#the severity of abruptness and TOTALITY of the switch that makes me feel like a weirdo sometimes lol

[aphel1on]

AuDHD is so funny sometimes like what do you mean my hyperfixations/special interests will last for years on end or possibly forever but they will cycle out every month or two with absolutely no transitional period or warning. like i will think about the same topic every day obsessively for 46 days in a row and on the 47th day with no visible cause adhd brain goes "ok! bored of that now" and autism brain goes "dw i got something queued up for ya" and i blast into full blown obsession on some other topic whose mental file folders haven't opened in 9 months. brain's out here treating hyperfixations like a crop rotation. once the dopamine runs out it cycles in another one but once something's in the rotation it never ever leaves. last summer we brought in one from when i was 11. it's so funny to me but frustrating too bc like. i cannot stress enough my inability to predict or control this. or how completely abrupt and random it can be

[wthtorke]

Honorbound -Oneshot- (Commission)

Life was lonely, as he intended it to be. A worn, wandering warrior with the weight of his battle scars exhausting his soul, stopping from village to village, living from the very soil that his horse trotted on. Little were the things he still had possession of. His horse, his sword, and the very scrape that was left of his honor, each battle and happening seemly chipping away at it, as it did to his will to go on. 

Word got to him in one of the villages that several honored warriors came to an abrupt end in a clearing. Their bloody robes and sometimes sword shards were the only proof that they were defeated by someone. The families grieved and every time, a new warrior would stand up to the challenge, arming up and setting to the very same clearing, only to be found days later by barking dogs and gasping children. 

At first, he wasn’t impressed. Cocky warriors died every day, thinking themselves to be great and undefeatable only to stare in horror as the blade that sealed their fate came down upon them. But something was different this time. No one knew who was behind all the murders. It couldn’t be the foreigners with their guns and powders, there were no holes in the bodies they found, what they found was much worse.

The bodies were often missing the head and the spine and when the head and spine were not taken, the sword was gone, a complete disgrace. Taking a fallen warrior’s sword was asking to be cursed for life.

So he decided to ask around, not like he had anything better to do other than to wait for his death. Coming across a child that swore to see a red demon on a tree close to the clearing. ‘Big’, ‘Ugly’, and ‘With fangs pointing out of its mouth’. Now, he figured most demons probably looked like that, but it was the ‘it mimicked me’ that reminded him of a very old tale, a summer horror story, one his very grandmother told him every time he refused to come inside for the night, saying that old demons would snatch him and carry him off into the darkness, disappearing forever.

It sounded dumb. Stupid, even. To go after the very same place where at least five other warriors had perished. He once had judged himself to be a good warrior, quick moves, fast-thinking, and deadly strikes. Now his shame made him heavy on his feet, the regrets in his chest making it hard to breathe sometimes. He only drew his sword to tend to it, to make sure it was in pristine condition, ironically. 

He thought about turning his back and keeping going with his pointless journey. To once again just leave it behind him. He was no better than any of the warriors that fought and died.

But fate was against him, it seemed. 

On his way out, from up a tree, a glint caught his eye. But it was no ordinary glint.

The light seemed to catch up on whatever magic that demon used, trying to reveal to the world that pure evil was walking on its very ground, unnoticed.

But not by him. 

The child had not lied. The demon was massive from what he could tell from the shifting form. It's eyes flashing a yellow glow before it vanished completely from sight, either jumping to another tree or just disappearing. No shifting, no sound, nothing.

It was taunting. Of course, to kill and to lure yet another imbecile to its trap, sounded every bit like a demon.

Making a decision, he asked the families just where exactly was the clearing.

-

Five tokens of his kills hung on the wall of his ship. Three skulls with their spines perfectly attached to them and two swords. 

At first, his clan didn't really understand his objective here. The will to learn and to adapt going far deeper than just hunting different races of humans. 

Out of every race on this wretched planet, he respected these more. He watched as they taught their children to be honored. To fight with respect and bravery. To know when you're defeated and when to strike. 

Things they had taught them themselves once.

While most motherships hovered above hot countries in the south. Two distinct clans took home in the Orient. Both clans despised each other greatly, going as far as to keep away from one another in order not to harm the still learning human population. His clan chose the islands known to humans as 'Wa', which would later become 'Nippon'. 

It had been centuries, of course. The humans had forgotten them just as they had forgotten the filthy beings that first generated them, who cowered in their home planet. When the clans decided to abandon Earth at once, so did the two clans. Leaving everything behind, only coming back rarely to hunt, forming the only negative memory of being demons to beings some of them actually came to love.

He'd heard everything about humans, he knew other races and even had trophies of some of them. Hunts so boring and forgettable that sometimes he caught himself checking just from where that skull was from. It was ridiculous.

But not here. He was having the time of his life here. And he might be having even more fun soon, it seemed. 

He knew human badbloods existed and were total scum. Waking trash.

But what he did not really see coming was a bad blood that….Wasn't really a bad blood.

He'd been observing when the warrior had come, his horse tiredly walking into the village. He looked out of place. His clothes were old, but not unkept like his beard. Humans had a different kind of 'beard' than yautjas had, and with the time, he could tell the difference between a cared for beard and one that was just a rat's nest on someone's face. 

Disgusting. 

So he did not belong there, or anywhere, it seemed. He carried a sword that he could also tell was in good form. Good. Another match, perhaps.

While badbloods were to be taken out quickly from life, he found himself weirdly curious about this one. He had the same instance and breathing of clan leaders. Tired, exhausted from years of making decisions but still carrying on nonetheless. It was puzzling. Humans did not live that long to live this type of experience. But that one apparently did.

You could say he was angry when after hearing about all the murders and happenings, the human just walked off with his slightly rested horse.

But it wouldn't do. No.

Despite being well over a youngblood's age, he sure acted like he was one. Taunting his prey from up a tree, daring him to come forth and challenge him. 

You could also say he was more than satisfied when it worked. The human walking right back to the widowed women to ask where the battles had supposedly happened.

He practiced harder that night, his blade extra sharp, wielded with much more precision and care than the first time he touched it. His style bettered with each battle, his adaptation proving to be, yet again, perfect. 

Words could not describe would eager he was for his next battle.

-

You may have fought before, many times even. But surely never with a Demon. He had not.

Unsheathing his blade felt bittersweet. Wielding it felt rusty, almost. But the tingling in his fingertips was still there, the rush of the blood in his veins as he breathed in and out, remembering every move, every technique, every battle he had both won and lost.

Sharp as your blade maybe, it won't fight for itself, your mind must be just as sharp and deadly as your weapon, he came to learn. Raw potential was nothing without guidance.

Closing his eyes, the wind hustled the trees around him, going into the general direction where he was told the clearing was. Almost luring him there, to his death, like it had done to the others before him. He was no different, no better. And yet, he'd face the challenge. Fight for people he didn't know, against something that wasn't natural, not from this world.

At dawn, he left his horse in the village, striding into the dense forest, armed with his sword and nothing else.

1400

He walked for what felt like forever, feeling his back burning under someone's gaze. The hairs of his neck stood on end, every instinct in his body told him to leave while he still could, foolish. He had doomed himself the minute he decided to ask about the funerals, the minute he decided to rest at that village. There was no escape. Only forth, only future, whatever might it hold for him.

Reaching the clearing, he knew he was in the belly of the beast when he saw the remnants of the past battles that took place there. The dried blood in the grass, the blade shards here and there along with some bushes cut the way only a speeding katana would slice into. The trees had similar cuts to their barks, scratches that looked like a dragon had nested in this area for years.

His mouth closed again when he heard the growling coming from everywhere and nowhere at all, his hand instantly going to the hilt of his sword, searching the trees as the clicking sound circled him from the shadows, teasing him, trying to instill fear into his heart and soul. He could see past it.

It wasn't long until a loud thud snapped his attention to his front, a few feet ahead, he watched as the Demon decided to show itself. It's skin slowly materializing itself into view as it switched from the astral plane into the mortal one to fight him. 

It was surprisingly as the child described. Big, red and ugly. It's jaws spreading to reveal sets of sharp tusks as it roared, the birds that hid from them flying off in desperation.

Studying it, his eyes fell to something unexpected. A blade that might have looked like his, only it was corrupted by the creature's evilness, twisted into dangerous ridges, made to maul and bleed instead of clean slicing and striking.

Disgraceful.

He scowled, not holding back his disgust at the sight, the Demon snarling right back to him before lifting his blade and getting into battle stance as he did the same.

Long seconds passed as his breathing fell into place with the rhythm he would set when fighting, staring into the creature's eyes, piercing yellow like the fires of the underworld that it would try to drag him into.

But it wouldn't work.

Taking a sharp breath, he lunged forward, his sword aimed at the beast's arm as he went. Said beast roared again, meeting him halfway through the blow, swords locking as he felt the impact of the greater body coming at him, his right foot digging into the dirt with sheer force to keep his balance. 

So close to it, he noticed it wore a necklace made of fabric, braided into loops around its thick neck. He frowned as he pushed back with all he had, the demon grunting as it forced back into him.

Realization downed him when he caught it looking at his sword sheath, the braided cords that tied it to his belt. Eyes snapping back to its necklace, he recognized the pattern in them, the different colored loops belonging to different victims.

Trophies. It collected trophies.

The scream that ripped from his throat was out before he could stop it, forcing the creature to back off as he all but swung his weight on it, their blades sliding free from one another as he lunged again, grunting his effort as he managed to block the Demon's counterattack, missing his eye by an inch, he panted as he felt his arms begin to burn from the sheer force the beast pressed him down with, its muscles bulging as it snarled at him, tusks dangerously close to his face.

He grunted as he turned, sweeping low as the creature's blade whizzed past his head, his own blade finding its calf and slicing it open, bright, green blood painting the grass under them and a perfect line on his sword.

He took the opportunity to jump back and gain space as the Demon roared its pain, eyes set on him as it lunged blindly in rage at him. 

His sore arms not resisting the impact on time, he felt the searing cut as his right shoulder almost gave out under the pain, his face scrunching up as he couldn't afford to close his eyes in pain.

He looked up to see the creature's almost smug expression as it retracted its blade, piercing it forward again, aiming for his chest, for his heart.

He sucked in a gasp as he forced his legs to give out under him, dropping his body to the ground like a rag doll, the blade sinking into the ground dangerously next to his eye. 

The Demon's eyes widened as he tensed to pluck the blade from the ground, the warrior already moving again, his blade slicing the beast into its right side, under its first rib, green blood once again oozing out of it as it struggled to keep its balance, it’s free clawed hand coming to clutch its side while still trying to fight him with the other. 

Still, in the rush, the warrior rolled to the side, feet turning as his legs worked to get him up straight again, robes dirty with green strands from both grass and green blood, his own shoulder tainted red with his own clotting blood. His breathing was heavy as he got in stance again, shoulder squaring, wincing as he felt the wound ripping open again, even more blood coming out of it. But it was either his shoulder or his life and between them, he chose life.

Before the creature could process swinging at him again, he lunged. Face scrunched up in anger, fists firm around the sword's handle as he dived into the beast, blade cutting it through the chest downwards to its belly, the hard spikes it had there being cut off like wood chips out of tree bark.

His blade moving down and out, he spun again, stepping back to have the creature in full view as it finally lost its balance and kneeled, its legs giving out as the green blood soiled more and more of the ground under it.

He could hear the blood rushing through his veins, the ringing in his head crisp and clear as he struggled to control his breathing, eyes never leaving the demon. 

Precious seconds passed before the creature tried getting up again, to no avail. Its arms and legs shook as it tried using its sword as support to get up.

He steadied his hands again and took a step closer to it, not sure of what to do. End it? Spare it? Could demons be spared? Could demons die?

He jerked back slightly as the demon roared at him, clearly angry for being outmatched. He frowned, taking another step forward as the creature bent over again, the thick dreads falling over as it stared at the ground, he pointed the blade at the beast, opening his mouth to speak to it, not really knowing if it understood him or not when its left hand whipped up and gripped his chest, claws sinking in on his robes and all but tearing the skin of his chest apart, leaving hot bloody trails behind as the claws closed in on his robes. He yelled as he was pulled forward, his foot straining against the ground as he refused to buckle. 

Staring into the flaming eyes of the beast, he would not become another string on its necklace. 

The warrior growled as he brought the hilt of the sword up, connecting it to the creature's face three times as its grip loosened on his robes, bringing his knee up the Demons jaws, making its head snap back up, eyes disoriented briefly as it shook its head, looking up to find the warrior already on his feet, his blade ready to sink into his head anytime.

"You have lost." The warrior said, voice firm and unwavering as if his chest wasn't almost ripped open and the gashing wound on his shoulder didn't exist. "Take your leave of this village or perish by my hand." He finished, tone as sharp as the feel of his weapon. 

The demon cackled, taking a few more breaths, wheezy and wobbly as it got up, stumbling slightly as it clutched its right side, blood oozing through its fingers. 

The warrior wasn't sure if it had understood him as it reached for something in the back of its belt, pulling a dagger that was an otherworldly shape. He braced himself for a final attack when the thing laughed again, holding the dagger out in its open hand. 

'..ta'Ke iT', it said, voice raspy and breathy. 

The warrior narrowed his eyes, thinking it to be another trick from the demon, deceiving and dirty. He didn't move, still in battle stance as the beast roared, clearly regretting it as its grip tightened on its side briefly, hand coming up again as it frowned harder.

'Ta'ke', it hissed and the warrior stepped forward, hand cautiously coming to meet the demons own, grabbing the dagger from it, inspecting it quickly, sword still pointed at the creature.

'De' feat' It croaked, its blade retracting as it did. Pointing next to the trees behind him, 'Go', it said, 'Su'mm er, re' turn', it growled, pointing at the warriors head, 'Ta'ke'. 

The warrior merely huffed, "I'll be waiting, now vanish, Demon." He snarled. The Demon chuckling before turning on its heel and walking into the forest, its skin shifting into the forest's skin once again. .

“I’ll be waiting”, he repeated, sheathing his sword.

-

This Oneshot was commissioned and the buyer kindly allowed me to post it! Just an example of the kind of work I can do ;) Hope yall like it!

https://ko-fi.com/wthtorke My ko-fi in case anyones feeling generous and wants to help a broke college student lmao

[bluepenguinstories]

Remoras Full Chapter XXX: My Only Sunshine

There was nothing that needed to be desired: interesting people have been met, mysteries uncovered, plans fulfilled. People were allowed to come and go as they please. Friends, lovers, family, strangers. It didn’t matter who, nor how close they were to the heart. If they weren’t allowed to go, then what agency did they have? So the sacrifices were made, and would continue to be made as long as there was a soul occupying the diner.

It was easier to separate truths from the self. Feelings weren’t what complicated things, but being a passive observer was more comfortable. Holding on...holding on...was a fool’s errand.

As for the diner, it, like me, sat still. Near-empty. Indeed, it would be so, if not for the child left behind. If not for the memories or the passerby.

Most of the windows were fogged, save for the one I sat beside. Steam billowed out from the cup of tea, chrysanthemum, its flowery scent transported from the steam and into my nostrils. ‘Alone’ was both a truth and something felt within. Being alone and loneliness weren’t the same thing, but the two could stand to make friends with one another.

Just a few days ago, Tigershark awoke from her nap and asked where her figurative older sister was. At the time, I sat at the desk in the back of the diner.

“Gone,” she was told.

“Where to?” Came her next question.

“That I don’t know.”

“When will she be back?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“She will be back, right?” Her face contorted to a scowl and her hands placed on her hips as she leaned forth. As authoritative as it was, she wouldn’t receive a definite answer.

“I can’t say.”

“Why not?”

My head swung and I exhaled. Disappointment wasn’t a desirable business, yet at times such things had to be delivered.

“Because I have no way of knowing what is going through her head, nor do I know whether or not she will decide to return. There’s a very real possibility that she won’t, and we will just have to accept that.”

“Well it’s not fair!” She spat fire and stamped her foot. “She didn’t tell me she was leaving! She didn’t offer to take me with her! She just left me here!”

All fair points, and none of which I could provide a solution for.

“Sometimes people do things without considering how their actions will affect others. While I’m sure she didn’t intend to disregard your feelings, I also can’t speak for her.”

If she truly believed that she didn’t care for others, then even if Tigershark crossed Remora’s mind, it wouldn’t mean anything to her. However, if I were to offer an alternate perspective, sooner or later, it would cross her mind, if it hadn’t already, and when it did, she would feel regret. Yet at the same time, she would not return. Why I would believe so was because I felt similar about my own daughter.

She probably thought something like, “crap, I forgot about Tigershark. Oh well, she’s much better off with Ray and Sunny, anyway. I was never fit to take care of another person. She deserves someone who can actually care about her.”

(side note: those would be her thoughts, not mine. Likewise, again, I have no way of knowing what her actual thoughts were, and that was just speculation on my part)

My own opinion was both that she was plenty fit, and that while I was flattered that she would “entrust” Tigershark to me, I really wished that I would be prepared to do so. No matter. It wasn’t like I wasn’t going to abandon her.

“Sunny’s still going to come back, right?” Tigershark pressed. That should have been an obvious answer.

“Yes. That’s just how Sunny is: she goes off for long periods, but always returns. That’s what I love about her.”

She beamed, but I could tell behind it that there was a longing. Her eyes darted from the room Demetria occupied first, then her head turned toward Remora’s. While it was a split second glance with both, it was noticeable all the same.

Days passed since the two dearly departed, and being lost in thought made my tea grow cold. At least it matched the climate. If I dumped it out, made a new pot, I would have felt it disrespectful to the tea, so I finished it off all the same.

There was a reason that the outside world went without description, even as my eyes fixated on the window and not the interior; a thick fog obscured the landscape, much like the fog on the windows. As of late, it appeared that fogs were more frequent. Poised with danger, yet no danger to be seen. Thicker than pea soup, one could cut through the fog with a knife and it wouldn’t dissipate one bit.

Much like how one could cut through the tension in a room when unspoken concerns lingered.

Ah, the tea cup turned empty. As empty as the diner. While there were occasional customers ever since Aurora became the diner’s advertiser, it would be all too understandable why no one would wish to enter when there were heavy fogs. Not to mention how difficult it would be to find the diner in such conditions.

At least it wasn’t total emptiness.

“I’m a pengu-plane! Brrrr!” Tigershark ran around the dining room with her penguin plush held over her head. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Are you bored?” I asked.

She stopped and her shoes skid against the tile floor. Much like a race car having to slam the brakes and make an abrupt stop.

“Yeah! There’s more to do when other people are here!” She pumped her fist as she declared. On principle, I was inclined to agree.

“Indeed. Were the weather more fair, we could go on a walk or play outside,” such ideas, as nice as they were, did nothing in the present. What I needed to do was offer a solution.

“You could make something,” I suggested.

“Don’t wanna.”

“You could make food.”

“Are you hungry?” She asked in turn.

“Not right now, no.”

“Then I don’t wanna. I’m not hungry right now and there’s no one else to make food for.”

“You could read a book,” I lifted my index finger. At last I might have found something to ease her boredom. Eureka.

“What books are there?”

“Plenty. Textbooks in various subjects, classic literature, obscure literature, novels in several different languages, and a fair bit of pulp fiction.”

“How can I read a book if it’s in a language I don’t know?”

“You can start with a single word.”

“But what if I don’t know any words?”

“Ask me what a word means and I’ll tell you.”

“Hmm...I’ll try, but reading makes me sleepy.”

“That’s the best part, though, isn’t it?”

She ran off to the back without another word.

While reading could be quite the relaxing romp, it was at its core an exercise just as much as any other. Like running, one could read in short bursts and tire out, having expended energy trying to rush things. Or, one could take it slow and go longer, but that would require discipline and practice, and run the risk of collapsing mid-sentence and losing one’s place.

It wasn’t long before Tigershark came running back out.

“That was fast,” I noted.

She flailed her arms about and made fast gestures pointing toward the back of the diner.

“I started reading this book called L’Astree but I stopped because I couldn’t read it, so I went into Remora’s room and her rifle is still behind the bed!”

It’s no longer her room if she no longer lives here. You do know that, right? I could have said if I didn’t know better. Whatever hope she may have, I wouldn’t want to snatch that away from her.

“How careless of her,” I smiled and pat her head as I lifted myself out from my seat. “We should keep it safe so it’s still here when she comes back.”

Her face lit up. How careless of me as well.

“She’s coming back?!” Her mouth was a compromise between a grin and a mouth open wide look of surprise. I shook my head.

“Sorry, I mistook. Maybe I’m hoping she will as well.”

As I strode toward the back, I expected Tigershark to follow behind, but she soon darted into the kitchen. Perhaps she began to get hungry after all, or wished to craft a snack. Or it could have been that she was afraid of the weapon itself. Although she never was big on fear, either possibility seemed likely.

Through the sterile halls was the unassuming white door, left ajar. Darkness surrounded the small room. Cold and dark, that was how she saw the world, wasn’t it? For what it was worth, I felt the dark.

I flipped the light switch, but the bulb must have long since burnt out.

We ought to get a lamp in here. Or just a new flashbulb.

Rather than a chill to accompany the darkness, there was a profound warmth. Suffocating in its warmth, in fact. She always did turn the central heater on so high, despite how little good it seemed to do. Behind the bed, indeed, was the rifle, but there was also a space heater.

Now that is a fire hazard. Why didn’t I notice this sooner?

That would have to be another thing to move elsewhere. I unplugged it, of course. There was a central heater for that already. Anything more was just overkill.

Sheesh, I can only imagine how uncomfortable Tigershark was.

So many blankets piled on the bed and a couple of them on the floor, alongside the sleeping bag.

Did she ever wash those sheets? Even if she did, I suppose they could use another wash.

Before I grabbed hold of the rifle, I paused.

“You know, if I close my eyes, it’s like you’re still here with us,” and in fact, I closed my eyes. There was little indication that such a thing was true. Her voice didn’t ring in my head and the image of her was blurred. Still, after that momentary stillness, I said into the darkness, “silly, isn’t it? You’re gone, and I can’t hear your voice.”

That was it. I packed it up. Brought the space heater into the adjacent closet and carried the rifle upstairs. Past Sunny and I’s bed, past all the little knick-knacks and treasures, off in the back where the weapons Sunny had acquired over the years sat, or stood against the wall. On one end of the wall stood a rifle of my own, one which I hoped not to use in the foreseeable future. Her rifle was set against the opposite end of the wall.

“You’re in a better place now.”

After coming back down, I grabbed the bedding and placed it in the washing machine, scattered some homemade detergent, and let it rumble. In spite of the noise and the distance, my keen ears heard the front door open. My heart made a little pendulum swing against my chest, anticipating someone who wouldn’t show. Still, curiosity was a grisly beast, one who I was at the mercy of. It grabbed me and dragged me across the hall and through the door until I was back in the dining room. All the while, I maintained a steady breath.

Seated at a booth off to the right of the entrance to the diner was a woman with bright purple hair which had a slick sheen to it as it slid down to her lower back. She sat hunched over, one arm folded flat against the table and the other propped up by her elbow as her hand was tucked under her chin. She faced to the left, her gaze fixed forward. My eyes darted to what she might have been staring at, and when I saw nothing in particular of interest, I concluded that she too was staring at nothing in particular. That was until I saw the shift in her pupils, even as she didn’t move, and her eyes soon met mine.

She released her hand from under her chin and waved. I gave a short wave back, then broke out of my trance and approached her. As I did so, I noticed a sheathed sword hanging off from the side of her pants.

“Good day, welcome to my diner,” I spoke, soft and polite in my approach. At that, she looked up and smiled.

“Rather unassuming place, huh?” Her voice was deep and slow, but with a casualness to it, as if the whole thing was amusing. Maybe it was.

“I’m an unassuming person,” I replied.

“No assumptions? None at all?”

I shook my head and smiled.

“I prefer the term ‘inferences’. Now, my name is Ray. I’ll go bring you a menu. Would you like anything to drink?”

“Do you have any sake?”

I pondered. Not a usual request, but there was a small amount stored.

“We do. How would you like yours?”

“Hot. Please.”

“A warm drink to warm up the soul, I see. I’ll be right back,” I assured her, then began to walk away.

“Thank you, Ray.”

I went into the kitchen, where Tigershark sat while attempting to read a book. When I opened the hatch, she jumped up.

“Is someone here?” She gasped, all excited and hopeful for something else to do.

“Yes. If you would like, you can greet them and bring them a menu while I gather their drinks.”

“Yay! Teamwork!” She jumped and grinned.

After coming back up with a bottle and warming up a cup of sake, as well as filling a glass of water, I brought the two drinks out and watched as the excited young Tigershark and the mysterious purple lady conversed.

“Yeah, and one day, I’ll wrestle a shark!” Tigershark proclaimed.

“Oh my, a shark? You might want to be careful,” she humored her.

When the two saw me walk by with the drinks, Tigershark hurried and handed her the menu.

“I almost forgot! Here!” She bowed her head and handed the purple sword lady a menu.

“Thank you, Tigershark,” replied the mysterious customer. She began to look over the menu, but then set it down and lowered her head and a sudden look of worry flooded her face.

“Uh. Yeah. Excuse me. Is there a dollar menu? I already spent most of my cash just to get here.”

I snorted. It probably wasn’t as funny as intended, but I just never expected such a question.

“Don’t worry about the cost. I won’t charge you,” I smiled and shook my head.

“But Ray, putting everything on the house isn’t good for business!” Tigershark balked.

“Yes, I realize that, but at this point, we’re more of a home than a business. Maybe if we get more customers one day, I can worry more about money, but as it stands, I have plenty to get me by. Besides,” I turned my attention to the guest. “I’m more interested in who you are than how much money you have.”

She tilted her head and a sneering smile took form.

“Is that so? But I’m no one interesting. I was just referred here.”

Ah, it must have been Aurora who referred her. Still, there’s something about her, but if that’s all it is, then that solves one mystery.

“Nonsense. Everyone has something interesting about them.”

Rather than answer, she glared with a gaze which pierced into me like a spider’s venom. I sensed no malice, yet I felt the intensity seep through all the same.

“Do you happen to see people less as people and more as pieces in a puzzle?” She asked at last, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

Despite my mouth opening to speak, I found no words.

“Don’t worry if the answer is yes. Lately I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

Well, if I wasn’t intrigued before, I certainly was now.

“Anyway,” she added, “I’ll just have a steak and some rice.”

“Right away! I’ll make the best steak and the best rice you’ve ever had!” Tigershark declared, then ran off into the kitchen.

“Shouldn’t you watch her?” Our guest addressed me.

“No need. She’s been at this for a while,” I assured her.

“How interesting,” she commented, then returned to her silent, yet pensive look.

“I’m going to sit off in the back and drink some tea, but if you need me, just give me a holler.”

“Thank you, Ray.”

Of course, I didn’t make it all the way to my seat when the door slammed open, almost torn from its hinges. One of those ‘one thing after another’ days when all the people seemed to fall into place.

“Hey Ray! Rev up those fryers! I got a rumbly in my tummy!” Boomed the boisterous voice of none other than Aurora B.

“Yes ma’am, right away, ma’am,” I groaned in a dull voice. Out of all the folks who could have entered, it just had to be her.

“Now there’s a face I haven’t seen in years,” remarked our purple haired guest. I stopped dead in my tracks. Did she say ‘years’?

Aurora turned to the guest and blinked.

“Have we met?” Aurora’s voice lowered, almost timid and visible confusion written on her face.

“You could say that,” came the cryptic words.

“I doubt I’d forget a face as pretty as yours.”

“Them’s flirtin’ words,” our guest imitated a gruff voice through grit teeth.

“Um, why are you talking like that?”

“This diner ain’t big enough for the both of us,” and it then became apparent that what she was trying to imitate was one of those old spaghetti western movies.

“Ray! She’s scaring me!” Aurora whined.

“Okay, seriously: who are you?” I couldn’t take it anymore.

“As I said, I was referred here,” our guest replied, rather than give a name.

“Yes, but what is your name?”

She shrugged her shoulders, then looked up in wonder.

“Hundreds of years ago, in another universe, I was known as Wendy Day. There’s a few people in Chicago who call me that as well. Recently, I told someone my name from a past life, although that was a fabrication. I am neither a gentle breeze, nor a still water. If you wanted, you could all me whatever you wanted. I find that names don’t matter, and it’s who you are as a person that matters more.”

“All right, Wendy,” I was grateful to be given a name, any name. “However, I disagree. Without a name, you may as well not have an identity. Unless the lack of identity is in of itself an identity.”

“Really, now? What’s the name of this diner? I didn’t see one when I entered.”

Damn. She got me there.

“In my case, the lack of identity is the identity. It allows a certain degree of obscurity, you see. If others do find out about this place, it’s like a hidden treasure. Although, I did tell somebody’s mother the other day that the diner was known as the Remora’s Full Diner.”

“Ironic. This place has no remoras, and it’s not very full.”

If you had shown up just a week prior, there would have been a Remora.

“Well, what about you, windy day?”

She shrugged.

“It’s more accurate than a gentle breeze. Speaking of Remoras...where is she?” Wendy asked, and that was when I froze. Goosepimples cropped up all over the field that was my skin, and I shivered. Once I regained composure, I told her.

“She left. Had a breakdown of sorts and felt the need to leave.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. She’s the type to go ‘therapy for thee, but not for me’.”

“I take it you know her?”

“In a sense. I know her about as well as I know a Clara Waters, or a Claire Skye, a Mira Image, or even a Rhea Flection.”

“What’s up with all these stupid names?” Aurora scoffed.

“I don’t know, you tell me, Aurora Borealis,” Wendy shot right back.

“Okay, first of all, how dare you?”

There was no second of all.

I sat down at the booth behind Wendy. Aurora sat at the same table as Wendy, across from her.

“I met Remora about a couple months ago. Along with Sunny and Demetria. Sunny didn’t give me such a warm welcome, for some reason she tried to kill me. So I roughed her up a little and sent her back home. There was something Sunny said, however, that got to me. She said, ‘Rhea? Is that you?’ And as I said, names mean nothing, but it was the context, y’know? Maybe it was the color of my hair, or the mannerism in which I spoke, but it was like she knew of someone else that I knew of.”

“Ah, so you’re the one who stabbed my wife’s knee and made it so that she had to use a cane for a while,” I pieced together.

“Ha! Yeah! Is she around?”

“No, and neither is Demetria.”

“Damn. Why are all the women leaving you, Ray?”

I shrugged.

“Don’t worry, Ray! I still come for the food!” Aurora boasted.

“Gee, is that all I’m good for?” I balked.

“Nah, Tigershark makes the food! She just happens to cook it at your place!”

Wendy took a sip of her sake, then looked up.

“Anyway, I got to thinking about how there was a request to kill me in the first place. Someone wants me dead, someone who knows about me. The question is, who and why? If it was a request on behalf of the company I left, I would have understood, as they didn’t take kindly to those who chose to quit. But the request didn’t come from the company, and the one who carried it out didn’t know who I was, but also knew who a certain co-worker of mine was.”

“I think I ought to explain that as well,” I interjected. “Anonymous requests occasionally come in to the diner, and my wife and I tend to solve them for a cash reward. Usually we don’t get requests to kill others, but my wife thought it wouldn’t be so bad, since it said you went around killing people.”

“So you don’t know who it was, either? That’s dangerous.”

“We haven’t had a problem with it in the past, but after Remora showed up, more strange things have happened.”

“Ah...my other point: Remora, or Rhea Alter, if you want to call her that. She exists because another Rhea died. Not to mention, all these things that started happening once Remora came to this world. The fact that Sunny didn’t know who I was, but knew who Rhea was...there’s a few ideas of why I was targeted, but one possibility could be that it wasn’t me that this person wanted dead, but Sunny.”

“Why would they use you to do that?”

“That I don’t know. It could be the association with Remora. Either way, why they didn’t want to kill me or Sunny themselves is another question.”

“It could be that they’re too weak to do so,” I suggested.

“That is one possibility.”

I thought it over. All the events that had transpired, some of the things out of the ordinary. What we had to face, both alone, and as a group.

“When I first met Remora, there was this huge beast that emerged from a mountain. The thing is, that mountain didn’t exist prior to that day. It was easily taken down, but the fact remains that it didn’t belong. Then, there were these beasts, much more powerful, and they looked like mutated mixtures of wolves, bears, grasshoppers, and sabertooth tigers. There were also illusions of penguins which would fade into shadow. Then, there’s the two crucial instances.”

“Which are?”

“When Demetria took on a mission to investigate a mansion, she apparently encountered a man who called himself Cronus, and he said he wanted to lure Rhea there. There was also apparently a creature there composed of various limbs and appendages which made people lose their sense of self and devoured them. Second instance was in a cave, where a man named Buddy Fairweather had strange powers and could control those mutant beasts. After he died, we saw no more of the beasts. We thought it was over. Remora wasn’t so sure, but there hasn’t been any activity since. So maybe the horrors are over.”

“That certainly is...something. Don’t know what to make of it, but it may all be connected.”

“Hey, I hate to be ‘that guy’, but I literally have no idea what either are you are talking about,” Aurora butted in.

“Don’t worry about it. Sometimes it’s better to be out of the loop,” Wendy replied.

“So how do you know me, anyway?”

“Same way I know of Rhea: I worked for the same company as her, as well as an alternate version of you.”

Aurora burst into laughter.

“Hun, I think your drink’s gone to your head.”

“Not yet, it hasn’t. You don’t have to believe me, but that’s the explanation.”

Now it was my turn. I decided to tease Wendy a little.

“Did this company have a name?”

“As far as most of us were concerned, no. In fact, most probably believed it was a nameless group. Officially, though, it was called the Custodian League of Interdimensional Technicians, or CLIT, for short. Probably best to pretend it doesn’t have a name.”

It was too late, however. The knowledge was already out there.

“Okay, I’ll humor you: was the other me good with the CLIT?”

“The best.”

Tigershark soon brought out Wendy and Aurora’s meals. Both of them were heavy meat eaters, it seemed. No shame, just an observation. As the two ate, we continued to converse. That all got interrupted when the door opened and three people crashed in, all bloodied and bruised, torn clothing. Two middle aged men, one middle aged woman, all in tattered clothing. They gave a collective groan and struggled to their feet.

I got up at once and helped one of the middle aged men up.

“What happened?!” I demanded, a shrill urgency overtook me. Wendy stood up as well and helped the other two. We brought them to a nearby table. They all shivered and shook their heads, inconsolable.

“Wendy, in the back there’s some weighted blankets in the closet! Grab them!”

She nodded and hurried back there.

“Did an animal do this? Was it a blizzard?” I tried to coax it out of them.

They shook their heads. Then, the middle aged woman spoke:

“We’re here on vacation. We wanted to explore the area, but then this fog appeared and we couldn’t see anything. We tried to make it back to our hotel, but were lost. Soon shadows appeared and they looked demonic. They clawed at us, but as far as we knew, it didn’t have a physical shape.”

I looked outside. All I could see was a gray blanket. No dancing shadows, nothing like that. But the damage was still real enough.

Is something starting up again? Is it a hallucination? I can only hope for the latter, but I fear for the former.

“Aurora!” I barked.

“Yeah?”

“When you got here, did you notice the fog or any shadows?”

She put her hand on her chin and looked lost in thought. I snapped my fingers.

“Quick. Quick.”

From that, she scowled.

“No one orders me around unless I order them to!” She growled.

“This is serious right now,” I then turned to sigh, even plead, “just help me out, okay?”

“There was a fog, sure. But we pretty much got your diner on GPS, so it didn’t bother us none.”

Should I let them be? Or would her and her crew be in danger as well? I didn’t know the answer. There were too many unknowns at the moment and little was being cleared up.

When Wendy came back, she set two weighted blankets on the guests. I then interrogated her.

“What about you? Was there a fog? Were there shadows?”

“Yes,” her tone was much more serious than when she first entered. “I figured they were animals, or a trick of the eye. Some seemed to be trying to attack me, but I blocked any ‘attack’. Or rather, what I blocked wasn’t the attack, but their approach. They looked to be afraid of my blade, and backed off.”

“Why would that…?” My head spun. Everything did.

“Because, it may not look it, but my blade ain’t no ordinary blade,” she flashed a smile as she pulled it out. It was long, probably a little over a meter long, but that didn’t quite explain anything. “It’s infused with a special property. Acts as a sort of repellent for cosmic entities.”

“Cosmic entities...Remora suspected that was what the deal was in the mansion, but she later concluded it wasn’t the case.”

“No offense, but Remora is dumb. So was Rhea. Scratch that, they were smart. Wise, even, but they were also dumb. They had flashes of intelligence and wisdom, but lacked self-awareness and emotional maturity. Too literal minded.”

“Okay, but was that roast really necessary? We’ve got other issues right now.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say: whatever you’ve been dealing with before, it hasn’t gone away. Only changed its appearance.”

I put my palm over my forehead.

“So that blade of yours can harm cosmic entities?”

“Hell no. Nothing can. They’re called many things, angels, celestials, gods, but one thing’s for sure: they can’t die. They’re pretty much like a bogeyman for people in the know because despite their supposed destructive nature, the chances of one actually being the issue are more than one in a million. My blade cannot harm one any more than wishful thinking could. What it does harm is byproducts of them, which anything can harm, but few things can kill a byproduct. If left to sit, it will just regenerate. The only problem is that an infinite amount of creations can spawn from a single celestial, so really, all I’d be doing is repelling the few that I can.”

“So this is what we’re dealing with. Great.”

“Yes and no. I still think a person’s involved. But this is good. At least I have some idea of what this enemy is capable of.”

“That’s all well and good, but how this get resolved if one of those things is here?”

“There are a few options, and it all depends on what’s actually going on: if the entity itself is here, we have to find a way to get it to leave. If a person is possessed by one, then we either have to kill the person being possessed, or we have to find a way to rid the person of their possession.

“None of those things are possible right now…” I seethed. Out of all the things to happen, it just had to be something I wasn’t prepared for. While I wasn’t ready to believe in the existence of some space angels, the fact of the matter was that something was going on, something I didn’t understand. Were the circumstances different, I would have been eager, no, excited, at the prospect of something supernatural.

“You three,” I addressed the afflicted. “What are your names?”

“Hank.”

“I’m Orson.”

“Marjorie.”

I took note of their names.

“Hank, Orson, Marjorie, I do not know what the conditions are outside, nor do I know when they will clear up. I can’t promise that things will get better,” I gulped after uttering such words, a pit formed in my stomach.

“But our stuff!” Complained Marjorie.

“What’s more important?” I lifted my glasses and hissed out the question. “Your belongings, or your lives?”

They all fell silent.

“What I can promise is this: while you three are in my care, I will do everything in my power to keep you all safe and ensure your survival.”

“If you can even do that much,” Wendy chimed in. I scowled at her.

“I don’t know what I can and can’t do yet. I don’t even know what we’re dealing with here!”

“I told you, didn’t I? The byproduct of –” I didn’t let her finish.

“These folks are normal people. They’re not just going to believe it’s some otherworldly beings!”

“They were demons!” Marjorie wailed.

It seems I stood corrected.

Fine. They’re demons. Call it what you want.

I walked back into the kitchen. Tigershark stood on a stool and looked out from the small window.

“Do we have customers?” She asked.

“No. Refugees. We’re going to give them a nice meal, we’re going to let them rest here as long as they need to.”

“Are they going to live here?”

“They might. Temporarily. I don’t know yet.”

“What’s going on? Why are they refugees?”

“The weather’s bad. That’s all.”

That’s all I wanted it to be. Bad weather. One short, strange occurrence. She didn’t deserve to be stuck here, nor did those folks. Maybe nobody did. But nature nary cared for what others deserved.

I went back out into a kitchen and approached the guests’ table.

“Our head chef is cooking up a meal for you folks. We’ve got a couple of rooms in the back you can stay in. I’ll tidy them up for you.”

They nodded, accepting of their predicament.

I looked around. Wendy was right beside me. Aurora, however, was nowhere to be found.

I bet she’s back on the train with the rest of her crew. Maybe they’ve already left the diner. Maybe they’re safe in their train.

On the contrary, Aurora arrived back inside. Her face didn’t carry the same party going devil-may-care energy that she usually held. Before she already spoke, I knew the news wasn’t good.

“Bad news: our train won’t start up. Engine’s busted up,” she informed me.

“From what?” I was incredulous and gasping for air.

“Hell do I know?! Fact is, we can’t move.”

Great. One more thing to add to the list of complications. As if I needed any more.

“Not at all?” I was desperate. Not for them to leave, but so I could avoid the alternative.

“Look, chief, I may be strong, but I’m not Godzilla strong. I can’t just push a train with my bare hands.”

My mouth dried up and I sucked in for any form of moisture as a sour taste filled the inner walls.

“Fine. Can you and your crew continue to occupy your train?”

“Yeah. Of course. We’ve had situations like this before. We’ll freeze our asses off and we’ll have to ration our food, but we can do it.”

That’s probably what I’m going to have to do too.

“If it comes down to it, you and your crew can share food with us.”

I checked out the window; her train was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did you park the train?” I asked.

“Off to the side. And I didn’t park nothing, it was all thanks to Allison.”

“Tell her she has my thanks.”

“You have my thanks too.”

Can you believe it’s not winter? Because I feel like we’re in for a long winter.

After a few days, the conditions didn’t get any better. Two more strangers entered the diner to take refuge, each with their own set of wounds. Wendy had stayed around to help out, no questions asked. However, when I came to a partial solution, questions were asked.

I sat hunched over at my desk, head under my hands.

“This is just the start, isn’t it?” I asked, fearing that I already knew the answer.

“It could very well be.”

“When were you planning to go back home, by the way?”

“Are you kidding? I’m a homeless old bat. I came here so I could see about making this place my home.”

You’re younger than me. What right do you have to call yourself an old bat?

“Of course. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”

“Well, things went south in Chicago and I’m a bit of a drifter, anyway. I’ve never liked staying in one place too long. It’s just how I am. So when Remora referred me to your place, I wasn’t planning on visiting, but after some thought and some trouble with the po-po, I figured it was worth a shot.”

So it was Remora who referred Wendy here. More information I wish I had.

“You think she was planning to leave all along?” I pondered.

“Who knows? It’s hard to tell what’s going through her head.”

“That’s true enough. Often times I thought I had her figured out, only for her to say or do something way out of left field.”

“I know she’s pretty weird, but you also can’t just narrow people down to a formula.”

Yes. But if I could just sort people out, it would save a world of trouble. All I knew was that I didn’t want Sunny to be involved in this mess. So I began texting her:

Me: I think you should stay away from the diner for a while.

It didn’t take long for Sunny to answer. Wherever she was adventuring, it must have had good reception.

Sunny: I was thinking I’d be gone a while anyway, but what’s up?! Why say this all of a sudden?

Me: It’s not safe right now.

Sunny: Is it ever?

Steam boiled over my head and I felt a fever rise in me. Movements of my fingers turned frantic.

Me: I can’t explain, but you’ll just get hurt.

Sunny: Why can’t you explain?

Me: Because I don’t know what’s going on. Everyone’s getting hurt with no explanation. If I had one, I’d tell you. Don’t think that I wouldn’t. It’s no animal. No beast. Nothing but shadow. There’s a thick fog that won’t let up. That’s all I know.

Sunny: Got it.

Me: Thank goodness.

Sunny: I’ll come back as soon as I can! It might take a couple months, but it’s clear I should hurry back right away!

Me: …

Me: What?

Sunny: Don’t you trust me enough to let me get hurt? I live for the thrill, so why should I let a few scratches get to me?

Yes, I knew her. Yes, I trusted her. But that was beside the point. It might have amounted to a few scratches, or it might have meant her life. Whatever peril she got in elsewhere, that was up to her, but she didn’t need to put herself in peril when the peril was at home.

After a bit of contemplation, I gave in.

Me: Just tell me when you get here, okay? I don’t know how you’ll make it, either. Cybele won’t be around.

Sunny: I’ll find a way >:)

I should have known better. There was no way I could have kept her away. Even though it was danger that led to the decision to keep our daughter away from us. For the first time in over six years, I agreed with such a decision.

I should call her. I certainly can’t see her. Not now, not even if she wanted me to. But maybe we could still talk.

“Wendy, I’ve got a job for you,” I announced.

“Will you pay me? I don’t work for free,” she informed me, as if I really wouldn’t pay her.

“Yeah. Of course. I’m not made of money, but I’ve got enough to last several lifetimes, so I have no problem parting with it.”

“Good. I’m going to make you my cow and I’m going to milk you for all you’re worth.”

Couldn’t you have picked a different phrase? I dismissed her statement, however, for the request of my own.

“I would like you to see if you can escort some of these refugees to the airport. If they can catch a flight to some place safer, it would put us in less of a bind.”

“That could work. Just know that I can’t guard large groups. Three max.”

“Understood. Whatever you can do.”

“Also, it may mitigate some of the crowd, but keep in mind that there will be a crowd. I don’t see this going away any time soon.”

How long is not any time soon?

“Anything that will help, I’ll take, however small.”

She grinned at that. I wished that I could smile back, but I found little joy in such a predicament. All I wanted was to avoid casualties. If I could do that, it would be enough.

“One more thing,” I added, “my wife will probably be back in a couple months. When she arrives, I would like it if you could escort her here. No matter how strong she is, I don’t want to see her too bloodied up.”

“Oh good. For a second there I thought you did.”

Ha. I couldn’t laugh. She took the hint and her smile shrunk.

“Anyway, I’ll make preparations and take those folks there right away.”

She left. Not a moment’s hesitation.

I stared forward in silence and reached for my phone once more. First thing’s first, a call. After a few rings, she picked up:

“Hello?” Cybele answered.

“Cybele,” I greeted right back.

“Yes?”

“You know how I haven’t had you go on any flights lately?”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to go on one.”

“Oh boy!” She perked up. “Who am I taking?”

“Yourself. I want you to go home.”

“What? But this is my home. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Find a new home. Fly somewhere. Anywhere. Buy a home. I don’t care how you do it. I just want you to leave this place.”

“Wha...wha…” She began to get choked up. I heard her struggle to form the word, the one she wanted to ask: why?

I too wanted to sigh, to cry, to pause and try to find the words to reassure her, but I just couldn’t manage to do any of those things.

“Goodbye,” was all I said instead, all I could say, even when there was much more that I should have. After that, I hung up.

Before contacting the next person I had in mind, I ran my hand through my hair and drew heavy breaths.

At least let me have one positive interaction.

Me: Is Elodie around?

Violette: Yeah, we just got done eating dinner. Wanna talk to her?

Me: Only if she’ll let me.

Violette: She said it’s okay. Here’s her number.

I dialed at once. Considering how strange it must have been for me to want to talk with her out of the blue, I found it stranger still that she would allow me.

“What is it now?” Her irritation shone through in her voice, soon to give way to hostility. I welcomed that tone of her voice just as I would any other tone of hers.

Please, let me fake just a little bit of happiness. Even if it’s an imitation, let me be my happier self.

“How old are you now? 13?” I chirped, and allowed myself to smile, even though my muscles tensed upon doing so.

“What does it matter to you?”

“I was just thinking of getting you a birthday card.” That wasn’t a lie, I had considered it. Whether or not it was likely with the current condition outside, I couldn’t say.

“If it’s from you, I’ll just throw it away.”

“That’s fine. Do with it what you want. You’re not really supposed to hold on to them for very long, anyway.”

There was a lapse, then her voice turned to incredulity.

“...Really?”

“Yeah. When my parents used to get me birthday cards, I’d throw them away right away. All I really cared about was the money that was inside.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to send me money?”

“If you want,” my voice nonchalant.

“...I’d rather take money from anyone other than you.”

“That’s fine, too. It was just an idea.”

“Even if you sent me something nice, so what? That still doesn’t make up for those lost years!” She pointed out.

“Honey, nothing can make up for that.”

“Exactly! So send whatever you want, I’ll spit on it, burn it, and then flush it down the toilet.”

My, how creative. Oh, to be youthful again.

“Are you having a bad day?” I asked, something which may not have been called for, as her anger was more than justified.

“Yeah. Of course I am. You called. How come it’s always a bad day when you call?”

That was a good question. I wish I knew the answer to that as well. Why I couldn’t just call during a joyous day, or even a mundane one. Then again, she probably mean that it was a bad day because I called.

“Because I don’t call often, and when I do, something bad is bound to occur,” I answered in earnest, unknowing if that was the true answer.

“One of my paintings got destroyed today. Some kids snatched it from me and ripped it up. I probably would’ve had a good day after I got home, I mean, I was ready to forget about the whole thing. Who cares about a stupid painting, anyway? I can just make another. But then you called and this is why I can’t have nice things.”

“I can’t undo the call, but we can stop talking if you want,” I offered.

“You can’t undo the call, nor can you undo the silence you and mom gave me for years. Just dropped me off, no explanation, and I’m supposed to be cool with that?”

“No. You aren’t,” my voice turned back to the darker flare, reflecting the stress brought on by the predicament I was in. Yet I resisted. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry a thousand times over. But you and I both know that sorry doesn’t mean anything when there’s nothing to make up for it. Actions speak louder than words, and I have neither actions nor words.”

“So why bother?”

Good question.

“It’s simple: just because I wanted to hear your voice.”

“That’s it? You must have seen this coming.”

Last time we talked, the first time in six years, I got off easy. Really, I had this coming, and I should have seen it if I didn’t.

“That doesn’t matter to me. You can be angry. You can hate me. If you wanted, you could call me every time you had a bad day, every time you were angry, and it doesn’t matter what the reason is. I won’t argue. I’ll just listen.”

“You really think I would do something stupid like that?” She laughed, but it was choked up through her tears. No longer angry, now grief stricken.

“I can’t say. I’m only offering it to you as an option. No matter the time of day, whether I’m busy or sleeping, I’ll pick up and you can shout out whatever comes to mind.”

“You’re exaggerating,” she scoffed.

“Maybe I am. Do you have any tissues nearby?”

“Yeah.”

“You should blow your nose. Wipe your eyes. If you start to develop a headache, take a benadryl. It’s almost time for you to sleep, anyway. That shit’ll knock you right out.”

She snorted out a small laugh.

“Thanks,” she said at last.

“Well, yeah. I’m not gonna blow your nose for ya.”

She laughed again, then fluttered down into a calm.

“Dad?” She asked.

“Yeah?”

“I hate you.”

I smiled. It was the closest to a genuine smile I could muster.

“Goodnight, dear,” I replied.

“Okay,” she said her last word in a soft and tired voice, then hung up.

Somehow, I enjoyed that.

Two months passed and Sunny returned, in peak Sunny condition. If only the fog would have subsided. If only I wasn’t busy taking care of the injured and the afflicted.

“That was surreal…” Were her first words upon entering the diner. If it could still be called that.

I stood up, having bent down to bandage up a couple of new entrants.

“Which part?” I asked.

It didn’t occur to either of us that we had yet to greet each other. Or, our greeting to each other wasn’t a greeting at all.

“All of it. When I heard there was a thick fog, I wasn’t expecting marshmallow hell. Not to mention, being escorted by the one who made me use a cane for a couple of weeks.”

“Hey!” Wendy snapped her fingers. “You’re the one who tried to kill me in the first place.”

“Let’s just chalk it up to a big misunderstanding,” Sunny chortled before looking away, distant. “It was like I could hear voices of the dead out there…”

“Voices from the dead?” I asked.

“I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“Welcome to my world.”

She then grinned and wrapped her arms around me, a brief respite, if any.

“I missed you!” She declared and squeezed tighter.

“There’s not much left of me,” I looked down and muttered.

She let go, then looked around the dining room.

“Where’s Remora? Demetria? You’d think they’d be helping out.”

“They both left.”

“What? Together?”

“No. But they left, all the same.”

“Damn it! Now I wish I didn’t go on my trip!” Her disappointment seemed paper thin, what with the perpetual grin she had.

“It wouldn’t have done you any good.”

“Still, why didn’t you tell me sooner?” This time her grin faded and she looked more like a sad kitten.

“If I told you, you would have wanted to come back right away. I wanted you to enjoy yourself.”

“Yeah…” She looked down and off to the side, unable to deny such a statement.

“Anyway, I’ll fill you in later. Get yourself something to eat, shower, relax. There’s not going to be a lot of time for that any time soon.”

“Hun?” She turned to a slight smile. “We’ll get through this together, okay?”

I had no answer to that.

In the coming days, she came to feel the weight I carried and carried it with me. We worked our asses off, tried to put on a smile through the stress. She more hopeful than I. For what it was worth, we got through each day. Together.

But I still had that lingering feeling, like it was only a matter of time.

Even Tigershark buckled under the pressure. Many meals, one after another. It was like we were operating an actual restaurant, but the circumstances were much more dire, and none of us were getting paid.

“Hey Ray, can I go outside?” Tigershark asked when there was some downtime between meals.

“Absolutely not,” I told her, and although I was serious, I kept a light tone to it. “You’re strong, and I need your strength here because I am but a fragile penguin man.”

She laughed and stuck her thumb up.

“You got it!”

I went into the back of the diner, Sunny was there with her arms crossed and blowing some bubblegum.

“How are you holding up?” I asked.

“Great! It’s just like when we used to have a thriving diner, only now there’s a sense of impending doom!”

“Heh. That’s the spirit.”

I sat down and tapped a pen against the desk.

“I doubt Remora will ever be back,” I mentioned offhand. “Even if she’s still alive and well somewhere out there, there’s no way to contact her.”

“You think she’s dead?” Sunny gasped.

I reached into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a phone.

“I don’t know one way or the other. She left her phone here, so it’s not like I can send her a message.”

“What would you even say?” She wondered.

“I’d tell her to stay away,” my face sunk and I spoke with a guttural grimness. “Just as I would have preferred you, or anyone else, do.”

“Why?”

“Do you really have to ask? You already experienced it. ‘Voices of the dead’ and all that. If I was alone, I could get by. I might have even gotten a chuckle out of it. But all these people are affected and their lives are in my hands. I want to keep everyone alive, and if I can’t do that, then at least reduce the damage for as long as possible.”

Reduce damages. Casualties.

“I’m going to send Demetria a message. Considering coming back here’s the last thing on her mind, she’ll probably take me at my word and keep away.”

Sunny’s face sunk, her posture as well.

“I don’t like this...but it’s probably for the best. This won’t be forever, anyway, right?”

“I wish I knew.”

There was a fog outside, and there was a fog inside as well. Both sought to consume me.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

The Crucible (part nine)

[UK Tour; Carrie AU]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7  Part 8

Word count: 10,088

TW: Blood and gore

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

-Alma Mater-

  “We found these in the dumpster behind what’s left of the gym.”

Bessie recoiled so sharply in disgust she nearly fell backwards out of her chair when Mulaney dumped several pieces of paper onto the table in front of her. She looked at the pile as if it were made of actual human hearts, wrinkling up her nose.

  “I can’t believe you touched those!” She exclaimed in an almost humorously repulsed way. “They’re probably swimming with diseases.” 

  “Recognize them?” Mulaney asked, sitting across from her.

  “They’re prom ballots,” Bessie said with a dismissive shrug. “I’m the one who Xeroxed them.”

  “According to these, Ruby and Leila won prom king and queen.”

Bessie blinked at Mulaney in shock, as if he had just told her the secrets of the universe. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish caught on a hook, then she sputtered out, “I-I counted those ballots myself. Principal Holbein checked my work! You can ask him...yourself…” She trailed off with a grimace, hunching her shoulders in and looking away. For a moment, she looked a lot younger, and a lot more shaken than she thought she was.

  “Anna and Joan won fair and square.” She finally spoke up again, although there was a not-so-subtle shakiness to her voice. Madeline gave her a sympathetic look.

  “I’m guessing by a landslide?” Mulaney asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “That doesn’t seem odd to you?”

  “I just thought they were pity votes.” Bessie said, shrugging.

  “They weren’t pity votes, Elizabeth.” Mulaney told her grimly. “Someone switched the ballots.”

------

  “Attention! Attention, everyone!” Bessie called jovially from the stage. The mic she was using gave a few abrupt screeches of feedback, so she tapped it with a manicured finger. In the fairy lights, her dress glistened in shimmering waves of purple and made her look like a walking amethyst. “Can I have your attention, please!”

The DJ cut the music off hastily. Everyone inside the gym quieted down one by one and turned their heads to the stage. Bessie’s hair was blindingly white in the light.

  “Thank you,” She said, then raised her voice excitedly, “We will now be voting for this year’s prom king and queen!”

  “This contest insults women!” Margery Horsman shouted from near the globe tree. There were a few scattered applause and one loud, whooping cheer from a girl who must have been her friend.

  “It insults men, too!” Francis Dereham piped up mockingly. Laughter followed, along with several eye rolls.

  “Take your seats, please!” Bessie went on loudly. “Time to vote!”

Everyone began to swarm back to their respective table as Maggie and two other girls started to pass out prom ballots and small pencils. Anna, Joan, George, and Jane were already sitting, recovering from their intense dance session and playing Spoons with a deck of cards George had brought in (“I still cannot believe you brought cards to prom.” “I never leave home without ‘em! You know that, Anna!”). As far as games being played at a school party went, it definitely wasn’t the lamest option they could have gone with.

  “Aha!” Jane exclaimed, seizing one of the three plastic spoons on the table after she got a match of four aces. George looked up at her lovingly. “I have totally figured out this game! I am the new Spoons champion!”

  “Ow!!” Anna yelped. “You SCRATCHED me!” She had been trying to grab one of the other spoons when Jane’s fingernails raked viciously over her hand. She rubbed the scraped skin tenderly, giving Jane a playful pout.

  “This is a very violent game,” Joan observed. When someone got a match of four cards, they were supposed to grab a spoon as quick as they could, prompting everyone else to do the same, which resulted in some mayhem. Especially because there were four players and only three spoons, so clawing and yanking and merciless tug-of-war would sometimes happen as a result. There was even a moment where they all lurched forward at the same time and bonked their heads together.

  “What can I say?” Jane said with a shrug, flicking her spoon back and forth. “I play to win.”

At that moment, Maggie came around with ballots, setting four papers and four pencils on the table for them. Before she whisked away, she declared a louder-than-necessary, “GOOD LUCK!” into Joan’s ear. Joan rubbed her ear uncomfortably as Anna and Jane both glowered after Maggie, then examined the ballot in front of her. Her mouth dropped open.

  “Anna,” She whispered shakily, grabbing onto Anna’s arm tightly. “W-we’re on here!”

  “I saw that,” Anna said.

  “Woah! Congrats!” George beamed.

  “Can we decline?” Joan asked anxiously.

  “Hell no!” Anna said, laughing slightly. “If you win, all you do is sit up there on those thrones for the school song, wave some scepter around, and look like a jackass.” 

  “Oh, and then you get your picture taken for the yearbook so everyone could see that you looked like a jackass.” George added. He, Jane, and Anna laugh lightly. “You also get to lead a dance! So that’s pretty cool.”

  “Well...who do we vote for?” Joan asked Anna. “They’re more your crowd than mine. I don’t really have a crowd.”

  “Ourselves, duh!” Anna said.

  “Isn’t voting for yourself like voting for Ralph Nader?” George asked.

  “Who’s Ralph Nader?”

  “Well, I’m voting for you.” Jane said to Joan. She smiled and checked off Joan and Anna’s names.

  “Thanks,” Joan whispered, ducking her head shyly. She glanced over at the thrones on the stage and couldn’t help but be enamored by them. They were so sparkly and pretty. “They are beautiful…”

  “You’re beautiful.” Anna grinned, taking Joan by surprise. She would never get over the shock of hearing someone say that to her. “To the devil with false modesty.”

Joan smiled. “To the devil,” She said, and checked off her and Anna’s names.

------

  “Look at how she’s smiling. Stupid little cow.”

Cathy peered over the shrouded edge of the catwalk they were hiding on. She could see Joan Seymour, the poor bitch this prank was on, playing cards at one of the tables with Anne’s younger brother, his girlfriend, and Anna von Cleves. Her dress was beautiful, Cathy had to admit, and she looked so happy.

It was such a shame it was all about to be ruined.

The buckets were poised and ready.

  “God, and my stupid brother.” Anne rolled her eyes. “I should have known he would befriend the resident freak.” She shook her head and turned to Cathy, smiling again. “Are you ready? It’s almost time.”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Cathy mumbled, feeling ill.

  “Oh, cheer up.” Anne nudged her. “We’re just playing a little joke! Nobody is getting hurt!”

  “Anne, this is--this is sick. Really, really sick.” Cathy said. “If we get caught--”

  “We aren’t going to get caught.” Anne said firmly. “Calm down, will you? It’s not that bad. We’re just gonna give her a little scare, that’s all.”

Cathy shook her head and cast a dark look at the two metal buckets. She could still smell the contents from her spot, the scent of three-day-old pig blood and guts wafting heavily in the air. It was a miracle nobody else on the stage had smelled it yet.

  “Do you really think they’ll vote for them?” She finally spoke up again, glancing at her girlfriend. In the dim light, only half of Anne’s face could be seen, and there was madness reaching out of that amber eye.

  “Of course,” Anne answered her. “I set it up. Nobody else will even be close.” She smiled wickedly. “Do you want to pull the rope?”

------

Katherine was restless. It was starting to worry her sister, she knew. She kept getting up in the middle of the movie they were watching and would pace around the living room like a lion in a circus cage. She couldn’t help it- something felt off.

  “Kit?” Isabel called. “Is everything alright?”

  “Yeah,” Katherine replied, shaking out her wrists as if they were crawling with caterpillars. “Just a little anxious, that’s all.”

Isabel paused the movie and turned to her completely. “About the prom?” She asked.

  “What else?” Katherine sighed. “I texted Anna and she said everything was going fine, but still… I’m worried about Joan. I hope she’s having a good time.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Isabel said. “You’re letting your Mum Friend status get to you too much.”

Katherine managed to laugh. “Maybe.” 

She took out her phone and checked it for what felt like the tenth time that evening. Just like last time, there were no new messages. Just her reply from Anna after she reacted to the picture that was sent, which was marked as “read.” Anna must have been too busy having a good time to text back, which was good. She was giving Joan her full attention. But what if she wasn’t answering for a different reason…?

  “Ugh--” Katherine collapsed down on the couch next to Isabel, who looked quite amused. “Anxiety SUCKS ASS.”

  “Preach it, sister.” Isabel laughed. She patter her shoulder with a tender smile. “It’s going to be okay, Kat. I’m sure everything is just fine.”

But she was wrong.

------

  “You really make all your own clothes?” George was asking with great interest. After Maggie had come around again and picked up the marked prom ballots, the group decided to take a small break from Spoons to let their maimed hands rest and stop burning. Now, they were just chatting idly, talking about random things as they waited for the score to be tallied up.

  “Yeah, most of them,” Joan answered, nodding.

  “That’s so convenient.”

Joan smiled shyly. “Yeah. Sorry I’m not better at conversations. I don’t have a lot of interesting stories.”

  “No worries!” George said dismissively. “You’re much better company than most of the people here. Some of them don’t know how to keep a secret.” Then, he turned his head and shot an irritated look at a boy in a dark navy blue suit at a navy table. “And SOME OF THEM think very HIGHLY of themselves.”

The boy in navy blue whipped his gaze around and narrowed his eyes at George.

  “I can HEAR you!” He shouted.

  “We all can!” Piped up someone else.

  “I KNOW.” George shouted back. “We’re in a GYM! But I’m having a PRIVATE CONVERSATION, so stick your nose somewhere else!”

  “Then why did you look at me?!” The boy in navy blue cried.

  “Because I was MAKING a POINT to my FRIENDS!” George snapped.

  “You WISH you had friends!”

  “Go suck a LIME!”

  “Now, now,” A teacher chaperone said in a bored voice. “Settle down.”

George turned his head back to the table and smiled. “Anyway,” He said, his voice all sweetness again, “Where were we?”

The other three burst into laughter.

And then, silence was called over the gym. 

  “Attention, everyone!” Bessie said into the mic. “It’s time to announce the elected prom king and queen!”

There was a drumroll as Bessie excitedly pulled out a slip of paper from an envelope. Everyone held their breath in anticipation.

  “ANNA VON CLEVES AND JOAN SEYMOUR!!!”

Anna, who had been mindlessly taking a sip from her cup, not thinking much of the election, spit her drink out in George’s face. Joan froze, her eyes opening wider than possible. All heads turned to her table. Gasps and murmurs whisked through the crowd. The gym went very quiet.

And then, there was a huge, booming, explosive eruption of applause that seemed to shake the walls like thunder. Everyone began to clap and cheer loudly, roaring into one big celebratory mass of noise. One person even yelled, “Yeah, go Anna! Go, Joan!”

Two student body members dressed in (school appropriate) togas, a boy and a girl, walked over to the table, smiling. Anna laughed and stood up with her arms spread in a queenly gesture of sorts, and the crowd went wild, shrieking their support. George, who quickly recovered from being sprayed with mouth soda, was beaming in pride for his friend and Jane looked both a little stunned and absolutely thrilled. Anna nudged Joan’s side and then extended her elbow for them to lock arms, but Joan did not get up. She was far too starstruck to stand at the moment, lost in the whirling of the radiant, overwhelming glee rocketing through her. She had never been clapped for before like this, nor had she ever been so joyful in her entire life.

Prom Queen. Her. Joan Seymour. She was Prom Queen. A queen. Royalty. Important. Her.

It was a dream come true.

Anna gently grabbed Joan by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, effectively snapping Joan out of her daze. She still remained breathless and dazzled, however, as the entire prom screeched for her when she finally got to her feet. She nearly fainted from joy right then and there, but managed to cling to her consciousness. She grappled onto Anna’s arm, a smile coming to her lips that she knew would not be leaving for a while.

The two of them, escorted by the toga-clad student body duo, began to stride through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea when they passed. The band boomed and swelled into a loud, upbeat melody. The audience continued to applaud and scream and cheer. Any sarcasm was lost to its cacophony; this was honest and deep and genuinely happy for the elected pair. Someone whistled. Someone else patted Joan’s bare shoulder as she passed by. Miss Aragon, at the edge of the trench of students, looked so proud.

Tears were welling up in Joan’s eyes. Her mouth was starting to hurt from smiling so widely. Has she ever smiled for this long before? She doesn’t think so. She hoped she wasn’t hurting Anna, she was hanging onto her arm really tightly. Anna didn’t seem to mind, though. The older girl was practically glowing in the fairy lights, like a goddess of sorts.

They reached the short flight of stairs to the stage, where Bessie and Principal Holbein were waiting. The thrones were pushed up to the front arches of the decorative Parthenon, glistening in the spotlights poised on the apron. They were inlaid with gold and fake jewels and were so much more breathtaking up close.

  “Come on up, you guys!” Bessie shouted over all the noise. She beamed at Joan as Anna helped her up the steps, then turned to shake hands with Principal Holbein. “You look so beautiful! Congratulations!”

Joan couldn’t possibly must up a reply with all these endorphins sprinting through her, so she just smiled even wider, if that were even possible at that point.

She and Anna were whisked over to the thrones (but not without Bessie launching herself into Anna and hugging her very tightly). A silver scepter was thrust into Anna’s hands by the boy student body member in the toga, while the girl swept a furry velvet and sunflower yellow cloak with a puffy collar around Joan’s shoulders. They sat in the thrones and another ear-splitting bout of applause broke out.

Joan was glad to be sitting. Her legs were shaking and her knees felt weak. She was dizzy from shock and bliss and excitement.

(look at me Mama look at me)

(i made it)

(i did it)

The crowns were taken out on big wine red pillows. Both were encrusted with surprisingly realistic looking diamonds and glittered like captured rainbows in the light. Joan nearly sobbed when her tiara was set on her head and she reached up to touch it instantly, just to make sure it was there and real. And it was. The jewels were smooth and bumpy beneath her fingers. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Anna grinning at her affectionately.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bessie said energetically into the mic, “your king and queen on senior prom! Anna von CLEVES and Joan SEYMOUR!”

The audience howled. Anna laughed. She stood up and thrust her scepter into the air.

  “Long live King Anna!!!” Someone yelled.

  “SPEECH!!!” Someone else, George from back at the table, cried out.

Anna grinned brightly in his direction.

The band cracked and rose into a fever pitch as the school song was played. The audience began to sing along to the music, their hundreds of mixing voices spiraling into a cloud of haunting sound. Anna basked in it, her chest puffed out with pride, then turned and gently gathered Joan to her feet so she could bathe in the glory with her. Joan probably would have crumpled right to the floor if Anna hadn't helped her up.

It was such a dizzying feeling, being the center of so much positive attention when it was usually all so negative. All these people were cheering for her, Joan Seymour. And they didn’t look to be doing it mockingly at all. They liked her. They really, really liked her!

(i told you Mama i told you)

  “Long live Queen Joan!!” Shouted the person from before. 

  “Queen Joan!!!” Someone else whooped gleefully.

Joan was shaking all over. She knew everyone could see that she was, but it wasn’t deterring their applause. They just kept clapping and cheering and singing, even as she quivered like a leaf in a hurricane.

But unbeknownst to her, among the crowd, Maggie Wyatt and Anthony Lee were smirking rather than smiling. Maggie kept glancing up every few seconds, which caught the attention of Jane, who began to sidle over slowly to see what she was looking at.

Bessie waved her arms and all the noise began to diminish. She turned to Anna and Joan, still grinning her head off.

  “Your Highnesses,” She said, “your court requests you lead them in a dance!”

Like that, the cheering started up again.

The toga boy took Anna’s staff from her, but Joan’s cloak was left on. Anna extended a hand and Joan took it as the lights around them faded to soft blue and light purple. They walked slowly down the steps and onto the center of the gym floor, where they pressed against each other and began to dance in long, graceful movements. The band played an airy melody of violins and flutes, which Joan didn’t even realize they had, but she could hardly care. She was too wrapped up in dancing with Anna to care about anything at this point.

Her legs trembled, unsteady, unpracticed, fawn-like. Her head spins and her vision blurs with the opposite of vertigo. Her hands clasp tightly at Anna’s and her shoulder, like the older girl was an island out in a raging black ocean. Moats of silver dust float like moths in the rays of light beaming from the spotlight, and she had never been more awash in radiance. 

Anna’s hand is warm on her waist and she looked up at her, dry lips parting with a slight pop. Anna tilted her head at her and smiled, the corners of her mouth held aloft by the spotlights. Her fingertips trail over Joan’s veins, bluer than hers, rivers snaking beneath her skin and crisscrossing the imperfect planet of her body. 

But Anna doesn’t care.

Each sweeping step they take gave Joan more confidence and made the world come a little more into focus. This was all Joan has ever wanted- being held so gently, being loved despite her flaws, being wanted and needed and swayed like she is. Anna doesn’t care that she’s touching her, Anna doesn’t care about the roughness of her scarred palms, Anna doesn’t care that she wasn’t at prom with her girlfriend.

Anna cared about her and her alone. Nothing else in the entire universe mattered to her. And that was a dream come true.

Anna coaxed her closer in that honeyed voice of hers that makes Joan feel all fluttery inside, whispered that she wanted to show off to all these loons, and Joan does as she's told, tentatively placing one foot in front of the other, searching for stable ground as they whisked in loops inside the circle of students crowded around them. 

  “Anna?” Joan whispered.

  “Yeah?” Anna looked down at her, still smiling with so much affection for her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything for you, Joan.”

Joan was still shaky but that’s okay. If she fell, Anna would surely catch her.

There was a blooming warmth on Joan’s hand and she looked at it, and that’s when everything fell to pieces. Shafts of burgeoning gold cut through soft silver and burst outwards, filling the gym in blinding yellow waves. Violin and flutes were replaced with a marching drumbeat. Silence turned to an uproar of cheering and clapping. The dance floor melted away and the stage rose up beneath Joan’s feet. And there was Bessie and the band and the two student body members in togas and Anna, now up there with her again. And there was blood. On her hand.

  “Your Highnesses,” Bessie said, “your court requests you lead them in a dance!”

Joan does not hear her. She can’t even move. 

Red. Blood. On her fingers. Blood.

Her blood?

Was it happening again?

Anna looked at her in confusion, eyebrows furrowed together. 

  “Joan?” She whispered. “Everything okay?”

Joan does not reply.

Like how Anna does not see the blood.

It was the size of a nickel American tourists would sometimes accidentally drop on the streets. Bright red against her pale white skin, like a ruby buried in fresh snow. Completely odorless in such a small quantity.

Blood.

Where did it come from?

Joan looked up shakily and time seemed to slow down so she, and everyone else in the gym, could watch as two buckets full of blood poured out in an unhurried manner to fall, splash, splash, splash, right over Joan’s head.

------

  “Hail, Alma Mater,”

The singing of the crowd mixed with the band and all the cheering was a mess of noise in Anne’s ears. She grit her teeth in rage and glared down at the thrones, where the pig herself, Joan Seymour, was being crowned Prom Queen. With her tiara.

  “Why are they still clapping?” Anne hissed.

  “I don’t know, babe.” Cathy said uselessly. “Don’t ask me.”

Anne growled lowly in her throat and gripped the rope in her hands tightly. The smell of the blood wafting from the buckets was intoxicating.

  “Oh, Mother, we salute you,”

  “Are you going to pull it?” Cathy asked. “They’re there. The song is playing. Get it over with already.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Anne snapped.

  “We proclaim out devotion,”

Anne’s hands were starting to shake. Her chest burned as she held her breath. 

  “I’m not pulling it for you.” Cathy said. “That thing can sit up there ‘till hell freezes over.”

Anne elbowed her hard in the stomach and her girlfriend reeled backwards in pain.

  “As we set our dreams into motion!”

  “Your Highnesses,” Bessie said from below after the school anthem ended, “your court requests you lead them in a dance!”

Anne leaned forward and yanked the cord with both hands.

For a moment, there was slack, making her think Cathy fucked up the set up to get back at her, that the rope was attached to nothing but thin air, that Joan fucking Seymour was actually going to get away clean.

But then, it snagged and jerked away from her grasp, leaving a thin rope burn across her palms. The buckets tipped and glorious red fell free. She peeked over the edge to watch, then turned to Cathy, smirking widely in victory.

In the darkness, Cathy looked horrified.

And in the light of the stage, someone screamed.

------

Two weeks after the Black Prom, Elizabeth “Bessie” Blount, would write this for the detectives,

          “I had been looking at the crowd when the buckets came, but I turned fast enough to see a majority of it. It got EVERYWHERE. Joan got the most of it. She looked like she had just been dragged out of a river of blood. There were barely any spots of pink left on her dress. But us onstage got some of it, too. Anna was wearing a white tux. She got splattered. She looked like she was in a murder scene. I got splattered, too. My dress and my chest and my face. And for a moment, when my mind flashed back to the showers on Friday, I wondered if this was period blood. It was clearly a prank of sorts, so did whoever planned this (which I now know was Anne), get a bunch of girls to squat over some buckets and bleed into them just to dump it out on this one chick?

          But then I realized that it didn’t smell like period blood. 

          I don’t think any of you or anyone else who wasn’t there really understand the smell. It wasn’t just an awful sight--it smelled, too. Like--like...it’s so hard to explain. It smelled like blood, but blood that has been left out in the sun for a week. Like rotten meat. Have you ever smelled rotten meat? It was like that.

          And it also wasn’t just blood. There were organs and pieces of organs, too. I don’t even know what it was, but there was a strip of /something/ on my face. But Joan was covered in guts. Intestines hanging from her shoulders, mushy livers and kidneys caught against her dress, a stomach snagged on her crown. There were even testicles. One missed her, but the other hit her in her head and then bounced off.

          Joan was still for a very long time. She had been looking up, so her face was dripping and her eyes were closed. Then, she opened them and things all went to hell from there.

          I look back on this a lot. I know it wasn’t that long ago, but it’s always so fresh in my mind. I got my period two days ago and I /cried/ when I saw the blood. Because I wonder, if I had been a little bit nicer, would it have never happened? I know that’s wishful thinking, but I still wonder about it all the time. I do that a lot, now. I just think about what happened. And it gets worse each time.

          I wish about a lot, but I never wish to stop the Black Prom. I just wish I had died in there with everyone else. I could kill myself, but it wouldn’t be the same, you know? I was left alive for a reason, I think. It’s a punishment. Unless Joan thought I was innocent enough to let go. But I don’t think so. So now I have to live with what I did and what happened because of it. 

          I would like to see Anna again, though. I wish I got to say goodbye to her.”

------

She was covered in it.

Blood.

Whose blood?

(my blood)

The smell was overwhelming. Like rotten meat left out in the summer heat for several months. The taste was worse. She didn’t want to describe it. This blood did not have the same metallic tang of normal blood. There was something very, very wrong with it.

The blood was thick, half a liquid, half a solid. It was coagulated and clotted, thick chunks caught in her hair and eyelashes and dress. It drooled down her chest, between her breasts, and over the flat expanse of her stomach. 

Everywhere. It was everywhere.

In her ears and her nose and her eyes and her mouth. 

Blood.

Something else splattered down against her, too. It made a loud slapping sound when it hit her head and made her tiara crooked when it snagged on the points. Something long and squishy draped over her shoulder while something else went down the back of her dress and fell out the bottom with a wet /plop/. They all had a very rank, ripe scent.

Joan’s eyes were closed. She had been looking up, so her face was completely drenched. Her dress was ruined, dyed to a deep scarlet instead of a pale flamingo pink. Her hair was soaked and dripping and red, retaining no hints of the original platinum white-blonde. The cloak around her neck looked like a freshly gutted dog, and it fell heavily to the ground at her feet. Rivulets of red ran down her arms, oozing off her fingers and into the crimson lake all around her.

One by one, the clapping stopped, the cheering died off, and the smiles fell until the only sound was the creak of the two ropes the buckets were attached to and the splattering of blood on the floor. Nobody moved, nobody breathed, nobody spoke a word.

And then, Joan’s eyes opened.

Something was glowing behind those twin orbs of grey-blue.

Joan slowly raised her hands and stared at them, watching tiny rivers of blood snake down the palms. Her breathing picked up slowly, faster and faster and faster, until her body was heaving with the weight of her panting. Her eyes darted around- at Anna, spattered in red beside her; at Bessie, wide-eyed and bloody; at George and Jane, horrified; at Miss Aragon, with her mouth hanging open; at Principal Holbein, shocked into stillness; at the audience, silent. She looked down and saw the blood, then the guts.

She was covered in guts.

Intestines hung from her shoulders, several pieces of pruney and wrinkled pink tissue clung to her dress, a stomach was caught on her crown.

Guts.

Someone spilled guts on her.

Blood and guts.

Something itched in Joan’s throat, and when she opened her mouth, a whimper came out.

And then a cry.

And then a scream.

She screamed a horrible, nightmare-haunting scream that reverberated throughout the auditorium and jammed itself into the ears of the audience. It cut off after a moment and she stared at her hands again in horror, hoping they would be clean, but the red still remained. She tried to scrub at her arms, but the blood only smeared and coated her skin even further. She whimpered and keened loudly, scratching and clawing desperately. Someone in the audience snorted.

  “WHAT THE HELL?” Anna roared in fury. She was the first to snap out of the terror-stricken trance, and now all she felt was outrage. “WHO DID THIS?”

No answer. Someone snorted again. A few people murmured. Heads whipped around frantically.

  “WHO DID THIS?!” Anna screeched again. She looked around and spotted something in the wings- Anne and Cathy. She snarled lowly, like a dog about to bite, then took off after them when they fled.

Like that, with Anna’s jarring sprint into motion, the trance that had descended over the gym was broken. People began to exclaim in shock and whisper to one another. A few took out their phones to take pictures. Maggie Wyatt and Anthony Lee snorted and then burst into howls of laughter.

And people joined in.

They were laughing at her.

(Mama was right)

Joan felt her body start to seize. She went hot and then cold and then hot again until she was freezing. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest, racing faster and faster and faster until she thought it would burst apart. 

  “Pig, pig, pig, pig!” Anthony bellowed through bouts of laughter. “Sweet pig, pig, pig!”

(Mama was right they’re laughing)

(they always laugh)

  “Freak! Freak!!” Maggie shrieked in giggles.

Everything was starting to bleed together. A blur of black and silver marched through the crowd below; Jane Parker slapped Anthony hard across the face.

Joan gasped.

Miss Aragon and Principal Holbein rush up to the stage, along with George Boleyn and Jane Parker. The whispers are swelling into a full thunderstorm of murmurs, but she can’t make them out. Her ears were too clogged with blood to really hear.

  “Joan?” Jane called out, and her voice was but a distant echo. “Joan, can you hear me?” She waved a hand in front of her face.

Miss Aragon gently touched Joan’s shoulder, brushed away the tangle of intestines caught against it. Her nose was twitching; she could smell the overwhelming stench of the rancid blood and guts, too.

  “Joan? Joan, sweetie, talk to me. It’s Miss Aragon.” The coach said.

But Joan does not awaken from the strange state she’s slipped into.

The adrenaline is making the strain on her body bearable, all the beautiful chemicals coursing through her veins as she flexed her powers.

That, and the anger.

It all made her so angry. Her mother. Her treatment at school. Her life. Who she was.

Fifteen long years of being the good Christian girl. Of turning the other cheek. Of enduring and bearing. Of being patient and understanding and letting things go, always letting things go.

It gets old. So fucking old.

She was tired of it.

The pillars of the Parthenon began to quake. The decorative spires and sculptures on the gym floor soon followed. Joan sent her powers through their mass and ripped them into chunks. The pieces locked together in the air like a growing puzzle until a long body was created. Wings from the ripped mural canvases, a tail of ice and marble, curved claws chipped from stone, sharp spikes torn out of chair legs, and a piece of the fire alarm and DJ booth attached to the back of the throat. 

Everyone stepped away and stared in horror as the dragon thumped to the ground on its back haunches and let out an ear-piercing roar. 

  “Say. Hello.” It spoke in a gargled voice. “Everybody. Say. Hello.”

And then, a pipe from up above was ripped free and sailed straight into Maria de Salinas’s heart.

--

August had thought they had been scared when the buckets dropped, but not even that fear could rival the absolute terror pumping through them as they stared at the bleeding corpse just a few feet away. Several people were starting to run, but they couldn’t move. It wouldn’t matter anyway; all the doors were locked. They could hear students shouting over it in a panic all around them, through the screaming.

They looked up at Joan Seymour’s bloody form and realization dawned on them with a jarring shock.

She’s going to kill us all.

The pipe pulled loose from Maria’s heart with a spurt of blood. Joan peered at it curiously, as if it were a new pet. A moment later, it flew around and jammed itself through the spot that connected the second victim’s jaw to her neck. It went all the way through and left her nearly decapitated, spasming wildly on the ground before death overcame her and she stilled. Then, the pipe spun and sailed straight through a boy’s stomach. 

By this point, full pandemonium had erupted throughout the entire theater. Everyone was running around screaming, panicking, crying. They’re trampling over each other like caged cattle—and they very well may have been, because they were all going to burn like the filthy cows they all were.

This is our punishment, August realized. For bullying her. We did this.

They looked up with tears in their eyes. The head of the conjured dragon turned to them slowly and creaked open its jaw.

  “Repent, repent, repent, repent.” It said, and then smashed its talons over August’s head.

--

Nicola couldn’t even scream when August was crushed right before her eyes. Their body crumpled like a compressed can; she could hear their bones snap and break beneath the heavy weight of the strange monster’s talons. When the claws were raised, there was a huge splattering of blood and mushed organs, which oozed slowly off stone nails in droplets of liquid ruby and rose quartz.

August was dead.

Joan was not done killing yet.

Nicola dove behind an upturned table and tried to steady her ragged breathing. She yelped when someone collapsed down in front of her.

  “Ari!” She cried.

Ari, shell shocked, but uninjured, scrambled beside her, ducking low for cover. Their eyes were wide and mortified.

  “What--what the fuck is going on?” They whispered. Each word sounded like it took great effort to speak through heaving breaths. “What--is--happening?!”

  “I-I don’t know!” Nicola replied.

Near the buffet temples, the flying pipe stabbed through a girl’s neck. Nicola shuddered and hugged her knees.

  “She’s killing us,” She whispered. “She’s killing us all.”

  “Oh god,” Ari muttered in horror. They pressed a hand to their forehead. “You know what, Nicola? I-I don’t want to die!” They laughed shakily, tears brimming in their eyes.

  “Shh. You’re not allowed to die.” Nicola said, and Ari managed a tight smile.

And then, the pipe flew by and put itself directly between Ari’s eyes.

The table tipped backward, along with Ari’s body. The pipe pulled out with a squelch and squirt of blood, leaving a gaping hole all the way through Ari’s head. Nicola vomited, she couldn’t help it.

  “Monster,” She whispered raggedly She glared at the stage through tears. “You’re a monster!” 

Joan twitched, but didn’t look at her. Nicola braced herself and prepared for the pipe to come around and take her life, but it didn’t. It was currently embedded in the stomachs of two students at once. No, instead, her executioner was a snake that rose up from one of the candles.

Nicola’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the flaming serpent coil out from the candle. It was huge, with bright golden eyes and a tongue that spewed embers when it flicked out at her. Then, it opened its wide jaws and came at her faster than lightning.

Pain. Blinding pain. Blinding, unbearable pain.

She was on fire.

Her dress exploded into golden plumes almost instantly, with her hair following shortly after. She could feel the fabric of her gown fusing with her flesh as it dripped off her body like wax. She screamed and flailed helplessly, but it did nothing to help her. The serpent consumed her.

--

A thick shoulder smashed Violet into a rigid back. Boots stamped down on one of her feet. She heard a screech of pain that sounded like someone from her Economics class. She caught a glimpse of Principal Holbein trying desperately to calm everyone down. Someone grabbed her forearm, and she turned to see Lara, staring at a raging snake made of fire.

  “Oh god,” She whispered. “What do we do?”

  “I-I don’t know!” Violet said. “We can’t escape. The doors are locked!”

  “There has to be another way!” Lara cried. “D-don’t say that! There has to be!”

Nearby, a kid burst into flames when the snake coiled around him. The dragon jumped into the fray, shaking the entire gym when it leapt to the ground. It lashed its huge tail, connecting with a large panicking group of students and sending them sprawling with an awful symphony of breaking bones and splitting skin. It trampled over kids as it made its way to the tree and climbed to the top.

  “Respect me. Respect me. Respect me.” It said over and over again, flaring out its wings. Its mouth did not move when it spoke, rather just hung open like a snake spraying venom.

Violet and Lara backed away, getting pushed and shoved and nearly separated in the process. They clasped their hands together and watched as fire began to spread through the ripped murals against the wall.

This place was going to burn to the ground.

  “JOAN!!”

The pipe, which had taken lodging in the back of a blonde girl’s skull, flashed through the air and cleaved into its next victim’s stomach, silencing them.

Lara gasped and buried her face in her talons.

  “Oh no,” Violet whispered. “Oh no, no, no…!”

--

Anna coughed and was startled to taste blood. She touched her lips and her fingers came back red. Then, slowly, her hands slid down to her stomach, where an even bigger patch of red was spreading across her tux. 

There was a pipe in her stomach.

Her vision blurred and she collapsed to her side, gargling on her blood.

  “Anna!!”

Joan was there, even bloodier than her, grey-blue eyes wide. Her hands hovered around the pipe, then pulled it out, sending sharp bolts of pain through Anna’s entire being.

  “Anna, Anna, no--” Joan stammered. Tears flooded down her face. “Anna, no--”

  “J-Joan--” Anna coughed. She raised a bloody hand and Joan clasped it in her own. 

  “Anna, I’m so sorry!” Joan said. “I-I didn’t mean to…” She glanced at the gaping red horror in Anna’s stomach. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “I know,” Anna said. “I-I know you...you didn’t…” Everything was starting to blur together.

  “No, Anna, don’t die!” Joan begged. “Don’t die! You can’t die!”

  “Think...think I still have a shot at being a singer?” Anna choked out a laugh that was thick with blood.

Joan sniffled and nodded tearfully. “Y-yeah, of course.” She said. “Y-you’d be the best!”

Anna smiled weakly up at her. Her brain felt very fuzzy all of a sudden. The pain was getting worse.

No. No. She cannot die, not now, not after all she’s done. Surely she won’t—the wound is likely not nearly as terrible as it felt, or this is some nightmare and she’ll wake up any moment, and there will be no more blood and George and Jane and Joan will be teasing her for falling asleep at prom and then they’ll go to the Blazer.

She doesn’t wake up.

And now she can’t breathe--her chest heaved and she gasped and coughed, and suddenly her throat felt very hot and full and it’s terribly uncomfortable. 

She doesn’t want to die. But it hurt too much.

  “Joan--” She rasped. “I-I can’t--”

  “No.” Joan said through gritted teeth. Then, she softly pushed Anna’s head up to look at her. The spotlights glowed around her and made her look like a blood soaked angel. “You‘re not dying today. Not here.” She sniffled. “Not in my arms, Anna.”

Anna frowned and parted her lips, gasping for air so loud Joan’s own air almost got pulled out of her lungs. 

  “Please.” She begged quietly. “You have to--”

The rest of the words didn't come out, but Joan’s face paled and she understood.

  “No, Anna,” She whispered. “No. Not after I--”

  “I-it hurts, Joan.” Anna said. 

  “I-I can fix you!” Joan said, shaking her head. Blood from her hair splatter everywhere. “I-I can sew your wound! I-it’s gonna be okay!”

Anna shook her head sluggishly. “Joan,” She whispered firmly. “You can’t. You know that.” She lifted a quaking hand and wiped away one of Joan’s tears, smearing the blood already on her face. “Don’t--don’t be--sad.” 

  “W-we were supposed to w-watch that movie together,” Joan whimpered. “And have a party. You can’t die, Anna.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anna breathed out. Then, quietly, she said, “I love you.”

  “I love you.” Joan said back

Anna’s face lit up, regardless of the pain. “You’re incredible,” She said.

Joan cried harder. 

  “Don’t let--don't let this--w-world tell you--otherwise, mh?” She said. “Don’t let it--it ruin--you.”

  “Anna, please.” Joan sobbed. “Please, please don't go. I-I need you. You--you brought me back to life.”

  “And I’d do that again--and again..and again--”

Anna was delirious. She caressed Joan’s cheeks with her thumbs, and Joan leaned her forehead against hers. Joan let the silence between them fill the void she started feeling inside of her for a few seconds, but her sobs soon came back, filling the stage’s space. All around them in the gym, the panic of students and teacher chaperones was unified into stillness. They were all watching transfixed in shock and despair. 

  “Thank you,” Anna whispered.

  “F-for what?” Joan asked.

Anna smiled. “For giving me the best night of my life.”

Anna’s neck snapped. Joan knew where to send her powers into her spinal cord to make her stop crying. Hurting. 

To make it all stop.

If someone had asked her to do this, she would’ve killed herself. She would kill herself for Anna a thousand times. Over and over. She would let anyone torture her, use her, hurt her, however whenever wherever they would like to. But Anna asking her to end her suffering… She could not bear this. She could not bear her pain...not this one. 

Not like this.  

The one person who ever truly cared about her. The one person who genuinely wanted to be around her… She killed her.

Joan let out a long, keening whimper and began to rock back and forth, cradling Anna’s upper body against her chest. 

If they only could’ve had more time. If they only could’ve had some more time to spend together, some more time to share, some more time to be friends. In such a short period of time, Anna had turned into the big sister she never knew she wanted or ever had. She wanted to be next to Anna forever and always. She wanted to be with her and her friends and even Katherine.

But it didn’t matter now. Anna was dead. And no amount of power was going to bring her back.

Joan cried for several long moments, clutching Anna’s corpse. Fresh blood mingled with the blood coating her entire being. Warmth was slowly draining out of Anna’s body.

And then, something itched in her throat and, holding Anna closer, she tipped her head back.

The thing that overcame the silence was just a noise, one that had been boiling up in Joan’s chest for hours; long before she had gotten blood dumped over her head, or walked into prom, or even got invited to prom at all.

Joan didn’t yell a whole lot, never had. She’d always had the tendency to quietly brood when her temper ran high or her spirits low, something that had helped facilitate her transformation over the years of torment and torture. So in reality, the noise that was escaping her right now was one she’d been holding back for a very long time.

It sounded stupid. But it felt good.

So she kept doing it. Screaming. Over and over again until it just turned into one long roar of agony and fury and anguish.

Intimidating or not, effective or not, when a sound was being uttered over and over by a teenage girl who’s been living the closest thing to Hell that could exist on God’s green earth, a teenage girl covered in blood with wild eyes, a mangy body, and a lifetime worth of pain...

It was a goddamn battle-cry.

Joan gently placed her flower crown on Anna’s chest, situating her limp hands to where they were holding on it, then stood very, very slowly as if she were underwater, or her muscles were buckled into place. Her movements weren’t right- they were too twitchy and abrupt like a robot with rusted limbs. And her eyes—god, her eyes… They were wider than humanly possible.

She stood, dripping with blood, tears still streaming down her cheeks, and stared out at the audience. 

(i’m going to kill you all)

Someone should tell the Devil she was going to room with him because she was about to turn this place into a living Hell.

Grace period ended with the striking of the flaming snake. A poor boy in a dark purple tux burst into flames, and screaming erupted all around him once again. 

  “Oh fuck! Oh god!”

  “We’re all going to die!”

  “Open the door!”

  “Somebody call 999!!”

  “HELP!!!!”

Madness. It was pure madness.

(nobody will EVER laugh at me again)

She imagined storming into the school and screaming her head off at the inconsiderate teachers, the rude students. She’s a smart kid, dammit! She’s been in school as long as everyone else, and she’s very good at it. No more questioning her, no more arguing or trying to make her look foolish, no more bullying. 

And then, it happened. Within the space of the gym, it happened. Absolute mayhem.

She imagined setting fire to the entire school, not caring about how much money it would cost to fix it. Just to hear the crackles of flames, just to watch the people scramble, just to be the chaos instead of the shield against it.

Roaring flames tore along the walls of the gym, thanks to Judgement. Her dragon at the top of the tree helped by fanning the fire with its giant wings, throwing embers all throughout the room. Students squealed when they were burned, music to Joan’s ears. Someone crumpled to the ground, charred as black as night. Someone else with their tux on fire was screaming for help. Several burned corpses lay half in, half out of the firestorm, so melted and disfigured that their gender could barely be made out.

She imagined stalking into her classes, kicking the door open like she would sometimes try to do with the prayer closet. She would watch class jump in surprise and fear, not just staring at her like she’s her mother’s trained puppy. 

Her fingers clenched and someone’s head popped like a balloon, splattering bits of brain and bone all over the faces of the people around them. They all shrieked in horror. Someone else yelled in a higher register, and Joan realized it was some guy coming at her with a knife he must have snuck into the party. She couldn’t touch it, but she could feel her power surging through her fingers and she leaned into it, snatching the knife right out of the boy’s hands and making it cut murderously across his throat like the widest, most bloody smile in the world.

She imagined punching Anne in the face, hearing the crack of her nose. Better than any of the bullshit Christian music her mother makes her listen to.

And then, relishing it, she imagined dunking her into water until she couldn’t breathe, she imagined stealing Bessie’s clothes and leaving her stranded naked in a bathroom stall for hours, she imagined tripping Maria in the hallway and having her break her jaw on the way down, she imagined putting a snake in Maggie’s shoe and watching her howl and foam at the mouth when it pumped her full of venom.

Who’s the boss now? Who’s the tough one, who doesn’t take shit, who doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want, ever?

She imagined growling into all of their ears as she tore into all of them and didn’t care how much of a devil it made her.

How do you like me now?

Being strong, and bold, and standing up, taking what she wants when she wants it, for the first time in her goddamn life. Because, before this, she would have never done any of that stuff she imagines.

She never did that.

She never defended herself or stood up for herself or fought back.

She only endured and endured and endured like a good little girl, like Mama wanted, like how Mama made her.

It's what's best for her. What's best for everyone.

But not anymore.

Never again.

Joan reached out her powers and found Maggie among the panic.

(never again Maggie never again)

(you will never hurt anyone else ever again)

She coiled her powers around Maggie’s shoulders and clenched down. When the grasp was tight enough, she began telekinetically pulling away from Maggie’s body. Instantly, Maggie was alerted that something was very wrong when her arms raised outwards against her will. She fought against Joan’s power, but was much too weak, and began to scream loudly at the strain on her flesh.

  “Maggie!” Anthony yelled in shock. “What’s wr--”

Joan halted his sentence. She didn’t want him speaking anymore. 

She found his organs after a quick moment of searching and vacuumed them upwards. Anthony gagged loudly and clutched at his stomach. His throat bulged like an anaconda was trying to slither out of his body, and then his guts came pouring out of his mouth. 

Everyone shrieked much louder than they were before, or at least those not completely panicking. Anthony’s stomach splattered to the ground first, then his kidneys and liver, large intestines, and then his small intestines, which didn’t make it all the way out and dangled from his mouth like a half eaten snake. He collapsed into the pool of his own insides, empty and very much dead.

  “Anthony!!” Maggie shrieked, tears pouring out of her eyes. A moment later, her arms ripped off of her body and began spewing blood everywhere. Delicate bones poked out like stars on a dark night from the fresh openings against her shoulders. She would bleed to death quickly, and Joan left her to die on the floor, hoping it would be painful.

She looked around, noting how many people were still left alive. She watched Judgement corral three students, one of which fainted from terror. He set them all on fire and then whisked off for new prey. The girl who fainted woke up screaming, but the screams didn’t last very long.

Where was Anne?

(she ran)

(coward coward coward)

She had to go after Anne.

Joan got into the sprinklers overhead and activated them. The spray of water felt amazing over her tingling skin. The blood, mostly dried, began to run in red trails, but she knew it would do little to really clean her the way she wanted it to.

(i’m coming Anne)

But first, she had to finish what she started.

--

Violet took one step too close to the white tree where the watching dragon was perched. Having spotted her, the dragon roared a challenge, extending its wings in a brilliant display of dominance.

The roar it made was earth shattering.

Violet was still recovering from the roar when the dragon jumped down and its spiked forearm slammed into her chest, catapulting her backwards. It went after her, crushing several students into nothing beneath its talons, then pierced her with its tail, leaving her dangling several feet from the ground. Rich, ruby red blood drizzled from the razor sharp point.

She felt faint, the pain radiating through her like a dull ache as the dragon slowly brought her around, its beady white glass eyes fixed on her. She tried to wriggle free, but the sharp edge of the tail tearing into her unresisting flesh caused her to slide further down the blood-streaked appendage. The tail grated through her organs, cutting clean through them. She coughed blood and moaned weakly. Everything was starting to spin.

  “Violet!!” Lara cried from down below.

Violet coughed blood again. The dragon lashed its tail and sent her flying free. She hit the floor roughly, hearing several bones snap, and then went very still. The last thing she ever heard was the sound of Lara’s skeleton being crushed in the jaws of the dragon.

--

Aragon was rarely ever scared, but the mayhem that had erupted throughout the gym nearly had her paralyzed with fear. For a moment, as she watched the destruction break out, she felt as though she couldn’t breathe, especially when she saw Anthony Lee spill his guts from his mouth, but when the sprinklers kicked on overhead, she put her head back on her shoulders.

She had to get out.

Amid the chaos, she saw a flash of white and purple- Bessie. She hurried over to the bleach-haired student, who was in the middle of a pretty bad panic attack, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Bessie! Bessie? Bessie, listen to me!” She shook her shoulders. “Come with me, alright?”

Bessie, unable to muster up any comprehensible reply, nodded. Aragon took her hand and began guiding her to a set of side doors that weren’t as blocked off as the rest of the exits. However, they were just as jammed as all the others.

  “Fuck!” Aragon hissed, yanking on the handle.

  “Wh-what do we do, Miss Aragon?!” Bessie whimpered, shivering.

Aragon looked around desperately, then located a vent up near the ceiling nearby.

  “Get a chair!”

Bessie obeyed and grabbed the closest, most stable chair she could find. Aragon stood on it and ripped off the vent cover, then hopped back down. She had to let her kids go first.

  “Go!” She shouted over the pandemonium. “Hurry! Get in!”

Bessie didn’t hesitate. She kicked off her heels and stood up on the chair, scrambling into the vent as quick as she could. Several other students who were smart enough to come over followed her in. By the time it was her turn to climb in, the sprinklers had cut off and the ground was covered in a layer of water.

Joan stepped off of the stage slowly. With every step she took, the water around her spread away so she would be walking on dry ground. Above her, the electrical equipment holding up the spotlights crackled, and Aragon realized what was about to happen.

  “EVERYBODY, GET OFF THE FLOOR!!!” She screamed.

Aragon leapt up onto the chair and flung her arms inside the vent. As she was pulling herself up, the chair flipped and she was left dangling above the ground. And, at the same time, the electrical equipment exploded into sparks and fell to the floor.

It was horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. She watched her students spasm as they were electrocuted and then drop to the ground like birds with broken wings. Hundreds must have died, and she would soon join them. Any second now, her arms would give out and she’d plummet into the electrically charged water, joining the kids as a corpse inside the gym.

Her life began to flash before her eyes, surely thinking she was about to die. But then, a strange, unseen force began to lift her up and tuck her gently into the vent. When she turned her head, she saw Joan looking at her with shining eyes.

[harianadimples]

Have You Heard of That New Mario Kart Game?

Warning: none 1.8k+: fluff, famous!harry, university student!y/n, domestic life of two odd balls

+ Mario Kart Tour has become the bane of my existence

| – | – | – |

It’s now an hour until midnight and her paper looks somewhat decent. She thinks. She’s made it through 1,397 words of her 2,000 word essay, so she figures she can grant herself a short break to see what’s making Harry shout like a mad man while she gets another snack.

She travels down the hall, carrying an empty white bowl now stained by the blueberries that were in it earlier, and into the living room where she finds Harry sitting hunched over his phone. His hair is sticking up in different directions.

“Fucking finally!” He suddenly yells, rolling backwards while pumping his fist and phone in the air before sitting forward again. He returns to being stiff as a nail, concentrating heavily on his phone.

“Your back will hurt later if you stay hunched over like that,” Y/N says as she enters their kitchen.

“S’already hurting but don’t care. I finally got the hang of this,” he mutters from the other room before yelling in celebratory fashion.

“Of what?” Y/N asks.

“Have you heard of that new Mario Kart game?”

or

The one where Harry plays Mario Kart Tour and slowly loses his mind while Y/N watches and it’s pure domestic!fluff involving Mario Kart, adulting, a tower fan: the obvious necessities of a loving, healthy, relationship

-:-:-:-

“God fucking damn it!”

Y/N looks up from her laptop towards the door. “Bubba? You alright?” She asks and waits for a response. When she doesn’t hear one she shrugs it off, thinking Harry probably sorted it out. 

Several minutes later she hears him yell again. “No! Drift! Drift- Not that way- fuck-.” His voice carries into the room, muffled by the door and the distance, but she can make out the genuine distress he’s in.

Y/N checks the time. She’d been working on her paper for her gothic literature class since she arrived that afternoon (give or take the few hours she spent procrastinating) and had fallen into a steady zone of writing when Harry arrived just before seven. He’d spent his off day with Alexander, part of his London group of friends, to see some exhibit being showcased downtown. Y/N would have gone had she not had a paper due online at midnight, and knowing her habits and writing process she’d need the rest of the night to get it done. 

However, she didn’t chalk up Harry to be a distraction. She had marooned Harry to the rest of the house while she hid away in their bedroom, yet that didn’t seem to matter at the moment. Last she saw of him was during one of her breaks to get herself a snack and a drink. He was lounging in their living room with his phone and laptop out, probably on a meeting call and answering e-mails. That was two hours ago. 

It’s now an hour until midnight and her paper looks somewhat decent. She thinks. She’s made it through 1,397 words of her 2,000 word essay, so she figures she can grant herself a short break to see what’s making Harry shout like a mad man while she gets another snack. 

She travels down the hall, carrying an empty white bowl now stained by the blueberries that were in it earlier, and into the living room where she finds Harry sitting hunched over his phone. His hair is sticking up in different directions.

“Fucking finally!” He suddenly yells, rolling backwards while pumping his fist and phone in the air before sitting forward again. He returns to being stiff as a nail, concentrating heavily on his phone. 

“Your back will hurt later if you stay hunched over like that,” Y/N says as she enters their kitchen. 

“S’already hurting but don’t care. I finally got the hang of this,” he mutters from the other room before yelling in celebratory fashion. 

“Of what?” Y/N asks. 

“Have you heard of that new Mario Kart game?”

“I saw it trending on Twitter. I haven’t gotten the chance to play yet. It looks interesting,” she shrugs, popping a blueberry in her mouth.

“Don’t bother, it sucks,” Harry huffs. “The controls are stupid on this mobile version. It’s hard to steer and drift. I prefer playing on the perfectly good Switch we own. I also think it’s kind of stupid that you have to play vertically. Makes no sense to me.”

Y/N hums thoughtfully as she carries her blueberries over to Harry. She wants to see what he’s fussing over, so she motions for him to start the next map so she can watch. While he’s making his character and car selections his lips part. As a reflex she pushes a blueberry into his open mouth. “Thanks bubba,” he says as he chews on the fruit. “Do you see this garbage?” He asks with a tone that questions the sanctity of the game with so much intent that she has to laugh. 

“Wow, you really hate this game, huh,” she says, amused by how affected he seemed. 

“It’s really no offence to the developers, but this game is already great played on a console. Why ruin it by turning it into a cash-grabbing mobile game?” Harry sighs. 

“That’s just the gaming business nowadays, I guess,” Y/N shrugs. “Is there even a multiplayer option? I might download it so I can kick your ass on a different version as well.”

“It’s implied that it’s still in development. Probably won’t be playing it again any time soon, so it doesn’t matter,” he replies, “also, you only win because you wanna talk about the future of humanity and shit whenever we play, distracting me.”

“I’ll play you again when I finish my paper, and when I kick your ass again in total silence you can whine about it while you wash the dishes.”

“Unless I kick your ass. Then I expect a night’s sleep with the fan off.”

“You know I need the fan on or else I can’t sleep,” Y/N pouts as Harry grins stupidly. “Then you should hope you kick my ass then,” he says. 

“Oh I will. I’m gonna go finish up my paper,” Y/N sighs, giving Harry a quick kiss before retreating back to their room. 

-:-

Y/N joined Harry in the living room at around 11:45 p.m. She submitted her paper online and printed out a hard copy to bring to class the next day which she stapled and placed with her laptop so she didn’t forget.

Her and Harry played ten rounds of Mario Kart on their switch (should have been five but Harry threw a tantrum when he lost three games in a row). Still, Y/N came out as the definitive winner having won six rounds against Harry. 

While Harry washed the dishes she went ahead and got ready for bed. She downloaded the Mario Kart game on her phone while doing her skin care and got herself started in between steps. The game didn’t seem so bad so far but she could see where Harry’s complaints were coming from. She wondered if there was any way to fix the steering and drifting in the settings to give her more control. Luckily there was and she quickly did that.

“This map is so hard,” Y/N mutters. She’s been lying in bed, sitting upright against the pillows having played a few maps now. Harry eventually enters the room appearing tired but relatively content. She’s stuck on a map and was tilting her phone and trying to drift to pull ahead of her opponents. 

Harry, understandingly, looked confused. 

“That doesn’t actually help, you know,” Harry says pointedly. He begins to get ready for bed while watching Y/N flail around. It amuses him to the point of laughing while planting half of himself on her to see what place she’s in. 

“I changed the settings so you steer by tilting your phone and you tap to drift. It’s loads easier for me now,” she tells him as she tilts her phone on a hard left turn. She accidentally bumps Harry’s cheek with her elbow. “Oh- shit- sorry,” she apologizes over each abrupt motion she makes. 

Harry chuckles and pays no more mind to her jerking motions and continues to lay his head in her lap to watch her play. The fan is on pointed directly on Y/N the way she likes it, and truthfully feels quite nice on his face. He never liked the white noise of the fan running in his sleep and his exposed feet tended to get the butt-end of their deal, but he let her have this one thing figuring it’s gotten her to stay around for this long.

-:-

The following morning Y/N gets ready for class. She makes sure she’s got everything in her bag: pens, her notebook, her laptop and chargers. She puts her essay in with her laptop and zips up her bag. 

Harry is snoring quietly behind her, wrapped up in a white faux fur throw blanket with his face buried between two pillows. The fan blows in his direction, causing his hair to raise with the gusts of wind. He looks peaceful and soft; morning-Harry is her favourite Harry for these reasons. She loves him at his loudest, and at his most charming and talented when he’s being ‘Harry Styles,’ and when he’s at his most neediest, when like a pup he wants nothing more but her love and affection. But morning-Harry meant sleepy-Harry, who’s every bit of the above when he’s groggy with sleep. Only, he’s softer and so precious; Anne says it bests when she talks to Y/N when Harry visits. It’s like he never left home at 16.

They fought hard to make their home what it was. Two years ago when they started dating it was just Harry, and his place felt very much like his place. Then she came into his life and brought a Seville classics tower fan with her. Literally, she got it one summer during a heat wave. Her parent’s home didn’t have working air condition after a faulty maintenance job, so they bought two new fans from Costco. Since then she found it hard to sleep without the fan on her; the gentle breeze was nice and the sound oddly helped her sleep. Harry had his qualms about having the fan on while they slept, but she knew deep down he liked the fan idea too.

Y/N leaves her bag next to the bottom of the stairs while she makes herself a quick breakfast. She eats fast and goes back upstairs to brush her teeth and say good bye to Harry. She enters their room and finds him sitting upright in bed, holding her phone. 

“Morning pretty,” she laughs softly, smiling as she presses his hair down and kisses the creases in his forehead. 

“Bubba you’re in the way,” he huffs, moving his face out of her hands.

“I’m leaving for class, just gonna brush my teeth then get my phone,” she tells him with an amused grin as she peers down at her phone. “Though you weren’t going to be playing it again any time soon?”

“Yeah,” Harry says as if merely saying so would make the both forget his rage towards the mobile game less than 24 hours ago. “I won first place on a couple maps. You’re welcome,” Harry says pointedly, glancing at her as she enters their bathroom. He hears her laugh while the water runs.

She comes out a few minutes later as Harry completes another map. He hands her phone back. “You can add me as a friend now apparently,” Harry says. “I accepted on your behalf.”

Y/N nods slowly as she looks at her phone. His screen name she assumes (babyhunny) appears under her friends list.

“‘Kay, I gotta go. See you later,” she says, tucking her phone in her back pocket, holding her earphones ready as she leans down to kiss Harry. 

“Mhmm, love yeh,” he murmurs into the kiss. “Love you too,” she replies, pecking his lips once more before she heads out the door. 

She glances back at Harry and sees that he’s on his phone now, probably playing Mario Kart on it, evidenced by the deep crease in his forehead that reappears and his tongue which pokes out as his gaze focuses on his screen. Y/N shakes her head, grinning as she turns the corner.

| – | – | – |

Hello, it’s been a while. I wrote this completely sleep-deprived at 6am after losing miserably on this one difficult map in Mario Kart Tour. One could say I was projecting..... but, the way this game was brought up to me made me wonder how it’d be talking to Harry about it and I imagined he’d be pretty peeved by the game too but keep playing nonetheless. idk. but i know i wanna (gonna) kick harry’s ass in mario kart someday. when we meet again and become bffs.

Add me if u want [my id: 041377293682]

+ masterlist

[yungimmortals]

phone numbers | jaime (ft. risa)

date: december 26, 2020

summary: a long-overdue phone call, a heavy dose of salt in an old wound, and a very low battery

An unknown number flashed across his screen. Never one to pick up the phone unless he absolutely had to (and definitely not one to pick up when he didn’t recognize the caller), Jaime let it go to voicemail, tossing his phone onto his bed. 

Swiveling in his desk chair, he spin in a full circle before returning his focus to  the project he had been working on since getting back to his apartment earlier that evening. Christmas with Katie’s family had been fun; now it was time for Jaime to recharge. Restoring a vintage typewriter -- Jaime’s Christmas present to himself -- was the perfect thing to do. In the last hour, he had polished it, ridding the typewriter of years of rust and grime. All the type-levers were in place, all the knobs and buttons in working condition. Now it was time to work on the carriage lever and the platen, time to get the machine ready for writing. 

Dismantling his typewriter was a delicate process, interrupted again by the ringing of his phone. “Where is it?” He mumbled, turning is his chair and taking a dive at the bed when he spotted his phone. Snatching it up, he recognized the same number that had called earlier but was saved the trouble of a debate as to whether or not he should answer it when his screen went dark once more. A moment later, a voicemail notification flashed across his screen.

Curiosity piqued, Jaime unlocked his phone, raising it to his ear to listen to the voicemail. The last voice he expected to hear drifted out of the phone’s speakers and he dropped it in surprise. 

Jaime, it’s me. I need to talk to you. I hope this is still your number.

Without hesitation, he returned the call. There was one ring, then two, then three. Jaime bounced his leg up and down before spinning around in his desk chair, his stomach a pit of nerves. As the line continued to ring, he was almost positive he had imagined the voicemail. But then there was an audible click, followed by the sound of his sister’s voice.

“So this is your number. Rowan’s handwriting is absolute shit, I couldn’t tell if that last number was a seven or a four. Can’t believe she wants to go to art school with that chicken scratch.”

“Risa?”  

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, I, er. That is-”

His sister’s laughter sounded tinny, far away. “Jaime, relax. Oh, and Merry Christmas. Did you get our card?”

Jaime switched the call to speaker phone and placed his phone on his desk. He stared at it blankly before scrubbing his face with his hands. “Card?”

“Yeah, Ro made you a Christmas card in her risography workshop. She’s building her portfolio for college but I’m sure she told you that since you talk, like, all the time.” Risa sounded bitter as she spoke, changing the subject quickly. “Anyway, I need to talk to you about something. Is this a good time?”

In eight years, his middle sister had never once called of her own volition. Even convincing her to be a part of Jaime and Rowan’s ‘family phone calls’, had taken a few years of their littlest sister badgering her. Now Risa was calling and it sounded important and Jaime couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He must have been silent for too long, he realized, hearing his sister clear her throat.

“Jay, if you’re busy, just tell me. I’ll find another time,” she said, though from her tone, Jaime could tell that if they didn’t talk about what was on her mind now, they likely never would.

“No! I mean, no, I’m not busy. I was just-- yeah, no, I’m here. What-- what’s up?” Jaime pushed his typewriter to the side before rummaging through his desk drawer for a notebook and pen (just in case he needed to take notes). He chuckled as Risa told him to buckle up, already welcoming the familiarity with which she was speaking to him, no matter how strange it felt.

“This isn’t what I’m calling about but I might as well tell you while we’re here. Dad’s sick. He said you cursed him or some shit, but it’s all bull. He went off the deep end a few years ago. Totally cuckoo. I figured you didn’t know, since you and Ro have your stupid agreement to never mention Charles to each other. Says he’s seeing things. Monsters and shit. Which I would call bull, but I remember that creepy guy. You know, the one waiter at the Dog & Pony that would always stare at you and Mom when we all went for dinner? He only had one eye. I don’t mean like an eyepatch. I mean one freaking eye, right in the center of his head. Don’t know if you ever noticed that, but I did.” Now that Risa had started talking, it seemed she couldn’t stop. “And that’s not the last time I saw something or someone weird like that. There’s a girl who works at the nature center in the park and I swear, Jay. I freaking swear that she melts into the trees. She’s a dryad right? I got lunch with your aunt last week and she filled me in on some stuff. I don’t know how she got in touch with us. Said something about your dad, I don’t remember. But, anyway, we got lu-”

“My aunt?” Jaime interrupted, feeling guilty for doing so, but not seeing where he could get a word in edgewise if he waited for her to pause.

“Oh, shit. Wait, there’s a picture, did I mention a picture? Before I forget. It’s with your card. I was digging through some of Mom’s trail crew stuff in the attic a while back, looking for her old boots, and I found it. It says ‘David’ with a heart next to it on the back. That was his name, right? Your dad?”

Jaime blinked, surprised at both the abrupt subject change and the mention of his father. He didn’t want the subject of his aunt to drop but the photograph won his curiosity. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“Okay, so you’ll see it, but, like, it’s totally weird. There’s a lens flare on it but it’s, like, just across your dad. Kinda ruins the whole picture, you can’t see him at all. It’s like when you try to take a photo of the sun. Mom looks beautiful though, but she always did. I think they were at Otter Cove, and I know that was one of your favorite trails.”

Like trying to photograph the sun. Jaime almost laughed. Risa had no idea how close to the truth she was. Which reminded him, “You had lunch with my aunt?”

“Dude, yeah. And she’s, like, so cool. If you’re related to so many cool people -- myself and Ro included, obviously -- how did you turn out like this?” 

He could hear Risa laugh on the other line and just rolled his eyes. He glanced down at his notebook where he’d written a collection of words: cursed, Cyclops, dryads in Acadia? The latter was underlined several times, whether from surprise or excitement, Jaime couldn’t remember. He realized his sister had started speaking again. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” 

“I was saying, if you were paying attention, that we went to Geddy’s -- that veg place on Main? -- for lunch and she was telling me about some fancy neo-classical city? New Athens or some shit like that, I think. In New York. Is that where you live? Ro told me you were like, weirdly into Greek mythology one time. But honestly, that tracks with some of the stuff I’ve seen. Hey, how come your aunt was looking for me, not you? She said something about mist but it was. like, not even a foggy day. We could see out over the harbor. Crystal clear.”

“The Mist,” Jaime correctly automatically, then pinched the bridge of his nose. The list in his notebook grew longer as their call stretched on. “I don’t know,” he admitted, in response to Risa’s question about his aunt. “Did she tell you her name?”

“Artemis? Which I was like hello, weird, since I was literally just thinking about you and your Greek mythology phase. I asked if she was David’s sister and she said ‘if that’s what he’s calling himself now’. Do estranged siblings run in your side of the family or something?”

At that, Jaime made a choking sound, staring at his phone. The resulting crow of laughter from his sister made it clear that she’d been expecting, no, hoping for that reaction. 

“Just messing with you, Jay. Relax. Anyway. She’s got this, like, wild grrl gang of hikers that travel the country? Gave me a pamphlet, told me to consider it. She said I could tell Rowan too, but when I did, Ro didn’t seem to care at all. She’s just got art school on the brain, I think. Your aunt had told me that would happen, said that the Mist was thicker around our sweet baby sister. But, uh, do you know what the Mist is? I’m, like, pretty sure you do since you corrected me a minute ago.”

“I-”

“Yeah that’s what I thought. So anyway, Aunt Artemis said you’re a demigod. Guess your dad’s name isn’t really David, huh? Last I checked, there’s no Greek god of boring dad names. Care to fill me in? Is that why I’ve seen some weird, like, mythological creatures around the harbor when we were growing up? Oh and Grandma Hana says hi.”

A distressed sound escaped Jaime’s lips. He had forgotten his sister’s habit of bouncing from subject to subject and here it was, smacking him in the face with more new information than he could handle at the moment. Christmas wishes had been exchanged with his grandmother the day before, so he didn’t have to worry about acknowledging that topic, thankfully. His brain was working in overdrive and he could practically feel Risa’s impatience, the longer he was silent.

“Jaime,” she prompted. 

He sighed, massaging his temples as he stared down at his phone. “His name isn’t David, it’s Apollo. Artemis’ brother. They aren’t named after the Greek gods, they are the Greek gods. So yes, that makes me a demigod. And it sounds like...you can probably see through the Mist. At least a little more than most mortals.”

“Holy shit. And you never thought ‘hey maybe I should tell my sister this super freaking weird but also totally cool thing about me’? What the shit, Jaime!”

He opened his mouth to tell her that he hadn’t known until after he left, until after he read the letter their mother had left for him, but Risa was steamrolling ahead.

“Wait...wait, so that was the Artemis? Your aunt is the Artemis? And she- and she invited me to join her immortal Hunt?” He heard a muffled shriek, like she had covered the receiver with her hand. A small smile spread across his face. “Well, I’m saying yes...obviously.”

“Okay, hold on a second there. That’s a big decision, don’t you think you shou-”

“Oh no, no. I’m going to stop you right there. You don’t get to play the big brother card here, Jay. You don’t get to keep secrets for years and then tell me I need to think about accepting an offer from a goddess. And don’t say some shit about me looking after Rowan. She doesn’t need anyone to look after her. You’d know that if you were here. Honestly, she does a better job looking after me than I do her. Shit, wait. Does that mean Dad’s not crazy? Did you really make all those people sick all the time? Did you...make Mom sick? Isn’t Apollo the god of healing?”

“I wasn’t playing the big brother card!” He protested weakly. As she continued, Jaime blanched. Several times. First at the mention of his absence, then at the mention of Charles’ theories, and again at the mention of their mother. “I’m sorry,” he started, hoping Risa understood that he was apologizing for leaving. They would have more time to unpack that later, he figured. 

"Charles is definitely still crazy. I didn’t make all those people sick. Mom either. I, uh, I only did it once. Made someone sick, I mean. It was a boy that bullied me at school during the years Mom was sick and Charles wouldn’t listen to me about it. One day the kid was beating me up and hitting me and, and I, I don’t know what happened. I pushed him and pushed? I don’t know, energy? At him, and I gave him the chicken pox or something, at least I think that’s what the school said. Chicken pox,” he scoffed, ducking his head, despite the fact that Risa couldn’t see him. “He’s the god of many things. Music, the arts, the sun. Healing, yeah, but plague and illness is the flip side of that.”

“Like the plague arrows he shot at the Greeks. Before you say anything, yes, I’ve read the Iliad. And The Song of Achilles, which, if you haven’t read it, you have to.” As if realized she’d gotten off track, Risa was quiet for a moment. Jaime was thankful she didn’t push him on the subject of his powers; he wasn’t sure what he would have said if she had. When his sister spoke again, she sounded farther away, her voice detached. “Artemis told me there are other children of Apollo. You have other family.”

It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation -- that was clear. When Jaime answered, he sounded tired. “I do, yeah.” Though his sister couldn’t see it, his expression was one of regret. “But it’s, it’s not like that, Ris.”

“I didn’t ask what it was like,” she snapped. After a moment of tense silence, he could hear her sigh. “I’m going to contact Artemis. Learn as much about your world as she’ll tell me. And then I’m going to join the Hunt.”

With a click, the line went dead. 

Jaime stared at his phone in silence until the screen darkened, battery dead as well. He heaved a sigh, detangling himself from his desk chair to plug his phone into the cord on his nightstand to charge. So much for recharging, he thought to himself, knowing his own battery was dangerously low. Exhaling a groan, Jaime sunk onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling once more. To the constellations on his ceiling, he murmured, “That went about as well as it could have, all thing considered.”

[thedevianthunterrk800]

Assumptions (Captain Allen x Reader)

This is me procrastinating writing with more writing :) 

Mature themes! But not exactly NSFW. 

Summary: A relationship is defined, and you forget to sneak your secret lover out before your roommates get home. 

Alternatively,

Tags: @heartsarecompatible​ @precursor-ao3 @thatoneemosithlord also @massivelymysticalsweets I hope this is fluffy and soft enough lol 

It only occurs to you that you’ve never had him over when you scan your fingerprint on the doorknob and he lets out a low whistle.

“Never seen one of those before,” he says with just a sliver of disbelief, eyeing the electronic lock distastefully.

“I think they remodeled this place right before we moved in,” you admit with a shrug, gently nudging the door open. A quick peek inside confirms that your roommates are indeed out for the night and you sigh in relief.

With much more confidence, you swing the door all the way open, the sensors setting the lights on.

Behind you, Allen snorts. “I grew up having to actually use light switches.”

Rolling your eyes, you grab his hand and lead him towards your room. “For the last time, this stuff’s new. I didn’t grow up here, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He seems distracted now, squeezing your hand in his. You’re suddenly acutely aware that the two of you are alone in the apartment, without any distractions for the whole night. A lot can happen in one night, something you only know too well from your previous…experiences with the SWAT captain.

You have to quickly remind yourself that you’re just packing an overnight bag so you can spend the night at his place, which you’ve been doing almost regularly. Of course, you try to behave and indulge him only every now and then because you don’t want to make your rather inquisitive roommates more suspicious than they already are. It doesn’t always work, though.

After all, you can hardly resist him.

With that being said, you’re barely surprised when, after entering your room, he suddenly pushes you backwards onto your bed. You fall with a gasp, and soon he’s crawling on top of you, a pleased smirk on his face.

“Dave…” you mumble, throwing your arms around his neck. He grins down at you, eyes shining the same way they do when he’s faced with a particularly difficult yet exciting task in the field. He sees the way your breath hitches when he begins to dip his head and he feels his chest tighten painfully, but not unpleasantly so.

If only you knew what you did to him…

His lips are on yours in an instant and you pull him closer, until his arms almost give. You don’t mind if he crushes you with his weight, which is a terrifying thought in its own right, but you can hardly concentrate on anything other than him and the way he feels pressed against you.

I love you, you want to say. But it might be too soon. Hell, you know it’s too soon.

Still, it’s his fault for making you fall so hard so quickly. It’s his fault for always catching your eye, offering up conversation even when he’s busy and really has no time to dilly-dally. 

Why is it that despite that, he always finds a way to see you, to ask you how your day is going, and to sometimes even bring you coffee or donuts?

You don’t know what changed, how your friendship developed into… this.

Into lingering touches that leave you wanting more.

Into burning kisses that you can feel for the next few days, that you crave more than anything.

Into secret escapades in the moonlight that end with you under him like you are right now, trembling from both pleasure and desire.

Neither of you have given this arrangement a title yet, and as much as you want to call it a relationship, you’re still not entirely sure if he’s even interested in that. He certainly acts that way, but he’s full of acts when he’s at work. How can you be sure this one’s any different?

For now, you push the doubts to the back of your mind. You close your eyes and try to lose yourself to his warm hands, soft lips, and eyes that never once leave your face.

I love you, you want to say.

One day, you hope he’ll feel the same.

::

You can’t even say you’re surprised that you both ended up falling asleep after some rather intense sex that lasted too long given the time constraints. At any rate, you don’t recall ‘quickies’ taking roughly two hours.

The plan, which he had sleepily (your first warning sign) suggested, was to take a well-deserved nap before finally gathering your things, and then finishing the evening at his place. Neither of you had work the next day, so it was set up to be a perfect, stress-free romp that would continue into the morning until you were both completely sexed out.

That, unfortunately, is not what actually happened.

Nobody woke up after an hour. Nobody bothered to set an alarm.

Instead, you find yourself startled awake when you hear a door slam outside, and two muffled voices reach your ears.

Fucking. Hell.

You sit up quickly, still in a total state of undress. Beside you, Allen is blinking blearily, jolted awake at your abrupt movement.

Your first instinct is to apologize, but then you realize who exactly is in your bed, and more importantly, who the other two outside are.

“They’re home,” you hiss a little more loudly than you intended, and it irks you that Allen hardly seems to care. “They’ll see us!”

“So?” the SWAT captain responds with a poorly-contained yawn, rolling his shoulders.

“What about keeping this a secret?”

He merely shrugs. “I’m sure it would’ve come out anyway.”

You groan, throwing your head back in anguish. “How can you be so fucking calm right now?”

At the distress in your voice, he raises an eyebrow at you, genuinely confused. “Why are you so worried about this?”

“Because! This. This is not allowed, right?”

“What, being in a relationship with someone a few ranks higher than you?”

You open your mouth to point out that he’s more than simply some random guy “a few ranks higher” than you, but then his words suddenly hit you.

Just like that, the horrifying idea of Tina and Gavin catching you walking out of your room with Allen hardly seems to matter all that much.

“We’re in a relationship?” you squeak, earning you an expression of pure disbelief from the gorgeous, naked man squished next to you on your full bed.

“Wh—what the fuck have we been doing this whole time then?” he splutters, properly taken aback by what you can only guess from his face is one of the most ridiculous things you’ve said to him yet.

“Well, we never talked about it,” you point out sheepishly, laughing a little when Allen slowly shakes his head as if he truly cannot believe what he is hearing.

“Jesus fuck. I thought I made it pretty fucking clear,” he mutters mainly to himself. You’re not sure if he’s amazed or horrified at the sudden turn of events, but you can safely say that you are beyond elated. Fuck, even that doesn’t do it justice.

Grinning from ear to ear, you surge forward and tackle him backwards into the bed. He barely misses hitting his head against the wall in the process but you don’t care, too ecstatic about the fact that you’re not the only one who has fallen madly in love these past few weeks.

Before he can say anything more, you grab the sides of his face and crush your lips against his. He lets out a small noise of surprise, followed by a chuckle as you continue your assault on his mouth. He relaxes beneath you, one hand resting on your hip and the other stroking your back.

This isn’t at all how you predicted this morning would turn out, but you sure as hell aren’t complaining.

When the two of you finally pull apart, Allen continues to chase your lips. You give in, of course, and the only thing that successfully prevents this from leading to yet another passionate round of sex is the loud shrill of his cellphone lying on the ground. Wincing at the intrusion, Allen swoops down to grab the device, scowling at the flashing name on the screen before answering.

“Allen.”

He makes faces at you as the caller, who you can only guess is yet another nameless higher up, begins to ramble on and on, with Allen offering the occasional “yes” and “alright”. This goes on for a few minutes before the SWAT captain ends the call with a curt, “I’ll be in at ten.”

Your face drops when you hear that. This is supposed to be his day off, one to be spent with you, his newly official significant other no less. He sees your disappointment and offers a consoling smile.

“Hey, don’t worry, babe,” he assures you, gathering you into his lap. You don’t complain, always content to be in his arms. “I don’t think I have to stay all day.”

You’d much rather he not go in at all, but that would only raise suspicions, wouldn’t it? As it is, you’ve already kept him to yourself for several hours now. Though you don’t want to, you have to let him leave. “I guess I can’t keep you here too long, huh?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll return the favor tonight.” He then winks at you and you have to physically restrain yourself from jumping his bones once again. Breathing sharply through your nose and reminding yourself that no, you can’t let him get distracted now, you detangle your limbs from his and hop off the bed.

Allen looks a little disappointed but seems to remember that it’s his fault you had to get up. He climbs out the bed after you, stretching his arms in front of him.

The two of you silently get dressed—Allen gets a bit handsy and you half-heartedly slap him for that—and in the lovestruck daze you’re in, you forget that your roommates are likely lounging in the living room outside.

It’s only when you pull your door open and step out do you realize that the two of you are no longer alone in the apartment.

“There you are—” Tina begins, looking up from the television. Her voice cuts off when she recognizes the bemused face behind you, and the half-eaten bagel she’s holding slips from her hand. At that exact second, Gavin emerges from the bathroom, still buttoning his jeans.

He glances up briefly and immediately double-takes when he realizes that there’s a fourth person in the apartment, and not one he would have ever expected to see.

“What the fuck?” he blurts without thinking, causing Allen to smirk almost triumphantly.

Your eyes dart between Gavin and Tina, both of whom are practically gawking at you in pure incredulity. Unable to form any words at the moment, you offer them a shaky grin, blindly reaching behind you to grab Allen’s arm so you can haul him out of there as quickly as possible.

Allen instead takes your hand in his own, causing you to flush and Tina to cover her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her snickering. Meanwhile, Gavin continues to gape at the pair of you, obviously unable to wrap his head around the fact that one of his most unassuming friends and roommate is currently and actively fucking Captain “Get in my way and I’ll fuck you up” Allen, a man that even he tries not to piss off.

Looking completely unfazed as always, Allen leads you towards the front door, taking the liberty to open it when you fail to.

Not that he can blame you.

You look like you just got caught with your hand inside the cookie jar, after all.

“I’ll let you know when I get done,” he says, stepping out into the hallway. You nod dumbly, leaning against the doorframe because you don’t trust yourself to stand upright properly at the moment.

Allen merely smiles at you. “I’ll see you later, alright?”

You nod again, returning his smile weakly. “Y-yeah. Sounds good.”

For a few seconds, he only stares at you oddly. It looks as though he has something to say but isn’t sure exactly what, or even if now is the time to say it all. 

Somehow, you get it.

“I love you.”

Behind you, Tina drops her mug of coffee.

[aka-efirg]

tainted marks

several days after chuuya got out of edgar's book, dazai breaks into his apartment

trigger: implied/referenced self-harm

ao3

Various objects were floating inside the apartment, a faint red glowing around them. With each whimper, the objects seemed to be more and more crushed, until some of them were totally squashed. And with each abrupt movement, the objects were moved around. But when the sound of a window opening could be heard, all the objects stilled briefly before everything – going from the spoon floating in the apartment to the chair in the bar 900 meters further away – trembled.

The tremor stopped only when Chuuya opened his eyes, waking up from what he was dreaming about. Though, he didn’t get the time to think about it because of the presence he could feel inside his apartment. Despite his mind still befuddled by sleep, he knew who it was. Since there was only one person crazy – or suicidal – enough to break into a Mafia executive’s apartment. So he blinked several times to hopefully get rid of the sleepiness. Dealing with Dazai while tired was just a disaster bound to happen.

He sighed and stood up, slightly wincing in discomfort. And grumbled internally because he was pretty sure Dazai now knew he was awake. Well then, best to go to confront the demon. He didn’t bother to make himself more presentable and just headed toward the living room. And as expected, Dazai was there, standing in the middle of the room and looking around at all the objects which were now lying on the floor. He turned his head when he sensed he wasn’t alone anymore.

Chuuya was about to gently ask him what he was doing here when he spotted several dark stains on the other’s clothes. And considering who he was facing, it wasn’t hard to deduce what they were. So instead of yelling, he switched the lights on, taking pleasure in the barely noticeable but still present wince appearing on Dazai’s face. The light provided him the confirmation the stains were indeed blood. He scowled when he took the other’s general appearance before sighing. He really didn’t have the energy to deal with his ex-partner.

“What the fuck happened to you?” He couldn’t help but say aloud. Before Dazai could answer – which would have probably angered him –, he added. “Come on asshole.” And without waiting for the other to talk, he turned around, back to his room. He felt relief when he heard the brown following him. Which made him frown. Since when Dazai was obedient like that?

Once in the room, he looked back at Dazai who was still silent. A little too silent for it to be comfortable. A silent Dazai rarely suggested something good. And fuck, wasn’t he too tired and out of it to deal with that.

“Now, sit the fuck down and strip!”

He pointed at his bed before heading toward his closet to take out a box and going back to the bed. Fortunately, Dazai was already seated, his clothes removed. And now, Chuuya could clearly see the stains of blood, contrasting with the white bandages. Without saying anything, he climbed on the bed and placed himself behind the detective.

Carefully, he started undoing the bandages and winced at the too familiar gestures. When all the bandages were undone, with Dazai having say no word yet, he barely looked at all the faded marks on the back, preferring to focus on the newest addition.

The wound was still fresh and looked inflamed. Probably because the stupid asshole didn’t take care of it correctly. And also. “When was the last time you changed your bandages ? They’re dirty as fuck. You know what, don’t answer, I don’t care.” Which he knew Dazai knew it was a lie. He wouldn’t be changing them if he truly didn’t care. But luckily the brown didn’t call him out.

He took out a gauze from the box and soaked it with disinfectant before applying it on the wound, followed by medicated cream. Then he got off the bed and knelt down before Dazai. The wound there was in the same state as the one on his back. He repeated his actions.

Once this was taken care of, he focused on the arms. These wounds were so familiar he wanted to scream. The red lines were taunting him. Dancing with white faint lines. Without uttering a word, he stood up and went to the bathroom, dampening a cloth, and came back to the bedroom. He washed the blood, allowing him to access the extent of the damage. The cuts thankfully weren’t too deep and would heal quickly. He then started cleaning them as well.

Silence was beginning to be unnerved and Dazai hadn’t spoken yet. Not a word. Not a sound. Nothing. He had just obediently followed Chuuya’s orders. Almost like a dog. And if Chuuya was in the mood, he would have laughed at the irony. But right now, his mind was too far away and he was working on autopilot. Clean. Access. Disinfect. Bandage. Again for the other arm. And once finished, put new bandages. Wrap it tightly – but not too much – around the stomach. Then the chest. The shoulders. The chest again. And the neck.

He was now back on the bed, behind Dazai. And while he was tidying the stuff back into the box, he felt two lanky arms closing around him before being pressed against a familiar chest. He must have been more out than he thought because his first instinct wasn’t punching, but snuggling. When he realized what he was doing, he froze. Which didn’t seem to deter his ex-partner since he just tightened his grip. And fucking nuzzled his nose against his neck, just below his choker. Soon he felt legs resting around his hips, trapping him fully into Dazai’s grasp.

For several minutes, none of them moved. For a moment Chuuya almost forgot who they were now and was practically back when they were teenagers and they would spend the night, snuggled against each other. Or after a particularly difficult mission. Moments like those hadn’t been very commun but Chuuya would lie if he said he didn’t miss them.

He jolted from his thoughts when he felt a light kiss on his neck. And another on his jaw. Looked like Dazai was coming back from where he’d lost himself. Butterfly kisses kept appearing on his skin and he was finding it more and more difficult to breathe. But at the same time, he couldn’t move away. After the days passed in the book, without nothing to anchor him, he needed this contact. Dazai had always been able to ground him, just as much as he had been able to ground Dazai when the latter was spiraling down.

The more kisses there were, the more difficult he found it to breathe but the more human he started feeling again. And wasn’t this the most beautiful irony. No Longer Human washing over him, again and again, was what allowed him to reconnect with his human side. He vaguely wondered if Dazai was aware of it. He probably was. But then again, for all the genius he was, sometimes Dazai was unable to see what was right in front of him.

When it was starting to feel too much, he tried to extricate himself but Dazai tightened his members around him with enough strength it started hurting. Light kisses became more teethy. It was as if Dazai was trying to consume him. He was completely trapped. Bruising grasp. Biting kisses. And part of him was refusing to do anything to get away. He closed his eyes, an attempt to block what was happening. He could feel tears building behind his lids due to the excess of sensations, of emotions… of everything.

“Neh Chuuya, what were you dreaming about?”

Dazai’s voice was soft and barely audible, even with his mouth so close to his ear. Chuuya opened his eyes and tried to turn his head to look at the brown but his position made it impossible for him to do so. The kisses had stopped and he could feel Dazai’s breathing brushing against his sensitive skin. He was so focused on that he nearly forgot the question. Dazai’s first words since coming and it was no taunt or anything similar.

“Nothing.”

“Chibi shouldn’t lie, it would be no good for his height. And you obviously dreamed about something. You created a quake for one kilometer around. And if it was because you were angry, there would have been more damage. Plus there are lots of broken and crushed things in your living room – and probably in the other rooms –. I know things like that happen when you’re dreaming.”

“Stop talking.”

One kiss just above the choker. “I thought Chibi wanted me to talk.” Teeth on his lob and Chuuya just went limp in Dazai’s arms.

“Why are you here?” He asked tiredly. As much he had needed and wanted the contact, he wasn’t ready for dealing with his ex-partner. He didn’t even have the force to be properly angry.

“I asked first.”

“What are you ? A child?” He felt more than he saw Dazai opening his mouth. “One word about my height and say goodbye to your nose.” Faint laugh tickled against his skin, sending shivers across his body. “And I’ve answered.”

“Not really no.”

And the situation was so familiar it was uncomfortable. But at the same time, it was so familiar it was comfortable.

“You remember what my first memory is?” He had to wait several seconds before feeling a weak nod. “Nothing. No existence. No sensation. No emotion. Barely aware. It’s what I was dreaming about. Being nothing more than a concept, existing without existing. Do you know how terrifying it is to be reminded of something like that?”

“I can imagine.” And if that didn’t make it worse.

“So why did you do this to me?” He felt Dazai tense, his grip tighter around him. Probably hurting his arms by doing so. “You know I need my ability. You know how much my own power takes a toll on me. How I need my ability so I can bear it. And yet, your plan involved sending me in a world where there are no abilities.” It was getting harder and harder to breathe. And he couldn’t figure out if it was because of his own growing anxiety and the arms around him squeezing him more and more. Yet he couldn’t stop talking. “The two first days had been fine. But the more time I spent without my ability to anchor me, the more everything became numb. At a point I was so desperate to escape that I started just killing. I mean, it was fifty-fifty chance of the character being a killer. Which, you guessed, did not help at all. If I had passed one day more inside this fucking book, I would have been back to square one. Only existing to kill and destroy. Even now, I have to fight the fucking instinct to destroy everything around me.”

“Chuuya…”

“When I came out of the book, I was so close to do it. And I’m not sure it would have been deliberately. It was just… so overwhelming. Barely hanging on my humanity one moment, and the next, having all this power ready to strike if I let it. Is it something you can imagine?”

No answer. Typical. Trust Dazai to not say a word when it was the most inconvenient. “You know what? Forget about it. It’s not like you care anyway.” The only reaction he got was a sharp inhale. Once again, he went to extirpate himself but like the other times, something stopped him. This time it was a hand pressed against his stomach. Under his shirt. Anger engulfed him for one second before remembering one detail.

“Why are you wearing bandages?”

Fuck . That was probably the one thing he didn’t want Dazai to know about. But, of course, with everything that was happening, he had forgotten. Truly he hadn’t even thought it would have been an issue. Yet this was Dazai he was talking about. So naturally it did become an issue. He snapped. “None of your business.”

“Are you trying to copy me?”

“Why the fuck would I do that? Who in their right mind would want to look like a freaking mummy?”

“Yet Chuuya has bandages around his stomach – and probably his chest too –. So if not for the aesthetic, why?”

“Like I said, none of your business.”

The hand pressed harder. “You’re not hurt.”

“Just leave it alone, asshole!” He started thrashing around, attempting to get out. But his efforts seemed vain as the ex-mafioso only curled around him even more. He didn’t understand. Physically he was stronger than the brown.Who was also hurt. And Chuuya could hear the faint whimpers of pain each time his elbows connected with the other’s ribs. Yet Dazai managed to hold on. Even when he almost headbutted him in his nose. Twice.

Several minutes passed until Dazai seemed to get bored. His hand, previously put around the redhead’s torso, moved toward his neck before encircling it without hesitation and applying enough pressure for it to be quite uncomfortable but not enough to hurt. And just like that the anger that had taken over Chuuya for the last minutes disappeared. His arms went limp, resting on the other’s legs, and he slumped into Dazai’s chest, his head slightly backward exposing his throat.

Without removing his hand, Dazai brought the smaller’s head on his shoulder, his other hand still secured around the bandaged stomach. He waited a moment for Chuuya to calm down. Once he was sure he wouldn’t attack him, he released his grip on the neck and couldn’t resist hooking two fingers under the choker and pulling a little. His action earned him a light groan.

Chuckling he removed his fingers to instead grab the hem of the other’s pyjama top. He started to remove it, taking his time to let the redhead stop him if he wanted. Then he discarded the cloth next to him. Now he could plainly see the smaller’s back wrapped in white bandages. Seeing how Chuuya was tensed, he put his hands on his shoulders and started rubbing his thumbs. He could feel him stiffening a little more before the muscles began relaxing. He kept going until the redhead was almost pliant under his hands.

Slowly he reached the knot securing the bandages and loosened it. He halted his movements and started undoing the white stripes when he got no complaint. The gestures were methodical, without hesitation. Almost reassuring. As soon as he caught sight of bits of skin, he frowned. Maybe it was the lack of light or the tiredness but the skin looked darker than it should have been.

He barely managed to prevent making any noise in surprise and could only gape at the view in front of him. Bruise-like marks were marring his back and probably his chest as well. He could see lines tracing patterns on the fair skin. Familiar patterns. Maybe a little too much. He brought his hand closer and started tracing the motives with his forefinger, causing goosebumps spreading from the top to the bottom of the back.

When the astonishment wore down, he finally realized the marks had not disappeared the moment his skin had entered in contact with Chuuya’s skin when the latter had treated him. He wondered if Chuuya had noticed it but decided to keep it quiet for now. Even though he was sure practically it was the case. No matter what he could say, he knew the redhead wasn’t stupid. And Chuuya was probably the more accustomed to his ability.

“They’re fading.” The mumble brought him back to reality.

“What?”

“The marks. They were more vivid when I came out the book. They should disappear in two or three days. When I first noticed them, I didn't know what they were. I mean, I've never seen myself when I'm using Corruption. Then I remembered how you described it to me. So I promptly panicked. Until I realized I could think rationally. Which led to another kind of freak out. It must have taken a whole day before I managed to calm myself enough to… Well, at the end of the day, I had twenty-ish missed calls and as many as messages. The day after, I bandaged myself and went to work. Fortunately the marks didn’t spread on my arms and my face. So it was easy to hide. I don’t know if anyone suspect a thing. Maybe the boss and Ane-san, considering how they were staring at my chest. Probably how you’re currently doing so.”

And staring Dazai was. But how Chuuya could blame him for it. The only times Dazai had seen such marks were during the use of Corruption when he couldn’t really observe them with attention. Never did he imagine he could trace them with his fingertips. He spent several minutes just brushing the marred skin, as if hypnotized. Meanwhile, Chuuya wasn’t moving. That was not how he thought he would spend the night.

“They’re still there.” Chuuya turned his head slightly to shoot a look that Dazai could only interpret as insulting and annoyed. “They didn’t disappear when you touched me earlier.” When the look he received got even more unimpressed, he added. “It means it doesn’t come from your ability.”

The redhead huffed. “Yeah, I figured as much. I didn’t feel anything unordinary when I treated you. Which doesn’t reassure me at all.” And Dazai could only agree. It seemed it was making the mafioso rather anxious.

“Did something happen? In the book I mean.” It was only his reflexes that saved him from the punch thrown at his face. He grabbed the extended wrist before maneuver both of them into a lying position. Chuuya was now on his back, Dazai straddling him and his wrist still held. He glared at the brown while trying to free his hand. When he moved his second hand, it ended like the other. Now he was completely trapped under Dazai and his ability was still nullified.

“Oi shitty Dazai, let me go!”

“Sorry, I don’t really want to be punched tonight.”

“You do? So stop talking rubbish and get out of my apartment!”

“I’m serious Chibi.”

“So am I.” He struggled and tried hitting the brown with his feet but it made no different, the detective only budging a little before securing his legs on the top of the smaller ones. “Shitty mackerel, get the fuck off me! What do you even want, ha? You were bored so you decided to cut yourself and come bothering me? Playing with me? Do you have fun? Do you find it funny how you seem to always have the upperhand?”

The hands around his wrists were starting to hurt which he chose to ignore. His emotions were all around and he didn’t know if what he was feeling was anger or sadness or worry. Since the book, he hadn’t totally reconnect with his emotions yet. And Dazai had always had the habit to make a mess of his emotions. But now it was worst. He felt like crying and yelling at the same time. He wanted to punch his ex-partner as much as he wanted to hug him and never let him go.

“Is it what you think?” Hearing the tone with which it was said, Chuuya stilled and locked his eyes into Dazai’s ones and felt like the latter had punched him in the stomach. Empty eyes were bored into his and he felt like he was going to be wholly swallowed. All the anger dissipated, leaving him drained from the emotional roller coaster he was experiencing.

He could hear his heart beating loudly, the only sound in the room. The switch had been so abrupt he didn’t know what to think about it. He opened his mouth to say something but the words were replaced by a screech when teeth broke the skin of his shoulder. Blood was running down his shoulder to end on his bed. He felt a little annoyance at that but was too dumbstruck to react. But then Dazai started licking and sucking the bite, almost like an apology.

Before he could properly let Dazai know what he thought about that, the latter collapsed on the top of him, his face in the crook of his neck. He let out a deep sigh. Clearly yelling would be no use.

“You’re awfully clingy today?” The other only hummed in response. “O-kay. Could you please let go of my hands? It’s starting to get uncomfortable.” He glanced the hand holding his wrist. “For you as well. You’re hurt. Don’t worsen your wounds, idiot.”

Probably to annoy him, Dazai tightened his grip for a while before he eventually let go. Chuuya rubbed absent-mindedly his wrists above his head. Dazai was stronger than he appeared. As for the brown, he had brought his hands down and was now playing with his hair, occasionally scratching his scalp. And fuck if it wasn’t smoothing. Adding the grounding weight on his chest. And the reassuring sensation of nothingness.

He was almost lured towards sleep when he remembered the exact situation he was in. But it seemed neither of them wanting to make a move. And he prefered dealing with Dazai like this rather than his emotionless self. But unfortunately they couldn’t stay like that indefinitely. He brought one of his hands to the head nestled against him and slapped it more kindly than he wanted.

“Okay asshole, time to move!” When the other didn’t move and kept playing with his hair, he frowned. “Mackerel, get off me. We can’t stay like th–”

“Why not? I’m pretty comfortable here.” He interrupted the redhead while snuggling further into his neck, as if to prove a point.

“We’re both bare-chested. We’re gonna be cold and fall sick.”

“Chibi doesn’t get sick.”

“Maybe but you on the other hand can.”

“I have my bandages on. So not bare-chested.”

His nostrils flared in annoyance. “And you think it’s going to prevent you from getting cold.”

“It probably won’t. But Chuuya’s warm. So no problem.” He started rubbing his head, knowing perfectly the gesture could easily bring to sleep. “Now relax. You’re warm, I’m comfortable and I haven’t slept for two days.”

“Ha?! Don’t you dare to fall asleep! Especially on me!”

The hand left his hair and he was rather mortified when he felt disappointment at the action. He tucked his head to the side, as if to hide his embarrassment. His nose met brown hair and he felt his cheeks burning when he heard the faint chuckle. He then felt the blanket he had pushed aside earlier being put on them. Once it was in place, Dazai brought back his hand where it was. Dazai also slightly shifted to the side so he wasn’t completely on the smaller anymore. Chuuya, seeing protesting would lead nowhere, put his hand on the other back and started tracing motives and playing with the bandages, being careful not to undo them. And for the first time since the book, the lack of his ability didn’t seem like a burden.

[ozzdog12]

2019- Top 7 (And 1)

  Another year has come to an end and thus the hotly anticipated Top 7 (And 1) from your ‘average at best’ Ozzdog12 is here for you to feast your eyes upon. 2019 was an extremely odd year for me, gaming wise. As parenthood has taken the full brunt of my time, my gaming time and the choices of what games I decided to play, have changed. I played several games this year that, under any previous year I may have stuck with longer or tried again, but as time for gaming has become more and more thin, I now have less ‘patience’ to stick with a BIG RPG (Disco Elysium, one day I’ll get to you). Now I’m going to contradict my previous sentence with this next sentence. I was unemployed for a stretch of 5 weeks and in between looking for jobs I also found myself with a decent amount of time to play some games. What I did with that time is played 2 games that ultimately made the list, for two very different reasons. I also cleared out a chunk of backlog games (Finally beating Diablo 3 for one, thank you Switch) and played several, shorter smaller games in the process. If interested in my previous Top 7 (And 1) 2017 & 2018.

And now on to the And 1 this year

Favorite game that came out in 2019 that actually came out 20+ years ago: Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (Switch)

This one was actually a hard one to decide as Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition also released this year. AOE2 is the one game I may have put the most time into ever, cumulatively. But I’m giving the nod to Link’s Awakening simply because its BRAND NEW to me. I did not play the original release and this has been an absolute joy to play and is by far, the best Zelda available on Switch. The updated graphics are gorgeous and the art style is great. I haven’t completed the game yet, but I’m slowly chipping away at it at night. It feels and plays like a Zelda game but updated properly to a modern console to make it feel like a brand new game released in 2019 and not just a reskin/up-resed re-release. The game is also structured in a way that appeals to me more than Breath of the Wild was (see 2017 And One for reference). The world feels big, but is contained in a clever way to make it FEEL bigger than it actually is.

Number  7: Rage 2 (PS4)

Rage 2 is a very weird game. I don’t mean it’s weird in the sense that nothing clicks or that its bad. In fact, it’s a joy to play (especially is you love iD shooters). It’s weird because outside of the gameplay mechanics, it’s fairly barren (intentional or not). And I mean that in terms of both story, things to do and the world itself. Having very little to do with the previous Rage (which I really enjoyed on the 360), Rage 2 starts off quick and with a bang. You choose which version of the character you want to be, learn the mechanics and then are eventually sent to a town. There are a total of 6 ‘story’ missions that are stretched out by requiring you to complete tasks for one of the 3 town leaders who you’ve enlisted for help to take down the General. Once you do this, you fight the General and that’s kind’ve it. Now along the way, you will kill a bunch of mutants and humans alike. There are 3 factions (4 if you count the Ghosts in the DLC) that are in an ever engaging gauntlet to the death and you get to play janitor by spilling more guts and blood, but none of it really matters, the Factions I mean. There are a few Crusher Mutants (BIG MUTANTS) to also fight, but they are essentially extra heavy bullet sponges. Now, I know I haven’t really sold you on it, but here’s the thing. I REALLY enjoyed RAGE 2. It was the perfect game to play during the summer. Due to a personal situation I was dealing with (the looming unemployment) it was nice to just sit down at night, turned my brain off and just kill things. It reminded me of a simpler time in my youth playing games like Doom. Same vibe honestly. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more of a story and narrative driven player, but Rage 2 scratched a nostalgia itch for me at the perfect time. 

Number 6: Concrete Genie (PS4)

Concrete Genie is a game that is honestly out of left field for me these days. Not that I don’t like these types of games, it’s just as previous stated, time is somewhat of a precious commodity and had Concrete Genie come out in any other year, I probably would’ve skipped it entirely. However, it didn’t and I’m glad I picked this up for $20. It also scratched a nostalgia itch and reminded me very much of the PS2 era of games like Sly Cooper and Jax and Daxter. You play a kid who is bullied (something I am familiar with first hand, sadly) for being a loner and an artist. His creature drawings come to life with the help of a magic paint brush and your objective to put color back into an abandon town and bring it back to life. There is a VR component I wasn’t able to play because I don’t have a PSVR. The game is fairly simply and doesn’t deviate far from that formula. There is very little combat and just enough variety in the monster’s you can make to keep you going. It’s also fairly short. I was able to complete and collect everything in around 7-8 hours. Having a complete game in a bite size package is something I long for these days. 

Number 5: The Outer Worlds (PS4)

This game should be higher on the list but I put it here simply because while I have played it a fair amount, I haven’t played it enough to warrant it being higher. I’m maybe halfway through? I love Bethesda Fallouts (And Obsidian’s New Vegas) and this is an improved New Vegas in space with a more cheeky approach. The Outer Worlds never takes itself too seriously and revels in its sarcasm. The companions are all mostly likeable enough and each planet has felt distinctive enough to entice me to keep exploring. The mechanics are improved and the overall gameplay is better than New Vegas.  Its structured just like a Fallout game, so there is a lot of comfort there. However,  just like any open world RPG, sitting down for less than an hour and trying to accomplish anything is hard. The Outer Worlds is best played in big chunks. It’s at the top of my list to finish in 2020. 

Number 4: A Plague Tale (PS4)

A Plague Tale was THAT game that was on everyone’s ‘Hidden Gems’ list. I had seen a trailer around E3 and it intrigued me enough to check it out. I completed it over a whole weekend, a rarity. The game isn’t perfect, but everything is serviceable enough to work within the confines of what it’s trying to accomplish. It has some technical flaws and the occasional hiccup, but I’m a sucker for 3rd person action adventure games. The game is mostly centered around stealth with combat as a mostly secondary option. The game takes place in France in 1348 during the rat plague. You play as the daughter of an alchemist and your brother has been sick since birth. Once your village has been raided by the Inquisition, you are cast out to find help. The plague has taken over the majority of the country, but it isn’t until later in the game where the game takes a turn into the fantasy in a major way. You meet up with some really likeable characters with different personality traits along the way that really kept the story moving in an interesting way. The story was really grim at times, but honestly kept me hooked until the final chapter. The boss battle was extremely frustrating. With a sequel being announced, I am extremely interested in where they take the next chapter. 

Number 3: Katana ZERO (Switch)

Katana ZERO rules. There is a fine line where a game is challenging and when a game is unfair. I like a challenge, but I don’t want to work (games like Dark Souls are work). KZ is very similar in style, gameplay, tone, and even music to Hotline Miami. The difference being KZ is a side scroller instead of top down. You play a samurai in a quasi-dystopian future after a war. You are programmed killing machine…or are you? The story is fairly heavy and can bring up some tough subjects. KZ is pretty challenging, especially later in the game, but never once did I feel the game was cheap or unfair. Every time I died (MANY, MANY TIMES) it was always my fault. Either I didn’t plan my attack correctly, I hit the wrong button, took the wrong path, or didn’t time it right. The game has a nifty way of dealing with ‘deaths’ in the game using a neat rewind feature. When you complete a level, it shows you a replay in ‘real time’ giving you a nice recap of your work. Every time I completed a level, I felt a sense of accomplishment. My Switch says I put around 5 hours or more into it once I completed the final level, but it honestly felt longer than that, in a good way. KZ is an absolute blast to play and you should go play it right now!

Number 2: Gears 5 (Xbox One)

I’m a fan of the Gears of War series. The first Gears of War still being my favorite of the series. As time has passed, I’ve become less interested in the series as a whole but still interested enough to play every entry. I thought Gears 4 was the Force Awakens of the series. Essentially a retelling of the same story, with a new coat of paint and new characters with the old ones sprinkled in. Gears 4 was ultimately, fine. So I was actually excited for Gears 5 was going to go and to see how they built upon 4 with a focus on Kait instead of a Fenix. Halfway through the story, the group is divided and it starts to take a different tone. Gears 5 experiments with a first of the series, a semi-open world. I thought it broke up the monotony of wall hug, shoot, reload, repeat. I finished the story in a few days and had a good time with it, though once again, the ending being kind’ve abrupt. The series has a knack for being sort’ve slow, then suddenly turning it to 11, then ending.  I wished the campaign was longer, but it’s still solid. Gears 5 introduced a new mode called Escape, where you and two other players plant a bomb and try to escape a level with limited ammo. There is weekly a revolving door of new levels, which is nice, but each level is just reusing assets. I suspect with time and each new Operation (Season) that will be expanded. Horde mode is back and the character classes are fun. New characters have been added and will continue to be added, but they are an absolute grind to unlock (But you can always pay for them!) The reason Gears 5 is this high is mostly due to the amount of time I spent playing multiplayer. As stated, I loved the original Gears of War and put an insane amount of time into the multiplayer. That was in 2007 and the older I’ve gotten, my desire to invest into multiplayer has waned, almost completely. Once again though, right time, right place. I spent almost the entire month of October, logging on every night, completing challenging and playing online. Something I haven’t done since I was a freshman in college. I had an absolute blast. While I don’t delve into online as feverishly as I did in October, I still occasionally dabble when I get the chance.

Number 1: Mortal Kombat 11 (PS4)

As if this was going to be anything else. I’m a Mortal Kombat mark, plain and simple. I’ve loved the series my entire life. I love the lore, I love how ridiculously violent it is, how goofy and bat shit insane the story has evolved. I love it all. But its not all gore and lore, Mortal Kombat is a supreme fighting game. It’s not a nuanced as the likes of Street Fighter, but its infinitely deeper than a game like Smash Bros. Mortal Kombat is in a good sweet spot for both casuals and hardcore fighting fans. MK11 has maybe the greatest in-depth tutorial that has ever been made in any fighting game. It not only teaches you how to play, it teaches you the terminology. The story picks up right after MKX, with Raiden upset with everyone and taking matters into his own hands by torturing Shinnok. Liu Kang and Kitana rule the Netherrealm. Raiden plans an attack where he is essentially the Trojan Horse. All goes according to plan, until Kronika, The Time Keeper, decides she doesn’t like this anymore and eventually brings back some old friends to help her change time (again) and finally eliminate Raiden from existence. In doing this, Kronika has made all those mirror matches from previous games cannon. The production level and story mode in Netherealm games are on another level compared to other fighting games and they continue that trend in MK11. They implement the gear system from Injustice 2 into MK11 and its fine. The Krypt is amazing and is full of secrets. The Living Towers have returned, this time in the form of the ever changing “Towers of Time”. The roster, which is what everyone really cares about isn’t the worst but isn’t the best. None of the new characters are all that fun (Cetrion, Geras, & Kollector) and the returning roster was missing some notable characters. The DLC thus far has been fairly underwhelming compared to MKX. It was nice to see Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, & Sindel return (all 3 should’ve been in the main roster) but Terminator is lame. MKX had the likes of Tremor, Tanya, & Predator. MK11 seems to break what was a fun tradition in DLC having new, MK characters (Skarlett and Tremor, respectively). While I do think there is another set coming after Spawn, if the leak is true, then it seems underwhelming. I played MK11 pretty religiously for almost 2 months and still play at least once or twice a week. I love MK!

[meditativeyoga]

The evolution of consciousness

Manoj: There's a Zen quote, "Prior to knowledge: Chop timber, carry water. After enlightenment: Cut timber, carry water." In this context, just what has actually been your personal experience of enlightenment?

Andrew: In my experience, the context changed totally. Prior to, every little thing that occurred happened in a very small individual globe that was about the worries and also needs of my mental self. That has actually altered completely.

Now, it's always evident to me that my body, mind, as well as personality are just lorries whereby the energy and also intelligence that developed, and also is producing, deep space can involve with it. While earlier, "Chopping timber as well as bring water" used to be all for and also about me, now it's about everybody else.

Manoj: Generally, knowledge has been thought to be an abrupt phenomenon, like a person switched on the lights in a dark area and also every little thing is unexpectedly clear? Is enlightenment constantly sudden like that or can it be a progressive process?

Andrew: It all depends after the individual. There are several ways to get to the top of the mountain. One could take a long as well as winding path or one can, specifically these days, arrive very quickly by helicopter. In my situation, as a result of the transformative poise of my last instructor, the terrific HWL Poonja, my experience was the helicopter range. Meeting the Master resembled going through a looking glass. My life has actually never been the exact same and also I have never recalled. That being stated, I was an extremely earnest candidate for 8 years prior to I met him. I was figured out that one means or the various other, a profound and also irrevocable change needed to occur and was going to occur. So from this viewpoint, it was only an issue of time prior to it did.

Manoj: What does it cost? of a person's life in the world, inning accordance with you, is free choice and just how much is karma or destiny? Is knowledge totally a human endeavour, or does one need divine poise for it?

Andrew: All of the above! The options you make identify your destiny. Favorable as well as adverse experiences from the past, including [I believe] former lives and the method we replied to them, determine our fate. Finally, what I call the 'evolutionary impulse,' the spiritual impulse that forces us to look for out knowledge is the significance of grace itself. Unmanifest spirit offered surge to time as well as area and all of indication. The wish to exist at all is a spiritual one for sure. So by doing this, grace and greater human goals are one as well as the exact same thing.

Manoj: What's the significance of knowledge in one's everyday life? Why should any individual desire or look after knowledge? If existence has no purpose, what objective does knowledge serve?

Andrew: Enlightenment has no importance to the life of the different mental self, which is the 'daily self.' In fact, if you have the good luck to genuinely awaken for yourself, you'll realise that the concerns as well as needs of the mental self, from the viewpoint of informed recognition are, believe it or otherwise, entirely irrelevant. That claimed presence has no function? It is my firm sentence that Spirit as the Uncreated, Unborn, Unmanifest, timeless Ground of Being 'selected' to develop the universe. Exactly how do I recognize this? Due to the fact that, from our viewpoint in the 21st century, we could recall and see where we originated from-- nothing whatsoever.

God or outright Spirit need to have wished to do something after doing absolutely nothing whatsoever for endless time. That's why, when we experience the imaginative impulse in deep space vibrating as well as vibrating in our bodies and also minds, we experience an effective sense of purposefulness. When you awaken to advancement, you awaken to a profound sense of directionality that is integral in the life force, inherent in presence itself. At the reduced degrees, the objective of presence is to endure. At the highest degree, the purpose of presence is to produce. God, or Spirit, as indication is the felt desire to develop and also provide surge to that which has never existed before.

Manoj: Is the phenomenon of enlightenment beyond the 5 detects and the intelligence? Usually, enlightenment seems something that requires a high level of intelligence-- if this is real, does that mean that enlightenment is accessible only to those with a high IQ?

Andrew: Undoubtedly not. Two of Mother India's greatest realisers in contemporary history, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana Maharshi, were both ignorant men. Ramakrishna was completely uneducated as well as Ramana Maharshi didn't even complete secondary school. And yet their realisations are taken into consideration to be peerless and also beyond comparison.

Manoj: Just how does one recognize that the principle enlightenment isn't just an intellectual exercise, an indulgence of very smart minds? Long as we discuss it, the mind is engaged-- whereas the real phenomenon seems to be experiential as well as for that reason beyond exactly what words could explain ...

Andrew: Unless you have the direct experience of transcending the mind for yourself, it's tough to know the answer! Always remember, the trip to knowledge is a jump from the recognized to the unidentified. After returning to see my very own Teacher after a number of months, the first thing he claimed when I went through the door was "I'm so pleased you discovered a friend you'll never ever be able to see."

Manoj: You make a distinction between conventional knowledge and transformative knowledge. Could you explain the difference?

Andrew: Evolutionary Knowledge has to do with stiring up directly to the power as well as intelligence that created deep space as well as is developing the cosmos. The Big Bang, the development of deep space was the unimaginably effective expression of that power as well as intelligence-- and still is. The nature of just what I call the 'evolutionary impulse' is a thrilled necessity that is always only thinking about one thing: to develop the future-- to generate that which is new ... tirelessly. What I call 'Standard Enlightenment' is around awakening to the ageless, formless Being-- that prehistoric vacuum from which the entire innovative procedure arised 14 billion years earlier. Before the world was developed, there was no time as well as there was no space. That's why when you participate in a really deep state of meditation you experience such deep peace. That's since there you stir up to that deepest measurement of truth as well as of your very own self that is constantly totally free from time as well as background. The new Evolutionary Enlightenment is concerning developing the future unendingly. Typical Knowledge has to do with being devoid of background altogether.

Manoj: Isn't knowledge simply just what it is-- by labelling it as evolutionary, are you not differentiating it from the traditional enlightenment? How does it then harmonize the principle of advaita or non-duality?

Andrew: It doesn't suit the concept of advaita in all. Advaita is about transcending time and also experiencing/knowing/seeing/ being timelessness itself. And also indeed, I am really purposely distinguishing Evolutionary Enlightenment from Traditional Knowledge. Evolutionary Knowledge is a various pet altogether, because it happens in and via the moment procedure as well as is constantly just about creativity-- countless and unceasing creativity for eternity.

Manoj: If enlightenment is the peak of our consciousness, can there be anything even more than that? On reading your publication, it appears that enlightenment alone, in the typical feeling is not nearly enough, and also after traditional knowledge, [the kind which was achieved by the Buddha or Mahavira or Jesus Christ] one needs to go in advance and do more. Is this truly feasible for the typical human being?

Andrew: Thinking about that the ordinary human is not thinking about greater issues, obviously such lofty goals and also attainments are not within their reach. However the point is that in a transformative context, advancement has no end. That indicates we can always develop more, better, higher, and much deeper. In Traditional Knowledge, it's feasible to come to be 'fully enlightened.' In Buddhism, they call it 'cessation' or 'completion of ending up being.' Evolutionary Enlightenment has to do with infinite becoming for eternity.

Manoj: In your book, Evolutionary Enlightenment, you describe the Five Basic Tenets that those who walk the course should comply with, namely Quality of Purpose, The Power of Volition, Face Every little thing and also Avoid Nothing, The Process Perspective as well as Planetary Conscience. Does it imply that unless these are adhered to-- like guidelines-- evolutionary enlightenment is not possible?

Andrew: Yes.

Manoj: Just what is the influence of the recent exploration of the so called 'God Particle' by scientists on the idea enlightenment?

Andrew: No effect. The 'God Particle,' or the Higgs-Boson, regarding I recognize, is that strange subatomic bit that imbues other bits with mass and substance. The 'God Bit,' in this context, is really attempting to comprehend how matter as well as energy interact to provide kind and also framework to our universes. There's no straight relationship in between this discovery as well as higher human capacities for consciousness.

[palmettoes]

Aaron/Katelyn 61

(hehe this has only been sitting in my inbox for uhh 6 months i am so sorry! anyway !!!! never written aaron/katelyn before !!! also haven’t written m/f fanfiction since i was 13 but i love these kids thanks for giving me a reason to make up katelyn’s whole backstory)

disclaimer: if ur pro inc*st u are legally not allowed to touch anything i write

read it on ao3! | prompts are closed :(

61. “I told you not to fall in love with me.”

Katelyn, eight years old, loses her mother to white lights and hospital beds. It’s preventable, low mortality rate, chance of survival looks hopeful. Katelyn knows this because she looks it up on her dad’s old box computer when he’s working late one night, her older brother playing outdated records too loudly to notice her disappearing into their father’s private study. Katelyn knows this because the doctors tell her so—not in so many words, because she’s eight, but enough that she knows they are optimistic about the results.

Katelyn, eight years old, wonders why doctors can juggle something so fragile as a life playfully among them and lie through their teeth when they catch the corner of an eye.

Katelyn, eighteen years old, is determined not to be like other doctors. Getting into biochemistry at university feels like winning the sprint but losing the marathon. Her professors crack down on the workload immediately, adamant that medicine is not for those who do not want to be there. And Katelyn wants to be there, maybe more than anyone else, but life has already dealt her so much weight and Katelyn is fast running out of strength to lift these stooped shoulders.

She tries out for the Vixens, Palmetto’s cheerleading team, mostly because her roommate, Marissa, waxes poetic about the nights she’ll spend huddled between football players in one of the downtown bars, and Katelyn figures she could do with the extracurricular.

(The exy team does not factor into her decision, but gossip travels far and fast and the idea of standing in close quarters to them puts her on edge for reasons that can only be explained through hollow whispers and stolen glances behind their backs.)

The Vixens are a rough and tumble team, from the figure eight pattern of cigarette burns on Marissa’s forearm, to the handful of Zoloft Anaïs throws up in her dorm toilet during Freshers’ Week, to the way Billie sleeps with their chin tucked over their shoulder so they can watch their own back. Katelyn is just scraping this side of nineteen, knows the weight of Prozac on her tongue better than that of a meal, and cannot remember the last time her father looked at her without looking right through her. Inexorably, Palmetto State University feels like home.

“How about that backliner though? He’s a tall, dark stranger I’d welcome into my crystal ball,” Marissa says, shaking her pom pom in Anaïs’ face as they stumble towards the bus the night after Palmetto’s first exy game of the season. Anaïs bats Marissa’s arm away, switching her duffel to her other shoulder to put an extra distance between them.

“Didn’t notice. It’s their offensive dealer that I was paying attention to.”

“Their captain.” (It sounds like an innuendo but almost everything does coming out of Marissa’s mouth.) “Anyway, I heard from Mick on the football team that Ainsley told Prati that Mia sits with two of the exy players at lunch on Tuesdays and apparently Mr Tall and Dark is hitting it with the captain. Isn’t that a sandwich you’d love to get between?”

“Not particularly.”

“Boo, you whore.”

Marissa shakes her pom pom again and Anaïs’ shove gains force.

“Don’t boo me because I’m gay.”

Billie taps Katelyn’s elbow and rolls their eyes at the other two, sweeping an arm out to offer Katelyn to climb ahead of them onto the bus. Katelyn hitches her duffel a little higher and climbs the steps. Anaïs likes the seat over the wheel so Katelyn chooses the row in front, tucking her bag under her seat so Billie can settle next to her. Anaïs and Marissa scramble in behind them, still bickering over the attraction of various exy players. Katelyn glances out the window and catches sight of an orange and white gaggle making their way to the other PSU bus parked outside Breckenridge stadium. Mr Tall and Dark backliner is holding hands with the captain but chatting to a lanky boy with a frown too many shades short of pleasant. Most of the Foxes move as a unit, a crowd collected behind their coach, but several steps and a whole chasm behind them trails the remainder of the team.

Katelyn recognises assistant coach Kevin Day because, as strong as her distaste for the sport, she grew up this side of the turn of the century. She doesn’t think she could miss Kevin Day if she tried. He is flanked by two identical blond men and an emphatic, dark-skinned man a head or so above the other two. Katelyn had watched one of the twins block the goal all night with a ferocity like he was exercising a personal vendetta against the ball, seen the other punch an opposing striker square in the jaw seemingly unprovoked. She shudders, remembering the rumours she’d heard whispered about the exy team and, for the first time, believing them. She turns away from the window and bumps Billie’s shoulder with her own, pushing blond hair and murderous glares from her mind.

*

The thing is, Katelyn has no reason to engage with the exy team. She cheers at their games and catches glimpses of them between stadium and parking lot, but she doesn’t learn their names or dance with them at college parties the way she does with the football team.

The thing is, Katelyn’s hands are full enough already. She is unofficially deemed in charge of the first year Vixens—some combination of the fact that Marissa listens when Katelyn tells her to shut up, and Anaïs trusts her enough to press a pill bottle into her hand after her second overdose in as many weeks, and Billie talks to her more than anyone because Katelyn is the only one who speaks ASL. Katelyn finds she doesn’t mind it. The constant demand for attention makes a welcome difference to the stony silence of her family home. With homework, cheerleading, and three new best friends keeping her busy, Katelyn barely has time to dwell on the hollow feeling that has been cutting her chest open for the past decade.

The thing is, the short blond boy from the exy team is hard to miss. (Well, one of them is anyway.) Katelyn figures out he’s the backliner, the one she saw punching that striker from Breckenridge, and not the one that sticks to Kevin Day like glue, or a prickly burr. He crops up in her biochem lectures, at her favourite campus café, tucked behind a bookshelf at the library across from her and Billie’s usual study spot. He is always accompanied by at least one of his little posse, usually the noisy one, except during their shared lectures. Katelyn finds herself seeking him out when she enters the room and, more often than not, she catches him blinking back at her.

They’re two thirds through their first quarter by the time she learns his name. He stops by her desk on the way out of the lecture hall, causing her notebook to slip out of her hand in surprise. He kneels to pick it up for her and doesn’t smile, but there’s a friendliness to his eyes that Katelyn has never seen before.

“Katelyn, right?” he asks. Katelyn has no idea how he knows this but she nods instead of questioning it. “Aaron. Did you get notes on Voltolini’s lecture this week? I missed it.”

She’s so caught out by the disruption to their routine, by the brittle edge to his voice that she hadn’t expected, by the abrupt introduction to the quarter-long suspense of wondering his name, that she almost forgets to answer. When she realises she’s been staring at him for coming on ten seconds, she shakes it out of her system and finishes zipping up her backpack.

“Oh. Yeah, did you want to borrow them? Or,” she swings the strap of her backpack over her shoulder and steps towards the door, Aaron falling into pace beside her, “we could go over them together?”

He is quiet for a moment, as if the question requires extensive thought. Katelyn wonders briefly if she should be offended by his lack of immediate interest, but decides she finds it endearing that the authenticity of his response matters so much to him.

“At the library?” he offers. “I have a study period now.”

“Sure,” she says. She’d been headed that way to meet Billie anyway and doesn’t suppose they’ll mind the small intrusion.

“So how come you missed the lecture?” she asks when it becomes apparent their trek to the library will remain otherwise silent.

“Andrew,” Aaron says vaguely, waving his hand as though this is sufficient enough an explanation. When Katelyn doesn’t look convinced, he adds, “My brother. You’ve seen him?”

She nods, not totally understanding but realising it’s personal enough that she doesn’t want to pry.

Billie is already sitting at their table when Katelyn arrives, Aaron in tow. They have printouts of various articles spread across the desk and a focused frown on their face, but they look up when Katelyn and Aaron stop in front of them.

“Aaron, this is Billie. Billie, Aaron. From the exy team.”

Billie waves at Aaron, then pierces Katelyn with their gaze, tilting their head slightly in Aaron’s direction.

“Do you speak ASL?” Katelyn asks him as she pulls out a chair and begins unpacking her bag. Aaron settles into the seat next to her, tapping the tabletop anxiously.

“No. Was that in the lecture?”

“No, no, of course not. Don’t worry about it.” Katelyn laughs lightly and makes eye contact with Billie.

“Since when do we hang out with exy players?” they sign, eyes flicking to Aaron.

“He’s borrowing some notes. What’s wrong with being friendly?” she signs back. Billie shrugs and turns back to their articles. Katelyn flicks open her notebook and grins at Aaron.

“Let’s do this,” she says. His responding smile is small and fleeting but Katelyn catches the hard upturn of his lips and her skin tingles all over.

*

Aaron falls easily into place among Katelyn’s friends. He becomes a regular at their study sessions, reading notes over Katelyn’s shoulder or catching her eye across the table with that same smile like a secret that hurts his throat on the way up. He never brings any of his teammates, but Katelyn can’t complain. Study Aaron and Exy Aaron, she decides, are two sides of the same coin. He’s softer around her and her friends, all secret smiles and nervous tapping. She can’t imagine Study Aaron punching anyone in the face.

He spills into her other routines intrinsically. She stops making excuses to invite him out for coffee or to lunch or on a walk around the campus green when she’s feeling antsy. She struggles to remember a time when the sight of him intimidated her, when she believed the rumours turning the air sour at his heels wherever he walked.

Katie he calls her from across the hall to grab her attention, and Kate when he talks about her to her friends, and K (intimate and familiar and warm in her chest) over text. Katie-Lyn he teases when they’re alone on one of their walks and he relaxes enough that his smile stops looking like barbed wire. She laughs and elbows him and writes Double-A-Ron on the back of folded notes they pass between them during lectures.

Katelyn doesn’t engage with the exy team, but every rule has its exceptions and Aaron is hers. Brilliant, beautiful Aaron, who keeps his smiles a secret and his family a mystery and who holds her gaze across a crowded hallway like it is the most fragile of things.

They never call it dating, though Katelyn suspects that might be what it is. She hardly qualifies as an expert but the shared lunches and secret notes and blushing eye contact feel too reminiscent of her high school girlfriend to be anything else. (She asks Billie, once, if they think Aaron thinks they’re a couple and they roll their eyes and wave her off. She cannot bring herself to put up with Marissa’s crowing long enough to ask for another opinion.) So it’s hard to say where he falls in the categories of her relationships, but when she invites him out for dinner he doesn’t say no and, though she doesn’t call it a date, it doesn’t feel platonic.

They go to an Italian restaurant on campus, partly because Katelyn figures everyone likes pizza and partly because Marissa says the sundae for two is a date-saver. (Not that Katelyn likes to think their sort-of-date will need saving, but it’s always nice to be prepared.) And she’s right, because Aaron does like pizza and the sundae is delicious and the date doesn’t need saving. Until it does.

“I had to beg Nicky to cover for me tonight,” Aaron is saying, no trace of the curl Katelyn has come to search for at the corner of his lips. “He doesn’t like disrupting the balance.”

Katelyn isn’t sure she follows but she doesn’t have to ask to know the only explanation she’ll get is Andrew. His name is the answer to every question, no matter how she phrases it. His name is the flat line of Aaron’s mouth and the fierce swing of his uppercut. His name is the undeniable truth behind the rumours that tail Aaron wherever he goes.

“We can’t do this,” Aaron says and the ice cream turns to dust in Katelyn’s mouth. She thinks bitterly that at least she can prove Marissa wrong; no sundae for two is saving this date.

“Do what?” she asks and her voice is too small for her mouth. She is eight years old and Aaron is the doctor dangling hope too far out of her reach.

“You, me, us,” he says, frustrated and lonely and scared all at once. “You can’t fall in love with me.”

It aches in more ways than she could have known it would. Because how do you predict the outcome when you’re missing the beginning? How do you prepare for the fallout when you aren’t part of the equation? When you’re just collateral damage?

“Says who?” Katelyn asks, and then, “Andrew” in unison with Aaron because, of course. Because, who else?

Aaron’s cheek dimples between his teeth and he lets his spoon clang against the rim of their shared bowl. Katelyn pushes hers through the half-melted ice cream, appetite fast disappearing. She wants to demand answers or argue the absurdity of their situation or maybe just cry. Instead, she folds.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay?”

“I get it. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t get it, but Aaron looks at her like she’s handing him the moon so she breathes through her nose, counts to five, and offers him a shaky smile. Moulding herself into the shapes other people need her to be is Katelyn’s specialty. She grew up a chameleon in order to survive. This is no different to her father looking at her like he needed a clinically detached housemaid more than he needed a daughter mourning the loss of her mother.

“Ready to call it a night?” she says, because there is something irreparable in the air between them.

“I’ll walk you back,” Aaron agrees.

They say goodnight outside Katelyn’s dorm building, but what they mean is goodbye. What they mean is this is it. What they mean is we had a good thing and neither of us are good enough people to deserve that.

Katelyn, nineteen-and-three-quarter years old, watches hope shatter in all too familiar shards.

*

They never called it dating, so they don’t call it a break up, but that’s what it feels like. It is broken where Katelyn can’t reach to fix it because she does not know what fractured it to begin with. There is a week between Katelyn’s return home for the holidays and her brother’s scheduled time off, during which the silence of her childhood home sits heavy on her shoulders. She passes the time under a mound of blankets, drowning out her father’s refusal to acknowledge her with television static.

When Antoni returns, so does the life slowly trickling out of the air. He wields noise like a blade to the abrasive reticence of their home, and goads Katelyn out of bed to help him make potato fritters.

“Chiquita, college has made you so mopey,” he says, watching her instead of the eggs he’s whisking. Katelyn slices onions and pretends they are the only reason her eyes sting.

“More like being in this house makes me mopey. College keeps me too busy for that.”

Antoni hums, and watches her, and whisks his eggs.

“And how is college? Top of your class yet?”

Katelyn rolls her eyes but tells him about her lectures and her friends and her cheer practice. She finishes with the onions and starts combining the second bowl of mixture while Antoni scoops the first into misshapen ovals. When the fritters are under the grill and Katelyn’s eyes have stopped stinging altogether, Antoni pours them each a glass of iced tea and leans across the kitchen island to smile at her.

“So has the little Vixen caught a Fox yet?” He pauses to consider her a moment. “Or another Vixen perhaps?”

Katelyn sucks in a breath but doesn’t answer the question, and the silence rings deafening in her ears. She tells her brother everything but she cannot tell him this. (They never called it dating. There is nothing to tell anyway.)

“Oh, Kitty-Kat. Come here,” Antoni says. He doesn’t wait for her to move, instead rounding the island to wrap his arms around her from behind. She leans her head against his bicep, turning so her face is mashed into his woolen jumper, and closes her eyes. They stay like that, his chest to her back and his chin against her crown, for as long as it takes her to stop holding air in her chest until she’s gasping and shaky. She doesn’t cry, but her throat feels raw enough that she could have.

“Ant,” Katelyn whispers, her voice shaking on the vowel, “do you think I’m broken?”

“Of course you’re not.” His arms tighten a fraction around her shoulders. “Why would you think that?”

“It feels like everything I touch shatters.”

She thinks of her mother’s life splintering to pieces in Katelyn’s eight year old hands, of her father’s voice splitting in two and washing away whenever he tried to speak to her, of Aaron’s face contorting as their date cracked and caved around them. She feels like a fractured bone, cleft down the middle, never whole as she is.

Antoni lets out a soft breath against her hair and presses a kiss to the curve of her skull.

“No, chiquita,” he says, “you’re not broken. The world is.”

*

Returning to Palmetto is easier than Katelyn expects it to be. Antoni only has three weeks leave, so Katelyn spends the last month of vacation alone with her father. She is almost ready to welcome the noise and clutter of her college dorm.

Returning to the Vixens is more of a homecoming than entering her family house. As sophomores, they’re expected to throw themselves both into their own practice and that of the freshmen, and Katelyn and Marissa’s room becomes something of a communal ground for the first and second years. Katelyn doesn’t mind so much, because it takes her thoughts off the scowl she hasn’t seen leave Aaron’s face since they returned from break.

She watches the exy team walk to and from the stadium on game nights, their divide in half somehow having become thirds, until she realises the centre group is actually a solitary affair: a dark-haired, rabbit-eyed boy curled in on himself, alone in the rift between his teammates. She focuses on him because it stops her gaze from betraying her resolve and straying to where Aaron walks several paces behind.

And it almost lasts; this painstaking stalemate, this mutual ignorance. Katelyn sits with her back to his table in the library and Aaron walks past her without pausing on the way out of their lecture theatre. It almost stops feeling like a bruise underneath her skin.

But somehow he trickles back into her life as easily as he did once before. Katelyn finds she can smile at him when they pass each other on campus and she can make eye contact when she waves his teammates onto the court during games. She remembers the way he cupped her name in the curl of his tongue as if it were reverent and fragile as glass. She remembers how he held her gaze like he was trying to keep her afloat, and how he saved his smiles to share in the privacy of her company. She remembers he did not build the wall between them, only said he wouldn’t climb it, and she can’t blame him for resting his weary hands.

So when she misses her morning lecture because Marissa woke with a bad taste in her mouth and a tremor in her hands, Katelyn catches Aaron on his way to the library, a hand in his path and a question in her eyes.

“I had to skip this morning. Do you mind sharing notes?” It’s a surrender of sorts, an end to their face-off. Aaron made the first move all those months ago, so this time Katelyn dresses in white armour and guides her pawn forward. They have come full circle.

Aaron’s smile is slow, a tentative curl that crawls quietly up his face, and Katelyn realises for the first time how much she has missed seeing it bloom for her.

“I’m headed to the library now if you’ve got time,” he says. The words are marrow filling the cracks of Katelyn’s broken bone and she feels herself coming together as their steps line up with one another.

It’s easier, after their not-breakup, to build their routine around honesty. Andrew is still an answer, but this time one that comes served with an explanation. Katelyn still doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand the chokehold that Aaron calls family, but she respects it. After all, she isn’t in a position to point fingers at dysfunctional.

They confine their dates to the library café and the medicine building, avoiding places that Aaron’s family are likely to haunt. And it isn’t perfect, it isn’t textbook romance, but for the first time it is something whole that Katelyn cradles to her chest and it does not shatter on impact.

When Aaron leaves for a weekend and comes home a broken man—brotherless, breathless, hands a bruised and bloodied mess—Katelyn does what she has always done best and builds him back together with her own chipped pieces. She fights his nightmares with nothing but her fists and takes his hands in her own when he cannot look at them without seeing blood beneath his fingernails. She does what she can but she is still just collateral, she is still on the outside looking in on a rupture that happened long before she became a spectator. There is still a tear that Katelyn does not know how to stitch up.

*

(The dark-haired, rabbit-eyed boy is called Neil and his hair isn’t actually quite so dark and he is fixing the broken parts Katelyn can’t reach and when he says Andrew’s name it sounds like a question, not an answer.)

*

Getting Aaron back is the gift Katelyn doesn’t think she deserves. Cutting him off feels like shattering her own hope. She watches the pieces slide between her fingers, shoves the remnants deep where she can’t cut herself on their serrated edges, and tries not to think of the way Aaron’s face split apart when she told him Andrew was the answer to a question he did not ask.

She tells Billie, late one night as they pass a bottle of Marissa’s claret between them from opposite ends of the couch, that she doesn’t know if she’ll be whole again. It is a vulnerability that no one but Antoni ever sees, but Katelyn is wine-drunk and fractured, too disheartened to care that her misery has an audience.

“Why not?” Billie says, holding the bottle between their knees to free up their hands. “You were whole before him. He didn’t take anything you can’t replace.”

“He was the first thing I had that I thought I could hold on to.” Katelyn’s hands falter as the weight of her honesty hits her. She doesn’t know who she is when she isn’t fixing other people and Aaron is a fissure that is out of her hands. “What’s the point if I can’t keep anything without breaking it?”

“You have us. You have the team. You have a career path you’re good at and a hobby you love. You have a brother who adores you and you have Marissa and Anaïs and me. You are whole on your own but you’re part of bigger things too. He’ll come back to you or he won’t and either way you’ll still be the person you always have been.”

It doesn’t seem appropriate to cry, but Katelyn is wine-drunk and fractured, so she does anyway. Billie hooks their ankle around hers on the couch between them and knocks the claret bottle against her knee. Katelyn alternates between drinking and sobbing, and loses the rest of the night to the breaking of her heart.

*

Aaron comes back to her piece by broken piece. He shows up at her dorm with his pain a palpable weight in his hands and tells her he’s trying, he’s breaking faster than he can put himself together but he’s trying. And Katelyn knows a thing or two about falling apart.

They pour their fragments into one another in Katelyn’s bed because Marissa is out with some of the older Vixens and they both know better than to waste an empty dorm room. Later, with his back to Katelyn’s chest and his legs slid between either of hers, Aaron finds the parts of his voice he has been missing.

“You were the first beautiful thing I ever called mine,” he says and Katelyn remembers midnight with Billie, remembers the saccharine claret slipping down her throat, remembers thinking Aaron was the first thing she could ever keep whole. “I won’t lose you for him.”

Katelyn slides her hand across the bare expanse of his stomach, presses her face into the base of his neck, and breathes and breathes and breathes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, and means it.

They patch themselves up in tandem—Aaron knits one, Katelyn purls two—and they are old hands at this now. Katelyn watches their healing overlap in familiar stitches and she waits and she hopes and she breathes. Because this thing between them is chipped and bruised but it is whole. It is theirs.

When Andrew comes for her, Katelyn wonders if she should be surprised. She has heard his name in response to too many questions to be shocked when he treats his words like an arrow and her the target. He and Aaron are identical twins but when Katelyn looks at him up close for the first time, all she sees are the differences. He carries none of the regret that bleeds through Aaron’s teeth and too much of the horror that feeds behind his eyes.

“You won,” rabbit-eyed Neil says, gaze already chasing after Andrew like he might not be just any answer but the answer. “Aaron’s not in class now, if you want to call him.”

Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, her brain says and her fingers, though numb with fear, respond on reflex. He picks up while Katelyn is halfway through a choked sob and she hears his breath sharpen like a dagger.

“Katelyn?” His voice is a rush of concern, a spear and shield readying itself in her defence. “What happened?”

“Andrew,” is all she can say between broken breaths, and it is the answer to every question. After all this time, she gets it.

In the time it takes Aaron to get from his dorm to the library, Katelyn has found her breath but not her strength. She is still curled in on herself behind the bookshelf in the far corner and she knows her friends will be wondering but she doesn’t yet trust her legs to support her. Aaron sinks down next to her, an anchor holding her steady in the aftermath of Andrew’s storm.

“Did he hurt you?” he asks quietly and Katelyn doesn’t know how to answer. She thinks if she opens her mouth she might not know how to do anything but cry.

It’s enough of an answer though. Aaron vibrates with an anger that he almost never wears around her and Katelyn thinks of the Breckenridge striker who took Aaron’s fist to the face. He looks more like the other side of the coin, more like Exy Aaron, than she has seen him in a while.

“I told you not to fall in love with me,” he says. It is frustrated and lonely and scared, and Katelyn has heard him sound like that once before and she will do anything before she lets him shatter again.

“I didn’t listen.”

He falls into her at that, half straddling her lap, arms around her waist and face pressed hard to her shoulder. Katelyn raises her arms to cradle his body against her, rests her cheek in the nest of his hair, and thinks this is it. Thinks he is the answer. Thinks we won.

“My Katie,” Aaron whispers into her skin and it is the glue drawing her broken shards together.

[lentaska]

Deep Water - Part 2

A/N: Featuring Sami Callihan. WWII setting, OFC, third-person POV. Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from wrestling, I do not claim any ownership over them. Any resemblance to real-life historical events, organizations, locales and countries/union is entirely coincidental.

Tagging people who gave likes to my work: @thecristsandcallihanmadness@monstersmaid @cherryfinolahobbes @i-ship-it-okay @ohcristimhookedonhavocimsodunne @clynch126 @amariemoore @jonmoxley4ever @morie-leigh Thank you for your support (also please let me know if tagging is not ok for you)

To not to bore the only audience, Sami summarized the whole story, starting from the day he volunteered to be sent to Poland. Soon after his arrival in Warsaw, the situation of the city shocked him, almost every street had been bombed into ruins, it was nothing like what he had seen in photos.

“I was in Warszawa for university,” said Anka in downcast tone, “when I was not blind.”

Sami could tell how forlorn she was, despite of the calm expression she wore outside. The strength and will of an individual was crushed into pieces in the war, yet she had to hide her wounded heart and soul, and pretended to be strong.

“It was magnificent city, people would travel far to only take good look of her. Now no one will look at her anymore. I prayed for Warszawa but I guess God didn’t hear it.” the slim female curled herself in old clothes and rubbed hands. Sami was worried campfire could expose their location,so all they had were candles and clothes from the previous house owner to keep them warmed.

“I don’t think God gives shit about it.” Sami spit.

“I thought something would change but we are left alone...”

Sami cut her off, “I ain’t gonna leave you alone. Listen, I can promise you one thing: I will stay with you. Even if you don’t trust foreigner, even this fucking war is unpredictable, but I’m here.”

Anka was speechless.

There was one moment that Sami thought his words were too abrupt for her to accept, because he saw Anka’s brows knitted, but all he received was her smile and gentle voice, “you shouldn’t promise anything in war, but I really appreciate it.”

“You have experienced all the tragedy, I cannot correct that, but there’s still something I can do for you.”

“There’s another thing you can do: tell me more about you, Sami. What happened to you in Warszawa?”

“I was captured by fucking Nazi after several days’ fighting, we fought hard but lacked supplies. They were about to put me on the train to some camp, but I found way to escape.”

“My Jewish friends were sent there... they never come back.”

He had heard about what happened in those camps and was disgusted. Not only Jewish, but also Slavs and other people who were considered as “subhumans” by Nazi had to face the misfortune of being sent there. There’s no way her friends could survive.

Sighed, he decided to not to reveal the cruel reality. Anka had already been through a lot, even only one thing could break her now. To meet her was destined, there’s not much he could help with her situation, but still he wanted to comfort her and to let know she would be fine, even though it’s just his wishful thinking.

Sami took out the knife he received on the first day of joining the army, handed to her, “take it, at least you have a weapon, but I’ll try to make sure you never need to use it.”

Anka was confused.

“Because I’ll protect you.”

The Polish girl whispered “thank you”, buried her face into clothes.

“Want some food? I can only offer water and dry bread though.”

“Tak. Thank you.”

“By the way, what did you study in university?”

“Music, but Nazi destroyed school and killed teachers.” she took the bread and broke it into smaller pieces.

Giving her an apologetic expression - although she could not see - Sami switched the topic, “how did you learn English?”

Dipping the bread into water to soften the texture, Anka said, “my father was diplomat. So much ambition, but little could he do.”

In despite of the accent and lack of articles - Sami guessed it’s because Polish language has no such concept - her English was fine. It made things much easier for him. He had met few Polish immigrants in Britain, their language was complicated as cipher.

Finished her “dinner”, Anka groped around to get closer to the candles, Sami grabbed her hands before she accidentally upset the candles and caused fire hazard. He was surprised at how cold her hands were, she was surprised at his move. The subconscious reaction was to pull the hand back but he had much more strength.

“You’d better save some energy.” Sami recommended, drawing her into his arms, “c’mon, it’ll be warmer. I’m not gonna do something stupid, trust me.”

Anka gave up the idea of struggling. He’s right, it WAS warmer. The sense of security and tiredness dulled her mind, she leaned closer to Sami and eventually rested her head against his chest. “Is it dark outside?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s probably seven or eight o’clock.”

“We should rob Nazi officer and get you watch...” she muttered sleepily. When she had a clear mind, she would never say such silly thing.

Chuckled, Sami brushed her chestnut-colored hair away from her face. Her profile was soft and flawless in dim light.

Anka let out a long breath of relief, asked, “what do you look like, Sami?”

“Me? I look normal, black hair, two eyes, one nose...”

“Do you look scary?” she paused, then apologized, “sorry, it’s stupid question...”

“No don’t worry.” Sami hugged her in more intimate way, it pleased him that she didn’t resist. He took both of her hands and pressed gently on his face, murmured, “it’d better if you can feel it by yourself.”

Her mind was totally cleared up by his action and the touch of his skin. She realized what she was doing and wanted to pull her hands back, but another voice echoed in her mind: don’t.

It might be attachment and feeling of dependency grew from the fact that he saved her in war zone, or sense of belonging that was caused by his existence after days of being alone, Anka wanted to be closer to him. She didn’t know if it’s right to have such feeling towards a foreigner in the time of war, or it might be nothing but ephemeral illusion.

Then she heard Sami’s low-pitched voice, “I want you to know me more.”

Nervously shivering, her fingers drew the outline of his face, starting from the forehead, down to his eyebrows, nose, cheek, lips and chin. She coughed to ease her awkwardness, said, “you have beard.”

“I also have scars from fights, on my back and here - ” Sami led Anka’s fingers to his chest, where his scar was. “Has the cruel world left you scars?”

She nodded, “right in my heart.”

Leaned closer, Sami kissed her forehead, “go to sleep. I will keep you safe.”

[a-patheticapathetic]

Beck - The Information: Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=theer88rQ5g&list=PLX0wu3Da6IoZ8ULDFhAR-3qJZtp9smMCY

Switching it up from FFTB updates, mainly because I don’t have enough ideas for God is in the Radio. Beck has always been on my radar, but I never got around to listening to any of his music in-depth. I have a friend who has been a fan of his earlier stuff, and he would often put a few Beck songs into the queues of music we listen to when playing games together. I usually liked what I heard, but I didn’t actually listen to a Beck album on my own until about a year ago. 

I chose The Information on a whim, and it completely blew me away. The complexity and depth and feel of this album was far beyond what I was expecting. It makes sense, given that Nigel Godrich (producer of every Radiohead album after the first two) produced and mixed it. Every time I listen, I hear something new, something that I didn’t notice before.

Last time I did one of these, I feel like I wasn’t very coherent. I’m going to try to keep my thoughts together as much as I can.

Elevator Music - 8/10

What a start. You instantly are sunk into the feeling of the album, and with a beat that you can’t resist knocking your head to. There are like 5 different lines of percussion in the background but it’s mixed well and doesn’t sound cluttered. Vocals sound great, are mostly nonsense, but that’s okay. Every few lines there’s some kind of change-up to keep things interesting. Fragments of a third verse, vocal melody, and an ending that sounds like the song is breaking a little bit. This happens a few more times on the album.

Think I’m in Love - 6/10

Instantly hitting you with a very infectious bassline. I will say, that this song isn’t my favorite. Doesn’t really do much with the instrumentation compared with Elevator Music. This seems to be the designated “radio single”. The bridge is nice, though. Very nice strings there. The strings also come back in the outro, which I had forgotten about.

Cellphone’s Dead - 9/10

This song is probably the thematic centerpiece of the album. I absolutely love it. It has two distinct phases that it switches between effortlessly, several times. Beck’s flow here is flawless, especially during the second verse. That transition is water-tight. One by one, I’ll knock you out. The synth and piano combining, somehow. Eye of the sun, listen to that low string. This build-up is absolutely incredible. Just get lost in it. Another broken outro

Strange Apparition - 7/10

Beck’s country side comes out a little here. This song is driven by cowbell-infused percussion, slammed piano chords, and a careless acoustic guitar. One thing that you may also notice is a very nice synth line in the background. I especially like how the second chorus is sung a register higher than the first one. After that, the song shifts into a much more minimal sound and slower tempo. The acoustic wins out over the piano, and Beck really pushes his own voice.

Soldier Jane - 9/10

This may be my favorite song on the album. The drumming is spotless and that low sawtooth synth in the background really gives this song a unique feeling. Then one of the the best basslines I’ve ever heard comes in. Some kind of massive chord plays in the background, it sounds like heaven coming to Earth. The chorus is perfect. During the second verse, so much more interesting instrumentation is being layered on. Then, the buildup. The bassline gets even better and this awesome sense of scale is built upon. The conventional instruments fade out, and heaven blows your face through your skull.

Nausea - 7/10

First of all the complete lack of transition from Soldier Jane is absolutely hilarious. This song couldn’t be more different. An angrier flow and punchy percussion working alongside the bass. Some strange noises and vocal samples permeate the rest of the song. An ending so abrupt you think the song broke.

New Round - 7/10

A breather. Very soft vocals with a delay effect that really comes together on the “chorus”. Lullaby synth notes every once in a while. Is it comforting, or depressing? I couldn’t tell you. Very nice outro. What? Dinner time, yeah.

Dark Star - 9/10

Holy hell, the atmosphere of this song is beyond my ability to describe. I don’t even know if this is a bassline. I just know that it’s completely perfect. ESPECIALLY the transition into the chorus. The flow here is dark as night. In the second chorus the song shows the last ace up its sleeve; the string section. I am a total sucker for string sections tastefully implemented into modern sounds, and this is the best example I have ever hear of that. What an unbeatable groove.

We Dance Alone - 6/10

This is one of the songs that my friend would play the most often. Maybe because of that, it feels a little burnt-out for me. I feel like Dark Star did a better job with this vocal style, and the instrumentation doesn’t really evolve that much. I do like the way the vocals are kind of swimming through the chorus, and the bridge is a neat change-up. But there’s just too much of this song that is just repeated.

No Complaints - 7/10

This is probably the song that made me listen to The Information in particular. Heard it on some kind of “radio” thing, either Spotify or GPM. It’s a nice little acoustic singalong about the disenfranchisement with modern life. Love the lyrics on this one, and the chorus is very catchy. 

1000BPM - 7/10

Now here’s a strange one. Almost a straight-up rap song with a very eccentric flow. Abrasive, glitched percussion. The gltichiness starts to infect Beck’s vocals after a while, distorting them beyond recognition.

Motorcade - 7/10

Basically an unnerving version of New Round. A plucked main guitar line and a softer vocal melody. But there are a few building electronic moans in the background that sound very off. Especially during the spoken-word part in the bridge. A tapped synth note begins distorting around itself, and what sounds like filtered feedback starts drowning everything else out. 

The Information - 7/10

Almost a combination of No Complaints and Motorcade. A simple verse-chorus structure that begins to have some oddness creep into it. The drums are just a little bit too intense, which adds to the slight feeling of unease. The background vocals sighing every once in a while is a strange touch. A very weird outro. I recommend turning your volume down until the next song starts. No reason.

Movie Theme - 8/10

Such a nice way to end the album, after all that strangeness. This almost 16-bit synth wraps around you in a very comforting way. The vocals are appropriately soft. It just feels like a warm blanket. Various sounds and instruments continue layering as the song progresses. Listen to the voice on the radiowave / Somebody needs you, somebody who’s far away.

The Horrible Fanfare (6/10) / Landslide (8/10) / Exoskeleton (3/10)

Movie Theme is the real ending of the album. I treat this 10-minute song as a kind of collection of three B-sides. Horrible Fanfare is an interesting, creepy instrumental with a Dark Star-esque flow and no chorus. It samples Cellphone’s Dead and only lasts just over 2 minutes. The transition into Landslide is very nice. A bassline similar to Black Tambourine, a song off of Beck’s previous album. The chorus for this section is honestly really good. Satisfying lyrics and melody, and the closest thing to a guitar solo on the album. After this is about 5 minutes of Beck playing Swans. Eerie and ambient instrumentation and a strange, sampled conversation. Cellphone’s Dead comes back again. There’s also a part at about 7 minutes that sounds really similar to one of the menu tracks for Killing Floor 2. 

Alright, hopefully that was more coherent. Overall thoughts; I wish Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton were separated onto their own, on a side project or B-side. Landslide honestly could have been its own song. Otherwise, I think this album is Beck’s best work, and an album I am unlikely to ever forget. On a scale of “No complaints but it’s overrated, that’s for sure”, to “Don’t be afraid, take your heart out of its shell”, The Information gets a “Little worse for wear but wearing it well.”

[writing-yj]

Dick Grayson Sentence Starter #4

Anon: "This is insane!" With season one Dick Grayson pls and thank!

A/n: "omg Ren, stop doing sentence starters only for Dick, write some for some other characters" I'M TRYING TO POST MORE BECAUSE I'M SLACKIN', AND THIS IS THE EASIEST ONE! Ily guys 😘By the way, this honestly isn't very good??? I did it on the fly, soooo...

~

"This is insane!" Robin laughed and you floored it.

You didn't even need to drag him into stealing the Batmobile with you; he was one hundred percent willing. You were having the time of your lives.

"It's not my fault Batman left this thing totally vulnerable; it took me to seconds to break into this!"

"That's because you used to be a theif who could break into everything." Robin said as he grinned. "Batman has never gone this fast!"

You chuckled. "Fast is my middle name. If I had a super power, I would definitely pick super speed. Wally is so lucky." You literally enjoyed living in the fast lane. You didn't do slow, unless it was necessary or asked of you by someone you liked/loved/respected. "This thing only goes faster, babe."

He blushed at the nickname you gave him; getting called 'babe' by your crush wasn't an everyday occurance. "We're going to get in so much trouble..." Robin said, briefly nervous, but he threw that thought out the window. This was just too much fun to pass up.

He was a tad jealous that you were tall enough to drive it, without having to adjust the seat as much as he needed to. You weren't too much older or taller, but he fell for you either way. You fell for him as well. Literally. You weren't paying attention and you legitimately tripped over the poor bird-boy.

"Robin, please," you said with one hand on the steering wheel. "You can't fool me. The scolding we're going to get isn't stopping you from turning us around."

He thought about your statement. "...You're right, I guess... I'm definitely feeling the aster."

A voice came from the communicator in the Batmobile. "You're going to be feeling the disaster when I catch up to you." Batman growled, and the blood drained from Robin's face.

"It's her fault! She's the one who took it! She's driving it!" He cried out on instinct.

You smirked. You didn't deny it one bit; Robin wasn't wrong in the slightest. "Catch us if you can, old man!" You snickered and you slammed your foot back down on the gas pedal. You knew Batman, Robin, and Alfred well enough to get away with your teasing and rebellious attitude.

Hell, you lived with them. Bruce wasn't planning on adopting you, and you were just fine with being somewhat of a roommate in his mansion, but you were slowly convincing Alfred to be your legal guardian. The butler was the one you trusted the most, and even though you caused a lot of mischief and used to be a thief, he secretly enjoyed having you around.

"I swear to God, (Y/n), if you get us killed-"

"I'm wounded that you don't have enough faith in me to keep us alive, my heart is broken." You said sarcastically.

Batman's Batcycle(?) roared as he quite slowly approached the Batmobile. "You're both grounded when-"

You switched off the communicator and rolled your eyes. Robin yelped when you did an abrupt u-turn and sped right past Batman. "Where is it...?" You hummed as you looked through the various buttons.

"Where's what?"

"Thrusters."

Robin pointed to the button you were searching for. "Right there- (Y/n)!"

You grabbed his hand and quickly used it to push the button, and the Batmobile zoomed down the backroad you were on. You both wouldn't dare to do this on the highway or around civilians... Yet.

"Thanks, Robin!" You chirped as you watched Batman almost struggle to keep up.

Robin was still having fun, but he was a little terrified. He knew Batman was furious at this point, but you loved to push his buttons. It is not a good idea to push his buttons.

"Wanna go out on a date after this?" You asked gleefully. "If so, it'd be great if we did something where we could actually talk to each other, so I'd prefer for it to not be a movie-"

Robin blushed a bright red, but he eagerly replied, "Y-yeah! Sure, that sounds nice-!" He was having a very hard time responding properly. You really had a knack for messing up his circuits, but in a good way. "I- Watch out!"

The two of you shrieked when Batman appeared out of nowhere in front of you. You had no time to swerve, and you though you were going to run him over, but he simply pressed a button on his forearm and the Batmobile screeched to a stop.

"Get out of the Batmobile. Now. And like I said," Batman said darkly, but you just rolled your eyes again as you slowly got out. Robin, however, was shaking in his shoes. "You're both grounded. For a month."

Robin looked severely shameful and disappointed, but you raised an eyebrow without speaking. Your superpower was basically breaking in and out of anything.

"As if. You know I can break in and out of anything, right?"

Robin looked at you and his expression screamed 'Shut up! Don't provoke him! You're making it worse!'

"Try me."

"I will." You gave Batman a big grin.

-

In the end, you did go on that date. But with a series of trial and error, thanks to how nervous Dick ended up being on occasion.

-

I apologize for the quality of this.

[mojoflower]

Bodyswap in my various fandoms:  fic recs

Trust Fall by Stoney E, 144k.  Sterek.

Stiles is fairly certain that a case could be made for every bad thing in his life coming back to Peter Hale. This time it's pissing off a powerful witch, who retaliated by swapping Stiles and Derek a la Freaky Friday, because sure. That makes sense. Um, there are GPAs on the line, not to mention the whole thing where his dad wants to shoot Derek on sight. Except who he sees as Derek is actually Stiles, and Stiles did not sign up for filicide.  //  Great. Wait...does this mean he's the Alpha until they figure this out? Holy. Shit.  //  ****  //  Derek had stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a few minutes trying to control the panic as he saw himself as Stiles. As the loud mouthed human friend of the pack. He was going to kill Peter. He was going to kill the witch, then he was going to kill Peter. Maybe even resurrect him again just to kill him all over.  //  They were going to have to play this cool. They would have to stay calm and focused. Which is of course why the universe threw him into this situation with someone who physically couldn't be calm and focused.  //  Of course.

Note to self: I'm pretty sure this is the one I've been trying to remember where Stiles is always asking why no one wants him as a boyfriend, that he'd be such a good boyfriend:

“If people would just look, they'd see that how I am, who I am is pretty great, actually.” Stiles quietly cleared his throat past the lump that was forming and blinked rapidly. “I could be pretty great if someone would just let me be great for them.”

Fuzzy Logic by Sparseparsley E, 7k.  Sterek.

Derek and Stiles switch bodies because of wizard reasons and Stiles just wants to know what that awesome scent is.Derek and Stiles switch bodies because of wizard reasons and Stiles just wants to know what that awesome scent is.

Perfect.

Bonds of Power by Miya_Morana T, 18k.  Sterek.

When Stiles suddenly wakes up as an Alpha werewolf and finds out that Derek has become human, he reluctantly accepts Derek’s pack as his while they attempt to find out what exactly happened and how to reverse it. But as they all try to adjust to the situation, the Alpha Pack is breathing down their neck, and they’re going to need all the help they can get to face that threat.

Such a delicious premise! Felt like a kind of abrupt ending, I'd love to see this expanded, but definitely worth the read as is.

Might Not Make It Back by GotTheSilver E, 23k.   Sterek.

Bodyswap. Because of the fun.

Sweet.

copywritten (so don't copy me) by etben E, 13k.   Sterek.

"Oh, shit," Stiles says, and flops as far backward as their mysterious body-swap connection will let him.

hot and funny (omg, ALL THE BONERS)

I'll Walk with Your Wolf by iCheat no rating, 38k.   Sterek.

When Stiles wakes up in Peter's body, he's understandably freaked out. As Stiles starts connecting with the man's wolf, he can't help but reconsider his opinions of Peter. Needless to say, it's a rather confusing time for all involved.  //  For Day 5 of Steter Week, Body Swap.

Good story. I was most interested in Stiles' intrigtuiging ability to resist, and even direct both other Alphas (and so was Peter, lol) even when he was in werewolf Peter's body. I'd love to pursue that and see where Steter shake out in the Beacon Hills Pack, because they're kind of sneak Alphas, both of them. Stiles learned a lot about Peter by being in his body, because Peter's wolf stayed there (there's a funny scene, on the first full moon, where the Wolf tries to get his Mate and his Man together in one place and hunker down.)

Synchronicity by LadySlytherin E, 36k.  Drarry.

When Harry returns to Hogwarts to complete his final year of schooling, he does so with an unexpected new friend at his side - Draco Malfoy. An accident in potions leaves both boys in an unusual position, which leads to a friendly wager. The wager leads to revelations, realizations, and - in time - a happy resolution that no one was expecting. Well, almost no one...

Draco snorted. “As if that’s all of my personality.” He rolled his eyes. “Let me put it this way, Harry. You are, quite simply, not gay. And I am. Rather openly, since coming out to you and then everyone else. So unless you have some secret fashion sense and flamboyant urges you’ve been subduing, you won’t be able to manage this.” ... Harry huffed in annoyance. “You’re being ridiculous. Besides, I’m in your body, right? So the whole gay thing should come naturally. ... I think I’m feeling gayer already.”

Draco blinked several times, then said. “You’re a complete and utter twit. You cannot feel gayer simply because you’re in my body. My body isn’t gay, I am. ... If you’re feeling gayer, it’s got nothing to do with my body!” Draco snapped, moving closer to Harry in his fury. He itched to hex the other teen, but reminded himself sternly that doing so would only damage himself. “Especially as I don’t feel any less gay.”

“Are you saying my body is equally as gay as yours?” Harry frowned at that implication, not sure how he felt about it. “Because that’s ridiculous. I like girls.”

“I’m not saying anyone’s body is gay.” Draco pressed his fingers into his temples, trying to stave off the headache that was forming. “I’m saying I am gay, regardless of the switch. Therefore, you cannot possibly be gayer simply because you’re in my body right now. That’s patently ridiculous and more than your usual level of stupid.”

“Maybe you’re just so gay that it soaked into your cells.” Harry suggested, mostly because it was funny to watch Draco’s irritation twist his face into new expressions. “So now I’m stuck feeling all of the gay that’s surrounding me. Did you ever consider that? Because I think it’s a valid hypothesis.” Ignoring the way Draco had curled his hands into fists, he added. “In fact, I’m positive that’s what’s happening. I’ve woken up newly gay because of this whole switch and now I’ll have to explore just how gay I - which is to say, you - are.”

Draco snarled - literally snarled - before saying in a low, dangerous voice. “If you dare to pretend to be me, I swear I will convince everyone you are the biggest ponce to ever live simply by acting just as gay as I always do, while still pretending to be you. Don’t push me, Potter.”

My Only Hate by VivacissimoVoce M, 35k.   Drarry.

Harry has been cursed and now inhabits the wrong body. Draco Malfoy may be the only one who can help.

Hee, hee.

We're More Than Ordinary by digthewriter M, 13k.  Drarry.

After a freak accident, which was totally Potter's fault, Draco has to live as Potter for three days. It isn't a party for Harry, either.

Yellow Heart Emoji by HelloAfternoon E, 2.8k.  WIP.  Spideypool.

This had begun by accident at the zoo. Things exploded. People evacuated. Animals trumpeted and roared and bleated. Somewhere, Loki had giggled spectacularly.  //  Deadpool had thrown someone into the ape enclosure.  //  Peter had been thrown into the ape enclosure.

Ha! I love bodyswap, and this was delightful enough to make up for the fact that there is only one chapter. Go on, dive in, an unfinished fic won't kill ya: it's fun.

Displace by dontcareajot T, 10k, WIP.   Spideypool.

Peter thought he’d mentally prepared himself for… this. For seeing himself outside of himself. But it turns out he wasn’t prepared at all.  //  Wade evidently wasn’t prepared either. He looks Peter up and down, expression growing more and more incredulous. “What,” he says finally. “The fuck.”  //  (or, one of those body swap fics)

Aaaarrrgh, I love this. It's Peter's POV, and he's sweet, and reserving judgement, and kind of shocked at how much being Wade is actually physically painful, like, ALL THE TIME. And Wade is DELIGHTED to be Peter: to be young and pretty, but also, he's such a huge Spider-Man fanboy. And, just as they start sharing their lives and their thoughts and all that, ack, the story ends. Still worth reading, though. 4/?

Woke Up New by Zee (orphan_account) E, 22k.  Merthur.

Merlin and Arthur switch bodies; complications ensue.

Nice. The one where they switch, and Arthur figures out Merlin's magic because, oops, the magic stays in his body, and an angry Arthur accidentally levitates a chair. Also the one where Arthur starts to get off a little on being the servant and taking orders, and Merlin slowly wakes up to that.  [Dom/sub undertones.]

Buggre Alle This by Signe (oxoniensis) T, 12k.   Merthur.

Bodyswap.

"What now, then?" Merlin asks.  //  "Now, we sleep."  //  "Maybe we'll wake back up in our own bodies?" Merlin says hopefully.  //  "Yes, Merlin, that's what's going to happen. A powerful sorcerer has cast a spell over us, but it's just a harmless prank and it'll fizzle out in the night, and we'll wake up back to normal."

********

I love this author. You should also read "a tree and a bee and a flea, fiddle-dee-dee" (genderswap) here on AO3, and the fairy tale one where Merlin is the moon (which is only on LJ: The Prince and the Captured Moon).

And If You'll Come I’ll Take You Somewhere To Go by luninosity  T, 11k.  Cherik.

April Fools' Day mansion-fic. Which has to mean body-and-power-swap fic, right...?  //  “Yes,” Charles says, rather apologetically even though this can’t possibly be his fault, “you seem to be me. And I…well, I’m you. At the moment.”  //  “Charles,” Erik says, with what he considers quite remarkable patience under the circumstances, “how long is this going to last?”

Well, this was marvelous. Erik's POV, and he's a little ooc he's so utterly smitten, and his thoughts are something like Charles Charles so pretty Charles I'll protect him Charles Charles. It's kind of amazing he gets anything done, heh. And then they're switched, which turns out being rather more serious and unpleasant that you might guess, and there's some h/c, and some admissions, and some cuddling, and everything is lovely.

Amateur Theatrics by galaxysoup T, 27k.  Avengers.

In which Thor’s primary problem-solving method (a mighty blow from Mjolnir) fails to have the desired effect on a magical artifact, and his secondary method (a mightier blow from Mjolnir) proves to be actively disastrous.

Clint makes the absolute best Loki Daddy-uncle-brother-guardian-whatever. And kid!Loki is sweet as a pie. More or less.  [The bodyswap here, Bruce - Natasha, is pretty incidental.]

Being Dean Winchester by Anonymous E, 21k.  Destiel.

"You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in."  //  Who the fuck was this bitchy "warrior of God" doing talking to him like that? Fuck Cas-tee-el and his dumbass trench coat and abrasive motherfucking attitude.  //  Dean was done with this shit.  //  ***  //  Wherein a monster of the week steals the essence of Castiel's vessel, so he must use Dean, recently raised from hell, as a vessel instead.

Not technically a bodyswap so much as it is a bodyshare.  This is the one where Cas "assists" from inside Dean's head while he's with some girl, and then he lets Dean experience her viewpoint as well, and Dean notes that it's like Cas is fucking both of them... expertly, of course. It's pretty hot. Then they get to do it solo, later on. Nice.

Through Blind Men's Eyes by ladyblahblah E, 46k.  Spirk.

The obligatory Pon Farr story . . . with a bit of a twist.

absolutely gorgeous: sacrifice, angst, bodyswap (totally realistic, not at all intrusive), pon farr.... what more could a reader want?

[thisisthewayitis2021]

When the sun streams in your window

What a stunningly beautiful morning. This is my best time of the day, even though I've only had about 5 hours continuous sleep. Due to doing no physical activity yesterday. I have to work on that balance. Do some stretching or something. Goodness knows when as after a couple of hours, that is not what I feel I can do. But hey, it's great right now. I feel pretty normal and it's my favourite time. I can usually last until about 10 am before it's essential to switch off again. I can think clearly at the moment and I have been for a walk and didn't feel like lead. In fact I feel like I could get in the car and drive to Dorset, Cornwall or Pembrokeshire, or Scotland. All my favourite places. I have had an egg for breakfast in order to have the energy to receive the supermarket delivery and drive my mum's shopping round to her. And for the first time in 3 weeks... I have had some caffeinated tea!! I'm sure you are as thrilled as I am lol. Only because I have run out of decaffeinated tea.. apart from flowery ones and rooibos etc. I love my cup of tea, it's the best thing, the soother of all anxiety and comfort. Anyway, I'm sure you are not interested in my personal preferences.

I've been looking at some blogs on here, collecting a few lovely ones to pop up on my feed.... if that is the right word. It is so lovely to start from scratch, as the bickering on Facebook has so got me down and even though things interest me and I am engaged with the world, all the bitterness and conspiracy theorists and anti this and anti that, name calling and bickering. They still shout out at you. Well I'm not up for it right now. So this is my healing place. I love the Tumblr strapline of "Culture, art and chaos". My dad, who worked in the theatre, said that culture is what gets you through life safely. An appreciation of beauty and the arts is essential to enable you to get you to the end of your life with frequent food for your soul. Certainly for me, they take me to a better place, an escape, to calm and soothe me in this troubled time. Music, theatre, books and art. So I will find those things on here. Things to make me laugh, and love. Politics and views on the current ermmm situation.. are banned from my Tumblr.

Most days, if I feel ok at 7 am, I go out for a walk with my crazy Springer Maisie. I love her so much. I have had her since December 2018, a week before Christmas. She was the best present. She is a rescue dog and arrived in a transit van in Somerset having come on a ferry from Ireland and was driven down from Liverpool with several other rescues. I had to keep in touch with the driver by text and she was delivered to me in a garden centre carpark late at night in the dark. I drove her home, all shaky and bewildered. She has been my best mate and constant companion ever since, and was a great source of hilarity and entertainment to my dad, who passed away in January and I had been caring for for the previous two years. She has since then been my greatest comfort as I live alone and company is still rationed. Then the long covid kicked in seriously in June, finally, as I had struggled on on 30% energy since Dad died. I had caught you know what in a supermarket and very horrifyingly passed it to him. I had operated on adrenaline while I was ill and caring for him, having had to still do things for him and fight a need to sleep, and organised and attended his funeral with my sister and son. And other practical necessities. Going back to full time work a week after the funeral, and grief, were not great for my recovery and I totally crashed at the beginning of June, after limping home from Scotland via Manchester to visit my son. I was signed off for 8 weeks minimum, the GP said, as I have not actually recovered. Panic attacks and sleeping in a carpark having come off the M6 in an emergency before I went into shutdown, were an indication that I was damaging myself. I tried to go back to work, but just couldn't get beyond an hour of my working day and couldn't function. So here I am. At home. Forced to stop. I have to accept that thisiswhatitis2021. It will not be the same in 2022 as I am doing all the right things I hope, to get there.

Anyway, back to Maisie. She is 5 and has plenty of energy, which I do not right now as you know. So I am not able to walk her. Before I was ill I loved to go off for a long walk, through the Charlcombe valley which is near me, or woods, or even round where I live which is lovely. I could walk into town, then out again on the other side. I have not walked into town since before I was ill, and could not now. But I will again.

So that's it for today. My post endings may well be abrupt as I feel myself come to a standstill. But it's great to chat. I hope you are ok today and that the sun shines wherever you are. Catch up soon.