#there's a small house in my potential price range that i have my eye on but it IS small so ive been trying to figure out What Would Go Where

[whoslaurapalmer]

can't sleep. it's the 'I've now watched three whole entire episodes of twin peaks and a fourth one is starting' can't sleep

[naminethewriter]

Sk8er Boi

There is a day 8 now! Because I want there to be one. Also this story got into my head and wouldn’t leave, so here you are. Plus I would probably die at this point if I didn’t sneak in at least one Intruloceit fic into these ship weeks 😅 Hope you enjoy! 💛💚

@dukeceitweek

Here on Ao3

Masterpost | Dukeceit Week 2022 Masterpost

Small warning: there is a quick one sentence that lightly implies past self harm

Summary: He was a boy, she was a girl. Except she's now a boy and not too late to reconnect with Sk8er Boi.

He was a boy

She was a girl

Can I make it any more obvious?

He was a punk

She did ballet

What more can I say?

 Janus snorted when the song came on the radio as he was putting on his leather jacket. What an ironic song to play at this moment in particular.

 Because he used to be that ballerina. And he would be attending the gig of a punk boy he used to know. Of course, they had been way younger than the song insinuated, only around eight years old. And with him it hadn’t been his friends that had been against the friendship – he didn’t really have friends back then – but his parents.

 His parents were the classy sort, they loved operas, ballets, Mozart, Beethoven and the like. And of course, they wanted their daughter to share that love. Janus had piano-, singing- and ballet lessons from a young age and there was no television in the house. They really did their best to mold their daughter into the perfect lady.

 Too bad that their daughter was actually a boy.

It took him a long time to figure it out. He stopped ballet first; the outfits made him incredibly uncomfortable for reasons he didn’t understand at that time. Then he dropped the singing lessons, he just didn’t enjoy them anymore. He stuck to the piano because he really liked it and it placated his parents.

 He was allowed to have his own computer at thirteen years old and from there it took him only a few weeks to find out what being transgender meant. From there he figured out he might be a boy instead. And that realization scared him to death. Because he knew that his parents would never understand.

 His phone rang, startling him out of reminiscing. The song was over by then. He picked up.

 “Hey.”

 “’Sup, babes?” came Remy’s voice over the phone. “You ready to rock?”

 Janus rolled his eyes. “How original of you.”

 “Shut up! I got us the tickets and am your ride, you don’t get to be rude to me.”

 “I’m so sorry, oh great Remy, please have mercy!”

 “That’s better.” They both chuckled. “Anyway, I’m about to take off to your place.”

 “So you’ll be here in fifteen?”

 “Nah, like five.”

 “Oh?” Janus grinned. “Did you sleep at Emile’s? Hmmm?”

 “Shut up.” This time it sounded way more flustered than the first time. Bullseye.

 “You’re gonna give me the detail on the drive, I hope?”

 “Yeah, yeah. See you in a bit.”

 “Alright.”

 True to his word, Remy was there within the next five minutes. Janus climbed into the passenger seat and handed him a thermos full of coffee, the price he always had to pay if Remy drove him.

 “Thanks, you’re a dear.”

 “I’m the best, I know.”

 “I wouldn’t go that far.” Janus rolled his eyes fondly but didn’t continue the banter as Remy took off towards the club where Remus and his band would play that evening.

 “Exited to see your old crush again?” Remy teased a few minutes into the drive.

 “I was eight and didn’t even know what romance was yet because my parents sheltered me like baby but sure he was totally a crush,” Janus chuckled.

 “Whatever. Doesn’t answer my question.”

 “I don’t know. I only knew him for a week before my parents found out where I was going. I hardly knew him.”

 “You recognized him like immediately when I showed you the band though.”

 Janus shrugged. “He was the only potential friend I had for the next two years. I might’ve been a bit fixated on my memories of him. Plus, his eye color is super distinctive.”

 “Sounds like a crush to me.”

 “Just drop it already. We’re going there to listen to the music. There’s no guarantee that we’ll even get to talk to him.”

 “But you’d like to.”

 “I doubt he even remembers me. And I’ve transitioned since then, so…”

 “Yeah, but you’ve got a birthmark covering half your face, that’s kinda hard to forget.”

 “Look, I’m going into this with zero expectations. I just want to have a fun night with my best friend, okay?”

 “Sure, gurl. I can get behind that.”

 Remy finally dropped the topic after that, and Janus got to tease him about his enormous crush on Emile that he refused to admit. Other than that, the rest of the drive was uneventful, and they arrived at the club only a little bit late. Which was an accomplished for Remy.

 The set was great. Exactly Remy and Janus’ style. Cheap drinks were a bonus – not that Janus drank that much in solidarity with Remy who couldn’t. The people were nice and having fun so by the time the band finished, it was already a great evening for Janus.

 They decided to stick around a little longer and soon the band members appeared and started to mingle. Remy elbowed Janus in the side.

 “There he is, the one who got away,” he teased, nodding in the direction of Remus who was talking with two girls close by. “Gonna go say hi?”

 Janus rolled his eyes and decided not to engage with the teasing this time around. “If those two let him go, sure. They seem intent to keep him there, though.” Indeed, the two girls were seemingly a bit intoxicated and invaded Remus’ personal space without shame. He didn’t seem to mind it all that much though he seemed a bit bored.

 Around five minutes later, Janus was at the bar to get the last round of drinks for him and Remy before his friend wanted to go home – or go to Emile’s again, Janus hadn’t gotten a definitive answer yet – when Remus suddenly appeared next to him, ordering a whiskey.

 “That was a really good performance,” Janus commented before he could stop himself. Remus’ head snapped over to him so fast Janus was worried he pulled something for a second. But the other just grinned.

 “Thanks!” Remus eyes him for a moment, squinting. “You look familiar. Have we met?”

 Janus had not expected that, but he nodded. “Yeah, when we were kids. Was before I transitioned though.”

 Remus stared at him for a moment longer before he slapped his fist onto the bar. “The ballet kid with the strict parents! They carted you off and you were never seen again!”

 Janus chuckled. “Yeah, that’s me. Name’s Janus now.” He held out his hand and Remus shook it enthusiastically.

 “Remus, though I guess you knew that already. Man, I didn’t think we’d meet again. Quite a lot of us were worried about you. Parents with stick up their asses often lean towards the abusive side.”

 “They aren’t that bad,” Janus waved him off. “They just had certain hopes for me, but they didn’t force me to continue ballet when I wanted to quit, even if they were disappointed.”

 “Sure, that’s one thing but what about the trans thing? If you don’t mind me asking.”

 “I didn’t tell them until I did something… a little drastic.”

 Remus raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask further. “And when you did?”

 “They weren’t… ecstatic at first. But we went to therapy together for a while with a therapist that I picked out and it helped a lot. They still don’t understand everything about queerness, but they try. When I came out as gay, they were really confused if that meant I liked girls or boys.”

 Remus snorted. “Sounds kinda fun.”

 “It was entertaining in a way.”

 “Well, I’m glad things worked out for you. There’re some guys from back then I need to tell about meeting you, they’ll lose their minds.”

 “There you are, Cephy,” a voice spoke up behind them and Remus’ grin became even wider.

 “Logie! Hey, remember the ballet girl I told you about that hang out with us for one week until her parents dragged her away?” He pointed at Janus without waiting for an answer. “That’s him!”

 The man blinked slowly which gave Janus a moment to look him over. He was tall, taller than him at least, maybe even Remus. He had glasses with piercing blue eyes behind them and black hair. He wore a tie along with a plain black t-shirt. In contrast he had ripped jeans and a denim vest with a variety of pins. A weird combination that Janus found quite pleasant to look at.

 “I do recall you mentioning something like that a few times,” he said before turning to Janus. “My name is Logan, a pleasure to meet you.” He held out a hand for Janus to shake which he did.

 “You, too.”

 Logan nodded before turning back to Remus. “I hate to interrupt your conversation, but Virgil requested you in the back.”

 He didn’t look enthused, but Remus stood up nonetheless. But before he left, he pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Janus.

 “Call me sometimes. I would love to get a drink with you.” He winked before throwing an arm around Logan’s shoulder and giving him a quick kiss before they disappeared into the crowd. Janus quirked an eyebrow before he looked at the piece of paper in his hand. It had the logo and the name of the band on the front and on the back was an e-mail address as well as a phone number that was not printed. Under it was written:

 Text me if you’re interested. The mail is Logan’s since he’s our manager so you can hit him up, too. We’re not exclusive ;)

 Janus snorted and pocketed the card. Then he grabbed the drinks and returned to Remy who watched the entire exchange and grinned at him knowingly. Janus didn’t even care if he teased him about it, he just got the contact info of two very hot guys. A very good evening indeed.

[guerilla935]

My Favorite Fishing in Video Games Where Fishing is Not Core Game Play

A really awesome surprise for me is always to boot up a game that is full of action and suspense to be introduced to a fishing side activity. I have toiled away at fishing in games for hundreds of hours at least. It has gotten so bad in some instances that my friends have asked me why I haven’t just taken the plunge into real fishing. It’s definitely because that is a lot of work and in real life I don’t catch a fish every 30 seconds. They have also wondered why I don’t just play a fishing simulator like Planet Fishing (Shout out to Planet Fishing that’s a great game). And that’s where I have to think for a while. Fishing while you have better things to do like save the world is very special. You aren’t fishing because it’s the objective of the game or because that’s why you are there, you are fishing because it’s fun and maybe you need a break to swing a fishing rod instead of a sword. And then you can stop, and get back to fighting or whatever the rest of the game entails. Below are games that have fishing in them for mostly no reason at all. I have shamelessly spent way to long with my bait in these waters and absolutely loved every second of it and I hope that you (the reader) can find a lot of relaxation in these waters as well.

Pokemon Series

Since the very first Pokemon game there has been fishing. You get the old rod from some guy and then you are free to fish up as many goldfishes that you want hoping that one of them will grow up to be a 21 foot tall dragon. Pokemon has combined their fishing with their main game play and makes you at least start a battle with the fish you drag onto shore. Now fishing in Pokemon is pretty subpar mainly because a single Pokemon game hasn’t really been known to have more than a handful of Pokemon that you can fish for. Also if you are looking for a strong water type Pokemon you could do a lot better than fishing for it. Typically a Pokemon player will fish about 5-10 times total. And although fishing for Pokemon isn’t all that great it has been in every game for over 20 years and that is pretty impressive. It’s a small detail that makes the world of Pokemon feel like a real world of wild creatures.

Sonic Adventure DX

In Sonic Adventure DX you are given the choice to play as a lot of different characters, one of which is named Big the Cat. Most of the characters are combat characters that rely on speed and attacks to get through levels, some even wielding rocket launchers and extremely oversized hammers. However when you start the story of Big the Cat you are thrown in a completely opposite direction. Big the Cat is a giant purple cat who lives in the jungle with his best friend Froggy. Froggy accidentally swallows one of the most powerful objects in the Sonic universe and Big the Cat must chase him all over the world trying to fish him out of where he is hiding so that he can eject the Chaos Emerald out of him and they can return to their life in the jungle. The fishing mechanics in this game actually are really good and this is probably because Sega had just put out a series of mildly successful Bass fishing games before releasing this game. Either way its absolutely hilarious that Big the Cat gets to defeat Chaos 6 right before Super Sonic has his showdown with Chaos Perfect.

Final Fantasy XV

In Final Fantasy XV you play as Noctis and his favorite hobby is fishing. When I first played this game I sped through it and never fished once and reached the end of the game never indulging Noctis in his hobby. When I replayed Final Fantasy XV I fished for 50 hours and then ejected the disc from my console. The fishing in Final Fantasy XV is surprisingly deep with a lot of the vendors supporting what you could call a fishing road trip. In the game it is extremely dangerous to be out at night so I would plan day trips to lakes to maximize the amount of fishing I would get to do. I would prepare days in advance to make sure I could afford the trip and that I had enough supplies to both protect myself at the lake and have enough supplies to last the whole day. Final Fantasy XV really is a game about getting really distracted and fishing is probably its best distraction. My days on the lake were the perfect balance of peaceful and rewarding, this game offers an awesome reward of well planned trips and a good haul of fish.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Final Fantasy XIV is the only game I have ever played where the fishing played exactly like its combat. When you are fighting enemies in a dungeon in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. When you are fishing in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. Note you are doing so at a much more leisurely and less life threatening pace but you are still doing it. I never maxed out the fisher class but I got it into the expansion content which was a really long and relaxing experience. Yet another Final Fantasy title where the real meat of the game is in getting distracted. When you fish you also sell on a player market that fluctuates based on market price just like real fish. You get the relaxing fishing side of the game and also an aggressive economic number crunching side as well. I spent way too long with a real pen and paper deciding how much I should sell for on any particular day and bossing around my two cat girl employees.The MMO aspect of the game adds so much to what you would expect to be a very solitary experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Have you ever gone fishing for hours to receive an empty bottle? That is exactly what kick started my addiction to fishing in Twilight Princess. An empty bottle in Twilight Princess means another way to heal yourself, another way to add oil to a lantern, another way to carry useless water around. The only way to get the 4th bottle in the game is to go to a dedicated fishing spot and fish until you pulled it out of the pond. The actual fishing is pretty weird, it involves motion controls which I still am not entirely sure what they do or how to properly use them but it is really fun to hold the pole in gyroscope and set the lure in the water waiting for fish to come get a nibble. Although the physics with the water make it difficult to see if you have actually gotten a bite or not it still is enjoyable the other 85% of the time it works.

Stardew Valley

So this one is at the top of every other “fishing in games” list and there is a big reason for that. It’s really good. I think in my first Stardew Valley farm I gave up farming entirely and fished all day every day and stopped to buy food to replenish my energy and go back at it. I really didn’t care about getting rich or making enough money to expand the farm or get to know everyone I actually spent about 50 hours just fishing. The fishing takes some skill and a pretty keen eye but the random jerks of the fish and the rhythm of the game play are so fun to try to master. It’s a part of Stardew Valley that I felt like I was continuously improving on as time went on and it was really fun. I mean I don’t recommend it because you’ll end up moderately poor but it was really fun.

Fantasy Life

Fantasy Life offers you 12 potential jobs, you could be a brilliant blacksmith or a devious potions maker, a lumberjack or a knight, a hunter or a seamstress. However your inner dad is calling and you decide you want to play through a fantasy RPG as a fisherman, hell yeah. the story is relatively short so you can quickly unlock a lot of locales to fish at and there is a manageable economy system that lets you deal in fish in advantageous ways. You can even pick up cooking on the side and make fancy dinners and sell the fish for higher you can do that as well. Fantasy Life is like a clever mix between Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy XIV and it kind of succeeds and falls short of it. The fishing also takes a good amount of skill and rhythmic approach to master so it doesn’t get boring almost at all until you have cleared the game.

Maple Story 2

Maple Story 2 is one of the most expressive and cutest games that I have ever played. And the fishing is no different, its all about style. The fishing in Maple Story 2 is monotonous and can get old but you do it for the chibi clout. Because much like the rest of the game you can look however you want and do whatever you want and sometimes you just feel like kicking back and throwing lure in the water at the beach. I never got super into the fishing in this game but it won me over with its adorable design and stylish atmosphere.

Animal Crossing Series

Of course I had to include the most popular game right now. Animal Crossing has become something of a connection between people when we can’t leave the house. A thing we all have in common on social media and with our friends. My first experience with Animal Crossing really starts with New Horizons and I was completely blown away. The fishing isn’t super complex or difficult but the range of what you can pull out of the water and what you can do with it is absolutely breathtaking. For a game about cartoon people living with humanoid cartoon animals the fish looking photo realistic. And the museum where they can be kept is stunning. The museum looks like it was designed to capture the feel of being in a museum and matches the design of all the great real life aquariums and observatories. Although it is a bit frustrating when your rod breaks it is easy enough to make one (or worst case buy one) to get your bait back in the water.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Tell me I’m wrong, you can’t. Isabelle getting added to Smash brought a very powerful fishing move that isn’t practical all the time but is really funny. Wouldn’t recommend this game if you are looking to relax and fish but I do recommend hooking your friend with a fish hook and send them flying off screen if you had to.

Minecraft

I have a very special role in Minecraft when I join a friends server. A role that I assign to myself. While everyone is off getting awesome swords, spelunking for diamonds, and exploring the infinite landscape, I build a small wooden shack and I set up a farm with an irrigation canal and start fishing. A steady supply of food is necessary and while I’m hanging out with my friends in a server I’m happy to be the one to provide it. The fishing in this game is probably the slowest of all the ones on this list but is the most useful. just throwing the fish in the oven creates food that can help keep you and your companions alive for a long time. I think I definitely have my limits with Minecraft fishing and I couldn’t do it for hours on end it is rewarding to set up shop and find a nice place to settle down for a few hours to fish.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

This is the only Tactical RPG in this post. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has sections between combat where you can go and talk to your students and do other activities. We aren’t here to discuss other activities though we are here for the fishing. The fishing allows you to catch fish for some reason that I’m sure is good but never intrigued me enough to learn. All I know about the fishing in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that it’s fun. I started to bust through combat just so that I could get back to fishing. The funniest part about this one is that the fish has a health bar. Pressing the A button at the exact moment finds a way to become easier and still find ways to mess you up. Either way, I’m not that interested in tactical RPGs but I heard there was fishing in this game so I had to play it and it was worth it.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

In Jak & Daxter, Daxter gets turned into a small animal by dark eco while exploring a dangerous island off the shore of his home with his best friend Jak. To get back to the island to investigate, the pair have to borrow a boat owned by a fisherman who is troubled by an invasive species of poisonous eel that is ruining his haul. He asks Jak to catch fish for him without catching any eels. This fishing mini game can only be done once but it is going to either be something you think is very unique or a huge waste of time. All I’ll say is that the sound that the fish makes when it goes into the net is absolutely a reward in itself it is so satisfying. But anyways, more intense than some other options here but get it done so you can get back to absorbing eco powers and jumping on stuff.

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a 2D action platformer but you can also fish. And you fish for the best kind of fish, money. You can get some other stuff too like health pickups and magic replenishers but we know what you want. You see that little glint and you pop out the fishing rod and pull out those money bags. If you are devoted enough you can even get a surprise from the Troupple King (long live his highness) if you fish out the right stuff. I don’t even know if I fished all that much when I played Shovel Knight but it’s hilarious that you can.

NieR: Automata

I did not play a lot of NieR and that’s because I was fishing. I don’t know why all I did was fish but you throw your little robot in the pond and you lean on a magical stool so honestly it was good enough for me.

Club Penguin

If you know then you know. In hind sight there really wasn’t a whole lot to do in Club Penguin but this mini game really messed me up. You basically get to move up and down, catching fish and avoiding trash and other hazards. Basically trying to do this and catch as much fish as possible to avoid having to ask your parents for real money to pay for snacks to feed a virtual ball of fluff with eyeballs. I don’t really remember how challenging it really was but I remember getting decently high scores to about like 100 fish per round so I guess it was pretty easy if I could do that at age 10.

Rune Factory 4

I’m gonna be very honest about this one and say that the fishing in Rune Factory 4 is basically just Animal Crossing fishing but more anime. The fish react to the pole the same, the fish almost look the same, and the buttons to respond are the same. What makes this one special is where you can take it. You can fish in the little moat in town, in the lake, in a dungeon full of monsters, in a lake that is eternally the season fall, anywhere. You are constricted by the boundaries of Stardew Valley and that is how much energy you have and how much time you have in the day. It’s still fun to fish but I wish that they had used their fun fantasy setting to give the ability to fish up some cool made up fish instead of strictly things that exist in real life.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Ok, diving, fishing, same thing. Diving in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just fishing with your whole body. It works a lot in the same way as Pokemon where you fish up monsters to fight and get the rewards from them. It is a completely optional activity however if you decide to undertake the grind of scavenging in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 then you will never hurt for money ever again. It makes my wonder why Rex stopped being a salvager to do odd jobs because this was PROFITABLE. The main incentive is that there are spots that spawn a certain enemy that drop cores. Cores are like gacha or loot boxes that contain new anime girl partners that deal huge damage in fights. They even have their own side quests and story lines. I spent maybe 30 hours grinding before giving up on this game and while it does become tiresome I really enjoyed the random rewards of possibly getting a new companion or a really cool weapon.

It’s been tossed around that every great RPG has fishing in it. I won’t argue that point but a lot of great RPGs certainly do have fishing in them. Everyone needs a break sometimes and fishing is the perfect activity to remind us to stop and take that break. Even games can get long and without these distractions it might be so much harder to complete these harrowing tasks. Don’t forget to take breaks and just enjoy the sound of the water every once in a while because there’s no rush playing video games.

Honorable Mentions:

Kingdom Hearts: Sora fishing with his bare hands on Destiny Island

Persona 4: Weird aqueduct fishing

Persona 5: Marina fishing life

Sea of Thieves: A pirates life for me

[kissofthespring]

title: ruin the mob ship: iwaizumi x fem!reader (afab!reader) genre: yakuza x coffee shop au cw: blood, guns, violence, potential assault, face sitting, degradation, daddy kink. cute nicknames for the reader. unprotected sex. (wrap it up folks.) note: this is just part one. There will be a part two eventually. (oops.)

"Hajime..."

The wound won't stop bleeding. You can feel your consciousness slipping. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Dummy. Tsubaki?!" He practically yells as he presses his steady hands to the wound. 

"No, no, no." 

How had you gotten here?

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Six months earlier.

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Iwaizumi ran his hand through his spikey locks as he stared at the image on his phone. A pretty girl with her hair pulled up and off her neck. The smile on her face reaches her eyes. She's mid-laugh this shot. "This is Ushijima's sister. She has no idea, though. She's his half-sister. Same father, different last name." Matsukawa says as he reads over the information on the laptop in front of him.

"She's just a girl. What did she do?" Hanamaki spits as he takes apart his gun and starts cleaning it. He's right in a way. You had just turned 29 years old. The smile on your face made Iwaizumi feel old. He had just turned 35, but he couldn't remember the last time he smiled like that. 

"So, are we taking her hostage? Or..."

"Killing her. Little Cutie has a price on her head, it seems." Oikawa interrupted him, kicking his feet up onto the table. "It's a hefty one. Otherwise, I wouldn't have us take the job. Iwaizumi, you're the best, so it's on you."

"Tch. Fine." Iwaizumi had a weird rumble in his chest. What had you seen to get you on their radar? Or who had you spoken to? "She works for a coffee shop, yeah? This should be easy."

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Usually, whenever Iwaizumi Hajime got a job, he'd look over the provided profile and then take out the contract. Something about this one set him off. You probably had no idea you'd seen something. You looked like the type that would go to the cops right away if you'd seen something terrible. So clearly, to you, it was normal. He stepped onto another roof, watching you as you turned down an alleyway stepping toward the red light district. Now, this didn't make sense. This wasn't on his profile of you—a barista working her way through graduate school with no contact with your father. In fact, you didn't seem to have any family contact. He watched as you slipped into the red light coffee shop. Struck with the realization that you were exactly like your profile after all. You were setting the coffee in front of a customer when he walked into the shop. "Welcome. I'll be right there in a moment." 

There's no line, so he moves to stand at the counter. He takes in your appearance over his shoulder. Yep, he can see Ushijima in your eyes. It's the shape and softness of your features that set the two of you apart. Not to mention your body. The curve of your breast visible beneath the black apron. The jeans you'd wiggled your way in were form-fitting. Your shirt was a half-buttoned black dress shirt. Just formal enough that you looked professional, but still, the cleavage made it sexy. Working in the red light district, you seemed to pick up something from the girls that frequented your establishment. You step back around the counter before grinning at the man in front of you. 

“How can I help you today?”

Your voice is chipper as you lean against the countertop. You take in the appearance of the man in front of you. The all-black tech wear was something you were familiar with. There was a silver earring in his ear, and you could see a tattoo peeking up past his coat as you observed him. Fuck. He was your type. Probably covered in tattoos underneath the jacket on his frame. He was built too. Fuck.

But if he was in the red light district, you knew better. He was one of four things, a pimp, a john, a yakuza, or an escort. From the looks of him, you couldn't help but think that he was too pretty to be a pimp, so either he was getting some, or he was just a part of a crew. You rested your hip against the countertop as the man before you stared up at the menu above your head. 

"Large coffee, black, and a small cup of ice water." 

"Sure." 

You turn to get his coffee and find him pulling out cash to pay. "Nope. You're new around here. On the house tonight. If I see you again, then I'll make you pay." You wink as you pass him the coffee, then move down to grab an ice cup. His eyes widen as you clear the total and smile again. "Usually, I hear a thank you for that."

"That's not a way to run a business..." 

You pass the man the water before shrugging. "It's a cup of coffee; I sell more than I give away. Stand in front of me any longer, and I'll make you pay." He picked up the coffee, and the water moving over to the bar area. You could see the scowl on his face, though. Had you surprised him? Hm.

Hajime couldn't help but stare at the coffee cup with anger. Her blood would be on his hands, and she had given him free coffee... Was it foolish of him to think that perhaps whoever put a hit out on you was wrong? Probably. He couldn't help it, though. He watched you as you worked, made fresh coffee, dumped the dregs of the old one. Looked up at the door when the bell rang. Gave a smile to the old man in front of you and smiled that same smile at the gangster that crossed your threshold. You were glancing at the clock before throwing him what you thought was a subtle glance.

Hajime was nursing that same cup of now cold coffee three hours later. You two were alone in the shop; you were about to say something when the bell above the door rang, and your face turned cold. It was instantaneous the shift in the air. 

"Hey, Pet." The man who entered called out with a grin. "Thought over my offer?" He lifts his still-lit cigarette to his lips, a smirk curling upon his lips. "This place really could use the protection, and... You'd make a lot more money."

"Listen, Futakuchi. You're great, and I even let you smoke in here when the sign says no smoking. But I'm not interested in being one of your girls, or protection for the shop. We manage fine, thanks." You turn your back to the man lifting a heavy pot of coffee to dump it out for the night. "I'm closing up for the night. Please leave, Futakuchi."

"What about that guy?"

The brown-haired gangster pointed at Iwaizumi, who offered you a smile as if he was willing to play along if need be. "He's my new employee... Now please leave." You glance over at Iwaizumi, who stands to his full height; he was glad that he had grown from his childhood. Now standing at 6'0, he was taller than the other man by centimeters, but it was enough. He shrugged off his coat, the tattoos along his arms finally visible. The brown-haired man had to know what they meant.

The Seijoh Syndicate was infamous. The traditional Japanese style, mixed with a floral and dragon motif... It worked for him. You admired for a moment before you cleared your throat and tossed Iwaizumi the keys for extra measure, "Lock the door after him, would you?" You noticed the way his muscles rippled as he nodded, "Well. The lady did say to leave." Futakuchi crushed his cigarette under his boot before turning around, "I'll be back, Y/N. Maybe next time, you'll be kinder."

"Doubt it!"

You called as Iwaizumi locked the door, and you clutched the edge of the countertop in front of you. "I... I can't thank you enough for helping me out. I'm sorry for getting you roped into this. Um. Thank you..."

"Iwaizumi Hajime." What a mistake that was for him to tell you and a way to identify him, but he did it.

"Thank you, Iwaizumi. You honestly saved me from having to be really aggressive with him. Ever since I opened this place, he's been trying to get in my pants." You take a heavy pot of coffee off the burner before moving to dump it in the sink.  

"How did you know that you could trust me to play along with you?" Iwaizumi asked gruffly, settling back into the seat at the bar. When you shrugged, "I didn't. But I hoped that you would. If you wait for me to finish up, I'll split the tips with you for your help. I just don't trust that he's gone." Iwaizumi gave you another nod before siping on his cold coffee. Even cold, it tasted good. Weird. Must be the beans she used. He watched as you locked up the safe for the night and then stood up. 

Your head could nestle just under his chin if he so wished it. He didn't, but you could. As you grabbed your bag and handed him his portion of the tips, you grinned. "You know, I understand you might not need the job, but if you wanted a position here..." 

He cut you off before you could finish. "I don't. You shouldn't be so generous. Someone will one day take advantage of that kindness." Damn it... It was him. Iwaizumi realized. He would be the one because he was going to have to kill you eventually. You watched as the man grabbed his coat and left the shop. You turned on the alarm then stepped out into the back alley behind your shop. 

You were walking home, your keys stuck between your fingers when you felt it. The shift in the wind, someone was following you. When they struck, you'd thought you'd be ready, but your head was pushed against the brick, and the hand that you had your keys in was twisted behind your back sharply. "Sh, Pet. I just... I don't think you're safe working with that guy. Nor do I think you're safe on your own." The mouth of the man who had been trying his damndest to get with you found our neck. He was pushing you against the wall with his body weight and one hand. His other was tracing the waist of your jeans. You thought that if anything like this was to ever happen to you, you'd struggle or something, but you froze. 

He pulled your arm a little harder, causing you to yelp. "Let her go." There's a click behind you, and your eyes find the green ones of Iwaizumi. The gun in his hands looks huge; you shrink into yourself when Futakuchi lets you go. "Hey man... Look, I let her go. Whatever, Y/N. If this is who you're with now, I'm out. Fucking bitch." Iwaizumi raises his arm, shooting into the sky, causing you to flinch, and the man who was now cursing your existence to scrambles away.

You had shrunken in on yourself when you felt a hand press against your forehead. "You okay? Let me help you home." You clung to him and directed the man who saved you from another to your home. What a fool you were. You had no idea what he was sent to do. As you pressed your key into the door, you looked up at the man, "Can I repay you somehow?"

"Don't be so kind. You just saw what happens when someone wants to take advantage of that kindness. Next time I won't be there. So... No. Go take a shower and eat something. Good night, Dummy."

You were about to tell him not to call you that, but exhaustion took over, and you just slipped inside your apartment instead. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi was documenting the exits and entrances around your place. God damnit. Taking you out could be easy if you weren't so... Good.

This was a bad hit.

Whoever had it out for you had it for the wrong reasons.

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

It went on like this for five weeks. Iwaizumi would show up three hours before closing, hang out in your coffee shop and then walk you home. You had gotten to know bits and pieces of him too, and he had done the same with you. 

One night it's the two of you left in the store, locked up for the night. You weren't paying him any attention when he brushed your hair out of your face a bit gentler than you thought Iwaizumi would be, making you drop the peach scone you were bagging up for the night. "Fuck!"

He's laughing, doubled over, clutching his stomach as you smack his arm. "That's what gets you to swear, Tsubaki? I was gentle. What would you do if I wasn't?" The tension is right there between the two of you. "Shut up, you jerk." You reach for your scone to throw it away when you noticed he hadn't stepped away or gone back to his coffee. "Come driving with me, Tsubaki. It's a nice night." Your eyes met his before you nodded, fiddling with the keys in your hands, "Sure. I'm almost done..."

You finished the closing tasks, turned off the lights around the store, pushed the money through the red door on the safe, and finally set the alarm for the night. Iwaizumi was smoking a cigarette outside the door when you slipped out of the shop. "Okay, I'm ready." He took in your appearance for a moment. You wore a black skirt today, and the thin black top left little to the imagination. God, he liked you. It still lingered in his mind; he was supposed to kill you.

Oikawa had gotten annoyed at him for not completing the job weeks ago, but... Hajime didn't give a fuck. He had spent time with you, and feelings developed from there. You were kind. You cared about everyone who came into your store equally. You'd close shop if a woman came in after being beaten by a John. When a young man came in wounded, you dropped everything to patch him up. You were a safe haven for women and gangsters alike. They knew they could come to you for a place to hide. He found himself unable to kill you. Whoever had put the hit out was wrong. He'd find them first.

You had no idea the thoughts that brewed in the spiky-haired man's head. He held the door open for you to slip in, then slipped inside himself and started driving.

The road turned to gravel as he drove into the hills of the prefecture. Your hand rested against the edge of your skirt, nerves making them shake a little. He turned his wrist up on the gear shift. "If you need to hold my hand or something." Instantly, you latched on to it, bringing it over to your lap, and grinned. The hitman couldn't help himself. He'd gone soft for you... His hand gripped your back. You relaxed, and eventually, your hand slipped out of his, but his hand didn't move from your thigh, gripping it slightly.

Finally, he stopped at a spot overlooking the city. It was secluded and beautiful tonight. His hand moved down your leg to your knee before moving back up gently, "I like you, Tsubaki. You know that, right?"

"I had an inkling. Does this mean I get to call you Hajime now?" You turn toward him full-body, shifting so your back was against the passenger side door, and his hand came up to rest on the back of your seat. "I like you too. I mean, I have for a while, and not just because you saved me before." You fiddled with your fingers, a look of shock coming over your face when Iwaizumi reached for your hand.

He lifted your right hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of your wrist, making you breathe out sharply. His green eyes traced your frame and finally found your face. "Can I kiss you?" The question hit your ears, and before your brain could stop you, you leaned forward to capture his lips in a kiss.

The kiss is hungry and rough. Teeth were clashing together as you finally break that tension you had both had between you two. You reached up to tug his hair, and you could feel his growl against your lips. "Fuck."

The windows fogged before you realized it, and he was pushing you against them, his hand wrapping around your neck to pull you closer to him. He was rough, but god did it feel good. His teeth tug at your lip before whispering, "Can I touch you, Tsubaki?" He presses his forehead against yours, his fingers tangled in your hair as you catch your breath.

"Yes. Touch me, Haji. Please." 

The moment the please leaves your lips, he feels feral. His name dies on your lips as he palms a breast with one hand and slips the other one up your skirt resting on your thigh. The kiss was deepening as he swipes his tongue along the seam of your lips. Your gasp was all he needed. His hand moves to your cloth-covered cunt, before pulling back to whisper, "I want to fucking hear you moan."

And moan into his mouth you did. Gasping as he played with your clothed breasts, you wanted more.

The man above you is grinding his hip against your calf as he cages you in against the passenger seat. "Please, don't tease, please." You whisper as the kiss breaks, and he leans back to admire you for a moment. You're his prey here. With his big hands, he could snap your neck and be done with the job. Or he could give you pleasure. His hand lingering on your breast and the other between your legs told him what he wanted to do. He wanted to fuck you. Wanted to ruin you.

The hand between your legs found your hip clutching it slightly. "I want you. But I want it to be special. We shouldn't do this here." You let out a whine that he knew would be his undoing. "Hajime... I want to feel you inside of me. We can go back to my place if you want a bed. I just... Fuck me, tonight."

"Dummy." Iwaizumi whispered against your temple before capturing your lips against his. He slides his hand down to your cunt again. "I know how to satisfy you for now, at least until we get to your place and we make some choices." His large fingers brush against your panties before pushing the fabric to the side. He swallows your moans with kisses as he rubs your clit with his middle finger. He slides that same finger down until he gets to your center and pushes inside of you.

Your hips jolt, and you gasp as his mouth makes its way down your neck, leaving marks as he goes. "More, please. Hajime. Please."

He drives his middle finger into your cunt, grinning at the gasp that chokes from your lips. "Such a greedy little dummy." He adds another finger before he glances down to marvel at the way you suck his fingers in. The dirty and lewd noises were coming from your mouth as he fingers you. "This hand of mine taking you out? Making you dumb? Sweet, sweet little one." He feels your body shake involuntarily, your head rolling backward. 

"That's it, baby. Let it go. Cum for me."

Your thighs are shaking as you cum with a gasp, his hand tightening on your throat to control the blood flow and how you were feeling. It was so good that a second one washed over you quickly.

Your vision finally colors again, and you watch him as he lifts his hand to his mouth, sticking each finger in one by one. "You taste so good, Tsubaki. Like my favorite candy."

You roll your eyes at him before shifting to press your body against the passenger side door. "Just drive to my place, and don't make illusions to me tasting like candy..." Iwaizumi shifted gears before chuckling. "I could say something else, but I thought candy suited you. You're sweet. I liked it. And so did you if the way you came was any indication."

The drive went on like that, him teasing you and you bantering it right back to him. When you arrived at your apartment, you instantly felt shy. Your state radiated off of you in waves as you stared up at the tall building. Iwaizumi's hand reached over to squeeze your thigh. "We don't have to do this tonight... I got you off; that’s what I wanted to do."

You looked up at him shaking your head before reaching for his hand and lacing his fingers with yours. "Come inside; I’ll get you some tea."

His voice reverberated in your brain as you both got out of the car, "I don't want tea, Tsubaki." I want you. Those words are unspoken as you both approach your door from the confined space of the elevator. 

You fumbled with the keys, dropping them than picking them up again. Iwaizumi's hand rests on the small of your back to soothe your thoughts. "Do I make you anxious? It's not my goal, dummy." He's gentle as he brushes your cheek with careful fingers. He's treating you like glass as you both enter the apartment. Shoes fall off feet quickly as soon as the door closes.

You step backward into your apartment, leading him down the short hallway to your bedroom. He follows his hand resting on your shoulder, taking in the ease of your clothes. "God, you're so beautiful." He pushed your shoulder strap down your arm smiling as your tank top fell quickly. Your overshirt was already discarded when you entered your apartment. Your knees hit the bed, and you reach for his long sleeve shirt. "It's not fair if I get naked first, Hajime."

He pulls the shirt over his head with one arm in a swift movement and lets it fall to the floor. He steps closer so that his body can cage yours in against the bed. His knees were nudging your own apart slightly. "We're nowhere near even, Peaches." 

Your fingers trace the patterns of his tattoos, running up his arms and across his chest. Iwaizumi lets you touch him like this, a cool grin curling upon his lips. "You like them?" Your fingers find a dragon wrapped in ivy; the teal creature struggles to the sky on his right arm. Tsubaki flowers bloom across his pec then the more traditional Yakuza tattoos catch your eye. You knew he was a part of a gang, but this was so detailed. You press your mouth to the flowers and nod. "They are beautiful. You are beautiful, Ha-" He cuts you off, catching your mouth with his and kissing you deeply.

The sensuality of the kiss makes your back arch practically into him. When you broke it to breathe, he's smiling down at you brushing your hair back with such careful calloused hands. "No one has ever called me beautiful before, Tsubaki-chan." He nibbles your bottom lip before lifting a hand to your chest. "Can I take all this off you? I want you."

There were moments of softness as your clothes fell away to skin. Iwaizumi’s rough hands roaming gently down your body until he got to your cunt again. You breathed in sharply as he touched you and felt your body react and arch toward him. "Hajime." You moaned as he captured your lips and reached for your hand to place it on his thick considerable cock.

Your delicate fingers wrapping around him caused his breath to catch in his throat. "Fuck, dummy."

You stroked him gently, rubbing your thumb over the slit on his cock as you did so. He caged you in from above as your feather-light touch caused a soft moan to escape his lips.

He hisses through his teeth as your foreheads touch, and you stroke him, your hand tightening a bit as you move it. "Tsubaki..." He whispers against your skin, dropping kisses against your shoulders, "That sweet hand of yours, it probably doesn't feel as good as your cunt. I want to do something for you, though." 

He pulls you with him and rolls onto his back. He pulls your hips to his face roughly, his large hands cupping your ass as he did so. "I'll make you feel good, dummy. Just sit still and enjoy the ride." His teeth nicked your thighs as he pulls you closer to his mouth. "Hajime! Hey, wait. I don't want you to get hurt by me." He looked up at you from between your legs; he’s practically salivating as he says. "Oh, you little dummy. You won't hurt me. I want to make you feel good." He pressed his face to your center, smirking when he felt your thighs clench under his hands. "Sensitive, huh?" You squeal a little bit as he buries his face between your thighs.

You're drenched, and his tongue has you fisting his hair with the first stroke. He speaks against your cunt, something you can't quite hear, but it makes your body vibrate, "Mine." His fingers spread you wide tentative licks against everywhere but where you want him. He's not gentle. He eats you out like a starving man. Getting lost in your taste. You gasp and whine as your body arches against him. His nose brushes against your clit, and your nails dig into his arms. Fingers against the inked limbs.

You're gushing against his mouth as he tugs you against his face more. He hummed against your clit, smirking as your body arches and your full weight finally rests on his face. His tongue flattens against your cunt, as he finally lets his the fingers of his right-hand slip inside of you. "Cum, Tsubaki. Cum for me."

He sucks against your clit, his teeth grazing against it slightly. You gasped, hips bucking slightly. He chuckles as you tug his hair, "Hajime, I..." You came hard thighs locking around his ears as your body falls to his face. You're trying to catch your breath, body folding to the pillow. Hajime slips out from under you, rolling you over and pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek. "You okay there, Peaches? You taste so good. I couldn't help myself." He reached for your cheek brushing your hair away from your face gently. "Such a pretty little thing."

Your fingers brush against his inked arms and chest softly. "Did these hurt?" You ask as you catch your breath. He doesn't seem as though he's going to move forward tonight. He's made you cum. It was all he wanted today unless you were up for more. "They hurt like hell. Mat- uh, my tattoo artist has a heavy hand." You trace the dragon as it rolls up his shoulder. "So... Now what?"

Iwaizumi rolls on top of you, nipping your neck, his sharp teeth making you jump. "Now, I'll fuck you. I'll fucking ruin you for anyone else." He looks up at you before taking your chin in his hands. "If you don't want this, let me know. We can stop right now." You leaned forward to catch his mouth, kissing him mid-sentence. "Fuck me, Hajime."

He groans against your mouth, moving to pin you against the bed. A growl slipped from his lips as he pressed you against the bed, he pushed his pants down and his boxers following as well. His cock bounced against his stomach, well-hung; you couldn't help but lick your lips. You noticed more tattoos that traveled down his legs as well. His golden skin is covered in beautiful black ink.

"You're beautiful." You whispered. Iwaizumi reaches for your hand before kissing the inside of your wrist. "You are. Now, lay back for me." You do so, and his body covers yours. He reaches between your legs, grinning down at you, "Such a wet little slut." He made sure to look into your eyes when he degraded you. He was checking to see if this was okay. "Please. Daddy..." His mouth dives into yours, his tongue licking generously into your lips. He lines his cock up to your entrance before pushing inside of you.

A whine escapes your lips. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, dummy. You feel so fucking good." You clutch his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. "Fucking hell." He caught your lips before pushing into your insides more. He bottomed out finally, your walls fluttering around him. Your plush velvet walls fluttered while he lifted his eyes to meet your own. "Are you cumming again? You're so tight." Spots developed in your vision as he ruts into you. His hips grind against your own, the angle of him lifting your hips, but pressing your chest down slightly to the bed made your back arch.

"Harder. Fuck me harder, Hajime."

His hand slips up your chest to your throat, wrapping it around it as he lowered his body to yours, his mouth against your ear. "You got it." He sets a rough pace, his hand squeezing around your neck to control the way your body felt for him. "So fucking tight." He groans as he shifts your hips to change the angle again. You cry out loudly as he continues to rut against you. The head of his cock nudges your cervix entrance, and you arch, a whine escaping your lips. He was stretching you out in the best ways; your entire body arches as you cum unexpectedly, eyes widening as he meets your gaze.

"Came already? Pretty slut. Daddy's turn."

He kisses your mouth before rolling you over, pressing his chest to your back as he presses inside of you again. You’re sensitive from your orgasm and fluttering around him again. He grins against your shoulder before moving his hips roughly against yours; his right hand slides from your hip to your mouth, right hand, and sticking two fingers between your lips, he grins. "Fuck, you're gorgeous like this. All fucked out on my cock. Your mouth open like this. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." He starts pulling his fingers from your lips and finding your clit to make you cum again.

He drives your head into the mattress, and you gasp the angle changes again. "Where do you want me to cum, Dummy?"

"Inside. Please, Daddy."

His green eyes met yours as you spoke, begging him to cum inside. He grabs you by the neck, pulling you up against his chest, and presses his mouth against your ear. "That's it, baby. That's it, so tight." As you cum again, he follows, groaning as he does. "Fuck, what a good girl. Good fucking girl." He presses kisses to your shoulders as your body collapses bonelessly in Hajime's arms. He gently lets your body move to the bed. He brushes a hand through your hair as he pulls out and watches as his cum slips out of your cunt slowly. He pushes it back in with his fingers before looking up at your face. "Let me clean you up and get you some water."

You groan softly before nodding. "Maybe two cups of water. Hajime, I don't think anyone's ever..." He grinned, pressing a kiss to your fingers. "I can tell. I'll be back. Towels?" 

"The linen closet is outside the door. My cups are above the sink. Thank you."

Hajime leaves the room to grab what he needs to clean you up. Meanwhile, you sigh, trying to relax now that your sexual libido's been satiated. It was then you heard his phone go off—the ring tone indicating a text message. You reached for it, surprised when it opens up right away.

shittykawa: Well, is the job done?

Your eyes widen, quickly placing the phone back, unsure as to what he was talking about, but whatever it was, you didn't need to get involved. Hajime came back into the room, moving the damp towel up to your leg while holding a glass toward you in the other. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Hey, I think your phone went off." He continued cleaning you off, reaching for the object with a frown. "Shittykawa, it's not important. Now, do you want me to stay tonight?"

"Yes."

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” He kisses your cheek gently before grabbing his phone and getting up from the bed. You fell into a deep sleep as you waited for him to come back. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi stared out the window in your living room, calling Oikawa quickly. “Pick up, pick up.”

“Iwa-chan, what the fuck are you doing? Why isn’t she dead yet?”

“Listen, Shittykawa. It’s a bad hit. I’m going to kill whoever put it out on here. She’s an asset to the red light society.”

“Are you blinded by pussy? Iwa-chan. She’s Ushijima’s sister. She’s collateral for him. The guy who put the hit out wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because the amount of money we were paid wasn’t anything to sneeze at. Look, if you don’t kill her, another team might.”

“I don’t care. It’s a bad hit, Tōru. Please.”

“Fuck, you slept with her. Fine… We’ll come up with something… Fuck, Hajime. If she gets you killed, I’ll kill her myself.”

“She won’t. Now, good night…”

“Good night. Enjoy your fucking fuck.”

[strawberrysoup]

Pocketful of Posies || Chapter 1

You’d been hiding for years and years now; from your family, from society, from alphas and packs. Suppressants were dangerous but effective and necessary for an omega who refused to be owned—but no suppressants were strong enough to fool the nose of a super soldier, who together with his pack would stop at nothing to bind you to them forever. 

pairings: dark!Avengers x reader word length: 3.3k chapters: 1/? warnings: A/B/O dynamics, power imbalances, noncon and dubcon sexual situations, loss of autonomy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat — this is a dark!fic, read at your own risk. Open the read more and CTRL + F, search “content warnings” to skip to detailed trigger warnings at the bottom of the chapter.

Cleaning rich people’s vacation homes hadn’t been your dream job growing up. You had such high hopes when you were a kid, well into your teens, of becoming a zoologist. It had started off like most kid’s dreams—in kindergarten you wanted to be a veterinarian. That grew into wanting to become a herpetologist, but then you wondered, why limit yourself? As a zoologist you could be around tons and tons of animals, studying their behaviors and ecological impacts. It was about half way past your fourteenth birthday that you realized none of your dreams mattered.

You woke in the middle of the night to a crippling pain in your stomach, an unbearable heat boiling under your flesh. You must’ve been screaming, because your parents burst in frantically—only to stop dead upon stepping past the threshold. At the time you had no idea why, but it had been shock. Omegas were rare nowadays, more and more betas were being born while the number of omegas dropped. It was a point on contention; betas could breed with alphas, rendering the omega almost obsolete but alphas, especially ones with packs, wanted omegas.

Personally, you figured that evolution had decided to take things into its’ own hands. Everything about omegas spat in the face of adaption; they were small and delicate, hardwired to obey alpha commands even to their own detriment, experienced a full weeks’ worth of being completely and utterly incapable of survival on their own—

Well, unless one acquired (through whatever means necessary) methods to prevent it that one. Heats, a homegrown threat guaranteed to commit acts of violence at least twice a year. By the time your first had worn off, your parents had already jumped into action. They had three different packs bidding on you. Your mother had been bubbling with glee, talking about how wonderful it was that she had produced an omega when she herself was a beta. Your very existence was about to rocket them into both fame and fortune. So, you ran away. That same night.

It had been shockingly easy to locate illegal suppressants. They taught all about them in school, how they were horrible and taxing on an omega’s physiology. Suppressants masked an omega’s scent, prevented their heats, and (in your opinion) were the best invention of the twenty first century. You couldn’t have given a flying fuck about what negative impacts they might’ve had on your body—death would be a reprieve. Unfortunately you’d yet to have any of the widely touted negative effects (effects that you were pretty sure were made up to keep omegas afraid and compliant) and so you found yourself cleaning rich people’s vacation homes just over the Canadian border.

You’d been living out of your car since you first bought it at sixteen, for five hundred dollars. You gave a creepy beta a blowjob to get your license forged. It was the best investment you’d ever made (not that you had the opportunity to make many) and the clunker was still getting you from point A to point B and that’s all you needed. You had to move constantly, staying in one place too long meant people started to notice you, especially in the small towns you frequented in Ontario. But there was so much forest surrounding you that every once in a while you could just drop off the face of the earth, camping so deep in the woods no one would stumble across you. It made staying anonymous so much easier.

That was actually the current plan, after you finished cleaning this last massive cabin; to abscond into the woods for a while, until you’ve faded from everyone’s memory. You won’t return to this town for at least a year. You’ll spark recognition when you return, but not enough for anyone to consider you more than an outsider in their close-knit community. The kind woman who lets you work for her cleaning company so sporadically will remember you when you ring her, the only person particularly thrilled to hear you’re back for a few months.

You do an excellent job and you do it fast— you can thoroughly and perfectly clean a 6 bedroom mansion by yourself in less than 10 hours and you were paid under the table so you didn’t require overtime, which Mrs. Hunt loved (there was no tax to be taken from an unreported cash payment though, so it was a fair trade in your opinion). You would work yourself to the bone, 10 hours a day everyday there was work available for at least three months and then dip without any expectations until the next time you returned, when she was gushing over the amazing reviews your work had gotten the last time you were around.

It was symbiotic existence—you were paid well for your efforts, more than enough to sustain living out of your car for months at a time, and your performance drove her online reviews into the 4.9 stars range and made it feasible for her to raise her prices. Mrs. Hunt didn’t ask any questions either, even when you requested to only work alone and couldn’t provide any identification beyond a driver’s license.

You were finishing up the kitchen in what was definitely one of the nicest places you’d ever cleaned when your phone went off in your back pocket. It made your skin prickle. Very few people had your number and you couldn’t think of a single reason they’d ring you instead of texting unless something was wrong.  You propped the mop against your shoulder and dug out the phone, frowning at Mrs. Hunt’s name on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Oh sweetie, I’m so glad I got a hold of you! How are you doing?”

“I’m well, Mrs. Hunt,” you answered, your voice coming out semi-robotically as you strained not to sound panicked while continuing the conversation like a normal fucking person, “I’m just about done here, I was finishing the dry mop in the kitchen when you called and then all I need to do is pack up.”

“Oh perfect! I was calling because the owner just rang me, apparently some of his packmates will be arriving a bit earlier than anticipated—potentially within the next hour. Something about someone getting caught up at work, I’ll spare you the details. But if you’re almost done then you’ll probably be gone by the time they arrive.”

“Certainly Mrs. Hunt,” you’d immediately started frantically dry mopping the moment the words ‘within the next hour’ escaped the woman’s mouth, phone clamped between your ear and shoulder. “I’ll be gone in the next few minutes.”

“Now even if you aren’t its okay,” the concern in her voice meant that your own had betrayed you, waivered when you responded without your knowledge. “I always warn the owners that if they arrive before the scheduled time that there’s a possibility the house won’t be done and/or there might be people actively working in the house. You won’t get in any trouble, okay?”

“R-Right, thank you ma’am,” you swallowed heavily, finishing the last swipe across the tile in the kitchen and hustling back into the foyer. “I really won’t be but a minute though. I always keep all of my equipment put away and together if I’m not using it, so I really just need to pack up the mop.”

Which you’d already shoved into the rolling cart you picked up each morning that held all of your cleaning supplies provided by the company.

“Don’t forget your bucket too!” Mrs. Hunt sounded smiley again, “I’ll leave the key under the mat so you can stow your cart tonight. Have a good one swee—.”

“You too!” You might’ve hung up a touch too soon to be considered polite, shoving the phone back into your pocket and running into the kitchen. There was no time to dwell on manners. 

The mop bucket was sitting on the counter, already washed and dried and waiting to be put away. You’d started keeping your things completely put away at all times the same day you’d been accosted by a homeowner who arrived home earlier than expected while you were still trying to pack up. You’d tried to put your notice in that night, a couple of years ago now, but Mrs. Hunt begged you not to—promised it would never happen again. This must’ve been her best attempt at preventing it. At least you had already planned to leave town tonight anyway.

You nearly sprinted back to the cart, haphazardly tossing the stupid bucket on top and wheeling it towards the huge front doors. You’d just stopped to reach around and grab the handle when the knob turned and the left door was pushed open, nearly hitting your cart.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he was a beta, curly haired and dark eyed with pale skin, wearing a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Did I knock anything over?”

“N-No, sir,” you pulled the cart back a few steps, nearly trembling with the effort it took not to blast right past him, especially when you noticed him carefully scenting the air. "The house is all clean, I was j-just leaving.”

“Thank you, for getting everything clean for us. We don’t get to come out here as often as we like, I’m sure the place collected a lot of dust in our absence,” he smiled, looking both parts shy and calculating to your well trained eye— and you had no time for such consideration.

“Not too much, h-have a nice night!” You could feel your pulse racing and that was bad. Even the good suppressants, the ones that most of your money went to, had difficulty completely masking the scent of panicking omega.

“Did you use bleach?” The question caught you off guard and you almost jumped when he put a hand on your cart, glancing through the array of chemicals.

“Y-Yes, in the bathrooms. I wasn’t informed of any sensitivities—”

“Nothing a little fresh air won’t take care of,” you wanted him to stop looking at you like that, like there was some pale flash of recognition behind his eyes. “Would you go open the windows in the bathrooms upstairs? I’m afraid my nose is pretty sensitive, several of my packmates are similar.”

You did not like that his nose was especially sensitive and you hated that his packmates were similarly afflicted. It felt like getting punched in the face with a fight or flight instinct, your brain immediately demanded that you leave the cart and run past him—fuck the cart, fuck the job, you could find something else.

“Oh, and do you have the key to the front doors? I might as well get them from you now instead of us having to go down to the office tomorrow.” Your hand immediately dove into your pocket, yanking out the single key and dropping it in his palm. “Thanks— and the windows? Sorry, I just can’t go up there until it’s aired out.”

He wasn’t a huge man but the way he filled the doorway made you second guess trying to run past him, even if he was greying at the temples and looking a little rumpled. It was strange, you wouldn’t usually have such an intense reaction to a beta, but something about him was vaguely unsettling. So instead of trying to make a run for it, you turned on your heel and forced yourself to calmly walk up the stairs. There were four massive bedrooms in the cabin, each with its own bathroom and you’d need to go through and open the windows for the three bathrooms that had them. It meant darting into huge bedrooms, dodging expensive furniture and knickknacks and trying not to dirty the freshly mopped and swept hardwood floors in the process.

It took about five minutes but you felt like you’d run a marathon, your heart was pounding and there was sweat at the nape of your neck. All you wanted was out of the stupid fucking house, immediately. You dashed down the stairs and turned the corner, seeing your cart right where you left it. The door was still open too, but the beta was no where to be seen. You immediately darted forward, grabbing the cart tightly and beginning to push it past the threshold—

You were stopped in your tracks at the sight of two unnecessarily broad alphas. Both were tall, the white man standing just an inch or so taller, with a full beard and blond hair. The black alpha had facial hair too, a cleanly edged goatee to match a faded cut. Both were incredibly attractive and putting off waves of pheromones, to the point that your head floated for a moment.  Your lips clamped shut on a whine, instinct trying to push through and alert the two powerful alphas of your presence. Instead you ducked your head and continued out the door.

“Hi there, sweetheart.” Your gaze snapped up, immediately locking with a pair of dark brown eyes. “You the housekeeper?”

“Yes sir,” you answered quietly, stopping short in front of them when neither moved out of your way. “Sorry to have been here so late. Have a good evening.”

Both were still smiling, still pointedly not moving.

“My name’s Steve, that’s Sam,” the blond’s nose twitched, just slightly, and you realized he was very discretely scenting the air. “Nice to meet you. Do you live in town?”

“N-No, please excuse me,” you nudged the cart forward just an inch but they still didn’t budge and panic began coursing through your blood with renewed vigor, “excuse m—”

“Your scent is… confusing,” Steve’s head tilted to the side, “I don’t mean to be crass, of course, but I couldn’t help but notice.”

“It’s always been this way,” the response was automatic and your brain began shutting down all unnecessary functions; you were about to have to run and hope your omega physiology would make you faster than them.

“You smell almost like an omega,” he continued, both hands coming to rest on his hips, emphasizing the width of his shoulders. “But not quite?”

“I’m a beta.”

“Are you sweetheart?” Sam’s voice was a rumble, his head tilted to the side while his dark eyes burned holes into your skin.

The tone an alpha used with naughty omegas was deliberate and tightly controlled, the same as a command or a purr or a growl. It was on purpose, an attempt to nicely draw out the correct response. He wanted you to admit you were an omega, to tell them the truth of your own volition. The fact that your hindbrain desperately wanted to comply was a completely different issue—one you didn’t have time to address right now.

“Positive,” you breathed, clenching your fists tightly around the handles of the cart for just a second before deciding to leave it behind; you’d never be coming back here, there was no reason to worry about preserving your job.

Your eyes were quick and indefinitely perceptive. Being an omega was one step up from being a prey species, it came with inherent instincts that made you especially good at predicting behaviors. After all, an omega was only as good as their ability to please and soothe packmates. One of the single upsides to being an omega was that you were fast though—fast enough to outrun most alphas. And you only needed to go about a hundred and fifty feet, once you were in your car you could certainly get away. So the second you realized the pair was about to shift, moving to face each other more than you, you darted around the cart and dodged to the left.

It wasn’t your fault, honestly. There was no way you could’ve known you weren’t dealing with normal alphas. The blond was so fast that he almost moved between blinks—one moment he was still, the next he’d wrapped his arms around you and tugged you back into his chest. His arms were like steel, one wrapped around your torso to keep your arms pinned to your sides while the other carefully held your chin. Your hindbrain was screaming now, submit, submit, make alpha happy and you bit down on your tongue to hold in the whimpers, the omega sounds your throat was trying to produce.

“Shhh, shh, calm down,” it was half a tone away from being a purr and you continued to squirm while you still could—an alpha command was coming, you could feel it in your bones.

“Let Steve smell you,” Sam was rumbling instead of talking again, a similar half purr to how Steve had started speaking. "Everything’s okay, omega.”

You felt a nose nudge down your neck, towards your scent gland and you bared your teeth at the man in front of you. “I’m not an omega!”

“You smell like omega,” Steve’s breath ghosted over your skin and you fought a shiver. "Sort of. It’s buried, under… beta… sour beta?”

“What sort of suppressants are you on, sweetie?” You startled as the beta from earlier emerged from the house, wiping his hands on a dish towel absently. "Are you cutting them with anything? Heroin, or coke? It’s okay, you just need to tell me.”

“Tell Bruce sweetheart,” Sam coaxed, automatically moving to roll up the sleeves of your shirt, evidently looking for track marks. "Where do you get them?”

“I’m not on suppressants!” Your voice was almost a shriek at this point, desperately imitating the behavior of an angry beta rather than a terrified omega. “I’m a beta! Get off of me!”

“Okay, okay, here then,” Steve’s arm around your torso tightened, the one on your chin beginning to work its way down towards your jeans. "There’s only way one to tell for sure.”

Shock and fear and humiliation; an array of emotions swarmed through your body as his hand popped the button but those were the three you could identify and you immediately started thrashing your legs—he was going to check if you had an omega ridge and then everything would be over. It was a defining physical characteristic that couldn’t be passed off as anything other than what it was: a boney protrusion meant to catch on an alpha’s knot so they could be locked in place. In females it was found in the vagina, prominently featured directly before the g-spot so a knot would cause persisting pleasure. For males it was similarly positioned next to the prostate.

“Calm down, calm down!” Sam crooned, hands coming up to cup your face as while Steve’s slithered down the front of your jeans and into your panties. "It’s okay sweetheart, no matter what. Whatever Steve finds, you’re okay. You’re safe. We’ll keep you safe.”

The thrashing was doing nothing but tiring you out, you’d already been intensively cleaning for the past 9 hours without a break and it certainly wasn’t dissuading the hand slithering between your folds. You bit down on your tongue harder, until you drew blood to prevent the whimpers—you couldn’t make that stupid sound, you’d never make that stupid, pathetic, whiney noise, you couldn’t. Not even when a long, thick finger penetrated and sunk knuckle deep. Not even when the pad of said finger brushed your g-spot before hooking onto the ridge, tugging gently in a way that would’ve caused blinding pleasure had you not grounded yourself with the pain of biting your tongue.

“There it is,” Steve’s voice was soft, finger carefully running the length of the ridge. "A nice deep one too.”

“How long have you been taking suppressants?” Bruce prodded quietly, coming to stand next to Sam. “I need to know what sort of damage we’re looking at.”

When you didn’t respond Sam sighed, fingers brushing gently over your chin as he directed you to face him. "Please don’t make us use an alpha command, sweetheart. We just wanna take care of you. Tell Bruce how long you’ve been on suppressants, please.”

You regarded the handsome alpha for several short moments before spitting a mouthful of blood directly into his face.

 content warnings: assault, noncon vaginal fingering

edited 7/9/21 - still on hiatus

[ezwhump]

Let the Cat Out of the Bag - pet whump, pet-sitting, pampered pet, introduction of characters 

“Explain it to me again.”

“Aw, fuck off, Farhan.”

“No, seriously!” Farhan spat a seed shell into the solo cup and  took another swig of his beer. “This woman puts an ad in the fucking paper, for christ’s sake, asking for someone to what? Look after her kitty cat?”

He buckled over, eyes creasing, and barked out a laugh. 

“No you got that exactly right, man,” Gregor let his mouthful of warm beer dribble back into the bottle and set it down on the table. “She’s got some sorta terminal illness, says she won’t be home enough to look after it, yeah? That’s where I come in.” 

Farhan snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah but she could just sell it though. Get some dough before she croaks.” He leaned over and snatched the paper off the table. “Pet-sitting. Fucking hell. I can loan you the money, you know.” 

When Farhan got serious he got fancy, started picking up his ‘t’s, shortening his vowels. Offering money. It made Gregor raise his hackles. 

“When you think about it, it's not a bad gig. I get to fuck around in some OAP’s house all day and I get paid for it. If I do a decent enough job maybe I get in on the will.”

Farhan shook his head, flipping to the sports section of the paper. “You’re a fuckin’ vulture, man.”

Gregor smiled to himself and drank his warm beer anyway. Farhan didn’t really understand, it didn’t matter what the job was, it mattered what the pay was. And he’d do pretty much anything at this point (except become Farhan’s charity case), so long as food got put on the table and the bills were paid, even looking after some geriatric’s pet. 

Even if he was allergic to cats. 

--

The car pulled up a few streets away from the old lady’s, and Gregor opened the passenger door. 

Farhan leaned over and rolled down the window. “You got your cell?”

Gregor patted his jean’s back pocket. 

“Right, good. Wallet, keys?”

“Fuck off, Farhan.” Gregor was getting irate, jumping on the spot with his hands in his front pockets. It was too fucking cold outside for chit-chat, he wanted to get into the warm house and start eating. 

Farhan laughed and cranked up the window with a “right, right”. 

The house was in a cul-de-sac of luxury townhomes, redbrick with intricate railings and a courtyard with a fountain. Gregor was suddenly very aware of his ratty sneakers and DIY buzzcut. He spat into the bushes and rang the doorbell, stopping short of shouting up to the closest window. It seemed like the sort of place where people would stop and stare if you spoke too loudly, and god forbid he caused a kerfuffle and the police were called. 

He patted his pocket for his dab pen and rolled it between his thumb and finger while he waited to be buzzed in. 

“Katz residence.” 

Gregor jumped and turned to the intercom speaker on the side of the doorway. He pressed the little purple button. 

“Uh, hi. It's Gregor. Enache. I’m here for the pet-sitting gi- job.” 

He waited for a moment, wind whipping inside his jacket and making him shudder. Then the intercom buzzed and he heard a lock click, so he took his cue and went inside. 

After processing the excessive grandeur of the lobby, Gregor took the elevator up to the top floor. All the hallways were cream with soft white lights in sconces and glittering from chandeliers. The floors were marble, and Gregor almost laughed when his soles squeaked and tracked dirt if he scraped them hard enough. 

There was a soft tinkling music coming from somewhere and all the doors were painted a deep plum colour with gold handles. The whole place smelled like sweet perfume. Part of Gregor wanted to break everything just to check if it was real (especially the little statues on the antique tables), part of him wanted this whole place to be preserved in resin so he could stare at it forever, but he mostly just wanted to see if there were price listings for any of it. The pawn potential made him lightheaded. 

“She’s gonna pay you,” he reminded himself, stopping at door 19 and rapping the golden knocker. It was shaped like a cat. 

  A boy answered the door. Well, not really a boy, though he seemed younger. He looked around Gregor’s age, 22 or so, but they were leagues apart. 

He had pearl-blonde hair that stopped at the base of his throat and his lanky frame was a little taller than Gregor. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and slacks made out of the same muslin fabric, but his feet were bare and clean. 

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Enache.” A woman’s voice called out from the guy who stepped aside silently to let Gregor in. 

Salma Katz was sitting on a white lounge sofa in a skirt and blouse, her legs crossed at the ankles. She wasn’t geriatric by any stretch of the imagination but she did have an air of vulnerability around her, like something was wrong and she was using every vice at her disposal to hide it. It showed in the way she picked at her nails or kept tucking back her blonde bob. 

“Hi.” Gregor stood dumbly in the entryway, eyes darting to all of the fanciful objects littered about the place. Little markings of money, of privilege. He felt sort of trapped. “Um, so where is the little guy?”

Salma was blinking sluggishly, and Gregor couldn’t help but compare it to when his mom had gotten hold of Farhan’s Vicodin after his dental surgery last month. Hazy, drugged up. It was probably painkillers or something. 

“There are a few things I should go over before I leave, but just in case there’s a list on the refrigerator.” She gestured for Gregor to sit and he did, slumping into the love-seat across from her, a glass coffee table between them with a small vase of peach roses in the middle of it. 

“I’m very invested in the comfort and safety of my pet while I’m enjoying treatment, and thus very meticulous. . . about who watches him.” The boy had taken a seat on the floor in front of her lounge chair, and Gregor had to drag his eyes back to Salma. 

“Right. Well, I mean, why put it in the paper then? Any dickwad off the street could come in.” A humoured smile lit up her face, and Gregor caught himself. “Uh, with all due respect, ma’am.”

Salma laughed, an airy, unbothered sound. “Well, just prove to me that I made the correct choice young man, and we won’t have a problem.” Her eyes trailed Gregor up and down and he tried not to squirm, setting his jaw and meeting her eyes. They glinted. “Now, Leander has a particular diet which I included on the list. I presume you can cook?”

Gregor nodded. He’d had to learn a long time ago. 

“Wonderful. Taking him outside the apartment is discouraged, however we do have a balcony if you’ll be needing to smoke or he needs fresh air. He takes a bath most nights, and you’ll know what to wash him with. Oh, and of course if you need anything from him all you need to do is ask.” 

“It’s trained?” Gregor felt his eyes widen, impressed. Cat’s weren’t usually trained, but he should’ve figured given the context of the whole situation. 

“Indeed he is. Now, I wouldn’t want him to get lonely, either. He has his own room but he does enjoy company. Would you be available to watch him five days a week?”

Gregor thought for a moment and nodded. He’d cover his bases, pay his dues, on the weekend. And besides, pets didn’t really require all that much effort. 

“Perfect. Does 7-12 feel appropriate? Of course we’d provide you with adequate food, a bed, transport, and whatever else you require to perform your duties.” She was talking slowly, like she was trying to coerce a wild animal into a cage, but Gregor wasn’t going to complain. Living in a place like this all day, free food, a fucking car, and all he had to do was refill a food bowl and wrestle it into a bath sometimes? He felt like he’d stumbled upon a get-out-of-jail-free card. 

“Sure, no problem.”

Salma smiled again and smoothed her hand along the boy’s hair, standing up and gesturing for Gregor to do so as well. Gregor tried to keep the incredulity from showing on his face. 

She reached out and took Gregor’s hand, clasping it briefly and then turning back to the boy. Gregor looked around again for a tabby, a persian. A fucking tiger. 

Salma ushered the boy forward, and he stood graceful and silent in front of Gregor, avoiding eye contact. 

“Mr. Enache, this is Leander. My pet.”

--- 

I’m taking a short break from Russ & Lennon, but hopefully you guys will enjoy reading about Gregor & Leander as much as I enjoy writing them :) I’m starting up a new tag list for these two so if you’d like to be included pls just let me know! <3 - ez 

--

tag list: __ 

[junquisite]

Master’s Pet : Introduction + Preview

PAIRING : Mafia Leader! Seungwoo X Mafia Member!OC X Mafia Member! Seungyoun

GENRE : Mafia smut AU

WARNING : Mature content, mention of violence and firearms, implied sexual content.

further warning for each chapter would be provided.

Word Count : 1.8k

Han Seungwoo - the man who can fulfill all your requests but at a certain price. You just have to to know the right people and the not so right people and the certainly not right places to hang. Most people who have had Seungwoo do something for them have never met him. This is how he works.

There are three people through which you can ask him for help.

Kim Yohan - the man you can find in any high class parties or lounges - as long as there would be good food and good booze, you'll find him there.

Lee Hangyul - the one probably easiest to find. The club he runs is the biggest in Seoul, he's always there. You just need to know how to get his attention - either you must have a lot of money or a girl he wants. Place your best bet, he gets both.

Kim Wooseok - the hardest to get. You need to have an appointment to see him. Go to the hotel he runs, ask the front desk to see him. If you're lucky, you can see him in the same month.

The Coaescie Group, or more like the front for the mafia which owns both the hotel and club has the Owner as Kang Seungsik who manages the front of the mafia. The CEO who is loved by the public and feared by the people who wrong him. An apt representative of the Coaescie gang. The perfect personality for the public’s eye but the tattoo at his neck states otherwise.

The Coaescie gang - dealing mainly in drugs and assassinations - has more than a 100 people working under it, most of whom have never met more than 1 main gang member. One of the main 21 gang members.

The one at the top - Han Seungwoo. Most feared and most respected - a name known in the underground as an equal to god, you never wrong him, it'll always have its consequences. The leader of the gang.

His right hand man - Cho Seungyoun. The one through whom all messages to Seungwoo goes through. Specialises in close combat, uses his Glock and is equally familiar with knives. Been with Seungwoo since the start. Known as the "Sadistic Torturer" - can torture someone for days to get something out, success rate of 99% in extracting information.

His other jewel - Cha Jieun. A sniper user with a success rate of 100%. Equally strong in close combat and weapons, prefers knives, especially her trench knife. Is the youngest in the gang but third in lead after Seungyoun. Seungwoo picked her up from an alley a few years after he started. Had barely spoken more than three words with anyone. Known as the "Soulless Killer" - shows close to no remorse or expression when killing.

The gang members share one house which is well equipped with bulletproof windows and walls, a basement completely furnished with a shooting range and training rooms, another room containing all sorts of weapons and a floor even below holding the prisoner and torture cells. It was just them 21 members and a couple of trustable servants who were paid just enough to keep their mouth shut, and obviously their family’s life also depended on their secret keeping so.

There were a few unspoken rules in the house. You don't talk with Cha Jieun unless you absolutely have to. She remained secluded either in her own room or Seungwoo's. Seungyoun was the most approachable person in the house and you can talk to him about anything.

The biggest unspoken but followed rule was - you never question what Han Seungwoo does. Or with whom. So it was never questioned why Jieun was found more easily in his room or office then her own room. Why his office was off limits for everyone except Seungyoun. What relationship more than a simple gang leader and gang member, did Han Seungwoo and Cha Jieun shared. You don't question these things nor do you talk about them, at least in the house. No one could stop Hangyul’s mouth anyway.

The other thing is, after Han Seungwoo, you never question Cho Seungyoun about what he does no matter how readable his face is. Because he never shows what he's truly feeling - you can never trust Seungyoun’s facial expressions. And he’s the loyalest of all members - he had never gone against Seungwoo’s order even once, ever done anything that might be disliked by him. He was the epitome of loyalty. So no one but Hangyul, because he has zero fears, has ever called him out on his extremely apparent attraction to Cha Jieun. No one knows if it was his utmost loyalty to Seungwoo overpowering him or his potential fear from him that he never once acted on his possible feelings. Nor has he ever paid any heed to Hangyul’s extremely invasive questions and given him the satisfaction of letting him see any slip on Seungyoun’s facial features. He has denied any attraction to Cha Jiuen - all 11 times that Hangyul has asked him.

But wooseok was the smart one. He notices things that Hangyul the loud mouth doesn't. Like the way Seungyoun sometimes joins Jieun in the dining area at her table when she’s home and how caring his every action is. How his eyes linger a bit too long on Jieun whenever she sparsely is seen. How, whenever, Jieun stays too long in Seungwoo’s office, Seungyoun stays distracted and his eyes keep on wandering to that door. How he had seen Seungyoun, on multiple occasions, checking Jieun’s room when she is home but not in her room and sighing and looking longingly at Seungwoo’s room’s direction. He had seen it all. And he was sure Hangyul’s accusations actually hold some weightage. But he was not dumb enough to voice that. Wooseok was the third person to join the gang, after Seungyoun and in all this time he had never seen Seungyoun lose his temper. But he was close to betting that it would happen soon.

~

Seungyoun might go on his missions but he always has a few tasks fixed. Like how he only owns the keys to all the rooms of the house including the basement rooms so his first task every morning is to open those rooms. And how daily before sleeping he has to report all the things to Seungwoo. Seungwoo has told Seungyoun multiple times that he trusts him enough that he doesn't have to tell him every detail but Seungyoun does. He feels better after telling him and believes that the leader should know every detail - he was Seungwoo’s eyes and ears and the brain must always be aware of everything.

Nothing was out of the ordinary. He knocked on the office door and entered at the soft ‘come in’. Seungwoo was as usual sitting on his chair behind his desk, a file opened in front of him, a smile on his face as he looked at Seungyoun. Seungyoun had often wondered why Seungwoo didn't decide to establish himself as the face of the group when he had such a charming face himself but he never questioned it.

“Anything new?” was his first question as he looked at his side, one of the doors to his bedroom which was attached to his office slightly ajared and whistled lightly.

“Song Yuvin got busted and he needs us to hide his whole stash till then.”

“Didn't he tried to run off without paying us last time?” Seungwoo asked as he stared at Seungyoun, business face on and they both heard the bedroom door opening. None of them looked at it.

“He did. I have raised the price to double and the condition is that he has to pay 3/4th of it front up tomorrow. If he can, then we’ll actually do it. He’ll be meeting Yohan tomorrow.” Seungyoun finished and he finally saw who it was that walked out of the room.

Cha Jieun who walked from the bedroom to Seungwoo who was signing his hand for her and she  didn't even glance at Seungyoun, she went straight to Seungwoo and sat in his lap.

Seungwoo pushed his chair back slightly and adjusted her so that her face was hidden in his neck and he started running his fingers through her hair. 

“Anything else? I'm sure you can manage Yuvin.”

“Nothing Sir.” Seungyoun said stiffly and turned around.

“Seungyoun-ah” Seungwoo trailed off and he turned around and saw Jieun peeking at him too. This was new.

“Can you bring a glass of water for Jieun? I would ask the staff but no one is here now and I don't have any water in my office.” he said and Seungyoun nodded.

He was bringing the jar of water and the glass to the office and with gritted teeth, swore. It was not the first time something like this has happened - multiple times situations like this have arisen which had left him wondering if Seungwoo knew everything and was slowly testing him. Testing his breaking point because lately it feels like the scene he walks in on or witnesses keeps on worsening.

Last time he came to his office, everything was normal and Seungwoo was behind his desk like always. Except after staying in the office for a few minutes he heard someone choking and finally looked down at the desk - the slight gap between the desk and floor showing small feets meaning someone was under the desk on the other side. When he looked up at Seungwoo, he just smirked at him. Seungyoun had spent half an hour at the training room that night after that.

He knocked on the door and instead of Seungwoo’s deep voice, Jieun’s soft voice asked him to come in. and he finally took in her sight after a few days - she was on a mission for the past 4 days. She still looked as good as ever - although her arm had a bandage on which meant a sniper kill turned into more during the mission. He wanted to ask her how it went but she looked tired so he decided to leave it till the next time he sees her, preferably in the dining hall.

She took the glass of water from him and thanked him softly and he took that time to scan her for any other injury she might have and that's when he saw it. She was wearing a huge shirt, probably Seungwoo’s, and he was hoping there were shorts underneath it. But when she raised her hand to drink water and the shirt went up, it was not a sight of shorts that greeted his eyes but bruises. Thighs littered with small bruises and bite marks and that was not all - there were hand prints and grip marks. He really did not wanted to dwell on that any more than necessary so he was about to leave when Seungwoo came out of the bedroom and said, “aah Seungyoun-ah! Whenever you go outside can you drop by some pharmacy and buy some ointment? Jieun bruises easily.”

Seungyoun really didn't had to know that. And he really didn't wanted to hear it from Seugnwoo.

[oursustainablefuture]

What A Year As A Small Business Owner Taught Me About Sustainability, Upcycling, Thrifting, and Running a Brand

Written By Campbell Fauber for Our Sustainable Future 

In Summer 2019, I launched the first collection of my sustainable clothing brand, Dauntless Denim,  curious to see how people would respond. While I did not focus on creating an array of clothes, I decided to focus on thrifting and upcycling denim jackets, which was something I had never tried before. In short, thrifting and upcycling are two specific ways we, as consumers, can keep our planet cleaner. This process was exciting but challenging, and I definitely learned a lot. Here are some important things I learned along the way. 

1. If You Can Upcycle, Do It! 

Upcycling is a way consumers can reuse something they own by transforming it into something new and unique. In my own life, I began thinking of ways I could practice sustainability, which involved trying on a more personal level to keep myself from getting rid of clothes I didn’t wear anymore. I decided to upcycle thrifted denim jackets that I found at a local secondhand shop. I gave the jackets a new life by sewing on colorful fabrics that were bold and eye-catching. Upcycling is a great way to make something new out of what you already own and encourages creativity and self-expression. Upcycling is also environmentally-friendly because it helps reduce what goes into a landfill, such as clothes. With all of this in mind, I encourage you to find a piece of old clothing in your closet (or even something laying around your house) and consider upcycling it or, rather, transforming it into something completely new and reimagined. 

2. When In Doubt, Thrift. 

Before I started Dauntless Denim, I had gone to Goodwill a few times to look for some old clothes I could wear again. However, it wasn’t until I officially started my business that I had truly learned how great thrifting was for the environment. I found a local secondhand shop near my house and decided to stop in and see what it was like inside. There were organized racks of clothes of all kinds (e.g. sizes, colors, brands). It was incredible to see so many items ranging from men’s to women’s to kids that were for sale. Immediately, I headed to the denim section and soon discovered a rack of old denim jackets that I could use for my first denim jacket launch. I picked out a few pieces, which were way cheaper than the original price (a perk of thrifting!), and left the store feeling happy and accomplished. All in all, I encourage you to thrift whenever possible. Not only does thrifting help reduce clothing waste, it also helps support your community and establishes your new sense of style. You can also (often) find high-quality clothes for extremely low prices, which is a win-win! Lastly, thrifting is a better option than shopping at fast fashion brands. Consider thrifting at your local secondhand shop for some fresh clothing finds. 

3. You Can’t Be 100% Sustainable, But You Can Try And Do Your Part

Another thing I learned about owning a sustainable small business is that not everything you do is going to be 100% sustainable. Like many other companies and brands, there is never going to be a way to be fully eco-friendly, whether it be in supply chain or production practices. In other words, there is still going to be waste of some kind and the environment will still be impacted in some way, shape, or form. However, what helped me in the early stages of planning my business was that if I can try and do my part for the environment (in my case, it was upcycling denim jackets in order to keep them out of landfills), I could feel lile I am doing what I can to help keep the environment a little bit cleaner. I also realized that even if I do my part in trying to help the planet, I am not capable of impacting the environment in such a large way that the climate change crisis is magically solved. Knowing this, though, I still feel like I need to do my part, even in a small way, to keep my community cleaner and more educated about sustainable practices, including upcycling and thrifting.

4. Cultivating Your Own Ideas & A Brand Takes A Lot of Brainstorming

Something else that I had to take into consideration when I pondered whether or not I wanted to start my own business was what my brand was going to be centered around and what types of ideas I had that would help distinguish me from other brands. I began brainstorming what I envisioned my brand to look like. What was I passionate about? What was feasible and within my skill set? What did I want to potentially sell? All of these questions were top of mind when I first started to wonder what I was going to do with my business. Then, I began trying to think of ways I could create a unique brand that was unlike others I had seen before. That’s when I decided to take the route of sustainability and upcpcycling, which was honestly something that I had been thinking on and off about earlier. Upcycling was also something that had crossed my mind a few times, but I had never really sat down and thought about how I would implement it into my business model. The moral of the story is to not be afraid of starting your own business! The entire process is exciting and motivating. However, it is important to keep in mind that it does take a lot of time and effort to create a brand that is equally unique and feasible. Make sure you are passionate about what you’re doing and don’t be afraid to think outside the box and get outside your comfort zone a little bit. 

5. Social Media Marketing Taught Me More Than Just Marketing!

For me, creating a sustainable brand, and a business in general, meant that I had to spend a lot of time brainstorming and researching the different ways I could effectively create products and also engage with consumers and my community. For example, I had to practically teach myself how to do social media marketing and use Etsy as a platform to sell my products. While this was indeed time consuming, I learned a lot about myself throughout the process. First, I learned that I have to always stay on top of trends in order to sell products (mainly denim jackets and later on, masks) that would catch the eye of the consumer and be relevant enough to do well among similar products. Secondly, I learned that when using platforms such as Instagram to show off my designs, I have to be deliberate in terms of what I post, when I do it, and what I choose to write about in my captions. The more time I spent on social media, the more I learned the ins and outs of digital marketing and the ways I could target consumers. Thirdly, I learned that I have to be patient during this process. Many times since I started my brand, I got too frustrated with myself when something didn’t go right. I immediately wanted to give up and I began questioning what I was doing and if being a business owner was even the right path for me. However, once I took a step back and learned to not put so much pressure on myself for things that didn’t necessarily go right the first time, I could approach each and every situation with more understanding and more clarity. As a result, this helped me market my products better on social media and reach a larger audience that really felt connected to my brand and what I was selling. Looking back on my experiences, I wouldn’t trade being a small business owner for the world.

Interested in learning more about Campbell’s brand? Follow her Instagram @dauntlessdenim to stay updated on her newest releases & her Etsy @shopdauntlessdenim. Also, check out her most recent mask releases as well as the one-of-a-kind upcycled jackets and skirts that are still available for purchase on her Etsy Shop. 

[charlthotte]

Breaking Through the Iron Wall - Aone Takanobu x Reader

Chapter 8

A sharp bout of pain erupted from my face, luckily I hadn't been knocked out - but I'm pretty sure I nearly was. My eyes stung with the great amount of pain exuding from my nose, the force from the ball had surely disrupted something. As if on cue, a warm liquid began seeping down my nostrils, a red liquid. I quickly pinched the bridge of my nose and rolled my head backwards, in an effort to not let my blood splatter onto the gym floor. Everyone's faces turned around to mine, along with a sheepish looking Futakuchi rubbing the back of his neck. Before any of them could make their way over to me, Kamasaki strutted up to Futakuchi and held him the the neck of his shirt - beginning to throw him around rather violently, screaming all kinds of obscenities into his face. It was fair to say that it was absolute chaos, chaos that wouldn't stop any time soon.

One sentence I could determine out of Kamasaki's bellowing was a demand of an apology directed at me. Making it obvious that the grimace was the one to spike to ball at my face. The news didn't surprise me - and I doubted that it'd surprise me if the spike was intentionally aimed at myself, after all - it was Futakuchi. Their dispute didn't seems to be slowing down, despite the whole team - including Moniwa begging them to stop. However, when Aone tried to put himself between them - their little joust halted almost immediately. Almost like Aone's presence scared them well enough into submission.

While everyone else was focused on the ended quarrel, I attempted to sneak out - so I could make it to the bathroom to clean myself up, only for Futakuchi to run up behind me - closely followed by Aone. "I'm sorry (L/N)," He whispered, acknowledging me by my name for the first time, "Feel free to spike me in my face if you want." His voice felt guilty, a stark contrast to his cocky personality.

"It's okay, Futakuchi." I smiled at him, which felt so peculiar that it almost made me cringe. I ushered him away with a curt nod of my head. He walked away obediently, his head hanging lower than his knees. It would have cruel to admit that I found his guilt almost funny. Once again, I tried to leave the gym, this time I managed it - however, Aone still followed closely behind me. I didn't mind his company. Once we arrived at the bathroom; he waited outside the ajar door as I finally let the staunched blood flow from my nose trickle into the sink. There wasn't an abundant amount of blood nor was there a sparse amount, but you could hardly call any blood flow average. Looking in the mirror - my face was still coloured with a reddish hue from the impact of the ball, I proceeded to wash the rest of the blood from under my nose.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Aone peering into the bathroom looking slightly concerned. I honestly didn't understand why he came just to stand outside of the bathroom, but the fact that he was there was the important part. After grabbing a towel and drying my face, then grabbing some tissues for safety precautions - I shuffled my way over to him, smiling through the faint pain still pulsing through my face. I held the tissues up to my nose, hoping to catch any excess blood with it. "Thanks for staying here, Aone." I professed. Without speaking any words, he replied - by nodding and his lip curling up, but only on the left side as always. Out of the blue, he sneezed with the high and delicate tones identical to that morning. That sneeze coming from him was just purely adorable, perhaps even more adorable than before. 

"(L/N), are you feeling better?" He questioned, his deep voice almost at the volume of a whisper. That was the first time he said my name, overall it wasn't really a big thing - but somehow him saying my name just made me feel just the littlest bit happier on the inside.

I was taken aback by his sudden use of words, "Yes, I am. Even if it does still sting a little."

His face dropped upon hearing that, it fell into something I could discern as a scowl of unhappiness or disappointment. It didn't seem he felt that way because I was in pain, but rather the reason why I was in pain. And of course, that was Futakuchi. I made it obvious to Futakuchi that I held little to no resentment towards him due to his little escapade, however it seemed like Aone was holding onto that resentment for me. But, his invitation of a spike to his face as punishment was still open and part of me just ached to do it out of spite.

When I entered the gym once again, only one person acknowledged it, and of course it was my vicious attacker. Automatically, I made eye contact with him, only for him to snap his neck in a different direction - his face painted with an expression of guilt. But, I didn't have time for anything like that - I headed up to the office to try and book some practice matches for the team, we did need the practice and the chance to observe our potential opponents - no matter who they were.

Almost every school in the prefecture had rejected us, the other schools being ones I knew we would have no chance in playing. There was only a small list of schools outside the prefecture, but all I could do was hope. Call after call, every team denied us, until there was only one school left the list. A school all the way from Tokyo. I hesitantly dialled them and after a few rings they picked up. The person on the other side of the call was the first to speak.

"Good afternoon, is that Date Tech High calling?"

"Yes it is, thank you for returning my call."

"You're welcome. What is it you wanted to inquire about?"

"I was wondering if we could arrange a practice match, no problem if that isn't possible."

"That'd be great, however, we are only free two weeks from now and for a limited amount of time that day. So it would have to be held here."

"That is completely fine. Thank you very much for entertaining my request."

"You're welcome again, however I do have to warn you about our ace, he can be more than a little unpredictable."

"Well I'm sure we can work our way around it, see you then."

"I doubt you will. See you then."

-

And I had done it, I'd fixed us our first practice match of the year... Against a powerhouse school, and from what I knew - one of the top five aces in the country. I was sure it'd be very difficult seeing as they had been making it to nationals for the past few years. Fukurodani Academy was our first opponent of the year, and that was rather exciting. Sure there was only a minimal chance of success, but other Miyagi schools probably wouldn't compare to a powerhouse school like them.

I basically ran down to the gym, rearing to break the news I had. But when I arrived at my destination, everyone was too engrossed in their practice to pay any attention to me. Avoiding any stray balls, I sauntered my way over to the coach, telling him that I had something to tell the team. And once he called them all to attention, they sat around me like a bunch of interested children.

"Okay so... I've managed to book you all a practice match. They were the only school that could play us - all the way in Tokyo. They're called Fukurodani Academy. Now, they are a powerhouse school with one of the nation's top five spikers who I've heard is very unpredictable, but I'm sure our iron wall will be of some competition to them. It takes place two weeks from now, and I hope you'll all do your best."

I was sure that their faces would be full of an elated expression, yet their faces were plastered with pure and utter shock.

Moniwa was the first to break the chilling silence, "Thank you so much, (L/N). A practice match against a team like Fukurodani is truly an opportune thing."

Almost in a blink of an eye, the team's faces - excluding Aone - all lit up with the excitement I'd been expecting. But before they had any time to celebrate - the coach instructed them to get back to practice and celebrate once it was all over. I too, had things I needed to do - for example book our overnight accommodation for two weeks in the future. There were only a few places in our price range and willing to house a whole volleyball team. To be exact, there were only 3. The first was the cheapest, but the furthest away from the venue, and it couldn't house our whole team, meaning most of the first years would have to stay home. The second was a cute little inn next to a river, both the pricing and distance regarding our venue were moderate. The last was only slightly under the budget yet was extremely close to Fukurodani Academy.

After thinking about it, I decided the best option for accommodation was the averagely priced and distanced inn, after all - it was the only option without any major downsides - the whole team could stay and there was still a little amount of money left over. Even though the match was two weeks away - I could already feel the excitement beginning to boil up inside of me.

By the time I had finished with all my managerial business, I headed back down to the gym to find that practice had already finished and the team had nearly finished tidying up. It seemed that there were a few rouge balls that needed returning to their home, so two by two I put them all back. Once that task was finished, I headed to the clubroom so I go home for the day. The clubroom was the only place where I could be guaranteed to be left alone, even at home - there were always people looming on the other side of the door.

Just like yesterday, I took my time readying myself for the walk down to the train station. I knew because of how much time I spent in there, I'd have to catch a later train, which if I did, I knew my mother wouldn't be happy with when I got home, but the chances of her being there in the first place were slim. I tried to get those thoughts out of my head while walking down the stairs, but my brain must have been going into its overload mode.

At the bottom of the stairs stood Aone, even though waiting there caused him to miss his train - but I was sure he had his reasons for staying. But If his reason was simply just to wait for me, it would honestly have made me feel like a burden to him. He shouldn't go out of his way for a person who he hasn't even known a week. "Aone... You didn't need to wait for me, you've probably missed your train by now - I'm sorry." I uttered solemnly.

"Don't apologise." He declared, his voice sounding more confident than the last time he spoke.

"Okay, just don't wait for me again. Especially if it is to your detriment." I sighed, just feeling really uncomfortable that someone did something for me that didn't benefit them. In return, he shook his head. I could say so many things to retort to that in opposition, but I decided to stay silent; in fear of starting something unnecessary. 

We walked for a while in complete silence - but it wasn't a pleasant silence for me: I felt like internally and externally screaming. The silence stayed around us in a stagnant air until a cheery little dog being walked by its owner trundled passed us. That reminded me of the beagle I saw at Aone's door the day before. "Hey Aone... I saw your dog yesterday, it was really cute." When he heard that he almost blushed - the reason behind him flushing red; I didn't know but it was still kind of adorable either way.

I tried to look away from his face, I knew I'd feel a bit embarrassed if I looked at him for any longer, only to look at my watch and learn that we had ages before the next train came. And suddenly, a rather spontaneous idea popped into my head. I had read last night about the bay tree and how it symbols everlasting glory, any good garden centre would have one and that was where we were going to go.

"Okay, this may sound crazy but can you follow me?" Aone sheepishly nodded his head, his face still emblazoned with the same shade of red. I had a rough idea as to where the garden centre was, it wasn't that far away.

By following the route of my memory - the garden centre soon came into view, at least we hadn't gotten lost. The whole way Aone followed my footsteps, most definitely confused about what my plan was. The shop was only small, making it rather easy to navigate. The bay trees were near the back, all at reasonable prices. There was rather a selection of them, but one stood out to me the most - a bay tree sapling. I thought that maybe a sapling would carry more meaning as it and its glory would grow alongside each other, not to mention something else.

While making my way to the counter to pay, I explained to Aone what the meaning of the bay tree was, his face seemed to hint that he was feeling a little bit impressed. After paying and leaving the centre, I presented the sapling to Aone, as a gift and as an apology for burdening him earlier. Even though it was only small, he held onto the tree with both of his hands as if to not let it go. Even after we got on the train, he still never let a single finger become unlatched from it, he never even let his eyes wander away from it, almost as if it would disappear if he looked away.

"Thank you so much." He spoke out of the blue, but quietly enough so that only I could hear him, his face finally smiling with both sides of his mouth - it was a happiness I'd never seen come from him before. I may have been hallucinating - but his eyes almost seemed to sparkle beneath the light. Aone almost seemed like a different person - his stoic exterior had dropped, but only a little - just so I could begin to see the real him.

The rest of the journey home seemed to go by in a flash, by then it was my time to get out of the carriage. For some reason - gifting him the glory tree had just elevated my mood to a whole new high. As I walked passed the glass that Aone was behind, I waved goodbye to him, a huge smile upon my face. The thing I saw next completely shocked me, Aone waved back, also having a smile upon his face. Not just any normal lip curl of his - but an actual smile, the most perfect, textbook example of one. Walking home, I could hardly contain my elation - normally receiving a smile from someone was a run of the mill thing, but I had no idea why seeing Aone smile directly at me like that just made me so delighted yet so uneasy on the inside. I didn't want that feeling to leave me.

[simplybakugou]

lemme get uhhhhh literally anything fucking villain bakugou please; it can be smutty, fluffy, depressing, I don't even care just give me some villain bakugou juice p l e a s e

⋆ PAIRING: villain!bakugou x female!reader ⋆ WARNINGS/TAGS: swearing ⋆ WORD COUNT: 2355

A/N: This is for you, my villain!bakugou loving boo. :) Also I decided to make this a song fic because I can’t think of any content on my own lol. It’s a Korean song by BLACKPINK called Kill This Love and here’s the link to the song. SONG (if you want the English translation to the lyrics, they’re available on the video). I wrote this in August but had a brain fart and I finally got back to it in my drafts I’m so sorry this took so long.

✐posted 01.28.2020✐

❝After a sweet “hi”, there’s always a bitter “bye”

After every crazy high, there’s a price you have to pay

There’s no answer to this test, I’ll always fall for it yes

I’m a slave to my emotions, screw this heartless love❞

Why did it have to be him? Out of all the men out there, you had to fall for the one man that was off limits, the one that caused the most trouble. May be it’s because he was forbidden that it made you draw towards him even more.

However, had you had known what you were getting yourself into, you would have gotten as far away from the destruction he brought as fast as you could.

It started with one mission, that faithful mission that brought so much more turmoil than anything else could ever bring in your life. You pleaded to your superior to let you go, wanting to prove to her how strong you really were.

“We have to be on guard, alright, Y/N?” your superior instructed, looking around her surroundings. “Ground Zero is supposed to be here, and if we get him behind bars, imagine how much credit snd recognition we’ll get for our unit!”

With the thought of wanting more recognition, your unit moved forward through the city in the middle of the night, keeping an eye out for any villainy. You could feel your hands shaking as the anxiety kept creeping up on you. The eeriness in the air did not help the situation either.

A gust of wind sent a few strands of your hair flying and you jumped at the feeling. You tapped on one of your partners’ shoulders, “Did you feel that?”

Before he could respond, an explosion erupted right in front of your group, sending everyone flying in different directions. You groaned at the impact of your back hitting the many brick walls in the area, struggling to get on your feet.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” A crisp voice whispered to you. You flinched, gasping loudly at the sight before you. A warm hand clamped over your mouth to stop you from screaming.

“One word out of that pretty little mouth and you’re fucking dead. Understand?” Bakugou threatened. He smirked as he looked down at your quivering figure. “You’re coming with me.”

❝What should I do? I can’t stand myself being so weak

While I force myself to cover my eyes, I need to bring an end to this love

Let’s kill this love!❞

Looking back at everything, you wished you could just smack yourself for ever believing you could get in a healthy relationship with a villain. You were an aspiring hero, although one that wasn’t the best, you wanted to help people. Bakugou was the exact opposite. He didn’t mind hurting people if it meant getting what he wanted.

You had fallen so deeply in love with him that day he kidnapped you. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome or maybe it was plain insanity.

“You can’t keep doing this Katsuki!” You had pulled him to the side in the midst of his joining in with the other villains to attack Hosu City. The only reason why he wanted to attack the city was because Midoriya had put a stop to his previous plans and the only way Bakugou knew how to get back at him was through violence.

Bakugou rolled his eyes. “I didn’t bring you here to fucking nag me all day. I want you to get used to this shit so it gets easier when we plan attacks in the future.”

“I never agreed to hurting innocent people just so you can prove a point!” You sighed as you could see Bakugou blatantly ignore you. “Do you really find enjoyment in hurting people?”

“Yes.” You sucked in a breath sharply at his bluntness. “What did you fucking expect? I’m not a hero, Y/N, I’m a villain. I don’t work for the side that wastes their lives for people they don’t even know.”

You wanted to say something, but you bit your lip to hold your tongue.

Bakugou let out a humorless chuckle. “Just look at All Might. He’s the textbook definition of wasted potential. That dumbass threw his own life on the line for some pieces of shits he doesn’t even know and now he can’t even use his quirk because of it.”

“You’re wrong, Katsuki. Heroes help those who can’t help themselves. They empathize with those in pain and want to help alleviate that pain.”

Bakugou smirked. “Then why are you with me? Why’re you on the side that hurts those ‘poor’ people?”

“Because I don’t think you have to do this! I know you’re a good person deep down and I don’t want you hurting other people!” You clasped your hands together, pleading for your cruel boyfriend to understand.

Bakugou closed the gap between the two of you, taking a few steps forward. He raised his hand, lifting your chin up to meet his eyes. “Watch. Me.”

And with a blink of an eye you watched in horror, your hands covering your mouth as the man you thought you loved, the man you believed had at least a sliver of goodness in him, attacked innocent bystanders. And the worst part? He was doing all of this to show how cruel he can truly be.

You shuddered as a thought came to mind, one that you have been contemplating but had never processed it.

Maybe… it was time to put an end to all of this.

It was time to turn Bakugou Katsuki in.

❝Feelin’ like a sinner, it’s so fire with him.

I go boo, hoo

He said “you look crazy,” thank you baby, I owe it all to you

Got me all messed up, his love is my favorite

But you plus me, sadly can be dangerous❞

The bar was more loud and raucous than most nights after a bunch of villains attack people for absolutely no reason but for pure pleasure. Your head was buried in your hands, two empty glasses in front of you as you attempted to drown your sorrows and turmoil in drunkenness as a way of sorting through your thoughts.

You knew turning Bakugou in was the only thing that could put a stop to all of this. But you couldn’t ignore how much you cared for him as a person.

“Katsuki?” You called out, walking down the stairs as you looked for your boyfriend. You heard the door close earlier, signaling that he had to be inside your house somewhere. As you entered your living room, he was sitting on your sofa, his legs propped up on the coffee table as he seemed to be in deep thought. You walked over and sat beside him. “Everything okay?”

Bakugou snapped out of his trance, his crimson eyes staring deeply into your own. “I think I’m dying.”

Your eyes widened in confusion. “What?”

Before you could question Bakugou even more, he took your hand in his and brought it to his chest. You felt his heart beating fast under your touch.

“It only happens when I’m with you,” Bakugou muttered. He looked back up at you. “What does this mean?”

You couldn’t help but break out into a wide smile. “You’re not dying, Katsuki.”

“Then what is this I feel like my heart’s gonna jump out of my fucking chest.” His brows were knit together as he was genuinely concerned.

You chuckled, wrapping your arms around his torso and placing your head against his chest. His heart continued to beat rapidly under your touch.

❝Lucky me, lucky you after all, in the end we lie

So what? So what?

If I end up forgetting you

So sorry, I’m not sorry

What should I do? I can’t stand myself being so weak

While I force myself to hide my tears, I need to bring an end to this love

Let’s kill this love!❞

Your legs started shaking rapidly as the anxiety and the severity of your actions set in. Your fingernails were already practically nubs due to you biting at them in order calm down but to no avail.

Your doorbell finally rang and you sprung up, practically jumping at the door. Gamma, one of the only true friends that you made out of the rest of the villains in Bakugou’s friend group, seemed flabbergasted by your bewildered expression.

“Are you okay? I got your text,” she asked as you closed the door behind her.

You led Gamma to your sofa, holding her hands in yours as you took a deep breath in. “You know that out of everyone here, I trust you with my life, right?”

“Yeah.” Gamma was confused.

“And I need you to promise me that whatever I tell you stays between us. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Katsuki, even if he’s your boss.”

Gamma held your hands tighter, giving you a small smile. “You’re the first friend I made here, regardless of the fact that I’ve been here far longer than you have. You’re my best friend. And I’d do anything for you.”

You smiled back hesitantly and sighed once more. “I’m going to turn Katsuki and myself in.”

Gamma’s eyes widened, parting her lips to say something before closing them. “Are you sure about this, Y/N? Like one-hundred percent sure.”

You nodded. “In the beginning I thought I could look past all the things he’s done, but I don’t think I can handle it anymore. Gamma, hundreds of people have been hurt and lost their lives just because Katsuki was bored sitting at home or wanted to teach his enemies a lesson. I’ve tried to reason with him because I’ve always believed that deep down he didn’t want to actually hurt anyone, but nothing’s working. I can’t keep living like this.”

Your eyes were filled to the brim with tears at this point. Gamma brought her thumb up and wiped away your tears, embracing you in an effort to comfort you. “I know how much you care and love Ground Zero. Even if he’s my boss, out of everyone here, you come before anything and if this is what you feel is right, then I think you should do it.”

“Thanks, Gamma.”

“Of course.” Gamma pulled away. “Did you think about how you’re going to turn yourselves in? He’s not really just going to waltz into the police station and let you do it.”

You sighed for what felt like the hundredth time. “I’m not really sure. I was initially going to go myself but that really won’t do much. Do you have any ideas?”

Gamma pursed her lips as she thought about it for a second before snapping her fingers. “Why not send a letter?”

“A letter?”

“Yeah, it’s more risky if you send anything digitally but letters are practically outdated so it would be less likely for you to get caught before executing this plan.”

You nodded, a small smiling breaking to your lips. “Thank you for everything, Gamma.”

“I’d do anything for you, Y/N.”

❝We must kill this love

Yeah, it’s sad but true

Gotta kill this love…

You looked around the secluded location, a gust of wind sending your hair back. You looked down at the response letter that was sent back to a week after you sent your own letter, confirming the location. Oddly enough it was the same location that you and your team had gone to in order to catch Bakugou only for you to be sucked into this mess. The police had written back for you to meet here to ultimately work with them to get Bakugou before turning yourself in.

You were shivering in the cold, having waited at least fifteen minutes for anyone to show up.

Before you could even think of anything else, a figure stood before you at the end of the secluded alleyway. There was only one streetlight and the person was barely visible to you and you were probably barely visible to them as well.

“Excuse me, I’m Y/N. I sent you the letter about Katsu– I mean Ground Zero,” you called out to the end of alleyway. “As I said in the letter, I want to turn the two of us in.”

The figure walked towards you, proceeding slowly until their face could be visible under the light. You gasped inwardly at the sight.

“You know, out of all the fucking people who could have betrayed me in this damn world, you were the last on that list, Y/N.” Bakugou stood under the light, his angry expression as clear as day.

“Katsuki…” You were speechless. You didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll give you a chance to explain yourself.”

You felt a bead of sweat form on your forehead and the back of your neck. Your lips quivered in fear before you could speak. “I’ve told you so many times that the way you hurt and kill innocent people hurts me to just watch. I can’t continue to be a bystander to all of this.”

Bakugou continued to proceed towards you until your back hit the wall and there was barely five inches of space in between the two of you.

“Katsuki.” You looked at him straight in the eyes. He held so much anger in his expression but you could also see how your actions hurt him. “I know you. I know that villainy isn’t what you wanted in the beginning. I know that deep down, you don’t want to hurt all those people. This is our way of making it right so please come with me.”

Bakugou sighed, raising his arms. You winced, expecting him to lash out at you. Instead you were surprised as he leaned down and wrapped his arms around you. “I love you, Y/N. More than anything in this world. You’re the only one who stood by me in everything and you’ve always wanted the best for me. Those other fuckers were and have been using me to their own advantage but you did everything in your power to make sure I was okay and my needs were met.”

You wrapped your own arms around his torso, pressing your cheek against his chest. “I’ve always wanted the best for you.”

“That’s why it hurts me to do this.”

“To do wha–”

You felt the air get knocked straight out of your chest. You looked down, nearly falling over at the sight of the dagger jabbed straight into your abdomen.

Bakugou pulled away, watching as you fell to the floor, grabbing at your stomach as the pain continue to intensify. He caressed your hair as you looked up at him in absolute horror. “But, you’re not the first person to try and do this. So many of you naive little girls think you can just change a person through your feelings and your stupid fucking emotions. I’m a villain, Y/N. There’s nothing that you can change about that.”

He got up and started to walk away. You got on your forearms, slowly trying to crawl your way towards him. He stopped walking, looking back at you once more. “I really did love you, Y/N. And I wanted you to be different. But you’ve disappointed me.”

… Before it kills you too.❞

[elvenferretots]

Why do you say doberman are perfect for lower class familys in apartments?

I feel an important element here is that I say that dobermans are the perfect personal protector for lower class families in apartments. They are definitely not a perfect pet for most people no matter where they live. Most families, especially apartment dwellers, don’t want a guardian dog. Guardian breeds don’t match the American ideal for doghood,and require a higher amount of maintenance than most dog owners want to commit to. That being said, if you want a protection dog for city living, well, that’s what the doberman is made for.

The doberman is smaller than most protection breeds. They fall under 100lb, typically ranging from 60-90lb in fit condition. They have a short, hard, single coat that sheds relatively little and wipes down easily. They are not a loud breed, and the breed club temperament test requires the dog not be sound-sensitive to gunshots (which often translates well to other city noises; I live a block up from a hospital helicopter pad and ambulance garage and even as a puppy, my dobe did not bat an eye).They thrive on training, and do well training in a small space such as an apartment as long as given regular walks and some hard exercise on the weekends. They are also velcro dogs, so claustrophobia does not tend to be an issue. 

Ideally as a lower class family, you want a dog that will cost less to feed and is relatively portable, which the size helps with. You want a dog who is a visual deterrent first, and will thereby cut down on your liability and the chance of someone messing with you or breaking into your house/car to begin with. I can tell you, people respond to a doberman from blocks away. I lived with a gsd, and did not get a quarter of the public space from that dog as you get walking a doberman. You want a dog who is “appropriate”, able to discern the neighbors you pass in the hallway from an intruder based on context. The breed is selected for that. You want a dog who is easy to teach obedience, and particularly recall, since you can’t afford extensive coaching to train your dog. Easier grooming is also a plus. From experience: it is hard to bathe and brush out a GSD when you live in a cheap place with a tiny bathroom and walk-in shower. It would be impossible to bathe and groom a dog with more coat than that. The doberman? A breeze.

Going to tag on the end here: many apartments do have breed and size restrictions. It’s smart to check with those before getting any dog and plan for a situation in which your housing stops allowing your breed. But at least in my experience, those tend to be looser with lower class housing. A lot of landlords are just fine with having that additional layer of security as long as they know the tenant’s dog is not going to become a liability. If the potential puppy buyer has a plan for BSL issues and training/exercise, I don’t see any reason why they should be priced or property-restricted out of a breed that would be a good fit for their life, and would be fulfilling its original purpose as a working-class personal protector in their home.

[punkscowardschampions]

James & Ava

James: Good morning

James: how are you, darling?

Ava: Sleepy 🥱

Ava: but all the better starting my day with you, of course

Ava: how about you? 😊

James: hopeful that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, because likewise

James: & my cautious optimism doesn’t extend to the viewing I’m currently heading to

Ava: Oh, how have they oversold this one, I wonder

Ava: the adverts are nothing short of epic fiction

Ava: there should be awards for how they can spin any - into like +++

Ava: Where are you headed?

James: it would be inspirational if I were solely doing research for the novel but alas I need a suitable study first

James: [somewhere that’s one of the places we discounted]

Ava: I can believe estate agents are all unfulfilled creatives, definitely

Ava: I’ll 🤞 all my fingers and toes that it’s the one

Ava: though I could tell you more pubs and clubs in that area than nurseries…

James: absolutely up there with the teaching profession in terms of both dashed dreams setting them on that path & a litany of thankless tasks once they get there

James: thank you though

James: I’ll let you know if it constitutes enough of a disaster to warrant theoretically drowning my sorrows, after all, there isn’t a huge difference between some of the clubs Teddy frequents & soft play so I’ve no doubt my aide for today would be thrilled to hear every suggestion

Ava: You cannot make me feel bad for teachers today

Ava: not when Mr Hawthorne has beat you to it with the against argument in the form of his 🥱 inducing lectures

Ava: 😅 I don’t think foam parties are safe for anyone, 1-year-olds especially so though

James: there’s an argument to be made that I possess the ability to do so, however, if I’m going to use my powers of persuasion for anything 😈 I would argue it is indeed wasted on Mr Hawthorne

James: oh well in that case, the hunt for my sister’s baby shower venue also continues

Ava: If you used your powers of persuasions on Mr Hawthorne, I might be a tiny bit jealous

Ava: not to mention almost as confused as he would undoubtedly be

Ava: Joy of joys

Ava: it would be typical for that to be added to your to-do list as well, but at least a place for grown women to eat chocolate bars out of nappies isn’t as much like gold dust as a decent place in central

James: I’m jealous that he’s spending time with you right now, despite your attention being less than rapt & therefore promise to do nothing that benefits him in any way whatsoever

James: including, but not limited to, refusing to assist you in the homework he intends to set by being as distracting as I can later as well as now

James: you’re not wrong, but she is her belief that to this day I remain blacklisted by an extremely high percentage of clubs, thus sparing me being delegated the role even in these hypothetical planning stages

Ava: That would be a wild rumour, even for this place

Ava: and what can I say? You’re more worthy of my time and attention

Ava: as you’ve just proved 😍

Ava: Definite blessing in disguise

Ava: Will it be a women-only event?

James: I’d be lying if I didn’t say I miss you & am always willing to prove how much at every given opportunity

James: god, I hope so, even a foam party isn’t enough of an incentive to get me there if I am expected

Ava: I miss you too

Ava: I can come see you tonight though, if you’re free

Ava: sadly, I don’t think I can make a soft-play date so that’ll have to be just you two

Ava: and you’re lucky, I’ve been to so many baby showers it’s not even funny

James: I’m supposed to work late to make up the time I’ve taken off this morning but I can do that when you’re busy

James: that’s a shame, I’ll have to throw myself in the ball pit

James: time will tell if you have an invite to Diana’s, what’s incredibly lucky is that she won’t expect you to actually attend regardless of how you RSVP

Ava: Only if you’re sure

Ava: my plans can always be more fluid than yours

Ava: Ugh 😞 I’d LOVE to push you into a ball pit right now, life is unfair

Ava: I don’t think she was impressed with my party-planning skills enough to put in that call

James: I am very sure that I want to spend tonight with you instead of at the office

James: & I’m also suddenly determined to create our very own ball pit in the new place

James: [pictures like which room do you think we should fill with plastic balls lol but let’s say it’s all really small]

James: having to forgo a traditional master bedroom isn’t at all unfair, I’ll obviously sleep like a baby among the balls

Ava: 🥰

Ava: An absolute must

Ava: why brag of a ‘cosy’ third bedroom when you can boast a gigantic ball pit

Ava: I bet the girls would be more than willing for you to do that too

Ava: Party house has a whole new meaning 🥳

James: indeed

Ava: I hope there’s not too many people there this time though, really

James: I think there are more people here than at the last viewing we went to, impossible as that sounds

Ava: 😫 How, where do all these people spring from?!

Ava: At least you’re far more eligible than most young professionals

Ava: If I was looking for a model renter

James: what a pity you aren't, your rooftop garden has much greater appeal for this particular young professional, not least because I've seen its existence with my own eyes

Ava: If my landlords weren’t so involved…

Ava: This place is far too big for us now

James: hopefully they won't drag you along on yet more insufferable viewings if, or when, they decide to downsize since you're an undeniable pro now, because for that, there would only so many apologies I can offer you

Ava: I’m sure mum’s already getting the planning permission sorted for if and when

Ava: Sadly their portfolio doesn’t extend to a reasonable price range, I did ask

Ava: but if it isn’t something that would get her in Architect Digest, or whatever, she’s not interested so

Ava: As you said, it would be fun in a way, if all this looking didn’t mean you were still without your perfect family home

Ava: It takes people watching to a new level, and seeing the landlord’s ‘decor’ choices is also as revealing

James: it's okay, being indebted to my own parents is quite enough

James: it's becoming clear if my father visualizes me living here it's because he's done a drastic rewrite of the type of young professional I am

James: I could see you here, for instance, in a draft where I don't exist as your love interest, but in terms of a family home, perfect of otherwise, where we'd put Frank & the children is anyone's guess

James: perhaps some of these people are imagining wild architecture projects the likes of which your mother would have to act undaunted by, who's to say

Ava: I don’t love that rewrite

Ava: Frank is particularly demanding with how much space he needs to recline, relax, snooze and sleep…

Ava: You’ll find somewhere soon, I know it

Ava: If nothing else, this dull lesson is giving me all the time to refresh and refresh and repeat every listing I can find

James: cautious optimism as ever for our 2nd attempt

James: [deets because I'm gonna say that this is one he ends up loving that falls through somehow at some stage because how real and frustrating and then she can be the one who finds their forever home and they can look at it together]

Ava: Okay, I can picture that one

Ava: light and airy isn’t actually a lie this time, what a concept

Ava: 😍

Ava: All the rooms are a good size so you wouldn’t feel as if either girl was getting the short straw, and you won’t have to settle for sleeping amongst the balls either

James: I do have a genuinely good feeling about it, terrifying as that is to admit in our present surroundings where it feels as though someone will sense it & immediately swoop in, but yes

Ava: I know

Ava: It’s one of those things

Ava: You have to be cautious, because so many roadblocks are between you and the end goal

Ava: but similarly, how can you be, when it���s such a big life thing

Ava: You can be as honest and optimistic as you like with me, it doesn’t need to go any further, shark-like buyers and the girls alike

James: we aren’t anywhere close to the stressful moving in stage & I’m already acutely aware that I wouldn’t have survived up until now without your help, so I will, as long as you know the continued support is appreciated beyond words or any other measure

Ava: Stressful, but fun

Ava: you get to pick what colour your new room is 😌

Ava: It’ll be reward enough, to see you get the fresh start you deserve

James: [whatever her fave colour is] of course

James: then you won’t mind seeing me covered from head to toe in it, potentially indefinitely, when we discover I can’t fit in the tub at the new place either

Ava: Oh, I don’t think I would mind that no matter the colour

Ava: but I also would not mind you having an amazing shower so we could take care of that

James: if there isn’t I won’t mind adding it to my renovations to-do list

Ava: As long as I’m on that list too I’m happy

James: the top of any list I write is where I’m happy to put you

Ava: If you put in a bid, you should do it at/even over asking price, so they’ll take attention of you and then you can make a list of repairs/quality checks etc you want done before you agree to move in, then if they do them, they’re done for you, but more likely, they’ll not want to, and you can say take that cost off my offer then

Ava: one of the 💡 tips I’ve picked up and you’d undoubtedly thought of yourself but there we go

James: here’s where I could nod & keep up the pretense to avoid giving away what a total novice I am, but there’s very little point given than you know I’ve never done this, & a list of countless other things as long as my arm, for myself before

James: instead I’ll just take your advice & thank you accordingly

Ava: There’s so much we don’t get prepared for

Ava: even under normal circumstances

Ava: It isn’t as if I was told that at school, or I get told anything vaguely useful on the day-to-day by Hawthorne or any of the others worse or marginally better than him

Ava: You shouldn’t feel like you’re alone in feeling unprepared, is what I’m failing to say

Ava: Lots of people feel it, that’s why I could never just stay here, in the bubble of SW forever

James: don’t worry, you aren’t failing at anything where this conversation is concerned & whilst it is somewhat overwhelming at times, I don’t feel alone because I’ve got you to talk it through with

James: what that school taught me, all that living here has taught me, was how to avoid facing up to situations by lying & name dropping, which probably would assist me in climbing the property ladder but I’d rather be honest, if the bubble bursts as a result, I’m prepared for that from now on

Ava: I’m proud of you

Ava: and the girls will be too

Ava: It can be fun, and there are some good people here, just as there are everywhere

Ava: but outside of the postcode, the currency of who you know and where you went to school, it’s just not real, irrelevant

Ava: I don’t want to rely on my parents’ hard work, let alone someone else’s father knowing the crest on my blazer, you know

James: yes, I know exactly what having to rely on my father feels like, it isn’t fun or something to be proud of & it definitely isn’t a precedent I’d like to keep setting for my daughters

James: the stark reality & contrast of this fresh start needs to happen soon, while I still have Jay here to teach

Ava: She’s not going anywhere

James: she’s going to have to meet him eventually even if that’s under the guise of him being one of my old friends or your brother

Ava: And I understand that that’s fair

Ava: to him, I don’t know how to feel about it in regards to Jay, and it’s not even my job to so I know how hard this must be for you

Ava: but that doesn’t mean he should get to ‘keep’ her, for God’s sake, she has had no idea who he is until now, you’re her dad

James: I have to hope that he’ll understand that too, he’s not the villain here, as much as it would make my life easier to paint him as such

Ava: I hope so too

James: it’ll be okay, for her, I don’t know if I can make the same promise for us but I want to be able to

Ava: Don’t put yourself down like that

Ava: It wouldn’t be okay if she lost you

James: she isn’t going to lose me whatever Buster decides to do next, things may have to change but never that drastically, I’ll always be in her life

Ava: Providing he plays that nicely

Ava: I’m just scared he’ll do something that drastic, and stupid

James: if he doesn’t I won’t, I’m not afraid to fight fire with fire should that be the only option he leaves me with

Ava: Good

Ava: I wish I could promise it won’t be

Ava: but I don’t know what he will be prepared to do, so you should be prepared for any and all eventualities too

James: I am, my marriage made sure I was equipped to anticipate the unexpected & not to expect rational responses

Ava: Yeah, of course

Ava: Still no word from Chloe?

James: no & no trace of a belated birthday card

Ava: Typical

Ava: Good thing Mattie got spoiled by you and had a great party already

James: Jay is devastated she has to wait so long for you to throw one for her though, maybe we can find a way to cater the housewarming party to her

Ava: Awh, bless her

Ava: If there’s one thing Chelsea HAS taught me, is that you only need a vague notion of an idea to have a party and celebrate

Ava: Does she like fireworks?

James: she LOVES fireworks, if you weren’t in Dublin she’d have insisted you come with us to [wherever we’re gonna go see some on the night]

Ava: I am pretty gutted I can’t

Ava: but I’ll have to get some sparklers, probably not Catherine Wheels or Roman Candles, and do a belated bonfire themed do for her

Ava: smores are a good idea any night

James: I wonder if she’ll expect us to dye her hair red, orange or yellow this time

Ava: 😬 accidentally set a precedent

Ava: thank god for washouts

James: I’ll do what I can to have her convinced that face paint is a much better idea by the time you get back but she’s no Mr Hawthorne so

Ava: I admire a girl who requires more than a persuasive essay

Ava: you’ll have a great time

Ava: 🤞 the endless family drama doesn’t get in the way of me having one too

James: no amount of Catherine Wheels or Roman Candles could prevent me from being on the end of the phone whether you aren’t having a great time or simply want to tell me how much fun it is

Ava: You’re the best ❤️

Ava: It should be fine

Ava: If anything, hopefully someone else is bringing more drama than my parents or siblings could accuse me of, then it’ll really give them a bit of perspective 🤫

James: if your family resembles the dynamic of mine even slightly I won’t have to keep anything crossed in order to make that happen for you, but of course I will nevertheless, just in case

Ava: How soon is too soon to clue you in on my mad family dynamic 🤔😅

Ava: Maybe when you’re in your new home, so you have a door to politely shut in my face

James: having never kept an air of mystery there I can understand why you’d want to, but I would never christen my new front door like that

Ava: It was like an unspoken rule, when Buster was here too

Ava: I don’t really care that much, and anyway, he broke it big time

Ava: Every family has struggles and secrets, or are long overdue their share if not

James: I couldn’t agree more, my mother acts as though nobody else has skeletons hung up next to their hideously expensive coats & we must stay silent come what may, but she’s the last person to feign shock when any of said secrets inevitably come out

Ava: It’s such a waste of time and energy

Ava: not to mention resolves precisely (0) of said troubles, if and when they can be

Ava: I’m so glad you don’t want to keep up pretenses together

Ava: wouldn’t make for a very interesting story

James: exactly, if I adhered to her code of silence I wouldn’t have gone to rehab or spent any time & energy on recovery, god knows what trouble I’d be in right now in that instance, but we certainly wouldn’t have this plotline to delight in

Ava: Being dubious about the potential results, maybe

Ava: but the idea your own mum would rather you suffer in silence, literally, is beyond me

James: it’s an attitude worthy of an outdated classic novel, for sure, that we can all take ourselves in hand & address our flaws with a firm word or two but she isn’t alone in her 'you don't need outside help, you just need to learn and then follow through with setting your own limits' mentality

James: in my parents' defence I was still young, despite the baby I wasn't looking after properly or the wedding I don't remember very much of at all, & I know they'd argue, if pressed, that was the main reason for their anti-rehab stance

James: therefore, I'd like to believe, however naively perhaps, on this occasion it isn't entirely about saving face with yet more pretense but rather a glimpse at some character development for both of them, if only so the novel isn't doomed by one dimensional subplots, naturally

Ava: I can see that too, again, a lot of people’s problems go unaddressed or at least are allowed to get worse because the person is ‘too young’ for it to either be a problem, or it is something they will ‘bounce back’ from once they ‘calm down’ and mature

Ava: It doesn’t make your parents the devil, I wouldn’t suggest as much, nor the first people to fall into that trap

Ava: There are definitely instances of the exact same mindset I can point to within my own family

Ava: We’d all like to see the best in people, and sometimes, that desire lets us down

James: regardless this viewing has yet to let me down unlike the previous

James: I wish you were here

Ava: With any luck, I’ll be able to come see it with you next time

Ava: The pictures look great, trying to keep the optimism at the cautious level still but 🤞🤞😌

James: need I remind you I like your optimism as unabashed as your excitement

Ava: You don’t need to

Ava: but I wouldn’t be opposed

James: [tell her about whatever cute and romantic plans you've sorted for you two tonight so she'll be happy and excited]

Ava: How have you managed to sort that whilst at these viewings and also with Mattie 😍

James: it appears I’m guilty of similarly high levels of enthusiasm & so the greater crime would be letting it go to waste

Ava: AND being an excellent multi-tasker AND AND an even greater romantic

James: Mattie can & will take full credit for the former but the romanticism is a newly acquired skill that I’m still trying to find my feet with, & entirely down to you

Ava: I should feel bad for keeping it all for myself

James: I disagree but I’ll happily rush through the book’s publication if sharing will make you feel better

Ava: Should doesn’t mean would or could

Ava: because I don’t

Ava: It’s nice not being secret, but I’m still happy keeping you to myself for a while longer

James: oh good, because I’d rather continue to multitask like this than on a novel deadline

Ava: Being anything but a reprieve from all the other drains on your time is not very romantic heroine of me, so never

Ava: what would the readers think

James: you’ve got me there, by evoking how fickle our readers are more than likely to prove themselves to be, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about

Ava: You either think the protagonist is ‘relatable’ or you hate her because you deserve the love interest far more than her

James: nobody deserves me more than you, they’ll have no choice but to appreciate you

Ava: James

James: Ava

Ava: I can’t wait to see you later

James: can I pick you up from school or do you need to go home first?

Ava: I don’t need to go home 😊

James: I’ll see you there then, unfortunately, I have work to get back to & I’ve kept you from yours for longer than I responsibly should have, lest you end up at Kings after all

Ava: 🙄 I’m sure my career’s officer would tell me they’re higher in the rankings or something else that isn’t going to change my mind more than your experience and my own, however brief

Ava: If I were rating them on chance, perfect meetings, however

Ava: A++

Ava: I’ll see you later then, try not to get TOO exhausted by soft play 😏❤️

James: I’ll be certain to tell them now that’s not a secret, it wouldn’t surprise me if they used us a ringing endorsement for some kind of meet-cute society to take place weekly in The Vault

James: the allure of soft play meanwhile needs no advertising, with or without any single mothers trying to engineer romantic entanglements of their own

Ava: I’ll square that with my conscience and you run that gauntlet, love

James: I’ll do my best

[dailydianakko]

Ink Slinger- I just really need my textbook

Yes the title is a shameless rip from the song (highly reccomend y’all give it a listen) Anyway first chapter of the bookstore au! Next chapter is never. I hope you all enjoy it, it’s my longest work thus far! I wanted to challenge myself, and I think I succeded. A big thank you to all my beta readers who put up with my awful tangled words! Anyway, here is the first chapter. Also on AO3 Here.

Akko gasped as her feet hit the hard concrete of the sidewalk. The crisp air invaded her lungs with each gasping breath, making her throat feel raw and her nose run. Waking up late once again had sent her into a wild crunch for time. She had planned to stop by the bookstore Lotte had recommended she go to before class. The quiet girl had told her that it was really well stocked for a private store, and Lotte frequented enough bookstores to know what was good and what wasn’t. Her expertise was the sole reason to warrant Akko even making a trip like this. Her friend was practically a walking yelp review to most any store in the county, much less state. Lotte’s frequent searches for sold out Nightfall books had only added to her knowledge, and Akko would be forever grateful. After all, Lotte shared the spirit of hope that often accompanied the search for rare or out of stock books.

Akko was still stubbornly clinging to the hope that she might find one of the missing books in her Shiny Chariot collection. That or a replacement “Introduction to English Literature” book that had sadly bitten the dust earlier in the week. The freak coffee incident had really left its mark, both on Akko’s skin and on everyone in the shared school dorm room. Sucy still hadn’t managed to get the coffee stains out of her lab coat and Akko really hoped that she wouldn’t try to get revenge later. She really had no desire to be woken up at four in the morning with another chemical concoction being poured down her throat. Akko gave a hard swallow to try to erase that particular memory. To be honest, Sucy never really needed a reason to use Akko as a resident guinea pig; but Akko didn’t like Sucy having an excuse. Sucy was a master manipulator, and she had no qualms about using guilt to motivate Akko into being a willing participant. Maybe she should just skip town and change her name. Assume a new identity and hope Sucy wouldn’t find her. 

Akko slowed down to a jog as she started to weave around other pedestrians that were filling the streets. It was getting rather crowded now due to the impending lunch hour. Lucky her.

She began to check road signs. Lotte said it would be in this area. Keeping her quick pace, Akko began to scan the nearby buildings for the bookstore she wanted to visit before class. She needed a replacement book today or her professor was seriously going to have her head!

Akko skidded to a halt as she caught sight of the lavender building that had the sign “Quill and Crow” hanging above the entrance; with the emblem of a white crow behind the cursive lettering. The store looked like an old Victorian building, matching the rest of the old era stores on the street. Like many of the cafes and stores of the small town of Blytonbury, it had been a reconverted house with its own quirks and renovations to distinguish it from the others. 

Akko quickly crossed the street after checking and making sure it was devoid of cars. Getting hit now would definitely make her late for class. Stepping up onto the cracked sidewalk, she looked once more at the building. Particularly the porch. There were weathered wicker chairs that had small tables next to them, each with a potted plant. The flowers clearly had been tended with loving care and were blooming beautifully. The seating was scattered in various areas along the white wood of the decking. The seating was far apart enough to be comfortable, giving off the air that one could happily read while in the company of others and avoid the uncomfortable feeling of overcrowding.

It would’ve been nice to sit among the gerbera daisies and catch her breath, but Akko had things to do and a class she could not afford to be late for. She quickly hopped up the creaky steps and passed the chairs. She was proud to say that she only paused a second, glancing at the tempting chairs and the comfort and resting potential that they provided, before turning the brass handle of the door and stepping into the building.

Her first impression was that it was quite clean. The dark floor showed no sign of dust nor dirt and was free of scratches and scuff marks. If Akko didn’t know any better, she would have thought the cream walls had been freshly painted. The missing wet sheen told her that yes, it would be safe to fall into should she lose her balance. Either this store was brand new, which she doubted, or it was very well kept.

The floor plan of the building was fairly open, and had various helpful signs in flowing script directing her where to go. She walked up to a nearby chalkboard sign, stepping around a full umbrella stand, with its own little handwritten sign that said “take but return.” Akko read the board quietly to herself. The first floor was non-fiction, café/gift shop area, and educational books, whereas the second floor was fiction, a sitting area, and a book exchange shelf. Akko knew the first floor was where she should stay, but her adventurous nature made her want to explore the second floor. Perhaps she’d find the Shiny Chariot book in the exchange section. Also, the farther away from coffee she was, the better it was for her. The incident was still all too fresh in her mind.

Akko wandered through the shelves until she found the stairway to the second floor. She slid her hand along the rich dark wood of the thick banister. It was smooth and cool to the touch. She climbed up the slightly creaky steps hesitantly. The store was quiet and she had yet to encounter any workers, maybe it was closed. As she got closer to the second floor, the tantalizing smell of old books hiding among new ones greeted her. She took in a deep breath and let out a happy sigh. Akko always loved the smell of books, be it old or new. She allowed the smell to enchant her and forgot about her worries. Akko stepped lightly through the shelves, there seemed to be no concrete sitting area, save for a large table with comfortable looking chairs suited to gatherings. It seemed the owners had opted for having various spots to sit hidden among the bookcases instead, much to Akko’s approval. As her eyes traced the spines of the books, reading various new titles, her attention was grabbed by the book exchange area. Just what she was looking for! The sign indicating the exchange area was written in the same script as all the other ones that littered the first floor of the store. Underneath the words book exchange was the apparent rules to this area of the store. “Take a book, leave a book,” Akko read aloud slowly “Books that are unexchanged are 50 cents per book. Area is sponsored by Croix Merides, Dean of the Robotics Branch of Luna Nova.”

The books on this particular shelf looked to be old and heavily used. Spines of the paperbacks were bent and the paper was fraying with heavy use. Not only did these books contain tales printed in ink along the pages, but it looked as if they held stories of the lives of the countless people who had read them.  As Akko skimmed the shelf, one particular book stood out to her. She picked up the random title and glanced down at the cover. A dragon, regal and ancient, was illustrated; with the title in gilt lettering above it. “The Tales of Fafnir.” How interesting. She ran her fingers along the dog-eared pages and flipped through it. Some pages were marked with crayon scribbles, and an old library card codex was still lodged on the inner cover. It proudly displayed the names of those who had previously checked out the once library book. Akko felt her excitement bubble within her, and gently stomped her feet excitedly on the floor. She knew she was going to find a treasure here. Perhaps she’d find the missing book in her collection. “Shiny Chariot and the Tree of Life” had been quite elusive. No bookstores carried the titles after the author’s fall from grace, and whatever books that floated around ebay always exceeded the price range of a college student.

 A small beep and a bump against her shoes drew Akko out of her excited thoughts. A little Roomba buzzed against her, stubbornly trying to finish its job. A little medallion signified that it belonged to the store and that its name was Jasper. Akko lifted up her foot and watched the Roomba go along its merry way. Gripped by yet more curiosity, Akko put back the book she held in her hands and followed Jasper as it rolled along, making an occasional boop. She stopped in her tracks when Jasper rolled up to a blonde organizing the shelves. The little robot tapped gently against the blonde’s ankle and she bent down to give it a pat. It let out a contented beep and then the mystery girl gently pushed it on its merry way with a tap of her ankle. Akko swore her heart melted at the action. The girl was so cute, treating Jasper like an errant cat. Akko must have let out a small coo, because the blonde turned towards her with a start. The look of surprise quickly fled from her face as the girl adopted more of a schooled and closed off look. “May I help you?” the girl said with a touch of frost in her voice. Akko could’ve sworn that the temperature in the room went down a few degrees. Maybe this was why the bookstore was empty. As much as Akko wanted to bite back, she figured the girl was probably embarrassed and decided she should kill with kindness.

“I am Atsuko, but you can call me Akko,” Akko bounced slightly on her toes with nervousness. “I was wondering if you had any English textbooks. Mostly Introduction to English Literature? I need it for a class.” Akko looked over the blonde once more. Neat jeans, a crisp button up, and immaculate hair. She was really pretty. Meanwhile Akko was in a stained college hoodie, basketball shorts, and her hair was probably a nightmare from her mad dash to the store. She probably wasn’t going to make a good impression. Akko quickly stood to attention as she realized the blonde was talking. She tried to register whatever the blonde was saying after her sudden mental checkout.

“-Diana, the books you should be looking for are on the first floor. Would you like me to escort you?” Diana’s voice sounded less frosty and more professional. Akko gave a quick nod and stepped to the side, making space for Diana to walk by. Diana shelved the book in her hand and moved the crate that had been hiding behind her closer to the shelf so that nobody would trip over it. As she walked by Akko, the brunette picked up a flowery smell, like a meadow covered in the early morning dew. It was nice. Akko began to follow after Diana, much like a puppy. The blonde was moving quickly, and with a purpose. She was fast, but not so fast that Akko would lose sight of her or have a hard time keeping up. Diana must have been experienced in leading people. Diana led her back out of the book exchange area, past the solitary communal desk, and right back to the stairs. She let out a word of warning to Akko when they began to descend to the first floor. Akko walked down the precarious steps much slower than Diana. After all, she had a track record of falling down and she didn't want to crush Diana. Diana waited, arms crossed, as Akko walked down the last few steps. After Akko had her feet safely on the ground, she turned on her heel and resumed her fast walk. Once again guiding Akko to her much needed textbook.

 As they walked down what Akko deemed to be the textbook section, she marveled at the shelves of old college books that stretched on. Criminal Psychology, Introduction to Biology, Business Law, were all lined up. As Akko quickly read some of the spines, she quickly realized some of these textbooks were fairly old. Some of the editions even stretched back to 2007. It probably contributed to their low price. Without Akko noticing, Diana stopped abruptly having reached their destination. Akko stumbled as she tried to avoid hitting Diana. The blonde looked somewhat amused at Akko’s flailing limbs as she tried to regain balance and not fall over.

“Here is our shelf of older textbooks; I must warn you that older editions are usually outdated in information, and can conflict with current tests. Price tags are on the binding, and we do have editions that are loose and in binders that run cheaper in the back.” Diana ran a hand fondly along the shelf, and picked out a book. “This one is a 2016 edition of Introduction to English Literature, it’s the most recent one we have.” Diana quickly flipped through the book seemingly searching for something. Whatever she was looking for she must’ve not found, because she closed it with a jarring snap that made Akko jump slightly. Diana shoved the book into Akko’s direction, and despite herself Akko took the book in her hands. She figured Diana as a store employee would know which book would be the best one. Granted, Akko might regret her decision at the register, but she really needed an Intro to English Lit., lest her professor actually somehow get her expelled.

“Thank you, Diana.” Akko paused and shifted the book in her grip nervously. “Do you have any books by an author named Chariot, as in the Shiny Chariot series?” Akko probably was treading on dangerous territory now. There was a reason why it was so hard to find books written by Chariot du Nord. She had been blacklisted among the writing communities and fans. Chariot had been an innovator for an entire genre, but when it was revealed she had cheated her way to the top, she had fallen from grace very quickly. The Golden Quill, the competition that had given Chariot her  fame, was somewhat of a lottery where a participant was randomly chosen to have their work carefully reviewed by judges. If the author had been lucky enough to get selected, their book would be published and they practically had their pick of editors and publishers. Most of the lucky winners of the event had gone on to obtain prestigious writing awards. A sudden revelation among the judges years later revealed Chariot had hacked the system to delete all other participants, leaving her work as the sole entry. The media tore her reputation to shreds and her fans quickly abandoned her. Chariot had denied cheating, claiming that she had no idea such a thing occurred. However it was too late and the damage was done. Bookstores had slowly stopped carrying her books and publishers had shut their doors. The critically acclaimed series “Shiny Chariot” had been discontinued and forgotten.

Obviously Diana knew of Chariot’s supposed sin, and the shift in her mood after hearing Akko’s question was very noticeable. She had stood up to her full height while Akko spoke, and then had gone still. She was almost a head taller than the brunette. Akko cringed internally when she noticed that the fondness that had lit Diana’s eyes when she had looked at the books was gone. It had been exchanged for a more hostile look. Yup, Akko had totally made a mistake. “Unfortunately, we do not carry any of Chariot du Nord’s books here;” Diana practically spat the name out with tangible dislike and possible hatred “I am sure you are aware why, if you are looking for her books.”

Akko felt a shiver roll up her spine at Diana’s not so subtle anger. “I am allowed to like Chariot. She shouldn’t have been completely erased like that. I want to one day write as well as she did.” Akko said as she felt her hands clench. Just because Chariot might have done wrong, doesn’t mean she should have been completely blacklisted. She might have been innocent like she had claimed. Akko admired Chariot as a child. The author was genuinely good at writing, putting together stories that had filled Akko with wonder. Even if Chariot had cheated, Akko was always filled with nostalgia whenever she picked up one of the books Chariot had written. They were like magic, and Akko wanted to be a witch casting spells with her words and enchanting her readers, just like her idol. Akko inhaled sharply as she saw Diana’s eyes flash in clear anger. Akko should have stayed quiet, and not go around picking fights. Diana probably wouldn’t get physical since it might cost her a job, but she certainly looked like she would throw hands at any given moment.

The tension in the room grew thicker as Akko stared at Diana, waiting for her to speak. The silence stretched on for what seemed like hours, until a little chirp sounded off behind Akko. She gave a small scream that was also echoed by a strangled yelp of fright from Diana. Probably in response to Akko’s yelling. Akko dropped her book as she whirled around to check the source of the noise. Her legs tangled together from the quick turn and she fell to the ground with a thump. She heard Diana let out a quiet scoff, probably at her lack of grace. Akko let out a small groan and looked to see what had startled her and Diana out of their standoff. It was another Roomba. This one had a little nametag of Shark on it, as well as a little cardboard fin taped to its head. Endearing, if it hadn’t scared years off of Akko’s life. Akko watched as it turned around and rolled away. Jerk.

Akko turned her head back to Diana as she felt the blonde walk up to her. Diana crouched down and picked up the book Akko had dropped in fright. She brushed it off and looked it over for damage. The blonde seemed satisfied that the book was okay and looked at Akko. Of course the bookstore employee would care more about a book than a human. Diana offered her hand, and Akko stared at it confused for a second until she reached out and took it. Diana’s hands were warm, a sharp contrast to her cold eyes. “Thanks.” Akko said awkwardly as Diana helped pull her to her feet. Diana let out a grumpy noncommittal hum in response. Akko blinked as she realized Diana was staring at her. Then she realized that she was still holding Diana’s hand.

“You have really nice hands,” Akko’s words tumbled out of her mouth “they’re really soft. Smooth.” Oh no she was babbling. She still hadn't let go of Diana’s hands. Also she was rubbing her thumb over Diana’s hand. Akko’s gay was showing. She felt her face getting redder, and Diana also seemed to have taken on the hue of a strawberry. Akko dropped Diana’s hands like she had touched a hot stove only after the blonde cleared her throat awkwardly. Akko should really relearn her social skills. Trying  to get rid of the horrible awkward feeling that settled in her chest, Akko scrubbed her hands on her shorts. Yep. Her hands were sweaty. Diana probably thought she was a crazy person. A crazy person who started fights over children’s books and held random girl’s hands tenderly for long periods of time. She could never come here again. 

“Let’s get you get checked out, shall we?” Akko blinked as Diana practically shoved the English book into her hands. Diana was checking her out? Akko gaped at Diana until her brain connected the dots. Oh yes, she was buying a book. A book for a class. A class that she was totally going to be late for. Oh dear.

“Diana,” Akko said in a panicked tone, her voice raising a few octaves, “what time is it, exactly?” Akko felt her foot start tapping as her anxiety rose. If the time was what she thought it would be, then she was screwed.

“One-thirty.” Diana responded as she checked her phone. She was avoiding all eye contact, and had once again crossed her arms as if to avoid touching Akko. Akko honestly couldn’t blame her. She was a particular brand of crazy that most people could only take in small doses, and she had definitely overstayed her welcome. Akko began walking to what she assumed would be checkout. “Diana,” Akko liked the way Diana’s name sounded when she said it “I am about to be incredibly late for an English class that I need this book for. I gotta go. Like the ‘I should have left ten minutes ago’, gotta go.”

Diana rolled her eyes and walked by Akko, the smell of a meadow trailing after her. God Akko liked that smell. “Then I suggest you follow me, you were about to head in the wrong direction.” Though Diana was rude, Akko appreciated Diana’s quick pace as they walked through the store. Once more Diana was leading her through the winding shelves with a purpose. It turned out that the register was near the door. It was hidden from view from those walking in by a strategically placed bookshelf. Diana smoothly slid behind the counter and rattled off a number. Probably the book’s price. Akko didn’t quite hear what she said; she was too panicked, and simply threw four ten dollar bills at Diana’s face. She didn’t even bother waiting for her receipt or change. Akko threw herself forwards, sprinting to the door and fumbling with the knob. She didn’t even want to think about what Diana’s face looked like now, watching Akko flail around like an idiot. She managed to get the door open and resumed her mad dash once more, clipping an old lady with her shoulder on the way out. Both stumbled, but managed to recover. Akko ignored the irate calls after her. Gasping heavily, she began her mad sprint up the street and towards the college. If she took a shortcut through the alley and behind the old pizza parlor, Akko figured she could shave off a few minutes of time.

Covered in sweat, completely disheveled and probably wrinkling the pages of her new book, Akko was proud to say that she ended up only two minutes late. She was only scolded by Professor Finnelan for a total of ten minutes. All in all, a successful adventure.

[dibleopard-writes]

Make This Chaos Count

Fandom: The Island (2005) Characters: Bernard Merrick, Gandu Three Echo/Alpha, others Rating: Teen for language and brief violence Warnings: Terminal Illness, brief description of symptoms, murder, shooting, brief description of blood, infrequent strong language, CHARACTER DEATH, hospitals, mention of a car accident Additional tags: Angst, fluff and angst, cloning, pre-canon, canon compliant, technically

Word Count: 14,074 Also on Ao3 and Wattpad

Summary: Is it really stealing if you’re taking back something that was stolen from you in the first place? In the wake of his partner’s death, Bernard Merrick thinks not.

Watching the film isn’t really necessary since this is just the lead-up, but you should watch it anyway cause I’m carrying the fanbase on my back.

The study had an absent solemnity to it that Bernard Merrick wallowed in easily. He watched his own fingers tap against the red leather of the sofa. Tap. Tap. Tap. Along in perfect rhythm with the infernal ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

“Stop sulking,” said Steve, who had carefully selected a can of inexpensive beer from a cooler of vintage whiskeys. “Hey, at least I won't leave you a widower.”

Bernard glared at him. He had been hoping to leave the question of their marriage for another day. Still not legal, even after their decade of waiting. Hopefully they would get the opportunity soon enough. He had half a mind to march to the capital and write the bill himself. Steve never quite cared as much about that kind of thing. ‘I mean the tax thing would be nice but really it's just a piece of paper, right?’ He’d said so many times before, when there wasn't yet a deadline hanging over their heads. Bernard would nod, ‘Right’, and wonder if either of them were qualified to select wedding flowers. It was the small things.

“You know drinking will make it worse?” He unlocked his phone to the webpage he had found in the hospital lift. For the tenth time in three hours, his eyes glided over the concise little paragraphs, taking in none of them.

Steve rolled his eyes. “I'm drinking to cope, Bernie.”

“According to the NHS, less than fifty percent of people with cirrhosis live for five more years when they keep drinking.”

“Well then I'd better get all of my living done now, then, hadn't I?” He flopped down next to Bernard, threw one hand over his eyes. “And getting blackout drunk is first on my to-do list.”

Bernard sighed, knowing a losing battle when he saw one, and wrapped an arm around Steve. They still had time.

Months later, in that same room, papers lay on every available surface as well as many supposedly unavailable surfaces. At his desk, Bernard had a sizable stack of documents balanced on his lap and was holding a file in one hand, typing and scrolling with the other. So far his computer had coped with keeping fifty-seven tabs open with only minimal lag. Most were various healthcare websites, some for hospitals nearby, others for the most successful hospitals, and the rest for the best options in their price range. Tinny hold-music was playing from underneath one of several empty mugs; the last few days had seen him drink coffee and tea indiscriminately and, in one memorable instance, simultaneously.

“Man!” There was a crash as several thick hardbacks fell from their perch on the stair banisters outside. Steve’s hand emerged around the door, one foot poised over the paper-covered floor. “You say I’m a slob! What do you call this?”

“Try not to move anything; I've got it all where I want it.”

Steve poked his head around the door, still balancing on one foot, to give him an unconvinced look. “Is this still the same thing as last time?”

Bernard could only meet his eyes for a split second. “What else would it be?”

“Bernie, you can’t keep using your sick days to go looking for something that doesn’t exist. What if you actually get sick?”

“I wouldn’t be as sick as you,” replied Bernard, typing more aggressively than strictly necessary.

“Low blow, man.”

“Listen, I think I’ve found a few that could work.” The printer by the door thunked and juddered before deliberately whirring out webpages in glorious black and white. “There’s a research group in Italy working on artificially grown organs, and a firm in Japan that’s trying mechanical versions. Also, I have a hospital on the line about donation and three more to call by five o’clock.”

Steve took the pages and flicked through them half-heartedly. Bernard couldn’t see him from behind the door but he heard the sigh. He’d been hearing that sigh with increasing regularity. It signalled something in the area of pity, which rankled him more than he liked to admit. He wasn’t the one who had been falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon; he wasn’t the one who became nauseous every other meal; he was not the one with an expiry date hanging over his head. If anyone was worthy of pity, it was Steve, and Bernard refused to subject him to that indignity.

“You know they won’t give me a transplant when I’m still drinking?” said Steve. He did know. He hated it. “Ethics, and all.”

“Then stop drinking, for God’s sake!”

“Bit late for that, don’t you think?” And he could hear the smile in Steve’s voice, the dry humour. “The withdrawal would probably kill me before the liver.”

A sigh of his own, signalling something in the area of anger.

“Look, just– I’ll find something. I’ll find something. I promise you.”

“Promise yourself; you seem to need it more than me,” Steve put the pages on top of the printer, voice somber. His hands were shaking. “Just don’t run yourself into the ground, okay? I need you.”

Bernard nodded, unseen, “Of course.”

Steve’s footsteps retreated in time with the hold music. Bernard stared at his screen, at the file in his hand, at the forest of paper around him, seeing only the potential futures in his head.

“Steve?” He called.

“Yeah?”

“Could I take a genetic sample from you? Just in case?”

“Anything for you, Bernie.”

...

    It was snowing. Bernard Merrick was dressed for the weather in the loosest sense: a long coat, a scarf, but with business shoes and no hat. The frigid air nipped at his ears and the snow soaked through his trousers as he knelt in front of the freshly turned earth, which was only just beginning to turn white. 

Steve Gandu had not been a religious man; there was no church, no service, no stone angel, just a funeral, a wake with a noticeable lack of alcohol, and Bernard paying vigil until the sun set or he collapsed from cold, whichever came first. Who did you pray to, he wondered, when neither of you believed much in an afterlife but you liked the idea of someone keeping him safe, now that he was out of reach?

    It was a strange thought to have, and unproductive. He let it become numb and fall away from sensation as his fingers had.

    The last few months had been bad. He’d been bad. Steve had been coping as well as he could, but was also bad when it came down to it. His eyes had lost their life before the rest of him, the whites yellowing as they became more and more drowsy. Sometimes he’d wake up confused, or blood would end up in places blood shouldn’t be, and Bernard would find him with a can of something foul scrounged from who-knows-where. Those were bad days. 

On bad days Bernard would find himself gravitating towards the study even after he’d promised to leave alone the ‘mad scientist pipe dreams’, as Steve occasionally referred to them. Not all of them were mad. Every now and then there was a spark of brilliance among the paragraphs of otherwise uncreative research papers. He’d pursue the thread until he found the end, which was usually before anything left the realm of theory, a brick wall few were willing to take a sledgehammer to. Ethics, funding, feasibility. All seemed negligible in the early hours of the morning, but apparently biochemistry did not occur before dawn.

Steve would look at him sadly, once he would return to bed, eyes red from screen strain. Bernard would smile at him, and they would both be too tired to do anything about it but sleep.

There was no one left to smile sadly at him anymore. No one to sigh dramatically when he brought up a new idea he’d found, or make snarky comments about death and inevitability and karma. It was just Bernard Merrick and the snow.

The house was empty which meant he could slam as many doors as he wanted. Papers flew as he swept into the study with a crash. They didn’t matter, they hadn’t helped him. Disorder could reign among them until he screwed them up and set them alight in the garden. It could all burn.

His snow-sodden shoes made the print underfoot bleed. Memory stick, wallet, change of clothes. That was all that mattered. Car keys, they mattered too. Only the things he needed to get out and not come back, at least for a night. Toothbrush? Yes, and toothpaste. Nothing else.

Articles were stuck to his shoes as he left the house, door locked only due to a chance remembering in the fervour. He noticed the papers only once he was in the car and threw them into the passenger seat. 

Where to go? Simple enough: work. They did good things at work, things he could use. He would stay in his office. He would find an answer among all of the meaninglessness around him. He would make things better. He would fix everything. He would. He would.

...

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was entirely natural. It’s practically indistinguishable from the real thing. Bravo, Dr Merrick.”

A small crowd had gathered around the plexiglass container. Visually, the contents was unremarkable, if visceral: a wet, reddish mass that was ever-so-slightly pulsing where blood-filled tubes pierced the surface. Beyond the visual, it was the culmination of the department’s collective careers, brought to fruition by Merrick’s own contributions.

Months of work, years for some, and now they had a liver.

“Thank you, Dr Wilson, your feedback is greatly appreciated.”

It was a liver. A real, organic liver grown entirely in the labs.

Grinning, someone slapped him on the back. “You know, Merrick, I think this makes up for all that time off. I bet this’ll be on the other side of clinical trials before the year is out.”

“Just need to consolidate all the data,” added another, “And we’ll breeze through peer review.”

Before all this, he’d expected livers to be bigger, somehow.

“Saving lives, Merrick, this is what it’s all about. This is why you join the industry!”

Adrenaline-fueled conversation filled the room, most of it only half directed at him. His reflection in the plexiglass stared back at him, tight-lipped. Behind the reflection, the liver glistened. It had been made with the genetic material of some poor sod who still had years to live. They’d stopped drinking, presumably, to make the whole venture worth the investment.

The liver wouldn’t bring back Steve. It would save a life – and many more by its legacy – but it couldn’t bring back Steve. It was just one liver, and that wasn’t enough anymore.

“Merrick.”

Trial eighty-one looked up at him with beady eyes; its distinctive black-spotted ear flicked disinterestedly. Only a day old, and it appeared identical to the photos of the original mouse, which had died of old age around the time that trial thirty-seven had woken prematurely and drowned, still half-formed.

“Merrick.”

Trial eighty-one had so far avoided the pitfalls of its predecessors. It had taken sixty attempts to make the switch from accelerated aging, and another twenty to iron out the kinks in developing a physically mature specimen from the initial stem cells. Maybe this time he had succeeded.

“Merrick!”

He blinked. “What?”

“I was being serious yesterday, we need to watch ourselves or we’ll get–” Merrick’s supervisor reached the desk, moving through the jungle of pipes and cables. “Is that–?”

“That,” said Merrick, not taking his eyes off trial eighty-one, “Is our first mature clone to survive twenty-four hours out of the growth-support system.”

“Oh my god. Merrick–”

“I know, I know, but I think we’ve done it.”

“You’ve done it.”

“Well, yes, but it’s on behalf of the company, of course. This is our research.”

“No, no. You don’t– Merrick, the boss needs to talk to you about this. We’ve had people– This is a major thing – way beyond the scope of the project – and we can’t just–” She gestured at the mouse, “Do that. Not– not here.”

“You seem to be overlooking the fact that I just did,” smirked Merrick. His supervisor dug her hands into her face.

“Listen, just– the boss needs to talk to you. Now.”

“Of course. I think I’m just about finished here,” he replied, gently scooping up trial eighty-one and putting it in a small enclosure.

“Yeah, I think so too. You’d better be up there ASAP.”

His new lab was in an unassuming building in the outskirts of the city – the industrial sort of outskirts, filled with warehouses and trainyards all in various states of rust. The main entrance looked more like a side-door, painted in flaking blue, opened from the inside with a crash bar designed for fire exits. In the corridor, the plaster was flaking off the walls, coating the exposed pipes in pale dust. The few rooms he had been allotted for his exile, however, had been repainted and retiled upon his arrival. It still wasn’t the old labs, but it was clean, it was big enough, and it was his.

There had been an ultimatum: he could no longer work towards human cloning while openly under the company’s employ. Covertly, however, with reduced funding and a team only of those who volunteered for a supposed career suicide, he could continue. He would owe the company money for their investment, but their name would be kept from any research papers and, by extension, any controversy.

The deal was fine by Merrick. At least, it would be if some of the supposed volunteers were actually trustworthy. He could have sworn that one of them was reporting on him to someone a phone call away. Another was far too eager to know the ins-and-outs of the process. Merrick kept his office locked.

A small menagerie of animals had come and gone by the time he felt ready to take on the endgame. The success rates were climbing, and their equipment was no longer as foreign as it had been – not to mention bigger.

It was after hours. Everyone else had left and Merrick was staring at the completed designs for the final growth-support system. 

Could he do it? 

Obviously, he could do it, but could he do it with so many suspicious eyes on him? Was it safe to make this final step in the lab, which had less-than-stellar security? What would happen if the spy reported to an ethical committee? Or if his work was stolen and misappropriated? What would happen to the clone, if anyone knew about it?

Finding out was not worth the risk, he decided; he would have to find another way.

He took the design sheet, downloaded the digital backup, and put a coil of tubing in the boot of his car. None of it would be missed, and now he needed it in his own hands – his hands alone.

...

It took two months to gradually assemble everything in his basement, and in that time he finally got used to being alone in the house. He’d never been superstitious, but he couldn’t help but shiver every time he had heard the boiler knock on the walls or passed the cold spot halfway down the basement stairs. There were two new locks on the door and he hadn’t opened the curtains in the front room since he had begun to work on the project at home.

In the lab, the construction of the new growth-support system was months behind, interrupted by small, hard to find mishaps that threw the entire system out of balance. Two loose bolts one day, a punctured tube another. Poor luck, said one scientist. A sign, said another. Merrick simply tapped the desk irritably and said that there had better not be any bad luck tomorrow. Often, there was. Funny how things happened like that.

He had requested a new genetic sample for the lab’s first test, claimed the one he was originally planning to use had been damaged in the freezing process. Now, in the safety of his basement, he carefully placed Steve’s sample into the analyser. The computer whirred for a few minutes and he watched, drinking the fifth coffee of the day, forcing his hands not to shake from caffeine or otherwise. Readings flicked onto the screen. The sample was safe. It would work. Just another month, and he could hear Steve’s voice again.

A few taps of a keyboard, and the arduous process of creating the first human clone began. He pulled up a chair, his eyes not leaving the system until he fell asleep hours later, still sitting upright in front of the foundations of a human skeleton.

...

The clone was not Steve. Perhaps that should have been predictable.

It did not have his memories, it did not have his wit, it did not have his rough-around-the-edges smile or his world-weary optimism. But it did have his eyes, and, once it learnt to speak, it had his voice, albeit stilted as his never was. It was a newborn in Steve’s body, with Steve’s brain if not his mind.

It was not Steve. It was a facsimile. However, it was Steve enough to put the thrill of success through Merrick’s nerves. The clone was a second iteration of Steve, similar but different. Manufactured. Gandu Two Alpha.

Good enough. He would always be good enough.

After the initial birth, as it were, after fluid splashed across the floor, soaking his shoes and the air was filled with gasping and begging and “breathe, breathe, breathe,” after choked sobs in two voices had abated, after eyes had opened, clouded with unfamiliarity, after Merrick felt the blow of being a stranger to those eyes, after he locked the pain away with viscous practicality and helped dry everything down, after all of that, he left the basement. The deed was done. It was alive.

That night he cried himself to sleep, back in the bed they had shared for the first time since Steve’s death, and the clone remained alone downstairs.

Eventually, he collected himself. The morning was spent teaching the clone to walk and then helping it up the stairs into the kitchen. There was no conversation, only Merrick’s monosyllabic encouragement and the clone’s attempt to catch the eyes that looked anywhere but its face.

In the days following, when Merrick wasn’t at work, he was guiding the clone – someone had thought of another term, a euphemism, but that was what it was: a clone – through human experience. The messy basics, initially, hygiene and eating and drinking, but then speech, abstract ideas, self-sufficiency. He set boundaries but allowed free roam around the house, not that he could have done much to stop it. Alcohol had long been banished from the house, so he needn’t worry about that, and he had long forgotten to pay the cable fee, so there were few opportunities for the clone to see something Merrick wasn’t ready to explain. The basement was locked again, cleaned and relegated to the back of his mind.

A finger gently prodded Merrick in the sternum, eyes questioning, brow furrowed with the intent seriousness of a three-year-old with a mission. 

“Yes, this is me, Bernard.” 

“Bernard,” confirmed the clone’s achingly familiar voice, “Me.” 

“No, no, you’re you, I’m me.” Merrick took the unnaturally soft hand in his own and pointed it at the clone. 

“Me?” Repeated the clone. 

“Yes.” 

The clone smiled, somehow managing to make it too wide, even if Steve had always smiled more than Bernard. It was strange that Merrick was more aware of those little details now than he had been when the real thing had still been right in front of him.

“Bernard?” The clone’s hand hadn’t moved from where Merrick had put it.

Merrick pointed to himself. “I’m Bernard. That’s my name.”

A nod of understanding, clarity, then, “My name?”

The clone wasn’t completely dopey, not anymore; it knew what it was asking. Perhaps last week it would have been a case of parroting, but now the clone was beginning to attach meaning to words. It took a few tries, sometimes from different approaches, but slowly things were clicking into place and comprehension was dawning.

Still, the gaze was fixed on Merrick. Still, Merrick found it difficult to meet.

“Bernard.” Not a question. Deliberately so. “My name?” A demand, skewing strangely into an English accent, imitating Merrick’s own tone.

What was its name?

He had named it on the documents, but the thought had been fleeting in his mind, where he mostly thought of it as ‘it’ or ‘the clone’ or, if he was feeling particularly morose, ‘not him’. The name was comfortingly clinical, distant and inhuman. He could shorten it to just ‘Gandu’ but that was a step too close to calling the thing ‘Steve’. If he couldn’t look it in the eye, he couldn’t call it by his name.

“Your name is Gandu Two Alpha,” he said, ignoring the way it felt strangely final, as if this, of all moments, was the one he couldn’t turn back from.

“Gan-du Doo– Gand-u… Two Alv– Gon–” The clone stopped with a huff, frown morphing into one of frustration. Apparently ‘Gandu Two Alpha’ was more of a mouthful than ‘Bernard’. Who’d have thought?

“Me,” decided the clone.

    ...

By the time the lab’s version (which had been completely dismantled and reassembled in an effort to fix several loose connections, twice) was ready for its first trial, Gandu Two Alpha had mastered basic speech and was gradually learning to spell. If it tried, it could probably work its mouth around its name, but it seemed content with writing ‘me’ instead, and if Merrick hadn’t wanted to push Steve’s name onto the thing, there was no one meaningful to judge.

Work, however useless it was becoming, was still taking up half of Merrick’s day. From what he could tell, the clone spent most of that time pottering around, inspecting inconsequential little details. Merrick had hidden all of the photos of Steve in a box under his bed, but it was only a matter of time before the clone got curious enough to venture there. Already, it had blindly reorganised the bookshelf in the front room, presumably by spending hours taking each book out, scrutinising every aspect of it, and then forgetting where it had originally been and putting it back at random. At least it hadn’t moved everything around in the kitchen.

Every now and then, Merrick would catch himself smiling as he watched the clone stumble through life. It was still painful to see that face with none of Steve behind it, but he found himself growing used to the differences and the clone had a captivating innocence to him– it– that was more endearing than Merrick wanted to admit. The smile that the clone often gave him when Merrick came back at lunch was not Steve’s smile by any stretch, but it was earnest and the fact that Merrick was the cause of that smile somehow made it better.

The clone had all of its own little eccentricities: an accent that was a strange mesh of the one its mouth was adapted to and the one it heard Merrick use; a fascination with water (Merrick had once come home to all of the taps running and the clone staring into the bath); and an insatiable sweet tooth that earned Merrick a wild grin anytime he made jam on toast. It was easy to forget that the clone was ever intended to be Steve, and that somehow made it easier to be around him– it. They had a strange little harmony between them that hummed beneath the heartbreak and the stilted navigation of conversation.

It was nice, and Merrick learned to accept that it was.

One evening, they were sitting at the kitchen table playing Scrabble – Merrick had decided to put the clone’s memory and spelling skills to the test – when there was a knock at the door. The clone jumped, skewing the tile he was placing. He realigned it with deliberate precision, eyes darting between the board, Merrick, and the hallway.

“Over,” he read.

Merrick smiled, rising, “Good, v is quite high scoring. I’ll be back; I just need to see who this is. Stay here, okay? Don’t follow me.”

“Okay. Is it work?”

“Usually I go to work, not the other way around,” Merrick replied, dryly. The clone tried to smile, but the anxiety of the unfamiliar made it flicker. The door knocked again, more loudly.

One of Merrick’s peers from work was behind the door when it opened. “You’re a hard man to get hold of, Dr Merrick. You keep your phone on silent or what?” He didn’t, he just let the calls ring through. They were never worth his time.

“Ambrose, what brings you here?”

“Oh, nothing much, just that some of the guys were working overtime and got the system up and running,” he grinned. Ambrose was a relatively young man, the kind instilled with that insufferable swagger that made Merrick want to put him on admin duty for a month. “We need a sample, preferably before the thing falls apart again.”

“And you came to me at eight o’clock in the evening because…?”

“Well, we need your go-ahead before we can make any decisions about this sort of thing, y’know? You are the one in charge. And you still haven’t got back to me with that new sample you were talking about months ago. After the first one got... damaged...?”

Ambrose’s eyes were fixed on something beyond Merrick’s shoulder. Urging himself not to sigh too heavily, he turned around to see the clone standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Good morning,” called the clone.

Ambrose swallowed, nodding. “Evening.” Then he looked back at Merrick. “Is that–”

“No.”

“I thought he was de–”

“No.”

Ambrose grinned in a way that Merrick didn’t like. This was the problem with normal humans: they always had an ulterior motive. At least Two Alpha was always genuine or, failing that, a terrible liar. This time Merrick did sigh. “You’d better come in.”

Ambrose didn’t hesitate, his attention fixed on the clone, who smiled nervously back and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Oscar. Oscar Ambrose. What about you?”

“What about me?” Their voices moved into the kitchen as Merrick worked on relocking the door.

“What’s your name?”

In his mind’s eye, Merrick could see the frown on Two Alpha’s face as he worked on recalling it. The last lock clicked into place.

“Gandu Two Alpha.”

Ambrose shot Merrick a disbelieving look as he entered. “Dr Merrick–!”

Merrick glared at him and played his turn on the Scrabble board. Resolute. Two Alpha mouthed the spelling to himself, expression somewhere between indignance and admiration. It was a long word by his standards and Merrick had so far been playing five letters maximum.

“Work on your turn. Ambrose and I need to talk upstairs. Stay here. Really, this time.”

“I did stay here; I didn’t leave the kitchen.”

Cheeky brat. Merrick rolled his eyes, unable to maintain his stern facade. Ambrose was still staring, so he dragged him up to the study by an arm. 

As soon as the door was closed, Ambrose was talking. “‘Two Alpha’? What sort of name is that? Is he actually an agnate, you really did it? Wait–” He stopped dead, processing something. “Are you the reason the system keeps breaking? You want the tech all for yourself!”

Merrick thrust the desk chair across the room. “Sit.”

Ambrose’s legs gave way as he sat. Behind his back, Merrick’s own hands were shaking. “None of what you’ve seen or heard today will leave this house, understand?”

A skeptical narrowing of eyes. That damn arrogance, even as the man was slumped in Merrick’s shadow. As if there weren’t an innocent life at risk, sitting downstairs and playing Scrabble, unaware of what damage loose lips could do to his entire way of life. Irreverent bastard.

He lunged forward, pinning Ambrose’s wrists to the armrests. “I said: do you understand?”

Ambrose nodded unconvincingly and then winced when Merrick leaned into his hands. Merrick spat, “Yes, I sabotaged the system. No, it was not to hoard it. None of you can be trusted, not with him, so I did it myself. I needed you to be delayed.”

“So he’s your…”

“His genetic donor was my partner, yes, not that that’s any of your business.”

“And… Sorry, I can’t get over that name–”

“It’s better than Human Trial One.”

Ambrose gave a conceding nod, “Point taken.” Then, “Hey, could you ease off a bit? I can’t feel my fingers.” Merrick pushed into him, perhaps taking too much pleasure in the way he folded at the pressure, before moving to lean against the desk. Hissing, Ambrose tried to rub the pain out of his wrists. “God, you don’t do things by halves, do you?”

Merrick glared.

“Okay, okay, whatever, water under the bridge, doesn’t matter, but– do you know what this means? It works! You’ve made a human agnate! Have you– have you done any testing? Like, genetic analysis? Is he one-for-one identical?”

The main negative to having someone in your house, Merrick decided, is that you couldn’t walk out. “I haven’t taken any samples. Cognition has been my main focus, if not his survival. He seems accurate enough, physically. He has no memories, though, and he’s had to learn everything practically from scratch.”

“Sucks. Bet you were hoping for a carbon copy, memories and all, huh? Hang on, have you…” 

Merrick could see the way his mind had turned and was unimpressed. Let him wade through the embarrassment, Merrick wouldn’t fish him out. “Have I what?”

“...Kissed him?” Ambrose’s shoulders were hiked up to his ears. Idiot.

“Mentally, he is a child, Ambrose, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Sorry, sorry. Had to ask, though, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

Ambrose sighed as if Merrick was the insufferable one. “Look, I think we’re overlooking just how massive this is. If we could make this on a mass scale, we could– I don’t know. This is the kind of thing that very wealthy people would pay a lot of money for.”

“Millions of dollars for… an organ transplant?”

“Millions of dollars for an organ transplant with a wait-time of days, maximum, practically zero chance of the body rejecting it, and it would be up to the client to decide whether or not they should get a transplant – no lifestyle changes necessary just to tick boxes. That’s millions of dollars for twenty more years of life. Maybe more! If I were the kind of person who had a billion just lying around…”

Steve hadn’t had a million, let alone a billion dollars collecting dust in a drawer somewhere. If he had – if either of them had – would it have made a difference?

“Hell,” continued Ambrose, “at that point immortality is within reach. Imagine that, Merrick! Once the surgical world catches up, you could just keep going forever!”

“And we just keep harvesting from the agnates,” His voice was far more somber than he intended it to be.

“Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, the net result is positive. In terms of life, that is. If you count them as real people, which– which I wouldn’t, legally. Not if we wanted to sell anything.”

At some point, Merrick realised, he had begun to think of Two Alpha as a ‘he’. Somewhere else – before or after, he didn’t know – he had begun to care for him as an individual. Perhaps it was latent love for Steve, or perhaps it was an independent affection for someone who was slowly learning who they were as he guided them along. Either way, something in the back of his mind reared at the idea of Two Alpha being killed for parts. 

If Two Alpha had existed before Steve had died… 

Part of Merrick wanted to say that he wouldn’t have sacrificed him, that he’d have kept both for as long as possible and accepted Steve’s death when it came. The rest knew that he wouldn’t have given himself the chance to care for him – Two Alpha would have been on the operating table before he knew how to cry for help.

Sometimes Merrick hated himself.

“And we could do it on that scale?” It was hardly a question.

“You’re the one to ask.”

“We could.” He ignored the sound of the kitchen tap being turned on and off, on and off. “If we had enough money to do so.”

“Well that, my friend, is where you’re lucky I was the one to find out.” Lucky was a strong word. Merrick didn’t feel very lucky. Oblivious to it all, Ambrose continued, energised and far too loud for the time of evening, “I’ve got some sway with one of the banks, and if we proposed the project to, say, the Department of Defense, I’m sure they’d be more than willing to make an investment. I can handle all of the marketing, networking, whatever, you’d just have to get the science going.”

“You’re saying we start a new company – not research-based – to sell organs grown in…” He wanted to say sentient beings, or humans, but already he could tell that it was a dangerous train of thought, “Agnates?”

“I doubt the boss wants us to do it with his funding. Breaking off is the only way to go.” It was a valid point and Merrick had already been one bad day away from walking out and never returning, but starting an entirely new business venture had never been on the table – he was a scientist, not a businessman.

“Why should I agree to this?”

“Why not?! Millions, Dr Merrick, why would you turn that down?”

“Agnates are hardly cheap on the production end, not to mention upkeep.”

“They’ll pay for themselves, you know they will. What’s your problem with this? Your real problem.”

The real problem? As if he would spill his emotional turmoil to the kid with the supposed business skills. No. Merrick lied, “I feel you’re underestimating exactly how much time, money, and resources this will take.”

“And I feel you’re underestimating how worth it it will be.”

Sighing, Merrick took off his glasses and began to clean them, using the distraction to sort his thoughts.

Two Alpha had never left the house. He would never need to know exactly what Merrick was doing if he agreed to this plan. Merrick could create hundreds of agnates and keep Two Alpha safe for himself, all the while he would be saving lives like Steve’s from preventable deaths. If he just didn’t talk to them, if he didn’t stimulate their individual development beyond the physical, didn’t allow them to be much more than walking organs, they wouldn’t really be people. Not like Two Alpha. They would just be insurance policies, clean and clinical.

He put his glasses back on. They were smudged.

“Fine. I’m in.” Ambrose’s grin returned and Merrick wondered if he’d regret putting this much trust in the man. “But we’re doing this my way. I don’t want any surprises, understand?”

“Of course, Dr Merrick.” He held out a hand. “I think this is the start of something incredible.”

Merrick shook it. “I want you in my office tomorrow morning; we need to plan this properly.”

Ambrose was already moving back downstairs, “Nine AM, sharp, Dr Merrick.”

“Make that eleven.” God knew he wouldn’t be able to cope with the man so early in the day. He unlocked the front door and waved Ambrose out.

“You won’t regret this!”

“Make sure of it.”

With the door finally closed, Merrick could acknowledge the headache worming its way into his eye sockets. He needed to sleep this off.

“Is he gone?” asked Two Alpha, standing by the kitchen door, just barely behind the threshold. His weight was shifting from foot to foot anxiously. 

“Yes. I trust you haven’t run the taps dry?”

“No,” the clone smiled, “There’s still water in them, look!”

Merrick put a glass under the tap as Two Alpha demonstrated, nodding seriously. “Very good. And did you play your turn?”

“Yup, error. I had a bunch of R’s.”

He drained half of the glass and stared at the board. “Do you want to continue? It’s getting late.” 

Two Alpha seemed to disagree with that assessment, but he also seemed to have hit his energy limit for the day because his objection was broken by a yawn. “Maybe,” he conceded. “What was Oscar Ambrose doing here?”

They left the Scrabble untidied on the table, climbing the stairs to the guest room that Two Alpha now occupied. 

“He just wanted to talk to me about work, nothing to concern yourself over.”

“He seemed nice.”

If only you knew the things he is planning, Merrick thought, before saying, “I suppose he did.”

Two Alpha nodded, content in his first assessment of any human beyond Merrick. “Goodnight, Bernard.”

“Goodnight.”

...

    In far less time than was reasonable, Ambrose had wrangled the lab’s growth system and plans out of the company’s possession – easy, he claimed, when they had refused to have their name on any of it – and into the asset pool of the newly christened Merrick Biotech. Soon enough, they had enough investors to buy land in a barren part of the Arizona desert, specifically an abandoned missile facility complete with underground silos and outdated wiring.

    “The missiles were Titan II’s, you know?” said Ambrose, unlocking the facility for the first time. “They were going to be replaced, that’s why they were decommissioned, but the replacements were never produced.”

    “Fascinating,” Merrick lied. He had never been to Arizona before, but the desert reminded him of Steve, beautiful in that rugged, slightly unforgiving sort of way. Even after only fifteen minutes of direct sunlight, he could feel his skin burning.

    They stayed in the nearby motel for days at a time, returning home for a few weeks at most before something else required their supervision. Two Alpha remained at the house, alone. Merrick found it more anxiety-inducing than he anticipated, unused to no longer being able to check in every few hours.

    One morning he came downstairs to see Two Alpha intently scribbling on printer paper, seemingly trying to cover the whole sheet in graphite.

    “You don’t always come back,” he said, not moving his gaze from the table.

    “Of course I do,” replied Merrick, surprised by the sullen attitude, “I’m here now, aren’t I? So I must have come back.”

    “But not always.” Two Alpha had the look on his face that betrayed his frustration when he couldn’t convey his thoughts properly. It used to be an almost permanent fixture but months later his communication had improved to the extent that Merrick struggled to remember the last time he saw it. “Sometimes you’re not here when I go to sleep or when it’s morning and I don’t know what to do. Sometimes you come back and it’s good and you don’t go for ages. But then you do go and you don’t come back.”

Merrick sat next to him, put an arm around him. “I’m sorry. Work has changed. It used to be nearby but now it’s far away, so I have to stay there for a few days every time. I try to stay here as much as I can, I promise.”

Two Alpha stopped scribbling, eyes distant with thought. “What’s promise?”

It was always jarring to find the little gaps in Two Alpha’s knowledge, the oversights and the things that seemed too obvious to miss. Each one would be filled, however, and Merrick took care to do it well.

“A promise is when you say something and you mean it. If you promise to do something, you should always try your very best to do it. Don’t make them lightly and don’t break them.”

“Do people break them anyway?”

“Yes, some people. That just means you shouldn’t trust them when they promise things. Especially big things.”

“Do you break promises?”

Yes, he thought, though his promise to Steve was not one he wanted to talk about. “I try not to,” he said instead, “But sometimes I get carried away and make promises that I could never hope to keep.”

“Big promises?”

“Yes, though I don’t think anyone expected me to actually fulfil them. Except myself, maybe.”

“And you promise to stay here as much as you can?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Two Alpha refused to look him in the eye and returned to his paper. “... I’m not sure it’s enough.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t promise much more.”

An understanding nod. “The promise would be too big to keep.”

“Yes.”

Two Alpha processed the conversation and Merrick waited. Eventually, Two Alpha sighed and leaned into Merrick’s hold. “But you’ll come back eventually. You won’t always be gone.” Two statements, more self-reassurance than anything.

Merrick nodded. “I… May be able to get you a phone. So that you can talk to me when I’m far away.” It was a risk, of course, a hole in the protective wall of isolation that Merrick had erected around him, but it would put both of their minds at ease. He could try to put restrictions on it, to prevent internet access and unwanted calls. A curated library of apps would help keep him occupied while Merrick was alone. Yes, it was worth the risk.

“That would be good,” Two Alpha agreed.

    ...

The phone proved its worth but also highlighted Two Alpha’s loneliness. Previously, it had been relatively easy to forget that every hour Merrick spent away was another for Two Alpha to kill at home. On Merrick’s first day away after buying the phone, Two Alpha called almost hourly until Merrick had to tell him to ease off while he was working, after which the calls came every three hours on the dot.

On his second trip, three weeks later, Merrick was flicking through the channels in his motel room when the fourth call of the day came through.

“Hello?” Even after so many of these calls, his voice still raised as if there was any question as to who was on the other end. It felt silly. Distant.

“Hi, Bernard.”

Usually it was at this point that Two Alpha would choose an arbitrary conversation starter, anything from the weather to where paper came from. Instead, there was quiet. Merrick pulled the phone from his ear, checked the call was still working, then put it back and asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” came the voice, strained in the way voices were when their face was pressed into a pillow. “We don’t need to talk. I just…” There was a staticky sigh. “We can just be together like this.”

Something hurt beneath his collarbone and he pretended it had nothing to do with the creeping guilt rising in the back of his mind.

“Okay,” he replied, voice strained in the way voices were when emotion pressed into them. Strange how such abstract things had such physical symptoms.

Steve had liked these moments, the ones where the conversation had run dry and there was nothing but companionable silence. Nothing owed, no performance, no give and take, just being near someone you loved. That was what he lived for. He enjoyed the rest of it, sure, but this– this was what the it all amounted to. When he had explained this, half-asleep on Bernard’s shoulder,

Beyond Steve, however, Merrick found people’s presences grating. They were always watching too intently or not listening enough or putting far too much thought into the act of existing near him. It made him hyper-aware of every infuriating aspect of the situation, on guard and tiring. Steve made it easy to drift, semi-conscious, relaxed. With Two Alpha he had never been truly on edge, rather wary of his own tongue slipping, saying something that would break the translucent illusion he now lived in. As such, the silence of Two Alpha was comforting in a completely different way; no chance of error when there was uncomplicated quiet between them.

Merrick lay back and allowed himself the calm.

Construction was underway at the facility, installing new wiring and digging out new space. He didn’t pretend to know much of what any of it meant, why any of it was happening the way it was, but the schematics that he had been talked through seemed sound enough to his inexpert eye. Ideally, he’d be able to let the construction team do their work and stay home, but such projects were never without their hitches and Ambrose was never without his impatience.

“I know you have your hang-ups about this whole thing,” he had said that day, having dragged Merrick into an unpainted office, “But we need you to be here. Like, really be here. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours can’t take up so much of your attention; yesterday you signed off on a cement order that was ten times under what we need – if I hadn’t caught it this morning we’d be another week behind schedule.”

“You said I wouldn’t have to handle any of this.”

“Cross-checking numbers hardly needs a business degree, Merrick! Your head isn’t in the game. I’m here a week more than you per month. What’s your excuse?”

“Well, unlike you, I have responsibilities at home.”

“What? The agnate?”

Merrick had clenched his teeth and tried his hardest not to glare too venomously – the last thing he needed was to get over-defensive. That way lay exposing himself to a man who would not hesitate to attack such weakness in the name of the bigger picture. Ambrose took his terse silence as a confirmation.

“The agnate can manage by itself – it has so far. This is so much bigger than that, this needs you to put the effort in. What difference will it make to the agnate? You just won’t be around three goddamn weeks a month – who do you know with that sort of time off? It doesn’t happen! This is work, so treat it like work. Prioritise.”

“My private life is just that: private,” Merrick had replied, enunciating sharply, “You would do well to remind yourself of that, Oscar.” And then he had left, wondering if he regretted using Ambrose’s first name. In the end, he decided that he didn’t, which was the easiest problem to solve.

The entire conversation had been repeating in his head like a blinking indicator, only silenced once the underlying issue was confronted. It was true that his total working hours had tanked after leaving the company and it was true that he rarely had more than seventy-five percent of his brain focused within those hours, however there was an entire life hinging on his own and it did so far more directly than the abstract lives that Merrick Biotech could save.

Two Alpha hated being alone and Merrick was loath to extend that time anymore than he had. Already, Two Alpha was navigating more negative emotions than he had ever felt and Merrick could only guide him so well with an entire week of absence looming over both of them, let alone two. The dependence could be called unhealthy if not for Two Alpha’s age.

Still, the tension was undoing them both, the phone simply a loosened valve to release the pressure before something exploded. A coin-sized valve in the Hoover dam, more a weak spot for the pressure to crack than any real aid. Perhaps Two Alpha needed to learn to alleviate the tension by himself, reduce his dependence just enough that there wasn’t such a weight on Merrick’s shoulders.

But how to do it?

He would need to do some research – out of work hours – but he should let Two Alpha down slowly before he could let himself get caught up in radical solutions. Gradually easing him off calling so regularly would help. That was a simple enough step to take.

The phone told him that the call had lasted over ten minutes, most of which was dead air. Their silence hadn’t yet been broken. He sighed.

“Hey.” Thinking about it, he’d never addressed him as Two Alpha. Perhaps it was a bit too inhuman. But was now really the time to think of a more endearing name? “You know that I get charged per minute?”

“For what?” The voice was soft, the tension melted away. Merrick hated the way that his couldn’t do the same.

“For these calls.” Silence. “So– so I’m going to have to go now. We can talk tomorrow. Or not talk. Up to you.”

“Oh.” Soft again, but not in the same way. Damn it. “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Bernard. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, instinctively, though he didn’t quite know what for. In the moments it took for him to wonder, the line went dead.

...

Merrick stayed in Arizona for three days longer than he had originally planned, if only to get Ambrose off his back. Two Alpha had kept his calls to twice a day, morning and evening and kept both strictly within ten minutes. Merrick supposed that his words had gone deeper than intended and Two Alpha was hyper-aware of the time and money Merrick was using to talk to him. It was charming, in a bittersweet kind of way.

He was hoping that Two Alpha hadn’t noticed his extended stay, and as such he hadn’t brought it up. He would be back soon enough.

On the morning of his last day, the phone rang at eight o’clock exactly.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at work.”

“You can’t come back?” 

“Unless there’s an emergency,” he lied. Two Alpha had clung to his promise, used it to reason his way through Merrick’s absence. It felt cruel to exploit that trust, break the promise, but the semantics of whether or not he truly could have returned earlier saved him from complete self-hatred.

“No, no emergency. Is there an emergency with you?”

“No, why would there be?”

“I dunno.”

The rest of the conversation was subdued, though Two Alpha often tended to grow withdrawn in his loneliness until Merrick returned and he bounced back. Nothing abnormal. No reason to be concerned. None at all.

Hours later, when Merrick was digitising spreadsheets at something resembling a desk, the phone rang again. He frowned at it and picked it up with a speed he would never admit to being panicked.

“Mr Merrick?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

“Yes?”

“I’m calling from St Luke’s Hospital about a patient we’ve just received from a recent motor incident. You were the only emergency contact.”

“What?” he croaked.

“Unfortunately, the patient had no ID and was unable to provide a name. Are you able to come to the hospital at this time?”

No. No. It couldn’t be–

“I– I’m in Arizona, I can get there in– nine hours? Where did you find him?”

The matter-of-fact tone of the answer didn’t help calm him as the caller listed an address barely ten metres from his house. Already, the spreadsheets were abandoned in the wake of his strides to the nearest exit.

“What condition is he in?”

“I can’t tell you much without you here to confirm your identity and relation to the patient, but his prognosis is poor. What did you say his name is?”

Merrick hung up. That was not a question he would ever be able to answer, not to anyone other than Two Alpha himself. Even then…

No. Now was not the time.

He ran.

...

Since the 2007 American Transport Initiative, high-speed maglevs connected major cities down each coast and across the southern states, drastically reducing travel times on even cross-continental scales. Unfortunately, there was still a two hour drive to the Phoenix station – perhaps once the system was more established he could petition for another to be built in Tucson, the drive was easily the most grating experience of his life – a four hour trip along the Latitude Line, and another three hours of sporadic stop-starting up the Eastern Seaboard. His loose interpretation of the speed limit in Arizona cut thirty minutes off his prediction but the extended adrenaline high made the journey feel like aeons.

He was already hammering the open door button when the train hummed to a stop and squeezed through the moment the doors allowed him. No one batted an eye at the sight of yet another smartly dressed man rushing with no regard for those in his way and he wouldn’t have noticed if they had. The route to the hospital memorised on the journey, he was a gale force wind weaving between the crowds.

Merrick practically collided with the reception desk, making the receptionist jerk back in her rolling chair.

“I’m here for–” he gasped, caught his breath again, “For a man. Admitted about nine hours ago, no ID. I was called–”

The receptionist typed in the number he showed her once he fumbled his phone over the desk. “Well, the numbers match but we’ll need a proof of identity for you and also what relation you have to him.”

“I’m– I’m Bernard Merrick. I’m all he has, he has no family– except– except me. Please, I need to see him.”

“He has no name on the record, do you–”

“Where is he?”

“Just follow the blue line, he should be in room six. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

Merrick just about managed, “Thank you,” before he was moving again. Blue line. The signs blurring past identified it as the route to the ICU but the blurring was in his head as much as his vision. All he could see was the line. It was all he needed to see.

There was a man standing outside room six. Merrick almost missed him in his determination to pass through the door, but he stepped in the way, placing a hand on Merrick’s shoulder. The hold was probably meant to have some compassion to it, but all he registered was the firmness keeping him from entering.

“Mr Merrick, I presume? Please, a word before you go in.”

There must have been something wild in his eyes when they met the man’s face, because the grip on his shoulder became tighter.

“I’m Dr Colby; I’ve been looking after the patient since his arrival in the department. He is… gravely wounded. Honestly, I’m amazed he’s lasted this long. When you go in there, please, be gentle. The state he’s in may be shocking to see, but you must stay calm, for his sake.” Colby caught his eyes as they darted to the door. “Breathe, Mr Merrick. And… prepare yourself – it is unlikely that he’ll recover.”

Blood was rushing through his ears but those final words rang through his mind clear as anything. They couldn’t be true, the doctor was just pessimistic; he’d seen too many deaths in his career, he was seeing a ghost where there wasn’t one. Two Alpha would make it through. 

Nevertheless. “I need to see him.”

“He has been somewhat aware of his surroundings, so he may be able to talk to you. The best we’ve got from him is what we believe to be his first name, Alf, right?”

Merrick nodded, no longer feeling tethered to reality.

“The worst injuries were elsewhere – his heart has been… erratic. Try to keep any conversation from working him up. Just be there for him, okay?”

Frustration bubbled up – I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to do – but it was distant, as if it hadn’t accompanied him all the way from Arizona. All he could do was croak, “Please.”

Colby nodded solemnly and opened the door. Behind was a small room made smaller by the abundance of machinery, most of it feeding back to the pale shape on the bed. Merrick moved in, suddenly slowed as if moving over sacred ground.

“Hey,” he said, softly, and the eyes opened and his own began to sting. Two Alpha’s eyes were bloodshot to the extreme that the whites of one had become rust-dark. They looked up at him drowsily.

“...Bernard?” His voice was raw, from disuse or pained screaming Merrick couldn’t tell. He took the hand that tried to lift itself off the bed, weighed by the IV line. The fingers were cold but they wrapped around his, fitting like Steves’ had, positioned like his didn’t. 

“Yes, it’s me. I’m here.” Merrick had taken Steve’s left hand, at the end, traced the ring there, covered the back of his hand with his own. Now, he was on Two Alpha’s right, and the hand was upturned, nothing to trace but those lines he didn’t know how to read. Life line. Heart line. Fate line. Illegible.

“Good… I was… worried about you.”

“Worried? Why should you be worried?”

“You didn’t come back. I know you said–” Two Alpha’s voice caught on its raw edges and on the shortness of breath. Perhaps it caught on something else, Merrick could hardly judge. “You said that you would always come back, if you could, and you couldn’t always because of work but– usually you’re back after seven days, sometimes it’s eight. So I waited and– you were away for ten days, no coming back, so I thought–” He sniffed, a thin tear track catching the light to become visible. “I know– I know it wasn’t– you were still on the phone. Looking back, I shouldn’t have worried ‘cause you were still answering, but– I thought maybe something had happened so I went out, the way you go when you leave. To find you.”

He was openly sobbing now, the monitors around him grumbling at the strain it put on his respiratory system. Merrick knew that if he turned his attention to himself, he would see the same sorrow and regret on his own face, but he didn’t, his focus purely on the man on the bed. The man who, if he was willing to admit it, did look terrifyingly delicate. 

It was only in comparison to the clinically white sheets that Two Alpha’s skin looked at all alive. There were bandages covering half of what was visible, bruises covering what remained. Every movement, down to blinking, was measured, pained, subdued. All except the crying.

“I don’t remember– I walked for a bit, I think, then–” He tried to screw his eyes shut as if to block out the sensations still wracking his body, but the bruising was too much to do more than furrow his brow.

“It’s okay,” said Merrick, beginning to stroke the hand with his thumb. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. I should have kept you informed, that’s my fault.”

Two Alpha simply opened his eyes to look at him grimly. There was a depth, a weight to him now that there hadn’t been and Merrick desperately wished to relieve him of it. He met his gaze, unflinching, and let it hurt.

After a while, Two Alpha whispered, barely audible over the machines, “What’s going to happen to me?”

Merrick wished he could offer some spiritual belief, some promise of heaven or of rest. He wished that his first thought in response hadn’t been death, that clinging to his hope of Two Alpha’s survival wasn’t as hollowly delusional as it suddenly felt. He wished that he had anything to say that wasn’t a lie.

“I don’t know.”

“I– I never thought about it. ‘Cause I can only remember being alive, and you being alive too. But, now that… There must have been a time when I wasn’t alive, right?” He watched, a warped half-pride at working it out in his eyes, as Merrick nodded. “So… I think that maybe it’ll happen again. ‘Cause I feel like I’m… running out.”

Merrick felt himself slump forwards, head on their hands, his breathing refusing to work normally. It couldn’t happen again. Was it inevitable? If he tried again, would he be forced to watch this face die again, inhabited by yet another person with his own quirks, his unique endearing traits, a new name? A different death; illness, injury, what else? How many cooling hands would he have to hold for daring to pursue a different, kinder fate?

“You’re okay,” he said into the sheets.

“It hurts.”

Pulling his head back up, he moved one hand to Two Alpha’s shoulder, holding as lightly as he could to avoid causing any further pain. “I know,” he said, “But I’m here now. I’m here as long as you need.”

A weak smile. “Thank you.”

As he returned the smile, he pushed all of his sincerity to the fore. “I love you.”

It wasn’t the same love he had for Steve, but it didn’t need to be, because this was Two Alpha and he was enough. Love was the thing tearing him down from the inside, no regard for dignity, undeniable. Two Alpha deserved to know. If Merrick didn’t love him, he’d have lived his entire life unloved.

“Thank you,” Two Alpha repeated, “I love you too.”

With that, tears finally fell, landing on Two Alpha’s arm. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“It’s okay,” he added, echoing Merrick’s speech the way he had when he was still learning. How long ago? A year? He was so painfully young… “You’re okay.”

All Merrick could do was repeat, “I’m sorry.” You deserved better.

“I think, maybe…” mumbled Two Alpha, eyes becoming drowsy, “Maybe it’ll just be like… those times on the phone. When we don’t talk… and we can’t see… but we’re together anyway. I’d like it, if it was like that.”

“Perhaps it will be.” The tears made his voice wet, but the words didn’t taste of cruel deception. It sounded like a good afterlife, for one invented by a clone with barely any life lived to speak of.

A twitch of lips, probably intended to be a smile. “I’m glad you came back.”

“Me too.”

Then Two Alpha closed his eyes and his breathing slowed. The fingers in his hand slackened their grip. Merrick didn’t take in much after that, even as the flatline drilled through his skull and medics bustled around him. What did any of that matter, anyway?

The important thing was that face, tranquil despite the wounds, motionless again. The important thing was Two Alpha and the heavy silence between them. He half expected to hear the click of a phone disconnecting.

...

This time the aftermath had no storm to it. He didn’t march home, threatening to burn everything in sight. He didn’t go to work and start shouting at Ambrose – though he probably deserved it. No, instead he began to make a list of criteria for the new facility. If they were going to have half an army of walking organs biding their time underground, they would need to do it properly.

The plan as it stood was to teach the agnates hygiene, nutrition, exercise, but nothing that would constitute a normal education. Speech would be necessary, reading less so but perhaps convenient. They would simply need to keep themselves healthy until their time came. Minimising contact to just staff members was also outlined in the initial protocol, though it sat uncomfortably with Merrick. He had no better plan, however. If they could communicate with each other, they would eventually catch on that some disappeared and never returned.

It would be easier, he found himself thinking at least once a day, if they never woke up and could just remain in those gel sacs until they were needed. Unfortunately, all of the animal trials proved it impossible or at least too much effort to be a better option. Once the agnates reached the end of their growth cycle they would wake up regardless of whether they had been taken out, occasionally drowning if they weren’t removed quickly enough. And if they were kept unconscious from there, they would atrophy – brains never finalising their development quite right, muscles never developing, digestion system shutting down without ever being used properly. Unfit for transplant donation.

The investment required to keep them in any fit state was major either way, but at least there were fewer fatal risks when they were allowed consciousness. So, living beings. Care to be taken to do it right.

From his list, Merrick found a sense of purpose in monitoring the construction efforts, making sure everything was as it should be, compiling another list of potential scientists, maintenance workers, caterers, making sure there was enough accommodation in the area, streamlining the growth-support system, getting a small team of lawyers to handle NDAs.

Maybe there was a storm, but he had found the eye more quickly than last time – a numb haven where he could work until he collapsed, ignoring the chaos beyond.

“We need a test run,” Announced Ambrose, walking into the break room where Merrick was lamenting the lack of kettle.

“A test run?”

“Yeah, like your guy, just to make sure everything works. We’ll give it a better name though.” Though Merrick was the one who had garnered a reputation for being cold simply by virtue of his general demeanor, Ambrose could be downright cruel. Not that Merrick had discussed Two Alpha at any length; he wasn’t a masochist.

“And do you have a genetic sample ready?” He asked in lieu of dignifying his jab with a response.

“No, ‘cause I’m not familiar with collecting that kind of thing, but I was thinking we should clone me.”

Merrick simply looked at him, disbelief readable enough without any expression. When Ambrose failed to elaborate, he collected his mind enough to ask, “You?”

“Yeah. Me.” The poor man. His brain must have been damaged from inhaling fumes from the construction. Or perhaps there was unhealthy amounts of radon this far underground. That would need to be checked. “All great pioneers of science end up trying their stuff on themselves, it’s practically a rite of passage. Besides, I can’t sue myself if it all goes wrong, now can I?”

“The legal team still needs to finalise the consent forms…”

“We don’t need it if I own the company!”

“You don–”

“Sorry, if we own the company. Point still stands. Bet this is why all those scientists do it.”

Should Merrick really stand in the way of such a misled endeavour? It was one thing to clone a dead partner, it was another to clone a man who was still alive and in regular contact with the project. Still, it would be interesting, for data collection purposes. Far too much of their current plan was based on hypotheticals. On one hand hubris, on the other… 

“I’ve heard the physicists get on just fine without it,” he said.

Ambrose waved a hand dismissively. “Physicists.”

Merrick made a conscious effort not to put a hand to his eyes, turning instead to what passed as a kitchenette. “And what do you intend to do with your agnate?” 

How did people make tea without a kettle? Would he have to microwave a mug full of water? Was that even legal?

“Dunno, figure it’ll be an insurance policy like the rest. Maybe teach it how to do my paperwork.”

“I’m sure that will pay back the millions it will take to do it.”

“Investment, Merrick, I know you’ve heard of it.”

“And I’ve yet to see the benefit.”

“You’re taking jabs at me ‘cause nothing’s happened while I’m telling you to make something happen!”

He sighed, “If you really think it’ll be of benefit to us, be my guest. Just don’t make the decision lightly. If I find out that you thought of this five minutes ago–”

“You wound me, Dr Merrick, when have I been anything but thoughtful with this venture? This is a great idea – what do we have to lose? It’s the same thing we’ll be doing in a few months anyway, just contained so we can troubleshoot any issues. A prototype!”

This was not a battle that Ambrose was about to lose. Merrick hardly knew which side he was even on. Why not humour the man? 

“Give it a week so I can train the skeleton crew on the initialisation and get everything calibrated,” he said, giving up on tea and instead filling his mug with cold water, “Make sure you’ve thought it through. If you want to go ahead, I’ll get your sample on Thursday.”

“Great!” exclaimed Ambrose, already halfway out of the room, “You won’t regret this, Dr Merrick!”

“You keep on saying that,” Merrick mumbled to the empty doorway. Mug water wasn’t as nice as glass water, he decided, but that hardly mattered.

...

In the end Ambrose went through with it. He dubbed the endeavour ‘Project: Pelasgus’ in the files, though Merrick could think of several more accurate titles, ‘Narcissus’ for one. Was he in a position to pass such judgements? Perhaps not, but there was no one else around to do it and Ambrose was in severe need of someone to temper him.

A great chamber had been hollowed out near the base of one of the old silos, fitted with a surprisingly expensive drainage system and the equipment needed to keep up to twenty-five growth-support systems, only one of which had actually been installed. Merrick viewed the room with much the same strange discomfort as he did the version in his basement, which was probably rusting with neglect. It was the discomfort of an ugly yet unregretted truth and he didn’t like how much of his life now had that tint to it. Sometimes, among the haze of work and his general distaste for Ambrose, he wondered if he too considered the whole affair to be ugly. Then he would decide that Ambrose had no such depth to him and, if anything, thought it cool.

When, eventually, Pelasgus was up and walking, Ambrose holed him away in the large office that was by now his own small apartment. Apparently there had been a scene regarding the staff seeing the agnate’s naked body – more out of concern for himself than the agnate – but Merrick could not bring himself to watch the security footage back to scan for any other red flags. This was Ambrose’s agnate, Merrick had had his chance already.

Which wasn’t to say that he hadn’t been tempted to stick his foot in.

“Check this out.” A memory stick collided with his forehead as Ambrose entered, no knocking as always.

Merrick remained motionless at his desk. “What is it?”

“You need to watch it. I showed Pelasgus a mirror this morning.” He didn’t know how he could say that name so seriously; it was ridiculous. Ambrose picked the memory stick up from where it had fallen, removed the one already in Merrick’s computer, and plugged it in before any preventative measures could be taken.

“I was using that!”

“Hope you save regularly,” replied Ambrose, unrepentant, “This is more important, anyway.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Just watch the damn video.”

The video began with a scene featuring Pelasgus having a simplistic conversation with two technicians that had probably been dragged in from the corridor, camera jerking about until the agnate was centred in the frame and Ambrose moved into view.

“Hey, Pelasgus, can you tell me these guys’ names?”

His response was a dubious look, as if the agnate knew it was a stupid question. Ambrose had probably introduced him to them ten minutes previously. 

“Clyde and Bill.”

“Which is which?” asked Ambrose, to the tune of an even more unimpressed glare.

“Clyde,” poking one, “Bill,” poking the other. Both technicians, wearing matching dusty coveralls and stony expressions, seemed to share the agnate’s attitude.

“Good. You two can go about your business.”

Clyde and Bill seemed all too happy to comply. How the agante had mastered complete disdain so early, Merrick didn’t know. It was almost impressive. Apparently these thinly veiled tests were a regular occurrence and consistently skewing beneath his capabilities.

“Now,” continued Ambrose, moving to uncover a mirror he had leaned against the wall, “Who’s this?”

“You,” said the agnate to his reflection. Then he paused, mind visibly working as he watched his reflection move with him.

Ambrose apparently grew impatient and stepped beside the agnate, grinning. “You.”

A frown creased the agnate’s face as he watched their two reflections, identical if not for their expressions and clothing.

“You look like me,” explained Ambrose as if the agnate hadn’t already worked it out.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I made you to. You’re a copy of me, a clone.” 

Merrick fought the urge to bat him around the head. No subtlety. He had mentally run through the scenario of Two Alpha finding evidence of Steve a hundred times, preparing for each a gentle way of responding to any range of reactions to the inevitable revelation of Two Alpha’s origins, and Ambrose had just barreled through it, no awareness of any of the variables Merrick had mapped a route around.

“A copy?”

“Damn right.”

“Why?” hissed the agnate, half in shocked confusion, half in indignant outrage.

“God, you sound like Merrick saying that–”

“I stand by that statement,” interjected the Ambrose watching over Merrick’s shoulder.

“I had lots of reasons. You’re just the first in a line of agnates that will revolutionise our ideas about illness and the human lifespan. Not to mention that it’s breaking scientific boundaries and starting a whole new industry!”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How does me looking like you change our ideas about illness and the human lifespan?”

At this point Ambrose seemed to spot the hole he had dug himself into. The chances of Pelasgus knowing the meaning of everything he was saying was unlikely, but there was no way that he would misunderstand what being an insurance policy entailed.

“Uh, well, there’s something to being able to create an adult human without the physical development of childhood…” Ambrose rambled as he walked back to the camera.

“What’s childhood?” Merrick had to stop himself from snorting. Ambrose was out of his depth, that much was clear.

The video cut out as he began, “You know what–”

Amused, Merrick looked up and saw that Ambrose’s ears had turned faintly pink.

“So you see, Pelasgus can differentiate between two different faces and identify that we look alike. It even seems to understand the general idea of cloning.”

“Perhaps you should provide some support with that,” Merrick said, as if there was any chance of it being a bad idea, “I can’t imagine that’s an easy pill to swallow.”

Ambrose waved a hand dismissively as he plucked out the memory stick. “It’ll be fine. Introduce the idea early and it’ll be normal. The rest’ll have to come to terms with it.”

“Will they? I was under the impression that we weren’t disclosing that to them.”

“What? You’re saying we should just lie?”

Sighing, Merrick pulled up the document he had been working on. Pelasgus was going to be a psychologist’s nightmare by the time Ambrose was through with him. He almost wanted to move him into his own office, but that was probably just the grief-echoes talking. Ambrose would turn it into a situation anyway, and Merrick was here as a scientist, not a caretaker.

“If your Project doesn’t see any issues arise because of this, we can consider telling the first generation. If.”

Grinning in the disconcerting way that he did, Ambrose strode backwards to the door. “You’re a pessimistic man, Dr Merrick,” he jeered before spinning into the corridor, exclaiming, “Self-recognition! Incredible!”

...

Conversation with Pelasgus would have been easy to avoid if Ambrose didn’t insist on keeping him in his office rather than in the purpose-built accommodation that would benefit from the prototype’s test run. At any given moment, Merrick was at most only half convinced that Project: Pelasgus was actually intended to be a true prototype and not a vanity project. Either way, Ambrose left them in the same room together far too often for Merrick’s liking.

The agnate had gradually accumulated a sort of static around his person that crackled every time Ambrose waltzed in. Existing in the same room as the two of them made Merrick exhausted and often left him with a pounding headache. Ambrose, of course, was too wrapped up in his fantasies of power and wealth to notice.

When he wasn’t there, suspicion was still thick in the air, which Merrick supposed was not helped by the small library of sci-fi and murder mystery films that was strewn about the TV. Although he had decided not to involve himself, he couldn’t bring himself to truly ignore the agnate. Initiating conversation felt a step too far, but throwing what he felt to be a comforting look in the agnate’s direction, or offering him coffee from Ambrose’s machine was fair game. If no-one did it, something would snap, so why not the only person in the godforsaken facility who didn’t look at him like either a freak of nature or a point of fascination.

Occasionally the agnate would say something and they’d talk until Ambrose returned and transformed the air into electricity. He’d often choose far heavier topics than Two Alpha had. Or at least topics that were heavy in context.

“Do people not like me because they don’t like Oscar or is it because I’m a copy of him and they don’t like that?”

“No consideration that they dislike you for your own merits?” Merrick asked, dryly. It was probably less than sympathetic but the agnate seemed to be on his wavelength about such things. The equally dry look he got in response affirmed this.

“How likely do you think that is? I don’t want to talk to them, but that’s because they already don’t like me. So do you think it’s because I’m a clone or because I’m Oscar’s clone?”

“Honestly? Given the people who work here and Oscar Ambrose’s general demeanor, it’s probably a bit of both.”

The agnate swore.

“Quite.”

...

At some point or another there was an incident in which Ambrose was mistaken for his agnate – or was it vice versa? – which had sent Ambrose into a somewhat vindictive frenzy, culminating in him commissioning an entirely new security system featuring RFID keys and a tech-filled bracelet that was quickly locked around the agnate’s wrist to prevent any further misidentifications. It would be amusing if not for the ire that was now constantly palpable between the two of them and the new glint in the agnate’s eyes. 

Apparently there had been an argument and Ambrose had started shouting.

“Do you even know what being an insurance policy means?!” a security officer had quoted when he offered to show Merrick the footage, finding it to be far more hilarious than it was. “It means you’re here for parts! I own you! The moment I get sick or injured, you’re done and I live on! Don’t start thinking you can go around being me. Don’t think you’re on my level. You hear?”

Subsequently, Merrick tried to keep himself away from the administration and management block, instead investigating a way to keep the commercial generations from ever even considering the possibility of their grim prospects. Evidently, the truth had a negative impact. Who knew?

...

Merrick was taking one of his unfortunately necessary brief visits to his own office when it happened. All he had in warning was a percussive commotion sounding from down the corridor, then Pelasgus was in his room, knocking the door as he passed it and appearing noticeably ruffled.

He stood up. “What–”

“Please,” gasped the agnate, “I don’t– I–”

The uncharacteristic desperation was written over his entire body, shaking and wide-eyed. Footsteps thundered on concrete and the agnate began to stumble forwards.

Merrick was halfway around his desk when the dark uniforms of the security team filled the doorway.

“Dr Merrick! Move away from the agnate, he’s dangerous!”

He froze as he spotted the firearms in their hands, the blood flecked on the agnate’s trousers. Slowly stepping backwards, he asked in a voice that thankfully didn’t shake, “What’s going on?”

“It killed Mr Ambrose, sir, we caught it on the cameras.”

The agnate step forwards again. “I–”

The reaction was instant. One, two, three shots. Merrick jerked back as the agnate toppled over. A member of security rushed over to usher him away from the rapidly pooling blood.

“Sir, are you okay?”

He nodded, still trying to process. It was hard to ignore the shape on the floor even as he was guided out of the room. Everything had happened in the space of a minute and now… 

“We’ll get someone in to clean up. You should find somewhere else to be.”

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“The agnate attacked him. Unarmed. Slammed his head against the desk, I think. Blood everywhere. We’re gonna cordon off the area until this is sorted.”

“Christ.” He needed a drink, though he didn’t own any alcohol. One of the maintenance workers would have something under the board, surely?

...

Death was one thing, seeing a man get shot was another. Nightmares plagued him. Faces in double, growing resentment, blood. The sensation of falling, over and over again. Two Alpha flatlining as he entered the room, moments too late. Pelasgus trying to retake control, fighting the man keeping him trapped. Ambrose dismissing and dismissing and dismissing.

Merrick found himself unable to sleep, spending his increasing waking hours reorganising the accommodation sector. Isolation was evidently asking for trouble, so the agnates would need regular contact. He couldn’t exactly hire people for them to talk to, so they would need to talk to each other in order to build proper social networks. But then how would staff be able to take them out of the active population for donation without arousing suspicion? How could he keep them from trying to find a way out? How, how, how?

In the end he hired a writing team to fabricate a world-ending event that had turned everything outside the compound into a dangerous hellscape unfit for living things. A Contamination. One that hadn’t reached a single small haven in the middle of the ocean, where a chosen few would be sent to repopulate humanity in the outside world. He didn’t want competition inciting violence within the group, so the method of selection would be presented as truly random, a lottery.

This all necessitated bringing in a further team to imprint artificial memories: the life before the Contamination, which they could hope for on the Island and make the staff’s memories of real life seem unextraordinary; and the devastation that the Contamination caused.

It was all quite elegant, in the end. Everything was explained neatly. The agnates would keep themselves contained, not needing to trust the word of the staff since they had memories of exactly what they were being told about. Perhaps this was the sort of lie that Ambrose had wanted to avoid, but Ambrose was dead by his own stupidity, so Merrick could continue as he wanted to.

He ordered the construction of new exercise facilities, various forms of entertainment, and a rudimentary educational curriculum all to keep them occupied so that they wouldn’t be bored into unpredictable behaviour. A techie had suggested that they get the clones to do some of the manual labour involved in maintaining the growth-support systems and hydroponic farms, which filled in the impression of ‘work’ given by the false memories and Merrick’s staff having obvious jobs.

Yes, all very elegant.

Now all that remained to be done was the agnates themselves.

...

The first generation was called Alpha.

Merrick watched as the first batch of samples got loaded into the system. Most of them were high-ranking officers in the Defense Department. A few were from notoriously flagrant billionaires. One was the only remaining genetic material from Steve.

He wouldn’t interact with Gandu Three Alpha out of course, he had learnt that lesson. Three Alpha would just be another face in the crowd, making friends, finding himself, living. But Merrick would be able to see his face, hear his voice. Steve and Two Alpha would live on through him. He would never be able to talk to them again, but he wouldn’t forget their face. It would be a silent phone call, staring at a photo across the room.

That was all he needed.

[mackwritess]

Westwood Road

Word count: 3k+

Summary: It’s your average high school romance. The boy meets a girl who accepts him despite his hidden secret, and in turn he changes her. But what happens when she’s got her own little secret?

A/N: Hi! This story represents a lot of milestones for me as this is both my first commission and my first attempt at romance! I hope you like it!

He’s running late. It’s a character flaw of his, really. A problem he’s never been able to correct, no matter how many alarms he set to go off in time. This time though, it isn’t just some unimportant thing he’s late for, oh no.

Today, he’s meeting her parents.

He takes a sharp turn down her street, the street people normally avoid. He doesn’t have time to think about the warnings he’s gotten about this old gravel road. He has somewhere to be.

He finally decides to slow down a bit in order to ensure he doesn’t pass up his destination by mistake. Slowing down to what feels like a snail’s pace, he pays close attention to each disheveled home he passes by, looking out for the house that was described to him.

Luckily, he didn’t have to look particularly hard, as she was standing outside the very place he was looking for, waiting for him to arrive.

He slows his vehicle to a stop and jumps out immediately, trying to make up every second he may have lost. Running over to where she stands, he tries to rush out an apology, explaining his situation. Instead of lashing out as he fears, she offers him a serene, almost eerie, smile. She assures him he’s right on time, and takes his hand to lead him inside.

~

How they met was something straight out of a romantic comedy.

He was running late, of course, to a special event at his local video game store. He insists it’s not his fault this time, really, it’s not. He’s got a reputation to uphold, he can’t be caught hanging out with a bunch of people who’ve never even been to prom without a group of friends rather than a date, he rationalizes. He’s ducking around corners and hiding behind telephone poles in a borderline cartoonish manner, hoping he won’t run into someone from school, specifically anyone he’s on a team with.

After finally arriving at the store, he can finally drop his elaborate manner of movement, certain that he’ll run into no trouble here. Upon arrival, he spots the table set up for the event he’s attending, already surrounded by others who are there for the same reason he is. He scans the scene quickly, looking for a place to sit, and his eyes find an empty seat next to a girl.

He thinks nothing of it and takes a seat next to her, offering her a small smile when he does. It’s only when she turns to look at him that he realizes he knows her from somewhere. Perhaps he’s seen her in the store before, though he isn’t quite sure.

Today’s event is for a game tournament. It’s a relatively popular game, if the attendance of this event is anything to go by. After the order of the tournament is decided, he’s careful not to take his eyes off his other opponents' game play, hoping to catch on to any tricks they may have.

The girl he had sat next to doesn’t appear to have any particular strategy. Unlike her more animated competitors, she remains calm, her expression blank.

Eventually, after making his way up the tournament bracket, he finds himself facing her in the final. He’s nervous, having been unable to learn anything about her potential, but can tell that she’s skilled.

“I’m nervous,” she says suddenly, “You’re really good.”

He’s caught off guard. She hasn’t spoken a word this entire time, and he’s certain he’s only gotten this far by luck. All he can do is offer her a sheepish smile, before the game begins.

He’s feeling a little misled by the time their turn concludes. Not only was he utterly destroyed, but their match was the shortest out of all the others, lasting a measly two minutes. She’s given her prize, a gift card to be used in the store, and immediately stands from her seat, presumably to begin her shopping with her newly earned funds.

He finds himself following after her, not to berate her or accuse her of cheating like some people his age might do, but rather to ask how the hell she managed to do what she did in such a fashion. He finds her looking at the old used games, likely because of their relatively low price range compared to the rest of the items in the store.

He’s unsure how to approach her, the first time he’s ever been nervous about such a thing. He can’t quite place it, but something about her is making him feel sheepish and insecure in a way. It’s when he finally decides what he’ll start with, a simple “hello” that he sees her pick up an old game he recalls from childhood. Immediately, he calls out to her, seeming to startle her, and explains the relationship he has with the game.

“It’s one of the first games I ever owned,” he elaborates. “I’ve never even gotten to complete it. Haven’t seen the cartridge in years.”

The girl seems to consider his words. “What if I let you borrow it? After I’m done with it, of course.”

He lights up at her offer. “I would love that!” He says, albeit a little loudly, attracting the attention of other patrons in the store. Taking note, he lowers his voice. “But how would I know to get it back from you, and how would I return it?”

“Well, it is the twenty-first century after all. I could just give you my number.” He cringes at himself, realizing how clueless he must seem.

“Right, yea, we could do that.” He moves to take her phone to enter his number before pausing. “Wait. Do you mind keeping this a secret?”

“I mean, sure,” she says, clearly confused by his odd request, “Can I ask why?”

“No one knows I do things like this, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. If people found out, my reputation would be ruined.” He expects her to get angry. To tell him he has no respect for the hobby or the people who play professionally.

Instead, she laughs.

“What year is this? Dude, everyone plays video games these days. What, do you think you’re gonna get bullied if you tell your friends you like Mario?” She laughs again, and he decides he likes the sound of it.

“It’s a long story, alright? Just promise me you won’t say anything,” he says, trying to preserve what little dignity he has left after today.

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep your dirty little secret,” she says. She hands him his phone, and he quickly inputs his name and number. Upon finishing, he looks up and hands the phone back to her. Though, he’s afraid to make eye contact, so instead he finds himself watching the fly that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

“How long do you think it’ll take for you to finish?” He asks, trying to shift the conversation back.

“Not sure,” she says with a shrug. “I’ve never played, could be weeks, months even. But I’ll get back to you as soon as I finish.” He nods, already eager to talk to her again.

Three days later, he receives a message.

~

What had begun as a simple exchange had quickly turned into a friendship between the two of them. The two of them clicked better than he had ever expected. Upon talking more to her, he realizes she looked familiar because they have a few classes together. He worries that she’ll be upset that he didn’t know her, but instead she laughs it off.

They’ve made it a weekly tradition now to meet once every week at the game store where they first met. They talk about their favorite releases, look at new equipment that the store has gotten in, and comb over the clearance section, hoping to get their hands on a cheap game or two.

This time, though, his luck appears to have run out.

The two of them are making their way around the store, looking for a particular pair of headphones that professional gamers swear is the best product in the business. Upon examining them, deciding they won’t look at the price tag just yet, he hears a familiar voice call out his name.

He looks up, and is met with the confused expression of his teammate.

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

“I’m looking for some game for my brother, he’s got his heart set on it so I’m getting it as a Christmas gift. What are you doing here?”

He stutters, trying to come up with an explanation, when she peers from behind him to see what the sudden commotion is about.

“It’s a game store, can’t you read?” She asks, obviously irritated by the interruption. “Why don’t you look for what you came here for and mind your business?”

He’s shocked by her sudden outburst, and when he turns to look at her, she’s back to browsing the shelves as if nothing happened.

“You’re here with her too? Man, you really must be desperate for something to do,” the other boy responds, unphased by her words.

“What’s wrong with her?” He lets slip immediately, wanting to return the favor.

“You’re telling me you haven’t heard? She lives on Westwood Road. You know, that old freaky abandoned road at the edge of town?”

“So what?”

“What do you mean, so what?” The boy balks. “That place is haunted, no sane person would ever live there, besides, even ignoring the fact that she’s probably some undead weirdo, this place is for nerds.”

He moves to say something, but a fearful expression briefly moves past the other boy’s face, and he’s backing away.

“You know what? Forget it. I won’t tell anyone I saw you, just keep that freak away from me.” He turns around and quickly moves to another part of the store.

“Well,” she says, drawing his attention back to her, “that was something.”

He profusely apologizes to her, which she brushes off and insists is fine. She continues her shopping, deciding she’ll buy the overpriced headset she’s heard so much, and he asks when he’ll be allowed to borrow them.

~

It had been a few months since the incident, and rather than growing farther apart like he feared, they’d actually grown much closer. They spend almost every day together now, whether it be just goofing off or working on school assignments together. With spring break underway, today is one of their goofing off days.

He decides that today he’s going to ask her to go to prom with him.

He doesn’t really have a plan, deciding he’ll keep it simple and wing it rather than some big display of affection. He’ll wait for the right moment, and then he’ll ask her and hope he doesn’t get rejected.

They’re at a local diner now, having decided after last time that if they get confronted again that they can handle it. He’s listening to her explain the plot of a game she’s been struggling with lately. She’s clearly frustrated, having never struggled with a game before, and he finds it endearing.

“Will you go to prom with me?” He asks, not realizing he’s said anything until she stops ranting, a shocked expression appearing on her face.

“What did you just say?”

“I was just thinking, since we’ve been hanging out so much. I don’t know, I don’t really talk to any other girls and I really like spending time with you and I just thought-“

She cuts off his rambling by throwing a napkin at his face, a small smile gracing her lips.

“Relax, already. I just wanted to see you freak out a little,” she chuckles lightly. “I’d love to go with you.”

He lets out a sigh of relief, pulling another laugh from her.

“I really thought you’d reject me for a second there.”

“Do you really take me as being that heartless?”

“Heartless isn’t the word I’d use.”

“Intimidating?”

“That’s the one.”

They continue to talk for hours on end, until the street lights outside the diner turn on. Another fly appears in his field of vision, though his focus this time is entirely on her.

~

“What are you smiling about?” She asks, having stopped at her front door, waiting for him to snap back from whatever thought he was having.

“Remember prom?” She laughs immediately.

“Yea, how could I forget the wonky chocolate fountain they had that got all over everyone’s clothes?”

“I still can’t believe I talked you into going to an after party.”

“Listen, I heard there was a pool, I wasn’t about to say no.”

The two of them laugh again, reminiscing on the night they decided to make their relationship official.

“C’mon,” she says, suddenly much quieter, “let’s head in.”

He follows her through the door, and is met with a surprisingly nice house compared to the disheveled appearance. There’s a few paintings hung up on the wall, and an old fireplace lit in the living room.

He makes his way through the house, curiosity overtaking his thoughts that he may be acting a bit rude for digging around. He finds a decently sized kitchen, and a dining room straight out of a centuries old painting.

While he looks around, she’s following him slowly, hoping the old furniture is enough to distract him from her presence. She lifts the weapon above her head and, right as he moves to turn around, brings it down on his head.

~

He wakes up after what feels like days, when in reality it’s only been about an hour. His head is throbbing, and when he tries to move, he finds himself unable to, his hands having been tied behind him. He’s in a dark room, barely able to see anything as his visions adjusts to the lack of light. The smell of sulfur invades his nostrils, worsening his headache.

“You’re awake, I see. I thought you’d be out for at least another hour or two.”

He hears her voice before he sees her. When she steps forward, he notices something is different. Her demeanor has changed, and he finds himself sitting up in the chair he’s tied to.

“What happened? Where are we? Are you okay?”

“How sweet, you’re worried about me?” She sighs, “Don’t do that, my dear boy. You’re starting to make me feel a little bad for what’s about to happen.”

He’s about to ask her what she means, when she speaks again.

“Oh, have you not figured it out yet? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This has been one of my most successful catches, after all.”

“Catches?” He asked, still not understanding.

“Must I explain everything?” She shrugs. “Fine, I suppose I can tell you how you’ll be dying.” His eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to scream when she interrupts him. “Don’t bother, we’re underground. No one will hear you.”

“What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

“I have many names. It’d be easier if you think of me as the one I already gave you.”

“Why am I tied up? What are you doing?”

“Well in order to get to that, we’ll have to start from the beginning, wouldn’t you agree?” He doesn’t respond. “Why don’t we play a little game? Did you notice anything strange when we first met?”

He thinks back. Nothing particular stands out to him, except for one thing.

“There was a fly, that was pretty weird.” He finds himself laughing, despite his situation. “I was too afraid to look at you, so I watched the fly.”

“Judging by the way you’re laughing right now, I assume you don’t know what this means.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“Anything else you noticed? A certain smell perhaps?”

“Sulfur. I smell sulfur.” She says nothing. He’s deep in thought. “So you’re a demon?”

“Ding ding ding! Smart boy, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

“Why me? Why did it have to be me?”

“Oh, it’s nothing personal, really. You just seemed the perfect target. Looks like I was right.” Again, she’s met with silence. “I know it’s hard for you to accept, but I never loved you. You’re a food source for me, nothing more.” Still, he says nothing.

“So now what happens? You eat my soul or something?” He asks, finally.

“Precisely! And since you’ve won the game, I've decided to let you have your last words. Go ahead.” He looks her directly in the eye.

“You’re lying.”

“W-what?” She stutters, caught off guard. “I’m not lying, why else do you think your loud friend ran off that day?”

“No no, I believe that you’re a demon. What I don’t believe is that you never loved me.” It’s her turn to stay silent. Taking note, he continues. “It’s not hard to tell when feelings are real, and yours clearly were, whether you’re ready to admit it or not.”

“They weren’t!” She yells, beginning to shake.

“Now that I think about it, I’ve heard of your kind before. Your death relates to lost love, and now you live as a demon, breaking hearts and feeding on the souls because this is how you survive. How you get your revenge.”

“Stop it,” she screams, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you love me, really, but I know you no choice.” She’s crying now. All she can do is shake her head violently in denial. “But it’s okay. Because I still love you. And I forgive you.”

~

She leaves the house covered in his blood. She found herself unable to consume his soul, as even after all she’d done, she was still unable to break him. Out of anger, and sadness, she had ripped him apart, leaving his body scattered across the room.

For years, she’s been living on this road. She’d never encountered any problems, and she never had to think too much about what she would ultimately end up doing to her victims. This time was different.

She was suddenly disgusted with herself, after doing what she’d done to so many people. Maybe she’d find some other way to sustain herself. Perhaps one day, she’d reunite with him, one day when she felt she was worthy of a love so pure.

For now, though, she would leave Westwood Road, and start somewhere new.

[alexknight002]

A JoJo Stand OC: Johnny Manchild and 「Poor Bastard」

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of my original characters and stands, so here is a JoJo character/stand that I created!

Stand name: 「Poor Bastard」

Namesake: The band Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards

User: Johnny Manchild, real name Johnny Mann. Johnny received his nickname due to his laziness and immaturity. Despite being in his upper twenties, he refused to get a job and lives with his parents, rarely leaving the house. To the outside world, he is a childish shut-in, but he actually is more ambitious than he seems. He hides an obsession with money that manifested in his stand, 「Poor Bastard」. He is willing to make money any way possible, preferring to do it in the quickest and easiest way possible. His stand gives him more than enough money to live off of, letting him live a simple, wealthy life. He still lives with his parents despite his wealth because he has to do less work to live, and he pays his parents enough to let him stay. Becoming more and more wealthy over time, Johnny became extremely rich. Although often cold and uncaring, he never goes back on his word and refuses to lie. He does have a slight caring side within him, as his ability does actually help people (as long as they give him money).

Appearance: 「Poor Bastard」 looks like an old beggar, covered in rags and having a large beard. Its eyes are dollar signs and it has no nose, but a small mouth. It is completely green, its color and texture similar to a dollar bill. It has no legs and sprouts out of a piggy bank like a genie from a bottle. The piggy bank has a number counter on it that counts how much money the stand has at the time. It is visible to non-stand users, as long as they are the stand’s chosen target.

Stand Type: Long-Range Automatic Sentient Artificial Humanoid

Ability: Problem Solver- 「Poor Bastard」 is an automatic sentient stand that can sense anyone who has a problem within 15 kilometers of the user. The stand will teleport to a random person who has a problem and will become visible to them. 「Poor Bastard」 will give them a deal: give the stand money and he will solve a specific problem the target has. If the target agrees and pays the stand, he will warp reality to fix that problem for the target. The stand chooses what problem to solve by whatever the target is most worried about at the time. The stand cannot grant wishes, he can only fix “problems,” or anything that is making the target unhappy. If the target says yes, 「Poor Bastard」 will take whatever money he asked for from their bank account. The problem will instantly be solved. If the target says no, he will disappear instantly, and the target will forget this ever happened.

The amount of money 「Poor Bastard」 asks for depends on the severity of the problem. If the target needs their homework to be finished, it might cost $20. If they want a cold cured, it might cost $60. If they want to get their job back after they were fired, it might be a few thousand dollars. The most expensive problem to be solved is a terminal illness. He can cure anyone of a terminal illness, but for a huge price of many hundred thousand dollars. How much money he asks for does not depend on how rich the target is; he will ask for an equal amount of money each time for the same problem. The money will be sent directly to the user’s bank account. Unlike the stand 「Judgement」, it does not do anything that can hurt a target. Everything he does will benefit the target, and he will always fix a problem if it is payed.

His ability does have a few limits. It is unable to bring people back from the dead. While the stand can warp reality, he can only do it on a smaller scale. While it can cure an illness, help someone get a date, give them a high grade on a test, fix a broken leg, etc., it can’t fix too huge problems. For instance, it could not end a war, cure a large pandemic, or stop a hurricane. It can only fix problems that involve the user and a few other people at the most. It can also only fix one person’s problem per day. The person it chooses to be his target will be completely random.

Personality: While 「Poor Bastard」 looks like a beggar, his personality is more like a shrewd businessman. He represents the money-obsessed side of Johnny Manchild. He’s sarcastic and has a Boston accent, with a dry wit. He can get a little impatient at times and is easily annoyed. He is very unempathetic, feeling no sadness for the struggles of other people. 「Poor Bastard」 treats his problem solving as its day job and only does it to make money. When not solving problems, he stays at home with Johnny, spending most of his time playing with money. His entire existence revolves around money, and he gets the most joy just rolling around in it. Being Johnny Manchild’s stand, Johnny is the only person he cares about.

Stats:

Power: N/A

Speed: A

Range: A

Persistence: A

Precision: E

Potential: E