#the rent won’t pay itself

[marshmellodragon]

Yokohama in Bungou Stray Dogs is like New York in Marvel. I don’t think I need to elaborate more.

-<3-

Just in case I do need to elaborate: (Cause the Detective Agency / Port Mafia and Avengers living in the middle of their respective cities wasn’t enough):

Some random citizen in New York: So Hulk threw my car at some alien again, sorry I couldn’t make it to the meeting on time.

Boss: Well we only allow 3 Avengers related absences and after this you only have 1 left, so be careful.

Citizen: I did make it to the meeting, I was just late-

Boss: Only 1.

Citizen: *in a low whisper* I hate this city.

-<3-

Also some random citizen in Yokohama: Yeah so Chuuya smashed my whole apartment building during the Shibusawa attack. I am homeless now so uhh, can I crash at your place?

Friend: Dude the whole city got trashed, we’re all homeless.

Citizen: God I hate this city.

[jezebelblues]

𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍 | 𝐇.𝐒 | 𝟏 *ੈ𑁍༘⋆

ᝰ.ᐟ 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭, 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥.

pt 1, pt 2 (completed)

𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.

𝐂𝐖: drug usage/selling, angst, college!harry, fem!reader, smut in pt2 if that’s what ur here for, allusions to violence, friends to lovers if u squint

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: approx 13.8k

❏ i was trying to compress this into only being one part but i felt like each piece of them growing closer was too important to the plot to be deleted </3 but i’m posting pt 2 like right after this so !! btw this is so fratrry coded but bro is not in a frat. he’s just a broke college student that sells drugs fr

masterlist

off campus housing was a curse sometimes.

but, if you had the option between dorming it out or paying for an apartment yourself, maybe it could be categorized as both a blessing and a curse.

but for YN and harry, it’s just a curse.

a dorm wasn’t in the cards for them in general—it was hard enough drowning in loans for tuition itself, and adding thousands more for shitty campus housing was just overboard.

but still, the illusion of choice would’ve been nice.

they lived in carson hall, off campus apartments that were filled to the brim with students. there might’ve been a few tenants in the building that weren’t a student, but they were probably there for the same reason as everyone else—affordability.

$850 per month felt like a rarity, and it was pretty much unheard of in new york. so, if you were a broke student that couldn’t dorm, this was your saving grace.

if the walls in the unit weren’t brick, it was cheap drywall that had the paint chipping off. there was a radiator that broke every month like clockwork, sat right underneath a window with glass so thin it shook with the breeze.

there was no carpet except for in the main lobby, everything else was either tiled linoleum and creaky wooden floors installed in the 90’s. there was a communal laundry unit in the basement that required four quarters exactly, nothing else. sometimes it’d swallow the coins, sometimes it wouldn’t, and sometimes it’d eat their coins and wouldn’t turn on at all.

there was a maintenance man that lived on the first floor—living there for half the rent since he was on call 24/7 on the weekdays to fix anything the apartment complex needed—but you’d have to be the luckiest person on earth for him to respond. if the washer ate your quarters, chances are, you won’t be getting them back. and if the sink continued to drip water in rhythm with your heartbeat, you’d be better off watching a youtube tutorial on plumbing basics than calling for the maintenance guy.

but, it was four walls and a roof—not to mention, it was only a five minute walk from the dining hall (the heart of campus, obviously).

YN and harry didn’t know each other, not exactly. they lived on the same floor, and harry was the guy that was known for dealing to make rent and loan payments.

and YN was the girl that always had sleepy eyes and smelt of vanilla and cinnamon—sugar and spice.

but that was it between them, fleeting glances of acknowledgment and the lingering scent of vanilla laced with weed in the hallway.

all until the first knock tapped against his door at one-thirty in the morning.

it was one of those nights where the due dates of assignments pressed down heavy, like it was daring you to breathe under the weight.

harry’s radiator was hissing again, spitting steam into his tiny apartment, a kind of mocking applause for everything breaking down. his desk was cluttered with blueprints—half-sketched, smudged, unfinished—and on the counter, the last edible he'd cut sat wrapped in foil, waiting for whoever was desperate enough to buy it.

the knock was soft. hesitant. not the kind of knock that screamed cops or where's the party? harry almost didn't get up. whatever it was, it could wait.

but something about it—how it lingered, quiet but insistent—dragged him to the door. barefoot, wearing nothing but a ratty tshirt and sweatpants, he swung it open without bothering to check who it was.

YN.

the girl who always smelled like a fucking christmas cookie. she stood in the hallway like she'd been arguing with herself for hours, her arms wrapped around her torso to keep warm. she didn't say anything right away, just looked at him with wide, tired eyes.

harry leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. "are y’lost?"

her voice came out softer than he expected. “i need…something.”

he raised an eyebrow, scanning her quickly—her pink sweatpants, the hoodie that was two sizes too big, the way she kept glancing at the floor like she hated being here. "that's specific. milk? a lightbulb? help moving a body?"

"for my roommate," she rushed, ignoring the bite in his tone. "she's—she's having a panic attack or something, some stupid argument with her boyfriend i think—and i don't have anything that can help."

harry stared at her.

her voice cracked, the desperation cutting through the cool front she was trying to hold. "it's late, and the pharmacies are closed, and i just—someone said you might have something."

"someone.” he repeated, pushing off the doorframe, his tone sharp enough to slice through her composure.

"please."

something about that word caught him off guard. not the word itself, but the way she said it—like she was embarrassed to use it, like it physically hurt to ask him for anything. harry sighed, stepping back. "wait there."

he crossed the room to the counter, digging through the shoebox that held the operation he kept as low-key as possible. the old baggie of edibles rustled faintly in his hands, and for a second, he thought about saying no. this wasn't his problem.

but he grabbed one anyway, turning back to find her still standing in the hallway, arms wrapped tighter around herself. he shoved the baggie into her hand. "take this and go."

she hesitated, looking down at it. "is it safe?"

harry's laugh came out sharp and humorless. "you knock on my door at one in the morning, asking for something t’fix a panic attack, and you're worried about FDA approval? yeah, it's safe. s’low-dose."

her fingers curled around the bag. "how much do i owe you?"

he shook his head, already tired of this conversation. "don't worry about it. just go."

YN started to turn, but her gaze caught on the cluttered desk in the corner—blueprints stacked in uneven piles, a half-empty coffee cup balancing on the edge. "what's all that?" she asked, her voice quiet but curious.

"none of your business."

he stepped forward and shut the door before she could ask anything else. the lock clicked, and for a long second, he stood there, staring at the closed door, wondering why the hell he'd helped her at all.

*

friday nights strained. not the kind that made you feel like you’d accomplished something. no, this was the other kind. the kind that made harry want to throw his phone into the east river and spend the rest of the weekend in bed, ignoring the world.

by eight pm, the texts started rolling in like they always did.

can u drop to sigma chi?

emergency. we need molly asap. paying extra if u can get here by 10.

it wasn’t glamorous. it wasn’t even fun. but it paid the rent.

harry sat at his desk, staring at the mess of blueprints he hadn’t touched all week, his phone lighting up next to him with another text. the math was simple: weed, molly, shrooms, lsd. nothing heavy, nothing messy, and no one under twenty-one.

he grabbed his backpack, already packed from the night before—a hollowed-out calculus textbook buried inside. it was beat to shit, but nobody looked twice at a guy carrying around a heavy book and a bookbag on campus.

the first stop was sigma chi. always sigma chi.

by the time he got there, the party was in full swing. the air reeked of spilled beer and too much cologne, bass pounding through the walls like a heartbeat that refused to die. harry slipped in through the side door, past a crowd of girls laughing too loudly and holding plastic cups like they were accessories.

the guy waiting for him was leaned against the fridge, his baseball cap turned backwards, a grin plastered on his face. “harry, my man!”

he didn’t answer. didn’t smile. instead, he reached into his bag and pulled out a small baggie, handing it over like he was exchanging a pack of gum. the guy shoved some crumpled twenties into harry’s hand, already too distracted by his phone to say anything else.

“you’re a lifesaver, bro.”

he left through the back door without another word.

weekends were always like this. frat houses, dorm rooms, random street corners. most fridays, he had ten stops, maybe more if people got desperate.

his phone buzzed constantly. texts rolling in every fifteen minutes:

can you meet by the bodega?

do u have anything stronger? asking for a friend.

the last one made him roll his eyes. he didn’t do stronger. stronger got people killed, got cops asking questions. harry wasn’t stupid. this wasn’t about partying or fun; it was money.

he started dealing during his first year at nyu. not because he wanted to, but because the scholarships didn’t cover everything, and student loans only went so far.

at first, it was just weed. his guy, jeff, lived in brooklyn—a family man with a college degree, a wife, and two kids. harry used to think guys like jeff had it figured out: the house in a decent neighborhood, the minivan parked out front, the soccer games on weekends. but his life was no more stable than harry’s.

jeff’s business wasn’t just selling weed—it was growing it, right in his basement. his wife knew, of course. they kept it far from the kids, locked up tight behind a door that might as well have been a vault.

he hadn’t started out as a dealer, either. he ran his own small business—some business marketing firm that couldn’t compete with the bigger guys. now, the basement was his fallback, extra income, and harry couldn’t help but see a version of himself in jeff. same fire, same hustle, same gnawing ache of more, more, more.

“this isn’t enough,” he had said one night, halfway through weighing a fresh batch. the house smelled faintly of citrus and pine, a scent jeff swore masked the weed smell. “you ever thought about branching out?”

harry frowned, leaning back against the workbench “branching out how?”

“psychedelics—shrooms, lsd. same crowd, bigger profit. no one’s getting hooked, no one’s overdosing. it’s clean.”

harry’s gut twisted. he didn’t like the sound of it—too messy, too big. “i dunno, mate. weed’s easy. i don’t want t’get in deeper.”

jeff leaned against the table, crossing his arms. “i get it. but you’re already in. and if you play it smart, you don’t have to worry about the cops, or junkies, or any of that shit. i know a guy in the bronx—mutual friend. you’d like him. solid guy, clean product.”

he hesitated, his fingers tapping against the edge of the table. “y’really think it’s worth it?”

jeff smiled faintly, shrugging. “depends on what you want. if it’s just enough to scrape by, keep doing what you’re doing. but if you want to breathe a little? yeah. it’s worth it.”

harry didn’t jump in right away.

it took a few weeks of thinking, weighing the risks against the reward. but eventually, he made the trip to the bronx. the guy jeff pointed him to was older, late thirties maybe, with a clean apartment and a habit of over-explaining. harry liked him immediately.

the product was good. better than he expected. shrooms, lsd tabs, packaged clean and easy to move. the kind of stuff that sold itself to the right crowd.

molly came later.

it started with frat guys asking for it at parties, offering triple what harry charged for weed. at first, he turned them down. molly was different—harder to control, riskier. but the money kept knocking at his door, and harry, tired of scraping by, finally let it in.

his guy in the bronx knew a supplier. harry kept it lowkey—low doses, clean product, no bullshit. but it still weighed on him, the way every step deeper into this life felt like standing on thin ice.

jeff always said this kind of hustle didn’t last forever. harry just hoped he’d find a way out before it swallowed him whole.

his voice stayed in his head more than he liked to admit—you can’t do this forever, kid. something’s gotta give.

but that was the problem, wasn’t it? harry didn’t know what would give first—his luck, his sanity, or the thin line he kept walking between survival and collapse.

the deeper he got into dealing, the more he saw how easy it was for people to lose themselves in it. not just the buyers—people like jeff, too.

there was this one night, months after harry started moving psychedelics. jeff had called him over, saying he had some fresh product he wanted harry to try. he drove out to brooklyn, expecting the usual.

but when he got there, he looked different. tired in a way that felt heavier.

“you good?” he had asked, leaning against the workbench.

he nodded, but his hands trembled slightly as he sealed a bag. “yeah, just a long week. car broke down, furnace is acting up… you know how it is.”

he did. too well.

when he left that night, the bag of weed tucked into his backpack, he couldn’t shake the thought—this doesn’t end well. jeff had everything harry thought he wanted—a family, a house, a life that looked solid from the outside. and still, it wasn’t enough.

he lit a cigarette as he drove back to the city, the smoke curling around him in the dark car. he couldn’t let this life be all there was. couldn’t let it pull him down the same way it was pulling jeff.

but even as he told himself he’d find a way out, harry’s phone buzzed with another text, another buyer, another deal.

just enough was never enough.

he sighed, running a hand through his hair. he was tired. bone-tired. the kind of tired that lived in his spine and refused to leave, no matter how much sleep he got.

but he typed back anyway.

because this was life. grinding himself into the ground so someone else could forget their bullshit for a night.

and as much as he hated it, he couldn’t afford to.

*

the rain wasn’t letting up. the kind that soaked you through in seconds, cold and sharp like a thousand tiny needles stabbing your skin. the stairwell in the building was already a deathtrap on the best days—cheap tiles, no traction, old wood.

he was on the couch when he heard it. a thud, heavy and hollow, like someone had dropped a bag of bricks—or fallen. then the curses followed, muffled but furious, the kind of sound that pulled him out of the half-sleep he’d been drifting into.

he sat up, rubbing a hand over his face. for a second, he thought about ignoring it. again, wasn’t his problem. but something about the sound got under his skin.

grabbing the sweatshirt hanging off the back of the couch, he pulled it on and opened the door, peering out into the dimly lit hallway.

that’s when he saw her.

sprawled on the stairs, her sweater soaked through, hair sticking to her face, and an armful of books scattered around her like shrapnel.

fucking christ, harry thought, leaning against the doorframe. he crossed his arms, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “you always this graceful, or is it a wednesday night special?”

she looked up, and if looks could kill, he’d have been dead on the spot. her cheeks were flushed, probably from a mix of frustration and exertion, and her jaw was clenched tight enough to crack. “are you always this much of an asshole, or do i just bring it out in you?”

harry let the smirk grow into something closer to a grin. “you okay?” he asked, his tone half-mocking, half-genuine.

YN didn’t answer right away. she was too busy untangling herself, her knee hitting the step as she tried to gather the mess of books and papers that had spilled everywhere.

harry sighed, pushing off the doorframe. “hold on.”

he jogged down the stairs, crouching to pick up a book near her feet. the cover was soaked, the pages already curling at the edges. he flipped it over in his hand, inspecting the damage. “you’re gonna fail with this,” he said, holding it up. “this thing’s toast.”

she snatched the book from him, glaring. “you’re toast.”

he chuckled under his breath, bending to pick up another one. this time, it was a notebook—thick, overstuffed, with half the pages threatening to fall out. “what are you even carrying all this for?”

“this is college, is it not?”

harry straightened, stacking the notebook on top of the book in her arms. “you’re gonna wreck your back lugging all this around.”

“not everyone has money for a decent bag.” she muttered, not looking at him as she grabbed the papers from his hand.

that made him pause. his jaw tightened, his usual sarcasm flickering into something harder, heavier. he opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then closed it just as fast.

he shifted, handing her the last book. “here. try not to break your neck next time.”

she snorted, a bitter laugh slipping out before she could stop it. she pushed herself up, wincing as she shifted her weight onto her right leg.

“you sure you’re okay?” harry asked again, watching the way she was favoring her left leg.

“i’m fine.”

“right.” harry muttered, crossing his arms as she started up the stairs. he followed her halfway up, more out of habit than concern, and watched as she struggled to balance her books against the wet fabric of her sweater.

when they reached the landing, she stopped, glancing back at him. “thanks,” she said, the word sounding like it physically hurt her to say.

harry shrugged. “don’t mention it.”

as she turned to head toward her apartment, she added over her shoulder, “no, seriously. don’t.”

he smirked again, shaking his head as he watched her limp away. he didn’t respond, just leaned against the wall, waiting until she disappeared into her unit before heading back to his own.

he dropped onto the couch, dragging a worn notebook off the coffee table and flipping it open. but his focus was shot. all he could picture was her on the stairs—soaked, pissed, and too stubborn to admit she wasn’t fine.

her comment stuck with him, too. not everyone has money for a decent bag. harry hated how much that hit home.

the world didn’t give a shit if you couldn’t afford what you needed. if you didn’t have it, you improvised. it was why he was out here selling weed and molly to spoiled frat boys and girls with trust funds so deep they could drown in them.

he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. his phone buzzed on the armrest beside him, breaking the silence.

it was one of his regulars, some sophomore who thought a couple grams of shrooms would make her weekend transformative.

yeah. same spot. 9pm.

he tossed the phone onto the table, leaning back against the couch, the springs groaning under his weight. this was the life: fixing busted radiators, chasing down half-earned engineering credits, and grinding himself into the ground so some kid could take a trip they’d forget by monday morning.

later that night, he was back out, a ballcap sat over his curls, backpack slung over his shoulder, heading to the usual corner just off washington square park. it wasn’t raining anymore, but the streets were still slick, reflecting the city lights like oil spills.

he spotted the girl waiting for him, leaning against a lamppost with her arms crossed. she waved when she saw him, a little too eager.

the exchange was quick, the shrooms passing from his hand to hers, the cash tucked into his pocket in one smooth motion. no small talk, no lingering.

when he got home, the hallway was quiet, except for the faint hum of the fluorescent light overhead. YN’s door was closed, no sounds coming from the other side.

he paused for a second, staring at it. he shook his head, unlocking his door and stepping inside. the idea that popped into his brain was stupid, irrational. he didn’t owe her anything. she was just the girl down the hall, who gave as much shit as she took.

but still, he dug into his closet, pulling out the old army surplus bag he’d stopped using after high school. it wasn’t much, but it was better than what she had now.

the next morning, harry slipped out of his apartment early, the bag in hand. he dropped it just outside her door, no note, no explanation, before heading out to his first lecture of the day.

when YN found it later, she stared at it for a long moment, her brows knitting together. she didn’t have to ask who left it. and even though she muttered asshole under her breath, she brought it inside with a faint smile.

because she needed it. and harry—whether he’d admit it or not—knew that.

the next time they saw each other, he was coming up the stairs, his backpack slung low, the smell of rain clinging to his sweatshirt. it was late—nearly eleven—and he was tired, the kind of exhaustion that sank into his chest and refused to let go.

YN was coming down, her new bag bouncing lightly against her hip. she was in scrubs and a college hoodie, hair tied back, but there was a tension in her face that hadn’t been there before. maybe it was the late hour, or maybe it was the unmistakable look of someone dragging themselves through another brutal shift.

they almost passed each other without a word. almost.

but as they crossed paths, she stopped, her hand gripping the railing. “hey.”

harry stopped mid-step, turning to look at her. “hey,” he echoed, noncommittal.

she tilted her head toward the bag. “this you?”

he leaned against the railing, shrugging like it was no big deal. “needed something better, right?”

her lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to figure out if he was messing with her. finally, she shook her head, letting out a dry laugh. “why, though? why do you care?”

he blinked, caught off guard. he didn’t have an answer for that—at least not one he could say out loud. instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugging again. “call it charity,” he said. “or don’t. i don’t really care.”

YN stared at him for a moment longer, her expression unreadable. then she nodded, her grip on the railing loosening. “thanks,” she muttered, her tone softer this time.

“don’t mention it.”

but before he could take another step, she smiled—the tiniest twitch upward. “no, seriously. don’t.”

he smirked at that, glancing back over his shoulder. “you’re welcome, cinnamon.”

her brows shot up at the nickname, her mouth opening to protest, but harry didn’t stick around to hear it. he was already heading back to his apartment, a faint smile tugging at his lips despite himself.

that should’ve been the end of it.

but the next day, when harry opened his door to grab the mail, there was a coffee cup sitting just outside, still warm, with no note or explanation.

he frowned, picking it up and staring at it like it might explode.

then, from down the hall, YN’s door opened, and she leaned out, raising an eyebrow at him. “drink it or don’t—i don’t care.”

he held up the cup, smirking. “what’s this? donations?”

“no,” she grinned, already retreating back inside. “just paying it forward, asshole.”

the door clicked shut, and he stood there, shaking his head, the faintest chuckle escaping him as he sipped the coffee.

*

their classes in south hall were evening ones, usually letting out at nine pm sharp.

YN stepped out of the biology lab first, tugging her sleeves down against the chill that crept into the building after dark. her bag was slung over her shoulders, the college crewneck rumpled from hours of sitting in the same chair. her jeans were stiff from the cold, her shoes scuffed with wear, and her hair fell loose around her face, sticking slightly to her cheek. she brushed it back absently, her eyes on the door ahead.

harry caught sight of her from the second-floor stairwell as he left his chemistry lecture—a rolling stones hoodie hung loose on his frame, sweatpants sitting low on his hips, his green sambas (that he bought second hand, his proudest find) practically falling apart at the seams.

he hadn’t planned on saying anything. hell, he wasn’t even sure she’d noticed him. but as he watched her push through the doors, her breath fogging in the cold, he felt something tug at him.

he hesitated for half a second before jogging down the stairs, his curls bouncing slightly as he caught up to her “hey.”

she glanced over her shoulder, her steps slowing just enough to register him. her brows furrowed when she saw him. “you’re in chemistry,” she said, like it was an accusation.

harry blinked, a bit confused as to what she was hinting at—but going with it anyway. “m’yeah. good observation, sherlock.”

“no, i mean,” she gestured vaguely behind her. “your class is upstairs. what’re you doing down here?”

harry shrugged, the corner of his mouth twitching. “walking home. duh. our lectures must end at the same time.”

YN gave him a skeptical look, her pace picking up again as they stepped into the night. “you don’t have to do that,” she said quickly, her tone dismissive. “i’m fine.”

he fell into step beside her anyway, the straps of his backpack swinging slightly as he walked. “cool. didn’t ask.”

her jaw tightened, and she shot him a look. “seriously, i don’t need a babysitter.”

“good,” harry muttered, unbothered. “’cause I’m not volunteering.”

she sighed, tugging her bag closer to her body as they trudged through campus. the sound of their shoes against the pavement filled the space between them.

as they turned the corner, the streetlight flickered above, casting long, uneven shadows across the sidewalk. harry noticed the guy first.

it wasn’t unusual to be sketched out by randoms over here, their apartment was on the edge of campus—lots of stragglers where university police didn’t quite patrol.

he was leaning against a stop sign, his cigarette glowing faintly in the dark. his gaze was lazy, his posture too casual, the way people got when they wanted you to feel like they were watching you without actually looking.

harry stepped closer to YN without thinking, his shoulder brushing hers as he moved between her and the road.

“seriously?” she muttered, stopping mid-step to glare at him.

harry didn’t look at her, his eyes locked forward as they passed. “what?” he asked, voice calm. “said i’d walk with you. didn’t say i wouldn’t get in the way.”

she scoffed, but she didn’t pull away. he brushed it off, and in a way, she appreciated that—the way he acknowledged her nerves but didn’t say anything. the way he acted like it was just a miss-step rather than a reassurance.

when they reached the entrance of their apartment building, YN stopped, finally turning to face him. her arms were crossed now, her expression sharp. “you didn’t have to do that.”

“you’re welcome.” his eyebrows knit together in stifled laughter, looking straight past her as he opened the heavy door to their building, holding it open for her to walk through.

they went up the narrow stairwell quietly, each step creaking under their weight.

she pursed her lips, stepping past him to unlock her door. but just before she disappeared inside, she glanced back at him, her tone softer this time. “thanks, i guess.”

harry tilted his head, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “don’t mention it.”

the door clicked shut behind her, and harry lingered for a second, staring at the empty hallway beyond. then he shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket, turned, and headed to his own door. his rings clicked against his keys as he unlocked it, the faintest smirk still on his lips.

*

the walk back from the hospital felt longer tonight.

the clock had just ticked past ten, but the streets were alive with people heading to bars, parties, anywhere but where she’d been. YN tugged on the sleeves of her hoodie, pulling them down farther, the fabric worn soft from too many washes. her scrub pants swished faintly as she walked, her badge clipped to her pocket, catching the glow of passing headlights.

her shift had been hell. the kind of night where you didn’t have time to think, let alone breathe. a kid came in after a bad bike crash, his face pale, his leg bent in a way it shouldn’t have been. then there was guy that coughed up blood over her sneakers—not to mention running around the er the entire rest of shift to do the work the nurses couldn’t get to.

her feet dragged as she pushed through the door to her building, climbing the stairs to the second floor one step at a time.

the music hit her first.

it wasn’t loud, just a faint rhythm seeping through the crack of harry’s door. something easy, mellow.

as she walked past his door, her steps slowed, her gaze flicking toward it. for a second, she lingered, her pulse ticking faster than it should’ve. but then she kept walking.

she tried to focus on her own door, just a few steps away, but her mind wouldn’t settle. work had been brutal. her roommate would be on a two hour facetime with her boyfriend, giggling about nothing. her friends were either pulling late shifts or at some frat house, three beers deep by now. and the quiet—god, the quiet—was going to eat her alive.

before she even realized what she was doing, she spun on her heel, walking back the way she came. her hand hesitated over harry’s door, her fingers curling into a loose fist before she knocked.

the door swung open after a moment, and there he was.

he stood there in loose jeans and an old band tee, his curls falling into his face like he hadn’t bothered to push them back. the rings on his fingers glinted faintly in the dim light behind him, chipped black polish catching her eye.

“cinnamon,” he grinned, leaning one arm against the doorframe. his voice was low, amused. “what’s up?”

behind him, she saw the room wasn’t empty.

lounging on harry’s couch was louis, a guy she vaguely recognized from her english lecture—he was always late, always cracking jokes that somehow landed. and in the kitchen, leaning lazily against the counter, was a tall guy she didn’t quite recognize.

she took the smallest step back, shaking her head. “sorry,” she mumbled quickly. “didn’t realize you had people over. never-mind.”

he raised an eyebrow, his gaze flicking from her to the empty hallway behind her. “y’sure? you look…” he trailed off, his lips quirking slightly. “rough.”

she glared at him. “thanks. really needed that.”

he leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “you’re knocking on my door at ten o’clock, cinnamon. that’s gotta be for a reason, yeah?”

she hesitated, her fingers twitching at her side. the guy in the kitchen glanced over briefly, then went back to whatever he was doing, and louis didn’t seem to notice her at all. “forget it,” she muttered, stepping back again. “i’m fine.”

he didn’t move, his eyes narrowed as they locked onto hers. “bullshit.”

her jaw tightened, her shoulders straightening. “i was just gonna ask if you had anything. you know, to…” she gestured vaguely, avoiding his eyes. “take the edge off.”

his smile returned, slow and knowing. “didn’t peg you as the type.”

YN glared again, her cheeks flushing slightly. “for a dealer, you’re really bad at pushing sales.” she said flatly, spinning on her heel.

he chuckled lightly, stepping out into the hallway a bit. “hold on a sec.”

she paused, turning halfway back to face him.

he glanced over his shoulder, toward the couch and the kitchen, before meeting her eyes again. “come back in ten,” he nodded. “i’ll get rid of ‘em.”

she blinked, caught off guard. “you don’t have to—”

“i said ten.” he cut her off, his tone leaving no room for argument.

before she could say anything else, he stepped back into his apartment, the door clicking shut behind him. YN stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door like it might open again. she bit the inside of her lip, fidgeting with her key and going inside.

and at exactly 10 minutes, she was back in front of harry’s door.

this time, she didn’t hesitate. she knocked twice, easier than before.

the door opened almost immediately.

harry stood there again, his curls pushed back out of his face this time. his expression was unreadable, somewhere between curiosity and amusement. “told you ten minutes.” he stepped back, leaving the door open for her. “c’mon.”

his apartment wasn’t what she expected, though she wasn’t sure what she’d pictured. it was small, dimly lit by a single desk lamp in the corner. the faint scent of weed hung in the air, but the room was surprisingly neat, except for a pile of papers and notebooks on the table.

lounging on the couch, louis was pulling on his jacket, his face lighting up in surprise when he saw her. “oh, hey. you’re…” he snapped his fingers, squinting. “chem lab, right? morning lecture?”

YN nodded stiffly, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her hoodie. “english,” she corrected. “i see you there sometimes.”

“right, right,” louis said, grinning. he turned to harry. “new buyer? good taste, man.”

harry rolled his eyes, stifling his own smile. “out.” he muttered, shoving a hand toward the door.

louis smirked but didn’t argue. he grabbed his bag, tossing a wink at YN before stepping into the hallway. the guy in the kitchen followed, slipping past her without so much as a glance, the scent of cheap cologne trailing behind him.

he shut the door with a sharp click, locking it before turning to face her. “there. happy?”

she crossed her arms, leaning against the wall near the door. “i didn’t ask you to kick them out.”

“you didn’t have to.”

she sighed, her gaze shifting to the desk in the corner. the blueprints stacked there caught her attention—clean lines, precise calculations, a world that felt miles away from hers.

“you gonna tell me what you want, or are we just standing here all night?”

her eyes snapped back to his, the sharpness in his tone cutting through the haze of her thoughts. “got anything that’ll knock me out for a few hours?”

he raised an eyebrow, walking past her to the desk. he opened a drawer, rummaging around before pulling out a small baggie with a single edible inside. “low-dose,” he said, holding it up. “won’t knock you out, but it’ll take the edge off.”

YN hesitated, glancing between him and the baggie. “how much?”

harry shook his head, tossing it onto the counter. “on the house.”

“i’m not—”

“just take it,” he interrupted, his tone firm. “call it a favor. or a bribe. whatever makes you feel better.”

she stepped closer, picking up the baggie with careful fingers. her eyes flicked to his, searching for something she wasn’t sure she’d find. “thanks.” she muttered, her voice quieter now.

harry leaned against the edge of the counter, his arms crossed. “you look like shit, by the way.”

she huffed, shoving the baggie into her hoodie pocket. “and you’re still a dick.” she shot back, heading for the door.

“fair enough.” he muttered. but just as she reached for the handle, his voice stopped her. “hey, cinnamon.”

she turned, her brow furrowed. “what?”

harry’s smirk softened slightly, the easy confidence in his tone faltering just enough to feel real. “you ever wanna talk, you know where i live.”

YN didn’t respond, didn’t trust herself to. she just nodded once and slipped out the door, her footsteps fading down the hall.

the next day, it was closer to four pm when YN got home from work.

she barely noticed the faint buzz of her roommate’s call as she slipped into the bathroom, peeling off her scrubs and stepping under the hot spray of the shower. the water hit her like a reset button, the ache in her shoulders easing as the steam curled around her.

when she finally emerged, her hair damp and loose, she threw on a pair of soft sweatpants and an oversized sweater—something warm, something safe. the apartment was quiet now, her roommate having left a while ago, probably off to see her boyfriend.

it was around six when the knock came.

YN glanced up from her laptop, her brows furrowing. she wasn’t expecting anyone. she hesitated for a second, debating if she even wanted to answer, but curiosity won out.

when she opened the door, harry was leaning against the frame, his usual smirk softened into something more uncertain. he looked like he’d been pacing before this, his curls slightly disheveled, his hoodie hanging loose over a pair of black sweatpants.

“hey.”

YN raised an eyebrow. “hey.”

“you any good at chem?”

she blinked, “chemistry?”

he nodded, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets. “yeah. like, the basics. stoichiometry, balancing equations, all that shit.”

she tilted her head, leaning against the doorframe to mirror him. “i passed it with like an 85% so, i guess?”

he smiled, “fantastic. y’busy right now?”

“why?”

“thought maybe you could help me out. i’ve got a test coming up, and i’m…” he trailed off, gesturing vaguely. “not great at it.”

“you want me to tutor you?”

he beamed, sarcastic, knowing. “sweet of you t’offer. let’s go.”

she rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips. she sighed, pushing off the doorframe. “fine. but if i’m doing this, we’re going to the library. your apartment smells like weed, and i can’t think in there.”

he chuckled, stepping back as she grabbed her bag from the couch. “fair enough, cinnamon.”

the campus library wasn’t crowded, the usual sunday night stragglers scattered across the tables in hushed clusters. harry led her to a table in the back, far from the main entrance, where the buzz of conversation faded into the quiet hum of fluorescent lights.

he dropped his backpack onto the table, pulling out a battered notebook and a copy of the textbook that looked like it had been through hell. “alright, professor,” he said, smirking as he slid into the chair across from her. “teach me.”

“this is gonna be painful, isn’t it?”

harry grinned, flipping open the textbook. “probably.”

she sighed, leaning forward. “okay, first question—how the hell did you even make it to college if you don’t know the basics?”

harry shrugged, unbothered. “charm and good looks.”

she groaned, dropping her pen onto the table. “you’re gonna fail.”

“no,” he drawled with a smile, “that’s why you’re here.”

despite herself, YN smiled, shaking her head as she reached for the textbook. “alright, let’s see what we can do.”

the first twenty minutes were pure pain.

she flipped through harry’s beat-up textbook, squinting at the faint pencil notes scrawled in the margins. “alright,” she muttered, tapping her pen against the page. “let’s start with balancing equations. that’s pretty straightforward.”

harry slouched in his chair, spinning his pen between his fingers like he was bored out of his mind already. (and he was. if he was honest, he didn’t need help with chem at all). “straightforward for you, maybe. i’m just here trying not to flunk out.”

she furrowed her eyebrows, shooting him a look. “you’re not gonna flunk out. you just need to—” she hesitated, searching for the right word. “try.”

“i’m trying right now. see? look at all this effort.” he gestured toward the open book in front of him.

she sighed, leaning across the table and grabbing the pen out of his hand. “no. this is you sitting there, being useless. pay attention, harry.”

“yes, ma’am.” he mumbled, sitting up slightly straighter. his voice carried the faintest edge of mockery, but he kept his eyes on her, watching as she wrote out a problem on a fresh sheet of paper.

after another ten minutes of stumbling through coefficients, YN thought she saw a flicker of understanding cross harry’s face. he pointed at the page. “so you just make the numbers match? like, both sides need the same amount of atoms?”

YN stared at him, deadpan. “yes. that’s literally it.”

he leaned back, running a hand through his curls. “jesus. why the hell does it sound so much harder in class?”

“because you don’t listen in class,” she laughed, “and i’m guessing you don’t read the textbook either.”

he grinned, leaning forward again. “why would i, when you’re clearly better at explaining it?”

she rolled her eyes, turning the page in the book. “charm and good looks only get you so far, harry. you’re gonna have to put some actual work into this.”

“oh, so you do think i’m charming.”

YN didn’t dignify that with a response. instead, she handed him the pen and pointed to the next problem. “solve it. no shortcuts, no guesses. i wanna see the work.”

he groaned but did as he was told, his brow furrowed as he scribbled on the page.

by the time the clock struck eight thirty, they’d managed to get through most of the chapter. YN had to admit—he wasn’t completely hopeless.

and all he could do was smile—she bought it. if engineering didn’t work out, he thought, maybe he could be an actor. or a pathological liar.

“see?” she said, leaning back in her chair. “you’re not terrible at this. just lazy.”

harry huffed a laugh, closing the textbook with a loud thud. “lazy? you wound me, cinnamon.”

“you’ll live. anyway, i think we’re done for tonight. unless you wanna keep going?”

they walked out of the library together, the crisp night air hitting them like a wall. the campus was quiet now, most of the students holed up in their dorms or off at whatever weekend plans they’d made.

as they reached the edge of the quad, he glanced at her. “thanks for helping me out.”

she shrugged, her hands tucked into her hoodie pocket. “no big deal. just don’t make it a habit.”

“what if i do?”

YN shot him a look, her brow furrowing slightly. “then you’re buying the coffee next time.”

harry chuckled, the sound low and warm in the cold air. “deal.”

they reached the entrance, and YN hesitated for a moment before heading inside. “night, harry.”

“night, cinnamon.”

as the door clicked shut behind her, harry lingered on the steps for a moment, lighting a cigarette.

he smiled to himself again, he couldn’t help it. he was proficient in math, one of his best subjects—bordering the edge of genius, basically. but she didn’t need to know that, not when he just stole a couple hours from her, not when it was the perfect excuse just to hang out with her.

it was wednesday when she next saw him.

the clock on YN’s laptop read 11:03 pm, the harsh blue light illuminating her tired eyes as she highlighted yet another passage in the dense textbook sprawled across her lap. the apartment was quiet, save for the occasional shuffle from her roommate’s room and the faint hum of traffic filtering in through the drafty window.

she hadn’t moved from her spot on the couch in over an hour, legs curled under her, a growing pile of sticky notes cluttering the coffee table. her focus was razor-sharp, though her back ached from the awkward position she’d settled into.

when the knock came, she didn’t flinch. didn’t even glance toward the door. she knew exactly who it was.

with a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips, she set her laptop down carefully, nudging it closer to the stack of notes as she rose from the couch. her socked feet padded softly across the floor, her hand instinctively reaching for the lock. she swung the door open and leaned against the frame, her shoulder pressed into the wood as she tilted her head to the side.

“cinnamonnnn,” harry drawled, his voice almost melodic, the nickname rolling off his tongue like it had been hers all her life.

he stood there in a slightly oversized sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, a pair of gray sweatpants that were smaller than the ones from the other day��joggers maybe. a green packers beanie was snug over his curls, though a few stray strands peeked out, curling against his forehead. his hands were stuffed deep in his pockets, and he rocked back on his heels like he had all the time in the world.

YN narrowed her eyes slightly, the faintest smile ghosting her lips. “harryyyy,” she mimicked, dragging out his name in the same exaggerated tone.

“you busy?”

yes. “no.”

his dimples deepened as his grin grew wider, like he knew she’d lie. “hang out with me for a bit then.”

she let out a quiet laugh, crossing her arms over her chest. “to do what? it’s almost midnight.”

“come walk with me.”

her lips parted slightly, a soft exhale escaping as she gave him a hesitant look. he didn’t push, just waited, the silence between them comfortable, expectant. “you’re such a bad influence,” she muttered, shaking her head as she turned back into the apartment.

“oh, yeah,” harry said, stepping forward to catch the door before it closed. “terrible.”

she tugged a sweater over her head, the fabric swallowing her as she slipped her feet into an old pair of sneakers. they were loose, the kind she could slip on without bothering with laces.

when she stepped past him, harry held the door open before letting it fall shut behind them as they ambled into the narrow hallway.

“where are we going?” YN asked as they descended the stairs, the cool air of the building’s lobby settling around them.

“you’ll see.”

she huffed, though the corners of her mouth tugged upward as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. he moved like the world waited for him, unhurried but purposeful, his long legs carrying him down the steps in easy strides.

when they pushed through the front door and into the night, the cold air hit her immediately, making her shiver as she stuffed her hands into her pockets.

their path wound deeper into campus—the air quiet, save for the rustling of dead leaves underfoot and the occasional distant honk of a car. the faint glow of streetlights filtered through the thinning trees, casting long shadows across the cracked pavement.

harry walked slightly ahead, shoulders hunched against the cool air. she walked beside him, somewhat, perhaps a step behind, though the edge of her elbow would brush against his arm every so often. it wasn’t an accident, not really.

their breaths puffed out in white clouds, swirling in the breeze before disappearing. the last of the dead leaves fell from the trees with a soft crackle, catching in the wind before tumbling to the ground.

his pace slowed slightly, letting her match him, and he nudged her with his shoulder—just enough to jostle her. she looked up, her brow furrowing as she glanced at him.

“what was that for?”

he smirked, his gaze flicking ahead. “thought you were fallin’ asleep over there.”

she rolled her eyes but let her shoulder bump into his lightly as they walked. “sure. ‘cause nothing screams excitement like following you into the middle of nowhere.”

he let out a low chuckle, his breath visible in the cold air. “you’re dramatic, you know that?”

“you didn’t answer the question earlier.”

“what question?”

“about where we’re going,” she said, her voice teasing. “you could be leading me astray so you can murder me without any witnesses.”

he turned his head to look at her, his brows lifting, “i did answer, you just didn’t accept it.” he paused, pursing his lips as if he was in thought. “it would be a good plan, though. quiet enough out here. no one’d hear a thing.”

she snorted, her steps faltering slightly as she tried not to laugh. “you’re a terrible murderer. you’d leave a trail of evidence a mile wide.”

“would not.”

“would too.”

he turned to her fully now, his eyes narrowing as he stepped backward in front of her. his hands were still stuffed in his pockets, his pace matching hers even as he walked in reverse.

“alright, then,” he said, his voice laced with mock seriousness. “if i were to murder you—and that’s a big if, by the way—how exactly would i screw it up?”

she bit back a smile, “well, for starters, you’d forget to hide the body properly. probably just leave me in the middle of the path, thinking no one would notice.”

he let out a soft laugh, his shoulders shaking as he shook his head. “that’s ridiculous.”

“is it?” YN countered, raising a brow. “you’re the one who thinks this is a good place to kill someone.”

his grin widened, the faintest dimple appearing in his cheek. “you’re paranoid, cinnamon. that’s your problem.”

“and you’re too cocky. that’s yours.”

they fell into a rhythm again, walking side by side as the breeze picked up, carrying with it the faint scent of city streets and damp leaves. their arms brushed again, neither of them pulling away, the warmth of the contact lingering longer than it should.

harry glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, the smirk on his lips softening slightly. “for the record,” he said, his voice quieter now, “i know exactly where i’m going.”

she smiled, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. “good,” she said lightly. “cause i’d hate to have to come back and haunt you if you got me lost.”

their steps grew softer as the buildings behind them thinned out, replaced by clusters of trees swaying in the light breeze. the path curved slightly, the faint hum of traffic fading into the distance.

he walked slightly ahead, his head turning now and then to glance at the towering oaks that lined their path. the trees began to part, revealing the outline of icahn stadium in the near distance. the track and field stretched wide beneath the faint glow of a single overhead light, casting long shadows across the ground. the bleachers stood tall and imposing, their sea of blue seats reaching into the sky like a wave frozen in time.

harry slowed to a stop as they approached, the chain-link fence surrounding the stadium standing between them and the field. he didn’t guide her toward the gate, knowing it would be locked after hours. instead, he stepped closer to the fence, pulling his hand out of his pocket and giving one of the links an experimental tug.

she watched him, her brow furrowing slightly. “if you think we’re going on a run,” she said, her voice flat, “you’ve completely lost it.”

he let out a breathy laugh, shaking his head as his fingers curled around the chain link. he glanced at her over his shoulder, “shut up and c’mere, cinnamon.”

YN hesitated for half a second, then stepped forward, the grass folding beneath her sneakers. the light breeze brushed against her skin, carrying the faint scent of earth and damp metal. he stepped back slightly, giving her room as she reached for the fence. without waiting for further instruction, she started to climb, her hands gripping the cold metal tightly as she hauled herself upward.

he watched her movements closely, his hands hovering near her hips in case she wobbled. “i got you,” he muttered, his voice soft enough to blend with the wind.

she didn’t respond, focusing instead on the rhythmic pull of her arms as she reached the top of the fence. for a moment, she perched there, the view of the stadium stretching out before her, before swinging one leg over and carefully lowering herself to the other side.

harry gave the fence one last tug, then started climbing after her. his movements were quick and efficient, as though he’d done this a hundred times before. his sleeve bunched at his elbows as he reached the top, pausing briefly to glance down at her. “how’s the weather down there?”

she glanced up, brushing her hands off on her pants. “you’d better not fall. i’m not catching you.”

he let out a low chuckle, shaking his head as he swung over the top and landed easily on the grass beside her. “wasn’t planning on it,” he breathed, brushing his hands off before shoving them back into his pockets.

they stood there for a moment, the quiet of the field settling around them like a blanket. the overhead light flickered slightly, casting their shadows long and thin against the ground.

she stared at him for a moment, then sighed, shaking her head as she followed him. “you’ve got way too much energy for this late at night.”

“and you were too stubborn t’say no.” harry shot back as he walked ahead, his steps light against the rubber surface. “used to hate running, y’know,” he breathed, glancing at YN as he spun around. he walked backward with an ease that made her slightly nervous, like he’d trip over himself any second but never actually would. “hated everything about it—your legs aching, your chest burnin’, that horrible feeling in your throat after.”

she caught up, her pace steady as she smiled faintly, her breath visible in the cool air. “now it’s your thing.”

he paused for a split second, his eyes catching hers in that unreadable way of his. then, to her surprise, he smiled. “yeah,” he nodded slightly. “now it’s my thing.”

the bleachers loomed ahead, their steel frame groaning faintly in the wind. harry reached them first, stepping aside to let her go up. “go on,” he muttered, gesturing upward with a nod. “all the way to the top.”

“what, you’re not going to race me?”

he smiled, his hand brushing against the cold metal railing. “wouldn’t be fair. your legs are shorter than mine.”

she narrowed her eyes but couldn’t help the faint laugh that slipped out. “wow. okay. guess i’ll just take my time then.”

she started up the concrete steps, her hands gripping the railings on either side. the cold bit at her palms, but she ignored it, focusing instead on the steady rhythm of her feet against the uneven surface.

harry followed a few steps behind, his stride naturally longer than hers. “this is painful t’watch,” he drawled, his voice laced with mockery. “are you always this slow, or is it just for me?”

YN stopped abruptly, her hands tightening around the railings as she shifted her weight. her hips jutted out slightly, throwing him off balance as he climbed.

he cursed under his breath, his hands instinctively reaching out to steady himself. his fingers found her hips, his grip firm but fleeting, as though he realized too late what he’d done. “jesus,” he muttered, pulling back as quickly as he’d touched her. “bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

she turned her head just enough to catch the faint flush creeping up his neck. she smirked, leaning her weight into the railing. “sorry—shorter legs and all.”

harry just blinked before the corner of his mouth twitched. he stepped back, his expression a mix of annoyance and reluctant amusement. “you’re a child.”

she laughed softly, turning back to the stairs and continuing her climb. “yeah,” she called over her shoulder, her voice teasing. “but you’re still following me.”

they climbed higher, the steps echoing faintly beneath their feet, but harry's pace started to falter again—restlessness bleeding into his movements. "oh, for god's sake," he laughed, his patience snapping like a brittle thread. his fingers drummed against the railing briefly before he stopped altogether, grasping onto her wrist.

his grin was lopsided, dimples flashing as he let go of her hand and flung himself past her, his long legs taking the steps two at a time as he rushed toward the top. only a second and a half later, she met him up there, finding him standing there with a proud grin, his hands resting on his hips like he'd just conquered something monumental.

“impatience isn’t a virtue, by the way.”

he kept his smile, his dimples cutting deep as he lifted his hand in front of her face, palm out. his fingers wiggled dramatically, “talk to the hand, sista."

she paused, staring at him like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or push him off the railing. her expression cracked first, laughter spilling out before she could stop it. she swatted his hand away from her face as they leaned into each other, his own giggles breaking free in a low, rumbling sound that shook through him.

their laughter folded into each other, her shoulder pressing lightly into his chest as she tried to steady herself, his larger frame giving way slightly under the weight of their shared amusement.

harry’s laughter softened as he reached up, his fingers tugging at the edge of his packers beanie. his curls bounced free as he pulled it off, the cold air nipping at his now-exposed hair. without a word, he stretched his arm around her, carefully plopping the hat onto her head.

“what are you doing?” she asked, her voice laced with with something delicate as she adjusted it, the oversized beanie swallowing her hair and tilting slightly to one side.

“you looked cold,” he said, shrugging as if it wasn’t a big deal. his fingers lingered at the edge of the beanie for just a second before he gave her forehead a gentle push with the flat of his palm.

it wasn’t hard—just enough to tip her head backward a little, like an afterthought, his grin barely contained as she blinked up at him.

“seriously?” YN smiled, tilting her head forward again, a faint laugh escaping as she fixed the hat and gave him a mock glare.

he didn’t reply, already stepping to his left with an exaggerated flourish, gesturing toward the narrow row of faded blue seats that stretched across the top of the bleachers. “c’mon.”

he slid into one of the seats first, his long legs folding awkwardly into the tight space as he leaned back and let out a contented sigh. he patted the seat beside him without looking at her.

she hesitated for a beat, brushing her hair out of her face before following him into the row. the cold metal of the seat pressed through her sweats as she sat down beside him, her knees brushing against his for just a second as she settled.

she pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. harry’s beanie slipped forward slightly, brushing against her eyebrows, but she didn’t bother adjusting it. instead, she rested her chin on her knees, her gaze drifting across the empty field below as the wind whistled faintly through the bleachers.

he shifted beside her, digging into the pocket of his sweats. his movements were easy as he pulled out a slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lime green lighter. sliding a cigarette between his lips, he leaned back, flicking the lighter once, twice

nothing.

his fingers were stiff from the cold, the wind catching the flame before it had a chance to hold. he tried again, his brows furrowing slightly as he muttered something under his breath.

YN turned her head, watching him with quiet curiosity. “you good over there?”

harry’s lips quirked around the cigarette. “just peachy,” he mumbled, his voice muffled as he tried one more time.

without a word, she reached over, her fingers brushing against his as she took the lighter from him. “hold still,” she murmured, leaning sideways as she cupped her hand over the cigarette perched between his lips, shielding it from the breeze.

her movements were practiced, easy, like she’d done this a hundred times before. she flicked the lighter once, and the small flame sprang to life, steady this time. she lit the end of the cigarette, her hand still shielding it from the wind as she glanced up at him. “there.”

harry took a drag, the ember glowing softly in the dim light, and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. his gaze flicked to her, an unreadable expression crossing his face before his lips tilted into a small, lopsided grin.

she shifted back into her seat and pulled the beanie lower over her ears, her chin finding its place against her knees again. they sat in the quiet for a while, the whispers of the wind weaving around them, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves or harry’s exhales.

she looked him over, the way his curls danced around his face, the way his lips wrapped around the cigarette, how the ember’s reflection flickered in his eyes. she bit the inside of her cheek before she muttered softly, almost to herself, “you’re british.”

he let out a breathy chuckle, the sound slipping through his nose as he took another pull from the cigarette. he sighed slowly, the smoke curling up into the cold night air before he turned his head toward her, his smirk faint but amused. “good eye, sherlock.”

she kissed her teeth, rolling her eyes as she prepared to retort, her lips parting—

but harry cut her off before she could. “—cheshire,” he breathed, the word rolling off his tongue in a way that caught her off guard, soft and lilting. “born there, anyway. mum moved me and my sister here when i was thirteen.”

“for a job or..?”

he nodded, the glow of the cigarette tip briefly lighting his features as he took another drag. “she got an offer she couldn’t turn down. packed us up, left everything behind. started over.”

YN tilted her head slightly, watching the way his gaze lingered on the field below, distant but steady. “must’ve been hard.”

he shrugged, “it was… weird. missing home, trying t’fit in here. but she did what she had to do. mum’s always been good at that—doing what has to be done.”

there was a warmth in his voice, a quiet admiration that made her chest tighten. she didn’t push for more, sensing that he’d already said more than he usually would. “your accent is starting to fade,” she said instead, her lips curving into a small smile.

he smiled faintly, flicking the ash from his cigarette. “guess so. comes back strong when i’m drunk, though.”

she laughed softly, shaking her head as she turned her eyes back to the field.

he shifted slightly in his seat, his arm brushing hers as he glanced over, his cigarette dangling lazily between his fingers. “what about you?”

she blinked, turning her head toward him. “me?”

“yes, you. where’s home?”

she hesitated for a moment, “about an hour north,” she mumbled, her voice carrying the faintest edge of something wistful. “right on the border between here and connecticut.”

he nodded, leaning back slightly as he tilted his head toward her. “family?”

YN huffed a quiet breath, her lips curving into a small, tired smile. “brother’s in the army. mom and dad work all the time. and i’m just here.”

his brow furrowed slightly, his eyes studying her for a moment, thoughtful and quiet. “just here?”

she shrugged, hugging her knees closer to her chest as she rested her chin on them again. “yeah. they’re busy, you know? always have been. it’s not bad or anything, it’s just… how it is.”

harry didn’t respond right away, the glow of his cigarette catching the faint flicker of emotion in his gaze. “you don’t go home much, then.”

“no. they’re fine without me. and i’ve got everything i need here. school, this place… the occasional packers beanie to keep me warm.”

he chuckled gently at that, the sound low and warm as he reached out to tug the edge of the beanie further down over her ears.

YN tilted her head slightly, her gaze fixed on the horizon as she broke the silence with a question that felt heavier than the moment. “ever fall in love?”

he turned to her, his brows furrowing slightly at the unexpectedness of it. he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, cigarette still lit between his fingers. “once or twice.”

she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, her lips twitching into a faint, almost knowing smile. “yeah,” she said softly. “me too. once or twice.”

his eyes lingered on her, studying the curve of her profile in the dim light. “what happened?”

“life, i guess. we grew apart, wanted different things.” she paused, her fingers idly tugging at her sleeves. “it wasn’t awful. just… wasn’t meant to be.”

he nodded slowly, his eyes drifting to the field below as he leaned back again, stretching his legs out in front of him.“same here.” he sighed. “things got complicated. fell apart before it could really go anywhere.”

YN turned to face him fully now, her cheek resting on her knees as she studied him. “do you think it’s worth it?”

“what, love?”

she nodded.

he was quiet for a beat, his features softening as he mulled over her question. “yeah,” he said finally, his voice low but certain. “for the right person.”

silence.

“—he treat you right?”

“what?”

he flicked the ash off the tip of his cigarette. “the guy you loved. did he treat you right?”

she hesitated before she nodded, check still flush against her knees. “most of the time.”

his jaw twitched at her answer, “most of the time isn’t enough, y’know?”

“think you could do better?” she teased lightly, though there was an edge of genuine curiosity in her tone.

harry turned to her then, his eyes meeting hers, the corner of his mouth twitching into the faintest smirk. “yeah,” he said simply, taking another drag. “i know i could.”

her cheeks flushed slightly, but she didn’t look away. instead, she lifted her chin off her knees, her lips curving into a small, sly smile. “yeah right, harry.”

“i don’t say shit i don’t mean, cinnamon. not like that.”

YN didn’t respond, just shook her head faintly as she turned her head back to the field, her chest tightening in a way she didn’t quite know how to name.

he stayed quiet too, the silence settling over them again, but this time it felt heavier, charged with something unspoken that neither of them was ready to unpack.

he let the cigarette drop to the concrete, the faint glow of its ember dying as he ground it under his sneaker. the scrape of rubber against stone was sharp in the quiet, and then he straightened, towering over YN as her gaze followed him.

“let’s go,” he mumbled, his voice even but lacking the warmth it held earlier.

something had shifted.

it was subtle—barely a flicker—but she felt it. the easy banter from earlier seemed to pull back, replaced by something quieter, something more guarded.

she didn’t question it, though. not yet.

harry gestured toward the steps, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he waited for her to stand.

she sighed softly, pulling his packers beanie tighter over her ears as she rose, the cold biting at her cheeks while she fell into step beside him as they made their way back down the bleachers.

when they reached the chain-link fence again, harry stepped forward first, gripping the metal links as he tested its sturdiness like he had before. he didn’t say anything, only nodded toward the fence as he stepped aside to let her climb.

YN rolled her eyes but moved toward it anyway, her hands curling around the cold metal as she pulled herself up. harry’s hands hovered near her hips just as they had earlier.

she glanced down briefly to meet his eyes before she swung her leg over the top and climbed down the other side.

he followed quickly, his movements smooth and quick, landing on the grass beside her with barely a sound. they fell into step together on the walk back, the cool night air nipping at exposed skin as the distant hum of traffic filled the silence.

harry’s hands stayed buried in his pockets, his head slightly lowered as his long strides matched her shorter ones.

she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, sensing the subtle shift in his demeanor. he wasn’t closed off, not entirely, but there was a distance now, like he was holding something back. "you okay?" she asked softly, her voice cutting through the silence.

"mm-hm,” he hummed, his tone even, but distant. "you?"

she nodded, even though something about his shift made her chest feel heavier. "yeah."

she didn’t press, didn’t push. instead, she let the silence stretch between them as their footsteps echoed softly against the pavement.

by the time they reached their building, the city felt quieter, the world around them settling into the stillness of the late night.

and though neither of them said a word as they split, the weight of the unspoken things between them lingered, threading itself into the space they shared.

another few days passed, and the walk back to the apartment felt lighter than usual.

YN had just said goodbye to a friend before rounding the corner to the building, her smile lingering as she adjusted the strap of her bag. it wasn’t often she felt this at ease.

but that lightness disappeared the moment she reached the stairwell.

as she climbed to their floor, her eyes landed on harry. he was standing at his door, his shoulders tense, his head down. his key trembled in his hand, the metal scraping against the lock as he missed the slot for what had to be the third time.

it was wrong. harry was steady. always steady. whether he was handing off a bag of weed or walking down the street like the world revolved around him, he had this uncanny knack for keeping his cool.

but not tonight.

she slowed her steps, her brow furrowing as she got closer. “harry?” her voice cut through the stillness, sharper than she intended.

his head snapped up. for a brief moment, she saw something raw in his eyes—panic, maybe—but it was gone as quickly as it came. his mouth twisted into a faint smile, the one he always wore like armor. “you’re back early.” his voice was rough, low, like he’d been grinding it against a wall.

she took a step closer, her eyes scanning him. “was about to say the same thing.” her gaze flicked to his hand, the one holding the key, the knuckles split and bruised.

“what happened to your hand?”

he stiffened, tucking the injured hand into his hoodie pocket. “nothing’.”

“bullshit,” she muttered, shoving her keys and phone into her pockets to free her hands. “let me see.”

he let out a sharp, humorless laugh, shaking his head. “don’t worry about it, cinnamon.”

the nickname barely registered; her focus stayed on him, on the tension in his shoulders, the blood crusting his knuckles. “harry,” she said, her tone firmer now. “you’re bleeding. just let me—”

“it’s fine!” he shouted, his voice cutting.

YN snapped her head back up, averting her gaze from his hidden hands, right to his eyes. his chest rose and fell, his breathing shallow and uneven. she didn’t speak, just stood there, watching the way his jaw tightened like he was trying to swallow something bitter.

he finally sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “fuck.”he mumbled, almost to himself.

she moved closer again, slower this time, her voice softer. “let me help.”

his eyes flicked to hers, guarded but not as sharp. his lips parted, like he wanted to argue, but no words came out.

inside her apartment, the air felt too still, too quiet.

harry sat stiffly at her small kitchen table, his hoodie now pushed back to reveal the messy curls tumbling over his forehead. he cradled his injured hand in his lap, his jaw set as YN dug through her cabinet for the first aid kit.

“you really don’t have to do this,” he muttered, his voice low.

“yeah, well,” she sighed, pulling the kit down with a thud. “i’m doing it anyway.”

when she sat across from him, the silence between them grew heavy. she reached for his hand, but he hesitated, his fingers curling slightly.

“harry.”

he huffed but relented, letting her take his hand in hers.

the damage was worse up close. his knuckles were split and swollen, streaks of blood staining the spaces between his fingers. she inhaled sharply, her brows knitting as she reached for the antiseptic.

“jesus,” she muttered, shaking her head. “what the hell did you do?”

he didn’t answer right away, his eyes fixed on the floor. when he finally spoke, his voice was flat. “ran into someone.”

she paused, the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball hovering over his knuckles. “like?”

“someone who didn’t want to pay up front.”

her stomach twisted. she pressed the cotton to his knuckles, and he hissed through his teeth, his fingers twitching under hers.

“hold still.” she murmured, her voice softer, airy.

he didn’t respond, just watched her work. her touch was careful but firm, her hands steady as she cleaned the cuts.

“you can’t keep doing this.” she said quietly, not looking up.

harry’s lips twitched, a dry laugh escaping him. “you worried about me?”

YN shot him a look, her expression somewhere between annoyance and concern. “maybe, harry. you ever think about that?”

his smile faded, and for a moment, his eyes softened—just a fraction, but enough for her to notice. “it’s nothing.”

“it’s not nothing.’” she countered, wrapping a clean bandage around his hand. “you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“maybe.” he whispered, watching her tie off the bandage.

“and you’re okay with that?”

his gaze flicked up to hers, and for a moment, something vulnerable passed between them—something unspoken but heavy. “depends on the day.”

she swallowed hard, her fingers lingering on the edge of the bandage before she leaned back.

“you’re an idiot.” she grumbled, standing to put the kit back in its place.

he grinned faintly, flexing his fingers against the bandage. “yeah, but you’re still patchin’ me up, aren’t you?”

she glanced over her shoulder, her lips pressing into a thin line. “someone has to.”

he stood, his frame filling the small kitchen as he neared the door.

“harry?”

he glanced back, his eyes soft as he looked at her expectantly.

“please be careful.”

his jaw clenched before he managed a tight nod, and then the door clicked shut behind him, leaving YN alone in the silence, the weight of his words—and his presence—lingering in the air.

it was thursday again, and the walk back from their evening lecture became an unspoken agreement.

it wasn’t something they talked about—there were no texts exchanged or plans made. but every tuesday and thursday, as the evening classes let out, they’d meet by the lecture hall’s exit. sometimes harry would already be there, leaning against the wall, pretending he wasn’t waiting. other times, YN would hang back near the doors, scrolling through her phone until she saw him.

tonight was no different.

harry was already outside when she came out of her bio lab, her bag slung over her shoulder and her hair a little messy from tying and retying it during the experiment. he fell into step beside her as they turned toward home, his bandaged hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, his backpack slung low over one shoulder.

“that bad?” he asked, glancing at her as she adjusted her strap.

she sighed, shaking her head. “some idiot forgot to label their samples, so the whole lab got an extra hour of let’s go over the basics again.”

harry chuckled, the sound low and warm. “you lot are a buncha losers, huh?”

“says the guy who’s probably failing chem,” she shot back, grinning.

he shrugged, unbothered—simply because it wasn’t true. “aggressively coasting.” he corrected.

what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

she rolled her eyes, giggling despite herself. the conversation drifted, easy and familiar, as they made their way through campus.

it was when they turned onto the last block before their building that harry stopped.

she noticed it immediately—the way his body went still, his eyes narrowing as they flicked to the other side of the street.

a man stood there, leaning against a lamppost, his hands shoved into the pockets of a heavy coat. he wasn’t doing anything—not technically—but there was something about the way he stared at the building’s exit that set harry on edge.

“go inside.”

she frowned, looking at him. “what?”

harry’s jaw clenched, his eyes never leaving the man across the street. “just go inside, YN.”

her confusion deepened as she followed his gaze. “harry, what’s going on?”

he turned to her then, his expression sharper than she’d ever seen it. “i said go the fuck inside.” he snapped, his voice low, biting—the words cutting through the cool evening air like glass.

she flinched, her eyes widening slightly. but before she could say anything, harry was already crossing the street, his shoulders squared and his hands shoved into his pockets.

she stayed where she was, her heart racing as she watched the scene unfold.

harry approached the man with a deliberate calm, his posture loose but his movements sharp. she couldn’t hear the first thing he said, but the man straightened immediately, his eyes narrowing as he looked harry up and down.

the conversation wasn’t loud, but it was tense—harry’s voice low, steady, while the man’s tone was sharper, more aggressive.

she could only catch snippets.

the man stepped closer, his hands twitching at his sides, and for a moment, YN thought it was going to escalate. but harry didn’t flinch. he held his ground, his voice even as he spoke again.

finally, the man pulled something from his pocket—a small bag, crumpled and poorly sealed—and shoved it into harry’s hand. he gave him a look, muttering something under his breath before turning on his heel.

he crossed the street, his shoulders tense, his face hard as stone. when he reached YN, he brushed past her—his shoulder catching hers, a silent signal that screamed follow me.

she hesitated, but only for a second before trailing after him. he didn’t look back as he pushed through the front door of their building, letting it slam shut behind them.

the silence between them stretched thin as they climbed the stairs, harry taking them two at a time, YN struggling to keep up with his longer stride.

“harry,” she started, her breath slightly uneven, “what the hell just happened?”

he didn’t answer, his hand gripping the stairwell railing tightly enough that his knuckles whitened.

“don’t ignore me,” she pressed, her voice sharper now. “who was that guy? why were you acting like—”

“drop it, YN.” he muttered, his voice sharp and clipped, but she wasn’t having it.

“no, i’m not dropping it!” she snapped, her tone cutting through the empty stairwell. “you don’t get to just walk away from this without explaining. i saw the way you looked at him. you knew him, didn’t you?”

he reached their floor and stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall, his back still to her.

“you knew he was trouble the second you saw him,” she continued, stepping closer. “so tell me why, harry. what’s going on—are you okay?”

he turned then, spinning on his heel so fast that she nearly bumped into him. his eyes were clouded, sharp, and for a moment, the force of his glare made her breath catch. “s’not your fucking concern, YN.” he spat, his voice cold and low, each word biting like frost. “it’s not like we’re friends. so just fucking stop.”

she froze mid-sentence, her jaw slack as the words sank in.

harry’s breathing was uneven, his hands balled into fists at his sides, but he didn’t look away.

she closed her mouth, her lips pressing into a thin line as her eyes stayed locked on his. after a long pause, she gave a single, curt nod. “got it.”

her voice was quiet but sharp, like the edge of a knife.

she stepped around him, her gaze never wavering as she turned toward her unit. the weight of her presence lingered, heavy and unforgiving, even as she unlocked her door and disappeared inside.

he stood there for a moment, staring at the empty hallway. his chest felt tight, his fists still clenched, but he didn’t move. he didn’t look for her.

because if he had, he would’ve followed her. and he wasn’t sure what he’d say—or if it would even make a difference.

[strangererotica]

EXPLICIT CONTENT | MINORS DNI

Springtrap x Reader | Summary: Your uncle has asked you to keep watch over his new investment, Fazbear Frights, and the vintage artifacts his attraction contains. When you begrudgingly accept his offer, things take a turn for the weirder. An encounter in your dreams with a yellow rabbit changes you…for better, or worse?

Heads up: This fic is not for everybody, and that’s okay! It’s a fucked-up fever dream and if the summary intrigues you, come along for the ride. If not, that’s okay too. Things get heavy here. There’s monsterfucking, dream sex, vaginal penetration, some choking, fear, lust, disgust, basically a whole grab bag of fuckery, so if that’s your thing, read on, dear deviant 🫵♥️ PS the end is kind of fire, I love a good twist!!!

To be honest, you thought the idea of opening a theme park ‘attraction,’ based on the mysterious disappearances of children was fucked up. But your uncle was convinced there was a market for such a sick endeavor, that an audience existed whose search for thrills and chills would have them willing to shed money for a chance at experiencing horrific local nostalgia.

Because really, who wouldn’t want to relive the tragedy of multiple kids going missing? You were being sarcastic, of course. But part of that sarcasm stemmed from genuine bewilderment. What was your uncle thinking when he formed the concept of Fazbear Frights? He’d always been into horror as a genre, but as far as you’d understood, his interest was confined to books and film, not true crime. And if the subject matter of the Freddy’s story had involved the tragic disappearance of local adults, maybe Fazbear Frights wouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. But kids had gone missing, lives had been upended, and your uncle was about to make a profit off of their heartache.

The worst part of all? You’d accepted his offer to work there. The cost of life after college was kicking your ass; you could barely afford your rent as it was, working two part-time jobs. Money was more than tight; you needed extra cash wherever you could find it. And besides, the Fazbear Frights gig would only last a couple of weeks, just until the attraction opened. Your uncle’s job offer had been to monitor the security of the place overnight, with generous pay promised. You couldn’t understand why he’d be willing to pay someone to guard a bunch of creepy old relics from an abandoned pizza parlor, or why additional security was necessary when the theme park itself already had an overnight guard? Your uncle maintained that additional security was needed, and that he only trusted family with the responsibility of protecting such an important investment as his precious, twisted attraction…

Entering Fazbear Frights, your first impression is that it’s really fucking ugly. Granted, it’s supposed to look old fashioned, and maybe the building’s creepiness is simply proof of good set design. However, a sense of unease lingers in your stomach, and you’re almost positive it’s caused by something beyond the decor. The attraction is fully furnished, but won’t open for a couple more weeks while the finishing touches on lighting and sound are tweaked. Those changes are made during the day, when at least a little sunlight can be seen filtering in through the windows, reminding you there’s life outside. For your part, working the night shift, the dark building makes you feel secluded and more than a little creeped out.

You have a flashlight, and mostly functional electricity running through the building. But there’s still much to be desired in the way of making the attraction feel…not haunted. And it occurs to you that that’s the word which describes how you’re feeling: haunted. The hairs on your skin are standing at attention, a cold sweat clinging to the back of your neck, but why? Obviously the setting is creepy, but it’s meant to be. You’re usually comfortable around spooky decor. It’s not as if you’re a scared kid wandering the halls of a haunted house alone…but that’s how you this place makes you feel…

It’s getting late. An outdated digital clock (probably a relic from the late eighties itself) on the desk in front of you reads 3 AM. You shiver as yet another cold breeze whispers past your shoulders. You look around, studying the vintage posters on the wall, wondering how much money your uncle threw away in order to call these scraps his own. The figures staring back at you look menacing, despite their wide smiles. They’re called animatronics, you remember. That’s how your uncle had referred to them. You also recall his mentioning one animatronic in particular, a Freddy’s original he’d managed to get his hands on and would be bringing to Fazbear Frights. You haven’t seen it yet, and to be totally honest, you’re not sure you want to. If the animatronic your uncle purchased looks anything like the ones in the posters you’re staring at, you’d prefer to never encounter such a creature…

Re-entering the theme park feels like walking through the gates of Hell. You’d rather be anywhere else than here. Another night of spending six hours alone in the gloomy replica of a literal crime scene has your stomach twisting. And you didn’t sleep well, either. Your dreams had been too vivid to allow you rest. You’d dreamed of a monster, or something that could certainly be called one…a massive, towering figure with patchy, mustard-yellow fur clinging to its skeletal frame. It resembled a rabbit, or had, at some point long ago. While still maintaining the general shape of a rabbit, its appearance had decayed, warping its cuddly features into something ugly. Its eyes were cold gray orbs that rested deep in its oversized, vacant skull, tendons and ligaments intertwined with wires that wrapped its skeleton, which you later realized, was comprised of metal rather than bone.

Your senses had been particularly keen in the dream. The rabbit’s scent was stale, yet comfortingly nostalgic. It reminded you of an old quilt your grandmother had once given you from the bottom of her dresser drawer, which smelled of love and other ancient, homemade things. She’d wrapped you up inside it, with kisses and promises that the chilly winter night wouldn’t be as cold now, that the quilt had been waiting there in the dresser for years, waiting for someone who needed it…

The rabbit’s fur was coarse, your skin a soft contrast when you wrapped your arms around its waist. It felt like the outdoor carpet that had lined your parents’ back porch, which your feet and rain had pelted countless Summer nights. The rabbit’s fur was cool to the touch, moist with something bittersweet, a musky blend of old books with yellowed pages, their corners turned down and words lined in pencil…

And against your lips, that was also his taste, his tongue the flavor of nostalgia, his large, unbearably strong hands crushing your body against his like he intended to make love to and ruin you all at once. Whether or not he consisted of machine or animal, he was more human than anything else, fully formed with the parts needed to bring you to a state of rapture. He held you suspended, your legs around his waist, fucking up into you with more vigor than his decayed appearance would suggest him capable of. You clutched his back, and then his ears, locking your fingers around them and bracing for impact as each of his mechanical, brutal thrusts punched inside you with a machine’s precision…

You’d woke up in a state of climax, your body drenched with sweat. The sheet beneath you had been ripped from the mattress, balled into tight fists. Your chest heaved, your bare breasts glistening with perspiration. Your cunt was pulsing, fluttering with the aftershocks of a powerful orgasm. Arousal dripped down your quivering thighs, onto the mattress which was soaking wet beneath you.

A shower and breakfast had done little to calm the questions racing through your mind. What the hell was that? Your dreams were rarely as vivid, as visceral, as the one about the rabbit. And as for the sex…it had been the best sex you’d had in a dream, ever. And it had been with what must surely have been a monster…

You hope your six hours at Fazbear Frights will go quickly tonight, partially because you’re still a little unsteady and aroused from your dream this morning. Additionally, you’re looking forward to sleep, because maybe the rabbit will be waiting for you when you close your eyes, again?

Unexpectedly, your uncle meets you at the staff entrance of Fazbear Frights. He seems excited about something, and you’re grateful for a distraction from your thoughts of the rabbit. “Hey kid,” your uncle greets you with a friendly wave. “How’d it go last night?”

“Alright,” you reply. “It’s a little creepy in there, but that’s the point, isn’t it?”

You don’t miss the subtle gleam in your uncle’s eyes, revealing how pleased he is that his attraction is having its desired effect. “That’s right,” he says cheerfully. “Gotta give the people what they want. And what they want-.” He turns his key in the lock and pulls the door open for the two of you. “-Is the authentic Freddy Fazbear experience. Which is why I’m here tonight.” He lets you step past him into the building, and locks the door behind you both. “-To show you the part of my collection that’ll really have people talking. We just brought him in today-you’ve got to see him…”

You grimace visibly. “It’s the fucking animatronic, isn’t it?” you groan, and your uncle rolls his eyes.

“Yes it is, sourpuss,” he teases. “And trust me when I tell you, it’s gonna make this place really feel like Freddy’s, like you’re stepping inside a time capsule or something.”

Your uncle led you down a hallway to one of the doors marked STAFF ONLY . “He’s showing his years of course,” your uncle continued, searching his ring for a different key. “I mean, this animatronic sat abandoned for thirty years; of course he’s gonna look a little rough around the edges.”

Your uncle finds the appropriate key and jiggles it inside the lock. “But just knowing that we, Fazbear Frights, have our hands on the one and only Spring Bonnie-.” He sighs proudly. “-It reminds me how much all of this was worth it, y’know? Now that he’s here, back in his element. Where he belongs.”

Your eyebrow lifts in curiosity; you resist the urge to laugh in your uncle’s face. “You do realize you sound just a little bit crazy, right?” you question him. “Talking about this thing like it’s a real person or something. Don’t tell me-.” You lean in, whispering. “-You talk to it sometimes, don’t you?”

Your uncle pauses before whispering back, “yeah, but, the only time I really feel crazy is when he responds…”

You giggle at that, watching while your uncle pulls the door open wide. “Here he is, (Y/N),” your uncle declares, beaming in the doorway. “The yellow rabbit himself. Spring Bonnie in the flesh-err, I mean, fur…”

For a moment, you assume you must be dreaming. Because you find yourself looking at the exact same rabbit from your dream this morning. He looks different, sat on the floor, leaning against the far wall; but it’s unmistakably him. Your uncle watches your expression, slightly confused. “Is he really that scary?” he asks, his voice hopeful.

You take a step forward, curiosity overriding your apprehension. The rabbit is large, just as large as he was in your dream. Even seated on the floor, you can tell his height is substantial. Tentatively, you reach for the rabbit’s face, stroking his musty-scented fur tenderly.

“D-be careful!” your uncle frets behind you, adding, “that thing was very expensive-be gentle with him-,” but his concerns aren’t necessary. You know this rabbit…intimately well. And once you’re alone with him again, you’ll make sure to take excellent care not to damage him in your…exertion…

“What did you say his name was?” you ask, gazing into the rabbit’s steely eyes. Your uncle clears his throat, obviously perplexed by the care you seem to feel for a decaying animatronic you had no interest in seeing only moments ago. “Uh, Bonnie,” he replies. “Spring Bonnie.”

“Bonnie,” you repeat, allowing the word to sink over your tongue. “That means beautiful, doesn’t it?”

Your uncle nods, still confused, and glances at his watch. “Well, it’s just about midnight,” he says. “Time for me to head out. Come walk me to the door, will ya?” He pretends to shiver. “This place gives even me the creeps at night, to be totally honest.”

You choose to leave the rabbit (for now). “I’ll be back,” you whisper against his ear, quietly enough that your uncle doesn’t hear. He’s waiting for you in the doorway, a warm smile on his face, your fascination with the yellow rabbit a fleeting curiosity to him, and nothing more. Once you’re sure your uncle is gone, you exhale a sigh of relief. Locking the door behind you feels like sealing the world away completely; and in contrast to yesterday, that kind of isolation is now exactly what you want. Your heart thuds against your chest like a horse’s hooves, skipping beats as you turn for the hall.

You’ve bunched your skirt around your waist, your shoes clicking loudly in the empty hall. Heavy rain pelts the tin roof as you round the corner that leads to him. In the doorway, a tall, familiar figure stands. His gray eyes flash cold as steel, locking you in place at the opposite end of the hallway.

Thunder growls outside. The building’s electricity spits in and out, crackling around you like fireflies caught in a jar. Your heart’s in your throat, lips spreading into a wide smile. The hall goes dark, lit only by the steely gaze of the yellow rabbit...

…until suddenly, even his eyes disappear, and you’re left engulfed by an all-consuming darkness.

Lightning flashes, illuminating the hand reaching for you. Robotic, aluminum fingers draped with rotting yellow fur close around your throat, silencing the scream beneath them. The rabbit lifts you by the throat till you’re completely suspended, feet dangling limp and useless beneath you. His sour breath reeks of rotten meat and dried blood, the kind of smell that instinctively alerts you to danger. Your eyes roll back, surrender sinking over you as you accept your fate.

But as quickly as he seized you, the rabbit yields. You feel the cold, filthy tile meet your cheek as you land against it. Through gauzy vision, you make out the metallic feet of the rabbit standing before you, his endoskeleton clearly visible. He takes hold of your hair, and tugs you upright, holding you in place as your trembling legs cannot sustain you. His eyes bore deeply into yours, chortled breath leaving his mechanical chest in a slow, grotesque pant. When he speaks, your whole body shivers.

“You…” the rabbit murmurs, his wide jaw cracking, fleshy tendons stretching. The curdled timbre of his voice betrays the smile on his lips; the rabbit is glad to see you.

“How��long…” he snarls. “…has it been…?” He drags a thick, soiled finger across your cheek, the gesture unexpectedly tender. “…Since anyone desired me…?”

Your chest is heaving, conflicting emotions of every kind overwhelming you. A sick cocktail of fear and arousal throbs in your belly, keeping time with your pounding heart.

“P-please,” you stutter, tears bleeding down your cheeks. “Don’t h-hurt me…”

The rabbit tilts his head to the side, thinking. His hooded eyes wash over you, this tiny little creature in his hands, pleading mercy from him.

“Mmm,” the rabbit hums, his skeletal chest vibrating like a lion’s purr. “You think I’m a monster, don’t you?”

You gasp as his touch glides from your face to your chest, his big paw closing over your breasts. He groans at the feeling of your heartbeat thundering against his palm. “I’d forgotten,” he says. “How a woman’s pulse feels…the proof of her life, beating in the palm of my hand…”

With his other paw, the rabbit clutches the back of your head and draws you closer. The stench of rot, of horror and decay, cannot repulse you anymore…not when his tongue has breached the barrier of your lips, the thick, sinewy muscle undulating against your tongue in a wet bed of perversion. His bulky fingers lodge between your thighs. Immediately, you begin to grind against the textured fur, wetting his mechanical digits with your arousal.

Seized by a sudden courage, you lift your hips in a way that has you poised atop one of the rabbit’s fingertips, his damp appendage resting against your entrance. He obliges your silent request, allowing you to sink over his thick finger, taking him as far as you can.

The thunder inside you eclipses the storm outside. You moan filthy, disgusting praises as he pleasures you, all sense of fear long-abandoned in exchange for the fulfillment of your most hedonistic desires. His fat, coarse digit strokes you like it was made for you to ride, reaching places inside you no part of any man ever has. You’re going dumb on top of him, so dumb you don’t even notice when the rabbit gently eases you onto the ground.

He’s under you now, his back pressed against the wall, his paw of a hand still clutching your cunt, letting you use his fingers to get yourself off. A dark, satisfied chuckle rumbles up from his bony chest. “Just look at you,” he murmurs, his steely eyes heavy with lust. “Bouncing on my lap like a slutty little rabbit, aren’t you?”

His lewd words and husky tone send you over the edge. Your body convulses on top of him, the muscles at your core clenching around the rabbit’s touch, sucking his fat appendage rhythmically as you ride out your high…

“Fucking Christ!” A man’s voice bleats through the hallway like a frightened animal. You whip your head to see him, blinded instantly by the beam of his flashlight. He’s wearing a shirt that identifies him as the theme park’s security, and as your eyes follow up to his face, you’re met with the wide-eyed gaze of unfiltered horror staring back at you. His flashlight shakes wildly in his hand, catching the rabbit’s skeletal leg in its beam. Confusion sets over you…followed by shame. Because the rabbit is now as he was when you arrived there tonight…sat against a wall, unmoving and limp, no more than a broken machine overcome by decay. But unlike earlier, you’re now sat straddling the broken machine, your cum dripping down its tattered fur…your hands locked around one of the animatronic’s arms, lodging his hand between your thighs…one of his fingers buried deep inside your cunt…

The guard clears his throat; you force yourself to meet his eyes. “Th-there was a c-.” He clears his throat again, blinking to focus. “-County-wide power outage, miss…I knew you were um, keepin’ watch over the place for your uncle, and uh-.” He swallows, forcing his eyes from dropping to the place where your body and the animatronic are joined. “-I th-thought you might be spooked in here, alone-.” He glances at the rabbit, then back to you. “-in the dark…”

Frustrated tears burn at the corners of your eyes, your cheeks hot with humiliation. Carefully, you ease the rabbit’s finger out of your cunt, wincing as the metal scratches your skin. Somehow, it didn’t hurt before. You smooth your skirt down, concealing your nakedness but none of your shame.

Standing in the beam of the guard’s flashlight, you summon every bit of the (minimal) pride you have left to tell him, “thank you. That was very kind of you, to come check on me.”

He licks his lips nervously, eyes darting between you and the animatronic propped against the wall. His flashlight illuminates the perverse scene, revealing your cum still glistening on the rabbit’s fur. The fear in the guard’s expression has softened to a pitying disgust.

“I think it’s time for you to go home, miss,” he says. You wipe a tear from your cheek, glancing back at the animatronic one last time, before leaving Fazbear Frights (and your rabbit) behind, forever…

[synvil]

Interested // VID : 002 » Viewing Pleasure (( Camgirl! Series ))

a/n : ahhh thank you for the love and support ! <3 feel free to leave thoughts, comments or suggestions, either in the comments or my ask box! :3 picture found online.

btw i can’t fucking think of titles for the life of me.

synopsis : things between you and jj get a little tense. meanwhile another person seems to grow infatuated with you and you’re getting a little excited for your next stream?

agh i’m so bad at titles and summaries ;-;

Vid : 001 // Vid : 003

viewing pleasure m.list

“Add to cart~!”

You squeal in excitement, unable to contain your joy as you make your first purchase online after your payment came in from your first stream.

"Haha, I can't believe it. I can even afford to get same-day delivery."

JJ stands at a distance, watching you with his arms crossed and his lips in a thin line. His eyes are unable to leave your form, constantly trailing up and down your body, always finding itself on the round of your ass. He bites his lip, attempting to be discreet as he taps his fist on the surface of the countertop a few times before clearing his throat. "So, I assume it went well."

“You kidding?” You whirl your head towards him with shining eyes. “It went way better than i thought. I’m so relieved.”

JJ gives a bitter smile, his brow twitching slightly. “So you made some decent money then. That means you’re not going to stream anymore?” He says, making his way over, pulling at his shirt to tuck it over his pants in hopes it covers the visible erection.

“Hmm.. no, I might continue.” You say, watching as he takes a seat beside you, and his brows furrow. “What? I thought you made enough money for rent.”

“well, yeah, but I like being able to make so much money.. and I had a lot more viewers for my first stream than expected.” You reason, setting your phone down after making the purchase. “I mean, I don’t have to stress about finding another job that pays me so little, and with streaming, I can work any time, any day.”

JJ sits up straight as he narrows his eyes at your reasoning. Being able to make money fast was nice but it shouldn’t be at the expense of your body online. “[Name], what about all the creeps online? Who knows what kind of weird old perverts were saving videos and pictures of you?”

Your frown becomes evident on your face, but part of you knew he was right. Streaming wasn’t the safest activity and you didn’t want to sound greedy, but having that much money was more important to you right now. You’d only keep going to make enough to save for bills and stuff, while also saving enough for your own miscellaneous purchases. But..

“I know you’re right but i’ll be okay, J. Besides..” a flush overcomes your cheeks as you shyly look away, feeling embarrassed to admit this to your best friend.

“I kinda liked the attention.. It’s nice hearing and reading everyone complimenting me and liking what they saw. I might do more, but I won’t go crazy with it. I’ll only do it until I make enough in savings.”

JJ hitches a breath, his eyes widening when he hears your confession. It wasn’t anything serious but the way his cock twitches and his heart pounds makes him look away. “You..like showing off your body?”

“Y-Yeah..” You nod in confirmation, pink tints on your cheeks as you look away.

The blonde swallows a bit, holding his breath to gain some control as he turns away. “Shit.”

“JJ?”

“I gotta go. Talk to you later.” He abruptly stands and walks off, heading out of your house and to the door, shutting it behind him as he mounts his truck and drives away.

Your taken back and wonder if your confession drove him away, sighing softly and feeling a bit of guilt filling you up as you turn back to your phone and try to distract yourself.

“Who would’ve thought?..”

Rafe found himself repeatedly looking through your photos on your social media, in disbelief that you were on Kildare Island with him. And it pissed him off knowing how close you were with Maybank, seeing the many pictures of the two of you together.

If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve assumed you two were together.

But how has he never seen you before..? He’s practically grown up with JJ yet he can’t seem to recall ever seeing someone like you around.

Surely he’d remember someone so fucking attractive.. his thumb can’t seem to swipe away from your bikini photos.

Before he could admire any more, Topper sends him a text.

‘Bro, were you watching the link I sent you? Holy shit, she’s so hot. What I wouldn’t give to get a chance to fuck her.’

Rafe scoffs at the text as he rolls his eyes. Of course he noticed Topper's user donating money to your stream as well. Topper was really irritating sometimes. It seems all he could care about was sex and money. You definitely seemed like the type of person who was very sweet, innocent and pure.. someone who he could easily destroy and corrupt from how petite you were, as he hovers over you and slowly travels his hands down to your cunt, the same pussy you were rubbing just yesterday and—

“What the fuck?”

Rafe lets out a shaky breath, catching himself and his thoughts, unaware of his hardened cock in his tight jeans, the desperation to be freed evident from how painful it was becoming.

He brings his hand down and palms himself for a moment, doing anything to relieve himself before he grunts and pulls his hand away. There was no way he was going to be jerking off to someone he didn’t even know existed until now.

“Shit, I need some fucking air.” And despite the restricting pain of his jeans against his cock, he swipes his keys off his desk and heads out, taking his bike on a ride.

"Ugh, so damn stubborn." JJ plops down on his couch, dragging a hand over his face as he inhales heavily. He pulls out his phone and finds himself scrolling through social media. The blonde was sitting at home, frustrated at your insistence to keep streaming. Surely you made enough to cover rent for the next month or so, so why did you want to keep streaming for everyone to see?

It fills him to the brim with jealousy. No one should be looking at you in that way. Much less, a particular kook.

Shit, he was so distracted by you that he forgot what happened during your stream. "Fucking Cameron.. the nerve of that bastard." He scowls, conflicted about what to be more annoyed at. You continuing to stream or Rafe Cameron being one of your viewers.

“Delivery!”

Pounding on the door snaps JJ from his thoughts as he looks up from his phone, thumb instinctively shutting off the device to hide the fact that he was sifting through the photos of you two together. “Comin’!”

With a sigh, the blonde runs a hand through his hair as he makes his way out of his room towards the door. He opens the front door to see a familiar man behind the screen and he feigns a smile. “Rich, always a pleasure.”

Growing up on Kildare meant a lot of the residents knew each other, including the delivery man, who had a mutual disliking towards JJ, grimacing at the sight.

But JJ merely just shares a playful grin. “It wouldn’t kill you to smile, y’know. Afraid you’ll get wrinkles?” He jokes and the man rolls his eyes. “Shut it, Maybank. You’re lucky I don’t throw your damn package in the ocean.”

JJ gasps at that, widening his eyes childishly. “Well, that’s not very environmentally friendly!” He laughs as he takes the box from his hands. “But anyway, what the hell is this? I didn’t order anything.”

“Well, it’s not my problem now.” Rich hands over the device and pen for JJ’s signature. JJ fiddles with the box, inspecting it curiously before taking the device to sign. “What is it?”

Grunting in annoyance, the delivery man swipes the device from Jj’s hands. “The fuck should I know? Piss off, Maybank.”

Scoffing at the rudeness, JJ turns around and kicks the door shut with his foot before walking over to the counter in the kitchen. He finally sees the address line on the box and recognizes his house address but the name piques his interest.

“[Name]?” He murmurs, confusion lacing his eyes as he pulls out his phone. “Must’ve forgot to change it from last time..” He taps along the screen before reaching your contact.

« [Nickname] / Princess 😘😍 »

Out of curiosity, as he’s typing away a message, he goes over to a drawer and pulls out a pocket knife before heading back over to the package. It must've been the package you had ordered earlier.

‘Hey, a package came to my house with your name on it. Think it got sent here by mistake. Want me to drop it off?’

Once sent, JJ sets aside his phone and cuts through the top of the box with ease, expecting it to be some clothes or such you bought for yourself.

But the item inside was completely unexpected.

JJ’s mouth becomes dry as he attempts to wet it by swallowing whatever he could as he looks inside.

Inside the box was a remote controlled, vibrating toy.

“D-Did she buy this for her next stream..?” JJ breathily exhales, his jaw clenching at the way his hardening cock twitches at the imagination of you rubbing the vibrating wand over your clit, and the possible lewd noises you’d illicit.

“Fuck..” Maybe another stream couldn’t hurt. He was conflicted. He couldn’t let you do this on camera, but he’d be damned if the thought didn’t excite him. His mind reverts back to your words.

‘“I kinda liked the attention..”

“Y-You liked showing off your body?”

“Yeah..”’

JJ clears his throat as he closes back up the box, finding a roll of tape in his drawer and securing it back up before setting it somewhere else for you.

As he sets it down, his phone buzzes from a text from you.

‘DON’T OPEN IT JJ! I’ll come by and pick it up soon’

JJ grunts at the message and exhales sharply, turning off his phone. “Too late..” He mutters under his breath.

“Thanks, J. I’ll try and stop by later tonight. Need anything while I’m out?” You take the box from his hands, JJ seemingly uncharacteristically avoiding your direct gaze. Regardless, he shakes his head as he clears his throat, leaning against the doorframe as he crosses his arms. “Hey- So, you’re streaming today?”

You carry the box towards your car, visibly relieved to see it untouched and smile lightly before turning to JJ. “Yeah, why? You gonna try and talk me out of it again?”

“No-! No-“ He clears his throat again when he realizes his outburst and awkwardly scratches the back of his head. “Uh, just- good luck, y’know. I’m sure it’ll be great. And hey- we can reschedule tonight if you’re not feeling up to it.”

You set the box on the bottom of your car in the back and furrow your brows at his words. “Thanks. But we’ll see. I should be able to come over on time if I’m not busy, but i’ll let you know.”

“Of course.” The blonde manages a smile, sending you finger guns before he waves you off. “Drive safe.”

Entering your car, you wave goodbye before pulling out and driving towards the Yacht Club, on the border of the Cut and Figure Eight.

“Dude, you should’ve watched til the end of the stream. It was amazing.”

Topper’s voice is heard when Rafe Cameron steps onto the large dock, walking past various other patrons on the benches and tables, and stepping up to the bar where Topper and Kelce stood.

Kelce shakes his head at Topper’s gushing. “Nah, man, streamers aren’t my thing. I mean, why would I spend so much on some girl i don’t even know and won’t even get to touch.” Kelce notices Rafe approaching and nods at him in acknowledgment. “Hey, you agree with me right?”

“Agree with what?” Rafe says as he stands beside them and Topper scoffs lightly. “You watched the link I sent you right? God, she’s so hot. You should’ve seen what she did before she ended her stream. I bet she’s streaming again today.”

Rafe barely manages to hide his eye roll, his hands clenching into fists. If he was holding a glass, he was almost sure he’d crack it. Something in him stirred the more Topper talked about you, and it made him angry. He had to maintain his self control before he punched the shit out of him.

But it made Rafe confused. Why was he so angry every time Topper opened his stupid fucking mouth? He had the exact same thoughts about you.

Was it because another man was talking about you? It wasn’t like you were his. He hardly even knew you. Is it jealousy?

Tch. Rafe Cameron, jealous? He hasn’t felt jealous since years ago, when his then still alive father was always favoring his sister over him. Rafe Cameron was not jealous.

He barely pays attention to Kelce and Topper, and instead catches a familiar voice nearby.

“Thanks, Sofia. It was actually more helpful than I thought, so thanks for telling me about it.”

“No problem, [Name]. I actually watched it last night, you were great.” Her playful wink makes you laugh a bit bashfully and embarrassingly as you wave it off. “I’m still a bit shy but I think what I bought today will help me a little more this time.”

Sofia slides something across the counter for you and you send a grateful smile as you pick it up. “Thanks. Good luck with the rest of your shift. I should be free this weekend if you’re down to hang out.”

“Actually, this weekend was when I was planning to stream.” She says apologetically and you only grin at her. “I’ll be watching you then. I could learn a thing or two.”

You both share giggles with one another before she’s called somewhere else and waves goodbye to you. You wave farewell and take the item off the counter before turning away.

But as soon as you do so, you meet eyes with someone, who’s staring intensely at you with parted lips, almost like they couldn’t believe you were standing before them.

Giving an awkward smile, you pull yourself away from the counter and turn to leave, heading back to your car.

“Time to go.”

a/n : so ima be honest, i didn’t fully watch every episode of obx, so idk how completely accurate the places are and the availability of pogues being able to just enter these establishments, so im changing it up to just being, whoever’s got the money can come in, even though im sure a lot of country clubs and such are invitations only.

anyhoo hoped you all enjoyed! i’m actually tryna figure out how to get more involvement with Rafe and how to get him introduced- like should he walk up to her or dm her orrr ya. any suggestions would be lovely!! <3

spoiler : i have a plan to invite one of them on stream or one to practice off camera ;)

AH SHIT I POSTED WITHOUT THE TAGS CAN PPL SEE THIS PLS

taglist : @haruvalentine4321 @lilithblackkk @sleepiibunniiii @kiiyomei @mariamadison6-blog @livinobx @doesnt-care

unedited nor proofread.

[n0tamused]

A/n: Not a one-shot but crack hcs! Hope you enjoy. I don't often write crack stuff but it is really fun when I get to it :)

Content: Dr. Ratio x Reader, can be read as platonic or romantic, no pronouns used, just crack overall, short and sweet

-While Ratio can have lots of patience for people of all walks of life, he has found a challenge within you and your form of intellect.. It would be arguably the first time Ratio has found himself in some form of a stumped state due to some of your questionable actions or phrases. He just has to sit back and wait for a moment until his brain sets itself back in place and he can think straight again

-He often scolds you, but no matter what he says it's like your brain translates it to something completely different, and even if his words are harsh you take it as if he complimented you and praised you to no end?

-Man is confused. To say the least

-Once he caught you losing nearly all your money against Aventurine, stating “third time's the charm”. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW POKER?! Even Aventurine was laughing along in all the confusion one can show without being odd, and he had to say he wouldn’t have taken the money,  this was just a ‘friendly-fire’ sort of thing, he says. Well that’s lucky for you, considering you had rent and food to pay for!

-He drags you away while you jest about it and also apologize too, because he looks like he’ll explode

-Ratio may or may have not hit the top of your head with his codex..once or twice, but it’s all in good spirits - trust

-He really does mean well, especially if he seriously sees you struggling with something. He won’t hand you the answers on a silver platter unless it's a last resort sort of thing, but he would prefer to guide you to the answer, basically making you think outside the box and such until you arrive at the answer yourself. He is always open to advice and keeps an open mind, and with that he could entertain an idea you may have, yes.. even the more... silly ones. But also be ready to be shut down immediately for the absurd ideas you may bring up. He doesn't waste time nor does he like or plan to.

-Dr. Ratio is the voice of reason in your life, and he's there to reel you back to the ground when you may be getting ideas for something that would not benefit you, or god forbid - if you plan to do something risky that could harm you or your reputation.

-He often goes out of his way to make sure you’re doing things on schedule, so waking you up, sending you a message to eat (no crisps, go eat something good, something healthy), he’d send you articles about things he remembers interest you, papers on your favored topics

-A more tender thing he does is do your hair. It’s a simple thing yet it means a lot to him and you. Just a few minutes of quiet as his fingers thread or comb through your hair, brushing through it with meticulous moves, making sure he doesn’t pull or yank. 

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[cybrstone]

two slow dancers (s.mg)

⊹ ࣪mingi x f!reader

⊹ college au

⊹ genre: angst? fluff? unresolved feelings and pettiness is very present

⊹ warnings: cursing, parties, drinking, everyone is kind of stupid

⊹ a/n: can anyone tell i'm not in college and have never been to a party... also yes the title is a mitski reference but the fic itself is nowhere near as devastating as the song :) likes are appreciated

the walk back to your apartment feels longer today. maybe because it’s starting to get colder, or maybe it’s because you feel like you’re going in circles with the career path you chose. dropping out of college because of the toll the workload was taking on you might’ve been the worst decision of your life, if you didn’t apply for an office job directly after.

well… whatever pays the rent, right? at least you’re splitting the cost with wooyoung, the strange boy you grew close with junior year of high school. at least he cooks, so you don’t have to worry about food costs until he goes out partying and is begging for takeout when he gets back at three in the morning.

when you make your way up to the second floor of the apartment complex, unlocking your door, you don’t expect to see san - also a friend from high school - lounging on yours and wooyoung’s couch. you look around before turning around to lock the door. “hi san,” you greet, taking your shoes off. “where’s woo?” 

san gives a quick hi and a smile before responding. “he’s showering,” he says, looking back at his phone. “told me he’d be out quick, but it’s been 30 minutes. i think he drowned.” you chuckle, trailing to your room and shutting the door. you fall onto your bed, taking in the comfort it gives you for the first time in what feels like weeks.

it was last night. your peace and quiet is short lived, a loud knock on the door and you see the knob twist open. “you’re back!” wooyoung exclaims, going to lay next to you and wrap his arms around you.

you grumble in protest, but it takes more than that for him to uncurl himself from you. “so i saw on our calendar that you have this weekend off,” he starts, and you know this is not just a normal conversation, as much as you would love it to be. “yunho’s hosting a party tomorrow. san and i want you to come with.”

“does san know he’s going?” you ask sarcastically, and he smacks your arm lightly. “yes, he knows. he’s the one who asked me to invite you.” you hum, knowing that parties are not necessarily san’s type of fun either. “i’m not going, woo. i don’t know why you keep asking me to go with you when you’re gonna get shitfaced anyway and leave me alone.”

wooyoung groans, sitting up to look at you. “jesus, yn, what happened to you?” he asks with fake terror, and you can’t resist rolling your eyes. “you used to be so fun! do you not remember high school? you used to be crazy about parties, and now look at you. lonely and miserable.”

“i am not miserable-“ “you complain about your job every day you come back. you’re miserable.”

you look away, and you know wooyoung has won this debate. “even if i am, i’m not lonely. i have you and occasionally san and yeosang!” wooyoung deadpans, and he moves to sit criss-cross in front of you. “you know that’s not how i meant it,” he responds. “i’m just saying. you need to get out again. i know you’re not happy with yourself, and you forget that i know that.”

you sigh, laying on your back to look at the ceiling. “even if i did go with you guys, i’d probably get weird looks. that party is going to be full of people who go to the college i dropped out of,” you say, and you feel the bed shift. “i’m not gonna spoil the mood. plus, yunho probably doesn’t even remember me! i am not going to fight to get into a house party.”

“you’re not gonna have to argue your way in, yn,” you hear, and you turn your head to see san leaning against the doorway to your bedroom. “did it leave your head that me and wooyoung are friends with him? he won’t give a fuck who we bring.”

you groan, covering your face with your hands. “wooyoung’s right,” he continues, his voice getting closer. “just come with us. you’ll have fun, i promise. if you don’t, i’ll get you whatever dinner you want for a week straight.”

it takes you a while before you respond. maybe that’s the problem; you lost your personality with such a draining schedule. maybe letting loose once in a while is what you need. no, you just need to relax instead of going to parties. what are you thinking? why are you letting them talk you into this? what time should you be ready? what are you gonna wear?

you drop your hands to see the pair staring at you. “only if one of you gets me a drink before we leave,” you mutter, and you hear a whispered celebration between the two. “be ready by 8 tomorrow, okay? i’ll be back later. we’re going out.” you nod, waving bye to them and hearing the front door open and shut.

this is not your ideal way to relieve stress, but drinking will always help a little.

———

the morning and afternoon pass quicker than you would like it to. you weren’t very productive today, waking up and drinking coffee while processing what you had agreed to the night before. it was too late to go back on it now. wooyoung was too excited and yeosang had texted, surprised to hear that you’re “coming out of your dungeon.”

you cleaned around the house a little, taking a shot here and there to keep your nerves settled. now, it’s 5 pm, and you have exactly 3 hours to prepare yourself for something you would’ve gone to in a heartbeat 6 years ago.

wooyoung had gone out with san and a few other friends to help yunho with setting up, leaving you alone in the apartment. it doesn’t take you too long to get ready, fixing your hair and making yourself presentable within an hour and a half. what takes the longest time is figuring out what to wear.

you would’ve been late had wooyoung not come back early, perhaps sensing your conflict and choosing something in the back of your closet you had forgotten you owned. a tiny black dress that you could barely fit into when you were 18. you weren’t sure how it would look now.

as you walk out of the bathroom, wooyoung looks up from scrolling on his phone to stare. “what?” you say, uncomfortably shifting under his gaze. “does it look bad?” “looks bad my ass,” he says, dropping his phone. “jesus yn, i knew you grew up after high school, but not like this!”

“like what?”

“do you really need me to tell you? are you that oblivious?”

oh. that’s what he meant. “you’re gross.” “and you are wearing that out. hurry up and get your shit together, san’s here.”

wooyoung leaves no room to argue, practically dragging you out of the door and down the complex stairs to san’s car. you open the backseat door to see seonghwa and yeosang. they give you a greeting as you slide into the backseat, wooyoung taking his respective spot in the passenger’s seat.

“here,” san says to you, picking up a bottle from the cup holder and handing it to you. “you’ll probably need it, and i promised.” you take it while thanking him, sipping occasionally as you chat with the boys.

the drive isn’t terrible until seonghwa asks you a question. “yn, they told you that yunho is hosting, right?” you see wooyoung tense up at the question, but you choose not to comment on it. “yeah, why? that’s where hongjoong and jongho stay, right?”

“and mingi.”

oh. he had slipped your mind. mingi, yunho’s best friend. your best friend. at least, he had been, just before graduation. just before he got his first girlfriend, before he let her manipulate him into blocking you and cutting contact. into blocking everyone, keeping his attention solely on her. “yn,” yeosang shakes your shoulder, “you good?”

you blink, looking around. “yeah.” you turn your attention back to seonghwa, your voice now having a new tone to it. “i forgot about him,” you say, a fake smile on your face as you down the rest of the alcohol san got you. “wooyoung failed to remind me of that.”

“to be fair!” wooyoung blurts out, turning towards the backseat, “this is the first time you’ve agreed to come with us in forever! i wasn’t gonna remind you of that asshole when you finally agreed to go-“ “it would’ve been nice to tell her, woo. at least to prepare her,” seonghwa scolds gently.

“i’ll be fine,” you say, fixing the strap on your dress. “just more of a reason to drink. forget he even exists again, y’know? make him realize the feeling is mutual.”

———

the rest of the drive is slightly tense as you mentally ready yourself to see mingi’s stupid face again. to see that sweet, gorgeous smile on his face when he talks to his friends, to hear his laugh that’s louder than any music playing to you. to see what girl he has his arm around tonight.

the moment your group gets through the doors of the house, you take wooyoung and beeline to the drinks. you pour yourself a drink bigger than you usually would for your first of the night, chugging it. “you fucking owe me,” you yell to wooyoung over the music, who chugs his own drink.

“i’m sorry!” he says, looking out into the crowd. “i didn’t think you would care! you shouldn’t give a fuck about him, anyway. just have fun.”

and have fun you do.

you dance, you drink, you say hi to hongjoong and jongho and take yunho out to dance with you. strangely, you don't see mingi once. or maybe you're just too drunk to notice him. you spent all that time worrying about running into him, but maybe he's not even here!

"yn, come do shots with us!"

that gets your attention. you're already drunk, what's a few more? you stumble your way to the group, sliding past sweaty bodies. you see yunho and wooyoung, the latter offering you a glass. you see san in the corner of your eye watching, his eyebrows etched in concern. "yn," he says as you down the drink, "how much have you had to drink?"

you hum, thinking. "maybe, like.. four? i haven't been keeping count."

"six," the voice behind you says, and it causes your muscles to tense up. it's deep, smooth. it's mingi.

san shifts his gaze to him, his expression changing. "what?"

"she's had six." mingi repeats, and you don't dare turn around. you hear rustling behind you, probably his jacket, then see his arm hand a water bottle to san. "don't let her have more. that's her limit."

"thanks," san mutters, taking the water from him. "i know." he hands you the bottle after opening it, making sure you actually drink it. he glances behind you again, a scowl on his face. "you can go now."

"uh- yeah," mingi says, and you remember his habits well enough to know he's messing with whatever necklace he has on right now because of the awkward air. "i better go."

you come back to your senses as he walks away, gears shifting in your mind. he doesn't get to do that. you turn, following his footsteps despite san's protests. he doesn't get to act like he did nothing wrong. you stomp towards him as he goes to lean against a wall, grabbing his forearm and pulling him into an open room. "what-" he says, stopping himself when he notices the look on your face.

"you had no right to do that," you start, shutting the door and locking it. "you had no right to waltz over there and act like you still fucking know me because you don't!"

"yn, please-" "you haven't known me for the past four years of our lives because you threw me out for some girl you met a month before! you knew me your whole life! you don't get to act like we're still friends when you know damn well-" you stop yourself, the room starting to spin. you stumble, and mingi reaches out to keep you steady.

"can you sit down-" "don't touch me."

"okay, i'm sorry. sit down. you're gonna make yourself sick."

you roll your eyes, sitting on the rolling chair at the desk in whoever's room you're in. mingi sits opposite of you, elbows on his knees as he looks at you. "are you okay?"

"i'm fine. stop acting like you care." "i'm not acting, though."

"seriously?" you ask, in disbelief. "mingi, be real with yourself. i'm not going to be one of the girls that you hook up with after this. save yourself the trouble."

he laughs at this, making you furrow your eyebrows. "this is the first conversation we've had in years, and you think i'm trying to fuck you?"

"are you not?"

"god- no, yn, i'm not," he says, running a hand through his hair. "i'm sorry. i wasn't expecting to see you tonight because i haven't for however long it's been. and the drink thing- you can't expect me to not say something. if you have another, you're gonna vomit all over yourself just like you did junior year."

you cringe at the memory, but your heart clenches in your chest. you can tell from the look in his eyes that he's completely serious, but you're drunk, and you're petty. 

"so how are you and what's her face?"

"who are you-" he cuts himself off, realization in her face. "gyuri? we broke up, like, last year," he says, his eyebrows furrowing. "i wouldn't even be here at this party alone if i was with her."

he has a good point. she was that crazy to the point he couldn't go out alone. she's the sole reason you even stopped talking to him.  you decide right then and there that all of your problems are her fault.

"you still didn't talk to me after," you mumble, although you're just picking a fight for no reason now. 

"do you not think i tried?" he says, leaning forward, something about his voice compelling you to look at him. 

"the moment i broke things off, i texted you. it didn't go through. i asked about you, trust me, but in case you didn't notice your friends aren't too crazy about me either. san wouldn't tell me anything, and you know wooyoung won't even look my way," he explains, and you feel yourself sobering up with the information.

"i tried, yn, i did. i miss you more than anything. i know i fucked up. are you willing to talk to me again? be friends?"

you look away, biting your lip in thought. are you willing to do this again? to be friends with mingi again, to dedicate hours of your time to him, to ignore the way your heart clenches every time he mentions another girl he likes?

the universe doesn't want to give you time to think about it, someone banging on the locked door. "yn?" wooyoung calls out, your name slurring on his lips. "you okay? you're not dead, are you?"

you glance at mingi before yelling back to him. "i'm fine, woo!" you say to him through the door. "okay! just making sure! use protection!"

you mentally facepalm at his comment, hearing mingi chuckle. "he has no idea it's me with you, right?"

"not a clue."

going back to your thoughts, you decide to sleep on his question. "i'll text you, okay?" you say slowly to him, watching the light in his eyes return. he nods, a smile on his face. "okay."

you get up to exit the room, tugging your dress down, unlocking the door. "yn," mingi calls, and you look over your shoulder to look at him. "the dress looks good on you. it always has."

your face heats at his words, and you turn away to smile. "thank you, mingi," you say softly, turning the knob. "i'll see you later."

"see you around, pretty. don't leave me hanging too long."

[lele5429]

Retired Assets - Story and Art Master Post

Story (Read the tags!)

Ch1: Prologue

Ch2: The Cold Within

Ch3: The Fire Won’t Light Itself

Ch4: Blind

Ch5: I Will Not Leave You

Ch6: Broken Things Can Be Mended Anew

Ch7: Home (Coming Soon)

Ch8: (Act 1 Finale)

AO3 main page

Art

Illustrations for the Story (by Lele)

THE TITLE PAGE (Key Visual) - I’ve finished it but I’ll post it with the finale.

Ex Libris (book plate)

Ch 2: The Cold Within

Ch 4: Blind

Ch 5: I Will Not Leave You and Never Alone

Character Design and Sketches

A Precursor to RA Ravio: fanart for @shirley-99

The first drawing of RA Ravio

RA Ravio's costume design (spoiler-free)

ALBW vs LU vs RA Ravio designs

LU Ravio vs RA Ravio - comparison and design notes

RA Ravio in a more naturalistic style (first attempt)

RA Ravio smiles and Part 2

LU Legend vs RA Legend

Love transcends the veil of absence

RA Legend in a more naturalistic style (first attempt)

RA Ravio (TW: blood)

Ravio and Sheerow for an art challenge

Tagaki Ravio profile pic

Art Process

THE TITLE PAGE (Key Visual Time Lapse)

Key Visual - inking

Ch 2: The Cold Within - scrapped designs

Drawing Eyes

Ch 4: Blind - time lapse

Ch 5: “Never Alone” - scrapped designs

Unrelated dark Ravio

Artistic Responses/Art Gifts

Discussing the Script by @moonriver080

The Burning Bridge by @moonriver080

Emoticons ft. The cast @violet-xd09

Emoticons Part 2 @violet-xd09

Ravio’s magic and smile @violet-xd09

Illustrations for Ch3 @violet-xd09

Nursery AU @violet-xd09 and Part 2

Ravio in the headlights by @violet-xd09

Ravio Tegaki by @wardingshout

Ravio mural by @hero-of-fortune

Disaster bunny and his faces by @violet-xd09

Drawing faces (art challenge) with @violet-xd09

MS paint and Tegaki Ravio blorbo @violet-xd09

Mid-Autumn Festival @violet-xd09

Under Her Favourite Apple Tree by 枭柏

Innocent RA Ravio by @whatvioletdoes-blog

RA Ravio’s 2024 Halloween costume by @violet-xd09

A Happy Fic by @lennsart

Trick or Treat/New Year @wardingshout

Bonus

Memes / Crack / Fluff (my art!)

Ravio wants you to stop and read the warning tags

Ravio with STOP sign animated

Disaster Bunny

Going to work with your landlord?

Get-along Shirt

PAY NO RENT

Why does RA Ravio fear Hilda?

Blue Potions

To Heaven

Jet lag

Legend explains things to Ravio (Ch4)

Self care or draw 25 and Part 2

RA Ravio ™️

Nope/Yep

Goodnight Ojousama

Account Deleted

Nothing is perfect

Ch 6 Teaser and Part 2

Drawing with my eyes closed

Babies need a hug

Why dis bun look so mad 😭

Working Properties - Retired Assets Actors AU

Take a break

No work

Trick or treat

Chibi

Ravio hugging Sheerow

Legend ╭(°A°`)╮

Sticker Pack #1

Poster Pose

Happy Fable

The Cold Within but Chibi

Apple juice

Hilda reading Ravio’s diary

Hilda Boop

Nursery AU (The Cast as Kids)

Nursery AU - first drawing

Kid!Ravio tries lemons

Crafts

Linocut: RA Ravio

Linocut: RA Legend

Prints ft. the RA leads, signed and framed

PAY NO RENT: heat-transfer vinyl T-shirt

Lasercut on wood: some keychains and tickets by @moonriver080

Button-making (with a sneak peek of additional memes)

Ravio’s robe and scarf (cosplay)

Bracelets inspired by LU characters

Stamp

Shaker charms and Part 2

Sheerow doll (by Alex Lynn crafts)

RA Ravio sleep mask

Q&A

Search for #retired assets ask game

Ravio character notes [1]

[eugenedebs1920]

What the actual f*ck!??? How is this even legal!? I guess I’ve never looked at my mortgage breakdown. I knew I had a pretty garbage interest rate, I was waiting for rates to fall and perhaps refinance. I am absolutely blown the f*ck away!!

I pay an extra hundred bucks a month as to just keep chipping away at the principal for the loan and still!! They’re telling me, that I’ve paid, coming up on $15k on my mortgage since I bought my house last year, but I’ve actually only paid $2,300 on the actual house but I’ve given the bank $9,300 for lending me the money to purchase this piece of sh*t home, that I’ve put tens of thousands of dollars into, copious amounts of blood and sweat remodeling this thing!?!?!! WHAT THE F*CK!!!?

When I bought this POS I purchased it in Jan 2023. The listing boasted an orchard, pear trees, apple trees, peach, pomegranate and fig. When I came to see the house, I knew it needed work, but fortunately that’s what I do for a living is remodel houses.

Come to find out the pear and apple trees are infected with fire blithe, an incurable disease.

I don’t think it was the last owners, probably the ones before them but, when I opened the walls and floor, HOLY SH*T! I didn’t know termites could do that much damage! Those f*ckers covered that termite wood so well, while at the same time cursing me with the worst “craftsmanship” I have ever seen… I used to think building inspectors were a pain in my ass. I’ve never respected them more than after purchasing a home on unrestricted land.

After nearly two years of busting my ass both to pay the mortgage, and renovating this dump, I go to check the fruits of my labor, see how much I’ve paid down the house, to find I’ve paid a month of rent in a city off the actual principal of the house, while nearly 4/5ths went to interest.

I’m shocked! I’m pissed! I’m crushed!

Two f*cking years of busting my balls! Two years of living in a renovation that includes replacing the floor joists and nearly all structural studs, both interior and exterior. Two years of chasing the “American dream”, which is having a small piece of property with a very modest house on it, to find that I’ve paid $2,300 on the house itself.

The rest goes to a giant bank who harbors billions of dollars, that it acquired because it speculated (a fancy word for gambled) with other people’s money, as well as making money off having money!?

Then there’s dumbass Eugene over here, being the f*cking tool he is, just a cog in the machine, a brick in the wall if you will, being a good little serf, “just keep working just keep working just keep working.” Paying into a system he despises, lining the pockets of undeserving CEO’s and oligarchs, then some people are shocked that most of us are like, “serves him right” when a CEO of a major health insurance company gets popped!

I’m an early millennial, late GenX, I feel bad for you GenZers and beyond! Home insurance is unaffordable in many places around the country. A bank won’t give you a loan without your home being insured (don’t get me started on shistey ass insurance companies either) which kinda makes sense, so if your home burns down and ain’t worth sh*t, you don’t just walk away like, see ya ✌️ That is leading to these MASSIVE real estate companies purchasing any home they can get there hands on, not only forcing the majority of the middle class to be renters, but also fixing the price for rent, which if any of you don’t know, in any moderately big city, is out of control expensive!

For a country that decries the horrors of communism there are certain aspects of capitalism that create a subjugated class very similar communism for anyone who isn’t wealthy.

How you may ask?

One of the main principles of communism is the lack of individual ownership. Not sure if anyone’s noticed but every year there’s more you spend, but less you own.

Music and movies are no longer physical objects that one has possession of. They are now linked to a streaming service or app that requires internet, or at best downloaded into a computer.

To purchase a vehicle, especially a new one, requires a loan nearly as extensive as what a home use to cost. Vehicles are $60k-$100k anymore!! If you don’t have the credit (which is a NWO conspiracy, and that’s coming from a liberal) you can’t acquire said loan, which leaves you with the option to lease. Again. No individual ownership.

Video games are more and more becoming software that you connect to the internet to play. In my day we had clunky plastic cartridges that we owned indefinitely. Some video games now require subscriptions to Xbox live, or whatever PlayStations equivalent is, to even play the game you don’t own!

So basically what we “own” is the clothes on our back and the various “toys” we have (mine being tools, which in cruel irony are for work). The rest is consumables. Food, booze, herb, vacations, healthcare. What’s the f*cking point!?

I’m telling you my fellow Americans, Republican, Democrat, Independent, if we don’t rise up against this inequality, we, and definitely our children, will live under an umbrella of capitalism where we stay dry from any of its benefits while the rest soaks the very elite with wealth they don’t need.

The top 10% own 67% of the nations capital. That leaves us to split the remaining 33% between the remaining 90% of us. It’s f*cking absurd!!!

I know I ain’t the only dumb f*ck who works his or her butts off day after day after day, building wealth for someone else while we get but a fraction of the record profits the companies we work for make, and are told to like it or we can be replaced.

I thought I made this next thing I’m going to say up, I’ve been using this analogy for years, but just the other day I heard something similar, so I don’t know if my thought got out to the world, of if I unwittingly stole someone else’s thought years ago and claimed it as my own, but…

Let’s say we’re doing a study on a primate colony. In this primate colony there are one or two monkeys who gather as many bananas as they can, more than they could ever eat, hoarding and bogarting nearly three quarters of available bananas in this part of the jungle. The other 50-60 monkeys are left with a measly amount of bananas, whatever is left on the jungle floor that “trickled down” from these monkeys who are hoarding the majority of bananas.

We wouldn’t look at these monkeys as some kind of geniuses of bananas, or as titans of the banana industry. We wouldn’t look at them and wonder, what is wrong with these couple monkeys?! Gathering up so many bananas while every other primate in the colony struggles just to feed their baby monkeys and get by.

That’s where we’ve gotten as a society. There’s a handful of people hoarding all the damn bananas and we can’t hardly get any! Yet they’ve conned us, in a capitalistic fevor, to glorify them. See them as role models. Aspire to be just like them.

As of now there are 6 billionaires in trumps cabinet. How do these people have our best interests in mind? How do they have any basic idea what the middle class needs or desires? How can they be trusted not to focus on their bottom line as their top priority?

They don’t, they can’t and they won’t.

The last time the markets were deregulated and these “titans of industry” had the reigns, in 2007-2008, it was the greatest recession since the Great Depression.

Anyone who’s kept up with my writing might remember a study I often reference and think of. Getting a good sum of money fires off the same reward centers in your brain as doing a line or hit of blow. The same dopamine and serotonin are released in the same way.

We need to stop looking at the wealthy as people who know how to succeed and start recognizing them for what they really are.

Junkies. Looking for that next line of capital snorted up their nostril. That next hit off the glass rose stem of currency.

The whole while as they’re getting their fix from money, it’s done at our expense (no pun intended). Lessening our pay, the safety requirements we work in, our ability to collectively bargain, our employer healthcare, the labor practices, denying coverage, cutting jobs, automating jobs, working on skeleton crews, practicing predatory lending, gambling with pensions, privatizing social security.

We have to remember. Their obligation is to their shareholders. Not their customers, and certainly not their employees.

This will not change unless we rise up against them. I’m not saying with gun violence or necessarily violence in general. They need to know, that without a workforce, they can’t make money. Without a customer base, they won’t make money. Without money, how will they get the monkey off their back?

Workers of the world unite!

[razorblade180]

Dedication

Summer:Hay mom? I need singing advice?

Weiss:*eyes widened* Y-Yes? Please speak my child.

Summer:Stop getting so excited about this.

Weiss:You never ask these days! I can’t help it.

Summer:I feel like I’m going through the motions. It’s a bit of a slog. Even when I sing I feel like I could be doing…better? It’s not like I’ve been or tour or making singles recently. Maybe I’m rusty? I don’t know! It’s all just…

Weiss:Maybe take a vacation? I’ll pay. Atlas isn’t the best place for inspiration.

Summer:I think that won’t help. I will be in a rut in another location. You took a break from music before, then came back to immediately top the charts a few years later. How’d you do it?

Weiss:Oh. You mean you were like three? Man that was an experience. You wanna know my secret?

Summer:Yes!

Weiss:Rent.

Summer:…The Musical?

Weiss:No! Haha, literal rent was due soon.

Summer:You sung your heart out to pay a bill? Why not take a mission?

Weiss:Because high paying ones are dangerous and I love my kids.

Summer:….

Weiss:When you and your brother were born I made a personal vow that no matter what you would want for nothing. Be it my time, food, or a toy, I was going to do it. Money was tight and even though I have wonderful family and friends to help, I never wanted to be a burden or let my darling children feel instability. So I grabbed Jaune’s guitar, got in contact with an old studio friend, and I stepped back into the spotlight.

Summer:Even though you don’t like it.

Weiss:I may not care for it, but I’ll always care about the ones I love. Plus I don’t hate singing itself. I had a lot of new ideas after having twins. I can’t say for sure if I’ve properly honored my vow these days considering…everything that’s happened. Still, there’s nothing I won’t ever do for you and your brother. So yeah, rent was due it was going to be paid in full and have my husband spend less time as a huntsman and more as a kickass dad with cooking skills.

Summer:….*hugs Weiss slowly*

Weiss:Oh?

Summer:You’re really cool. That vow has been kept ten times over.

Weiss:….Hmm *hugs back* Thank you. I think you’re pretty cool too. Now if only you wanted to share a stage….

Summer:Mother….

Weiss:Hehehe, We’ll put a pin in that conversation.

Summer:…I’ll think about it. *smiles*

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A "secure" system can be the most dangerous of all

Two decades ago, my life changed forever: hearing Bruce Schneier explain that “security” doesn’t exist in the abstract. You can only be secure from some threat. A fire alarm won’t protect you from burglaries. A condom won’t protect you from mass shootings. It seems obvious, but how often do we hear about “security” without any mention of who is being made secure, and from which threat?

Take the US welfare system. It is very “secure” in that it is hedged in by a thicket of red-tape, audits, inspections and onerous procedures. To get food stamps, housing vouchers, or cash aid, you must navigate a Soviet-grade bureaucratic system of Kafkaesque proportions. Indeed, one of the great ironies of the post-Cold War world is that the USA has become a “Utopia Of Rules” (as David Graeber put it), subjecting everyday people to the state-run bureacracies that the USAUSAUSA set endlessly ridiculed the USSR for:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-of-rules-on-technology-stupidity-and-the-secret-joys-of-bureaucracy/

(The right says it wants to “shrink the US government until fits in a bathtub — and then drown it” — but not the whole government. They want unlimited government bloat for that part of the state that is dedicated to tormenting benefits claimants, especially if its functions are managed by a Beltway Bandit profiteer who bills Uncle Sucker up the wazoo for rubber-stamping “DENIED” on every claim.)

The US benefits system has a sophisticated, expensive, fully staffed anti-fraud system — but it’s a highly selective form of anti-fraud. The system is oriented solely to prevent fraud against itself, with no thought to protecting benefits recipients themselves from fraud.

And those recipients — by definition the poorest and most vulnerable among us — are easy pickings for continuous, ghastly, eye-watering acts of fraud. These benefits are distributed via prepaid debit cards — EBT Cards — that lack the basic security measures that every other kind of card has had for years. These are simple magstripe cards, lacking basic chip-and-pin defenses, to say nothing of contactless countermeasures.

That means that fraudsters can — and do — install skimmers in the point-of-sale terminals used by benefits recipients to withdraw their cash benefits, pay for food using SNAP (AKA Food Stamps), and receive other benefits.

It’s impossible to overstate how widespread these skimmers are, and how much money criminals make by stealing from poor people. Writing for Businessweek, Jessica Fu describes the mad scramble benefits recipients go through every month, standing by ATMs at midnight on the night of the first of every month in hopes of withdrawing the cash they use to pay for their rent and utility bills before it is stolen by a crook who captured their card number with a skimmer:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-06-28/ebt-theft-takes-millions-of-dollars-from-the-neediest-americans

One of Fu’s sources, Lexisnexis Risk Solutions’s Haywood Talcove, describes these EBT cards as having the security of a “glorified hotel room key.” He recounts how US police departments saw a massive explosion in EBT skimming: from 300 complaints in January 2022 to 18,000 in January 2023.

The skimmer rings are extremely well organized. The people who install the skimmers — working in pairs, with one person to distract the cashier while the other quickly installs the skimmer — don’t know who they work for. Neither do the people who use cards cloned from skimmer data to cash out benefits recipients’ accounts. When they are arrested, they refuse to turn on their immediate recruiters, fearing reprisals against their families.

These low-level crooks stroll up to ATMs and feed a succession of cloned cards into them, emptying account after account. Or they swipe cards at grocery checkouts, buying cases of Red Bull and other easily sold grocery products with some victim’s entire SNAP balance.

Some police agencies are pursuing these criminal gangs and trying figure out who’s running them, but the authorities who issue SNAP cards are doing little to nothing to stop the pipeline at their end. Simply upgrading SNAP terminals to chip-and-pin would exponentially raise the cost and complexity that thieves incur.

Indeed, that’s why every other kind of payment card uses these systems. How is it that these systems were upgraded, while SNAP cards remain in mired in 20th century “glorified hotel room key” territory? Well, as our friends on the right never cease to remind us: “incentives matter.”

When your credit card gets cloned, it’s your banks and credit card company that pays for the losses, not you. So the banks demanded (and funded) the upgrade to new anti-fraud measures. By contrast, most states have no system for refunding stolen benefits to skimmers’ victims.

In other words, all of the anti-fraud in the benefits system is devoted to catching benefits cheating — a phenomenon that is so rare as to be almost nonexistent (1.54%), notwithstanding right wingers’ fevered, Reagan-era folktales about “welfare queens”:

https://blog.gitnux.com/food-stamp-fraud-statistics/

Meanwhile, the most widespread and costly form of fraud in the benefits system — fraud perpetrated against benefits recipients — is blithely ignored.

Really, it’s worse than that. In deciding to protect the welfare system rather than welfare recipients, we’ve made it vastly harder for benefits claimants who’ve been victimized by fraudsters to remain fed and sheltered. After all, if we made it simple and straightforward for benefits recipients to re-claim money that was stolen from them, we’d make it that much easier to defraud the system.

“Security” is always and forever a matter of securing some specific thing, against some specific risk. In other words, security reflects values — it reveals whose risk matters, and whose doesn’t. For the American benefits system, risks to the system matter. Risks to people don’t.

It’s not just the welfare system that prioritizes its own risks against the people it exists to serve. Think of the systems used to fight drug abuse in clinical settings.

Medical facilities that use or dispense powerful pain-killers have exquisitely tuned, sophisticated, frequently audited security systems to prevent patients from tricking their doctors or pharmacists into administering extra drugs (especially opioids). “Extra” in this case means “more drugs than are strictly necessary to manage pain.”

The rationale for this is only incidentally medical. Someone who gets a little too much painkiller during a medical procedure or an acute pain episode is not at any particular risk of enduring harm — the risks are minor and easily managed (say, by keeping a patient in bed a little longer while they recover from sedation).

The real agenda here is preventing addiction and abuse by addicted people. There’s a genuine problem with opioid abuse, and that problem does have its origins in overprescription. But — crucially — that overprescription wasn’t the result of wimpy patients insisting on endless painkillers until they enslaved themselves to their pills.

Rather, the opioid epidemic has its origins in the billionaire Sackler crime family, whose Purdue Pharma used scientific fraud, cash incentives, and other deceptive practices to trick, coerce, or bribe doctors into systematically overprescribing their Oxycontin cash cow, even as they laundered their reputation with showy charitable donations:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/12/monopolist-solidarity/#sacklers-billions

The Sacklers got to keep their billions — and people undergoing painful medical procedures or living with chronic pain are left holding the bag, subject to tight pain-med controls that forces them to prove — through increasingly stringent systems — that they truly deserve their medicine.

In other words, the beneficiary of the opioid control system is the system itself — not the patients who need opioids.

There’s an extremely disturbing — even nightmarish — example of this in the news: the Yale Fertility Clinic, where hundreds of women endured unimaginably painful egg harvesting procedures with no anaesthesia at all.

These women had complained for years about the pain they suffered, and many had ended up needing emergency care after the fact because of traumatic injuries caused by undergoing the procedure without pain control. But the doctors and nurses at the Yale clinic ignored their screams of pain and their post-operative complaints.

It turned out that an opioid-addicted nurse had been swapping the fentanyl in the drug cabinet for saline, and taking the fentanyl home for her own use.

This made national headlines at the time, and it is the subject of “The Retrievals,” a new New York Times documentary series podcast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/podcasts/serial-the-retrievals-yale-fertility-clinic.html

If the pain medication management system was designed to manage pain, then these thefts would have been discovered early on. If the system was designed so that anyone who experienced pain was treated until the pain was under control, the deception would have been uncovered almost immediately.

As Stafford Beer said, “the purpose of any system is what it does.” The pain medication management system was designed to manage pain medication, not pain itself.

The system was designed to be secure from opioid-seeking addicted patients. It was not designed to make patients secure from pain. Its values — our values, as a society — were revealed through its workings.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/13/whose-security/#for-me-not-thee

[Image ID: A down-the-barrel view of a massive, battleship-gray artillery piece protruding from the brick battlement of a fortress. From the black depths of the barrel shines a red neon 'EBT' sign.]

Image: Bjarne Henning Kvaale (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscarsborg_28cm_Krupp_cannon_4_-_panoramio.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for calling someone to my friend’s house?

So, I have a friend (let’s call him M, I won’t reveal his age because we’re both minors), who lives in the same room as his 30 year old brother. While that’s a little weird in itself, I don’t judge if that’s how the guy needs to live.

The problem is, M’s brother pays rent for the room and yet acts like he owns it. He doesn’t listen to a thing M or his parents say. Today I learned that M has mold growing in his room. He says his parents and his brother won’t do anything about it. Me and another friend (let’s call her J) are worried about his health. We’ve provided him with resources to learn how to take care of mold. It seems simple enough, and we’ve even offered to give him cleaning spray. He says his parents wouldn’t let him.

J and I have both wondered if we should call a professional to deal with it. He said it’s not that bad, but I’m legitimately very concerned about his health. But I feel like calling someone would be a bit extreme. I probably won’t, but I’m curious what you all think I should do.

What are these acronyms?

[dailyanarchistposts]

A revolutionary “pessimistic” postscript in times of coronavirus

“The outbreak of the new strain of coronavirus (COVID-19), which has wrought havoc in China since the end of last year, has surged over borders and impacted the rest of the world, and with it, the imminent economic crisis has but further advanced. The world economy is in full-on crisis, the administrators of power are pending on immense financial relief, the bourgeoisie are beginning to close factories and lay off employees using the lucky pretext of the “quarantine” as excuse. The disaster is immanent. Nevertheless, it’s important to know that the monetary losses don’t signify the fall of the capitalist system. Capitalism will seek at every moment to restructure itself on the basis of austerity measures imposed on proletarians in order to palliate all the catastrophic consequences that it will bring along with it. And this is due to the fact that the “blows” that capitalism has been dealt due to these phenomena are simply losses in its rate of profit, but those losses don’t at all change its structure or its essence, meaning the social relations that allow it to remain standing: the commodity, value, the market, exploitation and wage labor. In fact, it’s in these structures that capitalism most reaffirms its necessities: sacrificing millions of human beings to the favor of economic interests, making the polarization between classes sharpen and revealing more forcefully in what position the dominant class is to be found, who will use all the efforts in their reach in order to preserve this state of things.

[…]

The ever-more contradictions heightened contradictions of this mode of production (crisis, war, pandemics, environmental destruction, pauperization, militarization), which exasperate our conditions of survival, won’t clear the way either mechanically or messianically for the end of capitalism. Or better said, such conditions, although they will be fundamental, won’t suffice. Because for capitalism to reach its end, it’s imperative for there to be a social force, antagonistic and revolutionary that manages to direct the destructive and subversive character towards something completely different from what we know and experience now.

If we want it or not, we can’t let a question as important as the revolution to drift aimlessly, to leave it to luck. It’s necessary to experience the resolution of this problem on the basis of the organization of tasks that can go on to present themselves, that’s to say, the grouping for the appropriation and defense of the most immediate necessities (not paying debts, rent, or taxes), but also, the rupture from all the dreams and mirages that carry us to manage the save miseries behind another facade.

[…]

It’s not necessary to wait for the dystopia or the hollywoodesque scenes of apocalypse, because these are already materially manifesting in different parts of the globe, and in fact they greatly surpass any attempt at representation by cinematic fiction.

The current pandemic of COVID-19 is one more stage in the degradation to which this society of commodity production brings us.

A stage before which it is reaffirmed that the true future only hangs from two strings:

Communist revolution or to perish in the twilight!”

Contra la Contra n.3 Collapse of the capitalist system? A few notes on current events. Mexico City March 2020

[deadlyterrorstonight]

|| Accidentally falling asleep for hours when the guys meant to take a small 30MIN to 1hr nap ||

Mike

Was taking nightshift that night and came to work around 11:56am. Was doing his thing till he decided to head to the back around 3:06pm to take a mini- short nap. Uh-huh- that was the plan. But unfortunately ol’ Mike here slept for 3 long hours after he laid his head down on the table in the break room. The guys didn’t bother and figured he could use the sleep. When he woke up and checked the time he was BAFFLED. “WHAT? WHATT? IT WAS ONLY 3! HOW IS IT 6PM? OH MAN-“ Panic and concerned mode activates. Mike knows better to fall asleep- it’ll dock his pay or, get him in trouble with the Boss. Please don’t let him hear anything from that guys mouth- he knows! He knows! He screwed up and slept in. It won’t happen again. And he really needs that money to pay rent and get food…and essentials…

Probably gonna rattle the guys for not waking him up. Screw sleep! He would’ve made it. He normally does. Normally.

Fritz

Dude was either gaming or watching something and didn’t realize how late it was (or completely ignored it thinking ‘ Yeah, I’ll be fine.’) That, or he couldn’t get comfortable in bed to sleep. Happens often actually and he tosses and turns a lot until he finally does. No he does not use white noise or music to crash out often. Only here and there- Dude just sits in the silence mostly, because otherwise his brain starts to get stimulated again and it’ll be harder for him to sleep. He needs quiet.

But he came into work, doing his usual things (Checking on the animatronics, making sure they have spare parts and nothings stolen, checking with Scott and Vincent about certain things or any updates from the Boss he might’ve missed and then just chilling. The kids aren’t a big issue for him- Usually.) went to the back room (the backstage where he checks out the animatronics with all their stuff) and while he was going over the boxes and extra ‘shells’ of the animatronics he decided maybe he could use a teeny nap.

Sitting up against the boxes and leaning on them and taking a snooze with a timer set for 20 minutes. He didn’t wake up- the phone keeps snoozing itself after a couple of minutes and starting again but nobody hears since it’s loud in the main hall with all the music and kids and no one’s wandering backstage.

Suddenly, FINALLY- 2 HOURS LATER- He wakes up and turns his phones timer off-

Fritz was scared and tried acting calm while sweaty after getting up and going back to what he should’ve been doing. Everythings fineee. No need to worry. If Boss possibly finds out he crashed while on the job, he was scared that he might fire him since Fritz knows he’s a huge klutz and causes issues around the restaurant from time to time. Not everyday! But Boss has been keeping an eye on him. He knows he’s a good mechanic and he knows Fritz knows how the AI’s and Animatronics operate well- but who knows if somehow he found a better mechanic to replace him without him knowing? And is just waiting for him to screw up to get rid of him? Please no. He really enjoys his job and working with the guys.-

Probably asks why no one woke him up. “We thought you were doing something with the animatronics or dipped early- I don’t know-“ Mike would respond.

He went the rest of the day paranoid that one of the guys were gonna come up to him to tell him Boss wanted to see him. Thankfully, they didn’t.

Jeremy

Nightshift, nightshift! Yep, good ol’ nightshift. Just as it takes its toll on Mike, it does obviously on Jeremy too. That or he was up watching anime or listening to music.

Came in to work late, 12:33pm and while still feeling the effects of tiredness, he went to the back room and fell asleep just like Mike did. Oops-

He slept about 2 hours and a half before finally getting up for some unknown reason. “Huh?…” checks the time only to find out what happened. “WHAT?” Panics and gets up while asking one of the guys why no one tried waking him up. They give a shrug and didn’t think it’d he that bad to let him get some rest. “It’s not that big of deal. You didn’t sleep that long.” Scott would say. I mean…Scott said it’s ok. Hopefully Boss wouldn’t mind just as much either…or find out…aw man..

He’s not paranoid but is upset. He feels bad a bit because he knows he’s suppose to help with being a security guard during the day too and here he was snoozing in the back. Ends up acting upset enough to the point Mike has to call him out on it and tells him to stop worrying about it, that he needed it and to stop moping.

Scott

Late nights probably going over work related things..that or watching some show.

He came in to work on time, the usual. Ends up going backstage to do what he always does. He can’t help but yawn as he goes along doing his daily routine and pops his back. Maybe…maybe he could take a small nap?

He decided he would and takes off a chair on a stack and sits in it after having it pushed against a wall. He slumps down in it and falls asleep. 4 hours pass by, peacefully sleeping with snores and this man Jumps in his chair after he finally wakes and checks the time. “OH SHOOT-“ He’s up, he’s speed walking and he’s quickly checking everything out. No way he just slept that long-

Stresses about it and sighs. Rubbing a hand over his mouth down (or phone head, whichever makes sense or you see in your head.)

Vincent

Watching a show or something. Sometimes gets too into it (or says screw it) and falls asleep at a late hour.

Goes to work the next day and does his daily duties as a manager and security guard as soon as the place opens, on time. Yawns throughout the early morning and Mid-day/ say about 1:34pm, it’s lunch break and he accidentally forgot his food in the car. Goes out to the side of the building and opens his car door after unlocking it. Sitting in the passenger seat for a minute and he’d sigh as he holds his lunch bag in hand. He takes a look to the side and then back to his legs- and decides maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for a 10 minute Power Nap- a little rest for his eyelids. So he shuts his door and rolls down his windows. Literally falls asleep for 3 hours because knucklehead forgot to put on a timer or tell someone to come and wake him up.

Wakes up and it’s gloomy outside, looking like it’s about to rain. This man doesn’t know what time it is, but suspects that he may have slept longer than he intended too. He feels too well rested right now.

So he rolls the windows up and gets going back inside, not before noticing MORE cars in the parking lot- oh boy. After he heads in and looks at the clock in the main dining area, this man is shocked. 3 hours? He’s been out THAT LONG? Yikes-… Scott ends up finding him standing there looking at the clock and begins to lecture him asking him where he’s been. Etc, etc. he explains and Scott just face palms. “I- ugh. I can’t even be mad. I’ve done it too.” He’d sigh.

Vincent would be a little spacey for the rest of the day- he’s just stunned he actually slept that long. He normally doesn’t and it’s been a while since he’s done something like that. Wow…reminds him of the days when he worked on nightshift..

A/N: Fell asleep for hours by accident. I was tired but I didn’t feel THAT tired. Guess I was wrong? Woke up 3-4 hours later. Decided to write about it for the dudes. // There’s probably typos, or things are written weirdly. I’m tired (again) And my brains not processing things at %100- I’ll come back and edit again when brains working right.

[alexandraisyes]

How are you doing?

Do you want an honest answer or a watered down haha cutesy artist answer?

I could be worse, to put it simply. It’s been a very. . . Excitable week. And month. And life.

I’m dealing with medication withdrawals that will last another month. They have me sicker than a dog right now, physically at least. My mental stamina is fine, it’s definitely been worse in the more recent past. I’m making a pretty good stress recovery from the past three months of harassment from varying sources, but there is no rest for the wicked.

I’m about 95% positive that I’m being actively stalked by someone from the whole August fiasco, someone who I’ve had blocked since the beginning of August. A (former) friend of mine that I had met through the rp blogs I did designs for turned out to be a sexual predator who was grooming the minors in said group, and I recently had to cut them off after confronting them about it. So that’s great. Both of these things are giving me mild stress, especially because neither of these people know when the fuck to quit and have a long history of stalking and harassment.

However, I’m finally writing again. I’m trying to get back on my current projects, as well as the newer project I’m working on. I’ve completed some commissions, I’ve made a couple self indulgent artworks, and even some art for friends. So I’m being productive.

I’m finally back to watching the shows, although this migraine the past few days has put a rather sudden pause on that. Hopefully I can get back on schedule within the next couple of days. I’m once again finding enjoyment in taking them apart too, which is always a good sign. A large part of why I went on a sudden hiatus was due to the harassment the past few months, but I’ve had some sense knocked into me about the matter by my everlasting and ever loving parents that had me seriously questioning why I was letting it affect me to the point I couldn’t function?

I moved back in with my parents last month. I haven’t fully unpacked, my executive function has been lacking when it comes to sorting boxes. Especially since the last time I was here it was only for a month before I had a fight with my folks and had no option but to leave. However we’re reaching that one month mark so fingers crossed that history won’t repeat itself.

In all honesty it’s been going a lot smoother than I expected. I’ve done a lot of yard work while I job hunt, and so I’ve been left relatively alone and to my own devices since I’m sacrificing so much of my time to clean up the property. It’s been a good distraction, and I’ll be honest I needed the vitamin D.

Unfortunately I’m running out of things to do around the property to prepare for winter. No more Vitamin D for me. Probably for the best, I don’t want to burn out.

Speaking of jobs, I have one now. I need to go in tomorrow and turn in the hiring paperwork, and then yippee I will have a steady source of income. It’ll probably only be part-time pay, but that’s okay. A job is a job.

I managed to reach my goal for donations, thanks to my friends and this wonderful community. All of my bills have been secured, with a little excess that I’ll use to buy new pants for work (can’t go in pantless). I cannot be more grateful to this community for handing together to help me reach my goal so I can afford to keep doing things like drive (which is extremely necessary when you live in the middle of rural countryside) and live in a house (as much as my parents love me I do have to pay rent since my dad is disabled and cannot support the family anymore).

My social life is fine. I’ve made a lot of close friends over the past few months, misery loves company and all of that. It’s ironic how we were all more or less strangers to each other, and yet these series of events have made us extremely tight nit as a little online village. I’ve made quite a few new friends too, just by being obnoxious. It is what I do best after all.

There isn’t a really an easy answer to questions like this when you have a busy life. I could just say “oh I’m fine” but that’s not honest. That’s not transparent or real, and I try to be both of those things. I’m not entirely sure what “fine” would look like, and by society’s standards I’m definitely not fine in any fashion. But we all make do with the hands we’ve been dealt.

I’ve become extremely close friends with a malignant narcissist (short term would be narcopath) and I find their presence a comfort. I continue to work on projects with friends, and abstain from creating new ones. I’ve caught up on a few different fanfics while I’ve been sick these past couple of days, and that’s always nice. I’m trying to do my best to give back to the community what was given to me (metaphorically), but being bedridden these past couple days has prevented me from achieving that very well. I’ve grown a fondness for TikTok animations and animatics, and have been considering making a few of my own.

Oh yes, also a month or so ago I bought a graphics tablet for my laptop and am looking into learning 3-D modeling. It would be fun to make my own VRChat avatars, plus it’s always handing to have more skills under your belt.

And my apologies if this runs long, or stops making sense at some point, I’m still fairly delirious and it is late as I write this, even though it will post sometime in the morning long after I’m asleep.

I’m doing well, to put it simply. Nothing in life will ever be just right, and I frankly don’t expect it to, nor do I wish for a perfect life. The only way we learn is through hardship, after all. I could always be better, but I could be much much worse as well. I’m just glad I’ve got plenty of time on my hands to swindle away even between writing, and art, and videos, and work. Due to a fairly rigorous sleep schedule I’ve about 16 hours of the day to spend at my leisure, and that already feels like too much excess time.

To the point I’ve taken to playing mobile games simply to pass it by.

So hopefully getting a job in town, one with a paycheck, will help manage some of that boredom. I’m sure I’ll still have plenty of excess time regardless, I always seem to be swimming in it.

And I’m sure I’ve concluded this post multiple times by now, but I truly am doing well enough. Talking about it helps me figure out and rationalize my mental health. It’s a bit like psychoanalyzing myself, for the word to to witness as if I’m just another one of the silly characters dancing on the screen. It is truly a beneficial experience for myself, however, since I’m able to truly process any emotions that might have been hiding behind triggers.

And here I go on another tangent, so I’ll cut it off here.

[becauseplot]

Back on my bullshit with another AU for Inktordem! Jesus Christ I need to start making these prompt fills shorter BUT I had a lot of fun playing with ideas :D Debating how much background I should give you on the AU, hmmm...

Spoilers for character stuff revealed in OPD: Episodes 1 & 20, but nothing on OPD lore itself.

DAY 10 – RITUAL

Loneliness AU is an AU wherein Kaiser (once "Cesar") was introduced to the power of the Other Side at a young age. At the time of OSNF, as well as the winter following it, he's an Energy occultist operating in the criminal underground. He uses his coding and fabrication skills, in his conjunction with his Paranormal know-how, to work "by commission."

~*~

Kaiser taps his soldering iron against the wire frame and leans away from the fumes. He can’t hear the hiss of it over the music pounding through his earbuds—a lot of synth and a lot of noise, too much to let his brain make thoughts, allowing his hands to do all the thinking for him. He spares a moment to turn the dial on the heat down a notch, then eases right back into his rhythm.

It's the last section before this wire circuit mesh is complete. Not an overly complex design, but they’re a little different every time. That’s the fun of it, after all: no two flash drives are the same. He cannibalized two of his old meshes for the base of this one—about the size and shape of a small dinner plate—then added a scatter of new connections by tossing a fistfull of copper wire strips over it and soldering the ends more-or-less where they landed. The wires have been bent to resemble the familiar shape of the symbol of Energy, and a few of the old connections have been cut to solder new ones.

He solders one last connection. He waves away the vapors and gives it a once over. He has no idea what he’s just made. Perfect. Kaiser puts his iron aside (remembers to turn it off this time; no more burns on his fingers, thank you) and leans forward. He peeks through the abandoned office’s window and looks down at the old warehouse floor below.

Valéria and her “Bloodhounds” are still beating each other to shit downstairs. Well, actually, it looks like they’ve moved on to beating each other up to ganging up on some random guys Kaiser’s never seen around here before. Probably “enemies” of theirs they dragged in, or something. 

Kaiser doesn’t keep up with their politics too much, he just keeps up with whatever rent Valéria wants him to pay. Last time it was knuckle knives with electrodes installed in their tips. And then fixing said knuckles when she broke the capacitors trying to clean them.

Kaiser watches as one of Valéria’s guys shouts (or laughs; he can’t tell over the music in his earbuds) and swings a punch at one of the victims, an explosion of blood chasing after his knuckles as the other hits the ground, hard. They try to get up, and another kicks them square in the gut, once, twice, three times.

Oh, yeah. They’re definitely laughing now. I looks like they’re having fun. Kaiser thinks they won’t really care if he fucks with the power for a minute. But he also knows that Valéria likes a heads-up. Kaiser fishes his burner out of his pocket and sends a message.

You (23:44)

ritual soon. lights might get funny. -k

Kaiser watches the floor. Valéria, standing off to the side and cheering for her Hounds as they beat the victims to bloody messes, suddenly reaches into her pocket and pulls out a cellphone. She begins to type.

Unknown Number (23:44)

Kk!! <33

Have fun!!

Kaiser pockets his burner. He leans away from the window and spins out of his chair, grabbing his mesh as he goes. He swings around, shoes sweeping through the fog settled over the ground, and kicks away the ratty, bloodstained rug.

The transcendence symbol painted on the filthy, cracked tile stares up at him. He stares back. He flips it off, steps into it, then drops down to one knee to lay the mesh square in the center.

First piece in place. Kaiser bounces up onto his feet, stumbles, and looks through the tables of broken laptops and warped metal scraps for wherever he tossed his backpack when he came in.

The chair across from his workbench, of course. He rifles around in it looking for his box of etched flash drives. Well, no, first he rifles around looking for his spare box of cigarettes and lights one up for himself because he can already feel the shake in his hands coming back and he knows it’s only going to get worse the closer he gets to actually doing this and he still needs to be able to arrange the other pieces. 

So. Cigarette first. Once he’s taken a couple drags, he pulls out his box of flash drives, each with the Energy symbol already etched into the plastic, along with a few other Sigils. He plucks one from the bunch, clicks on his laptop, and sets the files uploading. Eight whole gigabytes worth of code that goes nowhere: variables that accumulate based on random number generators, recursion loops that fold in on themselves, and generations of parent-child classes that have become Theseus’ ship in terms of the functions they inherit—plus some uncompilable code ripped from files of various video games, for flavor. The curse will need something in the flash drive itself to latch onto, after all.

As it uploads, Kaiser checks his helm. He used his soldering iron to weld the spider web cracks in the plastic casing along the side, then left it to charge. He reaches under the jaw and feels around for a switch. Some of the purple LEDs in the side come on, and Kaiser counts the lights: seven of ten full, the eighth flashing. Not bad. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong and he’s out of here soon, he should still have a decent charge on it. 

Just as he’s thumbing over his other patch jobs, mulling over if he should just get a new visor for this thing already, his burner vibrates in his pocket.

Unknown Number (23:47)

Ya kno, u should totally come down here sometime

It’s fun!!

I think some of the guys here have literally never seen ur face lol

Kaiser raises his eyebrow. He looks at the dark, one-way tint of his helm’s visor.

You (23:47)

that’s kind of the point

Unknown Number (23:47)

HA 

You know what I mean tho

Files uploaded. Flash drive is ready. Now the last part—where the fuck did he put that box. He puts his burner in his pocket to sift through his boxes of junk components. A second later, it buzzes again. He picks it up as he keeps rummaging.

Unknown Number (23:48)

Like I know ur not big on teh ring fights but Geraldo and Tati are literally just playing cards out back

When ur done up there they can deal u in if u want :D

Kaiser pauses to tap out an answer.

You (23:48)

busy. maybe some other time.

Yeah right. Kaiser tosses his burner into his backpack before he can see Valéria’s nagging replies.

After a little more rifling, there it is. Box of used, broken Gameboys and Gameboy cartridges he bought (yes, bought, with his own money this time) from the second hand store two towns over. The guy working the counter practically gave them away, to be honest; they were junk to him. Kaiser had been over the moon. He’s since modified the Gameboys, tossed aside their back paneling (if they had it) and soldered in connections between their motherboards and USB adapters.

Would that actually work if he were to plug in his flash drive and power it on? Hell no. But all that matters is there’s some sort of channel to have the Paranormal talk between the save files of the used game cartridge, the heart of the Gameboy itself, and Kaiser’s nonsense code.

Kaiser plucks one out. This Gameboy had probably been owned by a little girl, given the peeling heart stickers on the back. There’s a name written in purple marker that’s half-faded, half missing with part of the broken casing. Kaiser can make out “E-L-I–” and then nothing more. The cartridge is too busted to see what game she was playing. Kaiser hums, plugs in his flash drive, and scoops the whole thing up into his hands. 

Onto the mesh it goes. A tangle of cables arranged carefully so the flash drive sits in the middle, exposed wires of the Gameboy wrapped around key junctions in the circuitry of the mesh. Kaiser steps back and looks at it all, listening to music and smoking for a minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Four. 

Kaiser taps his heel. He taps his finger against his thigh. He puts out his cigarette on the table—clearly doing nothing for him, not that it matters—and goes to fetch the cable.

His heart is already picking up when he finds it. That’s fine. It’s fine. Part of the process. The cable was ripped from an old vacuum cleaner. It plugs into the wall, and its other end is stripped so the wires are exposed. Connection point. He grabs it by the casing and drags it over to the transcendence circle.

He kneels down in front of his flash drive. He shrugs off his hoodie and tosses it somewhere, then pulls out his earbuds (whiplash from the vacuum of sound; he can hear echoing shouts from downstairs, words he won’t parse) and tosses those with his mp3 onto his hoodie.

Only one thing left to do now. The fog curls around his knees. His hands have long since started shaking again. He’s sweating.

Okay. Deep breaths, Kaiser. Part of the process. He picks up the cable again. His other hand lays over the flashdrive, the old Gameboy, the mesh. The heel of his palm connects with the transcendence symbol painted on the floor. 

He concentrates on it. His fingers quiver around the cable. He feels slightly light-headed. He concentrates. He remembers everything he doesn’t want to remember. He lets it drive his heart rate faster, lets it kick up a hum beneath his skin where the old wires still lay, watches as the glow traces up his arms and chest like veins, hot and sparking. 

He concentrates on the symbol. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and touches the exposed wire of the cable to his wrist.

Energy fires through him. Bursts of exploding stars behind his eyelids, the supernovas revealing every regret, every possibility, every road not taken and every choice not made and every road that can be taken and every choice he can make firing through the synapses of his brain like a switchboard; a screeching in his ears, a blazing under his skin, a reality too big for his own body being forced through him regardless; all of it coalescing into the image of an ever-changing, violent specter that screams with the voice of a little girl, taken and ripped to shreds and patched together with distorted 8-bit music, given new life, new form, new pixels, new beginning, new memory, new, new, nothing lost, new, breathe again, breathe new, breathe—

Kaiser gasps. He blinks the sparks and tears out of his eyes. He coughs like he’s choking on a bad drag of a cigarette. The glow under his skin begins to fade, the heat and the hum of electricity with it. His heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his throat.

But when he lifts his hand from the mesh, arm twitching in the aftershocks, there lays a flash drive with new etchings in its surface that look like they were carved by a lightning strike. The Energy symbol sits like a brand in its center.

A new flash drive. A new creature. Kaiser thinks of the ear-piercing scream it gave, and a creaky laugh bubbles out of his throat. Good fucking luck to whoever’s gonna have to kill it, because it sure as hell won’t be Kaiser.

[aleksa-sims]

Is anyone else dealing with infinite loading screens lately? (Since for rent patch!!)

I’ve been trying to fix my game for over a week. I think I tried everything, like... 50/50, removing all cc/mods altogether, repairing, deleting caches, resetting ea app....except un- & reinstalling it completeIy! I tried a lot and wasted a lot of time.

My suspicion was that some CC doors & windows caused the endless loading, bcs it worked after removing those items. (50/50) BUT!! As soon as I was building , especially on bigger lots, that endless loading started again. Or my game just crashes in build mode, but also in CAS it happened, when I wanted to go back to my lot/house with my sims. However, I noticed that those issues affect builds, that were built before the update!! It has something to do with removing/placing an item in build mode. Objects placed on top of each other, seem to have broken my game/save? But most striking were those objects in the picture below for me!

Whenever I placed and moved them, I got Last Exceptions by the game itself and also MCCC. Error: Exception in <function c_api_clear_parent_object at 0x00007FF4BEE31170>... I had no idea what this meant? I was not even sure, if it was actually that object above in the pic? So I also put Better Exceptions by Twisted Mexi in my game, as additional help, to find out what exactly the issue is. All the mods I had, were save! It seems to be a prob by the game itself.

I checked and asked at EA Help/ Answers HQ and found out, that other ppl also have the same issues with their game. That means, no matter what I try, it won’t help. Sure, I could also rebuild all my houses & builds, from scratch.😡 Downloading them from the gallery and placing them in my new or old save, won’t really help, because most of my builds were built before the update. I tried this and it didn’t work. The only solution that actually worked was to build a house from scratch. But honestly? Who has timet for such a shit?

Anyway, I can play my game. Everything runs smoothly and well, I just can’t switch from my lot/house to CAS or Build mode, without that endless loading or a game crash. I have to move my Sims to an empty lot first, to be able to get back from CAS to my current game session, without a crash. 😒😒

I’m totally annoyed by Sims rn! I’m sick and tired of it! Something always breaks, as soon as a major update comes. 😡Can’t they do their damn job right?? I mean, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but I do not see the point in spending money on a game, that destroys my saves and work in which I have invested a lot of time and effort. I have never complained or regretted spending money on it. I would even be willing to pay a bit more, if things worked properly but..... come on, that sucks and it's not fair!

Anyway, I had to let off some steam and well! Maybe someone here has a better solution I haven’t found yet? But I hope EA will fix this shit! Though....they didn’t even manage to fix the stair rails. Now they look just as crappy as before! 🤦‍♀️