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the-ship-maker-2 · 4 years

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Tabby Anderson’s Backstory

It’s finally done. After a whole month of working on this. It’s done.

TW: Death, child abuse, verbal abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse, bullying, offensive language, mentions of suicide, homicide.

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So….I probably should tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Tabithia Roxanne Anderson but please call me Tabby. I am seventeen years old and I have a slew of disorders. Starting with narcolepsy, insomnia, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and paranoia. We’re probably missing a few others because therapists and doctors can’t do their jobs in diagnostics correctly…but anyways… I digress, I’ll get to that part later on in the story….

Anyways from the time I was born I was already at a disadvantage. My mother Shanna Wolfe had me with my biological dad Michael Anderson. My mother… how do I describe her… she’s a good person all around for the most part… She has a big heart and is very compassionate… very moraled and loyal too. But she’s not very bright and she lacks the ability to stand up for herself to which she couldn’t stand up for me. My biological dad was the complete opposite. He was intelligent and able to stand up to anyone….if that included getting over on other people and standing up to anyone who was weaker than him. He was a coward and a bully. I came to despise him later on in life as I got older. He’s dead now thank thy lord. He died when I was twelve due to pneumonia and drug overdose. He was always into drugs as far as I knew growing up but he didn’t get into the hardcore drugs like heroin and meth later on. But I’m getting ahead of myself. As a child I remember only getting three to four hours of sleep at night (My insomnia wasn’t diagnosed at the time yet) and seeing the bruises on my mother’s face on her eyes and cheekbones. My mother was abused mentally, verbally, emotionally, and physically. Always listening to them arguing. I myself got lucky somehow. I was just neglected by my dad.

I remember my mom telling me this story once or so. I was left by myself. My dad was upstairs with the neighbors getting high on weed and other things. My mom was at work at the time. She used to work at a nursing and rehabilitation center called The Hills as a CNA before she got fired. Sometimes she would bring me to work if she really couldn’t find a babysitter and I would sit in the lounge watching the two movies I brought with me. Which was always Bartok the Magnificent and Shark Tale. But anyways I was left by myself and I saw something on the coffee table. Turns out they were pain pills on a high dosage. It was brightly colored and I thought it was candy so I was about to take them. My mom walked through the front door just in the nick of time. She screamed at me and snatched me away from the coffee table. I was confused but later on in life I was thankful for what she did. Later on that night I heard them getting into a fight about what happened. My mother lost of course but she still tried to do what was right as a mother for once. I was four years old.

One of the stories that I really remember is when my grandmother came to visit. My dad’s mother. It was my first traumatic event. He was too lazy to get his own drugs which were just weed at the time from a couple of blocks down where his drug dealer was. He threatened my grandmother at knife point saying how if she doesn’t get his drugs then he’ll slit her throat. My dumbass at the time came out of my room and down the stairs so I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw me and with lightning speed came over to me and held the same knife at me thoat. I began to cry. My dad said that If I didn’t stop crying and if I didn’t get his drugs then He would kill me, my mom and grandmother. So I was reduced to sniffles and agreed. He gave me the address which was literally down the street just five houses down. I’ve seen the house before all the time due to mom taking me to go to the park to play. So I knew where to go. I did what I was told and no one was killed thankfully. That was the last straw for my mother when she found out. She packed up our stuff that actually belonged to us and took me with her out of that house that we were living in. That’s really the only time I can remember when my mother actually stood up for me and did her actual job as a mother. I was also four at the time.

We got our own apartment pretty quickly. It was on the other side of town. It wasn’t the good part of town, lots of drug users and dealers and drunks in my neighborhood. But we were poor and it was the cheapest that we could get for rent. But my mom got it all on her own and well beggars can’t be choosers. However, even with this new found freedom she still lacked the ability to stand up for herself. Like I said before she’s very compassionate and is just too good for her own good. She would bring home random strangers she met on the streets to “help them back up on their feet” in exchange for helping around the house and babysitting me. But in reality they were just there for the pussy and free ride. They used my mom in every way possible. And that’s what started my severe distrust and dislike of males in general. I assumed that just about every male was like that since that seemed to be the same pattern with every person she brought in. I was still neglected so I learned to do the basics of taking care of myself. I learned how to get myself up on time, I learned to bathe myself and I learned to make canned soup, cereal, and sandwiches, and I learned to keep myself occupied. I’m honestly still asking myself how the fuck am I still alive? Because It’s already dangerous enough bringing home strangers from the streets especially if there’s a kid involved. I mean who knows what could happen if i was left alone with strangers who clearly didn’t give two fucks about me. Miraculously I’m still alive and I was just neglected like usual.

I…have this gift that is the core of my intuition.I can just see through a person easily and figure out what their true intentions are vaguely. I’ve always been highly intuitive on top of being able to see the paranormal. I could always vaguely tell if a person is good or bad with just a minute of looking at them. And with every person she brought home I always felt uncomfortable and I can just tell that they had bad intentions. I always tried to tell my mom about each person that she brought home but like with every adult that I ever encountered she brushed me off and told me that I was wrong. But I knew better. I knew I wasn’t wrong. God, looking back on it now, one of the few good things that I miss about my younger self is the amount of self confidence that I had that I lost over the years. Eventually I stopped trying to tell my mother about the various people that she brought home and just kept everything to myself. I mean why keep trying the same thing that I know doesn’t work? Anyways I just focused more on myself for my own survival since my mom wouldn’t listen to me. My mom actively made the choices to bring home these people so she knew what she was doing and I didn’t worry about her. Let her have the consequences of her own actions. I had and still don’t have sympathy for her.

Then on that fateful day, he came along.

I came home from preschool one day. I opened up the door to see my mom standing there and this strange man sitting on our couch. We locked eyes. His piercing icy blue eyes met my unnaturally wide hazel eyes that still take up 50% of my face. As I said before I can read people easily and normally have a very good intuition about them after a few minutes. But…strangely enough…I couldn’t read him for the life of me. He gave nothing away which piqued my curiosity. After all, who was this strange man? What was he doing here? What were his intentions with my mother? And why can’t I read him like I can with everyone else? After what seemed like an awkward forever of sizing each other up my mom Introduced us. We exchanged names. He said that his name was Michael Timothy Mulleney jr. My mom said she was going to the store real quick and she left me alone with him to babysit me. I approached him with cautious optimism. He just felt different from the others that mom brought home. We made small talk to get to know each other and we used to have a lot in common. We both liked video games and disney and other things. I took an instant liking to him and that happened with no adult family or not especially males in particular. He was different. He was unlike anyone I ever met. I was naive and didn’t know any better back then. My mom finally came home and she found me curled up on his lap, napping to Peter Pan. Which is why I will forever love Peter Pan because it was the first thing he introduced me to and overall it just reminds me of a better time in my childhood when I was happy and I had my dad/best friend back then. I think she was honestly surprised to find out that I hadn’t chased him out of the house. So she took that as a sign to bring him around more often and to keep him.

He came around more often after that. We were a handful to each other. I was used to adults neglecting me. So I was used to having to do everything myself and I never really asked for help. I wasn’t used to having to be taken care of and asking for permission to have stuff. So there were fights over that. Which was really frustrating to me because he requested a two hour nap every time he came over first. He had a weird sleep schedule. He’s a night owl. So I had to keep myself occupied and wait for him to wake up. If I was hungry then I was hungry and I wasn’t going to wait for him. Ain’t no one has the time for that. Eventually we established a boundary and compromised. If I waited for him to wake up then I could still have my freedom of doing things myself as long as I was supervised. He’d let me do whatever since I’ve shown him that I could take care of myself as long as he stood in whatever doorway to the room of whatever activity I was doing to make sure I didn’t hurt myself or break anything and to periodically check up on me.

I was also not used to rules and consequences and routine. Since I was loosely taken care of, meaning that I was fed, showered, went to school, and not dead. Adults wanted nothing to do with me and my mother was always too busy to establish any rules or consequences. If she did it wasn’t consistent so I just did whatever I wanted for the most part. My life was nothing but chaos with the amount of people coming and going. My step dad was the first to establish rules and consequences which resulted in a lot of time outs and early bedtimes. He never used to hit me or abuse me verbally, emotionally or mentally. Eventually I learned to follow the rules and we established a routine. It was nap time for him when he first walked through the door and I had a few hours to keep myself occupied while I waited for him to wake up. When he did wake up we would do whatever together, I got as many snacks that I wanted, we played with my stuffed animals, play-wrestled with each other, we would color, watch tv, sometimes he would take me to the park and play with me since other kids wouldn’t. Around 6pm it was dinner time I had whatever my mom left for me in the fridge. Or I had spaghettios. After that it was shower time, then I picked up my toys, then I would watch family guy with him (My mom didn’t really care what I watched back then as long as it wasn’t pornography). Then it was bedtime.

You see before he met my mom. He recently came out of a 12 year relationship with his ex girlfriend. And he has two other kids. His oldest came to us by accident later on in my life and I became the middle child. Anyways, She cut off all contact with him in his kids so he couldn’t see them and take care of them anymore. Since he was free now he became more reckless since he really wasn’t tied down anywhere anymore and he had nothing to lose. In a sense I was his redemption as a parent and as he spent more time with my mom and I the less reckless he became. He settled down because it was like ‘oh shit there’s a kid involved here I can’t do that anymore’.

During those times where he would come over he’d teach me a lot of life skills. He taught me how to pick up after myself. He taught me self defense and how to fight a little, just in case I ever found myself in trouble and there was no other option. Heh… who knew that would pay off during my years at Rosewood and in my life now. The moves and stances are the foundation of my fighting style which is more on the defensive side. He taught me how to cook basic meals, hard boiled eggs, ramen, mac and cheese, and spaghetti. Which he helped me discover my passion for cooking. I had a job in a restaurant working in the kitchen before I quit because of my left hand. He taught me how to read and write. Which he helped me discover my passion for reading and writing. I was always writing stories with my limited vocabulary and I would pull all nighters discreetly finishing my masterpieces. I am the picasso of literature. More importantly he was someone that I could talk to. I never had anyone to do that with save for Autumn later on. I told him everything and anything and he told me everything and anything. Well what was appropriate for a four year old to know. He told me stories about his life from when he was a kid. He was the first person to step up and be the father figure and raise me when my own mother and family wouldn’t. I owe him indefinitely and despite all the abuse and shit he put me through I can never hate him fully. That year and a half of my life was one of the happiest years of my childhood. I thought it would last forever.

I mentioned before that I could see the paranormal. At first it was just tall lanky shadowy figures of various sizes. I never figured out what they were really called so I just called them what I saw them as. Tall, lanky shadowy figures I didn’t think too much of them since all they did was just watch and they weren’t causing me harm. I just went with the flow. Sometimes they would come to me other times they would not. It was a hit or miss. On the times that the shadowy figures would show up I would talk about my day, what was bothering me, or just what was on my mind at the time with my limited four year old vocabulary. I was young and lonely and I did not understand the concept of filtering and giving out too much information. As I got older the shadowy figures’s visit became less and less frequent. Occasionally they would show up and I would give them a nod in acknowledgement and have a conversation with them. I used to believe that that would be the extent of my abilities.

But one night it became so much more than that.

It started out as any average day in my life.It was cloudy. I woke up, ate, showered, and kept myself occupied by watching some movies or playing with my toys. But the entire day just felt off… Like you know how cats and dogs can tell if there’s a thunderstorm coming and the act all weird? It was like that for me. There was an ominous feel in the air like something bad was going to happen. I just didn’t know what at the time. At first I thought something bad was going to happen to my mom. So I begged her not to go into work that day but she brushed me off and told me not to worry about her and that she would be fine. She didn’t listen to me like usual.

Now despite my mom still having strangers in the house she realized that none of them were going to babysit me finally. Even my step dad wasn’t around the whole time. And it was one of those days where he couldn’t babysit me. So I was bounced around from babysitter to babysitter. Sometimes it was other family members other times it was just whatever my mom could find to hire. I never lasted a week with any of them. With other family members it was because I interrupted their lives and they saw me as extra baggage and didn’t want anything to do with me. They always found some sort of excuse to return me back early to my mom. So it was nice to know that I wasn’t wanted by my own biological family. As for the strangers that my mom hired I just simply didn’t like them. I gave them as much as a hard time that I could. They lacked common human decency and respect. They knew nothing of the routines in my household when I did. They told me that no that’s not it. Like? Bitch I live here you don’t. What do you know about my life in my household? My thing was don’t tell me what to do when you don’t know dick about shit about my household. This is what started my severe hatred for adults.

Anyways, this time my babysitter was a stranger that my mom managed to hire. A fifteen year old blonde petite girl by the name of Maggie Hemmington. At the time I thought she was an adult but then again anyone older than 10 is an adult to you when you’re four years old. She wore stuff that expressed she was into the occult stuff. When she came over that day the feeling of something bad was going to happen jumped to 1000. I became more insistent and screaming, crying and begging my mom to not leave me alone with her. But again my mom brushed me off and tried to reassure me the best she could. In the end she left for work and me alone with that bitch. The day was awful with lots of fights and screaming at each other. She was just an awful person; she didn’t even do her job. I still had to go and take care of myself. Eventually she made me go to bed early saying that she was going to have friends over and she didn’t want a brat like me to get in the way. Which she wasn’t supposed to have friends over to begin with but after the day I had I was more than happy to oblige. The quicker I went to sleep, the quicker I could wake up and have it be the next day. So like the good kid I once was I went up to my room and surprisingly I actually fell asleep naturally.

It was around midnight or so I would like to believe. I honestly don’t remember much of what happened that night. I only remember what I remember due to months of pushing through the painful headaches and flashbacks that have accompanied me ever since. I don’t remember the full story so I’m probably missing a few parts but I remember enough to piece together a semi complete story.

Anyways I believe it was midnight or so. I remember waking up to Maggie and her friends screaming. I was scared and confused as to what was happening. Hindsight is 20/20 I probably should have just stayed in bed. Although to be honest I don’t think that this night wouldn’t have ended differently even if I did just stay in bed. And in all actuality I didn’t hate her or any of her friends for that matter. At least, not enough to leave them to their deaths. What if they were in trouble? I was the only there that could do anything. If i didn’t that would make me a coward and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. What if they were dead? Then what? If I did go down there and saw what I saw if they were dead how would I explain what I saw to the police? To my mom? All these questions and choices ran through my head. However, my pride and what little compassion that I had got in the way. I didn’t raise myself to be a coward and i wasn’t going to start then and they sounded like they were in trouble. They needed me. So I made the choice to sneak downstairs to see what was up and figure it out from there. The apartment itself was quite old so the staircase was creaky. However, there were spots that weren’t creaky, I knew where they were. Going down the stairs was like doing an intricate dance to avoid the creaky spots. I crouched down halfway down the staircase. The apartment had dim lighting as it was so there were lots of shadows all over the place. I was wearing a black nightshirt and I was tan and small enough to hide in the shadows. I looked through the bars of the stairs and I saw Maggie and her friends huddled together with the look of absolute fear in their eyes staring straight ahead and a ouija board in front of them. I couldn’t see what they were seeing at the time. But I could feel a dark and powerful aura that was around. It was uncomfortable and overwhelming. It was almost suffocating. The…entity…as I called it because I didn’t know what it was since I couldn’t see it but I could feel it and hear it. All that I knew was that it was a malicious entity. It kept coming closer to where I was hiding. I crouched down more to make myself appear smaller. But the entity snatched me up and as far as I knew I was levitating in thin air. The entity had a suffocating grip on me. I don’t remember much because Maggie, her friends and I were too busy screaming, crying, and I was trying to fight my way out. I even tried to bite the entity but that only resulted in it tightening its grip on me even more. Maggie was trying to negotiate a different price for summoning the entity, Since it said that it required a sacrifice as a price for summoning it. And well…I was it. After hours of screaming, crying and negotiating they came to a compromise. What that compromise was I have no idea to this day. But all I remember is a pressure on my forehead and just a flood of painful life truths and knowledge on more paranormal creatures and how to deal with them. I was screaming and crying in pain and agony. It was too much all at once and I felt like my head was going to explode. The night seemed to go on for forever to me…I thought that it would never end. Until it did. After the entity was done I blacked out I can’t tell you what happened after even if I tried. This is why to this day I don’t fuck with horror movies, witchcraft, and ouija boards. I don’t go actively looking for stuff that I don’t understand what I’m dealing with.

The next morning I woke up back in my room in my own bed. I had a painful headache in the center of my forehead, like the equivalent of a really bad hangover. I was really confused as to what happened last night. I knew something happened, I just didn’t know what. That is until the painful knowledge that I received last night came flowing back like a flood. I was crying and screaming in agony until the flashbacks subsided. My mom came running in to see what was wrong. She asked me what was wrong. But I couldn’t tell her the truth of what really happened last night. She wouldn’t have believed me anyways. Instead I just cuddled up to her and held onto her tight and just cried until I ran out of tears and was reduced to a sniffling, hiccupping mess. I just suffered in silence while my mom rubbed my back and petted my hair.

The next three months was a bitch to deal with. I was a mess. I still did what I needed to do. I went to preschool although I was more antisocial than usual and I was more jumpy. I was just more of a broken quiet, my wide hazel eyes had a haunted look to them on top of them being slightly sunken back and I had dark circles under them, I wasn’t sleeping much during those three months. I was an awful sight. I was almost sickly skinny, I wasn’t eating much for those three months as well. It was evident that I was a shell of my former self. After preschool, I ate the bare minimum to stay alive and to shower when I had the energy to do so. I didn’t want to be out of my room longer than I had to. I was afraid the entity would come back for me. The rest of the time I laid in bed with my covers pulled up, staring at the wall or ceiling for hours on end just empty headed and crying when the flashbacks and nightmares occurred. The worst part was that I was alone. Mom was either working or sleeping and she knew that my trauma had to do with Maggie so my mom stopped with the babysitters and just left me alone. She wasn’t supposed to but she didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t tell my step dad about what happened. And I used to tell this man everything and anything. Back then we didn’t have secrets with each other. But I couldn’t tell him…this. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him. The only ones that I told were my friends when they gained enough trust. So I kept it to myself. My step dad didn’t push me back then. He knew when to back off and respect my boundaries. He dropped it when I didn’t want to talk about it. He knew something happened to me but didn’t know what. He checked up on me when he was there to make sure I was okay and got a little bit of something to eat.

A month has passed and my step dad had enough of me being bed ridden. He gave me this piece of advice that I live by to this day. He sat on my bed and rubbed my back. It was a particularly bad day. The flashbacks and headaches were non stop and sleep was non existent. He was saying how he could tell that I was scared and he hated seeing me like this everyday. He also said that he knew that I wasn’t a coward and he knew a way to help me face any fear that I would have. That caught my attention so I sat up a little to pay better attention. He told me this: The more you know the less you have anything to be afraid of. After all you can’t be afraid of something if you know what that thing is. He left me alone after that and it was something to think about.

I gave myself a week to think about it. By Friday I decided that I had enough. I didn’t want to be stuck in bed. I was tired of the constant flashbacks and headaches. I was tired of living in fear. It’s not a fun way to live as I would discover that realization again later on in my life, and guess what? That night when I made my decision to start not being afraid anymore was the first night that sleep overcame me with no flashbacks and headaches the following day. I guess as I started to make peace with what I was about to do had something to do with that too.

The next day before my mom left for work and my step dad came over to babysit me I told them my decision and asked if I could go to the library. I figured that the first step to not being afraid is getting everything on that subject. My mom agreed and left her library card for us to use (I didn’t get my own until I was six). I think my mom was just relieved that I wasn’t going to be bedridden anymore and that I was actually going out to get some fresh air. After my mom left, I grabbed my black backpack that he gave me and we went to the library. I got every book I could on the supernatural and how to deal with them. I definitely got some confused and concerned looks from the librarians and my step dad. I ignored the librarians and my step dad didn’t push it. I assumed that he picked up on the type of books that I was getting and figured out what I was scared of but he was more than willing to help me conquer my fears. We checked them out and we had a month with them before we had to return them. My backpack was so filled that it made me look like an oversized turtle. I wasn’t a good reader back then mainly due to reading comprehension. It wasn’t my strong suit back then. But I was one hell of a writer. So even though he was confused on the subjects that I picked, he helped out with reading the books and helped me take down notes. The more I understood the less I was becoming less and less afraid.

The next step to me for not being afraid was getting the full story on what happened that night. To tell you the truth I honestly didn’t really remember what happened exactly. I remember bits and pieces of what happened due to flashbacks and memories but not in order. and I don’t remember what happened after I blacked out.My thought process was that I can finally understand and not be afraid anymore if I learned the truth of what really happened. Despite me staying out of my room more and more I still spent an equal amount of time there. I would deliberately sit myself down and go through that day’s events, walking myself through step by step. It wasn’t until I got to the part where I was snatched and then the flashbacks would come back intensely. But nevertheless I pushed through. I would always have a violent headache after each and every session. Literally my diet consisted of whatever I ate and children’s tylenol. It wasn’t easy and there were days where I stepped back from the progress that I made but little by little I got to piece together as much of a complete story that I could.

Over time the flashbacks and headaches became less and less frequent as I got older. Occasionally nowadays I would get the nightmare of that event which would always be followed by a headache in the center of my forehead the next morning. But I would just take some ibuprofen and be on my way. They don’t happen as much anymore like they used to. Over time I became less and less afraid and I became well more normal after that. Well as normal as I could get after an event like that. I was happy more often. I had my dad/best friend. I pushed boundaries, I got time outs and early bedtimes. I played with my toys and with him and I went to preschool and I ate a lot and regularly more often. I was doing fine. I was getting better.

Then my step dad left us. I was five at the time.

He left us for two years. Turns out he went to prison for breaking and entering an abandoned building while he was drunk looking for a place to sleep for the night. The day I found out I was hurt, confused, lonely, and pissed. I was confused because why did he leave us all of a sudden? Where was he? Was he okay? Would we be able to see him again? I was hurt because I had all of these questions running through my head. Did he not love us anymore? Did he even love us at all? Was I a bad kid and that’s why he left us? Was I too much to handle and so he said fuck it and left? Was my mom not good enough? Were we not good enough for him? Then I was pissed because how dare he leave us? Us of all people? We didn’t do anything wrong to deserve this and he had the audacity to leave us! I was also pissed at myself more than anything. My intuition was wrong about him. My intuition was rarely wrong about anything in my life. Although I couldn’t read him at first he proved himself to be different than the rest of the people my mom brought home. He stayed for a year. That’s the longest anyone has ever stayed in my life at the time. He actually stayed and didn’t run away from his responsibilities. He was the first person to take me in and raise me when my own mother and biological family wouldn’t. I thought that he was different….I was wrong obviously but I didn’t realize just how wrong I was until later on in life.

I never felt more alone since that day. There were only two other times but nothing would compare to that day when he left.

This is the reason why I have severe trust issues.

It was downhill after that. Mom lost her job and the apartment so we bounced from motel to motel. Mom was either busy sleeping or looking for jobs. I don’t blame her, it was tiring for her to be looking for jobs for 8 hours a day. So she needed the sleep. Although the rare times she was up she did spend time with me and we would watch tv together. Other times I had to take care of myself and my mom. So I kept myself entertained and my mom barely had enough money for the week to stay let alone for food more times than not. In every motel that we’ve been to there was also a convenience store. Some were nice and were understanding of my home situation so they would let me pick out two things to eat for free. One for me and one for my mom once a day. They were nice. Other store employees weren’t so nice and understanding. But my mom and I had to eat so I learned to lie and steal from them. We had to survive and eat and I was willing to do that by any means necessary. The worst part is that instead of stopping and only doing it when I needed to. I got better at it and I became more clever. I absolutely hated stealing from the store that was nice to me but desperate times called for desperate measures and I wasn’t even sorry for it.

School wasn’t any easier for me. The only things I was good at was everything else but math and gym. I was also good at being a teacher’s pet. It was the only way I could survive at school and I really was a good kid once upon a time and that’s how I got away with mostly everything at school from kindergarten through 11th grade.

That’s when the bullying started for the first time. They made fun of me for being homeless and not being good at math and not being strong enough for gym class. I didn’t know exactly how to deal with it at first since I wasn’t good at social situations. At first I ignored them or shot back an even worse insult to them for k-4.

Eventually my mom got a job at a restaurant making sandwiches and we eventually got our own apartment again.I was seven at the time. It was decent about the size of a single wide trailer, three bedrooms and all for $725 a month. It was on the poor side of Maplehood Creek. So there was a lot of crime and drug deals but beggars can’t be choosers. We settled into a routine very quickly. Mom went to work and I went to school and business as usual. We never really saw each other often. However, it was a nice change to have some form of stability instead of stealing and lying to survive and the uncertainty of it working.

The best part? My step dad came back to us. However, when he did come back he….changed…..He was always the stoic, tough love type but…this was different. I get the people change over the years, especially after a few years of being away from people. But not like this. Looking back on it he came back more distant….and more cold and calculating…. But I didn’t care at the time. I was just happy and excited to have my dad/ best friend back. No more lonely days, no more fear, no more sadness, like all of the hurt, anger, confusion, loneliness, and sadness for the last two years just melted away…. I was just so desperate that I overlooked the warning signs. But anyways, I ran up to hug him as soon as he came back through the door for the first time in two years. I hugged him like my life depended on it, as if I let go he would walk out again. But he didn’t hug me back like he normally would. I just chalked it up to the fact that he probably needed time to adjust. Which was fine. That’s understandable. I figured that after he got used to us again we could go back to being a family once again. Like the good old days but perhaps this time with something better.

BUT BOY WAS I WRONG….LIKE 180 DEGREES WRONG……I WAS SO VERY, VERY WRONG!!!

The abuse started light…at first it was just cutting words and biting remarks….He didn’t start hitting me until I was nine. I really didn’t think anything of it. I often do things to get those comments. I fucked up a lot of things that I was supposed to do that I really shouldn’t have fucked up to begin with. It hurt what he said to me but I just thought it was his new form of discipline. I always thought the point of discipline was that it was supposed to hurt so that you don’t do the bad thing again. It wasn’t anything bad at first. Just normal stuff, he would always call me “stupid”, “worthless”, “Useless” “I’m a burden and that no one wants me” The works. I put up with it because I was desperate to get my best friend back. I thought that if I showed that I was strong enough to take whatever he threw my way then it would show how loyal and worthy I was of being back into his good graces again.

School was beginning to become more and more difficult. Academics was fine. I was too smart for what they were teaching. I was often ahead of my classes. I wouldn’t call myself a genius, otherwise it would have been proven earlier on in my life. I was just above average in intelligence. I would always be ahead for that week in whatever lesson they would be teaching. But the bullies….the bullies got worse….It was just superficial shit. Saying how bad I am at math even though I was good at other subjects, no one wanted to be my friend because I was mean and awkward, I was too weird…. I was only mean because I could see right through them they weren’t good people. I wanted nothing to do with them. And they started with me first. I didn’t start fights, I finished them. I remember something my step dad said to me in passing later on in life. It was an off-color remark and I don’t think he intended for me to use it in the way I did but it proved useful in every fight I’ve been in verbal and physical. He said this to me “Be more afraid of someone who can ruin your life with a press of a button than of someone who can pack a punch. Physical wounds heal mental wounds don’t. Be vicious with your attacks and go for the throat. Hit where it would hurt the most”. And I still live by that. I’ve made people run away crying from my words. Don’t start with me and I won’t start with you. Plain and simple. As for my weirdness. Well, I was more reserved and quiet. I was antisocial and due to my step dad I had increased hostility and ‘behavioral issues’. But I guess I’ve also had my personal darkness following me around. Always just barely below the surface. I guess it created an unsettling aura around me that always made others uncomfortable. Oh well.

Nine is when things turned up a notch for the first time. Lot’s of things happened. I was in 4th grade. Adam was born, I got into my first fist fight, the abuse became worse at home, and I made my first important choice that would change my life forever.

But one thing at a time. Let’s start with the birth of my little brother Adam.

I was nine years old. It was October 3. 2011. Adam was born. His full name is Adam Mitchell Mulleney. I always wanted a sibling, someone I could protect and take care of and teach. Preferably a sister, but beggars can’t be choosers. The moment I held him was the moment I knew I had to protect him. From what? I don’t know. But anyways my step dad doesn;t do babies. So he didn’t even help take care of him. Mom wasn’t the strongest mentally speaking so she wasn’t fit to take care of him. So I did, mostly. I was more of his mother than his big sister at the time. We went to a daycare so that helped me out a lot. But mainly I took care of him for the first three years of his life on top of school, and the increasing abuse from my step dad. He was saying recently back then how I was a bad influence to everyone I met and how much of a monster I was. How I was incapable of making good decisions, always. But back then I didn’t believe him. God, I miss the self confidence I used to have. Before life and reality kept giving me brutal beatings and I just gave up. But I didn’t believe him at the time because Adam proved otherwise. I mean how could I be a bad person when I was keeping Adam alive, healthy and happy? It didn’t make sense to me. I was there for the formative years. I taught him almost everything I know. At least enough for a toddler to understand. It was enough hopefully for him to have the basics of survival for when I couldn’t be with him anymore when I left for my new life. I did the best I could as a 9-12 year old pseudo mother.

As Adam got to be older he quickly became the family favorite. My step dad treated him like the golden child like he could do no wrong. He gave Adam the love and affection that I used to get. But yet he treated me like shit. So you can imagine the growing animosity I had towards my family and life. And unfortunately, after I was done taking care of him and my parents finally took over and did their actual jobs for once I grew to hate Adam more and more for a while until I got older and I realized a few things. But that’s later on in the story.

Like I said before, the abuse from my step dad got worse. I remember the very first time he hit me. When I was nine I got my first chore other than cleaning my room. It was dishes. At first I was excited about it because it was like “finally I’m a big kid now!” But I wasn’t good at it for the first three days. I have sensory and vision issues so I can’t feel or see the dead food on the plates sometimes but I really did try my best. My step dad got fed up with me after the third day of me doing dishes. He got so angry at me that he broke one of the dirty dishes on the floor and then moved with the speed of a viper. He smacked me across the face so hard that you could hear the crack that came with it. My face turned so fast I swear that I almost broke my neck. The force behind was so strong that I fell into the pile of broken ceramic and I could hear ringing in my ears. He yelled at me saying I’m a useless child and that I can’t do anything right and that I’m stupid because I can’t do a simple dish right. He then stormed off and hid in his bedroom for a while. I just sat there in shock. It was a good couple of minutes before the stinging, and ringing died down and before I could turn my head. I’m pretty sure he left a red mark and I just cried silently. I was just so confused as to why he would hurt me. He’s never done so before…But I quickly justified it as I deserved it. He doesn’t do shit for no reason he always has a reason for the shit he does even if he never told me. If I hadn’t fuck up something so easy like dishes I wouldn’t have gotten smacked that day. I cleaned up the broken pieces of the plate and cleaned up myself from the cuts I got and I just went on with my day.

There were always incidents like that. I’d fuck something up whether it’s completely wrong or not up to his god like standards, I’d get smacked. Whether it was across my face or upside the head. Or sometimes he would pin me to the ground or to the wall by my neck if I even tried to defend myself with words of course. I never once tried to fight him that would ensure my death. I was always all about survival. I only fought fights that I knew I would most likely win or if I felt strongly for that cause.

My mom was always at work for the most part. She would come home later in the night when Adam and I were asleep. On her days off she either slept, or she took Adam and I on errands. It was her form of quality time with us. Sometimes if the incidents took place while she was home she would ignore it, only focusing on Adam to keep him sheltering him from the fucked upness of the situation and just let my step dad and I figure it out. But yet failing to protect me. Although I understood why she would protect him more than me. Because I would do the same too. He’s younger, he has more of his entire life ahead of him. I don’t need him to be fucked up and ruin his chances of living a happy, normal life. I’ll be damned if someone were to take that away from him. Although sometimes my mom would actually do her job as a parent and step in to protect me by arguing with him. But that always fails because she gets meek and worn down from his relentless arguing. Gradually she stopped doing that as well. He never hit my mom or Adam or Michael when he came into my life later on. It was just me. I used to believe that if I left then he would take out his anger on my mom and Adams and use them as scapegoats. I thought I was protecting them so I still stayed. But I was quickly proven wrong about my belief as I realized that he just had it out for me.

School was getting increasingly worse. On top of the abuse I recieved at home which made me more vicious and hostile and according to my teachers I had “increasing behavioral problems” the bullying was getting worse too. The kids kept telling me how useless and worthless I was. How weird I was, how nobody liked me. I didn’t mind it coming from my step dad because I was getting used to it and a scrawny nine year old can’t fight a grown man who’s twice to three times her size. I’m normally able to separate business from personal. Home was personal, school was business for me. That’s how I survived for so long, especially when I went to Rosewood Preparatory school later on in the story. I was always able to fight two battles on two different fronts. One at school and the other at home. If I was at school I shut off the war at home and focused my energy on surviving the day. If I was at home I shut off the war at school and focus my energy on surviving another night at home just to repeat the cycle all over again the next day. Keep on fighting in the meantime.

Anyways, school was supposed to be a break from my stepdad to me. Just enough of a reprieve to help me survive. And I wasn’t getting that with the kids repeating the things my step dad told me. I had enough.

One day while I was in math class in the fourth grade. I had Mr. Williamson at Maplehood Creek Elementary School. I sat in front of Alan Washburn. He was one of my many bullies but he and Nikola Whilems were my main ones at Maplehood. Mr. Williamson wasn’t paying attention, he had his back turned to the smartboard teaching the rest of the class long division at the time. I was minding my own business and was actually trying to learn the lesson. Math wasn’t my strong suit and he and Nikola always picked on me because of it amongst the other things they picked on me about. Alan got the brilliant idea to pull me by the back of my ponytail so my head was bent over backwards and his face was upside down in my perspective. He told me “How does it feel to be the retard in the class?” with that cocky, annoying, arrogant smirk, and then pushed my head with enough force to make the front of my head hit my desk. I let out an audible “ow” and everyone turned to look at me including Mr. Williamson. I sat up and pretended like nothing happened. Everyone went back to what they were doing. I heard Alan and Nikola snicker and that;s when I lost it and that’s how I got into my first fist fight. I turned around in my desk to face Alan, balled my hand into a fist and I just decked him square in the face as hard as I could and I broke his nose. It hurt like hell for the both of us but seeing the look of fear on his face after I punched him was so satisfying to me. Then I leaped over my desk and tackled him to the ground. Back then I didn’t know how to fight as well as I do now. I only knew the basics from my step dad and it was the first fight I ever got into. I just sat on his chest and bitch slapped him until his face was red and started crying like the little bitch that he was. I screamed at him to “say that you’re sorry and say it like you mean it!”. The other kids surrounded us. Some looked at us in awe, some looked at us in shock and some looked at us in fear. Mr. Williamson had to pull me off of him. I was breathing heavily, ears burning and rash like from anger and Alan scurried into a corner of the classroom whimpering and in a protective position. I made direct eye contact with Nikola and he looked so pale and afraid of me. In all honesty I felt relieved and accomplished. It was nice to distribute retribution and to finally have power over them. On that day I asked myself why didn’t I do that sooner?

Unfortunately Maplehood Creek Elementary School has a zero tolerance for violence, so I was sent to the principal’s office for the day. The punishment for a violent physical fight was expulsion. Yeah, they were really strict about that. My mom didn’t come to get me until school was out for the day at 3:30pm since that’s when she got out of work that day. My mom and my principal Mrs. McCaulen had a conversation about what would be the most efficient course of action for me. I was getting expelled, there was no getting out of that. But expulsion was for a year at Maplehood and then I could try again. Neither one of them wanted me to be behind in my school work and since I was too smart of the school work anyways for the most part they felt bad and didn’t want to waste any of my potential intelligence. So, They gave me two choices. One, I could do homeschooling for the rest of the school year and then come back next school year. Or, Mrs. McCaulen said that she knew some higher ups at a place called Rosewood Preparatory School and could pull some strings to get me in after Christmas break since it was December at the time. I would switch schools after Christmas break and I would finish schooling there. She explained to me that Rosewood was a prestigious private school in the downtown area where the rich people lived. It was a k-12 school. It was a place where the rich, problematic and intelligent people got better and got a good education. You have to wear a uniform and meet certain qualifications to get in. But since I was highly intelligent and definitely had enough issues to spare. Mrs. McCaulen was certain that I could get in. She also added that after I graduated I could get into just about any esteemed college since Rosewood was a prestigious school itself. That sounded promising to me since I already knew that I didn’t want to be in Maplehood all my life and be stuck with my family forever. Once upon a time I actually had high hope and a bright outlook on my future. I didn’t want to do homeschooling because the only one that was home all the time was my step dad since he was a stay at home dad. Mom worked almost all the time to provide everything for the house and us. My step dad is a good teacher when he’s not being an abusive, manipulative, arrogant prick. However, If I chose homeschooling I knew that my step dad wouldn’t let me go back the next school year and keep me locked up in the apartment forever or until he dies. Not only that but once again school was the only break I ever got from him. It’s how I survived for so long. I was not going to have that be taken away from me. So in the end I chose Rosewood, not knowing what I’d get myself into. They discussed the option of a dormitory since Rosewood also had a boarding section. Mom decided that it would be easy if I just came home at the end of the day. Which I was thankful for later on.

Of course my mom told my step dad about what happened. I was expecting him to beat the shit out of me and to yell at me. But instead he asked me for my side of the story. Which was out of character for him but nevertheless I was happy to give my side of the story in hopes that maybe I would get punished less. I told him how Alan (and he knew about my bullies) how he grabbed my hair and called me a retard and smacked my head on my desk. So I retaliated and I punched him the face and then I jumped over my desk and I sat on top of him and I bitch slapped him and screamed at him to apologize. I used the excuse that it was self defense and also used the philosophy that he taught me. If you do something bad then expect the worst possible outcome. Which I delivered. He then asked me if I won the fight. To which I said that I thought so since I gave him a bloody nose and made him cry like the little bitch he was. My step dad nodded thoughtfully and stayed silent for a few minutes. I braced myself for whatever backlash I was about to receive. He then patted my head and told me he was proud of me. Now THAT was something I hadn’t heard in a long time. It felt good. I then told him that they expelled me and I had a choice between homeschooling and a place called Rosewood Preparatory School. I chose Rosewood. And that’s when he went back to his asshole self. He told me that Rosewood was a place to stuff severely mentally disturbed children that their parents wanted nothing to do with anymore. I’m talking about mentally disturbed kids that need to to be in an insane asylum and actually get professional help.that they so desperately needed. He told me that I wouldn’t survive there. I didn’t believe him at the time because I thought that he was fear mongering me like he normally does when he tries to get control over me. I thought he was trying to scare me into homeschooling so he could gain more control over me. So, using the other philosophy he taught me. I made my choice and I will stick by it through the bitter fucking consequences. I will go down with the ship. I still stuck to my guns and I was adamant about going to Rosewood. Anything to get away from him.

It was January 7th. It was after Christmas break and time to go back to school. For me it was my very first day at this Rosewood Prep. I wore my new school uniform which was a white long sleeve shirt and tan khakis with a black belt. I had a choice between the standard red and black plaid skirt and tan and black khakis for the girl’s uniforms. I didn’t and still don’t like girly things, there’s just so many prying prepubescent lemur boys out there you know? So I chose pants all the way. The one good thing about Rosewood is that they are more lenient about their school uniforms than most private preparatory schools. We could wear whatever hoodie/ sweatshirt we wanted over our uniform as long as we could prove that we had the standard white tee/ long sleeve shirt, red and black plaid skirt, tan or black khakis on. We could wear whatever socks and shoes that we wanted. It was nice to have some sort of independence and individualism in that place. I ended up walking to school since we lived closer to the downtown area than to Maplehood Creek Elementary School. So I didn’t meet the requirements for the school bus system. Nevertheless I was so ready for what little independence that I would get.Rosewood Prep is a big school. It was right across from The real estate office building called Camelson’s Realtors. Rosewood had a black wrought iron gate with an archway that stated the School’s name in cursive. Rosewood had a lot of property and it was covered in snow. Not even half of it was trampled on yet. The kids were spread out in various places. We had the younger kids k-3 playing in the snow together closer to the entrance, 4th and 5th graders were huddling together for warmth near the school doorways, 6-8 were all gossiping with each other on the left lawn and 9-12 graders were behind the school doing god knows what. The school itself was made out of bricks and was part of it was covered in ivy. It looked like one of those uppity schools that you read in books and see on tv where those schools are mysterious and hold deep, dark, sinister secrets.The main building was 7 stories high. One floor for the lobby, principal’s office, tech support, cafeteria, kitchen and gym was. That was the first floor when you got into the school. Basement level is underneath the entire school but you could only get to it through secret passageways throughout the school and on school property. Second floor was for the kindergartners with their own art and music rooms. Third floor was for the first grade, fourth floor was for second grade, fifth floor was for third grade, sixth floor was for fourth grade, and the seventh floor was for the fifth grade. The second building attached to the main one on the right had three stories. First floor was for sixth grade, the second floor was for seventh grade and the third floor was for eighth grade. There was a third building attached to the main one on the left that had four floors. First floor was for ninth grade, second floor was for tenth grade, third floor was for eleventh grade, and the fourth floor was for the twelfth grade. There was a building in the back that was like fifty feet from the school that I assumed was the boarding section. They also had three playgrounds in the back. They also had a sports shed with a neon orange roof over on the far right of the school. There were also a lot of spirits roaming about the school property, some staff members others were children as young as five- eighteen.

The school also had a brick interior and red and white tiles on the floor. My school day started like any other day. I had breakfast, and I went to my main teacher’s room for the majority of my classes. Her name was Mrs. Lameire. Out of all my time at Rosewood She was the nicest teacher I ever had. The majority of teachers there were cruel and ruthless. Rich kids were always the favorites. Anyone with grades lower than a C, people that were too mentally disturbed to the point of causing disruptions in the class, people that were late to class for even a minute, and just because were met with cruel and unusual punishments. Kids were locked in the rundown gym bathrooms during their hallucinations. I remember hearing about this one girl in the boarding section getting locked in the sports shed in the damp cold being starved and forced to lick up the water that was given to her on the ground. All because the staff wasn’t feeding one of her friends so she stole some food before it was made in the kitchen to give to her. Thankfully her friend got to eat before she got caught. Turns out Mrs. Lameire was a rare one. Towards the end of fourth grade she actually got out of Rosewood and got a new teaching job at Greengrove High for the seniors in English. That’s not something a lot of teachers and unfortunately a lot of students could say. A decent handful of teachers were former students at Rosewood, K-12 and lived in the boarding section all their school life only to finally leave for college and get out of that wretched place only to come back and be stuck at Rosewood once more. Unfortunately a lot of the students would share the same fate. I feel bad for the younger kids who live at the school too. It’s all they’re going to know. We have this saying in Maplehood for the people of Rosewood with a darker meaning. “You may leave Rosewood but Rosewood will never leave you. After all, all paths will eventually lead back to Rosewood”…..

It didn’t get interesting until after lunch. Just on my first day I witnessed seven fist fights, this was all at Lunch. At my old school a lot of kids would have gotten expelled that day. What I found strange was that these weren’t just school fights….these were…almost fights to the death. These were brutal. I saw one kid almost die because he got beaten into a bloody pulp. Luckily he turned tail and fled to the nurses office. I also found it weird that there were no teachers to pull the fighting kids apart. They either turned the other cheek, cheered them on or made bets on who would win under the table. It really was survival of the fittest here. The last fight of the day was heading towards me. I felt my arm being pulled out of the way and I was out of the direction of the fight. I looked next to me. There was a strange boy with short black hair and a darker tan complexion than me and brown eyes.

“Thank you”, I said.

“No problem”, said the strange boy who pulled me away.

We stayed silent for what seemed like forever before the strange boy spoke again.

“My name is Horacio Galloway”, said the strange boy finally introducing himself

“Tabby Anderson”, I said slowly, suspicious of this kid.

“I’ve never seen you before, you’re new here?”

“This kid is trying to size me up. To see what he could get away with”, I said in thought before I actually spoke. “Yeah I am”

He nodded thoughtfully for a minute before speaking, “You know you could use someone to show you the ropes here of how things work around here. You could use a friend”.

I just looked at him and stared into his eyes for a long time. Although I was thankful for what he did and he was right I could use a friend. Two is always better than one. But….not him. He just made me uncomfortable. He just didn’t feel like a good person. He had this dark, cold, evil aura around him. I saw major red flags with this kid. I didn’t want any part of that. If I wanted a friend I would want one to be a real and loyal friend. Someone who is trustworthy and a good person in the bigger picture. He wasn’t it.

This time my intuition was right.

“No”, I said.

He looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I said. He wasn’t used to someone telling him no. “I’m sorry…did you just say no?…” he got menacing closer to me trying to corner me.

“So he’s controlling and manipulative. Just as I suspected”, I said in thought as I was being backed up into the corner of a wall in the cafeteria.

“Yeah that’s right. I said no”, I still stood my ground.

“Are you sure you want to go down this road?”, he asked threateningly as he cornered me.

I do one of two things when I’m scared I either lie my ass off or I attack and I’m hitting. I chose the second option. Obviously this kid isn’t capable of listening to reason. So maybe he’ll get it through a punch in the face to get him to back off. I dealt with this from my step dad, there’s absolutely no way I was going to put up with that bullshit from anyone else.

“Yeah I’m sure” I said and I decked him square in the face.

He staggered back a little and he looked genuinely shocked that someone would dare to hit him. Apparently he wasn’t used to anyone standing up to him and not falling for his bullshit. He was angry and he charged at me full force to attack me back. I moved out of the way so her ran smack into the wall knocking himself backwards.Other kids laughed and ooohhhed at us. He didn’t like to be humiliated. Other kids ignored us and minded their own business. Some of the teachers smirked at us and looked on with amusement, waiting to see what would happen next. Other teachers just ignored us. Either way no one stepped in. He got back up and was really in a blind rage now. He tried to attack me once more. I remember what my step dad told me when getting into a fight. Use my opponent’s momentum to my advantage since i’m so small. Use every body part you can in a fight. Never let up. If you get knocked down, get back up as fast as you can. Use all of your body weight to pin someone down in a fight. Horatio charged at me and I turned to move out of the way and I grabbed his arm. I put my right leg behind his and pivoted so I could push him into the wall face first. I made him hit his head hard. I twisted his arm behind his back, kept my leg behind his and I used my entire body weight to keep him pinned against the wall.

“Look, get this and get this now. I am not afraid of you. You can not manipulate me or control me. I’m not the one who can be broken or controlled. Understand?”

After a few moments I let him go. He dropped to the floor and I backed away breathing heavily. It took all of my strength to do that. He got back up and he glared at me as he walked away. That was the first time I actually stood up for myself against someone who is just like my step dad. I may not have made him bleed and cry but at least I got him to turn tail and run away like the little bitch he is. For the first time in forever I actually felt surprisingly good about myself. I spent the rest of my day in a good mood.

Until it became the end of the school day.

I survived my first day at Rosewood. I was getting my stuff and preparing to walk home. Until I caught sight of a ghost out of the corner of my eyes. It was a milky white mist. It was a little boy who looked deathly scared. He couldn’t have been no more than six. He had short blonde hair and glasses and was wearing the standard Rosewood uniform. A white long sleeved shirt, a black belt and tan khakis. He also looked like he was lost and confused….like he knew he was dead but he didn’t know what to do next. He made eye contact with me but you could tell that he wasn’t….all there…even before he died. The little ghost boy made eye contact with me. He then walked through the janitor’s closet that was like 10ft down the hall and disappeared. I tried to walk away but something inside of me told me to follow him. I’m not the one to ignore intuition but I knew that I wouldn’t like what I would see. I looked to make sure no one was looking and I followed.

I went into the janitor’s closet and tried to quietly make my way through the cluttered mess of cleaning supplies. It was a quiet hallway so any unnecessary noise would have drawn attention to myself. I made my way to the back of the closet and there was a little doorway in the wall. It was slightly ajar, suggesting that it’s been used recently. I cautiously opened it up not really sure what to expect. The doorway led to a secret passageway that seemed to spiral down towards the basement level area. I head down the passageway with my bag in tote.

I reached one of the entrances of the basement and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. I stood frozen as my freeze response took over. I saw Horatio just standing there with a kid slumped over. The kid couldn’t be no more than six and strangely enough the kid looked like the little ghost boy that I saw not that long ago. Horatio made eye contact with me and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t fight him because I didn’t think there was anything worth fighting about since the damage has been done and fighting wouldn’t bring him back and I saw no reason to go along with the situation since there was nothing to go along with, so I did the only sensible thing I could do. I ran for it. I ran straight out of there.

I kept running and I stopped and sat down outside Rosewood’s gates and I broke down. This is what Rosewood was. I just had my first taste of Rosewood. There was violence and torture everywhere. So many mentally unhinged kids that don’t belong in that setting. Adults who enabled or ignored everything that went on instead of doing their jobs as responsible adults to protect us. This sinister place really was the top of the top survival of the fittest. If I were to stay that means that I would have to fight two wars on two different fronts. I mean, I’ve been doing that anyways but Maplehood Creek Elementary school is VERY different from Rosewood Prep. Compared to Rosewood, Maplehood Creek Elementary was a fucking daycare center. My step dad was right…there was no way that I would survive Rosewood for long….there was no way that I could survive both Rosewood AND home….so I made my decision.

“Hey, are you okay?”, I heard a strange voice say that sounded like whomever it was was getting closer to me.

I looked up with my red, tear stained face to see a strange, tall, lanky, ginger girl that would become my best friend, walking towards me. She was the prettiest person that I have ever seen. She had long beautiful auburn red, pale skin that had freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks, and she had stormy gray eyes which I later discovered that they fluctuate between stormy gray and emerald green. I coward in my spot in a defensive, protective position because I didn’t know what she would do to me. She was also in her Rosewood uniform. She was wearing a the white tee shirt and red and black plaid skirt with her red and white converse. What was she doing here after school? She sat down next to me.

“ Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. My name is Autumn Lemmory. I promise I’m not like the other students here at Rosewood. I saw you sitting here and crying so I wanted to see if you were okay”, she tilted her head to the right and she had a kind and concerned voice.

Warily I uncurled myself and was sitting like a normal person. She was so nice, like she genuinely cared. That was something I haven’t seen or had in a long time.

“ T-Tabby Anderson and n-no I’m not o-okay”, I said between sniffles and hiccups as that’s what happens when I cry for a long time.

“Do you want to talk about it?”, the ginger girl asked softly.

I just looked at her and I turned into a blubbering crying mess again. I wasn’t used to this level of concern and kindness. I told her about how I was new here and that it was my first day at Rosewood. I told her about what I saw what happened to the mentally ill kids who acted out in class, the fights I saw, how I met this boy Horatio Galloway and how he threaten me when I stood up to him, I beat him in a fight, and how I just saw Horatio tourture some poor six year old boy.

She stayed silent and listened. She held me and petted my hair for comfort. She just nodded her head and she didn’t judge me like I thought she would. In fact she didn’t even look surprised as if it was an everyday occurrence. To which I cried even more because I haven’t had this much kindness, level of concern, comfort, and affection in a long time.

“I’m sorry you had to see that on your first day, It can be a lot for someone who isn’t used to it. But you get desensitized quick the longer you stay here. That type of stuff happens extremely often here unfortunately. There’s always someone dying here at Rosewood whether its a teacher or student”, said Autumn sadly.

As much as I was enjoying the affection I had to pull away before I made it more awkward for the both of us.

“You said all of that like you’ve been here for a long time. How long have you been here?”, I asked

“A year now. I came here in the third grade”, she sighed exasperated.

“You know and hate Horatio too?”, I asked.

“Everyone who goes to Rosewood knows who he is. He is the richest, problematic, evil, and popular kid in school. He’s scarily smart too. Everyone hates him but they’re too scared to say or do anything about it since he can easily ruin their lives outside of Rosewood or make their lives a living hell. I’m honestly surprised that you met him on your first day. He must have taken an interest in you and you had the guts to stand up to him, fight him, and actually won”, Autumn said amazed.

“Yeah I did. In case you haven’t noticed I’m not like other people”, I said

Autumn laughed and it was a beautiful sound like all of my pain and troubles melted away immediately for a short time.

“I can see that”

She then took a good look at me, and stood up.

“I can tell that you’re a good person and you look like you can use a friend. In fact your chances of survival would greatly increase if you had one or two people in your corner at all times. Especially if you’re dealing with Horatio and since you actually won against Horatio for now he’s especially going to have it out for you all the time. But don’t worry, he really is a coward and won’t bother you too often if you’re with a group of people. So I want you to promise me something”.

“Hm?”

“Promise me that you’ll come back here tomorrow and find me. I have a few people that I’d like you to meet. I’d think you’d like them and they would like you. Now come on it’s not good to be here for longer than necessary. I’ll walk you home”, she said as she gave me the exact same sweetest, kindest smile that she gave me earlier and she held out her hand as an offer to help me up.

I gave her a good long look. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t plan on even being alive come tomorrow. However, she showed me kindness, compassion, and understanding. That’s something I haven’t had in a long time. She was the only one at first to stand by me and not against me. She actually wanted to be my friend willingly. She wanted to help and that damn smile though. It was that smile that gave me hope and suddenly I didn’t want to die as much anymore.

“I will. I promise”, I said as I gave a small smile and I took her hand and we walked home together and for the first time in forever I had hope and something to look forward to tomorrow.

And I always keep my promises.

The next day I met the first people that would become the only form of a family that I have. There were four other people. Heath Yazheimer, Mitchel Brooks, Donnie SanMaria, and Rebecca Bea. Mitchel and Rebecca were the rich kids and Heath, Donnie, Autumn and I were the poor kids. I was the youngest in the group at first but I quickly became the ring leader. I mean someone had to keep their dumbasses in line. Then I became the second youngest as my family grew and by seventh grade I had my entire family. They really were the best of me.

After a year of Rosewood my parents got tired of my telling them about the awful shit that kept happening. They didn’t believe me and they said that I was lying and being paranoid. Of course I got punished by my step dad for telling the truth. My mom however was concerned about how often they deemed that I was making this shit up. So my mom scrambled to get enough money and pay for my first psychiatrist that I had. I was ten.

His name was Dr. Kutz. He worked at a place downtown that was red and beige called Where the Wind Blows. There were two psychiatrists that worked there. Him and a woman called Dr. Gina. Dr. Kutz worked upstairs and Dr. Gina worked downstairs.

But anyways back to Dr. Kutz. I can honestly say that he was one of the few therapists that I actually liked. I hate therapists and Doctors in general because they can’t do their damn jobs right and do diagnoses correctly. It took seven years to get the diagnoses I have now. But anyways. He was kind, taught me how to play chess and he got the diagnoses right the first time. I was diagnosed with anxiety and paranoia which was understandable considering the shit that went on at home and Rosewood. He put me on medication for my anxiety and paranoia but I gradually stopped taking them because they made me too mellow and my mind was always fuzzy. That’s not good for surviving Rosewood where you have to be constantly alert and ready to fight at any time. I told him everything that happened at Rosewood and I can tell that he didn’t believe me and he was just listening to humor me. Still it was nice to have someone who actually listens to you for once. I told him what went on at home but I told him not to do anything about the abuse because that would affect Adam in the long run and he’s already a bright and good boy. Even at one. Everyone needs a dad. Mom wouldn’t be able to take care of him with how much she works so that would leave me to take care of him. I could barely take care of myself as it was and I was so unfit to be a mother. Although Dr. Kutz didn’t like my decision, he respected it.

The reason why I stopped seeing him was because my mom and step dad deemed that I wasn’t getting anywhere on my so-called “issues” that my mom and step dad deemed that I had. So we moved on to therapist number two, Dr. Gina. I was eleven.

We still went to the same place where Dr. Kutz was only staying downstairs. I didn’t like her at all. She just seemed too fake to me. She didn’t care about what I had to say and she just wanted a paycheck. She also did countless misdiagnoses. ADD, ADHD, ODD, which I didn’t have either. I have been on and off so many medications for these misdiagnoses that I didn’t need. I even developed a twitch in my left eye because of the medications that I didn’t need. It only flares up when my anxiety is sky high.

The only “good” thing she did was call the CPS when she found out that I was getting abused by my step dad after she grilled me on it and I fucking cracked under preassure and after I begged her not to. She said that she was a mandatory reporter and that she had to.

That didn’t go over too well for me. Unfortunately they found no substantial evidence. My step dad used the fact that I did get into a lot of fights at school which was true. I always came home with more bruises and scars and I went in with more. Eventually they dropped the case and left. He was still there. I felt bad because it was Adam’s first birthday too. So I caught hell for that and for the fact that I tried to rat him out. So not only did I get a whole lot of beatings but also sleep deprivation and corporal punishment. Those two got added on as extra punishment that year and that became a standard punishment. Lack of sleep and a brutal exercise regime with very little to no water breaks and I wasn’t even fed for that week. So yeah.

Another incident like that happened while I was changing for gym class at Rosewood. Where the gym teacher saw a big ass bruise on the side of my rib cage and she called CPS again. And I got the SAME punishment.

However, everything evened out eventually. I got a handle on life at Rosewood. I got good at switching on and off battles. I was established as a straight A student and I was gradually becoming a good fighter. I had my friends to help me through and we protected each other and took on shit for each other. Autumn and I had this spot at Rosewood. It was in the beginning of the woods. It was a small clearing that was well hidden so no one else at Rosewood bothered us and it wasn’t too deep in the woods where we could get lost either. It was perfect and if anything were to happen the boarding section was fifty feet from us since our spot was behind the boarding section. So we could have easily run there. We would stay after school for like 20 minutes or a couple of hours. Whatever I could swing for the day. She would patch up my scars and bruises after school when I got into a fight or after I got a beating from my step dad the next day. After that we would just talk and hang out. It was our way of taking a breather. I could really be myself around her. She basically became my human diary. We were close.

We also had 4 others join our family too in those 3 years. Emmy Leonard, Emma Quelle, Ghavin Ramirez, and Laura Plummon. My friends made my life more bearable. They and Adam were my main motivation for living. I thought everything would become more manageable.

Little did I know how fucked up everything would become.

I just turned twelve. It was two months after I turned twelve. It was August 22 to be exact. I was getting ready to head into seventh grade. It was one of the hottest days of summer yet. I-I don’t remember exactly what I did to piss off my step dad so bad. I do remember however, going three days of no sleep when my insomnia wore off after two weeks and the brutal corporeal regiment that he had me on. I guess on the third day he finally took some form of pity on me and he had me do jumping jacks. That doesn’t sound bad right?

Well since they were the easiest things out there to do he commanded me to do more and go faster. We had this downstairs neighbor. She wasn’t a good person. She was loud, obnoxious, and sold drugs. We lived in that type of neighborhood and refused to take care of the two kids she had. A boy and a girl no more than 6 and 9. We lived in an old apartment so the floors and walls were pretty thin. The woman yelled at us through the floor. “Hey could you keep it down? You’re being too loud!”.

That was my step dad’s breaking point. He was already pissed with me as it is and the neighbor made it worse. He snapped his head up and I saw something snap inside of him. I was used to his anger but this was….different. it was this cold, unrestrained, unrelenting, calculating, suffocating, darker anger. And suddenly on that hot summer day the room was freezing cold. I never felt more scared in my life.

My step dad ran into the kitchen. I followed him frantically repeating the question of what are you doing? He grabbed a regular kitchen knife from the knife holder we had. He told me to wait here and to stay put.

I was afraid at this stage when I was 12. Not knowing what he’d do to me in that state if i dared disobeyed and I wasn’t going to test that. I did as I was told. It was deathly quiet. 5 minutes has passed, 10, 20, 30, 45, an hour, two hours has passed at this point and I began to feel nervous because if he did kill her it shouldn’t take 2 full hours to do so. Where was he? What if something happened to him? What if he’s the one who got killed? How would I explain that to the police? My mother? My little brother? I couldn’t. So against what I was told and my Intuition I went downstairs to where the first apartment was. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. Honestly I should have just stayed where I was.

I stood in the doorway as the freeze instinct took over. I wasn’t exactly sure whether or not I should have ran, fought him or gone along with the situation. I remember feeling too much in shock to feel anything at the time. I saw the dead corpse all bloodied and mutilated and beginning to rot with how hot it was. I knew death happened to everybody and I was quite familiar with it at Rosewood. There was always someone dying there every week. But it’s a whole other thing when you see death first hand for the first time.

My step dad was just standing there staring at the body as if he can’t believe what he had done. He and his knife were covered in blood. He eventually noticed me standing at the doorway and ordered me to help clean up the evidence. I couldn’t run otherwise I would have died that day too. I couldn’t fight him in that state, I wasn’t strong or smart enough to. So I went along with the situation and helped clean up the best I could.

Later on that night when my mom and little brother got home and went to sleep. My step dad and I went back downstairs and put the dead body in my mother’s trunk and my step dad drove us off to Fairfield Park. All the way back by the willow tree where the dirt was fresh and no one would see us. He ordered me to dig the grave for the woman while he supervised. I dug and dug. I came out of shock slightly but that’s because my anxiety and paranoia were sky high about being caught and I could’ve sworn that I felt something watching me from the woods surrounding Fairfield. But my step dad just told me to ignore it, say it was just my paranoia, and reassuring me that we wouldn’t get caught. I believed him at the time.

The reason why I went with the situation and everything that he’s put me through over the years was because I thought that if I showed that I was loyal and still stuck by him then it would show that I was worthy of being his friend again and he would stop. That year I just wanted everything to stop. Horatio, Rosewood, the abuse I recieved from my step dad, everything. But nothing ever stopped. I knew that there was no going back to any form of normal after what we did but I thought that this would prove my loyalty to him once and for all and he would just stop. I was wrong.

The next two days after the incident I finally came to with the full realization of what I did. I took the two kid’s mother away from them. Sure they were spoiled brats and just rotten kids in general but that was still their mother. They had every right to a mother and me and my step dad took that away from them in the most brutal way possible. That wasn’t fair to the kids. I began to cry and my step dad called me a pathetic bitch and that I shouldn’t feel sorry because I made the Choice to help him. Which makes me just as much of a murderer as he is. I’m just as guilty. He also threatened to kill me, my mom, my little brother Adam, and all of my friends if I ever dared told anyone about what we did. And he would find out. After witnessing what he did that night I wasn’t going to take that bluff. So I suffered in silence and haven’t told a soul about what I did to this day.

Twelve was the worst year ever for me. I’m not saying that to be cliche and over dramatic. Seventh grade was a real dark time for me and I have legitimate reasons for that. I still had that murder event fresh in my head so I was a little more broken after that. I became more of a broken quiet after that. I was so happy to see my friends again. At least I had them and they were still alive. At least I had a home, love, kindness, acceptance, and understanding with them. My therapist, Michelle didn’t even know about that event and she wasn’t going to. If I told her she would tell and send Adam and I into foster care and be separated. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Even if that meant that I had to suffer.

But, I couldn’t tell them what happened to me that summer. I wasn’t going to put them in harm’s way because I desperately needed someone to talk to about what happened. They didn’t deserve the wrath of my step dad. No one else should have to suffer what I suffered. I didn’t want to get them killed because of my selfishness. That wouldn’t be fair to them after all they’ve done for me. Not only that but what if I did tell them? Then what? Would they deem me as a monster and a bad person like my step dad did? Would they still want anything to do with me? What if they left me and abandoned me? What would their reactions be? Would they be afraid of me? What if they no longer loved and accepted me for who I was? I couldn’t risk the one good thing I had going for me. I couldn’t have my family taken away for me. I could not be alone again. Everyone knew something was wrong with me and tried talking to me about it. There was no way I could tell them. I never even told Autumn about it and she was my best friend/ older sister. She was my other half. My human diary. We told each other just about everything and anything. That’s saying a lot. Nevertheless I still stayed silent about it.

I guess I pushed them away for a while because we grew a little distant from each other after that. We all had something that we weren’t telling each other. One by one they all left. I had no idea what happened to them at first. I later found out that they went to various mental hospitals around Maplehood and in a couple of towns over. I didn’t know at the time. I thought they all left me for no reason, or worse Horatio got to them and killed them or they died by other means! So I was left to battle Rosewood and Horatio myself.

Home wasn’t any better either. My mom and step dad were arguing and yelling constantly. Yet despite that he never once raised a finger to her. It was just me that he hit. The arguments were always all about me about what to do with me. You can imagine the amount of added stress I was under. What if they argued so much that they broke up and he would leave? Then that means I would be responsible for taking care of Adam. I’m not a good influence and I’m an awful person. I’m not fit to be a mother and I don’t want to be the one responsible for his downfall if he goes down that way. Adam was beginning to act out too and he was getting into trouble at daycare and at home. It seemed as though I was losing control of every aspect of my life.

So with constant battles at school and at home and no friends/family. I became vindictive, hateful, and reckless. I let my grades slip because I didn’t care at the time. Life was meaningless to be and I honestly thought that I would not survive that year with how reckless I was. Which resulted in some cruel and unusual punishments from the teachers. Mainly I was just locked up in isolation. Not so bad. I knew other kids who had it worse than I did. I also got into a lot of fights that year too. But that was because I went against my own rules about fights. I never start fights, I only finish them. Except that year I went out of my way to start and get into fights and I won most of them. I was brutal and violent. Instead of following Rosewood’s weird fight code about only fighting until one or both opponents are knocked out I would fight until they were knocked out and then just continue to pound into them until they were almost a bloody pulp. I could never bring myself to kill them. I just didn’t have it in me to do so. Even Horatio, who would go out of his way to start shit with me, only started shit twice and then he knew better and stayed the fuck away from me that year. I even learned how to knife fight that year.

I remember my most reckless night. It was the one that finally made me snap out of it. It was April. My mom was out of town, she was with my uncle Max in Indiana to try to help him get custody of his kid because his ex wife is a money hungry and power hungry hoe. He wanted me to go over to his house every night and check up on his cats. That was my job, he gave me the keys and everything. So it was just my step dad, Adam and I. It was one of those nights where he forced me to stay up late. After a long and violent argument I told him exactly how I felt.

“YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE AMOUNT OF PAIN AND FEAR THAT I LIVE UNDER ON TOP OF ROSEWOOD. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE TO FIGHT TO SURVIVE AND WAITING EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY HOPING THAT YOU’D DIE!!!”, I yelled not caring who heard or what he’d do next.

He just looked at me in a mixture of shock and amusement. I just gave him the most pissed off and hateful look up to date, breathing heavily.

“Is that what you want now is it?”, he asked, raising an eyebrow and had his hands on his hips.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I made direct eye contact with him and stood in a position that said I was standing my ground.

He nodded and quietly made his way over to where we keep our knives. Mom bought new knives not that long ago so they were still relatively sharp. He took a regular sized kitchen knife and put it into my hand. He went back to where he was standing. I looked at the knife and then back at him.

“Take your shot”, he stated simply as he held out his arms.

I just stared at him like he was crazy and in fear. There was no way he was serious. He was testing me. There was no way I could carry out his murder. How would I explain it to the cops? How would I explain it to my mom? How would I explain it to Adam? That I took away his father because I was selfish enough to do so. He would hate me forever. I didn’t want that. I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I did carry out his murder.

Still what if? I mean he was wide open. Fair game. Would I let this opportunity pass me by? It would be sweet revenge for me with all the shit he did to me. A few good stabs in the right vital places and half of my problems would be gone. I could finally start healing a little.

I turned the knife into the right position as I would with a fight and I took two steps forward. That was the end of that for me. I never saw him move so quick. The next thing I knew the knife was out of my hands and I was on the floor with him on top of me banging my head on the floor and choking me. Along with a few blows to my body.

“YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!!! DID YOU HONESTLY THINK YOU COULD GET AWAY WITH KILLING ME?! ME?! IF YOU TRY ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN!!! I WILL KILL YOU AND I’LL MAKE SURE THAT THEY’LL NEVER FIND YOUR BODY!!!”, he screamed at me.

He then let me go and I coughed as I tried to catch my breath and rolled over to my side and sat up. I was in a bit of a daze from the blows to the head. He then dropped Uncle Max’s keys into my lap.

“Hurry up and get over to his house to check up on the cats. After that you can go to bed as soon as you get home. You have school in the morning and I don’t want to deal with your ass anymore tonight”.

I whimpered in response as my whole body hurt and screamed at me to stop moving. I got up and staggered towards the door, closing it behind me.

Uncle Max lived North of Maplehood Creek where the upper middle class generally resigned. It was an hour walk to his house and as you kept walking the road became more isolated, wide and winding and houses became less and less frequent. There were woods surrounding either side of the road. He lived on Applewood Drive because there was an apple orchard near his house. So picture this, it’s about two in the morning. You see a beaten, bloody, bruised, and scrawny twelve year old girl staggering around by herself with nothing to arm herself with. To me that just screams for trouble. So, potentially I could have been murdered, no one would be able to hear my screams and my body would probably be never found. Sounds fun right?

I don’t know why, of all nights a piece of information that I’ve long forgotten about came back to me. I once heard long ago back in fifth grade from a couple of seniors. There were short cuts all over in the woods that helped you get from one town to another without walking for so long and what a coincidence one of the shortcuts started where I was and it would lead me close to Uncle Max’s house. All I had to do was head into the woods on my left side and pay attention to the beaten path I would be on since it was dark out. I really thought about it. It would almost be suicide going into the woods, by myself, at night, close to two in the morning, un armed and I wasn’t in the best physical condition to fight in case something were to happen. That’s how you die in the horror movies, it was common sense. However, all I really wanted was some form of sleep and at that point in my life my sense of nihilism was so great I honestly did not care if I died or not. So, I did the most reckless thing I could do. I abandoned all fuking common sense and I ran into the woods.

I don’t know what came over me…I guess it was just a mixture of everything. Hiding my first body, losing my friends, Horatio being relentless and ruthless, my parents arguing, the abuse getting worse, seeing my entire life that I knew falling apart right in front of me and there was nothing I could do about it. My hatred, anger, lack of coping, confusion, lost, sadness, fear, and hurt were all too much to bear. I just broke down and started sobbing grossly and uncontrollably and I started running. I guess I was making an attempt to run away from my problems. I was just so pissed off and overwhelmed I just started punching every tree I could that was in my path.

“I LOST EVERYTHING!!! I HAVE NOTHING LEFT!!!”

“THE ONLY FORM OF A FAMILY I HAD!!! THEY ALL LEFT”

“MY HOME LIFE FUCKING SUCKS IM TIRED OF LIVING WITH THE FEAR AND ABUSE AND THE CHAOS!!! I JUST WANT EVERYTHING TO STOP!!!”

“I. HATE. ROSEWOOD. I’M TIRED OF FIGHTING TO SURVIVE I JUST WANT OUT”

“I JUST WANT TO FUCKING DIE OR HAVE A RESET, REDUE, SECOND CHANCE PLEASE!”

“SOMEONE TAKE ME AWAY! OR GIVE ME A SIGN…ANYTHING?! COME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN COWARDS!”

“….help”

I said finally as I slid down a tree with my bloody knuckles and I pulled up my knees to my chest and I just finished crying. Eventually I ran out of tears and I continued on with my journey and I finally did what I was supposed to, got back home and I got at least one hour of sleep before I had to get up for school. Thankfully nothing bad happened and I honestly didn’t know what I would have done if something did happen.

The beginning of my twelve year old year was really fucking rough and brutal. I’ve tried so many suicide attempts that I’ve lost count. In fact most of my scars are from self harm. The reason why I’m still alive is because if you actively try to commit suicide statistically speaking there’s an 85% chance that you won’t succeed so there’s that. Towards the end of my twelve year old year got so much better. I eventually came to the realization that I could control my grades again. I thought that if I could just distract myself long enough and get my grades back up to my usual straight A student status then everything else would fall back into place eventually. And it did. I buried myself in my school work to bring up my grades and to even get back ahead, my step dad bothered me a little less since I was focusing on school, my parents stopped arguing for the most part, Adam was back on the right path again and my friends came back to me one by one. We even had five new additions to our family. Morgan Tatiano, Julie Bostons, Jewel Ingles, CJ Vargos, and last but not least Shawn Bishop. After that my family was pretty set in stone.

Hell I even met my step dad’s oldest son from a previous relationship before he met my mom. His name was Michael Timothy Mulleney III. He was three years older than I was. So he was fifteen at the time. I was really happy because it was on my bucket list to meet at least one of his other kids and it was so cool to meet him. Over time however, he proved to be just like his dad. He would join in when my step dad picked on me. He was a delinquent to say the least. He was already in so much debt and over the last five years he’s had so many petty charges against him, continues to do stupid shit, miss too many court dates, violating probation rules twice, and had a warrant in a different county. He eventually got himself into prison for three years when I was seventeen.

Adam knew about it right away because I told him since no one else was going to. My parents were furious with what I did. I’m sorry but I don’t believe in withholding information. I think it is unnecessarily cruel to deny someone knowledge when they ask for it. Besides he was going to find out sooner or later. They couldn’t keep it from him forever. I’d much rather have him know sooner than later. Despite Michael being just like his dad there were times where all of us were like actual siblings and I really do miss him overall.

Thirteen was a really great year for me. Probably one of the few years that I would actively choose to go back to. I had a really great therapist named Heidi and on thursdays we did horse therapy since she owned a ranch too, which was always fun. I was also diagnosed with OCD with my cleaning because I discovered that as long as I was being productive he ignored me when he was angry for the most part. Which resulted in less beatings. As soon as he got angry or came out of his room I began cleaning and I did it quickly, quietly and efficiently. My method worked half of the time. It just became obsessive and compulsive. Now it’s just routine. I was also diagnosed with Insomnia when I told her about my sleep schedule or lack thereof and she finally made the doctors do something about it and prescribe me medication. I stopped taking the medication since it wasn’t working anyways and my step dad kept fucking around with what sleep schedule I was trying to establish by keeping me up for days on end when I didn’t have to and my insomnia wasn’t used to my advantage. I figured if I went this long managing it without medication I could do it some more and it would be easier to do so.

I came up with a lot of good realizations at thirteen. One being who cares what other people say and think about me. As long as I know the truth about myself that’s all that matters. Another one being is that life is not guaranteed especially in my case with life at Rosewood and at home. It’s so tiring to be hateful all the time and I was already tired as it was from lack of sleep, insomnia, and narcolepsy. I had to save my energy for fights at Rosewood and at home to ensure my own survival and the survival of others. Besides was that the way I really wanted to go out when my time comes? No. The only thing I ask for when my death comes is for it to be quick and painless. That’s it. My favorite thing that I learned was to say fuck it. Life is too short and if I was going to get punished for no reason I might as well go all out, go big or go home and have fun while I can. If I’m going to get punished then at least I got something out of it. I learned to live a little and sneak out.

It was so fun. Slightly dangerous because there’s at least two kids wandering around on the back roads at night at ungodly hours but it was still fun. At least Autumn and I would plan at lunch to sneak out later on at night. Other members of our gang were welcome to join but oftentimes none of them would remember to sneak out of their houses at the established times. So it was almost always just Autumn and I. That’s how I became more stealthy because of sneaking out constantly. Autumn showed me how to use the back roads so I’m now able to get all over town without being seen for the most part. We would just walk and talk about anything and everything, we would joke around and have fun. I felt so free when we snuck out at night and when I was with her. We could just be ourselves and be teenagers for once. We could be happy, and just forget everything for a while. We didn’t have to worry about surviving the next day, home, Rosewood, Horatio. ect…It was nice to be free for a couple of hours. The best part was that it pissed off my step dad so much because he knew I snuck out but he has absolutely no proof that I have been. It’s fun watching him struggle to justify my punishments.

The best part about sneaking out was always on New Years Eve. That was the only time the entire gang made it a point to sneak out all together. We had this spot in the woods that was abandoned but it was safe since I trusted them and Autumn. Either Autumn or I would bring some form of booze since both of our families had at least one bottle of liquor around. We would pass the booze to each other and sing along to songs we knew and we would just celebrate another year of surviving Rosewood, we were all alive and in one piece and we all still had each other. That was good enough for us. This was our tradition from 13-16.

Fourteen, fifteen and sixteen were pretty much smooth sailing more or less. Everything plateaued out. At fourteen I had Dr. Rachel and she had the doctors diagnosed me with narcolepsy once Dr. Rachel discovered that my sleeping habits were more than just insomnia. I was prescribed medication for that too but I stopped taking that as well because it wasn’t working. Fifteen I was diagnosed with non verbal learning disorder. Which means I can’t pick up on social cues very well. This was by Dr. Collins, she was okay I guess. Sixteen I had Dr. Baxter but he wasn’t much use because I felt as though I didn’t have any major issues to talk about aside from the ones I grew up with but I learned better coping mechanisms and my issues and my issues were more manageable. There was nothing else to talk about and he seemed very annoyed by that.

I Even got a job at a restaurant called This or That. It was a typical family style restaurant and I worked in the back of the kitchen from fourteen through a quarter of the way through seventeen. I started to put aside money for Adam in a bank account so that way when he is old enough he has a lump sum of money that’s all his. Hopefully he uses to get the fuck out of Maplehood. I even started to put aside money for myself so I can buy a bus ticket and get the fuck out of Maplehood myself and start a whole new life when I was old enough.

Of course the abuse continued and so did my fighting, survivalist life at Rosewood but I had my friends or more like my family to help me through it. We all helped each other. They were my main motivation for living besides Adam. Honestly if I never had met them I’d probably be dead or a more vicious and violent person than what I am if my step dad had his way. They taught me what family, kindness, compassion, love, home, and acceptance was. I wouldn’t have known what that was if I never met them. I can never repay them for what they did I owe them everything. Including my life and I knew they would do the same for me.

I just never knew that that would be put to actual use one day.

It was September 28.It…was homecoming day. The days following homecoming was spirit week. One of the only times where Rosewood was actually a normal school. Friday was Rosewood pride. Where we celebrate Rosewood and the sports teams. Hell it was one of the rare times I actually wore the skirt part of the uniform. At the end of the day we would have the pep rally with all these competitions. It was actually quite fun. Later on that night Rosewood would have it’s own homecoming show and a dance with a theme to match. At Rosewood homecoming is a different theme every year. This year was carnival themed. Which I didn’t like as it is because I have a severe distrust of clowns. Too many horror movies growing up you know? On top of the fact I wasn’t exactly big on school functions, especially at that school. The only reason why I went was because my friends were going with the thought process of “fuck it, it’s our last year here or at least some of us only had a year to go and the least we can do is go to this one and only homecoming and celebrate one last hurrah together” I had the same thought process too. Not only that but since it was basically our last year there it was more important to me than ever to keep them alive since I knew damn well that Horatio would be there being up to god knows what. I was not going to lose them.

The only thing was that I would have to convince my mom and step dad to let me go. That was the hard part. I got up the courage to call my mom knowing that she would be home since it was her day off and my step dad would be home as well like he always is. I asked her if I could go to homecoming. That resulted in a huge ass argument between my mom and step dad.

“She’s a bad influence especially if she’s with those heathens she calls her friends!”, he yelled

I physically cringed.

“She’s seventeen now. She’s gone through her entire life having very little to no social interactions. She’s never been to at least one school function before and she’s a senior now, this is her last year there I’m sure that we can spare her this one event”, my mom argued back.

“You know she’s incapable of making good decisions! How can we be so sure that she won’t get into one of those fights that she always gets into or worse she may end up accidentally killing someone!”

“She’s a human! She’s troubled but she’s not a monster or demon child that you make her out to be! And besides, her therapist says that she needs more social interaction. This would be the perfect opportunity for her to get some socialization in a controlled environment and if it makes you feel any better my mother is supposed to come by today and visit. You could stay here with Adam and my mother and I will go with her to supervise. Does that sound fair to you?”, she asked.

Wonderful, they were treating me like a freak experiment. I could hear my step dad huff and storm away on the other side of the phone.

“Tabby”, my mother said in a sing song voice that really pissed me off, “does that sound fair to you?”

“Yeah mom”

“Good we’ll see you when?”

“At six”

The show was from six to eight and the dance was from eight to ten.

“Okay good we’ll see then. I love you”

“Love you too mom, bye”

I hung up the phone and let out a sigh of relief and that’s when all of my friends came up to me.

“So, what did they say?”, prodded Emmy.

“Well after a long argument about letting me go and how much of a bad person that I am and that I’m incapable of making good decisions. My mom decided to let me go with the condition that she and my grandmother would come to supervise”, I said as I rolled my eyes.

“At least you’re able to go”, pointed out Heath.

“Yeah that’s true I really can’t complain. I’m just afraid that since Horatio will be there, I have no idea what he could be planning to do. I mean who knows how he acts at school functions”, I stated.

“Relax Tabby cat. We’ll be right there beside you if anything happens. We won’t let each other out of our sight. We got your back just like you got ours”, grinned Autumn.

I breathe a sigh of relief. They really were the best.

“Thanks guys”

“No problem”, said Autumn, “look we’re going home to get changed into something that’s not Rosewood. We’ll be back”, said Autumn.

“Okay I’ll see you later”

“You don’t want to at least go home and change out of that uniform? I know how much you hate skirts and all”, said Autumn confused.

“Autumn, I never want to go home, you know this. I’d rather put up with slight discomfort, beats going home any day. Besides someone has to stay here and keep an eye on Horatio to make sure that he doesn’t try anything”.

"Okay well do you at least want me to bring you some clothes to change into so you can get out of that skirt at least?“, she asked.

"Nah I’m good besides I don’t want to throw my mom and grandmother into a conniption fit if they see me dressed in clothes that’s not mine or my Rosewood uniform”, I laughed.

Autumn laughed too.

"Fair enough. I’ll see you later"

"See ya"

Autumn left to go catch up with the rest of the gang while I went outside and sat on the curb to wait for my mom and grandma and my friends to show up.

I saw Horacio showing back up and was standing at the entrance dressed as the ringleader handing out pink candies that were laced with LSD (we didn’t know it was laced at the time) to the staff. He claimed that they were homemade and he offered me a piece since I was just sitting there a few feet from him. Everyone who goes to Rosewood should know that it is common knowledge that you do not take anything that Horacio gives you. Whatever it maybe. I didn’t take the candy because I knew better. I was too smart for his bullshit but not smart enough.

By five o clock everyone started showing back up and they all took one or two pieces of candy that he was giving out. I tried to warn everyone but they wouldn’t listen to me. It made my blood boil knowing that he was giving me an arrogant smirk and there was nothing I could do about it. It was getting late and there were still no signs of my friends. Maybe they were running late. Or, maybe I was too busy fighting with Horatio that I didn’t see them come in. Still I couldn’t shake off the growing anxiety and dread that was creeping over me.

At 5:45 my mother and grandmother showed up. I tried to keep them away from Horatio but he was too slick and sickly sweet it made your stomach hurt at how he talked to them. They both seemed pleased and then they looked at me like I was the crazy one that had a problem with him. They took a piece of candy after I warned them not to but they didn’t listen to me either. It seemed as if I was the only one who didn’t take the candy. It was me against them.

We were led to the left side of the building where the high school section was. There was a makeshift stage and chairs all lined up neatly. I still couldn’t find my friend group anywhere. But I knew that they were here so I didn’t worry about it too much and I’ll find them later. They had to be here. They promised that they would and that they would have my back. More importantly I promised that I would have their backs and we don’t break promises. So I got to the seats and watched the show which was quite boring since I wasn’t hallucinating from the candy. But the last act though. It was outside. I saw all my friends lined up on the rooftop of the school and it’s a fucking tall building. While everyone was thinking that they were doing some acrobatic tricks I watched them jump to their deaths one by one….I was screaming and crying begging someone to help but all ignored me and I couldn’t shout because they were too far up to hear me and I couldn’t break into the school either. i couldn’t do anything. later on the LSD wore off and they were mortified to find the 14 dead bodies. all confused on how it happened. So they deemed it the Rosewood Massacre.

After the show was over I confronted Horacio about what he did. I attacked him to strangle him. My goal was to kill him. but the problem was that we’re too evenly matched with each other. in strength and intelligence so it turned out to be a fist fight. we did a good amount of damage to each other. until he caught one of my punches and shoved my fist through a closed window shattering the window and every bone in my hand. i had to get the glass surgically removed as it was deep in the tissue so I can’t feel a thing in my hand anymore and they had to set my hand for the broken bones to heal. But since doctors refused to do their jobs correctly they set it wrong so it healed wrong and now my hand is paralyzed.

My mom let me stay home for the month to let my hand heal and to work through the trauma of what happened at Rosewood. She would bring my school work home to me. Even my step dad was slightly nicer to me. I guess he even took some form of pity on me.

My therapist at the Dr. Consworth wanted me to talk about what happened. She only knew the story that the news put out there. But she doesn’t know the real story of what happened and there’s no way she was going to. She wouldn’t have believed me to begin with and she could never understand the pain I was going through. She did manage however to diagnose me with PTSD so there’s that I guess.

What really made me lose my shit was when my step dad told me to get over it and that I shouldn’t be hurting because it was my fault that they died in the first place. His logic was that if I never showed up then they wouldn’t have died. After all bad shit seems to always happen around me is his belief. I had enough at this point and I stood up and yelled.

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?! YOU THINK THAT WAS ALL MY FAULT?! MINE?! I DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG BUT TRIED TO WARN EVERYONE! I HAD NO IDEA THAT HE WOULD DO THAT?! THIS WAS ALL HORATIO’S FAULT! IT’S BEEN HIS FAULT FOR THE LAST EIGHT YEARS! I HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT PROTECTED, SAVED, LOVE AND CARE FOR MY FRIENDS AND THEY DID THE SAME FOR ME! THEY WERE MORE OF A FAMILY THAN YOU AND MOM WILL EVER BE! AND YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT I SHOULD JUST GET OVER IT?!”, I finished as I was breathing heavily.

He just stared at me in shock. I was so pissed I knew that I would get hurt if I stayed any longer. I knew an outburst like that would result in a beating but I just didn’t care. I lost everything, my sense of home, happiness and the ones I considered family what’s losing my life too?

“YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK YOU!”, I screamed and I stormed out and slammed the door behind me.

I was really in for it now but to tell you guys the truth I honestly didn’t care and I would deal with it when I get back home. Right now I just had to get away and I had some business to take care of. I knew exactly where to go.

I stopped at Maplehood Creek Cemetery and looked for the Rosewood Massacre section since I heard they created a section for the victims in an attempt to honor them. Rumor turned out to be true as I saw twenty five graves with fourteen all lined in a row which were unmistakingly my friends.

I sat down to have a talk with them.

"Hey guys it’s me Tabby. I’m sorry that I couldn’t see you guys sooner I could only do it now", I said tiredly.

I was upset and pissed that they lied to me and broke their promise. But at the same time they never did not once. So maybe they had a good reason to. Maybe Horatio tricked them or something. I don’t know and I guess I never will. They were my family, they did what no one else wanted to do. I owe them everything so I forgave them.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to save you guys. I’m sorry that I failed to protect you. I’m sorry that I failed you not only as a leader but as a friend and as a sister as well. I’m sorry that I didn’t even say goodbye to you and that I love each and everyone of you”.

I paused for a moment.

"However, your deaths won’t go in vain. I will avenge all of you and take down Horatio once and for all. At least I can make Rosewood somewhat safe and make sure no one else has to suffer like we did. That’s a promise".

I stayed silent for a few minutes enjoying the peace and quiet, giving one last look at them before standing up.

"I love all of you goodbye. See you on the other side of the war and I hope to see you later when I get older…", I said softly before walking away and into the shit storm that was waiting for me back at home.

Of course my step dad beat me as soon as I walked in the door. It was payback for what I did earlier. I expected it and I embraced it. I took what was coming to me and I even hoped that this would be the beating that kills me.

It wasn’t and unfortunately I’m still alive.

I laid awake staring blankly up at the ceiling. Thankfully I was able to go to bed early since my step dad decided that he didn’t want to deal with me for the rest of the night. Unfortunately sleep was non existent that night as I was replaying last month’s events. Seeing the ones that I held close jumped to their deaths one by one. Everyone cheering, my own screams of terror. I could still hear the breaking of the glass window as Horacio put my fist through it. My bandaged left hand clenched up as I felt the phantom pain. I tried turning onto my side to look at my alarm clock. I let out a silent yelp as I was in pain from my bruises. My alarm clock read 1:30am. I turned again onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Mom was going to make me go back to school tomorrow and I am just not ready to survive another day of Rosewood torture and dealing with Horatio myself. I just wasn’t prepared to fight alone again.

Then suddenly it dawned on me like I just got hit with a big pile of bricks. I came up with the realization that If I stayed in Maplehood any longer I would be killed for sure. Either by Horatio, my step dad or myself. One of the three and I can’t die not yet. Not until I avenged my friends and killed Horacio once and for all.

So I did the most sensible thing that I could do. I got up and winced in pain at my bruises. I got dressed and packed up a small bag. With a couple of pictures. One of mom, step dad, older brother and younger brother and I and one class photo in 8th grade that was just me with my now deceased friends and some clothes. I took what money I had saved up in my sock drawer. I was going over a couple of towns to the nearest bus stop and buy a bus ticket and get the fuck out of Maplehood and start my life over somewhere else.

Obviously that didn’t happen or I wouldn’t be where I am now.

Anyways. I snuck out and headed for the woods that were surrounding my backyard. I never felt so free and full of hope before in my life. This time it was me who saved me. I saved myself. I gave myself a second chance at life and I never looked back.

Ever.

#death tw #child abuse tw #verbal abuse tw #mental abuse tw #emotional abuse tw #physical abuse tw #bullying tw #mentions of suicide tw #murder tw #homicide tw #creepypasta #original story #original content #Orginal character #tabby #creepypasta fandom #please reblog #make this popular #make it canon

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ladyfiresfanfiction · 4 years

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Moth to a Flame - Supernatural Fan Fic - John Winchester and Castiel x OCs

The night was suppose to be a strict girls night. Willow Skye and her best friend, Dana Baker, were going to have a relaxing night in their brand new place in Kansas. It had been torn down and rebuilt two years ago, and it was the lowest priced house within ten miles of their hometown of Lawrence.

Willow didn't know what, but something drew her to the house. It was like a moth to a flame, she didn't understand why, but for the price of the place, she wasn't going to ask questions. Dana moved in with her after their junior year of college started. They were scraping money together to survive alone, so they decided moving in together was going to be a wonderful idea. No more struggling, and they could live together. That was one thing on each other's bucket list, and now they could proudly scratch it off. But Dana didn't like the house. She said it felt ominous. Something was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Willow, being the ever stubborn optimist, said her friend was being silly. The house was a steal and it was beautiful. But deep down, Willow had the same feelings, but she decided to bury them deep in the back of her mind and enjoy her own home. It was a dreary Friday in October, exam week had finally ended and both girls' heads were spinning. They weren't in the mood to hit up Lawrence's night life. Instead, they were going to grab a couple pizzas, two six packs of smirnoff ice apple, and watch horror movies and play video games. It was the perfect night. They got all the classics, like the nightmare on elm street series, the exorcist, and new favorites like Paranormal Activity. They ordered two large cheese pizzas, and stocked their booze in the fridge. As it hit ten o'clock, they went through their first movie. Terrified, Dana began to beat Willow with a pillow and accuse her of turning out the lights, although she was sitting no more than two feet from her on their leather couch. "Damn it, Dana, quit!" Willow yelped. "You fucking did something to the lights, Pixie!" Dana shrieked. "Oh for the love of God, one bad haircut and I'm stuck with that horrible nickname forever." Willow growled. "Ha! You changed the subject!" Dana said, taking a swig of her smirnoff. "Yeah I did, dumbass, because I'm sitting right here and haven't moved in two and a half hours. Now tell me, how did I fuck with the lights?" "I.. Well.. Oh fuck you." she said with a mouthful of pizza. There was a loud bang from the upstairs bedroom, Willow's bedroom. Willow and Dana looked at each other, growing very pale. Outside the storm was raging and lightening kept cracking every ten seconds. Thunder boomed and made the windows rattle, and rain pounded the window pane with rage. The power went out after the second bang from the upstairs. Both girls were terrified now. "W-what the fuck?" Dana stammered. "I.. I don't know." Willow whispered. "I'm fucking scared, dude." she said, wrapping her hands around her friends arm so tight Willow was losing circulation. "I'm no good dead, Dana. Let go of my arm." she said. They started for the stairs, holding a lighter and trying to keep their dinner down. Dana glanced outside and saw a beautiful Impala on the side of the road. She thought it looked familiar. She saw the car door open and four men get out. Before she could tell Willow, Willow had raced up the stairs on the third bang. The front door was kicked down and Dana screamed her head off. "Hey, hey! It's us!" A man with deep hazel eyes said. "DEAN!? I swear to fuck I will kill you if you EVER-" "No time for that sweetheart, where's your friend?" he asked. "Upstairs." she said, nervously. "I'll go with dad, you and Cas stay with, uh, what's your name?" a tall man with shaggy brown hair asked. "Dana. I only told you a dozen times when you interrogated me this afternoon." she snapped. The man, who she assumed was Cas, stared at her with big blue eyes and studied her. If this wasn't one of the scariest nights of her life, she would have gone over there and flirted with him. Instead, she just smiled and then peered upstairs. It was too quiet. Dean went into the kitchen, and Cas stood a few feet from Dana. She didn't know if she should trust these men, but she had no choice since they broke in to her house. "Cas?" she asked. "Yes. Dana?" he replied. "Yep, that's me." she smiled, stepping closer to him. "So your friend knows about the demon?" he asked. "DEMON!? WHAT!? A DEMON. A FUCKING DEMON IN MY HOUSE?" Dana shrieked. "You didn't-" "A FUCKING DEMON? Like, like those nasty pointy eared motherfuckers who like to.. to.. To fucking pounce on unsuspecting girls like Willow and I?" Dana rambled in a panic. "Good going, Cas. This is why I tell you to keep your mouth shut." Dean said, walking into the living room again. Dean took the mumbling Dana into the kitchen to explain. The house that was on the grounds before this was his family's. He didn't go into too much detail, only enough to make Dana try to flee from the house in a pair of daisy duke shorts and a system of a down tank top. Cas ran after her and brought her back inside, although she scratched his face to Hell. "Look, you're going to be alright. Dean and his brother and father are the best at getting rid of these things. Plus, well, I'm an angel. So, I'm pretty helpful at kicking Demon ass." Cas grinned at her. "Angel? Look buddy you may look like a very delicious.. heavenly.. God given gift to women but you are NOT an ANGEL." She barked. "God given gift to women? Seriously?" Dean looked at her. The next thing they heard was Willow's high pitched scream and her flying down the stairs. She too tried to escape, but Dean's father grabbed her by the waist and took her to the couch. She slapped him across the face while swearing at him, trying to fight him off and escape, not only from him, but the damned house, too. He had to pin her down with his own body and he began to whisper in her ear. She finally stopped struggling, and she looked up at him with fear eminating from her aqua-golden eyes. He helped her to her feet and brought her over to where Dana, Dean, and Cas stood. "Where's Sam?" Dean asked. "He's putting salt in all the rooms upstairs. Stay with the girls, I'm going to help him. "No! I'm coming with you." Willow piped up, grabbing his hand. He looked from her hand in his, to her eyes. He shook his head and got her to let him go before trotting upstairs. Dana still stared at Cas in awe. If he really was an angel, then she had to rethink everything. She had been raised as a catholic, but when she hit her teens, she considered herself an atheist. She never had reason to believe in God or Angels, or even the Devil and Demons. She scoffed at anyones mere thought of them existing. But now, she wasn't so sure. "I'm going to help, um, what's his name." Willow said. "His name is John, and no you're not." Dean said. "Oh, I would just love for you to try and stop me." Willow snapped. "Is that a dare, or a double dare sweet heart?" he asked, taking a step closer to her. "You come near me and you'll be missing your manhood, pal." "I'd listen to her, Dean. She's kind of.. um, well.. a bitch." "Thanks, Dana." Willow murmured. The lights came on, blindingly white. It made Willow cover her eyes and trip backwards, falling on her ass. The light went back to it's natural wattage and Dana helped her friend to her feet. Willow dragged her to the isolated edge of the livingroom, right near the couch and started to whisper fiercely. "Who are these guys? Demons? Seriously?" Willow asked. "I know, dude. They showed up after my World Religions class, ironically enough. At first they said they were with the health department, but then the blue eyed one slipped and said the house had something evil. I didn't give it a second thought. But then when all the weird shit started happening, I saw their car and well, you know the rest." she explained. "Dude, what if this is because we can see shit? I mean, plus my messing with Witchcraft when I was fourteen.." Willow replied. "Hey, Dean said whatever this thing is, was here way before us. It's always been here, so quit thinking this is your fault." Dana said, giving Willow a hug. They joined the guys at the foot of the stairs. It was quiet, and the lights were off. The shaggy haired guy, named Sam, came down and he had a cut on his cheek. Dean and Sam went to their car to load up on what they called "an arsenal of weapons against our little house guest", and Cas stood by Dana. Willow smirked as she saw her friend grow a light pink and then tried going upstairs. "No. No fucking way, Pixie." Dana gasped, and grabbed her friends arm. "Number one, call me Pixie when John is around and you don't have to worry about the demons getting you, because I will first. Number two, I'm a grown ass woman and I paid for this house, I'm going." "I didn't know you were a fairy." Cas said, rather child like. "Excuse me? I'm not a Fairy you twat!" "Willow, he's an Angel! He doesn't know any better!" Dana snapped. "Whatever, see you ladies in a bit, I'm going to find John." Willow said, and ran upstairs. Cas and Dana sat on the couch, fidgeting. Cas looked at Dana and couldn't believe how beautiful she was. It had been centuries since he had ever had feelings for a woman, or even noticed one for that matter, but Dana was different. Her eyes showed how good her soul was, her voice was so soft and promising, and her lips looked like perfectly shaped rose petals. As she shook in horror at the flickering lights, something came over him. He put his arms around her protectively, bringing her shaking frame close to his. He whispered soothingly in her ear, that no matter what happened, she would be safe. Dana sat there, looking at him. His eyes were full of emotions. Unfortunately, they were ones she couldn't quite decipher. If she wasn't so incredibly frightened, and hopelessly attracted to him, she could probably figure it out. But between the howling wind, the darkened house, and the intense fear of being killed and ending up in Hell, she had her mind on other things. But, that didn't stop her from wanting to kiss him. His lips were plump, and looked so warm and inviting. She wasn't in to one night stands, but if this was any other Friday night, and he was some random guy, she would have jumped his bones as soon as their eyes met. Dean and Sam were back inside, and going through everything they collected. Dean saw that Cas and Dana were snuggled on the couch, but saw no sign of Willow. He groaned and walked over. "I hate to intrude on your beautiful moment, guys, but where the hell is that pain in the ass best friend of yours, Dana?" "She went to find John." "Damn it! That girl better hope she found my dad, and not that demon." Sam added. "Willow's smart, she can take care of herself." Dana said. Willow was walking slowly and quietly in the hallway, looking for him. He was so gorgeous, she was surprised he had two full grown sons. He seemed so mysterious, though. She couldn't tell if that was what really attracted her to him, or the fact that his wet, black v-neck clung to his body, which showed how good of shape he was in. Or maybe it was his messy brown hair, or those piercing eyes. She tried to shake the lustful thoughts from her head, and when she did, she tripped. "Damn it, fuck that hurt." she mumbled to herself. She went into her room, but didn't find John. All she could see were these weird images on the ground, and the pristine white salt in the window sills, and in front of her closet door. She moved in, and the door slammed shut. She stifled a cry and looked around the room, there was no one. She heard sounds coming from the closet and her heart began to slam in her chest. As she began to back away, she bumped into someone and screamed. She was spun around and came face to face with John. "Didn't I tell you to stay downstairs?" he demanded. "Yeah well, I'm not obedient." she smiled. "You're gonna get yourself killed, Willow." he whispered. "Look, I'm not a damn damsel in distress, I can take care of myself." she said, growing irritated. "You have no idea how dangerous these damn things are. I've hunted them for the last twenty some years, sweetie. Trust me when I say it's safer downstairs." "If you're staying, then I am, too." she said, not budging from in front of him. "Fine, your choice. But stay close." he replied, frustrated. She stuck right beside him, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He didn't know why, but he wanted her as close to him as possible. He didn't want anything to happen to her. His sole mission in life was to save people. This girl may have been getting on his last nerve, but he liked her bravery, her determination, and she was pretty on top of it. He wondered why she wanted to be up there with him, but he didn't ask. It was nice to have a woman with him, standing by his side through this. Willow felt safe with John's arm around her. She wanted to hold on to his waist and convince him to run away with her, from this place, far away, and hole up in some motel for the night. But she could tell he wouldn't go for it. She squished herself against his side as much as possible. The windows started to rattle, and Willow made her way to the bedroom door. It wouldn't open. She kept her cool, although inside she was panicing. Dean was on the other side, trying to kick it down, but nothing would work. John stood in front of Willow, trying to figure out what his next move would be. Out of nowhere, she felt herself go flying against a wall, pinned against it. She was deathly afraid, she couldn't even speak. John tried to grab her, but he was thrown against the opposite side of the wall. Dean finally managed to kick the door open, and Sam was right behind, with a large leather book. "Now's not story time, guys!" Willow shrieked. "Relax!" Sam snapped. The thing appeared, right next to John. Willow was struggling to free herself so she could get to him, which caught it's attention. It's pitch black eyes stared at her, and it's lips turned into a cold smirk. Sam's book went into flames and he went flying backwards and the door slammed shut behind him. Dean was knocked into the wall and went unconscious. John was swearing at the thing, trying to get it's attention, to bring it to him instead of Willow. But Willow didn't even shake, or shut her eyes. She stared at it with hate. She struggled to free herself, but had no such luck. "My, how you've grown." It hissed, like a snake. "Fuck off." she choked. She felt a white hot pain on her abdomen, and screamed. The thing flipped her shirt up to show blood dripping down her body. She stared at it, and fear started to sink in. It ran it's tongue over her cheek, and then whispered that she was going to Hell, with it, and there was no stopping it. She stared it down, showing that she wasn't weak, or scared. It slapped her, and then she felt more pain in her chest, and her fore arms. She was turning in to a bloody mess. "Let her go!" John demanded. "What's wrong, Johnny? A little upset that this will be the 2nd woman you've lost?" it smiled evily. "Take me. Let her go." he said. "Nah, this is too much fun watching you watch her slowly die." it said, and turned to Willow again. The door blew off the hinges, and Cas stood in the doorway, Dana was behind him. Cas raised his palm and now the demon was on the ground, on its knees, before Cas. He began to speak in a foreign tongue, and the thing started to scream. It's head moved side to side at the speed of light, and with one loud bellowing symbol, the demon's black spirit was expelled from the decaying body. John and Willow fell to the ground, and Sam ran to call an ambulance. Dana kneeled beside her friend, who was slowly going unconscious. Willow came to in a hospital, it was dark out, and she figured it was the same night. She moved slightly to the left and saw John asleep in the uncomfortable chair beside her bed. She peered down and saw his hand holding hers. Dana and Cas had just walked in and saw her eyes were open. Dana went to say something when Cas motioned for her to stay quiet, so they didn't wake John. Dana walked over and whispered in Willow's ear. "He's been here ever since you were admitted, that was two days ago. Someone's getting hospital sex later on!" She chuckled before walking out with Cas. Willow giggled but winced quickly afterward. It hurt to move at all. She had never been in this much pain before. She wondered what happened, she was out for two days. She also wondered if he was okay. She gripped his hand, and smiled. He was sleeping peacefully beside her. Cas told Sam and Dean that Willow was awake and that they could head to their motel. He was going to drop Dana off at her motel and then come back to see how Willow and John were getting along. But Dana had other plans. They got to her motel and Cas walked her in. She smiled at him as they stood awkwardly in the doorway together. He knew something was up, but he couldn't exactly tell what. She looked up into his eyes and he felt like he was going to melt. Her eyes were a beautiful blue, but they had a violet hue to them. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. He tried to remind himself that this girl was just that; a young girl. He couldn't possibly get feelings for her. In his line of work, and location, it could never work. But still, what he was feeling inside wouldn't go away. "You saved my friend, and myself. I could never thank you enough." Dana whispered. "It's no problem. I would have done it for anyone." he replied, being modest. "It's really late, isn't it? Maybe you should crash here. Besides.. It does get lonely." she hinted, taking his hand in hers and bringing him to the bed. He sat down and she straddled his lap. He looked at her, unsure of where to put his hands. She grabbed them forcefully and held them against her perky breasts. His touch sent a shiver up her spine, and he started to feel tension in his pants. It was all new to him, but he was enjoying the sensation. He laid back and brought her down on top of him. She groaned and attacked his lips. He pressed his lips hungrily back against hers. She was forcing her tongue in to his mouth, and the texture of his tongue against hers was turning her on. She could already feel her panties getting soaked, and she felt his boner poking her through their jeans. She gasped when he flipped her on to her back, climbing on top of her. His blue eyes swam with lust and what appeared to be genuine, human emotion. He slipped her tank top over her head and began to kiss her chest, up to her collarbone and neck, and each kiss was deeper and rougher than the last. She squirmed under him, whining and unable to control her animalistic sounds. She ripped off his trenchcoat, and soon was able to slide off his shirt. His skin was warm and smooth, and felt good against her chilled body. His tongue swirled on her sweet spot, and soon his teeth nibbled, causing her to arch her back. Her legs unvoluntarily opened, giving him room to place his lower body between them. Their lips met with passion, and he gripped her sides. She kept arching into him, her hips bucked against his own. A devilish smile formed on the corners of his lips, and he began to playfully bite her bottom lip. For someone who had never done this before, Dana was dying from the pounding in her cunt. She already wanted him to just shove it in, over and over, and make her scream until no body part worked. He slowly stood up, looking down at her. One of his hands gripped at the button of her jeans, and he quickly undid it. He ripped her pants off her legs as she fumbled to undo his button and zipper. She couldn't even form a coherent sentence, and her lips began to trace down his body, from his chest to his stomach and back up. His pants flew off and across the room, and she pulled him back down. The head of his cock was making an appearance in the hole of his boxer shorts, and she placed her hand inside them, giving his dick a small squeeze. He grunted in her ear, which made her pump his dick in her hand. He yanked her hand out and pinned both of her wrists above her head. He kissed her again, with force. He grinded his lower body against hers, letting her feel every solid inch against her wet pussy. She was able to break free, but she steadied her urges to rip his boxers off and ride him like a bronco. Instead, she slowly slid them off, and he looked down at her. She suddenly felt her heart swell in her chest, and it was a feeling she knew all too well: Love. He gently pulled off her soaked thong and helped her up into the middle of the bed. Slowly opening her legs, he slid inside, and the sticky, hot mess made it easy for him to slide in deep. She cried out and dug her nails into his back, panting in his ear. Her legs were in the air, her back arched as far as it could, and their eyes were locked on each other. They smiled and kissed deeply, passionately. Their tongues locked and slid deep into each others mouths as he penetrated her deeply, roughly, and continually. She was already cumming and drenched his dick with a hot load of cum. He wasn't too far, behind. He began to pound her cunt mercilessly, grunting and groaning in her ear, then he would add little butterfly kisses to her earlobe and neck before sucking hard on the sweet spot of her neck. "Dana, you make me feel so many things, that are so foreign to me. But God does it feel wonderful." he panted gruffly in her ear. "Jesus fuck, Cas. More. Oh God. More, please!" she begged. He did as he was asked, shoving it all inside, pounding her sweet spot, making it hurt. She finally was reaching her final orgasm, her muscle wrapping around his cock and squeezing as she screamed his name. His eyes clenched shut and he bit his bottle lip as he let his own cum rush out of him and drench her insides, and slide down her shaking legs. He fell on top of her, his whole body quivering. She clung to him as he wrapped his own arms around her body. They gasped for air and held each other, realizing this was more than a fling, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Willow woke up around eleven o'clock the following night. The doctors had given her pain medication since she was crying in her sleep. When she woke up, she awoke to John hovering above her. Her heart pitter pattered in her chest, and she let out a small, shy smile. He traced the back of his hand against her cheek, in which she leaned in to it, and he told her she could finally go home. "But I don't have a home." she said. "You can stay with me, for a few days, you know.. If you want." he said. "Really?" she asked. "Yeah, if you want." he smiled. "I'd love to, John." she replied. He helped her sit up, and as the nurse unhooked her from the heart machine and took the needle out of her arm, Dana came in with a huge smile on her face. She gave her friend a set of clothes and helped her into the bathroom to dress. "God this all hurts." she cried. "I know, but John will take care of you. Cas is gonna help me go apartment hunting, for us." she replied. "John's letting me stay with him for a few days." Willow smiled. "Awww!" Dana cooed. "Oh shut up. Um, Dana? Isn't this kinda.. much?" she asked, looking in the mirror. Willow was wearing a long sleeved, low cut fishnet tshirt with a black lacey push up bra underneath, a frilly black g-string and skin tight dark blue jeans, with her tights and knee high boots. Dana put on black eyeliner and mascara, to make Willow's eyes really pop. She combed her messy hair and when she was finished, you would have never have known Willow was attacked. She walked out and saw John talking to his sons, who apparently had a lead on some new monster two states away. John slowly turned and laid his eyes on a new Willow, and he turned from his sons and walked over to her. She heard Dean mutter 'get some, dad!' and Sam dragged his brother off to their Impala. Dana walked off to find Cas and said she would call Willow tomorrow to see how she was doing. John wrapped his arm around her shoulders gently and they walked off to his car. The entire way to his motel was silent, but she kept looking at him once in awhile. More than once she caught him staring and smiled when he looked away. They got inside his motel and he helped her to the bed. She laid down and looked at him as he put his guns on the nightstand beside the opposite bed. He sat down on it and looked at her before lying down.

"Aren't you going to lie with me?" she asked.

"I wasn't sure you wanted me to." he laughed.

"Well, I do, so come here." she giggled.

He slowly got up, and took his shirt off, tossing it on the ground behind him. She laid on her back and watched him get in bed. His body was so perfect; a nice looking chest, perfect abs, and his arms were strong, and when they locked around her, she felt like putty. She looked up at him, and his eyes changed; they were full of lust. She was so glad she wasn't the only one who wanted to have sex at that point. She broke away long enough to slide her shirt off, and he slid his fingertips slowly up and down her arm. She shivered, and he quickly brought her right up against his body. His arms were around her tight and she could feel his heart beating against hers. She melted against him, taking in his scent and closing her eyes. He rubbed her shoulder blades gently with his hands, still keeping her safe in his arms.

"You were brave back there, you barely made a sound or.. Anything." he whispered in her ear.

"Thanks.. I don't know what came over me, I just.. I.. I wanted to make sure you were okay." she said, peeking up to see his eyes.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't know, John. I just did. At that moment, you were more imp-"She was cut off by his lips hitting hers.

His body carefully rolled on top of hers, making her squeak. Their lips never broke the kiss, but instead, deepened. His hands gripped her hips and his tongue slid easily in to her mouth. She was already shaking and could feel an angry pulse in her pussy. Their tongues locked in a war of dominance, and he was clearly winning. She tried to push him off, but he was too strong. He pinned her wrists down by her sides and broke the kiss, then began to bite her bottom lip, hard. He lips brushed against her jawline, down to her neck, the kisses were wet and hard, and the more she fought to free herself, the more he tortured her with his passionate kisses. She saw the muscles in John's arms flexing from holding her down, and she let out a whimper.He let her go and helped her sit up. He was on his knees, straddled over her lap so he could undo her bra, as he slowly let the straps slide off her shoulders, he looked down at her cleavage. She slid her hands down his abs and slowly back up, while putting butterfly kisses to his chest. He shut his eyes, groaning. His own hands slid down her breasts, down to her stomach and slowly back up. He cupped her tits in his hands, and as he sweetly kissed her, he began to squeeze her tits, making her gasp and groan. She began to quiver, and he had her lie down.She opened her legs, inviting him in and he placed his lower body right against hers, she gripped his shoulders, and her head was swimming. Her heart raced painfully in her chest, and he pulled away to look into her eyes. He smiled and kissed her cheek while letting his hands glide through her hair. She was quickly falling for him.

She was nibbling on his neck while gripping his strong, broad shoulders. He began to undo her pants and she hungrily attacked his lips. The kisses were quick and sloppy, but full of emotion and passion and... Need.

"Don't leave after this." she begged.

"I won't, I promise." he whispered assuringly between kisses to her chest.

"God, I need you." she moaned.

"I need you, too, baby." he groaned.

They pulled each others pants off, and she could see his boner in his boxer briefs. He jammed it against her several times, making her lose her mind. She whipped off her g-string while he took his boxers off, and climbed on top of her. His hands were propped up on either side of her, he was now above her and looking for him to signal it was okay for him to enter her. She kissed him twice, the last kiss lasting for several long seconds, and he slowly slid inside her. He let several inches inside, then began to torturously slide the rest in, inch by inch, it was so slow. She wanted him to force it in quick, but he knew what he was doing. He wanted this to last all night, he didn't want to let her go. She was growing wetter by the second, making it easier for him to penetrate her. She arched in to him, their kisses becoming more and more frequent and full of need. His arms wrapped around her shaking body and he whispered in her ear that she was his. He didn't let go, and he was bumping his hips into hers, it hurt but felt so good at the same time. She cried out, groaning and begging for more. Their bodies were sweaty and it made them stick together.

She bucked her hips into his, smiling as she raked her nails down his back, making him grunt. He looked a little angry, but it made him so much hotter. He kissed her hard as he shoved his cock inside her with one swift move. She screamed, and he began to shove it in, each time harder than the last. She bit her lip, suppressing a scream, and then he put kisses down her chest, to her stomach and back up. He placed one loving kiss to her lips before shooting a load of cum inside of her. It was hot and sticky, and it warmed her insides. Afterward he kept going, not stopping until she finally came, squeezing every last drop of cum out of him. He laid on his back, pulling her close to him. He kissed the top of her head and pulled the comforters over them. She laid her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and enjoying his rhythmic breaths. He fell asleep holding her tight, and the last thing she remembered was whispering that she loved him.

"I love you, too, Willow." he whispered back.

She smiled and clung to him tight, and they fell asleep tangled in each others arms and sleeping comfortably for the first time in weeks.

#fan fic writing #fic writing #fan fics #supernatural fan fic #castiel x oc #castiel x you #john winchester x oc #supernatural fanfiction #fan fic stuff #fan fiction #fics #fan fic comission #spn fan fics #spn fics #supernatural smut

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ofelvie · 5 years

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joe keery. cis male. he/him. ／ elvie croft just pulled up blasting spooky boy by danny gonzalez — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - four year old youtuber, i’ve heard they’re really scatterbrained, but that they make up for it by being so loyal. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say 80s horror, buckets of halloween candy, and blurry photographs of mysterious figures in the woods. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( sam, 23, est, she/her )

hey there demons! *ba dum tss* my name is sam and i’ll be writing elvie, a brilliant harvard law graduate who threw away any shred of credibility he ever had in order to make silly videos on the internet. more info under the cut. feel free to message me if you would like to plot!

i. stats

𝖋𝖚𝖑𝖑 𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖊: elvin tupelo croft

𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖊𝖘: el, elvie, the ghost guy

𝖍𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖙𝖔𝖜𝖓: salem, massachusetts

𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝖔𝖋 𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖍: october 31, 1995

𝖟𝖔𝖉𝖎𝖆𝖈: scorpio

𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓: demisexual

𝖔𝖈𝖈𝖚𝖕𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓: lawyer youtuber

𝖕𝖔𝖘. 𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖙𝖘: loyal, open - minded, exuberant.

𝖓𝖊𝖌. 𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖙𝖘: scatterbrained, obstreperous, impulsive.

𝖎𝖓𝖘𝖕𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖇𝖞: shawn spencer, psych ; fox mulder, the x files ; stiles stilinski, teen wolf.

ii. history

elvin tupelo “elvie” croft was born in salem, massachusetts ( yes, really ) on halloween day ( yes, really ). an only child, his father is the district attorney for essex county, massachusetts while his mother owns a store in town that sells witchcraft supplies such as crystals, herbs, grimiores, etc. fun fact: she’s the descendant of an accused witch, meaning that elvie is as well.

as it turns out, beneath of the surface of the few tourist attractions that it has to offer, salem has a small town, stuck in the past vibe. it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone all their lives because no one ever leaves and no one ever moves in. he grew up in this...eccentric...environment, living in the same house all his life and only ever leaving to visit his grandparents in boston.

he was five years old when he saw his first horror movie ( an apathetic teenage babysitter let him stay up long past his bedtime to watch nightmare on elm street ) and from that moment on he was HOOKED.

when he started school, two things about him became apparent: 1) he was highly intelligent and 2) he struggled greatly with tasks such as sitting still and staying focused. he was tested, and it turns out that he has a through the roof genius level iq and he also has adhd, which he was put on a few different medications for until something finally seemed to work for him.

he could have been one of those child prodigies who finished high school at the age of ten and then college at the age of fourteen, BUT his parents decided that they didn’t want him to miss out on the experience of going through school with people his own age.

as the smartest kid in class with glasses and braces and an insatiable obsession with all things horror and halloween, he…was picked on. mercilessly.

so, he didn’t really have any friends...............................at all.................................but he didn’t mind. he was perfectly content to go right home after school and spend the rest of the day reading comic books or watching horror movies or researching local urban legends and paranormal stories.

he started his youtube channel when he was a teenager and it was…trash honestly. it was basically buzzfeed unsolved if buzzfeed unsolved consisted of one ( 1 ) dorky teenager yelling at the air in the middle of abandoned house at 3am, but it turned out that people found it entertaining. his first few videos were flops, but he would soon start amassing subscribers in the hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands.

so, when he got to his senior year of high school, he was a shoe - in to be named class valedictorian ( he was ) and he was even getting ivy league offers. at the same time, his youtube channel was starting to gain momentum. his parents mainly his father were really pushing him to attend college and elvie, genius level iq and all…didn’t want to go. he wanted to focus on his youtube channel, but his dad was absolutely not having it.

he attended harvard for both his pre law and law school studies, breezed through classes, graduated with honors at the top of his class and once he passed the bar exam there were countless job offers waiting for him. elvie ignored them all and moved to los angeles so that he could finally focus on his youtube channel.

it’s been almost two years since he moved and he likes it in california!

iii. extras

his name is elvin but basically no one ever calls him that. his own parents don’t even particularly like the name. long story. most people call him elvie and some who are super close to him just call him el.

while he is the “ryan” aka the believer of his youtube series, he’s definitely NOT a scaredy cat like ryan the poor guy. in fact, all his life there’s been this running joke that HE DOESN’T SEEM TO BE SCARED OF ANYTHING, and who knows? maybe he isn’t.

has the most cartoonishly exaggerated boston accent that one could ever hope to hear, except he doesn’t seem to realize it at all.

10/31 blaze it he’s a HUGE stoner.

he’s got jokes. stay vigilant.

he’s OBSESSED with all things horror, halloween, and 80s. he makes a lot of film references that are often so obscure that most people don’t even catch them.

he is legally permitted to practice law in the states of massachusetts and california, so basically: he’s a lawyer! however, this is not at all common knowledge because...

most people don’t know how smart he actually is because he intentionally plays dumb and he’s really good at it. being high all the time and his natural chaotic energy is quite helpful in hiding his intelligence. he just doesn’t like to be seen as smart, so the whole once - brilliant law student thing? not common knowledge whatsoever. he tries not to mention the college he attended by name at all, but if he has to then he lies and says that he went to salem state.

and yes, he has SO MUCH chaotic energy. he’s the kind of person who will stick a fork in his microwave just to see what would happen out of sheer boredom. he has two pet mexican redknee tarantulas that probably aren’t even allowed on campus named freddy and jason who he just…fucking loses track of every other day. his favorite drink is literally black coffee mixed together with a can of monster energy and 5 ( f i v e ) teaspoons of sugar. he is c h a o s. he has absolutely NO IMPULSE CONTROL whatsoever.

he has slight Daddy Issues™. slight. when he was born, his dad was hoping that he would get a star athlete kid who would go on to follow in his footsteps and one day become a successful, respectable lawyer but instead he got…elvie. he’s never outright said that he’s disappointed but he didn’t need to. elvie’s a really difficult person to rattle but every time, without fail, he ends a phone call with his dad and he’s in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

his car is this PIECE OF JUNK giant turquoise van that he painted to look like the mystery machine. her name is laurie strode.

even though he makes constant pop culture references about horror movies and the 80s, but outside of those areas he’s completely clueless about pop culture. like, he can recite the entire scripts of the shining and empire strikes back and ferris bueller’s day off word for word, but if someone tried to talk to him about the new post malone song or the latest marvel movie he would just stare blankly.

he has a HUGE sweet tooth. his favorite food is halloween candy and his favorite candy is black licorice disgusting i know.

he takes adderall for his adhd and he’s usually good about keeping up with it. started keeping them on his person in college because he realized that his meds were getting stolen and it’s a habit he's held onto that doesn’t really keep his shit from getting stolen.

.he’s good at…A LOT of things because he’s a really fast learner. he can play the guitar, he can draw, he did drama in high school. he just has to watch someone do something once and then he can usually immediately do it himself. this skill doesn’t extend to physical activities such as sports, however. he’s terrible at those.

he’s basically a cartoon character

iv. wanted connections

friends

cousin ( their grandparents would probably be from boston but otherwise anything really goes for this )

his weed dealer lmao

smoking buddies

people who don’t like him / find him annoying

has stolen his adderall

maybe someone who knows how smart he really is

exes and flings

( these are just ideas and i’m trash at coming up with these, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here. )

#excess:intro #drugs tw #medication tw #that one picture of oscar isaac.jpeg

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katsvdeku · 6 years

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kacchan and bonsai

I’ve written this a long long time ago and I also posted this on ao3 under a collection, but I deleted that collection and uploaded this as an individual fic (here!) (ノ^∇^)

On a Sunday morning in the Bakugou household, a five-year old Katsuki can be heard screaming his lungs out at his mother. Their neighbors are probably used to it by now, but on this particular day, it seems like the young boy is louder than usual.

“YOU STUPID OLD HAG! I’M NOT LEAVING THIS HOUSE!”

A shirtless Katsuki holds onto the side of his room doorway as his mother, Mitsuki, has her arms around the boy’s torso, pulling him out of his room. Masaru, Katsuki’s father, only watches in amusement, discreetly taking a photo of the scene before him to add to the photo collection of ‘Adorable Katsuki throwing fits’.

“Oh yes, you are! We’ve talked about this, Katsuki!”

Said boy doesn’t listen and tries to flail his short legs, successfully kicking his mother’s face. Hah, that’s what you get, woman! Katsuki mentally pats himself at his success and dashes into his room, making sure to lock his door before throwing himself on his bed, facing the ceiling.

A diversity of All Might stickers litter his beige ceiling, varying in designs and sizes. They give color and life to the plain upper interior surface of his room. His mother was against it at first, arguing that it’s only add mess to Katsuki’s already untidy room. However, after hearing Katsuki say ‘please’ while looking down at his feet with a pout plastered on his face made Mitsuki say yes without much thought.

It was such a rare occurrence; she had to recall if it really happened.

Katsuki feels something poking his butt and reaches under him – it’s an All Might action figure. The one his father bought him when he had the highest remarks in his class. His face contorts into a sour look as he recalls what happened this morning.

It was a peaceful morning for little Katsuki, waking up from a wonderful action-filled dream with his idol, All Might. This time, his dream wasn’t interrupted by his old woman’s screams of ‘wake up, little devil!’

He seriously hated it when she does that.

The muffled sounds of his parents talking outside of his room reached him as he walked towards the door. It’d been half an hour since he woke up and his tummy’s demanding for food. As an active and energetic kid, Katsuki would always get hungry easily.

“Should we wake him up? We’ll be leaving in two hours.” That was his dad — voice so gentle and modulated. Katsuki liked it when his dad talked to him; it wasn’t unpleasant to the ears.

“You know how he gets when I wake him up, he’ll explode.” His mom’s voice was unusually soft, like she’s trying not to wake Katsuki up.

The foreign giddy feeling the young kid felt almost took over his body until he realized what he just heard. Leaving? To where?

Without caring if his parents would scold him for eavesdropping, Katsuki flung the door open and asked with a loud voice, “Where are we going?”

Much to Katsuki’s dismay, his parents are leaving without him. It took him a few seconds to recall his parents’ words a few weeks prior. They have talked to Katsuki about their upcoming work-related business in Tokyo. They’d be gone for a whole week. As much as they’d like to take Katsuki with them, they can’t. So, they decided to leave him to their close and trusted friend, Midoriya Inko.

What pisses Katsuki off is that he can’t remember a thing about that talk they had! Did they talk to him while he’s on the verge of sleeping so he couldn’t protest?

And that’s how Katsuki finds himself locked up in his room, shirtless and surrounded by his toys which he played with this morning.

There is an obnoxious knock on the door before it swings open, revealing his mother with a blue shirt in her left hand and a key in the other. With a yelp, Katsuki scrambles away, struggling as his All Might blanket gets wrapped around his ankle. The inevitable happens and a loud thud resonates around the four walls of his room as his body makes contact with the floor.

“Oww!” His butt stings like it’s been spanked!

“That’s what you get for being stubborn, kid.” Katsuki grunts upon hearing his mother snickering. “Are you alright? C’mon, let’s get you dressed up and we’re heading to the Midoriyas.”

Against the blond five-year old’s will, Katsuki is now sitting at the backseat of their car with his arms crossed in front of his chest, listening to his mom ramble on and on about how this Inko is kind and sweet (the polar opposite of her, Katsuki wonders how they even became friends) and how she also has the cutest and loveliest child, Izuku.

It annoys Katsuki.

When they reach their destination, Katsuki stubbornly refuses to get out of the car, eyebrows scrunched together and lips jutting out in a pout. It’s his dad who pulls him out with a few coaxing words.

“Hah?” Katsuki huffs, staring at the building in front of them. “Is this where they live?”

Masaru nods. Katsuki’s curiosity only heightens more. This whole building is theirs? They must be rich then.

“Yeah, since there’s just the two of them, they only live in an apartment complex.” Mitsuki adds, leading them to the stairs. “They live in the fourth floor.”

“What’s an apartment complex?”

“It’s a building with residential suites or rooms where people rent to live in.” His dad replies, holding his hand as they climb up the stairs.

“So this Midoriya family only rented a room and this whole building is not theirs?”

This makes both of his parents laugh wholeheartedly. Katsuki tilts his head to the side with an annoyed glare directed at them. Does he look like he’s joking?

“Of course, silly!”

Katsuki takes it back, they’re not rich at all. The kid is about to ask something again when he notices they’ve reached the floor where the Midoriya family live in. The hallway stretches far enough to make Katsuki feel dizzy a little. It’s like one of those horror movies. Are all the rooms even occupied?

Will his parents really leave him in a place where all the paranormal happen? With this lingering thought in his mind, Katsuki senses something heavy settling in his chest, gradually spreading throughout his body until it reaches the tips of his fingers and toes.

He’s not scared. Katsuki doesn’t get scared.

He doesn —

An embarrassingly booming scream crawls out of his throat, arms fumbling to grab his father’s shirt, as the door in front of them (when did they even stop here?) opens up in a slow manner.

“Katsuki, don’t be rude!” Mitsuki hisses, eyes widening to emphasize her annoyance.

“NO! I WON’T STAY IN THIS HAUNTED APARTMENT! TAKE ME WITH YOU!”

Katsuki turns to run when he feels his mother takes a hold of his shirt, keeping him in place.

“Oh no, you don’t! We’ve been through this this morning, Katsuki!”

He makes a strangled noise as his mother drags him into the apartment while apologizing to the green-haired woman watching them with concern.

“NO! LET ME GO! I’M GONNA DIE IN HERE!”

“Don’t be a drama queen, you won’t die here!”

Katsuki’s not usually like this. He’s a brave and strong kid with a reputation. He’s known for being the coolest kid in town, that’s why everyone wants to be friends with him. He’s someone whom everyone looks up to. He has no idea why he’s being so uncool at the moment, though. Maybe because he knows there are no kids around to see thi — wait, is that…a kid around his age?

Upon realizing a child like him with hair and eyes as green as leaves during spring is standing a few feet away from him, watching his pandemonium, he halts immediately, lifting his chin up to show dominance. He can’t let this kid look down on him.

“Finally! Why were you even yelling about a haunted apartment?! You’re watching too much horror movies, Katsuki.”

This causes a wave of warmth to spread across his chubby cheeks. Katsuki huffs in annoyance, turning around to throw a glare at his mother. He hears a soft giggle coming from where the other kid is standing and Katsuki’s head snaps into that direction.

“What the heck are you laughing at, loser?!”

Katsuki watches as the freckled kid’s (because his cheeks are overwhelmingly adorned with freckles, it pisses the blond off) eyes widen, mouth forming an ‘o’ shape as his grip on his yellow All M shirt tightens. Katsuki hears his mother yell at him, but he ignores her to scan this boy’s face. What was his name again? He looks like he’s about to piss himself and — wait…an All M shirt?

Upon realizing what the other’s wearing, a sense of excitement courses through Katsuki’s small body, but he tries to conceal it with a grunt and a roll of his eyes.

“K-Kachu…Katsu…K-Katsuki-kun, I wasn’t l-laugh —”

“I don’t care! Shut up! I hate your face!”

This time, Katsuki receives a flick on his forehead from his mother who also tells him to ‘be nice, brat!’, to which he screams in both pain and surprise.

“You’ll be staying with them for a whole week, Katsuki. Treat them nicely or I swear I’ll drive back here to pinch your ass cheeks.”

“I guess I won’t act nice then,” Katsuki huffs, crossing his arms across his chest.

“What did you — oh. Oh. You’re gonna miss us? Aww, that’s so cute. You should’ve just said you’ll stupidly miss us, Katsuki. C’mere, let me hug you,” Mitsuki coos at his son, arms stretching out to wrap his son in a bear hug, to which the young kid shrieks a ‘what the heck are you doing?!’ before running to hide behind the green haired boy.

Katsuki remembers the times when he’d run and hide behind a tree when his mother would chase him down after finding out he ate more sweets than he’s allowed to. This time, though, he feels like he’s hiding behind a small tree. A bonsai, he recalls what his mother said when she brought one in.

This is when Katsuki notices the other kid watching in mixed awe and amusement at his and his mother’s exchange. His emerald eyes shine like there are stars in them. Heck, they shine brighter than the stars! Is that even possible? And his lips — his stupid pink lips, Katsuki thinks — are curled up into a big grin and Katsuki’s captivated.

Wait…capti — what? When did he even learn that word?

Inevitably, Katsuki freaks out at his thoughts and on instinct he pushes the other boy and watches as he stumbles on his feet, almost hitting the ground.

“You…your eyes and smile are freakin’ blinding me!”

His hands fly towards his mouth the moment he hears those words come out of his stupid mouth.

“Watch your words, Katsuki!”

His mother’s words are downright ignored as he beelines his way to nearest room he sees. A sigh of relief slips from his mouth as his back hits the hard surface of the door. He can vaguely hear his mother talking to Midoriya-san. He turns to press his ear against the door to hear their conversation better, but almost falls flat on the floor when the door swings open.

“What the —” His words stop from leaving his mouth when comes face to face with the green haired kid. His eyes are still — no, shut the heck up, brain. “Are you trying to kill me, you bonsai?!”

“B-Bon…what? I mean, I-I’m sorry, Kachuki-kun.” He looks down at his feet, finger fumbling with the hem of his All M shirt as a blush creeps its way to his cheeks up to his neck. Katsuki watches in enjoyment as the freckled bonsai shuffles, obviously uncomfortable. That was until he realizes what the other just called him.

“Kachuki? Kachuki?! My name is not Kachuki! It’s Katsuki!”

Bonsai tries again. “Ka…Kachu —”

“NO!” Katsuki’s flaring now, angry at the wrong yet adorable way of Bonsai’s pronunciation of his name. “Repeat after me, loser. Ka–tsu–ki.”

“Ka…chu…ki.”

Katsuki can feel his neck burning in anger as he scowls at the freckled bonsai in front of him, who looks like he’s about to cry. The blond kid panics after seeing the repressed tears threatening to fall any second.

“Fine. I don’t care what you call me, bonsai.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes when the other boy lightens up at his words, eyes freakin’ shining again. Ugh, this is gonna be a long week.

“I’ll call you Kacchan then!”

Katsuki chokes on his spit, cheeks burning at the cute but stupid nickname. “What did you call me, bonsai?!”

“It’s Izuku, Kacchan!”

#bakudeku #katsudeku #bakudeku fic #katsudeku fic #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #midoriya izuku #midoriya #fluff #meet cute #mine!!

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elenajohansenauthor · 6 years

Text

Fictober18, Day 24: “You know this. You know this to be true.”

OCs: Shannon and Noah

Project: Untitled paranormal romance for Fictober18/NaNoWriMo, now tagged #spookyromancenovel on my blog

Potential Triggers: none

Word Count: 2,026

About: Shannon dreams about a tornado.

In the dream, I knew I was dreaming. It doesn’t happen often, but I can never control it, no matter how much I read up on lucid dreaming. I am trapped inside of it, a prisoner who cannot wake.

Even when I’m dreaming about something good, I hate that loss of agency, that cold isolation.

We’re children again, me and Noah. I’m on the side roof of my house, the one that projects over the door to the yard, the one I can climb down to from the hallway window. Noah’s on the side roof of his house, a mere four feet away. Our houses are mirrors.

We would have been friends anyway, but having a secret place where we could hang out and talk, feeling separate from everything? That’s irresistible to a certain type of child. Like me. Like Noah.

It didn’t matter that we were plainly visible from the street, or that anyone in our families could find us by walking to the end of the hallway and looking out the window. We didn’t have a tree house to hide it. This was good enough.

I’m listening to the kid versions of us talk, hovering bodiless somewhere in the air above the backyard. The words are all things we said, or things we probably would say, but nothing matches up, making the conversation gibberish.

“My parents want me to take violin lessons.”

“I found a five dollar bill I forgot I had. Do you want to get ice cream after school tomorrow?”

“Fractions are so easy, why are we still practicing them?”

I wanted to merge with my younger self, to flow into her body and make her understand how precious this time was, this friendship. Had I known that, then? Had I ever appreciated Noah enough?

A boom of thunder rolled through the dream, though the sky was bright and cloudless. Both kids climbed through their respective windows in eerie synchronization, and my awareness followed little Shannon inside, a few yards behind her, as flawlessly as a movie camera.

She flew through the open door to her bedroom, our bedroom, and it looked almost the same as I remembered it. If there was symbolic significance in the differences, I had no time to divine it, because she went to the window and I slid into place beside her, both of us leaning out to look at a swirl of distant chaos.

A tornado, moving closer.

We were transfixed. Despite knowing this was a dream, that I was in no danger, I trembled, my invisible hands gripping the windowsill as if the frame would anchor me, as if the house was too solid to break into a thousand pieces when the twister hit. And it would. It was heading straight for us.

My younger self was staring, too, but she didn’t seem afraid, only excited. Then she smiled, and I refocused on the tornado, growing ever larger as it approached.

Inside the whirling winds, I saw chunks of dirt and grass, snapped tree branches, broken boards, bits of garbage. My gaze zoomed in uncannily on each object even as it flew by, too quick to track for more than a second.

When the gargoyles appeared from the heart of the tornado, screaming and clawing through the air, I shrieked and woke up.

I couldn’t move, not even my eyes. I stared uselessly at a random spot on my nightstand, unable to see the time on the clock except for the vague green flow it cast on the wood. The noise that came from my throat was sharp, harsh, a scream I couldn’t consciously put breath and power into. My breath wheezed in panic, a shallow inhale followed by that involuntary keening. I couldn’t stop it.

The door to my room burst open, a secondary crash telling me it had bounced back off my bookshelves. “Shannon? What’s wrong?”

Noah was home, Noah had heard me cry out. Half of me flooded with love while the other cringed in mortal embarrassment.

He and I had been friends since we were six, but never the sleepover kind of friends—our parents were too strict about gender roles for that, even before we hit puberty and ran the risk of doing things other than sleeping. My mother wouldn’t even let my female friends see me in pajamas, so I had never been to a slumber party at all. “Sleep is a private activity,” she always said, “and so are the clothes that go with it.”

I’d been in Noah’s bedroom at times, and he’d been in mine. That sort of thing was unavoidable.

But he’d never been in this bedroom. And certainly never while I was in bed myself.

I was absolutely never going to be able to remember this without cringing. He came in now? Like this? Because I had a bad dream?

I didn’t answer—I still couldn’t. I was paralyzed with leftover terror.

“Shannon? Can you hear me?” He knelt beside me, filling the narrow space between the mattress and the wall. I could only see his left shoulder and arm, his hand as it approached my face.

When he touched my cheek tentatively, he leaned down to peer into my eyes. The shock of how cold his touch was broke my locked muscles free in a shiver, and I pressed my eyes shut and tucked my head, hiding my face from him as I broke into wrenching sobs. I’d had nightmares before, but I’d never experienced sleep paralysis from them—was that even the right term? Was there a name for what I’d just experienced? Because it was more horrifying than the dream itself. I wept as much in relief as in terror. Nothing like that had ever happened to me, so I was scared, but I was also pathetically grateful that it was over.

Noah made equally pathetic comforting noises, starting sentences to leave them hanging unfinished when I didn’t respond. I’d always been careful to hide my tears from him, after the first time he’d ever seen me cry. We were only seven, and one of the older neighborhood kids had been teasing me, working me up into frustrated fury. I don’t remember what he said, but I clearly recall the powerless rage I felt at not being listened to when I defended myself—trying to outsmart the bully had only made him meaner. I gave up and ran home in defeat, but Noah was in his front yard playing alone, and he’d had no idea what to say to the wailing monster who was his best friend. He’d tried, I remember that. But he had had no practice at it, and apparently didn’t have the instinct for it.

After that, I cried alone, to spare him the pain of not being able to help me.

I wanted to talk. I wanted to tell him to leave, not to see me like this, but the words couldn’t make it past the sobbing. I couldn’t find breath for anything else. After a few minutes, I think, he did leave, and I curled tighter under the covers and kept crying.

“Here, Shannon.”

He came back. He was pulling back the covers and wrapping me snugly in one of the blankets he’d stopped using to sleep. I was too shocked and tired and confused to protest as he handled me, gently but with obvious strength.

I ended up a blanket burrito sitting on his lap as he rested his back against the headboard. He held me firmly, my skin insulated from his by a layer of soft, fuzzy fleece. He’d even pulled a fold over my hair to form a hood, protecting my head where it rested on his shoulder.

“I’m terrible at this part of being a friend,” he whispered. “You know this, you know it’s true. So don’t argue. But you’re scaring me, Shannon. So when you can talk, please tell me what’s happening, because I don’t know, and that means I don’t know what to do.”

I gripped the front of his shirt in one hand, wrinkling the fabric over his single-beating heart. He managed to reassure me and put pressure on me at the same time. He was right—he sucked at this. But he cared, and that meant more.

I cried myself close to exhaustion, until I had to switch from sobbing to deep, deliberate breathing just to keep from passing out. When Noah heard the change, he shifted me slightly in his arms, sitting me up higher while pulling me closer. It was a strange feeling, to be this close to anyone at all—I so rarely had. It was an even stranger one to be against a body with no give to it. I was one of those cats, sleeping in the lap of a sun-warmed Buddha statue. Only it was the middle of the night, and even with the blanket, I was already deeply cold.

I wouldn’t tell him, though. He’d hate that he couldn’t even get that part right, and it wasn’t his fault.

At this point, it was definitely mine, for not having found a way to cure him yet.

In broken, coughing sentences, I told him about the dream, and about the paralysis when I woke. He made appropriate comments of sympathy and shared terror in the right places—he was better at this than he gave himself credit for.

But then he asked something that surprised me. “I don’t want to make this about me if it’s not, but do you think the stress is getting to you? Because this happened the same night we talked about Orlando’s proposal—do you think that’s what scared you?”

We hadn’t talked much about it, actually. I’d laid it out for Noah, and once he’d gotten over the initial shock and anger, as I had, he’d said he’d think about it. As I had. Then we’d dropped the subject and watched a movie together, though I’d fallen asleep before the end.

Damn. Noah must have carried me in here and tucked me in. Maybe that’s why he felt comfortable barging in when he heard me in distress.

“It could be,” I answered after some thought. “I want to pretend like it’s just one more thing, another step in the big quest or something.” I’d never played a role-playing game in my life, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t heard the jargon. “But everything else I’ve done for you, I’ve done on my own. Whatever Orlando wants to do, we’ll both be involved, and who knows who else? Can I trust him, will I trust them? I don’t even know his plan, and I already think I won’t like it.”

Noah considered that for a while. “I don’t like it, either, but it might be necessary. And there’s not really any harm in hearing him out, is there?”

“Aside from putting ideas in my head and possibly adding to my burden of guilt if I fail because I didn’t listen to him?” My flippant tone stung Noah—he shifted and turned his face away. Not that I could see it clearly, he hadn’t turned the lamp on. “No,” I said more evenly. “There’s no harm hearing him out. I’ll call him in the morning.”

“And you’ll take me with you this time when you go see him?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you got there and back safe, and proud of you for being able to, and still pissed as hell you did it.”

I smiled and curled closer, pulling the blanket tightly beneath my chin. “Yeah, I know.”

“Think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?”

And miss out on this extra time with Noah, this unusual intimacy? “Probably not. But it’s my day off, so I can take a nap later. Did you hunt already, or do you still need to? Because we could watch another movie, or something.”

He chuckled. “Will I like it more than the last one?”

“I’m thinking superheroes, so probably.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

#writeblr #fictober18 #original fiction #nanowrimo #spookyromancenovel #my writing #amwriting

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snappingsound · 7 years

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Summerland

Happy Halloween, everyone! I really wanted to begin posting Part III today, but it’s just not quite ready. I have a few more chapters to finish up and then an editing pass. So I thought I’d post this instead. This ditty takes place in the same world, but is along a different timeline. It is tangentially related to the main story of A Snapping Sound. I had lots of fun writing it. Hopefully you spooks will enjoy it too.

Alice Fox did not believe in ghosts. In fact, she didn’t believe in much of anything. It was a constant thorned crown of pain to her devoutly Christian mother and father, and a source of bemusement to her recently converted Jewish older brother, Parker. Faith, and the dearly departed, more than politics, was the one topic best avoided in the Fox den.

So why was she working the reception in a haunted ‘museum’?

It was a question that, just this morning, Alice had been asking herself more often than not. She had opened the museum one hour ago. Already, an older woman had fainted on the morning tour from a ghost-story induced panic attack. Alice had already been already asked five times if she had ever experienced any paranormal activity while at work, and, on top of all that, had been cornered into hearing the long and bloodied past of a guest’s Palm Springs condo.

It wasn’t even ten in the morning.

Alice let out a small groan and, instead of letting her head fall onto the wooden surface of the receptionist desk like it wanted to do, she tilted it up at the ceiling. Her curly brown hair fell away from her face as she squinted two equally brown eyes up at the museum’s infamous ruby chandelier.

“Disneyland,” she whispered, a reminder. Or, more of a pep talk.

That was why she worked here, and would remain working here all summer long. She needed exactly four-hundred and seventy-two dollars to fly to Anaheim with the rest of her high school orchestra. She played the Viola. And while she wasn’t one for animated movies, she loved theme parks. More specifically— roller coasters. Also, she had never been out of Ohio. Her parents weren’t ones to travel, and her family rarely had spare cash.

Most of the time, working the museum wasn’t so bad. It had air conditioning and free coffee. In between tours was hours of downtime where Alice could do her homework or watch YouTube. Once in awhile a guest would wander in without making a reservation, and she would deal with them, but for the most part the entryway remained quiet.

It really was a pretty place to work, too.

Alice took in the restored frescoed ceiling and the delicate Victorian lace trimmings. Far, far above her head on the domed ceiling, lions and wolves leaped and chased prey, tearing fur and skin apart, their eyes staring directly down at anyone that passed beneath. The morning sunlight refracted off the absurdly intricate ruby chandelier, making their eyes seem to glow red.

If she was easily spooked, or believed any of the rumors of this place, spending hours alone in this hallway would have gotten in her head. It was why her boss paid her even more than any of the guides. He couldn’t find anyone else who felt comfortable sitting alone in this house. Alice didn’t understand it, but hey, why question a gift horse?

A hollow clunk jolted her out of her thoughts, jerking her attention from the ceiling.

A tall, fit boy with creamy dark skin smiled. In one hand he held a mug of coffee. With the other, he pushed a second mug across the table. “Wilmot Morgan,” he said, by way of a greeting.

Another very strong case for not quitting: Bishop Lee, or as everyone called him, Hopper. He was a Senior and Alice had spent the past year crushing on him. She wasn’t alone. Almost every girl at Casper High crushed on Hopper at some point or another. It was because he was a good head taller than every other boy his age and he was steadfastly shy. His introversion had been misinterpreted as enigmatic. It didn’t help that, in her overly superstitious hometown of Amity Park, Hopper’s Native American heritage placed him squarely in the ‘folklore’ category, whether he liked it or not.

While Alice’s crush had definitely centered around his high cheekbones and kind hazel eyes, the way her class exotified him not only infuriated her, but had been what, ultimately, forced her to let go of her crush and get to know him as a friend.

This past summer she had shared more sentences with Hopper than she had the past five years of elementary, junior, and high school. And while she certainly still liked him, she was no longer paralyzed with affection whenever he swung by her desk. During those daily desk visitations, Alice had learned he harbored a meganerd obsession with this house and a strong belief in spirits, which made him a lot less mysterious and a whole lot sillier.

Alice realized Hopper was staring at her expectantly, although his grin had faded a bit.

“Sorry, what?” she asked. She reached out and grabbed the mug from him. It said I SEE DEAD PEOPLE on the side. Hopper had most certainly picked it out on purpose.

“The ceiling. It was painted by Wilmot Morgan in 1902,” Hopper explained, taking a sip from his own mug and shooting the fresco a fond glance. “A commission.”

“He was a very detailed artist,” Alice entertained.

“She,” Hopper corrected. “Morgan was a woman.”

Alice blinked. She took in the ceiling again, in a different light.

Most of their conversations revolved solely around the house itself— never about homework, or school, or family life. Alice could never tell if this was Hopper’s way of trying to get her to believe, or if it he found those other topics too painful or too boring to bring up.

He raised his mug in a cheers. “You should—”

“Go on one of your tours,” Alice interrupted. “Yes, I know. Unfortunately, my job is to man the front desk.”

“You might learn something.” Hopper took a long sip from his mug. His usually sparkling eyes hollowed out and his grin twisted into more of a grimace. “My people say this house sits atop sacred land. An Indian chief was buried long before it was ever built. That’s why the land is cursed.”

Despite herself, Alice felt a chill run down her spine. “Are you serious?” She had meant it to come out sarcastic, but her body betrayed her.

Hopper’s haunted expression cracked and he let out a short laugh. “No, Alice. There’s no stupid Indian burial ground. That’s just a bunch of crap white people made up.”

“I knew that,” Alice blurted. She hid her burning cheeks behind her coffee mug, taking a big, flustered, sip. It burned. She forced herself to swallow it instead of spit it back out to avoid any further mortification.

“I hope you’re not saying stuff like that to the guests,” a voice grumbled.

Hopper winced and spun. “Of course not, Mr. Lancer. Guides speak only truth,” he recited.

Coming from down the hall, Mr. Lancer paused and spared the two of them a suspicious look, though it was hard for him to see Hopper’s face considering Hopper was abnormally tall and Lancer had developed a rather bad hunch in his old age. “Enough actually happened here. We don’t need to further encourage rumors and hearsay,” Lancer warned.

A blanket of gloom descended over the entryway.

Mr. Lancer had personally known the teenagers that died here. It was the reason he had founded this museum in the first place. Whenever her boss mentioned what happened, Alice couldn’t help but feel a tinge of remorse for being so unaffected by the house’s past.

Lancer didn’t make Hopper uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, Lancer’s stories fascinated him. Hopper had also worked here a lot longer than her. Alice supposed she’d get used to Lancer eventually.

“Good morning, Alison,” Lancer greeted.

“Morning.” She didn’t know if she would classify it as ‘good’.

It seemed to satisfy Lancer, though, who handed her a sheet of paper with the list of attendees for the noon tour, and shuffled back down the hall towards his office.

Alice plucked the paper and scanned the list. “Twenty-seven,” she counted.

Hopper whistled. More people meant a bigger tip pool for the guides to split at the end of the day. “I should go change.”

Movement out on the very edge of her gaze caused Alice to peer at the second floor railing. She had sworn she had seen a dark shape, like a cat or a raccoon, but there was nothing. Some of the rubies in the great chandelier casted jewel shine on the wallpaper up there and whenever a breeze passed through it gave the sensation that the wallpaper was crawling. That had probably been it.

When she took in the room again, she found herself alone. Hopper must have gone to grab his uniform. She had missed him leave. Alice sighed, a little disappointed, and instead set about logging the number of people attending the tour onto the museum’s spreadsheet.

A knock on the door interrupted her as the computer booted up.

“It’s open,” Alice called.

It wasn’t uncommon for guests to knock instead of freely enter the museum. The museum was a house, so it was a bit weird to walk straight inside without knocking first, but it meant Alice had to get up from her desk to open the door constantly. After her first week, she had even made a sign that said ‘Come on in!’ and had taped it next to the door handle. Still, some guests continued to knock first.

When the knock happened again, Alice gave up, sliding off her stool and opening the door. “Next time, you don’t have to knock. You can just walk right in,” she said, trying be as polite as possible, while still being informative.

A boy around her own age tilted his head. “Really?” he asked, still standing on the doormat, despite the fact that Alice was holding the door open.

“Sure. I mean, as long as we’re open.”

The boy walked inside. As he passed her Alice felt a radiating cold, as if the boy was carrying an open freezer. Something in her unsettled, wanted to run, but just as quickly as the impulse came upon her, she shrugged it off as stupid.

Alice settled back behind her desk and watched the guest meander the entryway, taking in the double staircases and the ceiling that Alice herself had been ogling earlier.

This wasn’t odd behavior. They were, after all, a museum, and the detail poured into this house’s construction at times felt like a kaleidoscope for the eyes. But, something about this boy was familiar, and the fact that Alice couldn’t put her finger on it made her uneasy. She knew him from somewhere. Maybe he resembled a famous person. With hair and an outfit like that, he reminded her of James Dean.

“You’re pretty early for the noon tour,” she mentioned, feeling like she had to initiate polite conversation. “It’s not for another twenty minutes.”

The boy turned and stared, bright blue eyes blank.

Oh, so he was one of those guests that didn’t read the website. Looked like it was just going to continue to be one of those mornings. Swallowing her annoyance, Alice explained, “The museum gives four tours, each about two hours long. Our guides will take you through the entire house as well as the backyard and surrounding forest. The next tour is at noon.”

At the boy’s completely baffled look, Alice felt a little bad for being so cold. She grabbed the sheet of tour attendees and a pen. “There’s still three spots left, if you want to join?”

The boy scrunched his freckled nose and scanned her desk for a long moment, almost as if he didn’t understand what it, or she, was doing there.

Alice’s annoyance came back, this time tempered with a tiny bit of fear. This kid was beginning to creep her out. Once in awhile a guest wandered in that truly loved all the horrific gory shit that went down here, and those guests always freaked Alice out a lot more than any of the ghost stories ever did. “What’s your name?” she asked, working to keep her tone squarely in the polite camp, lest she provoke this weirdo.

He looked upset and a little lost. Like he had been expecting someone else. After a minute his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Danny,” he told her.

“I’m Alice,” Alice greeted.

Introductions seemed to break Danny out of whatever little mood he had been in. He neared her desk, eyes flicking towards her nametag. An amused smile spread across his lips. “I can see that,” he teased. “Alison Fox.”

Alice couldn’t help but lean back a bit. The guest smelled faintly like cigarettes. If Parker didn’t also smoke occasionally, she would have taken the smell as a sign of delinquency, somewhere next to tattoos.

He didn’t look like a delinquent. If anything he looked like he was on a debate team, what with his sweater vest and gelled hair. Only, his style was so accurate, it had transcended nerdy and had crossed over somewhere into cool. His clothing could have been thrifted straight out of her great-grandfather’s closet.

She cleared her throat. “Want me to put you down for noon?”

“How long has this place been a museum?” he asked.

Alice put the roster down and blinked. “Dunno. As long as I can remember.”

The guest quieted, humming to himself.

Figuring that was the end of their conversation, and that he would look around before deciding twenty minutes wasn’t worth the wait, Alice turned back to her computer which was now on. She typed in her password. The old monitor flickered a quilt of static and she blinked, reaching around to jiggle the wiring.

“What do you think of it?” a voice asked, sounding so close it almost came from inside her own head.

Alice jumped, narrowly missing a mug of coffee.

The guest was super close. He was leaning over her desk atop his elbows. He craned his neck to peer around at her monitor.

Alice scowled and tilted the screen away. “What do you mean?”

“This place,” he clarified. “What do you think of it?”

No one had ever asked her that before. Sure, there was a lot of ‘ever see any ghosts?’ or a lot of ‘how long have you worked here?’ then the subsequent disappointment when she said two weeks. Never what she thought about the museum. Alice found people rarely asked her what she thought of things.

Alice let go of the screen and played with the handle of her mug for a second, trying to get a read on him. She supposed he looked earnest. “I’ve only worked here for a few weeks so I don’t really know a lot about it besides the stories I heard growing up,” she admitted. “I suppose it is beautiful, in the same eerie, disorienting way an eclipse is.”

The boy glanced down at the top of her desk, brows furrowed.

Maybe he didn’t like her answer. Feeling a little self-conscious, Alice said, “Hopper can answer better. He’s worked here longer and he’s a guide.”

Danny glanced up, a wide grin unfurling across his face. His teeth were really white and perfect and so was his skin. “Let me guess. Hopper is the guide for the noon tour?” he teased. “You’re pretty good at pushing these tours on people. How much do they cost?”

Alice blushed, embarrassed. “I wasn’t trying to push anything.”

Footsteps, thankfully, interrupted them.

“Did I leave my coffee...?” Hopper trailed off, gaze darting between the guest and her. He was now wearing his tour guide white button up jacket and his name tag. He skidded to a halt in the middle of the foyer, jaw going slack, face pale.

“So you’re a guide?” the boy, still leaning on her desk, accused.

Hopper nodded, mute.

Alice was starting to feel embarrassed at Hopper’s weird reaction. Strange or not, this boy was a guest. He wasn’t even as bad as the Wiccans and Spiritualists that plagued the tours, hoping to scry something meaningful from the mansion’s creaky floors. She raised her eyebrows at him, motioning for him to say something.

If the guest noticed anything unusual, he didn’t show it. Instead his blue eyes lit with amusement, like he had just thought of something really funny. That grin widened until it felt edged with mania. “What’s it take to become a guide?” he asked. “I’m looking for work.”

With Hopper still frozen, Alice scrambled to overcome the awkwardness, shuffling through the mountains of papers hidden in the drawers of her desk. “Ah, here.” She grabbed an application and scooted it across the desk. On the top, a simple logo read: Masters Villa. Erected 1892. Amity Park Historical Monument & Museum.

The boy scooped it up. “Thanks.” Just as quickly as he blustered through, he left.

As the door clicked shut, Alice fully turned to give Hopper a frown. “What was that all about?” she complained, gesturing at the door.

Hopper swayed slightly.

Alice’s anger snapped to concern. It looked like he was about to pass out. She contemplated trying to get out from behind her desk and catch him, but with how tall and built Hopper was there was no way he wouldn’t crush her.

Instead of fainting, Hopper asked, in a weird and floaty voice, “You don’t know who that was?”

Damn, Alice thought. So the boy had been famous. “No. Who is he?” Now she was curious. Although, something about Hopper’s glazed look filled her with dread.

Hopper yanked out one of the pamphlets from the wall holder, flipping through the mini stapled book. Finding the right page, he held it up so Alice could see. “Who that was,” Hopper corrected.

It was a black and white photo of a kid in a lawn chair. A kid that looked remarkably the same as the one that had just taken a job application. He had his ankles crossed and his t-shirt sleeves rolled up as if it was a hot summer’s day. In one hand was a Coke, only, it was one of those old curvy Coca-Cola-shaped glass bottles. The ones they stopped making years and years ago. Alice glanced at the caption.

Danny, 1959. Disappeared August 12, 1962.

Alice flicked the pamphlet away. “Very funny. That was one of your higher production jokes.” She scowled. “You know, Lancer’s going to fire you one of these days.”

“It’s the truth,” Hopper insisted. His slap-glazed look faded into annoyance.

Something in his tone made her pause and reconsider. He truly believed it. Either he wasn’t trying to pull one over on her, or whoever was doing the pulling was pulling it on them both.

Alice glanced down at the roster where she had written, on the last line: Danny. Just Danny. “Well, he might become a guide, if he’s qualified,” she said, not knowing what else to say. Internally, she was trying to explain the past five minutes and the longer she couldn’t come up with a plausible answer her skin inched further and further in all directions.

Alice Fox didn’t believe in ghosts.

“Qualified?” Hopper repeated, offended. “Of course he’s qualified. He’s been here the whole time.”

#Danny Phantom #A Snapping Sound #semi-related drabble #Happy Halloween #spooktober #AU #OC's

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thegirlsinthefirehouse · 7 years

Text

Unwell

Summary: The four times the others noticed Abby had the flu and the one time she did. Rating: G Words: 2,602 AN: I've always wanted to do one of these five times things. This was fun. :)

I. (Holtzmann)

For as long as Jillian Holtzmann had known Abby Yates, she was a magnet for getting the flu, despite her dedication to getting a flu shot and trying to stay healthy every year. Between the winter and spring of their first year teaching together, she had the flu at least three times. It had become a joke between them since they had formed the team that Abby got the flu as much as Erin got slimed. Holtz had teased Abby that if she ever had a kid, their immune system would be so rock solid that other future scientists would want to study them. The teasing was cute, but the actual moments when Abby was sick? Not so much. Which is why she looked sadly at her closest friend sitting there trying not to shiver in the lab. She definitely had the flu. Holtzmann could tell by the sniffles.

“Abs.”

“No.”

“It’s not like you have to go that far.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Abigail Leslie Yates, are we really going to have to do this?” asked Holtz, pushing up her goggles over her hair and leaning against the table. Abby sighed and put down the pen she had been using to doodle with. She had given up trying to work a long time ago.

“I don’t want to be sick Holtz.”

“Mmhmm,” said Holtz absently. She was used to these arguments. She felt of Abby’s forehead. “I’d say you are already there by the fever you’ve got.”

Abby whimpered and laid her head down on the table.

“Do you really want me to call Erin and let her nag you into bed?” asked Holtz, perhaps a little too evilly. One of the great things about having the redhead around was that she knew exactly how to push Abby’s buttons, which delighted Holtz to no end. She could tease Abby and she might be able to annoy her a little bit, but the sheer amount of childish irritation Erin and Abby could bring out of each other was like watching siblings having at it.

“No!” said Abby suddenly, lifting her head. “She’s lecturing in Maine. Let her be.”

“Then you know what to do,” said Holtz, gesturing to the third floor. “Bed. Upstairs.”

Abby threw her pen at Holtz and who caught it and pointed it at her friend. Abby sighed loudly and headed for the door. Sometimes she really didn’t like being sick around the others. It was like she had found more parents.

II. (Patty)

One of the things that Patty had always been happy about was that at least in the MTA booth, she didn’t have to be up close and personal with people. Not that she wanted to avoid people, but she liked NOT being sick. It was the worst thing to her, right up there with a root canal or being electrocuted.

Which was why when Holtz casually mentioned after they had all moved into the firehouse that Abby had the immune system of a gnat, Patty had secretly armed herself with things for immune health and insisted on making a universal sick kit for the Ghostbusters. It turned out to be a pretty good idea, because in general, they found themselves bringing back a lot of colds and general unwellness. Mixing with the population all over New York meant they had a lot of sick days.

And Patty could see the oncoming storm already this time around. When a client had called complaining about seeing his wife’s teapot collection dance on the ceiling, he thought he had been having a feverish dream. But no, the teapots had been real, and so had the fever. Patty and Erin both had taken to spraying down every surface to hopefully stop the spread of germs just in case, but Holtz had gotten it anyway. Patty had been sort of surprised Abby hadn’t gotten it first, but Abby had been grateful. But it didn’t last long. A very sickly Holtz had reached over and planted a big wet one on Abby’s lips much to all their disgust, but mostly Abby’s since she had been hoping to not get the flu. She had been avoiding Holtz as much as possible while she was down and out, but had volunteered to bring in some of her notes from the lab. Now she had one to four days before her own flu symptoms set in. Abby had already vowed revenge once they both got well. Patty was determined to contain this one just to Holtz and Abby if all possible. They really didn’t need to be down anymore Ghostbusters in a town rife with paranormal activity that kept them busy. So there were check-ins almost every hour.

And it was about to drive Abby nuts. It was sweet, really. Patty was patient and always tried to make sure she didn’t need anything while trying to recover. She really was a great friend and nursemaid. But Abby was already annoyed by what Holtz had done and was trying to avoid being sick and had taken to strategically hiding all around the firehouse. The best place to hide had been the pile of blankets that was Holtzmann’s nest of a bed now that she was feeling better. Abby could already feel the tickle in the back of her throat by the second day and the sniffles were driving her mad. But Abby was not about to let on to Patty that she was having symptoms. She quietly slipped into Holtz’s lab and closed the door quickly.

“My dearest Abigail...” began Holtz with a grin. “What do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Your stupid germs and Patty,” sighed Abby. “Hide me?”

Holtz cocked her head sideways. “You’re only putting off the inevitable.”

“Yes, but let me breathe for a little while,” complained Abby. “I’m not that sick yet.”

“Nope,” said Holtz. “I didn’t get to, so neither are you.” She took Abby by the shoulders, opened the door, and yelled for Patty, keeping her hands on Abby to keep her escaping back down the stairwell. Patty came downstairs, seemingly not surprised to see Holtz hanging onto Abby.

“I found her,” said Holtz, dusting off her hands in mock disgust. “And I’m leaving her to you Pats. I’m going back to work.”

“You’re still not well yourself Holtzy,” said Patty. “You should be resting.”

“Ye-ah, no,” said Holtz. “Not doing that anymore Patty. Take care of the actual sick person.” Holtz went back to her workbench as Patty gestured for Abby to follow her upstairs. She sat down on the couch in their living space where Patty was apparently watching a movie. Abby felt a sneeze coming and sneezed into her elbow, starting to feel miserable. She was going to kill Holtzmann.

Abby looked up when she felt a blanket being tucked gently around her.

“I already knew you were starting to get sick,” said Patty. “I can tell it in your eyes when you were downstairs talking with Erin.”

Abby took another blanket and wrapped it around her head and back. She felt like E.T. for a second. She really wished she could punt Holtz back to whatever planet she had come from.

“I know, but I don’t want to do this.” Patty smiled sadly.

“I’ll help you bury Holtzmann’s body later if you’ll go get some rest and stay there.”

“...Deal.”

When Holtz woke up one morning a week and a half later and found herself sleeping out on the roof of the firehouse, bed frame and all, she had to concede vengeance had been taken for the sudden smooch. But fuel met flame when she found all 16 pairs of her yellow tinted glasses and goggles making a lovely wind chime next to the front door.

III. (Kevin)

“Boss?” said Kevin, looking at Abby as she came in the front door of the firehouse after running some errands. She didn’t look like she felt well at all. He frowned.

“You okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Abby. “Just not having the best of days.”

Kevin was suspicious. Even he knew that Abby wasn’t always honest about being sick. (Not that he ever had problems. His immune system was awesome.) Neither was Holtz or Erin really, but even they would call it quits when they just felt absolutely terrible.

Not Abby though. And he was fairly certain she was having more than just a bad day. He took her bag and jacket without protest from his friend.

“Come on and sit down Boss, I’ll go get Patty. I think she’s talking to Erin about something.”

“No...” protested Abby. But she didn’t say another word as Kevin took ahold of her elbow and guided her over to their client couch. She sighed. “I have some work to finish.”

“Could you do it on the couch?” asked Kevin. “You could stay here with me and relax and tell me about your day.” He held up the cordless phone that they had gotten for when they needed to work at other places than Kevin’s desk and still monitor the phones.

“I won’t tell Patty,” he whispered.

Abby laughed to herself, shaking her head. She shrugged and sat down on the couch, pulling out her tablet and leaning against Kevin a little as they talked about the weather and how frustrating New Yorkers could be. He pulled out his phone and played on it, although he did text Erin and told her that Abby was downstairs after a few minutes. Erin thought it was an odd text, but when she reached the last step on the staircase, she saw Abby asleep on Kevin’s shoulder. He laid a finger to his lips for to keep quiet as she approached.

“She’s not well.”

Erin couldn’t resist snapping a few pictures with her cell. This was too good of blackmail to miss. She was fairly certain Abby would be horrified to find out that she had fallen asleep on their secretary.

It ended up being plastered all over the firehouse. Kevin thought it was a good picture.

IV. (Erin)

Erin was sitting on Abby’s lap. Normally, no one would think much of two women sitting like such, but when it was two of the city’s Ghostbusters, it garnered a little bit of attention from the passersby to the store they had been called to. Plus, the death glare that Erin was giving Abby was a sign that the latter was being a stupid idiot. They had been out on a bust and Abby had been hiding the fact that she was not feeling well at all at work and would have passed out on them there at the store if Patty hadn’t of steadied her.

“Erin, can you-- can you just get off of me,” said Abby, pushing on her friend’s shoulder. It had been a weak push, but Erin kept a firm grip on the back of the chair.

“No. It’s for your own good,” said Erin.

“God, you’re heavy,” huffed Abby. Erin crossed her arms.

“And you’re staying here until Holtzmann can bring around the car,” said Erin. “Then you’re going to the hospital. You have a fever of a 104, probably dehydrated, and you nearly passed out. Yes, you are going.” Erin stated the last sentence firmly when she saw Abby start to protest.

“I was going to go back to the firehouse and rest,” Abby complained.

“Nope,” said Patty, bringing over a cold compress from their first aid kit. She pressed it against Abby’s forehead. Abby sighed and closed her eyes.

“It’s bad enough that I probably have the flu again, but having it with you guys is driving me nuts.”

“You should be glad you have four caretakers, because you definitely shouldn’t have been at work, much less on this bust. You put yourself in danger. What if Patty hadn’t noticed how flushed you were or how your eyes were glazed over?”

“Then I would be headed back to work where there’s Dayquil and I wouldn’t have you in my lap,” Abby muttered while nudging her best friend in the side

Erin sighed. “At least I took off my pack.”

“Thank god,” said Abby sarcastically. She was starting to feel tired and her muscles were starting to ache. Erin’s weight was really starting to wear on her, though she was really was grateful her best friend was looking out for her. She leaned her head against Erin’s shoulder.

“Water?” asked Abby.

“There’s some in the car,” said Erin. They all heard the Ecto-1’s horn, meaning Holtz was parked on the street. She offered Abby a hand up as she got off her lap.

“If they don’t admit you, I will make sure you don’t leave the bed for a week, aside from bathroom breaks.”

“Just as long as you don’t try to sit on me again,” huffed Abby. She whimpered a little when Erin pulled on her hand and headed towards the door.

V. (Abby)

Abby knew she was not well when she opened her eyes one morning. She could feel the symptoms starting to set in, especially the congestion in her chest. She blinked her eyes wearily for a moment before getting up and going to the kitchen in the firehouse. She grabbed some water and the vaporub from the bathroom and went back to bed. She started to curl back up under her covers, but realized she needed something to let the others not to bother her. So she ripped a page out of her moleskine notebook and wrote a note before snuggling back between the sheets.

“Has anyone seen Abby?” asked Erin to Holtz and Patty. The latter had been helping the former with some repairs to the one of their traps.

“Not since last night,” said Patty. “You, Holtzy?”

“Nope,” she responded, making a popping noise with her lips. “Maybe she went somewhere?”

“Kevin said he hadn’t seen her leave,” frowned Erin. Holtz grimaced and started out of the lab. Erin and Patty followed Holtz up to their living quarters. The blonde moved quietly to Abby’s room and knocked a particular pattern. When there was no response, she opened the door.

“Abby’s asleep,” she whispered out the doorway. “And there’s a strong smell of menthol.” She handed Erin a note as she closed the door softly behind her.

I know I’m sick. Please don’t bother me. That includes you Holtzmann. - Abby

“She doesn’t love me anymore,” pouted the blonde. “I have been abandoned.”

“I would too if you had kissed me on the lips and gotten me sick,” said Patty. “Not even you are above reproach Holtzy.”

“I suppose someone needs to call Benny for some soup,” sighed Holtz dramatically. “You owe me Abby.” Erin and Patty both shook their heads as she bounced off.

“She needs a protective disease bubble,” said Patty with a sigh.

“That she does,” agreed Erin. “I’ve got to go finish that editorial piece for The New Yorker before this afternoon. Went to come read over it for me?”

Later that day, Abby woke up again, still feeling terrible. But she smiled when she found Holtz asleep next to her with her arms wrapped around her waist, her head on Abby’s stomach. She heard Erin mention something about laundering fresh sheets in the living room and Patty chiding Kevin about being a little quieter on the stairs as he was bringing up some takeout. Abby turned over towards Holtzmann and closed her eyes. Maybe being sick around the others wasn’t so bad. She reached over and ruffled Holtz’s hair and went back to sleep.

#gen #abby yates #erin gilbert #jillian holtzmann #kevin beckman #patty tolan #poor abby #kevin is a sweetie #i am amused by their prank

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sad-trash-writing · 8 years

Note

idk if you've seen that extra gum commercial where this guy draws little comics on gum wrappers, and he has this crush on this girl. they date and he draws things from their relationship on the wrappers and he draws one to propose to his gf and she says yes. and the song playing is "i can't help falling in love with you". i really would love to see a skimmons version of that. it could be a high school-college au

I know this took ages, but I hope it’s worth it. Thanks for the prompt! It was a ton of fun!

AO3 Link

Whoever invented high school clearly hated teenagers. Daisy huffed out a dramatic sigh and leaned back in her rickety wooden desk. The teacher kept droning on about some boring battle in the Civil War (which Daisy swore they learned about last year, too). Worst of all, she had forgotten her backpack at home today so she didn’t even have anything to doodle on to kill the time.

A slight rustle in front of her drew her attention from counting the ceiling tiles to Jemma Simmons, the only redeeming factor of this class. US History was the only class Jemma wasn’t in the advanced section of (since she was British and only moved to America last year) so Daisy got to stare at the back of her head and listen to Jemma’s voice every time she asked a question.

The sound that drew Daisy’s attention was just Jemma digging a pack of gum out of her bag. A lightbulb went off in Daisy’s head when she realized that it was the type that had the little foil wrappers, or in Daisy’s universe, something to draw on.

She leaned forward across her desk and lightly tapped Jemma on the shoulder. “Can I have a piece?” Daisy whispered.

Jemma lurched slightly in her seat, but pulled a second piece of gum out of the pack and handed it over her shoulder. “Of course.”

She shot Daisy a bright smile and turned back to her notes.

Daisy’s heart really should not be beating this hard from that seven-word conversation. So maybe she had a little crush on the super genius Brit she never saw outside of history class. Sue her.

Once her pulse returned to normal, Daisy slipped out the pencil she always kept stuck her ponytail and started sketching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Um, excuse me? Do you mind if I sit here?”

Daisy’s head whipped towards the accented voice and instantly regretted taking Miles’ bet that she couldn’t fit a whole order of spaghetti in her mouth.

“Jemma!” she exclaimed through a mouth of pasta. “Yeah, sure you can—”

Daisy quickly realized that Jemma couldn’t understand her and she would probably choke if she tried to swallow right now. Instead, Daisy planted a foot on Miles’ chair and shoved him far enough down the table that there was space for a chair next to Daisy, ignoring his indignant noises.

Luckily, Jemma didn’t seem disgusted by Daisy’s antics and just smiled and pulled up a chair next to her. Daisy quickly choked down the remainder of her spaghetti and tried to remember what a normal sitting posture was.

To distract herself from the sudden presence of the girl she had a major crush on Daisy held her open hand out to Miles.

“Pay up, I did it,” she demanded. She half expected Miles to argue with her, but he slyly glanced at Jemma, who was suddenly engrossed in her sandwich, and slapped a $5 bill into Daisy’s hand.

“So, Jemma—” Daisy started, but was cut off by Jemma mumbling under her breath. “Uh, what was that?”

Jemma peered at Daisy and blushed. “I bet you can’t fit that whole piece of garlic bread in your mouth,” she muttered with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Daisy balked for a moment. Whatever she expected from the quiet British girl, it wasn’t that. “You’re on.”

Once she won Jemma’s bet, after nearly inhaling garlic bread crumbs while laughing at Jemma’s shocked expression, Daisy slipped a spare scrap of paper out of her bag and doodled a tiny scene on it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, Jem. Wanna watch Sharknado or Paranormal Activity?”

Jemma wrinkled her nose. “I can’t believe those are the options you’re giving me.”

“Well, do you want to take apart the science of demons or sharks forming a tornado and eating people?” Daisy countered.

Jemma rolled her eye. “I suppose Sharknado. I know there’s at least two more Paranormal Activity movies that you’ll try to force me to watch next, so let’s avoid that.”

“Oh, don’t worry. There’s four Sharknados, too!”

Jemma groaned loudly as she and Daisy strolled towards the bus stop. Jemma had started sitting at Daisy’s table everyday for lunch and even choosing Daisy every time they had a partner project in class. Daisy wasn’t complaining. She even managed to shove aside her stupid feelings for awhile to just spend time with Jemma as a friend.

And friends watched terrible movies at each other’s houses every weekend while over-caffeinating themselves and staying up way too late.

“I can’t stay too late tonight, though. I’ve got an interview tomorrow for a college scholarship,” Jemma said.

“College? We’re sophomores. How have you started looking at that already?” Daisy replied.

Jemma shrugged. “I’ve just had a few contact me because of my test scores and thought it would be a good idea to check my options now.”

Daisy chuckled. “Well, you always do know how to over-prepare. But I guess we’ll only watch Sharknado one and two tonight then. The others can wait until next weekend.”

“Unless every copy of the DVDs mysteriously goes missing by then.”

“That’s what the internet is for, Jem.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This has got to be my favorite song,” Jemma announced.

Daisy looked up from her ice cream with a frown. She hadn’t even realized there was music playing, honestly. She was just tired from the school day and not looking forward to the amount of homework she had to do later. Luckily, Jemma agreed to help her out, on the condition that Daisy took her out for ice cream first. Only when Jemma mentioned it did she notice that Can’t Help Falling In Love With You was quietly playing over the speakers above them.

“Didn’t take you for an Elvis fan, Jemma,” Daisy teased.

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Well, not Elvis per se. Just this song is beautiful.”

Daisy snorted. “Seems a little sappy to me.”

Jemma tossed a wadded up napkin at her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy blinked away the tears before Jemma could notice them. Jemma was occupied, cramming more bags into her dad’s car while Daisy stood off to the side, wringing her hands just to keep busy. Despite her somber mood, Daisy couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled out of her throat when Jemma had to crawl into the backseat and pull one of her bags from the inside, while her dad pushed it from the outside.

Once the bag was stuffed into the car, Jemma tumbled out of the car, dusted off her hands, and admired their handiwork.

“Why’d you have to be such a smarty-pants and graduate early anyway?” Daisy teased.

Jemma flashed her a sad smile. “I’ll be back for holidays and summers still, I promise.”

“I know, but now I have to sit through history alone,” Daisy whined.

“For that, I am truly sorry,” Jemma said with a smirk. Despite the attempts at humor, Daisy could see tears welling up in Jemma’s eyes as well. Daisy grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a tight hug, burying her face in Jemma’s neck.

Daisy didn’t know how long they held each other, but she vaguely heard Jemma’s mom clear her throat at some point. Jemma just waved her off and kept squeezing Daisy like her life depended on it.

Eventually, they broke apart, both giving up on containing their tears.

“You’ll keep in touch, right?” Jemma asked in a tone that sounded more like a demand.

“I-I—” The ‘I love you’ that Daisy desperately wanted to say caught in her throat. “I will.”

Jemma smiled and gave her another quick hug, before jogging over to the car where her parents were impatiently waiting and hopped in. As they drove away, Daisy stuck her hands in her pockets and found a crumpled gum wrapper. She smoothed it out and started drawing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy tried to keep her promise. She really did, but life happened. The first six months Jemma was away at college, she and Daisy Skype’d almost daily and texted after every class. But then Jemma had research deadlines come up and Daisy had to study for midterms and they lost touch.

Years passed. Daisy was accepted into her first choice school for graphic design and packed up to move across the country. She quickly acclimated to the dorm life with her new roommate, Bobbi.

How she got paired up with Bobbi as a roommate, Daisy would never know (Daisy being an art kid and Bobbi majoring in biology). They got along well enough, despite their differences, and it turned out that Bobbi’s sometimes-boyfriend, Hunter, was an art student as well.

They had a standing lunch date at one of the cafés on campus between the art building and their dorm. Daisy jogged in, late as usual, with paint and charcoal smeared on her shirt and a handful of paintbrushes jammed into her pockets.

“Hey! Only ten minutes late this time! Maybe next time you’ll actually be here on time,” Bobbi teased, sipping her coffee.

Daisy rolled her eyes and flopped into the chair across from her. “My lateness is a performance art piece on the societal construct of time. And Professor Rogers made me stay after to clean the paintbrushes again.”

“I’m surprised you can resist calling him Mr. Rogers and asking how things are in the neighborhood.”

“Why do you think I had to clean the paintbrushes?”

Bobbi chuckled and glanced towards the door. “I hope you don’t mind that I invited someone else to join us today.”

“Oh? Who?”

“A girl from the bio lab. She’s our age, but a couple years ahead in her program already,” Bobbi said.

Daisy groaned. “Great, so I’m going to have to sit here and listen to two of you biobabble at me?”

“Don’t even act like you don’t rant about your dorky art stuff at me. Sorry I don’t know the difference between Dega and Dada.”

“Okay, those two aren’t even in the same category. Dadaism is a movement—”

“Daisy?” A new voice cut in.

Daisy’s attention shot to the new voice and her jaw dropped. “Jemma?!”

They stared each other down, wearing matching expressions of shock. Once Daisy’s brain caught up to her eyes, she shot out of her seat like a rocket and swept Jemma up in a bone-crunching hug. All these years later and she even smelled the same. Not that Daisy remembered what Jemma smelled like.

After a few long moments, they loosened their grip and started babbling over each other.

“I thought you were going to some fancy private school—”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming here—”

“—I didn’t know you were going here or I would have said something—”

“—It’s been so long I wasn’t sure I had your phone number anymore—”

Bobbi clearing her throat behind them stopped the tirade of overlapping statements. “Uh…So you two know each other?”

“Daisy and I went to high school together,” Jemma supplied.

“And we were really close, until someone had to graduate two years early,”

Daisy accused, with a teasing smirk.

Jemma just rolled her eyes.

Bobbi smirked. “Then, I guess you two have a lot to catch up on.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite the years apart, Daisy and Jemma fell right back into their old patterns of movie nights and teasing each other. Nearly every Friday, they would squeeze onto Daisy’s dorm bed with Bobbi and Hunter and project a movie onto the opposite wall. Daisy finally gave in to Jemma’s begging and agreed to watch something that wasn’t a SyFy original and threw in some pretentious movies her fellow art students loved to brag about, exclusively to pick them apart.

Unfortunately, those stupid feelings Daisy repressed for years reappeared the moment Jemma did.

One day, a new face appeared in Daisy’s dorm room.

“Everybody, this is Will,” Jemma introduced, “He’s an aerospace engineering major.”

Daisy waved a hello with the others, but for some reason decided she didn’t like this guy. Sure, he may be a perfectly nice guy, but he stood just a little too close to Jemma and stared at her with just a little too much fondness.

That night, Jemma chose to sit on the futon below Daisy’s lofted bed with Will. Daisy spent the duration of the movie grumpily glaring in the direction of the movie, but not really watching it.

A few hours later, Bobbi flicked on the lights and everyone shuffled out of the room, leaving just Daisy and her roommate.

“What was that all about?” Bobbi demanded once the door clicked behind Hunter (always the last to leave).

“Hey, I didn’t pick the movie this week,” Daisy defended while she stacked up popcorn bowls.

“That’s not what I was talking about. You’ve never been that quiet during a movie night ever and, every time I looked over at you, you were glaring at the floor.”

Daisy flushed. “It’s just been a long week and I’m tired. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” Bobbi muttered, unconvinced, but she let the subject drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fall weather had officially settled in, making it suddenly bearable to be outside. Daisy had to dodge at least three runaway Ultimate Frisbee games on the way to lunch and couldn’t help herself from stopping to pick some of the small fall flowers out of the dining hall’s landscaping. She had a mixed media project coming up that she could probably use them for.

As usual, Daisy was one of the last to arrive for lunch. Bobbi and Hunter were already settled in, bickering about something, but still eating off the same tray. Fitz was tinkering with some new gadget, while Trip leaned over and kept trying to poke at it. The only person missing was Jemma.

“Hey, you’re not the last one here for once,” Bobbi teased as Daisy sat down. Daisy waved her off and tossed her bag on the table, despite Fitz’s indignant protests. She had barely opened her mouth to ask where Jemma was, when a flurry of brown hair and lab reports ran into the table.

“THE ORIONID METEOR SHOWER IS TOMORROW NIGHT,” Jemma shouted, slamming her hands on the table.

Her statement was met with blank stares. “Um…Kay?”

“We need to try to see it! It’s supposed to be spectacular,” Jemma continued.

Daisy shrugged. ��I’m game. I might finally see my first shooting star.”

The rest of the table mumbled their agreements and Jemma launched into planning mode.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy hadn’t realized how much stuff they would be bringing to go watch the stars. Why they needed an inflatable pool was beyond her, when some ratty blankets would do just fine. She hauled the giant box out of the back of her van and dropped in in the middle of the field Jemma had staked out for the group. Even though it seemed unnecessary to Daisy, Jemma found the idea on Pinterest and thought it sounded fun, so Daisy would go along with it.

Once she wrenched the wad of plastic from the box, Daisy hooked up the automatic air pump to the pool, flipped the switch, and then sat back and waited.

The sun was just beginning to set on the grassy field. The tranquil silence was broken by the jarring whir of the pump, but the scenery was still beautiful. Jemma had really outdone herself when picking this spot to watch the meteor shower (she was very insistent that it had to be far enough away from the town to avoid light pollution). Daisy could only imagine how beautiful it would be out here when the stars came out. She rooted through her pocket and found a folded up scrap of sketch paper. She pulled out a pencil and started sketching the trees that lined the field and dotted the horizon.

The pool was just starting to take shape when Jemma’s tiny hatchback pulled up beside Daisy’s van. Jemma hopped out of the driver’s seat and popped the trunk open, while grumbling under her breath.

“Hey, Jem,” Daisy greeted. “Where’s the rest of the group? It’s going to be hard for them to find us when it gets dark.”

“They’re not coming,” Jemma huffed. “Bobbi and Hunter said something about a last minute date night and Fitz called and rambled some nonsense excuse regarding a project he was working on with Trip.”

Daisy frowned. “Huh. That’s strange. Oh well, I guess they’ll miss all the free wishes.”

“So, you want to stay?” Jemma asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, of course.”

Jemma breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god. I was hoping you wouldn’t want to leave because everyone else cancelled.”

“I didn’t come out here for them,” Daisy blurted. She ducked down to fidget with the pool in an attempt to hide her blush. With a sly peek out of the corner of her eye she caught Jemma’s shy smile.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Want to help me unload the car?”

The trunk and back seat of Jemma’s car were both stuffed full of pillows and thick blankets, which Daisy and Jemma dragged out by the armful and tossed in the misshapen pool.

Once everything was arranged and the pool had taken shape, they shut off the noisy air pump and flopped into the giant nest of blankets. Jemma tucked a bag of popcorn and a thermos of hot chocolate in the folds of the blankets and they snuggled in to wait for the meteor shower to start.

Silence settled over the pair for a moment, before giving rise to the sounds of nature. Crickets chirped their last odes to the summer weather before the frost would inevitably sweep through. A light breeze shuddered through the branches of the distant trees, rattling the drying leaves together. A lone owl hooted in the shelter of the trees.

Jemma sighed contentedly and nestled further into the blankets. “The highest concentration of meteors ought to be around the Orion constellation, over there.”

Jemma gestured towards a cluster of stars, but Daisy had no clue where she was pointing. Daisy was too busy staring at Jemma, illuminated only by the dim starlight and talking excitedly about the origin of the Orionid meteor shower.

Daisy smile and nodded in agreement, meanwhile berating herself internally. Why, why did she have to fall for one of her best friends? Her straight best friend. Nothing good could come of this. Only awkwardness and heartache. Daisy pushed the thoughts of her killer crush away when Jemma offered her the bag of popcorn.

A few hours after it was completely dark, they saw their first meteor. Daisy almost wasn’t sure she had seen it. It happened so quickly so thought she may have imagined it, but Jemma’s slight gasp told Daisy that it was real. After the first one, they came more frequently, until they lit up the sky almost before the previous one had faded.

Jemma and Daisy both stayed mostly quiet, preferring to enjoy the natural phenomenon with minimal conversation. Daisy was so entranced by the streaks of light cutting across the sky that she hadn’t even noticed Jemma fidgeting with her hands until she spoke up.

“Daisy, can I talk to you about something?” Jemma asked in nearly a whisper.

The tone betrayed the serious nature of whatever Jemma wanted to say and Daisy’s eyes snapped to Jemma. “Of course. What’s up?” Daisy replied with forced casualness.

Jemma fidgeted for a moment more with her eyes fixed on her hands before she spoke up. “I— Well, it’s—There’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for awhile, but it’s—it’s just never seemed like the right time and there’s always someone else around, or we’re busy or—or—”

Daisy waited with bated breath while Jemma paused to collect her thoughts.

“I—um. I like girls, I guess,” Jemma finished.

Daisy’s heart leaped and a tiny hopeful part of her brain started cheering, but Daisy quickly shoved it away. This isn’t about you, asshole, she thought.

“Oh. Cool, um, thanks for trusting me with that,” Daisy replied, “Actually, while we’re on that subject—”

“I know, this probably isn’t the best time, but I don’t want to keep any secrets from you,” Jemma rambled. She briefly reached for Daisy’s hands, but seemed to think better of it and folded them in her lap. “You’re my best friend and I don’t want anything to change between us because of this.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, I just completely bowled over you. We’re you going to say something?”

Daisy blanched. “No, never mind. It’s not important.”

“Please, I don’t want anything left unsaid between us now,” Jemma prompted.

“Let’s get it all out ther—”

“I love you.”

It seemed even the crickets were silent following Daisy’s confession. If she wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, Daisy probably would have bolted for the nearest closet to hide herself in for the rest of her life.

Jemma’s silence was almost worse than if she had run away in disgust. Daisy mentally begged her to say something. Anything.

“…Really?” Jemma finally whispered.

Daisy nodded, though she wasn’t sure Jemma could see her in the dark. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Let’s just pretend I never said—”

Now it was Jemma’s turn to interrupt. She leaned across the narrow space between them, capturing Daisy’s lips mid-word, and slid a hand around the back of Daisy’s neck to pull her in closer.

Daisy’s body processed this new development before her mind caught up, kissing Jemma back fervently before she was even fully aware what was happening.

By the time they broke for air, Daisy’s brain had finally caught up. “I thought you said you didn’t want anything to change between us,” she said, stupidly.

“That was a complete lie,” Jemma chuckled. “I’ve been mad about you since high school.”

“Really? Why did neither of us say anything before now?” Daisy asked.

Jemma just giggled and leaned in for another, more gentle kiss. Meteors continued to streak across the sky the rest of the night, but they passed completely unnoticed by the pair curled up in the inflatable pool together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What? Even I can tell you that’s a terrible— No, he’s great, but I know your— Hey, don’t yell at me, you’re the one who’s dumped him four times!” Daisy screamed into her phone. “Hello?…She hung up on me.”

“Um…Is everything alright?” Jemma cautiously asked.

Daisy groaned. “Bobbi just decided she’s going to move in with Hunter at the end of the semester.”

“Oh. That’s…good?” Jemma guessed.

“The school can’t find anyone willing to move into the dorm halfway through the year, so they’re going to make me pay the 'single-room’ price. I can’t afford that!” Daisy complained.

“I can see why you’re upset now.”

“Yeah. I supposed my van is big enough to throw a mattress in the back. As long as campus security doesn’t get weird about me parking it somewhere.”

“You can come live with me next semester,” Jemma shyly suggested.

Daisy’s heart sped up. “What?”

“I have a full scholarship that covers my rent as well as tuition, so you wouldn’t have to pay anything,” Jemma explained, “I wouldn’t mind having someone to live with. It can get a tad quiet.”

“Are you sure it’s not too soon? I mean, we are dating now. Would it be weird for us to live together so soon?” Daisy asked.

Jemma shrugged. “I was going to ask you to move in with me any way. Do you really think I’d let my girlfriend live in her van?”

Daisy pulled Jemma into a tight hug in answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jemma’s apartment was nice. Very nice, in fact. The extra scholarship money allowed Jemma to afford a place right off campus, away from the noise and annoyance of the fraternity houses. It was small, but not cramped. Just enough space for Jemma’s sparse belongings.

And now Daisy’s. Jemma failed to mention that her apartment was only a one-bedroom before Daisy had hauled the first box of her possessions up the stairs.

Daisy hadn’t wanted to presume anything, so she tossed her pillow on the couch and looked for a corner to cram her stuff into. Jemma had just chuckled, grabbed her hand, and dragged her towards the bedroom.

Daisy was surprised by how easily she settled into domesticity with Jemma. Given that she was completely prepared to live out of her van, Daisy didn’t expect to find herself so comfortable now. They settled into an easy routine. Jemma left at the crack of dawn for her classes, Daisy following around noon, Jemma went to the lab for a few hours after class, and Daisy went to work at the campus bookstore. They both returned to the apartment late and collapsed into bed or watched TV for a few hours. Friday night, they would make sure to be home in time for dinner and one of them would cook something nice.

The cooking was the one thing Daisy never got the hang of. Her artistic talents definitely did not translate into the culinary arts. The most complicated thing she had ever managed to make herself was a can of chicken noodle soup that she put in the microwave, so she struggled whenever it was her turn to make Friday night dinner.

But she was going to try her hardest anyway because she loved Jemma and wanted to make her something nice.

So here she was, fighting her way through making spaghetti. Jemma was perched on the corner of their bed with her headphones on full volume, typing away frantically at a report that was due early, and made it clear that she should not be interrupted until either she or dinner was done.

Daisy grumbled to herself about the inconsistency of using a 'clove’ of garlic as a form of measurement. Daisy made the mistake of buying the already diced garlic that came in a jar (much to Jemma’s dismay), so she just guessed and threw in a full teaspoon with the meat. Hopefully that was enough.

Next, she grabbed the jar of sauce. Daisy twisted the lid, but it didn’t budge. Daisy squeezed and twisted harder. Nothing. She tried clamping the jar between her knees and using both hands to twist. It was like the lid was cemented on the stupid jar.

Daisy huffed. What was the trick Jemma always used? Tapping it on the counter!

Daisy gingerly tapped the rim of the jar against the edge of the counter a few times and tried again. Still no movement. She tapped it harder. Nothing. Daisy glared at the offending jar. Now it was starting to feel personal.

Daisy gave it one last try and whacked the jar on the counter, but heard a cracking sound rather than the pop of the lid she was hoping for.

“Damnit,” she grumbled. She grabbed the lid and it twisted right off.

Which took the top half of the jar with it. The jagged edge of the jar cut into Daisy’s palm as she twisted.

“Shit!”

The stripe of blood that welled up on her palm started small, but quickly began trickling down her hand. Daisy set the ruined jar on the counter and grabbed for a paper towel to put some pressure on the cut. She barely got the paper towel ripped off the roll when the timer for the noodles went off, startling her.

She jerked back, hitting the sauce jar with her elbow, which sent it tumbling towards the ground where it shattered on impact.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Is everything alright out there?” Jemma’s voice called from the bedroom.

Daisy sighed and glanced at her still stinging wound. “Hey, Jem. You know how you said to only bother you if something was on fire or I was bleeding?”

Daisy heard the bedsprings creak as Jemma rolled of the mattress and shuffled toward the kitchen. “I sincerely hope you’re being dramatic again or you’re paying the security dep— OH MY GOD!”

Daisy looked up from her cut and saw the carnage of the red-splattered kitchen where she was the focal point. Right after she said she was bleeding (because clearly nothing was on fire). No wonder Jemma was freaking out.

“Oh, no no it’s just this!” Daisy announced holding up her (relatively speaking) tiny cut for Jemma to see, “I can’t really get to the mop without stepping on glass so…”

Jemma stared, wide-eyed, for another moment. Then she burst into a fit of giggles. Soon, the giggles turned into raucous laughter and eventually Jemma was bent over, gasping for air between fits of cackling.

Even though Daisy felt terrible about ruining dinner, she couldn’t help laughing along with Jemma at the entire situation. Her laugh was infectious.

Jemma grabbed the mop and helped Daisy clean up the mess and Daisy went to pick up some Chinese take out. Later that night, when Jemma went back to pouring over her computer Daisy found a red pen and sketched the scene on the back of a receipt and tucked it away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jemma shoved the apartment door open with a bit more force than was truly necessary. It had been a very long, arduous day and all she wanted was to eat a pint of ice cream and go to sleep early.

She shuffled through the door, knocking into the wall with her stack of reports and struggling to keep them from falling. She grumbled to herself as she kicked some of Daisy’s art supplies out of the way, so she wouldn’t end up tracking paint through the apartment (again) and trudged towards the bedroom.

A little flashing light from the kitchen made her pause. The 'new message’ light on the answering machine to the landline the apartment required them to have flashed insistently. Jemma frowned. Typically, no one called that number. If they needed to get ahold of one of them, Jemma and Daisy both had cell phones that they checked more regularly.

Jemma threw her stuff down on the table and jammed the little button.

A chipper voice cut through the silence of the apartment. “Hello! This message is for Daisy Johnson, regarding the job you applied for at Creative Concepts. It turns out we will be able to cover your relocation to New York City, as well as offering you a percentage more than the listing stated. We would like to get you settled and starting work by late next month so if you could give us a call back at—”

The number the woman rattled off was drowned out by the slamming of the front door.

“Jemma, you home? I got out early and was thinking we could go do something—,” Daisy rounded the corner and saw Jemma’s face, “—fun? What’s wrong?”

“You got a job in New York?” Jemma asked, tersely.

“I what?” Daisy replied.

“A place in New York just called and said you’ve got a job. They want you to start in a month,” Jemma gritted out through her teeth, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Daisy blinked at her for a moment. “I thought you’d be…happier.”

“Happier?!” Jemma snapped, “You never even told me you were looking for jobs, much less ones in New York City!”

“Well, duh. What did you think I was going to do, mooch off you the rest of my life?” Daisy spit back.

Jemma recoiled. “I thought you would at least tell me that you were thinking of moving across the country. What am I supposed to do? Quit my job and follow you at a moment’s notice? Or were you just going to leave and not even talk to me about it?”

“I thought you’d be excited! This is a great job and I’d finally be pulling my own weight,” Daisy shouted, more confused than angry.

“Without me!” Jemma yelled, “We’re in a relationship. We’re supposed to talk about things like this together. Why did you hide this from me?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t actually think I would get it, I just wanted to see what would happen,” Daisy said. “What do you want me to do? Not take the job?”

“Yes! No. I—” Jemma huffed. “I don’t know, I just…I need a minute.”

She stalked off to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Daisy groaned and thumped her head against the wall. Eventually, she shuffled over to the answering machine and replayed the message to write down the call-back number.

Daisy hung around the kitchen and nibbled on a fingernail nervously. She and Jemma had never had a fight like that before. Sure, they occasionally fought about little things, like Daisy leaving paint lying around or Jemma stealing Daisy’s leftovers late at night. Those were insignificant and usually ended in sex, so they weren’t too bad.

But nothing like this. Daisy wasn’t used to people sticking around after a fallout and kept waiting for Jemma to charge out of the bedroom with a packed bag and leave forever.

But that wasn’t Jemma. And Daisy wasn’t about to let what they had fall apart over this. Not after everything they’d been through.

She gave Jemma a few more minutes of alone time and tiptoed over to the bedroom door. She tapped gently on it, but got no response.

“Jem? Can I come in?” Daisy asked tentatively. After a few seconds with no response, Daisy was preparing herself to sleep on the couch, when a whispered 'yes’ filtered through the door.

Jemma was curled up on her side on the bed, facing away from Daisy. The occasional muffled sniffles told Daisy that Jemma had been crying and it broke her heart.

She slipped into the bed behind Jemma and slowly scooted herself next to her. When she wasn’t forcibly shoved away like she was expecting, she curled up around Jemma and rested her hand on Jemma’s waist.

“I’m sorry,” Daisy whispered, “I really wasn’t trying to hide it. I just…wasn’t thinking. I’m still not used to this 'serious relationship’ thing, I guess.” Daisy nudged closer to Jemma’s back and rested her head in the crook of her neck. “I’ll call them back first thing and let them know I can’t take the job,” she mumbled.

Jemma sighed and rolled over to face Daisy. “I don’t want that. I’m sure it’s a great job and I know you’ve been wanting to get out of this city. I only wish this wasn’t the first time I had heard about it.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Jemma whispered, “But, now we can deal with this. Together.”

Daisy nodded. “Agreed.”

She leaned forward and kissed Jemma gently, and then smiled to herself.

“Hey, Jemma,” she muttered.

“Hm?”

“We just survive our first big fight.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They kept their promise to each other to deal with the new job situation together. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as seamless at Daisy would have hoped. Jemma couldn’t get away from the work she was doing for the university until at least the end of the semester, and then still had to find a job in New York City. So far, her hunt had hit a dead-end.

Daisy, however, couldn’t put off the start of her job and would have to move without her. As much as it would kill them to be apart for so long, they would have to make it work for now. They both promised each other that it wouldn’t end like the last time they were separated.

Daisy found a small apartment that she could afford on her single salary for now, and threw herself straight into work for a graphic design company that contracted out artists to client companies. The work was mind-numbing at times and she called Jemma nearly every night to complain about her thickheaded clients, but she was at least doing work she enjoyed and had many opportunities in New York to find an audience for her art.

Jemma continued to work at the university laboratory, apply for research-based positions in New York, and coordinate with Daisy when they would have a free weekend to visit one another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jemma’s phone rang early one morning while she was eating breakfast. Well, it was a reasonable hour for herself, but for most of the population, it was early. It was especially early for Daisy, who’s name was the one that popped up on caller ID.

“Hello?” Jemma greeted.

“Hey.” Daisy sounded breathless on the other line. “Remember how we talked about you having a free weekend coming up? I really think you should come up here.”

“Alright, why the urgency, though?” Jemma replied.

Daisy was quiet for a moment and seemed to be catching her breath. “I got a gig at a gallery! I get to use the entire gallery to display some of my projects!”

“Daisy, that’s wonderful!”

“I know! This is gonna be such a great opportunity. All the best people are gonna be at the opening,” Daisy rambled. “So can you make it?”

“I’ll book my plane ticket immediately.”

The silence on the other line didn’t concern Jemma, because Daisy was probably just fist-pumping the air.

“I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see you,” Daisy finally responded. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few phone more phone calls later and they pinned down the details for the trip. Jemma’s flight was getting in the morning of the gallery opening, so she and Daisy would have some time to explore the city together.

The minute she landed and turned her phone back on, their plans were upended by a text from Daisy.

Super super sorry, but I can’t get out of work til later :( I left a key under the mat at my apartment so you can drop your stuff and nap. Sry ily

Jemma huffed, but understood and went to gather her things at baggage claim. When she went to hail a cab, she notice a nicely dressed man standing near the exit holding a sign that read Jemma Simmons.

Jemma frowned and approached him. At least Daisy spared her from having to trek through New York City with all of her bags.

“Mrs. Simmons, I presume?” the man asked.

“Miss, but yes,” she replied, adjusting her bags.

The man smiled. “My mistake. Can I grab your bags for you?”

The driver loaded her things into a sleek black car and opened the rear door for her to enter.

Once on the road, Jemma couldn’t help but ogle everything she drove past. The massive buildings sparkled in the morning sun and every variety of cafe seemed tucked into the lower floors of them. Cars choked the streets, allowing Jemma plenty of time to stare and memorize the source of every mouth-watering smell that she wanted Daisy to take her to.

Even more than the cars, was the sheer amount of people, bustling this way and that. How they could even move with some many people cramming the sidewalks was a miracle.

They passed through Times’ Square and the blinding lights from every corner dazed her momentarily.

They finally pulled up to Daisy’s apartment building, which Jemma recognized from the pictures she had sent when she first moved in. It was nothing compared to the glitz and glamor of the center of the city, but it seemed cozy enough.

The driver unloaded Jemma’s things for her onto the sidewalk and bid her a good day. Jemma rifled through her purse for some cash to give him a tip, but he had returned to the car and sped off before she could find it.

Strange, Jemma thought, but, then again, Daisy is always saying how weird New Yorkers are.

Jemma shrugged and headed towards the elevator.

Sure enough, a small key was tucked under the welcome mat in front of Daisy’s apartment. It still had enough of Daisy’s form of personalization scattering the floor and stuck to the walls to remind Jemma with a pang of their shared apartment. Jemma called Daisy’s name, hoping she would have made it home by now, but found the apartment empty.

She grumbled to herself, a bit annoyed that Big City Girl Daisy couldn’t seem to spare any time for her girlfriend who she dragged up to see her. She tossed her things in a corner in Daisy’s bedroom and headed to the kitchen to find a snack. A small piece of folded paper was propped up on the counter when she got there. Jemma snatched it and found another apology, but this one included cash.

Dear Jemma, sorry again I’m flaking out. I have a few more things to wrap with the gallery before the opening tonight. Here’s some cash so you can get yourself a nice lunch. There’s a diner two blocks down that you might like. The Wi-Fi password is Alhambra.

Also, I included a bit extra so you can go down to the boutique on 7th and get something nice to wear tonight. You get to be my arm candy after all ;) See you tonight. Sry and ily.

Daisy

Jemma rolled her eyes. She wasn’t really interested in seeing the sights in New York alone, but she probably should get a nicer dress for the evening. She had a feeling that 'nice’ was a different standard at a New York gallery opening than anything in Jemma’s college town. She snatched the cash and the spare key and headed back out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite what Jemma told herself, she did go see some of the attractions near Daisy’s apartment. She found a nice souvenir stand where she bought herself a mini Statue of Liberty magnet and a foam hat that she was going to make Daisy wear everywhere tomorrow. Then she headed down to the boutique that Daisy had mentioned to find a nice outfit.

She picked out a flattering sparkly dress that, normally, she would never buy for herself, but she wanted to impress the people coming to see Daisy. If it made Daisy drool over her and regret leaving her alone all day, that was just a bonus.

When it got close to the start of the event, Jemma was fully dressed and made up and Daisy was still nowhere to be found. Jemma was starting to worry that something might have happened to her, when her phone buzzed with another message from Daisy.

Hey things got crazy so I’ve got to stay at the gallery until it opens. There will still be a car by the apartment to come pick you up at 6:30.

Jemma frowned and typed back, Did you just have plans with your new girlfriend all day?

Jemma was mostly joking, but the lack of response way worrying. Sure, she figured Daisy was busy with the gallery and all, but it wasn’t like Daisy to be so cagey.

The car pulled up in front of the building at 6:30 on the dot, with the same driver who picked her up from the airport. He held the car door open for her, told her she looked 'ravishing,’ and then hopped in the driver’s seat.

The drive was mostly silent, with Jemma being too grumpy to initiate conversation and the driver too occupied with not crashing into every person who cut them off.

The gallery they pulled to a stop in front of was small, which Jemma expected. What she hadn’t expected was the dimness of the light filtering through the windows facing the street. Inside, Jemma could see a few small spotlights pointed at framed works on the wall that were much smaller than what Daisy usually created.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Jemma asked the driver.

He just nodded with a smile. “Daisy’s waiting for you inside.”

That was all the encouragement she needed. Jemma was expecting a bit more fanfare about a gallery opening, even one this small, but there didn’t appear to be anyone here yet.

She pushed through the door and strode into the gallery, her slightly uncomfortable heels clicking loudly on the wood floors. She peered around corners looking for Daisy, or really any other person, but didn’t see anyone, so she paced around and looked at Daisy’s art.

Then, Jemma was more confused. Everything framed and stuck to the walls was just doodles on the back of a receipt of a gum wrapper. It wasn’t the kind of work that would normally be put up in a gallery.

“Do you like them?” a familiar voice called out behind her.

Jemma spun around and saw Daisy, dressed to the nines, slowly walking towards her.

“I…I guess. I’m just a little confused,” Jemma admitted. “And where is everyone? I thought you said everyone important would be here.”

“They are,” Daisy replied, her eyes fixed solely on Jemma. “Let me show you around.” This wouldn’t be the first time Daisy had to explain the intricacies of her art to Jemma. Just like Daisy took awhile to grasp microscopic biochemical processes, Jemma was not adept at interpreting art.

Daisy just smiled. “Don’t you recognize them?”

Jemma furrowed her brow. Why would she recognize doodles on gum wrappers? Daisy guided her back to the one by the door. It was a crumpled gum wrapped that had been laid flat with two poorly-drawn stick figure girls sitting in desks speaking. There was a tiny plaque under it with the title First Words.

It still wasn’t any clearer to Jemma, so Daisy took her hand and walked to the next one. This one was a lined piece of paper, clearly ripped out of a notebook, that had the same two girls at a long table, but one had some red scribble in her mouth and was titled Spaghetti Challenge. Jemma chuckled, since that one reminded her of the time in high school where Daisy had been dared to cram an entire spaghetti order into her mouth.

Daisy moved onto the next one and the pattern started to dawn on Jemma. The picture was on another gum wrapper and featured a small blue car and one of the girls leaving in it. The background was a wide road that faded into the distance where there was a big castle labelled College. The other girl had a small broken heart above her head. Daisy scratched her ear nervously and moved onto the next wall.

There was apparently quite a time skip here and the art style drastically improved. This one was drawn on a scrap of the same sturdy paper Daisy left lying around their apartment all the time for her class projects. It was a doodle of the two girls, which now that they had more fleshed out features, Jemma could tell were herself and Daisy, hugging in a café while another figure (presumably Bobbi) stole their food.

The next was a situation that Jemma recognized as one of their Friday movie nights in Daisy’s and Bobbi’s dorm, but she didn’t recognize the exact context. There seemed to be an astronaut sitting next to Jemma and Daisy was throwing tiny daggers at him. It was labelled Jealousy.

Jemma shot Daisy a curious look, but she just grinned and walked on.

The one that followed was obviously a focal point, with its multiple spotlights and larger frame. This one was also ripped out of a sketchbook, but it was a larger page and contained more detail. The simple, stick-figure style was the same but it had a light colored pencil gradient sketched into the sky above the two girls in a pool in an open field. Some flecks of white paint made up the stars accompanied by a single streak of white for a meteor. The plague underneath read Best Meteor Shower Ever. Jemma smirked at the memory.

The pattern continued. Sketches of Daisy and Jemma’s first date, second date, third date, that time Daisy made Jemma think she had gruesomely injured herself while making spaghetti, rendered in gory detail with vicious strokes of a red pen, the time Jemma made Daisy snort soda out of her nose with a particularly bad pun. Every landmark of their relationship scratched out in minimalist form on the backs of gum wrappers, receipts, take-out menus, etc. Basically, anything Daisy could get her hands on at the time.

Jemma circled the gallery in awe. Daisy had kept these scraps of memories for years, almost a decade in some cases, and documented everything.

Jemma circled back to the beginning of the display and noticed a solitary frame in the middle of the back wall. There were multiple spotlights aimed at this one lonely picture, as well as one pointed at the floor a few feet away. Jemma moved closer to the tiny scrap framed on the wall so she could see the detail.

It was on a gum wrapped that was pressed so flat, all the creases had been carefully ironed out. The two girls were again the main feature.

One was standing in the middle of an art gallery looking shocked.

The other was in front of her, down on one knee.

Jemma gasped and whirled around. She hadn’t noticed Daisy drop her hand or leave her side, but she slipped away while Jemma was entranced with reliving their memories.

Now, Daisy knelt in the middle of the strategically placed spotlight, with a small velvet box in her shaking hands. Daisy pulled a smirk, but Jemma could tell it was wavering and she was cripplingly nervous.

Daisy opened and closed her mouth a few times before frowning amusedly at herself. “You know, I had this whole romantic spiel planned out once I got to this point, but…I kinda just forgot the whole thing.” Her eyes sparkled with happy tears. “And you crying definitely isn’t helping.”

Jemma hadn’t even realized that she had tears rolling down her cheeks. She gave a watery laugh and stepped towards Daisy.

“You didn’t have to go through all this trouble, you know,” Jemma teased.

Daisy chuckled. “I know. But with all the crap we’ve been through, the one thing I’ve known the whole time, without a doubt…is that you and I belong together.”

That was it for Jemma. The tears flowed even more freely down her face as she threw her arms around Daisy’s neck. Daisy huffed a short laugh, but Jemma could tell from the dampness on her shoulder that Daisy was crying too.

“So, is that a yes?” Daisy muttered into Jemma’s neck.

Jemma laughed breathlessly. “Of course it’s a yes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wise men say, only fools rush in.

But I can’t help falling in love with you.

The minute the first chords of the song played, Daisy hoisted up the front of her dress and squeezed through the crowd toward Jemma. Jemma was sprawled out across two chairs at the 'in-laws’ table, her bare feet propped up on one and her discarded high heels tucked underneath it. Any other time, Daisy would have stopped just to watch her giggling into her glass of champagne with her family around her—now Daisy’s family as well, she realized with a jolt—but right now, she was on a mission.

“Can I steal you for a dance?” Daisy asked, extended a hand to Jemma. Jemma turned her flushed face towards Daisy and beamed. She set her glass down on the table and rose to meet Daisy with more grace than Daisy was expecting, given the amount of champagne Jemma had already consumed. Still, she took Daisy’s hand and strolled out to the center of the dance floor beside her.

Like a river flows surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Somethings are meant to be

Take my hand, and take my whole life, too

The standard hold for a partner dance was too distant for both Daisy and Jemma’s tastes, so they smushed the combined bulk of both of their white dresses together and held each other in a hug-like embrace while they swayed on the floor. All the practice they had done in Daisy’s cramped apartment the preceding weeks was unnecessary. It didn’t matter how they looked or how well they could waltz.

All that mattered was that Daisy now could hold Jemma, her wife, as tight as she wanted and nothing was going to take her away. As Daisy glanced out the windows of the banquet hall, over the bright city lights that glistened off every surface, Daisy started to understand why Jemma loved this sappy song.

So won’t you please

Take my hand, and take my whole life, too.

'Cause I can’t help falling in love

In love with you

'Cause I can’t help

Falling in love

With

You.

The End.

#strangegameprofessor #skimmons #bioquake #jemma simmons/daisy johnson #can't help falling in love #Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.#fluff #like super fluff

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