#until the anxiety attack crawls back into the hole it came from

[the-present-is-a-gift-au]

Chapter 1: In Which Life Goes on (Until It Doesn't)

The end to the fateful battle in Dark Crater was ultimately the most anticlimactic event of Twig’s life. 

A mortal couldn’t kill a Legend, but with Cresselia on their side, Team Venture had a fighting chance at defeating Darkrai and saving the world. Key word being chance— Twig wasn’t deluding herself into believing that she was likely to come out of the Crater alive. Judging by Kip’s solemnity as they came to the mystery dungeon outside Darkrai’s trap, he wasn’t fooling himself either. 

She rested her hand between his shoulders. He leaned heavily against her side. They entered the dungeon in Cresselia’s wake after that unspoken exchange, both silently reassuring their partner that they were glad to go into this waking nightmare together.

Twig remembered the subsequent dungeon crawl better than she did the vicious confrontation that followed. She remembered the stress of deflecting attacks that would have sent Cresselia sprawling and the terror that gripped her with every fiery blow that went her way. She remembered Kip leading their party so that he could take the brunt of the attacks they faced, better equipped to withstand the strikes they were met with, and her anxiety at seeing him trembling and teary as he mustered his courage with every chamber they entered. She didn’t remember Darkrai’s initial reaction to their arrival— though she vaguely recalled waking from a nightmare and striking him with a fist wrapped in flame— and she didn’t remember the fight that resulted in Darkrai’s oath to return and his attempt to flee. She remembered Palkia’s appearance and the way the dimensional hole warped and shattered upon his attempt to dispatch him. She remembered Cresselia saying that Darkrai was no longer a threat. 

She had gone into Dark Crater expecting to die or to survive with blood on her hands. She had survived, but with numerous injuries instead of a shiny brand of Assisted Murderer. 

Chimecho put her and Kip on strict bed rest orders after their return. Twig’s bed rest lasted longer than Kip’s after she fell ill and one of her wounds became infected, even succumbing to a coma at one point, but she came out the other side. 

She came out the other side, and the rest of her life was waiting for her.

It occurred to her that she couldn’t remember ever living without some sort of grand mystery or threat to her existence hanging over her head at all times. 

The idea of living a normal life, strangely enough, was utterly terrifying.

***

She was managing to keep it together. She had routines that kept her sane— she would wake in the morning, wash up, make breakfast while Kip was still asleep, eat stir-fried spelon berries and greens with her partner while they planned for the day, go on the jobs they picked out for their expedition, talk with the people who posted the job as they confirmed their completion, and go to sleep that evening and get ready for it all to repeat tomorrow. The routines kept her grounded. They kept her flurrying emotions and panicked thoughts stable, quiet— docile enough for her to bury them and for them to remain as such. 

Grovyle’s return threw that stability for a loop. 

She recognized Celebi opening the Passage of Time before it appeared— knew the shimmer in the air as the fabric of time was cut open in front of her and Kip while they were exiting their home. Embarrassingly, Twig’s first thought was that Dusknoir had somehow returned and was back to finish the job— she pushed Kip behind her and readied her claws. Grovyle barely dodged her blow when he stepped through the passage. 

“It’s good to see you too,” he said with a dry bite, though his eyes were watery and his stoic expression wavered more and more the longer they stared at each other. 

Silence.

Twig threw herself at him, arms wide, and he caught her in a hug that she was mortified by her gratitude for. 

Kip bewilderedly questioned Grovyle while Twig pulled away from the hug, flustered by the sudden urge to cry. He explained how Dialga restored the Dark Future as a corrected version of itself and stitched time back together in such a way that even Celebi struggled to understand. The long and short of it was everyone was alive, and that the future was healed. 

“But why are you here?” 

He paused, considering his answer. "The Future might look as though it was never a wasteland now," he finally said, "but it still feels like one. It was maddening to walk the perfected version of lands where we fought for our lives, acting as if none of what came before had ever happened." 

Twig said that line of thinking was crazy. "If the Future is healed, why don't you make use of it? Wasn't that the whole point of getting the time gears, storming Temporal Tower, getting erased with the rest of…?" She trailed off. She couldn't wrap her head around the idea of leaving behind a squeaky-clean version of the world she knew. 

Kip, who had nodded in understanding at Grovyle's explanation, gave her a weary look. "Remember when we started hiding out in Sharpedo Bluff, and I said I hadn't set foot inside in years even though it was technically my house? It was too normal after my parents disappeared. It made everything ten times worse by being completely fine when nothing else was."

She guessed she could understand the dissonance of such things, though it still seemed an overzealous reaction to turn up your nose at a perfectly good home or an entire divinely repaired era. She still kept her mouth shut— it didn't make sense to hold up the reunion with her difficulty understanding the motivation behind it.

The appearance of two more familiar faces made her heart soar and then drop.

Celebi came through the Passage first, doing a little loop in the air as she appeared. "Oh, good! I was worried I got the place wrong. Time is so easy, but places… Hello, darlings! It's just a joy to see you!" She zipped around their heads, giggling at their surprise. "Look at your faces! Tee-hee! Is it really such a shock that we'd all make our way back to you eventually?"

"Don't you just mean 'we'? It's only you and Grovyle. Right?" Twig's tail twitched as she realized what that meant. "You guys brought someone else! Who is it?"

Grovyle opened his mouth to answer, but the person in question appeared before he could answer—  and the Passage closed behind the new arrival with a terrifying finality as he loomed over the group. 

Judging by Grovyle and Celebi's complete lack of worry at their foe's presence, Dusknoir wasn't about to kill them all— unless this was a trap, and somehow Grovyle and Celebi turned against them… but they would never— but how would they be okay with…

When Twig took on a defensive stance and put herself between the ghost-type and Kip, Grovyle raised his hands in a placating gesture. "It’s okay, he’s only here to… I swear, it will all make sense once I explain.”

Apparently explaining meant giving the world’s most lukewarm argument for why Twig and Kip could believe the guy who earned their trust and then shattered it beyond repair was actually a good person. Twig had looked up to Grovyle after she learned the truth behind Dusknoir. It was hard not to— he was always so cunning and experienced, while she was just some nerdy kid who didn’t understand half of what was going on around her at any given moment— but in that moment as he shared the story of how Dusknoir supposedly only sided with Primal Dialga to survive, he seemed like the most gullible idiot in the world. Celebi’s nodding sagely during his explanation and occasional interjections to clarify how they survived the Future’s erasure did little to inspire any confidence in Dusknoir for her either. Twig knew that he had to have tricked them somehow. They were misled and he’d enact his revenge at any moment. She glared up at him, ready to spit that she didn’t believe a word and that she’d take him out here and now— but Kip stepping out from where she shielded him with her body gave her pause. 

Her partner elbowed her with a sunny grin. “I told you he was a good guy.” He then turned to Dusknoir. “I knew you were too nice to want to hurt anyone. Twig owes me three hundred Poké.” At her noise of offense, he continued, “No, wait— she owes me six hundred, because she was so sure she was right that she doubled down on her first bet.”

Dusknoir, who had been silent until now, gave him a dubious look. “Have you always made it a habit to bet on the trustworthiness of those you meet?”

“It’s just a joke— besides, it only started when we figured out the Cresselia we were talking to was actually… Well…”

Celebi perked up. “You two know Cressi? Oh my goodness, it’s been ages since we last spoke! How is she? She was always so focused on getting to and fro whenever she needed me to open the Passage of Time that I’ve hardly gotten to speak to her in the last… ah, I don’t even know how long!”

Grovyle glanced at Dusknoir, confused by Celebi’s sudden excitement, and received a miniscule shrug in response. “What are you talking about? Cresselia…” His eyes widened. “You mean the Cresselia? She’s alive?”

“… Are you saying that she wasn’t alive in the Dark Future?” Twig’s stomach twisted at how much sense that made. She doubted Darkrai’s vision for a world shrouded in darkness would have allowed for any loose ends that could come back to bite him. “Um. Yeah. We met Cresselia a while after graduating from the Guild, but not the real one— not at first, at least, but… ugh. Do you guys know about a Legend called Darkrai?”

She wasn’t expecting Dusknoir of all people to be the one to react to that, but his eye widened in fear at Darkrai’s name where Celebi and Grovyle’s expressions remained as they were. He murmured something under his breath. “So he truly exists, then. Who is he? I’ve only heard of him through Dialga speaking in his sleep.”

She faltered as she recounted their struggle against Darkrai. It was simple enough to recite the facts of it all to the stray Treasure Town citizen who asked during her recovery from the fight, but it was different to explain what they’d gone through as Grovyle watched her with a look of unbridled horror on his face. The world blurred around where he stood in the corner of her vision, and she found herself unable to pay attention to anything but him— despite how she avoided letting her gaze wander from its place fixed on the ground between her and the trio before her. She found herself unable to continue her recitation past when she entered Dark Crater alongside Kip and the true Cresselia. Kip picked up where she unwillingly left off, concluding with Darkrai’s ultimate fate.

“He ended up escaping, but Cresselia said that we didn’t need to worry about him, and he’s never shown up after our fight. So we’re pretty sure everything is okay now. Sort of.” He paused. “Hey, do you guys need somewhere to stay the night?”

Twig was tempted to loudly voice her distaste at his offer, but held her tongue. It was his family home that he was offering. She didn’t get to have any say in who he allowed to visit. Admittedly, Dusknoir’s mutual distaste at the mention of Darkrai— even when he wasn’t fully aware of who he was or what he’d done— was giving him a significantly better standing in her eyes. She could tolerate him staying over. She would just keep watch all night long for fear of him killing every last one of them in their sleep. She could handle that. No biggie.

***

The trio stayed the night and left soon after to find more permanent lodgings. Twig had a feeling Dusknoir didn’t care for her staring him down all evening. She voiced her worries to Grovyle before they left, and he brushed her off without a care. “It’s fine. Dusknoir isn’t someone to worry about. He’s changed.” Twig still disagreed, but he hadn’t massacred them all when she nodded off in the night during her watch over her friends and left him the only one awake, so it didn’t seem as pressing of an issue as she’d initially thought. 

She didn’t mention the blanket she found strewn across her when she snapped awake that morning, a nightmare of something she’d left unsaid clinging to her like burrs on wool. He didn’t bring up the gesture either. That was how most things went for the two of them, now.

The peace remained as the following months stretched into the coming year, long after the three refugees settled into a comfortable home in Fair Fields, a cheery place that got enough sun to make up for the deficit Grovyle and Celebi had suffered from so keenly in the Dark Future. Kip and Twig settled into a new routine of going on expeditions and visiting their friends every so often (and it still felt odd to refer to Dusknoir as a friend, even if only as part of a group of them). Kip led the expeditions that emphasized scouting and exploration, while Twig spearheaded the ones that focused more on rescue and retrieval. It worked out nicely for them, their twofold talents complementing each other well enough for Team Venture to become a distinguished exploration team, known several towns over in any direction for their skill and willingness to take any job, no matter how small. The silly little slogan Twig had proposed for them to market themselves with back in their apprenticeship even found a use. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” was a catchy way to get their name out even farther. It reached the point where they received more jobs than they could take— but Chatot was happy to delegate the surplus tasks to the proper recruits.

This proved to be an excellent way to keep in touch with their old friends along with the rising generation of recruits. Twig had gone up to the guild to drop off another batch of paperwork entailing the newest selection of jobs Team Venture couldn’t take, contact information and job descriptions all neatly written out in Kip’s fancy cursive footprint runes that Twig couldn’t hope to read, and she nearly dropped the tall stack of papers when Marill came bounding up to greet her as she entered the main floor. He excitedly told her how he and Azurill had applied for apprenticeships, hoping to follow in her and Kip’s footsteps, and that Azurill was very put out about having to wait another year to join even though he was practically as old as Team venture were when they joined. Twig actually did drop the papers when he told her about Wigglytuff training a new guildmaster called Bidoof.

Chatot gave a lighthearted chastisement at the disorderly stack of rescued pages she handed him afterward, unable to hide how he beamed when she asked after Bidoof. “Yes, yes, he's been studying under the Guildmaster. He has much learning to do— a great deal of learning, mind you— to fill the Guildmaster’s monumental role in managing the goings-on of the Guild. But he’s performing well. We’re all very impressed.” He paused, then murmured an addition under his breath, “I almost feared he would begin demanding perfect apples as well, for his eagerness to imitate the Guildmaster. Heavens. What an awful turn that would have been.”

Twig relayed the news to Kip, and he dropped an archaeological encyclopedia he’d been reading on his foot, which made her feel significantly better about the papers. 

Life was good. Twig enjoyed the steady rhythm of it— the expeditions, the grocery runs to Kecleon Market in between— she even came to look forward to the spontaneous trips they took to visit the Future Trio (the collective nickname she’d given Grovyle, Celebi, and Dusknoir was dumb. She knew that. But it was easier to say than all their names in sequence, and it allowed her a bit of grace when it came to avoiding directly referring to Dusknoir as a member of her inner circle), despite how the spontaneity often would send her scrabbling for emotional purchase. During the first few unscheduled visits, she’d nearly broken down and admitted when Grovyle asked that she was having a hard time coping with her workload of being Team Venture’s spokesperson on top of the expeditions they embarked on. She caught herself before the confession slipped, thankfully, and the next few visits weren’t even half as taxing on her composure. Now that everything had settled, she was adjusting to a life without looming threats to her continued existence or secrets about said threats.

Life was good. Until it wasn’t.

***

She was hiding in a closet again. 

A harsh voice snapped and shrieked outside where she’d tucked herself behind fancy dresses and blazers. She didn’t understand how the people living to the sides of their underground unit couldn’t hear a woman screaming her head off in rage such a small distance away, but maybe eighteen inches of solid stone and soil between their and the source of such a vicious sound served to muffle things more than a dumb kid like her could understand.

It never started with screaming. This time, though, it did. She came home from her lessons in the schoolroom of their bunker and barely had time enough to put away her bag when she heard her name being spat from the next room over. She didn’t know what her aunt was saying or why she was so angry, but she knew what happened after her anger turned into screaming— so she hid herself in the little closet built into the stone of her bedroom wall. If she managed to stay out of the way before it turned into screaming, she could usually avoid everything that came after. That meant that if she hid until the screaming stopped, she’d be fine— right? 

… Why did she have claws instead of fingers?

That wasn’t good. And neither was having a tail with a flame at its end. Nobody was allowed to handle fire except the really important people who wore those fancy badges— if a fire started, it could swallow up all the air in the bunker and suffocate everyone inside. She wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with fire— especially not after she was found carrying a lighter for her aunt and the woman got in heaps of trouble for it. 

Speaking of, she could hear her aunt’s shouting getting closer. 

“You haven’t got a clue the mess you’ve landed me in this time!” Footsteps stopped outside her bedroom. “People are talking, and it’s all because of you!” The door slammed against the wall as her aunt entered. “I never should have bothered with her mess… Golden child Rowan never taught you to keep your mouth shut, and now I’m stuck with a brat who likes to lie about me to her teachers.” The closet doors were thrown open. “I’m sick of you blabbing about things that aren’t anyone else’s business knowing. You need to learn about a thing called respect, Shea.”

That wasn’t her name. Her name wasn’t Shea. Was it? Why was she so startled by her own hands? Why was she scared of her own tail? She couldn’t remember her name. Why was she terrified of this woman and her grasping fingers outstretched to seize her by the arm?

“Come here. You’re going to learn a lesson you’ll never forget, you lousy little—”

The fingers closed just above her wrist, a pain like white-hot flames blazed beneath their touch, and Twig woke up drenched in sweat and shaking in the dead of night.

She gasped and hiccuped as quietly as she could manage, Kip still asleep in his bed close by. He might be a heavy sleeper, but you could only snore through so much, and your exploration team partner crying her eyes out a few feet away seemed to toe the line of plausibility on that front. Her stomach turned at the thought of Kip seeing her cry— or maybe the way her guts seized was thanks to the splitting headache sending nauseating spikes of pain through her skull— and so, quietly as she could manage, Twig crept up the steps leading outside their home. 

The cold of the midnight air shocked her into lucidity. The panicked remnants of the nightmare still clinging to her mind fell away as she shivered in the chill, and she was able to breathe at a normal pace and simply think.

She needed to tell someone about her nightmares. Scratch that, ‘nightmares’ were too fuzzy and gentle of a term for them— she knew what they were. Memories. Memories of her time as a human in the Dark Future. Memories of her early youth that sent her hands shaking and stomach clenching with a terror that startled her with how fundamental it felt to her being. A number of things about her had begun making sense since the scattered few memories’ return— the way certain words made her seize up with a sudden anxiety she couldn’t place in the moment when she heard them, as well as her sudden panic whenever being touched by someone outside the ranks of people she knew and trusted enough to give up her life for in a heartbeat, to name a few— and they all painted a picture together that left Twig feeling sick. 

She needed to tell someone about the scattered recollections coming back. They had been an ugly secret for some time now— one she kept under lock and key and excuses of I’m fine and Don’t worry— but she could feel herself beginning to buckle under the weight of hiding it all from her friends. If she didn’t share the burden with someone soon, she could see herself falling to pieces.

She needed to tell someone. 

She glanced back at the entrance of the home she shared with her best friend, the person she trusted more than anyone in the world. If she was going to tell somebody, Kip was the one person she could see herself telling about her memories willingly. She steeled herself, trying to muster the courage to go back inside and wake him. She made it as far as to step down onto the main floor and take one step toward his bed when her summoned courage failed.

She left a note written in messy footprint runes— the scribbled message of “Out for a bit, be back soon” no doubt horribly misspelled despite her best efforts to make it legible— and slipped back into the cold of the night, setting off on a walk to calm her nerves.

***

When Twig returned to the Bluff later that morning, Kip was up and practically vibrating with excitement as he sat with numerous envelopes and letters spread across the floor table before him. He must have gone to get the mail while she was away. He held one opened letter and stared at it in awe.

“What’s up?” Twig asked. She had made up her mind to speak to Kip about her recovered memories when she came home, but his elation gave her pause.

“I got in!” Kip turned to her and threw his arms wide— which wasn’t very notable, given his meager reach as a mudkip, but the gesture’s enthusiasm was unmistakable. “I sent a paper to the Archeologist’s Guild a few weeks ago like you told me to, and they offered me an apprenticeship! I got in! They said they want me to go on a research expedition!”

A smile found its way on her face. “Dude, that’s amazing! I knew you’d do great!”

Kip had spent ages grappling with realizations about himself and how he felt about exploration expeditions. He loved going on jobs with her, he’d said, but he’d come to understand that wasn’t where his skills or interests truly laid— he loved the learning that came with their expeditions and not the exploration itself. That, combined with his passion for history, led Twig to lovingly bully him into looking into a career change. She’d seen him grow increasingly worn down as the months went on and his dissatisfaction grew. She also knew he was a sharp thinker and a quick learner, and that he would thrive in whatever field he was pulled to. 

A realization made all her insides twist. “… Are you going to accept the invite?”

“Oh.” Kip’s enthusiasm faltered, souring into a hesitation that tugged at her heartstrings. “I… I don’t know.”

She sat down next to him at the floor table, taking a quick glance at the letter he held. It wasn’t signed by just anyone— the archeology guild’s guildmaster had provided her own signature. Twig recognized the shape of the illegibly fancy runes from the front cover of that encyclopedia Kip was always reading. He spoke of the woman with such admiration that it put even his idolization of Dusknoir as a kid to shame, yet he was reluctant to head off on an apprenticeship that she had approved him for personally.

She watched him worriedly. “Why not?”

“It’s— it’d be weird to go on an expedition without you.” He set the letter down and fidgeted nervously with his paws, eyes fixed on the tabletop. “We’ve always done exploration jobs together, and I know that it wouldn’t be the same thing to go on an expedition for a new guild, but… I don’t know I could do the job right without you there.” A pause. “I could send a letter back. Maybe they’d accept you too if I put a good word in—”

“I’m not smart enough to get accepted into a guild like Sandslash’s, Kip.”

He let out a huffy noise. “You’re plenty smart. And besides, the dimensional scream could be really useful on a dig—”

“I haven’t had any since after Temporal Tower.” 

“Well, you could still—”

“Why don’t you just go yourself, Kip?”

He didn’t answer.

“Kip?”

“… I’m too much of a wimp,” he murmured. “I’d mess everything up because I’d end up freaked out by something and get cold feet.”

She frowned and elbowed him. “Dude. Is what Skuntank and the rest of those jokers said getting to you again?”

“Doesn’t matter. They were right. I couldn’t even get past the Guild’s front yard before you came along.”

“Yeah. But when I was erased with the Dark Future, you made it through the Hidden Land and past the front yard on your own. Face it, man, you’re the bravest guy I know, and you do it all while shaking in your boots.” When he gave her a confused look, a bolt of panic launched through her. “It’s a saying. Maybe a human one. I dunno. Anyways, you’re super brave, and I’m pretty sure that if you can face down a bunch of Legends when it’s required, you can go on an expedition without some doofy old charmander tagging along.”

He frowned. “That was a great pep talk, but you’re not some doofy old charmander. You’re my best friend. You’ve got to stop talking about yourself like that.”

Twig waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, fair. But you better write back to the archaeologist’s guild and tell them you accept the offer for an apprenticeship and to go on that expedition, or I’m going to eat your encyclopedias.”

Kip’s stern expression twitched.

“All of them. Even the fancy ones. Maybe I’ll learn how to read better that way than you trying to teach me. The way to a gal’s brain is through her stomach and all that.”

He shook his head fondly, disapproval giving way to a warm smile as he picked up a pen and began to draft his response. Twig patted his back and walked up the stairs outside again to take a hasty walk into the forest outside Treasure Town, as she liked to do when overwhelmed.

So much for talking about her memories coming back. She’d just have to grin and bear it for however long Kip would be away on his expedition.

***

Kip was going to be away on his expedition for at least two years, and it looked more like three or four when you got down to the finer bits of math. This time, his resolve only wavered when he considered Twig being lonely in his absence— before the thought occurred to him, he seemed even more excited by the opportunity. Twig reminded him of the precarious uneaten status of his encyclopedias and told him she’d be fine, and that they could write each other letters so they wouldn’t get unbearably homesick for each other.

(Because that’s what missing Kip would be like: being far from home and without the person who made her feel like less of the dead weight of a begrudging burden and more like a burden that people actually enjoyed carrying around— like a lucky charm, like something useful. Without him around, she’d be back to that awful state of needing to justify her every move to herself. Without him, she’d have to learn how to be worthy of existence.)

Kip thought that becoming pen pals was brilliant. Twig was going to miss him liking her ideas in person. 

They went to Wigglytuff’s Guild to file the necessary paperwork so Kip could register as an apprentice in a new guild— which meant disbanding Team Venture. Chatot’s feathers bristled out when they came to him asking for team dissolution papers, and he shrieked a panicked Why?! that even Loudred would have envied the volume of.

“I don’t see why you need to go off to another guild,” he groused when they explained. “You’ve done wonderfully as an explorer— Why leave behind a stable, successful career to start from scratch elsewhere? It makes no sense. When the Guildmaster began laying out plans to establish the Guild, he stuck with it, no matter how grueling the work became!”

His efforts to persuade them to remain as Team Venture continued incessantly, even as they signed the papers to formalize the disbanding and he notarized them. Twig knew that he was being so negative out of concern for them and the rest of the Guild— Team Venture was a great help in supplying jobs for the rest of the apprentices by distributing surplus work to their teams, after all, and he did always have an overbearing mother hen sort of nervousness to him— but his fussing always irked her. Something about it made her itch with discomfort. Not that it mattered— they folded their copy of the paperwork and delivered it to the post office to be sent off to the Archaeologist’s Guild. 

Team Venture, as far as the continent-wide catalog of exploration teams were concerned, never existed. Twig felt like a bit of her heart had vanished with it.

“It’s weird,” Kip said on their walk back home. “I still feel the same, but… also not? Nothing’s really changed, but everything is about to be so different so soon. It’s nerve-wracking, honestly.”

“Your nerves are always wracked,” Twig joked in an effort to diffuse the overwhelming atmosphere. 

Kip frowned. “I’m excited to go, but I’ll miss you.”

She paused, and her voice lowered to a sorrowful tone. “Yeah. I’ll miss you too.”

She set her hand between his shoulders. He leaned against her side. The rest of the walk to the Bluff was spent in silence.

She would miss him. Even now, the loneliness was killing her.

[melishade]

30 or 42? need some oppy angst (only if you can, feel free to delete this ask)

This ask game

42 is one I didn't do, so...OP angst...which timeline....TFP Optimus in episode 1, aftermath of Eren finding out about his powers and is brought back to the Survey Corps along with Armin and Mikasa. TFP Optimus in Episode 1 is on my masterlist for more context.

cw anxiety attack. panic attack Just to be on the safe side.

Eren wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. This was too much for him. After finally overthrowing the government, after remaining with the Survey Corps for their own safety, after dealing with the fact that humanity wasn't extinct and that the power of the titans came from people like them, he thought. He foolishly believed that he could return to some semblance of normalcy. He was even able to convince his mom that he wanted to join the Survey Corps. He had a chance to join the Scouts after living with them for a while.

But there was an accident during training. He got cut by a grappling hook. It was a complete accident, but his wound emitted steam and started to heal. Mikasa and Armin looked at him with concern, but everyone else stared at him like he was a monster.

He couldn't recount too much of what happened next. He knows that he asked Armin to come with. He and Mikasa weren't going to leave him alone again. But the Survey Corps kept on demanding questions. How did he not know? How did he acquire this power? Which one of the nine titans was it? Eren said he vaguely remembered his dad and the needle, but...matching up with the information from Grisha's notebooks, and the interrogation of Rod Reiss, it was more than enough to conclude what Grisha did.

The Survey Corps look at him with pity. They've seen him grow up. How could they not? Carla is absolutely devastated, breaking down into tears as Mikasa goes to comfort her, his sister also masking her sorrow. Eren just wanted to throw up, he just wanted this to stop! He-!

"Eren." The teen felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Optimus' holoform staring down at him. Eren hated how concerned Optimus looked. He didn't need that right now! He just wanted to hide!

"I don't want to talk right now." Eren shrugged his shoulders, making Optimus let go.

"That is actually what I wished to discuss," Optimus proclaimed, "This is...overwhelming for you, I am sure. I have asked Commander Erwin to allow you to collect your thoughts, until you were ready with how to proceed next. You are more than welcome to stay in my alt mode. I can ensure that no one else disturbs you."

"That..." Eren shoulders sagged, "That actually sounds nice."

"Come." Optimus beckoned the teen, and Eren followed him out of the massive castle. Optimus deactivated his holoform as the two approached his alt mode. The Prime then opened his passenger door, allowing Eren to climb inside and curl into a ball in the seat.

"Thank you," Eren mumbled as Optimus shut the door.

"You are welcome," Optimus said, and the two...just sat in silence. Not a noise, a peep, a sound came out. Optimus...kept to his word. No one else was going to disturb him. It was nice to be left alone. But...the more the silence rang out...the more his thoughts became more chaotic. He was a monster. He was a titan shifter. People looked at him with fear. His dad gave him a power without telling him what it was for. He...he might have eaten his dad. He killed his dad! And he was going to die in who knows how long?! 11 years?! Less?! What about his mom?! She didn't deserve any of that! Mikasa?! Armin?! He needed it to stop! Please just stop! He didn't want this at all!

"Let me out." Eren's mouth felt dry when he made that statement.

"Eren-!"

"Let me out!" Eren yelled as he sat up. Optimus quickly opened the door and the teen stumbled out. He stood up and began to pace, gripping his hair extremely tight. He hated this!

"Eren-!"

"Did I do something wrong?!" Eren asked the Prime's alt mode, "Is this because I was too difficult for my mom?! I know we fight a lot, but I still listen to her! Is this because I left Armin alone?! It wasn't our fault! We were just scared!"

"Eren-!"

"Tell me what I did wrong! What's wrong with me?!" Eren begged with tears coming down his face, "What did I do wrong to have this curse get put on me?! I'll fix it! Please just tell me! I don't want to die!"

Eren fell to his knees and just started weeping. This was too much. He couldn't take it anymore. Why? Why was he given this power? He didn't want it. He just wanted to be free. Eren then heard the shifts and clangs of metal, and looked up to see Optimus looking down at him in titan form, his mask covering his face. The Prime kneeled down, but also made sure that he wasn't crowding him.

"Eren," Optimus began, "There is nothing wrong with you, and you did not deserve to have this power thrusted upon you. It just seems like a cruel twist of fate."

"So then...what do I even do now?" Eren asked.

"There is much to consider," Optimus explained, "But no matter what comes next, we will not leave your side. None of us will."

"...even though I'm a monster?" Eren mumbled.

"You are a child," Optimus declared, "A child with a heavy burden, but you will not shoulder that burden alone. I vow with all of my spark."

"...I don't want to be left alone," Eren confessed, "I...don't know what I really want right now. I know I don't want it to be quiet, but I'm also tired. But I don't want to sleep." Eren laughed at that. "Sounds weird, right?"

"No." Optimus shook his helm before offering his servo. "Would you like to watch the stars with me instead?"

Eren wordlessly climbed into the Prime's servo before he was lifted to the titan shoulder. Eren sat on the titan's shoulder, and the two turned their gaze up towards the stars.

"Would you like to hear a story?" Optimus offered.

"Yeah." Eren nodded.

Optimus then told Eren a story about one of his travels to distract him from the current situation. Optimus didn't bring up his own concerns. His own worries, his own fears. None of it. He didn't want to discuss his own pain regarding the situation. Eren needed comfort. He didn't want to add to the boy's trauma and dilemma.

(I feel like for Eren, the titan powers in the Episode 1 timeline would be ten times more of a gut punch, because he's essentially gotten everything at once.)

[cyn-write]

Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit Hole

Synopsis: No two Yuu's are alike. Some are male, some are not. Some are Sweet and others are not. This one is certainly like none before, with a darker soul than any before. Will she change the way things have been and bring the darkness back to Ramshackles inn?

Trigger Warning for part 1: Panic/Anxiety Attack Described (this is based on my own experience with PTSD and Sever Anxiety Disorder)

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

All she could do was close her eyes. Cyn felt the wind pressing against her back as she fell into the blackness. When she finally hit the ground, she opened her eyes and saw a mirror framed in bronze. In the center of this mirror was a hand, beckoning her to reach out and take it. She hesitated for a second, but the voice inside her head whispered, "take it, they need you, you must save them... from themselves." She reached out and resumed the fall.

When her feet touched solid ground, she braced for the impact. Then looked up to see a sea of people in black embroidered robes and a boy with blue hair and striking green eyes standing in front of her. She stepped back and held up her hands in defense.

"Are you okay?" the boy said in a startled tone.

"W-who are you?" She asked and looked around in fright. "Where am I?"

A hooded figure came up to her from the crowd, a black and pink-haired man. He had a fatherly atmosphere around him, despite his youthful appearance. "Dear, this Night Raven College... what's your name?"

For some reason, his aura soothed her. "Cynthia... I think... Cynthia Widow." She relaxed a bit.

"Hello Cynthia, I'm Lilia," He said, gesturing to himself as he waved the blue-haired boy back, "You fell out of the mirror. Can you tell us where you're from?"

Cyn tried to think, but she drew a blank, nothing came to her mind. "No... No, I- I can't. I-I can't remember anything. Why am I here?"

"Poor dear," Lilia said, as another man came closer to the mirror. His dress was differnt from the rest and the crow mask hid his feature.

"This is a college for mages. I am Dean Crowley, the headmaster of this esteemed 'all-boys' college," the crow-man said, "Until now... It seems the Mirror has graced us with the first female student! Let's see what dorm you're in so we can move on!"

"WAIT! SHE TOOK MY SPOT! I AM SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!" a loud voice called. Then a gray cat with flaming blue ears ran in... straight towards her. She felt an overwhelming sense of fear that she could not explain. This feeling flooded her body like a river being released from a dam.

As the cat came closer, Cyn moved back as suddenly a booming voice called out behind her. She spun around and saw a giant mirror with a face in the center... speaking. The mirror was speaking with the same voice that lured her into this place. "Cynthia Widow, the nature of your soul is... uncertain.... one I have not seen in centuries... The Curiosity of the Pumpkin King, Ramshackle!"

The crow was visibly shocked at this proclamation, and the students started to stir, "Ramshackle, we haven't had someone placed there since..."

"Move it spot, hogger!" The cat came closer and pushed her out of his way. She stumbled and fell off the platform.

"What is that cat doing here again? I thought I threw you out." The crow called, and Cyn crawled to her feet as her body started to feel light, as if it was prepared to run. "Dorm Heads! Catch the cat!"

"I'm not a Cat! I am Grim the Great! Greatest Mage in all the World!" The flame cat said, shooting blue flames from his paws. Cyn felt her legs wobble as the flames drew closer.

"T-the mirror... talked... the cat.. talked... fire... burning." Cyn felt her left arm tingle.

A red-haired boy and a silver-haired boy with glasses worked to catch the cat who was spewing fire, causing the tingling to get stronger and the feeling of pure terror to shoot through her blood-stream. Fear paralyzed her.

Lilia came over and blocked some shots that came too close. She felt her legs shake and crumble under her weight. A strong pair of arms caught her, and she looked up to see piercing green eyes appraising her.

"Mon Cheri, is it a pity we had to meet this way, but why don't I escort you to a seat?" The green-eyed man said.

All Cyn could say was, "...yes, please..."

The man took her to the second row of seats, where another group of students divided their attention between the flaming cat and the girl. He gently put her in a chair as he spoke calming words. "Mon Cheri, could you take a deep breath for me, please?" Cyn nodded and tried to settle her racing breath. "Good, now look into my eyes, ignore everyone else, and focus on me. Everything will be okay. The cat will not hurt you."

Cyn did as he instructed and tried to focus on her breath and the man's eyes. They were such a bright green, like emeralds shining in sunlight. "Roi Des Roses and Roi D'Effort just caught the fire cat. They handled the situation. Do you need some water? Or the nurse?"

Cyn nodded, and the emerald-eyed man went to go speak with a different group of boys in robes. Before he left, he had a green-haired guy take his place beside her.

"Hello Cynthia, I'm Trey, everything is okay. Rook is going to get the nurse and we are going to help you, okay?" Trey said, to ease her anxiety. Cyn nodded and looked around.

"I-I have no clue what's going on..." Cyn said softly. "I can't remember anything. The cat talked, the mirror talked, and I don't know what's going on... my head feels... fuzzy."

Trey immediately crouched before her so he was at eye level with her. "Hey, hey calm down. You're just having a panic attack, but it will pass. Everything will be okay."

The group came over and the conversation shifted to Cyn.

"You are not considering dumping her there. The poor thing is shivering!" Lilia said.

A Blond man stepped forward and waved for a blonde boy, Rook, to follow him. "We'll take her. Out of the Dorms, we are the safest for the girl-"

"What do you mean by that, Vil?" a lion-eared boy growled.

"Hold on," A Silver haired boy with glasses spoke up. "I think the dorm of Benevolence is the best place for her-"

"Why not let Cynthia decide," Lilia offered, crouching at the girl's level with Tray. "Dear, where would you like to go?"

"I- uhh..." Cyn felt her body start to shake intensely as she tried to understand what was going on. She could barely follow the conversation as is, but now she had to choose.

"She's clearly too shaken to decide," Vil said. "Now come with me. I'll have Rook take you to the infirmary and-"

"No, we will take her to the infirmary-"

"Boys! She is not a toy to be fought over. Now, why don't I take her to the infirmary and discuss this later?" Lilia intervened. Cyn barely understood any of the conversations. She focused on the floor. "Come dear, can you stand?" Lilia offered a hand to the shivering girl.

"I-it..." Everything went black as she passed out yet again.

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

To say the infirmary was crowded was an understatement. After the girl passed out, Crowley had Lilia take her up and told the rest they would discuss this after the Ceremony. The dorm leaders begrudgingly agreed, and after the mirror sorted the last student, three dorm leaders and a Vice came to join Nurse Pinklee, Crowley, and the still-asleep Cynthia in the cramped nurses' quarters. Pinklee was performing some routine check-ups while Crowley tried to calm the bickering students.

"We have plenty of room for her in Diasmonia-"

"Your boys would give her no space. She would be better off in Pomefiore-"

"Our boys would protect her for those brutes in Savana-"

"She is better off with us. We won't take advantage of her-"

"What are you implying, Riddle? You have no room for the girl-"

"Calm down, boys. I'm sure she will be fine in Rameshackle-"

"You are going to let that dump collapse on top of her?"

"That place is about to cave in-"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!! I AM TRYING TO WORK HERE!" Pinklee finally had enough with the group. The lanky, green-haired man was about to blow a fuse. Even his husband couldn't get him this mad, this quickly. Everyone froze when they heard the usually motherly nurse yell at them. "If you are going to keep arguing, then do it in the hall! I will let you know when she wakes up, but after the day she has had, she won't be going anywhere until tomorrow."

Crowley took advantage of this opportunity "You heard Pinklee, we'll discuss this tomorrow. We have a meeting scheduled, anyway. So go back to your dorms, take care of your freshman, and I will keep you posted on her condition."

The four students left as begrudged as they entered, and finally, there was peace in the infirmary. Crowley shook his head and turned to his colleague. "How is she?"

Pinklee turned back to his sleeping patient. "She's recovering. She had a severe panic attack and but after a good night's rest, she'll be fine." Pinklee then looked up at Crowley. "You're seriously thinking about putting her in that dump? You know it's called 'Ramschakle' for a reason, right?"

"It should be liveable, besides the dust and ghost, it's a fine building." Crowley shrugged.

"As her doctor, I forbid her from living there until it's cleaned. Thoroughly Cleaned." Pinklee crossed his arms and glared at his boss. He knew Crowley was a cheapskate in every sense of the word, but he never thought he could throw someone in that dump. "So you have two choices: either get the dorm cleaned and fixed tonight, or have her stay in one of the other dorms until it's fixed, which means making decisions and dealing with complaints."

Pinklee knew how to get what he wanted out of Crowley. That's why he stayed at this testosterone-filled institution. "Fine. I'll clean it... keep me posted on her condition." Crowley left in a huff, leaving Pinklee and the sleeping girl to the peace of the night.

Pinklee sighed and resumed his check-up. He was trying to pinpoint any features that could indicate her heritage before his husband sent him the results of her blood test. It was a fun game the two had since college. Between her skin that was white as death and light-red hair, he guessed she was from the Island of Woe, but the slight point to her ears suggested Briar Valley. She could have some fay ancestry since Lilia seemed to flock to her, and he always adopts the lost fey. The most curious thing was the necklace she wore, a silver spider amulet with an ametrine gem as the thorax. It gleamed in the moonlight and Pinklee wanted to get a closer look at the gem to see if there was an inscription or engraving he could look up; but the moment he set a finger on the gem, the girl's eyes shot open and a hand gripped his wrist. Her eyes seemed to glow bright gold, and he felt a twinge of fear run down his spine.

"What do you think you're doing transvestite?" Cynthia said in a dark voice, "Mommy would turn in her grave if you stole something from a girl."

Pinklee reeled back, falling out of his chair and crawling back as the girl slowly sat up, turning her head to the side. "What's wrong William, or would you prefer to be called Wendy??" The dark voice rumbled the room and Pinklee felt the wall press against his back.

"H-how do you know that!? No one knows that!? W-Who the hell are you?" Pinklee called and put a chair in front of him.

The girl let out a deep, terrifying laugh. "Why, I am the shadow of the moon at night. I fill your dreams to the brim... with fright!" She cackled, then fell straight back, shaking as she laughed.

Pinklee hid in the corner and covered his head... until the laughing stopped. He slowly got up and approached the girl with cation, she was asleep, sleeping as if nothing happened. That is when the computer beeped.

Pinklee squealed and turned to see his glowing screen with a video call invite coming in from Hamsterviel University, his husband's work.

He quickly accepted and his large, wild-haired, idiot husband wasn't even looking at the screen. "Pinklee, the sample you sent me was fascinating! I have never seen anything like this! There is no- Pushka what happened. You look like you saw my ex-mother-in-law."

"Jub... I-I think I summoned the devil!" Pinklee kept his tone hushed. "S-she knows everything. She knows Wendy!"

"Are you sure it isn't my ex-mother-in-law?" Jub joked, and Pinklee shook his head violently.

"No. I'm serious! I-I went to grab her necklace, and I laid one finger on it. One Finger!! and it was like out of a horror movie. She called me Wendy, she knows about my cross-dressing, sheknowsaboutmymother!!!!!" Pinklee was frantic.

Jub's eyes went wide. "Let me see! Put her on the phone! I want to See!" Pinklee was this close to killing him remotely.

"Yes. I'm fine, thanks for asking." Pinklee said before taking his laptop over to the girl, half using it as a shield in case she wakes up again.

Jub was confused. "Are you sure she is alive? She looks dead to me."

Pinklee rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sure of it. She scared me to death!"

Jub went quiet and muttered to himself. "Interesting... so delicate looking, yet her DNA suggests she is something... otherworldly. I ran her DNA through the database and she has no blood relations in the system." Jub smiled and got excited. "This is exciting! She may be the next evolutionary step. Pinklee, I need more samples! I will be on the first plane to Sage Island. Keep her there!"

"Jub!" Pinklee exclaimed and turned the computer screen back to him, "You can't experiment on MY students! Even if she needs an exorcist, I have a responsibility to keep her safe. Not to make her your next science experiment!"

"But Pushka! Think of the science!"

"Think of my JOB!" Pinklee shook his head in disbelief. "Look, if you want to come and help me treat her, you are more than welcome. According to Crowley, she has amnesia, but I am going to run some more tests and try to contact her family. If she does have amnesia, I will need your help to find the cause. If not, then you're not allowed to test her. Okay?"

Jub huffed and rolled his eyes. "Fine."

Pinklee smiled at his husband. "I am excited to see you though, either way."

"Yaya, you too." Jub said and waved him off, "Just don't get possessed till I get there, ya?"

"Don't even joke about that. Or else me and your Ex-wife will haunt you." Pinklee hissed, "Love ya, Jubs."

"Love ya too. Bye." Jub said before signing off. Leaving him alone again with the girl.

He was scared to be in the same room with the girl, but she was his patient, and she would have to be scary to survive in this school.

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

He laughed. His laugh caused his chair to shake as he watched the mirror. He knew this story would be interesting, but he was even surprised at her actions. He sat and looked down his hall of mirrors as millions of versions of the same events play out; all at different stages in their tale, some years past and others years before. He watched as some stories ended in blue flames with death surrounding all, others end in sadness as the Yuu goes home, and some ended happily... sort of. But this story interested him greatly, as this yuu was not from the world he usually pulled from. No... she was from a darker place, a place of emotion and magic that differs greatly from this place.

He turns in his chair as his white mask gleams in the firelight, "This will be so much fun."

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

If you made it this far, Thank you!!

Please Like and reblog and I hope to have chapter 2 out soon!

Disclaimer: My work is my work, so please don't steal it. I do not own any of the TWST characters except my OCs (Cynthia Widow, Nurse Pinklee, and Dr. Jubba). I promise I will get better at writing disclaimers.

[aelaer]

Let’s talk about chemical imbalances in malfunctioning brains

I haven’t made it exactly a secret that I’m not exactly neurotypical. I don’t talk about it much, but I don’t make it a secret, either, even if I won’t go into the full diagnosis of my stupid, wonderfully horribly stupid brain. One of those aspects of my non-neurotypical brain is what doctors call ‘general anxiety disorder’, and what I call ‘I know everyone absolutely loathes me because look at all this circumstantial evidence I have and nothing anyone says otherwise will convince me that this isn’t the case’.

This mood probably stems from childhood where functioning like a Normal Child was *incredibly difficult* and, as you can imagine, retaining friends was rough, despite the support I got from the adults in my life (oh thank god I did). And I lost a lottttt of friendships along the way in nasty blazes. Ironically, it made high school-- often the worst phase for people growing up-- my best time in my childhood, because holy crap, I knew how to retain friends! For more than 3 months at a time!

But fuck, you learn coping skills, you learn how to calm your brain, you learn this and that and this and that-- but it doesn’t actually go away.

Throughout the first half of the 2010s, these ‘general anxiety’ attacks were down to about twice a month, if I had to guess (which was a significant improvement over early childhood, which averaged one major attack a day. So maybe for three days I have no anxiety attacks, and then day four I have four attacks. And ‘attack’ is truly a good word for it, it just shuts down your ability to function. Kid me was an anxious ball). While kid me had anxiety over every topic you can possibly imagine, adult me still struggled with the one anxiety that spurred attacks again and again and again.

Making friends. Being accepted. Being liked.

The easiest way to go about this is to never go against the consensus, don’t have opinions that contradict the majority, always be *happy* and hide away any negative thoughts-- and yeah, that’s not me. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being true to myself. What I craft online is pretty damn similar to what you’d get of my personality in RL. I don’t put on faces or play pretend. The most I do is avoid topics that I know will get messy, so you just--never hear my opinion on it, ever. Helps curb anxiety.

But while the last uh, 3 or so years the attacks have simmered down to somewhere between 6 to 12 a year, if I had to guess (and only a couple of those lasting for longer than half an hour when, again, childhood anxiety attacks could last for waaayyy over an hour), I still get them. And while I absolutely love Christmas and this time of year, during the week before Christmas I tend to always have one. I haven’t figured out why. My parents did my childhood Christmases real good, so it’s not related to anything like that.

That’s tonight.

My brain is *fritzing*. I’m scrolling through names on tags I like on tumblr, and the brain is going: ‘Oh, that person hates you, you angered them in May 2019 and they avoid *everything* you do despite similar interests, I bet *everyone* she talks with absolutely *despises* you’ and ‘Oh hey, another popular person, you’re in the same social circle and they’ve never interacted with you, I bet that they also think you’re a fucking awful human being’ and ‘That person follows you and is very active, but doesn’t actually reblog anything you post, and that’s because your content is absolute *trash*. Why the fuck are you trying to participate in this community? You’re not appealing to their interests, you’re *boring*. You may know the technicalities of the craft, but it doesn’t matter because you don’t have an audience. Delete your stuff and stop trying’.

The dialogue stems from the anxiety of not being accepted into the general... order of people in a similar interest group, whether it’s “smart people group” in HS, “art group” in college, “roleplay group” in a game I play, or “Stephen’s small group of fans” like the last two years. The worst part of the mood is that it doesn’t matter what evidence I have to contradict it in kind words, nice messages, and general appreciation. The brain has a counter for every single one of them: ‘That person likes the person who hates you better than you so it doesn’t matter’, ‘that person still reblogs the content of the person who attacked you with a sock puppet on your blog last year’, ‘that person just feels sorry for you because you’re so pathetic’.

It’s a vicious thought process. I’m thankful that it tends to go away by the next morning. But one thing I’ve found that sometimes helps calm it down so it eventually goes back to the hole it crawled out of is writing it out, and that’s why you got a post about the viciousness of a chemically imbalanced brain 3 days before Christmas.

[curiositydooropened]

Working Through It

Your new job as night janitor of the defunct Hawkins Lab seemed like a soothing task for your social anxiety. At least it was until you started working with Eddie "the Freak" Munson. The combination of his head-banging and the swirl of chemicals in the air provides for one Hell of a work day.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Wordcount: 15,043

Warnings: PTSD, panic attacks, mental institutions, therapy, flashbacks, nightmares, family loss, canon-typical violence, chemicals, slurs, angst, slow burn, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff

No tag list, xo!

Masterlist

---

The swampy air of mid-summer in Indiana hung heavy and damp. Everything dripped with sweat or condensation, adding to the moist air. Adhesive clung on a little tighter, glue melting of the back tape onto metal chairs and concrete walls, and no amount of scrubbing or scraping could peel up the yellow globs of offensive material made of horse hooves and broken dreams. You would know. You’d been hacking away at pasted-on propaganda for hours. 

Hot and sweaty, in a building that hadn’t had air conditioning (or power, for that matter) in years, you found yourself stripping the upper half of your workman’s boiler suit, tying the sleeves around your waist. You’d been told the full body piece was necessary against hazardous material, but at this point, you’d eat the glue if it meant it wouldn’t be on the walls or gumming the edges of all of your razorblades.

If the glue and the heat weren’t enough to drive you insane, you co-worker was. Eddie Munson, hot off the heels of a triple homicide conspiracy, the town Freak, a Satanic cultist, was scraping glue from the wall opposite yours, foam headphones blaring music over his ears, razorblades drumming the walls at rapid rates, mostly off-beat. 

“Munson!’ You growled, throwing your yellow gloves to the ground in a fit of rage. 

He didn’t respond, just kept drumming, glue left discarded, head bobbing up and down, his ponytail thrashing back and forth. 

You took a deep breath and groped your jumpsuit for your pack of cigarettes. You’d been putting off your break, hoping to get out of that hell hole as soon as possible, but it was clear you probably wouldn’t leave before sunrise. 

Your pockets came up clean, just a zippo lighter, and you grit your teeth, hand squeezing around it. Munson’s thrashing built to a crescendo, and he was fully bent at the waist, head banging now, feet leaping from the linoleum in excitement.

You took a deep breath and crossed the room to wait near his rampage. You took a step closer, knowing he’d swing his arms to meet you, and when he did, he jumped back, startled, and pulled his headphones from his head.

“Sorry,” his lips pulled back into that skin-crawling grin. “Did you say something?” 

You clenched back a retort about his stupid headphones and held out your lighter. “Can I bum a smoke?” 

Without responding, he slipped around you and out the door. You closed your eyes, said a prayer for patience, and heard him scream back to you. “You coming or what?” Asshole.

The grey building was no cooler outside than it was in, although the breeze provided better airflow than the stuffy room you’d been cleaning, and the concrete against your back and shoulders felt nice. You inhaled the nicotine, hot in your lungs, and exhaled the satisfying buzz of calm. If only you couldn’t hear the heavy metal from Munson’s headphones right beside you.

“Think you could turn that off for a minute?” You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Shit, sorry,” he fumbled with the device shoved into his pocket, and you sighed at the click of silence. 

You took another drag, kept your eyes closed, tried to block out the smell of him so close to you, sweat and grime and glue. You probably smelled no better, but he had really itched at all of your nerves over the past week, and he was edging toward the last one. “Think you could back up a little?” You snapped, pushing off the building to look at him.

His eyes widened, and he shot smoke through the corner of his mouth, hands up in surrender. “Jesus, princess. What’s got you all riled up tonight?” 

“Don’t call me that,” you ground your teeth, sucking in too deep of a drag. It singed your lungs, the back of your throat. You sputtered your exhale, thumping on your own chest with a fist. 

He made cat noises out of the back of his throat, clawed the air in front of you with an outstretched hand. You shot him a glare, and he leaned back against the wall, taking a long drag. He blew out a large cloud and shook his hair from his eyes before looking back at you. “You were such a sweet kid in high school. What the hell happened?’ 

Your heart started pounding in your chest, that familiar clawing of panic, the lick of flames and the sting of chemicals to your nostrils, the laughter of the inmates surrounding you. You swallowed it back, cancer stick to you lips, hot air in, hot air out. “Don’t you have another teenager to murder?” You seethed.

“Fuckin’ A,” Munson exhaled into the ether and stamped half his cigarette into the wall beside him. “Come back when you’re ready to play nice.” He clicked play and shoved the headphones back over his ears, retreating back into the building with slumped shoulders.

You collapsed back against the cool wall and stared up at the starry sky, hoping the tilt of your head would keep your emotions held in. You made a few loud deep breaths through your teeth, trying to whoosh away the sound of blood vessels popping and bones breaking, the screams echoing through limestone walls. You brought your cigarette to your lips with shaky hands and took a long, labored drag, tip spilling hot ash onto your middle finger and then the ground. 

You found five things you could see. Trees, a fence, grey bricks, the sidewalk, your car just in the distance. Four things you could feel. The roll of pebbles beneath your sneakers, the wiggle of your toes within damp socks, the canvas fabric of your jumpsuit between your fingers, the cool wall at your back. Three things you could hear. The breeze whistling through broken windows floors above, the soft chirp of crickets in the distance, a low hum you pulled from deep in your chest. Two things you could smell. Cigarette smoke, the rubbery talc of yellow gloves left on your index finger. One thing you could taste, the salt of sweaty fingers to your lips. 

You took another deep drag, exhaling with slumped shoulders, relaxed. You were fine. You were doing your job as janitorial night staff at Hawkins Lab, and you were safe. Tossing your cigarette butt to the ground, you crunched it beneath your sneaker.

—

The line at the bank was too long, everyone trying to get their deposits in before the weekend, and you felt choked back the amount of people guarding the entrances and smiling from nearby desks and workspaces. You managed to cash your paycheck under the stares of the teller, and shove your loot into your pocket before too many questions were asked, but you were sure you hadn’t released a breath until you spilled out into the humid parking lot. 

You still had to do grocery shopping and run to the gas station, and you did want to stop by the library or Family Video for a bit of weekend entertainment, but the amount of people had you second guessing all of that, wishing instead for the comfort of your bed and the soft purrs of your cat. Remembering your cat was out of food, you sighed and unlocked your car door, deciding to complete your errands anyway, for her.

The grocery store, luckily, wasn’t overflowing quite the way the bank had been. It was early enough on a Friday to move in and out unscathed and unseen, save the bubblegum popping cashier, Brenda, who patted her very pregnant belly and gave you the same cold-eyed stare she’d offered in the halls of Hawkins High.

Sleepy Kevin at the gas station didn’t trouble you either, as you exchanged a few wadded up bills for gas and a pack of smokes. He just offered that one-eyed smile and reminded you to have a good day. Same ole routine, week after week. It’s what kept you sane. Well, it’s what returned your sanity.

Hawkins was different, after the Earthquake, quieter. Over half the population up-and-moved elsewhere, making the streets quieter. Less kids played in yards. Less men jogged by in short-shorts. Routes were different too, the center of town totally torn up, had yet to be fully restored. Just gaping holes in the sides of abandoned buildings, the remnants of tragedy like the four, fading scars that dissected your home town. 

The library had been shaken to bits, what books made it through the fire had been transplanted to a building across town, closer to the mall, a little newly built strip mall that had barely been touched, renters moved the moment panic struck. You pulled into the parking lot and turned off your ignition, pulling your old books from the passenger’s seat to return. 

A few satisfied customers left the barbershop next door, a few more entered a pet store down the way. The opposite side of the building held a small town pizzeria, and beside that, a comic book shop. You waited patiently for an exiting family before pressing your palm to the warm metal doors. You paused when you heard someone shouting your name.

Panic flooded your chest, and you wheeled around to look at the family that had just left, happy, arms bundled with picture books. The man that left the barber shop was getting into his car. You heard your name again. Swallowing the bile rising in your throat, you turned forty-five degrees to see Eddie Munson quickly approaching from the comic book store, waving violently with something sleeved in plastic.

“Hey,” he breathed when he approached. 

“What?” You sighed, allowing your breath to slow, willing the anxiety to subside.

“Haven’t seen you in the daytime in a while.” He grinned, smacking the side of your arm with his comic book. “You look a little sick.” 

You rolled your eyes. “What do you want, Munson?” 

“Just taking my friend, Dustin, here to the comic book shop, and the library.” He stepped sideways to reveal a small boy with braces and a mess of curly hair shoved under a cap. The boy grinned and waggled his fingertips in a greeting.

“Great,” you grit your teeth and reached for the door again.

“Here,” Munson reached to hold the door open for you, and if your arms weren’t so full, you would have pushed it out of his hands, fully capable of holding a door for yourself. You bit back a remark and slid inside, the cool wave of air conditioning tickling the hairs at the back of your neck.

You slipped your stack into the return bin on the counter, flashing a polite smile at the head librarian, before heading off toward the fantasy section to find something new for the weekend. 

You were about three synopses in before you were interrupted by the shuffle of feet and a whispered, “Hi.” You glanced upward to find Munson’s friend, Dustin, grinning, rocking on the balls of his feet.

“Hi?” You blinked back at the inside cover of the hardback in your hand. 

“So you work with Eddie, huh?” 

“Unfortunately,” you grumbled, closing the book and sliding it back into place on the shelf to search for another. 

“I know he can be a lot, but he means well.” 

“Uh huh.” You tongued your molar, biting back the urge to smack this kid with your library stick. 

“He’s a really good guy, if you just give him a chance-“ 

You rounded on him, patience thinned, stick pointed to the logo in the center of his chest. “Listen, kid, I’m just trying to pick out a library book, so I can go home and get away from people. I don’t need a member of Munson’s nerdy ass club to be worshiping him in my space, okay? I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid, bucko.” 

You spoke loud enough to be shushed by the librarian, and that grated on your nerves worse than the kid himself. The library was a safe space for you, one of the few left, and this interaction was making it increasingly less-so. 

“Whoa, what’s going on over here?” To make matters worse, Munson rounded the corner, carrying the one book you’d been looking for. 

“You’re right, man.” Dustin hissed, pointing to you. “Mental.” 

Well that was the last fucking straw. You slammed your stick into the shelves so hard it snapped in your hands, and when the panic licked flames up your throat, you shoved past Eddie and through the maze of shelves.

“Shit, man, why’d you say that?” You heard from a few aisles down, followed by the ruffle of clothes indicating someone was hot on your heels. 

Clawing your way through the shelves, you shoved open the front doors, gasping into the hot air. You fumbled with your car keys as Eddie barreled through the front doors, librarian yelling at him about the book in his hand. You turned the ignition and he skid to a halt in front of your car, staring, bewildered, as you peeled out of your parking spot and drove away. 

That familiar emotion stung at your eyes, betrayal, embarrassment, fear, confirmation that Eddie went home from his shifts and talked shit about you. Even The Freak thought you were psychotic, a mess, mental. You shifted into a lower gear to drive faster, engine revving down side streets, kicking up dust along the roadside of this sleepy little town.

—

Your weekend consisted of sleeping and cat cuddling and rereading old favorites, and you’d almost forgotten the encounter at the library until, in the dim moments before your shift started, a van rolled past the gates and into the vast parking lot.

You heard it before you saw it, blaring music and the screeching of tires, but you didn’t need to turn around to know that Eddie Munson’s shitstain of a brown van would be pulling up directly beside your car. Occasionally, smoke would pour from the windows, and he’d spend the entirety of his shift giggling to himself. This time, you tried to cross the parking lot before his engine even shut off. 

Your keys were out and unlocking the deadbolt when you heard him calling your name, asking you to wait up. You didn’t. You just sauntered into the tiled front entrance and made a B-line for the janitor’s closet to start pulling on your jumpsuit and gathering supplies for today. The second floor was on your agenda for this week, and you intended to get it done as quietly and as efficiently as possible. 

The gathering of your supplies was interrupted as Munson scrambled into the closet beside you, chains on his garments jiggling as he skid to a halt. “Holy fuck.” He gasped, clutching his side. 

“You good?” You frowned, tipping the sting of bleach into the mop bucket. The smell still stung in your nostrils, reminded you of that night, but you tried to fight it, had to fight it, couldn’t go back there. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, stumbling dramatically to his jumpsuit on its hook. “I’m good.” And he stepped into it clumsily, sneakers through too-tight legs on slippery tile floors.

You rolled your eyes and ascended the dim stairwell, bucket and mop in-hand.

The overhead lighting took moments to flicker on, seizure-inducing blinking across boardroom walls until the entire room was casting in dingy yellow. Only half a bank worked, in most rooms, and you learned to work with shadows. You set your bucket in one corner and started pulling all tables and chairs into another, clearing the widest space of flooring to clean at one time. 

You spent a long time scraping skid marks from the linoleum with the rubber of your shoes, the satisfying squeak like balls on a basketball court. It brought you back to senior year, watching the boys lose their championship game. 

Munson entered, finally, jumpsuit buttoned to cover his graphic t-shirt, with a long broom to sweep away the dust and cobwebs from the floor in concise lines, clearing it to allow you to mop. His walkman hung loose around his neck, mop of hair pulled back with a loose ponytail. 

You drug your bucket to his starting point and slopped bleach water to the ground below, reveling in the satisfying squelch of sopping cotton. 

“Hey, so,” Munson leaned against his broom at the far corner of the room. You glanced up at him and back down at your work. “I just wanted to apologize for Dustin at the library, a couple of days ago.” 

Your fists clenched around the handle, stopping your movement momentarily before you pressed on, scrubs quickened in pace.

“He’s just a shit kid that really wants me to make friends.”

You snorted sourly. “Sick way to make friends.”

“And he knows we work together, so he just figured he’d try to help.” He talked over your comment, taking a few strides toward you. “I promise he didn’t know anything about… I mean, I didn’t tell him about… I don’t even really know what happened, so I couldn’t have told him…” 

You stood then, white-knuckling the mop handle, and waited for him to ramble himself deeper into the hole he’d dug. 

He sighed, shook scrappy bangs from his eyes. “What I mean is, he never would have said that if he knew.” 

And there it was, right there in his deep, brown eyes, veiled in an apology, the one emotion you’d grown too accustomed too, and the one that irritated you the most. Pity. You picked up your mop and shoved it with a splash back into the sudsy water. When you slapped it back to the ground, splatters cascaded clear across the room. 

“So, I’m apologizing for him, I guess,” Munson continued, because of course he couldn’t take a hint and shut the hell up.

“Well, thanks, I guess?” You scoffed, scrubbing hard at a particularly yellowed stain. “I just don’t really need apologies from you or your child friend. You think I can’t handle a word or two thrown around about me? A little small-town gossip?”

“That’s not-“

“No?” You stopped again, leaning toward him against your handle. “Really? You’ve never heard gossip about me, Munson? Tell me then, what do you know?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed into the high button of his blue collar.

“Tell me what you heard.” You tossed your handle to the ground, and you both startled at the smack and bounce of wood to the linoleum. You crossed to him and folded your arms over your chest. “No, really. What do you want to know? Let’s do this right now. Because you’ve clearly been thinking about it the entire time we’ve worked together, and I’m sure you have your questions. So tell me what you know, and I’ll ease your mind. Or you know, for fun, give you a few nightmares.” 

He slumped backwards to rest his rear end on the table behind him, becoming eye level with you, and his brown eyes held that same pity that caused bile to bubble into your esophagus. “I’ve seen shit too, you know.” His voice was soft, not accusatory.

“I don’t think we need to compare traumas here, asshole,” you seethed. 

“No, I wasn’t,” he scrambled, cracking his knuckles. “You can just… trust me, I guess?”

“‘Trust me.’ I’ve heard that one before.” 

“Okay, you know what?” He pushed off from the table, inches in front of you, broad chest and clenched jaw. “I’m just trying to offer a little kindness, from someone who gets it. If you’re not interested in my… whatever, I’m not going to push it. You’re more than welcome to continue to believe the entire world is against you. I’ve just been there, and it’s a dark fucking place, okay?” 

And before you could respond, he’d pulled his broom handle between you and gave your shoulder a little prod with his knuckles. “I’m going to get started on the hallway.”

You moved aside to let him through and tried to let his words roll off of you. You didn’t need his ‘kindness’. You didn’t need anyone’s. You’d taken kindness for years now, in the form of pity and regret and saddened smiles, and what was it worth? You’d never get your family back. You’d never unsee what you had seen.

You knelt to pick up your handle again, cold wetness of the floor staining the wood in dark patches. Your hands tingled and your head spun at the chemical smell, but you took a deep breath, pushed it all back, and scrubbed a little harder at that stain.

—

You picked at a mole on your forearm, feeling stuffy and uncomfortable in that big leather chair, the only air in the office provided by an oscillating fan. 

“And how has work been? Are you still worried about the triggers? How are you responding to the chemical smells?”

You shrugged. “Fine. Bleach is bleach. Haven’t managed to poison myself yet.” 

“Is that something you’d consider doing?” 

You rolled your eyes. “No. I just meant, I’m good at my job.” 

“It’s nice to clean isn’t it? Feels a bit like you have control over something.” 

You scratched a little too hard, your arm started to bleed. You covered it with your sleeve and shoved your hand between your legs. “I guess?” 

“Are you getting along with your co-worker?” 

You shrugged. “Bummed a smoke off of him the other day.” 

Your shrink stared back at you over her legal pad, and the half-rim of her glasses. “You know I don’t approve of smoking.” 

You sighed and rolled your head back, staring up at the joists of the ceiling. Dust gathered at the tops of bookshelves. Their janitor had clearly given up on ladders ages ago. 

“But I’m glad you’re making friends. Can you tell me more about him?” 

“I’d rather not.” You grumbled, but her pointed look seemed to press the matter. You folded your arms over your chest. “He listens to music too loud, talks too much, does stupid voices. He likes… comic books?” You shrugged. You were surprised you could recall that much about the only other person you spent time with, besides your shrink. Hours of your week, not spent here, or with your cat, were holed up in that condemned building, breathing in chemicals and listening to Eddie Munson mutter to himself. You guessed it wasn’t far off from your last social interactions. Plenty of people at Pennhurst mumbled to themselves.

“That’s good. Do you guys talk about your fantasy novels?” 

“No,” you mumbled, but you saw an out in the conversation. “I’m rereading Earthsea.” 

“Again? How many times is that now?” 

You’d lost count. 

“Maybe you could try comic books. You’d have something to talk about with your new friend.” 

“He isn’t my friend,” you snapped back. 

“I think it’d be good for you to let someone in.” 

Your hand flexed against your biceps, itching to do something else, to get out of there. The buzzer went off on the side table, and you leapt from your seat. 

“Wait a moment,” she scribbled a few items onto a corner of her legal pad and tore it off, handing you the yellowed paper with her blue ballpoint chicken scratch. “This is your assignment for the week. Have a good one, dear. Stay safe out there.” 

You didn’t look at her handwriting until you’d reached your car. Find out five things your coworker is interested in. With an eye roll, you crumpled the paper and discarded it on your passenger side floor mat.

—

Fuck. This couldn’t be happening. You grit your teeth and pushed a little harder on the metal cabinet pinning you to a concrete wall. You tried to move it on your own, foolishly, and it’d tumbled toward you with a crash, apparently full of items you hadn’t checked pre-move. You heaved and nothing budged, and you slammed your fists against it in frustration before you conceded. With a deep breath, you called out for your coworker. 

No response. Jesus Christ, he must have been listening to his music too loud. You were going to die under here. The metal doors had begun to slide open, something dark oozing through the crack. You panicked and tried to avoid the sludge, but your movement only pinned you further. 

Another deep breath, and you screamed, “Eddie!!!” It was maybe the only time his first name had escaped your lips, but the panic had clawed its way to your throat. The metal was digging into your collarbone, handle pinching a spot in your ribcage, and the gunk dripping from inside reminded you too much of the burst matter that had splattered your walls, coated your clothes, formed that amorphous blob.

You pitched another scream, slamming your fists into the cabinet until it banged louder than the memories flashing in your mind. You shouted Eddie’s name again and again, straining and struggling to move until a shadow hurried across the ceiling, and you heard your name returned in panicked tones. 

“I need you to push while I pull, okay?” 

“Okay,” you nodded and hunkered your weight to your thighs, as much as you could manage.

“Count of three. One, two.” You both grunted, the metal groaning at the leverage, and soon it was righting itself onto four corners again. 

Only, it was too late, and without your body blocking it, the doors swung fully open, launching several glass jars of liquid to the ground below. Heavy glass smashed and bubbled, and a large dollop of blackish brown flung itself down the entire front of your jumpsuit, coating you in a thick, viscous material that smelled of death. You heaved, but your hands were coated in it and starting to burn.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Munson was frantic, hands in his hair in panic. “Uh… showers! Fourth floor.” And he took off running before you did.

You tripped and skid, shoes sticky as molasses up two full flights, breathless and panicked. You heard the shower sputter on before you reached the room, your coworker allowing a wide berth as you slipped on tile and under the ice-cold spray. Your teeth chattered, but your hands felt instantly relieved. 

“Take your jumpsuit off.” His voice was far-off, garbled from the water cascading through your hair, down your face and neck. 

You began to unbutton, careful to keep your fingers as clean you could. Your heart raced beneath the frigid pulse of water, pressure inconsistent. You slipped the canvas material from your shoulders, exposing a smudge of brown across your white tank top from where it’d already bled through. You stepped out of your shoes, socks, saw mean stains on your jeans from where you’d taken the worst of it. Muscles spasming, you unbuttoned your fly, pulled your pants off too. 

You kicked your sticky clothes to the side and stepped over the drain, scrubbing at the stubble on your legs and ankles, rinsing until well-after the water ran clear, a swirl of brown cycloning into the sewage system from your clothes. You were so cold, but you couldn’t stop scrubbing, not until your skin was raw, and images of blood and bones quit flashing in your mind. 

Your clothes moved, and you startled, backed into the freezing tile. Your back jammed into the dial. 

Munson knelt before you, scooping your clothes with yellow, rubber gloves. He stood and held them at an arm’s length, letting the brown run-off squeeze out between you. “I’ll take these to the washer.” He grumbled, and then his gaze turned toward you. “Are you okay?” 

That same, pitiful brown look stared back you under wispy bangs. You nodded, resolute, but his gaze didn’t leave you, instead his eyes flit down your body, observing your sore spots, double-checking you hadn’t missed. Only, when his eyes returned to yours, his cheeks were pinched red, brown eyes more black, teeth rolling in his plump bottom lip. 

Your heart pounded in your ears, acutely aware of your state of undress. The hair on your legs prickled, your thighs quivered in the cold. You hugged at your middle, nipples pebbling beneath your slick tank top. Your hair clung to the sides of your face, droplets beading down your chest and shoulders. 

You watched him watch you a moment too long. You wanted to snap, call him a perv, but too much time had lapsed, and he had saved your life. Besides, the last time a boy your aged looked at you like this, you were pinned beneath Billy Hargrove, thrust against the leather seats of his Camaro. Although Billy Hargrove’s gaze was never that soft, that timid.

“Thank you,” you whispered, teeth chattering around the starting sound, breaking the spell.

Eddie ducked his head, still holding dripping clothes at arm’s length, and backed slowly out of the room. 

You stepped back under the frigid rush of water, the spray quenching every inch of you that licked with flames. “Eddie,” you gasped out the other side, clutching your hands to your chest to protect what modesty you had left. 

Eddie’s head snapped up, brown eyes locked on yours. 

“Can you f-find me something to wear?” 

His plump, pink lips split into a kind smile. As he wandered down the hallway, feet slapping on wet floors, you wondered if maybe you could add yourself to the list of interests. Your face heated, despite the rush of water, and you garbled the cold against your molars, fanning the flames that broiled through you. 

—

You hung back behind a shelf in the Children’s Section, pretending to take interest in a Sing-Along tape to avoid the notice of a gaggle of your ex-classmates. You’d picked the exact wrong time to try the video store, having slept in far too late on a Saturday. You should have just gone as soon as you’d gotten off work, but you were exhausted from scraping more adhesive from the walls of the third floor, and you slid into bed, still clothed with the lights on and fell asleep. 

So if you wanted to watch a movie this weekend, you were forced to brave the Saturday afternoon foot traffic. Your doctor said it was better to face your fears anyway. But you thought that meant talking to Keith, terrifying enough, not avoiding a bunch of bimbos you might’ve called friends once-upon-a-time. 

You had to duck to miss Carole as she swept around from the register, smacking her gum and making rude comments about the man behind the counter, but the second the bell signaled their disappearance, you popped up and hurried to the counter, eyes darting over your shoulder to make sure they’d gone for good.

“Well, look who it is.” Keith offered a yellowed smile, leaned across the counter at you. “Hey, princess.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled cash from your pocket. “Yeah, yeah. You have a movie on hold for me? Labyrinth.” You pulled a pack of Red Vines from the display. 

He searched under the counter for your tape, taking his sweet time, while he whistled. “You know, this is a pretty damn popular one. Bowie? In those tight, tight pants? It was a bit difficult to keep on hold for you.” 

“Well thanks for doing it.” You pushed your cash across the counter. “I don’t need the change.” 

“Oh, I think you’re going to owe me more than that,” he cocked an eyebrow, so proud of himself, and you held back a gag at the orange dust crusting the corners of his smile. 

A ding signaled a new customer.

“Come on, Keith. Just give me the tape,” you rolled your eyes, heart thudding in your skull.

“Yeah, Keith, give her the tape.” Someone rasped behind you. You spun around to see a young blonde girl, freckled. Her face was familiar, kind eyed. 

“You don’t work for me anymore, Buckley.” Keith snapped.

“You’re right, but I can still protect the innocent from your greasy hands. Give her the tape, and I won’t say what I caught you doing in the warm-up closet in the band room.” 

You shuddered, and Keith hissed, sliding your tape across the counter and into your fingers. He clung on for a moment too long before snapping. “This is a five day rental. No longer, you hear me? This movie is a hot commodity and I can’t afford for you to be grinding and rewinding to Bowie for longer than necessary.” 

You grimaced, and barely wanted to pick it up after he released it, now having the visual of what every renter had done before you burned into your eyelids. 

“God, please tune him out.” The girl beside you winced.

“I try to,” you nodded, and crinkled your Red Vines to your chest.

“Good,” the girl eyed you for a moment before asking, “You work with Eddie right?”

“You work with Munson the Murderer?” Keith chimed in, but the girl quickly cut him off.

“I’m Robin. I’m a friend of Eddie’s. I think we may have had Calc together?” 

Calculus felt so long ago now. It was. But even longer, lifetimes even. Maybe that’s why the freckles and blue eyes felt familiar, a past life reaching back to you through the void. “Oh yeah, hi.” You muttered, heart pounding. This was more social interaction that you would have asked for, more than you wanted, what you usually avoided. 

“Eddie’s told me a lot about you. Sounds like work can get pretty crazy up there.” 

The small talk went a little too deep for you liking, panic clawing at your throat, heart thundering in your ears. You wondered what exactly he’d told her, about your constant scolding of him? Maybe he’d mentioned you were mental. Maybe he talked about that time this week when he’d watched you strip completely naked and you had to drive yourself home in naught but a crusty pair of pajama pants he had balled up in the back of his van. 

“I’ve got to go,” you backed slowly from the counter. 

“Sure, yeah. Um… good to see you again.” Robin offered a polite small, though she seemed taken aback by the change of pace. 

“You too,” you smiled, and waved Keith off when he shrieked “FIVE DAYS, PRINCESS!”

The inside of your car was hot, muggy. You turned the ignition and cranked down one of the windows, clutching the steering wheel as you backed slowly out of the parking lot and made your way home.

—

Neither of you had touched the room in a week, black tar solidifying in one corner. Your superiors, whoever they were, assured you on the phone that it was safe and to just use gloves, but you still felt the gnawing of memories whenever you stared into the abyss and had just left it alone, moving on down the hallway and up the next flight. 

But it needed to be done. So you stood in the doorway, chewing on the inside of you cheek, eyes glazed over with exhaustion, staring at the metal cabinet that had nearly crushed you, and its contents seeping into the cracks in the floor.

“Hey,” Munson’s voice startled your daze, and you leaned back to watch him approach from down the hall. His voice echoed, a little raspier than normal. “Wanna take a smoke break with me, and then we can tackle it together?” He jiggled a pack from his pocket.

You sighed, glancing once more into the dim room before you removed your gloves and discarded them beside a bucket and razorblades in the doorway. You clicked off the light, and Eddie waited for you at the top of the stairs. You descended together, down and out, into the warmth of summer.

The crickets chirped a lazy tune, bullfrog just off-beat, a little farther out in the swampland, where the drainage systems pour from the Lab into the land. You tried not to think of chemical leaks, tried not to delve into the chemistry that led to the breakdown of your life, tried not to focus on much but the cool grey limestone at your back and the buzzing warmth leaving your lungs in a cloud of smoke, out and upwards. 

“Me too,” Eddie released his smoke in agreement with your sigh, and he rested himself beside you, about a yard to your left. “I’m fucking tired.” 

You hummed and sucked in another hot drag. The two of you hadn’t really talked since that day in the showers, decided avoidance on your part, and you hoped ignorance on his. You broke down your tasks and tackled them separate, but efficiently, and never said much else beside the occasional greeting or farewell. You could be professional, but anything beyond that mortified you.

It had all been amplified by the strange dreams plaguing your nights. Mostly you looking for your family, circling a labyrinth that resembled work a little too much, and running into the Bowie-fied version of Eddie Munson, who had you gazing into crystal balls. You often fell into his trance, and into a large bed that looked a little too much like his van. Although every time he made a move, his eyes caught fire, turned into devilish blues, and Billy Hargrove was over you, grunting and groaning. Flames licked the sides of his car. 

“If I have to kill one more spider, I’m going to freak out.” 

You turned your head to look at him, watched his shoulder wrack with a shudder, and you felt yourself smile. “Scared of a little bug, Munson?” 

“First of all, they’re arachnids, not bugs.” His lips split in a grin. “Second, they’re fucking disgusting. I got this tattoo because I thought they were metal as Hell, and I have major regrets.” He pulled the collar of his shirt down to expose black ink on alabaster skin. The pucker of scarring intrigued you, but he released and the material folded back into place.

“That’s probably like a beacon to them.” You inhaled, pointed your cigarette in his direction, exhaled. “They probably think you’re their Mother.” 

He shuddered again, smoke catching in his throat, causing him to hack a little. He thumped at his chest with a fist and croaked, “Shit, stop. That’s disgusting.” 

You felt warm, something like laughter stirring in your chest. For some reason, you thought of your therapist, thought she might be proud of you. That reminded you of your assignment. You tilted your head back against the building, took another drag while he sputtered away beside you. You squeezed your eyes closed, and said like a prayer, “You’re like the Amazing Spider-Man.” 

He went quiet, so quiet you had to turn to look at the shocked expression etched across his stupid features. “You read comics?” His brows creased in the middle, jaw still hung open like you’d told him you killed JFK.

You flicked the ash from your cigarette, crossed on arm over your chest. You shrugged, stared out at the forest. “My brother did.” And it hurt as much as you thought it would, chest tight, bile bubbling up, head dizzy, heart pounding in your skull. 

“Oh,” Munson said, leaning back beside you, though you swore he’d inched closer. “Do you know which ones he liked?” 

You took another shaky inhale, difficult under the tremble of your fingers. Of course you knew. Every day you thought of it, saw flashes of him excitedly ripping open Christmas gifts, pulling them out of the box under his bed, laying at your feet on the living room floor, little head rested in his hands while you painted your toes. They gathered dust in the back of your storage unit now.

You swallowed thickly, hot, upper lip dripping with sweat. “He really liked,” your voice hurt, strained against the lump in your throat. “The X-Men. I think Cyclops was his favorite.” You hadn’t even talked to your shrink about this shit, couldn’t remember the last time those characters’ names passed your lips.

“Cyclops is cool,” Eddie commented from beside you, voice low, careful. You could feel the eggshells beneath his feet, tiptoed steps, dam cracking. 

“What about you?” You took measured breaths. “What do you like?” And it was a lifeline thrown, frantic, a buoy to reel you back in to safety, to take the pressure off of yourself, the words and thoughts from your mouth. 

“Oh, yeah I like the X-Men. I know this girl who’s very Jean Grey.” He took it and ran, offering a slick smile. Your shoulders relaxed. “I’m more of a Conan guy though. I’m really into like… fantasy? Comics, books. Well you know, I play Dungeons and Dragons. Huge nerd.” He pointed at himself with a thumb.

You blinked back at him, your mouth dry, hand shaking ash at your side. “You read fantasy?” 

“Duh,” he collapsed dramatically back into the wall, took another drag, popping smoke rings out with his lips in a round O and fingertip to his cheek.

You bit back a smile. 

“Tolkien is like a God to me.” His brown eyes sparkled, curls thrown back against the wall, and it wasn’t until his gaze found your mouth that you realized how close you’d gotten, both unintentionally gravitated toward one another as you spoke. 

You coughed and took a step back, tossing your cigarette to the ground to smoosh under your rubber sole. “You ready to take a stab at the gunk?” 

“No.” Eddie grumbled, stamping out his own cigarette, but he hurried ahead to hold the door open for you, bowing low as you entered. “Milady.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Cool it with the accents, or I’ll make you eat the goo.” 

He flashed you a grin. “Deal.” 

—

You felt squished between two slides and shoved under a microscope. The air in here tasted stale, and you were certain she’d pulled her chair up closer. She looked at you over those half-rims, a knowing expression across her tight features, like she knew the exact confusion that surrounded your strange comraderie with Eddie Munson more than you’d been able to interpret it yourself. 

“Comic books, you told me that one last week. What else?” 

You pressed your hands tight together, clammy in the humid air, and avoided her gaze, staring instead at the globe on one of her shelves. “He reads fantasy novels. The Hobbit’s his favorite.” 

“So you have that in common? That’s great.” 

“Yep,” you popped the consonant, drummed your fingers to your knees. 

“He’s in a band, or was… his bandmates left during the Earthquake.” 

“That’s too bad. Did you talk to him about that?” 

“No.” The air turned sour. You didn’t want to talk about the earthquake, didn’t want the conversation to delve deeper than surface level. Eddie had done a good job at rambling, running his mouth like he always did, and you enjoyed listening to him as you scooped dried gunk into buckets to be tossed. But you didn’t ask too many questions, didn’t want them rounded on you. 

“Did you talk to him about you at all? About your interests?” 

“No.” Your fingernails picked at rivets in the arm of the chair, cool metal against leather. 

“I think he’d like to know things about you. It sounds like you’d be good friends. You have a lot in common.” 

“We do not have a lot in common.” You shot back. 

She cocked a brow, scribbled some things onto her notepad. 

You chewed on the inside of your cheek, stared sideways at the opened window, hot air spilling in through the fan. It wasn’t oscillating today, instead pointed between you, a breeze barely caught on the tops of your knees. 

“Okay, that’s three. What else?” 

“He did theater in high school.” 

“That’s fun. Did you go to high school together?” 

You nodded, picking a little harder at the rivet. 

“Did you know each other?” 

You shrugged. He was a year older than you until senior year. You remembered him as too loud in the cafeteria, too rowdy in hallways, too good at picking fights with the jocks. You’d seen him dealing at few parties, watched him from across a crowded room. He definitely always had a presence. And more than it fascinated you, it made you sad.

You knew about his parents, of course, Hawkins elite impossible to keep gossip from their mouths. You knew he lived at the trailer court. You knew he struggled through his studies, for truancy matters more than much else, because he was smart. 

“Is he attractive?” 

Your eyes snapped to hers, skin crawling under her smirk, and you scoffed, threw your hands in the air. “What is this? I thought I was here to solve my problems, to fix my fucked up brain, not for you to gain more information about my Freak coworker.”

“Alright,” she set her pen down, leaned back in her chair. “You want to talk about you? Go ahead. Have you been having nightmares again? How about panic attacks? Still hallucinating their deaths?” 

You swallowed, heart thundering in your ears. You crossed your arms over your chest. “I just don’t see how learning about my coworkers interests is relevant.” You whispered, resolve faltering. 

She spoke your name softly, leaning forward again on her knees. “I just worry about you being all alone.” 

“I’m not alone,” the emotion stung in your eyes, clumped inside your throat. 

“You’re not, no.” She agreed, voice too soft, too calm. “You have me, and you have Muffins, and you have this guy.” She glanced down at her paperwork for clarification. “Eddie? You have Eddie. It’s not healthy to close yourself off from everyone.” 

“I know,” you shot, but your voice was shaky. You clenched your fists in your lap for some sort of sturdy ground. 

“You lost everyone that was important to you, tragically. But it’ll be impossible to get over it if you don’t rebuild.”

You felt a tear trickle down your cheek, wet hot, and you swiped at it with a hurried hand. The buzzer went off. You gasped and sniffed and stood up.

“Your assignment for this week is to let him in. Tell him five things that are important to you.” She stood to offer you a tissue.

“Thanks, doc,” you scoffed, shouldering past her to rip open the door. “Really helpful sesh.” And you slammed the door behind you, heavy wood creating a satisfying thud.

—

Eddie jingled when he moved, chains and rings tucked into the pockets of his jumpsuit that clinked against one another like a wind chime with each air-jump and head bang. He had the volume of his Walkman turned all the way up, the crash of symbols heard from across a wide room. He’d ceased his sweeping in favor of pseudo-guitar, slender fingers picking a solo on the fretboard of the wooden handle. 

You admired him from afar, slowing your dusting to watch him work. His hands met on the handle near his pelvis, and he ground into them, stumbling onto the balls of his feet in concentration. You could barely make out the muffled solo on his headphones, but his face remained tight, screwed up in concentration. You caught yourself smiling, felt the corner of your lips turn up, your face warm. 

“NO.” You slammed your duster down, flustered as all Hell.

“Shit,” Munson dropped his broom, fumbled to tear his headphones off. They got caught in his hair, a foamy pad went flying. “Are you okay?” He breathed, staring at you with those wide, baby cow eyes. 

You ground your teeth and took a deep breath. “Fine. Sorry, sorry.” You turned away from him and took a deep breath. 

That was the fourth time you’d caught yourself staring, head tilting to observe the length of his fingers, the strength of his arms when he lifted chairs and buckets, the wide span of his back. When you shared smoke breaks, you watched the way his cheeks dimpled when he talked or laughed, melted into the twinkle in his brown eyes, noticed how plump and pink his lips are. 

It made you sick. It was your God damn therapists fault. Is he attractive? The question haunted you, plagued your dreams, banged around in your head ceaseless. What should have been a quiet and productive workweek suddenly filled with distractions and existential dread. 

Because the answer was yes, resolutely, Eddie “The Freak” Munson, was attractive. And okay, maybe the Metalhead-Drug-Dealing-Air-Guitarist wasn’t exactly your “type”, but you could point out the objective attractive qualities in the young man’s smile, in the way he brushed finger tips with your when he passed you the bleach container, in the meaty column of his throat when he’d thrown his head back in a laugh. 

Besides, just because you recognized his attractiveness, didn’t mean you were required to act on it. He sure as Hell wasn’t a Billy Hargrove. And the point of your shrink’s questions was to gain information on a friend, right? You could consider referring to Eddie Munson as your friend. Acquaintance, co-worker, maybe sometimes friend.

Your fingers trembled around your duster, dust flying every which way, coating the middle of your jumpsuit in a thin, grey layer. You chewed the inside of your cheek raw from days of almost-conversations.

“Hey, can you help me move this desk back?” His soft voice called from just over your shoulder.

You startled back around to face him. He was smiling, all dimpled cheeks and shiny eyes, and you set your duster down to help. The desk was heavier on his end, several drawers lined up on one side, and you stood in place while he swung it around. 

“So, um… I saw your friend, Robin, at Family Video the other day.” 

“She told me,” he grunted, wiped his hands on the front of his jumpsuit. 

“Oh,” you found a button on the front of your suit to fiddle with, brushed the dirt off with your thumb. 

“She said Keith was harassing you?” 

You rolled your eyes. “I can handle Keith. I may have taken a trip to the loony bin and lost my social status, but I’ll always be higher on the food chain than that Loser.” 

Eddie whistled, lips tucked into his teeth in a smile. “Well, look who just pulled out her Princess tiara.” 

“Shut up,” you scoffed, picking up your duster. “Actually, apparently I have Calculus with Robin. I think I was so far up my own ass in high school, I couldn’t physically see anyone beneath me.” 

“I was in that class too.” 

You blinked up at him, Cheshire grin and jazz hands. You tried to remember him, wracked your brain from any garbled memories of him in that class. Maybe once? Or at least, you could envision him at the back of the classroom, notably sleeping through the lecture. “You were?”

“Well, I was enrolled. Didn’t mean I went.” He laughed, drumming his knuckles on the desktop. 

“No wonder you didn’t graduate.” You snorted. 

His shoulders sunk a little, and you were full of instant regret. He rounded to his broom stick and pushed some extra lint silently into the hall before turning to face you again. “Hey, I don’t think you were as holier-than-thou as you think.” 

You shot him a confused look. 

“Do you remember that time you like totally saved my ass?” 

You shook your head slowly. 

“After you graduated, out at Sattler’s Quarry. Remember Tommy Hagan and Harrington got into that huge fight?” He emphasized his story with thrown fists. “Blood everywhere.” 

You weren’t sure that image would ever leave your mind, Tommy pinned under Steve’s thigh, blood seeping into the rocky soil, mixing into a red paste. Billy Hargrove broke it up, ripped Steve off Tommy, threw him into the hood of a car. You nodded. 

“Right, well, I was there for my… goods and services,” he cocked a brow. “And Billy Hargrove was fired up, man. So when he walked past me, I tried to push it. I don’t know why, Hell, I was probably pissed that I didn’t graduate again.”

You ducked your head at his words, guilty to have used them first. 

“But I said something to him, I don’t even know what. Something about a stick up his ass, and this dude, huge dude, remember Hargrove? He just shoved me about ten feet. Called me a fag. Asked if I wanted to look like Hagan.”

You remembered now. It was all filtered through the fuzz of alcohol, the glow of graduation, rough around the edges like a smudge on the lens. You don’t remember what Eddie said, but you remembered the shove. You remembered the steam rolling off Billy’s back all night. You remembered slipping your hand around his sticky bicep and pulling him away, coaxing him with your tongue to the underside of his ear, comforting him with blissful promises fulfilled in the back of his car. 

“He could’ve destroyed me, man.”

Eddie Munson was the antithesis of that, all soft edges past the hardened exterior, alabaster skin and Cheshire smile. He was nimble fingers and melodic laughter. He was smoke rings and flannel pajama pants, and a bit of warmth and light to cold, lonely nights in an abandoned lab. 

You felt your face heat, but you swung out your fist to meet his shoulder. 

He stumbled back dramatically, as though he’d taken a blow ten times the strength, back to the same annoying little shit. 

You rolled your eyes and pushed past him into the hallway. “Maybe I wanted to beat your ass myself, Munson.”

—

Supply closet runs were your least favorite. Cramped quarters that reeked of your worst nightmares. A windowless hole, stacked shelves full of chemicals and toilet paper, shadows cast by a flickering overhead. No, you’d avoided the closet for weeks now, politely sending your coworker up for more bleach, more paper, more buckets. 

But today he’d been busy, all the way across this section of the floor, dusting cobwebs from a room coated in them, and you didn’t want to interrupt his head-bang session just to have him get a new bucket of bleach. So you went, with courage, and a few deep breaths, hands shaking against the aluminum handle.

The light ticked a few times before it came on, bathing everything in soft white. You avoided eye contact with the rat poison in the bottom corner, crude images of rat skulls and crossbones across the fronts of giant cardboard boxes. Your hands shook against metal shelves. You glanced upward and downward, past sponges and buckets, until you found gallons of bleach, heavy pitchers, and even that was enough to set you off.

You pulled it from the shelf, arms aching under the weight, and you paused with the bottle on the floor at your feet, squeezing your eyes tight. 

“Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie screamed, skidding into view, and you startled, tripping over your bottle to fall to the floor at the back of the closet. 

You scrambled against the linoleum, smacking your head into the metal shelving, and you cursed, holding the smarting base of your skull.

“Shit, shit, shit!’ Eddie crowed, entering the small space to offer you a hand. 

“What is your deal, Munson?” You hissed, taking his hand to help you upright. You head pulsed with a deep thud, just where you’d smacked it, and you could feel the pool of warmth just under your skin. 

“Biggest spider of my life.” He shuddered, and you glanced over his shoulder in time to see the door slide closed. The click of the latch confirmed it.

“Shit,” you shoved past him and reached for the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. “No, no, no.” You pulled at the lever rapidly, so rapidly, in fact, that you heard the unmistakable clatter of aluminum just on the other side. The handle had broken off. “No, no, no!” You slammed your fists to the door and held your face in your hands.

“Well, fuck,” Munson offered from behind you, and you rounded on him.

“This is your fault,” you shoved your finger into his sternum. “It was a spider, Munson. Boo-freaking-hoo.”

“Big spider,” he gulped, holding both hands in the air to exhibit the size. 

The air around you grew staler by the second, the humid warmth of proximity mixed with the tang of chemicals, and your head began to spin. You backed yourself into the corner next to the door and clawed at the top buttons of your jumpsuit, struggling to catch a breath. Hazard symbols on packages stared down at you, grinning, gaping holes where eyes should be. The top of Eddie’s hair blocked the light from this angle, a cascade of shadows set about the room, and you dug your fingers into a toilet paper roll until it burst.

“Whoa, okay,” Eddie put his hands up in surrender, pity floating back into his large brown eyes. “What’s going on? Are you having a stroke?”

Were you having a stroke? You couldn’t smell. The chemicals stung in your nostrils, light flickering overhead, reminding you of the lamps around your living room, the vibrant disco of lightbulbs before the sudden burst, the splatter, the screams you heard but didn’t feel. 

“I’m just…” You gasped, pulling your jumpsuit from your shoulders. “I can’t…” 

“Can’t what? Can’t breathe?” He was too close, hands up like you had a fork pointed to his chest, like you’d escaped and had been caught just in the woods off-grounds, like you were a terrified rabbit and he was luring you back into his trap.

You squeezed your eyes closed, shook your head, sunk to the floor. Your knees pulled up to your chest and you tried to breathe, tried to regulate. What had you been taught? 

Five things you could see. Your eyes slammed open and immediately you came face to face with the rat poison boxes. A small cry escaped past your lips, and you immediately darted your eyesight upwards.

“You’ve gotta work with me here, man. I’m freaking the fuck out.” Eddie pushed his hands into his hair, his own breathing become erratic.

Eddie. Okay good, you could see Eddie. His hair, his jumpsuit, his sneakers. You gulped, pulled your hands in front of your face. Your hands. Toilet paper. Good. Four things you could feel. You felt the cold linoleum under your ass, the canvas of your jumpsuit between pinched fingers, the metal wrung of a shelf digging into your shoulder. Three things you could hear.

“Me. I’m here. You can hear me.” Eddie said, and you hadn’t realized you’d been saying everything out loud until you blinked back up at him. “Me. You can hear me. Uh…” He picked up the bleach container and sloshed it, the whoosh of liquid in plastic. It startled you. He wrapped his knuckles against the locked door. “This. You can hear that. Three things. What’s next?” 

You stared at him for a moment before hearing yourself croak, “Two things I can smell.” 

“Oh, easy,” he pulled open the cap from the bleach and offered it to you.

“No!” You called out, shielding yourself from it.

With watchful hands, he screwed the cap back on and set it on a back shelf. He looked around for a minute before squatting down to your level. He held his hands out to you, a request for permission, and you didn’t stop him, so he pressed on, just into your bubble. 

“I showered this morning.” He muttered, tugging the hair tie from his hair to release the mess from its ponytail. It fell around his face and shoulders, and his face split into a grin as he leaned into you. “Got this new shampoo. Supposed to smell more manly. What do you think?” 

You paused, still stunned at his actions, but you inhaled deeply through your nostrils. He smelled of cedar and maybe sandalwood, something Earthy under the typical stink of marijuana and tobacco, spray of bleach still settled on his hands. 

“Eh?” He sat back on his heels, squat down in front of you like a teacher to a little girl. “What else?” 

You swallowed, stale air swarmed with him. Light filtered between you, barely, but he was warm and the ground against you cool, and you licked the waxy shell of your lips. “One thing to taste.” 

He looked at you, big brown eyes, brows creased in the middle, and you felt your stomach swoop under his gaze. You were drawn back to the showers, the sweep of his eyes across your exposed flesh, lingering on the soft and sensitive bits of you. He pulled his tongue between his teeth, wet his plump lower lip, and your breath stuttered in your lungs. 

He shifted his weight, leaning toward you, and your heart thundered in your chest, different from panic, barely so, but you could feel the warmth tickle your throat, the familiar kick of something deeper in your stomach, something kinder, something you hadn’t felt in a long time. You leaned forward as well, shoulders relieved from the pressure of the metal rack. 

Only Eddie sat back, hand held between you with a little white-wrapped stick, red lettering littered the package. “Doublemint?” He grinned. With warmed cheeks, you plucked it from his hands and unfolded the paper around it. 

—

“Well, the good news is we’re not trapped forever.”

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. “What are you talking about?”

“My buddy, Dustin, you remember him,” he offered you an apologetic grimace, posting himself on the floor across from you. “He makes me walkie him every morning when I get home. If he doesn’t get a walkie, he’ll come looking.” 

“What?”

He’d said it all so casual, as though it made perfect sense, and when it didn’t, he sighed and began to unbutton his jumpsuit, air growing heavier and muggier as the sun undoubtedly rose outside. “Dustin and I went through some major shit last year,” he explained with the wave of his hand. “He worries about me. ‘Specially in this shit hole.” He banged a fist into the ground. The metal racks rattled around you, bleach sloshing a few feet over your heads. 

You clung to the one closest in an attempt to stabilize it, shot him a look. 

“Sorry,” he winced, rolling up the sleeves to expose his forearms. An army of bats littered one side, faded and patched. “At least this isn’t new for us. You know. Because we’ve both spent time on the inside.” 

“No.” You argued, picking at the rubber toe of your sneakers.

“What?”

“My time on the inside was voluntary.” 

“What?” He repeated, blinking back at you, all movements stilled.

“I had myself committed,” you hissed through grit teeth. “Bet you heard it other ways, huh? Princess gets thrown into the asylum, kicking and screaming. Men in white coats, puffy walls.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched you with careful eyes. 

“Well it wasn’t like that, okay? Not for me. I walked in, asked the front desk for a room. Lady laughed at me until I told her what I saw, or what I thought…” Your words caught in your throat. You swallowed. “Anyway, they were fairly accommodating.” 

“So tell me about it,” Eddie urged, sliding his foot across the small space to kick at your shin.

“What?” 

“What was it like?” He shrugged. 

“You first.” 

He sighed, shoulders sagging against the metal shelves, jumpsuit open to his waist, exposing an enticing logo of a band you’d never heard of on his black t-shirt. “Well, being arrested for murdering several teenagers is pretty shitty. Cops aren’t exactly friendly to serial killers, fun fact.” His tone was dry, raw, probably the least chipper you’d ever seen him. “They pretty much treated me like dog shit until they found out I didn’t do it. Kicked me in the ribs, barely gave me water. Definitely no smoke breaks. Thought they might have sent me to Pennhurst once they heard my story.” 

“What happened?” You pried, curiosity rolling through you faster than your brain could shut your mouth up.

He offered a half-lipped smile, tight, didn’t reach his eyes. “Didn’t you hear the stories? Major asshole serial killer from the 50s got them. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” His voices lilted the way it often did, but there was cruelty behind it, remorse, something you couldn’t quite reach. 

“Were you scared?” 

He let out a laugh, slid through his teeth like he couldn’t believe your asked. He shook his hair from his eyes, looked at you. “Scared shitless. We’re just kids, man. We’re not supposed to see that shit. We’re not supposed to watch…” He recoiled, eyes slammed closed, and he shook his head. “I still get nightmares, like every night.” 

“Me too,” you let your knees down from your chest, arms sore from holding them up, and the canvas of your pants touched on the tile.

“They ever go away?” He asked, pleading. 

You shrugged. “Sometimes. They aren’t as gruesome as they once were. It’s mostly memories now. Opening Christmas gifts, but I can’t show them what I got because they’re around the corner, in the other room, just out of reach. Or driving down the road and they’re at the shoulder, just waving, but I can’t crank down my window to say anything to them. The crank breaks in my hands. The brakes stop working. I have to drive past.” 

“Jesus,” Eddie mumbled. 

You let out a shaky exhale, stale mint falling in the air, and you shook your shoulders out, cramps forming at the bend in your neck. 

“Why’d you leave?” He asked, voice soft, toe kicking your leg again.

“Didn’t you hear?” You laughed. “I’m cured.” 

He snorted. 

—

Eddie’s humming never ceased. A constant drumming of knuckles to kneecaps and the sweet tune of something you’d never heard of, but somehow had memorized. The air in here was hot and stale, both of you stripped out of the top half of your suits, and the flickering of the light above did your head in. 

“Munson, I swear to God,” you grumbled, jaw tight, shoulders tighter. 

“Huh?” He hadn’t realized he’d been doing it. The incessant barrage of music from his being was entirely instinctual. 

You groaned, cheek pressed against metal rack to stay cool. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to murder you.” 

He sighed, ran a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s stuck in my head.” 

“Well, now it’s stuck in mine too.”

“Okay, so tell me something,” he kicked at your shin. 

“What?” You frowned back at him, all hunched shoulders and mop of hair. 

“Fill my head with something other than this bitchin’ tune.” His lips split in a grin.

You rolled your eyes. “You want a bedtime story?” 

“No, just…” He crossed his legs, like a child, and leaned elbows on his knees toward you. His fingers tugged at the laces of your sneakers. “Did you ever have like… a dream?” 

You sighed, threw your head back, closed your eyes. “A dream? Have you lost it? What are you talking about?” 

He jiggled your ankle, thick fingers against your bare skin. “I mean like, before this. Before all of it.” And when you peeked open an eye to watch him, he sighed. “Okay, like yes, I know Hawkins Lab janitorial staff is the job everyone’s vying over, and don’t get me wrong, you look sexy as Hell in the jumpsuit.” He tugged at the cuff of your pants, and you sucked back a smile, face heating at the comment. “But like, what were you going to do? Like what was your dream?”

“What did I want to be when I grew up?”

He flashed his canines in a grin, nodded his shaggy hair up and down. 

You sighed and pulled yourself upright, tucking one knee up to hold your body weight. You left your other leg out, just below the reach of his hand. He continued to tug absently on your laces. “I wanted to be a teacher.”

God, it’d been years since you thought of that. The idea of teaching young ones pushed far aside, another life, somewhere happy with rainbows on the walls and finger-paint and hand puppets. There was no hurt there, no bloodshed, no exploding family members. 

“Like for little kids?” Eddie’s voice was soft, brown eyes watching, intersted, like a puppy.

You nodded, picking at the rubber of the shoe closest to you. “Kindergarten. They’re just cute at that age. They listen, but they’re just starting to pick up a little sass. They’re all bright-eyed about that world. They sing a lot.” You glanced up at your cellmate, all sparkly-eyed and full of song. You snorted, reaching out to poke the dimple on his left cheek. “Kind of like you.” 

“You think I’m cute?” He waggled his eyebrows.

You bit back another smile, opting for an eye roll. “You wish, Munson.” 

“I’m still waiting for Stockholm syndrome to kick in.” His expression was too smug, tongue poking out to wet his lips, and you shoved at him. 

“You perv.” 

But you both laughed, and a comfortable silence fell over the room. You watched his fingers trail the curves of your shoe, feeling the soft pressure of drawn shapes. You ventured a glance up at him, and he seemed zoned out, tongue between lips again now, but only in concentration. He bobbed his head slowly along to something, and after a few moments, you’d realized it was that damn song again, playing in a ceaseless loop around his empty little head. 

You kicked at his hand until his focused blinked back to you, and you laughed, rolled your eyes. “What about you?” 

He frowned, nodded, matter-of-fact. “I’ve always thought you were cute.” 

You felt your face heat and immediately retreated into the safety of your hands. His gaze was warm on you, waiting for you reaction, and you managed a sputtered, “I meant your dream…” 

“Oh!” He cackled, head thrown back in a laugh, as though his words were weightless, and as though your pulse hadn’t picked up in panic. “I dunno. Thought I’d be touring with my band.” 

Then, you heard a series of crashes from the hallway, the first sounds beside Eddie’s humming in hours. You both scrambled to your feet, Eddie helping you up with a sturdy grasp to the back of your arm. “Told you. We’re saved.” 

“What if it’s not your friend?” You whispered, tucking yourself behind him and pulling the top half of your jumpsuit back on. “Didn’t they warn us of vandals and shit. What if it’s just someone breaking in?” 

“Well aren’t you a ray of fucking sunshine?” He hissed, but you noticed his arm came out to protect you, hold you behind him. Maybe it was just instinct, but your stomach swooped at the gesture, and you fisted the back of his suit. 

“Eddie!? EDDIE!? IT’S DUSTIN! ARE YOU ALIVE!?” 

Eddie’s shoulders relaxed, and he shot you a smirk before walking a few steps forward to bang on the door. “DUSTIN! We’re in here! We got locked in!” 

You heard the scuffling of feet outside, the slap and squeak of sneakers on linoleum, and then a somewhat familiar voice was requesting for you to stand back. Eddie crowded your space, backing you into the corner. He was all leather and shampoo, shoulders broader than you imagined, now that he was all pushed up against you.

You cried out as something began attacking the door. A few hefty swings, and a gust of fresh air pooled in. The door was beaten through with something jagged, and soon there was space enough to climb through. With one foul kick, your rescuer managed to knock it off its hinges, and the whole thing crashed in pieces to the linoleum.

“Our heroes,” Eddie cooed, stepping out into the light hallway and swinging his arms around Dustin’s small frame. You followed shortly after to find Steve Harrington, hand on his hip, leaning his full body weight onto a baseball bat that had been nailed through about a dozen times. Your name slipped from his lips when he saw you, brows furrowed in confusion, as though you were the surprise factor here.

Eddie tried to corral him for a hug, but Steve kept him at arm’s length, dad-stance in full effect with a finger to the other boy’s chest. “I’m fucking tired, Munson. You should know better than to scare Henderson like that. If I get another walkie call this early in the morning, I’m leaving you for dead. Let’s go.”

—

Muffins purred, the rumble of fluff and fur and limbs, all piled atop your chest. Your book was straining your pinky fingers, held aloft and tilted just so to capture the dim light of your bedside table. You’d probably read the same fifteen pages over and over again, distracted by the fading black digits that cursed your left arm. 

That morning, when Steve Harrington saved your asses from dying of starvation in the supply closet, Eddie halted your trip to your car across the lot. He grabbed your wrist, pulled back the sleeve of your denim jacket, and scribbled his phone number onto your skin there, Sharpie cap between his teeth. 

“If you get nightmares, or you know, you just need a friend. I live alone and never sleep.” He said, mouth full, and winked before slowing backing himself to his van.

The numbers taunted you, refusing to budge in the shower, doing the dishes. Even Ponds couldn’t sway the scribbled handwriting of your coworker. You transferred the numbers onto a piece of paper, stuck it to your fridge, but now even that was unnecessary. You’d memorized it. Every curve of a five, every cross through sevens and zeros, as though those numbers needed to be taken down a peg. 

You sighed and tucked your bookmark into your place, wondering if you’d know what the hell was going on when you picked it up tomorrow. You set your book on your nightstand and rolled, dumping Muffin from your lap to her spot on your bed. She didn’t notice. You stretched to click off your lamp, bathing the room in darkness, sunlight poking from under the edges of your curtains on the far side of the room. You could just make out the new tattooed numbers, trailed them with the fingertips of your right hand and slowly, you fell asleep.

—

You kicked yourself up from the deep end, reaching for the soft blue sunlight, surfacing with a gasp. Your hair clung to your face, suit to your breasts, your stomach. Your hand wrapped around the ladder and you pulled yourself upright, into the sun soaked air. The lifeguard station was empty, bright red. You had to hold a hand over your eyes to see it. 

You didn’t bother with a towel, b-lined for the locker room to get out of there before the 4th of July rush. Everyone was headed to the carnival, chatting about the festivities in excitement. Gossip was thrown around about who hooked up with who. Apparently Billy Hargrove was having dinner with Heather Holloway’s family the other night. You snorted, snapped yourself out of your suit, pulled on dry underwear, denim shorts, a pink tank top. 

Big Buy was out of hot dogs, out of ketchup, running low on ice cream. You managed to grab a few other items on your list, a handwritten note from your Mom that you’d crumbled and carried in the inner pocket of your purse. Milk, eggs, barbecue sauce, cole slaw fixings, green beans for casserole. Brenda checked you out, bubblegum smacking. 

An accident blocked the roadway on your way home, people too excited to get to the Ferris wheel and fun house. You were going later, with Tommy and Carole and Tina and Jeff. Tommy promised booze and fireworks, and Tina promised her older brother was in town from college. You’d always found him attractive. 

Finally, you managed to turn down your road, hair frizzing as the pool water dried, dampening the shoulders of your tank top and the leather headrest of your car. You pulled into the driveway behind dad’s car, surprised he’d returned home so soon. They were headed to the carnival too, after dinner.

You balanced handfuls of grocery bags, and toed your front door open, calling for Mom. Something smelled off, chemically. Maybe they’d been cleaning. You crossed to the kitchen and set your haul on the counter, but it only smelled worse in there. You flicked on the light. A pile of pellets led from the kitchen to the garage. You followed it, flicked on the garage light.

A massive bag of rat poison lay open, several other bottles surrounding it, all with puncture marks, spilling, mixing with one another. You gasped into the crook of your elbow, trying to back out of there without tripping on the stuff ground into the linoleum. You coughed, sputtered. 

“Mom! Dad!?” You called their names, racing back into the living room. “What the hell happened in the garage? Mom?!”

Your parents and your little brother stood at the base of the stairs, stick-straight, holes burned through their clothes, blood and burns gathering at their lips, pouring down the fronts of them. 

“Guys? What’s going on?” 

“We’re going home.” The words sunk into you, otherworldly, as though it was the obvious answer.

—

You awoke with a scream, startling Muffins off the bed and into a dark corner. You looked frantically at your surroundings, feeling for blood, brain matter. You sucked in a few deep breaths, smelling for chemicals. You flicked on your lights, eyes darting to and fro, all around the room, only to find Muffins stuffed into your laundry hamper, grumpy that you’d woken her with such gusto. 

Your hands trembled, and you pushed the quilt off your legs. You stepped out of bed, on shaky footing, and stepped out of your room into the darkness of your apartment. You poured yourself a glass of water, and then two, and tried to stabilize your breath. You were alright. You were safe. It was just a nightmare. You ran a hand through your hair and caught something out of the corner of your eye. 

Black digits etched into your wrist. “If you get nightmares, or you know, you just need a friend.”

You stared at the numbers way too long, cold water turned tepid in your right hand, and then something possessed you to do it. Phone off the receiver, numbers jammed violently into the buttons until it connected, rang once, and you slammed the receiver back down in a panic, nearly knocking the entire phone off the wall. 

You chewed on your thumbnail, something you hadn’t done in over a year. Your hand tasted salty and bleachy and you immediately put it down and dumped your water into the sink. You watched it circle the drain and jumped when your phone rang. 

Shrill and demanding, a sound you couldn’t remember the last time you heard. You let it ring three, four times, knowing who it was, terrified to greet them. On the fifth ring, you inched your fingers toward the handle, drew it up to your ear. You took a deep breath, heard the connection, squeezed your eyes closed. “Hello?” 

“Knew it was you, Princess.”

You could hear the tired grin etched to his features, the sleep rasping in his voice. “You know I hate that nickname.” 

And then there was concern laced in his response, a hurriedness, like you sounded as miserable as you felt. “What’s wrong?”

Your breath shucked out of you. “Nightmare.” But it came out a whisper, cord wrapped around you, body hugged into the retaining wall. 

“Want to talk about it?”

You didn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t explain it, not to anyone. You’d sound fucking insane. You were fucking insane. Your heart ramped up, and you squeezed your eyes tighter, clenched your fist, your jaw, everything. “Can you meet me somewhere?” 

You heard the shuffle from his end, like he was struggling with something, maybe hiking into a pair of pants. Your face heated at the idea of him in bed, pantless, probably sleeping when you called. You felt horrible. 

“Yes,” he huffed. “Yes. Where should we meet? I’m leaving right now.” 

Your heart ached suddenly, at his haste, at the gentle change of his voice. “You know Lookout?”

“Weathertop, sure?” You smiled softly at his little fantasy-ism. “See you in ten?” 

“Okay.” And he let you hang up first.

—

Daylight melted to sunset, dipping everything in peachy pinks and tangerines. You almost chickened out three times. Once when your keys didn’t fit in the lock, hands too shaky, keyring too full. Once when you ran a red light, the blare of a horn from beside you. One when you stared at the vast open field, stained brown from too many rainless nights, sun bleached and still.

Eddie’s van was there when you parked, a crusty brown stain to blend in with the landscape, but he wasn’t inside. No, he pockmarked the tip top of the hill, a black silhouette against the clouds, shoulders slumped, smoke billowing upward. 

You climbed toward him with weak thighs, shaking knees, trepidation pounding beneath your ribcage. When you neared the top, legs aching and lungs on fire, Eddie turned on his heels to face you, reached a hand out to help you the rest of the way. 

“Hill’s a bitch if you’re a smoker,” he grinned.

You nodded, resting hand to your thighs to catch your breath. 

“Worth it though.” He gestured upwards and outwards, over Hawkins. 

Cotton candy pink clouds touched down just over the highway, spilling golden light onto dozens of brick buildings, torn asunder from the Earthquake. The roads were rippled and scarred, four corners pulling together at Town Hall, a mess of road construction, neon orange and reflective cones, massive machinery. Everything smelled of tar, rebuild, rebirth. 

You hummed, taking in the warmth of the last bits of sun poking through, the fading lights of summer coming to a close, brewing leaves and pulling autumn on the wind. 

Eddie Munson was uncharacteristically quiet beside you, and when you peeked an eye open, you saw he was watching you, a cautious smile wetting his lips. 

“I’m okay,” you reassured, hugged your denim jacket a little tighter. 

He nodded, pinched his lips together, took his place beside you, a little close, elbows touching. He turned to you again before saying. “You don’t have to like… pretend for me, or whatever. You know that, right?” 

You didn’t look at him, stared ahead at the mess of cars pooling out of Big Buy’s parking lot. 

“I just…” He sighed, shoved his own hands into his pockets, elbow bumping your ribcage. “I just want you to feel safe.” 

The words ached somewhere deep in you, with the burn of your thighs or the emotion caught in your throat. You didn’t respond, just leaned more on your left leg, stared out at Hawkins.

The two of you remained that way for a while, too long, in comfortable silence, sunlight slipping off past the horizon. Your legs grew restless, toes sticky in your shoes. Eddie began to hum.

“I knew it,” you turned to him with a smirk.

“What?” 

“Couldn’t get you to shut up for too long.” 

His lips split that, into that Cheshire grin, and he pulled his hands from his pockets, chains jingling and rings clinking against one another. The frizz of his hair was lit up orange, an ember of something you wanted to run your fingers through. Your heart thundered in your ears. 

“Munson?” You took a deep breath. 

“Yes?” He was warm, leather and cedar and smoke. His head tilted like a puppy dogs, eyes catching your stare of his lips, his throat, the pucker of scarring there, dipping into the collar of his t-shirt.

“I need to tell you five things that are important to me.” You were breathless, trembling, too close, not close enough. 

“Okay,” he laughed, like maybe you told a soft joke, but when he caught the panic on your voice, he cleared his throat. “Okay. Tell me.” 

You swallowed. “My cat, Muffins.”

“Muffins is a cute name,” he nodded, still stone-faced serious, and that helped, drew a little laugh from you. The corners of his lips turned up. “Why is Muffins important to you?” 

You shrugged. “She just is.” 

“Got it, Muffins. What else?” His brows pulled together. 

“Fantasy novels.” You nodded. “I’m rereading Earthsea.”

“Jesus Christ, that book is so good!” He emphasized with fists in the air, and you couldn’t help but laugh at that too. He dropped his hands and grasped the backs of your arms, shaking them excitedly. “Okay, Muffins and Earthsea.” One of his hands came up to expose two fingers. You immediately missed the warmth of him, relieved when he returned his grasp. “What else?” 

“I really like Jim Henson.” 

“Like… the Muppets?”

You cowered under his gaze and shrugged. “More like Dark Crystal. But yeah, I guess.” 

He flashed you a knowing grin, waggling his eyebrows. “Okay. Muffins, Earthsea, Kermit. That’s three.” He shook your shoulders with each word. “Number four?” 

You swallowed, heart racing. Your entire demeanor must have shifted because he released your arms, opened the space between you. You watched to reach out for him, to envelope him around you, as images flashed through your mind of the pool, the grocery store, the garage. We’re going home. You felt yourself well with emotion, and those big, brown eyes stared back at you, glassy, calm, full of pity. 

“My fam…” You croaked. You took a deep breath, inhale. Shaky exhale. You could do this. You stood resolute, a Stone Mountain looking out over your land, your town, your home. “My family is important to me.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie nodded, hair dancing in your periphery. “Of course they are. They’re your family. They always will be.” He inched toward you, voice soft, and said, “I’m really, really sorry for what happened to them.” 

You closed your eyes, felt a tear burst over the damn, trickling down your cheek, and you reached out beside you until you caught his hand. His fingertips were calloused, rough, warm, a stark contrast from the metal rings that were cool beneath your touch. He intertwined your fingers and pulled you in, one easy swoop until you were sunk into the meat of his neck, and his other arm was slunk around your shoulders.

His smoky breath fanned your face and dampened your hair, and you took your hand from his to wrap yourself around his waist. He was slim around the middle, but the wide expanse of his back flexed taught muscles beneath your fingers. His shirt was damp at the base and up his spine from sweat, and the leather jacket and his body heated you like a furnace. He whispered your name into your temple, a sweet well-wish, a beacon calling you back.

You pulled away with a shy laugh, warm, sticky, coaxing away any leftover tears with the back of your hand, and he kicked at the ground with his sneakers, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. 

“Thanks.” You mumbled. Your palms were sweaty. 

“Sure.” There was something in his voice, an underlying rumble. 

You saw something then, in his eyes, the way they swept over your face, your form, soaking in every inch of flesh that was exposed. You thought of your body pressed against his, could still make out the dents of you in the front of his t-shirt. You thought of the shower that day, ice cold, gooseflesh prickled, the careful, watchful stare. He was making sure you were safe, were cared for, were wanted. You licked your lips, looked down at your feet, watched his shadow inch closer. 

You ventured another glance through your eyelashes, and he took another step closer, slow, steady, hands raised in trepidation. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked.

You raised an eyebrow to him. 

He shrugged, running a hand through his mess of hair. “Because you just confessed to me that you’re into The Muppets, and I really don’t know how to handle that situation…”

You sucked in a smile and shook your head. “Munson?” 

“Yeah?” He stared at you, eyebrows raised. He’d fully stepped back into your space, face inches from yours, dimples pulled into those cheeks, pinched pink.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He did, hair cascading around your face, and nose crowding yours. He asked you if you were sure, one more time, before you stepped up on the balls of your feet and crashed your lips together. His hands found gentle space on your waist, pinching the cotton of your t-shirt between his rings, and you placed a soft hand on his neck and pulled him down toward you, taking all of the heat and smoke from his lips. He let out the sweetest, softest sound when you tangled your fingers into his hair, and you couldn’t help but smile when he pulled away and breathed, “Damn.” 

You ran your hands over his chest, felt the rippled of skin beneath the cotton of his t-shirt, and his hands came to tug at the belt loops on the sides of your shorts until you looked up at him again. His lips peeled back to expose canines, Cheshire grin turned smug.

“What’s five?” He asked, nosing at your cheek.

You frowned back at him.

“Muffins, Earthsea, Kermit, family, and…”

You shoved at his shoulder, and he released his hold on you with dramatics, flinging himself backwards like he’d taken an arrow to the chest. You rolled your eyes and started back down the hill, pinched pink sky fading into a royal blue.

“Hey! What’s five?” He called after you. 

You shrugged. “I think I need a cigarette,” you called back. “Got any in your van?” 

He took off after you, and you cried a laugh, turning heel and sprinting down the hill to your vehicles, night air softening. Crickets chirped their lazy song, Eddie’s chains jingled, and the ground was still under your rubber soles. 

[capaimagines]

stray kids - you have a panic attack

Pairing: Stray Kids x Reader | Genre: angst & fluff | Warnings: descriptions of panic attacks, anxiety | WC: 0.8k

request: skz reaction to you having a panic attack

Bang Chan

When Chan finds you clutching your chest, struggling to breathe and tears streaming down your face, he already knows what to do. He crawls behind you and pulls your back against his chest before crossing your arms over your chest and rhythmically tapping his hands against yours, “Breathe with me baby,” He said calmly, whispering in your ear as he made sure you could feel the even rising and falling of his chest to get you into a steady rhythm.

Lee Minho

“I-it hurts, Min. It hurts,” You choked out. Your hands were clutching above your heart, balling your shirt up in your fist. It hurt to breathe, it felt like someone or something was squeezing themselves or itself around your torso and it just wouldn’t let you free, “I’m here, Y/N, I’m here,” Minho said quietly, rubbing your back and slipping his hand into your balled up fist and placing them in front of his lips to kiss, "You’ve got this, you can do this. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Seo Changbin

Is fully aware that you don’t like being touched when you’re in this state and as much as he hates it and wants to hold you, he places himself in front of you to meet your eyes, “Keep looking at me and keep your eyes open, Y/N. Tell me about me. Describe my hair, eyes and lips. You can do it," And you would. Until the pang in your chest didn’t feel so tight anymore and you were okay to move. Then, you’d crawl into his lap and he’d gently rock you back and forth, telling you how strong you are and how great you were doing.

Hwang Hyunjin

Hyunjin grabbed your shaking hands, telling you to squeeze tightly, “As hard as you can, love. Squeeze them,” You could barely hear him, but you listened, squeezing as hard as you could. You weren’t sure why you suddenly started to panic; it seemed to have come out of nowhere. He’d squeeze your hand right back, keeping you standing up right and staring into his eyes. He’d hold your clenched fist to his chest, telling you to follow the rise and fall of it. Once you felt comfortable, you wrapped your arms around his waist and he held you tightly. His promise to always be there and help you through anything.

Han Jisung

Having experienced them himself from time to time, he would immediately jump into action, “Hold my hands, Y/N,” He'd say, and hold his hands out until you grabbed onto them. He’d tap your palms with his thumb in a song. The point was for you to focus all your energy on trying to figure out what the song was that he was tapping. You still had yet to guess any of the songs correctly and honestly, you weren’t even sure if he was tapping out a song, but it always worked nonetheless.

Lee Felix

When Felix came home, the last thing he expected was to find you on the bathroom floor, ugly sobbing and struggling to breathe, “Y/N! What’s wrong?!” He was immediately at your side, helping you sit up straighter so it could be easier for you to breathe, “We’re going to play a game baby,” He said, doing his best to keep himself calm, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, okay?” You barely managed to nod your head. By the time you had gotten down to one, you were calmer and breathing easier. You crawled into his lap and he wrapped his arms around you, “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together. I promise.”

Kim Seungmin

Seeing you in tears, rocking back and forth and not able to breathe would make him panic too. He would be good at hiding it though, immediately running to you to try and calm you down some, “Y/N? Can I touch you?” When you finally grabbed his hand, he would start tracing a square on your palm as he looked you in the eyes with a huge smile that he knows you love, “Breathe baby. In when we go up, out when we go across.”

Yang Jeongin

When you started clinging to Jeongin’s arm, your nails almost ripping holes through his sleeve, he knew something was wrong. Politely excusing you two from the group of people he was talking to, he brought you outside, worry laced on his features, "What’s wrong? Talk to me," Too many people for you liking crammed into a small space. You felt like you couldn’t breathe, “C’mere,” Jeongin pulled you into his chest, angling your head to look up towards the sky, “Let’s just stay out and look at the night sky for now. Until you’re ready.”

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

hello, there :} may i request an angsty scenario with frank castle? i'm not sure with what you would be more comfortable with; e.g. one-shot, reaction, headcanon, drabble, etc...you can pick it up from anywhere and creatively work on it (hell, you can even turn it into some fluff during the end). i would very much like to read about a frank castle whose s/o (inserted reader i guess) is living with mental abuse trauma that was caused by years of subtly painful suffering within the four walls of a "home" they were (/she was) born into until early adulthood. like...how does frank handle that kind of knowledge about his beloved's past? how would he react during their (/her) anxiety slash panic attacks? where does he draw the line? what exactly is going on inside the punisher when he sees his sweetheart as devestated and crippled as she is when she comes back from a family visit? what does he do and say?...yupp, that's basically it. THANK YOU for taking the time and effort .__." ♡ (there is "my" emoji for identifying anons i guess...)

Home Part 1

876 words

Contains; Fluff and angst inside, discussion of growing up in an abusive home, panic attacks and PTSD.

Frank helps you with your family

The front door slammed shut, it wasn't a new occurrence, but that didn't stop it from making your skin crawl.

Did Frank have a bad day at work?

Did you do something to upset him this morning?

The answer is no, the man has arms like an old oak and can't close a door softly to save his life, but that doesn't matter because for most of your early life, a slammed front door in the afternoon meant a night of screaming and trying to fix whatever was wrong that day.

Frank's deep voice drifted through the house "where are you, my love?". The "my love" was good; it meant he was in a good mood, no need for defusing or damage control.

"Upstairs", the solid thump of Frank's bare feet ascending the stairs made the old brownstone creek; there was no huffing or complaining about something small out of place. He was happy to be home.

"How was your day, handsome?" Frank smiled stretched over his face, either Billy finally asked the new first aid instructor out, or the bakery had milk bread fresh baked this morning. He wanted to tell you how his day went; there was no sarcastic reply, no dismissive wave of a hand.

"Billy called some oil tycoon a greedy, soulless Oligarch. Needless to say, he won't be employing Anvil," the chuckle that came from Frank suggested he agreed with his old friend.

"What did he do to inspire Billy to outright insult him?" and his hearty laugh finally eased the rest of your worry. For the longest time, the only laughter you heard was tainted by subtle cruelty or the madding readiness for it to evaporate in the blink of an eye.

"The usual, hitting on Samatha at the front desk, suggesting that the morals clause was in insult, because why would he ever use Anvil employee to cover-up something indecent and then he called Billy pretty".

"Wow, he didn't even read the website" Frank smiled, his left eye winked a little more than his right.

"I'm sure he has someone who he doesn't pay who does that for him."

****

The rest of the night was very much the same, calm. Dinner was a collaborative event that ended up with most of the homemade potato puff eaten before dinner time. Reruns of the real housewives of wherever were playing in the background while Frank watched you intently as you fussed over the hole you were trying to fix in your jeans.

A black cloud came over the night when it was time to go upstairs; the open and empty, brown suitcase on the floor near the closet was like a red blinking light.

Danger ahead, do not continue your task.

Frank let out a deep breath "you want some help?".

"The only help you could give is giving me a way out of going."

Frank looked crestfallen. "I'm sorry that was cruel, it's not your fault my family sucks".

"Don't apologise, you're right. I wish I could be there, but I have a feeling that would make things worse for you, and I don't think I could stop myself from punching someone".

You let out a sardonic laugh. "I could come home with the person who found a solution to world hunger, and they would still find some way to criticise them".

"I could always tell homeland the house is full of genetically modified wasps, and they're playing to take over the government" it wasn't much, but Frank's effort to make you laugh helped.

"While I'm sure homeland would be interested, it sounds like something they'd actually do".

And then you're suddenly seeing scissors being taken to a project you'd worked hard on, "I don't want this useless junk in the house."

Your breath catches in your throat when you remember the centrepiece you had made for the Dining table, Frank is going to think you're only creating clutter. The urge to run to the spare room and destroy it before he sees it hits you like a truck, and then you can't breathe.

A huge, warm hand finds a home on the side of your neck, thumb stroking your jaw. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere" Frank knew this feeling well, the hot, cold rush, rip out of your skin feeling of crushing panic. He knew nothing much helped, one had to let the wave take you out to sea rather than drown fighting the current.

He placed your hand in his then on his chest over his heart, "I'm here, I'm not going anywhere". The thump thump was grounding, the loving touch felt normal, welcomed. You hoped no one demanded a hug from you once you walked into your childhood home.

The thought of being around these people again put you right back on the ride. This was your home, with Frank and the house plants and the crazy racoon that seems to really like your bin and love you.

He held you and waited for the panic to pass. He spoke of the mundane parts of his day, ensured you could focus on the new cardstock at the office rather than the dread of that stale living room.

"I'm here, I'm not going anywhere" you believed him.

Part 2

[thesmokingguns]

Phone Tag

Word count: 3512

Requested: “My idea was that the reader thought Kelly was cheating on her on tour, and when he comes home, he finds her really upset and comforts her and assures her that he only loves her”

Requested by @littlemisscare-all

A/N: I just want to thank @littlemisscare-all for the request and letting me message her about questions I had. Kelly Nickels is a new character I’m writing and she was patient with my questions and so helpful. This is a little longer than my usual one shots so I hope you like it. I have three requests I need to write on top of my regular stuff I want to put out so feel free to make a request but I’m going to say the time might be up to a week now. I also have a tag list you can be added to by just messaging me or filling out the form. Please let me know what you think ❤️

Tag List: @thenobodies-inc , @littlemisscare-all , @agroupiewhore, @ayablackwood

Ring, Ring, Ring

The constant sound of the phone trying to connect with room 828 was filling my head. The high pitched sound bouncing around your mind as you wished he’d  pick up. After another minute of the phone going unanswered you hung up, wiping my sweat filled palms on the denim dress hastily.

You could see your fingers trembling, the anxiety of the situation coming out in physical ailment as your trembling hands started to get numb. You shook out your hands, flexing them, cracking them, pushing them together, anything to just calm yourself down enough to feel them again. Your heart was beating so fast that it felt like it had turned on its engine and got lodged in your throat when it pressed the gas. You couldn’t swallow down the pounding so you tried instead to take a gulp of air. Breathing in through your nose and out of your mouth. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Even though you felt like you were not getting enough air when you breathed through your nose you continued anyway trying to calm your body that seemed to be fighting you.  You were trying anything to try and stop the full fledged anxiety attack from coming on.

You stepped back into the store, trying not to make eye contact with your friend and coworker as you started to fold the sweaters  on the front side table. Your hands needed to stay busy as you tried to avert your eyes from anyone, tears pooling in them. You couldn’t think about the situation or you’d start crying. But fuck, it had been almost a week since You had heard from your boyfriend. Your hand went to my pocket, pulling out the ripped out notebook paper Kelly had given you with the name, date, room number and phone number for each hotel. He was supposed to be in Phoenix in room 828 at the Hilton Hotel. Which you had already called seven times throughout the day without any response.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Your coworker touched your shoulder and you let out a sob, hands flying to your face. The feeling of someone touching you after the last month of being alone was too much. You broke feeling the loneliness blanketing over you, covering you. Your coworker was leading you to the breakroom, thankful no one was in the shop to see you have a complete mental breakdown.

He had promised you that you would talk every day; he had seen the nervous look in your eyes when the guys talked about the tour. All the girls that would be throwing themselves at the band. They were all about the three fundamentals: sex, drugs and rock n roll. How were you going to compete with something you weren't there to see?

“Jesus Fucking Christ, where the fuck is that paper?” Kelly was tearing apart the tour bus looking for a yellow piece of legal paper that you had written down all the numbers to call you on. He had lost it a week ago after he had drunkenly started a shot game with Phil that night and that had proved to be a horrible mistake.

When he had woken up, on the kitchen floor of the tour bus, a hangover so bad he wanted to fling himself into the highway all he could think about was calling the person that he loved and telling her about his night. The sound of her voice coaxing the hangover out of him and filling him up with the love she had for him. He had pushed himself off the floor, grabbing his cigarettes from his jacket and digging in the inside pocket for the list of numbers, but the paper was gone.

It had been six days since he had lost the numbers and as much as he tried to remember a phone number he couldn’t even think of one. He had expected a phone call to explain everything but the problem was that phone call had never come. This was just another layer of frustration that Kelly couldn't figure out. For the first few weeks of the tour he had gotten the calls at the hotel but a night before he lost the number the call hadn’t come in.

So now, being the very logical, even headed, and not complete maniac that he was, Kelly was tearing apart every single part of the tour bus. Ripping open trash bags, pulling apart beds, and crawling under the table that had a weird sticky substance underneath. As he pushed half drank beer cans aside he saw the flap of yellow sticking out. His heart leapt to his throat as he snatched up the paper, flipping it over and groaning audibly. The paper had gotten saturated. One number was partially visible with only a couple numbers melting together.

Walking off the tour bus he headed over to the payphone, setting a handful of change on the metal bottom as he started to dial different combinations of the number hoping that he could finally reach his girlfriend. Hoping that her lack of calls to him didn’t mean they had broken up or what if she had met someone else? She did have that fucking girlfriend who didn’t like him. What if she had gone out to The Roxy and met someone else?

He gripped the paper so hard in his hand as the phone rang and he thought of you with someone else. He needed to talk to you,

You were walking home, unable to work as your mind went a million miles a minute. Your heart thumping so loudly that your own thoughts were muted and just scenarios were popping in your head. Images of Kelly with his arm around another girl, disheveled hotel rooms with discarded clothes, his lips worshiping someone else's body. You stopped on the sidewalk closing your eyes, fists tightening as you told yourself not to scratch your arms. It was all in your head. This was all in your head and not real.

Another shaky step towards your apartment. Your eyes were on the payphone at the end of the block and you figured you could try one more time to call the hotel. Maybe when you heard his voice it would put out the fire of your mind. He could calm your anxiety, easing you from the panic attacks it caused and draw you in with the safety of his voice. He must have known how crazy you were going and when he finally talked to you he would have a logical explanation for why he had disappeared.

As you convinced yourself that he was going to answer this time, you could feel the burning bile in your gut start to be put out as the rational part of your mind tried to make a little room for you to have hope. The way your hands trembled as you took out a dime, sliding it into the slot and dialing the number, let you know that the temporary band aid your rational side had put on your anxiety wasn’t going to stick for very long. If Kelly didn’t answer it was going to be ripped off and you’d be left with the exposed wound that you would need to deal with..

Ring...Ring...Ri-

“Hello?” your heart caught in your throat, and you could feel your eyes widening as you heard a voice answer the phone on the other end, “Hello, is anyone there?” The very female voice that was answering the phone was not your boyfriend.

“Kelly?” his name left your lips, almost a whimper. All of the worst situations that you imagined could be happening in your head seemed to come to life now. It wasn’t just in your head, a woman was answering his hotel phone.

“Ohhhh, they’re in the shower. If you call back in an hour-” you hung up the phone. It took you four tries before you could get the receiver on the cradle because the shaking in your hand was running through your entire body now. You tried to crack your fingers, a weak attempt to get some control of the motions of your body.

In the shower. If he was taking a shower at 4pm what was he washing off of himself? Who was the girl who had answered the phone? Had he not answered because he had been so busy with her all day? You dry heaved in front of the payphone, sucking in air when nothing came out. You wanted to go home and hide, burying yourself under blankets until the weight of the sadness lifted. Not that you were sure it was ever going to lift because you had just caught him cheating on you.

It was a miracle that you made it to the apartment. You dropped your keys twice, your hands not working how they were supposed to. Your grip on them slipping and letting them fall through your fingers. Had you let Kelly fall through your fingers?

You hissed out a curse, shouldering into your apartment and locking the door behind you. You were off of work tomorrow so you could stay holed up inside the apartment for at least twenty four hours before anyone would think to call. That gave you time to wallow in your emotions and feel everything you needed to feel.

Looking around at the space it dawned on you that you would need to leave. Separate your things and get out of the city before he comes back to it. Which didn’t give you enough time at all because he would be back in two days for the LA show at the Whisky a Go Go, Where were you going to live? Maybe you could find a roommate or you could always stay with your best friend. She would let you in. There was so much to do and so much to figure out but you needed to lay down and figure it out from the comfort of the bed.

On the way to the bed you tripped over the phone you had kept beside it for the past few days hoping for Kelly to finally call you. You looked at the phone hanging off the hook, knowing if anyone called you they would just get the busy signal but you didn’t hang it back up. Kelly was too busy in some hotel room with a strange girl and he hadn’t bothered to call you in a week anyway. You needed to just get in bed and mourn your relationship. You’d move out tomorrow and start a new life without him.

Kelly hung up the phone, looking at his apartment phone number that the girl at the shop had just given to him. He had missed you by twenty minutes and from what he had just heard you were in bad shape.He sucked in his bottom lip as he dialed the home number. He would explain everything to you as soon as he had you on the phone. He could already picture you asking him if he had at least won the drinking game.

“What the fuck?” He looked at the phone when he got the busy signal. It had to be the right number. He had repeated the number twice to make sure that he got the correct number and now he was getting a busy signal. He dialed again, getting the same alert sound. Then again. And again. He stopped after constantly calling for ten minutes to take a breath. He was going to need to have a beer and try again.

He tried calling twenty minutes later, an hour, three hours, and before he went on stage for the show. His mind was thinking of how you could be on the phone for that long. He frowned as he grabbed his bass going over to the band's manager. He needed to get home sooner than the tour bus would take him.

You got out of the shower, wrapping your sweater around you over your nightgown. Your eyes skimmed the apartment where you had spent the last four hours cleaning like a maniac and separating everything. Your records were in a milkcrate by the door, along with a trash bag of all your clothes. Things like pots and pans didn’t seem worth fighting over. You would leave those for him. Even though you weren’t even sure if Kelly knew how to fry an egg.

Twirling a piece of hair around your finger you tried to calm the uneasy feeling filling you. He had been the one who hadn't answered your calls or called you. He was the one who had a girl answer the phone in his room. He wanted you to leave but he didn’t want to see the hurt he caused by telling you it was over. Your friends had all warned you about dating a rockstar so it wasn’t like you could expect much sympathy from them. But you had been with Kelly for over a year and hadn’t seen it coming. It felt like you were blindsided. To love someone so much had really just opened you up to the pain you were feeling now.

Moving to the bedroom you looked around the room, the pit of your stomach turning in sadness as you thought about this being the final time you sleep in this bed. The tears boiling up and tumbling down your face as you sat on his side, touching the pillow that he slept on. You could smell his aftershave and scent on his pillow just making you cry even harder. The feeling in the pit of your stomach growing as you missed someone who was gone.

Over your tears you didn’t hear the sound of the front door opening. You were wrapped around a pillow mind racing in a thick fog of all the reasons you weren’t good enough. Why couldn't he love you? Could anyone love you?

“Y/N, baby, what’s wrong?” Arms were wrapped around you. You were being pulled onto a lap, hair pushed away from your tear stained face.

“K-Kelly?” It comes out weekly, almost afraid you’re hallucinating arms wrapped around you, fingers touching your tears, pushing the puddles that gathered on your skin with an expert flick of a thumb.

“Yeah, baby, I’m here. What happened? Why are you so upset? Who do I need to fight?” He was trying to defuse the situation with humor to drag you out of your hysterics. But he was the one that had gotten you to this place.

Sitting up you pushed yourself off his lap, a frown forming on his face from this action. You could feel the way your hands were starting to go numb as you wiped your tears, knowing there was going to be a confrontation with him.

“I called you for a week, Kelly. I called all the numbers multiple times a day and you didn’t answer. You didn’t call me back.” The way he frowned at this didn’t go unnoticed by you. You took it as a sign of his guilt. He had been ignoring you on purpose. “And I called this afternoon and a girl answered from your hotel room.” He stood up suddenly shaking his head.

“No, no, no.” You rolled your eyes at his weak attempt to lie about the fact you had spoken to a girl that was in his room, “Oh fuck, we didn’t even check into the hotel today. I was on the tour bus looking for the list of numbers you had written down for me.” He was digging into his leather jacket pocket looking for the yellow paper. You were trying to process what he was saying.

“But they said you were in the shower when I asked for you.” You said with a frown, trying to process what he was saying. It would be easy to believe him, tryst him blindly and forget all the drama but there were so many things that just weren’t adding up. He produced the yellow list holding it up with the missing pieces and wet pen running into a blurred mix of ink.

“Call the hotel now. I’m obviously here with you. Maybe they heard you wrong?” He knew you needed real proof. He looked at the phone on the floor that was off the receiver, “I tried to call you today. I guess this explains the busy signal.” He moved to hang it back up.

“I called you and you didn’t answer all week and you didn’t even call me once.” You pointed out. “You’re on tour with all your horny band members and I’ve been out with you all before.” You didn’t want to ask him because you knew that he would answer you honestly. He couldn’t lie to you, even on little things he was always 100% honest. Which you had found out one night when you tried on a new dress and asked how you looked and he had told you the dress looked like a rejected extra from a Cyndi Lauper music video.

“I lost the phone numbers when I was drinking with Phil one night. It took me a week to find them on the bus.” He confessed. That story seemed pretty on par for who they were, “And are you asking if I was stupid enough to cheat on you?” At the words you went white, gripping the sheets. Kelly took in your reaction and knew that’s exactly what you were thinking had happened. “Listen, Y/N.” He moved over to the bed gripping your face in his hands, stroking your cheeks with his thumbs and giving him a soft smile, “I love you. Just you. And I wouldn’t do anything to ever lose your love. I spent a week trying to find a paper just so I could hear your voice. I was waiting for you to call all week, baby. Why didn’t you call me?” The soft way he spoke was melting the ice in your veins, calming you with the right touches and bringing you to the current situation happening in real life and not just in your head.

“I called you so much. I called all the hotels that you told me to call. But you never answered me.” You pointed to a crumpled up ball on the nightstand. Watching him grab it and smooth out the page of numbers.

“Oh shit.” He rubbed his chin and looked up at you with an almost embarrassed look. You knew exactly what that look was. He had made a mistake, “So, um, these hotels are out of order. I must have copied them backwards because this one.” He pointed at the last hotel you had called today. “Should have been here.” He pointed a few up and you sighed in relief. The tears still came flowing out but this time in relief, “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry, baby.” He reached out, folding you to him. Your body was relaxed, allowing him to calm you with his back rubs and head kisses. Comforting you by holding you in his arms and reminding you that he loved you with his touch.

“I’m sewing my name and our telephone number into all your clothes tomorrow.” You muttered after a little while. He chuckled, kissing the top of your head.

“Next time, just come on tour with us. That way we never have to worry about playing phone tag.” You nodded your head listening to his heart beat. “We’re going to have to spend tomorrow morning unpacking your stuff. But I do respect your commitment to cut ties so thoroughly that you organized the records.” He got the laugh out of you that he was looking for. You sat up, shrugging your shoulders.

“I was just looking for an excuse to steal your Bowie records.” You teased him. He scoffed, pulling you to lay down beside him.

“I flew back here to be with you, Y/N. The least you could do is not threaten to steal my records.” Kelly pulled you close to him. “Do you feel better now that I’m back?” The concern in his voice warmed you to the core. You nodded your head at him. “Now you know you’re stuck with me and how wrapped around your finger I am.” You sighed out softly, eyes heavy as you felt like you could finally get some sleep after having a week of anxiety dreams and panic attacks preventing you from getting more than a tossing turning sleep for the week.

“Maybe next time send me a postcard to let me know you love me.” You said through a sleepy haze.

“Maybe I’ll train carrier ducks to send messages. Or learn how to do smoke signals.” A smile slipped out as you cuddled closer letting him lull you to sleep with his soft touches and soft mutters. He loved you, you could feel it. And that was all you needed

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Beneath the Surface: A Retelling of “The Frog Prince”

If I’d had any choice, I never would have taken the underground train. I had accompanied Roger to a political summit in the city of Roshen, but spouses leave after the opening speeches, and since I couldn’t leave Roger without the hovercar, I had to use public transportation. The train--built by the natives decades before humanity absorbed Arateph into the Interplanetary Coalition--was a horrible excuse for technology. It rattled me to my destination, jolted me into an underground station, and left me so shaken that I could feel my bones clattering as I climbed up the stairs to the street.

The crowd surged around me as I emerged onto the sidewalk. There were far too many tephans. You know what Arateph’s natives look like—almost like humans, but it’s an unsettling almost. Their eyes just slightly too high on their heads, their ears just slightly too far back, and hands (ugh) split into only three fingers and a thumb. Like a person shaped by a sculptor with a hazy memory of how humans look. I can take them in small doses, but in groups? My skin was crawling. I powered through the crowd as quickly as possible and tried not to let any of them touch me.

I sped several blocks away from the train station before I realized I was nowhere near my hotel. The buildings in this neighborhood were old, made of crumbling stone bricks that had been stacked by physical labor rather than printed by machine. Half the windows were made of colored glass, and half of those were broken. Garbage rustled in the gutters, holes marred the concrete sidewalks, and all the signs were written in an unfamiliar alphabet. I was, somehow, lost in a tephan neighborhood. And not a nice one.  

I turned in circles, trying to figure out which way I’d come. Tephans watched me from storefronts and doorsteps and alleyways, and I kept walking to prevent them from figuring out just how lost I was. I was Priscilla Overton, wife of a Coalition finance minister, pillar of this planet’s elite—and human. Some groups violently opposed human rule, and tephan attacks against humans were on the rise. Who knew what these savages would do if they knew how helpless I was?

I rushed through narrow, dark streets until I reached a wider thoroughfare--a residential area with slightly less grimy apartment buildings. Still not a nice neighborhood, but not a place where I suspected otherworldly rats would tear the flesh from my bones or criminals would murder me for my technology.

I pulled my datapad out of my purse to look for directions. Dead.

I unfolded my wristcomm and tried to call for help. No signal.

I put my fist to my mouth to stifle a frustrated scream. Why did these things happen to me?

I stormed further down the street, cursing Roger for ever bringing us to this planet. We’d been happy on Earth. Comfortable. Respected. With no chance of wandering into streets where aliens stared at you with their off-kilter eyes. The rewards we got for helping to civilize this backward planet weren’t nearly enough to make up for this torture.

I turned a corner and found myself in front of a long, low yellow-brick building with dozens of small windows. The window boxes had flowers in them—fist-sized bundles of tiny red and gold petals. Not something you’d find on Earth, but...nice. Nice enough to pull me down from my fury and make me think I could give my wristcomm another try.

I powered down the wristcomm and stood next to a pink metal lamp post (Arateph has strange color trends) while I waited for it to restart. A metal grate was below my feet. These primitives still used storm drains! I shouldn’t have been surprised, since the road clearly wasn’t made of Draincrete, but it was still jarring. Living on Arateph was a strange combination of living on another world and living in the backward past.

My wristcomm buzzed, still powering up. I was ready to explode with anxiety. There were tephans straggling by—not many of them, but too many and too poorly dressed for my taste. To calm myself, I played with my wedding ring—a gold band with a spray of amethysts and pearls. The ring had been in Roger’s family for centuries. Some days, it felt like my last tie to a familiar world.

I kept my life on Arateph as Earth-like as possible, but it could never be the same as living on Earth. Alien things always lingered at the edges. Trees that turned purple in autumn instead of familiar orange. Toothy red-and-purple-feathered birds that rooted through the trash and woke me with their awful screeching. And around every corner, people who looked like grotesque parodies of my own kind. An entire world conspiring to make me constantly aware of how far I was from home.

My sisters were going about their own lives on Earth, and the few times we could afford appointments at synced comms stations, we found little to talk about--we literally came from different worlds. If Roger and I ever had children--doubtful but possible at our age--our families would only know them as data-images.

This was why I hated being alone on this wretched planet. Gave me far too much time to think about these things.

My wristcomm chimed—finally awake. I unfolded the screen and attempted to bring up my list of contact codes. I found Roger’s; he’d be in the middle of a meeting, but I couldn’t help that. I pressed the code and waited.

A discordant note sounded. No signal. I threw down my hand in frustration. My ring flew down with it. The golden band slipped off my finger, tumbled toward the ground, bounced off the edges of the grate, and fell into the drain.

I gasped in horror and fell to my knees. It couldn’t be, not now.

The ring sparkled in the sunlight, caught on a lip where the structure of the drain met the tube of the deeper pipe. I put my purse on the ground and slid my arm through the grate, but my arm got stuck just above the elbow. The ring was still a foot beyond my reach.

I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. After the day I’d had—lost among tephans, fighting faulty technology, no hope of help from people who looked like me—this was the last straw. This planet had taken me from my home, my family, my friends, everything familiar, and now it was taking my one reminder of it all. Anybody would have cried.

Long before I felt any relief, a harsh voice broke through my sobs. “Are you finished yet?”

I looked up, furious at whoever was rude enough to interrupt my misery.

A tephan girl sat in the stairwell of the long yellow-brick building next to the gutter. I yelped and reeled back, tears still flowing. Have you ever seen a tephan child? They’re ten times worse than the adults; all their slightly-wrong features stretched even further out of shape, their eyes big and bulging in their heads. This girl was gangly. Her skinny limbs dangled out of baggy green clothes, and a wild brown bush of curls frizzed around her face and over her eyes. By human standards, I’d have judged her to be about twelve years old (though I have no idea if these creatures age like humans). By any race’s standards, she looked positively feral.

I couldn’t believe the creature had spoken to me. “Did you say something?” I asked.

She held up a thick book, bound human-style but with blocky tephan letters on the cover. “Can you cry somewhere else? I’m trying to read.”

She spoke Anglese with only a lightly slurring tephan accent. Somehow, this child spoke the Coalition’s language better than most of the tephan diplomats at Roger’s interminable meetings.

In my shock, I blurted, “How do you know Anglese?”

The creature rolled her eyes. “I go to school. With humans and everything.”

Roger hadn’t been in favor of the integration policy, but it apparently had some benefits. Or would have, had I any interest in talking to the child. Before I could decide if I wanted to reply, I glimpsed the ring again and burst into another involuntary round of tears.

The girl closed her book with a sigh. “What are you crying about anyway?”

I couldn’t tell her that I was crying because of her terrible, technologically backward planet and all its inhabitants, but I had to talk to someone and it was so good to hear human words, even from an alien’s throat. I pointed to the drain. “My ring,” I gasped. “It fell...”

She picked up her book, scrambled down the stairs, and peered in the drain. She huffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re making that much noise over that?”

I drew back my shoulders and snapped, “It’s an irreplaceable heirloom! Centuries of human history! You can’t get those stones anywhere but Earth!”

“Then you should have been more careful with it.”

That made me want to scream, but before I could gather enough breath, the child gathered the book to her chest and turned away. “Can you at least try to keep it down?”

As the girl sat on the building’s stone stairs, the wind tore a scrap of paper out of her book and sent it fluttering. She reached up and snatched it out of the air. My gaze fell on the girl’s arms—long, lanky things that were thinner than human arms. With four-fingered hands that could easily slip between the bars of the grate.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Little tephan girl! What’s your name?”

The girl cast me a dark, distrustful expression, but she finally intoned, “Tanza.”

Not bad, as far as tephan names went. I could pronounce this one. “Tanza,” I said, “Do you think you could reach it?”

The girl shifted her hand behind her back, her face becoming a hard mask. “What do you mean?”

I pointed to her, rambling in my excitement. “Your arms are thinner than mine. Just as long. You could probably reach...”

Her brow furrowed.  “You want me to dig in a sewer?”

“Not a sewer,” I said. “A storm drain.”

“Still dirty.” She looked at the storm drain with narrowed eyes.“If I get it for you, will you go away?”

I wanted nothing more. “Immediately.”

"What'll you pay me for it?"

I felt like I'd been hit by a train. "What? Who said I'd pay you?"

The child pointed one long finger at the storm drain. “If I get dirty digging in there, it’ll be my tenth laundry demerit and I don’t get supper. I’m not doing it for nothing!”

The building behind her held one of the few signs I’d seen with Anglese translations beneath the tephan words: Alogath Charity Home for Unwanted Children. I could see why this child was unwanted.

“I don’t carry cash,” I told her.

“Do you have a credit stick?”

I put a protective arm over my purse. “It’ll be deactivated the moment you touch it.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need the whole stick. Just buy me something with it.”

A truck—a noisy, clanking tephan thing that actually rolled on the ground—roared past us. The glimmer on the ring shifted closer to the drain pipe. If I didn’t act fast…

“What do you want?” I asked her.

“A lot of things.” Her eyes went blank as she stared at imaginings only she could see. Finally, she declared, “A meal at the High Palace.”

She really said that! As if it were a reasonable request! I don’t know how this urchin even knew about human restaurants, much less the finest of fine dining establishments.

“That’s ridiculous!”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I lose a meal, you buy me a replacement. That’s fair.”

“Do you know how much a High Palace meal costs?”

“A lot less than it’ll cost you to replace that ring.”

I growled in frustration. The child had me backed into a corner and she knew it. I shuddered at the thought of taking this…thing into the sparkling society of a High Palace dining room.

I pointed a fierce finger at the child. “Only if you give me the ring immediately. Understand? There’s not a place on the planet a creature like you could sell it without suspicion.”

“I don’t want your ring. I’ll live up to my end of the bargain. And you’ll live up to yours, or that ring’s staying where it is.”

Of course I couldn’t really take her to the High Palace, but one more street-rattling truck could take the ring forever out of anyone’s reach. I’d have agreed if she’d asked for a hovercar.

“Fine!” I shouted. “I’ll buy you the meal. Just save my ring!”

The child placed her book on a clean patch of sidewalk and returned to the edge of the street. I snatched up my purse and stepped aside while the girl laid face down in the gutter. She slid her arm through the grate, all the way up to the shoulder. I held my breath for an eternal moment and didn’t release it until the girl emerged with a ring of gold and amethyst in her hands.

The ring sparkled merrily at me, grimy but whole. I snatched it from Tanza's hands and tucked it into an inner pocket of my gray blazer. I wouldn’t wear it again without resizing it—and not until I was in a neighborhood where I didn’t have to worry about it being stolen from my finger.

The child picked up her book and looked at me expectantly. Demandingly.

I couldn’t give her what she wanted. She was a complete stranger. I’d made the promise under duress. Not a court in the universe would hold me to it. What right did a tephan child have to make such ridiculous demands of a woman of my stature?

“Thank you,” I said. “You did a very good thing.” Then I sped down the street.

The creature was right at my heels. “The High Palace is the other way.”

I didn’t know if she was telling the truth. It didn’t matter. I walked faster.

She yanked at my arm. “You promised me a meal!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t get you into the High Palace.”

“A human lady dressed like you? You could get me in if you wanted to.”

I yanked my arm away from her. “What a pity I don’t want to.”

She gave a feral yowl. I started sprinting—or as near as I could manage in the heels I was wearing. The girl kept pace with me. I was a foot taller than her; why couldn’t I outrun her? Could I lose her in her own streets when I was lost myself?

Just when I thought I’d never be able to escape, I rounded a corner and saw the green-and-silver uniform of a Coalition policeman. My heart soared as I raced toward him. Help, protection, guidance, all only a few steps away. Something wonderfully human in this alien world.

“Officer!” I shouted to his retreating back. “Please, I need help!”

The officer stopped and raised a hand. A four-fingered hand. When he turned around, his face had the skewed proportions of a tephan face.

I nearly screamed. I’d stumbled into a nightmare.

The officer said, with the crisp diction of a tephan overcompensating for an accent, “Have you a problem, morik—madam?”

I’d heard that a few tephans had been admitted into the police forces, but I’d never thought I’d meet one. This tephan was young. Wiry and blond. Almost insignificant-looking if it weren’t for the uniform and the stolen sense of authority. Would he help a human?

Tephan or not, he had an obligation to assist the public. “Officer,” I gasped. “I need directions to the nearest train station. I’m trying to get home and this child is harassing me.”

The girl stormed up to him and shrieked, “She’s a liar!”

She shouted a stream of gibberish, and it wasn’t until the officer responded with similar sounds that I realized they were speaking the tephan language. Flowing, musical vowels were interrupted by harsh consonants, like rocks in a river. The sounds sent chills down my spine that only grew fiercer as the officer’s expression grew darker.

When the girl finished, the officer looked at me, not like an innocent victim needing help, but like a criminal who needed hauling to one of their barbaric tephan jails. “You have wronged this girl.”

I lifted my chin. “She’s lying! I’ve done nothing to her!”

“She claims she rescued your ring in exchange for a meal at the High Palace, and you are attempting to break your word.”

“I owe her nothing!”

“Did you promise her a meal?”

I threw out my hands in frustration. “It’s not like we had a contract or anything!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your promise means nothing without a legal document?”

“She had no right to hold me to a promise. I was desperate!”

He put a brotherly hand on the girl’s shoulder. “And she was kind enough to help you.”

I scoffed. “For a heavy price.”

The child shouted, “It’s one meal!”

The officer examined my face carefully. “You are Priscilla Overton, are you not? The wife of the finance minister?”

My jaw dropped. I’m prominent enough in human circles, but I’d never dared to consider that my face was known among tephans. It terrified me, but I knew it could be my ticket out of this. “I am, and when my husband finds out about how I’ve been treated—”

“Your husband is not a popular man. Not among tephans.”

I had never cared about Roger's reputation among the tephans. These primitives didn’t know what was best for their planet. But that wasn’t something I could say when I was alone in a strange neighborhood with two of them.

The officer continued, “It will not help his reputation if his wife is known as a promise-breaker.”

I couldn’t believe it. “Are you threatening me?”

He leaned toward me and said in low tones, “I am helping you.” He gestured to the street around us. “Do you think I’m the only one who heard the girl’s story?”

I shuddered to see a handful of tephans staring at us from among the crumbling buildings.

The officer said, “The Coalition doesn’t care much for tephan opinion, but if there is enough outcry against one man, even a human representative can be released from his job.”

At first, the thought lifted my spirits. Sent home! To Earth! It was what I’d wanted from the moment we’d stepped foot on this planet. But sent home in disgrace? Roger would have no future in government after such a public failure. It would mean everything we suffered here would be for nothing.

I asked the officer, “You really think they’d protest? Just because I didn’t bow to a child’s ridiculous demands?”

“If a person can’t keep a promise made to a child, how can anything they say be trusted?” His tephan gaze raked over me, like he was dissecting my inner thoughts. “Your people may have different ideas, but tephans still value virtue.”

How dare he—this puffed-up primitive in a human position of power—accuse humanity of being inferior?

My opinion didn’t matter. These creatures thought it a matter of morality that I feed this ragged brat finer cuisine than their planet had ever produced, and nothing I could say would change their minds. Now it seems ridiculous to think that those tephans could ruin us, but in that moment, alone in those unfamiliar streets, seeing how these two strange aliens teamed up against me, I could believe their kind capable of anything.

I looked down at the child. Her big eyes. Her frizzy curls. Her long limbs clutching the book to her chest. The grimy, bog-green clothes that fell short of the wrists and ankles. The smug smirk of a spoiled child who knew she was about to get her way. I had never loathed anyone more in my life.

“Do you have a name?” I asked her. “I’ll need a full name for the restaurant register.”

“I told you,” she said, as though she’d expected me to remember. “It’s Tanza.”

“What’s the rest of your name?” Most tephans I’d met had at least three or four names and were obnoxiously eager to explain them.

The girl's face darkened like I’d offended her. “Just Tanza.”

The officer looked at her with new pity, and even I understood why. You know how important names are to tephans. One name was a badge of dishonor--forever marking her as a child who’d never been claimed by any family, who’d never been given anything beyond the minimum necessary label. Tanza would have felt the shame of that, and I wasn’t quite so surprised that she’d turned into such an irritating little brat.

But I had no room for pity. “Do you have anything better to wear?”

She tugged at the cuffs, trying to stretch them over her arms. “Just more green. And all in the wash. Laundry demerits."

The officer said, "It'll do." He knelt in front of the girl, then looked at me and held out a hand. "I'll bet a fine lady like you carries all kinds of cleaning tools."

I sighed and handed him the nanocleanser from my purse. I showed him the power button, then he waved the metal wand over the stains on Tanza’s clothes. After a few seconds, the stains evaporated and the dirt from the gutter fell away as dry sand.

“Good as new,” the officer said, while Tanza gaped at her freshly-cleaned clothes. These primitives were astounded by the simplest things.

The child brushed through her wild curls with her fingers, swept them back over her shoulders, then stood with her hands at her side and feet apart, as if presenting herself for inspection.

I sighed. “I guess it’s as good as we’ll get. Let’s get this over with.”

Tanza tucked her book beneath her arm and her eyes sparkled with victory.

I looked balefully at the tome. “The book’s coming with?”

“Well, I can’t leave it here.”

I considered insisting that she take it back to the home, but I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“Fine,” I sighed. “Bring the book.”

I was seriously planning on entering the dining room of the High Palace with an alien who thought the proper attire included a set of green work clothes and a giant book. I had gone insane.

The officer stepped aside and gestured for both of us to walk past him. “I’ll escort you there.”

And there went my last hope of escape.

#

The officer escorted us through winding streets, side alleys and dried up canals until we finally crossed a bridge into a civilized portion of the city with human-designed buildings. One sprawling building of white stone-print bore a black sign with elegant script that proclaimed it The High Palace.

As we approached the building, Tanza suddenly skittered across my path. I almost tripped over her feet.

I glared at her as she fell into step on my right side. “What are you doing?”

She glanced warily to the street corner. “Kids from school.”

I glanced back and saw a pre-teen human boy with short black hair and immaculate clothing. He leaned against the corner of a building while he spoke with a handful of human friends. Well-groomed, friendly, human—why couldn’t that child have rescued my ring? I’d have been glad to take him as a guest to the High Palace.

As I engaged in fruitless wishes, the human children disappeared, and I arrived with my tephan escorts at the entrance doors of the High Palace. Wide glass windows showed a sparkling three-dimensional display of Old Paris in springtime. Tanza studied the images of bakeries and floral shops and fluttering Earth songbirds, as if attempting to dissect the technology. The few people passing by looked askance at the tephan pair with me.

Tanza asked, “Are we going in?”

I looked back at the officer. He just smiled at me and waved us toward the door.

I took a deep breath, put a hand behind the girl’s shoulders and pushed her inside.

The interior was a vision of white and cream: pale artwork on the walls, a glass fountain trickling crystal-clear water, rugs in intricate shades of vanilla, beige and ivory upon white marble floors.

The street sounds disappeared when the door closed behind us. No foot traffic, no rumbling vehicles, no screeching of alien animals. Just the hush of quiet voices, the gentle strings of a European symphony and the trickle of the fountain. It was like we'd stepped into a different world. My world. Except for the alien next to me.

The host standing guard at the dining room entrance stared at Tanza, then looked at me with the horrified compassion of someone trying to tell you there’s a wasp on your shoulder. “Madam, are you aware…?”

The only way to get through this with any dignity was to brazen my way through it. “I’d like a table, please. Two seats. For Priscilla Overton and guest.”

I thought his eyes would pop out of his head. “Your guest? You mean she—?”

“Is my guest. Is that a problem?”

He stared as if incredulous that I didn’t know the problem. I didn’t even blink.

Finally, he put a stylus to his datapad. “Does this guest have a name?”

The girl stood as straight and dignified as I did. “Tanza.”

He poised his stylus over the datapad. “Anythin—”

“Just Tanza.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he set his stylus aside. “Two seats for Priscilla Overton and…Tanza.”

The host led us into a blindingly beautiful dining room. A full wall of windows overlooked a river that glittered in the afternoon sun. The other walls were meshed with holonet that made the room look like a small nook in a formal European garden, with the tables and chairs surrounded by roses, tulips, lilies, and a thousand other flowers whose names I’d forgotten in my years away from Earth. Real potted plants scattered among the tables added to the reality of the image and the string quartet played some of the finest music from Earth's history. The room was a bastion of civilization in this barbaric world. A taste of home. It was more filling than any food could be.

The host led us to windowside tables with an excellent view of the river. My heart lifted. Prime seating—a sign of my place on this planet, which not even a tephan could take away. And it was flanked by two potted gardenia plants that would screen my guest from the handful of other diners.

I took the right-hand seat and motioned for Tanza to take the chair that sat closest to the shrub. Its branches brushed her as she sat down.

The host left us as a waiter handed us our menus. As Tanza sat down, she reached toward the branch above her head, plucked a single white gardenia blossom, shoved it in her mouth, and began to chew.

I froze in terror, then glanced at the waiter. Had he noticed?

If he had, he’d been well trained. He didn’t even stumble in his recitation of the day’s lunch specials.

“Would you like a few minutes to make a selection?” the waiter asked.

“Yes, yes,” I said, waving him away before my guest could decide to take another nibble of the greenery.

He bowed and vanished toward the kitchen.

When he was gone, Tanza spit the flower into a gold-embroidered napkin and wiped her tongue on the far corner. While her mouth contorted in the most disturbing shape, those tephan eyes glared at me. “That’s not a spiceblossom bush.”

“No,” I said, my tone stretched with scorn. “It’s a gardenia. And the blossoms aren’t for eating.”

She wiped her tongue on another corner of the napkin. “Why do they put flowers by the table if you’re not supposed to eat them?”

“For decoration,” I hissed. “And if you can’t behave in a civilized manner, we’ll leave this restaurant, promise or no promise.”

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t know all the fancy human rules of eating.”

Her sarcasm made my blood boil—until I saw her blush. She was prickly, yes, but unless I was very much mistaken, she was embarrassed. Now she was lost in an alien world, and I’d experienced that sensation too recently not to feel a little sorry for her.

But only a little. She had demanded this, after all, at great expense to me. Let her suffer the consequences.

“Rule one,” I said. “Don’t put anything in your mouth unless I tell you to.” I tugged her napkin out of her four-fingered hands before she could run it across her tongue again. “That includes napkins.”

With the napkin gone, Tanza's tongue was on full display in front of her chin as she kept the taste as far out of her mouth as possible. I don’t know if you know this, but tephan tongues can stretch further and thinner than human tongues, and this child made hers come almost to a point. I couldn’t look at that for the entire meal, but I couldn’t have the child destroying all the table linens either.

I waved over a waiter carrying a carafe of water, and I pointed him to our empty glasses. He leaned over our table and filled my glass almost to the brim. Then he turned and saw my guest—her pale skin, green clothes, those big eyes and that long, thin tephan tongue. He yelped, recoiled, dropped the carafe, and knocked over my glass. Water flooded the table and spilled onto my lap.

The child yelped, shouted something in her alien language and scrambled to pull her book out of the path of the water. An old man at the next table dropped his fork and stared at her. Fortunately, the few other diners in the room were too far away to see.

I hushed the child and found myself in the strange position of apologizing to the waiter while I was the one standing drenched. I didn’t know what reznat meant, but I was sure it wasn’t a nice thing for a tephan to say to her waiter.

“Could we...” I asked as I ran the nanocleanser over my clothes, “have another table?”

“C...certainly, madam,” he said, looking at Tanza as if waiting for her to pounce. I half-expected it myself, from the fierce way she curled around that book.

Once my clothes were dry, the waiter brought us to an empty table nearer the center of the room. No window view. No shielding plants. But it was further from the kitchen—where I was certain all the servers would be gossiping about us as soon as this klutz left us.

Once we were settled with new water glasses and dry menus, the server scurried away as if the girl were a poison frog. Tanza muttered alien words while she brushed water from the edges of her book, and gulped water until she got the taste of the flower out of her mouth. Then she glared at me and reverted back to Anglese. “He almost wrecked my book.”

After watching her lug that book around for an hour, my curiosity—and frustration—were mounting. “What’s that book about, anyway? And why are you willing to curse out waiters over it?”

“It’s a biography of Queen Marastel.” She set the book deliberately on the table, and looked around the room as if daring waiters to spill more water on it. “And it’s mine. I finally have a book of my own, and I don’t want it wrecked by an idiot with a water pitcher.”

The book was thick. What I’d seen of the print was small. It was not a children’s history book. I hadn’t expected this grimy alien child to be the biography type. Was there a developmental disorder that gave children irrational attachments to academic texts?

“Who is Queen Marastel?” I asked.

Tanza showed me the book’s cover. It had a picture of a young tephan woman—in her mid-twenties, to my human eyes—with a pale, narrow face, and deep eyes. The woman's dark hair was covered with an elaborate system of veils, and she wore a dress covered in so many white jewels and so much gray and white beadwork that I almost couldn’t see the ivory fabric underneath.

“Her,” Tanza said. “The last queen of Arateph.”

“Arateph had queens?” I asked in surprise. They hadn’t had queens when humanity had found them. It must have been part of their history.

I’d never thought of this planet as having a history. If I’d considered it at all, I suppose I’d assumed that they’d been muddling along the way we’d found them for the last few centuries, waiting for us to show up and drag them into modern civilization.

Tanza said, “The planet was ruled by a monarchy until about forty years before the Coalition showed up.”

“The whole planet?”

Tanza sat straighter and her diction became crisper—she looked like a little lecturer at one of those cultural symposiums that Roger and I always had to make appearances at. “After Kepha joined the other eleven kingdoms, the entire planet was united under the monarchy for three hundred and fifty-eight years.”

Not just a monarchy, but a planet-spanning monarchy. Such a thing hadn’t happened in all of human civilization, and these people had accomplished it when they were still on their home planet, believing themselves alone in the universe. I hadn’t thought such an archaic form of government could rule an entire continent without overextending itself, yet it had ruled their world for centuries. For the first time, I found myself wanting to learn something from the tephan people. How had such a government come about? How had they managed it?

Why did the woman on the cover look so sad?

I didn’t ask any of these questions because just then, a waiter appeared—not the water-spilling one, thank goodness. (I didn’t trust my guest to look at that one without throwing something at him.) This one was older, with crisp lines in his clothes and face. He looked like he could have won a staring contest with a statue—perfect unshakable professionalism.

“Are you ready to order, Madam Overton?” He didn’t even look at my guest.

Tanza’s eyes brightened as she picked up the menu, flipping through the pages to examine the options.

I asked her, “What you want to eat?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve never had human food.”

My jaw fell. “You wanted to come here and you didn’t even know what you wanted to eat?”

She gave me a withering stare, as though I was the stupid one. “I wanted to try it.” She closed the menu. “Besides, you said I can only eat what you tell me to eat. So what am I allowed to eat, Priscilla?”

I picked up the menu and realized with horror that I didn’t know the answer. What could tephans eat? Were there foods that were delicacies to us and poison to them?

I asked the waiter, “Do you have any suggestions?” I doubted these people served many tephans, but food was their area of expertise, and we were on Arateph.

The waiter looked at Tanza for the first time. “I’ve heard that people of her...race...are rather fond of the amphibian.” He pointed to an entry on my appetizer list. “The frog legs are popular. And a specialty of the chef.”

I hadn’t eaten frog in years. But if I could choke it down for Roger’s political dinners, I could manage it to satisfy a petulant tephan child. “We’ll have that.”

“Excellent. Is there anything else?”

I didn’t want to give Tanza any more chances to upset the wait staff. “No. Just get us our food as soon as possible.”

As the waiter walked away with our menus, an afternoon crowd filled the dining room; within a few minutes, we went from being nearly alone to being surrounded by other diners. I could tell by the sideways glances that most of them noticed my tephan guest. And I could tell that Tanza noticed them. She sat silently at first, growing more and more tense as we all tried to ignore each other, but when a bald man at the next table stared at her for several long moments, she finally snapped.

“Can you stop it?” she barked at him. “You’re giving me the shivers.” The man, red-faced, studied his menu as if his life depended on it.

Tanza turned back to the table, muttering, “You humans look so creepy when you stare.”

I was too stunned to scold her. I’d never considered that the distaste for the other race’s looks went both ways. If she’d lived her life in a mostly-tephan neighborhood, a human face would look just as slightly wrong to her as a tephan face did to me. It sounds strange, but the idea that she found us ugly made me like her more. It certainly made her more relatable.

But I couldn’t have her making a spectacle. “Please, don’t bother the other diners.”

She seemed ready to protest, but I spoke before she could argue. “That woman in your book. You said she was the last queen of Arateph. What happened?”

Her eyes lit up, rude diners forgotten, as she flipped open the book. “Revolution. The People’s House took over and had her and the king executed.”

I shivered. “So violent. And so young to die.”

Tanza gave me a confused look, then glanced at the cover and understood. “Oh, that’s from her first years as queen. She was almost seventy when she died.”

I pictured the woman on the cover with hair turned gray, but the same dark, sad eyes, facing an angry mob as they led her to the scaffold or the firing squad or however these people killed their leaders. It was brutal, but humanity had often been equally brutal, so I couldn’t dismiss it as their backward alien culture.

Tanza flipped through the pages. “They say she was weak and self-absorbed, but this book gives her more depth.” She looked at a page near the cover. “Verai’s a good scholar. Uses lots of primary sources. Very readable.”

Now that her interest was unleashed, Tanza talked on and on, taking me through an alien history, the tale of a queen beset by tragedy upon tragedy as she helped her husband rule a crumbling planet and struggled to produce an heir. All the scholars at those Coalition events were nowhere near as enthralling as this alien child sharing her favorite book.

As fascinating as the story was, I was even more entranced by the pictures—dozens were embedded through the text. Tanza condescended to turn the book around so I could see. It was grandeur like I’d never seen, buildings in alien colors and shapes and patterns, but bringing to mind the grandest palaces in human history, from Versailles to the Forbidden City to the red spires of the North Martian Emperor's summer home. The people in the pictures wore elaborate, brightly-colored clothes, and feasted upon vast tables full of unfamiliar food—including blossoms from the potted trees next to the tables. No primitive civilization could have created such a culture. No wonder this alien urchin was enthralled, and no wonder she’d seized the chance to attend the closest modern equivalent to such feasts that she knew of.

The return of the stone-faced waiter snapped me back to reality. He planted himself next to the table, passing blank-faced judgement by how thoroughly he didn’t look at the book or the way we bent over it. Face burning, I sat back in my chair and felt ashamed to be caught hanging upon an alien’s story like a dim-witted child.

Tanza swept the book under the table and sat primly as the waiters placed the food in front of us. First a gold charger, then the crystal plates bearing the food—ten frog legs, crisply fried in butter and lemon, dotted with parsley and surrounded by a handful of greens.

Half a dozen nearby heads surreptitiously craned in our direction.

The waiters set a similar platter in front of me, and after I’d arranged my napkin on my lap, I thanked the waiter, picked up the silverware, and began to cut the meat.

Tanza watched me carefully as the waiters left. She picked up her silverware, examined it closely—did tephans even have silverware?—and tried to imitate me, but when she touched the food, the prim little professor became the feral street child again. She still used the silverware, but that was her only concession to decency as she gobbled her foot, downing the frog legs almost whole. The butter sauce ringed her mouth and splattered on her clothing. She made the most inhuman snorting noises as she swallowed.

Now everyone was staring—the red-faced man at the next table, his three dining companions, the ten people sitting at the other nearby tables, the waiters who'd halted on their way to the kitchen. People murmured to their companions. Diners flagged down waiters and asked discreetly if there was something that could be done.

My face burned in embarrassment, but I couldn’t stop the girl. With all these eyes watching me—watching me, Priscilla Overton, entertaining an animal at the finest restaurant in Roshen—I couldn’t even speak. I wanted to sink into the carpet. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to run from the restaurant, flee from this planet, and return to comfortable, civilized Earth. But mortification left me paralyzed. I just sat and did nothing as Tanza devoured her food and licked every last drop of sauce from the plate.

Finally, she dropped her plate back on the charger and leaned back with satisfaction. Her big tephan eyes were bright. “That was amazing.” She licked all eight of her fingers, so lost in the euphoria of her food that she was unaware of the horrified crowd surrounding us. She looked at my plate with confusion. “You’ve barely touched yours.”

I let my fork drop to the tablecloth. “I’m not very hungry.”

Her eyes brightened. “Can I have it?”

“No.”

She gave me a disapproving look. “You can’t waste food. At least try to eat it.”

After that display, I’d never be able to stomach another frog leg. “It doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Then I’ll eat it.” Before I could react, she leaned across the table, speared a frog leg with her fork, and was chewing it before she settled back in her chair.

I wanted to scream. I could have tried to correct her, but I had no idea where to begin, and by now, it was far too late.

The stone-faced waiter leaned over my shoulder. He was pale and his eyes were wide—apparently there were some things that could rattle him. “Madam, if you cannot eat your food here, we can send it home with you.”

He was offering me a doggy bag. The finest restaurant in the city, which usually recoiled in horror from such vulgar practices, was so desperate for me to leave that the staff were sending me home with leftovers. I was, in effect, being kicked out.

I didn’t even care. “Yes, thank you.”

In seconds, another waiter appeared, carrying a green box that had probably held some kind of produce in the kitchen, repurposed into this restaurant’s first take-home container. I sat in silence as they poured the frog legs into the container, then I handed them my credit stick, and when I examined the payment screen of their datapad, I added on a gratuity that cost twice as much as the food did. Perhaps with a tip like that, they’d let me show my face here again. At the moment, I doubted I’d ever want to.

I gathered my purse and stood. That creature gathered her ridiculous book and followed me, smiling, out of the dining room.  

When we reached the lobby, I thrust the box into the child's hands. “Take it. I don’t want it.”

The girl's eyebrows rose. “You don’t? Are you sure? It’s really good.”

“I think it appeals more to tephan tastes.”

She thanked me as though I’d given her all the jewels that the queen on her book was wearing, then tucked the box under one arm and the book under the other.

I put a hand behind her shoulders and pushed her out the door. When we emerged onto the sunlit sidewalk, all my frustration exploded.

“There!” I snapped, giving her one last push beyond the awning of the restaurant. “You’ve had your meal. Take your food and go!”

She stumbled forward, then stared at me in bewilderment. “What set you off?”

My laugh was tinged with hysteria. “What set me off? Maybe I’m just a little peeved at being disgraced in front of some of the richest people in the city by a tephan who gobbles her food like an animal.”

She stood with her mouth open, struck speechless. Those big green eyes showed surprisingly human-looking hurt. “Was it that bad? I know I’m not fancy, but...”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t notice all those people staring.”

The creature turned red. She stammered, “I thought it was because I’m tephan. You told me not to bother them.”

I couldn’t bear to have that creature looking up at me with those big, sad eyes. I didn’t want to feel sorry for her. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Maybe in a few years they’ll let me dine there again.” I pushed her steadily but firmly away from the restaurant. “I have more than paid you in full. Thank you for saving my ring. Goodbye.”

Still looking baffled, the girl trudged away from the restaurant. I walked in the other direction.

My anger started fading the moment the child was out of my line of sight. Each step away from the restaurant felt like a step back into a normal world. There were humans around me. I could read the signs. I even knew how to find my way to the train station. I’d be back at the hotel within the hour and I could pretend that this whole horrible afternoon had been a bad dream.

Light footsteps skittered behind me. A green-clad tephan child with a book and a box appeared to my left.

I yelped and reeled back. “What are you—?”

Tanza fell into step beside me. “I’m really very sorry for embarrassing you. I need to make it up to you. Let me show you the way to the train station—”

My previous anger felt like a candle flame compared to the volcano that those words set off within me. “Leave me alone!” I towered over her in my fury. “I gave you your meal! I fulfilled the promise! Now leave!” I stormed away, but at the first sound of footsteps behind me, I whirled around. “I swear, if you take another step toward me, I will see you arrested!”

The child’s face hardened into the petulant mask that I recognized from my first sight of her from the gutter. “Sorry for helping.”

“Helping,” I mocked. “Your help comes at too high a price.” I gave a short, cynical laugh. “I see through your plan. You think you can trail after me demanding handouts all day. Well, I have had enough.” I secured my purse over my shoulder like I was holstering a weapon. “Get out of here!”

Face white and lips tight with anger, Tanza bowed her head and turned away. I strode away in triumph.

An old man looked at me sideways, shaking his head. I made it to the end of the block before the guilt hit me. The old man had reason to disapprove. Tanza had made an offer of help, and I’d responded by screaming at her in a public street. Perhaps she had felt remorse. As embarrassing as it had been to be seen with a girl who ate like an animal, how much worse would it feel to be the one who’d done it? I thought of those pictures in that book of hers. Would I have fared any better at a tephan feast?

I turned around. “Tanza, wait—“

“Hey, Tanza!”

The voice, coming from the other end of the block, was louder, harsher, and younger than mine. A crowd of boys stampeded down the sidewalk—all humans, about twelve years old, and led by a boy with slick black hair and gray and white clothes in the latest crisply-cut fashions. The children Tanza had noticed when we’d first arrived at the restaurant.

Tanza—standing near where I’d left her—tried to move away from them, but hesitated when she saw me standing at the other end of the block. In seconds, the boys had her surrounded.

The ringleader prodded her shoulder. “Escaped from your cage, Tanza? What are you doing among civilized people?”

His yellow-haired friend poked at the box of frog legs. “Looks like she’s looting houses.”

Tanza yanked the box away. “I’m not a thief!”

The ringleader tugged at the book under her other arm. “That’s a big book. Still playing at being smart, small-brain?”

Tanza pulled it back. “Don’t touch that!”

One boy pried up her arm while two others slid the book away from her. “Ooh, it’s a small-brain book!” the ringleader said in mock delight. He flipped through the pages with dirt-stained fingers. “It’s even written in their pretend letters.”

Tanza snarled, “Give that back!”

He slammed it shut and pulled it toward his chest. “Why? Scared it’s too complicated for me?”

“It’s mine!”

He looked at it thoughtfully. “Is it, though? I don’t think a charity case like you can afford a big book like this.”

“It’s mine!” she repeated, nearly shrieking now. “Teacher gave it to me!”

“Bet she stole it,” said a voice from the crowd. “She’s just a grubby little nameless charity house thief.”

Tanza, driven past the breaking point as the ringleader held the book just beyond her reach, shrieked in outrage and pounced. She tore at the book while the boys yanked it away from her. The individuals disappeared into a storm of arms and legs and paper. Five against one. I watched in terror for a few moments before thinking to call for help. I had my wristcomm. I could hit the emergency button….

It was over before I could lift my wrist. Tanza was sprawled across the sidewalk, surrounded by the shredded, dirty pages of her book. Her box had been torn open. Fleshy frog legs were scattered on the ground as though the animals had been thrown against the wall.

The boys, barely scuffed, loomed over her, mocking. They lifted the empty binding of the book like a trophy, cheering over it and slapping each other on the back. Then, satisfied with their destruction, they ran off the way they came, leaving their victim on the ground.

Numbly, I shuffled toward her, feeling lost in a different sort of nightmare--one where I was one of the monsters. Those boys had been waiting for her. If she’d had an ulterior motive for coming after me to apologize, she had been hoping for protection, not handouts. And I’d thrown her to the wolves.

Tanza pushed herself onto her knees and pulled the pages toward her, like a mother hen gathering up chicks. She looked more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her, eyes wide and glistening, her face slack with horror. Her emotionless mask was gone. She pressed an armload of shredded pages to her chest, curled into a fetal position, and cried.

Curled up like that, face and hands hidden, she didn’t look like a tephan. Not like the rude negotiator at the gutter. Not like the little professor or even the animal at the table. She was just a friendless little girl, surrounded by the wreckage of her most prized possession.

I thought of the last time I’d seen her lying in the street, arm threaded through a storm drain while she reached for my ring. The ring was in my pocket, safe and whole. How had I thanked her for her service? Tried to duck out of the promise, treated her like a savage, screamed at her in the streets, and left her at the mercy of bullies.

The ring I loved so much was one of dozens that I’d brought from Earth, and my day had been destroyed at the thought of losing it. This book was the only one she owned, and it was gone forever. I couldn’t imagine her distress.

How had I thought her the savage?  

My stomach twisted with loathing, and for the first time all day, it was directed toward myself. I could fool myself no longer; I’d done nothing to be proud of today.

But that could change.

Approaching Tanza with soft, careful steps, I crouched next to her. “Tanza?” I brushed a finger across her shoulder.

The girl recoiled from my touch and turned away. She came up on her feet, but stayed scrunched into a ball, protecting her pages and hiding her red eyes.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

Her voice was thick with tears. “Go away.”

I grabbed one of the pages. “I can help—“

She whirled her head toward me and snapped, “I said go away!”

I stumbled back, and for a moment I was ready to do as she wanted. This was not my problem and she didn’t want my help.

Then my good sense returned, and I barked, “Don’t be stupid. I’m not going to leave a child in the street.” I started gathering pages. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

I looked around for help. The crowd had merely started taking a wider berth around us, but after a moment, I saw the green and silver flash of a Coalition policeman’s uniform—on a policeman with tephan hands.

I’d never thought I’d be glad to see that officer again. I waved toward him, shouting, “Officer! Please, can you help?”

My voice startled the officer, and his surprise turned to concern as he neared and saw the devastation. He crouched next to us and asked me, “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” I said. The twist in my stomach reminded me that those words weren’t the complete truth, so I amended, “I didn’t destroy the book. There was a group of boys...”

The officer had already turned his attention to Tanza, speaking low-toned words in their tephan language. When they finished, his demeanor toward me was less hostile but more disappointed.

“Now you want to help her?” he asked.

That now was an accusation that cut like a knife. I deserved it, but I met his gaze boldly. “Yes,” I said, daring him to deny me.

He spoke a few more words to Tanza, then told me, “Gather pages.”

He helped Tanza to her feet while I gathered what I could of the paper. Torn edges, smeared alien words, and pictures of long-dead royals who stared at me with accusing eyes. The queen providing food to the poor, shelter to the homeless, clothes to shivering orphans. She’d done all that and wound up executed; looking at Tanza and the tephan officer, I couldn’t help wondering how much worse they thought I deserved.

#

When I’d gathered all the pages I could into a crinkling, crunching mess, I followed in silence as the officer led us along the route we’d taken, every block seeming as long as a mile. When we reached the familiar yellow building where everything had started, I gave the pages to the officer, and he motioned for Tanza to go toward the stair of the building.

“Is there anything else I can do?” I asked Tanza, almost desperate.

Tanza just turned her head away.

“I think you’ve done enough,” the officer said. The words were soft, but I heard the condemnation in them.

I shouldered my purse more firmly, avoided Tanza’s eyes, then asked the officer, “Can you tell me where to find a train station?”

The officer pointed down the street in the opposite direction from where I’d originally approached the building. “The nearest one is just beyond the Killing Square.”

The words shocked me out of the numbness I’d been feeling. “The what?”

But the officer was already rattling off directions, and I was too busy memorizing the steps—left, then right, past the purple tower, turn two blocks after the bridge—to ask what exactly a Killing Square was. I didn’t think a uniformed police officer would purposely send me to my death, so I assumed something had been lost in the translation.

“Thank you, officer,” I said when he finished. Then I looked at the girl and added, “Thank you, Tanza.”

Tanza's green clothes—now scuffed from battle—hung loosely off her slumped shoulders. After a long moment, she raised her head and looked at me from beneath lowered lids. “Goodbye,” she said.

Her tone meant, “Good riddance.”

My pride flared at that. I thought I'd been rather compassionate--helping her gather the pages, hailing the officer, even trailing her all the way to her home to make sure that she arrived safely. Surely she could show a little gratitude.

But as I walked through the narrow, battered streets, it was my own rudeness that haunted me. Snatching the ring from her fingers as though afraid she'd contaminate it. Fleeing from her rather than fulfilling the promise. Leaving her to fight five against one when a moment's action on my part could have saved her. All day, I'd thought myself better than her because I was human, but my actions had been inhumane.

I tried to put it behind me. There was nothing else I could do. The book was gone, beyond repair. Tanza probably never wanted to see me again. It was best to move on and forget all about the tephan girl and the dark-eyed queen that so fascinated her.

Then I turned the corner and came face to face with Queen Marastel. A picture on the gray stone wall, larger than life, showed the woman whose face I’d seen a hundred times in Tanza’s book. I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized. The image was a photo, more or less, but not like any photo or holo-image I’d ever seen from human technology. The colors were more muted than reality, while a strange vibrant shimmer added depth to the image, so it looked as though I could walk inside the pictured scene with a little effort.

The queen’s hair had gone completely gray, her jewels were gone, and her vividly colored gowns had been replaced by a white fabric sheath. What I noticed most were her eyes—they were striking in most of the book photos, but here, her gaze knocked the breath from me. Surely no human gaze could show that much sorrow.

How was she here? Would this queen haunt me wherever I went on this planet, reminding me of my sins against the child?

I noticed a small plaque next to the picture, with a tiny Anglese translation at the bottom, which explained that the image showed Queen Marastel in front of this very building, moments before she was led to death in the center of the square. “Oh,” I said aloud, turning slowly to examine the streets and buildings around me as understanding struck. “The Killing Square.”

This was the center of the revolution that had ended this planet’s monarchy. It was a hauntingly bland neighborhood; no sign of the violent destruction that Tanza had told me of, not after more than eighty years’ worth of repairs.  But pictures and plaques decorated almost every building I saw, telling the story that time had erased. Seven brothers from Kepha stood scarred but proud before a jeering band of executioners. A red-haired older woman tried to cheer up three children as armed rebels escorted them all to prison. The king himself stood tall and white-haired, every line of his face showing his fierce love for his planet even as his people tried to kill him.

I could list examples all day, but I could never make you understand the feeling of being there, gazing at these people in the moments before their deaths. They were young and old, tall and short, had hair and skin in every imaginable shade. They came from regions I hadn’t known existed--desert wastes and mountain ranges and snow-covered tundras. These people had families they’d hated to lose, homes that were as familiar to them as the cottage by the Atlantic had once been to me. They’d made mistakes and suffered for it. They, too, had regrets.

Fear, anger, hatred, love, bravery, cowardice--every possible human emotion filled those alien faces, and it didn’t take long for me to stop seeing them as alien at all. They were people, who’d lived on this planet just as I did, who had loved it the way I’d loved Earth.

I’d never even wanted to know about this world before, but now I was desperate to understand every story these pictures presented. Without Tanza’s book providing context, would I even have paused to look at these pictures? Would I have cared about these people? I doubted I would have. Tanza's childish enthusiasm for a book had upended my world--as I’d upended hers.

With that thought, I found myself back before the picture of the queen. Her sorrowful eyes pinned me in place. It seemed, to my overworked imagination, that she was disappointed in me.

I glared at her. “What else do you want me to do?” I demanded. “What’s done is done. I can’t fix it. I don’t even know what book it was.”

In that hall of death, it seemed a pitiful excuse.

I tore my eyes away from the picture, and my gaze landed upon a door I’d wandered past in my history-induced daze. It was brown and wide, with a sign above proclaiming it the entrance to the Museum of the Alogath Execution Center. I wandered toward it, then froze in my tracks only a few steps away. Next to the entrance was a window—and through the window, I saw books.

This was a museum! Museums—even tephan ones—had gift shops! If there was one place in this world that sold books about Queen Marastel, it was likely the museum that displayed her face on a public street.

I raced into the building, almost giddy, and found the shop just beyond the main entrance. The tiny nook held pamphlets and trinkets, and at the front of the room, a big, silver BookVend machine printed and bound volumes with lightning speed.

I raced through the door. The tephan woman behind the counter dropped her book in surprise as I leaned, panting, against her counter.

The woman asked in smooth Anglese, “Can I help you?”

I stood up and tried to look less like a maniac. “Yes,” I said, in my best politician’s-wife voice. “I need you to help me find a book.”  

#

The door to the charity home loomed large in front of me. I hesitated with my hand before the door. Was I doing something stupid? The freshly-printed book under my arm might not change the fact that the child would want nothing to do with me.

This wasn't about me. I had to try.

My knock was answered by a pale, knobby tephan woman with wisps of blond hair hanging around her face. She stared when she saw my face and clothes. “Madam?”

“Excuse me," I asked, "but does a girl named Tanza live here?”

The woman's eyes glazed over as she struggled to translate my Anglese.

I tried again, speaking more slowly. “Is Tanza here?”

“Tanza…” She trailed off in confusion before her eyes lit with understanding. “Oh!” Gently, she corrected, “It’s pronounced Tanza.”

It sounded exactly the same to me. I was starting to believe those people who said tephans could speak and hear sounds that humans couldn't.

The woman called into the building, and after a storm of voices and footsteps, a slight tephan girl in green clothes came to the door, her curls making a curtain over her still-puffy eyes.

Tanza scowled when she saw me. “What do you want?”

I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “I wanted to apologize,” I said. “For what happened. How I treated you. You saved my ring and I treated you like an animal. That was wrong.”

Tanza crossed her arms. “Glad you noticed.”

This child kept finding ways to irritate me, but I swallowed my words before I snapped back in response.

I pulled a book from under my arm. “I know this doesn’t erase what you went through, but I wanted to undo some of the harm that I’ve done today.” I handed her the book, which had the same cover as the book she’d brought to the restaurant. “This is for you.”

Warily, Tanza examined the queen on the cover. “It looks the same.” She flipped through the pages, and her eyes brightened. “It is the same!”

“I printed a new copy. There’s a BookVend down the street. You rescued my ring; it was only fair that I replace your book.”

"Yes, but I didn't think..." She examined the book in amazement before turning that astonished gaze upon me. "This is really mine? To keep?"

“Yes, of course,” I said.

Tanza clutched the book to her chest and smiled at me, positively radiant. That smile transformed her from a feral orphan into a polite little princess.

I couldn’t keep from smiling back.

“Thank you,” Tanza said. Then she saw the other book under my arm. “What’s that one?” she asked, as though hoping it was for her and not daring to ask.

I pulled it out and showed her the cover. It showed the same image of the queen, but this time above an Anglese title—The Queen of Sorrow. “The Anglese edition,” I explained. “This one’s for me.”

If I’d thought she was happy before, it was nothing compared to her radiance now. “You’re going to read it?”

I shrugged. "I couldn't resist. You made it sound so interesting."

She bounced on the balls of her feet. “Wait until you get to Chapter Five. That’s when she first meets the king, and you would not believe the uproar it causes."

She set down her book, grabbed mine, and started flipping through the pages, desperate to show me the start of the story.

From down the hall, an adult voice barked, “Tanza! Don’t bother the woman. I’m sure she’s busy.”

Embarrassed, Tanza closed the book. She pushed it back into my hands. “Sorry. I don’t get to talk about it much.”

“I don’t mind. You’re an excellent instructor.”

Her eyes brightened with hesitant hope. “I could show you more. If you want.”

“I’d be grateful.”

Tanza called over her shoulder. “Garsa! Can I have a visitor in the study room?”

The tephan woman appeared in the entryway. She blinked, taken aback. “As long as she leaves before supper."

Tanza looked up at me. “Do you want to stay?”

No tephan had ever asked me that question before. In all my time here, I’d been an outsider. An invader. I’d never had the desire to be anything more. But those words, coming from Tanza, felt like a welcome.  

I was glad to receive it.

I put a hand on Tanza’s shoulder and smiled. “I’d love to.”

[livingforcoopsandoknutzy]

I am living for all your lumosinlove content lately! The prompt list is so good so if you’re still up for it I’d love 20 and 24 for o’knutzy! The boys are my fav

"Hey, just look at me. Breathe.” + "Stop keeping your phone on silent, you got me worried.”

Characters by @lumosinlove bless her beautiful mind

TW: panic attack/anxiety/depression

   Leo wasn’t a control freak and he most certainly wasn’t freaking out about not knowing where the hell Logan was at three o’clock in the morning. 

   Finn was in New York visiting his parents so it had just been Leo and Logan for the past few days so when Leo woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed he had automatically assumed Logan was in the bathroom. 

   When it became evident that Logan wasn’t in the bathroom, Leo had felt his anxiety start pooling in his stomach as he set about the apartment trying to find his boyfriend who never ever woke up in the middle of the night.

   Leo felt his anxiety start spiraling when he realized Logan wasn’t in the apartment at all. He had tried calling him but Logan’s phone just rang out every time and Leo was sick of leaving voicemails. 

   Deciding he had had enough when he went to check outside just in case Logan had stepped out, he called Finn. It was obvious that he had woken Finn up with his call, not that he really expected anything else.

   “Leo?” Finn’s groggy voice filtered through the phone. “What’s wrong?” His words were slurring with sleep and Leo felt momentarily bad for waking him up before remembering his reasoning.

   “F-Finn?” Finn’s next response sounded much more awake. “What happened? What’s wrong?” Leo tried to stop his body from shaking but it felt like the room was getting smaller, his lungs were burning and he gritted his teeth against the waves of anxiety.

   “I can’t find him. I woke up and he wasn’t here so I started looking around but he isn’t here and he isn’t answering his phone and I don’t know how to get to him and-” Finn cut him off and told him to breathe. “Baby he’ll be okay, but you need to breathe if you’re going to be of any help to him okay?” Leo couldn’t simply turn off his anxiety but the words brought him the energy to fight harder against it.

   “What if he’s hurt? What if something happens? Why would he just leave?” Leo heard Finn sigh over the phone and he could practically see the frown he knew was plastered on Finn’s face. “He’s probably out thinking. It’s a pretty bad day for him and he always beats himself up today so he probably just couldn’t sleep and went for a walk. If it makes you feel better you can wait up for him, I’ll stay on the phone.”

   Leo hesitated, torn between the comfort his boyfriend brought and the guilt for waking him up. “It’s alright you can go back to sleep, I’ll wait up for him. I just have one question.” There was a muffled noise from Finn’s side and Leo heard a huff before Finn’s voice came back through.

   “Okay, go ahead but I’m going to stay on for a while just so you don’t freak out again.” Leo felt a rush of affection for Finn, appreciative of how well his boyfriend knew him. “Thanks, Harzy.” Leo said, his voice softer. “Why is today bad for him?” Leo asked carefully, anxiety crawling back up when Finn went quiet.

   “It’s the day I left for Gryffindor, neither of us wanted to leave things the way they did and Logan beats himself up for it every year. I called him the night I got there, I was crying because everything was too much and I just really needed him and he only talked to me for about five minutes before hanging up. He was scared and understandably so, he was trying to act strong but it hurt and he regrets it a lot. We both did a lot of dumb things when we were in college.” Leo closed his eyes and let out a sigh. 

   He was well aware of how bad Logan could get when he got caught up in his college years, most of the time he would get quiet and distant and would sleep on the couch, punishing himself for things that he’d been long since forgiven for.

   “I’m normally with him,” Finn added a hint of pain in his voice that made Leo frown. “I normally help him through it but I wasn’t there. I should’ve been there.” It was Leo's turn to sigh. "Finn you couldn't help it your family needed you, I should've realized something was going on." 

   There was silence on the other end of the phone until Finn broke it. "God I wish I was there to hug you two." Leo laughed weakly and was about to respond when he heard the lock turn in the door.

   "He's here." Leo said breathlessly. "Okay. Can you call me later? He'll need you right now but call me later?" Finn sounded slightly frantic and Leo's nerves shot again. "I will. I love you." Leo whispered, his eyes locked on the door that was opening. "I love you too." Finn said before hanging up.

   The door opened with a creak and Logan stepped in. Leo's hands started shaking again as he took in Logan's red eyes and tear-streaked face.

   "You-you weren't answering." Leo stuttered standing up quickly, Logan's head spun around at the sound. "My phone was on silent." Logan said softly, slowly making his way to Leo. 

   "You could have left a note or a text or anything. Stop leaving your phone on silent, you got me worried." Leo said, his voice wavering slightly. Logan’s lip quivered slightly and Leo let out a sigh as he opened his arms. 

   Logan let out a sob as he all but collapsed into Leo’s arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I should h-have told you.” Leo raised one hand from where it was rubbing soothing circles on Logan’s back to his brown curls as he eased them back on the couch.

   Leo pulled Logan into his lap so he could wrap his arms around Logan’s waist, Logan’s head falling on his shoulder and his knees meeting Leo’s waist. “You’re okay, baby.” Logan just sobbed harder, Leo felt his own eyes watering in response.

   “I-I was so bad. L-Leo I’m such a-a bad person.” Logan sounded so broken that Leo felt his breath catch in his throat. “Baby, no. Logan, you’re such an amazing person don’t say that.” Logan shook his head frantically, his head lifting off Leo’s shoulder so he could look Leo in the face.

   “No, I hurt him. Le, I hurt him so badly. I knew he was doing bad, I knew it and I didn’t try to help, not only did I not try to help but I was part of the reason.” Logan’s breaths were coming too fast and Leo knew he needed to calm him down.

   “Lo, baby, look at me. Hey, look at me. Breathe.” He said, tilting Logan’s head so he could see his green eyes that were shining with tears. “I-I can’t. I can’t breathe.” Logan said gasping, panic taking over his features. Leo put his hands up to either side of Logan’s face and wiped the tears with his thumbs.

  “You have to breathe for me, honey. Just breathe. You’re not a bad person, we all know that and Finn forgave you a long time ago. You deserve everything, that was a long time ago and you suffered from it just as much as he did.” Logan let out a sob but his breathing had returned to semi-normal.

   Logan wrapped his arms tightly around Leo and buried his face in Leo’s neck as if he couldn’t get close enough. Leo kissed his head and tightened his grip, he knew Logan well enough by now that he just needed to be close to someone.

   “I’m just, I’m just so tired.” Logan said quietly and Leo stilled for a second before slipping his hands under Leo’s shirt so he could rub circles with his thumbs over Logan’s hip bones. Logan never talked about his anxiety or his depression and the only people who knew he had it was Leo, Finn, and Remus.

   “I can’t explain it. It’s like I’ll be fine one minute and the next it’s on replay and as much as I want to believe you and Finn I can’t help but feel like I’m an awful person. It’s like I’m in this hole that I can’t get out of and every time I try I just sink deeper.” Leo sighed, wishing that there was some way he could help. 

   “I feel like I’m drowning.” Logan added his voice nothing more than a whisper. The words felt like knives in his heart and Leo had to squeeze his eyes shut to stop the tears threatening to fall. “We won’t let you.” Leo said forcefully, his arms bringing Logan impossibly closer. “Finn and I would never let you. If you ever feel like you’re sinking we’ll be there to pull you back up.” 

   Logan laughed weakly and pulled back so he could kiss Leo soundly. “I love you, you know that right? I love you so much.” Logan said softly and Leo couldn’t help the fond smile that appeared on his face. “I love you too, Lo. So much.” Logan smiled before rolling off Leo’s lap and dragging him up to his feet. 

   Leo laughed, following him until Logan pulled him to their room and pushed Leo on the bed, crawling on top of him. Leo raised an eyebrow and Logan rolled his eyes before dropping to his elbows and planting a firm kiss on Leo’s lips.

   Leo smiled into it before rolling so he was on top of Logan. “I think it’s been an emotional night and Finn wanted you to facetime him before you go to sleep so we should do this in the morning.” Logan pouted but nodded, sighing when Leo laid on him. Leo was making it hard to breathe but Logan just smiled and tangled his fingers into the blonde’s curls.

   “Alright let’s call him.”

[trashmenofmarvel]

Branded - Chapter 46

Pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You try to find your way back.

(This is a fan AU of Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly by araniaart​ . Please check out this incredible series for all of your demon Bucky needs.)

Chapter Warnings: Angst, anxiety, mild body horror

AO3

You woke up coughing and gagging, pulling your jacket out from under your head to wrap it around your face. For there to be so much dust in the air, another dust storm must have kicked up outside.

Just as predicted, when you looked out one of the air holes of the cave system, you saw the wall of dust that cut off all sight after a few feet.

You sighed and sat back in the deepest part of the cave, making sure to keep the jacket wrapped around your head. It was much different being here as a physical entity instead of just living in someone’s head. You knew which one you preferred.

Still coughing frequently, you picked up a stone tool, no bigger than a piece of chalk, and added another tick to the rows of marks Bucky had started. Tenth day in the demon realm, with no sign of rescue.

It had been sheer luck that you’d woken up in a place with landmarks you actually recognized. You weren’t far from Bucky’s old territory, and after hours of walking barefoot through the sand, socks stuffed into your pockets, you made it to the cave system he’d used as a home base.

Seeing the same walls, the edible fungus, the dried “bamboo” strips as bedding, even the old journal Bucky had left behind, it had been the most relieving and the most painful thing you’d felt in a while. That was saying a lot, considering you’d been murdered just a few hours prior.

Your shelter and source of food and water secured, you’d done nothing but decompress, going over everything that had happened.

Bucky falling into Zemo’s trap. Forced to be a weapon once more and ordered to kill Rogers. He probably would have if you hadn’t managed to pull on the thin thread that had remained of your bond.

The irony wasn’t lost on you. The bond you’d both wanted to get rid of had been the thing to save Bucky’s life. The cursed book had been right; the only thing that could break your bond was Bucky’s death… or yours. It hadn’t said the death would result in you being banished to the demon realm, but it wasn’t like the damn book had been trying to be helpful to begin with.

No, if anything, the ancient sorcerer whose words it had quoted had been more insightful. Especially the part where he’d witnessed a human slave die in his master’s place, and his body had burned to ashes.

Is that what had happened to you? Had Bucky been forced to watch as you’d crumpled to dust in his hands? God, you hoped not.

At least it explained how you ended up here and that corpse you’d seen through Bucky’s eyes. A human with a demon sigil, it could only mean one thing. This was where all human slaves ended up, eventually.

You just hoped you wouldn’t meet the same fate.

Thoughts turned back to Bucky as they usually were, you couldn’t begin to imagine how Bucky was dealing with your death. All you could hope was that he realized it hadn’t been permanent, and that he would find a way to the demon realm without dying himself. Knowing him, Bucky would take that route if he had to.

But here it was, day ten, and you were beginning to have doubts. You knew time flowed differently here and you would have to be patient, but it was impossibly difficult. You just prayed you wouldn’t have to wait another fifty years. Unlike Bucky, you doubted you would remain ageless in this place.

Day ten became day eleven. And then twelve. And then you’d been in the demon realm for two weeks with no sign of Bucky or the wizards.

At day fifteen, you decided it was time to stop waiting, and time to start being proactive. If your rescuers couldn’t come to you, perhaps you could bring yourselves to them. You’d glimpsed the truth in Bucky’s memories after him coming through the portal. Your younger self had practically bragged about opening a portal, and you’d been ten years old.

Surely you could still do it, even if you didn’t remember how… and even though you’d never shown a spark of magic while training under Wong.

But what else was there to do? It wasn’t as if there was anyone else around to embarrass yourself in front of.

Only… that turned out not to be the case.

You had managed to create a spark in the air. It was orange and sputtered after a few seconds, but it was the most you’d ever accomplished before. After a few more hours, you got a glowing circle the size of a hula-hoop.

But it was the wrong color, orange and not blue, and the image you could see through it was just more red sand. You didn’t need to travel across the planet; you needed to get away from it.

Frustrated, you weren’t as aware of your surroundings as you should have been, and that was when the demon attacked. Drooling and growling, it charged at you from over the sands and chased you into the cave system. You recognized it from before; a large beast that looked like it was part-bear, part-bull, and it was pissed.

Terrified and without thought, you made a jerky circular motion just as the demon launched itself at you.

The portal fizzled to life and vanished just as quickly, and the bottom half of a demon body landed on top of you. It was still smoking from where the portal had sliced through it like a hot blade.

It was the first and last time you tried to make a portal.

The days continued to crawl by until a month had passed, or at least, the best you could guess as days and months when the sunlight never changed or faded.

Until it finally did. And that’s when things truly started to take a turn for the worst.

You’d managed to keep your spirits up by reading the journal Bucky had left behind, reliving the time you’d spent together in a weird, symbiotic partnership, but when the rare night came and shrouded everything in cold darkness, you didn’t even have Bucky’s words to comfort you. The jacket was no longer a breathing mask and went back on your shoulders, barely keeping the chill at bay.

Through the dim starlight that came through the overhead holes in the ceiling, you could see your breath fogging up before you. You huddled into a tighter ball, tried to keep your emotions in check, and eventually gave up. You turned your head and sobbed quietly into your arms, letting the despair and fear pour out of you like a flooded dam.

And still it grew colder. You couldn’t remember Bucky being this cold, but then again, he wasn’t fully human. Plus, even though you’d been an observer in his head, you’d been able to raise his body temperature and keep him warm.

Now, all you could do was shiver and stay huddled against the wall that still retained heat from the day. You didn’t want to think about what you’d do when it faded.

Somehow in the night, you’d managed to fall asleep, or maybe fall unconscious. When you stirred, something was… wrong. You shifted your arms and legs and your skin tingled oddly, goosebumps breaking out along your flesh as the sensations felt off, both muffled and heightened at the same time.

You opened your eyes and wished you hadn’t. Instead of the bare skin of your arms… they were covered with grey-blue fur. Smooth, short, and thick, like a cat’s.

The panicked sound you made wasn’t human, and that just made the panic worse. You scrambled across the cave floor and ran to the nearby underground stream. There would be enough light now that the sun had risen for you to see…

Horns.

The face staring back at you was barely your own. Thin fur covered your face entirely, your pupils were no longer round but narrowed into slits, and the horns. They curved from either side of your forehead, several inches in length and grey, like ashy bone.

That wasn’t the only oddity. You turned your head and gasped at the long, pointed ears sticking out from under your hair.

You looked like a strange mixture of part-human, part-demon, part-cat.

This can’t be real. I’m hallucinating. Exposed to the cold, this is just the effect of a dying mind.

Expect, it didn’t go away. Your shock continued to mount as you took stock of the rest of yourself. The same blue-grey fur covered every inch of you. When you flexed your fingers, sharp nails slide outward from the nailbed, strange but natural at the same time.

You weren’t completely cat-like. There were the horns, of course, but when you stretched and felt along the back of your neck, scaly ridges continued all the way down your spine to your—

You jumped when something moved inside your pant leg, and you earned yourself a flare of pain when you slapped it to discover it was a long, puffed up, furry tail.

You startled giggling. The giggling devolved into hysterical laughter, and when that faded, it turned into breathless crying.

Now you knew why you hadn’t frozen to death in the night.

Your curiosity as to what you had become waned along with the days. The anxiety and fear was gone too. Something important had slipped your mind, like a half-forgotten dream, but there was nothing to remember. You had your cave system, your food source, and your territory to defend. There was nothing else you could possibly want.

Even the scorching sunlight no longer bothered you and instead filled you with strength. Your fur protected you from the worse of the sandy wind, and a third eyelid, transparent and able to cover your eye, allowed you to see even in the worst of dust storms. And there was a power that seemed to sustain you, an energy from this place that kept you strong and brimming with a power you didn’t quite understand.

Your body was perfectly suited for this world, and after a while, you couldn’t remember a time when it’d been any different.

Sometimes, you had dreams. Confusing ones, because they were of both a man and a demon. You always woke from these with your chest aching and your vision blurred, but you blinked the moisture away and soon, those were also forgotten.

Most demons knew better than to encroach on your territory, and in turn, you left them to theirs. Any demons foolish enough to ignore your boundaries were easily chased away with your outstretched talons and ripping claws. Once, when a demon that stood twice your size and had the head of a skeletal horse (how did you know that word?) tried to push you out, you conjured a rope of fiery orange. Striking at the beast, you’d left a burn across its back, and it hadn’t returned since.

You were comfortable in your solitude. Barring the strange dreams and the moments when you would wake up, confused into believing something was missing, you were content.

Until the day when a new, strange demon encroached on your territory. Worse than that, he’d wandered into your cave system. You were grooming yourself, tongue licking across the fur on your forearm, when you heard the telltale sounds of feet moving against the stone floor.

You hid in the shadows, eyes narrowed into slits as you waited. It didn’t take long for the intruder to walk directly into your cave, and you were taken aback at its appearance.

It—no, he, the demon was definitely masculine, with broad shoulders and prominent facial features. He seemed human, but the rest of him was not, with a demonic arm, wings, horns, and a tail.

He raised his head and flared his nostrils, testing the air at the same moment you caught a whiff of his scent. It was almost overpowering, heady and male, and your fur puffed up in response. This demon would try to take your home from you, and you wouldn’t allow it. You’d defeated bigger threats than him.

When he turned toward your makeshift nest and bent down to open the journal you no longer took interest in, you crept from your hidden nook. The demon was still crouched, his tail lying flat against the ground, but the tip flicked back and forth.

You drew closer, closer still, completely silent and pointed teeth bared. Bunching your muscles into a tight coil you leapt, claws outstretched.

The demon turned just before you landed.

He grabbed you around the throat, spun in one fluid motion, and slammed you against the cave wall.

You released a yowl and dug your claws into him, but they merely skidded off the shifting plates of his arm, leaving him unmarked.

Pinned with your back to the wall, you were trapped with his claws around your neck. The demon bared his teeth in his own impressive growl, inches from your face. His eyes were a cold sort of fury that made you doubt your chances of survival.

“Where is she!”

He spoke a language you somehow understood. The words had meaning, but you didn’t know what they were, so you remained silent.

When you didn’t answer he leaned forward, fangs sharp and ready to tear open your throat.

“You reek of her, and these are her clothes. Did you—did you kill her?”

You gave him nothing but a growl in your throat. When he squeezed tighter around your neck, you bared your teeth and snarled in hatred.

Just as quickly as it had arrived, his deadly glare vanished. He blinked rapidly, brows furrowed as if trying to put together a puzzle. And then his grip relaxed as something very different crossed over his face.

“No…”

He was distracted, his mind clearly elsewhere, and you wiggled out of his grip and tried to dart past him. The demon immediately seized you from behind, wrapping his arms tightly around you so you couldn’t escape.

You screamed and fought, your feet shoving against the ground for purchase, but with your arms pinned to your sides you couldn’t even conjure the fiery rope to defend yourself.

“Stop, stop, it’s me!” he cried. “It’s Bucky!”

His words were simply noise, and you swiveled your head to bite into his shoulder, this time making sure it was the fleshy one. But he still wouldn’t release you, even as the coppery taste of blood touched your tongue.

He gripped you tighter, and you let go of his shoulder and continued to struggle. He was much larger and stronger than you, and he didn’t move an inch. Instead, something soft touched your hair, and you realized it was one of his hands.

Gathering your strength for one last attempt, you twisted violently in his arms, pulled back your lips and sank your teeth into the junction between neck and shoulder, biting down. You were about to take out a chunk of his flesh when the concentrated aroma of his scent slammed into you.

You released him, licking the blood off your lips, and carefully sniffed higher up his neck. Something pulled at you, something familiar but lost, and you gave a curious lick just below his jawline.

Pine trees, earth, warm stone. He smelled like…

He smelled like…

Home.

You pulled back, staring in horror as blood continued to trickle down his neck.

You knew him. You knew him, how could you forget him, how could you forget—

You tried to say his name, but no words came out. You couldn’t speak. When had you lost the ability to talk?

When had you forgotten Bucky?

“Sweetheart?”

You whimpered at the cautious hope in his voice, at the pet name, at him being here.

Bucky wrapped his arms tighter around you, and you began to lick at the wound you’d caused, an apology and a way to prove he was real and you weren’t imagining this. To force yourself to remember everything you’d almost lost, even as the pain and grief grew worse every second.

Bucky had finally found you.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he apologized, voice choked with tears. “I came as soon as I could… I thought I was too late.”

But he was too late, wasn’t he?

You stopped mid-lick. Your tongue had done a decent job of cleaning his wound, because it wasn’t a human tongue anymore. It was dry and barbed, like a cat’s.

You buried your face into his shoulder, giving another miserable noise. How could you go back home now? You were a monster. A thing made of the demon realm. How could Bucky stand to even look at you, let alone touch you?

When you tried to pull away, he wouldn’t let you. Even his tail was stubbornly wound around your leg now.

“We’re going home,” he said, pulling back just enough to cup your face in his hands. You tried to jerk away, not wanting him to look at you, but he didn’t let you budge an inch. “We are going home.”

His image blurred as your eyes stung. How could he say that when you were… when you…

“It’s okay,” he said when the tears slipped down your furred cheeks. He brushed them away and pressed his lips against your forehead. You sighed and closed your eyes. “You’re okay. I’m not leaving you. This time, for good.”

You wanted to believe him, but how could you when you had the face of the very thing he hated about himself?

As if knowing your thoughts and afraid you would bolt, Bucky kept one arm firmly around your waist. He turned you toward the cave exit that would lead into the tunnels, but you resisted, pointing down to the nest when he looked at you.

Seeing what you were pointing at, a brief flash of fondness and pain crossed his face. He picked up the book, Bucky’s old journal that had documented his days and adventures with the “mysterious voice,” and you grabbed it and held it to your chest. You’d forgotten before, but now you remembered how this book had been your lifeline, and you couldn’t bear to leave it behind.

“Ready?” he asked, voice soft, eyes even softer.

You nodded, leaning into him when he tucked you against his side. Now that you remembered who he was, the thought of not touching him for even a second was unthinkable.

Bucky led you outside, and you spared a single glance backwards at the series of mounds, hills, and boulders that signified there was an underground cave system. It had saved your life, and before that, Bucky’s. It had been your temporary shelter, but it wasn’t where you belonged.

Spreading his wings, Bucky lifted you easily into his arms and leapt into the air. You curled protectively around the journal, but you felt safer now than you had since being captured by Zemo. As the hot, dry air ruffled your hair and fur, a deep rumbling came from inside your chest. It took you a moment to realize you were purring. Indicating he could hear it too, Bucky kissed the top of your head, making your purring even louder.

You kept your eyes closed and pressed to Bucky’s tactical vest until he said, “There it is.”

You turned to look, eyes widening at the sight of a shimmering blue portal near the ground. It looked tiny from this distance, and your stomach churned with nerves.

“Hold on!”

Taking Bucky’s advice, you gripped onto him tightly as he dived. Just before he went through, you shut your eyes tight.

The difference between the demon realm and Earth was a lot more extreme than you remembered filtered through Bucky’s memories. You immediately started shivering, buffeted by the cold air, taking shallow breaths because each one felt like you were breathing ice water.

The colors assaulted your vision—bluebluegreenblue—leaving you whimpering into Bucky’s shoulder, painful after you’d seen nothing but red for so long.

And the smells. No longer diluted with dry air constantly in motion, the salty and perfumed scent of multiple humans, of mildew and stone and ozone that made the tip of your tongue tingle—

It was too much. As soon as Bucky slightly relaxed his hold, you dropped the journal and scrambled behind him, hiding between his wings as you buried your face in the back of his neck.

It was toomuchtoomuchtoomuch—

“Sergeant Barnes, is that… who I think it is?”

The smooth, commanding voice was familiar, but you couldn’t place it. Unlike your recognition of Bucky, everything else was a struggle to recall. You didn’t even know where you were, the domed room unfamiliar and intimidating.

“Yes,” Bucky responded in a low tone.

“Ah, well, that is… unfortunate.” The man who had originally spoken cleared his throat. “We will need to do a thorough examination—“

You had peeked over Bucky’s shoulder to get a better look at the others in the room—they were wizards, weren’t they?—but as soon as one of them drew forward, you gave a spitting snarl.

“Or not,” the man said, raising his hands. He had a goatee and a ridiculous red cape. Your ruffled fur went flat against your skin. Was that… Strange? And next to him, concerned but not without pity, your mentor, Wong.

How could you have forgotten so much? How long had you been gone?

You hid behind Bucky’s shoulder blades, misery forcing your ears to fold back and curl your tail between your legs.

“I’m taking her home,” Bucky said quietly.

“But—“

“No,” he said, more firmly this time. “I’ve been where she is and I know what she needs. She needs to feel safe, somewhere quiet and familiar.”

He waited a beat.

“Are you going to stop me?”

“No.” Strange’s tone was weary but surprisingly relenting. “I’m not. Just make sure you take your next doses with you.”

“I know,” Bucky muttered and then bent down to pick up the journal you’d dropped.

He did it slowly and carefully so as not to dislodge you, because you still half-clung to his back like a lost duckling. It would have been funny if you weren’t already knee-deep in the urge to bolt. Your fur was puffed again, as far as it would go, heart hammering in your chest, and all of your senses were in overdrive as you struggled and failed to adjust to your new environment.

When Bucky straightened up again, you retreated into the sanctum of his folded wings and refused to let go. You couldn’t bear to look around, not when you could sense the wizard’s peering at you, at the freakish thing you’d become. Just the thought of it provoked a whine from your throat.

“One of you mind making a portal?” Bucky said dryly. “The sun’s still up and we’re obviously not taking a cab.”

You heard footsteps shuffling against the stones, and you clung tighter to Bucky. He reached back and put a hand on your leg, reassuring you he wasn’t leaving. Your trembling subsided slightly, but every muscle of your body was still taut enough to snap.

When he stepped forward, you went with him, keeping your eyes shut until you felt the familiar but unsettling shift of space as you stepped through a portal. Only when it fizzled out behind you and you caught the comforting scent of Bucky’s penthouse did you open your eyes.

You thought by “home” he would take you back to your room at the Sanctum. Instead, you were standing in the middle of Bucky’s loft.

Before Bucky could say or do anything, you buried your face in his jacket and released everything you’d kept buried, your soft keening echoing inside the old clock tower.

Next Chapter

[internalsealpanic]

Lover, Tell Me, if You’re Able

Summary: You trek down to the underworld to save a certain Robin using your admittedly limited knowledge of Greek Mythology. Nothing a little moxie can’t fix right?

a/n: I’ve been wanting to do an Orpheus Eurydice thing with Jason for a while now. I’m pretty sure this has been done but I really wanted to take a stab at it. 

listen to this song while reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP47npl3rHo

warnings: angst, slight body horror, unhealthy grieving, bad decisions, and kind of an eating disorder caused by unhealthy grieving. There is some tooth rotting fluff though.  

word count:  5,049

You snorted in your usual short, breathy laugh—which according to certain asshats sounded less like a laugh and more like the death rattle of a hyena —as you nearly tripped over what felt like the fiftieth rock in the past half hour. You cursed quietly wrapping your shaking arms around yourself letting your unkempt fingernails dig into your thoroughly abused coat which probably had a few unwanted holes by now. It wasn’t even that cold nor was it even remotely scary. You know, aside form the ghostly moaning bouncing off the walls but that was par for the course in Gotham subways. No big deal. 

After what felt like the seventieth rock, you swore. You swore loud and vicious and cutting.  You swore to capital ‘G’ god that when you found Jason Peter Todd you were gonna curb stomp his ass into next week. This is his fault for being stupid enough to- to-

Just like that, your anger and frustration plummeted into grief.

Your mind fell back to the funeral, 

For the first since you entered the dark tunnel a few hours ago—a few days ago?—, you could feel the cavernous walls threatening to close in on you as you took another shaky step. 

To all the ‘I’m sorrys’ and condolences,

You could feel your rib cage fall open. Each gentle pat on, gentle look, and hushed whispers scooping out your insides leaving a vast empty cavity save for a heart that ached too much to beat properly and a pair of lungs clogged with too tar to breathe. The expanse of your chest feeling too full and too hollow at once. 

To all the ‘he died too young’ crap,

No shit!

No friggin shit!

He was 16. He was six-fucking-teen. He just got his fucking driver’s license. 

You wanted to scream but the words lingered in your bones. Instead, the nestled and furled into a mantra and worked their way up to your throat, burning. As if folding and creasing them into a perfect, proper eulogy of hand-picked words would bring him back. 

You knew it wouldn’t. You weren’t foolish. You weren’t that hopeful. You weren’t even disgustingly hopeful. You were Alley born. You were practical and brutally realistic. You were also not dumb. As much as people in Gotham Academy seem to believe, you weren’t stupid. You knew there was no ending to his story that involved a long peaceful life. He was also a child of the Alley, born of Gotham’s gutter, there was no way he would not die young. 

Your tongue felt heavy like a tombstone being set into place. 

And to all the ‘he’s in a better place now’

HA! 

The words set your grief a flame burning it into the kind of white anger that consumes even those around you. 

Fucking hilarious. 

Just fanfuckingtastic. 

You’d see about that. 

You took a long sobering breath holding it in afraid that if you breathed out the anger would seep out leaving you with nothing but grief. 

After what felt like an eternity, you breathed out sure that all the anger, all the irritation, and all the sputtering hope had settled in your bones. 

You were going to get him back. 

You will. 

——————————————————————————————————————————

Jason tapped the edge of your science textbook with his pencil morse coding something and clearly demanding your attention. You rolled your eyes, moved your textbook an inch closer to you, and continued reading through the passage electing to ignore your likely scowling best friend. 

He tapped again. You didn’t look up sure that he’d go away if you pretended his existence was an elaborate hoax. This ingenious strategy is probably why you two have been glued together for the last 10 years.  

Losing patience, he snatched up your textbook earning a petulant, half-hearted glare from you. “What the fuck do you want, Jay?”

“Do you remember the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice?”

You blinked at him, honestly confused. 

He gave you a questioning look. He could probably see the gears turning in your head. 

You’d heard the names before but you were struggling to associate them with anything. Until it clicked. 

“Oh yeah, Hadestown the dude with the guitar-”

“Lyre,”

You made an affronted noise which made him roll his eyes at you but you could see the slight twitch in his lips at your antics. You would count that as a win. 

“He plays the lyre, you uncultured swine. Did you even read the packet?” He asked lightly tapping your head with your textbook. 

“Your posh bitch is showing,” you snorted.  he tapped your head just a tinsy bit harder with the textbook. You scowled at him. He gave you a gentle reassuring smile which roughly translated to ‘it was an accident I swear’. “Uh sure. Yeah. Course, I read the packet” you lied reaching over for your textbook which he sets down on the table behind him. 

“Are you even literate?” He joked. 

“Last time I checked I needed that to forge doctor’s notes for rich snots,” Jason wrinkled his nose trying his level best to scowl at you but from the crow's feet forming at the corners of his eyes the laughter bubbling in his chest was clearly winning out. You knew he was just worried about the unnecessary risk you were taking but it was a bad habit from the Alley days you couldn’t shake. It wasn’t like you were likely to get caught. 

“The In Class Essay is next period, dip shit” he sneered as harshly as he could. He was so bad at being a hard ass that you just smiled. “Yet here you are talking to me and depriving me of my education,” you snarked, gesturing vaguely to your book.

 You could technically get up and get it yourself but you were too lazy and you were pretty sure Jason wasn’t gonna let you get the book that easily. “Sides, it’s English who cares?” At that, Jason wrinkled his nose in disgust. “How am I friends with you again?”

You hummed, leaning back in your chair, tilting your head back dramatically before flinging yourself over the table to snatch up the textbook from the table behind him. You were a good amount taller than Jason which really wasn’t something to be too proud of. The bar wasn’t too fucking high. 

You plopped back down to your chair grinning ear to ear victoriously immensely enjoying his shocked look. Then he looked like he was about to deck you. 

“Well for starters, I’ve saved your ass from getting shanked about 15 times now. That’s just counting instances out of uniform,” He looked at you affronted. You simply rolled your shoulders. “Plus,” You reached into your blazer pocket and produced a beat-up looking tootsie pop ring.”You’re the one who proposed,”

Jason turned a luminescent shade of red as if you had just pulled out his entire cash of porn which you’ve done. “Why do you still have that?! How?”

“Because you still haven’t given me a proper one,” you said smugly tilting your head to the side inviting him for a rebuttal. He sighed exasperated. Resting his chin on his hand, palm covering half of his face, he glared at the opposite wall making damned sure that he didn’t look your way. The flush in his ears peaked through his cropped curls. It was hard to catch but your nosy ass definitely heard him mumble “I’m saving up,”. 

Your face broke into a stupidly wide smile, a warm feeling bubbling up in you. “I’ll hold you to that, lover,” you cooed cheerfully, giving him a quick peck on the nose as the bell rang. You could see the mortification attack his entire being in waves. 

——————————————————————————————————————————-

Stumbling out of the tunnel, you find yourself in a fray of souls all crowding towards the shore. You keep your head down and shuffle in step with the dead. 

‘The dead hate the living’ Constantine warned as he handed you the drachma and a beat-up old map. You handed him a wad of cash. He didn’t seem to care that money was dirty. 

You keep your expression carefully blank and focus on your feet but the sheer anxiety crawling up your spine rattling every vertebra was making that very difficult. You swallowed thickly trying to think of anything else but the depressing moans and absolutely haunted expressions were also making your life difficult. Instead, you focus on your award-winning bullshit speech that was surely going to win over the lord and lady of the underworld. Ok, sure, you weren’t half the thief Jason was nor were you even half as smart. But you were definitely the better conman. You might have had absolutely no interest in English class but words have always been your friend. You could definitely spin it with the best of them. It helped that all the rough edges that came with being an Alley kid tucked themselves neatly away behind trustworthy eyes and easy smiles. Even gods could be taken for a ride, right?

Somehow you made it to the shore without incident and even got yourself on the boat without even as much as a glance from the ferryman. That was a little unnerving but you weren’t about to complain. Not when it brought you a step closer to your goal. It might have been partially due to your unkempt appearance. Long nails, dead fish eyes, ratty coat, sallow cheeks, and dimming complexion all thanks to this wonderful diet called ‘grieving over your dumbass boyfriend/best friend because he decided to be a dramatic bitch and die an untimely death’. Part of you wonders if you simply want to bring him back so you could murder him. Maybe. Looking around at the haunted looks on your fellow passengers move that to a probably. 

Uncomfortable, you jam your hands into your coat pockets. One hand dug deep into the recesses of the pocket where the little ring was safely squirreled away. You fidgeted with it passing it from finger to finger like the coin trick you’d learned a while back.   

——————————————————————————————————————————

“Marry me,” Jason demanded unsurely, kneeling on one knee clasping your hand with both of his tiny ones. His little face ironed into something serious but cheeks flushed making them, what the girls called, pinchable but even at age 6, you were able to resist if simply for the fact that you were dumbstruck by the fact that  your best friend and crush was suddenly at your doorstep in the middle of the day and clasping your hand. 

“What?” You asked tugging your hand away but he didn’t let go. He absolutely refused to. 

“Marry me,” he insisted. “I’m proposing,” he added shyly seeing how the confused furrow in your brow did not disappear. “Lena said it was a good idea,” he added quietly.

A round of hoots and hollers exploded behind you including Lena who was laughing her ass off. Even Carol and Lassie who were busy doing their makeup were snickering  and giving you a thumbs up respectively. Your face burned hot and you scowled at all of them which just made them laugh louder. You snapped your attention back to Jason who looked at you with bright earnest blue eyes. Fuck. You crossed your arms trying to look intimidating and failing miserably because of just how goddamned cute he looked. Manipulative bastard. 

“Don’t you need a ring for that, bud?” you challenged. 

“Oh yeah,” He scrambled digging through his various pockets before producing a tootsie pop ring. Your hackles rose. What the hell Lena?

“Look at the size of that rock!” Josaline hollered from behind you. You could see the teasing smile on her face. You wanted to shrink. You wanted to maul them. You also wanted to burst because your crush likes you. You had a tiny, itsy bitsy crush on Jason for a while now. You’ve always declared that it was small but that didn’t stop the girls from teasing you relentlessly and this was just a nail in the coffin. You wanted to scream at Jason but the way he looked at you made your little heart flutter. 

“Fine,” 

He grinned wide. “Great! We can share rent,” he said his earnest smile turning cheeky. You swore some of the girls were choking from laughter. That was the moment you decided to make Jason Todd’s life miserable. 

——————————————————————————————————————————-

As it turns out, traversing the underworld wasn’t that hard. 

Nope. It wasn’t any harder than going around crime alley. At least here, you weren’t too worried about getting shot.

Nope. 

It was just incredibly. Fucking. Depressing. 

The atmosphere was suffocating and the only thing you’ve heard for hours were people listing their regrets when they weren’t too busy sobbing. Given they have every right to be this way. They did die after all. But Christ! You being able to understand it didn’t mean you could stand it. 

Jason owed you big time. 

Jason owed you the largest bowl of ice cream complete with 20 different flavors of your choosing, a mountain of whipped cream, a shovel full of sprinkles, and an ungodly amount of chocolate syrup. 

And a hug. A long ass, bone crushing hug. 

Yeah, you’re definitely demanding a hug. You don’t care if his pansy ass tries to break for it. You were getting the hug. 

Once this was done-

You turned the thought over in your head pointedly ignoring the fat droplets of tears now streaking your face. You weren’t entirely sure whether they were from relief or unrelenting anxiety. If you succeed, your 8 months of hell would have been worth it. 

But what if I fail?

What happens when I fail?

The thought seized your breath, your lungs constricting as if their cage of bones was threatening to collapse in on itself in your effort to shrink away from the possibility. You stopped breathing completely. A bad habit you picked up from your first foster home after social services took you from your home. Apparently, they didn’t think a group of hookers could provide a safe loving environment for a kid. Assholes. Breathing meant relaxing. Relaxing meant letting your guard down. Letting your guard down led to bad things. Jason never commented on your new habit after you two reunited. After you both found yourselves at the mercy of Gotham’s streets. 

“Lover tell me if you can~” You paused but not quite long enough for a response. Not like a few months ago when you’d wait catatonically for Jason to respond with the verse you’d forgotten in his oddly melodious voice. Singing was the one way you’d learned to breathe out after locking up without triggering a panic attack. Sure, it annoyed the hell out of a lot of people but who cares. You liked it. Your voice was decent. Plus, Jason loved it when you sang. Your breaths flowed easier accompanied by a melody and the smile on Jason’s face every time you sang always took your breath away.  

——————————————————————————————————————————-

“ Lover, tell me if you can Who’s gonna buy the wedding bands?~” You hummed the rest of the forgotten stanza under your breath as you wrap the ‘acquired’ blanket around the both of you. Gotham winters were a bitch but you tried your best to keep your spirits up which basically meant teasing Jason to hell and back. Who knew calling him lover would annoy him so much? 

Instead of the intended reaction, Jason simply continued to the next stanza sounding a lot more in tone than you. You huffed partially from amusement partially from frustration. 

“Figures you would know this song,” you teased.

Jason scowled tugging more of the blanket around himself as a lame form of retaliation. You leaned in closer to him and wrapped your arms around him. He huffed not really able to stay mad at you for too long.“It’s from Hadestown. The old woman at the pawnshop always plays it when she’s working,”

“Horse shit, all she ever plays when I’m there is Madame Guillotine,” You wrinkled your nose.”She probably hates me,”

“Gee, I wonder what that’s about,” Jason smirked. 

“You know, she probably has a crush on you,”

“EW! Shut up!”

“Come on we gotta milk it-”

He elbowed you. 

“Fine,” you relented, rubbing your chest and letting your head lean on his. You watched the snowfall basking in what little warmth you shared. 

“Promise me you’ll sing that when-”

“IF”

“When we get married,”

“Fine but ya gotta sing the entire GI Joe theme song plus the Baby Shark Song,”

“BET”

——————————————————————————————————————————-

You stood before large obsidian doors bouncing on the balls of your feet. The doors were carved elegantly with swirling patterns and sprawling carvings of flowers and bones. Dramatic but very pretty. Your stomach churned as the doors lurched open. 

You were going to be sick. 

Before you were a long table piled high with every kind of food you could think of. Likely you would have had to pick up your jaw and mop up a cascade of drool from the floor if not for the last few months. Your stomach threatened to implode if you kept looking. Months of not eating properly did that to you. The first few months were the worst. You were barely able to keep a  bite down without your body convulsing and rejecting it. Sadness had hollowed you out and filled you with something else during those months. 

Now,  you shifted your gaze to focus on the tall man sitting imperiously at the other end of the table on a throne carved out of precious metal. How someone looked imperious while eating was a mystery to you. It might be the fact that he was abnormally large looking to be around 10 ft tall. His frame was broad which contrasted greatly with the regal features of his face which were set in a rather loving configuration as he stared deep into the eyes of the dark-skinned woman as she recounted what sounded like a hilarious encounter with a dryad. The woman was unnaturally pretty with sculpted features and wild curls. She looked right at home underneath the sun which made her presence here ease your fraying nerves. They smiled at each other smitten with each other’s presence which almost made you feel guilty for interrupting their moment of marital bliss. 

You clear your throat as politely as you could drawing their attention and possibly their ire towards you. You took a deep breath, the kind that inflated your entire body, and forced it out through your nostrils as your mouth was busy reconfiguring itself into an easy smile. 

“My Lord Hades. My Lady Persephone,” You greeted bowing your head courteously. Your gestures were less grandiose and theatrical as the ones you used on the rich punks in Gotham which they happily lapped up. No, you made sure every movement, every posture, and every word was quieter, trying your damnedest to radiate sincerity and reverence from every pore in your body. Sure, you didn’t have Jason’s easy charisma and sure, you didn’t have the power Dick had for making everyone fall in love with you instantly but you were damned if  you were going to make a fool of yourself in front of two literal gods and squander your only chance at getting your boy back. Not when you’ve come so far. Not when you’ve done so much. Not when you’ve dirtied your hands this much. 

Hades looked neither pleased nor displeased by your presence. Good enough. The fact that you were still intact might have something to do with the mischief in Persephone’s eyes. She looked extremely amused despite your interruption. You hoped, which you didn’t normally do, that that boded well for you. 

“I am her-”

“We know,” Hades interrupts. 

Your body twitched. Rude. But you schooled your features into something resembling pleasantry. 

“You’re here for the boy,” He adds, waving his hand. Without time for your brain to process. Jason is there battered, bloodied, and bruised. The dazed look in his eyes made him look haunted which made your breath seize. A cocktail of anger and sadness and relief swelled in you as your body twitched forward. All you wanted to do was hold him, to stroke his hair, to sing to him, to take him to Dr.Thompkins to get his injuries sorted out, and possibly watch the old woman thwack him on the head half a dozen times. Hell, you would offer to count. Your stomach churned and you felt dizzy. This is the most alive you’ve felt in months. This is also the most fearful you’ve felt in months. You felt like you were going to fall apart and recongeal into an entirely new person. 

Focus. 

It was hard to do when you saw how tattered his Robin uniform looked but you managed to straighten yourself out enough in time to catch Hades as he watched you appraisingly, searching for raw desperation in your features. You tucked it away in your bones and in the deepest recesses of your chest. He seemed amused and even mildly impressed by your restraint so he dined to push further. 

“What are you willing to trade for him?”

Everything. 

Your mind screamed automatically. The word dangled thickly at the edge of your tongue. 

You would have plucked each and every star out of the sky and fashioned them into a necklace that would adorn Lady Persephone’s neck.

You would have used Poseidon’s ocean to douse the sun. 

You would have used the fires of Tartarus to set the world ablaze. It deserved it for the hand it dealt  Jason. 

You would do anything if it meant having Jason back in your arms. 

You bit your cheek hard forcing yourself to refocus. You shifted your posture making a show of thinking if only to gather yourself. You knew the answer. It might not have been the right one and if you’re being honest, it wasn’t even a good one. You rolled your shoulders trying to mold yourself into a more sure version of yourself.  

“My future,”

The room plunged into silence. 

Jason who had looked like he was not all there widened his eyes and shook his head at you. You simply leveled him a smile full of cocksure and hot air. Sure, your future wasn’t worth much. People have told you as much. But it was a novel offer. It wasn’t every day that a mortal offered their fate to you and gods love nothing more than novelty. 

Both gods remained silent. Hades narrowing his eyes at you and Persephone stared at you with an unreadable expression. The longer the silence wore on the more your confidence waned. The treacherous chorus in your head began to sing of the failure that has yet to happen. 

Persephone let out a trill of delighted laughter and Hades shook his head in amusement, his solemn lips twitching into the beginnings of a smile. Both you and Jason stiffened. 

“My love, just let them go,” Persephone pleaded sweetly cupping Hades’s face gently. It was an intimate gesture that made even you soft. 

“My dear…”

“It was not the boy’s time, my love,”

Damn straight, it wasn’t!

Hades let out an exasperated sigh before looking at you again. “I will grant you both freedom if you pass my trials,”

“Anything!” The word spilled out of you too quickly, too raw. A satisfied smile wrinkled at the corners of Hades’s eyes. Fucker. 

“I will have you do three trials-” He flicked his hand and Jason materialized beside you. “-with the boy’s aid,” Without an ounce of hesitation, you gathered him into your arms with all the bravado and restraint giving way too stupidly unfiltered happiness.  Without meaning to, you let fat droplets of tears streak your face. Jason copped your face giving you a wry smile and wiping away the tears with his thumb. 

“You look like shit,”

“So do you,”

You both laughed. You kissed his palm and took his hand from your face and kissed his knuckle. A flush crept on to Jason’s face but he couldn’t hide that any better than he could hide the loving look in his eyes when he looked into yours. 

The trials were almost insultingly easy especially when you had the world’s best Robin with you. Sure, you were battered and bruised but it was nothing you could not handle. You suspected that Persephone was rooting for you. That or Hades just wanted you out of his hair. Either way, you didn’t care. There was no way you were failing. 

You returned to Hades’ hall, arms full of spoils, and Jason’s hand interlaced with yours. You both try to fight off the hopeful feeling bubbling in your chest but there was no helping it when his hand was warm in yours. You smiled gratefully at Persephone who returned it in kind, looking sincerely happy for the both of you. You made a note to send her an appropriate sacrifice once you were back on the surface. 

Hades inspected your spoils and hummed. Your stomach lurched. Jason squeezed your hand and kissed your nose. Persephone practically squealed at the adorable gesture while Hades just smiled at his wife’s antics. 

“You have succeeded,”

“Thank you-”

“But I have one last trial for you,”

Hades holds up his hand before you could protest. 

“Do you recall the deal I made with Orpheus?”

You nodded almost numbly. Jason gave you a surprised look which you returned with a scowl. 

“Good. I will make the same deal with you. Does that sound fair to you?”

You both nodded frantically. You knew this would be hard especially with your frayed nerves but it was nothing you could not handle.

On the way to the tunnel, you held each other close, soaking up contact while you could. When you reached the tunnel, you hesitantly let go of his hand making sure to remember the feeling of your fingers intertwined together. He pressed kisses to every inch of your face likely feeling guilty over your haggard state. You whispered jokes and half baked promises to appease him in return as you squeezed him harder.  You walked tensely up the tunnel trailed by his ever quieting footsteps. You began to hum every song you could think of including the very annoying ones which earned you a lot of annoyed grunts and critiques from your ghostly companion. You also chattered about everything you could think of. All the latest gossip. All the things you learned during your global crime spree. You may have left out the crime spree but you could deal with the fall out later. Instead, you focused on the happy things. The things you wanted to do with him once you two got out. Once, you brought him back to Gotham. Sure, Bruce was probably going to maul you for all the trouble you’ve caused the JLA but fuck them.  Seriously fuck them. 

After what felt like an eternity, you saw it. You saw light. Bright, crisp, and blinding. You were going to cry. You were almost there. You were almost out. Your body launched into a sprint. Your chest felt like something in it shook loose and your body was lighter than it had ever been. You were almost there. You could almost feel the sun on your skin. 

You ran into the light and -

——————————————————————————————————————————-  

You woke up on the damp earth. 

Everything ached. 

Your veins felt rusty and sluggish. 

Your mind even more so. 

Snow flitted down to the earth in gentle feathery flakes. 

Your senses returned to you one by one. 

The sound of shouting and car horns littered the periphery of your consciousness. 

Your fingers felt cold and numb. 

The familiar smell and taste of Gotham smog overwhelmed your senses. 

That wasn’t right. 

That wasn’t right at all. You were in Mani in southern Peloponnese. You were face to face with one of the Gates of Hades just a few hours ago. 

You shuffled through your coat. You did not have your drachma. You did not have your map.

You snapped your head in every direction looking desperately for any sign of Jason. Not even a single footprint. 

Your stomach dropped as despair took hold of you and clung to every bone in your body. Pulling yourself up unsteadily, you stood taking baby steps towards a thoroughly battered brick wall. Fishing your phone out of your pocket, your phone began dialing a number automatically. 

“You have reached Wayne Manor,” Alfred’s posh voice carries over the phone. 

Your breath stutters. The words claw their way out of your chest.

“Jason- Jason, he-”

Alfred remained silent. Alfred was likely shaking his head in pity. You couldn’t stand that. You could barely stand the feeling of your skin right now. Your resounding failure rippled underneath your skin making you tremble on to your knees. You could do nothing but crumple to the ground in pathetic sobs as the weight of agony and despair weighed over you. 

“Jason. Jason. Jason.”

You whispered apologetically, reverently. The words would not call him back. Those words could never call him back. 

—————————————————————————————————————————–

Piece by piece Jason returned to himself. 

Jason woke up swallowed in darkness. It was deep and unyielding. Even his training with Batman could not alleviate the anxiety that brought. 

The second thing to return was his hearing. It was deathly silent save for the pounding of his own heart and his frantic breathing. 

 Where was he?

The air around him tasted stale and the resolute smell of formaldehyde was inescapable. 

Then the pain lanced through and all his memories came back in a splotchy kaleidoscope of fear, fire, and pain.

  He was dead. 

  He died. 

  He was in Ethiopia. 

  He was trying to save his mom. 

  Oh god. 

  Oh god. 

  Oh god. 

  Where is Bruce? 

  Where is he? 

  Why is it so dark? 

  Jason tried to move his limbs but it was no use. He was boxed in. 

  That’s when the smell of earth hit him. 

  Jason pressed his hands every which way. 

  He was literally boxed in. 

  Was he in a coffin?

  He tried to scream. 

  His mouth was wired shut. 

  Oh god. 

  Oh god.

  Oh god. 

  He was going to die.  

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

The ending was a bit rushed. I might edit it later. Thank you so much for reading. Feel free to roast me in the comments. 

(Note: I tried editing the ending to make it more panicky and claustrophobic. I don’t know if t worked.)

This was inspired by the fact that Jason Todd: Not-So-Outlaw by goawayolivia never answers how Jason came back. 

Here is my answer. It is pure dumbassery.

taglist: 

@birdy-bat-writes (enabler)

@idkmanicantenglish (sweet heart)

@batarella (Because I honestly blame you for this)

@multifandomgirl-us

@foenixphire

[whumpingcrow]

Pt. 13 "Scarier Than a Haunted House"

CW: alcohol/drugs (explicit), party setting, Halloween setting, PTSD themes, injury mention, past whump descriptions, panic attack, random assault, EXPLICIT NONCON (18+ definitely suggested), blood/injury description, tics/tourrettes, self injury mention, discussion of noncon (let me know if I missed anything!)

Elias couldn't seem to get drunk enough to drown out the shitty dread in his stomach. He kept throwing back drinks and sneaking outside to smoke, and yet he found himself slumped over on the couch, watching everyone around him be happy. Even Tyson was enjoying himself. Elias felt absolutely horrible for being jealous of them, for being bitter that they were having fun and he wasn’t. He wished he could crawl into a hole where no one could see him and bash his own brains in just so that he could get rid of all the dreadful thoughts that were only more painful now with the addition of alcohol. He was dizzy and his body was heavy and he didn’t remember getting drunk being this...upsetting. With August, drinking meant all of his pain, fear, and confusion was too foggy to really feel, with August he could drink until he was numb. But now, as he looked through the crowd of giggling, costume-wearing partygoers, he felt positively miserable. Overwhelmed by it all, he stood up and staggered down the hallway until he found a bedroom. It was quiet in there, no one was in it, so he walked in and closed the door, sitting on the edge of the bed. As he sat and tried to calm himself down, he looked around at the pictures hung on the wall, particularly the ones of Allen and Leo's wedding. They looked so happy together, both beaming at only each other, like the camera wasn’t there. They were like that in person, too, Elias would sometimes catch them looking at each other and he could just tell that, as long as they held eye contact, they were the only two people in the entire world. Again, he felt an unreasonable bitterness burn in his chest over it. He knew he wasn't going to be that happy, not after everything that happened. He wouldn't allow himself to be. Hell, he couldn't even carry a conversation without August’s monologue in the back of his mind, telling him he didn't deserve to speak, he was supposed to shut up and look pretty. Any day now, he kept reminding himself, Tyson wouldn’t be able to handle his contempt anymore and he would kick Elias to the curb.

He flinched when the door opened, jumping up to his feet and swaying where he stood. He immediately felt like he would be in trouble for running off to hide or maybe for having a few too many drinks, the nerves made him pull the sleeves of his borrowed jacket over his hands. The man that opened the door didn’t hesitate before waltzing in, closing the door behind him. He had on a simple white mask, one that only covered the top half of his face. It wasn’t even a scary costume, but when it was matched with his eerie silence and vaguely threatening demeanor, it made Elias’s stomach churn in anxiety.

"Uh...do you want me to leave?” He offered, more than ok with going back out into the suffocatingly happy party if it meant getting out of that room. “I can leave, I just-" he froze when the man started to move closer, each stride long and menacing. Elias felt like he was going to pass out, his limbs were numb. He couldn't speak, even though he wanted to ask who this guy was, why the fuck he was being so creepy. He felt his hands on his wrists, and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to steady his breathing. "Ple-please stop."

The man stayed silent as he pushed Elias down onto the floor, kicking him hard in the side. Then he dropped down to his level and pinned his arms down, even though he was so trained by August that he hadn't even tried to fight back yet. He wasn't crying, just gasping in pained, horrified breaths. He didn’t understand, this stranger was hurting him and the music right outside was so loud and he could hear people laughing and talking still and he was so disoriented from the alcohol already he couldn’t think anything except “why is this happening why is this happening why is this happening why why why?!” He cried out when a fist landed against his face with a crack, instantly feeling blood pouring out of his nose. After the initial fuzziness of the pain wore off, he felt a cold hand slip under his shirt and begin to undo his pants, and he really began to panic at that.

"No! No, please don't, please stop it, please!" He begged, struggling against the strangers grip. He sobbed as his jeans were pulled down to his ankles, and not even seconds later he was screaming in pain as the masked stranger began pushing into him. Even as he fought against it, he could hear August telling him, "it doesn't matter if you want it or not, you aren't important enough to decide. Your wants don't matter." The pain and fear made him sick to his stomach, he could distantly hear his own screams, like he was outside of the room with everyone else, enjoying the party. He wished, more than anything in that moment, that he had stayed miserable out there instead of trying to find somewhere quiet.

Seconds later, the man pulled off of him, kicking him once again, this time in the face, watching as he choked on more blood. Elias, through his panicked sobbing, saw the unmistakable flash of a camera. Once again, he tried to think of a reason for all of this, tried to make sense of the agony. And then, all of his questioning came to a halt when the man peered down at him, looking rather disgusted, and said: “August sends his love.”

Elias’s blood ran cold, the hysteric crying faltered for a moment as he processed what the man said, then it came back a hundred times worse. August knew where he was, he was going to make sure Elias was hurting even in his absence.

After the man left, Elias stayed, a bleeding lump on the floor, for a few minutes, until he stopped weeping and was just crying pathetically, then he grabbed onto the bed to stand up. His legs were shaky and weak, he felt light headed, and when he looked down the front of his shirt was covered in blood. It was a miracle he didn’t fall over again once he was standing, all of this mixed with the dizziness of his drunken stupor made him incredibly unsteady. He pulled his pants back on and leaned against the wall until he wasn't crying at all anymore. Even then, he was scared to leave the room and have anyone see him this messy, but he was even more terrified of being in there alone for someone else, or the same person, to find him.

As he walked through the party, he could feel everyone staring at him. They were disgusted in him, he knew it. He was a dirty, used up piece of meat, he wasn't meant to be walking around everyone as if he was a person like them. He felt like he was wearing his filth right where everyone could see it. Part of him wanted to run back into the bedroom, crawl under the bed, never come out, never look at or talk to be around anyone ever again.

"Holy fuck, Elias, what happened to you?!" Someone gasped. He looked up to see Leo standing in front of him, and Elias jumped when he grabbed his shoulder. He was frowning down at him, probably because he was so revolting and was getting his gross blood all over his nice house.

"Whe....where's Ty?" He asked. His voice was small and broken, so weak from fear. Leo stared at him for a second longer, then started to guide him to the couch to sit down.

"Here, you sit, I'll go get him-"

"No!" Elias pleaded, grabbing onto Leo's shirt desperately. "Ple-please don't leave me alone. Please, Leo." It wasn’t that he really trusted Leo, not yet, but he was the only one around at that second, and Elias wanted to believe that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him. He wished Leo was with him minutes ago.

"Ok, ok." Leo's voice was so soothing, so level, as he wrapped his arm loosely around Elias's waist to help him walk. "Did someone do this to you?"

Elias couldn't answer, he didn't want to speak at all because admitting it happened was admitting that August knew where he was, and if he admitted that it made it all that much more real. Leo didn't push him after that, just led him the rest of the way to the backyard. He was patient when Elias stumbled, he simply waited for him to steady himself before he kept walking.

Tyson was sitting around a fire pit with Allen and someone else who looked a lot like Leo, probably a brother, and he hardly noticed when Elias and Leo approached him. He probably didn’t even notice that Elias was gone in the first place. When they got close enough for him to notice though, Tyson jumped to his feet with a horrified gasp. Elias squeezed his eyes shut and clutched onto Leo at the quick movement.

"What the fuck happened?!" He shouted. Leo shifted Elias carefully into his arms, and Elias whined at how tight he was grabbing him. He covered his face with his hands, trembling all over, trying not to cry again. Tyson didn't allow him to hide away, grabbing his wrists so he could see his face. Elias couldn’t even look at him, he could already hear from his voice that he was angry, and if Elias had to see anger on the face of the only person who cared about him, the person he had somehow convinced to love him, he just knew he would crumble. "Who the fuck did this to you?!"

Elias shook his head, trying to pull his arms away from him. He couldn't speak, it felt like there was barbed wire around his throat, and Tyson was so mad at him. It was probably because he could see the grime and filth all over him from the man who touched him. At the thought, he started to cry again, struggling hard to try and get out of his grasp. That only made Tyson more upset with him, insisting that he told him who did this, that he stopped fighting him, until someone else was grabbing Elias, pulling him out of Tyson’s tight hold.

He looked up to see Leo grabbing Ty's shoulders, talking to him to calm him down. Elias forced himself to look Tyson over, he saw his brow set in a tight frown, he saw his hands balling into fists over and over, his shoulders were high and tense. He looked furious, and Elias hated himself for making someone as patient and caring as Tyson angry. He looked away, saw that Allen was leading him away slowly. He collapsed against him, sobbing weakly in his arms. "He's m-mad at m-me!" He wailed. He couldn’t breathe again, his chest hurt from trying to pull air into his panic-ridden lungs.

"No, Elias. I promise he isn't. I promise. He's mad at whoever hurt you." Allen rubbed his shoulders softly to calm him down, hugging him close. "Give him a second to cool off. You didn't do anything wrong."

Allen sat him down in one of the chairs in front of the fire pit, then sat next to him. Elias instantly pulled his knees up to his chest, hiding his bloody face from everyone. He felt Allens hands on him every now and then, trying to comfort him, but he wasn't listening to anything he was saying. He could feel the warmth of the fire on his legs, and it was really the only thing he was able to focus on. He stretched his fingertips out, just slightly, and tried to think of only how the heat of the fire soaked into his skin. The crying came to a slow stop after that. Another few minutes passed and then he felt a different pair of hands on him, gentle and trying to coax him to look up.

"Eli, angel? Do you want to go home now?" Tyson's voice was careful, shaking slightly as he tried to stay calm. Elias stayed still for a few moments longer, and Tyson timidly ran his finger tips against his hairline. "Elias?"

Finally, Elias took a shivering breath and came out of his shell, wiping his tears. He looked up at Tyson and gave him a hesitant nod, allowing him to help him to his feet. He hissed at the sudden, but familiar, pain that spread through his stomach and hips when he stood, grabbing onto Tyson's arm as he tried not to fall over.

"Can you walk, love?" Tyson pulled him close as he spoke, holding him steady. Elias shook his head, then let out a pitiful whine when Tyson scooped him up carefully and held him close to his chest.

Tyson was silent in the car, he just kept glancing over at Elias and then back at the road as he was driving. He didn't know what he could say, if Elias wasn't going to tell him what happened there was nothing else he felt like he could ask. Touching him wasn’t really an option, since he was jumpy enough already and the very last thing Tyson needed was to make Elias more scared of him than he already was. He had heard Elias sobbing in Allen’s arms when he’d been pulled away, insisting that Tyson was mad at him, and it made him feel like a monster. After hearing how horrified Elias was when he said that, Tyson promised himself that he would never make him feel like that again. Right now, Elias was in a world of suffering and anxiety and Tyson had to be safe for him.

Elias stared at his hands the entire ride home, he didn't speak either, he knew that if he even took a breath the wrong way he would shatter like glass all over again. He had blood on his hands, and he tried hard to rub it away, but it seemed like every time he got one spot off he saw another. It was useless, he would never be clean. Or safe. He was destined to be filthy and afraid his entire life, it felt like. He wished that he had stayed dead. He felt awful for wishing that.

Neither of them moved when they were parked, sitting in the thick silence, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Finally, Tyson pulled the keys out of the ignition as slowly as he possibly could so he wouldn’t frighten him. Just as he reached for the door handle, thought, Elias spoke.

"I don’t even know who he was," he was whispering, "I was just trying to get away from all the noise for a minute and he...he came in and...he didn't even say anything, he just - he just started...God damnit!" He sobbed, hitting the dashboard in his anger and despair. "Why can't it all just f-fucking stop!? What the fuck!"

Tyson reached out to rub his back, to try and comfort him, only to have his hand pushed away. "Eli, I-"

"Please don't touch me," he rasped out, rubbing his eyes, "please, please just don't touch me right now."

"Ok. Ok, I won't." He paused, listening to Elias's sniffles and shuddery breaths. "What...what did he do?"

"I was gonna leave but then he beat the shit out of me. And then he...then I was on the floor and he..." He trailed off, wrapping his arms around himself. When he spoke again, his voice was crushingly quiet, broken up through his tears. "He raped me, Tyson. He raped me and then h-he took pictures of me."

"Oh God," Tyson breathed, sick to his stomach as soon as the words left his mouth, "oh, Elias."

At that, Elias threw himself out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. He was limping as he made his way to the front door, waiting for Tyson to come and unlock it. Trying to keep himself upright, he pressed himself against the wall, closing his eyes tightly. He heard the keys in the door, then he looked up to see Tyson holding the door open for him. "Thank you," he whispered as he shuffled past him. He sunk down to the couch, pulling a pillow close to his chest. His head was pounding suddenly, and could hardly keep his eyes open.

"Is it ok if I help you clean off the blood, Eli?" Tyson asked carefully. Elias could only reply with a weak nod, titling his head back in exhaustion. After a few seconds he felt the couch sink down next to him, and he forced himself to sit up and look up at Tyson. It was a silly detail, but he noticed Tyson was still wearing his devil horns, and despite everything, he chuckled a little and reached up to pull them off.

Tyson grinned half-heartedly, taking Elias's face gently into his hand and wiping as soft as he could at the dried blood. Elias closed his eyes again, reaching up to hold Tyson's wrist to hold himself steady. The room was spinning when he closed his eyes, he was worried he would fall over if Tyson were to let go of him. He leaned against his touch, thankful for the tenderness of it all, a sharp contrast to the violence he had to endure before.

"M'sorry I didn’t tell you right away," he sighed, leaning closer, "I should’ve come straight to you. I should've told you right away that he uh...he said uh..." he seemed to freeze up at that, his face twitching into a frown and his bottom lip trembling just a little. He couldn't finish what he was saying, instead opting for leaning into Tyson's tender hands a little harder.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for, angel. I should be apologizing, you were hurt and I reacted very poorly." As he spoke, he inspected Elias's injuries, he noticed one of his teeth was chipped horribly, the bridge of his nose was swollen, and reddish bruises were already forming under his eyes. He was just starting to heal, now he had a whole new set of injuries to deal with. Guilt was eating Tyson alive as he looked over all the bumps and bruises; he should have been there for Elias, he should have never let him wander off alone. They shouldn’t have gone to the party in the first place, why did he think Elias was ready for that? Once all the blood was gone, he set the towel aside and ran his thumb softly over his cheek. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Elias opened his eyes to look at him, lost in thought for a second. "Um...yeah, he kicked me in the ribs."

"Is it ok if I take a look? Make sure you're alright?"

Maybe it was because he was still drunk, or because he was probably concussed, or because he was still in the people pleasing, trained headspace from the pain, but he nodded eagerly and started to pull at his hoodie. Tyson had to help him get it off, and Elias leaned back as he prodded gently around his ribcage. He hummed at the warmth of his hands and closed his eyes, reaching for his arm again.

Elias’s reaction prompted Tyson to ask “does it hurt?”, frowning when Elias only shrugged. He looked relaxed suddenly, his face was almost serene. Tyson didn't know how drunk he was with how upset he'd been earlier, but he could tell now by the way he couldn't stay upright and couldn't even answer a simple yes or no question. But him passing out from the booze was the least of his worries, so he let him rest his eyes for a just a second as he made sure the damage wasn't too detrimental. Even though he didn't mean to, Tyson scanned over all of his other injuries, upset at the condition of the cuts on him. They weren't healing, and it seemed like he had more on his arm. Those ones were reddened and raised, fresh caked blood around them. Tyson grabbed his arm, inspecting it closer. "Elias...are these ones new? Did you do that to yourself?"

Elias shrugged again, turning his head away as he tried to pull his arm back. "I was being awful. I deserved it."

"Eli..." he began disdainfully, but Elias's face twisted into a depressed frown, so he decided to drop it for the moment, to let Elias relax as much as he could. So he stood up, dragging his hands over Elias’s thighs gently. When Elias looked up at him, it was with that same doe-eyed, ‘my-earth-will-shatter-if-you-say-something-mean’ stare that he always looked at Tyson with, but this time it was with even more fear than usual.

"I think you have a concussion,” he mumbled, “so I'm gonna go get you some medicine.” A huge wave of relief hit Tyson when Elias seemed to relax, his shoulders dropping to a more relaxed position and his gaze softened. “Don't fall asleep, ok?"

Elias chuckled sarcastically and nodded. "No problem."

The next morning Elias woke up with a pounding headache and a heavy soreness all over, and before he opened his eyes he thought he was back with August. Despite the pain that made him want to never move again, he shot up out of bed, looking around in a panic as he tried to find some familiarity.

"Woah, hey, hey," Tyson said from his spot on the bed, sitting up and looking at him. Elias swiveled around to look at him, shoulders rising and falling rapidly. "You ok?"

Elias huffed, running a hand through his hair. "I thought...I thought I was at August's." It was hard to get the words out, felt like they were made of glass as he forced them off of his tongue. Tyson held his hand out to him, so he crawled back into bed and allowed him to pull him into his arms. He wasn't wearing a shirt, he must've never put it back on after Tyson undressed him to examine him the night before, and he was glad Tyson was holding him close so he didn't have to see him.

"Why'd you think that?"

"I guess I'm just...I'm only used to waking up hurting this much with him." He nestled closer, sighing as Tyson stroked his back gently.

"I have some pain killers if you want some. Or we can smoke." He looked at Elias as he pulled away from him, reaching up to hold his face. "You're so beautiful."

Elias blushed and shook his head. "Shut up, I'm all fucked up. I look like I got hit by a bus."

Tyson propped himself up slightly and leaned closer, until their lips brushed gently together. Tyson heard Elias's breathing stifle as he melted against Tyson's hand. "You're absolutely gorgeous," he breathed, grinning at the way Elias reached up to touch his neck gently, "and I am absolutely in love with you."

"Really?" Elias muttered. "Even...even after last night?" His voice was broken and timid, afraid of the answer. He couldn't even remember the night before, really, it was all coming back to him one drunken memory at a time, he was still putting the pieces back together. Something horrible had happened, the man, the room, the blood. He sort of remembered a flash, but he couldn't even tell if that was real or if his mind just added it in because it was so often accompanied by that specific brand of pain. Whatever happened, he came to the conclusion, he could only feel this grimy and filthy and hurting this bad if he had done something heinous, and how in the hell could Tyson tell him he was in love with him now?

"Baby, nothing that happened last night was your fault. It didn't change a thing, ok? I love you. And I will never stop loving you."

"Oh, Ty," he breathed, "never is a big commitment..."

Tyson chuckled softly and kissed him finally, feeling a bit of relief when Elias pressed closer and held onto him eagerly. He was expecting him to be upset and put off at any affection, and yet he seemed like he needed it more than Tyson did. He climbed into his lap, wrapping his arms around his neck as he kissed him hard.

"Tyson," he whimpered, turning his mouth to Tyson's throat, "I l-love you, Ty." He was breathless, even though Tyson was hardly doing anything, and he couldn't even begin to imagine how easily he would come undone if he pushed him just a little farther.

"What's got you all hot and bothered?" He joked, tipping his head back a bit.

"I want you to show me how it's supposed to be," Elias whined, "I wanna stop thinking about it."

"Baby, just relax for a second." He grabbed his shoulders gently and pushed him away. Elias looked down at his lap, shame and guilt dripping off of him. Tyson felt horrible, Elias shouldn't have to feel guilty for asking to have sex with his boyfriend, Tyson shouldn't have to worry that giving him what he wants is going to damage him more. None of this should be happening, it is all incredibly wrong and Tyson felt a lump in his throat because he just couldn't fucking fix it. "Please...allow yourself to heal."

"That's stupid," he whispered back, "I'm not going to heal, Tyson. You're making me wait for something that's not going to come."

"That's not true-"

"You don't know what it's like. You don't know how it feels to have to walk around knowing that the last person who got that close to you only did it to hurt you. You don't know how it feels to have that much violence as your only idea of what it's like. You don't get it, because even when I'm close to you, I can still hear his voice and- fuck!-and feel his hands and...you don't get it, Ty, I need that to be- fuck-ing prick!- to be over, I have to feel something else besides that fucking pig all over me." He choked back the tears in his eyes, still not looking up at him. Tyson was silent, and Elias got off of him and stood up. "Just fucking forget it. Nevermind."

He stood in front of the closet, trying to find a big enough shirt that he could hide under, and then he felt Tyson's hands on his hips gently. He sighed, already annoyed at whatever dumb, much too sweet apology he was going to make, but instead Tyson began to kiss against the back of his neck gently.

"I just don't want to hurt you, angel," he whispered against his skin, stepping forward until he was pressed close against him. His bare chest was flush against Elias's back, and the direct skin contact made him positively melt, sinking right into his arms like he wanted to be nowhere else the rest of his life. Tyson slid his hands forward, keeping them against his stomach, high above the waist band of his shorts, where the touch was safe. "I don't want to make you feel how August made you feel."

Elias tilted his head back to rest on his shoulder, cueing Tyson to begin to kiss his neck gently again. Slowly, centimetres at a time, his hands dipped down to his pelvis. "Ty..."

"I need to know that you'll stop me if it's too much. Will you?" He felt Elias nod slowly, weakly, against him, and he dropped his hands down further, until Elias let out a pleased gasp. He kept his eyes open, staring down in wonder at Tyson's smooth, dark complexion against his own pale and battered skin. The pleasantly astonished whines he started letting out were not his own, he couldn't even control them. Tyson was touching him, Tyson had his hands on him and he was just as gentle as ever, Tyson wasn't too disgusted in him to touch him! Tears were stinging his eyes suddenly, he was so so grateful and relieved that he couldn't help but cry just a little. He closed his eyes so Tyson wouldn't see and think that the tears were bad.

"Is this ok, Eli?" He mumbled, so careful and genuinely wanting to know, not just asking to fill the space but because he really gave a shit.

"It's...I-I..." He couldn't stammer any more words out, and wanted to crumble when Tyson pulled his hands off of him and turned him around. He kept his eyes closed, his face turned down. "Tyson."

"What, Elias?" Now he was laughing softly, amused with how speechless and flustered he was already, loving how quickly he went from shouting profanities by accident to being almost silent. But then Elias shook his head, still not speaking, and Tyson took his face in his hand and forced him to look up at him. His smug grin dropped from his face as soon as he saw the pools of tears in Elias's eyes, and he flinched away like he was hurting him, eyeing him up and down in a panic. "What's wrong? Did I do something...are you-"

"I'm o-ok!" Elias insisted, voice eager and watery in the most desperate way. He stepped forward, grabbing Tyson's arms gently to try and really convince him. "Really, Ty! I pr-promise I'm alright, I...pl..please Ty..." He realized Tyson wasn't touching him still, still staring at him like he was too broken to try and touch, like Elias would cut him open if he grabbed him again, and he burst into tears. "No, Tyson! Come on Ty, plea-please, please touch...Oh, God, Tyson, please!!"

Tyson's eyes were wide as Elias grew more hysterical, he was watching Elias shatter, crumble to pieces right in front of him, and still he wasn't touching him. Elias didn't know if he understood how god damn painful that was. He could hear himself sobbing, really, truly, sobbing, could feel his own ragged breathing. His hands were tight around Tyson's arms, shaking in desperation, and he forced himself to let go when he realized just how hard he was squeezing. Everything was muddled and faraway, like he was hiding in the closet and listening to this all unfold, like he wasn't supposed to be there, like he was eavesdropping. He wanted to stop eavesdropping, this was nothing he wanted to be apart of. It was like this at the party, too, like he was passing just outside the door and heard himself through the walls.

At the memory, he stumbled back until his shoulders hit the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. His chest was tight with panic, he was choking on the sobs over his desperate breathing. He remembered, now, he remembered everything.

"Eli," Tyson called, only now stepping forward with arms extended toward him, offering touch, but it was too late. He was spooked, wouldn't even open his eyes to look at him now. "Elias, please calm down, angel, I'm sorry-"

"He found me, Tyson!" Elias wailed, hands covering his eyes like the risk of accidentally opening them and seeing things again wasn't one he was willing to take. "Don't...Don't let him...I can't go back, I can't!"

Tyson thought maybe he was having another flashback, maybe he was just paranoid and on edge from the night before, and rightfully so, too. So he simply grabbed him tightly and lowered them both to the ground. Elias was rigid, but not defiant, when Tyson hugged him closely against his chest, just tight enough that it wouldn't hurt, and he allowed it when Tyson began to rock him back and forth. He didn't stop crying though, trying his best to continue on his horrified rambling about being found, about not wanting to go back, and Tyson let him. He piped up occasionally with "I know...I've got you...It's ok, Eli, you're safe...I know...You're ok, Elias, I promise."

Eventually, Elias quieted himself down to tiny whimpers and sniffles, trembling against Tyson. It took him a minute to realize that he was out of his hysterics, and when he did he felt the shock slip away, he loosened his grip gradually from around Elias's shoulders. He had to take in a few of his own shaking breaths to recover from the panic.

The room was silent, the air foggy and heavy with residual dread. Tyson caught sight of the clock, he realized they had woken up only minutes ago, neither of them were even dressed yet, it was too early to even want to be awake yet, he was hungover, Elias was broken, Tyson was clueless-

There was a knock at the door. Tyson guessed that it must be Allen or Leo, they mentioned they would come check on him as they left the night before. If it was them, they had impeccable timing, Tyson could really use the help right then. He asked Elias in a whisper if it's ok for him to let them in, saying that they're worried about him, and of course Elias agreed. Elias stayed put on the floor as Tyson pulled off of him and staggered to his feet. Tyson looked at him for a long time, even though his eyes wouldn't leave the floor, he knew it. Before he turned on his heel to leave, he set his palm on Elias's head gently, stroking his thumb through his unruly bed-head hair, and whispered, "I love you, Eli. I'm sorry."

[plush-rabbit]

Can I Ask You Something?

| Part 14 | 

You close your laptop with a sigh and crawl out of bed to put it away. You raise your arms over head and arch your back, letting out a soft moan when your back lets out a pop. You sigh and shake your hands. “I should shut it down properly next time,” you mumble to yourself, eyes growing misty when a yawn that you can no longer suppress breaks free from you.

You lie in bed, covered under blankets and your phone pulled close as you scroll through your social media, smiling softly and hearting pictures. When another yawn moves past your lips, you slide your phone onto the nightstand and pull the blankets closer under your chin, finally allowing your body to rest.

-

You’re pulled out of your sleep with a hand clamped over your shoulder, shaking you out of your slumber accompanied by a raspy voice telling you to wake up. Your mind still foggy with sleep, you raise a hand and weakly wave off the sudden motions, mumbling incoherent words that are laced heavy with sleep. The shaking stops and the hand is removed, and you melt back into bed a small grin on your face and then your eyes shoot open. You scramble to turn on the lamp and wince when the glow from it makes your eyes sting.

Your bleary vision lands on a dark figure and you open your mouth to scream when a hand clasps over your mouth. You let out a muffled cry when your head collides with the headboard, tears springing to your eyes and a dull pain filling your already cloudy mind. You kick your legs out and they are entangled in the blanket, your chest is rising and falling heavily, a surge of panic and fear coursing through your veins. Your arms go stiff at your sides, your nails digging into your thighs and you’re shaking.

“Fucking- Just relax. It’s me. It’s me,” a raspy voice calls out to you, the hand clamped around your mouth loosening.

You blink back your tears and one slides down your face and disappears into the hand. Your eyes flicker around your room until they hand on the assailant. “Tomura?” Your voice is muffled and slowly the hand leaves your mouth.

He stands in front of you. His hair has grown longer and it’s a snowy white. He has faded marks around his neck and when you glance down, all air escapes your lungs when they land on his left hand- he wears a metal brace and you can only see two fingers peek out of it. When you look back, he has bags under his eyes but he stands tall. He stands dignified and his gaze meets yours and unlike you, he doesn’t look away.

“Why—”

“Just shut up and let me think.” His eyes finally turn away from you and land on your dresser, eyes narrowed and glaring at the bottle of cream that stands there. The hand at his side curls in and out of a fist and he lets out a harsh breath. His eyes come back and you stiffen under his gaze, your nails marking your skin with crescent shaped reminders. He stares at you for what feels like eternity, his eyes burning with an intense flame in them and his foot is tapping on your floor at a rapid pace. Abruptly, he turns around and buries his face in his hands. He’s agitated and cursing under his breath.

You glance to the side and you’re dumbfounded. It’s a strange thing to watch where he’s unnerved even if he did break in and shake you awake. It makes you forget that he’s a villain. Right now, with sleep slowly fading from your mind and body, it feels as if he just woke up from a nightmare during a sleepover. Your shoulders slump and you let out a quiet breath.

“Do you want a glass of water?” You whisper, glancing at the door and your hands unfurling from your sides.

His body stiffens and you nervously swallow. He turns around slowly and you recoil involuntarily when his eyes meets yours. “I’m getting on the bed.” You don’t have a chance to respond- not that you would have anyways- when he crawls into bed, sitting down on the space next to you.

Both of you sit in silence. You grow agitated and your eyes slowly begin to droop close with your head nodding off. Sleep is powerful thing- it erases time in the blink of an eyes, it sends anxiety to the back of the mind- it wins over you when you have panic coursing through your veins and pumping your heart at an erratic pace. He doesn’t move an inch. He sits upright when his back against his bedframe and hands in lap. He’s quiet and you want to call out to him. You want to hug him. You want to scream and pound at his chest. You want to curl into him and pretend that he’s still Tomura and you want to sleep. You want him to touch you. You missed him. And now here he is, less than a foot away from you in your bed and all you can do it sit idly, forcing yourself to stay awake as adrenaline begins to pump itself into your body.

You sit with your back against the bedframe, the pain in your head dulling by the second and the blankets are crumpled at your feet. You slowly reach over to grab them, feeling his eyes on you and when you bring them back, you turn around and hold them close to your chest. Your heart beats rapidly, it pounds in your chest, shaking your ribcage and you think you’re close to seeing it pop of out your chest and stain you in scarlet. Your legs still shake and you clamp a hand down at them in a weak attempt to stop them.

“When did you figure it out?” His voice cuts through the silence and your hand curls deeper in the blanket.

“A bit before you came over the second time,” you reply after a moment. “Remember when I started talking about that friend? When I cried in front of you and gave you a gift?” You voice cracks and you stop talking.

“You haven’t told anybody?”

“Who could I ever tell?” Your laugh is bitter. “We knew each other for a while after that. It would have made me like an accomplice or something.” You think you’re going to die here. You wish you would have at least been asleep for it.

“You’re lying,” he accuses you.

“Tom—”

“You could have gone to the authorities and told them I was blackmailing you. There were a lot of things you could have done where you came out as the victim who was manipulated by me.” You can feel his eyes bore holes in the side of your head. “So, I’ll ask again- why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. Your mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton and your desperate to reach over and grab the water bottle that stands idly on your nightstand but you’re afraid to make any sudden movement. “I think… You let me know your name. You let me see your face.” You take in a deep breath and exhale it for just as long. “I don’t think I could handle it if I betrayed you like that.”

“Look at me,” he tells you and you know better than to disobey him.

You turn slowly to meet him, your bottom lip sucked between your teeth slowly rolls out and your eyes won’t meet his.

“I told you to look at me.” His voice is gentle; and it sounds more of a request than a command.

“I can’t,” you whisper, closing your eyes and bowing your head.

You hear him mutter a curse under his breath. “How?” When you don’t answer, he presses. “How did you find out?”

“Do you remember that attack that happened near the park? The one that I fell at?”

“Where the people tripped you?”

You nod slowly. “Bingo,” your hands clench the blanket tighter. “Well it was the day after that. I uh, I don’t know why but I- I felt compelled to learn more about it and well the news links lead me to you.” You open your eyes and slowly raise your head. He meets your eyes and your breath catches at your throat. “Well then I forgot about it when you called,” you smile softly, “and then I remembered your face and I thought and I tried making excuses for it but-” your eyes shine with unshed tears and a shaky breath makes your chest shudder. “Your picture popped up on one of the news sites. It was a bit blurry but-” your voice cracks and you stare at your lap- “I thought that couldn’t be you. You were nice and had nice eyes and you had a nice smile,” a tear slips, “but it was you.” You chew on your bottom lip, dragging your teeth across the soft skin. “I didn’t like that it was you.”

It all happens abruptly and it shouldn’t surprise you but you still stiffen under his touch and stop breathing when his hand grips your face tightly. His face is close yours and you can feel his breath that fans across your lips. “I could kill you,” he whispers but the threat doesn’t match his soft tone.

Crimson eyes flicker to your lap when your hand slowly unfurls from the twisted blanket, the soft turquoise lands softly still bundle close together. You hand is shaky as it moves towards his face. Your heart skips a beat when you grasp his face in a reflection of what he’s doing to you. Where his hands are dry and calloused, yours are soft and delicate; they’re featherlike on his skin. It’s easy to break out of your grip, but he doesn’t. He allows himself to feel your touch. You’re shaking and tears slip out, but you still sit by him, you still look at him with sorrowful expression. You still touch him.

“Yeah,” you whisper, “I guess you could kill me.” Your forefinger strokes the corner of his lips before coming to a still when his canine gleams in the yellow lighting.

“What will you do if I do kill you?”

“I think I’ll cry,” you whisper, your eye breaking away from his when your thumb strokes at his bottom lip and traces over his scar. “What will you do?” Your hand slides down and ghosts over his neck, you see his Adam’s apple bob and you tut. Your fingers are delicate over his healing and healed scars. “What will you do?” Your hand leaves his neck and he can’t breathe. “Will you cry? Will you destroy everything I own?” When he doesn’t answer you press on. “If you do, can you at least leave a note saying I ran away? I don’t want my family and friends to worry.”

His hand tentatively leaves your face; his fingertips stroke your skin with soft touches full of desire and reluctance. Under your chin, they mold into a fist and he presses the flat under his thigh. He looks away from you, his eyes focused on the wall in front of him. “I hate you,” he says softly, his voice full of emotion that makes it crack and sound broken whispered in the middle of the night.

The lump in your throat won’t go down, and you let out a shaky breath, nodding your head softly with eyes full of pained tears. “Yeah,” you lick your lips, “I like you too.” Your hands slide odd your lap and rest in the space between the two of you. His arm twitches in response and you lower your head, closing your eyes so the tears don’t escape. You take a deep breath and force yourself to look at him, your bottom lip quivering as the words leave your mouth. “How did you realize it? It took me a bit and then when I did it- I didn’t take it well.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

He frowns. “Why didn’t you take it well?”

“Because at the end of the day you’re Shigaraki and I’m a civilian who’s too scared to do most things.” You feel your chest grow tighter. “And you? How did you take it?”

“Tried to deny it,” his voice is light and genuine.

“Makes sense,” you say in a weak voice. “It’s an unlikely relationship, isn’t it?” You joke, your smile not reaching your eyes.

You watch as he moves to sit beside you, his legs crossed and you follow suit. You can’t look into his eyes, always stopping at the tip of his nose looking away from him. He was a text message, a disembodied voice, a person in front of you, a friend who held your neck in his grasp, and now he sits in front of you and tells you that he likes you while sitting on your bed as if he didn’t just break in. You missed him. You tried to forget him- his memory only bringing misery to you. Yet here he is in front of you, sitting cross legged and waiting for you to meet his eyes.

“I don’t know what to think,” you whisper, looking down at your hands, playing with the drawstring from your shorts. “I’m happy but,” you trail off, not finishing your sentence and when you meet his eyes, he nods dolefully.

He’s in front of you and you sit there. You raise your hand and your fingers jump when they touch his face. He’s tense for a moment before he relaxes into you and you move your hand, sliding it down to his neck and underneath, you can feel his steady pulse and your chest tightens. Your hand returns to cusp his face, your thumb tracing his cheekbones and fingers stroking at his jawline. Your fingers glide over his skin and your eyebrows knit together when you see a scar. Your fingertips run over a blemish and the bumps and ridges and they solidify who he is- they make him real.

“You have so many scars,” you mumble, your eyes beginning to gloss over, a wistful smile tugging on the corner of your lips.

“I can never give you a normal life—” his lips part and he tilts his head, pressing further into your palm and letting his eyes flutter to a close— “not until I do what I have to do.”

Your eyes are heavy and sting with tears, with a shaky breath you begin to speak, “I know that you can’t,” your voice cracks and he opens his eyes, “but I still like you- a lot. And, I don’t want you to go again.” Your voice is soft and in the comfort of your room, in the middle of the little life that you’ve made for yourself while a man with scars littering his body nestled into your palm, it makes it all that much more intimate. “I can hold you. You don’t have to give up your dreams.” There’s a pause and you ran you hand back to his throat. His pulse is rapid beneath your fingertips. “I trust you.”

You sniff and wipe your eyes. “I uh,” you clear your throat. “What’s on your hand? Did you break it?”

His eyes widen a fraction. “You didn’t see the news?”

“Just enough to get the gist. I uh, heard there were causalities. Did you have something to do with it?” He nods and you turn your head. “Yeah,” you chuckle humorlessly, “I thought you did.” You turn back to face him. “So what happened?”

“My hand got crushed.” He says it so nonchalantly that it takes you a second to process the true meaning behind his words. He clears his throat. “Just three fingers. The other two are fine but I have to wear the brace for the time being.” When you don’t respond, he looks through the corner of his eyes and frowns when you stare intently at the brace that covers his hand.

He holds his hand out to you and the brace is just a brace, but to you, it’s painful to even look at. You take a shuddering breath and start to cry.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he whispers, slowly curling in the two fingers that he has left, ready to pull away. “I have control of it.”

“You’re-” your voice breaks- “you’re missing fingers,” you say miserably, your words interrupted by hiccups. Your bottom lip wobbles and your shoulders shake softly as you cry, your body hunched in on itself with your hands bunching the blanket underneath.

He’s silent for a beat. “Yeah, it happens.” He clears his throat and sits up straighter. “The other guy looks worse. I promise,” he tries to make light of it, one corner of his lips tilting upwards but falling as you continue to sob.

He jumps when your own hands clutch his, your skin digging painfully into the brace but you don’t let go and he makes no motion to tell you. You lower your head, shamefully, tears still slipping down and catching in his hand. “You’re hurt,” you whisper, your voice catching. You sit in front of him on your knees, holding tightly onto his hand as you cry in front of him.

“I was hurt. Not anymore.” The words are meant to be comforting, but they have the opposite effect- you cry harder, biting down on your lip to muffle your pained whimpers. “Stop crying.” His own voice breaks. Even after so long, he still cares deeply about you.

“I can’t stop,” your words slur together pathetically. “I can’t.” He watches you with hurt eyes, his hands perfectly still, not daring to move even when your tears pool into his palm. He doesn’t know how to comfort you. You’re crying because of him, he’s the one injured and you’re on your knees sobbing, holding onto his broken hand like it’s the only thing that’s keeping you grounded. And he realizes with a wince that it is- time went fast for him, all of it a blur, a blink of an eye and suddenly everything was where it should be and he lost a few things on the way, but every war carries its casualties. But you weren’t involved in the war. You sat at home and kept him company. And now you sit in front of him, the red blanket that he loved is crumpled and meshed with the lighter turquoise one- you’ve lived your life without him and so has he. “You got hurt. You lost-” you hiccup- “you lost part of your hand,” you curl in on yourself still holding onto him.

You hold onto him as if he’s you’re lifeline. Your tears flood and you weep into his open palm. Whatever rationality that you held, any fear or anxiety, is gone and it’s replaced by sorrow and helplessness. You’re quite literally putty in his hands, you missed him. His sits in front of you but he isn’t the Tomura you once knew- he’s different now. His hair is longer and it is now a snow white color, he has scars that mar his skin, a brace holds his hand together. He stands taller and his eyes hold pain behind them and all you can do is cry and cling onto him like a child.

“I missed you.” He holds his breath as he waits for your reply, watching your shoulders come to a still and your eyes slowly meet his. They’re bloodshot and tears stain your cheeks. Your bottom lip is red and swollen. “Did you?”

You nod slowly. “I missed you too.”

He pulls his hand away from your tight grip and your fingers stretch and reach out to his retreating hand. He holds his palms open in front of him and when he turns to you, and his arms are spread open. He calls your name and looks into your eyes. A wave of confusion is washed over your face before you take in a deep breath and throw yourself on him, burying your face in his neck, nuzzling into old scars and whispering incomprehensible words to his ear. You give out quiet sobs, your hands clutching the back of his coat and you feel safe. You push yourself closer into him, letting your eyes flutter to a close while you hold onto him.

He holds you tightly and he’s thankful you’ve hidden yourself from him. His eyes widen and lips are pulled into a tight line. His eyes glass over and his fingers thread through your hair. His hand slides through your hair and his fingers trail down your spine and with a nervous breath, he slips his hand under your shirt and gasps when you tighten your grip on him. You don’t erode under his touch. You stay as you are, buried into his neck and whole.

Your sobs soon turn into whimpers which quiet into deep breaths where you can feel your eyelids droop, tears still catching and dripping and marking his skin. Your grip on him softens and you think you can asleep in his arms with his fingertips rubbing shapes into your skin. Your hands slide down his back and you pull away from him, turning your face and covering it with a hand. You sniff and shiver when his hands slide out from under your shirt and ghost over your sides. You open your nightstand drawer and grab a travel pack of tissues that you keep stuffed away for emergencies and shakily open the packet. You shakily pull out a few and hand them to Tomura where he takes them without resistance.

Tears stain the once pristine white tissues and you hold them gently in your hand. You swing your legs over the bed and count the stripes on your socks. When another pair join you, you look at him and lean your head on his shoulder, choosing not to comment on how tightly he grips the tissues in hand and the wetness that still dots the corner of his eyes. The bed whines as you both get off, the used tissues getting tossed into the bin in the corner of your room. You look up at him and when the lump in your throat begins to take form once again, he sighs and runs a hand down his hair, looking to the side and squeezing his eyes shut. You get off of the bed and he follows in suit, the bed groaning under the shift in weight and you toss the used tissues into your trashcan. He pulls you into a hug and you bury your face into his chest, leaning your weight on him, you’re soothed by his heartbeat.

“I missed you Tomura.” You close what little space is between the two of you with a small step. “I missed you so much.”

He holds you tight in his arms, a soft curve in his back as he buries his face in your neck, eyelashes fluttering softly across your skin, his nose pressing into your skin and inhaling your scent. His lips are chapped and broken, pressed against your soft skin which beats under him. His breath is warm and his lips glide across your skin as he breathes and lets the silent words etch themselves upon your skin. His hands rest on your back and slide down, smoothing every wrinkle that marked your shirt. His hands glide across your back and slip underneath your shirt, where you only melt further into him, a low hum vibrating in your throat and tickling his nose. His hands are calloused and feather light on your sides, dancing above and pressing down to leave imprints of him on you. He folds into you, burying himself and greedily taking your warmth and love. Tomura stands tall, but bows to you.

-

His hair pools around him in a silvery halo, an arm under you and a hand latched onto your shoulder. You rest on your side, head nestled above his shoulder and your eyes trace the fading scars that paint his skin. You have an arm thrown across his stomach, his shirt riding up and exposing skin where the pad of your fingers tickles his skin. An arm is bent into your chest and you hold the hand with the brace, his remaining fingers hooking around yours firmly.

“Hey,” he whispers, fingers tapping your shoulder.

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you something?” He rolls his shoulder where you lay and you rest your chin on him to look him in the eyes.

“Of course, Tomura,” you smile softly, inching closer to him. The hand tracing on his stomach comes to a stop and you tug the blanket further up his chest.

Red eyes flicker down to your lips and he swallows. “Can I kiss you?” Both hands curl tighter on your skin. His chest stops rising and he goes still beneath you, holding your gaze. He clears his throat and his eyes flicker to the left. “I—”

You capture him in a kiss. It’s a quick peck, a soft brushing of your lips against his, and with a shuddering breath against his lips you deepen the kiss, pressing yourself deeper to him and a low whine sounds in the back of his throat. It’s a slow and unsure kiss, where teeth clash and your breath hitches with hands and limbs shift and nudge into each other while trying to find their place.

Your chest rises and falls and you look at him. His eyes are wide and lips are parted and he runs his tongue across his lips. You feel his trembling breath fan across your lips and there’s a moment of stillness where you two stare at each other, eyes soft and face slightly flushed only to be broken when his arm snakes and presses down your back, pushing you against him. Your hands cradle his face and his own hold onto your back, fingers curving over your shoulder and the other resting on your side.

He’s covetous, pressing you deeper against him, hands running under your shirt and fingers hooking under the collar, gasping, broken breaths whispered against your mouth. It’s rushed and makes it feel as if you’re being consumed by the sun. He takes your breath away, greedily taking you all for himself, a smile playing on his lips when you mewl, holding tighter onto his face. You grow flush and the blanket above warms you to his core and you slide a hand away from his face and rest it on his neck, curving your palm around his heart beats erratically you chuckle breathlessly. You pull away, a grumble of protest spoken softly only to be quieted by another peck.

His hands are cold, cooling your body as they stay in place and hold you; his smile is warm and gentle, shining at you like the sun on a summer’s eve. You kiss down his neck, humming in response when he chuckles softly, arms wrapping around you and holding you in place.

-

You’re ceiling is dark, illuminated only by glow-in-the-dark stars that glow a pale yellow that’s already began to dim. His hand plays with your hair, holding it above and wrapping it around his digits and letting it slip out only to repeat the process.

“I don’t want you to go,” you speak softly, lips brushing against his neck and smiling softly when he jerks in response.

“I have to,” he replies, voice tight and matching your own softness.

“What happens now?” You curl your leg around his and let your hands trace the edge of his brace, run over his fingers and commit the feeling to memory.

“I spend the night,” his fingers curl over yours and the one wrapped around you, digs into your skin.

“But you’ll leave,” emphasizing the last word in a strained whisper, holding tighter onto him, as if that would prevent him from leaving.

“In the morning-” he sighs, twirling your hair in his hand- “before you even wake up.” Your hair spills out of his grasp and his hand returns to you, ghosting over your skin.

“I don’t want you to go,” you murmur.

“I’ll come back.” You feel his lips press against the crown of your head and the pull away slowly.

“When?”

“When I’ve won.” He makes it sound so easy, a promise that won’t be broken, and he whispers it, letting it fill the silence.

“Tomura,” you whine, pulling away from his neck and looking at him through glassy vision, brows furrowed and you pout at him.

He shakes his head and looks away- a faint dust of pink appears on his face. “Or whenever. It won’t be as often. I have things to do.” His hands hold you tighter.

“But we’ll stay together?”

He looks at you. “Of course.” He nods his head and kisses the corner of your mouth. His lips are salty and wet when he pulls away. “Of course.”

“No more getting hurt.” He nods. “And you can’t die on me.” He doesn’t nod. “Tomura, you can’t die.”

He presses his lips against yours. They’re wet and salty and you gasp with his touch but you kiss him back just the same, your hands tugging his hair and going down to grip onto his shoulders, your nails digging into the thin fabric of his shirt. His hands lower onto your hips, pulling you closer to him.

“I’m not going to,” he whispers against your lips, taking in a breath before he presses himself against you.

“You promise?”

He holds up his pinky. “I pinky promise.”

Your shoulders slump and you give him a soft smile. You push his pinky back, folding it back into his palm and you bring his hand up to your lips and place a feathery kiss on the knuckle of it. “Come back to me soon, okay?”

He nods solemnly, letting his knuckle linger on your lips. “I will.”

“You’ll win?”

“Do you want me to?” His brow bones raise at his lips are parted as he asks, a wariness on his voice as if your permission was all that he needed.

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. He pulls away his hand but you keep a lock on it, sliding it down to the space above your heart. “I- I don’t like all the killing or the destruction and while heroes aren’t all that great either,” your breaths are shaky and you have to hold tighter onto his hand to calm yourself, “I don’t like the death that’s going to come.”

“I can’t change that.”

“I know,” you whisper.

“When I win,” he inches closer to you and welcome it, “I’ll bring you with me.” Tears sting at his eyes, and he turns his face to bury himself into you, tears slipping slowly down his features and staining the pillowcase.

You smile sadly at him, a lump in your throat appearing and making your words sound broken. “You’ve gone soft Tomura.” You wrap your arms around him and rest your head on his shoulder.

“It won’t be easy-” his chest shudders as the words leave his mouth- “being with me.”

“Of course it won’t be,” you reply, holding his hand in yours and running the pad of your finger down his brace, “but, you’ll be there.” You turn your head and press a kiss against his collar bone. “It’ll be worth it if it’s with you.

“I’ll be there and you’ll be here,” he replies. “You make it worth it.”

“And you aren’t dying.” He nods. “If- If I hear that you died, I won’t forgive you,” your voice cracks and he nuzzles deeper into you. “I mean it, Tomura. I’ll be angry and I won’t forgive you.”

“I won’t die.” He pauses. “I’ll be gone for long intervals of time.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.” He pulls you closer. “I have a lot more things to do now, so I’ll be busy whether I like it or not.” He kisses your temple. “But I’ll be back before your know it,” he whispers to you. You nod. “You can come with me.”

“I can’t.” A tear slips and you turn to bury your face into his chest. His heart beats fast under you and his grip around you tightens for a moment before loosening. “I’m not cut out for the life you live.”

He heaves a sigh and stays silent, hands holding you tighter, his fingertips lightly scratching at your skin. You both are silent, your words hanging overhead and as much as you would try to deny it, as much as he would try to convince you to go with him, to take his hand and runaway, it would fall on deaf ears. He knows you tell the truth. He was raised for this life, wanted to be a hero and ended up murdering his family, you grew with a family and craved friendship. And for now, while he still hasn’t achieved his goal, he can accept your hesitance, he won’t hold it against you, won’t manipulate you, he’ll hurt, he’ll cry when you’ve gone to sleep, but he’ll accept you. You’ve accepted him, flaws and all; he can do the same for you. He’s always going to return your love.

He nods and runs his hand over your arm, lulling you to sleep, letting his eyes flood with tears and seep out. He lets his eyes close with you in his arms, his breath slowing and deepening, mumbling a good night to you where you respond with sleep laced in your voice, slurring your words together and he purses his lips when he feels your lips press at his collarbone and drag down his skin.

-

The blinds are left open and bright sunlight enters the room and pulls you out of your slumber. You moan in your sleep and your hands curls around the empty space. Your eyes shoot open and you rise with palms pressing down on the mattress. True to his word, Tomura isn’t next to you. His space is cold and it feels a bit harder to breathe. You grab the pillow he laid on and hold it tight in your arms, nose buried deep into the pillow and unshed tears sting your eyes.

You hold the pillow tight, never letting go, tears that wash down your face, dot at the pillow and there’s an aching feeling in your chest, one that is only healed when you remember his touch on you, how he kissed you and gripped tightly at your skin. You smile softly through the tears and wipe them with the back of your hand, holding your hand against your chest.

You grab your phone and curse yourself, forgetting to ask for his number or any other means of communication. You sniffle and hold the phone tight in your hands. You’re exhausted, your body still heavy with sleep. You’re revived, smiling at the thought of him, the blanket still faint with his scent and you let it rest on your bed in a pile. Your walk to the kitchen is slow, touching the walls, making sure that everything is still real, that you aren’t alone and that last night, was reality, that you can still feel the brace under your fingertips, you can still remember the cool touch of his skin, the warmth of his smile and how he took your breath away with his kiss. It was real. And he’ll be back.

You enter the kitchen and lean against the counter, eyes still blurry with sleep and you run a hand through your hair, when your phone vibrates in your hand. You try to keep the hope in your chest snuffed, not daring to cry so soon after you’ve just seen him. The message makes your lips curve into a grin and you giggle, pressing the phone against your chest.

Unknown:

[The offer still stands if you want to come with]

[This is Tomura btw]

You read his words over and over, smiling wide that it hurts your cheeks and filling your chest with happiness and a light feeling that makes it feel as if you’re going to float away. You phone buzzes again and a new message fills the screen that makes you giggle and bounce in your step.

[Love you]

-

Tagged:

@suneaterofthebig3 @ maxinekotodama @ z-il

@rogueofbullshit @ juiccy-rollss @ choros-main-hoe

@loveableasshole @lilgaga98 @ princeofnonsense

@yul-is-sparkling@noonewouldlisten25@noodlenerd101

@localdisaster@snackgod@iikillerkitteh

@drapetomaniaac@shigaraki-is-my-master @ spaceman-main

@rekoii@ txmaki0 @katelyn-cuteson

@bat-eclecticwolfbouquet-love @ crispingloverscrispylover

@justoneofthosepeople @bloodyantichrist

@maxinekotodama @avada-kedavra-1998

[strangeradventuresofp]

second thoughts (legolas x reader)

The Fellowship of the Ring - Part 3

masterlist

warnings: fighting, character death

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

a/n : part 3!!! i have so much fun writing this story and im so glad that i get to continue writing these chapters for you guys. thank you so much to everyone who is reading and showing support, it honestly means so much to me you have no idea. anyway, without further ado, here’s chapter 3! i hope you enjoy<3

“Are we lost?”

“No.”

“I think we are.”

“Shh! Gandalf’s thinking.”

“Merry?”

“What?”

“I’m hungry.” Pippin and Merry whispered between each other. They were sat opposite each other, their voices flowing through the space. Sam was sat up against one of the rocks near Frodo. Gandalf had perched himself upon a rock. He lifted a pipe to and from his lips, blowing out smoke when necessary. You were sat beside Boromir, who was beside Aragorn. Legolas was stood, his back leaned against rock, close to Aragorn.

“I miss home.” You mentioned. Boromir smiled, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you gently into his side.

“After the journey, we will return. We will drink and feast and celebrate. And everything will go back to normal.” He assured and you gave a small smile. Though, you were unsure of whether you wanted that to be your reality when you were to finish the journey. You had quite enjoyed the thought of travelling with Aragorn and then when his time had come… Well, you had not thought that far just yet. Anyway, this was all hypothetical, of course, as it had much started to dawn on you that you might not get the chance to return. Luck had been on your side thus far but for how long would it continue to come to your aid?

Legolas noticed the worried look that fell over your features and his brows drew together, wishing that he could read your mind to know what troubled you. He was about to pull you to the side to ask how you were when Gandalf let out a loud noise.

“It’s that way.” He pointed with his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips as he looked at Frodo who was sat beside him.

“He’s remembered!” Merry said with a grin, pulling the pipe from his lips. He pushed himself to his feet.

Gandalf stood with the aid of his staff. “No, but the air doesn’t smell so foul down here. If in doubt, young Meriadoc, always follow your nose.” He led the way, holding his staff up so that the light exuding from it would reveal more of the path. Legolas held back to walk with you. You smiled at him and he returned it. Each member of the Fellowship stepped down the decreasing concrete.

“Let me risk a little more light.” Gandalf muttered. His staff brightened the way. “Behold, the great realm, the dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf.”

Your lips parted almost immediately in awe, breath drawing from your throat. There were pillars hundreds of feet tall, all so intricately designed and decorated. Somehow amongst the darkness all of the stone seemed to turn from a dull grey to a shimmering silver. Dips and grooves were so perfectly sculpted that it seemed surreal.

“Well, there’s an eyeopener, make no mistake.” Sam said. His eyes were glistening with wonder as well as everyone else’s.

“It’s beautiful.” You whispered. It seemed as if the words were forced from your mouth. There was so much beauty and brilliance in the world that you had yet to see; the sort of the thing that excited you.

It did not excite you for long, however. Once you had been walking for a while again, Gimli paused. His eyes quickly scanned over skeletons leading to a room. He took an audible breath, running into the room. Your eyes widened and you quickly followed him. Your heart ached at the sight of him. His face was stained with more tears, his eyes flooded. His wails were unforgettable. A series of sobs left his lips, his chest heaving up and down as you gently placed a hand on his shoulder. You could feel tears begin to pool in yours eyes. You had not noticed that the others had joined you until the sound of extra footsteps echoed off of the walls.

“Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria.” The wizard took a breath. You moved away from Gimli, standing beside Legolas with a small sniffle. “He is dead, then. It is as I feared.” He handed his things to Pippin, delicately moving a skeleton to pick up a dusty book that it had been holding, once. A shiver ran all the way up your spine, your skin prickling in goosebumps. You snapped your head around to look through the door behind you, anxiety growing within your frame.

“I have a bad feeling about this place.” You hissed into the elf’s ear and he nodded, leaning into Aragorn’s ear slightly.

“We must move on. We cannot linger.”

Gandalf turned the page. “They have taken the bridge, and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums. Drums in the deep.” He turned the page. “We cannot get out. Shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. They are coming—”

Suddenly a loud noise captivated the attention of everybody. The noise came from beside Pippin, who was stood looking extremely guilty beside a headless body. Before you knew it, the body fell flimsily down the hole beside it and the weight that it was attached to quickly followed. If you wanted not to be noticed then perhaps bringing Pippin along was not the right idea, for the noises echoed loudly around the space. After a little while of silence, Boromir let out an audible breath of relief.

“Fool of a took!” Gandalf snapped, tossing the book to the floor. “Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity.” He snatched back his staff and hat and Pippin looked to the floor.

There was a faint bang in the distance. If anyone’s eyes had wondered, they were now firmly back on the hobbit. Breathing was audible from everyone in the room. You looked worriedly at Boromir, he, too, looked anxious. Your breath quickened, turning around to face the door but turning back when Sam spoke.

“Mister Frodo…” At his words, Frodo pulled out his sword which was glowing blue. Your eyes widened at the sight. He had told you before that his Uncle Bilbo had gifted it to him before he left Rivendell. It glowed blue if there were—

“Orcs.” Legolas confirmed at the overwhelming sound of energetic screams and shouts. Boromir turned, running to the door.

“Boromir!” You warned, gasping sharply when two arrows landed not even an inch away from his face, protruding out from the door. Sprinting to him, you helped him shove the door closed. You could make out Aragorn saying something to the hobbits over the vicious pumping of your heart. Instinctively you turned your back to the door, holding it shut whilst Legolas threw an axe to you. It threaded through the handle of the door kindly and you stepped away from the door slowly, pulling out your knives. The door began to wave outwards and inwards, like it was victim to an angry storm. Weapons were cutting through the wood at speed and soon enough the doors caved to the Orcs’ will. They came flooding through the space like they were on a water current. Legolas and Aragorn shot their arrows but there were too many. They continued to pour through until they reached you.

With a roar, you brought your knife up to counter a sword, plunging your other into the face of your attacker. You dodged an oncoming axe, dropping the floor to swipe its legs before heaving its own weapon into its chest. Swiftly you sliced through the flesh of one’s neck, spinning to punch another before you stabbed it in the heart; if they had hearts, that is, you did not really know. Your fingers tightened around the hilts of your knives, searching around. You quickly sheathed your knives, picking up an axe from one of those that you just killed. As you made for one about to attack Boromir from behind, you swung the axe over your head, burying it deep inside its skull. The body fell to its knees and you struggled to pull the weapon out, forcefully kicking the body to release the axe. Shouting, swinging at one’s knees before slicing its head clean from its body.

You shielded your face as rocks came flying from where the door was once. Sheer horror smacked you in the face at the sight of a cave troll. It had chains around its neck and a huge mallet in its hand. It came bounding right up to Sam after Legolas shot an arrow into the centre of its chest.

“Sam!” You cried, breathing as he managed to crawl out of the way. When you turned around, an Orc landed a punch straight to your nose. You fell, startled, wincing slightly at the pain. Your eyes widened as it swung its axe towards your head. With barely inches between you and the blade, you managed to roll out of the way. Suddenly the Orc let out a cry of pain, and you used the opportunity to ram your knives into each of its legs before pulling one out and driving it into its chest. When it fell to the floor, you managed to take a quick glance at the body. There was an arrow sticking out of the fleshy part of the side. A small smile tugged on your lips amongst the madness, your eyes searching.

Your smile faded when your gaze landed on Legolas. The troll swung its chain at him with ferocity, causing rocks to fall from the pillars and the walls.

“Legolas!” You screamed his name, tears in your eyes. He managed to swerve from all of the troll’s attacks. You did not see much of what happened next, for the number of Orcs seemed to increase again, but you cut down all of the Orcs that came your way with much frustration, the tears of worry in your eyes turning to those of anger.

When you next got a chance to look at the troll, it was attacking Frodo, Merry and Pippin. You began to make your way towards them, lunging at each creature that came to attack you, carving into their skin as if they were meat for dinner. The cave troll grabbed Frodo by his foot, and you called to him, raising the aggressiveness of your attacks unintentionally, frustration consuming your entire body. Frodo managed to slice something from the hand of the troll, giving Aragorn the chance to stick a spear just under its breast. It smacked Aragorn to the side and he hit a rock before his body tumbled lifelessly to the floor. Frodo desperately tried to run around the troll but to no avail. The troll pushed the spear into the hobbits chest.

A sob was forced from your throat, your chest heaving for breath. Merry and Pippin jumped on the troll, stabbing at its neck relentlessly. It managed to shake Merry off, dropping him to the floor from a height. Gimli ran at it, attempting to smack it with his axe but got kicked to the side. As you screamed, your knives tore and shredded through its thick skin. You swung an axe from the ground up to land firmly in the back of it. Legolas drew an arrow, aiming carefully before shooting it. The arrow buried itself in its mouth. It let out a noise. Then it fell to the ground, spreading the dust over the other bodies that lay there.

It took you no time at all to run to where Frodo’s and Aragorn’s bodies were. A few tears fell down your cheeks while you sprinted. You sighed in relief to see Aragorn crawling toward the hobbits body, but you frowned, noticing that Frodo still had not moved. The lump in your throat grew. Your breathing felt restricted, a small sob falling from your lips. Aragorn rolled Frodo’s body over into his lap.

A series of groans came from the mouth of the hobbit and your eyes widened, thinking that your ears had deceived you. The hobbit was stabbed, surely, he was dead! But Sam ran to your side, taking a deep breath before he looked to the rest of the Fellowship.

“He’s alive.” He confirmed. Everyone seemed to breathe at that.

“I’m alright. I’m not hurt.” Said Frodo, clutching his chest.

You smiled. “But how?”

“I think there is more to this hobbit than meets the eye,” Gandalf suggested with a knowing look. When you looked back towards Frodo, he pulled the fabric of his undershirt down, revealing a glimmering white chainmail material.

“Mithril.” Gimli whispered, a smile on his face. “You are full of surprises, Master Baggins.” Y stood, laughing breathily before turning to those behind you. Your gaze landed on Boromir and you smiled, wiping a bit of blood from his cheek comically. He chuckled, engulfing you in a hug. He gently pressed his lips to your to the top of your head and you smiled. Boromir left you to check on Merry and Pippin and you turned to Legolas, smiling.

“I was worried for you, mellon nin.” You avoided his gaze.

“And I for you.” He said. You could hear the smile on his face when he spoke, and your smile widened. You were about to say something else when more manic screams and shouts were heard, identical to the ones that were heard before the Orcs attacked you. Your eyes widened, turning to Gandalf.

“To the bridge of Khazad-Dum.”

And with that the Fellowship took off down the stony halls of Moria. You were all sprinting at full speed. It was a little surprising that the hobbits could keep up, but they had proven many times by now that they could hold their own and should never be underestimated. Screams echoed behind you and you turned to look, slowing when you noticed how many Orcs there were. This was a battle you were destined to lose. Fingers wrapped firmly around your wrist and you snapped your head forward again to see Boromir holding to you with one of his arms, pulling you along. Orcs started to pop up out of the floor and crawl down from the ceiling and quite quickly it was easy to see that there were way too many of them to even fathom fighting. The Fellowship slowed to a stop and you created a circle, pulling your knives from their sheaths and staring down the Orcs that surrounded you. The circle seemed to get smaller and smaller and soon you were shoulder to shoulder with Legolas and Boromir. The Orcs smiled maniacally at you. You took a sharp breath, ready to lunge at them when a very loud rumbling noise came from the end of the corridor.

Immediately, the Orcs turned frail, squeaking with fear and soon they scattered off just as quickly as they had appeared. You were alone again. The noise reverberated through the halls.

“What is that?” Somehow you had the nerve to ask the question.

“A Balrog. A demon of the ancient world.” You watched Legolas’ eyes widen slightly at the wizard’s words and you swallowed dryly. “This foe is beyond any of you. Run!”

Gandalf made for the opening that you had all meant to go down originally, the rest of you darting to the end of the hall to keep up with him. He stopped at the open archway, allowing the others in front of him. You ran just behind Legolas and Boromir was now leading the way. He moved down the newly presented set of stairs, not noticing the empty chasm that lay before his feet. He wobbled on the very edge, dropping his torch down the space as Legolas lunged forward, wrapped his arms around his chest and pulled him back.

Behind you, Gandalf clutched hold of Aragorn’s shoulder. “Lead them on, Aragorn. The bridge is near.” When Aragorn tried to help him, he pushed on his shoulder, forcing him away. “Do as I say! Swords are no more use here.” You raced down the numerous flights of stone stairs until you came to a halt. A part of the staircase was missing. Legolas jumped over it carelessly, landing perfectly on the other side. He held his hand out to you. You took a breath before leaping over the disparity, grabbing his hand tightly as he safely pulled you into his chest.

“Gandalf.” He gestured for the wizard to come next. Gandalf jumped and you gasped as an arrow missed your face by just a few inches. Legolas frowned, aiming and shooting, his arrow hitting the Orc archer right between the eyes. You ushered Boromir down and he nodded, grabbing Merry and Pippin before diving over the gaping chasm. You caught Merry in your arms, setting him down with a head pat before Aragorn tossed Sam to you. Catching him, you gently set him down beside Merry whilst Legolas dealt with Gimli. Once Gimli joined you, however, the rock that Frodo and Aragorn were still perched on began to crumble. You gasped, squeezing Boromir’s hand in anxiety as you watched. A huge roar echoed from where you had just come from, causing the archway to shake and break. A large piece of stone plunged from the ceiling, crashing down onto the very staircase that the man and the hobbit were situated on. Your heart stuttered as the rock destroyed what was in its way, falling into the abyss below. The stem of the staircase broke.

“Be careful!” You cried, biting your lip so hard it pooled with blood. Aragorn pulled a very terrified Frodo into his chest. You watched with complete anxiety yet confusion; you could see that the man was calculating something.

“Lean forward!” He instructed to the Ring-Bearer and as the two did so, the faulty staircase began to lean under their weight. Slowly, it moved towards the stable one, crashing into it and you let out a breath with Frodo in your arms. All you wanted was to sit and hug him and make sure that he knew everything was going to be alright – even though you weren’t entirely sure it would be – but you knew that could not happen. Legolas had safely caught Aragorn and the next thing you knew, the ten of you were rapidly rushing down the numerous flights of trembling stairs.

Eventually you got to flat ground but none of you stopped running. Your thoughts wandered to Gandalf, wondering if it was wise that he should be running like this, for it seemed he was far too tired even earlier.

The bridge was near. “Over the bridge! Fly!” Little attention was paid to the roaring fires acting as gates toward it. Whilst everyone ran, Gandalf made sure to lack behind and just as he turned around, slowly, a giant creature emerged from the fire. It had black tattered skin and horns, terrible teeth and bright white eyes. Its mouth opened, and it created sound unlike any other on Middle-Earth, its mouth mirroring hot embers. Gandalf turned once it had taken a step, fleeing towards the group of you who also began to scurry away from the creature. You sprinted, heart jolting each time you heard – and felt – the Balrog take a step. In single file, ushering the hobbits in front of you, you crossed the bridge. Boromir held you for a moment once you had crossed, making sure that you were alright before he let go, eyes widening at the sight of Gandalf still in the centre of the bridge.

“You cannot pass.” Gandalf yelled, facing the beast with his staff out in front of him, his long sword settled in his other hand.

“Gandalf!” Frodo screamed. You inhaled sharply, eyes filling with tears in worry. Aragorn squeezed your hand gently as the beast stood tall, erupting into a ball of flame.

“I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun!” A great light emitted from Gandalf’s staff when he held it up, but the Balrog created a weapon of his own. A flash of lightning spewed from the connection of Gandalf’s staff and the Balrog’s sword of flame. You grasped Aragorn’s hand tighter, feeling all of the moisture from your mouth dissipate. The sword melted down into the abyss and the creature moaned ferociously at the wizard once again. “Go back to the shadow.” He said behind hooded eyes. It stepped toward him, creating a fiery whip which he cracked against the stone.

“You shall not pass!” As his voice echoed, Gandalf thrust his staff into the stone, white sparks flying from the collision. The beast raised his arm, stepping mightily towards to wizard, but the stone crumbled under its weight. He plummeted into the abyss. You let out a breath you did not know you were holding. Gandalf turned to step towards you.

However, as he did so, an orange-yellow string secured itself around his ankle, pulling him across the stone until he barely hung from the edge.

You gasped, shaking your head incredulously. “No…” Frodo ran for him. Boromir grabbed him, holding him close before he could reach. Your eyes were wide with anguish, Frodo’s screams painfully ringing in your ears.

“Gandalf!”

He looked amongst you. “Fly, you fools.” Was all he said before he spread his fingers out, giving in, and he fell. Tears pooled in your eyes, an aching sensation pounding in your chest, throughout your entire body. A few choked sobs escaped you whilst Aragorn, still latched to your hand, pulled you along, shielding you from the many arrows that were being shot your way. The final set of steps lay in front of you, and as Aragorn gently dragged you along, you found yourself looking back, filled with a sorrow that everyone was experiencing.

Upon exiting Moria, you found that Boromir was holding back Gimli, from going in there and no doubt trying to murder the Balrog that had taken Gandalf. Sam was sat on his own, crying into his hand. Pippin was sprawled out on the floor in pain, Merry holding onto him, both of them with tears gushing down their faces. If your heart was not already broken from the loss, it certainly was shattered now from the melancholy faces that lay before you. Slowly, you made your way over to Sam, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder as you knelt beside him. He looked up and threw his arms around your body, sobbing silently into your shoulder. You closed your eyes, tears streaming, hugging him as tightly while he clung to you.

Legolas looked around, it seemed as if for the first time that he was unsure of what to do. His chest ached, even harder when his eyes landed upon you, and how you quickly swiped your tears away before talking to Sam, wanting to be strong for him and the other hobbits.

Aragorn cleaned his sword with his clothes. “Legolas, get them up.” He came close to you and Sam and you shook your head gently.

“Leave them.” You sniffed.

“Give them a moment, for pity’s sake!”

“By nightfall, these hills will be swarming with Orcs. We must reach the Woods of Lothlorien. Come Boromir. Y/N, Legolas, Gimli, get them up.” Aragorn pulled Sam up from the floor. “On your feet.” Boromir made his over to you, wrapping a comforting arm around your shoulder. You smiled weakly at him, and he kissed your temple softly. “Frodo?” You heard Aragorn call, your eyes wandering to try to find the hobbit. Once you had found him, you sighed.

“It is hardly fair, that they do not get a chance to lament.”

“I know, but Aragorn is right. We must hurry to avoid the Orcs and another potential loss.” You nodded and Boromir’s words, hugging into his side, your eyes never leaving Frodo.

~~~

You had all been walking for a long while, but it was still light. You had been walking beside Aragorn, listening to him talk away about where we going and then after that and after that. It was not until he mentioned again where you were going now, that a faint memory flooded into your head. Your brows furrowed together whilst you tried to remember the details of the memory.

“What is it, Y/N?” Aragorn asked, concerned.

“Lothlorien. It sounds familiar.” You gave him a knowing look and his eyes widened, only slightly, in surprise. You both knew what that could mean. Legolas, however, did not, but he wanted to. He felt awful for eavesdropping yet again, but you intrigued him more than one ever had before, and his curiousness was getting the better of him.

Aragorn started to jog toward the forest, and you joined him, stopping once you were inside. Your eyes widened when you looked around, your breathing staggering only slightly, your heart thumping in your chest.

“Aragorn,” you whispered. “I have been here before.”

taglist : @falcor-thee-luck-dragon @entishramblings @beakami​ @biscuit-buddy​

(send me an ask if you want to be added to my taglist<3)

[bonnissance]

currently untitled ~1k teen rated stocking filler for @berenasecretsanta

I wanted biscuits, Jess wanted mistletoe, the kitchen was compulsory, the tradition was accidental, and the ornament is direct in concept if oblique in execution.

CW: sensory overload, some sort of panic flare/anxiety attack, body feels, canon deaths (just the Serena’s family ones don’t worry), serena’s internalised unworthiness rears an ugly head, but it’s mainly some kitchen antics angst with a happy ending

It was Bernie idea, to begin with; once Charlotte asked to bring her partner to Christmas lunch before any of them had really decided on who should host what and where this year, Bernie leapt at the chance without really thinking.

She hadn’t spent that night on the sofa, but it was a near thing, after informing Serena they were due to host a verifiable banquet in a fortnight without so much as a shopping list in preparation.

Once the dust settled, though, Serena rather came round to the idea, of having an enormous spread and a trussed up tree, the house full of people and food and joy.

It was exactly what they needed, to put the years past behind them.

So when Bernie asked to decorate the tree in edible decorations, and to bake those decorations themselves, Serena was the one who leapt at the chance: not just to fight off the spectors of her dead dearly departed and the decorations three generations of McKinney women hung every year till Adrienne decided Elinor was old enough to do without Serena’s presence currently burning a hole in their attic because she still can’t bring herself to throw them out; but also to give her and Bernie a way forward after, well, everything.

A fresh start for the two of them, together.

So off she went to find the sturdiest looking recipes she could, plus a gluten free alternative for Charlotte. Researched everything they would need for everything to be perfect. Even managed to get them most of the same afternoon off work, barely a two hour lag between the end of their shifts, to have the evening to do everything together.

She should have known it would end in disaster.

Opening the front door to a noseful of cinnamon and clove wafting thick in the air should have been the first clue. The off key humming floating from the kitchen should have been the second; though, indeed, that did bring a frown to her brow as she tip toed up the hallway, suspicion beginning to crawl up her spine.

She would never have imagined what was waiting for her till she saw it with her own eyes: dishes stacked high on the sink, the washer ajar and waiting to be emptied, every bench space covered with something from wire cooling racks to cracked egg shells to spilt icing.

And in the middle of it all: Bernie, a halo of flour around her head, a smudge of food colouring on her cheek, dried batter on her neck as she rolled out a sheet of dough.

Serena gapes, horrified, at the state of the room before her. Inhales deeply, struggling to keep her composure, and steps over the threshold.

Sugar crunches under the sole of her shoe.

A shiver grates up her spin, locking her jaw and wrenching at the back of her throat. She swallows, thankful she left her shoes on, that she can’t feel the granuals under her socks, pressing into her flesh, as the second to last tie of her temper begin to unravel. 

She opens her mouth, intent on giving Bernie a piece of her mind—specifically, the furious and outraged part—when she notices the one thing in the whole kitchen not in disarray: a glass of red sitting primly next to the breathing bottle, loving poured and waiting for her.

All the breath in her lungs leaves her in great woosh, taking her anger with it. Something thick runs across her chest as tears springing to her eyes, and she just manages to creak out a plea.

‘Bernie.’

A head of messy blonde hair snaps towards her, the eyes underneath widening as Bernie realises she isn’t along, wider still as she finally registers the state of the kitchen around her, and wider again when she sees the look on Serena’s face.

She drops the rolling pin, knocking a nearby bowl. The clatter of porcelain on wood and the breaking of biscuits echo as she rushes forward, already apologising for the mess, reaching up to cradle Serena’s face as she promises she’ll clean everything, only falling silent to wipe away a stray tear with the pad of her thumb.

Serena shakes her head, more hot water leaking from her eyes, struggling to breathe evenly. She grounds herself by inhaling in time with Bernie’s thumb stroking her cheek. 

‘It’s not that,’ she finally whispers around the lump in her throat, pressing a kiss to Bernie’s palm. ‘I’m not impressed by it, obviously, but…Not that.’

‘Then, what?’ Bernie urges, frowning as Serena cradles a hand in her own, tangling their fingers together before guiding it to relax, palm to palm, between them.

‘You poured me wine.’

The frown deepens, accompanied by a tilted head. ‘Yes?’

Serena inhales deeply, feels her back unlock, words tumbling out her mouth with frightening honesty.

‘It was thoughtless, racing ahead like this on something we were meant to do together. Leaving me behind like you don’t want me, like you can’t wait to get away from me. But you poured me wine,’ she adds, her voice softening to just above a whisper as she tightens her grip tenderly. ‘So it was waiting for me.’

‘Of course I did,’ Bernie breathes out, barely a murmur. She looks deep into Serena’s eyes, a curl tighening at the corner of her mouth. ‘I love you.’

Serena breaks away with a sob, hand flying to her mouth to muffle the next gasp as she sucks in a shaky breath. She can’t help it, the affect those words have on her. She’s still working on hearing it and believing it.

Bernie does not move, keeping her distance until Serena steps back. Only then does she reach up to rub a palm over Serena’s back, soft sweeping circles until Serena looks at her again.

‘Serena, I love you,’ Bernie whispers, her finger under Serena’s quivering chin, keeping eye contact through tear studded lashed. Her gaze is soft but determined. ‘And I’ll always make space for you.’

Serena practically launches herself across the seven inches separating them, throwing her arms around Bernie’s shoulders to pull her as close as humanly possibly. Buries her hands in that golden halo as she catches Bernie’s lips in a deep, toe curling kiss.

‘Guess I won’t be needing mistletoe this year,’ Bernie pants softly against her lips when they finally break apart, some time later.

‘As if I need an excuse to kiss you.’

Bernie smiles, ghosting another kiss to Serena’s top lip. Draws back, barely an inch, to check the timer on the latest batch of biscuits. She hums, resolute, and looks back with sparkling eyes full of mischief and want. ‘Prove it.’

Serena beams, already pulling them from the mess of the kitchen. Pushes Bernie against the spotless dining room table to do just that.