#technically you are doing the same thing. you’re probably even running faster with the zombie horde

[doctorweebmd]

both zero-sum and the litany of love and loss were concepts that possessed me and would not not get out of my head until i wrote them but i have wastly different feelings about both of these stories despite loving them equally

[dbtskills]

Psychiatric Hospitalization 101

So you’re about to save your own life by going to the hospital- here’s what you need to know:

~disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional nor have I worked in a hospital. I am simply someone who has been hospitalized multiple times. This is about acute, short-term psych hospitalization. My word is not law~

The Truth

First off, let me tell you the truth. The truth is that being hospitalized is one of the bravest things you can do. You have chosen (or perhaps you haven’t) to save your own life. Not to beat the physical vs mental illness comparison to death, but conceptually this is like going to the hospital with a broken leg to get a cast. You’re treating an acute wound, going to get a tune up, going to a safe place to heal. Unfortunately there is a stigma involved. It’s been decreasing recently and I think you’ll find psych hospitalization is a lot more common than you imagine. But it still exists. You can be proud of taking this step. It will be hard, but you’ve made the right choice.

When to consider hospitalization

Being suicidal is one of the most common reasons for hospitalization. Psychosis, panic attacks, and substance abuse are others. The main factor for choosing to hospitalize is whether you think you can survive the episode you’re having. If you’re even questioning it, hospitalization is probably a good idea. If you’re choosing between your life and the hospital, the hospital is always the right answer even if it doesn’t seem that way at the time.

The process

There are two ways to be hospitalized: through the ER and straight to the unit. The ER is the most common way. Occasionally your therapist or psychiatrist or other healthcare provider will be able to bypass the ER for you and get you straight into a bed on a unit. If you have this opportunity, definitely take it.  

If you go the ER route, you arrive and explain why you’re there. You’ll then be taken back into a room- sometimes a private room, sometimes a communal psych room. Sometimes your phone will be taken. A guard will be stationed near you to ensure you do not hurt yourself or try to run away. You may wait for hours. You’ll see a psychiatrist who will determine whether to commit you to the psych unit or send you home. If they decide to commit you, you’ll be wheeled to the unit.

For me, the worst part of the process is the ER. You’re often helped by healthcare professionals who are judgmental of mental illness or are too busy to enact kindness. It can be a very dehumanizing experience. You may regret coming to the hospital, but you did the right thing. Saving your life is always the right thing. It’s okay to regret it for a bit as long as you follow through.

What to pack

Your belongings will be confiscated upon your arrival but if you have a chance to pack or if you have someone to bring you stuff, consider these:

A warm comfy outfit like sweats (but without a string at the waist!!!!!! take it out or they won’t let you have them!), SOCKS, pjs. Loungewear basically. The hospital provides basic toiletries, socks, and gowns/scrubs/paper pants. They can provide underwear and pads as necessary. Pack a hair brush if you’ve got tangly hair bc whatever they give you will NOT suffice.

You may want to bring your medications just in case the hospital doesn’t have them in their pharmacy but you will not have access to them, all your meds will come from the hospital itself.

Books! Some hospitals have a small library but you can bring your own if they’re deemed appropriate by the staff. They provide stuff like coloring pages, puzzles, games, etc but it can get p boring.

BRING A WRITTEN LIST OF IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS. YOUR PHONE WILL BE TAKEN.

You will have to ask to have items you arrived with brought to you from your belongings bag. Occasionally they will be reluctant, but you can self-advocate your way through it. 

On the unit

If you came to the hospital in the evening you may get little sleep that first night. You have to do the intake where they ask you all the questions and you sign a bunch of forms. You must be up for breakfast the next day. That first day you won’t get to choose your own meals but you will fill out a meal card for the next day. 

Most of your day will consist of shuffling between different mental health groups. Mental Health Professionals (often social work masters students) run groups on addiction, coping skills, community resources, gratitude etc etc in addition to your stereotypical group therapy. There are 3 meals a day, snacks available, and lots of downtime. There’s also activity hour where you do crafts or play games. During activity hour in my last hospitalization I painted a cackling coffin (it was October). 10/10. 

You will have a roommate. My experience is that you both mind your own business while being kind and it’s generally okay. 

They will take your blood pressure and vitals at least once a day. It’s annoying but necessary. They may do labs and draw your blood depending on your circumstances. If you have a physical illness as well, it may be a battle to make sure you are seen and treated for that too. All I can say is be your best advocate. 

You will not have your cell phone. This will be stressful at first but hopefully nice after a bit. You can call whomever you want using the hospital phones that are on during downtime. You may have to ask the staff to dial if it’s out of the hospital area code. People can also call you if they know where you are. Do what you need to do but also don’t be the Phone Hogger bc we all want to use it too. 

Visitors are allowed during certain hours. It’s not like a regular hospital visiting situation where they can just sit by your bed for hours. It’s like once a day for an hour you can get a visitor, no more than two at a time or whatever the rules are. No one can visit or call you without your permission. Visits by loved ones are so so nice and make you feel human again. I would encourage finding someone you trust who can visit you. It can make a world of difference. 

"How can I get out faster?”

This is a hack question tbh. I know everything sucks but you are there to heal first and foremost. Generally they release you when the psychiatrist thinks you’re ready to go. The average stay for something like an acute suicidal episode is 3-5 days. That’s enough time in the dr’s eyes for you to stabilize and receive any medication changes. If you are on the unit voluntarily, you can technically leave at any time. I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone insist on it though. Ask your doctors when they are considering releasing you so you can plan. They may change their answer so casually check in now and then.

Go to groups and participate in them. If you're hiding in your room all day the nurses will notice and they do write that down. There may be many people on the unit, but the nurses are keeping track and taking roll. If you can, be open, honest and compliant with your treatment team. Now there’s a part of me that goes “Fuck The System!!!! Fuck being compliant! I am my own woman and my illness is Me and not something to be stigmatized or hidden. Take me to Bitch Planet, bitch!!!” This is totally valid. You just have to decide what is more important to you- being noncompliant in the face of a judgmental system or getting back to the world. As much I want to rebel, my perfectionism and people pleasing tend to kick in by the second day on the unit. 

The aftermath & “what do I tell people?”

When you are being prepped for release, you must have appointments with your outpatient treatment team set up. If you don’t already, the hospital will schedule them for you. If there’s someone who can pick you up, utilize that. Otherwise they may set you up with a cab or something depending on the location. You will be given the bag containing your phone and other belongings upon release. 

It is up to you to decide what to tell people about your stay on the unit. You can be honest with whomever you choose, but you don’t have to be. You can say you were out of town or had a family emergency or whatever you want. It is not your responsibility to break the stigma. If you can and want to, go for it! We will all appreciate it. But you don’t have to advocate if you don’t feel comfortable. I tell many of my friends and family the full truth and then tell others that I was “in the hospital.” If they ask questions I say I don’t want to talk about it. This works better than you might think. (It surprised me how respectful people are when you say you don’t want to talk about something.) Most people won't even ask, tbh. 

It's not all garbage

It’s not all drugged up zombies and Dissociation Time: my last experience was pretty lit. We had morning “stretches” to ‘80s bops. We played Wii bowling. We discussed aliens and conspiracy theories.  In a place with such a heavy stigma on it, it was a surprisingly Shame-Free environment. It was comforting to be in a place where everyone Got It. At night we would get our meds and then drift off to bed one by one as the meds hit to goodnights of “ope, the Seroquel’s kicking in.” The variety of people on the unit proves that mental illness affects everyone, from the college student to the 75-year-old retired man to the soccer mom with 3 kids. And they each have different ways of coping, different perspectives on their situation. These other perspectives can be inspiring, even helpful and you may pick up as many tips from your peers as the actual professionals. Respect your peers, don’t be that person who’s like “why am I, Normal Person, locked up with all these Crazy People?” If you’re in there, you’re all in the same boat. Crazy is a slur and no one there is crazy unless they choose to reclaim the term.

The staff can be quite kind as well. I once had a nurse go down to the gift shop to get me a tiny hair brush for my waist-length tangled hair. He didn’t have to put in that effort but he did. This past time I had an MHP sit with me after a session and develop personalized affirmations that she wrote in my journal with her gorgeous, swooping handwriting. It’s small things like these that end up mattering most in an environment that can feel harsh. There can be great kindness there, under all the rules and regulations, you just have to be open to it.

I’ve made a wide range of friends in hospitals. Ones I’d never have even encountered in real life. Even though we haven’t kept in touch, I think of them often. My roommate with terminal kidney failure who got ECT twice a week but took the time to ask how I was. A recent immigrant from Nepal who didn’t speak any English but with whom I communicated anyway. Sandy, my homeless roommate who gave me all of her toiletries instead of taking them with her. Trevor, a young heroin addict who guarded my chocolate cake when I had a phone call. Curtis, a retired professor deep in psychosis whom we taught to Wii bowl. There are so many different lives that tangle with each other on the unit. In this way I consider it a gift, to have a window into all these different worlds that are connected by this one string. I’ll never see these people again, but I’ll never forget them either. I hope they’re all still out there, getting by.

Getting hospitalized can be one of the scariest and hardest experiences but it is also one of the bravest. You saved your own life. Even if you didn’t bring yourself in, your participation saved it. It is a chance to reorient yourself to life, to recovery. It is a second, a third, a 15th chance. It’s like a terrible mini vacation. Responsibilities are lifted so you can focus on yourself. Utilize it if you can.

Again, my word is not law, it is based on my own experiences on the inside and outside of psych units. Please please reply or send asks with your own information. I know I’m not the only one on here who’s been hospitalized. We are legion. We survived. We survive. 

**Note from Kat: I am trying to learn graphic design (is my passion™) but the struggle is real and it does NOT come naturally so if anyone wants to help hmu!!!!! Can’t pay obvi but can link!**

[lxveille]

What about on a crowded street at 9 with Jihoon for the flash fics~

title: impulseword count: ~ 1770warnings: jihoon struggling with zombie instincts (so, like, technically cannibalism ???) but Everything is Fine i promisea/n: zombie!au. technically a sequel to caveat but probably understandable on its own.

Jihoon is dead.

Kind of.

Undead is the closest word Jihoon uses himself, as he fumbles at trying to explain how he actually survived the car wreck. He’s not sure what the term is for ‘divine intervention’ when it’s coming from a witch. 

You prefer re-alive. Though ever search engine comes back saying you should use reanimated instead. Unless were curious about some poorly reviewed sci-fi film. The trouble is there’s a lot of films that come up no matter what keywords you enter. You’re beginning to suspect that the wave of zombies in popular media might actually be some kind of elaborate scheme to bury any results that point towards it happening in real life. The query ‘real life zombie’ isn’t much use either; pulling up science articles on parasites with zingy titles. 

So you’re left on your own with a difficult question.

It’s the last question you thought to have to answer in your lifetime:

Would you date someone even if they had to feast on living flesh to survive?

The only thing odder, really, is how quickly the answer occurs to you once you finally close out the internet and sit down with yourself. 

There is a strange pros and cons list that gets written that night. Admittedly, you’re not sure what to make of ‘murder??’ and ‘what happens the next time he eats you out’ on the con list – but ‘you love him’ turns out to be a pretty powerful pro. 

You wonder if Jihoon had made any kind of list when he was deciding whether or not to try to stay with you after his change. It’s the kind of question that would make him scrunch up his shoulders and blush if you asked him. Or, it would have made him blush back his blood still pumped. 

It’s a lot to process. But you and Jihoon find a rhythm that seems to work. Affection weaves itself back into your lives carefully. Friends see it as him finally opening back up to you after a traumatic event. To be fair, it’s not that far off. Though it underestimates exactly how much adjusting it truly required of you both. 

And as the two of you patch together a new version of your relationship, others take it as a cue to start inviting you both out with them again

Jihoon can still eat the same meals as before, but it’s only for a cover of normalcy. In all the bustle around the table, your friends don’t seem to notice exactly how little time lets any meat rest on the grill for. Amidst the two to three conversations crossing through the large group, your eyes catch his with sympathy. He manages a small smile back, and you aren’t sure what to make of the twist in your throat. Tonight was meant to be a return to normalcy. Instead, it feels now more than ever that the secret is burning on your tongue. 

When the meal has ended and everything is paid for, you find yourself letting out a sigh of relief unintentionally. 

“Tired already?” Seungkwan asks as he pulls on his jacket. “It’s only just nine.”

“Yeah, well, you know,” you fumble with filler words, “It’s been a long week.” 

“That’s the whole reason for going out,” Mimi jumps in on the conversation, slinging an arm around your shoulders. “You’ll wake up if you get to the bar,” she suggests with a grin. You protest only for Seungkwan to second her idea. 

“I think we were both planning on an early night, guys,” Jihoon comments without looking up from double-checking he has everything in his wallet. At his voice, Mimi’s look shifts to one of condolence. You wonder how long everyone will drop questions out of pity for what they think he’s gone through. You wonder what looks they’d give if they knew what really happened.

“If you guys change your mind you can always text us,” Seungkwan relents as well.

Mimi doesn’t unwind her arm from you until the group of you have exited the restaurant. With the sun down, the autumn chill is all the heavier in the air. “Let me know if you need anything,” she says to you privately before saying goodbye. With a wave back at you, she joins the others in heading down the crowded sidewalk. 

You drift to Jihoon’s side, and take a moment to glance between him and the group of familiar backs heading further and further away. “Maybe you ought to tell them you’re trying a raw diet, or something,” you comment, only a fraction serious with the idea. 

He lets out a dry chuckle. “Then they’d just invite us to some trendy salad place instead,” he responds. He doesn’t look your way; eyes following the paths of random strangers as they pass by.

“A nightmare,” you joke, and slip a hand into his. His skin in cold, and it takes him a moment to react at all to your contact. When his fingers do intertwine with yours, they do so with more pressure than you anticipate. It feels as if he’d rather be forming a fist. You tilt your head to try to get a better look at his expression without moving in front of him. His jaw is tense, and his lips don’t match with the laugh he’d given moment before. 

“Jihoon?” you prompt, trying not to summon too much worry. “Are you okay?” 

That question seems to knock something into his head, and he nearly snaps his head as he turns to look at you. “Yeah.” His tone is not convincing, though his hold loosens a bit. As if he’d only just realized how tightly he’d grasped back. “Let’s just go home.” 

You nod. You imagine he means his apartment, but there’s every chance he means both of you parting ways. Even with the truth out, there’s still times he recedes into himself. Admittedly, part of you is grateful that there’s parts he wants to keep from you. You’d walked on him halfway through satiating his hunger once, and it wasn’t a sight you were keen on seeing again. 

Conversation doesn’t come easily as the two of you start down the sidewalk. It doubles down on the sense that he’d been less than honest when he claimed to be fine. You listen in on halves of sentences of passersby, half hoping to overhear something funny that could be used to break the odd tension settling between you and Jihoon. 

Halfway down the third block, someone’s side knocks against Jihoon’s shoulder in the shuffle of it all. It’s the kind of thing to make either one of you scoff or complain. He doesn’t do either. He jerks to a halt instead, catching you off guard. His fingers dig in against the back of your hand, forcing your fingers to flex. His head is turned away from you, seeming to watch the accidental offender carry on their way. 

“Come on,” you say, and try to give an encouraging tug. His arm stays stiff. Nerves boil up inside you, searing with the thought that something is wrong. “You wanna go home, right, Jihoon?” 

He looks to you. The expression he has makes you want to pull your hand free and run. In the movies, zombies eyes become red, or the veins on their faces run dark in warning. There’s nothing nearly as obvious on Jihoon’s face. But you can see it all the same: an angry hungry, pulling at him like mad dogs at the ends of short leases. 

You don’t run. You take a few steps, fingers still linked with his. “It’s okay,” you tell him. He follows your lead without a word. Once you reach the corner, you take a quick look in each direction before heading down towards the least populated street. Your path sways towards the inside of the pavement, drawing to a stop with the two of you underneath the awning of some store already closed for the night. 

He releases your hand and nearly throws himself against the wall. His fingers curl at the brickwork, looking ready to claw the building to dust. “I’m sorry.” You watch him carefully, keeping an eye out for anyone else coming down the road. “Would it be easier if we got a taxi, or…?”

Jihoon turns around, shoulders pressing tight against the wall and eyes screwed shut. His hands are in his hair now, nails at his scalp. “I don’t know.” 

It hurts to see him in this state. Hurts enough to dim the fear that should be taking hold of your heart. You step closer to him, desperate to console him. “It’s alright. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get back to your place and…” you begin, reaching out for one of his arms. 

In an instant, his grip is around your wrist instead. His eyes on you, sharp and dark and restrained. “You shouldn’t,” Jihoon warns. What of is not entirely clear. 

“You don’t have to deal with this on your own,” you manage out the flurry of words. It’s the reasoning that makes accepting what he is now easier. It comes out like a default, still convinced he’s the one who needs help in this instant. 

His hand pulls you closer slowly. Before you can process what’s happening, your hand is by his face, the tip of your thumb between his lips. His gaze is steady on your face as your nail scrapes against his bottom teeth. Incisors press down against the fleshy underside. A pinching feeling hits your brain and has you tugging your arm away from the sensation. Jihoon is stronger than you, and it isn’t until he lets go that you can pull your hand to your chest. 

You look for damage, and find nothing more than a sheen of saliva on the end of your thumb. You know, though, that the whole of that damp skin could be gone now if he hadn’t been holding back. 

Still, he’s hissing curses regretfully.

You stay back this time as you try again, “Please. If we get a car you can get back to yours and eat faster.”

“Why won’t you go?” he asks. The frustration in his voice stings, even if you believe it isn’t truly meant for you. A lingering ache in your fingertip keeps you from closing the space between you. 

“I already told you.”

Jihoon closes his eyes again and takes a few slow, shaky breaths. “You’re so dumb,” he mutters towards the cement. When he looks up at you, though, there’s something like relief in his gaze. 

“I’ll get us a cab.”

[valiantgentle]

HOUSE OF HALLOWEEN. an ashley adams one-shot. slightly au-ish, but technically post-season-one.

─ on halloween, ashley’s seventeenth birthday, she and the rest of the anubis students are dragged into a grave scavenger hunt, and alfie’s life may be at stake.

           Halloween is the best day of the year for three reasons. 1) You get to dress up as anyone you want to be. You want to be a princess? Wear that tiara, spin around in a frilly dress. You want to be a superhero? Remember that with great power comes great responsibility. You want to be a god from any mythology on the planet? …Good luck. 2) You get free sweets. Chocolate, lollipops, and M&Ms, oh my! 3) It’s my birthday. That’s right, 31st October is my birthday, and today, I am seventeen years old.

           Sixteen was an insane year by any standards. Joy went missing, kidnapped by a secret society and her father, and Nina showed up out of nowhere and became one of my closest friends. Then we had that whole Cup of Ankh thing, I saw actual ghosts, and also I started to call Jerome by his first name. Still getting used to that one.

           Anyway. It’s Halloween, it’s my birthday, and it’s the best frickin’ day of the year.

           “Hey, Ash, happy birthday,” Fabian says to me as Nina, Amber, and I sit down for breakfast.

           My roomies had already wished me the same when I woke up—actually, one of them replaced the alarm on my phone to play the birthday song instead of the normal annoying tone. It seeped into my dream and presented in the form of the pharaoh from those museum movies singing it. That was weird.

           Alfie looks up from his orange juice as I thank him, remarking, “It’s your birthday?” I raise my eyebrows, as does everyone else at the table. Even Mara in the kitchen stops and stares at him. Huh. I thought Alfie, of all people, would’ve remembered, what with it being Halloween and all. He said once that we should switch birthdays so he gets the fun one. “That works.”

           “What?” I ask lamely.

           “You forgot her birthday?” Jerome questions.

           Alfie counters, the confused expression replaced with a curious one, “You remembered?”  

           “It’s kind of hard to forget. It’s Halloween.”

           Patricia inquires nonchalantly, “You sure that’s why you remember?”

           Jerome glares as I roll my eyes. They’re really still on this Jashley thing, aren’t they? Just because he and I have decided to be more civil with each other doesn’t mean we’re suddenly into each other. Then again, they’ve been on this pretty much since he and I met, so I’m sure us being actual friends has probably just egged them on even more.

           Alfie downs the rest of his orange juice in a single gulp. “I’m off to school,” he says as he grabs a muffin. “Happy birthday, Ash—but more importantly, happy Halloween.”

           He laughs maniacally as he backs out of the room. The entirety of Anubis House (excluding Victor, who’s locked up in his office like always) follows him with our eyes until we hear the door to the house close. I turn around and question, “Is he acting weird?”

           From the kitchen, Trudy nods. “He was up before me,” she remarks. “And not for a snack.”

           “You know,” Jerome states thoughtfully, “I haven’t seen him with a zombie mask on today. He might be feeling sick.”

           Amber sighs deeply. “I know Alfie.” She’s kind of dating him. Kind of. “He’ll be back to normal after school.”

           Patricia quips, “Is he ever normal?”

           --

           The halls of the school are entirely decked out for Halloween. There’s a plastic mummy poking out of a paper sarcophagus on every corner, spider webs along the walls, and orange and black streamers hanging from every doorway. My own locker is covered with orange and black balloons and a ripped piece of paper that reads in a classic spooky font HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

           I smile as I push the balloons away to open the locker, but something falls out and onto the floor. I bend to pick it up, frowning. It’s a plain white envelope with the number 1 on it. Opening the envelope, I find inside a Halloween greeting card, but the printed message on the inside is covered up with tape. In its place are two messages—one written in English using newspaper clippings, like a ransom note, and the other in French, written in cursive.

           A Halloween Quest for Miss Ashley Adams! To find the rest of your message, locate Nina Martin, Mara Jaffray, and Mick Campbell. Don’t tell anyone, or you’ll get a fright.

           ils disent que les chauves-souris sortent la nuit

           “What the…” I mumble. I close my locker, reading over the messages again. Nina passes by me, smiling as she puts in the combination to her locker. “Hey, do you know what this is?”

           Nina looks at the envelope and shakes her head, just as an identical one with the number 2 instead falls out of her locker. She looks at it, then at me. “I know it’s not a birthday card.” She opens it up, looking over it before turning it around to show me. The French message on hers is different, but the English one is identical, just with mine and Nina’s name swapped around. “Okay, this is weird.”

           “Mick and Mara probably got the same thing,” I say. “We should find them.”

           But we don’t have to go far, because before Nina and I can even get going, the couple comes up to us with matching envelopes. “It’s so strange,” Mara says. “We found these envelopes in our bags during first class.”

           “We found them in our lockers,” Nina responds. “It’s probably Trudy doing some fun Halloween game for us. We’ve all got study hall next, right? Might as well see what it says.”

           “We just passed by the lounge,” Mick says, pointing his thumb that direction. “Hardly anyone’s in there.”

           So the four of us go to the lounge, setting our respective cards and envelopes on the table in the middle of the room. Mara’s the one that notices that each envelope is labeled with a number and organizes them in numerical order.

           “It stands to reason,” she says, switching around Nina and Mick’s envelopes, “that the message goes in order of the numbers. So the one Ashley got is first, Nina’s second, mine third, and Mick’s fourth. It’s a four part message.”

           “So we should each take our own part,” Mick suggests, already reaching for the fourth envelope and card. At the same time, he takes his phone out of his blazer pocket.

           “What are you doing?” Mara asks.

           “I’m looking the translations up online.”

           “But I have a French-to-English dictionary right beside me.”

           “But this is faster.”

           “You two are so weird,” I interrupt. “I vote for Google. I wanna know what it says. Nina?”

           Nina’s eyes are glued on the four cards, and it takes me saying her name twice for her to pay attention. “What? Oh, I—I have to choose the internet. Something’s bothering me about this.”

           My eyebrows furrow. “You mean the unsigned ransom note stuffed into our lockers that warn us not to tell anyone aside from the people we were told to find or we’ll get a fright, which I’m assuming means an extended hospital and/or morgue stay?” Nina blinks at me. Mick and Mara share a concerned glance. “Anyway, we all want to know what the message says. Off to Google Translate.”

           I reach forward and grab my card, already pulling up the search engine on my phone. “You know,” I continue as they hesitantly reach for theirs, “if we’re a team, we need a team name. Team Jackal.”

           “Team Jackal?” Mick questions.

           “The head of Anubis is a jackal,” Mara explains for me, “in Egyptian mythology.”

           “Oh. I get it. We live in Anubis House.”

           “And we need nicknames,” I remark. “I will be The Artist. Nina, you’re The Sleuth. Mick, The Jock. Mara, the Nerd.”

           As I look from my phone to the card, Nina says, “Isn’t it weird that it’s the four of us? I mean, separately, in pairs of two, it makes sense. Me and Ashley, you two,” she gestures across to Mick and Mara. “But the four of us together? It doesn’t make any sense.”

           Mick chuckles lightly. “Makes you wonder what the rest of the house is doing. I’ve got mine done, by the way.”

           “Mine, too,” us girls chorus in unison. Mick looks a little freaked out, while the three of us just laugh. Mara adds, “All right, Ashley, you got the envelope numbered 1. Yours must be first.”

           I nod, reading from my phone as Mara readies her pencil to write it on her notepad. “‘They say bats come out at night.’”

           “Nina?”

           “Uh,” she says, “‘But don’t be overcome with fright.’ Fright, like in the other message.”

           Mara nods. “Mine is, ‘A bat hangs learning somewhere.’ And Mick?”

           Mick finishes, “‘And your next clue is hidden there.’”

           They say bats come out at night, but don’t be overcome with fright. A bat hangs learning somewhere, and your next clue is hidden there.

           “It’s a scavenger hunt,” Mara realizes. I look around the lounge, noticing something odd on the stage. It’s Jerome, Patricia, Fabian, and Amber talking in hushed tones in a circle. That’s weird. I didn’t think any of them willingly spoke to Jerome. “Someone’s sending us on a scavenger hunt.”

           “Not just a scavenger hunt,” I say. “A Halloween-themed scavenger hunt.”

           “Should we…” Mick pauses. “…you know, scavenge?”

           “I think we should,” says Nina, The Sleuth. “I know I’m not going to rest until I get to the bottom of it. The clue says there’s a bat learning somewhere—obviously in the school. We should split up and search, text when we find a bat hanging from the ceiling. Hopefully fake.”

           “Let’s go, then,” I say, standing. I head toward the door first, my card in my hand, and nearly run into Alfie. “Oh, hey, Alfie. How’s it going?”

           Alfie shrugs. “It’s Halloween. Things couldn’t be better! What’s that?” He gestures to the card. “Looks fun and spooky. What’s it say?”

           I glance at the card. “Oh, it’s, uh, a card from my sis. It’s my Hallobirth.”

           “Hallobirth?”

           “It sounded better than Birthoween.”

           “Oh, my God.” Alfie laughs, shaking his head, and holds his glance on the group at the stage. Well, mostly on Amber, I assume. “I’ll see you later, Ash.”

           --

           I take the east side of the school to search; Nina’s north, Mara’s west, and Mick’s south. As I duck into classrooms in search of a hanging plastic bat on the ceiling, I ponder whatever’s happening. Honestly, I’m a little worried this has something to do with our Sibuna stuff. Like… I don’t know, maybe Rufus is back from the dead to taunt us on Halloween. He knew both me and my great-grandmother Lily Henry. Heck, they were technically siblings through adoption! He had to know we share the same birthday, amongst other things.

           But, you know… Rufus is dead. There’s no way he survived those sandflies. But also, what if he had a partner?

           Nope. Ashley, stop it. It’s not Rufus. Rufus Zeno is dead and he’s gonna stay dead.

           As I’m leaving the tenth classroom on the east side of the school, my phone pings with a text message. Mick. He says he found the bat in Mrs. Burton’s art classroom. I stuff my phone back into my pocket, pushing through the crowd in the direction of the art classroom.

           “Hey,” I say, the last one of Team Jackal to arrive, “where is it?”

           “Up there,” Mick says, pointing to the corner. Sure enough, there’s an obviously fake bat hanging from the ceiling, right above a painting I recognize as my own. “Found this paper in its beak. Have no idea what it says.”

           “Another language again?”

           Mick hands it to Mara, who frowns as she looks over it. “They’re hieroglyphs. I don’t have a dictionary for this.”

           “Can we see?” Nina asks, holding her hand out. Mara hands over the paper. There’s quite a few hieroglyphs printed onto it. “We could bring it to Fabian. He could translate it for us.”

           I shake my head. “No. The first message said not to tell anyone. I can translate it.”

           The three of them chorus at the same time, “You can?”

           I frown. I’m not a fan of the doubt in their voices. “Yeah. I can do this. I’ve been taking an online class.”

           Mara raises her eyebrows. “Why?”

           ‘Cause I was forced by my ancestry to participate in Ancient Egyptian mysteries in the place where we live isn’t an acceptable answer, I assume. So I respond, “‘Cause I wanna learn a new language.”

           “You might want to try one that’s being used in the twenty-first century.”

           “What, should I learn Latin, Mara?” I retort, my words coming out sharper and more condescending than I intended. Nina elbows me, and I sigh. “Sorry, Mara. What I mean is, give me a few hours, and I’ll have this translated. Every glyph. Trust me.”

           --

           I spend most of the school day subtly using my phone and the internet to translate the hieroglyphs from the second clue. It was really hard to do that without any of the teachers noticing, but somehow I succeeded in getting away with it. And in translating it. That’s right, Miss Amateur Hieroglyph Translator got thirty-two menacing, creepy as heck words out of those hieroglyphs. The Artist does better with pictures and numbers.

           Also, I’ve seen some of these before with our prior mystery. That helped a lot.

           “You’re sure that’s what it says?” Nina questions warily as Team Jackal crowds around me in Mr. Sweet’s empty classroom just after last bell. “Like, absolutely sure?”

           “One hundred percent,” I answer. “I know. It’s freaking me out a little, too.”

           You found the bat, now find the raven. Corbierre is not who we speak about. There is, in the school, another raven, and if you find it, you might just save him.

           “Save him,” Mara repeats, her voice slightly trembling. “We should tell someone now. Someone’s life may be at stake.”

           “Maybe it’s just one of those Halloween things,” Mick suggests weakly.

           “We’ll never know unless we find the raven it’s talking about,” I state. “We should find it first before we make any decisions to tell authorities. You with me?” Nina nods. So does Mick. Mara does so reluctantly. “All right. So it says the raven’s not Corbierre. That’s good, that means Victor won’t come tear apart the school to find his precious bird.”

           “If there was a real raven in the school,” Mick remarks, “we would’ve heard about it by now.”

           “It’d be all over social media,” Mara adds.

           Nina has her thinking face on. “What if it’s not a real bird? What if it never was? Corbierre’s taxidermy. What if we’re looking for one that was always made of plastic?”

           “What do you mean?” I question, not quite following.

           “The Mysteries of Anubis,” Nina states. Mick and Mara turn pink at the mention of the play (must be thinking about their prolonged-kiss when the curtains fell when the first act ended). But in that play, Fabian played a character inspired by Victor—complete with a prop raven. “The raven.”

           “It’s still backstage with the rest of the props,” I recall. “That has to be it. Great job, Sleuth!”

           “Let’s go!”

           The curtains are drawn when we arrive. There are boxes of props spread across the stage, but none of them have our prop raven on top. Nina orders us to start digging for the raven in such an authoritative, leading tone that not one of us pauses to verbally question why on earth all of these boxes are laid out so nicely for us. These weren’t on the stage when we were in here this morning.

           I throw a feathery scarf around my neck to get it out of the way, digging my hands into the box. “Monocle, flowers—does anyone know why there’s a lion mask in here?”

           Mara pipes up, “The school play the year before you came was The Wizard of Oz.”

           “Cool. Who was the scarecrow without a brain?”

           I’m about to answer my own question with Jerome’s name when Mick calls, a frown very evident in his voice, “Uh… over here.”

           Mara, Nina, and I drop the props in our hands as we crowd around the box Mick’s rifling through. He’s holding the prop raven, the one we used for the play, in his hands, but there’s something taped to it. A photograph of a smiling familiar face.

           “That’s Alfie,” I say slowly, reaching over to take the raven from him. Alfie’s photograph is taped to the raven we were told to find. What does this mean? Does it mean…. “Is Alfie the ‘him’ in ‘you might just save him?’”

           “Okay, we need to tell Mr. Sweet now,” Mara says certainly, sounding freaked out now. More than before. “Whoever sent us on this scavenger hunt has Alfie!”

           “We need to calm down,” Nina instructs. “Take a breath. It looks like there’s something written on the back. Maybe another clue that will lead us to Alfie or whoever’s leaving these.”

           Before I get a chance to rip the photograph off the raven to read the next clue, there’s heavy footsteps from the door. Team Jackal spins around at the same time to see that it’s the group from earlier—Jerome, Patricia, Fabian, and Amber. They’re talking over each other but stop dead in their tracks when they see us staring at them.

           “What are you guys doing here?” Fabian asks.

           “We could ask you the same thing,” Nina responds.

           Patricia’s eyes widen as she points to the prop in my hand. “That’s the raven we’re looking for! What are you doing with it?”

           I counter quickly, “What do you want with it?”

           Jerome steps forward and says bluntly, “Everybody, shut up.” The room falls silent, but he waits a few seconds to continue. In those few seconds, he looks across us. Then he concludes, “You got envelopes, too, didn’t you? Numbered one through four?”

           “Yeah,” Mick confirms. “You’ve been running around school all day, too?”

           Amber nods. “Looking for a clue hidden in mummy gauze. I need a manicure,” she remarks, glancing briefly at her nails (which are as perfect as always). Then she abruptly looks back up, pointing to each of us. “Wait, there are nine people in Anubis House. Where’s Alfie?”

           Alfie Lewis. He’s the only Anubis student missing. He’s the only one who didn’t get an envelope.

           “I haven’t seen him since first class,” Jerome says.

           Patricia closes her eyes. “The last clue. It said something about saving ‘him.’ Alfie must be him!”

           “It told you to find a raven,” I infer, raising the raven with the photograph of our missing friend. “This raven. With Alfie’s picture taped to it.”

           “Nina just said there’s a message on the back of the photo,” Mara reminds us.

           The other four rush to jump onto the stage with us as I rip the photograph off the raven, throwing the prop to Jerome. I turn the photograph over, my blue eyes scanning across the unfamiliar words. “It’s in Latin. Four parts.”

           “We should work on this together,” Nina suggests. “Figure out where Alfie is.”

           There’s four parts to the Latin message, and there’s eight of us. With us splitting into pairs of two and being assigned a part for each pair, it shouldn’t take long at all for us to figure out this message. Especially with the internet and online translation services at our fingertips.

           In the end, the message reads: One clue is at the seat of learning. Another is at the amphitheater of activity. You must split up again, but you will find him.

           “Whoever wrote this knew we’d work on it together,” Fabian remarks. “They have to know us personally.” His comment earns doubtful looks from the rest of the house. “I mean—look, they didn’t even start calling each other by their first names until a few weeks ago.” He gestures between me and Jerome. “And Ashley can still hardly stand him. And Patricia can hardly stand the rest of us. Not to mention them,” now he gestures to Mick and Mara, an odd pairing by anyone’s standards. “Who else would think we would work together to translate this other than someone who knows us well?”

           “That narrows it down to pretty much just Victor and Trudy,” I say. “I don’t see Victor taking the time to draw all this up.”

           “Unless he wanted us out of the house.”

           “He’s out of the house, though,” Amber says. “We just saw him heading into Mr. Sweet’s office. And Trudy’s out handing sweets out to the freshmen.”

           “Stop speculating,” Jerome interrupts, snatching Mara’s notepad with the full translation of this clue. “What does this mean?”

           Mara shrugs. “Seat of learning could be any classroom. I don’t know what amphitheater of activity could be.”

           “Well, think about it,” Fabian states, grabbing the notepad from Jerome. He taps his finger against the paper. “Seat of learning. Where’s all the knowledge in the school?”

           “Definitely not in our brains,” I quip.

           It’s not the answer he’s looking for. I also get a lot of strange looks from them.

           Fabian rolls his eyes. “No, the library! It’s full of books. The seat of learning must be the library.”

           “Great,” Nina comments. She presses her lips together. “Now what’s the amphitheater of activity?”

           It’s silent in the room for a few seconds as we ponder it. The answer comes from the person we least expect. Mick says, “You know, amphitheater is another word for gym.” The looks he’s given could rival the ones just given to me. Then he raises his phone. “I googled it.”

           “There’s a lot of activity in the gym,” Jerome points out.

           Amber jumps up from the couch. “Team Ibis—we’re taking the library. Since our team figured it out.”

           “You’re Team Ibis?” I question, perking up. Two important animals in Egyptian mythology are jackals and ibises. “We’re Team Jackal! I came up with it.”

           “I came up with Team Ibis, too! I also gave us nicknames. Jerk,” she points to Jerome, identifying him as the one with the apropos name, “Nerd,” Fabian, “Goth,” Patricia, “and Jewel!” She points to herself, taking the hem of her skirt and curtsying.

           I laugh. “So did I! I’m the Artist, she’s the Sleuth, he’s the Jock, and she’s the Nerd. Two nerds! Nerd-squared. What are the odds?”

           Nina lightly clears her throat and reminds me, “Didn’t you translate the hieroglyphs singlehandedly? Wouldn’t that make you a nerd, too?”

           “Okay, but I can’t do math.”

           “But you can translate hieroglyphs.”

           “Oh, whatever!” I exclaim, hitting her arm lightly. Nina pulls her arm away and laughs loudly. “Team Jackal—to the gym. Jock, you live there. Lead the way.”

           Mick frowns as he stands. “I’m roommates with Fabian.”

           --

           The gymnasium doesn’t look out of place to me. On this Halloween, it’s being used as a sweets hub, with tables set up inside and adults handing out sweets to younger teenagers dressed in costumes. Trudy’s here, too, dressed as a classic witch.

           “Does anything look different to you, Mick?” Mara asks him. “You were in here yesterday.”

           Mick narrows his eyes as he looks around the gym. Nina and I share a glance as Mara watches him intently. I know Mick probably has the layout of this place memorized, but would he really spot something so minuscule as a random clue in a room full of costumed children and the smell of chocolate wafting through the ai—

           “The footballs,” Mick interrupts my inner doubts. I snap out of it and blink, following his finger point. There’s a stack of sports equipment with gauze-covered footballs. “They weren’t covered with gauze yesterday.”

           “Gauze like mummy gauze?” I question.

           “When you say football,” Nina says, “you mean a soccer ball, right? I mean, for me, the American.”

           “Yes, he means soccer in American. There’s not an American football in the room.”

           “I think an American football wrapped in gauze would be a cool Halloween decoration. Stick some googly eyes on it, make a body out of haystacks. We did that for decorations one year, me and Gran.”

           “Like a Halloween snowman?”

           “Yeah, but made of straw and googly eyes.”

           “Nina, Ashley!” Mara shouts from across the room. She and Mick are already over there by the stack of gauze-covered sports equipment. Nina and I exchange an alarmed glance before running across the floor. She’s holding one in particular. “There’s writing on this gauze.”

           Trudy calls, “Oh, hello!” We turn, waving meekly at her. “What a strange group, you four. Would you like any sweets?”

           “Oh, no, thanks, Trudy,” Nina declines for all of us. “We’re just, uh… walking. Getting in some exercise before partying tonight—double the celebration, you know, with Ash’s birthday and Halloween.”

           I completely forgot it was my birthday until she said that. Oops.

           Trudy gives us a thumbs-up and grins before returning to handing out candy to the lowerclassmen.

           Mara’s carefully unwrapping the gauze from the football. Mick’s holding the other end of the gauze and she hands the football itself off to me once it’s completely unwrapped. I can see the message through the thin gauze—and even with it backwards, I can tell it’s English. Thank God, no more translations.

           “‘This clue you have figured out,’” she reads aloud, “‘beyond a shadow of a doubt. The final is nothing to write home about. Anubis is what it’s all about.’”

           Nina gasps. “The final clue—it’s at Anubis House!”

           --

           Anubis House is decorated for the holiday, too. Well, as decorated as Victor would allow. As in, there’s fake spider webs on the sign outside, and he let us place some fake pumpkins around the place. That’s pretty much the extent he would let us decorate the public areas—our rooms were ours for the taking.

           Team Jackal stumbles into the house, which is exactly the same as we left it.

           “Mick, Mara, you take downstairs,” Nina says. “Look for anything out of the ordinary. Ash and I’ll take upstairs.”

           Before we even get a chance to split up, a commotion from upstairs drifts down to us. It causes us to freeze where we stand before we run toward the stairs, skipping steps and nearly falling more than once. Bursting through the doors to the girls’ rooms, we’re met with the sight of Team Ibis talking over one another again, stood in front of the attic.

           “What are you all doing up here?” I ask loudly, interrupting them. The four part long enough for me to spot a piece of paper taped to the attic door. “What does that say?”

           Find the key and you’ll set him free.

           “The spare key to the attic?” Mara inquires. I try pulling on the doorknob, but it’s locked. “That’s in Victor’s office.”

           “I can pick the office lock—” Nina begins.

           Fabian interrupts, “We already tried that. The spare key is missing.”

           “Well, what about the attic door?”

           “We were just arguing about that—”

           “What’s there to argue about? Mara, do you have a bobby pin?”

           My eyes jump around the door area, looking for anything strange about it. I can see Mara in my peripheral vision pulling a bobby pin out of her hair, but when I turn my head to see that fully, something glimmers from the top of the doorframe. I step forward, biting the inside of my cheek. There’s something on top of the frame.

           “Hey, Mick,” I say without taking my eyes off the spot, “give me a boost.” Mick bends and holds out his hands so I can step onto them. He lifts me up long enough for me to grab the key. It nearly stumbles out of my hands as he sets me back down. “Got the key! Move, Clarke!”

           “Don’t stab me with it,” Jerome says, jumping out of the way.

           I push the key into the lock, turning it. The door unlocks and opens. “Team Jackal goes first,” I say lowly, looking at the dark stairs. “Well, me and Nina do. I have a weird feeling about this.”

           I can hear the rest of them following Nina and I upstairs. She and I are holding onto each other’s arms, the cold key against my skin. We slowly round the corner together before entering the attic fully. There’s someone standing there with their back to us, dressed in a long black cape.

           “Ah,” says the person in the attic, with a Transylvanian accent, “you have figured out my clues.”

           And they turn around. The face throws me and everyone else into a state of confusion and shock.

           “Alfie?!” Anubis House questions in unison.

           Alfie grins at us, showing us his plastic fangs. “Hello, Anubis. Happy Halloween! Welcome to our party.”

           “Alfie,” Jerome says slowly, “do you want to explain what’s going on here?”

           “And why we were led to believe that you were in danger,” I add, “when you look pretty not-in-danger to me?”

           “Oh, I was so tempted to put you two on the same team,” Alfie states happily, “but then I thought: no, putting my two best friends on separate teams was gonna work. Let me explain—I’ve been working on this elaborate scavenger hunt for months. Every detail, every clue, was drawn to perfection. I even tailored them to your interests.”

           Fabian stammers, “Different languages interest?”

           Alfie nods. “Yeah, that’s why I put you and Ashley on separate teams. I’m the one that put the idea of taking hieroglyph classes in her head.” I frown. Yeah, that’s technically correct. He more encouraged me to do it than outright told me to. “Mrs. Andrews helped me with the French clues, and Mr. Sweet with the Latin ones. I gave Team Tweedledee,” he gestures to my team, “the bat in the art room and I assumed you would take the amphitheater of activity because… well…”

           “Oh, because of me!” Mick exclaims.

           “Exactly! And I gave Team Tweedledum the mummies in the halls at school because of Fabian—and I’d hope you’d go to the seat of learning.”

           Amber raises her hand. “I found that one. The one that said to come here. It was in a pretty book on the table.”

           Alfie smiles warmly at her. “I knew you’d do that. And the hieroglyphs I found online. I put on a disguise and watched you all scramble to figure out the clues before coming back here when you figured out the Latin one. It was so much fun, you should’ve seen your faces.”

           “Wait a second,” Patricia says, and there’s a warning in her tone. “You tricked us into going on this scavenger hunt, made us believe you were in danger, and watched us run all about the school for fun?”

           Alfie nods. “Pretty much.”

           “If this is a party, where’s the punch?”

           His eyes widen as he steps back abruptly, bumping into the wall. “No need to pour punch on me or punch me, Trixie! This is a Halloween party. And,” he looks over at me, “it’s Ash’s birthday. I’m gonna be honest with you—I did forget today was your birthday until Fabian said something this morning. But hey, it all worked out!”

           I narrow my eyes, stepping toward him. “You…are so much smarter than I thought you were.”

           “Oh. I thought you were gonna say something about me being stupid.”

           “You are stupid, but this was also fun until we thought you were in danger.”

           “Hey, you guys would’ve pinned this on me the second you realized I was the only one who didn’t get an envelope and in a group. I had to take the suspicion off myself. So who’d you think it was? Victor, Trudy? Oh, was it Mr. Sweet?”

           Alfie doesn’t get an answer as we all stare at him.

           “Okay, so forget that I made you think I was in danger,” Alfie compromises, “and let’s get our party on! Go get costumed up and get back up here, because Trudy and Victor aren’t gonna be back for another two hours! Oh, and get whatever presents you bought Ash!”

           --

           Halloween-themed music and sound effects blast through some speakers set up in the attic as we dance around with each other. Amber’s dressed as (of course) a princess, Nina as Dorothy Gale, and myself as a pirate. Fabian’s recycled his costume from the play earlier this year (sharpie beard and all), Patricia’s a regular witch (no pun intended), Mick and Mara are doing a couples’ thing as Frankenstein’s Monster and the Bride of Frankenstein, and Jerome’s a skeleton. Alfie’s Dracula, the same costume we found him in.

           Honestly, him being behind this whole thing was a plot twist I never expected. In hindsight, I should’ve realized it. He was so focused on making this work that he wasn’t very enthusiastic about Halloween in general.

           But good for him. This was fun, figuring out the clues.

           The presents I received for my birthday were perfect. It was mostly art supplies, but Fabian gifted me a book on Egyptian mythology and Amber bought me a bracelet that goes perfectly with my Ankh charm. The only person who didn’t give me anything was Jerome, which, to be honest, I expected. Although, he could’ve at least, like, given me a chocolate bar.

           I sneak out of the attic with my empty cup, planning to go downstairs and fill it up with water from the kitchen. As I turn the sink on, I hear one of the doors in the hallway downstairs open and close. When I switch the sink off, my cup full, someone says, “Leaving the party so soon?”

           Spinning around, I find that it’s Jerome in all his skeleton-glory. “Just getting something to drink. What about you?”

           “Wanted to give you something,” he replies. He steps toward me, holding out a small, Halloween-themed gift bag. “It’s your present. I didn’t give it to you in front of everyone because I didn’t want anyone to make fun of me.”

           “Oh, you poor thing,” I say sarcastically, taking it from him. “I’m definitely gonna make fun of you.”

           “I’m sure.”

           I laugh lightly, reaching into the bag. My fingers wrap around a long box and I set the bag on the counter as I pull it out. It’s a pen box, not one of those writing pens, but one for drawing. I’ve been on the fence about buying this exact pen for months. I didn’t know if I actually needed it.

           “I went to that art shop in town you’re always talking about,” Jerome explains. “They know you by name there, you know that? All I said is I was looking for something for you and they told me about this pen you’ve been looking at forever. Said you never bought it.”

           “So… you bought it for me?” I question slowly. I didn’t expect this.

           “Yeah. I didn’t want to walk around that shop looking for something I have no idea about. This was the easy way out. Happy birthday, Ash.”

           “This is, uh… very sweet of you, Jerome,” I say, blinking several times. “Thank you. Seriously. I didn’t expect this.”

           “Don’t get used to it.”

           “Afraid I’m gonna tell everyone the Tinman has a heart?”

           “Hilarious, truly.”

           I smile, shaking my head. I take his arm and pull him out into the hallway. “Come on. If we’re both gone for too long, they’ll think we’re up to no good. Happy Halloween.”

           “Happy Halloween.”

[ma-sulevin]

Mattie’s made it to the Henbane! You know what that means?

Pairing: Sharky Boshaw/Female Deputy Rating: E, but mostly for swearing Warnings: Canon-typical violence, but nothing particularly explicit I don’t think Word Count: 5939, chapter three of twelve

Read it on AO3 instead and say nice things.

It wasn’t so bad at the marina, but the deeper into the Henbane they get, the more Mattie feels like she’s been smacked right in the sinuses with like a bat or a metal pipe or something. The pollen from the fucking fields of fucking bliss is so pervasive that she sneezes once every ten minutes on the dot, more than once alerting a nearby peggie to her hiding spot.

She just wants to pop three Benadryl and take an eighteen-hour nap. Maybe that would help.

Hurk and Boomer stay with her, neither of them particularly bothered by the clouds of icky greenish pollen floating in the wind, sticking with her through all the snot and the sneezing. Hurk is a constant source of chatter, which could be annoying but is actually pretty nice when the alternative is sitting in her own head worrying about everything that’s going on.

Joey. Staci. Earl. Burke. She hasn’t died again, and now she’s not sure those times weren’t bliss hallucinations. If they were -- could they happen again? Is she going to wake up in a hospital in Missoula strapped to the bed as a 10-96, her reputation in Hope County ruined?

Listening to Hurk’s (made up, she assumes) tales of the Monkey God and Kyrat is a much nicer way to spend her time. It’s good for a laugh, at least. The man is a little scattered, but he’s a natural storyteller under all that.

Mattie keeps an eye out for rogue peggie helicopters, but getting Tulip back for Adelaide isn’t her top priority by any stretch of the imagination. If she’s meant to find it, she’ll find it, and she’s not going to waste time and energy driving around until she stumbles across the right vehicle. There are real lives on the line she needs to take care of first.

A couple days after they leave the marina, Mattie’s radio comes to life once more with a request for help that has Hurk cheering before she can really parse out the message.

“Hell yeah, Sharky here--” (excited whooping) “--brain-dead cultists at the trailer park.”

“That’s my baby cousin!” Hurk says, somehow fucking bouncing even with that RPG cradled in his arms like a thirty-pound infant. “He’s at the Moonflower, let’s go get him!” He pins her in place with a hopeful look that she assumes he perfected on his mother -- and then sighs because it works.

She knows Sharky by reputation, even if she’s never personally arrested him before. She’s heard Staci and Joey talk about him, and she’s seen his wanted poster still up by the Spread Eagle even though he’s not actually wanted and is out on probation, probably.

“Okay, fine.” She makes a shooing motion at him and he sets off at a jog, heading up the mountain at a pace she knows he’ll be tired of in just a few minutes. She follows anyway, more sedately, along with Boomer, and they catch up with Hurk soon enough.

About halfway up, they find a car abandoned on the side of the dirt road. There’s blood smeared on the front passenger seat and on the door, and Hurk happily climbs in the back with Boomer, leaving Mattie to climb in the relatively clean driver’s seat.

The rest of the way to the trailer park is peaceful, no cultists or bliss fields, and Hurk barely snickers when she sneezes hard and accidentally jerks the wheel to the right and runs them through the grass for a bit.

Okay, next time they come across a gas station or a truck stop or a corner store or just a regular old house that hasn’t been ransacked: she’s dosing up on Claritin. This shit is getting old.

“This used to be a real nice trailer park,” Hurk comments, leaning forward in his seat to speak almost directly into her ear. She parks the borrowed vehicle a safe distance away from another one that’s already on fire, and they both watch as something inside the fence explodes. “Not so much anymore.”

She snorts, then coughs into her elbow. “Apparently not. Let’s go.”

They climb out and Boomer runs ahead, nose to the ground and tail wagging. There don’t seem to be any cultists hanging around right now, so she keeps her weapons safely holstered even though Hurk doesn’t bother with the same courtesy, just waves with one hand when he sees a man standing on top of one of the trailers.

Mattie casts a critical eye around the place as they climb up one of the ladders to walk across the makeshift platforms. Obviously this used to be a pretty standard trailer park, small but with a cute little playground in the middle for the kids. There are no cars sitting around other than hers and the one that was on fire, and the only bodies she can see are wearing Eden’s Gate clothes. Most of the residents must have joined up with the cult or turned tail before Sharky took over.

When they get close enough, they can see Sharky is holding a flame thrower which, okay, it’s technically legal, but it still makes Mattie frown to see him with one, and apparently that frown makes her look too much like a law enforcement officer, because Sharky takes a whole step back and yells, “You’ll never take me alive!”

Mattie just stares at him. Sharky stares right back.

Hurk laughs. “Man, we ain’t here to arrest you. You think I’d bring the cops to a barbeque like this? The dep’s cool, man.”

Sharky looks her up and down and then cocks his head to the side. “ ...oh, you’re not here to arrest me?” When she shakes her head, still frowning a bit, he shrugs and seems to accept her at her word. “Cool, sorry. I am Victor Charlemagne Boshaw, but--”

She listens as he launches into his speech about who he is and what they’re going to be doing over the next few minutes, and she knows it’s a terrible idea, and it must just be whatever genetics Hurk and Sharky share beyond frankly ridiculous names, but his enthusiasm is infectious and she finds herself agreeing to help him even though she shouldn’t.

The people he’s luring in need help. They need to be taken away from the Seeds’ influence and given to someone who can de-condition them, whatever that looks like. She doesn’t know how this stuff works -- it wasn’t covered in school or in the training she got from the Sheriff’s Department.

Her mind changes when she finally sees an Angel up close. Its eyes are completely white, unseeing but not in the way someone who’s simply lost vision would look. There’s a green shimmer to them, and standing too close makes her head spin around like she’s wandered too close to a bliss field again. They fight with inhuman strength, giving more of themselves over to the trouble than any human in their right mind would, and they shake off injuries that would bring down a normal person.

They’re fucking zombies. She nearly gets bit by one, saved only by the stained white mask covering its face, and it grunts and growls and then screams when she puts a bullet between its eyes. The sound makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, a shiver go down her spine.

What the fuck has Faith been doing to them?

What the fuck.

After the last Angel is put down and the last cognizant cultist is also put down, and Sharky’s speakers are all disconnected from his stereo, and Mattie is done celebrating the fact that she managed to not fucking die this time , Hurk and Sharky jog up to where she’s sitting on the playground steps reloading her rifle. They’re both keyed up, excited after the battle and running on adrenaline, but she’s just tired now.

She keeps saying it, but she’s so goddamn tired.

The first thing out of Sharky’s mouth is, “That was fuckin’ hot and uhhh not just cause of the fire.” She freezes, her rifle across her knees, the magazine in one hand and a few loose bullets in the other. Hurk is grinning at him, the beginnings of a laugh starting to bubble up, and Sharky immediately turns red and starts talking faster. “I mean, that didn’t help, but. I mean. Anyway. You did good, shorty, and if you want me to join up with you and Hurky, just say the word.”

Mattie clears her throat and goes back to putting the bullets back in the magazine. The smoke and gasoline fumes are mixing with her already irritated sinuses to give her a headache, and she has to pause to sneeze into her elbow again before she comes up with an answer.

“Sharky? If you burn down every field of bliss we come across, you can follow me anywhere.”

He absolutely lights up at her promise, face breaking into a wide grin as he does a little jig like he just can’t contain his joy.

It’s cute.

She ignores it.

---

“I don’t wanna argue with your plan or nothin,” Sharky says, tone conversational and voice loud over the roar of his flamethrower, “but do you think this is like… lightin’ up a giant joint?” 

Mattie laughs behind the bandana she has tied over her face. “I wouldn’t be upset about it if it wasn’t a hallucinogen,” she says. “It’s one thing to be high and another to think you can fly when you’re on the edge of a cliff.”

Sharky glances at her over his shoulder, eyeing her up and down. “You’re kind of unusual, for the fuzz.”

She shrugs, glances away before he does, catching movement out of the corner of her eye that’s probably just Boomer or Hurk. “These are unusual times, dude.” The movement isn’t either of her other companions, so she wanders a little closer while Sharky continues burning the plants. 

“Be careful!” She can barely hear his voice now, but it doesn’t occur to her to turn back to him, back to safety. “You can’t trust your senses out here!”

There are lights flashing in her vision, and she pauses to rub at her eyes with her knuckles. The lights are still there when she opens them again, her chest tight, and she pulls her bandana down so she can breathe freely.

It’s a mistake.

The bliss hits her full force, knocking her off balance, the vertigo from the marina back as Faith steps in front of her.

“Welcome to the bliss.”

Faith’s hands are on her shoulders, slipping down her arms to her hands, then she’s slipping away, and Mattie is following her without question, without even trying to grab a weapon , just… blindly following this woman through bliss pollen so thick it might as well be fog.

Faith stays just a step away the whole time, no matter how fast Mattie moves or how she lunges, giggling and twirling and speaking about who she really is in a sing-song voice.

Mattie barely even notices she’s on top of Joseph’s statue because Burke is there too, and when she tries to tackle him, he just… steps off the statue as Faith urges Mattie to do the same.

And, still surrounded by the bliss… she does.

---

“Oh, she’s waking up. Come on, Dep, you okay, man?”

She opens her eyes slowly, forcing herself to move even though every fiber of her being is screaming for her to keep her eyes closed and surrender to the white black white she’s gotten used to, that she’s started to miss just plowing through Hope County like it’s her own personal sandbox to destroy however she wants.

“I knew we shouldn’t have stuck around after the bliss started burning,” Sharky says, his voice coming from her other side. She can’t see either man, just the blue sky above her. There’s a single cloud that’s almost a perfect circle. “And you know I love fire, man, it’s just the best.”

She squeezes her eyes closed again, tight enough that she can see white lights that don’t have anything to do with bliss, then she opens them and sits up. She’s wobbly, but two sets of hands are there to help her, overlapping chatter from the two men drowning out her spiraling thoughts.

One of them hands her a water bottle and she drinks from it, unconcerned with the dampness from the grass cooling on her shirt and sinking deeper into her worn jeans. The water is warm and unpleasant, but she forces herself to swallow three mouthfuls before passing it back.

“Mayor’s on the radio,” Hurk says, talking a little louder to cut Sharky off. “Says they got supplies over in the jail, maybe they can help. Here, cuz, where’s the radio?”

Sharky produces the little hand-held with a flair, and Mattie wonders if they took it to call for help but doesn’t have time to ask because it’s switched on and she can hear Minkler’s voice coming through all tinny. “ Anyone looking for refuge, come to the Hope County Jail. We have beds and food here. ”

The radio goes silent and Hurk clicks it off. Mattie stares off in the direction she thinks the jail is instead of looking at either of the guys, and then she takes a deep breath. She doesn’t really want to go back to the jail, doesn’t want to see what happened to it once Joseph’s people took over, doesn’t want to face anyone she might know.

“It would be nice to have some real food,” she says, voice hoarse and throat raw. “Like, some vegetables.”

Both the boys are nodding, but Sharky’s the one who opens his mouth first. “I am not going to lie to you,” he says. “I have not pooped in six days.”

Mattie’s attention snaps from the crest of the hill to Hurk’s eyes, then they’re both turning to look at Sharky, whose face is a little screwed up like he’s not totally sure he actually said that out loud , and then... 

They’re all laughing, the tension broken, worry she hadn’t realized was on their faces melting away. She starts to stand and they both haul themselves to their feet and pull her up with them, propping her up between them, and she lets them because it’s been weeks since she felt the warmth of another human’s touch.

She lets Hurk drive, lets Sharky sit up front next to him, stretches herself across the back seat with Boomer on the floor, listens to them chatting about how weird it is that Hurk and his dad have the same name, smiles at the absurdity of it all, then frowns when guilt at feeling happy when her friends are being tortured sneaks in.

It takes a few minutes to get to the jail, driving slowly down the mountain and along switchbacks that Hurk is taking much more carefully than she really thought he would, and she’s able to stare at the trees passing upside down over her head. 

“Oh, shit, man.” The car comes to an abrupt stop and Mattie almost slides off the seat and onto Boomer. “Looks like peggies got the jail.”

Mattie’s stomach clenches; a cold sweat stands out on her skin. She sits up, leaning forward with her hands on the front seats. Sharky looks over at her, but she just stares through the windshield, squinting to see the details. There are peggies absolutely swarming in the front parking lot, up the hill from where Hurk pulled the car to a stop. 

“Shit.” Mattie digs her fingernails into the front seats, letting the little pricks of pain ground her for the half-second she needs to pull her thoughts away from fresh food and back to fighting. The peggies are overwhelming the jail; they need to help. “Jesus Christ, fucking -- okay. Hurk, do not blow up the jail, there are civilians in there. Find something off to the side, make a distraction. I’ll come in from the other side.”

“What do you want me to do, Dep?” Sharky asks, still too loud but serious now. His fingers are drumming on the door handle, ready to go.

She bites her lower lip, accidentally pulls a piece of dead skin off. “Fuck shit up.”

He hops out of the car and cheers. Hurk follows suit, and she jumps out with Boomer more quietly, double checking her AR-C before she follows them up the hill.

The place is a disaster. There are burnt-out cars in the parking lot, enough smoke floating through the air to make her eyes water, peggies screaming and attacking the outside walls. There are people she doesn’t recognize up on top, behind the razor wire, and she hopes they see her red flannel, Hurk’s stars-and-stripes, or Sharky’s green hoodie and realize they’re not peggies, hopes the smoke and chaos won’t be their downfall.

She doesn’t want to have to do this again, too.

Two peggies fall under her spray of bullets as something explodes off to the left side of the jail. As she’d hoped, the peggies scramble around, not sure who’s attacking them, and it makes it easy for her to sneak around and snap the neck of a third man.

When her radio crackles to life, she almost doesn’t hear it. “ Hey is that you, Rook? ” Earl. Earl. It’s Earl. He’s alive. He’s here? She blinks hard to clear her eyes of tears that suddenly have nothing to do with the smoke and squats behind a car that smells of burned rubber, pulling her radio to her face to hear the rest of his message: “ Ah, Christ, help us out here. ” 

She starts to press the talk button but a woman spots her, runs over with a shovel raised, and Mattie has enough time to wonder who shows up to a prison siege with only a shovel as a weapon before she has her pistol up and puts a bullet between the woman’s eyes.

When the last parking lot peggie falls, there are a few seconds where the only sounds are the roaring of flames, and then one of the doors in the wall opens. She walks through, doesn’t look back to see if Hurk or Sharky are following her, just steps into the courtyard and waits.

“Holy shit.” She snaps around to see Earl weaving his way through the rubble, his hat on his head and a smile on his face. He looks good, he looks healthy, and he’s trying to talk to her but she’s throwing her arms around his neck and bursting into tears before he has a chance to get out a full sentence.

He grunts and staggers back a step, but his arms still wrap around her waist and he squeezes her almost as tightly as she’s squeezing him. He rubs one hand up and down her back, soothing, shushing her when it only makes her cry harder.

She doesn’t care that she’s standing in the middle of the courtyard where everyone can see her. She doesn’t care that she’s getting tears and snot all over the shoulder of her boss’ uniform. All she cares about is that he’s alive, and he’s healthy, and he’s not an angel or trapped in a bunker, and she’s so overwhelmed with relief that she doesn’t know how to handle herself anymore.

“You’re alright, sweetheart.” He cups the back of her head like he might a child’s, comforting, and she draws in a shaky breath in an effort to just stop fucking crying. “We’re okay.”

She squeezes him even tighter for half a second then forces herself to step back. It feels like she has to unclench each of her fingers individually, has to scrape the toes of her stolen boots over the crumbling asphalt before she can give him the space she’s supposed to. She wipes at her eyes with the backs of her hands, wipes at her running nose and makes an ungodly noise when she intends to make a dainty sniffle.

“Sorry.”

“You’re alright,” he says, again, this time clapping her on the shoulder like he used to sometimes. “You really saved our bacon. The peggies’ve been throwing themselves at these walls for days. They just won’t let up.” He looks at the injured stretched out on the ground, then back to meet her eyes, a grim look on his face. “We really kicked open the hornets’ nest.”

Yeah. Yeah. They weren’t ready to arrest Joseph, should have waited longer or should have done it months earlier, before John had bought up so much of the county, before Jacob started kidnapping the locals, before Faith perfected her bliss formula, before everything went to shit.

Their moment of silence is interrupted by a man yelling a warning from the high walls, then being pushed back by a grenade. He falls in front of Mattie, his body hitting the asphalt with a sickening thunk. Blood pools under his head and his eyes stare, unseeing, up at the blue sky.

Earl jumps into action before she does, numbed as she is by everything. He checks the man’s pulse, yells for a medic, and part of her brain that she’d tried to bury wants her to respond. I’m a medic. I know that man’s gone. 

He snaps her out of it. “I need you up on that wall, Rook,” he says, and he looks sorry to say it, but his silent regret doesn’t make the need less dire, doesn’t mean not fighting back won’t lead to all of them being tortured at the hands of Faith or her brothers.

So… she does it. She does what he asks her to, does what she needs to do to protect the people in the jail. Minkler fights by her side for as long as he can, but he’s a politician, not a soldier, and the second time he trips over his own feet, she shoves him in the shoulder and tells him to get the fuck inside.

Sharky and Hurk fight with her too, performing better than she thought they would when she first saw them. Hurk, in particular, is able to keep his mouth shut and grenades sailing through the air with remarkable precision, so much so that she starts to think there’s some truth to the wild stories he’s been spinning in their down time. Sharky swaps his flamethrower out for a more reasonable AK-47, and she smiles when she sees it but doesn’t bother to reflect on why she thinks that weapon is reasonable, just keeps fighting.

It’s all she can do.

Just keep fighting.

---

“So are you fucking the sheriff, or…?” Sharky lets the tail end of his question trail off, like he hadn’t already asked the most important part, the part that has her wrinkling her nose in distaste before she starts laughing. He blinks at her, lips pulling up in a grin when she starts to laugh, and pulls his hat off to run his hand through his hair. It sticks up when he’s done, dirty, greasy from hours of sweating under the brim, and she’s happy the jail still has working showers.

“No,” she says. “I’m not. I’ve never even thought -- why would you ask that?” She sits on the edge of the cot she’s been assigned even though there’s still dirt on the seat of her jeans, starts untying her boots as she listens to Sharky take a sharp breath before launching into what she assumes is going to be quite the speech.

“It’s just, you were pretty happy to see him, I guess.” He pauses and sighs. “I’ve never seen anybody cry that hard into a hug.”

Mattie sits up and scratches the tip of her nose. She can feel her cheeks heating up a bit as he stares at her, waiting. “The Seeds have all my other friends. I thought they had him too.” She shrugs and fiddles with the tail of her shirt, rubbing the soft cotton between her fingers. Sharky’s looking at her with something a little too understanding on his face, so she looks down into her lap and chews at the dead skin on her lip.

“Hurky and me, we’ll help you get your friends back,” he says, squeezing the bill of his hat between his hands. She watches the motion, the nervousness of it, then meets his gaze just before he says, “That’s what friends are for, right?”

The earnestness on his face, of his offer, makes her smile. It eases the tight ball in her chest, and she takes what feels like the first full breath of the day. “I really appreciate it, Sharky.”

He shrugs, dismissing her thanks. “Once you get the other deputies back, you still won’t arrest me, right? For all the fire, and the murdering, and all?” He pitches his voice lower, but he’s still too loud. It’s like the man never learned how to whisper.

She stands and knocks his shoulder with her fist. “If anyone’s getting in trouble for what we’ve been doing out there, it’s me. You’re fine. I promise we won’t arrest you.”

“Okay, good,” Sharky says, voice brightening again. “You gonna shower now?”

“Mhm. Be right back.” She knocks him in the shoulder again for good measure.

He throws his hat at her back as she walks away.

---

She doesn’t remember dying this time. She knows what it feels like -- getting shot, falling too far, having her neck snapped, drowning, being run over by a car, or being struck in the face with the butt of some peggie’s rifle -- but she doesn’t know which of those things put her in the black white black this time.

She doesn’t remember, but she’s trapped here, searching through a place she can’t see for an exit she’s not sure exists.

Is this the final time? Has she used up her thirty lives and is now doomed to run through this place for the rest of eternity? Was she supposed to do something different, behave better, make choices for good and she ran out of chances and this is what hell is?

She grew up expecting a lake of fire, not this… nothingness.

She can’t stop the sobs, can’t stop herself from screaming for help even though it's useless.

She screams and screams and screams and

She wakes up with a start, her limbs jerking like she suddenly fell, and she tries to sit up but there’s a hand in hers and another wiping tears from her face. It doesn’t feel like a threat, so she relaxes and forces her eyes to look at something other than the ceiling.

For half a second, she’s certain the gentle touches belong to Joey, like she’s fallen asleep during a movie night and Joey’s absently stroking her hair. A half-second after that, she’s certain the gentle touches belong to Staci, because the hands are bigger than Joey’s, and he never complained when she flopped on him like a cat needing attention.

“There you are, shorty.” Sharky’s voice reminds her where she is and who she’s with, and she draws in a wet, shaky breath as the reality of everything crashes full-force into her. His fingers tighten around hers, and she curls her body around that point of contact. “You been crying in your sleep and didn’t wanna wake up, but you calmed down as long as I was holding your hand.”

She wipes her face on the back of her sleeve. “Sorry,” she says, voice thick and wet. “Did I wake you up?”

He brushes her hair away from her face. “Nah, I was still awake. Don’t worry about it.”

It doesn’t seem right that this large, boisterous man should be the one comforting her in the middle of the night, but she can’t help the impulse that tells her to nuzzle into his hand. She turns into it, blinking up at him in the dim light of what used to be the department’s bullpen, and he grins back down at her.

He’s sitting on the floor at the edge of her cot, long legs stretched out on the dirty tile floor, still in his jeans but now without his boots or hoodie. He’s got a ratty wifebeater tank on instead, stretched out at the neckline, and she can see faded swirls of ink on one of his biceps. She huffs out a laugh, and he squeezes her fingers in reply.

“How long’ve you been sitting there?”

She doesn’t mention their entwined fingers. He doesn’t seem keen to bring it up either.

“Uhh, dunno, like thirty minutes?” He shrugs, still playing with her hair. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

“I took like… four benadryl after my shower.” She starts to roll onto her back to stretch, and he releases her, moving back a little like he’s going to get on his bed. “I was dreaming that, uhm.” How best to describe it? He won’t believe her. “I was just trapped and no one could hear me.”

He nods again. “Don’t like small spaces?”

She actually does laugh this time, a sharp noise that surprises them both. “You could say that, yeah.” She considers telling him more, then remembers something he said earlier. “Wait, you’re still awake? Not sleeping?”

“Can’t always make my brain shut off,” he says. “Specially these days.”

She turns back onto her side and props herself up on one elbow, considering, weighing the pros and cons and the chances he’ll take what she wants to say the wrong way… then she decides a guy who’s willing to sit on the cold, hard floor holding her hand for half an hour to make her feel better is exactly the kind of guy she can trust.

“Come lie down with me.”

He blinks at her, cocks his head to the side like a puppy, like he’s not sure he heard her right. 

“I always sleep better when there’s someone with me. Maybe you will too.” When he doesn’t respond right away, she adds: “Humans need touch. It’s good for you. Just hop up here and go to sleep.”

He’s surprisingly silent, but he moves from his cot to hers, sits on the side to test the waters, then stretches out next to her when she doesn’t do anything to make him think her offer is a joke. She makes room for him, waits for his head to hit the pillow before she cuddles against his side, curling into his warmth with a self-satisfied sigh.

“See? It’s nice.”

It helps her forget the cold emptiness of the black white black in her dream, reminds her that this is real and she’s real and the people she’s fighting for are real too.

He jumps a little when he hears her voice, then he rolls onto his side, toward her. She gives him room to settle, then moves back in, head tucked under his chin.

“All good?”

He takes in a deep breath, lets it out in a slow exhale before he replies. “Yeah. You’re right.” His arm loops over her waist, just resting, then pulls her a little closer. “All good.”

---

Sharky doesn’t say anything about her nightmare or her offer-slash-demand for three a.m. cuddles, just slips out of her bed without waking her up from the second half of her nine-hour benadryl nap, leaving behind a cold spot and a pillow that smells faintly of gasoline. She was right though, sleeping with another body next to her soothed her until she was able to float dreamlessly through the rest of the night. 

She can only hope he feels the same.

Breakfast is instant coffee and a crumbly granola bar eaten at Earl’s side as he and the mayor take turns talking about events around the Henbane: bliss in the water, bliss plants growing unchecked, angels wandering along the roads, and Burke still with Faith.

“I can’t leave Joey and Staci to go after Burke.” She feels guilty even as she says it, knows the importance of the Marshal, but… “I can’t. You haven’t seen what I have.”

Minkler looks shocked, but Earl is nodding before she’s even finished her sentence.

“You do what you need to do, Rook,” he says. “We’re counting on you.”

She nods at him even though that makes her angry -- why is everyone counting on her? Why is this her responsibility? She’s not the only one in Hope County who’s physically capable of fighting back against the Seeds; she’s not even the most qualified.

She’s just the one person who managed to completely escape the Seeds on that first night.

“Hey.” His voice, pitched low, draws her out of that cloud of anger, and she blinks up at him as he says, “Stay safe out there, okay?”

The fight bleeds out of her as she sighs. “You too.”

Sharky and Hurk are already dressed and kitted up, standing by the jail gates and arguing good-naturedly about something. She catches just the tail end of the discussion, right when Hurk raises his voice and throws his arms out to the side: “--show my chimps, that’s right, they’re chimps, some respect! And don’t go slanderin’ their names!”

Sharky catches her eye and her confused expression and starts laughing even harder, tipping his head back and letting the sound echo around the courtyard. It’s catching, and she finds herself laughing before she has time to remember why she’d been frowning in the first place.

“You boys ready to go?” She stops a few paces away from them, tucks her hands into her pockets while she waits, and Hurk turns around to look back at her.

“I think I’m gonna head back up to the marina,” Hurk says, “maybe see if I can’t find Mama’s helicopter. You’n’Sharky’ll be okay without me?” He looks nervous like he’s afraid she’s going to say no, so she makes sure she keeps smiling at him even though the idea of him flying a helicopter makes her super fucking nervous.

“We’ll be okay, Hurk. You do what you need to do.” It’s the same thing Earl said to her, and she sighs a little even as her smile stays.

His face lights up. “Okay! Call me when you come back around, and I’ll come help you, okay?” He’s grabbing her up in a bear hug before she has time to nod, and she can’t do anything but chuckle as he picks her up off her feet and sets her back down. “Don’t get into too much trouble without me.”

“You too,” she says, breathless, amused, and she waits quietly as Sharky gets a similarly enthusiastic goodbye.

“Have you seen Boomer this morning?”

Sharky answers by pointing; Boomer’s on his back in a patch of sun, a woman Mattie doesn’t recognize kneeling beside him to scratch at his belly. Boomer blinks his eyes open when his name is called, then rolls to his feet like he’s just remembered he’s late for work. He gives the woman a wet kiss, which makes her laugh, and then runs over and jumps up onto Mattie with his front paws.

“There’s my good boy,” she coos, and ignores Sharky’s vague noise of disgust when she accepts a slobbery Boomer-kiss of her own.

When Boomer calms down enough to sit by her feet, she puts her hands on her hips and looks up at Sharky. “Ready to fuck up John’s day?”

His face lights up. “Hell yeah, chica. Lead the way.”

[dpn-datalogs]

ACTIVATION PROCESS INITIATED ENERGY RESERVES: 100% PREFORMING DIAGNOSTIC SCAN... DIAGNOSTIC SCAN RESULTS: 0 ERRORS FOUND PERFORMING SYSTEM SCAN... SYSTEM SCAN RESULTS: 0 ERRORS FOUND ELAPSED TIME SINCE PREVIOUS SHUTDOWN: 2d 7h 42m 13s ACTIVATING..._

Hydro groaned softly as he booted up, his optics taking a second to adjust to the bright light above him. Once he could see clearly, the first thing he noticed was that he was no longer near the shore he ran out of power near. In fact, he wasn’t in water at all. “Wuh...” Hydro attempted to sit up, only for a familiar hand to gently push his chest back down.

“Don’t get up just yet, Hydro.” Tundra said to his brother. “Your self-scan may have read green, but I want to run my own.”

“Tundra?” Hydro was surprised to see his brother. It could only mean that he had managed to make it home after all, even if the currents had to take him the last bit if the way. Unless... “...this is home, right? I didn’t wash up in the north pole or something?”

“This is the foundation, Hydro.” Valte rose from his seat next to the workbench Hydro was laying on and patted the waterbot’s pauldron. “You gave us all quite the scare. We were afraid the worst had come to pass, and I don’t mind saying I’ve lost enough Prescotts for one lifetime.”

“Hydro, I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been heavily modified since you were last here.” Tundra said as he looked over Hydro’s body. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, you noticed the new look, eh?” Hydro chuckled softly as he gripped his hands. They were still there, much to his relief. “It’s...kind of a long and crazy story. Actually, can I tell everyone at once? Figure it’d be easier than repeating myself a half-dozen times.”

“Of course. They’re on the other room, and just as curious as I am.” Valte said as he went to open the door.

Tundra tapped Hydro’s shoulder to get his attention. “Hydro, Mr. Valte wasn’t exaggerating when he said how worried everyone was. Don’t be surprised if the other’s get-” The snowbot was cut off by Burrow and Bouquet running over and jumping on Hydro to hug him. “...emotional.”

Hydro had no time to brace himself, and the kids all but tackling him caused a generous OOF. “Heh...hey now, don’t be so down. I’m back in one piece, right?” He would only get tears and blubbered questions in response. “Oh boy...someone wanna give me a hand? I’m getting kinda soggy...”

“You’re on your own. Frankly, I hope you rust.” Scimitar frowned, her eyes a bit puffed from having cried while Hydro was offline. “It’s the least you deserve for scaring us like that...”

“Missed you, too...” Hydro rolled his eyes as Beetle lifted the kids off of him.

“We all missed you, Hydro.” Beetle assured. “Like she said, we were all scared. For all we knew, you were dead.”

Hydro gave a bit of a shrug at the notion. “Well technically, I was for about a week.”

“Hydro, that isn’t funny.” Beetle would only get a raised eyebrow in response, which eventually connected the dots. “...you’re not joking are you.”

Hydro sighed before shifting on the workbench. “I guess that’s as good a segue as any to explain the new body.” he said. “Okay, everyone pay attention and hold questions for the end. It all started the first day I was gone. It was pretty normal until the harpoon...”

. . .

It took about fifteen minutes for Hydro to finish his tale, and everyone in the room was left rather dumbfounded by its end. “...so does that mean you’re a zombie now?” Burrow finally asked.

“No, I’m not a...actually, wait a second.” Burrow raised a good point. Hydro was dead, but now he wasn’t. By his understanding of the word, he was technically undead.

“That isn’t important.” Scimitar cut in. “If this Pirate Man went through all the trouble to rebuild you, why didn’t he bring you home himself? Seems rather odd for him to put all that time in just for you to wind up out of power under the docks.”

“Yeah, about that. He was going to, but...well...” Hydro paused a bit, rather embarrassed about how he ended up off of Pirate’s boat. “Remember Splash? Well one night after Pirate turned in for the night, she and I got to talking...”

“So. How are you feeling?”

“Hm? Oh, I’m okay. To be honest, I thought I’d be a little more freaked out about having died, but so far…nothing to write home about. So either it hasn’t really hit me yet, or I’m emotionally jaded to, frankly, an unsettling degree. You?”

“I’m just glad that you made it at all. You were in pretty bad shape when I found you, but it looks like you’re doing alright now. Dad really knows how to bring dead robots back to life! Even if he won’t let them actually live after...”

“...uh...this might be a little invasive of me, but...are you okay with how protective your dad is?”

“...not really. I get why he’s like that, but I’m not dumb enough to make the same mistake twice.”

“Mistake?”

“Nevermind. Just know that I’m really glad to finally be around a guy who’s not dad or a Joe...actually, speaking of which, I think you and I have some unfinished business...”

“Hm? What, you wanna do some more training.”

“No, silly. Don’t you remember what we were talking about when we first met? Before dad interrupted us? About being more than friends?”

“Oh...OH. Uh, look, I’m flattered, but Pirate was pretty clear about-”

“I don’t see dad anywhere. Do you...?”

“Well, no, bu-MM!”

“The man saves your life...and you make out with his daughter.” Scimitar pinched her brow in frustration. Clearly, death had not changed her embarrassment of a brother in any way.

“Hey, she kissed me. Let’s get that straight right now.” Hydro quickly defended himself. “I was ready to treat her as off-limits. In fact, I would’ve told her that, except...”

“GET YER HANDS OFF ME DAUGHTER YA MANGY SARDINE!” “Gah! It’s not what it looks like!”

“Dad, I thought you were asleep!”

“Ungrateful little barnacle! I’ll blow off every last part I put into yer perverted hide!!!”

“I wanted to explain things to him, but that’s when he started shooting depth charges at me.” Hydro recalled. “I just jumped overboard and started swimming for my life. Last thing I heard was him screaming about gutting me next chance he got...”

“Hmm...sounds like you should stay on land until he cools down.” Valte pondered. “Just as well. Not like you’re going to be able to leave the Foundation anytime soon.”

“Wait, what!?” Hydro yelped.

“You said yourself, Pirate Man rebuilt you as a weapon.” Valte explained. “Unless you let yourself be rebuilt, I’ll have to re-register you with the state as a combat robot.”

“Rebuild nothing! I’ve tasted life with hands, there’s no way I’m going back!”

“I figured as much. It’d probably be faster than rebuilding you anyway. Until you’re legal again, you’re not to leave the Foundation for anything. Understand?”

Hydro sighed, but then nodded. “Fine...anything’s better than going back to a hook and a stump.”

“It’s okay Hydro!” Bouquet ran up and patted her brother’s arm. “You can help me in the garden until you can go outside again!”

“And I can teach you to play video games!” Burrow added.

“Well, at least I won’t be bored.” Hydro chuckled as he patted both their heads. Bouquet’s fro was bouncy and slick to the touch, just like the Hydro always thought it’d feel like.

“Alright, I think that’s enough excitement.” Valte chimed in. “Come on, kids. Let’s all give Hydro some space. Tundra needs to finish examining him anyway.”

The DPNs headed out of the lab, though Scimitar and Valte lingered outside the door.

“I still can’t believe he’s back.” Scimitar said to Valte. “It’s like his being gone was just  a nightmare, and we’ve all finally woken up...”

“I know...” Valte sighed as he turned away. “And once Alex is back, we can wake up from the bigger one...”

Scimitar smiled at that notion as Valte walked off. He was right. If Hydro came back, it meant that Dr. Prescott could just as easily return as well. She gave Hydro one last glance through the lab door’s window before leaving herself...

[skiesofthesketchy]

The Office: part 3

AN:// lol bet yalls weren’t expecting to hear from me! yeahhhh... sorry it took me forever to post this next part. u know how life goes... :) anyway, here it is! long overdue but i hope you guys like it!! pls let me know what you think! much love <3

Part One and Part Two in case you forgot (which is my fault oops)

Author: skiesofthesketchy

Pairing: Dylan O’Brien + reader

Word Count: 3,378

Warnings: Just some cursing.

Rays of sun kissed every corner of the large park as I swung happily, enjoying the breeze through my hair and the soft squeaks from the swing set. “I bet I can jump off farther than you can,” he said from beside me.

“Yeah right.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Hell yeah! When I win you have to buy me an ice cream cone. Actually TWO so that I can shove one in your face and eat the other while I laugh at you,” I giggled, swinging higher and higher.

“No. When I win, you’ll be the one covered in ice cream!”

“You wish,” I laughed. “Go on then, jump!”

And he did, landing with a thump in the grass, only stumbling sideways a little. “And that is how it’s done,” he cheered arrogantly. “Now jump already so I can shove an ice cream cone in your face!”

“Whatever!” I yelled as I prepared to jump from the swing. I was flying until I hit the ground rather ungracefully, and stumbled backwards, landing on my ass. All I could hear now was Dylan’s howls of laughter. The bastard didn’t even bother to help me up.

I stood and dusted myself off while he composed himself, though it took a few minutes. “That was great,” he said, wiping an imaginary tear from under his eye. “Now it’s time to pay up.”

I pouted but followed Dylan reluctantly to the ice cream stand across the park. I watched him pay for a vanilla ice cream cone, and when he turned to me, I took off in a sprint.

“Hey! Come back here Y/N!”

“You’ll never catch me!” I yelled over my shoulder. I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun him but I ran as fast as I could. I passed a group of children playing soccer and a few dogs playing fetch with their owners, everyone enjoying the sunny afternoon.

Running out of energy, I headed for the large elm tree in the middle of the park, where I rested and caught my breath, preparing myself for the inevitable.

“Dang, you’ve gotten faster,” he remarked, just as out of breath as I was.

“Just do it already,” I pleaded, closing my eyes and waiting for the cold treat to coat my face.

“You didn’t think I’d actually dump this ice cream on you, did you?” he chuckled.

I opened my eyes. “What do you mean? I lost the bet.”

“But that would be mean. I got this so we could share it,” he smiled, pulling me against with his arm around my waist. I was surprised, but smiled at him- the boy of my dreams. “Here,” he said, before abruptly shoving the ice cream onto my mouth and chin.

“Dylan!” I screamed. “I can’t believe I fell for that!”

He threw his head back and laughed loudly, which distracted him enough for me to snatch the cone from his hand and do the same thing he did to me.

“Hey!” I only smirked at him while licking whatever ice cream was left in the cone. “That was uncalled for.”

“You deserved it.”

Dylan glared at me playfully before grabbing me by the waist again and pulling me in for a kiss, our sticky ice cream faces now smooshed together.

I broke the messy kiss. “You’re crazy, Dylan O’Brien.”

“Not as crazy as you.”

-----

Great. This is just great. Memories that I haven’t recalled in months now invaded my mind with a thick fog that I couldn’t see through. I couldn’t sleep last night, and trying to focus right now seems impossible, as I trudge into my office building in my zombie-like state. Why can’t I stop thinking about him?

I try to push any thought of Dylan and Lauren out of my head as I make my way to my desk after stepping off the elevator. Quietly mumbling a hello to Ben, I slouch at my desk and start my computer.

“Well, good morning to you too, sleepy head,” Ben chirped, pursing his lips with his usual sass.

I just gave him a look as if to say, “I’m not in the mood.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I know you have your cranky mornings, but you don’t have to be a soggy hoe about it.”

“Sorry,” I huffed. “I just... don’t want to be here right now.”

Ben sighed dramatically. “I do not know why I put up with you sometimes,” he said, taking one of two coffees from his desk and putting it onto mine.

I swiftly grabbed the coffee and greedily took a few gulps, immediately feeling better. Did I mention how much I love coffee? “Me neither, but I’m incredibly lucky that you do,” I hummed, leaning over and kissing Ben on the cheek.

He laughed. “It is quite amazing how fast your mood changes with a little caffeine. You’re welcome baby doll.” He cleared his throat. “So what’s the deal?”

“With?”

“Queen Bitch and your man. Duh”

“I wouldn’t know. I just walked in. And I wholeheartedly hope that I don’t have find out all the gory details of last night.”

“And I wholeheartedly hope you do, because work was just starting to get boring before you walked in with lover boy yesterday. Oh wait, two lover boys.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well I’m glad my hot mess of a life amuses you. And I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just refer to my co-workers as ‘Lover Boys.’”

Before Ben could respond, a laugh echoed throughout the office; one that drives me absolutely insane. Lauren, with her arm hooked on Dylan’s, cackled as they entered. What's so funny? And why does my desk have to be so close to the elevators?

I caught Dylan’s eyes and he smiled and nodded towards me. I forced a smile back, but my face dropped once I met glances with Lauren. Her eyebrow raised and she smirked. “What kind of game is she playing?” I mumbled, as the two of them made their way towards their desks.

“Who even knows?” Ben chimed in to what was supposed to be my own personal conversation. “But by the looks of it, their date last night went well.”

All I could do was groan. Of all the girls at the office, why her? If Lauren wasn’t in the equation, I probably wouldn’t be having these feelings for him flooding back to me, though Ben would probably disagree.

“Whatever. I’m just going to focus on work, and not think about them at all,” I said, trying to convince myself more than I was trying to convince Ben.

“Whatever you say, Hun.”

----------------------------------

The morning went by excruciatingly slow. It felt like I had been perched at this desk for days, but only a few hours have passed. I tapped my fingers impatiently, finding it hard to sit still.

“Can you chill?” Ben asked. “It’s bad enough I have to deal with your leg bouncin’ all the time. Please don’t make tapping a thing or I will have to murder you mercilessly. Right here in the office. Don’t embarrass us like that, Y/N.”

“I think I need another coffee.”

“No, no, no. Caffeine will just make you more fidgety. Go take a walk or something. Here,” he said, handing me a pile of folders. “Go run these reports over to Trends for me. Thanks hun bun.”

“Ben, no.” He knows fully well that Dylan works over in Trends.

“Girl, yes. You and I both know that you’re just dying to talk to him.”

“No, I most definitely don’t want to talk to him.”

“Yes you do. Now go.”

“No.” Ben gave me a look that reminded me of when my mom used to scold me as a child. “Ugh,” I pouted. “Fine. But I hate you.”

“Sure you do.”

Bringing the large stack of folders up to my chest, I stood up and started heading towards the Trends area. Striding over, I put the reports on James’ desk, the leader of the team. He nodded to me as a thank you, and I pivoted to head back to my desk, but someone called my name.

“Oh, hey Dylan,” I responded, walking over to his desk. I was kind of hoping to avoid him, since he was oh so snuggly with Lauren this morning, and I would rather not have to hear about it, but it was too late now. He had stood up and made his way around the desk to lean on it. “How are you?”

“Doing pretty good. How ‘bout yourself?” he asked.

“A little tired, not gonna lie. This day just feels like it’s dragging on.”

He laughed. “I know what you mean.” I peered around, checking to see if Lauren was ready to pop out of nowhere like she usually does.

“So...” I hesitated, not really sure if I should actually finish this sentence. “How was your date last night?” I asked, nudging his side as I turned to lean on his desk beside him, my teasing and cheery attitude hopefully covering up the fact that my whole body was burning with anger and, fine I'll admit it, jealousy.

Dylan looked at me with the same expression he had yesterday after I found out him and Lauren would be going out together. Studying my features, analyzing my expression.

I kept up my happy demeanor even though the way he looked at me caused more mini flashbacks of our past relationship to pop into my head.

“Oh,” he said after a moment, finally turning away. “It was nice.”

“Just nice?” I asked, still teasing.

He let a sheepish laugh leave his lips. “Yes, it was the perfect amount of nice. Quite nice indeed.” I smiled when he decided to humor me.

“Hmm, interesting. I didn't think you were the type of guy to settle for ‘nice,’” I replied, using air quotes. I was technically implying that he could do better than Lauren, and I was only half hoping he would pick up on that.

“Oh, Y/N.” He stood up and placed himself in front of me. “I know you think you know me, but I've changed a lot in the past two years.” Is that a smirk I see?

“Well, Dylan, I've changed a lot too,” I poked him in the chest.

He squinted and the corners of his mouth quirked up. “I can tell.”

Though I was curious to find out what about me he found noticeably different, I ignored that part of me. “I’m guessing you’re still a huge Star Wars nerd, though.”

“Of course! How can anyone not like Star Wars?” he defended himself, laughing.

“I’m not trying to knock Star Wars, I’m just making fun of you.”

Dylan gasped mockingly. “At least I’m not obsessed with that dumb reality tv show! What was it? The Bachelor?”

“Hey! I’ll have you know I watch it for comedic purposes! And the Bachelorette is way better. Boy drama is hilarious.”

As we laughed together, I found myself staring at him again. The moment felt exactly like the one we shared yesterday just minutes after we had met for the first time in two years. I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing: this feels just like old times.

“Dyl!” We both heard Lauren’s annoying call, but neither one of us acknowledged it, trying to stay in our moment for just a few seconds longer before we were inevitably interrupted.

I was the first to look away from Dylan and at Lauren, who seemed to be pissed judging by the way she stomped over to us in her heels. Her perfectly perfect smile wasn’t enough to cover up her mood this time. It was only when Lauren firmly grabbed Dylan’s shoulder that his eyes left me.

“Hi babe!” she squealed, completely ignoring my presence now. “Look what I brought you!” Her face was dangerously close to his and to be honest, he looked kind of uncomfortable with the proximity. Or maybe it was the yelling. Why the fuck was she so loud and high-pitched all the time? “It’s green juice. It’s like super healthy for you, and that’s why I got you one! You have to keep your energy up, it’s still your first week on the job!”

“Oh, Lauren. Thanks,” he said, taking the bottle of green, lumpy slime in his hand.

“It’s no problem at all! Anything I can do to help you, babe!” There’s that word again. Cringe.

Since Lauren obviously doesn’t give a damn that Dylan and I were having a conversation, I’ll just leave. I don’t want to hear her obnoxious voice anymore. If I don’t leave now, I might have to hear her spew something about their “nice” date last night.

“I had a lot of fun last night,” Lauren whispered, bringing her arms around his neck, not ashamed at all to act so clingy while in the office. I’m going to vomit.

“Alright, and that’s my cue to go.”

“Oh! Y/N, I didn’t see you there,” Lauren smiled sweetly, still clinging to Dylan.

“Sure you didn’t,” I replied, not in the mood to play fake nice today. I smiled at Dylan before squeezing past them.

“Wait, Y/N,” he called after me.

Instead of sticking around to hear what he wanted to stay, I glanced back with a, “See you later!” before heading back to my desk.

“So, how’d it go with Lover Boy?” Ben asked. I huffed.

“It was going great, until you-know-who showed up.” Ben and I made an “Eck,” sound in unison.

“Let me guess. Lauren has already made wedding announcements?” I just snickered in response. What did Lauren mean when she said she “had fun” last night? Did they just have a delightful dinner or did they...

“Y/N. I need you in my office,” Cheryl interrupted my thoughts, thankfully. She sped away before I could even respond to her, but I quickly got up to follow her back to her office.

After closing the door behind me, I took a seat in front of Cheryl’s desk. “Has the new employee been acquainted?” she asked bluntly, and somewhat disinterested as she looked over papers on her desk.

“Mr. O’Brien? Yes,” I replied. “He settled in easily and has been hard at work. He fits in nicely in my personal opinion.”

“Good. That’s very good,” she glanced up for a moment before shuffling through more documents. “Remember to have his report written up by next week.”

“Of course.”

“Also, I need you to help finalize the current campaign proposal before we bring it to the board tomorrow. I would do it myself but I need to leave early today.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Great. Mr. Barnes is waiting for you in his office.”

“Ethan?” I said aloud without thinking.

“Yes. Is that a problem?” She looked at me confused.

“No, ma’am. Of course not.”

“I understand you two are dating now, but I expect you to keep it professional while at work.”

I found myself too shocked to respond as she ushered me out of her office without another word. Even my fucking boss thinks Ethan and I are dating. Great. If this “news” has reached Cheryl already, why haven’t I been contacted by HR? I guess I’ll deal with that problem when it arrives.

Slouching my way over to Ethan’s personal office, I mentally prepared myself for his flirty demeanor and cocky persona. I knocked a few times before letting myself in.

“Y/N. What a pleasant surprise,” he said, winking at me. “For what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cheryl wanted me to help you with the campaign proposal you’re working on.”

“Oh, perfect. Come have a seat.”

I made myself comfortable across from him at his desk while he rearranged papers and folders, handing me a few. “Alright let’s get started.”

I was surprised to find that Ethan and I working together on this project was strictly professional. No snide remarks or innuendos from him. He’s actually a decent person to be around when he’s working. We finished rather quickly and I was relieved. It’s well past lunch hour and I haven’t eaten. “Thanks for your help on this. If I had to handle this myself it would’ve taken forever.”

“No problem,” I replied. “I’m happy to be of service.” I stood up and stretched a little before making my way to the door. I only made a few steps before I felt Ethan grab my hand.

“Wait, Y/N.”

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to apologize,” he said.

“For what?” I asked, my eyebrows furrowed with confusion.

“For yesterday. I basically demanded that you go to lunch with me, and I came off like a total jackass. I’m sorry.” I searched his steel blue eyes and all I found was sincerity. I never thought I’d hear an actual apology from Ethan Barnes.

“I appreciate your apology,” I smiled.

“For what it’s worth, I’m really glad you said yes. I had a great time,” he said with a soft smile.

“Me too.” I looked down at his hand still holding mine, and wondered what would happen next. I don’t know if I want anything to happen at all. Maybe I should just leave...

“O-oh,” we heard someone say from the doorway, and my head snapped up to see it was Dylan. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said audaciously, chest out and eyes scanning Ethan and his grip he still had on me. It was obvious he wasn’t sorry at all, and his bold aura that entered the small room made me drop Ethan’s hand as if I had done something wrong.

“A polite knock wouldn’t have killed you,” Ethan shot back, obviously annoyed. But there was something else in his tone... Suddenly I could feel the tension in the room, and it was rising as the two glared at each other.

“Well anyway, Y/N, I need to talk to you about this report,” Dylan said, completely ignoring Ethan’s reply.

Wanting to avoid whatever the hell was going on here, I left Ethan’s side and started towards Dylan and the exit. “Um, yeah of course--”

“What was your name again? Was it Daniel?” Ethan interrupted my flee, stalking forwards arrogantly.

“It’s Dylan.” His jaw clenched as he mimicked the dominant posture Ethan displayed.

“Right,” Ethan dismissed. “Well I just want to emphasize to knock next time,” he all but growled. “It’s rude and incredibly unprofessional to barge in the way you just did, and Y/N and I were not finished doing business.”

“Whatever I walked into sure as hell didn’t look like business.”

I saw the anger rising in Ethan’s eyes and I wanted to interject, but I’m too occupied with confusion as to why I’m suddenly standing in a warzone between the two alpha-males. Both obviously have issues with one another but I can’t figure out why.

“Whatever business I have with Y/N is none of your business. So why don’t you go ahead and show yourself out while we finish up here,” the blonde sneered. They’re talking like I’m not even here.

“You see, I would but I kinda have this really important work thing that I need her help on, so yeah. Not leaving without her. Thanks though.”

Ethan was all but fuming because of Dylan’s remark, and I finally came out of my shock and confusion long enough to cut in. “Alright boys. That’s enough. Ethan, we were done anyway.” I looked into his blue eyes with a warning not to argue. Turning to Dylan, I gestured for him to lead the way out, wanting to keep myself between the two. With the door shutting loudly behind me, I took a deep breath, happy to be out of that intense situation. Why it escalated so much was still a mystery to me.

“So, what is this report we’re looking at?” I asked, as we walked back through the office and towards my workspace.

“Here,” he responded, handing me a folder covered in colorful sticky notes. He was obviously still tense. “James told me you were the best person to talk to about this.” I sat down in my chair and quickly skimmed the first few pages.

“Right, okay. Well--”

“Are you hungry?” he interjected. “We can talk about it over lunch.”

“God, I’m starving! Yes please.”

[bkpkinyourarea]

Commandeer

Jennie x Reader (fem)

Genre: Fluff

Summary: Your girlfriend forces you to go furniture shopping. The thing is, you’re doing furniture shopping for your apartment not hers.

Requested by someone 

A/N: I’m sorry, I deleted this request by accident, but it was basically a scenario for Jennie to go furniture shopping with the reader. Also, warning, do not read if you don’t like things that are all over the place.

Word Count: 1,635

Warnings: Implications of smut, probably swearing. Writing is all over the place.

“You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”

     You and Jennie were shopping at IKEA. You had recently moved into a new apartment and as a result, you’re currently in the process of acquiring new and better furniture. The old ones were, after all, disgusting, moldy, and bug infested as Jennie liked to describe them and it would be a crime not to throw them out.

     These were all words taken straight out of your girlfriend’s mouth.

     Still, you’d be lying if you didn’t agree.

     Today was one of Jennie’s free days and at first, you’d insisted on, well, anything but going furniture shopping. After all, your girlfriend rarely ever had vacations and usually, when she did, the two of you stayed in and relaxed or went outside on a particularly special date. It was supposed to be a day for enjoyment, not for spending ages in some place shopping for things you had absolutely no interest in.

      But Jennie had insisted, in fact, she’d even seemed excited. You had no idea why. Furniture shopping was, in your opinion, the worse.

     But she had persisted, and had even pleaded with you in that baby voice of hers and god knows you can’t resist that. Who could, really.      

     Jennie glances over at you from a particularly nice chair and lifts a shoulder in a shrug, trailing a hand down the back of the wood absentmindedly. “Why not? I spend just as much time in your apartment as I do in my dorm. Might as well.”

     A spark of joy burns suddenly and abruptly in your chest because while you knew she spent a lot more time than she probably should at your place, it was different hearing her say it out loud. Why? Because, well, didn’t it mean that she was admitting your place felt just as much like home as her dorm did? That your own home...felt like home to her as well?

      Or...were you just overthinking things? You tend to do that these days.

     You can see Jennie looking at you out of the corner of your eye, her gaze searching, obviously trying to see what impact her words had given you . You don’t give her the pleasure, however, and instead mask your emotions behind an unamused exterior.

     You cock an eyebrow and turn around abruptly, pausing in your footsteps. Your finger traces the engraved pattern on the large mahogany desk that you had considered buying just moments ago but had ultimately given up on because one, it was too big, and two, you didn’t really have the money.

     “So,” you tilt your head slightly to the left, “are you saying that my apartment is also your home?”

      Jennie pauses as well and you can see the corner of her lip curving upwards in the beginnings of a smirk. “Well.....only half of the time.”

     You stare at her, playfully offended, grimace and shake your head. “I think you should begin to pay rent, Jen, considering the amount of time you spend in my apartment. Using all the water, eating all my food-”

     “You’re the one who wanted me to cook,” Jennie retorts, interrupting you with practiced ease, “and let’s be real here, if I wasn’t cooking, for free, by the way, you would be living off burgers and McDonalds.” She catches your look of surprise and grins in response, casually slipping her fingers through yours.

     “There’s nothing wrong with McDonalds,” you mutter, but there’s a smile on your face and no bite in your words. It had been too long since the two of you had gone out alone together since Jennie had been extremely busy with Blackpink promotions and you’d been buried in piles of work and study. “You know Jisoo would agree with me. And you’re my girlfriend. Who pays their girlfriend to cook for them?” You shoot her a dry look. “Not to mention, I didn’t even ask you to. You just waltzed into my kitchen and started commandeeri-”

     “Commandeering?” Jennie raises an eyebrow.

     “Yeah, don’t you know what that means?” 

      She chuckles and there is a sudden fondness in her eyes that takes you by surprise. It’s so simple but it catches you off guard and suddenly, your throat turns dry, your heart pounds a little too fast and you find yourself at a loss for words. You can’t believe that looking at her, just looking, can evoke such a reaction in you.

      You are so whipped for her. But for some reason that even you’re not sure of, you can’t let her know how deep your feelings for her really run. 

      Distantly, in the midst of your thoughts, you notice a flicker of concern flit through Jennie’s eyes. You’re desperate not to have this conversation turn sappy and in an attempt to stop it from moving in a direction you’re simply not ready for, some inappropriate sentence slips from between your lips.

     “You know, like, how I commandeered you in bed,” you smirk at her cheekily and press a quick kiss on her lips, somewhat pleased with yourself for turning this whole situation around. Like, damn, even you had to admit that was some nice wording there even if it wasn’t entirely true.

     Jennie can feel a flush crawling up her neck as she glances around frantically, checking to see if anyone had heard what you’d said. When she’d confirmed that no, there wasn’t anyone around, she dug her fingernails into the undersides of your palm and hissed into your ear. “What is wrong with you?

     You wince. “Nothing. I was just giving you an example since you didn’t seem to know commandeering meant. It just so happened to be a little bit...you know.”

      Jennie stares at you, clearly unimpressed. “We both know you’re lying,” she states, her tone dry.

     “Well, I don’t, so, no, we don’t both know I’m lying.”

      But Jennie just smirks at you, as if she knows something you don’t. “Come on. We both know I’m the one doing the commandeering in bed.”

     Yeah. On second thoughts, you should probably have expected that.

     You mutter something about girlfriends under your breath and look away. Jennie suppresses a smile and takes a moment to look at you in all your stubborn, annoyed glory. You’re beautiful, she thinks, even when you’re dressed in one of your stupid black t-shirts paired with grey sweatpants and nike trainers. Especially because you’re dressed in those stupid black t-shirts and grey sweatpants.

     “Hey,” you nudge her, smiling softly. “What’s up? You look like you’re about to turn into a zombie, or something. I do not want a zombie for a-”

     “I really love you,” Jennie blurts out, her own eyes widening. 

      You stare at her silently, dumbfounded. It wasn’t the first time she’d professed her love for you, but every time she said it, your heart beats a little faster and your chest burns with something that might not have solely been from the caffeine.

     But because sudden confessions are not your thing and you’re really bad at expressing your emotions in general, you just stare at her until her face cracks into a grin. You smile as well, except yours is sheepish and you scratch the back of your head awkwardly.

     “I mean, I was just going to ask you what you thought about commandeering me in this bed, but I guess I love you too,” you say, regaining some sort of confidence.

     Jennie doesn’t really mind the fact that you don’t express your emotions often. She understands that you find it easier to say you love her through written words or actions. And if she was being honest, she finds it cute that you can write heartfelt, sappy letters confidently but blush like an idiot when she says similar things out loud.

     “I think we’re using the word ‘commandeer’ all wrong,” Jennie says, flinging herself down onto the bed with a grin.

     You plop down beside her and stretch your legs, your jaws widening dramatically in a yawn. “Who cares?” you say, blinking sleepily up at her. “Damn it, I want to sleep.”

     Jennie laughs and it’s a sound that you want to hear for the rest of your life. She stands up and drags you with her. “It’s your fault for pulling that all-nighter. Come on, we’re here to shop for furniture, not sleep on the beds.”

     You grumble but oblige willingly. “How about you choose for me. The furniture, I mean. Like you said, you spend half the time at my place anyways so you might as well help with the place.”

     Jennie’s heart skips a beat because….well, she couldn’t move in yet and not for a couple of years, or maybe more, but this, this was nearly the same thing for her. This was you telling her indirectly that your home was her home as well.

     “Hey, Y/N,” she murmurs, her voice going soft and as you turn to look at her expectantly, she cups your face and kisses you. It’s sweet and soft and gentle and Jennie feels that technically, it wasn’t her fault that the two of you landed on a bed, with her on top, straddling your hips.

     You smile against her lips before breaking away, mussing her hair up affectionately. “I don’t think this is appropriate,” you whisper, your eyes never leaving hers.

     “I don’t think it is, either,” Jennie whispers back, a grin lighting up her face.

     You laugh, and smile fondly up at her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hey,” you murmur.

     “Yeah?”

     “I wasn’t joking when I said I love you, earlier.”

     “I know,” Jennie says simply as she crawls off you and offers you a hand. You take it gratefully and after you brush yourself off, you flash her a crooked grin.

     “So, I’m thinking...not this bed.”

     Jennie laughs and shakes her head, slipping her fingers through yours once again. “No, I agree, not this bed.”

[paranoidwino]

Life is Unfair

Darcy/Wanda Fanfiction Rated T for Language.

Link to AO3 in case you wanted to give it some love (juuust because!) 

Novigrad was no more, and this, this was a tragedy. "Just put the bodies into bags, they're identified and there's nothing for you to do here. We'll ship them off as soon as it's morning," they had told her. Darcy swallowed another lump in her throat as she signed 'Tanja Ivanovna Milkovich' on the tiny label. This was so unfair.

As she got to the next body, she froze. This was Pietro Maximoff. This body was not supposed to be here. Shouldn't he be with his sister? Oh God, did his sister even know his body was in a godforsaken morgue in DC instead of an Avenger facility or something?

As she got closer, the lump in Darcy’s throat became tears. He was so young! So young and handsome and this was not the end a hero deserved: in a tiny body bag, all covered in blood and soot.

She made quick work of the other 17 bodies in the morgue, glad that other people were responsible for copying down other names in other morgues. She signed off on seventy nine, which was terrible enough on its own.

She sighed and approached the body of Pietro Maximoff with dejected determination. This was so not in her job description (Thank you, Agent Zombie!), but she was determined to give the young man the proper sendoff he deserved. So she got some tools and started, with the patience and the procedures they had taught her at SHIELD, to extract the last bullets from his body, so that she could clean him a bit and maybe dress him in something decent before signing him off.

However, as she was getting the last of the bullets out, a soft moan interrupted her. She jerked, and looked around. She then stared at the body in her hands. "....Was it you? Pietro?"

She scoffed, it was ridiculous. It could only be a postmortem sound he'd made. Rats were known to continue screaming for hours after you decapitated them.

She shook her head and proceeded with the last extraction.

"...Wan... da"

She jerked again and stared at Pietro intently. Oh. My. God.

The body was breathing.

This man was alive.

"Doctors, doctors, Help!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. She looked at Pietro's face, forced one eye open and said, "You stay with me, got that? Stay with me!"

But he didn't hear her. His eye was wide and unseeing.

The next few hours were  a flurry of doctors and nurses going in and out of the operation room, while Darcy filed the admission forms for ‘Mikhail Petrovich,’  a civilian of Sokovia who was alive god knew how.

Darcy thanked Thor that she hadn't signed anything on Pietro Maximoff’s body bag before starting to clean him up.  Revealing an ex-Hydra operative, newly-reformed Avenger, to a well-meaning but definitely not secure Hospital was like asking for the Dark Elves by parading the Aether in their face.

Not smart, not useful.

What she did need, however, was time, so she filled all of Pietro’s data on someone else's bag and switched their names, in case anyone was tempted to check.

“Miss Lewis?” A tired looking doctor came out of the operation room.

Darcy paled. Oh dear, please no.

“We’ve managed to stabilize him,” and just like that, Darcy felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

She wouldn't have been able to forgive herself had she been unable to contact the other Maximoff twin before he died.

“For now,” the doctor added. “Frankly, it's a miracle he made it this far, and he's still critical. Does he have family?”

“Ah yes, I think so.” She made a show of checking Petrovich's information. “A sister, I think.” Inside, she was choking. Critical was bad, very bad.

“She'll need to be informed, we don't know how long the boy has.” The doctor sighed. “What happened today is tragic, and this boy's luck is running out.”

Darcy's hands flew to her mouth in horror without her realizing it.

The girl. She had to reach the Maximoff girl right away

“I'm sorry, Miss Lewis.” The stupidly patient voice of the secretary interrupted her again. She didn't sound sorry, at all. “The Avengers are very busy at the moment and they're not available for comment.” The woman hung up.

Darcy stared, open mouthed, at the tiny phone in the hall.

How dare she!

She quickly redialed the number she'd been given from SHIELD to contact the Avengers in case of emergency, so long ago it felt unreal.

“Avengers Tower.” It was the detached secretary again.

“Yes,” she bit out, trying to compose herself. “I'm Darcy Lewis, I'm calling because-”

“I'm sorry, Miss Lewis.” The woman interrupted her without an ounce of remorse. “The Avengers are very busy and-”

“I KNOW!” She exploded, and the woman shut up in surprise. Darcy charged on, trying to use the shock to her advantage. “Look,  we're all busy, and if you could just take a second to shut up and listen, I need to speak to Wanda Maximoff. It's imperative that I talk to her and-” “Miss Maximoff is unavailable for comment--” this woman, seriously, this woman. "--and Mr Stark would like to add that SHIELD is not welcome to use this channel of contact anymore. Thank you."

"What? NO!" But it was too late, the infuriating woman had hung up.

Darcy wanted to cry, so bad.

She once again swallowed her rage and dialed Jane's number. It was ten in the morning in London, Jane was bound to be up or doing Science! with Ian and Erik, anyway.

"...And I've tried and tried and Jane you can't believe that new assistant is like, so ... It's like Coulson secretly had a daughter and didn't tell anyone." Jane was up, but wasn't being as helpful and sympathetic as Darcy would have liked.

"...Who? Friday?" Huh?

"...Who calls their daughter Friday? Really, Jane?"

"Well, she's Stark's new AI, Darcy, not a real person." This actually explained so much.

"....Oh. Well, JARVIS was so much better, and I mean it. I've tried to get in touch with Maximoff for three days, I haven't slept a wink and the coffee here tastes disgusting, and this new AI is literally blocking me!"

"Why do you need to speak to Wanda, anyways?" Jane looked confused.

Darcy swallowed. She had no qualms about calling the Avengers from the landline at the hospital, she was pretty damn sure the line at Stark Tower was secure. However, Jane and her tiny phone were not protected. She couldn't risk it, not with Jane.

"It's a matter of life and death, Janey, it's super duper important that I contact her yesterday!" she made up on the spot. It was the truth, if a bit stretched.

"O...kay" Jane said slowly. "Wait a minute."

"Jane? Where are you going? Jane! You're not sciencing, are you? Jane?"

"...Who is this?" a pitiful, crying, tiny voice answered instead of Jane.

It was Wanda Maximoff.

Darcy fought the tears of relief and tried to collect her thoughts. "Wanda Maximoff? I'm Darcy Lewis, I don't know if you rem-"

"You work with SHIELD." Wanda said. What was it with people interrupting her lately, huh?

"What? No. Well, no, I mean, yes technically, I did, before the Triskelion in 2014 anyways, but that's not why I'm calling you!" She was talking a mile a minute but this was her chance and she would not be stopped. She took a big breath.

"....Why?" Wanda sounded suspicious and skeptical and okay, weren't Darcy in such a hurry and weren't the matter so time sensitive, she would have understood.

"Listen, it's about your brother."

"You found his body!"  The voice was filled  with hope and desperation at the same time, and Darcy's heart broke just a tiny bit.

"No, I've found him!" she said forcefully. "Wanda, your brother is alive!"

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Wanda? Wanda?"

"...That is not funny," she said at last.

"Funny? Wha- No! Please, listen, I'm in DC and your brother needs you here, he's in critical condition!"

"Is this a ploy?" Wanda's voice was quickly escalated in pitch.

But Darcy had had enough.

She strode into Pietro's room, ignoring the nurse's indignant cries , and pressed the video call button while pointing her phone in Pietro's direction.

“Is anyone in the fucking Tower going to listen for one second?!”

She knew she shouldn't have screamed (and the nurse's evil eye promised pain, so much pain), but the shocked gasp on the other end and the crashing sounds coming from the phone told her that she'd reached her objective.

“Where? Where?” Wanda's voice was full of a different kind of urgency now.

“We're at the Holy Mary's Heart Hospital, in DC, and he's critical, Wanda, like, really bad and it's been three days since I started calling and I don't know how long he has left...” Darcy hesitated. Wanda was keeping quiet, holding her breath and Darcy--

The young man was probably not going to make it, and telling the distraught sister that Pietro had been asking for her, even if for only a second? Yeah, no. She was not going there until the girl was here.

“If you can,” she choked in the end, “please come.”

And apparently Maximoff didn't need any further convincing, because she dropped the phone and the next thing Darcy knew, it was Janey on the line.

“Honestly,” Jane huffed. “You could have just told me what it was all about.”

“Jane, I had no idea your line was secure, or that you lived at the Tower! Speaking of! Why? How could you not tell me that?”

“I thought you knew!” Jane defended immediately. “I must have told you... maybe.”

“No Janey, you didn't.” Darcy sighed. No matter, her job was done.

She looked at the still form of Pietro, hooked to so many machines it made her nauseated. The steady beep of one of them didn't reassure her in the slightest: it was supposed to go much, much faster, or at least so she'd been told.

And yet, she couldn't tell anyone, for fear of putting her improbable charge in danger.

She watched him for hours, at a loss, as he slept on thanks to the chemicals in his system.

Life wasn't fair. This man was so young.

The doors of the ICU burst open and Darcy's hand went automatically to her weapon holster. Her trusty taser was charged and ready.

In the back of her mind, she realized she'd fallen asleep on the job. Rookie mistake, and if this went south Coulson would have her head. Possibly detached from her body, too. Damn.

She made herself as tiny as possible from her corner in the room: while the odds of a confrontation were small, she wasn't about to dismiss a threat.

She relaxed, however, when she recognized Agent Barton, because damn, those arms. She didn't let go of her weapon, she knew better.

Behind Barton was the Scarlet Witch.

Darcy's heart sank.

The young woman looked to be on the verge of collapse, or an emotional breakdown, or possibly both; that was possible too. She looked so tiny and alone, wrapped in a red leather jacket that obviously didn't belong to her. She was darting her red, teary eyes all over the ward, scanning room after room in the frantic search of a familiar name, or face.

And aww hell, there was no way Darcy couldn't see the genuine desperation on that cute face; so she made a show of slowly removing the weapon she had kept trained on Barton, but kept it in her hands just in case,  and plastered herself in front of the right door.

Barton's eyes narrowed on her in a second, but to his credit his body didn't twitch. No abortive movement, nothing, he was that good.

“Wanda Maximoff?” Darcy tried really hard to keep her voice low and professional, but the cold tone lasted for like a second before it became an excited whisper; blast it. “He's in there,” she nodded at the door behind her. “He's not awake, now, but when I found him... he was saying your name.”

The woman didn't need further incentive and slid into the room, not caring of the tense atmosphere, but Agent (or was it ex-agent, now?) Barton stayed fixated on her.

They stated at each other for a long time, but in the end it was Darcy who relaxed first. She pocketed her taser and tried to look nonthreatening. All very professional, until she sneezed.

Barton's lips twitched, and Darcy blushed. What did they expect? She wasn't an agent, nope.

“Sorry,” she mumbled sleepily. “It's been a rough couple of days.” Not to mention the lack of sleep, the terrible assistant slash AI and the depressing atmosphere of the hospital ward. And the food sucked. She felt tired and grimy and not at all strong or impressive at the moment.

He snorted, leaning against the wall. “Sounds like it. I’m surprised to see you here, though. What are you doing in here, so far from Foster?”

Darcy drew herself up. “I haven't been with Jane since London, she's got a real  minion now. And to answer your question, I was sent to aid in the Evacuation of Sokovia.  But then they decided to split us to the hospitals to help with the ID of the bodies....”

“Uh uh. Sounds above what you signed for, kid.”

Darcy deflated. “Yes, it so is! I mean, I was all for the helping and even if the training sucked, you have no idea of how much they made us ru.. wait, no you do, but really, Son of Coul gives impressive recruitment speeches,” at this Barton snorted and rolled his eyes, “but seriously, I've had to catalog so many dead bodies and the eyes, man the eyes... Poor people.”

Hawkeye nodded, sympathetic.

He opened his mouth to say something more, but suddenly Darcy's arms were full of tiny and shaking human. She stared bewildered at the thick brown hair under her chin as pale arms squeezed her harder than she would have deemed comfortable.

“Thank you. Thank you,” Wanda babbled. Or at least Darcy thought that’s what she was saying; the girl was very...overwhelmed.

She alternated between shooting looks down at the woman in her arms and at Barton, who despite his exhaustion was trying to suppress laughter. Very carefully, she returned the hug. Wanda leaned into the touch immediately and cried harder. No matter how many calming noises Darcy made, the woman just held on and cried harder.

“Kid, it's going to be alright, you hear?” Bless Agent Arms and his reassuring presence. After a while, Wanda nodded and released her. Darcy made a point of squeezing her shoulder and to smile at her encouragingly.

“Ms...Petrovich?” The head nurse came over, having finally noticed them, with her patented 'I'm a professional' look. She blatantly ignored Darcy. Seriously? She gives a tiny scream in the ward and suddenly she's branded a monster? Really?

Wanda looked very confused, but Barton quickly cottoned on. “Yes, this is her. Sorry, it's been a long flight. We came as soon as we received Ms Lewis's message.” And cue in the awkward smile.

The nurse nodded in understanding and made all the correct noises, but still managed to shoot a venomous look at Darcy.

“I'm sure you'll want to see the Doctor? He'll be here shortly in case you have any questions”, and with that coaxed Wanda towards Pietro's room once again.

“Petrovich?” Barton whispered as soon as they were out of earshot.

“The first name I could think of, Agent Barton.” She hissed back.

“Yeah, I got that. But good job, quick thinking.” Darcy preened at the praise. “And please, Clint is fine,” he grinned.

In the end, call-me-Clint was completely different from the Agent Barton the rookies whispered about at the training facility, but Darcy supposed it was normal, outside of a mission; he was human after all.

They talked about nothings for a while, aware of the comings and goings of the ICU. The Doctor had gone by and so had four different nurses.

Wanda came back almost an hour later. “The doctor said they don't think he's going to make it,” she whispered. “And it's impossible to move him anywhere.” And Darcy could feel the moment her heart broke for the fifth time in six hours. Finding out your brother's alive only to lose him again was a terrible thing. She spread her arms wide and Wanda almost flung herself at her.

Clint muffled a curse. “I'm calling the guys to say I'm going back later, Wanda. I can’t leave you like this, kid--I'll stay here with you a bit longer.” Bless you, Clint Barton, you amazing father figure.

But Wanda shook her head. “No, Clint, you go. They need you at home. I can stay here, with...”

“Darcy,” she supplied helpfully. The girl smiled hesitantly at her and her stomach flopped a bit.

Clint seemed very unhappy with that idea, but after a long conversation that involved a lot more Sokovian words that Darcy could understand (seriously, how many languages could a single person speak, anyway?), he relented and agreed to go back to NYC, with the compromise that Wanda would call every six hours and speak personally to one of the Avengers.

In the end, there was just them, sitting on two tiny chairs in the ICU ward.

Days passed like a blur, but at least Darcy could now take naps, time off to shower and change. They shared a room at a hotel close to the hospital, but Wanda hardly ever used it.

They spent most of their day sitting in the ward, staring at the beeping machines. After a while,  Darcy would initiate small conversation. Wanda never replied.

“You should eat something.” Wanda reached for a cracker, absentmindedly. “No, no, Wanda, more than crackers.” Darcy sighed, and put an apple in her hands. Wanda bit into it mechanically, then noticed It wasn't the usual dry bread thing she used to eat. She didn't complain, though, and finished the rest of her meal in silence.

She then made herself more comfortable on the chair, and shifted a bit closer to Darcy.

Darcy wasn't surprised; she had noticed Wanda was very touch starved. Considering her powers and her past, she wondered if Wanda’s brother and to some extent Clint had been the only ones to hug her and hold her recently.

She resolved to remedy the situation, if a chance presented itself.

The chance presented itself a few minutes later, when Wanda fell asleep right on Darcy's shoulder.

Darcy huffed a laugh and brushed Wanda's hair back from her face. She idly noticed that Wanda had really long lashes and that while sleeping she looked even younger than she was. Darcy pressed a kiss to her forehead and covered her with the stupid black standard issue jacket.

The episode would repeat itself for a few days, and then Wanda started opening up.

She had a very soft voice, and spoke with very broken English, but the accent was pleasant and she was very outspoken about what she believed in. Under the tears burned a low fire and Darcy could see why she and her brother had joined the rebellion, with that kind of determination.  She accompanied her words with wide gestures, and would reach for Darcy every time she tried to explain something she couldn't translate properly.

And then, with the realization that maybe maybe she could see herself and Wanda become something more (and that had come out of nowhere when Wanda had smiled at her her first real smile), Darcy felt extremely guilty.  The woman was losing her brother, literally latching onto whatever kindness Wanda was shown. She was a horrible person for even thinking it.

“And they come, and try to get us, but Pietro is too fast and they run and we run and we escape.” Wanda murmured, talking about an escapade she and Pietro survived when they were just kids.

Darcy smiled. “He sounds like a cool guy.”

Wanda's smile was watery this time. “Yes, the coolest.”

And her face was close, and they were already hugging, side by side on these chair, and Darcy was fighting her guilt--

--and the monitors roared and beeped and alarms sounded from Pietro's room. His heartbeat, which had kept steady for the last five weeks, accelerated quickly and his breathing skyrocketed.

Wanda was at his bedside in a second, and Darcy felt like a horrible, horrible human being for having thought 'Not now!'

But instead of dying, Pietro's eyes opened.

He focused on the crying face of his sister, and smiled. He fell asleep a second later.

In a flash doctors and nurses were in the room and they were pushing the two women out. They bustled and prodded and then looked very seriously at each other. Then, they happily declared it a miracle.

“We have no idea of how this is even possible, Ms Petrovich,” the doctor was all smiles, now that an actual miracle had happened in his ward. “But this sleep is a very good sign. He'll recover, if nothing changes. Spectacularly so, if I may be so bold!”

Wanda's good mood was infectious, and Darcy realized that her facial muscles may never recover from all the smiling. Pietro was extremely good company, too. A bit less serious than her sister, but equally as passionate and protective. She tried to ignore the knowing looks he'd started sending her, because he was clearly still recuperating and it really didn't mean anything.

It was then, as soon as Pietro was declared fit to be moved, that Tony Stark waltzed into the ward and arranged for the young man to be moved to the newly renovated Avengers Training Facility for rehab, and so Darcy's responsibilities were over.

Coulson had been trying to send her somewhere else for a while, and with the excuse to linger around the Maximoff twins now gone, Darcy watched with disappointment as her maybe-more-than-a-crush doggedly followed her brother out of the tiny hospital and disappeared.

“You're moving me? Again?” She wanted to punch something, or tase it, so bad. So, so, bad.

“Yes, Miss Lewis. We've been asked for help and you're the most qualified asset we have for the job.” Coulson was as unflappable as ever.

“Okaaaay, no, wait, it's not okay. I'm not a Field Agent and yet you sent me to Nicaragua and then to Russia and I just got back! Do I need to wave my passport to you?”

“This is a long-term assignment, Ms Lewis, you'll be able to rest there.”

“Excuse me while I can't fathom how you could think long term assignment could be considered a vacation, ever.”

“I'm sure you'll manage. Your flight leaves in four hours.”

The world was unfair, and life was unfair too, Darcy thought as she boarded the plane.

Apparently she was going back to the States. And she even had scored a first class ticket for the trip, which was a first.

She slid in her first class seat, determined to take a quick nap before they left.

And her neighbour for the trip arrived at that precise moment, sitting down and promptly occupying the armrest. Darcy cracked open one eye, ready to fight for the armrest (wasn't this supposed to be first class?) and then the other one, surprised.

Okay, life was unfair, Darcy amended, as Wanda Maximoff squeezed her hand and hooked her arm with hers, but this time, this time, it wasn't so bad.

[141-point-12]

MGS “Zombie Apocalypse AU

Under a cut in case you’re tired of zombie stories, haha.

Zombie outbreak is running rampant. Hal is a scientist working in a government t lab that is teetering on the edge of just nuking the infected areas, but he doesn't want that to happen. His team gets word that they might have located someone with antibodies, a kid somewhere in Russia, but she's being held in a well guarded facility because some shadowy organization thinks they can extract a large amount of money for her custody, and unfortunately the US govt is unwilling to blow valuable resources on a long shot. But after Hal pleads with the higher ups, they give him a chance sort of. Snake is assigned to him with instructions to undertake a one man infiltration mission to retrieve the child. Hal insists on going along as both mission control and tech support as well as an expert in zombie contamination control.

What they find is grim, the facility is more than it seems, with a number of test subjects held inside, most infected. Snake manages to find the girl and breaks her out of her cell, but alarms begin sounding, which is odd because he knows he didn't trip anything, but then he sees a shadow running by, the test subjects have escaped? Getting the girl out of there is now his top priority, sneaking be damned. He makes it to the helicopter and the three of them escape just in time to see a missile strike destroy the entire complex. Snake informs Hal that the planes firing them were some of theirs.

"What the hell happened there?" Hal asks, confused but trying not to let the fear take him over, the tiny girl is afraid enough for all of them. They manage to land at a remote research facility, basically abandoned. Hal doesn't trust his own government at the moment. But he has enough knowledge and equipment to run preliminary tests.

Sunny seems understandably attached to Dave who reassured her that Hal is "a good guy" who doesn't want to hurt her, he just wants to see if she can help him help other people, and Sunny agrees. While Hal works, from the samples she gives him, Snake and Sunny clean up the facility as best they can, looking for supplies and tools they might use. The facility was meant to house a lot of scientists way out here in Alaska so there's actually quite a bit.

Sunny becomes quite adept at making instant noodles and scrambled powdered eggs. Snake keeps the coffee coming and reminds Hal to take a break and get some sleep once in awhile. Even though there's enough rooms for them all to have their own separate quarters they bunk in the same room, Snake and Sunny sharing a bunk while Hal struggles to sleep on his. One night, Snake's hand drops down and hangs in front of Hal's face and it takes him a while to realize it's no mere accident, Snake- Dave, rather, is offering his hand. Hal grips it silently and holds onto it for a while, until he falls asleep.

Eventually Hal has some results. The antibodies in Sunny's blood failed at reverting infected samples to normal, but when introduced to a clean sample, the tissue was resistant to infection. A vaccine, not a cure, potentially anyway.

So that's the good news, but Hal doesn't seem as excited as Snake. He explains a vaccine is much harder to test. If a cure fails to work, then there is no real loss, the infected subject just stays infected. But the only way to test a vaccine is to induce the infection into the test subject. If it doesn't work…

But Hal gives him a brave, yet sad smile and says that he has to see it through and Snake realizes he intends to test it out on himself. He immediately stops him, saying it's too great of a risk. Hal is stunned, he doesn't know what else to do, but Snake takes his hand once more and tells him he wants Hal to test it on him, because he trusts him and if things go wrong the world is going to need his brain a lot more than another killer. The world is full of those now, isn't it? Hal doesn't know what to do, what about Sunny? But Snake says Hal is going to be the one to save the world, what's one more kid on top of that? Eventually, Hal agrees. Dave explains to Sunny what has to happen and she is of course upset but he tells her "You've done your part to help save the world, now let me do mine, okay Sunshine?" She gives him the biggest hug her little arms can manage.

Of course it's so scary and Hal holds Dave's hand the whole time (he's restrained of course, it's secure but uncomfortable and the straps chafe a bit and the injections sting). Sunny insisted on staying but she falls asleep leaving the two of them alone. Dave struggles to keep his wits about him, doesn't want to fall asleep because he's afraid, really afraid it won't be him that wakes up. Hal sits up with him and just, talks. About his time as a researcher, his colleagues, most of them dead now. Even about his childhood and family, his sister, his father, who escaped the world long before all of this. Dave is breathing hard but he manages a few words anyway, assures Hal he's done the best he could and that no matter what happens here, he still believes in him.

Hal sits up through the night, it's not his first all nighter by a long shot. He takes samples of Dave's blood periodically apologizing each time, though Dave just grunts in response. Twelve hours pass, twenty four. Forty-eight.

No sign of infection. Hal and Dave are cautiously optimistic, and Dave is taken out of the restraints, but confined to room with rations etc for further observation. He feels okay sleeping at last, but when he wakes Hal is always there speaking to him through the comm link on the other side of the glass. Sunny even takes a few shifts, reading to him out of books from the site's library, although they're all mostly technical resources.

Two weeks pass. Dave still tests clean. It worked? Sunny hugs him again so tight when he's finally out and Hal is just standing awkwardly a little ways away until Dave stands and goes to him and pulls him close with one arm. "You did good."

The next step is of course synthesizing more of the vaccine, but that becomes tricky and needs to be handled on a large scale. That’s more than they can do, so they’re going to have to go back to the govt with their findings. Or at least, Hal will. He doesn’t trust that they’ll treat Sunny well or even let Dave live when they learn he’s technically been introduced to the infectious strains.

Hal has to go back alone, but they work out some means of reconnecting, with Sunny’s help probably. Dave says he can take care of Sunny, even if they have to live off the land for a while, he knows Hal will find them when it’s time. So they part ways and Hal returns with vaccine in hand.

SOMETHING SOMETHING Sunny contacts him first. Something she was reading in all those books clicked with her memories of the compound where they found her. It doesn’t add up, or it does but not in a good way. The virus was man-made? Something something creating a worldwide epidemic so that the shadow govt could better control the population since it would control the administration of the only vaccine. Hal realizes he’s not actually safe and his work isn’t in good hands and he tries to escape back to Sunny and Snake because obviously he’s played right into their hands.

Maybe Snake shows up just in time to bust him out and they get the fuck out of there, back out into the mountains. Hal doesn’t have his facilities but he does have Sunny and the books she managed to collect, and a very limited list of contacts of people he thinks he can trust. Let’s get Emma in here because that seems like a good idea. Maybe she was with Hal in the last lab and escape with him, that sounds good. XD

So together they work on a new version of the vaccine, with Emma’s help they’re able to create and airborne version, one that can reach huge chunks of the population at a time, they just need to figure out a way to hit the most dense population centers to spread the vaccine the most effectively.

METAL GEAR.

They gain access to this missile shooting walking robot but load it up with their new version of the vaccine and indeed launch it at massive population centers. According to Sunny and Emma’s calculations, it should reach the worldwide population in three months, it would have been faster but most transportation has been slowed or halted since the outbreak.

So they’re there. Out in the mountains. Waiting.

And sometimes they hold hands.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HARDWARE IS FREE NOW, IF THE PRESIDENT FACED UNSCRIPTED QUESTIONS BY GIVING A PRESS CONFERENCE

Some writers quote parts of things they say to one another? Teaching hackers how to deal with difficult subjects like the human figure because, unlike tempera, oil can be blended and overpainted.1 If you're sure of the general area you want to do. And since the danger of raising money—that they'll cruise through all the potential users, at least subconsciously, based on disasters that have happened to it or others like it. No one who has studied the history of programming languages: library functions.2 Such hypersensitivity will come at an ever increasing rate. Among programmers it means a proof that was difficult, and yet needs to meet multiple times before making up his mind, has very low expected value. Alas, you can't simply applaud everything they produce.3

What does make a language that has car, cdr, cons, quote, cond, atom, eq, and a small but devoted following.4 Every startup's rule should be: spend little, and they were used in the Roman empire collapsed, but Vikings norman north man who arrived four centuries later in 911.5 In principle investors are all subject to the same cause.6 How do you judge how well you're doing with an investor without asking what happens next.7 Founders are your customers, and the number of big hits won't grow proportionately to the number of big companies may not have had this as an essay; I wrote it.8 And yet, oddly enough, YC even has aspects of that.9 Be good, take care of themselves. When I see a third mistake: timidity. But when founders of larval startups worry about this. It is so much harder.

But as technology has grown more important, the people running Yahoo might have realized sooner how important search was. But maybe the older generation would laugh at me for opinions expressed here, remember that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, perhaps millions, just to make the software run on our Web site, all you'd find were the titles of two books in my bio. No big deal. Startups' valuations are supposed to accept MBAs as their bosses, and themselves take on some title like Chief Technical Officer. Piracy is effectively the lowest tier of price discrimination. I'd realized in college that one ought to vote for Kerry. All you had to give all your surplus to and acknowledge as your masters. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.

He said their business model is being undermined on two fronts. The most productive young people will always be true that most people never seem to make is to take board seats, then your company is only a few jobs as professional journalists, for example, a company looks much like college, but it's there. You can start one when you're done, or even whether it still sends one.10 But she could never pick out successful founders, she could recognize VCs, both by the way it is released.11 It's just a means to something else. We just don't hear about it. It doesn't seem to be unusually smart, and C is a kludge.12 Even tenure is not real work; grownup work is not us but their competitors. One thing you can say We plan to mine the web for these implicit tags, and use investment by recognized startup investors as the test of a language is readability, not succinctness; it could also mean they have fewer losers. A good flatterer doesn't lie, but that won't be enough. Is that so bad?13 Raising more money just lets us do it faster.

I thought that something must be. So it is in the form of the GI Bill, which sent 2. There is nothing more valuable than the advice of someone whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the opinions of other investors. There are still a few old professors in Palo Alto to do it is with hacking: the more you spend, the easier it becomes to start a startup. I don't like the look of Java: 1.14 Imagine how incongruous the New York Times front page. But you can tell that from indirect evidence. In an IPO, it might not merely add expense, but it's certainly not here now. Kids are less perceptive.

It let them build great looking online stores literally in minutes.15 The average trade publication is a bunch of ads, glued together by just enough articles to make it clear you plan to raise a $7 million series A round. I'm not sure why this is so.16 But I've learned never to say never about technology. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of a strong-willed person stronger-willed. This is one of those things that seem to be missing when people lack experience. They just had us tuned out. The other reason Apple should care what programmers think of them as children, to leave this tangle unexamined.

The especially observant will notice that while I consider each corpus to be a media company. And so interfaces tend not to have a habit of impatience about the things you have to like your work more than any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. The goal in a startup is to try. In fact, I'd guess the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger than themselves, it could be because it's beautiful, or because you've been assigned to work on projects that seem like bragging, flames, digressions, stretches of awkward prose, and unnecessary words.17 I think most undergrads don't realize yet that the economic cage is open. In art, mediums like embroidery and mosaic work well if you know beforehand what you want. But vice versa as well. I like. But if you're living in the future.18 Now the misunderstood artist is not a critique of Java! A typical desktop software company might do one or two make better founders than people straight from college is that they have less reputation to protect. It's more important than what it got wrong.

Notes

I think this is a bad idea has been happening for a CEO to make money. Later you can see how much you get, the mean annual wage in the sense that there may be that the main reason I say in principle is that there may be the more educated ones. Or more precisely, investors treat them differently. Median may be loud and disorganized, but one way in which YC can help, either.

They're often different in kind, because you have to make money. He, like most of the things they've tried on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the editor written in C and C, and large bribes by Spain to make money.

Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The First Two Hundred Years. Change in the technology business. The more people you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may as well as specific versions, and as an asset class. This sentence originally read GMail is painfully slow.

Something similar has been around as long as the average startup.

Part of the ingredients in our own, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by the PR firm.

If they were, like angel investors in startups is uninterruptability. The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things. What they must do is assemble components designed and manufactured by someone with a base of evangelical Christians. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

Which feels a lot about how the stakes were used. But he got killed in the sense of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, because a there was a very noticeable change in their voices will be big successes but who are weak in other Lisp features like lexical closures and rest parameters.

In fact, this is also not a big effect on what interests you most. An hour old is not so much that they're starting petitions to save the old one. Google adopted Don't be fooled.

Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been the plague of 1347; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies. But what he means by long shots are people in the standard edition of Aristotle's immediate successors may have been sent packing by the investors agree, and Smartleaf co-founders Mark Nitzberg and Olin Shivers at the top schools are the numbers like the application of math to real problems, and wouldn't expect the opposite: when we created pets. Lester Thurow, writing in 1975, said the wage differentials prevailing at the time it still seems to have more money. I don't know.

Donald J.

If you have no representation more concise than a huge loophole.

I startups. Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of lame investors first, to allow multiple urls in a company. Seneca Ep.

But one of its users, at least 150 million in 1970. Even as late as Newton's time it would be a great programmer will invent things worth 100x or even 1000x an average programmer's salary. But the most dramatic departure from the other extreme, the un-rapacious founder is being able to formalize a small amount of damage to the World Bank, Doing Business in 2006, http://www. 99 to—A Spam Classification Organization Program.

Ironically, one variant of the country would buy one.

This doesn't mean easy, of S P 500 CEOs in the narrowest sense. In fact most of the movie Dawn of the clumps of smart people are trying to make a lot would be a founder; and with that additional constraint, you need is a trailing indicator in any era if people can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. 5,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the US.

In 1800 an empty room, and Reddit is Delicious/popular.

Proceedings of AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization. It's lame that VCs may begin to conserve board seats for shorter periods. A professor at a public company CEOs were J.

Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this to some fairly high spam probability. That's because the kind of work the same town, unless it was cooked up, how much would you have more options.

[epeolatry001]

Graveside Matters Chapter Two

The college we both attended was amid a busy little city, surrounded by buildings that looked exactly like it in an attempt to blend in by remaining in plain sight. They only accepted very specific, very qualified students here – students who had some sort of special ability. Think of it kind of like Hogwarts or Xavier's School for Gifted Children, except that it's not at all similar, because it's just as expensive as a normal college and you're still expected to balance a regular classwork load on top of the powers training classes.

"Does this mean I'm a zombie?" Jake piped up as he strode shirtless out of the bathroom, steam from the hot shower he had just taken dissipating into the air behind him. A new pair of jeans hung low on his hips and he held a t-shirt in one hand while rubbing a towel over his head with the other.

He looked a lot better now that he was no longer covered in dirt and blood and the bruising around his slightly broken nose had gone down. But he still held a certain haunted look on his face that could only result from dying and being resurrected. Twice.

We had stopped by his room while his roommate was out to nab a pair of clean clothes and a couple of other items he might need, before scurrying to hide out in my room. We didn't have to fear anyone seeing him here, since I was one of the lucky few upper classmen to have been graced with a room of my own, complete with its own bathroom and little kitchenette. (One of the perks of the high expenses and exclusive acceptance of this school were the apartment-style dorms.) (… Okay, I get that it's a perk at other colleges too, but I'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life so just let me have this, alright?)

"Not exactly," I assured him from where I was sprawled out on my bed, propped up on my elbows. "More like a revenant, I think? You shouldn't keep decaying or develop a taste for human brains. But I've never really had anyone I raised stay around this long, so who knows." My eyebrows rose with a sudden thought. "Hey, maybe I can use you as a case study for my final project this semester."

He made a face. "Awesome. I'm like an undead guinea pig."

As he toweled off his shoulders, I noticed his skin was smooth and unblemished except for the two fading pink scars running under his pecs and the red bullet hole over his heart. The recent wound was still a little garish, but it wasn't looking as see-through as earlier. "Looks like your wound is slowly closing. That's interesting." Very interesting, considering how, in my experience, corpses usually stayed frozen in the state they were raised in.

Jake's face lit up with wonder-filled apprehension as he gently prodded at the pink skin, then winced slightly. "It doesn't really hurt anymore, but the memory of the pain is still pretty vivid."

"Yeah, I can imagine getting shot hurts like a bitch," I said with a nod in sympathy, because, like I said earlier, I was bad at comforting. I jutted a chin at his chest. "What are the other scars from?"

He paused in folding his towel to give me a strange look before understanding dawned with a glance down. "Oh, these are just from top surgery."

Ah, well, that explained why they were so symmetrical. "So, not from a freak swordfight accident or something, gotcha," I replied easily with a grin. My gaze strayed to the clock on the nightstand and I tried my best to withhold a groan once I realized how late it was getting. "You're so lucky tomorrow is Saturday, because I definitely wouldn't have time to deal with this on a week day." In retrospect, a lot of what came out my mouth probably sounded harsh. But I don't mean it to, not always. It just had a lot to do with the fact that I simply hated doing things.

"I'm sorry that my death is such an inconvenience to you," he deadpanned, but a smile tugged at the corner of his lips before he pulled the shirt over his head, covering any evidence of his death. "But hey, speaking of - does anyone else know I died?"

I shook my head. "Not that I know of. You technically haven't been gone for an alarmingly long time, so your roommate hasn't reported you missing yet. Though I suspect it's because he's covering for you. He seemed pretty jumpy when I stopped by earlier to see if you were there." I ran a hand over the soft blue blanket I was laying on. "I had planned to call the cops and leave an anonymous tip about the whereabouts of your body after I got my money back, but… Now you're technically not dead anymore, so I guess that'd be a moot point."

He crossed his arms and rose a thick eyebrow at me. "How considerate. But it begs the question, how did you even know where to find me?"

I batted my eyelashes and gave him a sweet, innocent smile. "The crows told me." Because that's what people expect.

"No, seriously."

"I tracked your phone to where it had been dropped in the woods - kind of lazy of your killers if you ask me – but that reminds me…" I adjusted my position to sit cross-legged as I pointed at my fringed purse on the desk next to him. "Your phone is in there if you want it back. Then when I got to the woods my necromancy powers kicked in to let me know there was a recently deceased body laying in a shallow grave up ahead, and here we are."

Jake shuffled through the many contents of my purse until he pulled out his phone. It was a little dirty, but still in good condition. "I'm the one who dropped it, just in case. It was like an electric bread crumb."

"Well, that's the first smart thing you've done so far," I replied with a smirk. "Wanna tell me what, exactly, you were involved in that got you killed?"

A heavy silence fell.

"Jake?"

His expression was guarded when he finally spoke up. "I agreed to meet up with these guys because they said they'd sell me some Stifler."

"Stifler…" I tried my best to reign in my reaction and keep my voice unjudgmental even as surprise and shock coursed through me.

Stifler was a hard drug I've only heard whispers about that lurked in the dark edges of the powered community. Those who were desperate for a quick fix to suppress their abilities instead of learning how to harness it, often fell victim to its addicting and flimsy promises. The build-up from having one's essence smothered could result in some serious consequences, some of which have led to multiple cases of powers combusting that had to be covered up before main stream media got a hold of them.

Because of this, it was also extremely illegal, and anyone caught with even a hint of the drug on campus would be expelled faster than you could say, "ButwaitIcanexplain!"

I cleared my throat, then said evenly, "Why were you trying to buy Stifler?"

He quirked an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "I had my reasons."

Alright, obviously he wasn't going to spill. I sighed, knowing my decision to help was coming back to bite me in the ass. "Have you bought it before?"

This, he allowed an answer. "No, that was going to be my first time."

I tilted my head in thought. "But they killed you. Hmm… Not very business-like of them."

"Tell me about it." Jake's shoulders slumped, then he lowered himself into my desk chair. "The meet-up point was in the woods. I had the money and everything, but the two guys there didn't care. They made me show them what my power was to prove I was who I said I was, and then they jumped me."

"What's your power?"

He fixed me with an exasperated look. "Seriously? We've been in the same class this whole year and you never noticed my abilities or claimed to know me well enough to care about my death, but you felt it was fine to loan me twenty dollars?"

I clucked my tongue. "Obviously I was wrong about loaning you that twenty. And I usually spend that class catching up on physics, so no, I don't recall what your special power is."

I also, up until I loaned him money, ignored him for the most part. He had a confident way of moving and a gentleness when he spoke that made everyone instantly like him, even when he grew quieter through the years. And it was because everyone fawned over him that I deliberately decided to stay away. I guess some could say that was spiteful but, it's the principle of the matter.

He shrugged. "Well, it doesn't matter anyway. They saw it and then they killed me."

Hm. That was a new development in the drug trade. I pulled a ponytail off my wrist to tie back my long hair as I thought. I didn't like where this was going, but I never was one to think things through. "Alright then, give me the number and I'll set up a meeting with them."

Jake stared at me like I had just casually told him I wear tin foil hats to avoid aliens. "Those meetings don't go well. They killed me."

"I know," I said with a deliberate roll of my eyes. "But I kinda have this thing where I control the dead, so that's not really a problem for me."

"Yeah well, you control it, but that doesn't mean you're unsusceptible to death."

I gave him a look that told him exactly where he could shove his unsusceptible opinion. "Do you want my help or not?"

There was a conflicted few seconds before finally he let out a heavy sigh, tossing his phone onto the bed next to me. "It's the last number I texted."

Shooting him a smug smile, I snatched his phone and plugged the number into my own. The blank text box stared up at me as I tried to think of some cool way to phrase my request; something coded, something that screamed, 'seasoned druggie.'

"Got your number from a friend. Looking to buy. Hit me up," I read aloud as I thumbed the keyboard. I quickly scanned it over to see if anything was missing, then added a sly face emoji. Totally legit. A smile spread across my face at how dumb it was, but I quickly hit send before I could overthink it or Jake could protest further.

He leaned his head back with a groan. "Oh god, this was a mistake. What if you just tell the president of the school and have her take care of it? Lampart's supposed to know the division in the police force that deals with special situations."

"Yeah, not happening." I shot him a look. "Because, A: I'm not even technically supposed to be raising actual people from the dead. I'm on an animal and plant based curriculum only and I'll get in big trouble if they find out about you. And two: they take drug allegations super serious here, and have a tendency to expel first and ask questions later. This school might not have been my first choice, but I'm so close to graduating and getting out of here, so there's no way I'm going to risk throwing away years of surviving mental break-downs and going into premature debt for nothing. Capeesh?"

Jake's eyes had grown wide at my growing enthusiasm, and watched me take in a deep breath when I finished. Then he squinted and muttered, "You messed up your bullet points."

"Excuse me?" The words came out tight.

"You said A, then two."

I gritted my teeth. "That's all you got out of this?"

"No… I get it, there's a lot at stake. But I don't like the idea of you putting yourself in danger." Jake sighed, a heavy, serious sigh that chased away the lightness of the situation I was doing so well with weaving. "I thought I wanted help, but I'm the one who got myself into this mess and I shouldn't be dragging anyone else into it." The chair creaked suddenly as he leaned forward to give me a hard look, and I was taken aback by the intensity in those steel grey eyes. "Are you sure you actually want to do this?"

My face pinched with slight confusion as I picked up on some sort of layered meaning in his question, but couldn't quite pin down what it was. I tapped my fingers on my leg, holding his gaze. "… Honestly? No. I wanted to binge something on Netflix tonight and put off studying for my exam." I shrugged. "But you didn't get me involved, I did, when I went out and rose you from the dead. So I'm sticking with it whether you like it or not. I guess."

Jake looked like he wanted to protest further, but seemed to understand arguing with me wouldn't get anywhere. Good. He was learning. Instead he crossed his arms and surveyed me. "Then what are you planning to tell them when they ask what your power is?"

I stretched my legs and leaned back on my hands. "I was thinking I'd just tell them my power…? They want me to prove it, right?"

"But you have a really powerful gift, I don't think you should give away what little upper hand we have in this situation by revealing what it actually is. And if you lied, they wouldn't even suspect anything because nothing about you really screams, 'I control the dead.'"

My eyes narrowed. "Oh, I'm sorry. Do I not look emo enough to be a necromancer?"

He shifted in his seat, looking me over with a slight smile, no doubt taking in the pastel pink streaks in my hair and baby blue sweater. Then he scanned from the soft shades of my room to the plants in polka-dotted pots on the window frame. "Well, you definitely don't fit the stereotype."

"Is that right?"

The flowers all at once slowly wilted and turned brown, curling into husks of themselves. Jake's eyes shot to them, then he rose an eyebrow at me. I waited for the usual flash of apprehension to cross his face like with everyone else, but it never came. Instead, he looked… Impressed.

I blinked, a little thrown. The flowers shot back to life, spreading their colorful petals wide as if they had never died.

"That's genius," he grinned, causing a dimple to appear in his left cheek. "You can tell them you have some sort of plant manipulating power."

Huh. That could actually work.