#uh oh I forgot this post has been on my draft for a long long time

[amaderika]

. . % JUST MY LUCK ! yoru x reader

001 CW SMUT, long fic, f!reader, nerd!yoru, loser!yoru, popular!reader, reader is lowkey mean, blowjob, boob job, inexperienced yoru again im so sorry 😭 002 A/N nghghf finally got the time to post <33 this has been in my drafts for months...

the nervousness yoru was feeling at the moment was indescribable. there was a pair work, again. he dreaded pair works—he loathed them. usually, his partner would let him do everything. all because he was considered a star student. it was a curse and a blessing at the same time.

“why did sir let us pick our partners..? i'll for sure be a last option for whoever's as unlucky as me. .” he thought.

you, on the other hand, did not care one bit. it was starting to annoy you. he was fidgeting with his ID, the sound of his keychain hitting the frame making an irritating sound. why did you have to be seated beside him? his only redeeming quality is his intelligence. people only talked to him if they needed help with academics.

although yoru was smart, he knew no one would pick him. he was a loser, after all. people found him unapproachable and awkward. he had weird, messy, black hair, a lot of ear piercings, and his outfits were just.. weird.

as you looked to the side, you noticed the poor boy beside you, still feeling anxious. it was baffling how someone could be this stressed over pairings. yoru watched as people were picking partners while he was sitting there in silence.

he was scared—not only on behalf of his dignity, but his academics too. if no one chose him, how would he do the project? if no one chose him, how will his grades be—

“yoru, do you wanna partner up?” you asked him.

that sentence made him shiver a bit from the unexpectedness. you? out of all people? were asking to be partners with someone like him? oh, he'd just consider you his savior.

he turned to face you but quickly looked down out of shame. he almost forgot how to speak a coherent sentence when he looked in the same direction as you. you were just wondering if he knew how stupid he looked. his hair was basically covering his eyes as he was looking at the floor. “uh. . yoru?”

“ 'm sorry! yes, i would gladly appreciate if you were partners with me. in fact, i'm so grateful you gave me this oppurtunity to—”

you interrupted him. why does he only have 2 sides. . ? not talking at all or talking too much. you wished yourself goodluck as you realized what you got yourself into. your hands ran through his hair and you pat his head. “yeah, yeah, whatever. let's meet at my place to start it.”

oh, his face was red. he's never had anyone touch him like that before. he nodded at your remark and mumbled a little “thank you.”

people, including your friends, looked at you weirdly after finding out you decided to pair with yoru.

you and your friends were eating at a cafe for lunch. they decided to bring up the topic. “did you feel bad for, you know. . yoru?” one of them giggled. “or are you just planning to use him? you know, good idea. he knows you're a hot shot right? maybe you can—”

“yeah, i did feel bad. what's your deal? just shut up and eat.” you said while stirring your drink. it wasn't that big of a deal, actually. and why would you use him? yoru seemed like a nice guy despite your earlier impressions. he did weird you out in a way, but you didn't wanna embarrass him in front of your friends.

your drink was half finished. you wanted to order another one but you saw a familiar face outside the café. it was yoru, waiting for you outside nervously.

6pm. you were walking with yoru outside the campus to your place. on the way out, yoru was slightly annoyed on how much people were interrupting your walk. multiple people would greet you which causes you to start small talk and waste time. did you not understand how serious a research assignment was? you didn't get him at all! he wanted to complain, but he had no room to. he was nothing compared to you.

“you going to the party tomorrow?” an acquaintance of yours asked.

“i'll see. got a research to do and, well.” you gestured at yoru and giggled, hoping she would get the memo. you were kinda chained to this responsibility of finishing the project as soon as possible. yoru would probably want the project finished in a few days. he was that type of person. i mean, it was your fault for picking an academically attached loser.

after a few minutes of walking in silence, you two finally reached your place.

“place your laptop wherever.” yoru was looking around awkwardly. your place was nice for sure. . he felt a bit scared to sit down anywhere as he might ruin something and get you upset. no, no. anything but that. .

he sat on your couch and you followed suit. you were so close to him. yoru was tensing up. you two were usually seated beside each other during lectures, but this felt different. it felt. . strangely intimate. the two of you were alone, at night. anything could happen.

the two of you got to researching. it was too awkward. the silence was loud. you decided to play some music to “lighten up the mood” a bit and clear up the air.

it's been an hour, and you looked to the side. yoru was focused. he was typing quickly. his hands swiftly moved the mouse from one tab to another. while looking at his hands, your eyes locked onto the multiple golden rings on them. his hands were pretty long and veiny too.

the silence was getting to you. you decided to ask him to check your progress so far.

he flinched. it's been a while since the both of you said anything so he was quite surprised. “huh? okay.” he checked the google docs where the both of you started your draft on.

he had a. . confused expression while reading your part of the essay. the boy looked almost disappointed. he let out a sigh.

“oh.. well, it's not that bad..” he was trying so hard to be nice. to be fair, your work wasn't that bad. his standards were just high. he got back to work a bit drained as now, he had to fix your work too.

your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you struggled to read his expression. why did he look so down? you did your work anyways. “what's up with it? is there something wrong?”

he cleared his throat, “your grammar in these parts are wrong, you spelt this wrong, you didn't cite your sources properly—” he continued talking for what felt like an hour. he just had so much to say, didn't he?

he was typing quickly, fixing all your errors. his fingers didn't catch a break.

it was somewhat pissing you off how much he was correcting your work when it was completely unnecessary. he could've just let you fix it, now he's stressed out. yoru ruffled his hair and let out a groan under his breath, hoping you didn't hear him.

you just wanted to help, but he's so stressed he won't even listen to your suggestions.

you, being the worst comforter there is possible, decided to tap his shoulder. “yoru, you need to calm down a bit.”

the poor boy turned to face you. his eyebrows were furrowed and he just looked so sad. you wanted to kiss him so bad, but that's not the time for that stuff. instead, you buried him in between your breasts. okay, maybe that was a worse option, but it was just an innocent hug.

yoru leaned into the hug, oblivious to the hard-on you were starting to feel against your leg. he nuzzled his cheek against the top part of your breast. it was comfy—warm and soft. it was comforting in contrast to the stress of academics he was experiencing.

“t-thank you, again.” his voice was muffled as he said that due to him being pressed up against you.

you've done this multiple times, with different boys, but why, why does it feel so different this time around? your heart fluttered and it never did for anyone before.

yoru, on the other hand, was also having the time of his life. it was showing. his cheeks were red and he refused to show his face to you. he was starting to feel his pants tighten as he grew self aware of his erection.

“how about this? i'll give you a massage so you can take a small break.” you suggested. you both felt the growing sexual tension between you two—it was getting hard to ignore.

yoru nodded. he didn't know how else to react. how was he supposed to react when a popular girl basically smothered him in her tits and now is offering him a massage? he was winning in life. this was coming from a guy with no pull at all!

as soon as you got the go signal from him, you got on your knees. your fingers were above his zipper when he stopped you and grabbed your hand. “no, no, wait! i-i'm—” he was expecting an actual massage from you, not this. “i'm not experienced when it comes to this stuff! i-i've jerked off before but, i've never done the actual thing. i'm sorry if i don't satisfy yo—” here he goes again with the endless yapping.

that was even better for you. “dont be silly, yoru. i don't care.”

you looked so, so hot from yoru's point of view. his cock was starting to hurt from how hard he was. he unzipped his pants for you in order not to be an inconvenience. this exposed his hard, pulsating cock. his cock was long and thick, and i mean long. it left you wondering how you'll be able to fit that in your mouth at all. .

the mushroom shaped head glistened with precum, the white fluid drooling from the slit. it was twitching with every touch of your finger. even a slight budge made him shiver, how cute.

“ungh— please don't tease me..” yoru pleaded. he couldn't contain his whines and whimpers that much. you were barely even touching him, but he was so hard it made him so sensitive. he was loud—you hoped none of your neighbors were hearing his moans.

he let out a strangled moan as you tried to stuff his cock in your mouth. his hips bucked involuntarily, pushing himself deeper into your throat. the sensation of your tongue swirling around the sensitive head was almost too much to bear.

yoru was gripping the couch as he fought the urge to control your movements. he was scared he'd hurt you if he got a hold of your hair, but oh, how he wanted his entire cock in your mouth. his other hand shakily tried to cover his mouth. “fuck.. please. please please—” poor boy was scared of being “rough.”

he felt you gag on his cock which just made his hips buck once again. he was trying his best to control himself, really. yoru held your hair as gently as he could as he tried pulling his cock out of your mouth to see if you were okay. he thought you were genuinely struggling.

“y-you don't need to force yourself to take it all.” he tried to reach out to you but you kept going. your hands started stroking him. each stroke made him grow closer and closer to cumming.

as you sped up your hands and licked his tip, you felt the familiar warm liquid spilling in your throat. yoru's eyes were filling up with tears as the sensation was too much for the poor boy to handle.

“such'a good boy. my baby boy.” you kissed his tip. you weren't done with him though.

you pulled your top down enough to reveal your tits. his favorite ever.

“oh, this is..” the sight of your breasts made him grow harder. your hard nipples practically begging to be sucked made him drool. he was in a daze.

he grabbed your tits and fondled them. your right nipple was being sucked, as the other one was being played with. yoru just refused to pull away from them.

he bit down on your breast, leaving a mark. “yoru baby.. umph.” your hand pushed him deeper in between them. you felt warm liquid spilling down your thighs. he was.. cumming, again.

he was too busy being a baby as he sucked and licked on your breasts. “mmf.. mmh. they're so soft.” his voice was muffled as he moaned. “they're so warm and soft, i wish i could be here forever.” you stroked his hair.

it was about time. you got on your knees once more and this time snuggled his cock in between your tits. it was so warm, it almost felt like a pussy. it was close enough.

yoru groaned as you wrapped your soft breasts around his throbbing cock, the sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced before. the warmth of your flesh enveloped him and it has him over the edge.

“unghmf! it feels so good! shit— it's so warm!” he whined. his head fell back and his eyes squeezed shut. yoru imagined it was your pussy instead, as he tried to thrust up and down your tits.

he was getting close again. it didn't take long for him to cum all over your tits.

“that was quick. .” the sticky white substance covered your tits. yoru was still trying to recover from his high, but you got on his lap. before you could do anything, he interrupted you.

“no, no. not yet! no penetration yet. . we still have work to do.” yoru buried his face in your cum covered tits. “i'll be fine with just sucking on your tits while working.” he was so red again. his horniness made him bolder than he usually was, which totally made you forget how shy he was.

“if you don't wanna fuck, that's totally fine with me.” you said.

yoru immediately protested. “no! you got it all wrong. i do wanna have sex with you— i-i wanna be inside of you but.. we have something more important to do.”

yoru felt less stressed now. tits in his mouth, a hot popular girl as his partner, and a half finished essay. what more could he ask for?

[equallyshaw]

star crossed lovers au | connor bedard x kailey hughes au ↳ cat distribution system. ↳ blurb! (yes, i know these cats are not the same size. pls disregard lol) ↳ au masterlist!

word count: 646 warnings: none!

connor could not believe it, and possibly a part of him did not want it to be true. not that he did not like cats, they just were not his favorite animal. he was quite partial to dogs. so when kailey and connor were taking a walk through the loop after a short study session at the depaul library, kailey knew she could not give up this chance encounter. "oh my god con, look!" she squealed as she kneeled, before putting her finger out for the small cat to sniff her. "i don't think you should do that." he said taking a step back. she rolled her eyes, but then smirked as the cat began to brush itself up against kailey. "hi baby." she cooed, and began to pet it. "step on it bedard, get your car." she said not looking up from the black cat. "what?" he questioned, squatting down to her level. she turned back towards him, "im gonna stay here. you go get your car so we can get to the vet." she explained as if it was not obvious. "wait why?!" he asked still confused. "because con, the cat distribution system that I've been waiting for to appear, has happened! i cant give this cat up. look!" she said looking down at the cat. the cat had now taken up her lap as a safe haven, and connor knew there would be no going back now. she was hooked, and godddamit- she was gonna keep that cat.

_

it was 3 hours later, with a $465 vet visit and connor getting scratched in the room behind them- the two finally settled in on kaileys bed. kailey and connor laid down cuddling together, while the new kitten - notably named crosby laid in front of them in a ball. "i cant believe it happened." she whispered, intently watching the cat's chest rise and fall. "do lukas and kev like cats?" she questioned, absentmindedly. "uh, i don't know. the topic has never come up." he teased, pressing his nose in the nook of her neck from behind. "what if i brought her over tomorrow?" she questioned, and connor smiled. "im sure they would love to meet her." he mused, which made kailey silently cheer. "oh shoot! i completely forgot to let my brothers know." she giggled, pulling out her phone to shoot off a text to their group chat, that the four of them had. not even a minute later, the three brothers were texting like madmen. asking when they could meet her, but at the same time insulting kailey that she got a kitten and not a puppy, and lastly, they wanted to know the name. to which, luke guessed correctly. "what is with crosby?" connor questioned after she put down her phone, and she giggled. then she would not stop giggling, until she realized that baby crosby might wake up, so she stopped quickly. though, connor thought it was all quite amusing.

"as a kid we met crosby before i had a real understanding of who he was, and then was i was like 13 i saw a picture of him and thought he was the hottest man to grace this earth." she said turning around to face connor. "and then i met him again right before jacks draft, and my brothers had to tease me relentlessly about it. completely made a fool of myself in front of him and I've never lived it down to this day." she said as her cheeks turned rosy, which connor found quite darling. "that's adorable." he teased, moving a small piece of hair behind her ear. she pushed two hands to her face to cover herself from embarrassment, "what? it is cute." he said pulling them from her face, and then slowly leaned down to kiss her. but, before he connected the two he teased her a bit more. "though ill be sure to remember that you found him attractive...the next time he's in town." he teased before kissing her.

that kiss didn't last long.

just something cute between the two! please like and reblog if you enjoyed!

also posted a day early, who'd a thought? lol

[bonesandthebees]

I'm a fic writer as well and I've been toying with the idea of writing chapter by chapter as I upload (I usually write out the entire thing before I start posting)

anyway I was wondering how you (personally) approach writing chapter by chapter and what you'd say the pros/cons are of approaching a fic that way

I. I just found this in my drafts. oh god how long has this been in here I completely forgot about this. uh ANYWAY-

this is a really good question!! /gen

So for me, I’ve bounced between both those methods for fic writing! Up until I wrote nocturnal animals, I had a strict rule for myself that I’d only have one ongoing multi chapter fic happening at a time. Then if I wanted to write something else that would have multiple chapters, I had to prewrite it in its entirety to ensure I actually finished it and didn’t get bored because that was a problem I had a lot as a teenager. Then nocturnal animals happened and I decided to experiment with having two ongoing multi chapter fics at once, one just being a lot shorter and lower effort than the other, and I found out I could actually keep both going! So that was a fun revelation to have

Now I tend to prefer writing fics chapter by chapter since I know I can actually do it and still complete the fic. How I approach writing a chapter by chapter fic depends on how long I think it’s going to be. For my long form fics (ie: will likely be above 100k words like clinic, world forgetting, stars) I have to be extremely careful with how I plan them. I know the overarching narrative of the story, I know the ending and beginning, but I only plot out 2-3 chapters at a time so I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen to keep things exciting for me. For these stories I also have specific criteria they fill in my head to make sure I won’t get bored and abandon them. But if the chapter by chapter fic I want to write is ‘shorter’ (ie: will probably be between 20k-80k words) then I can be a little more relaxed since I know I can finish it relatively quickly, therefore I have a lower risk of not finishing it. So these I’ll usually plot out in their entirety ahead of time. No need for the mystery because I’m not gonna be dwelling on the story long enough to get bored of it. Of course I always let myself stray from my outline so I still end up adding a lot of stuff that wasn’t in my plan, but I have a solid list of plot beats to hit in each chapter before I even start writing the fic.

Now pros: overall, I like writing fics chapter by chapter a lot more. it allows me to form a stronger connection with the story and take my time with it. when I try to prewrite something, I find myself rushing a lot of parts just so I can get it finished. then, when I actually post it, I don't remember all the earlier bits as well so the comments I get on those just... don't hit as hard for me I guess? even if they're really nice comments, I just don't remember my own thoughts while writing the fic as well, so it's harder for me. whereas when I post a chapter or a one shot the morning after I finished writing it, it's still so fresh in my head and so I appreciate the comments a lot more. also, I can take my time and not rush specific arcs or plot beats, and I think it really improves the quality of my work.

(I think a really good example of this is if you compare my fics vanderlyle crybaby cry and honey and tangerines. although the plots were very different, I approached both of those fics with the intent to make it feel like an indie coming of age film. vanderlyle I prewrote in its entirety before I started posting it. tangerines I wrote chapter by chapter. yes, tangerines took several months to complete and was much longer than vanderlyle was in the end, but I think honey and tangerines is far better than vanderlyle in terms of overall quality. I'm far more proud of it, I feel a lot more connected to the work, and I just think I accomplished my goal with honey and tangerines, whereas I look back at vanderlyle and feel a bit disappointed with its lost potential.)

cons: writing things chapter by chapter is a lot harder and you're running the risk of losing interest and not wanting to complete it. you have to be very aware of your stamina and your interest in the project, along with how busy you are and how much pressure you'll be feeling to update it regularly. basically, you have to try it out and see what works better for you. if you've only prewritten stuff, I definitely recommend trying a chapter by chapter thing just to see how you like it. if you end up hating it? it's fic. no harm done. you never have to finish anything you write if you're just writing it for free. you don't owe anyone anything. but if you like it? well hey you discovered a fun new method for writing!

sorry I forgot about this question in my drafts lmao hope this helps!!

[mitsua]

Let's have a drink, shall we?

Summary: MC suddenly asks for "vacations" to go to the mountains and gain a bottle to drink with their favorite demon. Inspired by this post by @obeymekarasu

Finally!! Happy birthday Lucifer!!! I've got this in my drafts for weeks but I'm glad I've finished it before his date 👏😼

Warnings: little cursing, MC receives harsh words Genre: little angst & comfort

Pairing: Lucifer x MC Series: Obey me! SWD?

MC's. . . GN! Words' count: 3.6k

"MC's been real quiet don't ya' think?" Mammon asks to the demon next to him. Leviathan quickly answering back, "Yes, but I don't know why could that be..."

The living room falls silent once again, even when the five missing brothers knew this time of the day is spent chattering or fighting for another absurd thing between those two who happen to be the greed and envy embodiments.

The strangest is that the exchange human who they were talking about just moments ago was present, seemingly reading something difficult to understand on their D.D.D.

"Do any of you know...the Drealinal Mountain?" they finally spoke.

"Wha-" "Why'd you wanna know that?!" Leviathan interrupts Mammon.

"Uh, n-no reason..." you said shying away from their piercing gazes, you felt as if you've said a cursed name.

"THEY DID WHAT?!" "'THE HELL YA' TALKIN' 'BOUT?!" Both the white-haired demon and the blue-haired one shout in unison, startling the rest exchange program students but not their brothers who had grown accostumed to this kind of outbursts, specially if it's about their favorite human.

"I said MC has gone on a vacation," Lucifer repeated rubbing his forehead in frustration.

"Wha-B-But why?!" Mammon shakes his older brother's shoulders while searching for any sign of this being a joke.

"We... don't really know." Asmodeous answers after waiting for any of the others to reply for a few seconds. His gaze going to the floor in deep thought about his older brother's question. Have they done something wrong? Made them mad? Forgot about a special date? Was that pudding so special to you?

Lucifer, however, seemed the least affected, shaking Mammon off of him to continue with his busy agenda of the day. Burying the unsettling feeling growing in his stomach.

"I feel bad for not telling them the truth." The little angel confesses just as their home's door is closed behind him, letting an exasperated sigh as if being dissapointed with himself.

"But we promised MC we wouldn't tell a soul about this until they were back," Simeon tries to cheer his companion.

"And you know, I have my ways to see if my student is alright wherever they are. So don't worry," Solomon reminded and with a wink, he left to go back to his experiments.

"H-Hi! Is-Is this the Drealinal bar?" you asked to a big shadow standing next to what looked like a long-time abandoned officine.

"And who are you?" A deep voice was heard from that tall silloute, making you feel even smaller.

"I'm-I'm MC, sir." You said, bowing a little to show some respect.

"MC... That name... are you the human who has the seven rulers of hell as their dogs?" you winced at those last words, the heck? shouldn't he respect them?! their comment really ticking something in you.

"I do have pacts with them, so could you answer my question now?" you said not really caring if you're coming of as rude.

"I don't believe you," he said, the shadow coming closer to you in an intimidating way.

"Well, that's not my problem."

"Who do you think you're talking to-"

"Oh come on Lamqua! Let them in already! It's not like you run the place anyway," a femenine voice was heard coming from the inside of the ruined building.

The demon grunted and opened the door for you. You passed as quick as you could, flashing lights and pretty loud music disconcerting you for a moment when you felt a pair of hands on each side of your shoulders.

"Welcome darling! You've arrived at the best time here!!" The same voice shouted through the rythms.

"Haha-uh,- sorry, I-I came here for a special drink..." you tried to explain that you were not really looking for a partner or anything similar.

"Oh-has someone broken your heart?" the young demoness asked while ushering you to one of the counter's stools.

"No-It's not like that, I'm looking for a legendary blend of Demonus I've heard you only brew here..." the silence took place just as those words finished coming out of your mouth. Was this really a forbidden place where you couldn't say anything or what was going on as well when you mentioned the mountain's name to Levi & Mams and now here the drink's name?!

"Haha! They're joking! Keep it going guys!" the demon shouted to suffocate everyone's doubts and start playing their songs again. The environment returning to its livid self. "Listen, I know what ya'r talking 'bout, but do not mention it around anyone but me anymore 'mkay?" she said with a more serious tone, getting closer to you and now directing you towards a wooden door far from the party's room.

"If you want that drink that much, then you better be prepared because you might get involved with the worst demon in this whole place."

Once you reached another metal door, the friendly demon asked you one last time if you're really sure of what you were doing.

"Yes, I need to get that legendary Demonus."

And with that, the door opened and a dark aura quickly flooded all your surroundings. A sinister laugh ringing in your ears and as you realized how pretty much fucked up you were, the girl that was once next to you had dissapeared, now it was only you and whoever behind the smoke courtain.

"It's been one day, six hours and fourty-six minutes since I've last seen MC!!!" Mammon let in a pained tone, stretching his tall figure on the living room's couch.

"Twenty-six seconds too!" Leviathan added, only causing Lucifer's forehead's vein to pop further.

"Could you please not act like that? We all miss MC, but this is too much." Satan chimed in, also discomforted from his brother's behaviour.

"You could put this time to something useful and do your homework now." Lucifer suggested, shoting a killing stare at both of them to shut them.

"It's just that it's so weird they left without really saying that much like on other occasions..." Asmodeous tried to defend his brothers, but also expressed his true feelings about your sudden decision.

"Yas, he's right, normally they'd let any of us know beforehand where and how long are they goin' off!" Mammon shouted in annoyance.

"It was MC's decision, we can't do anything about it than to wait for them to explain, so now shut up." Lucifer finished.

"So you want some of my precious creation I've heard?" you heard another womanlike voice speak, feeling the smoke move all around you, you inferied the presence infront of you was inspecting you.

"Y-Yes!" you said in hopes that they'd stop whatever they were doing.

"Hmm, I don't think you're worth it."

"What-"

"If you want a bottle of my legendary Demonus you shall pass a test." In a snap, all smoke was gone and you saw for the first time the witch behind that so praised beverage you've read about lately.

The demoness infront of you seemed to be in her early thirties, but you knew better than that, she must be at least one and a half thousand years old.

The room was full of chemistry equipment and exploding bubbles could be heard from a little further. In the ceiling there were middle-age weapons to cursed swords and torned magic books. Please don't ever let Satan see those, he'd have a heart attack from them being mistreated — you thought.

"What kind of test?" You asked, getting more cautious as reality dawned on you. This was truly dangerous. You were currently all alone with an uknown, seemingly powerful, witch, in a room full of weapons.

"Hah, now now don't dare to back off!" The witch who had been leading you deeper onto the room suddenly came to a stop. "It's not like you have room for any more option."

"How's MC doing? How're they? Are they alright?" Luke bombarded Solomon who had told his two roommates he's gonna do his hourly check-up on you now.

"Luke, they can't concentrate if you keep on shaking him!" Simeon took the youngest off of the sorcerer to let him continue.

"They've met a witch... they're with her right now..." Solomon fell silent, watching through a cristal projecting a little image from your point of view. He got caught off when he could discern the demoness' face, how long has it been since he last saw her?

Nevertheless—as some memories came to mind—Solomon also remembered her grand power and her ease with magic, making him grow interest for how would it turn out... still, he did not understimate his apprentice.

"Draras..." he muttered to himself, finally moving to a side for Simeon and Luke to watch over MC, both quickly filled with concern for their beloved friend.

"Tha-That's the witch they've been talking about?!" Luke spat out, covering his eyes with his hands as Simeon gave him a comforting palm on the back.

"Yes, and I might add I may or may not have been the one who taught her how to brew in the first place..." he said, recalling the little demon he hung out with when he was first getting involved on the beverage world as one of his many hobbies.

"Brew? you? How'd it go?" Simeon wanted to ask, but knowing his roommate, it probably caused some massive explossion as he added whatever his heart told him to. Instead, he cleared his throat to take out of their thoughts the two people accompanying him.

"Uhm, well, do you think MC'll get over it? Safe?" the oldest angel preferred to ask and get his anxiousness to go away.

"Even if it seems as they're in a difficult environment," Solomon said referring to the laboratory filled with weapons, "Draras's always been on the path to make psychological tests rather than physical ones..."

"I never got to know why, but she was beyond interested on knowing more about people's thoughts and emotions." Solomon shrugged.

"Oh MC, just come back safe please!" Luke cried out.

"So, now you know the rules, you only gotta come back from a short nap, 'mkay?" Draras said as once again smoke poured out and started to engulf you into a drowsiness state.

Before you could muster a word, you'd already fallen to dreamland.

"A human risking so much to defend a demon and an angel... how very interesting."

You felt the first tear fell.

"Can't you go a single day without causing trouble?"

Then the second one...

"All of you, out of the way...! I'm going to tear that human limb from limb...!"

What on literal hell was going on? Lucifer? Luci—

"Let me make one thing clear: I respect my brothers' freedom to do as they wish. However, if I ever sense that you've become a threat to either Diavolo or us... then I will show you absolutely no mercy.

Understood?" a stern so cold you couldn't help but nod out of pure instinct, thinking you'd get to see something, anything else after your one true love being mad at you as he once did.

So this was what the test's about?

As horrid memories came one after another, your eyes already stinging and swollen from reliving them all, you noticed some more casual ones or 'cute' ones you've had with him before coming here got distorted as well, he was being mean in all of them.

Mean to you, whatever you'd do he'd call you out and show you how to do it flawlessly. He'd not take a look back at you as he expressed his disappointement on you, he'd mindlessly say how you're better off in the human realm as you clearly were such a failure, a threat to everyone.

After what felt like years of watching, listening and feeling every single cruel thing Lucifer could have and might have told you, you found yourself as a complete wreck.

Knelt on the floor as your legs stopped working about hours ago, exhaustion filled your form, dried tears stained your cheeks and the only thing that kept you awake in this twisted nightmare was your constant mantra "this did not happen, I love him."

You'd repeat it as you'd feel his words hitting harsher than any physical pain you've been through, his eyes missing the light that'd brighten up any day with him, his embrace that was shown closed for only you as the current menace you symbolyzed for him.

The scenary finally turned black, it was only you and your utterly messed up thoughts climbing you up, surpassing your fatigued mind. They whispered through and through everything they could to make you go insane.

"Now that you've seen that," Draras appeared a few meters infront of you, "tell me one thing." Her figure showed was nothing but imposing. It made you want to crawl into a corner. But there was truly no way to go anywhere to wherever you were in the first place.

"How is it that you still love him?" she continued, walking to finally look you straight in the eyes from above; you would've thought she was mocking you if it wasn't for the truly intrigued look she was giving you.

You didn't know what or how to answer, your mouth felt dry and your eyes were heavy.

Remember what you came for. You came for... What did you come for again?

"See, so useless you can't even remember your purpose." A voice that you were now so familiar with spoke back.

You lowered your head in surrender, why couldn't you say it? What did ever kept you from admitting it? Pride? Like him?

"I came here because I love him, and I love him because of him and only him, his innate strength, the fearless way he says things but still giving thought to every word to do not get it wrong, his caring nature..." you finally admitted, you felt yourself being flooded with the immense love you had for him, for Lucifer.

Lucifer Morningstar.

"I love him." You added for the last time, now standing up face to face with Draras, who listened intently and watched fascinated as you explained everything.

"I can only wish for you to enjoy yourselves dear, and hope someday I'll get to meet someone like you." She replied, crystaline-eyed with her hands to her heart, showing you a kind smile.

With that, everything vanished, you sucked a big breath before recognizing your whereabouts as the laboratory you first entered to.

Draras was looking for something inside a hallway in the room, which was covered in bottle racks. The pictures of the Legendary Demonus you've only watched online came to your mind and you felt as if you'd burst of how proud you felt for yourself in that moment, this, immediately leading you to think about Lucifer's reaction once you show him what you got.

"Here, only the best of the best," she handed you a translucent, pear-shaped bottle, a lilac, thick beverage swirling in it.

"Thank you so much Draras," you said taking it with great care, starting your way back home.

"They made it!" Solomon exclaimed from his room as he watched once again through his cristal, your point of view indicating you were out of the bar already, bottle on hand.

Luke and Simeon let out a relieved sigh, hugging themselves feeling happy for you.

"It's been three days, eight hours with four minutes..." Mammon groaned, his defeated form laying all over the same couch he first started counting on.

"And eleven seconds..." Leviathan let out, spraid on the floor with his game's console long forgotten at his right side.

"And you didn't even spared your books a single glance..." Satan said in frustration.

There was this tension hanging in the air ever since Lucifer broke the news of you being gone. None of the brothers acted as their usual self.

Even if Satan showed himself as discontented with his brothers, he kept thinking if there could be a bad reason why you'd leave without saying anything at all.

Lucifer kept doing his night patrols and would watch his brothers' demeanour get worse. Along his, that is. It wasn't unheard of you to go on a vacation to the human world from time to time to see your family now that the exchange program was done for the first year.

What it was unheard of was you wanting some other brother to deliver the news to everyone, this was something you'd taken very serious since you knew how those brothers get even without a 'goodnight' from you every night.

So of course this was new for all of them, and they were not taking it very well for the time being.

After some minutes of silence except for Beel's stomach growling and utensils being used by him cooking something for dinner, some knocks were heard on the HoL's front door.

"Are ya' waitin' for somethin'?" Mammon asked as he twisted his body to try and get a glimpse of who or what might be bothering at this hours from the windows.

"No, my cosmetic's delivery won't arrive until tomorrow." Asmo chimed in, bringing his hand under his chin as if in deep thought.

"We're only waiting for MC—" Leviathan said in realization.

Everyone's eyes were on him and before he could say anything else, the brothers who were awake and not cooking ran up to the door and slammed it open; as expected, revealing an MC a little messy, with a backpack that looked as if it was dragged a few miles and a very odd-looking bottle on their arms secured.

"H-Hi everyone! I'm back!" you exclaimed, a bit embarrassed now that you got time to think about your appearance, nevertheless, you were welcomed warmly and quickly taken care of by your seven roommates demons.

Eventually, you found yourself surrounded by their tangled bodies trying to fit in your single bed, restless.

You cautiosly made your way out of pile of people to fetch something to drink, preferably a coffee, you thought.

As you arrived to the kitchen, you noticed the bottle of Demonus you brought, you've totally forgotten about it after being embraced by the brothers so kindly.

A smile came to your face and as you were about to place it somewhere safer than the counter it currently was on, you felt a pair of arms wrap around your waist, a chin rest on your shoulders and breath hit your neck.

"Just where on hell did you go?" Lucifer asked, mindless of his bold action and mostly intrigued about your little trip.

"Hmm, do you know about this drink?" you replied, turning a little for him to get a better look at it. His eyes widened as he read the bottle's label.

"MC, don't tell me you went to something like the black market to get that—" an agitated look appeared on him.

You laughed at his reaction, "No, of course not, I-I," suddenly the words got caught up in your throat. You were proud about your achievement just a few hours ago, why couldn't you tell him?

Flashes of the nightmare you had to go through flooded your mind and it came difficult to keep your eyes open due to the pain forming in your head.

Lucifer noticed and ushered you to sit down, settling the drink somewhere else as he took care of you.

"I went to the Drealinal bar and encounter a witch named Draras," you barely mentioned before feeling the need to hold your forehead with one hand.

"Did you get hurt?" Lucifer's voice got lower and a cold glance met your eyes, just like what Draras showed you—

"What—no, I'm fine, I—I brought the Demonus for you," you presumed forcing a small smile to reassure him, your other hand found place on top of his other and moments later your smile reached your eyes genuinely.

It was this little moments of connection and intimacy you had with him, with Lucifer, that gave you the comfort and peace you need to go from storm to storm, this were your happy and calm moments with him that you had learnt to enjoy so much.

"I have to say it tastes delicious even if it doesn't affect me." You declared as you took another sip from a glass with the liquid that took you so long to find, your beloved taking from his own cup on the chair next to yours while listening to some cursed records of his, on the cozy environment that brought his room.

"It's exquisite indeed," he let out in a grunt as he felt every fiber of himself melt along the burning sensation he got in his throat for drinking for Lord knows how long now.

"I'm so glad you liked it," you remarked smiling fondly at him, who became speechless admiring your happy self.

He got up, leaving his glass of Demonus and making his way towards you, next kneeling infront of you and taking your unoccupied hand with his, planting a small his on the back of it.

Then getting closer to you taking advantage of his height, it was not that difficult to reach your face, surprising you.

"I love you... I love you so much," he confessed, never letting you out of sight, as if searching your love for him in your eyes as well, because right now, he knew you could see his.

The best method you found to express it rather than words was the way your lips found his in what started as a tender and soft kiss, slowly turning into a more passionate and love-filled one.

As you separated, Lucifer opened again his eyes, admiring you once again. It certainly wasn't always for something like this to happen, but it was surely was something you loved about him the most.

"I love you too."

All writings' rights reserved © 2024 Mitsua. (Credit to the respective owners of the pictures and tagged anime character.) ⌇ my navigation!

[mlobsters]

forgot i actually posted this in a fit of pique instead of slamming it back in the drafts. let's see if i can get through this today. fucking hell i have to get a clip of this fucking interstellar-ish music it's driving me up the wall. updated the video to include the interstellar music and that awful conversation about their childhood.

i'm not even sure i know what dean means, about running out. but actually just being sent out by john. you know i greatly, greatly dislike john. so more reason to loathe him, sure. it's just so vague. but i guess the general gist is sam wanted/needed dean as a kid, but sometimes john sent him away. and maybe dean thought he still was hurt/resentful/whatever over it? if i can step away from my emotions for a second, it seems like just another way to pile on the whump

checking my watch for when lucifer magically exits the empty and gets back into nick.

*heavy sigh* and the victim's family member they're interviewing is his brother, of course. because the show can't resist a good victim parallel

EDDIE I can’t believe he’s gone. We were close. Best friends. Alan always said he was my big brother, ‘cause he was born first. By, like, four minutes. Losing him is like losing a part of myself. I never knew it could be this bad.

like, seriously. fuck you, show. we GET IT

CAS You’re working a case? That is so good to hear. So, I assume that means you’re not going through with it, because I have to say, Dean, this plan of yours, it was born of – of desperation, not reason. DEAN My plan? CAS I-I know that I’m not suppose to know what I know, but… DEAN Look, I’m fine with my plan, okay? We can talk about my plan later. CAS Dean. You are making a terrible mistake.

sam's in trouble

CAS Wait, Dean, Dean. We need to have a conversation. DEAN Look, I really got to handle this right now, okay? So, thank you, and uh… it’s good to hear your voice. CAS Dean? [DEAN ends the call. He looks at SAM.] DEAN Really? SAM Dean, it’s Cas. I had to tell him.

seriously. what about jody?

if donatello truly has no brain function, this shouldn't really be a difficult choice... cas already effectively killed him however long ago.

NICK Is that you? WOMAN Yes, Nick. NICK Lucifer? GHOST Sarah. Your wife.

clever. would be kind of funny if she went vengeful and killed him

mark pellegrino you are so good, too good for this increasingly ridiculous role. just reject lucifer and i can have peace 😇🕊️ sorry, no

DR RASHAD Your uncle’s in a persistent vegetative state, being kept alive by machinery and nothing else. Sometimes letting go is the right choice.

*staring into camera*

well look at that, he's not actually fully vegetative, he's babbling occasionally.

CAS Hey, Dean. What happened to him – that was my fault. It was necessary. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t regret it. It doesn’t mean that I don’t wish that there could’ve been another way. DEAN I know the feeling. CAS Oh, no. No, please don’t compare this with your suicidal plan. Just stop. DEAN Okay, alright. Why don’t we talk about that later? CAS Because, according to your plan, there won’t be a later. DEAN Cas… if you are a friend of mine, then you will understand that I have to do this and you won’t try to stop me. You think this is easy on me? It has to be done. CAS So, then, this is goodbye?

tell him, cas! sam (and i) are a wreck we need someone to yell at him

CAS Well, then, I-I can fix him. DEAN Wait. How? I thought he was too far gone. CAS Dean, if there is a spark – a hope – then I have to try. You taught me that.

well that made me laugh. the show can be so heavy handed

DEAN You alright? SAM If Cas isn’t right about Donatello, then where does that leave him? Trapped. Trapped in his own body, somewhere between life and death. It’s just tough to think about somebody going through that. DEAN Then don’t. Thinking – highly overrated. SAM Easy for you to say. DEAN No, it’s not, actually. Whatever’s gonna happen with Donatello, we’ll know soon. SAM Right. And then what? DEAN Nothing’s changed, Sam.

god. it's like jared showed sam's anxiety so well, i sucked some of it up and i started to feel panicked and my hands started sweating. jesus fucking christ. take a fucking step back, brain.

DEAN Where’s the party? SAM It’s right here. SAM I mean, we’re celebrating, right? DEAN Okay. SAM Yeah, but not too much. Tomorrow morning, we’re, uh, back on track. No rest for the self-destructive.

well that made me laugh, good one, sammy.

DEAN Well, I will call this a win. Kinda nice. Going out on a high. SAM “Going out” being the operative phrase. DEAN Sorry. SAM “Sorry.” How sorry are you? Sorry that you fight to keep Donatello alive, but when it comes to you, you just throw in the towel? Or are you sorry that, after all these years, our entire lives, a-after I’ve looked up to you, after I’ve learned from you, I-I-I’ve copied you, I followed you to Hell and back… are you sorry that all of that it – it – it means nothing now?

fucking tell him, sam!

DEAN Who’s saying that? SAM You are, when you tell me I have to kill you. When you’re telling me that I have to just throw away everything we stand for, throw away faith, throw away family. We’re the guys who saved the world. We don’t just check out of it! DEAN Sam, I have tried everything. Everything! I got one card left to play and I have to play it. SAM You have one card today! But we’ll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there will be no tomorrow! You tell me, uh, you don’t know what else to do. I don’t either, Dean. Not yet. But what you’re doing now, i-it’s – it’s wrong! It’s quitting! I mean, l-look what just happened. Donatello never quit fighting. So we could help him because he never gave up. SAM I believe in us, Dean.

SAM I believe in us. [SAM tries to punch DEAN again, but he stops him.] DEAN Hey, hey, hey, hey! [SAM hugs DEAN.] SAM Why don’t you believe in us, too? DEAN Okay, Sam. Let’s go home. SAM What? [SAM pulls away from the hug.]

DEAN Let’s go home. Maybe Billie’s wrong. Maybe. But I do believe in us.

finally getting a little bit of the comfort from the h/c. is this interstellar-ish music the new mushy music? because again, here it is. but they never use the mushy music this much. i'm quite sure it was in episodes before this, but i don't know how far back and i don't think it was ever this frequent? but def remember thinking that's pretty and familiar

DEAN I believe in all of us. And I’ll keep believing until I can’t. Until there’s absolutely no other way. But when that day comes – if that day comes… Sam, you have to take it for what it is – the end. And you have to promise me that you’ll do then what you can’t do now, and that’s let me go. And put me in that box. [DEAN looks at CAS.] DEAN You too. SAM Yeah, alright. Alright. Alright. DEAN Now, you heard me. Let’s go home.

dad laying down the law. dean's voice breaking is getting me. and also knowing how this all ends next season.

god this fucking show is frustrating! because yes i am here for the emotions and the hurt and the talking and the declarations, eat that right up. however! we had some seasons (post-kripke) where there was almost none - to this season where there's been way too much. i know i'm on the far end of emotionally sensitive, and i know i've got a whole mess of issues that make me react especially strongly to suicide and terminal illness but jeSUS CHRIST on a cracker. too much. it puts me through the wringer and makes me resentful.

supernatural s14e12 prophet and loss (w. brad buckner, eugenie ross-leming)

feel like i'm just grinding through s14 at a decent pace. several times now they've made me had minor (to moderate) breakdowns and i just want to keep plowing through because i don't want the breakdowns to last more than one day 🫠 been a long time since a season made me cry so much. and especially with mid-season episodes? but it feels more.... hm. calculated. like when i bitched about 4 months suddenly equals 40 years in hell etc.

ranted about it in 9x09 because i don't think i was making my feelings known here for every episode back in s4

instead i just sighed because “trust me, kevin” and “i always end up screwed :)” so now dean’s gonna feel guilty. he’s already feeling guilty enough, did we need that too? when they push too hard on the excessive dean whump, i get annoyed. like the whole 4 months=40 years, i enjoyed torturing people, etc. edgelord bullshit :P

except instead of getting mad about it being edgelord bullshit now, i'm just feeling brokenhearted and manipulated. very not fun times. it's too much too close together to the jack thing and too similar to things they've done in the past, i think. is why it's pushing me away so hard.

dean's nightmare in the box / suicidal deathbed-esque convo also with interstellar-ish music / interstellar cornfield chase (c. hans zimmer) played by anna lapwood on the organ

well. dean's nightmare was awful. shades of him in hell calling out for sam. cannot fucking wait until this particular plotline gets snuffed out. and because i can't deal with not comparing this interstellar-ish music (it's in both spn scenes) i tacked it on to the end of this video too.

SAM Oh, hey. Didn’t mean to wake you. Sorry. DEAN No, it’s just a… bad dream. It’s fine. SAM You want to talk about it? DEAN No, I’m – No, I’m okay. DEAN What’re you doing? Why don’t you get some sleep? SAM You know, Dean, you don’t have to act like what you’re planning to do is just business as usual. I-I know you’re scared. DEAN Never said I wasn’t scared. But it doesn’t matter. SAM Doesn’t matter? We know we could die, uh, doing what we do. It’s always a possibility. But what you’re talking about is far worse than death. Michael’s an archangel. He could literally keep you buried in a coffin, alive, forever. DEAN Okay. I get it. But what’s the other option, huh? Michael gets outta my head and ends the world? ‘Cause it’s all right there in Billie’s book. SAM Yeah, but that’s only if we don’t find another way to take Michael off the board, and there has to be another way. DEAN And what is that other way? [SAM says nothing.] DEAN Exactly.

(but at least he wasn't sleeping in his jeans this time. oh and they're in an actual normal mid-price generic hotel room)

this reminds me a lot of the conversations in s5 about sammy going in the cage.

and like when i was watching the old guard, i'm like ah yes, stuck in a coffin in the ocean drowning over and over because you're immortal - i have heard this story before! on the vampire diaries! someone... stefan?? was stuck in a ...... safe? and pushed into a lake to repeatedly die and revive. 500 years and 3 months, respectively.

well this rando dude torturing and drowning a woman scene, also awful. jesus. we're committing to darker-than-usual i guess

CAS Sam. Maybe if I spoke with Dean… SAM It wouldn’t matter. Believe me, I-I I’ve never seen him like this. He won’t listen to me. H-He just – No. If we don’t find some way… Dean’s gone.

that interstellar-ish music again...

DEAN You ever think about when we were kids? SAM Maybe. Yeah, sure. Sometimes. W-Why? DEAN I know I wasn’t always the greatest brother to you. SAM Dean, you were the one who was always there for me. The only one. I mean, you practically raised me. DEAN I know things got dicey… you know, with dad… the way he was. And I just… I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should’ve. I mean, I had my own stuff, you know. In order to keep the peace, it probably looked like I took his side quite a bit. Sometimes when I was… when I was away, you know it wasn’t ‘cause I just ran out, right? Dad would… he would send me away when I really pissed him off. I think you knew that. SAM Man, I left that behind a long time ago. I had to. And if we’re gonna get through this, I-I have to do like you said and… try and keep my mind off of where we’re going. So, if we could not have conversations that sound like… deathbed apologies, I would really appreciate it. DEAN Right. Yeah.

listen i know this gets resolved somehow and i'm not gonna bail on this fucking project with a little more than a season left but i can't express how much i don't want to watch something that's making me cry so hard my head is killing me (more than it was already) on a regular basis. this is too many things that cut too close to home with characters i'm too attached to. sigh.

[chaos-croissant]

Unidentified Twi'lek Mok Shaiz's majordomo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Mandalorian this, baby rat that stop I crave peace

[miekasa]

right where you want me (eren yeager)

↯ pairings: eren yeager x (fem) reader

↯ genres and warnings: more modern au, fluff, eren is a baby but i think we all knew that

↯ word count: 1.2k

↯ notes: i saw @eremiie​’s post which reminded me of a draft i had, which resulted in editing this for eren. pls enjoy one thousand words of me, once again, pushing my quality time is eren’s love language agenda. 

“And then Jean said that he didn’t have aim assist on, but I swear he’s a fucken liar,” Eren rambles, completely in a world of his own as you rub sudsy circles into your face.

He’s been following you around since you came home from school, chattering about anything and everything that happened to him during his day off. It’s not an unusual occurrence; whether he knows it or not, Eren has a habit of hovering around you when he sees you for the first time in a while. Particularly when you’ve been out all day, and he’s been home (see: freeloading in your apartment) waiting for you to return. 

He’ll babble and follow you as you settle into your night routine like a puppy. A very loyal, very tall, very overgrown puppy. It usually carries on until you’re ready to shower, but today Eren seems to feel extra clingy; having followed you all the way to the bathroom, where he currently sits on top of the closed toilet seat, telling you about Jean and Connie and the details of their match earlier while you wash your face. 

You don’t even think Eren notices that you’re taking longer than usual; or, that, subsequently, he’s been talking for longer than usual. You know how much he hates to be home alone or bored, but you didn’t know that the result of a few hours of limited contact would be this. 

It’s cute. But you’re curious to see how far he’ll go; or, rather, how long he’ll stay. You think he might stalk you into the shower if given the opportunity. So, with a knowing smile, you pat your face dry, and decide to test your theory. 

“—Then, of course, Connie’s dumbass died. Armin was able to revive him, but he couldn’t play long after that, because he had to go to his lab.”

You hum, pulling the curtain back and twisting the knob to turn on the shower and adjusting the water to your preference, “Right, but I thought you said Armin wasn’t that good at this game.”

Eren huffs, bending his legs to sit criss-cross on top of the toilet now. You have to refrain from chuckling when you take a look at him—completely unaware of his size in comparison to the small porcelain underneath him. He looks like a child. You would take a picture of him if you had your phone with you. 

“He’s not,” Eren sighs, “But he’s more fun to play with than Jean, because at least Armin’s not a cheater.”

“But if the game comes with an aim assist option, is it really cheating?”

“Obviously, babe,” Eren gesticulates, hands flailing around him, “Everybody knows that you’re not as good as you say you are if you have to use the assist—it’s like, like… like people who say parallel parking is easy just because their car has one of those automatic sensor thingies.”

Ah, right.

You nod, pulling back when the water has finally heated up, now in search of your shower cap. “Of course, love,” you sympathize, reaching for the plastic, “Well, I’m going to shower now.”

Eren blinks, eyes wide like a baby. “Oh—now?”

“Well, we are in the bathroom. And I’m in a towel, and I did just come back from a long day at school, so, yes, now.”

Eren chuckles lightly, a faint pink dusting over the tips of his ears as he watches you unravel your towel and step into the shower. But that’s probably because of the steam—you like your showers really hot; definitely not because he saw you naked for a flash of a second.

“Oh—uh, yeah, okay,” Eren stutters, snapping himself out of his own thoughts, he stands up, stepping to the sink, “I think I’ll wash my face, too, first. Before I go.”

You hum in reply as you seemingly go on about your shower; when you simply stand under the water, keeping an ear out for Eren’s movements and words.

He suddenly takes great infatuation and care with washing his face—a whole ninety seconds if you’ve counted correctly—which, granted, is what he’s supposed to do, but you know damn well is not his regular routine. You think he might even brush his teeth, too, for the hell of it, and the familiar smell of one of your facial sprays begins to permeate the room.

He blurts out random thoughts in between—asking you briefly about your assignment, before going on to ramble about his least favorite professor; he tells you what he ate today, asks you what you had for lunch; he even asks you which body wash you’re currently using.

(The answer is none—you’re just barely holding it together trying not to laugh).

It’s almost fifteen minutes later, you think, when Eren starts whistling; clearly run out of things to say or do, but still hesitant to ask the one thing lingering on his mind.

“Are you still there, Eren?” you call wittingly. You can see Eren’s blurry figure through the shower curtain, an excited nod coming from his silhouette.

“Yup,” he chirps, hand reaching to scratch at the back of his head. You bite your lip—his hair probably needs to be washed. “I, uh… I’ll go now, though, I guess… wait for you to come out… maybe I’ll order food or something in the meantime. Do you want pizza? I think pizza would be good—oh, where should I order from? That place Mikasa recommended was really good last time—”  

It takes everything in you to not physically laugh out loud. God, he’s cute.

You pull the curtain back, just with your head peeping out to find Eren with one hand on the door, the other on the light—which you’re certain he would have accidentally tuned off had you not caught him—still lingering.

“Eren?”

He blinks. “Yeah, baby, what’s up?”

“Do you want to shower with me?”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen Eren’s eyes light up as bright or as quickly as they did in that moment. His head shakes with an overly enthusiastic nod, and is already clumsy in pulling off his clothes. He almost trips getting his sweatpants off, but you don’t think he’s ever gotten undressed that quickly—not even when you told him you would let him fuck your face.

Though, he was pretty damn quick to undress that time.

He finishes stripping with a complete lack of grace and coordination; a stupid, wide, boyish grin covers both his cheeks on his face when he finally steps into the shower behind you. He leans forward to dip his hair under the shower when you turn around to face him, resulting in droplets falling onto your forehead; you scrunch your nose, but Eren laughs, holding you face in his hands and craning his neck to peck your nose.

“Hi, baby,” he grins, his mop of hair now sticking to his face and neck from the water, “I forgot to ask—how did your assignment go?”

“You already asked me that, dummy. Twice, in fact,” you find yourself copying his smile, “You know, if you wanted to join me, all you do was ask.”

Eren squishes your cheeks between his palms and presses a kiss to your lips, “Well, I can’t make all the first moves, now can I?”

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

Could be all our demons

The third installment of the Don't know what's out there series is up! It can be read as part of the series or as a standalone.

Rating: M

Warnings: none

Relationships: Established Geralt/Yennefer; pre-Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer

Summary: 2020: When Jaskier goes over to Geralt and Yennefer’s house for dinner, he convinces them to tell him the whole story of how they met and fell in love.

1256: With a careless wish to a djinn slowly killing him, Geralt has no choice but to seek out a sorceress for aid. Yennefer of Vengerberg is captivating, beautiful—and definitely up to something. But when he binds their fates together with a wish to save her life, Geralt fears he’s made himself a powerful new enemy.

You can read the first couple of scenes below or find it on AO3!

Novigrad, 2020

Jaskier isn’t sure what one is supposed to bring when invited to dinner by a terrifying nine hundred year old sorceress who openly loathed him not too long ago. He’s had dinner at Geralt and Yennefer’s house once before, but that was a spur-of-the-moment, post-near-death-experience thing. He never dreamed that Yennefer would invite him over, but she and Geralt both seem to have a higher opinion of him than they did before the cursed house debacle.

He shows up on Geralt and Yennefer’s front step fifteen minutes early, clutching a tray of brownies that are definitely homemade and not store bought, a bottle of wine, and a potted plant. In retrospect, he probably should have bought a bouquet of flowers, but the orchid is the same color as Yennefer’s eyes and the florist told him they’re a finicky plant, so it seemed perfect for her. Not that he’s going to ever tell her that.

Geralt answers the door before Jaskier even knocks, presumably because of his enhanced witcher hearing. When he sees Jaskier and his armful, he cocks an eyebrow. “Are you moving in?”

“Well, this is a very nice house, so if you’re offering—”

“I’m not.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I know exactly what I’m missing, which is why I’m not offering.”

Jaskier’s lips twitch. He missed the grumpy witcher. “Can you take something? I’m trying not to drop this bottle of wine.”

Geralt plucks the bottle of wine from under the crook of Jaskier’s arm. “Come on in.”

“Love the enthusiasm.” Jaskier trots after him into the house. “It’s good to see you too. How have you been, my friend? Oh I’ve been good, thank you for asking. Just enjoying my winter break and finishing the first draft of my second book—”

“Yenn,” Geralt says, sounding very tired. “Your dinner guest is here.”

They step into the kitchen, where they find Yennefer standing at the stove, stirring a pan of risotto. “Hello, Jaskier,” she says. “Wait until after we’ve eaten to start annoying my partner.”

“I’m doing no such thing.” Jaskier holds up the orchid and the plate of brownies. “I come bearing gifts. The brownies are homemade.”

“Is that supposed to be a selling point?” Yennefer asks.

Jaskier puts the plate and the potted plant down so he can plant his hands on his hips and scowl. “I’m getting a lot of lip from people who invited me to dinner.”

“That was Yennefer,” Geralt says. “I was in Nazair.”

Yennefer rolls her eyes. “I hope you like fish.”

Jaskier’s feelings towards seafood are decidedly neutral. “I love fish. And, uh, I know you like wine.” He nods to the bottle of wine. “I hope it’s okay. The guy at the liquor store said it’s a decent vintage.”

Yennefer takes the bottle from Geralt and sniffs. “You could have done worse.”

“I forgot what a flatterer you are, Yenn. You’re making me blush.”

Yennefer’s lips curl into a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

It’s one of the nicer things that Yennefer has ever said to him and Jaskier returns her smile, genuinely touched. “Good to see you too. How have things been? Any terrifying curses to break or evil sorcerers to slay?”

“No, but there were drowners in the Pontar River last week,” Geralt says.

“Oh, that’s horrifying.” Jaskier leans against the kitchen counter. “Tell me everything.”

Geralt blinks. “Couple of kayakers went missing. Their bodies were never found, but there were bite marks on the sides of their kayaks.”

Jaskier remembers hearing about the missing kayakers, but not the bite marks. He shudders.

“Found a nest of eight drowners,” Geralt says, uncorking the bottle of wine. “I killed them.”

Jaskier waits a beat for him to elaborate. When the witcher doesn’t, he prompts, “And?”

Geralt looks vaguely bewildered as he pours a glass of wine and slides it to Jaskier. “And what?”

“Give me details! How did you kill them?”

“With my sword.” Geralt shrugs. “Not all monsters are worth writing about. Drowners are like rats, if rats were aquatic and man-eating.”

Jaskier gives Yennefer an exasperated look. She laughs at his dismay.

“Haven’t you had enough excitement lately, Jaskier?” she asks.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s plenty more where that came from.” Because every detail Jaskier learns about Geralt and Yennefer’s lives makes him want to know more. He’s trying hard not to hero worship them, since he knows they wouldn’t appreciate that kind of attention. But it’s hard since every time he’s seen them, they’ve been defending innocent people from monsters or spells gone wrong. And it doesn’t help that they’re the most ridiculously attractive couple alive. Even if they hadn’t saved his life the first time they met, he would still be swooning a little over them.

Jaskier shakes the thought away, because that’s not something he needs to be dwelling on right now. “Anything I can do to help?”

He helps out by slicing up a loaf of bread and testing the wine. The wine is indeed average, though the slice of bread he steals is delicious. 

By the time they sit down for dinner, the ball of nervous energy in Jaskier’s belly has diminished somewhat. He watches the way Yennefer’s hand lingers on Geralt’s shoulder as she settles down into the seat next to him, the way his lips curl slightly as he leans into the contact. For a moment, it’s like they could be any couple who’ve been together for a long time, not a powerful sorceress and a witcher.

Then Yennefer notices that she left her glass of wine on the countertop and summons it with a flick of her wrist. Geralt doesn’t even bat an eye. Jaskier tries not to let his own eyes widen, as if he sees glasses of red wine levitate across the room on a regular basis. At random moments, he’s reminded of how old Yennefer and Geralt are, of how they’ve probably seen things that he can’t even imagine and lived more life than he ever will ten times over. He wonders how one can live for centuries, see all the beauty and terror the world has to offer, and still remain relatively normal.

Yennefer looks up and meets his eye. “Stop gawking, Jaskier.”

Jaskier, who thought he was doing a relatively good impression of someone who isn’t having a minor existential crisis, draws himself up. “I thought you couldn’t read my mind.”

“Not with magic, but you have no poker face to speak of. Thank the gods your calling was writing and not acting.”

Geralt snorts.

“Ooh, I could try playwriting,” Jaskier says with a shit-eating grin. “ Gerald and Gwendolyn: The Musical. What do you think?”

Yennefer sends a slice of bread flying at him in retaliation, but it moves slow enough that he can catch it.

“Can you pass the butter too?” Jaskier asks brightly.

Looking amused, Geralt slides the butter across the table to Jaskier. “Yenn said you sent her the sequel.”

“I did and she adored it!” Jaskier beams at Yennefer.

She surveys him skeptically over the brim of her glass of wine. “I said it was pretty good.”

“Which is your version of glowing praise,” he says. “Anyway, I’m waiting for my editor to send me her edits and outlining the third book as we speak. It’s a good thing Pris is back home for break, because our living room is covered in sticky notes and she hates that. Plus, I like having the place to myself. I’ve been ordering obscene amounts of takeout and walking around in my underwear all the time.”

Too late, he realizes that that’s probably not something one says in polite company, but Geralt snorts and Yennefer smiles into her wine, which feels like a small victory.

They lapse into silence, with all three of them focused on their salmon, risotto, and wine. It’s comfortable, but even comfortable silences put Jaskier on edge, so he asks, “How’s Ciri?”

He’s still struggling to wrap his mind around the fact that Geralt and Yennefer’s daughter is the lost Cintran princess of legend, but it’s not like the two of them were going to have a nice, normal daughter.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Yennefer says. “Driving Cerys crazy the last time I spoke to her. She’s gotten it into her head that she needs to learn how to speak rock troll, even though rock trolls have been extinct for three hundred years.”

“Cerys is her girlfriend?”

Yennefer nods. “She was the first female jarl of Skellige.”

“Wait.” Jaskier really needs to stop being stunned by Geralt and Yennefer’s revelations at some point. “Ciri’s Cerys is Queen Cerys?”

“Yes.”

Jaskier looks between them. “Do you have any normal people in your family? Like, a nice cousin who’s an accountant?”

“Why would we have a cousin who’s an accountant?” Yennefer shoots him an incredulous look.

“Would make doing taxes easier,” Geralt says.

Yennefer snorts. “We've never paid taxes, Geralt.”

They exchange looks like it’s an old joke between them, both smiling.

“So, is she a sorceress too?” Jaskier asks.

“No, she’s human,” Geralt says. “We think Ciri doesn’t want her to grow old and die, so she hasn’t.”

Jaskier can feel his eyes growing wider. “Wait, she can do that?” He turns to Yennefer. “Can you do that? Are there a string of people who will just never grow old because you took a liking to them?”

Yennefer shakes her head. “Ciri isn’t like me. The truth is that we don’t know the extent of her capabilities and we probably never will. There’s no one else in the world like her and there never will be. She’s the last Riannon and she never intends to give birth to another. But we know she has some power over space and time, so it makes sense that she’d be able to simply will her lover into immortality.”

“Oh, yes, that makes perfect sense.” Gods, Jaskier really needs to sit down with Ciri some day and get her life’s story. Not for a book—he promised Geralt that he’ll never write about Ciri and he doesn’t intend to break that promise—but just because the more he learns about her, the more fascinating she seems. She may be even more fascinating than Geralt or Yennefer.

“Don’t forget about your salmon,” Yennefer says and Jaskier realizes that he has indeed forgotten about his salmon.

He shovels another bite of fish into his mouth and asks, “So, any other famous historical figures in your family? Should I expect Lara Dorren to be here next time I stop by?”

“Oh no, she’s dead,” Yennefer says. “But Ciri’s her last surviving descendant.”

“ What ?”

***

After dinner, they retreat to the living room with Jaskier’s brownies—which he does eventually have to admit are store-bought—and coffee. Jaskier leans back in an overstuffed recliner that probably costs more than all the furniture in his apartment combined. Across from him, Geralt and Yennefer are curled up on the couch, one of Yennefer’s legs casually draped across Geralt’s lap. It’s adorably domestic, though Jaskier would never dare call either of them “adorable” to their faces.

He knows that he’ll probably have to head home soon, but he’s in no hurry for this night to end. Without the threat of impending death, Geralt and Yennefer are delightful company, once you get past Yennefer’s sharp tongue and Geralt’s scowly disposition. If Jaskier plays his cards right, he can see them becoming not just his muses, but his friends.

“You sound like my grandfather,” he tells Geralt after the witcher spends ten minutes griping about prices in Novigrad.

That earns him a scowl. “Did your grandfather have to spend forty crowns on gas the other day?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to him in years,” Jaskier says cheerfully. “But he hates Novigrad. Though I think that’s more because of all the elves than the prices. Grandpa Pankratz is an asshole.”

“Prices in this city have always been ridiculous,” Geralt grumbles. “Only thing that can be said for Novigrad is that at least the Eternal Fire no longer runs the place.”

“Why did you settle here then?” Jaskier imagines that Yennefer and Geralt could be anywhere on the Continent.

“It’s a big city,” Yennefer says. “People don’t pay enough attention to each other to notice that their neighbors aren’t aging. We tried the country life, but the neighbors eventually grew suspicious of us, even with magical intervention. And we tried living in the middle of nowhere, but I was bored out of my mind within a decade.”

“A decade?” Geralt arches an eyebrow. “Try a week.”

Yennefer shrugs unrepentantly. “We have a winery in Beauclair, but we can’t spend more than a few weeks at a time there. There’s a statue of Geralt in the city square and people tend to notice the resemblance if we linger too long.”

Geralt grimaces.

“And I had a cottage in Vengerberg when we first met,” Yennefer adds. “Geralt used to stay with me there in between contracts, but then the political situation in Aedirn got dicey for a while and I had to move on.”

“That’s where you met?” Jaskier asks. He’s heard bits and pieces of the story—enough to know that there was a djinn and an orgy—but he hasn’t heard the whole thing yet. He intended to get it from them at the dinner with Eskel, Triss, Coën, and Ciri, but instead they spent most of the evening talking about the time that Geralt accidentally sold his soul to a demon.

“No, we met in Rinde,” Geralt says. “It wasn’t always such a shithole.”

“No, it really was.” Yennefer gets a wistful look in her eye. “That’s why it was such a lucrative area. The locals were dying for some entertainment.”

“Hence the orgies?” Jaskier asks.

“Hence the orgies.” She nods.

“And what, was the djinn one of the attendees?”

“No, but that would have made the night all the more exciting.” Yennefer dunks a bite of brownie into her coffee. “Would you like to hear the story?”

Jaskier sits forward a little in his seat. “Yennefer, the answer to that question is always going to be yes. I don’t care how boring or inconsequential it is, I’m going to want to hear it.”

Yennefer’s lips twitch and she glances at Geralt. “You should probably start.”

“Do I have to?” Geralt grimaces. “Not much of a storyteller.”

“You’re the one who went fishing for a djinn.”

“Hm.” Geralt sighs, like he already knows he’s lost this argument. Taking a sip of his coffee, he says, “It was six, maybe seven years after I’d claimed Ciri through the Law of Surprise…”

***

Rinde, 1256

Geralt has always been prone to bouts of sleeplessness, even before becoming a witcher. He was a colicky, restless babe, or so his mother used to say. As a trainee at Kaer Morhen, he and Eskel spent most of their nights sitting on the keep’s battlements, talking about the future that neither of them truly thought they’d live long enough to see and looking at the stars. On the Path, sleeping deeply is dangerous, but Geralt is no less restless in places where he knows he’s safe, like Kaer Morhen or the Temple of Melitele.

“A week of no sleep will do to you what a sleepless night will do to a human,” Vesemir told him once when he caught him sitting on the battlement instead of sleeping yet again. “It will slow you down, make it harder for you to think, strategize. You’ll be as much a danger to yourself as any monster or angry mob.”

It’s been over six years since his last decent night’s sleep. It’s been a month since he was able to settle down at night enough to meditate. And Geralt knows that all of Vesemir’s dire warnings about lack of focus and slow reactions are coming true. He was almost bested by a fucking drowner last week and has a brand new scar on his thigh to show for it. If this continues, he isn’t going to survive to make it back to Kaer Morhen for the winter. He’ll just be another witcher lost on the Path, just another name toasted with White Gull.

So when a snotty lordling in Tretogor tried to hire him a few days earlier to find a djinn bottle allegedly thrown into a lake in Rinde, Geralt told the kid that djinns were fairy stories and then promptly headed north for Rinde.

He curses as he pulls his net back, finding only a boot and a single fish that’s too small for eating. Throwing the fish back, he grumbles, “Come on. ”

The lake’s surface is still, offering no clue as to the djinn’s whereabouts. Not even his medallion hums.

Geralt moves a few feet down the lake’s edge and throws the net back in. This time, when he pulls it back, he feels the weight of something caught in it. The first glimmer of hope he’s had in weeks kindles in his chest.

The amphora isn’t anything extraordinary, a simple clay vessel meant to be overlooked. Geralt isn’t sure what the runes on the seal meant, but his medallion hums when he runs his finger over them. He can hear Vesemir’s scolding voice in his mind, telling him that this is a shit idea, reminding him of all the humans he’s seen play with forces beyond their understanding and pay the price. But he’s so fucking tired . He’ll do anything to settle his mind just enough for an hour or two of sleep.

Before he can change his mind, he pops the seal off. Behind him, Roach snorts nervously and stomps at the ground. Geralt can’t see the djinn, but he can feel it, a being of pure power and rage. His medallion won’t stop rattling against his armor.

Geralt closes his eyes, trying to collect his hazy thoughts, and says, “I want to be free of destiny’s bonds. Break the Law of Surprise.”

***

Read the rest on AO3!

[aomine-ryo]

Kind of late, but I had an idea for a fic that’s been in my drafts for a while and I wanted to post it for Kise’s birthday but it wasn’t quite done yet. But it is now, so here it is, hope you like it!

Scenario: New kid, Kise Ryouta ends up falling for the reader

gender neutral reader

It’s not particularly easy being the new kid at school. Especially if you were Kise Ryouta. Being a well known athlete and model, it was difficult for him to be able to find friends in a new place that didn’t have ulterior motives. However, Kise learned to deal with it. He was cold to people until he himself learned to respect them and understand their motives.

But the problem with him was not in the friendship category, but rather the romance one.

Kise had a tendency to fall for the first person that was nice to him in a new place, and that almost always ended in the other person using him. So this time, he promised himself that he was not going to hurt himself yet again.

On his first day, Kise stood at the front of the class and introduced himself. “Um, hi, nice to meet you, I’m Kise Ryouta. I look forward to getting to know you all and well, I don’t really know what else to say,” he said, turning to the teacher for some help. The class filled with a small chatter once he stopped talking, and he could already faintly hear comments about how ‘cute’ he looks.

“It’s alright Kise. You can take that empty seat next to Y/N over there,” the teacher said, pointing.

Your head snapped back to the front of the class from gazing out the window at the sound of your name. Of course the new kid got stuck in the seat next to you. He was cute, you couldn’t disagree. However, that only meant that everyone else was going to be swarming around your desk for a while.

The teacher went on with the regular announcements until the bell for first period rang. “Oh right, before I forget, Y/N, can I trust you to show Kise around the school during your break?” she added.

You held back a sigh as you nodded. “Sure,” you replied curtly, glancing over at Kise and giving him an awkward smile.

As expected, once the teacher left, he was soon surrounded by girls asking him questions that were borderline invasive. How do they do it? How do they simply have the courage to speak to people like that? In a way, you envied them for their confidence, but it was also quite pathetic.

Eventually, the break came around and Kise approached your desk with a polite smile. Why did he get stuck with you out of all people? You were the first one that caught his eye and Kise could already see himself catching feelings for you. But he made a promise to himself and he was going to keep it. He wasn’t going to get played with again.

“Hey, um, Y/N, right?” who was he kidding? He knew your name. It was stuck in his head ever since the teacher instructed him to sit next to you.

“Yeah, just give me a second, I just have to organise this mess and we’ll be on our way,” you said, fumbling with the stationery that was cluttering your desk.

“Oh, you don’t really have to give me that tour if you don’t want to. I don’t want to be a burden— I can probably figure things out myself,” Kise said.

“It’s alright, I don’t mind helping out. If you end up getting lost at some point I’ll feel bad,” you insisted, finally putting the last of your things away and standing up. “Okay, we’re all good. Shall we?”

Kise hesitated for a moment. He really didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t have any more excuses so he simply walked by your side.

You showed him all the classes that he would regularly be attending, adding a few tips that you learned through the years whenever you could. This was the most you’d ever spoken to someone who wasn’t a close friend and yet Kise remained rather silent. Did he think you were boring? Were you talking too much? God, why did you have to be assigned this task?

“Oh right, I almost forgot. Are you joining any clubs?” you asked him as you walked through the halls.

“Yeah, I’ll be joining the basketball club,” Kise nodded.

“Right, I figured,” you mumbled, making Kise let out a small chuckle.

“Hey, you might have made the right judgement this time, but don’t judge a book by its cover,” Kise joked.

“It was more of an intuition thing rather than judging you, I swear,” you replied defensively, holding back a giggle.

“Mhmm I’m sure it was,” he said sarcastically. He hated how bright your smile was. It was so warm and gentle, he could look at it all day. He barely even knew you, but he was already obsessed with your smile. Just his luck.

“Well, unfortunately for you, I’m the manager for the basketball team so you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”

This had to be some sort of cruel joke. “Really? That’s great. So I could probably just tail behind you and not get lost by the looks of it.”

“Maybe,” you shrugged. You hoped he was joking. The last thing you needed was a bunch of fangirls trailing you around campus. “Let me show you the way to the basketball gym though, just in case I manage to escape you.”

“Escape me? Tired of me already huh?” Kise teased, dramatically pretending to be offended.

“Absolutely,” you joked.

Kise clasped a hand over his heart as though he got shot in the chest. “I am hurt, Y/N. What did I ever do to deserve this?” he recited.

“You know, the drama club is probably also looking for new members— I should show you their club room instead,” you retorted.

“Ha ha very funny,” Kise rolled his eyes. How were you two already joking around like this? He tried not to speak to you much, but it was like his charisma was forced out of him. Maybe he was overthinking it. You seemed nice. Maybe the two of you could be good friends.

And well, that’s pretty much exactly what happened. With the sheer amount of times you two see each other, it was no surprise that you’d become friends. It started with witty banter and random comments but soon, the two of you became close. After about three months, you were hanging out with each other every other day, going out for a bite after practice, going to the movies, walking to school together— the list goes on. And somehow, you never got tired of each other.

“Hey, Y/N-cchi, are you going for the field trip?” Kise asked you in between classes, referring to the yearly trip your school organises to a selected place in the country with a rich history.

“I’ll go if you do. But to be honest, I’d rather stay at home,” you replied.

“Well, we’re going then. It’ll be fun. There’s probably cute places to take pictures for Instagram,” Kise said.

“So I’m basically going to be your photographer?” you sighed.

“Precisely.”

“Sounds like a blast,” you groaned.

“I’m kidding, I will find a way to make this worthwhile. I heard that there’s a nice restaurant near the hotel we’re staying at, so we should pay that a visit,” Kise said.

“I’m exhausted just thinking about it,” you replied, resting your head on your palm.

“Shhh it’ll be fun, trust me,” Kise said, eyes softening up when he noticed how the sunlight that shone through the window landed on you like some sort of natural spotlight. His mind was about to wander off into a daydream when the teacher walked into the classroom, snapping his attention away from you.

The field trip finally rolled around and you found yourself in a fresh hotel room with a gorgeous view of the beach. Unfortunately, you didn’t get assigned to room with Kise, but it was alright since he was just a few doors down. As promised, Kise did his best to make sure you were having fun. You did have to take an awful lot of pictures of him, and sometimes he’d force you to take pictures with him, but Kise was always good company so you didn’t mind too much.

On the last night, Kise took you to that restaurant for dinner. “It’s kind of a fancy restaurant so we should dress up,” Kise informed you that afternoon.

“But that’s so tiring. Let’s just go to McDonalds instead,” you suggested.

“We are not going to McDonalds. I will dress you up myself if I have to,” Kise said firmly.

So in the end, you did end up dressing up, but you didn’t pack any nice shoes so you had to go with your sneakers. Of course, Kise patronised you for it, but you just replied with the wittiest comment you could think of, like always.

“Hi, I made a reservation here, for Kise Ryouta,” Kise said to the hostess.

The place was nicer than you expected it to be. It was a strange feeling being here with a reservation. It felt less like a hang out with your friend and more like a date. And for some reason, you were now nervous.

“Ah yes, right this way Mr Kise,” she said with a polite smile as she led you two to your table. “A window seat, just as you requested.”

“Perfect, thank you,” Kise said, glancing at the view of the night sky and the twinkling city lights below.

“Here are your menus, a waiter will be with you shortly. Enjoy your date,” she smiled.

“Oh, uh, it’s not a—” you began, but she walked off before you could correct her.

“Well that’s awkward,” Kise chuckled.

You simply sighed in defeat as you took a moment to admire your surroundings. There was a clean white cloth spread across your table with a candle and flowers as a centrepiece. It was a bit too romantic for your comfort, but you tried to shake it off. “Someone went all out for a simple dinner. You even requested a table by the window. How picky can you get?” You said teasingly.

“I just made a reservation in case this place would be busy. You wouldn’t want to wait in line would you?” Kise explained and you shook your head in response. “Exactly. And I got the window seat because I know you like to stare out sometimes. I figured you wouldn’t wanna stare at me all night long, so I got you a better view.”

You felt your stomach turn as your mind’s immediate thought was how Kise was enough of a view on his own. You had to admit, he looked fantastic that night— when he said he was going to dress up, he wasn’t kidding. It was a simple white button up shirt with a red tie, but he still looked dashing. Perhaps it was the fact that he rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, showcasing his toned forearms that pulled the look together. Either way, you didn’t like the fact that you were viewing your friend in such a way.

“Oh my, what is this self deprecation? I thought I was hanging out with model and Generation of Miracles member, Kise Ryouta, not some emo teenager,” you said, your tone resembling Kise’s dramatic one that you’ve heard a thousand times before.

“Well, if you’re not going to appreciate my effort of getting us these seats, I can just ask them to move us away from the window,” Kise huffed.

“No, no,” you tracked back almost immediately. “I like the window. Thank you.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kise grinned triumphantly.

That night was absolutely lovely. But no matter now hard he tried, Kise couldn’t take his eyes off you. As expected, you’d rest your chin on your palm and gaze out the window with a faraway look in your eyes, and Kise could do nothing but admire how beautiful you looked. He couldn’t believe that he knew someone as amazing as you were. Moreover, he couldn’t believe that he told himself that he wouldn’t fall for you. What a dumb decision. But he was already this far in, maybe it was just that fact that he can’t have you that made him want you more. These feelings will pass, right?

As the two of you walked back to the hotel that night, a cool salty breeze flowed through the air. Kise had made you laugh yet again, and his heart filled with joy as the bright smile returned to your face. He could stay in this moment forever.

“I can’t believe this is our last night here,” Kise sighed once you simmered down.

“Yeah, this trip was actually kinda fun. I wish it didn’t end so soon,” you said, gazing up at the bright full moon.

“You think we can squeeze in one final adventure tomorrow morning?” Kise questioned.

“Where to?”

Kise shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Well then, I’d rather stay in and sleep thank you very much,” you said.

“Are you tired yet?”

“Not really.”

“Then let’s go walk along the beach,” Kise suggested.

“But the sand gets everywhere, it’s so annoying,” you frowned.

“It’s our last night. Come on,” Kise said, grabbing your wrist and dragging you towards the empty beach.

The two of you walked by the water where the sand was firmer so that it less tedious. It was quite peaceful hearing the waves crash against the shore as the water glimmered under the moonlight.

“You know, when I first met you, I really didn’t wanna be your friend,” Kise said out of the blue.

“How rude,” you faked a gasp as you playfully whacked his arm, making him chuckle. “But to be honest, me neither.”

Kise looked at you with a dumbfounded expression. “Seriously, Y/N-cchi? But why?” he whined, seeming much more offended than you were.

“Because you always had people following you around and I didn’t want to be caught up in that,” you explained, kicking a pebble around as you walked.

“Oh,” Kise said, realising he probably shouldn’t have said anything because he couldn’t explain his reason as rationally as you did. “That’s fair, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you wanna be friends with me? Was I annoying?”

“What do you mean, you still are annoying,” Kise joked, earning himself another whack on the arm. “I’m kidding, no you weren’t annoying.”

“Then what was it?”

“Okay, this might sound really stupid, but I told myself that I wouldn’t go after the first person that’s nice to me, because that always ended up with people using me for something or the other,” Kise explained, stopping in his tracks to pick up a smooth pebble.

“That’s fair,” you said, trying not to overthink what he meant by ‘go after’ as you watched him skip the pebble over the waves.

Kise looked out at the horizon, seemingly lost in thought for a moment before turning back to face you. “You know, you caught my eye almost immediately and that was a red flag to me for the longest time, but you actually turned out to be pretty cool.”

It was strange seeing Kise like this. It was like he was possessed. He never speaks in such a serious manner with you. “Well duh, because I’m awesome like that,” you joked, trying to lighten the mood.

A gentle smile spread across Kise’s face. “I told myself I wouldn’t fall for the first person I had a crush on, but here I am,” Kise let out a heavy sigh, glancing back out at the ocean for a moment.

“Crush? You had a crush on me?” you asked, your stomach doing twists and turns that made you feel as though you were going to throw up all the delicious food you had earlier.

“Yeah,” Kise muttered. What was he saying? Why was he complicating things? “I hate myself for it.”

“Oh. Um, it’s okay,” you said, unsure what to say. He clearly didn’t want to like you, so you didn’t want to bring up how you felt about him. “We can stay friends if you want, nothing has to change.”

Kise looked back at you, finding comfort in the warmth of your eyes. There was no dramatic outburst like he expected. You seemed to be considerate of his feelings. You genuinely did care for him. “I don’t mind staying friends. But is it okay if I do this?”

Before you could think twice about it, Kise had his soft lips pressed against yours. Even though your mind hadn’t fully wrapped itself around the situation, you found yourself kissing him back. Kise felt you melt into his touch as his heart skipped like pebbles on the water. God knows how much Kise had been longing for this moment. To have his arms around your waist, your body pressed against his, and his lips on yours. He could finally get a taste of you and it was better than any meal he could imagine. This just felt right.

After a few moments, Kise pulled back to catch his breath, his mind racing with thoughts that he couldn’t even keep up with. “I’m sorry,” was the only thing he could muster.

“Don’t apologise,” you shook your head, taking his hand in yours and squeezing it tightly. “I am absolutely okay with that.”

A wide smile spread across Kise’s face as his mind slowly began to clear up. Maybe his instincts were right this time. You were perfect to him the moment he laid his eyes on you, even though he tried to deny it. And as you stood in front of Kise with the moonlight glittering in your eyes, you were just as perfect as the day he met you.

[nicanario]

this post is a product of its time

tw: discussion of racism, homophobia, misogyny and a short mention of sexual abuse.

ok, this is basically gonna be a very long rambling post about my not fully developed thoughts on the justification many people give to bigotry when talking about the past: "it was a product of its time"

it would be fair to say, with me being a raging SJW socialist scumbag, that I don't think this is a very good argument and is most of the time actually an excuse to not think about the problems inherent to our society, historical or not, and, by extension, the problems with ourselves. but I do think that sometimes, just sometimes, this can be a valid point, or at least one that raises some interesting questions.

I'm going to cite examples from several pieces of media, but fear not, I'll try to make this as accesible as I can.

so, let's take Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) as our first case study. this show has, correctly, been called progressive by everyone except for clueless people who don't know much about Star Trek's history, Star Trek's crew, Star Trek's cast, or, frankly, Star Trek. because if you ignore the clear, sometimes in-your-face political history and present of the franchise, I don't think you know much about it at all. I do think you can call yourself a fan if you like it, you may have watched every single episode for all I know. but lots of mental gymnastics are needed to ignore the political progressiveness Star Trek has had since its very beginning.

episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield are obviously anti-racist, at least in their intention. but the episode in question really is "a product of its time," and at the very end fails to uphold its ideals. the episode ends with the two aliens (who are LITERALLY. BLACK ON ONE SIDE. AND WHITE ON THE OTHER. BUT IN THE OPPOSITE SIDES.) fighting each other on their devastated planet, and the crew is like, "oh yeah if they both would give up on their hatred that they both share both of them equally" when it has been firmly established that one is the oppressor and the other one is the oppressed.

and that's a lot of Star Trek, not just TOS. even Discovery, one of the most recent series, has done Bury Your Gays (and Trans) TWICE (though both times literally rectified it, which is cool). there are episodes of the franchise that are overtly racist, or misogynistic, etc. TOS is lauded, mostly justifiably, as very progressive, especially for the standards of the time. they put a woman of colour as one of the senior staff, for fuck's sake. of course, when you analyse that same character, as with most of their intentions at being progressive, you'll see that she was relegated and sometimes even outright mistreated when she had the potential to be much more. but, at that time, it was a lot.

I had a friend (emphasis on "had") who, after I told him about TOS's both progressiveness and constant misogyny, told me something like "imagine feminists trying to complain about a show from the 60s." so, with unearned spite, he was, in some way, trying to make the argument that it was a product of its time.

you could say Star Trek, all of Star Trek, is "a product of its time" in the sense that it's not always perfect. uh, yes, I would agree. but that doesn't mean people have to accept it. well, I mean, the show is kinda over, you have to accept it's that way. but you don't have to accept that it's not wrong just because it was a product of its time.

H. P. Lovecraft, as another example, was a greatly influential writer whose works still shape a lot of people's ideas to this day. I have only ever read like one of his stories, so don't expect me to have an opinion on his works. but I can have an opinion on what I know about him as a person (he did have a life outside his writing, after all). and, yeah, he was a huge asshole. if you want to know more in depth about the subject, please watch Hbomberguy's video on him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u8wZ0WvxI

but basically, he was incredibly racist & homophobic. some people might even say, "he was a product of his time." well, there are two possible rebuttals to that. the surface level one, and the one that examines why that argument is wrong to the core.

The Surface Level Response to "it was a product of its time": um, no it wasn't. Lovecraft was more racist than a lot of people even in his time. he wasn't just a guy who carried the racist beliefs of his society like everyone else, he was a reactionary who actively thought and discussed how racist he was, and how right he was for being that way. but that's only applicable to Lovecraft. one can't argue the same for Star Trek: TOS, because TOS did try to be more progressive and more anti-racist than the rest of its society. that leads us to the next response.

The Response that Actually Deals with the Fact that No Matter How Progressive You're Trying to Be, Your Failings Can Still be Criticized: the thing is, trying to excuse Lovecraft's or Star Trek's bigotry because they were "products of their times" misses the fact that racism is still wrong, and some people knew that in those times as well. people from these times weren't all naive or stupid or whatever. they had the capacity for rational thinking. they could stop and think, "hey, maybe what we're doing is wrong." and the fact is, some people did. not perfectly, not to our standars, but they did. everyone could have stopped and think. but most of them didn't, and we can criticize them for it. racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. HURT PEOPLE. horribly. massively.

also, even if you agree with the "it's a product of its time" argument, some people aren't criticising people's or work's bigotry: they're explaining why they don't want to experience it.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a 1977 Doctor Who serial, and it's one of the show's more racist stories. almost all the villains are Chinese, every single Chinese person is a villain. there's yellowface, slurs, stereotypes, the Doctor speaking nonsense words instead of actual Chinese, and a general belittling of Chinese culture.

note that I'm neither Chinese nor of Chinese descent. I have been searching for hours for a few posts I've read a while ago (some by people who are of Asian descent) about this episode and I can't find them. sorry.

suffice it to say, even though I love Jago & Litefoot (the audio series and the characters), it's not an acceptable episode at all. but it's also important to remark that, because of it, some people aren't going to want to watch it. sometimes, people aren't saying "the episode shouldn't be this way," which causes others to answer that it was "a product of its time." sometimes, people are just saying, "this is an episode that attacks real people. I don't want to see it. I don't care if it was common in that era to be racist, i don't want to experience it."

however, there is an interesting point to the "it's a product of its time" argument. after all, everything is influenced by its society, for better or worse. and we can't change it anymore. TOS sometimes didn't quite understand the political themes it wanted to explore. Lovecraft was a horrible bigot. Talons was racist towards Chinese folks. and that's that. I don't think we should change the episodes/stories or anything. edit them in any way. that would be, in a sense, changing history. and we wouldn't learn anything from it, about how we can do better.

I think there are two solutions to this:

1. warnings before starting the text: this was done with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. on Britbox, where you can watch Classic Who, this serial has a content warning before the start. that's good.

2. the removal as a whole of the text from some places: I think before applying this one, there should be a lot of thought put into each case. I don't think removing a whole serial of Doctor Who or Lovecraft's stories from anything would be, well, fair. especially on tv episodes a lot more people worked on those, not just the writers and the directors. Lovecraft's writing influenced thousands. we shouldn't erase them or anything. but sometimes, for some cases, we should.

those in the US might seen a Confederate statue being taken down. that is, in a way, a form of removal of a piece of history.

but that is a good removal. statues glorify. one sees a statue and probably thinks "this was a person worthy of admiration." they should be taken down, maybe even with a permanent mark of why this was done (a plaque that reads "a statue of X was here, but he didn't deserve it because of Y" could be put in place of the statues, for example).

another example is the removal from DVDs of the short episode A Fix with Sontarans, a Sixth Doctor minisode that featured Jimmy Savile, a presenter who was later found out to be sexually abusing children.

the removal of that minisode is good, actually. it's not a full episode (it's not even Doctor Who). some might say that's "erasing history" but, like, you can still find it online or information about it if you want. this minisode deserves removal from DVDs and Blu-Rays and whatever more than content warnings. it's not an important part of the show and it prominently features a horrible person who did horrible things during that time.

so, after all that, I have explained why I don't like the "it's a product of its time" argument. it is an interesting point that deserves to be examined, but it's not very good.

I have had this in Drafts for so long I've probably forgot some of the points I was going to make, but eh, what can you do? hope you enjoyed reading this.

bye

[rainboq]

27 pricerich?

Well this took ages, so here, have a big prompt fill.

The bridge rattles, its wooden frame protesting as the train rolls across it. Her hands and butt are numb from the vibrations as she sits on top of the truss, her feet dangling over the box cars.

The urge to jump down onto the car tugs at her, to ride this train wherever the hell it’s going and see what comes of it.

But she has someone to meet.

A date, sort of. With someone she probably should have dated like half a decade ago.

Fuck, I’d kill for a smoke.

Leaning back, she splays her numb hands out over the lumber of the truss, staring up at the clear sky. Overhead some kind of bird circles, drafting on thermals. She’s not sure if it’s some kind of hawk or something, but she wishes she could be up there with it.

The final axles for the train clatter over the bridge and Chloe sighs as she starts scooting along back to the way she got up here.

“Well, if it isn’t the friendly neighbourhood spider punk.”

Chloe’s heart skips a beat and her head jerks around to find the owner of the familiar voice standing at the end of the bridge, her arms crossed and a knowing smirk on her face.

“Uh, hey Steph!” Chloe scrambles to get her composure together as she waves down to her.

“Hey,” Steph’s smirk widens into a grin as she plants a foot on the post, “What’re you doing up there?”

“Oh, just waiting on a hot date to show up,” Chloe replies, trying to salvage at least a little bit of her cool factor.

A husky laugh comes from Steph as she starts climbing up the angled beam, a shiver running down Chloe’s spine. “That makes two of us.”

Scooting over, Chloe reaches down to grab Steph’s hand and helps haul her the rest of the way up onto the top of the bridge, “Oh yeah? I bet my date’s hotter.”

“Hotter than a punk chick who’s rocking out all over the country and is one of the smartest people I know? I doubt it.”

Her façade of cool threatens to crumble under the weight of the surge of butterflies that have spontaneously appeared in her chest. Jesus fuck Price, get ahold of yourself, you’re in your twenties, you’re not some idiot teenager anymore, stop being such a disaster. “I dunno, sounds like she’s gonna have some pretty stiff competition from the hottest queen of the nerds and dungeon mistress around.”

“Mistress?” Steph teases, wiggling her eyebrows as Chloe shuffles over to give her space to sit down. “Damn Chloe, I didn’t think you were into that.”

Heat flashes in her cheeks and she gently whacks Steph’s shoulder. “Wha- hey! You know that’s not what I meant!”

Wiggling her eyebrows, Steph leans in close to whisper conspiratorially, which only makes the whole blushing thing fucking worse. “I dunno, I heard some stories from a very reliable source.”

“Oh my god, fuck off.” Chloe groans rubbing her hands over her face to hide just how red her cheeks are.

More of that delicious laughter bubbles out from Steph, “It’s seriously good to see you again, how long has it been?”

“Too fucking long,” she mumbles, rubbing her face to try and get the blood out of there again.

“I legit had a freakout when I saw your face pop up. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming down?”

Chloe shrugs, trying to salvage at least a little dignity, “I just wanted to surprise you, I didn’t expect to see your face pop up either. I figured you’d be totally hitched to some awesome lady by now.”

“So, what, you were going to just show up and maybe find some other girl while you were down here? Or were you holding out hope that I might still be available?”

“I plead the fifth.”

Steph laughs again and Chloe tries to keep from blushing only to fail miserably. God fucking dammit, I’m too gay for my own good. “Hey, at least you weren’t a straight couple looking for a third. That’s like all I get anymore.”

“Ugh, I hate unicorn hunters, they make every dating app a fucking minefield.”

“Preaching to the choir. At least I know you’re not a front for some scummy dude with ego issues.”

A sigh escapes Chloe’s lips as she squeezes her eyes shut to blot out the memories. “I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime.”

“You and me both.”

Chloe drums her fingers on the heavy wooden beam, her feet kicking around in the air as the sounds of nature flow into the silence. They sit there for a few moments, listening to the song birds warbling and the river below burbling.

Shit, this was supposed to be a date, right? Or was that just Steph joking around? Because if this is a date I’m totally blowing it right now, right? Fuck, I dunno, since when have I ever actually been on a real fucking date anyways?

It’s Steph who breaks the silence, “Maybe we should have brought some fishing gear and caught some dinner.”

“Oh sure, let me just check the garage for my pole,” Chloe starts, unable to keep from grinning. “Oh, no, not here, guess I must’ve left it in the attic… Damn, no luck, fucking Mike must’ve borrowed it and forgot to tell me.”

Steph’s delighted cackling sends a warm thrill down Chloe’s spine. Shit, her laugh is still hot. “So what brings you down to my neck of the woods anyways? Still on Chloe’s Excellent Adventure to figure things out?”

“Basically. Maybe I’m an asshole for doing it in the first place, but I hella needed to.” Chloe shrugs, shuffling over some more so she can lift her feet and rest them on one of the diagonal struts.

Steph shuffles along the bridge, sticking close to her. “I remember what you texted me when you made that call. Um, how is she doing anyways, do you two still talk?”

“Oh yeah, of course we talk,” Chloe’s hands itch for a cigarette as her eyes find the bird still circling above, “I send her postcards basically every chance I get. But I think I’ve definitely figured out a lot of things.”

“Yeah? What kind of things?” Steph leans closer, her hand moving to plant itself next to Chloe’s.

“Well for one I was a blind idiot in highschool, that’s for fucking sure.”

That wonderful laugh of Steph’s fills Chloe’s chest with a warm tingling that spreads up her neck and to her scalp. “I mean, who wasn’t in highschool.”

The words catch in her throat for a moment, “True, but I was so distracted by someone else that I think I missed the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“I mean, you had one hell of a distraction.”

Chloe snorts softly, tapping the toes of her shoes together as she watches the bird spot something and swoop into a dive. “Maybe, but still, I wish I could go back and shake the younger me and be like ‘dude, she’s right there, pay attention to her!’”

“Good luck, I don’t know if you remember yourself, but you were crazy stubborn.” Steph snorts, her hand reaching up to pat Chloe on the shoulder.

“I dunno, I’m pretty sure I could get my past self to listen with a ‘hey, that hot girl isn’t going to jerk you around, maybe try and kiss her or something you dork’.”

“Oh, you think I’d kiss you, huh?” Steph’s tone is low and teasing as she leans in, and Chloe can instantly feel her cheeks get set to high.

“I dunno, call it a hunch,” she mumbles in reply, a hand reaching up to rub the back of her neck. Fuck, I’m so warm my ears have gotta be red now.

“Just a hunch? Are you willing to take that bet?”

“I-I… yeah, maybe?” Fuck! Way to stumble over your words dumbass! “What’re my odds?”

There’s a soft snort from Steph as she leans forwards into Chloe’s field of view, a smirk on her face, “Someone’s stalling.”

“Whoa, hey,” Chloe grumbles, her heart pounding faster at that knowing grin pointed right at her, “I’m hella not stalling, I’m just-”

“Just kiss me already Chloe.”

It feels like her face is burning as she leans in, her fingers brushing up against Steph’s hand, “Shit, talk about rolling a crit.”

[kusagrasskusa]

Light X Reader Part 2 - Betrayal

Part 1, Part 2

READ THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU'VE RESD PART 2 BEFORE- So this paragraph used to talk about how I kept on remembering to save my drafts, and evidence of which isbthat when this was posted, it wasn't finished. I completed the whole story, and it was pretty long, but it all went to shit. So if you read this story before, feel free to check out the real ending.

@comradedani you brought me deep into the Death Note fandomm- And again, sorry for the low quality writing. I'm writing this at school lol

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

"Y/N, Y/N help! I messed up!" B/N yelled as he busted in Y/N's room and opened his schoolbag. He pulled out a piece of paper and turned it towards his older sister so she can see. Y/N sounds around in her chair, facing her brother.

"Jesus, you scared me!" Y/N huffed, reading the paper B/N had. Turns out he had a report card in his hand; one with 3 Fs, 2 Ds, and 3 Bs. "And those grades scare me more, what the hell," Y/N stated, a sly smile appearing on her face. "Dad's gonna be pissed when he reads that, haha," Y/N laughed, leaning back in her chair.

"It's not funny! You know dad's all about good grades and ever since his detective work increased, he's been more stressed about grades! I don't want to get grounded," B/N retorted, making a pouty face. He put his report card back into his bag and picked up his bag. "And dad usually comes home at this time. You know he's gonna be curious."

"Well, just don't tell him you have your report card," Y/N said casually, returning to her homework in front of her. She leaned on the desk, writing down answers as if they nothing.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that," B/N rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Mom gets emails from my school, Y/N. She's gonna find out about and tell dad, y'know." B/N sighed, fumbling with his hoodie strings. He opened the door and spoke, "dad's gonna be home soon, so bye I guy." He then left.

Y/N sighed, trying continuing to work on her assignments as if nothing happened. Although her focus was never fully on her assignments anyway, and our reader should know why. It's hard to concentrate when your mind keeps on going to the man you love who you felt betrayed you. Though to be fair, Light and her were never dating to begin with however Light was completely aware of Y/N's feelings towards him yet he choose to put her in that situation: where she had to be calm even though she was hurting inside.

Y/N took a deep breath before leaning back in her chair and shutting her eyes tightly. Don't let the tears fall, you're too strong for this, she told herself. For the past week, she's been feeling nonstop regret and of course, sorrow. Not to mention pure jealousy of Misa Misa; a pretty, popular model/actor. She refused to question how Light got to meet a women like that, since afterall Light was popular as well.

"You know what? I overreacting," Y/N said to herself, standing up sharply in her chair. She stretched her arms before taking a deep breath and putting on a smile. "There's more important things to worry about; like that damb Kira case. All I need to do is just call him and ask to meet up, right? He's forgiving..." She told herself, taking a deep breath again to ease her anxiety.

For the past week, Y/N had been thinking nonstop about her yelling at Light. She hadn't seen him sense, and there's been no communication between them. From a certain perspective, it almost seems like they really are overdramatic and acting very edgy, which is definitely true to an extent. However two friends arguing over something that's pretty serious for the first time is bound to cause some trouble. And when one friend feels almost betrayed, it gets worse.

Anyway let's go to B/N after about 15 minutes.

"Good afternoon, B/N," the tall, H/C haired man with grey ends due to stress, spoke. He held a nice smile on his face as he took his jacket and put on the coat hanger then took off his shoes. B/N smiled nervously, chuckling unsteadily as he waved.

"Hi, dad! Uh...how was your day?" B/N asked, holding his report card to his chest. His dad raised a brow and snickered.

"Strange. You never care to talk to me when I get home. Only when you're hungry or your mom says no to something," he teased, making B/N huff and cross his arms. His dad chuckled, "I'm joking. Anyway, what's that you're holding?"

B/N smirked nervously holding out the paper for his dad to grab, which he did. "I got my report card today, haha." His dad scanned over it for a few moments, frowning and his eye brows furrowed together.

"Are you skipping school son? I've never seen grades this bad and you've had rough years," he mumbled as he walked towards the living room. He say on the couch and sighed loudly, making a shiver crawl down B/N's spine.

"Nuh-no... It's just that the teachers have been putting a lot of pressure on us since we're about to go into highschool, heh."

"I don't understand. Are you just not understanding the material or are they putting too much work out?" The dad looked his son right into his eyes, making the atmosphere a bit more tense. B/N felt weak under his eyes; it's not because he was scared of his dad, it's because his dad has really high expectations and he's scared of failing them.

"Both. It's both," he mumbled, fumbling with his hoodie strings and tapping them together, making that quiet metallic clinking sound. "And I've always struggled with math, too, y'know. I don't understand how they expect me to know the Pythagoras Theorem after simply giving me 5 assignments daily about it."

The dad stood up from the couch. There was a moment of silence before he spoke: "I have to make a phone call. If you go to the trunk of the car, I got you something in a plastic bag. Don't tell your mom," he smiled to his son as he walked away, leaving B/N both confused and curious.

A few hours later and Y/N hummed to herself, watching a movie featuring her favorite actor on the couch besides her dad. He was on his laptop typing away on the keyboard while occasionally glancing at the TV. B/N was in the corner of the living room, playing a new game his dad just bought him on his Nintendo. It was quiet aside from the TV playing, at least until their dad spoke up.

"So, son, I forgot to mention who I called earlier. I asked if a coworker of mine would mind tutoring you for a bit."

"You...what?" B/N asked, pausing his game and turning back to see his dad. "Why?" Y/N gasped quietly, covering her mouth to stop herself from laughing. Her little brother glared at her and their dad, his nose scrunching up from annoyance.

"Well, you don't understand the material, right? That's why?" He explained, staying the obvious. Y/N giggled at his tone.

"Who is it, dad?" Y/N asked, rubbing her tired eyes.

"Oh, I won't say. But you two have met before," he replied, smirking playfully at his daughter as if he was planning something. "That's all the hints you get.~"

"Okay, now I'm so curious," Y/N mumbled, yawning. Who do I know who he works with? I know he works with the Kira investigation and I never met anyone there, I don't think. She shrugged it off as she kinda didn't care too much about whatever would happen in her brother's life since why should she? "Whatever. I'm tired," she mumbled as she rubbed her tired eyes. Her father looked over at her and smiled.

"Heh heh, alright darling. Get your sleep; you have a long day of school tomorrow." Her dad pat her head as she giggled and stood up. She hugged him before mumbling a goodnight. She then headed up the stairs, though she overheard her dad speak as she was walking. "Your tutor lives in the same neighborhood so he will come over shortly after you come home."

Y/N hummed as their conversation went quiet due to her being too far up the stairs to hear. She found her way into her room and closed the door behind her whenever she got in. Huff. Her hair was lifted from her shoulders as she put her hair in a ponytail in order to keep it from being too messy when she wakes up.

Layjng in bed, she furrowed her eyebrows together and sighed. Four entire weeks since she's talked to Light all because he found a girlfriend. Y/N felt more embarrassed of it then upset; well, she's still jealous but she knew she didn't have to avoid her friend of years because of something so stupid. What happened to the Y/N who would tell herself that even if he found a girlfriend, she would be better? Those were good times. And she would tell herself that she would call up Light and ask to meet up as friends but she gets so anxious about it and that anxiety turns into embarrassment.

It was kinda hardt to fall asleep with thoughts circulating her mind all night. But eventually, sleep came, and she sokn found herself waking up a couple hours later, going to school, and then coming back home.

Y/N waved goodbye to her friends as they dropped her off at her house. "Bye! Haha," she giggled as one of them stuck their whole body out the car window to yell out goodbye and wave her hands.

"Bye-bye, girl!" She yelled playfully as the car drove away to drop off her other friends. Y/N giggled again as she watched them pass and playfully rolled her eyes before spinning around. She took her time walking to the front door and pulling out her keys, as the door isn't unlocked ever and her parents are at work. Yet as she stuck her key into the house, the front door cracked open.

"....What the fuck," she mumbled as she took her key out of the door and pushed herself inside. It was so quiet which was weird considering B/N was loud as hell on the couch when he got home. He got home like 15 minutes before she did too. "B/N!" Her voice called out as she shut the front door and locked it.

"I'm in the kitchen!" Thank God he isn't dead. Well, sorta thank God. Y/N smirked as she set down her bookbag, took off her shoes, and took out her phone. She checked her notifications as she walked into the kitchen/dining room.

"You forgot to lock the front door," she said as she giggled, looking up from her phone. Bam! The phone hit the floor as Y/N's eyes stayed on Light's, almost like a staring contest was happening between them. Well, it sorta actually was because the brunette who was assisting B/N on the dining table spoke up once Y/N blinked.

"You blinked; I win, heh heh," he smirked. "Hey, Y/N! Long time, no see, huh?" He leaned back in his chair, waving his hand towards the stunned girl.

"I, uh...I wanted to call and meet up with you but I thought you were mad," Y/N said shyly as she picked up her phone. Blush dusted her cheeks as she examined her phone to check if it were broken.

"Same here, actually. I'm happy it's not like that."

"Muh-Me too, heh..."

Y/N but her bottom lip nervously as the room went into an awkward silence. B/N sighed before breaking the painful silence, much to Y/N's relief. "I think I understand this now," he said. "To find A, it's C^2 - B^2 = A^2. To find C, it's A^2 + B^2 = C^2."

"Very good!" Light smiled warmly as he pulled B/N practice assignment from him and examined it. He had a red pen in his hand and with it he marked a few things. "You did very well on these, apart from 3, 7, 8, and 12. But then again, those questions were hard for me to solve when I was in 8th grade."

"Really? But you're so smart! And I'm actually in 7th grade, advanced math," B/N said proudly with a cheerful look on his face.

"It really shows how smart you are, heh heh," Light chuckled as he handed back his assignment to B/N. "Can you try these again? I circled the part of the equation you messed up with so hopefully it helps."

Y/N was across the room in the pantry to grab chips. Once she grabbed her favorite kind, she headed out of the kitchen and towards her room. Light looked over at her leaving and sighed. Suddenly, he heard Ryuk talk. "You do realize that this is a good thing, right? You can spend more time with the Death Note and watching the police this way." Light couldn't reply of course, but in his mind he disagreed. After all, he knows she's bad at remembering time and he would have an alias every time he's with her, so he could lie to get out.

For example, let's say he was accused of somehow killing 5 people one day between 5-6pm. But at 3-5pm, he was with Y/N. Because she can't remember time very good at all, he could easily say he was with her while the killings were happening, and with her agreeing because she doesn't know any better. Y/N can also easily be turned into an abused puppy in his eyes; a loyal punching bag who he can manipulate for certain circumstances.

"While your doing that, I'm going to use the restroom," Light excused himself as he stood up from the table and walked away. He walked over and up the stairs, down the hall and to a certain person's room. Once he got to the door, he softly knocked on it. "May I come it?"

Y/N on the other side jumped from the sudden arrival. "Just a second!" She called out as she took her hair out of the bun and fixed it, because let's face the fact that a lot of us are very insecure about our looks. She quickly fixed her shirt because calling out, "come in!" A mere moment later and her door was open to reveal a tall brunette.

"You look lovely today," he complimented as he stepped inside her room and shut the door behind him. Y/N blushed a little bit.

"Thanks, heh. Um...you look nice too," she replied nervously.

"Don't be nervous with me please. You know I'm not mad at you. Actually, I came in here to formally apologize," he spoke as he walked up closer and bowed in respect. "The least I could have done was call you about her earlier that day, or told you I was seeing someone way ahead of that. It was foolish of me not to and led to both of our hears being hurt. I'm sorry." Y/N frowned as she comprehended what he just said then sighed. She walked up to him and grabbed the sides of his face and pulled him up.

"You're face is so squishy, sir," she said as Light stood up all the way, however Y/N didn't go of him. "It's weird someone so very collected and serious became friends with someone as dimbas a bag of rocks. I mean, have a told you about how my IQ test came back negative? Because it did."

Light chuckled as her comment, playing with a strand of her hair. "Did this really happen? You're so weird sometimes, haha." Y/N giggled softly before frowning.

"Hey, y'know, I really wasn't mad. The first week we stopped talking was so painful but I knew I had to make it up to you somehow. Yet even though I really wanted to just call you and have a drink of coffee with a long conversation full of pleasant topics and laughs, I was so scared. It's embarrassing," she confessed, keeping her head low.

Pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, Light smiled down at her. "Then I hope today takes all that weight off your shoulders."

"It did, heh heh," Y/N smiled as she looked him in the eyes. With how close they are, the eye contact, and the smiles, they seem almost suggestive towards one another. Or at least in the eyes of none other than-

"Ew!" Yelled B/N from the doorway. He must have opened the door while they were distracted. Y/N furrowed her eyebrows together and glared at her brother whereas Light just smiled. "All I wanted was help, not this teenage romance scene. I finished all my problems by the way, ugh," B/N spoke, sounding dead.

"I'll be down there in a moment," Light responded as B/N walked away. He turned towards Y/N again; "well, it was nice seeing you. Your dad is paying me for this so I should probably get back to work." Y/N nodded as she hugged him softly.

"Alright. Make sure you let me know when your done or free," she responded before she pulled away from the hug.

"Will do," Light replied as he pat her head. "I'll see you later." Light waved goodbye as he walked out of her room and shut the door behind him.

Y/N took a deep breath to ease her nerves. That's it, she thought. This man is about to be my husband-

[thewildwaffle]

I haven’t posted a humans are weird short in over a month. While I do apologize for that, I do have a reason. I’ve been struggling to find my writing muse, and when it is around, I’ve been focusing my efforts on working on the second draft for Abduction. As I was writing this the first time in real-time, I kind of forgot that some of my characters weren't having enough time in the story to actually form the bonds I wanted them to have. This was true with Simmo in particular. Her arc didn't make much sense or feel quite right because her bond was there in my mind, but not on the page so much. Also, I set up Gamnut 4 to be a minor death world with some "fun" obstacles for everyone to deal with while they were there but then forgot. I'm also adjusting character profiles and arcs and filling up on bonding and world-building moments. You know, second-draft stuff! I wanted to share a scene in particular that I've been working on. I wanted to give Wenona a stronger character profile and place in the narrative, give Simmo more bonding with the rest of the team, and spend more time planet-side on Gamnut 4. So, here's a piece of a new chapter that would belong somewhere between chapters 13 and 14:

*Wenona is on watch duty on Gamnut, but for just a moment falls asleep on duty and has a nightmare where she was back in the holding cell on the Montauk ship. Flashbacks of being captive, hurt, escaping, and fighting. She jolts awake and is trying to calm down and find her center in the silence by the campfire.*

“Do humans dream?” Wenona jumped at the raspy voice. She didn’t realize Simmo was awake. She’d actually forgotten the montauk was there. “What?” Simmo blinked at her for a moment. “Dreams are when the brain processes memories or makes up scenarios while you're unconscious.” “Uh yeah, I know what dreams are.” Wenona rolled off the makeshift chair she’d been in to readjust her blanket. Part of it had fallen off and the night was getting colder. She’d better make sure it wasn’t too comfortable though. She didn’t want to fall asleep on shift again. “Well?” Simmo prodded as soon as she sat back down. Wenona eyed her wearily. “Well what?” Simmo sighed and over-enunciated each word. “Do humans dream?” “Yeah, of course we do. Why?” “Did you just have one?” Wenona bit her lip. Had she been talking in her sleep or something? Oh, if only she hadn’t fallen asleep in the first place! “Why do you care?”

Simmo gingerly gestured at her bandages. “I care for my safety. Your sefra friend filled me in on how they found you. There aren’t many beings that wouldn't be traumatized after that. I don't want to be on the receiving end if you have some sort of episode or something in your sleep.” “And you think I'd attack you in my sleep because you're also a montauk or because you already tried to kill us once?” Simmo only hummed in response. Wenona stared into the small flickers of the fire. They weren’t quite big enough to keep the encroaching chill of the night away. “Well anyway,” Wenona used a long log to prod the embers before placing it carefully in the fire, “dreams or not, it won’t be an issue if you just keep well away from me.” Simmo scoffed. “Oh, no worries there. I’m still recuperating from the last time I got too close to you and your little friend.” There was silence for a while. Wenona blew on the coals and coaxed the flickers into a full fire again. She watched it intently as if the little flames could burn away the images she’d just relived again in her dreams.” Simmo surprised Wenona by breaking the silence. “I'm not like them, you know.” “What?” “Those montauk that abducted you." Simmo's eyes never left her twitching hands as she spoke. "I'm, well I certainly have done things in my life I'm not proud… but I don’t want to be lumped in with that lot, I don’t… they’re not even my hive anyway. Montauks… we don’t get along with others outside our… and my hive is… is...” There was a long pause. Wenona shifted her blanket around her shoulders and waited for the montuak to continue. The renewed fire crackled while Wenona waited for her to continue. “Yeah?” she promoted after a moment. “Nothing,”  Simmo snapped quietly. “They’re gone. Never mind.” She shuffled to face away from Wenona again and lay still as if she had gone back to sleep. It would almost be convincing if Wenona couldn’t hear her mandibles clattering or see how tense her antennae looked. Wenona shook her head. Not her circus, not her monkeys, she kept telling herself in her head over and over. She had her own problems to deal with, and she certainly didn’t want to have a heart to heart with a montauk at this planet’s equivalent of four in the morning. Even still, she couldn’t stop Simmo’s words from running through her head. Hives. Jeb had said earlier that montauks were hive-centric They lived in large families and colonies and, with few exceptions, rarely intermingled with others in opposing hives. ‘Like ants,’ Wenona had concluded. ‘Uh, sure,’ Jeb had said. He didn’t know what ants were, but after some explaining, he agreed their inter-colonial societal structures were similar. But Simmo had said her hive was gone? Was that meaning her whole hive colony back wherever she came from, or like that her crew was gone? The more she thought about it, the more she tended to think it was the latter. If her crew had been essentially family... Wenona couldn’t help but draw comparisons to herself. But her family wasn’t the one that was gone. She was. And she still had a chance to reunite with them, however slim that chance was. But Simmo’s chances? Wenona tried not to think about how she would feel if she were in her place. Wenona continued to stoke the fire. She looked up at the sky. Both of the planet’s moons were starting to set and soon the night would get even darker. It was still a while until dawn came. “Hey Simmo?” There wasn’t a response, but Wenona saw a twitch and knew she was still awake and listening. “Do montauks dream?” Again there was no response, but after a moment, Simmo shifted her legs, pulling all of them closer into the rest of her body. Wenona watched her silently for a while. Only days before, montauks were nothing more than her monsters, the beasts of her nightmares. But now? What kind of monsters did her monsters dream of? The rest of her watch was pretty quiet and uneventful. Wenona waited until she was sure Simmo had fallen asleep. Quietly, she stood and removed her blanket and slowly approached Simmo's huddled form. The night was cold and she wasn't sure Simmo was warm-blooded or not. If nothing else, the dumb bug had scooted too far away from the fire to be able to keep warm that way. As gently as she could so as to not wake her up, Wenona draped the blanket over her and returned to her spot by the fire.

[submissivekillers]

please just more the collect content. im just dying for more for him. love him so much

i have a couple more ~specific~ Asa requests in my drafts, so this is just gonna be some general relationship hcs!! still kinda tryin to figure this thicc bug boy out tbh

when he was younger, still clawing his way towards the respected academic (and seasoned murderer) he is today, Asa longed for companionship

he's never been an easy person to get along with, always sullen and brusque, and generally he doesn't mind that; he finds most people dull at best, and toys to be taken apart and studied at worst

but there were times, as a lonely student, when he'd watch his peers dating and fucking and falling in love and feel a terrible want - when the sight of couples holding hands or exchanging chaste kisses made his heart twist for reasons other than vague revulsion

but that was then, and this is now: he has his work, his dogs, his Collection. Asa is content with his life, and if listening to colleagues blather on about their spouses or children makes his chest ache, he has plenty of options to distract himself from those pesky emotions

...until you enter the picture and then Uh Oh! Time To Yearn™

he kinda? forgot?? that he could feel genuine attraction to someone without wanting to torture them??? it’s very disorienting, honestly

he’ll honestly try and work up the urge - trying to imagine the sound of your screams, the look of fear in your eyes when you wake up strapped down to his table, how easily your skin would split beneath a scalpel. but as soon as he sees you, the impulse just. dissipates 

y’all know that post where someone was so bad at dealing with their crush that they just left a note in their locker that said “get out of my school.” yeah. that’s about Asa’s level 

even once you’ve managed (by some miracle) to get into a relationship with him, he’s very reserved. he’s not one for big displays of physical affection, in public or in private, so the rare squeeze of your hand or caress of your face is something to be treasured

he will spoil you extravagantly when it comes to dates, though. he may prefer a quiet night in with good wine and good books, but when he wants to give you a night out, Asa spares no expense. you’re in for a night of top-tier entertainment and a reservation at the best restaurant he knows - not to mention a complete new look, picked out by the man himself (and damn if the sight of you all dressed up and on his arm doesn’t do wonders for his ego) 

kisses very aggressively. it’s awkward at first, just because he tends to go in hard and fast (and also keeps his eyes open to watch your face, which is flattering but also really unnerving), but once you two are used to each other it’s a much smoother experience, though he’s no less dominating. likes to keep a hand on your throat, and will squeeze if you’re amenable to it 

so he doesn’t want to kill you, that’s true. but everything else - hearing you scream, strapping you down, cutting you up? still very much on the table, but now he wants to see pleasure mixed with your fear. he wants to get inside you, see every reaction, find the edge where ecstasy turns to agony and keep you balanced there until you break. it’s, uh, intense

he prefers having you completely at his mercy in general, but as time goes on he eases up. it’s difficult for him to feel safe when he’s not in total control, even with you, and even something vanilla where you’re free to touch him and look at him openly can be... overwhelming, at first

but knowing that you want this, want him, that you’re giving yourself to him freely and treating him gently because you love him? it’s almost as good as breaking you down piece by piece and collecting the pieces

almost.

[thetaoofbetty]

i haven’t been ignoring the betty asks y’all sent, i’m just scattered and also i have a tendency to accidentally send asks to drafts or leave them there when i’m scheduling them. so uh, there’s a good shot they’re in there if it’s been awhile. 

👇

Hey sweetheart thanks for being a spokesperson for Betty .—is this a paid position? i have my eyes on some new shoes. and, oh my god, some youtuber was like buy this skin stuff and i was like yeah! sure! and then i did and then i realized i love it and it does good things for my skin and it’s like, $50 a jar for these little magic pads? wtf? why would i do that to myself?

(it’s like zoskin or soskin? i don’t know but it’s good shit and i’m mad about it)

I have something to ask may be you can throw some light . Betty casually exploring her feelings as a diversion with Archie is wrong and having a platonic relationship with her coworker glen ( though he is sus) is also wrong for many in BH fandom . They don’t even post gifs of blenn interactions except for the slap/stab . But happy making jughead explore a relationship with tabitha be it a friendship or a fling or even a long term .—glen is a bag of dicks! i honestly didn’t even see many gifs of the betty/glen stuff tbh. and i think we know that some of the multi-shipping comes from a hypocritical place, on both sides i’m guessing. some people just like tabitha. some people just like it. some people just want betty to hurt. some people just want someone to take care of jughead and will pretend they didn’t say nasty shit about betty when bughead is back together. some people ship for clout. some people ship for spite. some people cling to the purity of women and think betty should be waiting around for him. the loud people that are being assholes? they’re not the majority, doll. most of us are just doing our bughead thing. 

just ship what you like and the rest will take care of itself. 

They are happy to multi ship jughead with anyone but hate Betty if she does . They want bughead endgame but j/abitha to be a short term but why can’t they tolerate B/archie for a while ( writers gave Archie as the only option for Betty even there are so many hot boys available in the riverdale ) .—are we starting a beggie rights campaign? 👀 wait, who else is hot in riverdale? this is what happens when women are generally more physically attractive to you than men. i’m thinking. wait, fangs is bi, right? i’m not saying rebound for him and he’s better than glen but i’m not not saying it. where is munroe? 

i think with b/archie, the issue is that it’s a lot of people’s notp. and i respect that! i would probably be unbearable if i had to watch my notp onscreen. i mean, on my blog and privately only but yes, i would be making faces all the time about it. so i feel them on that, you know? and from a narrative perspective, they had to close the b/a story so it sort of had to be archie. they wrote themselves into that corner a bit and they needed to do the work to close it. which they did in a more brutal way than even i would have! 

They also want tabitha to be an anchor for jughead but Betty has to be a lonely sad girl who needs therapy to get away from her trauma but share her feelings only with jughead . They all forgot that Betty is the one who showed concern on jughead since beginning - throwing a party for him , helping his dad , serpents , with his mom and even stonewall preppies . Just one ba kiss erased all her good doings for jughead and they all need a new girl to help him .—people who have decided they don’t like betty have certainly rewritten bughead history, haven’t they? betty made a stupid mistake, true. but to throw out all of her concern and care for him for 4 seasons is ridiculous. listen, i can’t explain it to you because i don’t know how to logically get to the conclusion that a mistake when you’re 17-18 makes you the worst person in the world who never loved the boyfriend you were with for years. it’s absurd. i’m starting to think that some of these people only see betty insomuch as they see her as an extension of jughead and if she’s not being useful to him and only him, they consider her dead weight. 

still a them problem, doll. 

Jughead already had a live in gf although it’s toxic and without a proper breakup he slept with a rando lady at the bar . Betty should not even spend a space with Glenn if she does so she is a cheater . Above all Atleast jughead got someone to check on him now but Betty got none atm . Even she gets abducted in the lonely highway on her chase none will look for her . Since beginning she is fighting all her trials alone .—sigh. poor betty and jughead, right? they’re both in such bad places right now. betty and jughead can both sleep with whoever they want if they’re both single. but who they’re sleeping with isn’t really the issue, it’s their current trauma, pain, and unresolved feelings for each other. which i think will be the focus of 5b for them so fingers crossed we can endure the angst. 

and you’re right, she’s very alone right now. i hope that changes after the hiatus. 

Sorry for the long rant just wanted to vent out my feelings . Forever love for Betty Cooper .—💛👑

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 42]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Gotta finish my first draft of my research paper today, so let’s go!

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

 Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

 They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

 Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

 “Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

 “…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

 They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

 “We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

 Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

 He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

 Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

 “He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

 Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

 “So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

 “Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

 Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

 Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

 Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

 “There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

 Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

 “Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

 Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

 Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

 “Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

 “What?” asked Pat.

“Either I put on the wrong jewelry this morning… or my timepiece isn’t working.”

“Well, then I’m guessing we’re in the right place,” Janus said. He turned to Pat. “Your stuff still working?”

Pat brought up whatever device was on his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “and it looks like something is just starting.” Just as he said it, there was a violent crash of thunder.

“Well,” Janus said. “We should probably find the source and soon. Which way?”

Pat glanced around himself and then motioned with his wrist. Suddenly there was a 3D display of the church in front of them.

 Janus could see immediately where the problem had to originate. There was a swirling mass of some sort of energy centered at the top of the bell tower of the church. As he watched, he saw the picture of the church glitch out a bit. He had a bad feeling about that.

“Is there something wrong with your display?” he asked, or more hoped.

Pat shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so…” The room seemed to shift suddenly underneath their feet. It felt a bit like time travel, but also wrong. The picture on the display flickered harder, part of the building fracturing and dissolving before appearing back in place. The room settled after a moment, but Janus’s stomach did not.

 “Whatever is going on,” Janus said, “We need to stop it right now.”

Pat nodded. “The quickest way up would be that way,” Pat said pointing. The display closed as he did.

“Then, let’s go,” Janus said.

The world was eerily calm as they all started off in the direction Pat had pointed out. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Where’s the nearest window?” Janus asked when they came out on the second floor.

Pat glanced at his hand. “There should be a couple a few feet that way.” Janus nodded and left them standing there. When he glanced out of the first window he came to, it appeared to be night. Yet, when he walked to the next window, he saw daylight.

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“Time is fracturing,” Janus informed them. “We need to be careful.” This time distortion was much more intense than any of the other ones the agency had been tracking down over the last few months. It had also come on much faster. Usually there was some time between when the time distortion began and it started having extreme effects on the environment. He was suddenly very glad that he and Remus had not split up today. He was even glad for Pat’s company, no matter how aggravating he may be sometimes. Not to mention, he was glad for the man’s technology that seemed to circumvent whatever was blocking Janus and Remus’s timepieces.

He backed away from the windows and returned to the others.

“Whatever you do,” Janus said. “Don’t let anyone be in a room alone.”

“I know what time fractures are this time,” Pat promised.

“It was as much for the idiot as it was for you,” Janus said.

“You accidently bring a bubonic plague infested rat to 900BC one time and you never live it down.”

“I’d say I should put a leash on you, but you’d twist it into something disgusting.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed.

“Where next?” Janus asked, ignoring him.

“That way,” Pat said.

They walked together to the door he’d indicated. “Please don’t be bullshit,” Janus prayed. He opened the door and immediately got bowled over by a stream of salt water.

 Chapter 19

Janus landed flat on his back, a wave of water splashing over him and then quickly retreating, but still leaving him absolutely drenched. He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he warned, “say a word.”

Of course, he was with the two most impossible people in all of space and time, so neither of them headed him.

“I thought you said we were far from the ocean, Jan,” Pat said.

“Yeah, Janny,” Remus immediately jumped on board because he was an asshole. “I thought we were far from the ocean!”

“Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of finding the Flying Dutchman after all!”

 “Ooo ghost pirates! I’ve never gotten to fight ghost pirates before. Any good with a sword Patty?”

“My friend has a sword and he let me use it before… but all I did was cut a hole in our couch, and then Lo was mad at us.”

“I mean… just pretend the pirates are a couch and we’ll be good!”

Janus slowly sat up. There was still water on the floor and every so often a wave would crash into the room as though the door frame signaled the edge of a beach. Pat reached down to offer him a hand up and Janus slapped it away.

 “Rude!” Pat claimed, but his eyes were alight with mischief.

Janus shoved himself to his feet on his own power.

“You deserve it,” he hissed. “For all of this!” he waved his arms around.

“Water you talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are on thin ice.”

He looked down at his feet with a contemplative expression. “Looks like water to me.”

“Arg!” Janus spat, throwing up his arms.

“I don’t sea why you’re screaming, Janus.”

“Yeah,” Remus contributed. “You seem overally emotional to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pat replied. “Very em-ocean-al.”

“One may even say he’s pretty salty.”

“I know where you live, Remus,” Janus reminded.

 “Alright, alright Remus, reel it in,” Pat said.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but Janus cut him off. “Why don’t the two of you dedicate all of that brain power to figuring out how to cross the literal ocean in the next room,” Janus suggested hotly.

And it was a literal ocean. If one ignored where they were and the fact that there was a staircase climbing out of said ocean about 80 or so meters away. There was sand being washed up across the door frame and a seagull flying in the distance. At least it looked like a nice day in the room with the way the sun was glinting off the water. At least it wasn’t storming there. Yet.

Janus’s head throbbed with the thought of what had to be happening with the time distortion to plop a piece of the ocean into one single room in a church. Usually they’d be calling the TPI for backup or at least for information, but that was a loss. Even if they tried to get out of range of whatever was disrupting their timepieces, time was so unstable, they’d very possibly get dumped somewhere dangerous. It was better to just get to the time distortion as quickly as possible and stop it.

 “Hmm,” Remus said. “I wonder how deep it is. Do you think there are man eating sharks in the water? Or giant jelly fish? Remember that one time I got stung by a jelly fish and almost died?”

“Yes,” Janus said, lips pursed, “and it was entirely your fault.”

“I just looked so squishy!” he declared, “I didn’t know it was a murder blob.”

“I think I have a boat,” Pat said.

They both turned to him. “What?” Janus asked. He was looking at his hands and just hummed in response to Janus’s question. The next thing he knew, Pat made some motion with his hand and a yellow raft started to autofill from his palm. “...Why?” Janus asked.

“I… recently started carrying a wilderness survival pack in my time device.”

 “I’m not going to question it. It’s better than swimming.” By the time the raft was completely deployed, they’d all been shoved into the walls by it.

“Huh, on second thought. I probably should have put the raft in the room before blowing it up.”

“You think?” asked Janus.

Pat glared at him over it. “I never really thought about how to open it in a narrow second floor corridor.”

“Just try to shove it through the door without popping it.”

“Why are you looking at me?!” asked Remus.

They managed to somehow squeeze the raft through the door into the other room after a few minutes.

 Pat squinted at the tottering raft he was holding to the door frame. “After you,” he offered.

Janus glared at him.

“You’re already soaked!” Pat defended himself.

Janus sighed and very carefully climbed into the raft. It tottered dangerously, but he didn’t immediately fall out, so that was a plus. The other two of them slowly also climbed onto the raft with him. They then sat in it for a few seconds. “Is there an oar?” Janus asked.

“Oh right!” Pat did something else with the device in his hands and an oar slowly unfolded from his hand.

“Seriously, I want one of those,” Remus said.

 “Let’s just get out of here,” Janus said, snatching the oar. The staircase luckily wasn’t too far away. They probably could have swam it if necessary, but the raft gave them some modicum of protection. Everything seemed to be going in their favor, which of course meant everything was about to go incredibly wrong.

They were about halfway across the water when the entire world around them rumbled.

“…I hope that was a giant jellyfish,” Remus said.

It was unfortunately not a jellyfish or any sea creature at all. The world around them fractured, the ocean seeming to split right down the middle so the water right of the staircase was 6 feet higher than on the left. The sky flashed red and yellow before the water split completely like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

 There was a millisecond as the split widened until it was only a few feet from them, to decide whether when they landed they wanted to be on the side with the water or on the side without it. On one hand, going towards the side without water could mean they fell to their deaths or the water crashed back down on top of them when it settled. On the other hand, if the fissure was closing or shifting to a new area, it was very possible that they’d end up trapped in the middle off the ocean with no connection to the church.

 Well, the best chance to actually get to where they were going was probably the side without water. It seemed everyone had the same idea at once because as he grabbed for both of them, they both grabbed for him and they all went tumbling off the raft into what could have very well been a bottomless pit.

Janus learned after a couple of seconds of free fall, that it was definitely not a bottomless pit. He landed hard, flat on his back and saw stars. The next moment something landed on top of him, squeezing all of the air out of his lungs.

 Something else fell half on top of his legs.

“Ow,” Pat said from near his ear.

“Yeah, well you’re the one on the top,” Janus groaned though his teeth.

“Wow, I never took you for a bottom, Janus,” Remus said from near his feet. Janus kicked up his legs into whatever part of him was on top of Janus and he gave an “oof.”

Pat snorted a bit and Janus glared at his… shoulder? He shifted around a bit so he was less thrown across Janus and more just on top of him. Janus blinked. There was a wooden ceiling above them, so that was a good sign, though there was also a giant dark hole of nothingness directly above them which was not as good.

 Janus moved slightly. He could tell he was going to be bruised later, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “We should,” he started, but was interrupted as the hole above them pulsated and dumped a bunch of sea water.

Pat shrieked as they were all drenched with the chilly water. Luckily, they seemed to be on higher ground because, while water kept pouring out of the hole, it drained away just as quickly instead of drowning them.

Water still hitting his back relentlessly, Pat peeled his head up to look Janus in the eyes. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

“It isn’t funny,” Janus informed him. Pat just giggled more, leaning his head against Janus’s chest and cackling.

 Janus just rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is an entirely appropriate reaction. Thank you for your contribution to our very important mission.”

Pat seemed incapable of stopping laughing completely, but he did calm himself enough to peel himself off Janus’s chest and lean forward so their noses almost touched. “It’s hilarious and you know it,” he claimed.

“In what way is this ‘hilarious’?”

“In many waves,” was the joy filled answer.

“You’re horrible.”

Pat hummed. He hadn’t moved to get off of him even though they really should be moving in case something worse than water came through the hole in the ceiling. He hadn’t even moved his face away.

“No, no, you two just tell me when you’re done being gay for each other,” Remus interrupted. Janus was surprised to see he’d stood up at some point and was now hovering over them.

 Janus flipped him off even while Pat laughed once again. Pat finally drew away and rolled off of him so Janus could sit up. Pretty much everything hurt when Janus moved, but he was able to stand up, so he was probably fine enough. “So,” he said looking around. “Where are we now?”

 Chapter 20

Janus looked around himself while Pat booted up his map to try to figure out where they were. They were in a small room that may actually be considered a large landing as there were staircases on either side of it. The water that was still coming out of the ceiling was running down the staircase that led down from the room.

 Something was stopping the water, creating a pool on the steps that was already about to overflow into the room. With the speed the water was flowing, they should have enough time before the room completely filled up with water and drowned them.

Janus wondered if they were in the church or not. It was not out of the question and there was church like décor around them, but who knew? He could feel a strange vibration in the ground and the one window in the room shone with green light.

“Hmm,” said Pat. “That looks not good.” He’d projected his map so they could all see everything.

 The map itself was moving. Rooms were phasing in and out of focus and fracturing down the middle. One room was even spinning lazily around in circles. Janus could see the room they were in. It was connected to the bigger blob of rooms, and there was a black line connecting it to another room from the top which was obviously the hole spewing water at them.

“Well, at least the time distortion is still coming from the bell tower,” Remus said. Janus shot him an unamused glance. Said bell tower was currently upside down and shuddering as well as divided from any other room by at least two inches of empty space.

28842

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Pat.

“We don’t,” Janus said. “It’s literally impossible.”

“There has to be some way,” Pat argued with a frown.

“If we try to use time travel, we’ll definitely get shredded by the warping time and space around it and walking there isn’t an option. There aren’t even any entrances!”

“Well, there were at one point.”

“Yeah, before,” he gestured wildly to the ceiling that was still pouring water into the room.

“So?” Pat asked.

“’So’?! What do you mean ‘so’?!”  

Pat shrugged. “When one door closes, cut another one.”

Janus froze and looked at him for a long moment. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “You.”

“I don’t think like that anymore.”

“Well then I guess we’ll die,” Pat said lightly. “Of course, that’ll make an even worse time loop considering I’ve met older versions of you.”

“Fuck,” Janus spat. “Fuck. Fine. Give me a minute to think. Not that I even know if we have a minute because,” he gestured once again to the room.

 “Okay,” Janus said. “The room with the source of the time distortion is separated from us by a swirling pool of dark nothingness and there is no way to get to it. But, the only way we’re going to stop the distortion from ripping apart time and killing us as well as probably a bunch of other people is to get to it. That is an impossible situation. There is no solution. That door is closed to us. What other ways are there to look at it?” He looked at the visual representation of the rooms. One of them suddenly went spinning out and his eyes tracked it. We need to be in the same place as the source,” Janus said. “That is fact, but we don’t have to get to it.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Remus asked. Pat shushed him.

 “If you want thing A and thing B to be in the same place, there’s more than one way to do it. If you can’t move thing A to thing B, you might be able to move thing B to thing A. Pat, you have a working time device. We can’t travel with it because that would kill us, but if we can make it do a stutter warp, it could draw the time distortion to it.”

“You…” Remus said. “Want to create another time distortion in hopes that the original time distortion will be pulled into this room?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sounds good to me!” Remus said.

 He maybe had expected Pat to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his hand to his wrist. There had been nothing there before, but when he touched down on his wrist with two fingers, there was suddenly a metal bound around it that Janus immediately recognized from the times he’d seen Pat’s timepiece before. How was it made invisible? He shook the thought off as Pat offered it up wordlessly. Janus took it and Pat leaned over his shoulder to look.

Despite the fact that the device looked nothing like his own, the interface was surprisingly convenient. “I assume you have safety setting to prevent a stutter warp,” Janus said. “How do I turn those off?”

 Patton pointed at a gear icon on the screen. “You put it under your normal settings?” he asked.

“I have to put in my password or use my fingerprint!” Pat defended.

“It doesn’t matter right now.” He navigated through the settings. He was interested to see that there were many different saved default security settings, but he didn’t get much of a chance to read what all they did. He just turned them all off.” It popped up with a message to put in the password and Pat pressed his fingertip to it. Another message popped up warning them that turning off these settings could cause damage to the machinery, the person using it, and time itself. Janus pushed “okay.” A message popped up that asked “Continue” and Janus pressed “yes.” One last message popped up that said “Security functions disabled.” Janus pressed “okay.”

 “Anything else I’d need to disable?”

“Nope,” Pat confirmed.

He navigated back to the main screen and then bought up the manual travel input screen. Yet another message warning him not to do this flashed and Janus once again ignored it. He copied the space time coordinates that the device said they were currently at and put it in the ‘travel to’ location. “Well,” he said. “Here it goes. Let it be known that if I die, it’s my own fault for allowing Remus into a church.”

“Really?” Remus said. “That’s what you’re choosing to be your last words?”

Janus just raised an eyebrow.

“Love you too Janus.”

Janus nodded and hovered his finger over the travel button. He quickly mashed his finger to the button 22 times.”

 The device warmed in his hand enough that he almost dropped it. Time literally froze for a few breaths as whatever Deity that may or may not exist processed their stupidity.

Janus was not a scientist or technician, but he had a good idea of how badly they were fucking up right now. The timepiece was attempting to travel over and over again to the exact same place and time. This basically punched a small hole through time, that if left unfixed would grow and disrupt space time all around them. As it was, their current position, all gathered around it and staring at it while one of them had it literally in their hand, was perilous.

 There was a rumble under their feet and the world tilted on it’s axis. The all went tumbling down in a pile of limbs to new floor of the room which had once been a wall.

Of course, this change of gravity caused the water that had been building up in the staircase to dump on top of them.

Janus would have cursed, but he was too busy being under the water. He maneuvered himself away from the other two flailing bodies and managed to shove his feet against the wall turned floor. His head popped above the water in time to see the ceiling, or well, it would be the opposite wall, rip in two and the other walls/floor/ceiling start to fold in.

 “Give me a boost!” Pat called over the noise of water rushing and walls crunching.

“Give you a boost where?” Janus asked.

“Up!” Janus wasn’t sure if ‘up’ really existed right now, but he still nodded. The water was a few inches over his head, so he held his breath and interlaced his hands so Pat could put his foot in it. He was shoved down into the water, but it gave Pat enough leverage to shoot up out of the water. When Janus resurfaced, he saw that the man had grabbed ahold of the crumbling wall and was pulling himself up into what for all appearances seemed to be absolutely nothing.

 It took a moment, but then Janus blinked, and he was suddenly in a new room entirely or perhaps it was the same room. He honestly didn’t know at this point. Remus was next to him. He couldn’t recall if he’d been there before the shift or not, but they were both treading water. Pat crashed into the water next to them. Janus’s wrist buzzed as his timepiece came back online. “Got it!” Pat declared when he resurfaced, holding a device up. It looked almost the same as the device they’d found in France, but this one was definitely different if it was able to cause that much chaos that quickly.

 Janus looked around and pointed at what appeared to be a set of stairs. The three of them swam over and pulled themselves out of the water.

“Where are we?” Pat asked.

“Looks like a basement,” Remus replied. “A flooded basement.”

Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushed some buttons to stabilize Pat’s timepiece. It slowly stopped vibrating and cooled. “Here,” he said, handing it over to him. “I suggest you put the safeties back on now.”

Pat nodded and took it.

“We’re still in Cuba,” Remus informed them, looking at his own timepiece. “Same church too, but in the basement and… two and a half centuries later.”

“Remy is going to be pissed,” Janus said.

Remus shrugged. “He’s always pissed… at least at me.”

“Well,” said Pat, slipping his timepiece back onto his wrist. “Thanks for being willing to pool our resources.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Stop.”

“Ah, mi sirenito-”

“I hate you.”

“-never.” He disappeared with a pop which was when Janus realized, he’d never handed over device that had caused the first time distortion.

“…You bastard!” he yelled at thin air as though the man could hear him.

“Well,” said Remus, “that mission went swimmingly.” Janus reached over and shoved him back into the water.

 Chapter 21

“We should probably get out of here,” Janus said, very much not helping Remus out of the water. Remus pulled himself back up onto the staircase and shook like a dog. Janus crinkled his nose as water droplets hit him. They didn’t smell salty anymore, he noted. In fact, there was a broken pipe spewing out water on the other side of the room.

Janus and Remus cautiously snuck out of the church, not wanting to be seen and blamed for the flooded basement. They came out on a city street that was much different than the one they’d entered from.

 They walked down the street a bit, Janus’s eyes scanning the buildings. His eyes caught on a sign and he tugged Remus towards it.

They entered the small paladare and the person delivering food to one of the tables blinked at them both. Right. They were in clothing from the 1700s and were soaking wet. He met eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something. She did not.

They found a seat at one of the tables.

“Ah…” the worker said, approaching them. “English?”

“Ron,” Janus said, “por favor.”

Remus turned and started ordering the both of them food in Spanish. Janus didn’t pay attention to what he did.

 After his second shot of rum, Janus sighed and brought up his timepiece to ping the TPI. The reaction was almost instantaneous from their perspective. Remy all but kicked down the restaurant’s door and walked over to them. “How the fuck?”

“Ah, Remy,” Janus said calmly. “Have a seat. We’re waiting on our food.”

He did, but probably only because people were looking at them. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long day,” Janus answered, “and I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks like you’re interested in the food,” Remy said, eyeing the empty shot glasses.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad Cuba started letting paladares legally serve liquor a few years ago.”

 It’s clear that Remy wanted to ask them what had happened, but he also was cautious enough not to make a scene here and Janus wasn’t planning on getting up until he’d at least gotten his food. “Why are you soaked, by the way?”

“Turns out the ocean isn’t as far away as we thought,” Janus said.

“Also, a church basement is flooded,” Remus said.

“Fantastic,” Remy replied.

They sat there mostly in tense silence until their food came, and then Remus and Janus ate. Remy slapped down some pesos once they were done and then proceeded to all but physically drag them out of the restaurant.

 They were led to an alley way and then through an old almost hidden door. Remy immediately rounded on them. “What the hell happened?” Remy asked.

“The time distortion caused level 5 time fractures in its vicinity, we almost drowned three times, and the worst person in the universe fucked me over again.”

“To be fair,” Remus said. “He did save our lives before that.”

“I saved our lives first,” Janus said. “I don’t have to be fair.”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Curl Up In A Ball And Perish. I’m sure we would have been fine without him.”

“Anyway,” Janus said to Remy. “If you want your lump of flesh, I suggest you take it now, because Khalid is going to murder me, and then fire me, and then rehire me so she can put me on desk duty and make me do paperwork until the end of time.”

 “What did you do?” Remy asked.

Janus grimaced. “Made a time distortion.”

“You were the one who made the time distortion?” Remy asked.

“Not exactly,” Janus answered.

“He made the second time distortion,” Remus said. “It was actually pretty cool.”

“It was not cool,” Janus snapped. “It was irresponsible and dangerous. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“We would have died,” Remus said.

“And we could have done worse than dying if it had gone poorly,” Janus argued. “I just…” he tugged on his hair a bit, and Remus gave him an alarmed look. “I’m going to go talk to Khalid,” he said. He didn’t give Remus any time to speak, but just waved his hand to travel back to the TPI.

 Remus followed him instantly, of course, but Janus proceeded to ignore him until they were out of decontamination. Janus walked himself straight to Khalid’s office.

He knocked on her door and she called for him to come in. He did and sat heavily in the chair in front of her. She frowned at him. “You really should go to Cultural Outreach first.”

“Just fire me,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“I just shouldn’t work here anymore,” he said. “At least not as a field agent. Really any type of agent.”

She paused and reached to her desk to pull up some file on the screen there. “I’ll fill out the incident report myself instead of Dr. Eran then,” she said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

 Janus explained everything that happened, and Khalid diligently wrote it down. It was far outside her job description, but she didn’t explain or really react to anything he said more than nodding to say she’d gotten it recorded.

When he was finished, she saved the file and leaned back.

“Well,” Khalid said, folding her hands in front of her and scrutinizing him. “Honestly, this isn’t anywhere near a fireable offence.”

“But I…”

“You went against policy certainly, but policy sometimes has to be broken in disaster scenarios. You know that.”

“It was stupid,” he bit out, feeling sick to his stomach.

“Is it if it worked?” she asked.

Janus didn’t answer.

 “The major reason I originally assigned you to be a field agent is because you’ve always been good at thinking your way out of difficult situations even when they go against the rules we set. You have good instincts that I trust, but you haven’t seemed to trust them lately,” she said.

“You shouldn’t trust them,” Janus said darkly.

Janus felt his throat tighten as she considered him for a long moment. “This isn’t the first time you’ve asked me to fire you,” she said. “You wouldn’t tell me why then, and I respected it at the time, but…” she paused. “You’ve changed, Janus.”

 “Well then I’m not any good to you.”

“I’d beg to differ,” she replied, “but fine.”

Janus was actually surprised by that. He looked up at her. He somehow thought he’d feel better when this happened, but he didn’t in that moment. He just felt ill.

“I’m not firing you,” she continued, meeting his eyes, “but if you don’t want to be a regular field agent, fine. I have a particular mission in mind for you.”

“What?” he asked.

“This ‘Pat’ thing is getting ridiculous,” she said. “I don’t have enough resources to focus on it right now considering how much is going on, however, but I trust you and you’re already involved. So, I’m going to reassign you. No more missions. No more dealing with in department duties. You find him and his source of time travel. That’s your job. Whatever you think you need to do that job is fine. Request whatever trips or resources you need. Bring on Remus when you need or even Fred and Lena.”

“You’re…” he said. “Giving me more freedom and resources?”

“Like I said, Janus. I trust you. The one time I didn’t, after all, Pat ran off with a timebomb, so I learned my lesson.” She smiled briefly and stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

Janus sighed and once again resigned himself to staying at the TPI. “Fine,” he said. “Deal.”

 Chapter 22

Janus sighed. This was stupid. What was he even doing? He glared at the large hologram that took up a good portion of his office now. During the day, he usually shrunk it so he could only see part of the diagram he had up, but right now the office was abandoned other than him, so it took up and entire two walls. He rubbed his forehead. Why had 2pm Janus thought putting a bunch of words on this hologram was a good idea? Even the pictures were starting to look like they were vibrating. He drew a red line between “Nick Jonas” and “iPhone,” and he honestly wasn’t even sure why at this point.

His board didn’t even make sense. Why did he think this would be a help? He swiped a picture of the first device he’d found that had made the time distortions off to the side with his own (bad) artistic rendition of the one Pat had stolen. There wasn’t a pattern with Pat’s behavior that he could see other than, perhaps, a liking for early 21st century pop culture.

Frustrated, he turned away from the board. He needed a walk, he decided. He stepped out of his office into the TPI hallway and chose a direction at random. There were still some people in the building as even this late at night, someone had to be on call, but for the most part, the building was abandoned.

 He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and even if he had been, he likely wouldn’t have realized where he was because he’d never been to the AMO offices since he’d gotten his house, and they’d moved since then.

He paused in front of it the doors, eyes touching on the lit-up names on the door’s screen. He focused on his own last name until it stopped looking like letters at all.

“Did you need something?” a familiar voice asked.

Janus jumped and whipped around. “You… it’s late, what are you doing here?” he asked Emile.

“There are at least two AMO workers at the office at all times. Today is my night,” he explained.

 “I… see.”

Emile tilted his head. “Did you need anything?”

“No,” Janus said, perhaps a bit too fast. He bit his lip. “I was just going for a walk. I didn’t mean to come here.”

Emile folded his hands in front of him and rocked onto his heels. “I heard that you almost died,” he said.

“Yeah,” Janus said. “I fucked up.”

Emile arched an eyebrow. “And is that why you got a promotion?” he asked in that mild tone of his that informed Janus that his brother was wholly convince he was an idiot. Janus looked away and Emile sighed.

 “Well then,” Emile said, walking past him to the door. Despite himself and the fact that it was his fault, Janus felt hurt at how short Emile was letting the conversation be. Then he felt disgusted with himself that he even dared to feel that way.

Yet, Emile paused at the door. “If you ever decide you want that help, I offered, you know where my office is now.”

He wouldn’t, Janus thought, but he didn’t say anything. He just let Emile push open the door to the AMO and disappear inside.

Why was he even here right now? Janus wondered to himself. It was the middle of the night and he didn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been home.

 Yet the house by the lake wasn’t home, was it? Going there to the nothing that pervaded the place made his throat tighten. He’d had different homes in his life. The small childhood home, the claustrophobic apartment he’d had in his college days, the first home the AMO had assigned him which he’d shared with his brother, but none of these were available to him anymore. He brought up his timepiece. There were only three pre-programed space-time coordinates in his device. The first would only take him back to his office with the frustrating board that wasn’t giving him any answers and the third took him to the lake house he couldn’t bear to see empty right now.

 That left him with only one option. He selected the second saved coordinates and stepped forward into Remus’s house. He landed in total darkness, which was expected considering it was around 3 in the morning and Remus lived about 3 decades before electricity was invented. Janus stumbled forward in the dark, his eyes very much not adjusted, until his shins hit the couch. He carefully turned and sat before blowing out a breath.

“Mew?” came from the corner, and Janus titled his head to see eyes shining in the dark.

“Hello,” Janus said. “Sorry to wake you.”

Diesel Fuel make a little burrhr sound and padded over to him.