#this fic was meant to be crack wtf happened

[potatohater]

Maybe he just needed that laugh

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Characters: Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan

Words: 1857 (wtf I thought it would be like 700-900)

HIII, I BECAME OBSESSED W CRIMINAL MINDS SO HERE WE GOO; I couldn’t find enough tickle fluff w Hotch so I wrote it myself:))),, also it happens like in the middle of s2, when emily had joined the team but Haley and Hotch are still together;; also ITS NOT A SHIP FIC BETWEEN HOTCH AND DEREK (also on AO3)

Aaron Hotchner

A man who never smiles or laughs, everybody knows it, but nobody can do anything about it. Not even himself

“..and she said WHAT” Morgan said, finishing his joke, smiling when it earned him a few chuckles from the people who sat near him. JJ who was sitting on the other side of the plane gave him thumbs up, and even Reid cracked a smile. But his gaze stopped at Hotch who was looking at some file, he looked calm, but it was only at the first sight. Morgan could see how he bit inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling. One question, why?

Sometimes he allowed himself to crack a smile in front of everyone, but he also took the part of a stoic leader too close to his heart; or at least the team thinks this way

There were moments when they were playing cards, or sitting at the office. There were moments when he smiled or even laughed. But they were so small and so quick, almost invisible. At some point everybody knew that they can’t influent on this but on the other hand, every-time he smiled or even chuckled, it just felt so.. complete

For a few days Derek kept in mind this, everything. He started to notice how Hotch could say something with a straight face, but the second he turns the back to his coworkers he smirks. There were questions that nobody asked, back in his head. There could be some deep dialogue between them, but Derek knew when the time would come, plus it’s not like he doesn’t have any work to do

;

Team decided to go to the club bar, take a break eventually. Everyone was there except for Gideon who decided to spend his time in the woods by himself

“Have you ever noticed how he never smiles?” Derek’s voice rang through the bar, quiet enough for nobody to hear him clearly, but loud enough for people around him to understand what he meant. He furrowed his brows a bit, and turned his head to his fellow teammates

“Really not sure about it, maybe.. sometimes?” Prentiss responded with a small smile, taking a sip of her beer and looking at another person who was sitting on the other side of her

“Well, I saw him doing it a few times for sure, so he is not immune to smiling” Reid said, his gaze stopped at something in the background, so he looked like he was hypnotised for a few seconds “Actually have you ever know that an average adult laughs only 17 times a day while a child laughs about 300 times a day”

“Well I’m not sure that the fact that he never smiles has to do something with his age” Morgan said, taking a sip of his drink

JJ at the same time was chatting with some guys from the bar and playing games with them while Penelope was dancing in the middle of the dance floor like she was the only one there, showing everyone who is their daddy

Prentiss looked at Garcia a few times before she finished her beer and looked at two men on each side of her

“Sorry, but I just have to join her” she grinned, looking at the blond girl again

“Take Reid with you, maybe you can teach him some dance moves” Morgan chuckled, and quirked an eyebrow at the younger male next to him

“Nononohono, I’m not good at this— please Morgan don’t do this” Spencer giggled through sentence and even if he was serious, Derek saw a smile creeping onto his face as Prentiss took his hand and pulled him further on the dance floor. He glanced at Morgan the last time until disappeared in the crowd

Morgan smiled to himself and looked in the Hotch’s direction. He was sitting in the corner, on the sofa next to Haley, bit drunk, so his usually serious facial features melted in something more human

Derek took his drink and danced up to their table, felling the rhythm in his ears. The pair turned his head to him, offering him a seat in front of them.

“You like my dance moves?” Morgan said with a grin plastered on his face

“Very much so” “Don’t think I’m the right person to answer this” Haley and Hotch said at the same time. Even though the Aaron’s comment wasn’t very welcoming, there were no venom in his words, he just simply smiled afterwards and took a sip of his drink.

“Hey, don’t be mean” Haley said, poking her husband’s side, making him to flinch and slightly choke on his drink

“Don’t—” he was cut off by another poke, making him jerk away now as he took a napkin to clean his lips and chin from a mess

“Yo, what was that?” Morgan smiled, his eyes were running from Haley to Hotch every second until he got an answer

“You don’t know? He’s ticklish, I though maybe someone knew, especially you” Hailey smirked, looking at Aaron who choked on his drunk again, but now, all by himself “He usually doesn’t smile, so this is one and only way to make him; because he doesn’t have a sense of humour either” she whispered the last part, earning a sigh from her husband

“No way man, is this real?” Derek’s eyes were lit up by a second, he looked like he just found a golden ticket

“Don’t even think about it” his boss’s voice was something between serious, amusing and terrified about the fact that his wife just announced

“What’s his worst spots?” Morgan tried to keep a conversation in this topic, smirking at Hotch whose eyes just widened when he heard woman respond to this question effortlessly

“Well, if I’m not wrong it’s his sides, ribs and maybe knees—” she tried to tell Derek most of it, knowing what’s his plan was already until she was cutoff by her husband himself, elbowing her in the side

“..actually if you got him laughing, every spot would work, especially when he’s drunk” she whispered and winked to a man infront of her until she was shushed again

“Don’t listen to her” Hotch replied, looking dead serious at his wife and then at Derek

Phone on the table rang, taking everyone attention, making them forget about a new discovery (happily for Hotch)

“Give me a few minutes” Haley picked up the phone and smirked at Morgan before she stood up, ready to answer the call “I’m also going to take more drinks” were the last words she said until she drowned in the crowd of people

Silence froze in the air for a second before they made an eye contact, dark eyes full of mischief met slightly widened, tensed eyes of another man

Morgan thought about it for a split second before thinking “ah, fuck it” and moving on the previously Haley’s seat, next to Hotch

“So how’s— how is Jack doing?” Derek asked, trying to make a conversation but Aaron could hear fake innocence in his voice. He squinted his eyes at him for a few moments until trusting him that he is a grown man who wouldn’t do something so childish.. or would he?

“He is alright like always” Hotch said, but being tipsy didn’t mean being blind. He saw Morgan’s hand trying to poke him in the same spot Haley did, and he immediately caught Derek’s hand, trying to put it away

“So you really is ticklish if you are so scared of me poking you”

“I’m not, and you are being ridiculous” Hotch said with a slight smile on his face; maybe it was alcohol, maybe it was just his mischievous side. Derek couldn’t tell

Morgan didn’t waste any time, moving his second hand fast enough to make a contact with Hotch’s side, earning a sound which sounded like a stiffed giggle. He let go of Morgan’s hand (big mistake), trying to protect his torso

And now younger man used his both hands to dig into Hotch’s sides earning new sounds that his boss tried so hard to muffle

“Come on man, relax. You know that you want to laugh, it’s been a rough week—” Derek even didn’t finish his sentence when Aaron’s facade broke into small pieces. He tried to curl up, mouth slightly opened and small chuckles and giggles filled the air

“Stohohop Mohorgahan” despite how much he tried to wipe off the smile on his face he couldn’t. Usually he could turn off his sensitivity, usually but not now

“This is gold” Morgan chuckled, moving his hands up, now going for his ribs. Aaron tried to push off his hands but he felt how useless his arms became, everything he could do is just to hold on to Morgan, desperately trying to push him away

His giggling turned into pure laughter when he felt knuckles being rubbed into his lower ribs. Hotch uncurled and tried to back off, hitting the wall with his back. He threw his head back and tried to cover his mouth with one hand, so other people couldn’t hear him

“dEHERehek” Aaron tried to make him stop verbally and furrowed his brows to sound more intimidating and serious, but a rare smile on his face ruined the whole picture

“You should laugh more often Hotch, it wouldn’t mean that you are less professional, and honestly it’s like the first time I see you like this” and it was true. Aaron couldn’t remember himself when he expressed his joy with more that a chuckle

“..and you have nice laugh by the way” Morgan teased, grinning like a Cheshire cat and looked at his boss; eyes closed shut, smile baring all his teeth and his laugh. Well it was hard to tell because nobody has ever heard him laugh like this. It was so high-pitched comparing to his voice and but on the other hand it even suited him in some way

At some point Derek just started to laugh with Hotch, maybe he didn’t even notice that

“What did Haley said was a good spot, knees?” Morgan let go of Hotch’s torso, and squeezed both of his knees, earning a snort

“Yohuhu thIHINK YOuhu arEHE BEHEteher thahan mehehe? Aaron laughed, putting all his strength into digging into Derek sides which made him to back off

“Hehey!” Morgan stopped, pulling his hands to protect himself

“Yohohu wihil NEVER speak of thihis” even when tickling stopped, a huge grin was still plastered on Hotch’s face. He let out a few giggles until sitting straight and elbowing Morgan in the side

“I won’t, cross my heart and stuff” Derek joked, earning rolled eyes from his boss. It was refreshing to see him like this not gonna lie

Haley came back almost immediately after everything finished, but by a sparkle in both of their eyes she could tell, she just knew

Maybe, just maybe Hotch wasn’t “that” drunk, maybe he could shove Morgan far enough so he wouldn’t reach him, maybe he could fight back, or maybe he just needed that laugh. I guess we’ll never know

[soaps-mohawk]

I know I’ve sent you something before but i genuinely can not get your fic out of my mind and now need to say something else. It irks my soul (in a good way I promise😭) that the reader won’t just tell them what she needs. But it’s also so understandable bc why would she? No matter if they’re her pack or not she doesn’t fully trust them.

But also seeing the vision fo her finally asking for what she wants. Seeing her finally kneel (in a non-sexual way) is going to be something that I will eat up immediately. Like everytime it’s mentioned I cross my fingers for it to be in the chapter.

Also (I’m so sorry for the ramble) Ghost finally warming up to her???? The absolute best part, like okay go girl you get that man. I think the only thing that made me want to strangle them was the fact that Price didn’t even tell her anything.

Like i would be so mad😭 even if it wasn’t meant that way like her feet are hurting horribly (the blisters show that) she was obviously tired and didn’t know what was happening and was being used as bait? Bro I hope Soap and Gaz told Price about the blisters and he felt bad bc wtf😭

so if you can’t tell i love your story. HAVE A GOOD DAY🫶🏻🫶🏻

Aah don't ever apologize for rambling 🥺 I love it when people have thoughts about my writing 🫶 (no but I've literally gotten inspiration from people's rambles before so...don't ever feel bad for doing it)

Ugh reader and her issue with feeling like she shouldn't want things hits me so hard like...part of me just wants to scream at her to ask but also part of me gets it 😭 (ik I'm the writer but sometimes these things have a mind of their own). But I get it, I wouldn't fully trust them either. Not after just a week.

Yaass Ghost is finally starting to see the light...kind of. He's a tough nut to crack and it's gonna take a lot more work but he can't deny those instincts 🤭

Nah I'd be so mad too lol. I originally had an idea for a scene where Price decides to use the reader for hostage retrieval training, but he doesn't tell her it's training because he wants it to be as real as possible just to see how badly it would effect their ability to save her if it ever came to that. It felt a bit too mean and out of character for Price in this fic though. Cause that would stress reader out so badly and that could be dangerous. I don't think he'd risk that.

Aah thank you so much. Always feel free to come in here and ramble with your thoughts. I will read them and eat them up like a delicious meal 💚 y'all are feeding me with this kindness and support for this story fr

[jungle321jungle]

Slither Into My Heart (Gorgon AU): Part Seven

Deceit didn’t bother to knock as he slammed the door open and glared down to wear Remus sat on his bed polishing his morning star.

“What did you do?” Deceit hissed.

Remus gave him a large smile as he looked him up or down, “Do you have the snakes just up there or are they down below too?”

If asked by Patton later, Deceit most definitely did not try to strangle the other side in that moment. Not all.

Also known as: Deceit is turned into a Gorgon. And the new annoying little snakes on his head seem to have an annoying obsession with Virgil.

Ao3 - Masterlist

Part One

Part Seven

Dee wasn’t sure he had ever moved faster, but just like that he was in his room slamming the door and standing behind it. His initial instinct upon hearing Logan’s words was to throttle the other side- but then he had seen Virgil’s embarrassed- Virgil’s blushing face and he had run- he had sprinted.

His face felt hot, and his heart drumming in his ears was drowning out whatever the hell the snakes were saying. God why the hell had Logan even fucking dared. That wasn't his place! When he got the courage to leave his room he was going to-

“Dee?”

Virgil’s voice may have well been ice in Dee’s veins the way he froze. But he also didn't respond, so a knock sounded at the door. “Dee?” he asked again. “Um, I... um... I yelled at Logan for you. Um, and about um...” He heard as Virgil gave a cough. “If you want to talk then yeah. If not I’ll just go.”

Bad Logan. Nice Vee. Vee not mad! Logan mean. Talk Vee. No talk Vee. Hide. Hide good. Talk good. Talk bad.

He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep- he wasn’t even sure he remembered dragging himself on his bed, but he did remember waking up. He was sitting up gasping for air, tears burning in his eyes. He swallowed trying to calm himself down but unable to he forced himself to get up and walk to the kitchen. He ignored the gazes of everyone who watched him pass in favor for filling a cup with water and downing it.

“Everything alright Deceit?” Patton asked slowly.

“Fine,” he breathed out refilling his cup.

“Talking may help, kiddo.”

“I don't-”

Talk. Talk good. Maybe help. No nightmares. Help. Talk.

He gave a sigh and after a pause he turned- taking in the fact that Patton, Logan and Remus (aka not Virgil) were sitting at the table before he joined them.

“Deceit,” Logan coughed awkwardly. “Firstly I’d like to apologize for earlier. It’s come to my attention that I shouldn't have overstepped my bounds.”

Dee shook his head, “I really don't want to talk about that right now.”

“What’s up with the snakes?” Remus asked leaning back in his chair. “Are the little devils refusing to be trained in dance?”

Dee didn’t even want to ask. So instead, he told the truth. “I... I haven’t been sleeping. I’ve been having nightmares about my snakes. I thought I had finally gotten used to them and then the shedding happened, and other things which just make it seem stranger and stranger but also forcing me to realize that I’m who I am now... a gorgon. But um... I can't help but wonder and worry about how far that goes...”

“What do you mean?” Logan pressed.

Dee gave a swallow before he let his eyes fall to the table, “I... I keep have nightmares about accidentally turning you all to stone.”

“That would be pretty sick, not gonna lie.” Dee’s head snapped up to see as Virgil walked in the kitchen. “Sorry, I’m not helping am I?”

“Oh! Maybe Remus can set rules for them,” Patton suggested. “He made the connection for Thomas after all.”

“I don't think so,” Logan mused. “The connection was initially made with him and medusa after all... the connection would need to be made with a different gorgon I assume. But that may threaten the snakes themselves.”

No like rules. Rules bad. Want stay. But stone bad! No stone! No want!

The conversation was continuing around him but his focus was primarily on Virgil. Because Virgil seemed to have been functioning as if yesterday had never happened. And Janus wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or bad thing.

“Don’t worry Dee!” Patton said loudly while clapping him on the shoulder. “Remus will take care of it.”

Dee paused to look at Remus’ smile before he pushed the hand away and stood, “I don’t know how trusting Remus with anything is supposed to make me feel better. I’m going back to my room.”

~~~~

He slept in short bursts. Falling asleep for five minutes awake for ten, and then asleep for ten and awake for five. It wasn’t anything more than exhausting, but it was how Dee was apparently going to spend the day. He had resigned himself to that. And it seemed the snakes agreed. Their usual buzzing conversations were at a minimum or nonexistent all together. Rather they seemed to be just as exhausted and out of it as he was.

Dee held in a sigh. He wished he could bring them some peace at least. His nightmares were about them turning people to stone after all, there was no way they were in a good place. But he wasn’t sure what to say. Unsure what else to do he reached a hand up to his head and felt as the snakes moved to rub against his hand.

Hand warm. Pets! Want pets. Hand warm. Hand keep.

Dee gave a slight chuckle despite himself, “You can’t keep my hand. If you’re cold just say so.”

Cold. Not cold. Yes cold!

Dee rolled his eyes as he slowly sat up, “Do you guys want me to lay on a blanket or do you want to be in a hat?”

Their answer however wasn’t heard as a soft knock sounded on his door. But when he didn’t respond it came again, this time with Virgil’s voice. “Dee? Can I come in?”

Dee gave a sigh, as if he could say no, but to avoid looking Virgil in the eye he moved to the closet to find an extra blanket. “Sure.”

He heard the door open slowly followed by the sound of unsure footsteps and the door closing.

There! Blanket. Cozy! Warm. Want cozy!

“There’s only one blanket in here I can figure it out without the peanut gallery.”

“Sorry for interrupting,” Virgil said from behind him.

Dee took a deep breath as he grabbed the blanket and turned around. Virgil was standing in his doorway looking around as if he had never been in the room before. But more interestingly he had something behind his back.

“What did you need?” He asked awkwardly as he wrapped the blanket around his head.

“Um... I-I had an idea to help with your nightmares,” Virgil started his gaze now firmly fixed on the floor. “But it’s a bit childish.”

“What do you mean?”

Virgil gave an awkward swallow before he pulled something from behind his back and held it out. But quite frankly Dee had no clue what it was. It seemed to be a large hamster pillow with a long nose like an elephant.

“It’s a baku,” Virgil explained. “Its um a Japanese mythological creature that’s supposed to eat bad dreams. I um, I’ve had it for a long time and maybe it sounds childish and cheesy but um... if there’s a small chance it could help? And if it doesn’t if it helps we are part of Thomas so I don’t think you can turn us to stone. But I guess there’s still a chance- but I’m not scared um... just- just take the baku if you want. Not that you have to of course.”

Dee paused before he took the pillow, “Thank...thank you.”

Virgil gave a sharp nod as he turned away. “When you’re feeling better I, I wanted to talk to you about something else so um. Good night.”

“Night.”

As Virgil left Dee laid down and held the pillow in hands as he examined it. As he did so he couldn’t exactly stop the slight blush on his cheeks.

~~~~

“Dee! You’re not dead!”

“Obviously I’m not dead.”

“It’s been almost two days!” Patton protested squeezing him tighter.

“I was sleeping,” Dee told him, pushing him away. “And now I’m hungry.”

“You slept well then?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah... thanks.”

Thank Vee! Yay vee! No bad sleep!

“No problem.”

Dee made himself a plate and sat down at the table, “So um... you wanted to talk about something?”

Virgil gave a nod, “Yeah. Um... firstly, Patton can you uh?”

Patton cocked his head slightly in confusion before he seemed to understand and nodded quickly, “Oh uh I’ll be right back! I just remembered I have to... to uh... uh... make the bed!”

When he had left Virgil gave a soft sigh, “So um, about the other day. And what Logan said...”

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no!

Dee felt his face heat up and he was standing before he knew he was, “We can just pretend that never happened! Let’s just go back to normal, okay?”

Virgil’s head fell so his face couldn’t be seen. “But I... I don’t want to.”

“W-what?”

Virgil’s head lifted up slightly and Dee’s heart skipped a beat at the blush on the other side’s face. “I... Shit you’re really gonna make me say it? I... I like you Dee...”

For one of the first times in his existence, Dee was speechless. Truly speechless. Even the snakes were silent.

Virgil was giving him a slight glare, “Say something!”

“When’s the wedding?” Roman called from the next room.

“Fuck off!” Dee and Virgil yelled back as one.

As Roman cackled Dee sunk back into his seat and looked across from him at Virgil. “I like you too.”

Virgil gave a slight laugh, “Yeah I already figured that out.”

“Right...”

A weight fell from his shoulders, and Dee couldn’t help but give a sigh of relief.

Yes. Yes. Vee! Vee like! Vee like!

Yeah... Virgil liked him. It didn’t really make sense that Virgil did, but Dee wouldn’t exactly complain. “I don’t really know what happens now,” he admitted.

Virgil gave a shrug, “Me neither.”

Before Dee could respond, Roman walked in the room his eyes sparkling, “If you guys are looking for date ideas then I have a whole list that we can test before we send Thomas on one.”

“We just-”

“It’s in my room I’ll be right back!”

Ooo. Date! Need fancy clothes. Dates fun? Yes, fun! Spend time with Vee!

Dee rolled his eyes, “Want to move into the living room? I feel like this is gonna take awhile.”

“Or, we could always just go elsewhere before he comes back.”

“Anywhere in mind?”

“I found it!” Roman’s voice called.

“Does it matter?” Virgil asked heading into the hall.

Dee didn’t answer, rather he grabbed Virgil’s hand and reveled in Virgil’s blush as he let himself be pulled down the hall to who knows where. Because it didn’t matter where they were going, because if Virgil was going to he knew he'd be happy.

~~The End~~

Thanks for sticking around!

[votederpycausemufins]

it's been a while since I posted a chapter. Would someone like to tell me wtf is up with tumblr's post formatting? who changed it? i don liek.

Well, the first section gave me major writers block but the rest was smooth sailing. well, other than the fact i was delayed from kinda graduating. I am a very happy muffin due to that, and now you can deal with writing from someone with a gd degree, so take that or whatever.

Remember to check my pinned post to find all the chapters for this fic if you need a refresher.

and lastly since this is a hermit tommy au fic, thanks to @petrichormeraki for first creating the au.

Xisuma landed on what should have been the shopping district, but instead of the terraformed mushroom island filled with buildings, it was a plains area with creeper holes littering it and a few simple and broken builds. There was a cracked nether portal, not able to let anyone through, but still humming with magic, something that worried Xisuma more.

Tommy had been living with the Hermits for a good amount of time. At first he was terrified of all of them, Xisuma especially, but over time he was able to relax and feel safe. Tommy had also shared some of what was going on before ending up in Hermitcraft, but they all knew it had to be worse than he was describing it. But this was even worse than Xisuma thought if it was all real. The large open space meant it was easier for mobs to spawn, worsened by the lack of structures for safety. Then factor in the damaged portal, and things could get… messy.

Xisuma was used to hearing his own voice come from elsewhere, whether from recordings, or from his brother’s mouth, but neither of those should have been around. But as he approached the log walls of what fit the description of what Tommy’s home had been in exile, Xisuma still managed to hear someone talking that sounded too much like himself. And then when it stopped, there seemed to be a quiet reply from Tommy.

Though the walls of Logstedshire stood fairly well, everything inside the wall was gone, replaced with a deep hole from who knew how many explosions. And standing in the center of it all was Tommy, a copy of Xisuma right behind him.

Not wanting whatever was happening to continue, Xisuma slid down into the pit, running over to Tommy and the fake, calling out for the teen. Tommy looked up, then between the admin and his copy before the copy seemed to whisper something in Tommy’s ear.

“Hey! Get away from him!” Xisuma called out, wishing he had some way to easily separate the imposter and Tommy. Even more so when he finally reached Tommy and the teen flinched. “What were you saying to him? What did you do?”

Sure, Xisuma could be a bit of a derp, and while he knew the ins and outs of actually being an admin, in practice he wasn’t always the ‘best admin’ as everyone claimed he was, the start of season six being an example of that. But when it came to his hermits, he hated the idea of them getting hurt on his watch. Especially the younger hermits. If he had a way to keep them safe, he was going to try it. So seeing Tommy like this, especially due to a copy of himself, really hurt.

With a few quick movements, Xisuma moves Tommy to him and his own body between the teen and his copy. Tommy was covering his ears and had his eyes squeezed shut, his body tensed. Xisuma wasn’t sure how to help with any of that, too worried about making it worse, so he went to look at the other version of him again, only to find them gone.

After whirling around to look just about anywhere, the imposter seemed to really be gone, which on one hand was good to not deal with, but also worrying, as Tommy could be more likely to mistake him as the fake Xisuma. 

“Tommy. Tommy, Tommy. Can you tell me what I was just saying?” He asked while carefully pulling one of Tommy’s hands away from his ears. Sure, the easy thing to do would be to claim everything the fake said was a lie, but after one too many hermits having come to him in the past convinced him otherwise. Tommy’s former admin had isolated Tommy like this, hurt him, then claimed that they alone were Tommy’s friend. And the teen was in a situation where he was desperate enough to believe it. So in saying the imposter was lying, they could have not been and were just twisting truths.

‘ban.’ Was the only word Xisuma could hear from Tommy. He had said more, but they were too quiet to be heard. “I said I was going to ban you?” Xisuma asked to be sure, and Tommy nodded. “I would never ban you.” And then Xisuma was reminded of how this place worked. It was based on what the other person thought or believed in. On one hand, that fact hurt, but it was only because Tommy had been hurt so much already. “Other than me saying it, why would you believe that?”

Tommy flinched at the question, likely interpreting it as accusatory. He spoke again, but had to repeat himself, Xisuma finally catching the word ‘brother’. Immediately Xisuma’s thoughts went to Grian, him being the one they were after, but Xisuma still asked which brother, only to be shocked when his own brother’s name was spoken. He was quiet, trying to figure out what to say while also keeping his emotions in check. “I… you’re right. I have banned him before.”

Tommy tried to pull away from Xisuma, and while he loosened his grip, the admin didn’t let Tommy go fully. “I know, I’m sorry. Tommy, I’m sorry it’s hard to believe, but I would never ban you. Especially after what happened with my brother. He… he had been a pain since we were in season two. Trying to destroy the world again and again. The closest I got to banning him before had been trapping him in a lava pool until he left on his own.” Tommy tensed and X quickly clarified. “Xannes is immune to fire and lava. I think due to his hacking.” And that seemed to calm Tommy down a little bit.

“I said he couldn’t come back until a certain time. He wasn’t officially banned, he just followed the unofficial rules.” Xisuma then smiled for a moment. “I helped him a bit and he hung around season five for a time. Made a friend, told me a little about his own server, which I now know is Hels.” And with the mention of the somewhat alternate reality, his smile went back to a frown. Sure Tommy couldn’t see the admin’s mouth behind his helmet, but the sadness in his eyes was enough. “In season six, he was back to being evil again. And one day I couldn’t deal with it anymore. So I did what the others had suggested multiple times in the past, and finally banned him. I… didn’t know what would happen.”

“For most things outside of Hermitcraft, if I needed to ban him, I would. Done it a few times with some solo worlds. He’d of course always find a way back in. And then hermitcraft himself, he’d find loopholes in unofficial bans. But when I actually banned him, it all went wrong. Normally it sends you to what is considered your home world. If that place was the one you were banned from somehow, you would be sent to the world you frequent most after that. When I banned my brother, he was mostly living in Hels at the time, so, when I banned him, whatever natural magic tried to move him there didn’t work, trapping him in the void. I didn’t even find out until a bit after he escaped, and he was immediately upset at me. I don’t blame him for that though.”

“But because of all that, unless the situation is dire, I’m not planning to ban anyone again. And I doubt I’ll have much reason to.” At this point, Tommy had mostly calmed down, so Xisuma was able to look him in the eyes. “Sure, maybe you’re not the ‘ideal’ hermit, but who is? Doc finds a break in reality to exploit at least once a month, Mumbo’s machines create time distortions that affect anyone nearby, and Grian’s likely created more chaos than any one hermit on their own. I’d never consider banning you and if for some ungodly reason I tried what your last admin did and sent you to a place like this, the Hermits would come to visit you anyway.”

Tommy pulled away slightly. “You’re still admin. You could make them stay away.”

“Tommy, has anyone ever told you about someone named GenerikB?”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe? Sounds sort of familiar.”

“He was the original admin. Hermitcraft is named after him like how your old world was named after Dream. But he only made it because he was jealous he wasn’t invited to a different world. Then once he was allowed there, we didn’t have an admin. And not having an admin for a while can be dangerous, so eventually I offered. I had some experience before and I especially started learned more after the fact, but from the start I was only admin out of nessity. Legally, I’m listed as admin, but I’m not the only hermit who has admin abilities in the world and I normally just act as any other player. Remember back when you first joined, you were around Grian so much, you didn’t know I was admin.”

Tommy nodded to that, but still was looking away from Xisuma. “You’re still admin… Dream didn’t have his fancy powers, but he was still admin.”

“That’s true.” Xisuma agreed. “I’m sorry. I wish I had whatever words would reassure you. To be completely honest, I’m a little hurt.” And out of the corner of his eye, Xisuma could see Tommy suddenly look back at him, likely worried he had messed up. “I’m hurt I didn’t notice that you were hurting this much. We’ve all been dealing with what scares us here, if the other things we’ve gone through are any indication. Obviously you’re still worried about me turning out like your old admin. I’m sorry I never noticed you felt that way. I don’t know if I could have ever helped it, but I want to care for all the hermits. And that includes you.”

It was quiet for a bit before Tommy spoke up again. “It’s not just ‘cuz you’re admin. The Dream SMP was just really fucked up. My friends abandoned or betrayed me, those that didn’t do either got killed, the one person who said they were my friend was pretending and manipulating me, and my family was fine to pretend I don’t exist. ‘Course I’ve been hanging out with Grian since he’s pretty pog and right up my alley with his pranks and shit, but he’s always around Mumbo and the bots. The bots always called you their grandpa, which I thought was because of the whole shit with you being admin or whatever, but then one time I heard Mumbo calling you dad.”

That last bit seemed to be news to Xisuma with how much it surprised him, and Tommy made note of that, but otherwise kept talking. “My guess is because he was around my age when he showed up or whatever. Basically grew up here. There. Whatever. But before then, I was fucking fine, I was dealing with it. But I’m practically family with them and then he spouts the bullshit of you being his dad and… suddenly you’re like family, friend and admin all shoved into one, and none of those worked out for me.”

“And you started waiting for the other shoe to drop again.” Xisuma finished for Tommy, who nodded. “If you would like, when this is all done, I can leave you alone. If you want something else, you don’t have to contact me directly, you can ask someone else to do it for you.”

“Thanks.” Tommy replied, quietly, the spoke up again in a sadder voice. “This was stupid. I was just stuck here and everyone had to go through more traumatic shit.”

“That’s not true. You’ve told us about this place. I and the others have seen how your’re- …you have a distaste for plains biomes. Just being here must have been bad enough. Not to mention whatever was going on before I arrived.”

“What about the others?”

“Well I was the only one able to get here, I think because of my being an admin, though Wilbur was able to see something on what was going on here.”

“Ghostbur was one of the people who was in e-exile with me.” Tommy explained, struggling to say the word directly.

“Ah, well, that explains that. Now, would you like to go over to the others? Or do you want to start by going elsewhere that’s quiet to calm down first?”

“Can we do the first one?” Tommy asked, and Xisuma nodded, then asking whether they wanted to fly or for him to teleport, which Tommy picked the latter option.

Xisuma took them to the replica of Cleo’s base, the zoo setting being one that Tommy enjoyed normally and seemed to find calming enough in the present. The pair took some time to ground the teen, trying to think of topics less related to the current issue, but Xisuma knew that there was still something going on, since they were still stuck in this imagined scenario’s world. “So, what do you think the others are up to?”

.

.

.

“Alright, so you’ve got a lot of hybrids and shifters in Hermitcraft, right? Like you’re a creeper hybrid.” Paul spoke up. They had been waiting a while, so he had been trying his best to keep the conversation going and not make the wait seem so long.

“Yeah.” Doc agreed. “And I guess also cyborg at this point. Before you ask, the goat horn is just cosmetic like the metal one.”

“Got it. And I know Bdubs has latent genes. Anything come up yet?”

“No, not yet. He’s still holding out hope. You know I’ve taken a couple looks at him.” Doc paused, thinking something over before speaking again. “To be honest, season 5 was… a mess in more ways than one, but it was the first time something tried coming out. At least it seemed like it.”

“So something jungle or arboreal based most likely. Ever talk with Joe about it?”

“Nah, he may know more in general because of the, y’know, Herobrine thing. But he doesn’t know anything about that.”

“That’s a shame.” Then Paul went over what he knew. “Well, let’s see, so you and Bdubs are both hybrids, Joe’s a higher being. I know Beef’s just human.”

“Hey, I don’t think you can call any of us Hermits ‘just human’ man.”

“Well, it terms of the scale, yeah he’s human, unless I’ve missed everything from the past however many years.”

“Nah man, you’re right. Beef’s essentially just human.”

The two walked along a bit before Paul spoke again. “So, you’re friends with Ren, who’s a shifter, but says he’s a werewolf most of the time.”

“Yeah, he’s fine with that term. He just dealt with a lot of hybrid stigma growing up so it’s easier to have people call him a werewolf instead of going at old wounds.”

“Makes sense. Now let’s see. Grian’s obviously an avian, based on what I know he’s more on the shifter side of things?”

“Honestly, who knows man. Watcher stuff makes it weird. Normally he stays the same but it’s when that Watcher stuff happens. And apparently that happens with any Watcher, human or being.”

“Got it. Well your admin’s a voidwalker. Tommy might have latent genes from his heritage, but he might just be like Wilbur and just be human. Keralis I’m ninety percent sure is human.”

“More sure than we are.” Doc replied, half laughing.

“Zedaph’s a sheep hybrid as well as being the Reaper. He’s friends with… Tango and Impulse I believe? The first of which is netherborn and the second is… are they human?”

“Yeah Tango’s netherborn, but Impulse is actually a demon.”

“No kidding.” Paul said, a little surprised, but ended up just nodding his head, accepting it as fact. “Oh, is Biffa still around?”

“No. He left. He’s ended up more secluded than you. But it’s fine. He needed the break.”

“Well I hope he’s doing well.” Paul paused as EX walked over. “Any updates?”

“Ugh, no. Either Xisuma has forgotten, the derp that he is, or he can’t actually change it to let any of us in. So he’s stuck out there alone with Tommy to fix things.” The Xannes looked between Doc and Paul. “What are you talking about?”

“Well I thought I’d ask Doc if Bdubs’ latent genes had come out yet.” Paul explained.

“Alright?” EX just looked more confused, then turned to look towards Doc.”

“Bdubs is a hybrid, but we don’t know what of yet. Then we just started covering what all the hermits are since half of us aren’t really human.”

Xannes looked back and forth between Doc and Paul before huffing. “Fine, just leave me out of it.”

As the hels walked away, Doc chuckled. “Well sort of obvious. He and X are brothers.”

“Yeah… Well, let’s see who’s next. Oh, right. How could I forget Etho?”

“Because of the fact that no one actually knows? Even with some actual testing, I still don’t know because he manages to screw up the results.”

“I’d suggest it could be magic, but that’s, what, Scar Cub and… Her name was Stress, right?”

“Yeah. Some vex dealings and then fae lineage with Stress. She and Impulse get on well enough though.”

“Good to hear.” Then Paul counted on his fingers, knowing the number of hermits, but not recalling off the top of his head how many he had named compared to how many he knew. Then, he seemed to remember more and snapped his fingers. “Right. Cleo. Easy enough to just say zombie hybrid, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then Jevin. He’s aetherkind, right? Modded world? Swet hybrid?”

“Yeah, you know your stuff. But I mean, he’s the obvious one.”

Paul had to take a moment to realize what Doc meant. “Right! Wels. Also Aetherkind as counterintuitive that is.”

“Yeah. Named after the dimension his home doesn’t even naturally belong in. I’m sure someone out there has it the other way around.”

Paul shrugged. “Maybe. Then you’ve got TFC who’s at least partially an ancient with what I know. And everyone else except Mumbo is human.” Doc was silent for long enough that Paul doubted what he had just said. “Wait, are one of them not human as well? Sorry, Your letters always implied-”

“Mumbo’s human too.” Doc spoke, making him and Paul stare at each other like the other of them was crazy.

“No… He’s a being. Latent hybrid maybe. But I can tell something’s there.”

“But he’s not like Etho. There’s no way he’s messed with the results.”

“Then something’s up. Maybe if he had stayed in Hermitcraft, I could concede being wrong. But he’s been with us the whole time. I know he’s something. You know I know.”

“Yeah well…” Doc stood back up. “For once, I think you’re wrong.”

As Doc walked off, Paul looked over to where Mumbo stood, getting into a small argument with EX. “And I know I’m right. I just don’t know the full answer.”

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.

.

Things had not gone that well when Grian and the girls got back to the castle. Finding Aven hadn’t helped much. It was frustrating enough with him calling them ‘Grifter two’ ‘yellow Nightmare’ and ‘Wile’s kid’ the entire time, but anything he knew about The Dark was shaky at best since he was mixing up facts and sometimes sprinkled in unrelated information. They tried piecing some stuff together after the talk to learn that the place has some sort of stupid strong creature guarding the place you first showed up in, and you had to kill it to get anywhere else. How to get anywhere else was the question because then Aven started talking about a ‘Finny’ and the Warden Soul and maybe a gateway? It was practically incomprehensible, so eventually Flora was the first to give up and dragged Astrid and Grian away so they could rest for tomorrow.

They woke up bright and early, or maybe even dark and early because the sun wasn’t even up yet when the door to the room in the castle they were staying with was broken down. Astrid and Grian woke up easier than Flora did and were quicker to notice that there was someone else in the room that wasn’t supposed to be there. The lights were turned on and Grian was even more freaked out to see a dragon standing in the middle of the room. It had black eyes that contrasted against its toxic green scales that screamed danger. For a moment he wondered if this is how he was finally going to die, when he was more upset if it was going to be embarrassing as, in an almost cartoonish fashion, a tiny bipedal goat walked from behind the dragon, their legs moving in a near blur as they moved at a normal walking pace.

“H-hello?” Grian asked, not sure how to react to the current situation. He was trying to have a nice greeting but it just came off terrified. The goat seemed to notice this and turned to the dragon, waving one of their little cloven hooves, hands? Whatever they were, and the dragon suddenly shifted into a more hybrid form, scales seeming to change into a royal looking jacket and the black eyes becoming cracked sunglasses. “R-right, that’s less terrifying.”

“Slatt!” The little goat man spoke up, then continued with some loud chewing noises? Grian had gone so quickly from terrified to extremely confused he had a bit of whiplash. Some other phrases the tiny thing had were ‘Kiddie.’ ‘They thought I was gay.’ ‘Rice man.’ and also some slurping noises? Eventually they were stopped when Astrid threw her bat, er, umbrella at them, opened up the side room’s door, and brought out Jane. “Kiddie! Kiddie! Slatt!”

The goat man grabbed Jane’s hand and left the room, and the dragon hybrid nearly did too before the door shut on its own. The dragon looked back towards the trio, hand changing into claws before they were bonked on the head with a pillow by Flora. “Next time Toob wants something from us, he can ask us himself instead of sending you two.”

“We were visiting anyway. World is shut for a reset, so we’re here for the day. Slatt was very upset to learn our granddaughter was missing.”

“Ah, so you’re whipped is what you’re saying.” Flora huffed. “It was a goddamn prank. She was fine. Silski and Astrid are good enough… acquaintances that he could have shown up or gotten Toob to send a message for him., made this simpler.”

“Oh well, guess we were too rightfully concerned.”

‘I hope you choke on a sweet roll.’ Astrid signed, but it didn’t seem the dragon hybrid knew sign since he just nodded and left.

After that, Flora fixed the door and the trio tried to get back to sleep, and at the very least she was able to, but Grian and Astrid, not so much. And that was about where they were now, lying in the dim light, listening to Flora snoring. Fortunately, it was easy enough to have a silent conversation. ‘You can’t sleep either?’

Astrid frowned, not immediately signing back. It gave Grian a chance to actually look at her, since she didn’t wear her mask to bed. She was still mostly encased in her hoodie, but grian could at the very least see everything below her eyes, noticing a few freckles on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose as well as a few scars littering her face. Her lips looked a bit chewed up, but otherwise there weren’t any fresh wounds, which was slightly comforting to know those scars probably weren’t recent. ‘Not really. Not a fan of getting barged in on.’

‘You too?’

‘When your brother is the admin, no locks can keep him out.’

‘I stopped locking the door because they kept getting broken and we couldn’t afford it. Just had to live with getting barged in on.’

‘It sucks’

‘Yeah it does. Though a friend of mine managed to get something set up so we had one day to ourselves.’

Astrid just nodded, seeming to think something over before signing again. ‘My sister’s like this too.’

‘Yeah, I knew about the animal thing. What’s the sign for HYBRID?’

Astrid quickly showed Grian the signs related to hybrids before giving some clarification. ‘Vee and I are both adopted. Our dad was in a shitty situation growing up, so he ended up finding us, saw the shit we were dealing with, and decided we were his kids now.’

‘Oh, that sounds cool.’

‘Yeah. Vee mainly lived with her actual mom when she was little. Her dad was out of the picture, which sucked because her mom was fucking horrible. Liked exotic pets, decided a five year old was perfect to look after them.’

‘That sounds horrid.’

‘Yeah’ Astrid signed, nodding, ‘So she only really associates animals and their parts with danger and bad. Claws and beaks hurt, ears and nose track her, tails trip her up, wings hit her, etcetera.’

‘Yikes. At least I could hide my wings if I tried meeting her. Doesn’t seem like Flora can do that.’

Astrid shook her head, then looked over to Flora. ‘Well, we should try to get a little more rest like her.’

‘Yeah, thanks for letting me talk. Or- you know.’

Astrid gave Grian a thumbs up, then rolled over and pulled the blanket she was using back over her. Grian looked over at her for a few more seconds before doing the same and before long, he managed to get to sleep again.

.

.

.

Hours later, Grian had been led to the foot of a giant temple thing. It was sort of like if someone had shoved a snow tower on top of a pyramid of ice, but also giant as hell. Though he still didn’t know how Cerus really was, one look at this place made him get some ideas. It also didn’t help that just before stepping into the perimeter of the place, both Astrid and Flora drew their weapons, leaving Grian to do the same.

As they walked through, Flora seemed the most alert, her ears swiveling every which way to catch any sound she could. Grian was also hoping that he could pick something up since based on what little he knew about hybrids, most if not all also had heightened senses of some sort. But it didn’t seem to work out when he looked in the opposite direction of the other two and only noticed one of the stone statues was different not even a second before it grabbed him.

The girls pointed their weapons at whatever Grian was being held by, but didn’t get a chance to attack before Grian started kicking and managed to hit a weak point enough to get away. Turning, he was finally able to get a good look and see it wasn’t a stone statue. Though shaped like the other statues, it was metallic, and also seemed to have some sort of pink cloak over it. Lastly it seemed to have ruby eyes, like no, it wasn’t a red color, but actual rubies as its eyes.

“Cerus.” Flora spoke up, and even though it should have been obvious, Grian was still a bit surprised that this was the person they had come to see. “Look we just owe someone and they cashed it in to make us get info out of you. We would have loved to ask Aven, but he’s…”‘No brain cells.’ “Yeah he’s got no brain cells.”

“What information could you possibly think I would give away?”

“We’ll fight you for it if need be.”

“Wait, no I don’t agree to this.” Grian spoke up.

“Smart kid. Fine,” And Then leaned down and spoke in a babying voice. “What do you think I’m gonna tell you about?”

“The Dark. You’ve been there, and my uncle opened it up again, but we don’t know what’s on the other side and Astrid’s older bother already fucked with it.”

“Older bother?” Cerus asked, a metallic eyebrow raising, making Grian wonder how that was supposed to work.

“I can’t think of a better way to insult him. Suggestions would be lovely. I stuck all my brain cells on a trio name and Wassa ended up being the one to pick it.”

“Oh. That explains it. He wants a catalyst or some growths, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, essentially.” Grian spoke up, not sure if when Cerus turned to look at him, they were glaring or not, because the eyebrows could move, but the gem eyes didn’t change shape at all. “I had some weird shit on my wings, we got it looked at because it was mushroomy, and now he wants more as payment. Or more, he just wants to know if he’ll get permakilled to get it.”

“Oh, well that’s simple enough.” Cerus said with a slight chuckle. “I’m sure Flora-” “Fleur.” “Whatever. Your uncle fixed it properly. Nightmare was still fucking around so things would have been broken there. The only thing that would screw things up is if the place closed up again while you were in there. Respawns were working fine until that happened.”

Astrid and Flora were fine with the information and started to leave, but Grian hesitated. “Who didn’t get out? Was that Aven? Is that why he’s a ghost when no one else is?”

Cerus was taken aback for a moment before huffing. “I heard that there was supposed to be a younger Grifter about, but I didn’t realize you would be just as nosy.”

“Sorry… I was just curious.”

Cerus crossed his arms and the rubies seemed to glow for a moment, maybe in anger or something, but then he sighed. “Someone… working with us got trapped in there when the place first got locked down. That was their punishment similar to Aven’s… current situation was his punishment and my consistent residence in this world is mine.”

“You mean you can’t leave?”

“That’s correct.” Then he looked at Flora, definitely glaring this time. “You can thank a relative of yours for that. Not your grandfather.” He tacked on at the end when Flora started to open her mouth.

‘Well I think that’s all we need. Aven had enough wits about him to mention there’s a monster on the other side. We just needed respawn info.’

“Well I’m glad I could help you so you won’t just stick around bothering me. Now, leave before I make you.”

And not wanting to test the patience of the statue man, Grian grabbed Flora and Astrid and ran them out of there. “So, I guess we got what we needed?”

“I mean I think? Now I’m wondering who in my family Cerus dealt with?”

Grian’s wings twitched slightly and the mycelium grew a little quicker for a moment. Neither of the other teens noticed, instead focusing on his following question. “Does… Does the name ‘The Warrior’ mean anything? I ran into Aven before since I’m living in the castle, and he mentioned that name.”

“Ugh, yes it does.” Flora grumbled. “Great Uncle. Also death, but in his own way. He’s the chicken guy. Well, the big reason they’re a death omen.”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense. Speaking of chickens, let’s get home. I want to make sure Sally’s fed well enough. She keeps not wanting to eat normal food but instead he’s getting into people’s chests and eating icestone?”

“That’s weird. But yeah, you can figure that out, I think I want to ask Grifter about the guests we’ve got.”

‘And I should check in with dad. Meet up in a few hours?’

And the teens parted ways to meet back up later at the castle, though while Flora and Astrid did as they said, Grian didn’t make it to Sally, someone else getting there first.

.

.

.

“Hey, there they are!” Techno shouted, getting everyone’s attention. They looked to see Xisuma and Tommy in the distance, walking towards them. Tommy looked a little tired, leaning against Xisuma who was helping keep the teen up, and at the very least they could see Tommy’s mouth moving sometimes, so there was probably some sort of conversation going on.

The first person to run over to the pair was Grum, who when he reached them, tackled Tommy with a hug with enough force he almost fell over. After that, Xisuma picked Tommy up and just teleported them the rest of the way to the group before helping him sit down. “So, what took you so long?”

Xisuma rolled his eyes at his brother before hugging him, which just left Xannes frozen with surprise even after the hug ended. “Tommy just needed to talk for a while and I talked with him.”

“If that’s all he needed, why are we still stuck here?” Phil asked, getting a jab in the ribs from Paul, hand enough to leave him doubled over from getting the wind knocked out of him. He was still able to flip him off before fully recovering, though it wasn’t helped by Tommy nudging him enough to cause the avian to fall over. “What the fuck was that for?”

“I’m getting a new dad.” Tommy answered, Getting a confused look from Phil once he realized Tommy was serious and not just making a joke.

As Phil started to open his mouth, Xisuma stepped in and held a hand up to silence him and then gestured to Tommy. “Give him a chance to talk.”

It took a bit before Tommy got the confidence to actually speak. Before he got any words out, Mumbo had his hands over Grum’s ears, almost sensing just how vulgar Tommy was about to get. “Look. I went through a lot of shit that you three didn’t give a fuck about. Tech was acting like a cunt from almost day one with his bullshit about anarchy as if that shit had anything to do with the crap we had to deal with growing up. Wilbur was a pussy that gave me ptsd well before that green bitch did shit to me. Like I looked up to you and you treated me like shit and then were too much of a pussy in the end to kill yourself and made dad did it first. And then Dad, you showed up because you only fucking finally paid us enough goddamn attention to figure out the bullshit we were dealing with from that green motherfucker, but you still acted like a dick and shut yourself away and didn’t give a shit when I disappeared. I’ve got no fucking clue how true it was, but I’ve heard from at least someone that you and some others thought I fucking deserved what I got. You only gave a fuck when you thought I killed myself because you suddenly realized you were down to one kid and maybe realized that maybe you could be less of a fuckface and try to fix it, only managing to screw me over more. Because because of you guys, I might have gotten an actual goddamn good family but I was so fucked over, I thought they would be just as shitty as you three. So yeah, maybe you’re technically still family, but I’m getting my own fucking peace of mind and getting Xisuma to adopt me or some shit so if you fuck things up again, I’m not stuck with you people.”

There was a bit of shocked silence as people tried to comprehend what just happened before Paul shook Phil’s shoulder a little to pull him from his thoughts. “Well… fuck, I can’t really just apologize to fix that.” Phil started but then sighed and nodded. “But fine. I’m sure if I said no, you’d still do it. I already dealt with a bit of a mess with Wil and Fundy, I don’t want to deal with another, so go ahead.”

“Well fuck that!” Grum spoke up, getting a quick scolding from Mumbo. “Family’s weird but I’m still calling you my brother like we covered before. Stop trying to be an uncle because it’s not working on me!”

Mumbo went to scold Grum again, but Tommy just laughed and ruffled Grum’s nonexistent hair. And that seemed to do it, because in a few moments, the scenery changed, and instead of the enlarged base, all but one of them found themselves standing in a sort of cross between residential and shopping districts that looked unfamiliar to most of them, but clearly overgrown. The cheerful tone immediately shifted to a more grim one as simultaneously, Paul, Mumbo and Xisuma all spoke. “This is Doc’s.”

[kat-lamp]

Today I went through my google docs and found many beginnings of sw fan fictions I attempted to write and never finished. Some I remember, and others were just like “wtf is that”

Imprisoned (Abandoned 3.01.21)

I actually posted on here about this Maulsoka fic and wrote roughly 2 chapters of before stopping. The premise was post twilight of the apprentice, Vader knows Ahsoka and Maul are alive and puts out a bounty to capture them alive. Maul and Ahsoka would bond in their imprisonment. Eventually them and Vader would team up to kill Palps because he put them all through suffering. My writing stopped after they were captured by Vader for reference. What would happen after they killed Palp? Who knows, not me.

Broken Promises (Abandoned 7.20.21)

This one I had planned and wrote, once again, 2 chapters of before moving on lol. It was set as if Padme reached out to Ahsoka after Anakin was deployed post the wrong Jedi, keeping an eye on her in the underbelly of Coruscant. Ahsoka is one of the few who knows of their marriage, so she becomes a confidant to Padme. Eventually learning of the pregnancy. Padme confesses her worries over Anakin, the war, and the pregnancy. She asks Ahsoka to promise her if anything were to happen to her and Anakin, that she would raise the twins. Spoiler alert, she breaks her promise and doesn’t get to raise them, but she helps Leia with her shielding without knowing who she is. It then jumps to the battle of yavin, in which Ahsoka rejoins the rebellion after deserting post malachor. She reunited with Rex and never got to meet the twins in the first draft smh. Pretty sure the plan was that she would train them I think, and go on to help them both confront Vader and defeat the empire.

5 Times Ahsoka dies + 1 time Maul does (Abandoned 4.17.21)

Who knows I may actually finish this oneshot one day. Basically it follows my Mortis theory that Ahsoka is immortal and can only die by the sword that killed the mortis gods. It tells the tale of each time she dies, then she becomes aware of what’s happening after being shot in the chest during order 66. I only wrote the first 3 times she died, but I’m pretty sure Vader was gonna be number 5 during Malachor. I think this was meant to be Maulsoka as well, judging by the title. I assume since he hadn’t appeared yet, except a brief mention in death 3, that their relationship would develop ‘off screen’ post order 66. In the +1, Ahsoka would feel Maul be killed by Obi Wan and come to accept that her immortality will cause her to be alone forever, something angsty like that.

Unnamed one page (Abandoned 7.20.21)

I think this was a crack fic. I hope it was. Basically Ahsoka and Rex reunited after Endor and have a huge screaming match about why she abandoned him, until they’re interrupted by Luke and Leia. What happens after they’re interrupted? Only me (checks version history) A YEAR AGO TODAY KNOWS. Okay that’s a weird coincidence. Really weird.

Unnamed Fencing/HS Au (Abandoned 6.13.21)

The only fic I properly planned out, only to give up after planning and never write a chapter. I was really digging modern AUs last June, what can I say? Anyway, good High School vs Evil High School had competitive fencing teams and debate teams. Forbidden love because Obi and Maul have beef Maulsoka with all the cliches and a surprise betrayal from Barriss and everyone lives happily except for her!!! Rereading the random plot points made me laugh because it’s just so… For example, Palps was the principle at the good school and Sidious was at the bad school. Did he split his time 50/50? I literally wrote the words “Honda is the campus dealer” like wtfffff. I think I need a whole post dedicated to deciphering that story.

I don’t love any of these plots anymore so if I ever get around to posting a full fic, it won’t be one of these. But it’s nice to look back and reflect and see how my writing has gotten better.

[kaistarus]

Mistexting Mayhem

Pairing: Nishinoya X Reader

Words: 1.6K

Summary: You accidentally send Nishinoya a text that was meant for Yachi and now he’s knows secrets you were hoping he never found out

A/N: If you think this fic is anything but crack you’re wrong lmao I’ve always wanted to write a fic with this style and Noya is great for the chaos i needed. It was fun

Masterlist

[6:40pm] idiot⚡: look y/n without adhd id be too powerful

                         i could beet god himself in handtohand combat

                         god was afraid of my raw fuckin awesomeness wen i bursted from the woom

[6:41pm] y/n: there is so much wrong with what u just said

[6:41pm] idiot⚡: i have absoltly no clue wat

[6:43pm] y/n: put those 3 brain cells to work. I believe in you

[6:43pm] idiot⚡: but theyve reached their daily quota

                          plz there so tired and overworked

You snorted, a dopey smile on your lips as you laid surrounded by textbooks and homework, swinging your feet in the air behind you. You focused intently on the cell phone in your hand doing everything you could to procrastinate the schoolwork around you.

[6:44pm] y/n: noyas so stupid

[6:44pm] yachi❤: i thought you liked him?

[6:45pm] y/n: jeez Yachi. dont come for my throat

                       i cant help that i have bad taste 🙄

[6:46pm] yachi❤: if it helps he tripped over a stray ball today

                               maybe think of that till you don’t like him??

Unfortunately, the image of Nishinoya waving to everyone then biffing it only had you smiling like a dork. How you’d gotten to a point that Nishinoya being an idiot made you swoon, you’ll never know.

You raised your eyebrow suspiciously at the new notification on Snapchat from ‘Tanaka’ and after swiping it open you nearly dropped your phone. Looking back at you was Nishinoya, his head tilted and eyebrow quirked in confusion with a gari-gari kun shoved halfway down his throat. The caption at the bottom reading ‘daaaammn look at your prince charming go 😩’.

You frowned at the picture, letting out a frustrated groan at how your heart accelerated against your ribcage. You quickly tapped out of it and reopened the messenger app.

[6:57pm] y/n: we have to kill Noya

[6:57pm] idiot⚡: we??? what kind of mission is this??? 😤

[6:58pm] y/n: i like him too much. he has to die. its for my own good

You waited impatiently for her response and almost debated doing your homework since it took longer than you felt necessary. You supposed you had suggested murder to Yachi, but still…

When you finally received a response your entire body froze.

[7:11pm] idiot⚡: U LIKE ME?!?!? 😍

                          UR KILLING ME?!?! 😢

                          IM SO CONFUSED......

                          and a lil turned on ngl👀

Your hand covered your mouth in horror as you processed what the hell you had just done. This didn’t happen to people in real life. Mistexting was stuff people made up when they created fake texts for social media to get likes. You didn’t think people actually went through this.

You opened new notifications to escape the hell that stared you straight in the face.

[7:15pm] Tanaka💪: Yo, whatd u do. Whys Noya having a panic attak

[7:16pm] y/n: I accidently texted him instead of Yachi and told him i liked him 😣

[7:16pm] Tanaka💪: O wtf thats hilarious 😂

[7:17pm] y/n: ITS NOT HILArIOUS

[7:18pm] Tanaka💪: Hes askin if its a prank. Wat do i do?

[7:19pm] y/n:I DONT KNOW SDKFHJN IM THE IDIOT WHO STSRTED IT

He stopped responding and you banged your head against your pillow anxiously.

[7:23pm] y/n: YACHI ITOLD NoYA I LKED HIM AND NOU HE NOS WAY DO JI DO!?!????! 😭😭😭

[7:23pm] idiot⚡: THIS ISNT YACHI!!!!

                           HOLY FUKC U DO LIEK ME!!!

You screamed into your pillow. Were you fucking kidding? This could not be happening.

[7:25pm] Tanaka💪: dude, twice? i cant save u now 🤪

[7:25pm] y/n: betraying me in my time of fucking need? i’ll remember this asshole

[7:26pm] Tanaka💪: so vulgar 👀

You growled at Tanaka’s uselessness and bravely peeked through one eye as you went back to your conversation with Nishinoya.

[7:24pm] idiot⚡: STOP IGNORING ME I KNO UR TEXTING RYU

[7:26pm] idiot: IM GONNA KEEP SPAMMING U TILL U ANSWE RME😤

[7:26pm] idiot⚡: 1

                          2

                          3

                          4

                          5

                           6

                           7

                           8

                           9

[7:27pm] y/n: what is this twitch chat? fuck 

[7:28pm] idiot⚡: your heeeeererererreee 🥰

[7:29pm] y/n: soooooo………..

                        clearly there has been a misunderstanding

[7:29pm] idiot⚡: oh nonono. I understand PERFETCLY. u LOVE me

                         its ok. this is a safe space. we can discuss feelings 😌

[7:31pm] y/n: there are zero feelings to discuss

[7:31pm] idiot⚡: then y did u say u like me too much so i have to die?

[7:34pm] y/n: i am filled with rage 🤬

[7:34pm] idiot⚡: rage over how much u liiike me???🥰🥰🥰

[7:36pm] y/n: definitely not

You racked your brain for some kind of reasonable sounding excuse, eventually landing on:

[7:36pm] y/n: It was autocorrect

[7:36pm] idiot⚡: HAH????? FROM?????

[7:38pm] y/n: HAH???

                       ....Nora?

[7:38pm] idiot⚡: Who TF is nora???? 😡

[7:39pm] y/n: someoe i like obviously 😏

[7:40pm] idiot⚡: so u like them but u use my name so much it autocorrected to me? 🤔

[7:44pm] y/n: OK MR DETEcTIVE WHERE TF ARE THES BRAIN CELS COMIN GFROM?

[7:45pm] idiot⚡: i pull them out for special ocasions 😌

[7:45pm] y/n: well how bout you pack those up and put em away

[7:46pm] idiot⚡: how bout two people who LIKE each other SAY something so they can DOOOOOOOO something bout IT 🙄

You began typing a frantic message about how it was none of his business until you processed the message. Then you read it over several times before letting out an audible, “what the fuck.”

[7:50pm] y/n: YOU LIKE ME

[7:50pm] idiot⚡: I FLIRT WITH U ALL THE TIME WAT DO U MEAN yOu LiKe Me!?!

                          FUCKING OBVIOSLY

[7:51pm] y/n: literally when. name one time.

[7:52pm] idiot⚡: I WALK WITH U EVERY MORNING!!!

[7:53pm] y/n: I thought that was a coincidence???

[7:54pm] idiot⚡: I BRNIG U SNACKS DURING LUNCH!!!

[7:54pm] y/n: I thought they were leftovers??

[7:55pm] idiot⚡: …....I call you cute and invite you to my games.

[7:56pm] y/n: you call everyone attractive and i thought there was like a audience quota or something........?

[7:57pm] idiot⚡: ….i cant tell who i should be upset with rn but i think its u 😑

[7:58pm] y/n: WAT WHY!?!

[8:00pm] Idiot⚡: I LIKE U+U LIKE ME=WE LIKE EACH OTHER

[8:01pm] y/n: whoa. slow down. I hate math 😣

[8:02pm] Idiot⚡: ===WE SHUD GO ON A DATE!!!

[8:02pm] y/n: HAH!? i think you started multiplying that addition problem buddy 🤨

Your cheeks were beginning to ache from how wide your dopey grin was. You couldn’t help but tease Nishinoya-it was second nature at this point-even if you now knew your feelings were mutual.

[8:04pm] idiot⚡: i suk at math but thats NOT the point

                         point iiissss i think deep down u want to hang out and cuddle and fall in love

                        maybe even..... 😏 kiiisssss

[8:04pm] y/n: WHOA WHOA WHOA

                        WARN ME BEFORE YOU GET NSFW

                        i would never premarital eye-contact. let alone k🤢ki-🤢🤢kiss🤢🤮🤮

[8:05pm] idiot⚡: well we would have socks on 🙄

[8:06pm] y/n: oh. well if there’s protection

[8:06pm] idiot⚡: Im not a maniac

[8:07pm] y/n: i suppose as long as you dont do something stoopid

                        like faceplant in public

                        that would be humiliating

[8:08pm] idiot⚡: I-

                          who told you that 😠

[8:08pm] y/n: i have spies everywhere noya

                        youre never safe

[8:09pm] Idiot⚡: kinda hot 👀

                         makin me fear for my life like that👀

[8:10pm] y/n: i hate that i like you

                        It kills me inside 

                        i feel braincels leaving with every conversation

[8:12pm] Idiot⚡: fan behavior 😏

                          so am i taking u to eat tomorow or wat?

[8:14pm] y/n: if I HAVE to 🙄

[8:14pm] Idiot⚡: No u GET to

                          I am a fucking delite 😤

[8:15pm] y/n: whatever helps you sleep at night

[8:15pm] Idiot⚡: nothing helps me sleep at night. this mind never rests

[8:16pm] y/n: thinking 24/7 and still not a smart thing comes out of that mouth 👀

[8:17pm] Idiot⚡: yas, bully me more 😫

[8:19pm] y/n: ok thats as much as i can handle for one day......

                       im gonna pretend to do homework

[8:20pm] idiot⚡: okie... good luck my sweet baby pogchamp 🥰

[8:20pm] y/n: no

[8:20pm] Idiot⚡: 😘😘😘

[8:22pm] y/n: 🙄✋

[8:23pm] Idiot⚡: oh FUCK yas 🥵 shut me UP

[8:25pm] y/n: suddenly all i feel is endless regret

[8:26pm] Idiot⚡: i have that effect on people

                          See you tomorrow 🥰🥰🥰

[8:27pm] y/n: unfortunately 😘

[8:27pm] idiot⚡: 🥵

You flung an arm over your eyes and let a small giggle bubble up from your chest. Nishinoya was probably the biggest idiot you’d ever met, but you couldn’t help that thinking of spending time with him had you kicking your feet with excitement.

You supposed you should actually get started on your homework. You reached forward when a notification popped up from Yachi, asking if her idea worked and you had stopped liking Nishinoya.

...you should probably break the news, huh?

[halpyhal]

I know a lot of people have already talked about/ come to the realization of this, but there’s soooo many fucked up situations in GTA V. (This is abt Trevor bc 😡) I have some feelings I need to get out.

————————

Like, you spend 10+ years running with a guy you care about a considerable amount, you care about his family. He’s like a brother to you and you assume you’re the same to him.

Then he dies and you have to run. He had a family, one that you’ll probably never see again, and a young one at that. You probably wonder if they’ll be alright. You loved those kids. Perhaps it should’ve been you instead of him.

You spend a few years wandering, avoiding police attention and eventually end up in the sticks, leaving empty bottles and used needles in your wake. You grieve the entire way there. You’ll never truly stop grieving.

The desert air takes time getting accustomed to. Maybe if you’d gotten your money you’d be somewhere else. Better off. But there’s nothing you can do about that now. It’s selfish to even think about it.

A few more years filled with hard drugs pass and then you hear it. A cheesy line that only he would say twice. But that can’t be, you saw him die...right? You go to check anyway.

And it’s true. There before your very eyes, a dead man reanimated. A dead man you spent years mourning. Him and his stupid fucking family. And he doesn’t even act like it’s something to be mulled over. He’s almost acting as if it’s your fault.

“I mourned you.” Gets no meaningful response. He looks at you with surprise at first and it shifts to something else. Like you’re a dog that won’t stop yapping. Annoyance?

Deep down, you begin to think that maybe, just maybe, he had something to do with it. That maybe he orchestrated the whole thing. For what? His family maybe? And what a nice family he raised. 4 failures in one house.

He wants to act like it didn’t happen and you allow him mercy, at least for now. The euphoria you feel from being around him after so long takes over anyway. Maybe he’s telling the truth. (He never has.)

He’s in with the FIB, which is mildly suspicious to say the least. He acts as if your existence is a burden. And, sure, you were a loose cannon. Always had been, but you did have feelings. Ones he often didn’t take into account. You cared about him. He was really acting as if he didn’t return the favor.

And slowly, as time marched on, things start to make less sense, the rose colored glasses are starting to crack.

Why is he so cozy with Dave, didn’t he just start working with the FIB? They must have been acquainted for a long while.

Why does he always divert the subject away from Brad whenever he’s brought up? Maybe he thought you wouldn’t notice.

Why does Lester look at his sweaty face with mild annoyance whenever he’s talk about Brad? There’s something you don’t know about Brad.

Why are you the only one who acts like Brad exists?

There’s something you don’t know about Brad.

When you confront him about it all he has little to say about it. “He didn’t know.”, “Never thought about it.” He’d always been an awful liar, you just never realized it until now. You’re realizing a lot of things about him now.

When you go he does very little to stop you. He just follows behind, much like a scared child, and spouts bullshit you aren’t even listening to.

And when you get there,fuck, you hated Brad, you really did but...you think you hate Michael more. Brad didn’t deserve to go out like this. Michael should be here. All he can do is look at you with this pitiful expression and you want to pummel his face in.

The man you mourned for years looking down at you, quite literally, as if you were a kicked puppy. You have his damn named tattooed on your arm and it meant nothing to him. Hell, he hadn’t even mentioned it. He doesn’t fucking care.

Not in a way that matters anyway.

———————

FUCK ME WTF I HATE IT HERE

I have feelings and I needed them written down 😒😒😒. I’m so fucking upset rn u don’t even know i want to scream. Michael sucks. I do like him doe 😳

this is the closest thing to a fanfic i think i’ll be writing

Edit:

(Actually did start a collection of fics lol)

[star--anon]

Close Your Eyes

TW: Light mentions of torture; Heavy mentions of death (none shown); angst; idk, blood? Blood.

(I've never felt the need to add warnings before so I'm not very sure wtf to add smh)

Not a tkle fic, just me having fun with some good ol' angst.

—

This was his fault. All his fault.

He should have just stayed in formations and obeyed orders. He should have just left the straggling villagers behind. He should have kept a better eye on him. He should have noticed the evokers desperately casting their final spell. He should have gotten everyone to safety before the earth cracked in twain. He should have moved faster. He should have caught him.

He shouldn't have let this happen.

But it did.

And it was all his fault.

"Dream," George rasped, his breathing ragged and shallow. "Dream, it's no use.

Dream ignored him. He took a deep breath and tried again, pushing on the boulder until the pain from his arm wounds were unbearable. He let his arms fall, trying to think of something. He needed to get the rock off of George now, before he bled out.

He considered digging out the boulder, but that would only dislodge the loose earth above George that had, miraculously, stayed intact. The last thing Dream wanted to was to drop more boulder on George.

As he desperately brainstormed, George hoarsely said, "Dream, they're coming..."

And indeed they were. Off in the distance, Dream could hear galloping. Thunderous, heavy galloping. They weren't horses. They were ravagers.

"Get out of here," George urged. "Go. Now."

Dream shook his head. The small movement made him so dizzy he tripped and fell.

The shaking of the ground made him push himself back up. The ravagers were getting closer and closer.

Dream put his hands back on the boulder and pushed, hoping with all his might that, in his battered state, he would be able to move the giant rock.

"It's hopeless," George said. Something inside of Dream agreed with him, but he still kept trying. "Just go, Dream, or they'll kill us both. Go and get out of here."

Black and red began to dance around the corner of Dream's vision. The strain he was putting on his arms was causing even more blood to pour out. He was going to bleed out soon.

"The footsteps," murmured George. "They're getting closer..."

Dream dug around in the rubble until he chanced upon an iron sword. He dropped it on the ground, right next to his feet. He hoped he would be able to pick it up quick enough if a fight broke out.

"Leave."

"I'm either getting out of here with you, or I'm dying with you," Dream firmly said. George could he meant it.

And it scared him.

"Dream, I'm dead. No matter what, I'm dead. There's a giant pool of blood underneath me." George paused to take a few shallow breaths. "If you can't heal me completely within the next few minutes, I am going to die."

"Shut up," growled Dream. "Just shut up. I'm not leaving you."

"You'll die."

"I don't care."

"...I can hear them..."

Distant chanting also made its way to Dream's ears. Panic flooded him and he pushed harder on the boulder. No movement.

"I can't move it," Dream choked out. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, slamming a weak fist against the rock. "I can't move it, George. I can't move it."

"Go, Dream."

"I can't move it."

"I know, Dream," sighed George. "I know. But you need to go."

"And you?"

"...If I'm lucky, I'll bleed out before they get here."

"A-And if you're unlucky?"

George grimaced. Not wanting to say anything that would make his friend change his mind about leaving, he simply repeated, "Get out of here, Dream."

Dream hesitated. He couldn't just leave George here, vulnerable to the approaching illagers. His chest tightened just thinking about George's fate.

A terrible, terrible idea hit him.

"I could kill you," he murmured. "I could kill you right now so you don't have to go through anything they'll make you do."

"Do it," George immediately responded. "And make it as quick as possible. For both our sake's."

Dream swallowed dryly.

Repeating to himself that it was for George's own good, he grabbed the iron sword he had found. With great reluctance, Dream slowly pointed his sword at the bottom of George's chin. That boulder crushing George made things awkward, but Dream managed.

"I'm sorry," Dream whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

George weakly smiled. He reached up with a shaky hand and grabbed Dream's.

"It's going to be okay," he whispered back. "I'm promise. We're going to be okay."

They both knew how meaningless those words were.

"Close your eyes, George," Dream choked out, beginning to sob. His hand shook, causing his sword to prick George's chin.

"Close your eyes."

—

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Can you tell I got lazy at the end AWSEDRFTGHJN-)

-🌟

[kileyrose-2003]

Tina’s Tuesday Night Mini Fic Pt. 1

Word count: Who cares? Lol

A/N: Hi lovelies! I am back!! First thing, I know. You're probably saying Kiley, wtf? It's not Tuesday. I know. Life happened. I've had a busy past few days and a final today. Anyways, this was something I did with @merci-bitch when the U.S originally went on lockdown. It was a fun way to keep me busy and get my mind off of stuff. We both decided to restart this about a week ago. So, I dedicate this to my dear friend Tina. Love you hun and hope you enjoy this! And please, if you haven't been to her blog to read any of her work, go do so. She works so hard on what she writes and is amazing.

Pt. 2 will be coming next week

To everyone waiting on fics: I'll get there. Eventually. And I'm not going into reasoning. But anyways, love you all and I hope you have a great day!

"...This is the greatest show!" You slammed your hands down on the piano keys and breathed in sharply. "God damn it, Jenny!"

"What?" You let a groan and handed her the sheet music. "Look there at that line there. Do you see that note?”

“I can see, can’t I?” Her bright green eyes lost their cool shade of arrogance when she seen how pissed you look. "Not F!” You pointed to the paper in her hand. “D! You hear that note there?" You pressed down on the key repeatedly. "D!"

"Sorry." The red head smiled at you impishly. "No, you're not. This is the fifth time we've done this and yet you still insist on doing this your own way." She sat next to you on the piano bench and gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Well, I think the change makes it sound better.”

“Phineas liked it better this way,” you seethed through gritted teeth. “But what does he know of art?” You could feel your face slowing turning a distinct shade of cherry red and you bit down on your tongue.

"He must of known something with how much you tried to get in his pants," you mused to yourself.

You rolled your eyes. You loved Jenny to death but how you couldn't stand her at times. You tried and tried so desperately to get along with her and compromise when she was like this but no matter what you did, she was stubborn and so..cold at times.

Sure, Jenny was a bit of a snob but she was a genius when it came to music and you respected that. She was what inspired you to take up music in the first place.

Your childhood was far from easy. Before you even joined the circus, you were bounced all over the place. You never belonged anywhere. From the deteriorating cottage in a small, seaside village in Sweden to the cramped one bedroom apartment in London that no one would dare walk past at night. Your father was no where to be seen and your mother was an actress, always struggling to meet ends meet. She was never home, but that wasn't always a bad thing. That meant you got to explore.

That was how you got to hearJenny sing for the first time. Hiding out in the musty attic of an old Swedish theatre. Even before she hit extreme levels of fame, her voice was like a siren's call. Drawing you in further and further in. It still was in a way. She was so beautiful and even as much as she pissed you off, you loved watching her sing. Like the time at the palace. She was eye candy in that dress, the way it hugged her hips and how the bust showed the slightest bit of clevage when you looked at her at just the right angle-

"Stop it, Y/n!" You told yourself. "She's not interested in you."

Or was she? The way she looked at you when you spoke to Phineas was always with such contempt or such jealousy. You could never understand why though. It was her who tried to steal Phineas away. Not you. He was a close friend who gave you a chance when you had nothing and you never so much as even thought of eyeing him in such a manner. Phineas clearly wasn't interested in her or any other woman but his wife. He pushed her away numerous times. Jenny had no reason to be jealous of you. Yet, she was.

‘But it is of me or others though?"

One could never be sure with Jenny. Sure, there was a bit of a rivalry between the two of you when it came to music. But she was your friend. 'Very clingy for just a friend,' you noted.

'That's normal though, isn't it?'

Maybe you were just over thinking things. Besides, the relationship between the two of you seemed to be getting better lately. Ever since the scandal went public, it seemed the two of you were spending more and more time together.

You were the only one who listened to her side of the story, held her when she cried, made sure she wasn't drinking her emotions away, and tried to help her through it. Even as much as she pissed you off. You warned her in the first place not to seek out Phineas but despite the nasty arguments, the constant bickering she became your friend. Maybe even your best friend. Which you got alot of shit for.

Nobody liked Jenny and you were starting to get the feeling you weren't so popular anymore either. Everyone thought after the affair went public, the two of you would of left. Her name as well as yours, was slandered all over the paper simply because you associated with her. You had been called it all. The ring leader, the mastermind, the mistress to the two.

But neither of you resigned. Yet. Part of you wondered how long it would be until either would receive letters of negotiations to end your contract. But either way, you knew Jenny wasn't leaving without you. She promised you that.

'So maybe she does like me.'

Then that small voice came in the back of your head. 'Or maybe you just want her to like you back.'

Either way, you couldn't let that haunt your conscience for now. Even as much as you'd like to visualize a future with her, it wouldn't work. You could feel the heat pooling into your cheeks as you came back to reality and bit down on your lip. Jenny's hand was lingering up and down your back, rhythmically making shapes with the tips of her fingers. Damn her and her touch! You shouldn't be feeling this way.

"Are you okay?" You shook your head and covered your face with your hands, trying not focus on all the pain you felt inside. "No. No, I’m not."

You felt tears burning in the sides of your eyes. "This isn’t working!” Jenny furrowed her brow and tried to move your hands away from your face. “What do you mean?” She was trying to be gentle even though you could tell from the look in her eyes she had no clue what to do.

“This..all of this!” You ripped the sheet music out of her hand and flung it on top of the piano. “Something's got to give,"

She rolled her eyes as if she seen it all before and stood up, walking hastily over to the ice bucket. "Do you not have what you want?" She opened up a bottle of red wine. "Fame? Recogniton?"

"It's not enough and I don't know if I even have any of that anymore." Jenny eyed you as she poured the liquor heavily into both glasses. "I'm not liked here, Jenny."

She handed you your glass and sat down next to you. You eagerly took a sip of the wine, just wanting to forget everything for a little while. "That's not true. I like you." She leaned in closer to you.

You cracked a small grin filled with cynicism. Maybe even a little bit of hostility. Never had you felt so much love and hate towards someone at the same time. "We could both leave." Jenny's voice pulled you out of your head.

"And go where?"

"Back to Sweden with me for the time being." You noticed the intensity in Jenny's eyes growing and she reached out and grabbed your hand. You could feel her nimble gently squeezing into the palm of your hand. "You know I care for you, Y/n."

"Do you?" You tried your hardest not to sound sarcastic, you were still a little mad at her. But god! How close she was to you. You could smell her expensive perfume, see the slight hint of a shimmer radiating off of her lips. "You're fiery and you don't take my shit."

This couldn't be real. You had to be dreaming. "Jenny, this...there's a possibility this couldn't work." You tried to scoot away from her, a little intimidated by the proximity between the two of you.

"We can try to make it work."

"How?" You eyed her skeptically. "Let me take you out. Let me show you I can make this work." You furrowed your eyebrows. "Why? Need a new fling after Phineas?" You teased.

Jenny wasn't amused by that all. If anything she was pissed but she smiled anyways. Seeming to stoop down to your level with a smile that was sickly sweet. "More like a date."

"And why should I do this with you?" She let go of your hand and placed it on your thigh. "Because I probably understand you alot more than you think." As you looked into Jenny's eyes, you found some level of sincerity mixed into those deep lustful orbs. You wanted to trust her so badly.

"What do I have to lose?" You thought.

Everything. Everything to lose.

"Fine." You gave in, despise everything in your mind screaming not too. "But you have one shot and one shot only."

Jenny nodded and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on your cheek. "And it won't take me more than once to impress. After all, I already made your career." You felt the hair on your arms stand straight up as her hands lingered on you, gently squeezing your hips.

"I'll see you tomorrow at 6. Sharp."

"Yeah," you watched as Jenny walked away, her hair flowing behind her like a beautiful sheath.

You felt a pit growing in the depths of your stomach. What the hell had you gotten yourself into?

[goldgalaxytea-fanfics]

Expedition Yeti Dick

Rating: Explicit

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi, Other

Fandom: Walt Disney World

Relationship: Expedition Everest Yeti x Reader

Characters: Expedition Everest Yeti, Reader, You

Additional Tags: Smut, Lemon, Porn, NSFW, Sex, Reader Insert, x Reader, gender neutral reader, Female Reader, male reader, no specific pronouns used for reader, no specific genitals described for reader, Expedition Everest Yeti has a big pp, Massive Cock, Yeti's dick is 3ft long and 1ft wide, Crack, Crack Fic, Disney World, Animal Kingdom, Expedition Everest ride, Creampie, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Fingering, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, reader is 18+, Reader is Yeti's Cum Sock, Jokes, Bad Jokes, Dirty Jokes, do not take this seriously, Bad Writing, Purposely bad writing, Disney is into some kinky shit, Reader wants Disney to fix the yeti, They really should he deserves more then disco mode :(

Words: 809

Summary:

Feeling bluer than Stitch's alien ballsacks, you left your friends behind and went to ride the greatest ride ever-

*cue an over the top dramatic drum roll*

Expedition Everest!

Notes:

🎉HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMI🎉

As promised, your Yeti fic!!!!😂💕 I hope you enjoy this dude🥺💖

You were on vacation at Disney World with your super duper looper amazing friends. Sounds like a pretty awesome time, right?

Wrong.

No one wanted to listen to your presentation on why Disney should fix the amazing yeti from Expedition Everest. The big furry cutie deserved to move and not just be stuck in disco mode for literally ever!

You had the PowerPoint up and ready on your phone every time you were all waiting in line for a ride, but everyone was stinky and told you to stop simping over an animatronic and so you shit on their shoes. 

Feeling bluer than Stitch's alien ballsacks, you left your friends behind and went to ride the greatest ride ever-

*cue an over the top dramatic drum roll*

Expedition Everest!

So for the entire day you rode the coaster over and over again, forcing everyone in line to listen to your PowerPoint and making them sign your petition to get the yeti fixed back to tip toppy shapey.

Before you knew it it was dark as fuck outside. That meant the park would be closing soon *sad face*

Sadly you got into the coaster cars for your final ride. If only the night didn't have to end…

You were so fucking sad you didn't even notice that you were the only one boarding the ride.

Fuck yeah! You screamed internally once you realized you had an entire train to yourself. I get to have the front seat!

Mood bibbidi bobbidi lifted you happily strapped yourself in and with a borderline orgasmic scream the ride began!

Zipping and zooming along the tracks you were in a state of pure bliss! It was so fucking fun you felt like cumming right then and there.

It was all shits and giggles till you got to the part with the yeti and the train suddenly stopped yo what the fuck-

But (hehehe but) before you could freak out about being trapped in heaven, an ever awesome miracle happened! The yeti was moving!!! Maybe they finally fixed it-!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH THE YETI PICKED YOU UP!!!!!!!

The big brown boi held you in his massive hairy hands, his sexy lifeless eyes staring at you like you are an all you can eat buffet. You shook violently from his lusty stare, heat quickly filling your crouch. You couldn't control yourself, the yeti was just too god damn sexy.

Despite your horny state you wanted to cry, you couldn't fuck the yeti. He was a family theme park animatronic so he didn't have a GIANT MEAT STICK THAT WAS BEING RUBBY DUB RUBBED AGAINST YOUR HOLE WHAT-

If you were to metaphorically take a measuring tape and measure the yeti's peen, it would be 3ft long and 1ft wide! Which makes sense he's 25 feet tall. Big people have big pps!

Speaking of… wtf was Walt Disney into? Not that you were complaining cuz it meant that the yeti could fuck you into tomorrow(land).

With a start you noticed the yeti's robo fingys had ripped your clothes off while you were busy kink shaming Walt and were now forcing them into your privy parts. Somehow his hand sausages were magically lubed. Okay seriously what the hell Disney-

Loud ass moans and groans spilled from your mouth as he fondled your juicy insides. Before you knew it your hole was gaping wider than the entirety of Disney World and the yeti was preparing to penetrate you with his ding dong.

With a mighty yeti roar he rammed his hairy pp inside of you with one mighty yeti thrust. A scream tore your vocal cords as his cock tore open your insides. His big ole yeti sausage was wayyyyy too big for your tiny human meat hole. You were too lost in the dick sauce though to feel your organs being rearranged like a home makeover show. All you felt was 100% all natural pure pleasure.

The yeti pounded away at your insides, pace super fast and hard and rough and s p i c y. Your orgasm was approaching faster than Test Trek. With a yeehaw you nutted, body spasming as it was overtaken by how fucking awesome you felt.

Soon after the yeti bust a nut in your tight heat, roaring loudly as he kept pumping his thick gooey jizz deeper into you. Once again wtf Disney. Why the heckle do your animatronics cum? Holy shit do they all do that? What if-

Your train of thought broke off as you passed out, literally fucked unconscious by robo yeti dick. The yeti disposed of it's used cum sock, aka you dear reader, back where it found it.

As soon as he placed you back in the train it started up and zoomed back to the station.

This wasn't going to be easy to explain to the cast members…

[ziracona]

How would glitches work in your universe? Like the Tposing, the fucked up hitscans, the occasional survivor floating across the map after they get unhooked.

My universe is just me trying to take the original world and lore and translate that in a ‘How could this work if it was a reflection of reality; how would people living this way be psychologically; what would actually happen if this was real’ way, so I don’t incorporate stuff like being able to buy outfits from the shop, or multiple people playing the same character, or glitches, or anything not meant in the OG game to be part of the actual lore of the fictional world. I mean, I’m sure there are interesting and fun ways of interpreting even stuff like that into a realistic event, but I don’t really aim for it. And I don’t write crack fic, so I def don’t do it straight up. If I did have a nod to glitches, which I might do, it would be a reflection of something wrong with the Entity I’m pretty sure. Like, Adam gets hooked but visually it looks like he’s floating two feet away from the hook, and survivors and killer and Adam are all like wtf, and genuinely unnerved, and it’s a tell that like, yearly blight is coming and the Entity is purging, and it’s a side-effect temporarily messing up its control of projected reality. Or something minor could happen as a result of Cheryl trying to use her power over the Entity to make a change. I doubt I’d be likely to ever write glitches into a fic, especially the goofy ones, but if I did, that’s how I’d go about it.

[faejilly]

trust your heart

@shadowhunterbingo square: Double Date 

Relationships: Alec & Jace, background Malec, plus some Clary & Stabbing, because that’s my favorite. ;)

I am tagging this as a Shadowhunters 1x04 coda-fic because that's what this is in reaction to, but it occurs at some indeterminate later moment. We are ignoring the timeline. I have no idea when this happens, don't try to make it fit, it won't work. Probably because the timeline doesn't even work on it's own. 

This is also just an exercise in “jilly likes to play with the lore in the show because it doesn’t make any more sense than the timeline!”. (WTF is a Greater Demon y’all? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? How does some shadowy smoke compare to fallen angels and the mother of all demons? Who knows. Certainly the show doesn’t. SO LET’S GUESS. Or something like that.)

"Biscuit." Magnus paused, as if he wasn't entirely sure what he was saying next, and Clary tilted her head as she waited.

Jace figured she was as unused to seeing Magnus fighting for words as he was.

Alec had a hint of a frown between his brows, so apparently that wasn't a thing Magnus did very often in private, either.

Magnus sighed, and tried again. "If you wanted to give the retrieval of your memories another try, I have heard from the Spiral Labyrinth that Valak appears to have. Reformed."

"That was quick." Alec sounded almost blank, and Jace wondered if... no, that was stupid. Alec always still felt guilty about things, the only question was how guilty Alec still felt about the original failed summoning.

"He is one of the original Greater Demons." Jace shrugged as everyone looked at him. "I looked him up after last time. He's not a Fallen Angel, but he's still classified as a Demon Prince. There are only a couple of those."

A hint of pride broke through in Alec's voice. "And yet, Magnus managed to contain him."

"He almost killed Jace." Clary finally spoke up, her voice a little more subdued than usual.

"But he didn't break free," Jace pointed out.

Clary glared at him.

"What?" Jace spread his hands wide.

"You almost died."

Jace shrugged. "Doesn't make Magnus less impressive."

"Why thank you," Magnus gestured sideways and leaned forward in his chair in a way that very clearly implied a bow.

Jace snorted, and Alec's shell cracked a bit more, a hint of a smile as he looked at Magnus.

When Magnus was an arrogant bastard, Alec thought it was great. When Jace was an arrogant bastard, Alec always looked like he wanted to murder him. To be fair, Magnus never needed Alec to clean up the mess after he was an arrogant bastard?

Might cheer Alec up if he did.

But that wasn't Jace's business.

Jace leaned forward, aiming his next words at Clary. "Doesn't make you less impressive, either. You managed to disperse him, after all."

"She is naturally gifted when it comes to stabbing things." Alec's voice was dry, but his expression was fond. Jace could feel the tension in Alec's shoulders still, knew he wasn't nearly as nonchalant as he was appearing, but Alec wouldn't thank him for pointing it out.

Clary blinked. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome." Alec nodded graciously and entirely sincerely. Jace still didn't know how he did that, there was no way that should have managed not to sound either stupid or sarcastic. But no, he meant it as a compliment, and he was glad Clary knew it.

Jace shook his head a little. You're so weird.

Alec raised his eyebrows at Jace. You're one to talk.

Jace shrugged. Fair point.

"They're doing it again." Clary hissed, and when Jace shifted his attention back towards her, he saw she was leaning closer to Magnus. "Do you think it's a Lightwood thing, or a parabatai thing?"

"Both." Magnus leaned in as well, far enough he could clink his martini glass against her iced tea. "They do it with Isabelle too, but there's usually the occasional half-a-word thrown in with her."

Clary hummed in consideration before she nodded in agreement, and Jace had to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at her.

Alec snorted.

Magnus blew him a kiss.

Jace rolled his eyes at Clary. They're not any better!

Clary grinned at him. Neither are we.

And wasn't that a nice thought?

"There's no hurry," Magnus' voice was mostly serious again. "But do let me know. It will be the same ritual, but he may ask for a different price. He's all about shadows and secrets and treasures; he might be looking for something entirely different this time."

"Will it be worse because we." Clary swallowed. "Because I tried to kill him last time?"

"Probably not." Magnus shrugged. "He's not a particularly aggressive or grudge-holding demon, he really does just like knowing things, having bits and pieces of this world that no other demon can hold via his collection of memories. It's why I chose him to hold your memories in the first place."

"It's not like Valak would consider any of us a threat. We don't actually know how to kill him," Alec said. "Not so he'd stay dispersed for very long, much less actually dead. I doubt a short stint in the Void means much to a literal Shadow Demon. There's speculation he's part Void. Might have been a nice vacation for him."

Magnus snorted this time, but not in disagreement.

"Plus it's a very comprehensive summoning and containment spell." Jace grinned as Magnus lifted an eyebrow at him this time. "I told you I looked it up. That Medusa in the middle of the pentagram, it's a symbol of protection called a gorgoneion, and Valak's particularly vulnerable to it because of their shared dominion over serpents."

Magnus lifted his glass in another toast, this time aimed in Jace's direction. "Gold star for blondie."

"Thank you." Jace did not manage to avoid sounding slightly sarcastic, and he was not at all surprised when Alec kicked his ankle. He ignored that. "All of which just means that as summonings go, it's usually..."

He trailed off. He'd almost said mostly harmless, but then Alec was going to think about how their original attempt hadn't been, and how that was all his fault, and Jace had no idea how to comfort Clary that they really did usually know what they were doing without making Alec feel even worse about how obviously fucked up they'd been when they first met Clary.

Her mouth did an odd twist as she watched him stop talking, and he sighed. She'd clearly already figured all that out.

Not that it was hard.

"You should ask Simon." Alec's sentence ended more abruptly than usual, as if there'd been more he'd swallowed. "For the pentagram."

"And Luke." Jace managed to say without glaring at Alec for stealing his idea before he'd managed to say it first.

Clary frowned. "That makes seven. That's not a pentagram any more."

Alec blinked at her. Well obviously you wouldn't want me there.

Magnus and Clary just kept staring at him, and Jace had to swallow a snort of amusement. "Don't think you ducking out was obvious to anyone but you."

"I suppose it should have been," Magnus sighed. There was a golden glint in his eyes as he switched his attention to Jace. "But Alexander's over-developed guilt-complex doesn't explain why you're trying to duck out, too."

Alec's mouth opened, as if he was going to try and protest that his guilt-complex was at perfectly reasonable levels or something, but then his mouth closed and he turned to frown at Jace instead.

"He didn't want my memory last time?" Jace shrugged. He hoped that none of the despair he'd felt at that one-two punch of the demon deciding Jace didn't love anyone enough for his memories to count, of Alec being terrified of loving Jace, was making it through the bond. Or worse, onto his face for everyone to see. "Seems a bit of a risk to include me again."

Judging by how still Clary suddenly was, of the surge of nausea he felt from Alec, he'd failed entirely.

Fuck.

Alec leaned forward, but Magnus' hand on his arm stopped him before he said something that Jace probably wouldn't know how to deal with. Jace was used to feeling grateful for Magnus' existence for Alec's sake almost daily; it was a little weird being grateful for his own sake this time.

"The ritual was broken half-way through," Magnus said, his voice slow and careful, like you'd talk to a spooked horse. Jace kind of hated how nice it sounded. "Why do you think he didn't want your memory? He didn't get to me, either."

"He skipped me." Jace swallowed. Jace had been sure he'd see Alec's face when the demon got to him, too, but then Valak had just... jumped over him instead. Like everything Valentine had taught Jace when he was growing up was true, was right, that he couldn't know what love was, that he wouldn't ever be capable of it, that everything he thought he'd felt with the Lightwoods, with Alec, his brother, the other half of his soul, that all of it was just a lie he'd told himself, told himself so often he'd forgotten it was a lie.

But the demon could tell, could take one look at him and tell that all his cherished memories were wrong, weren't really love.

Then Alec had rejected the very thought that Jace could be the one he loved the most, as if Alec knew that too, knew they weren't really parabatai, not in any way that mattered, knew he couldn't trust Jace at his side, and sometimes Jace could tell himself that Alec was rejecting the implication of attraction, that it was more about Alec and his fears than Jace and his failures, and he told himself that Alec did love him, he did... but.

Sometimes all he could remember was that denial, and it didn't matter why.

No one had thought twice about Izzy loving Alec the most. No one would ever doubt that Alec was worth that, no one would ever panic at admitting that.

"Jace," Alec's voice was rougher than usual, and before Magnus or Jace could try and stop him again, he'd turned his chair and pulled Jace against him, his arms hard and implacable, and the fact that there was no way out was exactly what Jace needed.

He did manage to spare half a thought to being glad they were having dinner at Magnus' rather than in public before he just leaned in, his forehead pressed against Alec's shoulder, and he managed not to think about anything else at all. He could feel the hard beat of Alec's heart through the bond, the tight grip of Alec's hands an echo of tension even as his own body relaxed.

"Do you know what an ouroboros is?" Magnus' voice was overly precise and almost delicate; Jace wondered how long they'd been silent, how long he'd lost himself.

Jace nodded.

He felt Alec's head move above him, echoing the movement to make sure Magnus could see it.

"An ouroboros can be used to enhance a containment ritual; it won't actually make a pentagram last an infinite amount of time, but it does give it a kick."

Magnus paused, as if giving Jace time to process that.

"It's also a snake, so Valak's more vulnerable?" Clary asked.

"Mm-hmm." Magnus confirmed. "If Valak invokes that symbol by reinforcing the circle of a pentagram, any particularly talented or powerful warlock—"

"Like you?" Clary interrupted again, the smile clear in her voice.

Jace heard the clink of crystal and figured Magus had tapped her glass in agreement again. He felt himself smile, just a little, imagining the looks on both their faces, gently teasing and an exaggerated glint of false-modesty.

"A good warlock can force Valak to answer two requests for the price of one, so he will never follow a circle all the way around during a ritual. He jumps and swerves instead."

Oh.

Jace felt a hot flush of shame, it had nothing to do with me, but before he could move or say anything, Alec's arms tightened even further.

"It's also fair to say that 'love the most' is a crock of bull-shit." It was Alec this time, his voice remarkably steady, considering, and Jace could feel it in his chest as much as hear it. "Magnus and I talked about it, and there's no way for a demon to know that, love doesn't work like that, most and least or whatever. It's whoever you're thinking about right then during the ceremony, whatever your emotions are most caught up in at the time."

"It's usually a plausible answer," Magnus hummed softly in agreement. "Because it's suggested by the question, so you're thinking about whoever is important to you. But sometimes the question isn't enough to lead you that way, and he'll take a memory of whoever you're concerned about, or even angriest at, whatever's strongest and primary in your thoughts."

"So I saw my mom because I was worried and looking for her, not just because she was my mom." Jace could hear Clary shifting in her chair as she spoke.

"And Isabelle was probably still caught up in being delighted to witness me flirting atrociously with Alec," Magnus agreed. "Rather than him truly being more important to her than Jace or Max."

Alec's hand rubbed up and down Jace's spine, and his voice was both softer and lighter when he spoke again. "I have never regretted loving you, Jace, I just didn't know what most meant, or how I was supposed to survive admitting it in front of strangers."

"If Valak does ask for a memory of the 'one you love the most' again—" Magnus continued, soft and warm and gentle in a way that reminded Jace of how very old he was "—I will probably think of Alexander, but I might be reminded of Ragnor, because he died and I won't get any more new memories of him, and so each one I have is even more precious than they used to be."

Alec made a pained noise in the back of his throat, and Jace pushed himself free, wiping his eyes and shaking his head to settle himself.

And then he had to shake his head again, because Alec ruffled his hair and he could feel it didn't settle properly on its own.

Alec didn't reach out to wrap himself around Magnus up the way he had Jace, despite how clearly he wanted to, but he did reach out a hand and rest it gently on top of Magnus'.

Magnus blinked at Alec, and turned his wrist so their fingers could intertwine.

Jace coughed. "Sorry for ruining dinner."

"No such thing." Magnus waved the hand not still holding onto Alec in dismissal, somehow not spilling a drop of his drink. "But perhaps it is the sort of night that could use some extra dessert?"

Clary’s eyes brightened and she sat up a little straighter. "Chocolate dessert?"

"Your wish is my command."

[artificialqueens]

Not Nineteen Forever (19) (Branjie/Scyvie/Ninex) - Ortega

a/n: hi pals! so this was probs one of my top 3 fav chapters to write out of the whole fic. it’s got so many things that i just love, and i so hope u will love it too. i should probs make it clear that this isn’t the end of the fic! it’s going to have 21 chapters, so there’s two more to come after this (omg only 2????? bitch wtf???? WTF???). thank u guys for all the love my ask box gets flooded with after every chapter, i’m always so so excited when i see it so thank u so much, i really appreciate it!! here we go with n19f19 xoxo

please note: this fic contains young adults often behaving in irresponsible/unadvisable ways with regards to alcohol, drugs and sex. if you are someone who feels as if they could be heavily influenced by fic and incorporate what happens in the plot into ur own life, pls steer clear!

summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree.

last chapter: there were confessions of love in a karaoke bar.

this chapter: a month on from the events of last chapter and with final exams and dissertations looming, Brooke thinks she can avoid Vanessa until graduation without having to confront anything that’s happened between them. this proves difficult when she’s trapped in the library with her.

***

Brooke was fine. She was more than fine, actually, she was good. She was calm, serene, fucking zen. If it wasn’t for the dissertation she had to hand in a week from now she would have ascended to Buddha-like status, doling out study tips to her friends like proverbs.

Brooke had always been good at exams. She’d been a straight-A student back in Canada, the whole process of revision coming naturally to her. She’d bought designated ringbinders for every subject, poring over textbooks and copying information out in messy cursive until she’d filled her whole refill pad. When she’d walked into the big assembly hall on exam day, she didn’t get the usual churning of her stomach or shaky hands that her friends had always described. It was almost as if the hall reminded her of taking ballet exams when she was a girl- she knew what to do, she had all the information in her head somewhere, and all that was required of her was to think and write.

Essays, however, had never come easy, which was a shame as they essentially formed the basis of Brooke’s degree. There wasn’t the fast-paced element to essays as there were to exams, and lengthy deadlines gave Brooke time to overthink, redraft, panic, delete, then do the whole process over again. She’d never fully got the hang of them; add in the fact a different tutor marked what she’d written every time and her grades were practically a lottery. She knew this element would follow her throughout her career- writing, fashion design, God even her ballet exams from years ago- it was all a form of art, and art was subjective. She knew there were designers out there that were universally respected, but none were universally liked. Nothing was universally liked. In an exam, there was a set of right or wrong answers, but essays were open to interpretation. An interpretation that her degree classification depended on.

Stretching and feeling her spine bump against the hard plastic chair, Brooke let out a huge breath. She could still see her Mum’s face if she remembered hard enough, when she’d told her her very first mark on her very first uni assignment back in first year; the way the woman’s face had faltered a little but forced a smile and a congratulations. It was the first mark below 70% Brooke could remember in a long time, and her Mum’s disappointment still stung. Brooke was currently sitting on a 2:1, but only just. Her dissertation was going to cement what degree she received and Christ, Brooke would be lying if she said the pressure wasn’t getting to her ever so slightly. It was at the stage where she was taking a beta blocker each morning before spending most of the day in the library. Sometimes she’d take another in the afternoon if she felt herself starting to panic. Maybe that was the reason she was so chill.

Looking at her laptop and the block of black text against white digital paper, she rubbed her eyes and glanced through the huge floor-to-ceiling pane of glass to her left. Her own sleepy face gazed back at her, the view rendered invisible due to the pitch black outside. Brooke didn’t dare look at the time, but she knew it had to be late if it was this dark at the end of April. Casting her eyes to Nina, she couldn’t help but give a snort of a laugh.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brooke asked, looking at the exploded rainbow of colour-coded flash cards that were strewn across the girl’s desk and spilling out onto the floor. There were scribbly neon post-it notes stuck all over her laptop screen and Nina probably had half the library stacked up in high-rise tower blocks on her desk. A quick glance at her screen showed Brooke that Nina had roughly sixty tabs open.

“My goddamn best.”

Brooke let out another laugh as Nina gestured helplessly at the mess in front of her. “Jesus Christ, Brooke, how the hell am I going to be a teacher if I’m this disorganised?”

Brooke gave a little shrug and raised her eyebrows. “I dread to think what your classroom desk is going to be like.”

“Probably going to accidentally kill a child on my first day. Nudge over a big pile of papers on my desk, boof. Dead,” Nina giggled, then let out a huge laugh and instantly clamped her hands over her mouth in embarrassment. The action made Brooke laugh out loud too until the pair were having a silent laughing fit in the exact place they weren’t supposed to be making any noise.

To be fair, the top floor was pretty empty given the late hour they were there. The few people that were left were already packing up their things and leaving, laptops shut in a manner of resignation. The yellow strobe lights that hung above gave the whole place a clinical glow, and the patterns on the fuzzy green carpet all seemed to merge into one. As Brooke ran a hand through her hair and was about to check the time on her phone, loud chimes rang out over the speakers built into the ceiling.

“Would all students please be aware that the library will be closing in ten minutes, that’s ten minutes. Thank you.”

Brooke almost jumped out of her skin. She blinked, then looked at the four numbers in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. “Nina. No way is it almost midnight.”

“God. I’m not even surprised anymore. At this point it feels like we live here,” Nina groaned, cracking her back in a way that made Brooke wince then rolling her shoulders. “I guess we should head back to the flat.”

Brooke’s ears pricked as she heard a commotion from the other end of the floor. It sounded like a thunder of footsteps and a hissed argument. Turning slowly, Brooke’s heart sank as she saw exactly who she’d hoped she’d be able to avoid until graduation day.

Silky and Vanessa were standing at the printer a mere two sets of desks away from her and Nina. Silky seemed to be printing something out and insisting she wouldn’t be long as Vanessa tapped her heel against the carpeted floor impatiently, her Converse almost wearing a hole in the floor. Despite the late hour her makeup was still perfectly applied, and her hair was half hanging loose over her shoulders and half swept up into a haphazard topknot. Brooke pictured Vanessa growing frustrated at her desk, fretting over some form of past paper and tearing her hands through her hair, tugging her brown locks up and securing them with a hair tie. Brooke hoped she wasn’t too stressed about her finals. She remembered that when they were together Vanessa had had some form of big essay due, and she’d sat up in bed exhaling and worrying, typing furiously with her long nails crashing against the keyboard of her laptop like angry waves. Brooke had quietly brought her tea, wordlessly pressed a kiss to her temple, and Vanessa had cast her a soft smile that had made Brooke’s heart set alight.

Just then Silky looked across the room, saw her, and began to wave. Fuck. Brooke watched as Vanessa cast her gaze over to where she sat. Her eyes widened when she laid them on Brooke and she tilted her head to the sky, barely hiding a gigantic roll of her eyes as she followed Silky over to Brooke and Nina. Brooke had in the time it took for the girls to reach their desk to decide how she wanted to play this. It was a tough decision. Because in the month-and-a-bit since their dalliance in the hot tub, and an even shorter time since her crying meltdown to Scarlet in the Swan toilets, Brooke had developed a hard, harsh exoskeleton for herself that involved channeling all the love and regret she felt for Vanessa into venom, poison and dislike. If Vanessa wanted to be petty and unkind and rude to her, then fuck it. Brooke would be the exact same back. She’d tried it out already- responding to thinly-veiled barbs in the groupchat, ignoring her if they saw each other. Brooke didn’t want to act that way, didn’t want to do any of it, but she forced herself to do it in the way a small child had to be forced to eat vegetables; it was what was good for her. Good for them both. It was better that Vanessa hated her. She’d tried loving her and look where the fuck that had ended up.

The issue was, the frosty behaviour she’d return to Vanessa was uncontrollable. She knew it was causing vibes and tension in the group, splitting them all up and causing cracks and fractures in a time where they were meant to be closer than ever. Yvie had had words with her, as had Nina. It hadn’t got them anywhere. Brooke had tried to reach out to Vanessa, offered her so many olive branches that Vanessa had just started beating Brooke black and blue with them. Brooke knew it was for the best if she acted like the complete bitch that Vanessa thought she was.

“Hey, sisters! What you both doin’ here so late?” Silky asked cheerfully as she reached the girls. Brooke stuck a smile on her face, tried not to look at Vanessa and then failed. Her thick eyelashes were cast to the floor as she scuffed the carpet with her shoe. Brooke felt a stab at her heart. Luckily, Nina took over.

“Christ, I was just saying to Brooke it feels like we’ve moved in here. My diss is due on Friday and I’m stressed out of my mind. What’re you guys up to?”

Silky waved a thick stack of paper at Nina as if she was showing her evidence. “We were down on floor one but the janitor’s chucking people out. I needed some readings and figured he’d get up here last, so I just came to the top floor to use the printer.”

“Yeah, and we’re done now, so let’s go. I need to pee before we leave,” Vanessa muttered to her flatmate, her voice dull as she still didn’t tear her gaze from the floor.

Nina’s cheerful smile faltered. Silky, to her credit, looked embarrassed by Vanessa’s sulky behaviour. To Brooke’s dismay, Nina shoved all of her index cards onto her laptop keyboard and slammed it closed. “Well, hey! We were just leaving. We’ll come with you.”

Vanessa’s face twisted into one of discomfort. “Nah, Nina, really, it’s fine. I’m gonna head to the bathroom anyway-”

“We can wait for you! It’s no big deal!”

Brooke’s heart sank. Great. An excruciating walk back outside with the girl that hated her most in the world. Just as she was about to bullshit a reason why they couldn’t, Silky enthusiastically agreed. Brooke watched Vanessa bite her lip in frustration, give a forced fake smile and nod. They were both united in the fact that it was a situation neither of them wanted to be in. It was the closest Brooke had felt to Vanessa in a while.

Nina and Silky filled the silence on their way to the library toilets. They were only beside the lifts so not that far away, but every step felt as if it lasted a million years. Finally, mercifully, the girls came to the toilets and Vanessa ducked inside. As they waited, Brooke just wished and hoped she’d be quick so the awkward situation would be over sooner rather than later. One minute turned into two, and Silky became impatient. Brooke watched as she wrenched open the door and yelled inside.

“VANJ, C’MON! THE PLACE IS CLOSING SOON!” she shouted into the room, muttering under her breath something about Vanessa having a bladder like the Hindenburg. Brooke tried to be patient and cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Looking back into the floor of the library, she was alarmed to find it completely empty, void of people. It could have been that she was startled, but she gave a shout into the bathroom too.

“Vanjie, hurry up! Jesus!”

At this point Vanessa was standing blasting her hands with air from the dryer. She shouted something back at Brooke that Brooke couldn’t hear over the air jets, but she could hazard a guess as to what it was. Finally, Vanessa stormed out.

“Fuck me, will you girls hop off my dick? Can I not pee in peace without you rushing me along? We’ve got ages! It’s fine!”

And then everything was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Brooke gave an involuntary cry of fear, felt someone grab her hand. Looking down at her interlocked fingers and then up to who it was connected to, she was shocked to see Vanessa, her face illuminated in the green fire escape sign and completely petrified. All at once she seemed to realise what she’d done and dropped Brooke’s hand like it was made of hot metal. Nina had fallen silent, her expression one of shock, and Silky was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Fuck,” Brooke found herself saying. Her mouth had gone completely dry.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, they’ll just be turning off the lights before they lock up. Let’s just hurry up and get the lift,” Silky reassured them, but Brooke didn’t miss the worried frown that was set on her face as the four of them walked quickly. Vanessa reached the button first, scrabbled at it with her fingers. The little white light that usually illuminated the panel didn’t turn on.

“Oh my God this can’t be happening,” Nina whispered, her voice panicked and fast. Silky rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but the frown on her face was deepening. Reaching out, she pressed the same button firmly, jamming it into its little metal pad. Nothing. The girls stood in silence for only a few seconds, listening for the metal whirrs and clunks that the lift usually made on its way up or down the building. Nothing came.

“Stairs,” Vanessa said simply, her voice full of worry as she suddenly dashed in the direction of the stairwell. The three other girls followed and all pretence of remaining calm and walking was truly out the window as their trainers squeaked over the linoleum, feet thumping harshly against the steps as they tore down flight after flight. Brooke’s pulse was speeding so fast she thought she would have a heart attack, and the bones of her feet began to hurt more with every step she launched herself down two-at-a-time. Breathless and frantic, they finally reached the bottom floor, Vanessa crashing through the double doors at the bottom of the stairwell and speeding across the lobby to the main entrance. Brooke was hot on her heels, her heart now painful in her chest and her breath coming in thick, uncomfortable wheezes. Any hope she’d had sank to the floor with her gut as Vanessa pounded the automatic doors and almost wrenched the fire door off its hinges in an attempt to get out. It was to no avail.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Nina repeated, her hands flying to her face as it blanched in fear.

“Fucking shit- HELLO? HELLO? WE’RE STILL IN HERE!” Silky yelled at the top of her lungs to nobody in particular.

“Guys, I don’t like this,” Brooke said, hearing the shake in her own voice as her eyes darted around the huge, dark building frantically.

“No shit, really? I’m having a fuckin’ whale of a time, personally,” Vanessa hissed, casting a glare her way before going back to shaking the doorhandles in a futile attempt to open them. Brooke felt her face curl up in a sneer, all the fear she’d felt previously moved into a convenient little box and replaced with all-consuming anger.

“Ugh, JESUS, Vanessa, of course, of fucking course, we’re literally locked in a uni building with no way out and you choose to start picking a fight with me. Big fucking-”

“ENOUGH!” Nina shouted, Brooke taken aback. She had known Nina for almost three years now, and in that time she’d never heard her shout. Well, she’d heard her shout with happiness or joy or fear, but never anger like this. She felt like one of her primary school kids as Nina continued. “Both of you just shut the fuck up for one fucking minute! Can we at least just find a way out of here before you start a fucking domestic?”

“I’ll take the cafe,” Silky said decisively, shouting to the others as she ran in the opposite direction. “Nina go right, Brooke and Vanjie go left.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes, looking again at Vanessa whose gaze mirrored Brooke’s. Relenting and not wanting to risk another telling-off from Nina, Brooke obediently tore off in the direction Silky had told her to go. She weaved her way through desks and bookshelves, checking every window only to find them all locked. As she was losing hope, the dull, green light of a fire escape sign caught her eye. Brooke sighed with relief as she tore towards it. This was surely a guaranteed way out. Reaching the tall door, Brooke slammed her hands on the cold, metal bar that lay across it, pushed down, and waited for the cold night air to hit her face and calm down her panic.

Nothing.

Brooke frowned, trying again and pushing harder at the bar. This time she got her shoulder involved, leaning all her weight against it. It didn’t so much as budge.

“We’re outta luck. They’re all locked from the outside.”

Brooke turned to see Vanessa walking purposefully towards her. Her tone was frustrated, but not towards her at least. Brooke felt relieved. She was beginning to regret snapping at Vanessa earlier, even if she was meant to dislike her. She wondered if she felt as scared as she did. Brooke thought about how Vanessa always hid her fear, remembered the time they watched some shit, gory horror movie at hers when they were together. Brooke had flinched and squealed and buried her face in Vanessa’s hoodie every two seconds while Vanessa had laughed at her, told her it was all fine and fake, but Brooke could feel Vanessa’s heart beat fast in her chest and her stomach muscles tensing every time a new horrific sight appeared on screen.

Vanessa leant against the bar that Brooke had tried, punctuating it with an angry kick of her foot. “That shit’s illegal, you know. Locking a fire door. We could sue fuck outta them.”

Brooke couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “Yeah I’m sure we, twentysomething students with collectively hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt, have both the resources and the influence to sue the university. They’d shit themselves.”

She watched as Vanessa looked at her, a glare about to appear in her dark eyes, then disappearing as she allowed herself a small smile and a single snort of laughter. There was a pause of silence. Brooke decided to fill it. “Let’s find the girls, maybe they found a way out.”

As they passed by the floor-to-ceiling windows again, Vanessa suddenly gasped and tore off to bang on the glass. Brooke followed her eyeline and was overjoyed to find what looked to be a janitor, finishing up and walking away from the building. She joined Vanessa and pounded her fists against the window, shouting randomly if only just to make a noise. Her hope began to die, however, when instead of noticing the absolute cacophony of noise the girls created, the man simply got further and further away. Brooke watched as he got his phone out, a long earphone cord attached to it. She slumped against the glass and let out a helpless moan.

“Fucking shit bitch ass motherfucker!” Vanessa hissed in anger, pounding on the glass with her knuckles one last time. Brooke watched as she took a step back from the window, flexed her fingers and gave a hiss.

“You okay?” Brooke found herself asking. She could already feel herself frowning in concern as Vanessa nodded briskly, shaking her hand out and sticking the knuckle of one finger in her mouth.

“Fine. Just got a lil’ over-enthusiastic, cut my finger,” she spoke around her knuckle. Brooke felt a pang at her heart. She took a step towards Vanessa.

“Let’s see?”

Vanessa gave another laugh, harsher and more sardonic than her first had been. “It’s fine, Brooke, I don’t need you to kiss it better.”

Brooke held her hands up, unable to help the way her eyebrows flew up her face. “Okay, I’ll just go fuck myself!“

“Yeah, do that,” Vanessa muttered quietly, sitting on a desk beside the window and pulling her legs up to cross them. Brooke, in lieu of snapping back at the girl she’d once called her friend but had never called her girlfriend, did the same. They sat in a hostile silence, thoughts running around Brooke’s mind as to what she could do or say. So many options flooded her head that it was hard to see any of them clearly for what they were. It turned out she didn’t need to give any of them that much thought, however, as Nina and Silky soon appeared from the other end of the building.

“Oh, good! You’ve not killed each other,” Nina said brightly upon her return. Brooke snuck a quick look at Vanessa, then rolled her eyes.

“Guess you’re as shit out of luck as we are?” Silky asked, her voice quieter than usual by at least a few dozen decibels.

“Can you believe they locked the fire doors? Fuck them, man, imagine there was a real fire?” Vanessa spat bitterly. Nina sighed heavily and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“We could try calling someone?”

Brooke frowned. “Who could we call?”

“The police?” Nina said immediately, her naivety causing the others to burst out laughing.

“And say what?! Hey listen, we know you’ve got murderers to catch but we’re locked in a uni building, could you bring round a big battering ram and knock the door down?” Brooke laughed, not missing the way Vanessa laughed in response and feeling a twinkle of pride light up in her heart.

“Well, could the fire brigade get us out?” Nina suggested, Silky groaning and pulling her hands down her face.

“Nina, you need to lower your expectations of what an emergency is. Four dumb uni students trapped in the library is not gonna be considered an emergency. We’re not in danger, we’re all breathing, and none of us have been set alight. That counts the big three out immediately.”

“What about a locksmith?” Vanessa shrugged. Brooke screwed up her face.

“Ah, for those locks that automatic doors have on them,” Silky deadpanned. Brooke laughed at the comment, clearly a little too loudly because Vanessa was back scowling at her again.

“Hey, they do so have locks, bitch.”

“I don’t think you can ask a locksmith to open a house that isn’t yours,” Nina frowned. Brooke raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her.

“I love my house, the university library.”

“Shut up! You knew what I meant,” Nina protested, as the other girls gave a laugh again.

“Surely there’ll be some phone number online for the janitor or something?” Brooke thought suddenly, Silky quickly taking out her phone to check. There was a moment of silence as the girls held their breath in hope. Finally, Silky let out an overjoyed cry.

“Cleaning supervisor main area- based in central library! Yes ladies! We’re fucking outta here!”

Brooke smiled so hard that her face hurt as Silky held her phone to her ear. Thank God. The nightmare was over, she could go back to her flat and not be literally trapped in a building with her ex. She would soon be-

The four girls jumped as a faint ringing of a phone could be heard from out in the lobby. For the hundredth time that night, Brooke felt her heart sink.

“I don’t really know what we expected from that,” Vanessa sighed, looking every inch the kicked puppy.  

It was quickly decided that their last hope were the girls who weren’t in the library, although this went down the drain fast as it was discovered that Yvie was over at Scarlet’s flat and they were both asleep, neither Akeria nor Monet were picking up, and Plastique had gone home to revise.

“What about Monique, Vanj? Could we try her?” Nina asked. Brooke was confused at the way Vanessa’s face twisted in discomfort, a little line setting deep on her forehead.

“Nah, she, uh…she won’t pick up,” she said simply, Nina nodding quickly and neglecting to ask any more about it. It didn’t stop Brooke from being intrigued.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, then? We can’t just spend the night here,” Silky’s voice was disbelieving. Brooke gave a resigned shrug.

“Silk, I don’t think there’s any alternative. It’s only a few hours, the place’ll open up again at six. We can go upstairs and sleep in those little pods they have for group projects. Then by the time we wake up again, it’ll be morning and we can all go back to the flat,” Brooke explained calmly, although inside she still had a lot of anxiety rattling about and the dark of the library wasn’t helping.

The girls reluctantly agreed that it was probably the only thing that was left for them to do. In nervous silence they climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Silky immediately set up camp in one of the pods, stretching herself out along the seats that had once been cushioned but had been flattened by hundreds and thousands of sets of bums over the years. Nina took one and set her laptop back up again, arguing that she’d actually been on a pretty good streak before she’d had to pack up and wanted to see if she could churn out another thousand words before she went to sleep. Brooke peeled off from the girls and took her own pod, her tall body unable to fully fit along the seats. As she attempted to sleep, one thing kept stopping her as it usually seemed to around this time of day. She sighed, tossed and turned as she thought about Vanessa. It had all gone so badly wrong. The more she tried to get her off her mind, the more memories she was reminded of. Hurting Vanessa was easier than loving her; snapping at her and being snarky made Brooke feel bad and a bit of a bitch, but loving her and torturing herself for what an idiot she’d been made her feel ten times worse, as if her heart had been removed from its sheath in her ribcage and been stomped on, kicked about, stabbed with a blunt knife and dragged through broken glass. Any attempt to sleep was futile. Brooke’s eyes hurt with fatigue as she sat up, rubbed them and stretched. She would go and see if Nina was still awake, maybe sit up and annoy her for a while.

As she crossed the floor she noticed a small movement out of the corner of her eye. Vanessa was sitting on the floor by the window, her legs crossed and eating a packet of crisps she’d managed to procure from somewhere. Brooke thought she looked so tiny compared to the huge pane of glass and the world that sat outside of it. Now that the lights were off, Brooke could see every detail that lay beyond the window- the soft yellow glow of the streetlights that faintly illuminated the park beside the library, the pink and white marshmallow cherry blossom trees that lined each path. A memory shot through Brooke’s mind like a lightning bolt- the eight of them in second year after their exams had all finished, having a barbecue in the park as the sun beat down and frazzled them all to a crisp, the smell of sausages and weed carried on the light breeze and the warmth in Brooke’s heart as Vanessa had teased her about something, the girls all laughing at Brooke’s embarrassment and protests.

God, they’d all been so happy.

Without really knowing what her plan was, Brooke walked over to where Vanessa was sitting and sat down cautiously beside her. The other girl looked at her, as if she was deciding whether to glare or smile. She ended up doing neither.

“Can’t sleep either?” Brooke chose as her opener, immediately regretting it for the cheesy line from a film it was. Vanessa gave a sarcastic chuckle, gestured around her.

“Apparently,” she said simply, Brooke looking at the carpet and kicking herself. There was a moment where the cogs in her brain whirred quickly, trying to come up with something else to say. Vanessa surprised her by speaking again. “I ain’t been sleeping too good lately anyway, though, so. I guess it don’t matter.”

“Me neither,” Brooke felt something click inside her, a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins as she spoke again. “Vanessa, we need to talk.”

Vanessa kept her eyes trained on the pane of glass in front of her. “We are talking.”

“God, Ness, please don’t make this harder than it already is,” Brooke sighed, her face pleading. Vanessa’s head snapped round to face her and her eyes were what could only be described as murderous.

“Hard? Don’t fucking dare talk to me about hard,” she said, slowly and carefully and causing Brooke’s heart to frost over in fear. “This year has been shit, absolute shit, the shittest year of my life. You broke my heart- no, fuck that. You broke me. I had to take my goddamn feelings and put them all back together again, start from scratch while you swanned about absolutely fine. I am having to fight to get my average up because of the days I spent in my flat crying instead of going to lectures. Do you have any idea, Brooke, what this has been like for me?”

Brooke was silent as Vanessa continued relentlessly. “And then I finally got myself to a place where, hey, maybe I could be friends with you again! Then what happened? All the old feelings came back, didn’t they, and then we fucking…slept with each other and-”

“Hey, no,” Brooke jumped in, frowning and unable to listen to what was to come. “Don’t try to pin that on me, Vanessa, that was all you. It wasn’t me that fucking…straddled you in the hot tub and stripped off and talked about the sex I was having with other girls, was it?”

“Oh, no! You’re right. You’re correct,” Vanessa smiled sarcastically, soon getting replaced with a scowl. “You only got with me incredibly intensely in front of seven of our closest friends, who knew all the shit that’s gone down between us and watched like a fucking soap opera.”

“Well I didn’t hear you complaining at the time!” Brooke bit back, causing Vanessa to fall silent and play with a thread of her ripped jeans. Brooke let out a breath she’d been holding, took in a huge gulp of air. “Look, this is…this is off to a bad start.”

Brooke watched Vanessa’s throat move as she swallowed, her eyes cast downwards. Brooke was good at holding in her feelings, bottling them up like her life depended on it. She was terrified of feeling too much. She had no idea how this conversation was meant to start, but she knew she had to have it.

“Vanessa, I am sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but for what it’s worth, I am. I’m sorry for going about everything the wrong way. I’d never…done anything like this before, never properly seen anyone like I was seeing you, so I didn’t know how to behave. And fuck, maybe I was leading you on, and I’m sorry for that too. I just didn’t know what I wanted. Well, I thought I knew what I wanted but then I just…didn’t any more. I’m sorry for hurting you. I didn’t realise how much you liked me until it was too late,” Brooke cut herself off, sighing and feeling a bubble of sadness rise up in her throat. “Fuck, I’m trying to put it all the way I want it but nothing’s coming out right.”

Vanessa was looking at her, she knew it, but Brooke’s gaze had dropped to the floor. She brought her knees up to her chest. There was so much she wanted to say to Vanessa but none of the sentences she constructed in her head seemed to be sufficient.

“That night. You said that you missed me,” Vanessa’s voice was soft and small as she spoke, stripped from all the venom it had held before. “Did you mean it?”

Brooke jumped in instantly. “Yes.”

Vanessa was now looking at the floor, picking at her shoelace. “And did you mean…as a friend, or…just the sex, or…”

Brooke took a deep breath. I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou. The words were so close to coming out, but she stopped them. Now wasn’t the right time, nowhere near the right time. She tried to think about what the perfect response would be, sighed, scrapped it, and decided to just simply speak. “I miss you as…everything. I miss you as whatever you want to be to me. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. I just miss you for all that you are, the person you are. I miss us,” Brooke paused, realised her last remark was slightly risky. “Interpret that…however you want.”

Brooke snuck a gaze at Vanessa. A thought struck her as memories ran round her mind, and now she had started talking it seemed she couldn’t stop. “Do you remember after we…after lazerquest. Yvie’s birthday. We met up and we spoke about things and you said something. That whatever happens, we’d be friends always. Do you remember?”

Vanessa gave a little laugh. “You can wear a set of armbands in a current, don’t mean you won’t drown.”

She saw Brooke’s confused look, shot her a bashful smile. “I never expected to…end up feeling so strongly for you at the start. Didn’t expect to get as crazy about you as I got. Man…I wish you could turn feelings off.”

Brooke felt herself frown, a deep regret settling in the pit of her stomach. “I wish that too.”

She didn’t miss the brief look of surprise that flashed across Vanessa’s face. In the lull in conversation that followed, Vanessa wordlessly pushed the packet of crisps towards Brooke. She took one. Chilli heatwave wasn’t her favourite flavour, but it was a peace offering, and she’d take what she could get.

"So I stopped sleeping with Monique,” Vanessa commented, shrugging a little. Brooke blinked, almost choked on her crisp as she raced to get a reply out.

“Uh, yeah, I did notice you were a bit weird about things when Nina said you should call her.”

Vanessa pushed some hair out of her face, puffed her cheeks up with air and blew out harshly. “Monet kinda told me…she was catching feelings, and obviously I wasn’t there for that. So I said to her we shouldn’t keep going.”

Brooke felt a little twinge of pain for Monique. The poor girl had a crush and was just caught in the crossfire. “And how did she take it?”

Vanessa stared through the glass, her gaze steadfast. “I could tell she was sad. Disappointed. She didn’t start cryin’ or nothing, but…God, I still felt bad. I liked her, you know, she was a great girl. Maybe there’s a parallel universe where she took my heart and patched it all up again and we ended up together but…that’s not what it was for me. And the more she said she understood and that she hoped I’d find happiness, the worse I felt for having to tell her I wanted something different.”

Brooke nodded. She wanted to tell Vanessa that she knew the feeling all too well, but she didn’t want to interrupt her. Vanessa turned her head slowly, finally making eye contact with Brooke, and her eyes were the softest they’d been in a while. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is…I know now what it must have been like for you to break it off with me. And yeah, it completely fuckin’ wrecked me but…you did what you had to do. So…I forgive you, Brooke Lynn.”

Brooke couldn’t quite believe Vanessa was in front of her saying all this. Instinctively she wanted to launch herself forward and hug her, thanking her for her change of heart. Just as she’d convinced herself she was almost going to do it, Vanessa spoke again. Her voice held a slightly more steely note to it now. “But I don’t forgive you for kissing me or for that night in the hot tub. That really fucked with me.”

Brooke fought the urge to snap a childish you started it at her and instead said a soft okay. She also fought the urge to reach out and place a hand on top of Vanessa’s. The building was still pitch black and silent and the girls had reached a conversational purgatory. Vanessa had forgiven her for some of her mistakes at least. This was the closure Brooke had wanted. Despite herself, she found herself opening her mouth. There was so much still unresolved.

“You must kind of hate me for that."

Vanessa snorted, tilted her head to the sky. "I do and I don’t.”

A small silence. Brooke knew what she wanted to say, knew what topic she wanted to breach, but it meant plunging head first into the icy chill of the great unknown, and as much as she wanted to talk about it she was terrified of doing so.

“Is that because part of you loves me?”

It was out before Brooke knew it. Vanessa had frozen, her body unmoving with her head still positioned towards the ceiling like a terrifying Exorcist yoga pose. Brooke could immediately predict it, could practically hear it- Vanessa’s quick, sarcastic response, don’t flatter yourself, her getting up and thundering away to another part of the building in some angry game of hide and seek. She couldn’t face any of those options, so Brooke continued talking. “I was in the bathroom at the same time. In the next stall along from you and the girls. I heard you say that you never got to tell me. Did you mean it?”

“Why are you asking me this, Brooke? Is it to add insult to injury? Is it not enough knowing that the girl you broke it off with can still come crawling back into bed with you so easily, you have to rub salt into the wound by getting me to fucking…” Brooke heard Vanessa take a big deep, shaky breath, felt the tears prick at the corners of her own eyes. “…admit that I’m in love with you, yes, okay? I love you. What’s the reason?”

“Because I…fuck,” Brooke jumped in then immediately stopped. She felt her jaw wire itself shut, almost paralysed with fear. She didn’t know if she could verbalise everything she was feeling. “I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”

“No shit, Miss Marple,” Vanessa quipped bitterly, her eyes back looking at the carpet and avoiding Brooke’s gaze. The lack of eye contact helped Brooke. She carried on.

“You know, I used to lie in bed before I went to sleep and rehearse what I would say to you to tell you I liked you,” Brooke gave a laugh, remembering when things were more simple. “Except none of it worked out that way. And now I’ve actually got a second chance at it, I’m almost too frightened to say it. I completely fucked it with you, Vanessa. You’re an absolute one of a kind person. Your smile just makes me happy whether or not it’s directed at me. The love and loyalty you have for your friends makes me proud of you. You’re so determined and hard working and you’re smashing your degree. And you’re kind. You see the good in everyone and you’re not afraid to feel and tell the world all about it. All these things that I just…love about you. It took me being away from you and making the biggest mistake of my life, and that night when we were together like everything was back to normal, it took all of that to make me realise that I’m…fuck..”

Brooke almost hadn’t realised she was crying until a sob bubbled up in her throat, almost choking her. It was almost like her body’s survival mechanism, trying to save her from the potential rejection she might face once the words were out.

Fuck it.

“I’m in love with you. I love you so much that it scares me. It scares me more than being fucking…trapped in the library in the pitch black with no way out,” Brooke let out a hybrid of a laugh and a sob. By now, Vanessa had lifted her gaze to look at Brooke, and Brooke had shifted hers so she could protect herself from Vanessa’s reaction. “Because I don’t want to hurt you again, and you deserve better than someone like me.”

“Then don’t,” Vanessa said quietly.

“What?” Brooke whispered, confused. She tugged the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and jammed them under her eyes, used them to stop the tears from escaping.

“You said you don’t want to hurt me again. Then don’t,” Vanessa repeated patiently. Brooke blinked. She had no idea what that meant, so she went with the knowledge she had at hand.

“I love you, and you love me,” Brooke said softly, finally meeting Vanessa’s eyes. “Can we…do something with that information?”

Vanessa let out a loud blast of a laugh, making Brooke giggle even though she didn’t know what was funny. “God, that’s the most Brooke Lynn Hytes way of asking me out ever. Can we do something with that information.”

Vanessa’s smile was infectious. It lit up Brooke’s heart and she wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss her gently, to make Vanessa hers properly this time. As her smile faded though, Brooke felt her hope fade too. Vanessa let out a world-weary sigh. “Brooke, I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this all over again.”

Brooke’s heart dropped to the floor and shattered. She wanted to say something, fill the silence and reassure her, but nothing came out. She had opened up, and it had all been for nothing. This was her karma- she had broken Vanessa’s heart and now here was Vanessa breaking hers. She felt crushed. Lacking the energy to do it properly, she nodded her head once, the action small and probably barely noticeable.

It was so quiet that Brooke could hear Vanessa swallow beside her, hear her breathing deeply to calm herself down before she spoke. “You never hear it in the movies but sometimes…sometimes love isn’t enough, you know, sometimes you need to put yourself first, and sometimes the person you love ain’t necessarily the one who ends up making you happiest.”

Brooke felt her chest grow tight, felt ashamed as her head hung to the floor. She saw two tears fall from her eyes and drop onto the carpet, making identical, miniscule ponds.

“But then also,” Vanessa continued, the but aspect causing Brooke’s heart to dip and soar upwards as if it was on a rollercoaster. “I love you for a reason, don’t I? The way that you say shit that’s all sarcastic and funny. The way you make me laugh. The way you’re always blunt and truthful, and when you say nice things to me it feels like you’re just saying a fact. The way you got this childish, immature streak to you that makes everything feel like an adventure when I’m with you. You listen in the best way, ‘cause you never try an’ force advice down anyone’s throat. You’re always so concerned about everyone you care for and want them to be happy…and even though you ain’t good at expressin’ it, I know you have feelings and I know they scare you. You’re like a fuckin…model, you’re so beautiful and perfect. So that’s as simple as it has to be, right?”

Brooke looked up and saw tears in Vanessa’s own eyes. All the honesty was so raw and painful, like burnt or grazed skin, and it hurt and stung as if it was real. It was real. Brooke hid a sob, took a deep breath. “I don’t, uh. I don’t know where we take this.”

“I want to be with you. I want to love and be loved, feel my heart fuckin’…burst like it’s made of confetti,” Vanessa continued, letting out what could have been a sob or a laugh. “But I want to be happy. I don’t want to be hurt again. I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too,” Brooke nodded, feeling the tracks the tears were making down her face. She sighed, the pain in her heart too heavy for her to carry. “Fuck, maybe we’re just not meant for each other, maybe we got our chance already. Maybe nothing should come of this-”

“But, fuck, I love you, Brooke! And you love me,” Vanessa sighed in exasperation, her mascara collecting under her eyes as her own tears continued to fall. “And that…that means something.”

“I love you,” Brooke repeated, in case it counted for anything. It meant the world to her. Vanessa gave a sad smile, reached out and took Brooke’s hand and laced their fingers together. She squeezed Brooke’s hand twice, and the simple gesture made Brooke hopeful that everything was going to be okay.

“Shit, I waited so long to hear you say that and now it’s like…” Vanessa began sadly, trailing off. Brooke didn’t push her to finish her sentence. Instead, she squeezed her hand like Vanessa had done with hers. The action seemed to work as a prompt, because she spoke again, tilting her head with curiosity. “What do you want outta all this?”

Brooke knew immediately. “I want you. I want us to be us again.”

Vanessa let out a soft sigh, paused. “Okay, well. I don’t know what I want right now, Brooke. An’ it’s gonna be hard to start again. So you’re gonna need to give me time to decide.”

“That’s okay. I’ll wait for you. You can take all the time you need,” Brooke reassured her instantly. “I’ll still be here.”

Vanessa’s hand shifted in her own. Brooke watched as she frowned a little, cast her gaze her way again. "You mean that?”

“I mean it. Whatever you decide. Whether we’re worth an extra chance or not. I’ll wait for you.”

A small smile crept onto Vanessa’s face as Brooke waited for her reply. “That’s the most romantic shit anyone ever said to me.”

“Well, it’s just the truth,” Brooke muttered, feeling her cheeks grow hot and glad that the dark room would hide her pink blush. Then, getting an idea and feeling a little spark of that childishness and immaturity Vanessa seemed to love so much, Brooke let go of Vanessa’s hand and held out her other one for her to shake. The other girl looked at her, a funny, confused smile on her face as she took her hand and shook it obediently.

“Hey. I’m Brooke Lynn,” she began, trying to suppress her smile as she spoke. Vanessa giggled, falling back a little then leaning forward.

“What are you…”

“Starting again. What’s your name, beautiful?” Brooke teased, all the darkness somehow bursting into colour as Vanessa laughed beside her, swatting her on her arm with her hand. She hadn’t seen this Vanessa in so long; happy, laughing, cheerful and playful. Brooke could’ve cried with how much she’d missed her.

“This is some dumbass shit, you know that?” Vanessa giggled, but Brooke could see the blush on her own cheeks illuminated by the streetlamps outside. Vanessa appeared to see her expectant face, laughed a resigned laugh and indulged her. “Nice to meet you, Brooke. I’m Vanjie. Well, Vanessa, but everyone calls me Vanjie.”

“Can I call you Vanessa? It’s pretty. It suits you.”

Vanessa laughed again, making Brooke give a chuckle too. “Bitch! You never flirted with me this hard the first time.”

“Well the first time we were friends, so I couldn’t flirt with you. Not properly like I wanted to anyway,” Brooke laughed, taking a Dorito and throwing it at her playfully. Vanessa squealed, toppling herself out of the way. “You, on the other hand, flirted all the time.”

“I’m a flirtatious person! You shouldn’t have taken that shit personal,” Vanessa protested, attempting to look offended but unable to wipe the smile off her face.

“So Vanessa,” Brooke carried on, trying to stop herself smiling as she carried on with the charade. “What are you studying?”

They carried on like that all through the night, being silly and getting to know each other again right from the very beginning. They had missed out on so much conversation over the past few months that it was actually nice to catch up, to re-establish herself in Vanessa’s life. She was looking at graduate jobs in events management for after uni and thinking of moving home to save money. For a fleeting moment Brooke almost suggested that they move in together but she was glad she had the sense not to verbalise that, a thought that was perhaps better bottled up and saved for another time. After all, Vanessa hadn’t even decided if she wanted to be with Brooke or not yet. Brooke had to cling on to the hope that maybe she would, because she had nothing else. Well, that was a lie. She had Vanessa’s smile and her laugh, the twinkle in her eyes when Brooke made a deadpan comment. She had the way Vanessa opened up to her, told her how scared she was of trying to navigate the world on her own after she graduated. She had the way that Vanessa shuffled close to her when the sun eventually began to rise, its glow a burnt orange ombre into a soft yellow which faded into the gentle blue of the morning sky. She had the way Vanessa’s head fit perfectly into the crook of her neck as, worn out and exhausted, she closed her eyes and dozed off in Brooke’s tentative arms.

Most of all, she had the fact that Vanessa loved her, and Brooke loved her back. And even though it hadn’t been the movie scene confession Brooke had been expecting, that fact, the sunrise, and Vanessa sleeping softly against her chest was enough for her for the moment.  

[toxicpineapple]

Please give me your amami essay, I'd like to know the TEA! I was also gonna ask for the mastermind essay, but honestly I REALLY wanna hear your thoughts on his characterization (and your thoughts on his shitty fanon characterization)

HOOO BOY OKAY. this is good, it gives me an excuse to procrastinate on reading that new amasai fic on the latest feed. (note that i REALLY WANT TO READ IT, i’m just anticipating commenting and tbh the spoons,,, i lack them. it’s okay though i’ll get over it.)

so!!! let’s start with general attitude, because i think that amami’s is really unique. he’s a subversive character. in general i feel like that was the biggest goal with his character design and personality combination-- he looks like a total playboy, kaede even comments as much moooore than once. but he’s the absolute opposite. i’ll rant about that in a bit. i’ve already gone off on a tangent and i said i was gonna talk about attitude.

amami is laid back, but not to the point of complacency. y’know what i mean? like, he’s relaxed, but he’s on his guard, too. his speaking style is pretty casual (typically he’ll greet people with a “hey,” whenever he’s slightly uncomfortable he’ll probably say “haha”... this isn’t necessarily a canon thing but i like it when people have him talking in sentence fragments. ex. “forgot to grab my jacket” or “wanted to get a snack” sort of thing) and that’s just,,, the type of person he is. he’s casual. it’s remarkable considering how wealthy amami is-- though bear in mind, he still IS wealthy, so there are bound to be things he doesn’t understand about people-- that he can be so normal and like, down to earth, in a way. when people mess around with him he’ll probably just laugh it off.

to cite a fic i read once that had REALLY phenomenal characterisation, imo, ouma ends up dumping a bucket of water on amami’s head (on accident; there are some semantics and i won’t get into it but again the fic is really good and funny and you should totally read it) and amami just squeezes out his shirt and makes a couple cracks before walking away. (sorry this isn’t meant to be a “dumping love on fics” post but GOD that fic is hysterical.) he’s an enabler too, at least i think so-- remember that anthology chapter where kaede, shuichi, and kaito are trying to catch ouma and kaito sets an “amami trap” to stop him? all ouma has to do is flutter his eyelashes and go “pleeeaaase let me go amam~niichan!” and then he just. he does. what a fucking doormat i can’t believe him.

he’s like that though. i feel like big brother stuff is kind of his weakness. (and not in a kinky way alright i will destroy you. he might make a joke about having a sister complex in one of his ftes but he DOESNT that joke was just tasteless COME ON RANTARO WHFKLDSJFK) which brings me to his whole older brother thing, because like,,, YEAH. guy grew up with twelve younger sisters!!! and he remarked in his ftes with shuichi that they’re mostly step sisters, which means he just.... has a nurturing personality. i mean amami is somewhat conservative (if you try to come on to him during salmon mode you will be brutally rebuffed; amami tells u to keep your horny thoughts to yourself, though you shouldn’t be ashamed of having them) so i imagine he’s not the biggest fan of his father’s tendencies-- not that i don’t NECESSARILY interpret his father’s behaviour as him sleeping around.... it’s possible he just likes children and deliberately marries women who already have kids so he can take them... i mean it’s exceedingly decent to keep considering ur step children to be your children after a divorce so i have a hard time reconciling this common image of rantaro’s dad as some kind of player figure with the impression i got of him in my head but that’s just my daddy issues coming into play again so ignore me-- and yet he still considers all his sisters to be his sisters.

not to mention he feels a great deal of like, responsibility, when it comes to taking care of them. i find it impossible to believe that all the losses were his fault. you could ARGUE that the one he tells you about with his younger sister was to be blamed on him? but i mean, amami is a child. he didn’t even know his sister was following him out. sure he blames himself for it but there’s no real good way to blame him just considering that,,, he’s a kid. and he was so young-- he was obviously so young-- when it happened. so like, not to be all Good and Bad on you, but i do feel that amami is fundamentally a good reason. and you SEE that too, in the killing game. i’m certain he was on the fence about trusting that note he woke up with. would you trust it? he had no memory whatsoever of writing it, all he had were the words “ultimate hunt” and a map of the school to guide his way. i imagine he wasn’t even sure if he should do what the note said. but then ryoma started talking about sacrificing himself for everyone else, and rantaro probably thought, “well... if i have a way to get us out of here, even if it doesn’t work, i can’t just let ryoma sacrifice himself without having tried.”

rantaro is self-reliant too, i think. in the talent development plan mukuro remarks that she noticed he was injured a good number of times, but never said anything about it because she felt like he was trying to keep it under wraps. (note: good idea for an amami and mukuro friendship fic. must write. someone remind me.) i think amami kind of feels isolated from his classmates? either because he has these perceived notions of like, independence and whatever, not burdening anybody else with his problems (honestly not to go chabashira on main but wtf men ask for help c’mon i promise if you find a person who’s worth being in ur life they won’t treat you like shit for feeling ur feelings) or just because he’s not around a lot. i think amami is the type of person to invalidate his own problems a lot, or at least downplay them to others. he blames himself for all his sisters going missing, took the responsibility to find them all. you know the blow that’s going to be to his education? traveling around the world looking for twelve different people? and he plans to keep doing that!!! forever!!! ugh ;-; poor babey. but anyway i feel like he doesn’t want to tell anybody about his problems because he feels like it’s his thing to deal with.

i also believe that rantaro is a bit prideful. i mean, anyone can be prideful under the correct circumstances, and in fact there is a great deal of pride that simply isn’t addressed by the fandom in analysing characters and that makes me really sad because pride is such a SEXY character flaw but i’ll leave that alone for now. he hates being told to give up on what he’s doing. i mean everyone in his life has been telling him to stop looking for his sisters. that’s got to suck, but also, DAMN look at what his reaction was. this utter refusal to open up to anybody. shuichi’s ftes with him are spent pretty much just trying to get amami to stop squirreling around and actually TALK to him. amami asks shuichi at one point if he has any siblings and when the response is negative, amami immediately assumes that shuichi wouldn’t understand, would tell him to quit. just like everyone else.

(i mean, even with kiyo and mukuro, whose circumstances mirror his almost painfully at least in willingness to sacrifice stuff for their siblings, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing, just that he’s doing it for his sister-- singular-- and that he would do anything for her. kiyo and mukuro!! out of ANYBODY, they would understand. in tdp they DO talk about it-- kiyo encourages him to keep searching-- as his friend...... fuck amaguji is such a good ship even if the implications of kiyo saying he wants to meet rantaro’s sister after he finds her bc she must be suuuuch a good person if he’s doing all this for her are uhhh not great-- and mukuro immediately understands when he says it’s to do with his younger sister. like, full stop. she just goes “okay” and goes serious. all at once. damn rantaro, mukuro, and kiyo really do be a power trio huh. i need to write more fic about them i miss them.)

this is more into baseless conjecture so take this as you will, but i also think rantaro is kind of,,, easily distracted lmao. he mentions helping out a village with a disease-- been a while since i’ve seen his ftes, sorry for any inconsistencies-- among other shit and like... bro what are you DOING. you have sisters to find. and he can’t be getting injured all the time, getting wrapped up with gang violence and all that, looking for people who were lost traveling. i mean sure, you could say they went all over the world and got wrapped up in all sorts of mess, but more likely they stayed in roughly the same area, waiting for him to come back. and also? i have a hard time believing his sisters were lost in these remote forest places people always put them. COME ON, who the fuck goes to some village for a vacation? a RICH person no less. i’m on another tangent. sorry. but yeah, i love the people who write rantaro as an absolute airhead. i headcanon that he has no way of judging the passing of time and thus is the absolute worst in the bathroom bc he sits there for twenty minutes thinking about the universe and then walks out like “:) ok ready to go” like wtf are you even doing there stupid akljdf anyway.

i think rantaro is softhearted and thoughtful. in his ftes with kaede he demonstrates an ability to look past what people show at surface level-- you can ask him about miu, kiibo, or kiyo and he’ll give u Good Fucking Insight(tm)-- and analyse their intentions more closely. and i mean this is just from a couple day’s interaction. he’s down to earth for sure, understanding when people are intimidated but also caring and observant. (his “talk about a first impression” line is so fuckaindgf.... good for his characterisation. i love romantic amamatsu but he so clearly takes an older brother role in those ftes, he’s really such a sweetheart,,,, hnadhfkj ;w;) rantaro is just. he’s patient with people. and selfless and kind. idk it’s all the good stuff. warm smiles and indulgence. all the way. probably lets kokichi steal his lunch.

THAT BEING SAID: i think rantaro also has a very serious streak. he doesn’t show it a lot but there are moments. he’s self-sacrificing-- i mean, obviously. he was the ultimate survivor, after all. some people hc that he got there by killing, or maybe everyone else in his game died but one person, but bro that doesn’t make any sense???? no. what happened was there were probably like three people left, and monokuma was like “one has to be sacrificed” and rantaro thought, welp. it’ll be me then. and i wouldn’t say the choice would be immediate because rantaro DOES has self preservation instincts-- he’s only human-- but i don’t think he’d have let anybody else make that decision. i think ultimately he would try to protect other people.

he can be scarily confrontational too. i do believe he’d usually only do it in the defense of others-- like, his base instinct is to protect. i read a fic once (oumami, unfortunately) where ouma was committing crimes and went to hide behind rantaro and rantaro instinctively moved to protect him, and that’s.... that’s good characterisation. point one to the oumami stans, point zero to me. motherfucker. (love u oumami stans, it’s just not my thing.) i really like it in fics when he’s stern, lecturing people for hurting other people, but i also think rantaro is too understanding to be truly unforgiving. like if two people got into an argument and one came out of it more hurt than the other, i don’t believe that amami would be unsympathetic to the less hurt one. i think he’s mature enough to take a look at the situation and go, well, okay.

i think he’d be TERRIFYING when angry. he’s patient, y’know? so it takes a lot to get him to that point. he’s really, ah, accommodating of people. puts up with a lot of bs kind of thing. but i imagine the best way to get him to snap is by hurting someone he cares about. and at that point: ur fucked. i’ve never written it before because i’m terrified of what i’d do with that kind of power but.... imagine the shuichi whump. holy god.

i’m NOT here to talk about shuichi whump (though i’m down to do that any time of day believe me) so i’m gonna like. shhhhiiiiiiffft.

i project on characters a lot so at this point it’s difficult to distinguish if some of my characterisation things are like, actually characterisation things? or just me venting, so like, take nothing i say as canon, but also,,, akdsjf we love a man who bottles up his emotions.

because rantaro just doesn’t have the TIME to be crying all over the place. he was probably a total wreck when he lost his first sister. and his second. and maybe even his third. but then he started to gather his composure, more and more. because if there’s anything that rantaro has in excess, it’s composure. the more losses he suffers the more of a shield he builds up. and the self hatred and the guilt and the blame and the responsibility are piling up and up and up, but god he hates it when other people see him sad, because he needs to be the strong one, he can’t just pile that up on other people. that’s not their weight to carry, and besides, he’s the older brother, he should be able to deal with his own problems. he’d just be burdening the people he cares about by letting them see his demons.

and then he doesn’t have any coping mechanisms because he never lets himself feel enough to cope, and when people get close enough to actually CARE about him, when people notice he’s upset or struggling and offer him help, he doesn’t know how to deal with it-- and god he hates lashing out at people but it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences of being mean than the consequences of breaking down. only conflict is scary when he’s one of the causes so he needs time to recover, and well, what better way to do that than to get on a plane or a boat and go look for his sisters? after all he’s wasting time whenever he’s just sitting around, they’re still out there and he needs to find them, so might as well just keep pushing himself to the limits, because it’s his fault they’re lost anyway...

something mukuro said to rantaro in the talent development plan stuck in my brain. like, initially it’s just a funny and cute interaction (rantaro even blushes and a blushing rantaro is a GOOD FUCKING RANTARO) but when i thought about it more i was like.... huh. hm. angst ideas. mukuro makes a joke about rantaro going over to her stand at the festival to flirt with her-- i think that’s the context, i know it’s play-boy related-- and rantaro assures her (as he always does) that he’s not that kind of guy, and mukuro agrees, saying she was just pulling his leg and that he seems like the kind of person who gets dumped because he doesn’t show his emotions enough. rantaro laughs, blushes, and says “haha, not touching that one,” and akdjfnnnnnn god mukuro you’re so blunt i love you fkdjf but wow. i usually have rantaro as not having dated anyone, just because i feel like he kind of hyperfocuses on finding his sisters? and given that he’s like sixteen (seventeen at the MOST) there’s not much of a timeline for when his sisters got lost. in my fic search i had to cram all the losses into a four-year period and damn that was rough. anyway i just don’t think he’d really prioritise romance. but that reaction implies that that’s EXACTLY his experience with romance, which makes a bit of sense because mukuro is ridiculously sharp, and also it’s,, it’s just sad idk poor rantaro. getting dumped because he’s like the emotional equivalent of a doorknob when it comes to his own feelings.

i do think rantaro is a bit cowardly. not in the sense that he’d shy away from danger-- i think he’d RUSH INTO IT HEAD FIRST because he’s a man or whatever, i know he respects women but he does seem to hold some of those very stereotypically masculine ideals of constantly protecting those around him, which is like.... ok toxic masculinity mcgee can u and kaito stop throwing hands every time u see each other ty-- but more in the sense that he avoids,,, confrontation. emotional confrontation just ain’t his thing. and i think he’d rather run away from it or otherwise find some way of ignoring it than try to address his problems.

he would, with that in mind, probably try to associate with people who don’t push the matter. kiyo and mukuro, for example. they both have a fair amount of baggage themselves so they’d probably be respectful. ryoma is lowkey enough that he just, he wouldn’t bring that shit up, that’s uncool. i also think rantaro would get along REALLY WELL with kaito, and i actually don’t think kaito would pull his sidekick stuff with him? just because in a way they’re kind of kindred spirits, and i think kaito would see an ally in rantaro before seeing someone to try to nurture, so they’d probably have some kind of a truce like, if you don’t force me to be vulnerable, i won’t force you. one of the reasons why i love amamota so much is because it involves the two of them growing to care about each other beyond that sort of unhealthy camaraderie and breaking down each other’s barriers and i just..... hhnnfhhdkfj they could be so good for each other but nobody wants to talk about thatjslfkj

you weren’t asking for my amamota mess lmao sorry anon i get sidetracked SO easily. but yeah, amami gravitates towards people who wouldn’t try to get him to be more honest with himself. and i honestly think the v3 cast would be pretty good about that overall, except for shuichi who is a detective and has a habit of sticking his nose in places it shouldn’t be, but i see no reason to write that out because amami’s ftes already display that beautifully. (well, that’s a lie, i’m absolutely plotting out a slowburn in my head already that involves shuichi stripping down his walls one by one, but forget about all of that rn we don’t need to talk about why amasaimota is my ot3.) also he is softer on childish people like ouma and himiko. ain’t nobody wants to TALK TO ME about how brilliant it would be if rantaro and hiyoko were friends because hiyoko has such problems in that department and he would take one look at her and go hm. i’m adopting her. and he’s so fucking patient and nice and she’d lose the will to make fun of him and i have to do ALL THE GODDAMN WORK AROUND HERE but it’s fine. at least i get to write it.

i’ve described the fundamentals of his characterisation pretty well by now i think. i have some throwaway headcanons, like uhh,,

he’s claustrophobic

plays the guitar and the ukulele

he prefers warm weather and perishes in the cold

high pain tolerance

he’s a Good Cook

doesn’t like sex jokes (they make him uncomfortable)

asexual (i do like a good demisexual hc at all times of day tho)

master of piggyback rides

does his own piercings

impulsive as hell

gets lost easily but can always find his way back

has a lot of scars from travels

hands are rough and calloused (again from travels)

morning person

smells like evergreen (you know i had to, you know i did)

Radiates Heat Like A Fucking Toaster Oven

good hugs

hates tying his shoelaces

likes being the big spoon :)

has a tongue piercing

i said “some throwaway headcanons” but i ended up listing way more than i mean to. i’ll make a separate list of my rantaro headcanons someday and talk about them all in detail but for now, uh, there’s that.

SO AS FOR THE RANTARO CHARACTERISATIONS I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE:

god where to fucking begin. actually i know exactly where to begin. it’s my least favourite one just because, like i said at the very beginning, rantaro is a subversive character. i mean i think he’s kind of a low hanging fruit when it comes to that. there are plenty of other subversive characters in the dr series but rantaro is like that. you expect a flirt and u get,,, a sweetheart. but then some people (usually the ones who ship him with female characters exclusively though i will see it on occasion in an amasai or oumami fic) decide to throw that out the window and make him a total playboy!! and listen, i have no problem with people who are a little flirty. we’re kids!! flirt ur heart out!!! and hey, that’s not what this is about but y’know what? so long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, then yeah!! exercise your sexual freedom and sleep with whoever you want to!!! i don’t think there’s anything wrong with messing around a little, dating who u wanna and experimenting with ur tastes and preferences. if rantaro WAS a playboy, then there would be nothing wrong with that. i would love him just the same because he’s such a fundamentally GOOD character.

except that.... he’s.......... NOT. you slaughter one of the biggest aspects of his character by throwing away what matters to him and making him some hunky-deep-voice-dreamboat dude meant to sweep kaede/tsumugi/whomsteverthefuck off her feet. rantaro is one of those characters where he’s so blatantly not that kind of person, and it’s like. it’s an affront, almost, to portray him that way? and i do believe you should have the freedom to write what you want, since we’re in that age (aside from romanticised pedophilia and incest; that shit ain’t cute, i say this often but pro-ship DNI) where u should be able to take some liberties, but it’s just. hnnn. it’s so frustrating. rantaro does not know how to smolder! if he DID smolder, he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it. he doesn’t have people lying at his feet, okay? he’s too flaky for that. i wouldn’t say he’s unreliable but he definitely ain’t at school as much as he should be.

another one that i hate: st-stalker? what the fuck? that is not sexy that is creepy and weird?

another another one that i hate: yandere? what the FUCK??? that is not sexy that is glorified ABUSE???? the yandere trope is AWFUL bc you’re taking a controlling relationship and turning it into a fetish. NO. if he limits ur contact with other people, if he follows u everywhere, if he threatens ur loved ones, if he tries to control you, ladies and gents and nonbinaries, he’s not a yandere, he’s an abuser and you need a fucking restraining order. actually, people of ANY gender or sex can perpetuate this behaviour and IT IS NOT CUTE. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT BOUNDARIES U SET IN PLACE, IF YOUR FREEDOM IS BEING RESTRICTED THAT IS ABUSE.

hate it when people make rantaro violent. hate it when people make rantaro a murderer. hate it when people make rantaro controlling. hate it when people make rantaro overtly sexual. some kind of sultry deep voice dominant kind of figure. dude, what the fuck? i don’t,, want to make any public comments about sex positions because i think that’s kind of Strange to just talk about on a post, but i do think that the way people portray him for their smuts is,,, idk it’s weird. i’m not gonna kinkshame u but like. :eyes:

i will however accept rantaro as a thrillseeker, or a highstrung rich boy, or a total space cadet, or a himbo, or a cryptid. these are all very good interpretations of the Mans. just, like. be wary of making him two dimensional. a good character is multifaceted. if you can take a trait that clashes with all of these and SELL ME ON IT, i will buy it. if u give me good justifications, or even just good writing?? then i will accept it.

the long and the short of it is, anon, he’s my favourite so i think about him a lot. i love writing rantaro. he’s just, he’s a Guy. y’know? He’s A Good Dude, If You’ll Give Him A Shot. :) we don’t get to see very much of him but i think that there’s plenty of material if you overanalyse everything, which, as you probably all know by now,,,, i absolutely do.

thank you for the ask, this was a delight to spend an hour talking about.

[nockfellblues]

I don't know if you do these kinds of asks but how about reader pulling a hunger games type moment and confronting Larry before he kills himself saying if you go I do too I won't let someone I love die alone type thing.

All aboard the angst train ♥  written as a mini fic! TW for attempted suicide! Reader is gender neutral.

If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline and get the help you deserve. Call 1-800-273-8255. If you are like me and are afraid to call, there are also live online chat options as well, located HERE! 

You’d known for awhile something was... off with Larry. Ever since Sal had officially moved in with Todd and Neil, Larry had been stadoff-ish on a good day, and on bad days would seclude himself in the tree house, Sanity’s Fall blasting from that tiny stereo so loud you could hear it from your shared basement apartment. To say you were worried about his behavior was an understatement. Especially after you’d begun to notice the pattern of near constant headaches, the fact that he was always saying it was too loud in the apartment, the occasional mutter of, “shut up,” to an empty room when he though you weren’t close enough to hear, and the quickly worsening whip of anger he’d been developing… You were walking on eggshells at any given moment.

Finally, it all hit a breaking point. 

You had been helping Larry pack up the remainder of his non-essentials, getting them ready to go over to his new room at Todd’s. It had been a process to pack a lot of his stuff up- it was a whole lifetime to sort through; countless weird knick knacks to decide to keep or not, finding old drawings and sketchbooks from his childhood, finding a random little thing that had been lost years ago tucked away in a dusty corner someplace… 

To be honest, it had been more reminiscing about his childhood and the memories about each of the items you both went through than it was actually packing. But it was fun, and the wistful smile he wore as he told you stories of his mother, his missing father and his years of shenanigans with Sal and Todd made every wasted second well worth it. 

When you unearthed a little silver puzzle box, you expected a fun story and for him to add it into the donation box for the local second hand shop for some needy kid to enjoy it later. But the simple question of, “Trash or stash?” quickly devolved into an argument about how much you didn’t care about his sentimentality or that it was an important object to him- and it just got worse from there- until you gave up, tossed up your hands, and stated you were gonna bring the box you’d finished earlier over to Todd’s while he cooled off, and walked out.

When you’d gotten there, the first thing you did was tell Sal what was up, hoping maybe he’d have some kind of wise words or what you could have done to set Larry off in the first place. Sally, ever the sweetheart, pulled you into a gentle hug, reassuring you that Larry was probably just having a rough patch and that he would talk to him and see if Larry might open up about it. 

Taking Todd up on an offer to stay the night, you threw on a movie and made yourself comfortable on the couch, falling into a dreamless sleep. 

Neil woke you the next morning with a killer cup of coffee and a poor mans breakfast of sugar coated pop tarts. Sally had come around not long after, letting you know Larry had texted him, and they’d be headed to the apartments for some, “Ghost hunting.” He seemed kind of tense but reassured you that he’d talk to Larry today, before he met up with Ash. Of course, you’d thanked him, and settled into Larry’s soon-to-be room to start sorting out some of the easier boxes.

—–

You woke up later, sprawled on the couch, to the sound of Todd rummaging in the kitchen. Yawning, you stretched and made your way out to greet him, smoothing out your bead-head. 

“Hey Todd, how as class?” You asked, grabbing a seat at the kitchen table. 

Todd shrugged, idly stirring an instant noodle cup, “No complaints. How’s Larry’s room coming along? Sal said you were unpacking this morning.”

“Well, I made it through the clothes and some oddball boxes… Did Sally mention anything about Larry by chance?”

Todd shook his head, “No, but he left with Ash almost as soon as he was back, so we didn’t have much time to chat. Knowing Sal, things should be smoothed over. He’s always been able to mellow Larry out like that.” 

With that, you decided to head back and see if Larry was feeling any better after some Sally time. It was getting dark, and the thick clouds looming overhead finally opened into a sweeping downpour just after you had left Todd’s. You stopped under a thicket of trees just off the road, hoping the rain would lessen, when your cell phone went off. 

Larry: [Name] im rly sry. i nvr meant that shit i said.

[Name]: Dude its all good i know youre stressed lately. Im heading back now.

Larry: stay at todds. and just dont blame urself ok? its my time to go.

[Name]: Larry wtf are you talking about? youre scaring me?

Without waiting for a reply you took off towards the apartments at a breakneck run. Bypassing the front door, you ran around the backside of the building to use the back entrance, when you noticed a light on in the old tree house- Then your gaze trailed down to the baggy with a neatly folded paper pinned to the lower steps on the tree.

You felt your blood run cold. He wouldn’t- no. 

“Larry!” You scrambled up the rickety planks, ignoring the note, and all but threw yourself onto the tree house floor. “Larry, don’t!” 

Tucked against the wall of the tree house, just under the little window, sat Larry, an old camping lantern lit in the corner beside him. His eyes were puffy and his hair disheveled, evidence that he’d been crying before. Tears welled in your own eyes as you took in his distraught expression and the bottle of whiskey in his hands. 

“[Name]..?” He whispered your name, and the way his voice cracked brought you to instant tears, and you all but launched yourself at him, pulling him into a desperate embrace. 

“Larry Johnson, you fucking asshole! Don’t you dare- don’t you dare take a sip from that bottle-”

“[Name]-” you cut him off, taking his face into your hands and forcing him to look at you. The circles under his eyes were so deep, and the absolute emptiness in them broke your heart.

“No! You listen here, you fucking string bean- you don’t get to do this. You can’t just… just push me away and expect me not to worry. You can’t just text… text me something like that and not expect me to come running to- to fucking keep you from being stupid! What the fuck am I supposed to do without you?!” You were openly sobbing now, practically screaming at the boy who all but held your entire world in his hands. “You’re all I have! You can’t just-just leave me behind and expect me to move on- who am I without my other half, Larry? Who am I?!” 

He scrunched his eyes closed, tears streaming down his cheeks again, as he shook his head.

“If you fucking kill yourself, I’m going with you. And you can’t stop me.” You knew it was a dirty trick to play, guilting him like this when his soul was this ravaged and he was so vulnerable- but you were being honest. What would you do without him in your life? What about Sal? God, what about poor Lisa? He was so dear to you all, so loved, and he was ready and willing just throw it all away-

“[Name], I-I can’t take it anymore- I just- the cult shit, that demon, the ghosts! The fucking whispers-  they’re dri-driving me insane! I‘m not like you or Sal- I can’t handle this shit anymore!” He finally breaks down into heaving sobs at that, burying his face into your shoulder, and dropping the bottle in favor of a bone-crushing embrace that you readily return.

You kick the bottle away from Larry, as far as you can get it, and quietly thank whoever will listen when the cap pops the rest of the way off, spilling the amber liquid and the mostly dissolved remnants of pills onto the tree house floor.

“…Why didn’t you just tell me? Or even Sal. Someone. You know we’d do anything for you, Larry, absolutely anything.” He didn’t reply, just shook his head and pulled you closer. What the fuck was was this place doing to him? You had to get him out- get him away- Larry’s phone vibrated from the other side of the tree house, but you elected to ignore it, praying whoever was calling was also smart enough to find you both before things got any worse.

He sniffled, hiccuping into you shoulder, “I’m so sorry, [name]. I didn’t mean anything that I said the other day- or anything I said in those other arguments. I just- This- this place is.. I think I’m going crazy-”

You shushed him, smoothing a hand down his hair and he devolved into body-wracking sobs that shook you both with the sheer force of them. Your soul ached for the boy you had known almost all your life- the boy you grew up with, shared secrets with, made countless memories with, and loved with all your heart. 

Why didn’t you see this coming sooner? “I know, Larry, I know. This place- there’s something still wrong with Addison apartments and we’re gonna get you out of here, forever. I promise.” 

“I-I’m so, so sorry, [name]. Please... Please don’t leave me.”

The rain continued to pour in violent sheets outside, but you distinctly heard the frantic voice of Sal, calling Larry’s name, as he ran towards the tree house. You had never felt such absolute relief in your life, even with Larry clinging to you like a lifeline, and the stain of his near-death slowly seeping into the floor of the tree house just behind you.

 “I’m not going anywhere, Larry. I’m with you, always, no matter what happens.”

—fin—

WHEW. I tried to make it so you could read their relationship as either romantic or platonic, and tried to stay as neutral as possible in gender as well! I hope this is alright, and I hope you like it! I’ve actually never seen the Hunger Games so I kinda went my own way ♥

I’d also like to use this space as a PSA:I’ve struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts and tendencies my whole life- don’t let your depression convince you that you are trapped or alone or unloveable. I know its hard, and there’s no easy fix for it, but there are things in life that make it worth sticking around. Even if its something as silly as looking forward to a new game or story or waiting for a flower you planted to bloom, there are reasons to keep living. Please be kind to yourself and remember, even if we’ve never spoken or interacted or existed in the same space, I know that you are worthy of being loved and cared for and you are not alone. 

If ever you feel like you are truly alone in this world, please reach out- there will always be people out here willing to lend a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, and a friend to those who feel lost ♥ I know i will always be open to anyone out there in need of a friend so, please, never be afraid to reach out!

[damonsbitchx]

Imprinting Pt. 1

I have no idea what to title this but my prompt for this fic is Jacob and Leah ending up together because wtf resume’s a baby???? Prompt is courtesy of @loveless-and-nameless. I hope you like it! I’m going to make a second part.

Summary: This is set after Breaking Dawn p.2 where Jacob lets Leah stay in his pack so she doesn’t have to go to Sam. In this, Leah and Jacob are only two or three years apart in age and they both imprint on each other in this. (That’s my personal touch.)

Characters: Jacob x Leah, and some waitresses 

Warnings: I think there’s one swear word, it’s fluffy and sweet

All mistakes are mine, no one proofread except me many times.

Word count: 3,069

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Likewise, if you have any requests please send them in an ask. I might reject but ask anyway!

       After my dad died it’s no secret that I phased along with my little brother Seth. The pack was not welcoming about it, to say the least, but I didn’t really care. It was bad enough my dad had just died and I was the only girl in the history of EVER to phase, but to make matters worse, I was stuck under the rule of my ex-boyfriend who broke my heart after imprinting on my cousin. I was still bitter, to say the least, so if I had to suffer so did they.

       Jacob made his best effort to be a bit kinder to me than the rest of the pack, especially after he lost Bella to that dirty bloodsucker. He and I disappeared after making sure that they all survived the attack of the goth government. He told me he was going to the mountains of Alaska and I had planned on running as far East as I possibly could. We were definitely more than 300 miles apart but we could still hear each other clear as day when we were phased. As far as I could tell, he never phased back to his human form. Once I made it as far as Wisconsin I tried to stay human as much as possible so he and I could both be alone like the other didn’t exist. It was a very intimate thing to be tied to someone like that, even with all the miles between us physically and mentally. After being able to hear his thoughts all day every day for as long as it took me to get to Wisconsin I sort of started to miss the company when I was human, but I didn’t want to make him regret letting me stay under him instead of Sam so I didn’t out myself. I wandered around cities in Wisconsin looking for purpose, only phasing during the night so I could sleep in the woods somewhere. I’d make sure to only phase when I could barely keep my eyes open anymore and I’d always greet him to let him know I was there. Then, I’d fall fast asleep and phase back the moment I woke up. 

       I’d never tried this hard to be careful about what I thought when I was phased because I always felt like if I had to suffer in my own mind they did too, but it wasn’t just me. They thought horrible things about me from the moment I joined the pack. Sam was always tougher with me than any of the guys. Even Seth, who was smaller, younger, and weaker than all of us got treated better than I did. I didn’t want to just be the second choice anymore, mocked by the people who were supposed to be there for me. I didn’t want to be spoiled leftovers anymore. Jake would sometimes stick up for me and try to get closer to me, but I was closed off to all relationships with people after my father died. Being out here in the middle of nowhere might be making me soft or maybe I’m just realizing I don’t actually want to be alone. Without the voices of the rest of the pack in my head constantly and the faces of the people, my own people, who betrayed me I found peace. I found myself wanting to be closer to Jacob. It was a foreign feeling to me, I hadn’t experienced any need to be in anyone’s company for months. It didn’t matter either, Jacob was on a search for his gravity and I wouldn’t be a leech in his life because he was doing me a solid by just letting me leave Sam’s pack. I wouldn’t mess this one up, not this time.

       One night I slumped against a tree deep in the woods and phased, about to voice my greeting to Jake to let him know I was there but I stopped to listen because he spoke first.

“Leah, I was worried about you. You didn’t phase last night,” he growled.

“Oh, yeah um sorry Jake, I was doing other things. I found a bed to sleep in last night.” 

“With who?”

“Just some rando I met in the park, we hit it off and I figured I’d give you a break.”

I grimaced to myself, I’d forgotten last night happened. I thought it was just a bad dream.

“Oh… well, it takes like two seconds to phase and tell me, don’t let it happen again,” he snapped.

      I let out a small whine, but he didn’t say anything after that. I fell right to sleep. That next morning I woke up with the strange feeling I was being watched. There was no way there were people this far out in the forest. My ears perked up to listen intently.

“Leah?” Jake’s low voice rumbled in my head.

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong, are you okay?”

“How would he even know if I wasn’t okay?” I wondered to myself, forgetting he could hear me.

“I just got a bad feeling out of nowhere late last night. I started running to Wisconsin to keep myself awake in case you woke up and were in trouble, plus I’d already be at least halfway there if it happened. Where are you? This forest is huge.”

“You’re here?” I growled. I didn’t expect him to be here.

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t gonna run all that way just to turn around after I knew you were okay,” he chuckled.

I heard a twig crack behind me and I leaped up with a yelp, tucking my tail and preparing to charge whatever it was.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya,” he chortled at my surprised reaction, trotting out from behind a thick tree.

“S’okay, I was already on edge. Jake, what are you doing all the way out here?” I grimaced, rising out of my defensive stance, my tail wagging a couple times. He didn’t fail to notice, twitching his ears in response.

“What, the alpha can’t come to visit his only pack member now?”

“Well, no, I just meant why would you want to be out here with me? I thought you wanted me to leave you alone.”

“Look, Leah, I’m here, okay? Don’t make me regret coming, you seemed like you could use it,” he snapped.

“Okay, I’m not, I’m sorry,” I almost whispered, looking down at my foot pawing the ground.

“Do you want me to get you some breakfast?”

“Jake, I-”

“Some human breakfast.”

       I moved my gaze back up to his copper-red face, not quite meeting his eyes. I let out a small whine in sync with the rumble in my stomach. Suddenly, he took off in the opposite direction dashing behind a tree and phasing into his human form. He appeared around the other side in his regular human clothes and gestured for me to do the same. I let out a low growl to which he chuckled in response and raised both his hands level with his face in surrender, turning on his heels and crossing his arms. I rolled my eyes and darted behind a tree out of sight to phase and yank on my human clothes. When I emerged around the other side he was already a few feet away from me, grinning and looking me up and down. Then, he frowned.

“Leah, are you eating enough?” he demanded.

       For a moment his question shocked me. Maybe too much time alone was getting to him, he never paid me this much attention. He barely even talked to me this much before. My words caught in my throat and I stared at him in disbelief. Why did he care? I was glad he couldn’t hear my every thought now.

“That’s not your business,” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest. “Last I checked, I don’t answer to you.”

       He glared at me as if he were trying to crack me, but after a few moments, he shook his head and grabbed my hand. He began pulling me towards the edge of the forest and I didn’t fight him on it because I really was hungry. Besides, he was much bigger than me, I could only do so much.

“If I had known you were this bad at taking basic care of yourself I never would’ve let you go off by yourself,” he growled, glancing down at me. 

I glared at him as we strolled out of the forest and began through the city to find somewhere to eat.

“I can take care of myself just fine, thank you.”

“Clearly not,” he held my hand up and gestured to my entire arm as evidence to back up his opinion. I rolled my eyes again, there was nothing wrong with my arm. Maybe I was just delusional thinking I actually wanted his company, he was more annoying than I remembered. 

       We found a little small-town cafe type place that we went into. Jake was still holding my hand when we went in and a couple waitresses eyed me sourly. I followed their lines of sight down to our hands which were intertwined and immediately I let go, folding my arms across my chest and avoiding their gazes. He didn’t seem to notice, flashing a dazzling grin at the hostess who was now taking us to a window booth. She all but melted right there on the spot. At this point, I was unsure if Jake had any awareness of his effect on any woman besides Bella or if he just didn’t care. We took our seats across from each other while the short brunette hostess proceeded to ask our drink preference.

“We’ll have two waters, please,” he sounded like he was trying too hard to be polite, smiling at her and nodding.

         He redirected his eyes to the menu once she left and I quickly scanned the one in my hands before deciding I’d want some pancakes and eggs. I slapped the menu shut and set it on the edge of the table, taking a moment to look around the place and take in every old-fashioned, dusty element of this little cafe. The paneled walls were off white and decorated with various framed photos of old white people usually standing with a big red barn in the background or posed with their family outside in a field. It reminded me of my family’s house back in La Push. All the chairs had metal frames and black leather-looking covers. The floor had a wood grain pattern, but I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. There were a few old couples scattered around the rest of the cafe, but other than them, us, and the staff the place was a ghost town inside and out. A few moments after I decided to let my eyes wander they made their way back to Jacob only to realize he was watching me. I frowned. 

“What are you looking at, punk?” I teased but held a serious expression on my face.

“Nothing,” he chuckled. “You just look sort of like a kid in a candy store.”

“Hey, don’t make fun of me Jacob Black. I’m older than you,” I growled.

       He rolled his eyes at me. It was true, I was older than Jacob even though it didn’t look like it. I vaguely remember when he was born because I was around three years old. I watched him grow up, he and Seth played together often and Bella would join too, up until she stopped coming up to her Dad’s all together. We would all three or four run around down on the beach even though it was much too cold to be near the water. Bella liked to find cool rocks and Jacob liked to throw rocks at her. He threw them at me too, but I’d threaten to beat him up if he didn’t stop so he did. Seth and Jacob liked to collect bugs and bring ‘em back to Billy, mom, and dad. Mom would always scream at them to keep the bugs outside where they belonged and the boys got a kick out of her hysteria. They would also chase Bella around with them because it made her scream and run. Eventually, though, she started smacking them instead of running so they stopped that too. I huffed and smiled mostly to myself at the memories that came like a flood in my mind. I had forgotten a lot of my history with Jacob. 

       Suddenly, pulling me out of my daydream, Jacob cleared his throat. My drifted gaze snapped to him with a glare and he jerked his head to alert me that the waitress was almost here. My expression softened and I shifted my eyes away from him embarrassedly. The waitress approached our table, barely glancing at me, settling her eyes on Jacob. She wore a shining smile and she asked him what she could get for him. He proceeded to rattle off this long order of foods I paid no attention to while she scribbled furiously and shoved in her clarifying questions whenever she could. It was kind of funny. I snorted to myself watching her struggle to keep up with him. Finally, when he had finished she turned to me with another sour look.

“And for you?” she asked, breathlessly and with a lot less politeness than before. 

“Pancakes and scrambled eggs please,” I said, slapping the menus into her hand when she reached and watched her walk away. 

       She definitely ran to tell the other waitress what had just happened. Their fawning made me chuckle to myself. Jacob would never notice them the way they noticed him. It was a lost cause. I met Jacob’s gaze and he looked annoyed with me again. I rolled my eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I huffed, pouting out the window.

“Leah, you literally ordered two pancakes and two eggs, you can’t live off of that,” he hissed. 

“Jacob, I know how to take care of myself,” I hissed back at him. This was starting to get very annoying.

“Leah, I’m just worried about you,” he sighed, reaching for my hand across the table. I yanked it from his reach and stared at him with wild anger now burning in my face. Why was he suddenly being so nice to me? 

       I locked eyes with him and suddenly my breath was knocked from my chest. My eyes grew wide and I froze. Suddenly, every memory I’d ever made with Jacob raced through my mind like adrenaline in my veins. I felt my lungs fill and deflate with air, somehow knowing each breath now had a purpose bigger than just myself. His expression changed too, I wondered if he was feeling what I felt. I was suddenly more grounded. My hand gravitated towards his still stretched out across the table, grabbing it firmly in mine. I felt the weight of all my troubles seemingly lift off my shoulders, my mind became clear, my heart was beating with more enthusiasm. My hand buried in his began to feel hotter than the rest of my body if that was even possible with my already abnormal body temperature. His Amber eyes seemed to see into my soul, he squeezed my hand endearingly, matching my gaze. Our breathing was in sync now and both our jaws fell open ever-so-slightly as we stared into each other’s eyes. Why had I never noticed him like this before in all my years of knowing him? It was like the electricity was pulsing between him and me, connecting through our intertwined hands. He was like a cool summer breeze basking under the warm sun on the beach. He was suddenly laughter and cookouts, breakfast on the back porch overlooking the ocean, and picnics on top of a mountain. I could see in him everything I’d ever dreamed of having. Sitting here with him, our hands melting into each other becoming a uniform stream of energy and life, I knew I’d found exactly what I wanted. I could only hope he’d feel the same.

        We both snapped suddenly back into reality when we realized the waitress had returned with our food. “That was fast,” I thought to myself, wondering how long we’d been sitting like that. I yanked my hand out of the way, staring down at my hands now curled in my lap under the table and I began biting my lip nervously. What the fuck just happened? 

       I listened to Jacob talk to the waitress but paid no attention to what he was saying, I couldn’t focus on anything but the sound of his voice that seemed to command the swarm of butterflies in my stomach. He cleared his throat a minute or two after she left when I still hadn’t moved.

“Leah?” his voice was soft now, almost resembling the kid in him.

       My stomach flipped at the sound. I took a deep breath and forced my eyes up to meet his. He looked petrified with anxiety, so my hand instinctively shot out to silently ask for his again before I could even process his expression. My eyes grew wide at my actions but softened when he took it with a smile. My face dropped into a relieved smile in response and I squeezed his hand reassuringly. Whatever this was, I could get used to it. He held onto my hand all through breakfast, not letting go one time and I wasn’t about to make the first move either. I was content at that moment. By the time I’d finished my measly little two pancakes and two eggs, he had also devoured his entire three meals worth of food and the waitress had given us our ticket. I didn’t even question where he got money from, it seemed like something I didn’t want to know. Besides, I was too busy soaking up this new side of Jacob I’d been given. I didn’t even notice the waitresses anymore though I was sure they were whispering about us and exchanging dirty looks. So, we got up, paid, and left even though we didn’t know where we were going. He still had my hand firmly locked in his grip as he led me back towards the forest.