was trouble, and he would walk home on shoes that fell from his feet.

There was little money at home, and little at school, but the ways of the people would still have been enough to feed Leonard Snart if not for his love for his sister. He took the food at the school and gave it to her, citing her tender age; he did not want her to suffer the shrunken belly and the pangs that wracked him. His father took the money at home and spent it on heady liquors, citing his advanced age; he did not hit Leonard when he was too drunk to move, and so Leonard did not protest.

And so he starved in the midst of plenty.

The winter took notice.

There are many who starve, but few who have the spark that draws a man to the hungry place, a place he knows he should not go: Leonard Snart knew these things but did not care, for he was as loyal to the soil that birthed him as to his mother. It was not the same as coming willingly, but to stay willingly when all encourage leaving is very nearly close enough.

And so the winter brought its storms, pulled out its traps, its sharp-toothed wind, its streaming hail, its rains that turn to treacherous ice.

The people said it was the worst winter in living memory, and many that winter shivered from other things than cold.

It was in one of these storms that the winter caught its prey at last.

Leonard had gone to his grandfather’s house to give his sister what money he could spare, hiding his slenderness in his over-large layers, laughing at his grandfather’s sad questions, and he was returning when the great storm came upon him all in a sudden.

He fell to his knees, cut by the wind, pushed over by the snow, unable to struggle his way up.

“No,” he gasped.

Dozens had already died this year from the winter’s rage, frozen and starved beneath the ice.

The winter pulled back its layers, revealing one such man – a man without a home, who had unwisely slept in the streets and so had died upon them – and waited.

The winterborn are cursed by their own actions. The winter can do no more than offer.

All men who are trapped by the hungry place die.

But some –

Some still emerge from its depths.

Leonard ripped first the clothing from the corpse, covering himself in layers of cloth and snow, but still the winter froze him deep in his heart.

It waited.

Leonard gnawed on his own fingers to keep them from freezing, wailing as his own hot blood filled his mouth.

It waited.

The gnawing need filled Leonard’s belly, and he looked upon the man and he thought – food will make me warm, but I have no food but –

I cannot.

I must.

He did not permit himself to shed tears that would freeze onto his face, even when he reached forward, his fingers frozen in blood and ice into sharp talons.

He ate –

– and he was warm.

The winter roared in pleasure.

A winterborn is come at last.

And the people of what they called Central City all shook in terror that night – and did not know why.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leonard takes the nail file and rubs furiously at the small stumps that grow from his forehead, desperate to hide the truth of his actions. There are no legends of the winterborn anymore, and no peoples to cast him out from the realms of men, but Leonard knows well enough that those who look different are not beloved by the race of men.

His best efforts fail him and he flees his home at last, taking refuge in an ancient church by the graveyard.

The priest casts him out when he will not pray, but the parson is new to the city and less accustomed to her everyday cruelties, and permits Leonard to sleep at his hearth.

“Why will you not pray?” he asks.

“It is not my god,” Leonard tells him, and tells him in truth.

When the house-cleaner comes, she makes a sign against evil against him.

“Don’t be like that,” the parson says with a laugh. “He’s just a lost boy, looking for aid.” He does not mention the horns that grow from the boy's skull.

“He’s a devil,” the house-cleaner says, for her people might have lost the words to those that took their land but they remember well their stories. “He’s cursed.”

Leonard says nothing. He knows it is true.

“We will have a long winter,” she says, and thinks for a moment about refusing to return, but her family needs the money and so she stays.

One day, some weeks later, a hand as cold as ice falls upon her shoulder.

She looks up and sees something look down upon her, and it is not human.

Its teeth are very sharp.

“You will kill me,” she says, resigned.

“No,” says the creature who was once Leonard and still is. “But I would like to know who gave you the bruise that covers your arm.”

She reaches her hand up in an aborted movement, an attempt to hide what she has never permitted to go without cloth to cover it, but the eyes of the winterborn are keener than the eyes of man.

“He means well,” she says, but her voice trembles.

“No,” the winterborn says. “He doesn’t. Give me a name, Clarinda.”

She shudders, she who told the parson her name was Clair and never uttered anything different, but the will of the winterborn masters that of mere men. She whispers an apology to the gods of her grandmother in a tongue she had almost forgotten, and she tells him the name.

The winterborn goes out, barefoot and lightly clad despite the roaring wind, and she stays upon the floor and she shivers and she shivers and she shivers.

What returns, its mouth wet and black with dried blood, its eyes shining blue in the light, its antlers full-grown at last, twisting and curling up to the ceiling, is glorious and awful.

“Go home, Clarinda,” the winterborn says gently. “He will trouble you no more.”

“Forgive me,” she says, and she does not know to whom she says it: to her god, the Christian god; to her grandmother’s gods, to whom she did not listen; to her lover, whom she betrayed; to the young man who once was before her, who succumbed to his true nature on her behalf.

He smiles a terrible smile.

“They will come for you,” she tells him, even as she wipes away the tears that stream down her face. “The people will come for you.”

“The people,” he says, “may try.”

And the winterborn does what winterborn before him have done and folds himself back up into the space that once held a man until all that can be seen is a man once more.

The people who once were would still have seen the monster that lurks behind his eyes.

But those people are gone, and the new men of steel and book, the men of the houses and the roads, who know only the hunger of their souls and not the hunger of their bodies – they do not know.

Clarinda flees. She does not go home. She goes to her grandmother’s place and throws herself upon the rug and she says, “He is come.”

“Who?” her grandmother asks, surprised.

“The devil,” Clarinda says, her arms wrapped around herself. “The son of the Owl.”

“Clarinda,” her grandmother starts, and there is doubt in her voice.

Clarinda pulls away her dress and shows her grandmother where the winterborn placed his hand.

There is no mark, no bruise, no pain.

There is only the light dusting of frost that sparkles in the light, in the shape of a hand whose fingers stretch into talons.

The grandmother whispers a prayer.

Clarinda closes her eyes and joins her.

When they have finished, the frost is gone as though it had never been.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leonard is always warm, now; the cold is as sweet to him as a newlywed, caressing his shoulders and arms, pressing kisses to his cheeks, but it has no dominion over him.

The power of the winterborn is not in the cold that births them. It is in the hunger that consumes them. Leonard steals after the murderers and pimps of Central, silent as a shadow, and he grows fat upon their flesh, their bones, their organs that he stuffs into his mouth and gorges his endless hunger upon. His skin is sleek, his smile charming, his face beautiful, his eyes cold.

But he is still Leonard.

He still returns to his grandfather's house, to care for his sister whom he loves.

He still returns to his father's house, bringing money in supplication, though his father never again dares raise a hand to him, seeing though not understanding that some change has happened to make his son into a man he does not recognize.

When he finds a man - little more than a boy, really - standing amidst the flames that consume his house, speaking of beauty and howling his pain to the stars, his first thought is –

Well, his first thought is 'I've never had barbeque before,' for his sense of humor is as black as the snow that cloaks him is white.

But after that, he pauses, and he wonders.

He walks into the flames, which die when they beat upon his icy flesh.

"Are you a man?" he asks. "Or something like me?"

"I am a devil," the man responds.

Leonard considers this.

The winter whispers encouragement, a murmur of wind in his ears. It knows many things that men have forgotten, and the Owl knows his opposite, that great bird of the plains who some peoples worshiped as a god and others respected as an elder brother.

Leonard does not know these things, but he reaches out his hands with a smile.

"I am a monster," he tells the man. "Would you come with me?"

The man looks upon him.

Leonard says no more.

Men are cursed by their own actions.

"Yes," the man says, and steps forward to meet his fate.

They go side by side, monsters both, the angel and the devil, the devil and the angel, and only the wisest of the people know that there is no difference between the two.

The winterborn feasts upon the flesh of those who harm others, the endless pit of its hunger ever beckoning. The summerborn burns all around him with the fire that bubbles over within him, the flame that rages in his heart never quieted.

On the midsummer after they met, they go out to the plains where they have never been before, and the winterborn shows the summerborn how to unfold himself from the confines of the merely human, and the summerborn flies upon wings of thunder and lightning.

When he lands, he shines so bright that he would blind all men that look upon him.

But the winterborn is no man.

He steps forward, drawn to his opposite, and they press their lips to each other without even realizing that they were moving.

When they pull apart, some part of the summerborn's light is gone, and some part of the winterborn's hunger is sated.

"My name is Mick Rory," the summerborn says, his voice filled with wonder. "I had forgotten."

"My name is Leonard Snart," the winterborn says, and blinks. "I have not visited my sister in a year."

"The winter will take every part of you it can," Mick says. "Just like the sun will burn me to ashes."

Leonard smiles his terrible smile. "It's a good thing I have you, then, and you me."

Mick smiles, and his smile is no less terrible. "Yes," he says. "Good thing."

They go hand in hand from the plain, back to the city.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bird that fills Mick's breath with flame is far more forthcoming than the winter that whispers in Leonard's ears, and Mick tells him the stories of their kind.

His hands and legs move in the ancient dances that he never learned, though his mother was the right people for it.

"My father came across the sea," he tells Leonard, who swallows the stories as avidly as he swallows everything else. "His was the land of courts and revelry and treachery. Ours is the land of warriors, of tricksters, of travelers, and my mother was born here."

"My father's blood came from a land of the forests and the beasts," Leonard says. "The stone and the tree. My mother -" He pauses.

"Yes?"

"My mother had no God but one," Leonard says. "And her people were welcome in no land. The people of the Word, and the Covenant. And I will follow her god, Owl or no Owl."

"You need not worship your patron for him to love you," Mick assures him. "It has been so long since winter has borne fruit; it has discarded such concerns long ago, if it ever had them."

"Worship is the concern of men," Leonard says. “Not of creatures like us.”

A winterborn’s hunger is never sated. No blood, no story, no adventure can fill the pit in their stomach.

And so Leonard goes forth to seek what he will, though he always returns to the land which he loves.

His sister clings to him. “I don’t understand,” she says, blind hands feeling the antlers that Leonard only sometimes permits to show. “What…?”

“The people who came from the north and the east call his kind wendigo,” Mick says. “Across the world, they call them rakshasa –”

“Winter is winter,” Leonard says, “even if it’s too hot to notice it. By our standards, at any rate; the rakshasa are a hot-blooded lot.”

Mick rolls his eyes. “But those who lived here,” he says, “call them the winterborn.”

“And you –” she pauses, swallows. “You eat people?”

“Yes,” Leonard says. “They are my rightful prey.”

Her eyes are bright with tears. “Do you at least only go after the bad people?”

“People are not good or bad,” he tells her, gentle. “They are people. They may contain multitudes. But they are my prey, for better or worse.”

She sobs.

He pets her gently. “Yes, my Lisa,” he tells her. “I devour those who harm others.”

His hands drift over to her arm and the still-healing cut there, from a bottle thrown with intent.

She freezes. “No,” she says. “No, Lenny. He is your father.”

Leonard arches his eyebrows. “I was born of winter.”

“If he is not your father, then I am not your sister,” she says stubbornly. “He is your father.”

“Very well,” he says. “I will not devour him. Can I have Mick burn him, instead?”

“No!” she exclaims.

“Why not?”

“Only if he does something unforgivable,” she tells him.

“I will wait,” Leonard tells her. “But it will only be a matter of time.”

It is.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When she comes from over the ocean, mad-eyed and half-blind as she ever was, the bird of the plains tells Mick, who tells Leonard, who sighs and goes to greet her.

She greets him at her doorway.

“You did not have much luck at this the last time,” he says, nodding at the mortal man who remains inside the house they had purchased together. “Why do you think it will be better this time?”

“I am not my ancestor,” she says primly. “I didn’t pick him based on a name. We are in love.”

“You are the daughter of lightning,” Leonard says. “Mistress of the thunder. Does your husband know?”

“No,” she says, and wraps her arms around herself. “He does not. He came to my land to attend at a hospital; we met there. He does not know the stories of my land. He does not know what happens to those who have been marked by the lightning, as I was.” Her eyes narrow. “Does yours?”

Leonard smiles a smile with teeth. “My husband is the bird of the plains. He does not feast upon flesh, as we do; but he burns those who escape justice, though that may not be what men consider justice.” The smile widens. “Have you ever had barbeque?”

She laughs and slaps her hands over her mouth. “You are terrible,” she says. “I like you, cousin-mine. What is your name?”

“Leonard Snart,” he tells her.

“My name,” she says, “is Nora Allen.”

Her husband, Henry Allen, is one of the many peoples of the city, which he loves; he greets Leonard with surprise, saying he did not know that his wife had kin in the city.

Leonard only smiles.

He introduces Nora and Mick: they bristle at each other, lightning and fire of different sorts, territorial masters of the skies seeing an invader to their land. Leonard rolls his eyes and tells them to grow up and learn to share.

Mick looks at Nora. Nora looks at Mick.

“I can’t wait until another winterborn is made,” she says.

“The ranting, the raving,” Mick agrees. “We’ll remind him of this moment.”

“Your baby is cute,” Leonard says, dangling little Barry on his knee. “Can I eat him?”

“No,” Nora says. “I would have him take after his father, a mortal man among mortal men.”

“Then you shouldn’t have borne him in the hungry place,” Leonard tells her.

She shrugs. “No lightning has hit him yet.”

Leonard shrugs and offers the baby a finger.

The baby grabs it and crunches down on the meat, gobbling it up with delight.

Leonard – whose finger it had not been – looks at Nora. “Are you sure?”

She sighs.

The crackling lightning that dances over the water does not answer her.

The bird of the plains merely shrugs when Mick asks.

Leonard waits until winter, walks out into the cold, the winds roaring around him as they embrace their beloved child. “What creature is he,” he asks, “that is born, not made?”

The wind whistles innocently in his ear.

“He is born of the hungry place,” Leonard says. “Like me. But that is not enough, or we would have far more of me.”

The whistling grows louder, and louder, until no man can see or hear anything else.

A winterborn is no man.

Leonard comes back inside.

“Well?” Nora demands.

“Congrats,” he says. “Your child has eaten of the huckleberry.”

“The garden?” Nora groans. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“It grows everywhere in the hungry place,” Leonard tells her. “The land wants its people back – and your blood is already tainted, thunder-goddess.”

“Oh, hush,” she says. “It probably has more to do with you feeding him fingers. Now, tell me more. The Māori have no stories about this bush.”

Leonard shrugs. The winter is the wisest of the elders, but it is rarely the most eloquent.

Mick lights a flame. “Your child has no name,” he reports. “Had he eaten of the berry and then of the flesh, he would be a giant; if he trod upon the water, he would be a serpent. But he is the son of the thunder, so these are things he cannot be.”

“So what is he?” she complains.

“An eater of men,” Leonard says dryly. “Do you need to know more?”

“I would know if I ought to expect him to have antlers, like you, or blindness, like me, or winged arms, like Mick. One must take care to child-proof a house, you know.”

Leonard laughs.

A small child, not far away, runs home crying.

“Mick?” he asks.

“Yes,” Mick says. “He is of the in-between, born of thunder, bred of berries, child of the hungry place. There is lightning in his future – and a changeblood until then, the son of the Owl in the spring.”

“Spring,” Leonard says, surprised. “Birth and renewal – those are not our elements. A mixture of summer and winter more often gives rise to autumn than to spring.”

“No,” Mick says. “But you have managed it, Nora. A monster of the spring.”

“You will have to help me care for him,” she says, “when I return to the sky. He will be too young.” She caresses her child. “They are always too young.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Little Barry is a happy child, his mother’s friends teaching him how to hide the ram’s horns that curl over his forehead, how to preen the speckling of owl feathers on his arms. His mother feeds him well, his own special snacks made just for him.

Sparks of light trail his heels when he runs.

The lightning comes when he is eleven, but it does not strike him but his mother, and she returns to the sky.

“You go too soon,” Leonard tells her.

“I think my husband may be going to jail,” she replies, irritated. “And he has left a policeman to guard our child.”

“That is unfortunate,” Mick says. “A policeman will not let us come near.”

“Indeed,” she says. “Yet I wished for him to grow up a man as well as a monster; perhaps some time without your aid and presence will not be so bad. He will still remember you when he grows older. When the lightning strikes him, you must go to him.”

“We will,” Leonard says.

“Tell him to seek me among the skies,” she says, and goes.

“We will,” Mick says, one sky-lord to another.

The wind blows warm over their arms, approving.

Nora’s words prove true: the policeman will not have criminals visiting his house, and so they retreat. Barry forgets what he has learned and grows his next ten years as a man, eating mortal food and finding it lacking for reasons he cannot say.

The lightning comes at the quarter-century, and it comes in strength.

“An explosion,” Mick says. “An explosion. Overcompensating, is he?”

“That’s not nice,” Leonard says. “Nor appropriate – I’ve seen you explode things.”

Mick waves a hand, dismissing the argument. “I,” says he, “have style.”

They investigate.

Walls are no match for a monster.

“The lightning struck him separately,” Mick observes. “Nothing to do with the explosion.”

“The explosion was meant to bring forth monsters,” Leonard says, frowning. “A monster made by man, not nature – they will be weak things, unworthy things.”

The hungry place agrees, rumbling its disdain in the wind, in the ground, in the water.

The city becomes crueler yet, dissatisfaction seeping into each household.

“We will wait until he wakes,” Leonard decides.

Barry awakens, and sees, and runs.

He runs to them.

Lightning trails his heels, the sparks of his youth matured at last.

“My uncles,” he greets them.

“Your friends,” Leonard says. “Won’t you stay for dinner?”

“I have been so hungry,” Barry says. “Caitlin – my friend – says that it is merely my metabolism, increased.”

“It isn’t,” Mick says.

“I know,” Barry says. “Cisco – my friend – has created a cold gun, a heat gun. Would you like them?”

“Why not?” Leonard asks, amused. “If you paint yourself a hero, we will play the enemy.”

“Harder to find what’s so easy to see,” Mick agrees.

“Why are you playing the hero?” Leonard asks. “A time will come when the justice of nature – the justice of your nature – will not match the ideals of men, and men will fall before you.”

“Harrison Wells has encouraged me to,” Barry says.

“Your friend?” Mick asks.

“No,” Barry says. “He is no mortal man, but he hides his face even from me, his kin. I know not what he is. I have asked the skies and the lightning, but they do not respond.”

Mick asks the bird of the plains, but he is silent.

Leonard waits until winter, and goes to the cold. “What is he, that births monsters?” he asks.

The winter wraps his arms around its true-born child and whispers.

“Well?” Barry says. “What is he?”

Leonard smiles, terrible, and two dozen babes in the nearby houses all begin to scream, and cannot be consoled.

“He is,” Leonard says, “an enemy.”

“An enemy?”

“He has made himself a serpent,” Leonard says. “He has trod upon the water , but feasted on no flesh– instead, he seeks the lightning to claim as his own.”

“A serpent who is trying to be a lightning?” Barry says dubiously. “That sounds wrong.”

Mick laughs. “It is,” he says, and his smile shines so bright that two dozen stoves catch fire, all at once. “He is the enemy, the horned serpent, that which some people call unktehila; he is my rightful prey – and yours.”

And at that Barry smiles, and at his smile two dozen houses go dark, the electrical grid that powers them surging like the floodwaters until they have burnt brightly and quickly but no more.

“I will hunt him,” Barry says. “I will have him.”

“Excellent,” Leonard says. “Mick will set up the barbeque.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The serpent who calls himself Harrison Wells, whose name at birth was Eobard Thawne, has created many plots, many plans; he thinks himself a genius who rightfully reigns because he knows the future from which he has come. He does not understand why his man-made lightning pales before that which came from the gods, and so he ran across the water of Time to seek his prey when his prey was young.

It was he who brought the lightning to take away Nora.

“Well,” Barry says. “That was rude. Now I must go all the way to the sky if I am to find her.”

The serpent knows the toys of ice and heat that Barry had smuggled to Leonard and Mick, and laughs in their face.

“You cannot face me,” he crows. “I have the speed of lightning.”

“So do I,” Barry says, appearing.

“You!” the serpent hisses. “How?”

“The eyes of the lightning are sharper than the eyes of man,” Barry says. “And so sharper your eyes would be, if you were to feast upon the flesh you have been given right to.”

“Flesh?”

“Men,” Barry clarifies. “You are a horned serpent, as I am a horned bird. You are meant to eat men.”

“I will not,” the serpent hisses, disgusted. “I will never.”

“Then you are a man? Not a serpent?”

“I am,” the serpent says, which is a lie: once made, never unmade. He has trod through the waters of Time, and so he is a serpent born – albeit a hungry one.

And a serpent is the rightful prey of the birds of the sky: the owl of winter, the bird of summer.

Leonard, too, is the son of the Owl, child of winter, but his blood is of the land, not the sky; this is not his battle – but he will enjoy watching.

Each of them smiles his terrible smile.

“No – no!” the serpent cries, seeing first Leonard’s icy talons, the antlers that stand proud from his brow; the story of the wendigo is famed and has spread down the centuries. He knows what he sees.

Then he sees the birds, Mick in his glory, shining as bright as the sun, thunder in his wings; Barry, the quick-dark of lightning, his own wings spread silent and deadly.

And the serpent flees before them.

“Good,” Mick says, his voice echoing in the thunder. “A chase.”

“Yes,” Barry says.

And they go.

Leonard sets the table.

“There will be others,” he says, when they have eaten. “Like, I have found, calls to like.”

“Man-made monsters are better than none,” Mick agrees. “Provided they know their place.”

Most of the new men – the people call them meta-humans – follow Leonard and Mick. Some stay with Barry. They do not require the flesh of men, but they do not understand why they hunger for more than their old lives provided. The drama, the attention, the battles – that sates them.

Leonard and Mick and Barry are sated by –

Other things.

Leonard hunts those who cause harm.

Mick hunts those who are unjust.

Barry –

Barry hunts all who prey upon the good.

The hungry place throws open its arms and summons its children home, and so there are more battles, more fights, more strange things.

Barry climbs the pathway to the sky, leaping up to close a black hole, grasping the parent vine and crawling his way into the heavens.

Nora embraces him and sends him home with a book of recipes that Mick adopts with glee.

A giant from another world, who runs like lightning and devours all in his path, threatens them, wanting to rule the place that calls him, though he knows not why.

Leonard swallows him, piece by piece.

There is a man that flies through time and asks for their aid.

His ship comes over the water, safe and snug, and he calls upon the many creatures of the time. He seeks the every-living hawks, who hail from the sea of sand and awaken in the same form in each lifetime, and he seeks others, too, that support them.

He calls for Mick and for Len; he summons them by their human names, all unknowing of that which looks out from behind their eyes.

Mick laughs.

Leonard hums, intrigued.

“We have no need to go,” Mick says.

“We have no reason not to,” Len says.

The winterborn are never satisfied. They are always hungry.

Mick acknowledges this.

Barry rolls his eyes. “You’re both crazy, my uncles,” he tells them. “Go and tell me how it was – and I will fetch you back myself, if need be.”

They go.

They hunt through time, their teeth sharp, their fingers clawed; their teammates are repulsed by them and fear them.

They go to the land of fjord, where the monster they seek – the dog-faced, sharp-eared which the peoples of his land call set when they see them, bound up in an endless chase with the hawks he hunted in life. A dog who has caught his tail and yet must keep chasing, forever.

They travel to the land of the snow, where Len gets distracted by a rusalka and Mick is thrown into a prison, which makes him laugh and shine like a light to show Len where to find him.

When Len finds him, he’s in the same cell as their colleague from aboard the Waverider.

“Must we rescue him?” Len grumbles even as he hefts the man onto his shoulders.

“He did me a favor,” Mick says, and that is the end of it.

Monsters well understand the concept of debt.

And then they go forward in time.

“Let me go here,” Mick cries when he finds the land of fire and strife, shining far too bright and far too terrible. “And I will be the king of the sun!”

“We must return,” Leonard reminds him, and takes him back, snarling with madness the whole way.

“I must go,” Mick growls after he has been trapped upon the steel ship for a week too long. “At least for some time. I cannot be here.”

“Home?” Leonard asks.

“No,” Mick says, and tells Leonard his plan.

Leonard laughs.

He drops Mick off in a land of forest, stone and tree, and the far-children of the Good Gentleman come to fetch him in hopes of using him. The Good Gentlemen yet reign supreme beneath their Hills in the land of the green, and they leave their changeling children scatter in cots throughout their lands. These children have grown, but not well: their future brothers steal them from the past, hunting down each one, and sometimes taking the unchanged ,too, such as the man who flies the ship.

These far-children are nothing like their mighty, capricious sires. They have forgotten their roots, far in the future; they do not understand their hungers, their isolation, their haughtiness, and assume it natural.

They do not eat of the flesh of man, and are weakened thereby.

A year and a day, Mick passes in their company, hungering for the sun.

A year and a day, Mick is burned from the inside by the heat.

A year and a day, and he returns to Leonard and feels the balm and chill of Leonard’s hands upon his heart.

“They will taste good,” Mick tells Leonard, content.

“Yes,” Leonard says. He tells Mick of the rock that was flung from Orion’s sling onto the earth and how the set they hunted used it to create false-hawks from the others. Jax had been adjusted by the serpent to be a man-made monster, an ifrit of flame; Leonard disapproved of the mixing and is pleased that Jax has been restored to his former self.

“And you complain about me being too fond,” Mick says, shaking his head.

“I would still eat him,” Len sniffs.

They travel forward to the future, where their ship’s captain fails so utterly at murder that Mick and Leonard can do nothing but exchanged looks of horror.

They travel back to the past, where the man with the scarred face tips his hat to them and tells them that the winterborn should not stay too long or the people would find him, and he would be expelled.

Mick points out that he is just as dangerous, puffing with irritation.

“The people here,” the man from the past says with a sigh, “fear the bite of winter far more than the heat of summer.”

“This is true no matter where we go,” Leonard says, and obligingly hangs back to avoid causing any fuss.

The far-children of the Good Gentlemen send their armies against them.

“Enough of this running,” Leonard says, looking down at the infant that was himself, once, in puzzlement. He does not recognize himself in this human form. “We should take the fight to them.”

They go to the future, instead, and find a giant.

A mechanical giant.

“What will they think of next,” Mick murmurs.

At last, they capture the set – but the humans aboard the ship, and the hawk-woman too who ought to know better , do not kill him immediately. They do not banish him to starvation. They hold him captive and seek to trade him to the far-children of the Good Gentlemen.

Leonard and Mick exchange glances.

It will not go well, but it matters little to them: their prey is everywhere.

“We will finish this,” Leonard declares, “and we will return. I have had enough of this jaunt.”

“Yes,” Mick says. “To our home.”

“To the hungry place,” Leonard says, and is pleased.

But when they go under the hill to find the Vanishing Point, they find a glowing figure, bound in place by the strands of time, shining with the light of the skies.

A familiar figure.

“Nora Allen,” Leonard says, exasperated. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Blame Barry,” she says. “He keeps visiting the past to see me die.”

“Why? For pleasure?”

“I think he’s trying to find a time when I do not die,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He creates a knot in which I am trapped, and the far-children of the Good Gentlemen found me and took me to their home under the hill. I have been trapped for a very long time, my friends; I would be released.”

“I will do it,” Mick says, but he still burns too bright. His flames would free her, it is true, but he would drown in the flood that would be created when they are unleashed.

“No,” Leonard says. “Let me.”

Mick returns to the ship.

Leonard looks upon the threads of destiny.

“You wouldn’t dare!” one of the far-children cry. “It will kill us all!”

They think him still a man, despite all that they have seen him do.

Leonard smiles, and it is a terrible smile, and the children all pull back before it.

And Leonard Snart, child of the hungry place, opens his mouth and eats.

A winterborn’s hunger is never sated.

No blood, no story, no adventure can fill their empty stomach.

Time does no more to sate him.

He eats and he eats and he eats.

And what he eats he gives back to his home, the hungry place, and it reaches out its hands to its people.

Barry looks up from where he runs, and smiles.

Mick looks from where he sails, and smiles.

The meta-humans look up from where they are, and they smile, though they know not why.

Mick returns home.

With Barry by his side, he goes to standing stones that rest in the park in the center of the city.

Leonard emerges from the standing stones, Nora by his side.

“Mother!” Barry cries gleefully, and embraces her.

“My friend,” Mick says to Leonard. “What have you done?”

“I have created the hungry place,” says Leonard. “Far back in the past, far forward in the future.”

He smiles once more.

“But for us, I have created for us an age of heroes and of villains.”

His smile widens.

“And they will all be hungry.”

[confessions-of-a-hs-graduat-blog]

Chapter 5: Wigglebum-itis

I started to have what the school diplomatically referred to as behavioural issues in the second grade. The teacher, Mrs. S, sent home letter after letter bemoaning my various disruptions: pestering other students during Quiet Time, cracking jokes, moving around when I was meant to be sitting still, and sitting still when I was meant to be moving around.

Look, I have an infinite amount of sympathy for teachers. Firstly, they’re shamefully underpaid; secondly, class sizes keep growing and growing; and lastly, constant budget cuts mean there just aren’t enough resources for students with special needs. Among other things, to say the least. I feel them. I really do.

So I can hardly blame Mrs. S., for what happened next, and I totally don’t want her to fall into a bottomless pit filled with snakes, and I would never want it so that the snakes bite her as she is falling; or that the pit would have no bottom and so she just keeps falling and being bitten by snakes. For eternity.

Flustered by my “wigglebum-itis” as she scientifically put it, Mrs. S. created a Behavioural Chart. The Behavioural Chart was laid out not unlike the Universal Pain Assessment Tool that doctors use to judge the level of pain in their patients, and was roughly as esoteric. For each day of the school week, I would receive a sticker with a face that corresponded to how much of a little shit I’d been on a given day – happy, sad, inflamed with rage, drinking problem. Each day, I would take the Behaviour Chart home and present it to my parents, who would either see that I’d been “good” that day and be pleased, or see that I’d been “bad”, and beat me.

Oh – that wasn’t the way it was intended to work?

---

My father had a long, hard ruler. It’s not the title of an incest porn, but what eventually became a daily reality. It was eighteen inches long, made of blond wood, and had a thin, sharp metal edge along the numbered side, ostensibly for drawing more accurate lines. I like to think about the manufacturer of that ruler, and what they imagined their customers would use them for. Perhaps they pictured architects working busily at their angled desks, maybe the next Frank Lloyd Wright, designing buildings for people to live and work in. Or maybe they imagined a dedicated student, feverishly changing out ruler for protractor for compass, studying for college. Certainly they didn’t imagine them being used to hit children. Or they did, but they kept it to themselves and select subreddits.

Sadly, that isn’t what the ruler was used for. With broad strokes, my father brought the ruler down on my backside, my legs, whatever part of my wriggling, escaping self presented itself.

I’d love to tell you that a couple good whuppins set me straight, and that I sat down and shut up during Quiet Time, and quit cracking jokes, and it was all thanks a little Fear ‘o God and the Almighty Ruler. 

But in reality, after a little more digging, a few visits to the school counselor, a few of those highly entertaining standardized tests, it was determined that I was just “gifted” – which is 80s-speak for “I already know all this shit already” – and it was no wonder that I was disturbing the other children, for I was bored out of my gourd. I have to hand it to Mrs. S. for figuring that out – cheers, Mrs. S.; I hope the snakes in the bottomless pit are not poisonous, and are just, like, garter snakes.

I was packed off part-time to a special program for gifted students, where we really did “discover our desks”, and that was that. Or at least, it should have been. The Behaviour Chart was put away, but the ruler was here for good.

---

It’s difficult to talk about personal experiences with abuse – unless it’s extreme – without running the risk of sounding like a whiny, self-serving mess. There’s always someone who had it worse: children locked in closets, starved and forced to eat and sleep and play in puddles of their own waste; children whipped with belts until cuts gape open on their backs like toothless grins; children sexually assaulted by those who are meant to love and protect them the most. I’ve experienced none of that.

And I do have perspective. My parents are not horrible people; they simply should not have been parents. My father had anger issues – he wasn’t a psychopath who took special pleasure in causing me pain – I don’t think – though it certainly seemed to make him feel better in general. That said, while I know I rank pretty low on the list of People Whose Parents Fucked Them Up, I still refuse to minimize my experiences.

Because they don’t stop when the abuse stops, and it isn’t just the emotional scars that you carry with you for the rest of your life. Instead, it’s the extra pain you carry when something terrible happens and you don’t have a mom to call just to hear her say something that’ll make you feel better, even though you know it’s not true, like, Well, fuck that other person, there isn’t anything wrong with you, so don’t even worry about it (I like to imagine my ideal mother as throwing around the word ‘fuck’ rather casually).

Or, it’s the burden of deciding, when it comes to your wedding day, Who will walk me down the aisle? Should I choose someone else – which will result in people feeling sorry for me – or walk by myself – which will also result in people feeling sorry for me? It’s two less people you can call when you’re in trouble, two less people in your life that you can count on, no matter what.

In truth, the main reason it’s difficult to relay these experiences is because, in a lot of cases, I just don’t remember. I used to; I carried these memories for a long time, until some were dulled by the passage of time, their edges made less sharp. Some were claimed by the mercy of advancing age, some replaced by greater horrors still to come. What I have left is not unlike the snapshots in an old photo album: damaged, faded, and just barely intact.

But I remember: My mother smearing my hand across the urine-spackled inside rim of the toilet, because she didn’t like the way I cleaned it; my father, asking me whether I’d like my beating before or after dinner; my mother, open-palm slapping me in the face, when I was still small enough for the recoil to send me sprawling across the room.

I won’t proselytize here about the drawbacks or merits of physically disciplining children – although, frankly, it’s my goddamn book, and I have every right to, and it’s only fear of Amazon Reviews holding me back – but I will say that the only lasting lesson I learned from meeting the wrong end of that ruler (which, as it happens, was either end) was to fear my parents, and in particular, my father, as my mother eventually grew too apathetic even to raise a hand against her child. When the beatings started, and as they continued throughout my childhood and adolescence, he evolved from Grumpy 50s Dad – always sleeping or playing some weird porny computer game – to Terrifying Evil Dad, a man around whom you walked on eggshells.

As far as I know, he never laid a hand on my mother, for which I’m grateful. They had some nasty blow-out fights, to be sure, but they never turned physical. If anything, their arguments, instead of frightening, as they would have been for a normal child, were a source of fascination for me. I would sit on the floor of my room with an ear glued to the door, straining to hear every disdainfully-slung bon mot they hurled at each other.

I can only explain it like this: when they were fighting, the focus was, for a brief moment in time, somewhere other than me. I’m sure other only children can empathize; the unwavering attentions of a parent, whether for better or for worse, can be exhausting as a child. I was both the focus of too much attention – the beatings, the scrutiny of my behaviour, the reamings-out – and an immense amount of benign neglect. So for their cannons to be trained on each other for a change was a special treat. It’s sick, but to this day, I love to eavesdrop on a good fight, whether I know the participants or not. All my husband has to do is bellow - The neighbors are fighting again! - and I’ll come running.

As I moved through elementary school, their relationship didn’t so much deteriorate as it did flatline – my father spent increasing amounts of time either at work or on the computer, and my mother spent most of hers folded inside the big floral armchair in front of the television. They didn’t argue much at all, but they didn’t talk much, either. Most of their discussions centred around the administration of day-to-day life, and avoided dangerous topics like things they enjoyed or personal goals.

As a result, our family unit – if, in fact, it could ever have been called that – began to break down. When I was small, we ate together at a small, brown veneer table in the kitchen; now we ate on TV trays in front of the televisions – different televisions – in different rooms. They ate upstairs, I ate downstairs. Afterwards, we each retired to our corners. Computer. Armchair. And me to the solitude of my room.

My mother became increasingly shrill about this dynamic, though she failed to actually do anything about it. And I’d played alone for my entire life up until this point, so why would I change now? My father squarely placed the blame on me, as if we three comprised something in delicate balance, and my retreat alone threw everything off course.

“You’re the source of all the problems in this family,” he said casually to me one day, in the kitchen, in the same tone a mechanic might use when recommending you look into an oil change some time soon. There wasn’t much I could say to that. I felt somehow that it wasn’t true, but everything I’d seen and experienced up until that point said that it was.