#up into the ceiling tiles and away through the vents

[monster-disaster]

Hi darling, i see you have some somnophilia works.. May i sprinkle my current hyperfixation in? You have a stalker vampire who lives in your attic and feeds at night, either on you or goes out in the neighborhood. You start to have a sneaking suspicion you're being watched until you catch him. He can turn into a bat and creep through the attic door to get inside easily... He falls in love with you when you're up late singing, drawing, and cooking/showering. Um... And maybe he can see you in the shower through a vent in the ceiling 🫣 thank you i love your writing mwah

vampire!stalker x human!Reader Good to know: stalking

And you know what the funny thing is? You were the one who put him in your attic one morning when you were just about to get into your car and leave. By sheer luck, you happened to notice him curled up under your car, right behind one of the front wheels.

"Oh," you gasped at the sight. "You poor thing." Without thinking, you knelt beside the car, your heart softening as you took in the little creature’s vulnerable form. He looked so fragile, so out of place in the daylight. You extended a cautious hand, murmuring soothing words as you gently scooped him up. His small body was colder than you expected, but for a moment, he seemed to settle into your palm, as if relieved to be found. “You don’t have much survival skill, do you?” The thought of what might have happened if you hadn’t noticed him made you shudder. “You’re lucky I didn’t drive over you. But don’t worry, I know just the place where you’ll be safe.” Cradling him close, you turned back toward the house. You moved through the familiar hallway, your footsteps soft on the wooden floor as you made your way to the attic. The space was rarely used, cluttered with old memories and forgotten things, but it was quiet and safe, perfect for a little bat in need of shelter. “You’ll be safe here until it gets dark,” you murmured as you set him down in a cozy corner, carefully lining it with the soft fabric from an old box that had seen better days. You could feel the cool air of the attic as you moved, and after a moment’s hesitation, you left the window slightly open, just enough to give him a way out whenever he felt ready. You watched him for a few seconds longer, making sure he was comfortable, before closing the attic door with a quiet click. Two days passed before he crossed your mind again, but when you pushed open the attic door, the corner where you’d left him was empty.

You hoped the small animal was fine, but you had no idea that your story with him was far from over. At first, he genuinely wanted to stay away, but you lingered so vividly in his memory that he couldn't keep himself from returning. At first, he stayed only in your attic, listening to the sounds of your life around the house.

Your house was old, with creaking floorboards and doors that groaned on their hinges. The attic was dim and dusty, cobwebs stretching across the corners. The only light came through the window, filtering the moon’s glow into pale patches and deep shadows on the ground. He had spent countless nights here over the past few weeks, silently observing as the house lived and breathed around him, while he remained still and unseen in the darkness. Below, a door closed softly, followed by the gentle padding of footsteps across the floor. He tilted his head slightly, listening to you move through the house. You were humming a tune you'd recently heard on the radio. A soft, quiet sound that carried through the otherwise still air. He heard your steps as you climbed the stairs, and moments later, music began to drift upward through the floorboards. It was upbeat, with a woman’s voice accompanied by a guitar keeping the rhythm. The vampire shifted slightly, careful not to disturb the thick layer of dust on the floor. You had no idea he was there, and he preferred it that way. He took pleasure in your unawareness. Next, the steady sound of water pattering against tile reached his ears as you stepped into the shower, still humming and singing softly to yourself. For a long second, the dark wall in front of him disappeared as he imagined you in the bathroom with your head slightly tilted back as you washed down the shampoo. The white suds of the soap gently slipped down on your bare body, following the lines of your curves. He had to force himself to stay still. Soon, the water stopped, and after a few moments, he heard the soft slap of your bare feet on the bathroom tiles, and then on the hallway floor. He could smell the fresh, clean scent of your shampoo and lotions drifting into his sensitive nose. Quickly, you returned to your bedroom, the music still playing softly in the background. There was a pause as you opened your wardrobe and pulled out a drawer, followed by the rustling of fabric as you dressed in something comfortable and warm. Now, he could hear your breathing and the steady beat of your heart, which seemed to align with the music. Your room was just below the attic. So close. You sighed softly, and he imagined you sinking into the bed. The old springs of the mattress groaned under your weight. He stayed all night, hidden in the shadows. After all, he had all the time in the world.

Of course, his need to get closer to you, to see you, grew over time. After a few months, hiding in your attic wasn't enough anymore, and he became bolder. At first, he came out only after you had fallen asleep.

The night was still as the vampire silently came down from the attic, making his way straight to your room. The old house seemed to hold its breath as he moved, careful not to disturb the quiet of your home. The faint, lingering scent of your recent shower still hung in the air, mingling with the cool night breeze that slipped through the cracks. The moonlight filtered through the curtains, casting a faint, silvery glow over your sleeping form. Your breathing was slow and even. You were blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked so close. He could easily reach out and touch you if he wished, and the thought sent a thrill through him. He stood by your bedside for a long moment, his gaze tracing the soft lines of your face, the fluttering of your lashes as you dreamed, and the gentle rise and fall of your chest. His fingertips tingled with the urge to reach out, just for a second, just to feel the warmth of your skin beneath his touch. There was something calming about you, something that eased the centuries-old hunger that gnawed at him. The memory of you holding his bat form so carefully and softly was vivid in his memory. Your palms were warm around his small body as your chest vibrated with every word you said to keep him calm. Almost without thinking, his hand moved, brushing over the line of your jaw from your ear to your chin. His touch was feather-light, barely a whisper against your skin, but the sensation sent a shiver through him. You were so warm, so alive. You stirred slightly, your body shifting beneath the covers, but you did not wake. The vampire froze, his hand lingering for a moment longer, savoring the contact, before he slowly drew it back. His fingers curled into a tight fist as he kept himself from reaching out again. He remained there for a few minutes, motionless, watching as you settled back into your dreams, completely unaware of the dark figure standing guard over you. He wanted to stay, to linger by your side until the first light of dawn, but he knew he couldn’t risk it. Not yet. With a final, reluctant glance, he began to retreat, slipping back into the shadows where he belonged. But he would return. He was certain of that.

It didn't take long for him to crave more. Soon, seeing you asleep wasn't enough.

The door of your bathroom was ajar, just enough for him to peer inside without being noticed. Steam curled out from the small gap, warm and fragrant, carrying the scent of your soap and shampoo into the cool air. It filled his nostrils as he edged closer without a sound. You stood under the spray, your head tilted back, eyes closed as the water cascaded over your body. The droplets caught in your hair and ran down your skin, glistening like tiny diamonds in the dim light. He watched, transfixed, as you moved beneath the stream. Your hands glided through your hair and over your body. There was something almost hypnotic in the rhythm of your movements, in the way you seemed so completely at ease, so unaware of the eyes that lingered on you from the shadows. He knew he shouldn’t be here, knew this was a line he had never intended to cross. But the allure of your presence, the simple beauty of you, was too much to resist. He felt a strange mix of hunger and something softer, something like longing, as he watched the water trace the contours of your body. His fingertips tingled with the image of your warm skin underneath his touch. For a brief moment, your eyes flicked open, and he held his breath, though he knew you couldn’t see him. You looked toward the door, a vague sense of something stirring in your gaze, but then you blinked and turned back to the water, shaking off whatever fleeting thought had crossed your mind. The vampire exhaled silently with relief. The brief moment of contact, of almost being caught, sent a thrill through him. He took one last lingering look at you, committing every detail to memory; the curve of your neck, the straight line of your spine, and the softness of your thighs. And then, as quietly as he had come, he slipped back into the shadows. The image of you under the shower would stay with him, a vivid memory to savor during the long hours of daylight.

Soon, his visits began to feel like a dance. He moved in perfect sync with you through the house. When you entered a room, he slipped into the shadows, always just out of sight, careful to remain unseen. He knew the rhythm of your nights, the way you moved from room to room, the way you lingered by the window or paused to turn off a light. But as the nights went on, something stirred within you; a suspicion that someone was there, watching, staying just out of your way but never leaving.

The kitchen was warm, filled with the scent of onions sizzling in the pan. You moved methodically, chopping vegetables and stirring sauces, trying to focus on the simple task of making dinner. The rhythm of cooking usually soothed you, but tonight, something was off. The feeling had been creeping up on you all evening, a persistent, unsettling sense that you weren’t alone. It gnawed at the edge of your thoughts, no matter how hard you tried to ignore it. The house was quiet, too quiet, and every creak of the floorboards, every rustle of the wind outside, seemed loud in the stillness. You paused for a moment, the knife hovering above the cutting board, and glanced around the kitchen. The lights cast long shadows across the floor, stretching into the corners where the darkness lingered. You told yourself it was nothing, just your imagination running wild, but the hairs on the back of your neck refused to settle down. As you returned to your cooking, your movements became more hurried, more anxious. The feeling of being watched grew stronger. You tried to shake it off, focusing on the task at hand, but your mind kept drifting away from your dinner. Finally, you set the knife down with your heart beating faster than it should. You turned slowly, scanning the room, half-expecting to catch a glimpse of something, or someone, in the shadows, but there was nothing, just the empty kitchen and the low hum of the refrigerator. You took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself, but the unease remained. The feeling of eyes on you, of someone lurking just out of sight, was too strong to ignore. Every movement you spent in the kitchen, or anywhere in the house was accompanied by the prickling sensation that you weren’t as alone as you thought.

As your suspicion grew and fear settled into your home, the vampire's feelings deepened. What had begun as a mere fascination had slowly morphed into something more serious, something he could no longer ignore.

The night was crisp and quiet, with only the distant hum of the city breaking the stillness. The vampire stood outside your window, hidden in the darkness. His eyes were fixed on the warm glow spilling from inside your home. The curtains were partially drawn, just enough to reveal you sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and engrossed in the flickering screen of the TV. He had watched you countless times, seen you in every possible light and shadow, but tonight was different. The sight of you curled up in your cozy living room, lost in the world of your favorite show, stirred something within him that he hadn’t fully acknowledged until now. The way you snuggled into the blanket with a sigh that escaped your lips as you laughed at something on the screen moved something in him. It was all so intimate, so utterly human. His gaze softened, and he felt a pang of longing so intense it almost hurt. He watched the way your eyes danced with amusement, how your expressions changed with the flow of the story, and how you seemed to be completely at ease in your own world. It was in these small, everyday moments that turned his feelings into something more than fascination or obsession. He was in love with you. His heart, dead for a long time, ached with a longing he hadn’t known was possible. As he stood there, his thoughts raced. He had been drawn to you from the beginning, but now he realized it was more than mere curiosity or obsession. He had come to adore you even from afar. The way you lived your life, so genuine and unfiltered, made him yearn for things he had long forgotten. He imagined what it would be like to sit beside you, to be part of these simple moments that meant so much to him. The love he felt was both exhilarating and painful, a reminder of how far he was from the life he desired. The thought of revealing himself, of breaking through the barrier he had maintained for so long, seemed both a terrifying and exhilarating possibility, but he knew there was no way back. There was no way he could just walk away from you.

Watching you through the window, observing your life from the shadows only deepened his longing. He couldn’t go on like this. Being so close, yet so far wasn’t enough anymore.

You turned the corner with an eagerness in your chest to get inside your home and unwind after a long day at work. Your keys jingled in your hand as you approached your front door but before you could reach the stairs leading up onto your small porch, you noticed a figure standing in front of your neighbor's house. He was tall and impeccably dressed in a dark suit that seemed to absorb the lights of the streetlamps towering at the edge of the sidewalk. He was engrossed in a conversation with the elderly couple who lived next door. Their faces were lit with curiosity and welcome as they nodded at something the stranger said. As you drew closer, without your notice or permission, he turned to face you, and an unexpected chill rippled down your spine. His smile was disarmingly charming, but there was something about it that made you pause. In the dim glow of the street lights, you noticed the glint of his fangs, sharp and white. They caught the light in a way that made your heart skip a beat. “Good evening,” he said, his voice smooth and inviting. “I’ve just moved into the house next door.” You blinked, momentarily speechless. “Oh, hello,” you managed to say, trying to keep your voice steady. “I didn’t realize the house was sold.” His smile widened, and he took a step closer, extending a hand. “Yes, it’s quite recent. I’m delighted to meet you. I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to properly introduce myself to the neighbors before now.” You hesitated for a moment before shaking his hand. His grip was firm but gentle, and his touch was unexpectedly cold. “I’m Y/N,” you said, trying to smile. Your throat felt dry and tight as you forced the words to roll off your tongue. “Welcome to the neighborhood.” “Thank you,” he said, his gaze lingering a moment longer than necessary. “I’ve heard good things about this area.” You glanced at the house he had just mentioned mostly so you had a reason to tear your gaze away from him. “Are you settled in?” “Almost,” The man replied. “Just a few more things to arrange. But I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable here.” The way he spoke, with an almost eerie calm and certainty, sent another shiver down your spine. “Well, if you need any help or information about the area, feel free to ask." You regretted your polite offer the moment it left your lips. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, his smile never wavering. “Thank you, Y/N. I’ll be sure to drop by soon. Have a lovely evening.” As you watched him turn back to the elderly couple, your heart was still racing. The encounter had left you with a sense of unease that you couldn’t quite shake but were too afraid to stay and look into it. You hurried inside, and after locking the door behind you, twice, you tried to push the strange meeting from your mind. It's fine, you thought. You just have a few difficult weeks behind you. But as you settled into your evening routine, the man's smile and those glistening fangs lingered in your thoughts, leaving you with a growing sense of curiosity and uncertainty about the new neighbor next door.

[chlorinecake]

If it's possible, could you make a yandere enhypen story, where the reader usually goes out late at night to a convenience store for some late night snacks, but some pervert tries her, but one of the members had been following her and help her, I'm sorry if it doesnt make any sense but yeah...😀 (recently my delusions have been getting to me)

“convenient chances” 🎱 

pairing: stalker!yandere!enhypen x afab!reader

cw: harassment, violence, mentions of smoking, paranoia/anxiety, language, kidnapping, bad-ish ending lol

wc: 3.1k — read part ll and lll here

LIKE A DUNGEON with fear cementing every corner, you struggle to savor the silence in your waking life.

Doubting all and believing none, your close friend Sunoo convinced you that your nervous aches and night sweats were a mere result of paranoia. He always judged the way you’d peek over your shoulder in public as if waiting to be attacked.

Clicking sounds from your window startled your rest during the night, with nightmares of seven tall hooded strangers blinding your judgement.

You're sure everyone's experienced the phenomenon of “gaze perception” at least once in their lives, in which a person might sense or assume that a pair of predatory eyes are stalking them from afar.

You didn’t like to use the word trauma to define your past experiences, but this wasn’t your first time feeling like a cloud of trouble waited to pour down on you. At this point, all you could do was hope that your intuition wasn’t right this time.

It was only a few months ago when you broke up with your abusive ex-boyfriend, Jay. The memories still linger as if they occurred yesterday, freshly cryptic in your mind. From your point of view, he started off as a charming casual acquaintance, which soon developed into a crush and then a toxic relationship. He outlined a list of rules for you to follow when he was away, ordering you around like a child. Anytime you even came close to breaking one of his orders, he’d beat the shit out of you, saying that his rage was out of love.

From Jay’s point of view, you weren’t just an obsession, but a belonging—his favorite humanoid toy to play with. He threatened that if you ever left him, he’d come back for you one day, saying that he’d never stop watching you.

And so, you moved. Not far, but a good distance away. You didn’t feel protected anymore in your usual environment. Though, there was one place in which you felt completely safe—free from watchful eyes and hostile hands. It was the tatty old convenience store a few blocks from where you live. The place hadn’t developed much since what appeared to be a decade or two ago, but they always supplied the most tasty, high quality snacks you could get your hands on.

As silly as it may sound, the fallout shop was your haven, and you grew particularly fond of shopping there late at night when it was less crowded.

You walked passed the familiar electronic doors, the fluorescent ceiling lights sparkling off of the bleach-mopped tiles. The usually uplifting radio station was replaced with the chilling whoosh of air circulating through the vents.

“Hello! Welcome to Goldman’s 24-hour convenience,” a friendly accented voice chimed. “Hello,” you returned with a nod, a bit confused by the new face. The usual cashier was an elder women by the name of Mandy. Her laughter alone could make some of your darkest nights glimmer again.

The young man wore a name tag on his dark blue collared shirt: Jake. You couldn’t help but wonder why Mandy wasn’t working her usual night shift, but you didn’t care enough to interrogate the seemingly content boy.

Picking up a hand basket, you explored the aisle's shelves in search for something savory or sweet to snack on. Your gaze swiveled ahead of you before landing on the sight of two hooded strangers blocking your path. This time, a bit of their faces showed, revealing the devious smirks that spoke so many silent words through their sealed lips:

You can run, but you can’t hide from us, ____. For as long as we live, you’re not allowed to feel safe anywhere.

Goosebumps sprouted on the surface of your skin, nerves dancing around in your fingers until they became wobbling rods. It’s almost like you forgot to breathe due to the overwhelming terror, feeling frozen from within as the plastic basket slipped from your grasp, a loud clatter echoing throughout the store.

You remembered all of the horrible things Jay said he would do to you once he found you again. The bruises you concealed with makeup that Jay referred to as his "strawberry kisses” would have nothing on what you felt was coming your way.

“Are you okay, miss?” A kind male voice asked, snatching you from your trance and back to reality. You turned to meet the man behind you, revealing his concerned yet warm features. He picked up the basket you dropped, still processing that your mind successfully tricked you into seeing something that wasn’t actually there.

“Yes, I’m alright, t-thank you,” you smiled but it didn’t reach your eyes, looking more awkward than reassuring.

He pressed three finger's against your forehead, “I don’t think you’re being honest with me,” he frowned, your hot and damp forehead telling him that something was wrong. “I’m sorry, I haven’t even introduced myself yet,” he stuck out one hand for you to shake and the other to pass you back your basket. “My name is Heeseung,” he smiled, “I’m new in town with an affinity for convenience stores.”

“____, with an affinity to drop flimsy baskets in public,” you replied, suddenly feeling at ease from the humor. You started trailing to the ramen section and Heeseung was walking behind you. If it wasn’t for his kindness earlier, you’d probably be freaking out about how close he was. You reached for a spicy udon noodle pack that came with dehydrated tofu and seaweed sheets. Meanwhile, Heeseung grabbed a can of Spam and chicken flavored ramen.

“Speaking of your liking for convenience stores, I come here almost every night and I’ve never seen you before.“

“Well, yeah, I’m usually here earlier in the day. I just happened to need some gas and got hungry while waiting, so I decided to stop by for my favorites,” he peered into your basket, "You might wanna get some milk with those, too. It's ungodly how spicy they are!"

"I know, right? They're just so delicious, I can't resist them..."

"Still, Sapporo Ichiban instant noodles are the best! They always cook perfectly. Never too soft or too firm. It's my comfort food, honestly. I wanna hug the person who created them," he replied passionately.

"Eh, you're just gonna ruin 'em anyways."

He gave you a double look, "Are you passively judging my cooking skills or fat shaming me?"

"Neither. I'm shaming that pink block of salt you're gonna punish your organs with."

He scoffed, "This anti-Spam movement is outrageous! I'm starting an online protest where you'll be the number one convert."

"As if I'd ever try that...stuff," you rejected.

"Welp. More for me, I guess," he mumbled, digging into his jacket pocket.

“Dammit, I forgot my wallet in my car,” he said, placing his basket high up on the shelf. “If you see anyone try to take my stuff, kick ‘em in the shin for me,” he said before running out of the shop.

Analyzing your surroundings, you noticed that a few groups of shoppers and some solo snackers began raiding the bread aisle. You distracted yourself by heading to the refrigerator section, considering Heeseung’s recommendation of getting a smooth beverage to accompany your spicy noodles, tossing in a pack of strawberry flavored Pocky's on your way.

That’s when you felt an arm wrap around your waist, pulling you in before giving your head a sniff, his nose was wet and cold like a dog as he inhaled your scent. “What the hell are you doing?” You barked, pushing the creepy stranger away.

He was a middle aged man with a receding hairline and a few scars decorating his thin chapped lips. You wondered how many of those scares came from women he tried that “arm around the waist” shit on.

“Sorry, doll. I’m a hugger and figured you might've needed one,” he grinned, revealing the gnarly set of teeth that lined his grey gums. You couldn't tell if it was his foul breath or filthy clothes that smelled more like smoke. Either way, you were thoroughly disgusted by him.

“Well, you should learn to ask before throwing yourself on people,” you retorted, reaching for a container of banana milk.

“You like swallowing bananas, cutie? I bet I could force four of 'em down that pretty mouth of yours,” he slithered while adjusting himself in his pants.

What the hell is wrong with this guy, you thought to yourself.

You tried to ignore his lunacy, only for him to grip your ass like a stress ball, landing a harsh slap across the curve of your jeans. You yelped at the sting, your own words being caught in your throat from the shocking act. You couldn’t believe that this freak actually just did that to you.

He met your eyes with a wink, smelling his hand as if you just provided him with an expensive perfume sample, "You got a lover at home, sweetheart?"

Tears dared to pour from your rage-ridden eyes as you balled your fists so tight, your bones might break. That's when a protective figure filled your blurry peripheral vision, stepping in front of you to block the man off as he tried grabbing you again, pushing him with such a force that he lost his balance.

“The hell do you think you’re doing, y'scrawny mother fucker,” he growled, pulling up is pants.

“You can’t do that kind of sick shit to people, pervert! Now get the hell outta here or I'll call the police,” the younger boy fought back.

“I was just trying to have some fun, kiddo. Ain’t nothin' wrong with that. I bet honey doll misses me already,” the older man went on, licking at his lower lip.

“I’ll knock every last rotting tooth from your mouth if you don’t leave in the next five seconds-"

“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Jake asked in the middle of the commotion, the older man already fleeing the scene. Jake looked at the younger boy first before eventually meeting your eyes. You wish you could hide how shaken up you felt. The container of milk was bleeding out its strong banana scent on the once spotless floor, tears finally streaming down your cheeks.

“Oh my God, Jungwon, what happened,” Heeseung came running over, asking the boy who defended you. “It was nothing,” you interrupted before Jungwon could answer, the three boys standing dumbfounded around you in a puddle of banana milk. “Do you need a ride-" “Don’t worry about me,” your voice cracked in embarrassment.

Is there any way to explain how the world made you ashamed of your own tears?

You left your basket behind, apologizing to Jake who had to clean up the sticky mess. You didn’t wanna leave just yet, afraid that the older guy might be waiting for you outside, so you went to the ladies restroom instead to call your friend Sunoo.

“____?”

You cleared the lump in your throat before answering, “Sunoo,” you began shakily, “I need you to come and pick me up from Goldman's.”

“You sound terrible, is everything okay? You’re worrying me, what happened?”

“I’m sorry, Sun. Everything’s okay, I just really need you right now.”

“____,” he sighed. You suddenly felt guilty for even calling him.

“Sunoo, if you can’t make it, I won’t be mad at you,” you said in between the silence, trying to encourage him to make a choice.

“I-I can’t, well, I can, but, not soon, at least. I’m only an hour away, if you’re willing to wait that long.” The pity in his voice made you wanna cry all over again. Looking at the time on your phone, it was six minutes til midnight, and you refused to haul your best friend out on the road this late. “No, that’s alright, Sunoo. I’ll just call an Uber.”

His side of the phone fell quiet for a moment. “____, I know how much you hate Uber's. Don't do that to yourself because of me."

"I'll be okay, Sun, just get yourself some rest."

He paused before asking, "Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Of course! Call me when you get home!”

You finished up in the bathroom, mentally preparing yourself to face the strangers beyond the not-so-comforting walls of the restroom. To your surprise, Heeseung and Jungwon were still in the store. Huddled around Jake at the checkout counter, the three of them took loud sips from steaming cups of ramen. “Hey, ____,” Heeseung began, resting his snack on the counter. “We could help you file a report against that guy, if you want.”

Jungwon met your eyes with his own sincere ones, “He should pay for the way he treated you.” Jake put your basket from earlier on the counter, dry items taking the place of the previously wet ones.

“Do you still want these," he asked shyly. After everything that happened, you felt empty in more than one way. Some warm broth and noodles is exactly what your body needed at the moment. You nodded, handing Jake a $20 bill. Beeping sounds immediately met your ears as he scanned your items with a strange haste. You looked back to Heeseung and Jungwon.

“Getting the police involved will only make it harder for me to forget this ever even happened. Thank you for your concern, though,” you smile at the humble pair before they took the final gulps from their ramen cups before discarding them.

“Here’s your change,” Jake chirped, handing you the plastic bag of goodies. “Thank you,” you bowed, heading to the exit.

“Y'sure you don't need a ride?” Jungwon asked. You flashed him your phone screen. “Uber,” was all you said before walking into the black of the night, the sliding doors closing behind you.

According to your smartphone, you should expect your chauffeur, Sunghoon, to arrive shortly in a black truck with tinted windows. The vehicle came speeding through the parking lot, a chill wind hitting your features. The truck was so dark, that it almost blended into the night. He rolled down the window, looking you up and down.

"Name?"

"Uh, ____," you said, his blunt question catching you off guard.

"Get in," he replied, directing a thumb to the back seat, unlocking the door as you slid in, bumping into another passenger. Immediately caught by his dark eyes, the boy waved slightly, muttering a deep “Welcome aboard,” before fixing his gaze out the window again. The truck sat idly as Sunghoon delayed taking off, exchanging a few hushed words to the guy sitting in the front passenger's seat.

Click.

The backseat doors opened from both ends, Heeseung, Jungwon, and Jake joining you in the black vehicle. "Scoot over, Niki," Jungwon complained, trying to get comfortable in the crammed space. That's when you saw one last person join you all in the truck, his face capturing the moonlight like a thief.

"Sunoo?! W-what are you doing here? I thought you were an hour away!" All he did was frown in response. He always made that face whenever he was hiding something from you. "Sunoo," you pressed, nudging his shoulder.

"Oh please, would you just shut the hell up already," the hostile driver growled at you.

You screwed your eyes brows in confusion, "What's going on here," you inquired, now feeling anxiety start to creep up on you.

"The very thing I warned you about before you abandoned me," the front passenger bit back.

That voice. You knew exactly who it belonged to.

It was Jay, your looney ex-lover, sitting right in front of you. An angry yet pitiful scowl contaminated his handsome features.

You pushed through Heeseung, reaching for the door handle, only for Niki, the quietest yet scariest one, to snatch your wrist, pulling you into his tantalizing grip. "Let me go," you yelped, only for Jungwon to harshly cover your mouth.

Screech.

Sunghoon pulled off at a dangerous speed, causing your bodies to shake in the truck. Heeseung crossed his legs cooly as if he wasn't just casually talking with you in the store, “So when do we get to have fun with her, again? It’s not like she did any good entertaining me through conversation.”

Jake rolled his eyes at Heeseung, “I could’ve used your enthusiasm when I had to stuff that fat old chick in the freezer. Alone. On top of that, I had to mop the floor quintillion times before the blood stains got out.”

“At least you’d make a good house husband,” Sunghoon joked.

You felt your heart sink to the pit of your stomach at Jake’s confession: He killed Mandy.

"I'm sorry, ____," Sunoo whispered, fighting back tears as he hid his face from you.

Everything was starting to make sense now.

The visions of seven hooded boys.

The clicking sounds you'd hear from outside your window at night.

The way you could never shake the feeling that you were being watched.

Jay’s past words echoed in the back of your mind:

"If you ever decide to leave me, don't ever think that you'll get very far before I catch up. I'll always be watching you."

You bit Jungwon's hand, causing him to retreat his palm from your flushed face. "Sunoo, you betrayed me! You told me that I was paranoid when you knew exactly what was going on behind my back! I felt safe with you...I trusted you! And you fucking lied to me!"

"God, I've had just about enough of her nagging," Niki said, landing a fisted blow across your face. As you faded out of consciousness, Jay tried to soothe your daze.

“Even though I betrayed you and beat you, it was only my funny way of expressing how much I love you. Can’t you see that I did all of that out of love?”

You could still hear Sunoo pleading for your forgiveness in the background as you held onto the last strand of your consciousness.

"I've been watching you for a long time, love. You always try to escape me and I never understood why you just wouldn't listen to me. All I've ever done is love you and try to protect you. This time, I’ll make sure you’ve learned your lesson.”

And that was the last thing you heard before retreating to the vacancy of your mind, floating around in the silence of your oblivion. Left in the hands of seven reckless boys who’d successfully lured you into their cat trap, you didn’t know what to expect once you’d open your eyes, but you knew it wouldn’t be anything good.

In that time, you came to the unsettling conclusion that broken toys were Jay’s favorite, and if you weren’t already broken upon being found, you would be by time he’s done playing with you.

☆ ᴀ/ɴ: in no way, shape, or form does this fanfic intend to romanticize unhealthy relationships or abusive behaviors. i simply write for entertainment and creative purposes. thus, reader discretion is always advised.

☆ ᴘ.ꜱ: special thanks to the fabulous anon who requested this piece! i played around with the plot a bit, but I hope you all enjoyed reading it! if you guys would like a version of this story with a happier ending, let me know in the comments!

☆ taglist (based off of users that personally requested to be on my taglist, my faves, and people that I've noticed interacting with my yandere content) ~

@fanficfactoryfoxxx @ashgonedash @yourmomscuntis2tighy @yngwife @03sunoos @kaykay11sworld @maryismad @gigiramirezsblog @hoonsyo @en-thralled @haechansheart @night-en-shining-armor @cutiejseong

[hardboiledleggs]

Hawkins High Prom, 1985

Howdy gang, it's been a minute. This is a quick little oneshot I whipped up for the lovely @imnotokayhru based on this post of theirs. TW for a tiny bit of internalized homophobia and bad teenage dancing lol

The Munson Doctrine does not allow for attending high school prom, especially without a date. Jeff had just begged so hard, and Eddie Munson was, at his core, a weak man. Secretly, he’d been hoping to see what prom was like, and it turned out that it sucked hard. So now he was here, surrounded by crepe paper and sweaty teenagers, and listening to Cyndi Lauper and Blondie.

Jeff’s date, a quiet girl from his biology class, had dragged him onto the dance floor almost an hour ago. Gareth had been too young to go to prom, and Grant had flat-out refused, so now Eddie was stuck here by himself watching the teenage population of Hawkins try to moonwalk. Hello, therapy.

A third glare from the chaperoning Mrs. Click forced Eddie to move from his hiding place near the wrestling mat. He had been slowly revolving around the room, doing his best to keep away from Higgins, but apparently his tactic of standing completely still and looking bored was suspicious to the teachers for some reason.

Just then, Mr. Mundy abandoned his post by the door to the boys’ locker room, yelling “Hands, Hagan! Let me see your hands!” as he went.

Spotting his chance, Eddie dodged a decidedly drunk Tammy Thompson and hurried into the locker room. He breathed out a sigh of relief as the door shut behind him and muffled the DJ.

He checked his watch. Still too early for the damn thing to be over. He debated trying to escape through the vents briefly before realizing that he wouldn’t know which direction to crawl in and might die up there. It would be really funny if his corpse fell out of the ceiling during O’Donnell’s class, though.

Eddie gazed at the lockers for another moment before inspiration struck. Hadn’t he sold to all these asshole jocks one hundred times? Surely, at least one of them kept their stash in their gym locker.

He hurried over to the first locker and pinched his nose, anticipating the smell of sweaty jock straps and unwashed ass to assault him. His senses were pleasantly surprised when the locker betrayed only a faint floral scent that vaguely reminded him of his mom.

Eddie rifled through the contents. Extra socks, a basketball uniform, and a pair of Adidas sat at the bottom. The top shelf had deodorant, hair gel, a tin of moisturizer, and a can of Farrah Fawcett hair spray. Eddie snorted. No weed, just the sports paraphernalia of a very fussy member of the basketball team.

“Uh, hey. That’s my locker you’re stealing from.”

Eddie swore loudly and straightened up, smacking his head against the shelf of the locker. Tears sprang to his eyes and he staggered backward, clutching the top of his head. His would-be thievery victim started to apologize, and that was when Eddie looked up and recognized the very famous head of hair.

“Is it still stealing if I was doing my civic duty and just planning on removing any illegal substances I found during my snooping?” Eddie muttered as he rubbed the spot where a bruise was already forming.

“Unless you became a cop and didn’t tell anyone, I’m pretty sure theft is still theft,” Harrington snorted.

“I’m no pig, Steve-O. Just a guy looking for weed.”

“In that case, let’s try Hagan’s locker,” Harrington said as he crossed to the other side of the locker room. He let out a little “Aha!” of triumph and tossed a bag across the room that Eddie caught with one hand.

He slumped down with his back against Harrington’s locker and stuck his feet out in front of him, trying to ignore the way the tiles looked. Harrington crossed the room, hesitating for only a second before he flopped down next to Eddie, not quite touching, but sitting close enough that it would be easy to pass the joint Eddie was carefully rolling between the two of them.

“I’m assuming you’re planning on sharing?” Harrington quirked an eyebrow at him. He didn’t seem to notice that his very nice black suit was in contact with the biohazard that was the Hawkins High boys’ locker room floor.

“Of course, my liege. I always share the spoils of war with my fellow countrymen,” Eddie quipped. He passed the joint to Steve for the first hit, digging in his pocket for his lighter.

His companion took a deep breath, letting the smoke sit in his lungs before breathing out and passing the joint to Eddie. Eddie tried not to notice the way the wisps of smoke curled from between his lips and took a drag.

“Would’ve thought you would have your own weed for this thing, Munson. Isn’t this kinda your territory?”

Eddie scoffed. “I may be repeating my senior year but I’m not an idiot. Higgins would lose his mind if he caught me dealing at prom.”

Steve threw his head back and laughed. His already-nice face was so much nicer when he laughed. It made him look younger, much less like the haggard boy who sometimes showed up to their shared history class with dark circles under his eyes.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, swapping the joint back and forth. Eddie picked at a hole in the leg of the dress pants Wayne had lent him, wondering why Harrington was being so nice to him and if he could push his luck.

“So, Farrah Fawcett, huh?” he said with a wry grin. Steve’s cheeks flamed with color.

“Hey, I’m swearing you to secrecy here. All of this-” he gestured at his ridiculous poofy hair, “-is only achieved with a very specific routine, okay? This stuff is the real deal.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Eddie grinned. “Speaking of secrets, why are you hiding in the locker room when you should be out there, in your element?”

Steve frowned. He actually looked uncomfortable.

“Well, my date started dancing with Hargrove when I went to piss, so…” he trailed off. “Guess I figured I’d wait out the dance in here while she had fun. This really isn’t my element anymore, anyway.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “How did you pick a girl stupid enough to ditch you, Harrington? Did you ask your cousin or something?”

Steve pressed his lips together, suppressing a smile.

“No, jackass. I think she just thought it would make her look cooler to come with a date and I was available. Whatever, it’s fine, I didn’t even like her that much. She wore this ridiculous dress that pushes her boobs together so hard it looks like they’re going to pop out.”

Eddie cackled at that. He could already feel the contented stupor from the weed seeping into his system.

“If it makes you feel better, I came alone. Or, I guess I came as the third wheel who can’t dance so he got left by the snack table,” he shrugged.

Steve glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you mean, you can’t dance?” he asked. “Everyone can dance. You just have to sway around in a circle with your arms around somebody. Have you never slow-danced at a school dance before?”

Eddie shook his head. “C’mon, Harrington. Nobody wants to dance with the freak.”

Steve slapped his knee and stood up abruptly. He held his hand out to Eddie, who stared up at him from the ground.

“Would you like to dance with me?”

Eddie gaped up at him. Harrington actually looked nervous.

“Be serious. You don’t want to dance with me. What, is Hagan hiding in the showers, ready to punch me for agreeing to this like some queer?” Eddie snapped.

Steve’s face fell a bit, but he still grabbed Eddie’s hand and hauled him to his feet.

“I’m not even friends with Tommy Hagan anymore, Munson. Come on, I like this song.”

The intro to George Michael’s Careless Whisper filters through the door to the locker room. Eddie hesitantly wraps his hands around Steve’s neck and shivers when a large pair of hands settle at his waist.

They swayed together slowly. Eddie couldn’t bring himself to look Steve in the eyes, so he busied himself with counting the moles on his neck. George Michael crooned about his guilty feet as they revolved around the locker room.

“See. This isn’t so bad, is it?” Steve whispered into his hair. They had drifted unconsciously closer as they danced, and now they were only a few inches apart.

He pulled back a bit to force Eddie to make eye contact with him. Eddie forced the blush that was fighting to rise to his cheeks back down and smiled.

“I would say it’s the best dance I’ve ever had, but I don’t have anything to compare it to,” he admitted.

“Well, I do, and I agree,” Steve said. “Don’t sell yourself short, you’re a very good dancer.”

Eddie grinned.

“Don’t let me get too cocky, Stevie. I might think you actually like me.”

“And if I said I did?” Steve asked seriously.

“I-I’d tell you that you probably don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eddie stammered.

Their eyes met again. Steve had a worried little crease between his eyebrows that Eddie registered as very cute in the back of his mind. They continued to sway even as Eddie’s hands began to sweat. Steve’s expression cleared suddenly, as if he had made up his mind about something.

“Stop me if this is, I mean, if I’m doing the wrong thing, okay?” he murmured.

He lifted the hand that had been on Eddie’s waist and cupped his cheek. Eddie felt his heart fall out of his chest and settle somewhere near his stomach. Steve’s eyes fluttered shut and he started to lean forward.

Tonight the music seems so loud, I wish that we could lose this crowd.

Eddie’s lips parted in a hastily stifled gasp as Steve Harrington kissed him. His own eyes slid shut as their lips met. Everything melted away: the smell of the locker room, the harshness of the fluorescent overhead lights behind his eyelids, even his own nerves squirming in his stomach. There was nothing but the press of Steve’s soft lips against his own and the pressure of his hand against Eddie’s face.

Far too quickly, Steve pulled back. Eddie stared at him, wide-eyed with shock.

“That was okay, right? That I did that?” Steve asked softly.

“Uh, um, yes yeah definitely. Definitely okay.”

Steve grinned at him. It was so infectious that Eddie couldn’t help smiling back. He was still cradling Eddie’s face gently in his warm hand.

“Then would it be weird if I asked you if you wanted to sneak out of here with me and drive around for a bit? I don’t really feel like going back to prom,” Steve said.

“I’m all yours, big boy,” Eddie replied breathlessly.

Steve twined their fingers together and leaned in to press a chaste kiss to his lips. Then he tugged Eddie toward the door, laughing. It was the most beautiful thing Eddie had ever seen.

~~~

They're so cute I love them so much. After this they drove around Hawkins for hours, singing along to the radio and holding hands and other sappy things. Anywhosies as always let me know if you want to be added to (or removed from) my permanent Steddie tag list where I bother you anytime I write anything about these two boys <3

Steddie tag list

Tag list: @brassreign @inmoonywetrust @kyoxyukiforever @spectrum-spectre @vampireinthesun @awkwardgravity1 @obsessivlyme  @steddieassheg0es @tell-me-a-secret-a-nice-one @sunflowers-and-knives @original-cypher @e0509 @estrellami-1 @scottiedoessknow @sweetwaterangel @novelnovella

[luvfy0dor]

Hiya! How're you? Congrats for 600! You're an awesome writer and you deserve every one and more! For the event, may I please request 'Spiderman kisses' with Fyodor and Sigma (If you do gendered readers, male preferably but I'll go with GN too if that's easier!). For details... I have two (if you don't mind). 1. I want Reader to be the one initiating the kisses, please! And 2. Let's say Reader doesn't have an ability. Instead, he manages to hang upside down is because bro just chills in the cramped-ass ceiling vents system and he knocks down ceiling plates all the time to drop down into rooms from the ceiling as opposed to using the door like a normal person LOLZ-. Feel free to decline if not suited to your tastes, bye-byeee!

Sigma and Fyodor + Spiderman Kisses ♡

Warnings; might make you feel a little lightheaded, it made me feel that way lol

Sigma ★

Walking the halls at night in the aerial casino became one of Sigmas least favorite things when you wiggled your way into the ceiling and vents. You had popped out of no where one too many times for his liking, always giving him a mini-heart attack. He was walking back to his office when he heard the faint sound of thumping up in the vents. It was so quiet and minute that he almost thought a chipmunk had crawled up in there instead of his boyfriend, but when one of the tiles was popped out, he was proven wrong. "Sigma!" You said quietly, happy to see him but unwilling to disturb the visitors in the rooms throughout the hallway. "Ah, y/n, I was looking for you. Are you headed to bed?" He asks, those pretty grey eyes staring up at you. "Not yet, I don't think so. Not unless that's where you're going?" You respond, situating yourself so that you torso is hanging upside down from the ceiling with your legs keeping you from falling. "No, I'm going to my office for a little while longer, but I'll be back in the room soon." He gives you a smile that you return. "Alright, but before you go, I've missed you all day long." You say, cupping his cheek and leaning closer to him. "I haven't had a kiss yet today, you know that?" You laugh, to which he blushes and chuckles under his breath, letting you pull him in and kiss him. He didn't really know where to put his hands since your position was inverted from the usual standing, but he decided the back of your head was the way to go. He felt his nose press against your chin as he kissed your bottom lip, and your nose bump against his. He hummed into the affectionate action, his hand trailing up to caress the nape of your neck quickly before he pulled away. His breath was slightly shaky and his heart rate increased as he looked into your eyes. "Okay, I'll see you later!" You crawled back up into the ceiling and went on with your past times up there. He watched you disappear and smiled before heading off. Suddenly, having you pop out of nowhere every now and again wasn't that bad.

Fyodor ★

Fyodor knew if he needed to find you during hours at the DOA hq, there was no specific of guaranteed spot you would be. He'd have to find you hanging out of one of the cramped, tight vents somewhere by luck. He found it both confusing and interesting that you willingly hung up there all day, but each time he thought about it he understood just a little bit more. The silence and peacefulness of alone time away from interaction could be very enjoyable, especially if it was combined with a good book. He walked through the halls with his cape flowing behind him. With each room he walked by, he glanced inside for any sign of his lover. "Y/n? Where are you?" He calls out to you, listening afterwards for any rustling or thumping above his head. "Hmm..." He thought to himself, heading to the furthest room down the corridor and walking inside to find you hanging out of the vent. "Oh, I don't recall having found you in here before, darling." He says, drawing your attention. You lift your book from your eyes and smile at him. "Yeah, I realized I hadn't hung over here yet so I figured I'd try it. Not like it'd be massively different." You reply, watching him walk closer to you. "Is it time to leave?" He nods with a small smile of amusement. "Yes, it's best we head home now rather than walking through the dark later." You stare at him while he speaks, entranced by his beauty, even after a stressful day dealing with a clown and a naive manager. "Okay...you know, I always want to kiss you like this, but you never take the hint." You whisper, reaching out and brushing his hair behind his ear with a small pout. He hums and gently holds your hand over his cheek and leans in closer. "Well then, maybe you should have been more direct." You huff with an eye roll and pull him in, connecting the two of by the lips in a passionate kiss. Your thumb caresses his cheekbone and you can feel him sigh quietly. You quickly pull away when you feel your body start to heat up, hurrying to get yourself out of the vents before you loose your balance and fall on your head in front of Fyodor. "Hah...I shouldn't need to be more direct if you're as smart as you make yourself out to be." You say, slithering back up into the metal tunnel to backtrack your way out. "Maybe I just wanna hear it from your lips, Myshka? Is that so bad of me?" He grins and you feel yourself do the same. You definetly didn't think that was all too bad now.

A/n; Thank you so so much for the compliments and request!!! 💖💖 this was super duper cute, it just made me feel a little dizzy while writing it, but I wish I could hang out if vents like that thats so cool ^^

[mochimelt]

Half-Built

Shockwave & Gn!Reader (could be romantic or platonic)(oneshot)

Your audials activated first. The whirr of your machinery and the low hum of the lab filled your senses, slowly dulled out as the rest of your body began to wake. Your digits twitched against the table, curling into a fist and flattening again, the cold seeping into your metal servos. A sense of familiarity washed over your spark.

“Test. Test.” A close voice spoke out, bits of static slipping into your audio sensors as they recalibrated. “One, two. Do you hear me?”

Your voicebox creaked to life. “Yes, sir.” Far too much static for your liking.

“Staticy and unstable.” A scribbling sound followed, pen on paper, instead of the typical digital clicks and clacks of typing. “Visuals?”

“Not on yet.” Smoother than before. You pushed down the tiny sense of pride that grew in your chassis.

A short ‘hm’ sounded from beside you. “Slow. … Continue.”

Anxious disappointment took over the tidbit of pride like a weed. Unwanted thoughts crawled through your processor, leaving as quickly as they came. Did you break? Had you done something wrong? Corrupted your own body? Was he disappointed with you? You hadn’t failed him, had you?

Your optics flickered online after far too long, the glow of your eyes filling your vision as the rest of the room came into focus. Your vision traced the metal paneling of the ceiling above you, the tubes and wires running into the wall beside you, the flickering light and shadow from the bulb just out of sight.

Oh. That light didn’t typically flicker that way.

“Optics are online, sir.”

“Good. Can you sit up?”

Your helm nodded and scraped lightly against the metal table. Cables pulled against the movement, resting uncomfortably behind your helm. Your arms braced against the table as your servos pushed against it, body slowly raising, optics flicking across the space as you did. The room was in disarray. Wires pulled from their sockets, sparks of electricity from broken tubing, cracks spread across the tile floor. The computer display was missing, the comforting blue glow absent for the very first time.

“Sir, may I ask a question?” You spoke softly, your vision finally focusing on the mech before you.

He had a purple frame, his servo resting on the table beside you, his other arm limp by his side. His digits tapped rhythmically against the clipboard resting on the table. Paper clipped tightly in place, a pen set just beside it, neat handwriting filling half the page. A singular, yellow optic watched you as you moved. Two gray ‘audials’ (though you hesitated to call them that, unsure if those were his audials or not,) sat on each side of his helm. Like little antennae, they flicked up at the sight of your movement. His helm nodded slowly to your request.

“Why is the lab in such disorganization?”

He turned to the rest of the room, looking over the broken wiring and cracked floor, and turned back to face you. “There was a disturbance that resulted in damage to the local area. Power has been cut and is being fixed at the moment.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Sympathies are useless.” His hand picked up the pen once more, holding it just above the paper. “Remain focused on the task at hand. Status?”

“Right.” Your digits held to the edge of the table you sat on. “Status update; all systems online. Audials green. Optics green. Touch green. Vents green.”

Your body moved to demonstrate each system as you read them off. Your optics flickered on and off, your servo tapped against the table, your chassis venting out the slowly heating air within. Energon flowed freely through your body, your spark thrumming rhythmically within your chassis, safety tucked away from open air. You’d need to refill soon. Shockwave responded to each check with a sharp nod and a scribble on the page.

“Left arm online. Right arm online. Servos online.” You flexed each arm and digit before letting them fall limp once more. “Left leg offline. Right leg offline.”

Two stumps sat at the bottom of your torso, where your legs would someday connect. This was expected. Shockwave wasn’t finished building your legs yet, and there was no point in connecting them when they still didn’t work. Not that you minded. His work was difficult, and you would wait as long as he needed to finish building you. You had him to thank for your life, after all.

“Damage report?” His voice rung out, snapping you out of your thoughts. His optic watched you curiously, head tilted only a couple degrees to the side, one digit tapping against the side of the pen he held.

You twisted your helm, one hand pushing into the wiring of your neck. You could barely see the metal of your open back, your internal wiring visible and unfinished, temporarily patched together until Shockwave could find the pieces for your wings. Small wires pulled from your back into the machinery beside you. “No damage to helm. No damage to chassis.”

He hummed. You twisted each arm and bent each digit, stretching and tensing, then let your arms fall. Wires tugged and loosened from each limb as they moved. “No damage to arms or servos.”

“Very good.” His scribbling came to a stop and he stood straight. His helm looked down at you just a bit, optic unchanging as he observed you, as always.

You weren’t sure if his optic was unsettling or comforting. Shockwave was the only mech you knew, and something within your spark cried of fear at the sight of his single optic, his mangled arm turned into a weapon, the cold tone in his voice and the uncaring words he spoke. At the same time, you couldn’t help but feel a warm comfort at the sight of him. More than once you were left in the lab alone, unable to rest and shut down, staring up at the empty ceiling. It wasn’t often, but on these occasions he would stay in the room with you. Off to the side doing his own work. He would tell you about things he encountered that day, other mechs he ran into and possibly ran over, and theories he had regarding you and your form. He would ramble about the modifications and adjustments you needed, the pieces he planned to give you to complete your body. You were his perfect experiment, he said. A mech to traverse all areas. Land, air, and sea of any kind, you would travel them all.

Your form was all thanks to him. All the metal of your body had been repurposed from dead bots, melded and shaped to fit you. A menagerie of colors lay on your plating, cracked and peeling at the ends, not that you cared. Once you were finished you would worry about getting a fresh coat of paint. Maybe you’d go with purple, to match Shockwave. Would he like that?

There was a deep warmth in your spark. A feeling of comfort and familiarity, of care and admiration. Your spark. You didn’t know if he had taken your spark from another mech, or if he had somehow created one of his own, or taken a piece of the Allspark. At the same time, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. There were no memories within this spark. Nothing to connect you to anyone or anything, nothing to taint your memories. A blank slate in the purest sense.

“May I ask a question sir?”

Shockwave stared down at you for a moment before nodding, waving his servo toward you.

“Why wake me up?” A cable pulled at the back of your helm as you leaned forward, twisting to look behind you, at the group of wires and cables that connected to your helm and back. Sparks of electricity emanated from tiny cracks in the wiring insulation, bits of tape wrapping together the more broken pieces. “Am I not a waste of limited power? You could have waited until the power had returned to wake me.”

He watched you as you spoke. His helm sat still, his optic revealing no emotion beneath, none of his thoughts or feelings. But the way he tilted his head just a bit, the way his digits tapped against your frame as he watched you, subtly checking for any external damage, it revealed more than he knew.

“I wanted to check on you. Ensure no damage was done to you during the power outage.” His voice was smooth and monotone as ever, his digits tracing the scrapes on your arm. “Yes, you use some of my limited power, but it was optimal to do so. Tracking your state and fixing any errors is of most importance at the moment. Trying to fix any problems when they have settled and corrupted would be far too troublesome a task.”

You couldn’t help the twinge of satisfaction that came to mind when he spoke. He cared about you, your safety and your status, enough to use his limited power to boot you up and check on your state. His touch drifted away from your arm, leaving behind the insignificant scrapes and peeling paint, and you leaned in to try and keep him there.

“Now, allow me to fix the errors within you.” His servo found purchase on your chassis, a gentle push moving you to lay back down.

“I have problems?”

“Yes. Your slow activation shows you cannot run optimally on low amounts of energon. I will fix this error and optimize your frame to run smoothly on limited quantities of energon.”

“Right.” You didn’t resist as he pushed you back on the metal table, shuffling slightly to get yourself as comfortable as possible for the process to come. It was a familiar routine. “You’ll be careful, right?”

“Of course.” His helm nodded above you, servo fiddling with the machine hooked up to your form. “Disabling pain sensors.”

[mewhenimanangel]

moon river, miles morales x reader

pairing: earth 42! miles morales x spider!reader

synopsis: you clean out miles’ room taking anything you could with you. you stumbled across a picture of the two of you when you were younger and your heart filled with rage

wc: 2.7k

warnings!: swearing, violence, slight gory details

nia’s ౨ৎ notes: the end! this story idea came to me when i was non stop day dreaming and creating scenarios in my head so i decided to just write it down. i love it actually

prev ♱

it's been three days since miles' funeral and you've spent the nights wrapped up in his bed surrounded by things that were his.

during the day you've been visiting may to upgrade your suit and also help you learn how to use some new gadgets. you didn't tell her why you needed the suit upgrade or updated spider shooters that made your webs stronger, but she obliged. you were hurting about miles, bad. you had been skipping school to sneak into his bedroom.

you were currently in miles' bed in the purple hoodie he always wore, your teddy bear and his favorite hello kitty plushie of yours in hand. you had tears running down your cheeks as you looked through the videos and pictures you'd taken together. suddenly, his mom knocked and came into the room "ohh cariño, i miss him too." she said sitting next to you, rubbing your back.

"tell you what? how about you take some of his things? keep them for yourself?" she offered. you furrowed your eyebrows "but won't you want anything to keep?" "ahh no te preocupes por eso cariño, i already ran through here, you should see my room" she chuckled. "are you sure?" you asked, wiping your tears. "i'm sure." she smiled placing a hand on your knee.

you left her house with a garbage bag full of his things. clothes, cologne, the pictures he kept around his room of the two of you, you searched thoroughly around his room for any more of his prowler gear to take, you even got the secret stuffed rabbit he hid under his bed.

when you got home and in your room, you began putting his things all around your room. you sat on on the bed, hot tears stinging your eyes as you stared at a polaroid your mom took of you and miles when you were 10. he was on your back, an arm wrapped around your neck other hand holding an ice cream. you had one in your hand and you both had the biggest smiles on your face, in the middle of laughing.

your heart twisted with anger, the love of your life was taken from you. thanks to that oversized fucker, and you weren't just gonna let him get away with it.

you got up and opened the faulty ceiling tile in your bathroom, grabbing the prowler glove and shoving it in your bookbag along with your updated spider suit and shooters. you crawled out of your window and swung in the direction of a bus station.

you knew the lab that kingpin was rumored to frequent alot, having gone there for a field trip with your class. so you decided to start there, taking a bus to save your energy. when you got to hudson valley you moved up into the mountains using binoculars to stake out the place. you saw the familiar black bmw that kingpin would drive around in.

your blood was boiling, holding back tears as you quickly got dressed in your spider suit. the upgraded suit had relatively the same design but now the spider logo legs sprawled down across your body, your new web shooters strengthened your webs, and the best part about your new suit was that it could turn invisible - camouflage.

you grabbed the prowler glove and shoved it into seemingly nowhere, thank god for hammerspace.

you made your self invisible and crawled all around the walls of alchemax looking for a way to sneak in. you found a vent at the top and crawled through using your senses to find kingpin.

you heard his gravelly voice and peeked through the cracks of the vent. he was talking to some woman about some collider? "olivia i don't care! just go ahead with that damn project!" he shouted at the lady.

you tried to move down closer to the vent but instead you pressed to hard on it and it fell down. pin and olivia shot their heads in the direction of you hitting the ground, knocking some things off a table.

the woman grabbed some goggles from her table and looked around, spotting you on the floor. "ah we got little spider-girl here" she giggled. suddenly four octopus like machines appeared from her back. "you know i've always wanted to meet you, your powers are so interesting to me." she shot a mechanical arm at you, letting it squeeze around your body.

"i'm not here to fight you you damn squid" you scoffed, wriggling your way out it. you shot webs at her feet making her fall on her back. she recovered quickly, throwing you against the wall with one of her arms. "octopus, actually" she corrected you. you got up and tried turning invisible to sneak away but she caught you "might as well save that, i can see you" she chuckled going to grab you again. you quickly moved your hands out in front of you grabbing the tentacle, breaking it.

she growled and you swung out of her reach, jumping back down to throw her to the floor, her glasses fell off and you stomped at them breaking them. another arm shot at you, roughly throwing you down to the ground. you groaned before snapping back to the reality of the situation.

you looked around for a second now realizing that kingpin was no longer in the room. you swung through the doors of the building looking for any sign of that oaf. the alarms in the building were now going off, workers running out of the building. every now and then some worker would try to fight you, you quickly beating them down.

you snuck into the doors of the collider room, mouth agape at what you saw. olivia burst in the room behind you, throwing you down onto a desk. "olivia take care of that damn insect!" you heard kingpin say from the front of the room. "what's it look like i'm doing?!" she yelled out, giving you another blow.

when a tentacle was thrown at you, you grabbed it and then grabbed the other one she threw at you. you pulled her up into the air before throwing into a wall. you grabbed a nearby pipe and blow after blow you beat olivia with it. you reached down pulling her head up by her hair "i said i wasn't here to fight you" you growled throwing her head back down to the floor.

"yo pin, come on man you can't fight your own fucking battles or what?!" you screamed out, jumping at him, throwing a blow to his head. he grabbed you and slammed you down “i killed one spider, i can do it again” he whispered, throwing a punch to your face.

you sneakily grabbed the prowler glove, putting it on. you shot an air blast to his chest that threw him across the room. “took prowler’s little toy huh?” he coughed. you got up and swung the claws through his chest opening the wound he previously had, making him scream out. you shot explosives out of the glove directly at pin, one missing as it hit the wall instead. the room began to shake as pipes began to burst.

you didn't notice him grab his gun, shooting at your arm and your stomach somehow catching the same spot he stabbed a week ago. you cried out, the wound beginning to secrete blood, he was about to shoot again, aiming for your head but you flipped out of the way.

fueled by adrenaline, you growled throwing webs at his feet hanging him upside down before throwing him up against the glass. you jumped on him, legs wrapped around his neck, hitting him with the sharp knuckles of the glove. he wailed out as blood began rushing from his nose and his cheek. you shot another web, wrapping around his back swinging back down onto his back making him gag. you jumped on top of him, sinking the prowler claws into his chest making him wail out. you kept sinking it deeper and deeper inside him, twisting it like he had done to you. the brick of the roof began to crumble, rubble falling all around you

“i am going to watch you suffer and die just like you made me watch miles.” you growled, venom laced your voice. you got up quickly to grab a piece of rubble that was falling from the walls, lifting it into the air. “i am going to beat you bloody” just then some glowing orange and purple portal opened next to you and three people jumped out in spider suits.

“oy you cant kill ‘im mate” the tall one said running over to pull you off. “what who the fuck are you, let me go!” you screamed out trying to pull away from his grip. the other two people began tying pin up with their webs, hanging him in a spiderweb on the ceiling. “the police are coming and you can’t be seen here.” a feminine voice said from under the mask. “you gotta come with us” the other spoke, moving closer to the portal.

“you expect me to go in some fucking portal with three random cunts that just popped out of it.” you spat backing away from them. “listen we can explain on the way. either you stay here and get caught up with the police or you come where we can help you” the girl said, pointing to the blood that stained your suit. you thought about it for a minute before stepping into the portal after the three of them jumped in. the portal dropped you in some elevator that was going upside down. you looked out and saw what looked like a futuristic new york, flying cars, futurist buildings.

the three of them tugged off their masks. the tall one was revealed to be dark skin, piercings littered his dark skin. the other one had the side of her blonde head shaved, piercing on her eyebrow.

your heart felt like it stopped when the third one took his off. you saw familiar brown eyes staring back at you, gorgeous brown skin you haven’t seen in a week, the only difference was his air that was out in a curly afro. “miles?” you whispered, tears stinging your eyes. you fought to hold them back, not ready to cry in front of these people. it hit you like a train seeing that face. “yeah. b-but i’m not your miles.” he said, looking down. your eyebrows furrowed wondering what the hell that meant.

“we’ll explain everything when we get to miguel.” the girl said. “i’m gwen by the way.” she told you. “hobie” the tall one spoke reaching out a hand to dap you up. “i’m assuming you already know mine?” you asked to which they nodded.

the elevator doors opened and you saw an array of people scattered all across the building, all dressed in different spider suits. some walking right side up, some upside down, some on the walls. there were so many, you couldn’t even count. there was even a cat!

“welcome to spider society” miles said to you. “miguel actually started this whole thing two years ago after me and miles messed up the multiverse or whatever. all of these people are all spider-man, each belonging to their own universe. i’m from earth 65, hobie’s from 138, miles is from 1610, and you’re from 42” gwen explained to you leading the way to wherever she was taking you.

you groaned, injuries becoming apparent to you again. you tripped a bit before miles caught you “yeah we gotta get you to the infirmary” he said.

after about 10 minutes in the infirmary, you were bandaged and taken care of. gwen, hobie, and miles stayed outside to wait for you before taking you on a short tour throughout the building, and then to some dark and gloomy office.

a man, who you knew to be miguel was standing on a floating platform, it descending as slow as it possibly could. “is he?-“ “uh yeah just let him do his thing” miles chuckled.

the man came down off the platform, muscular body clad in a blue and orange spider suit. “what am i doing here?” you spoke up. he looked at you before turning away “you are here because you’ve proved yourself to be spider-girl.” he told you.

“LYLA, do the information explaining thing” he said, a small hologram appearing by his shoulders. “there are these things called cannon events and every cannon event is what holds the spider-verse together. it’s what makes spidermen, spidermen.” he said, going on to show and tell you about how every single one of them lost a loved one. you watched holograms appear of multiple spider people kneeling over a dying relative, last one ending with you kneeling over miles. he told you about his dead daughter and how he tried to redo everything by placing himself in another universe.

“we track cannon events using high technology, making sure everything is in order.” he said, making you furrow your eyebrows. “wait so you know when these things are gonna happen? when these people are gonna die? did you know that miles was gonna die?” you asked, fists clenching. miguel turned his head to the side, sorrowful expression on his face and nod his head.

“wait so you knew he was gonna die and you didn’t do anything?” you said, growing angry. “we couldn’t do anything, it was a cannon event, it was supposed to happen-“ you interrupted him “oh so you couldn’t do shit when miles was dying but when i attack kingpin now you wanna send your fucking people to stop me.” you spat. “that’s not how it works-“ he tried to explain, but you wouldn’t let him.

“nah you picking and choosing who gets to die because of some fucking code” you spat, the hologram on his shoulder getting upset. “you get to sit up here on your slow ass platform and play god? who put you in charge.” you growled, beginning to walk away. “listen, i created this to protect the multiverse, i am and have been protecting every world. i don’t play god, i keep things in order because if they’re not, worlds could begin falling apart. i brought you here because you are a good spider-man and we could use someone like you on the force” he explained.

“whatever, send me home.” you whispered. “listen” another voice interrupted miguel. “wait, listen just stick around for a day. if you really want to go home and never be apart of this, then we’ll send you home when the day’s over.” miles said resting a hand on your shoulder.

you agreed and the four of you were dismissed from miguel’s office until further notice. they were about to show you around when an older looking peter parker with a pink robe and a baby in his carrier walked up to you. “hey guys” he exclaimed, wrapping an arm around miles. the baby in his carrier shot a web at you and began crawling around your shoulders. “ah you must be y/n! you gonna join this little club?” he asked you. “not yet.” miles answered for you, giving you a small smile.

they showed you around, jumping through different universes to show you around. you visited their friend, pav’s, universe in mumbattan and hung around there for a while.

after about an hour, gwen and hobie had to report back to their own universes to deal with whatever crimes were happening there. leaving you and miles alone.

“hey, um you know i really think you should join” he said, arms awkwardly behind his back. “i saw the way you held your own there with kingpin and doc ock. you’re really good at what we do.” he complimented. “thanks” you mumbled smiling at him. “listen i know you have your doubts about this place, believe me i had them to at first. when i showed up here, uninvited by the way, miguel told me my dad was gonna die and i couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. so i forced my way back home and i ended up proving him wrong, but then again i am some sort of original anamoly so my universe kind of fixes itself.” he told you.

“i think you should stick around, these watches are pretty cool, you could literally go anywhere” he said, geeky smile on his face. “plus it’d be nice to have a new friend around here, you and me are a lot alike” he told you. “well for one we both got that whole invisible thing going on” he showed you, making himself fully invisible. “and who knows what other powers you could have if you stayed here and trained with us and grow as spider-girl!” he exclaimed.

“yeah, i guess you’re right” you whispered. “so you in?” he asked, hoping smile on his face as he extended his arm out to you. you thought before making your decision “i’m in.” you smiled, taking his hand.

taglist ʚɞ

@itsberrydreemurstuff @alecmores @darksidescorner @insomniafrog @gwennesy @randomhoex @fiannee @am-3-thyst @melanie456 @missussmorales @spritecactus @laiflower @catushi @chispita279 @spideys2cute @iwannahaveaprettyaesthetic

[shywhumpauthor]

Surveillance Chapter 14

Get Away

Masterlist // prev.

Starts whenever Noah wakes up from All Alone (chap. 13)

Cw: noncon nudity (partly implied, non-specific, nonsexual), restraints, noncon drugging, build up to noncon surgery, mentions of death, noncon touching (nonsexual)

Noah came to slowly. His mind weighed with a heavy fog, it took him a while to open his eyes, and even longer to begin to gain his bearings. When he did, all he was met with was a dull, resounding ache that throbbed through every muscle, every bone, just painful enough to persuade him from moving.

He blinked heavily, willing the fog to clear from his vision, trying to make sense of his situation.

He laid on his stomach on something hard. An unrelenting surface, once cold but warmed by his body heat—he could tell as he twitched his fingers, feeling them touch something cool. Metal, he was able to discern in only a few moments. The stiffness of each joint suggested he’d been there for a long while.

After an attempt to turn to his side, he realized that he was restrained, tied to the table with a limb tethered to each corner by long buckles of stiff leather. The table was taller than he was, but not enough so that his arms could be stretched fully out in front of him and still on the metal, so they were splayed awkwardly at the elbows, makeshift cords digging into his elbows, connecting them to a hook on either side of the table in line with his chest, forcing his arms bent so the cuffs on his wrists would reach right, the two working together to balance his arms in an unyielding limbo where he could move them neither up nor down. In one of his arms, he noticed, blinking heavily, some sort of IV line was taped in place, a long and thin tube connecting that to some hanging fluids from a post to his right.

His legs were spread slightly, similar cuffs fastened around his ankles, connecting them to the bottom corners of the table. A strap that crossed the width of the table was pulled across the back of his thighs, about even between his knees and lower back. A similar one passed below his shoulders, tugged tight over his arms as well, keeping him pressed against the table. Tight enough to force some pressure to his chest, now that he was aware and thinking about it, breathing deeper than he had while asleep.

There was some sort of sheet, thin and stiff, draped up to his shoulders, allowing him a bit of decency. He could tell he didn’t have a shirt on, the way his chest felt against the metal with every slight shift.

Noah tried to reach back into his memory, to string together some possible string of events that led from when he was last aware—left alone for hours in the small, bare room, chained to the floor until Declan had entered, told him that everything and everyone he had cared about was about to be destroyed and bombed, then drugged him. Then he was here.

His stomach cramped uncomfortably, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from the pressure of his position pushing down on his abdomen or hunger. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had a full meal, even before the drugging.

He dragged his gaze up, willing his vision to focus across the room. It was a medium sized room, slightly raised ceilings illuminated with industrially fastened lighting beams. From the way his head was turned, he could just see out of the corner of his eye some sort of fixture protruding down, bright light shining down from one of the adjustable lamp heads.

The walls and floor were made of the same tiles, clean and dull. The walls were flanked with various cabinets and counters, a large screen mounted to the center of one, but it was turned off. A vent in the ceiling kept cold air pouring through the room, proving the sheet to be of little function as goosebumps raised all along Noah’s arms.

There were a few machines stationed around him, that he could see. A heart monitor, turned to silent but the screen still depicting every spike with his heartbeat, his oxygen levels, and whatever else. The IV pole, which he had noted before, regulating a steady drip of fluids to the line in his arm. With his increasing consciousness, he could only assume it was something to counter whatever drugs he had been put under. Other than that, he was alone in the room.

At least he had thought so. There was still a good portion behind him that he couldn’t see, unable to turn his head from the side of the room he was facing due to the manner which he was restrained.

He startled when he felt a hand on his back, a firm pressure right against the center. His throat felt raw, too dry to force any sound so that what might have been a scream came out only as a rasp of breath. That drew a chuckle from behind him.

“Oh my friend, it’s about time you woke up. You don’t have any idea how long I’ve been waiting.”

Noah could hear Declan’s grin, the way his words curled with his accent and fell low, menacing even without the intent. The hand on his back rested there for a few seconds, a firm pressure just under his shoulder blades before Declan pulled back.

“I wanted you to be conscious for this,” was all he said, before the sheet was pulled down to Noah’s hips, exposing his entire back to the cold air. A chill jolted up his spine, though he hadn’t felt like the thin covering protected him from anything, in its absence he could certainly feel a difference.

Noah didn’t try to speak. He didn’t bother to worry about what would happen—all he knew was that it would hurt, but that was the usual. He willed the worries that flooded his mind to go quiet. Fear would help him none. His eyes ached to fall shut, but that was the one urge he did not succumb to. He was vulnerable, but he didn’t need to give the single power he had away. He could prepare, at least somewhat.

Helpless. Painfully, pathetically helpless, but there was nothing he could do. Any sort of relief to unconsciousness had abandoned him, he was certain the drugs steadily flooding his system would assure he wouldn’t return anytime soon.

Someone dressed in dark blue scrubs passed in front of him, with them tugging along a rolling tray, setting that up only a foot or so away from the table. It was raised to about the same height as the table he was restrained to, and with a sickening feeling Noah pieced together what was happening.

The scalpels made that glaringly obvious.

Declan walked around to enter Noah’s line of sight, and it was just then that he realized how high off the ground the table was. It wasn’t really an important detail, just strange as he found his head nearly level with the man’s ribs. He was dressed in his usual, formal attire, a pressed shirt tucked into dark dress pants with his typical fitted suit jacket, cuffed neatly at the wrists and completed with a sleek tie. His hair neat, looking like he had just come from a meeting. He probably had.

He wore gloves, sleek white latex. Something small pinched carefully between his thumb, index, and middle finger. He held it out, close to Noah’s face. It took his vision a moment to focus.

“Do you know what this is, Noah?” Declan asked, twisting the piece between his fingers. Noah knew it was more of a taunt than a question. Preying on his vulnerability, another straw of insecurity to the ever-growing stack of not knowing. He knew Declan’s tactics by now.

It was metal, no bigger than a thumbnail. At first he thought it was round, but when Declan moved it a little closer he could see it was an odd shape, rounded edges into some sort of a rectangle. It was a dynamic piece, not flat but not evenly filled. There was a shallowly raised portion, with a small blue piece in the center. With the lighting, Noah couldn’t quite tell, but he could’ve sworn it was blinking, pulsing blue, ever so slightly.

Declan pulled it back after another moment, accepting his silence as enough of an answer. He carefully set the piece on the tray, his fingers dancing as he picked up one of the scalpels.

Something in Noah’s stomach twisted as Declan moved to the side of the table, his heart nearly stopping cold when he felt the tip of the blade press against the top of his spine. The disorientation from the drug clearing more by the second, it only took him a moment to understand.

“Let’s just say, my friend, that you will not be getting away from me anytime soon.”

———————————————————

Tag list: @pickleking8 @blood-enthusiast @t0rture-me @sparrowsage @enigmawritesstuff @whump-me (thanks for inspiring me to write the last few paragraphs and post this)

[bomberqueen17]

the saga isn't quite over yet tho

So, the kitchen. Well it still needs painting but also now I have to put everything away. We ate dinner Friday night over at dude's mom's house because all our food was there and also we didn't have chairs in the new kitchen yet.

Yeah. We gotta go find chairs.

First I want to start off with this detail.

[image description: a close-up of the white tiled wall, where it intersects with the ceiling, one of the cabinets, and the stainless steel vent hood over the stove. The tiles are staggered in a regular pattern, but there is a tiny, maybe half-inch-wide segment of tile next to the cabinet in every other row, which I know Jim had to painstakingly trim off and carefully adhere like that, so that it looks like the pattern goes behind the cabinet.] I pointed those out to Jim and said I loved them, and he smiled and said they were a pain in the ass but there's no other way to do it, and I said I would always always look at them and think about what a pain in the ass they had been to do.

Anyway. Friday evening we brought the cat over and she realized with delight she could not only get to her window but also then traverse the entire expanse of cabinet, daintily picking her way over the stove to go over the sink and stare out that window too. She's not likely to get into stuff and clearly did not enjoy crossing the stove, so I'm not super worried about her actually getting into trouble. We made do, sitting at the counter on a combo of the folding stool and dude's work chair which is adjustable to... not high enough but... well at least it's sort of comfortable.

There is a pile of very long trim pieces that is shoved into the living room and is sort of preventing use of about half the couch, so I didn't have anywhere else to sit all evening, lol. Good thing the chair was comfy, and I didn't totally mind it being too low.

But I was resolved that Saturday we were getting chairs somehow.

Saturday morning we got up and got ready, and discovered that our coffeemaker, a Mr. Coffee in excess of 15 years of age, had developed a fatal issue. Dude's mom only has a little one-cup Keurig and so we brought our machine over, and in the move it developed a crack in the pipe that brings water from the heating element to distribute it over the grounds. This is not really repairable. I had to kind of convert it from a drip to a pour-over, and stood there with the kettle carefully pouring water through the basket. RIP Mr. Coffee, you served us well and long.

Dude opened Wirecutter and looked up drip coffeemakers. He also researched stainless steel cleaners for me, and confirmed our itinerary with me.

We hit the road and got to Target before 9am. We got a bin to fit under the sink for recyclables, we got the last bits of shelf liner I still needed, we got a dish drainer (a nice, new, small one so we could retire the large decaying bamboo one we got also 15 years ago). We got hot glue sticks, randomly, because I need some. And we got the Cuisinart coffee maker that Wirecutter had said was the best drip coffeemaker for most people.

Then we went to Big Lots in case they had counter-height stools. They didn't.

Then we went to a different commercial region ten minutes away. (That's how it works, there are little clusters of shops along various roads and there's different ones in different areas. This other cluster also had a Target but an inferior one.) We went first to a plaza with a Petco, to get the special cat food Chita likes that isn't at the grocery store, and next door to that was a Harbor Freight, that sometimes has good rolling stools, but they did not have anything suitable. Next to *that* was a Raymour & Flanagan furniture store.

Well. When we entered the furniture store, we unwittingly passed through some kind of portal, as it was much larger on the inside than on the outside. We wandered, dazed and lost and slightly overheated; we sat in some chairs and they weren't quite right, those were too hard, these had nail head designs on the backs that dude didn't like, these were a dark wood that matched nothing in our house. The saleslady found us and asked to help, and we tried to show her the first ones we'd looked at, which had been sort of close to what we wanted, but we could not find them and roamed a long time, together with her, finding new rooms full of other furniture, lost and weary. Finally she just searched their website, and found that nothing answered the description we'd given her and that she was sure she'd also seen somewhere around here. She gave us her card, and we stumbled back out into the morning, feeling like we'd sojourned a thousand years in the fairy world.

We went to Homegoods, which I'd been to the week before, and they'd had some stools that I thought sounded a lot like what Dude was describing as his desired seating item. So I led him straight to them. They had a total of six stools in their display. Four of them were of one set. And Dude was like "Oh yeah! Just like that!"

So we pulled one out and sat on it, and it was comfortable enough, and the right height, and functional, so we said probably we should get these. And we went over and got some kitchen storage thingies, some lazy susans and a drawer organizer thing and whatever, but then we came back to these stools and there was an employee there and we asked her if we were supposed to just shove these in our cart or what and she was like oh hang on and got a guy from the back to come take them to the front, and he was like "your name's on 'em so just say those are yours when you check out". Bada-bing. We got two of them, apparently Nautica brand, which I've heard of but don't know anything about. Sure!

[image description: a view into the trunk of a hatchback (Subaru Forester), showing two gray-upholstered wooden stools crammed in 69-style to the left (in the progress of being crammed in, there's Dude's arm in the middle pushing the second one), and to the right is a Target bag and the box of a coffeemaker and the recycle bin and all the shit we got at Target jumbled into the corner.]

Triumphant, we set out for home, but there was another furniture store on the way home and Dude wondered if we ought to go see, just to see what they had. So we did, we went in and I beelined for the recliners.

See, the thing is, Dude's mom has a recliner in her living room. And it's the throne, where she watches TV. And Chita loves to sit on it, it's where she spent most of the time we were staying there. And I sat in it mostly because that's where the cat wanted to be, but oh wow, it was comfortable. And lo... when I stood up, my hip was in the right place, and there was no pain, unlike when I unfold myself from shrimping on the couch and have to put myself back together every time.

And yeah my general pain levels were way down the whole time we stayed there, even though the mattress is way too hard and ought to have fucked me up pretty good. And...

shit. I'm the kind of middle-aged that needs a recliner.

And they had one, at Ashley, and it was on sale for enough that the delivery fee and taxes still made it come out less than the sticker said. But they can't deliver it until late January. Which is fine because our living room is full of kitchen furniture and I have to finish putting all of it away.

So. New kitchen and also new living room furniture. But I'll worry about that later.

Now we could go home triumphantly and get started putting stuff away.

The chairs are yet another neutral, but it's a coordinating neutral, they kind of match the countertops, with a creamy-white kind of base color flecked in grays. We have made no progress thereby at choosing a color for the kitchen-- I had been prepared to accept a boldly-colored item and have to pick colors around it, but no. We remain classy, tasteful, and neutral, and I'm going to have to do something about it.

[image description: A bay window with a glossy countertop in front of it, and in front of that are a pair of counter-height stools, with cream-upholstered seats and backs, and wooden legs.]

I think I need a better lamp to go on this windowsill. There's plenty of lighting in the room, but no non-overhead light for this space, and nothing controllable from this end of the room. I'm vaguely considering a tiny chandelier if I can find such a thing, that would be fun.

I also think it would be fun to install some kind of art piece up there in that chunk of wall between the trim and the ceiling, you see that narrow band there? It's like six or eight inches by like. 48 inches. I'll measure it later. A slogan would be funny but I also just had the idea of like, a mini Bayeux tapestry only depicting some other kind of event, not sure what.

I'll put it on the list, LOL.

Anyway-- the really critical things are 1) that it turns out our gray kitchen coordinates beautifully with our gray cat, who is of course the most beautiful, and 2) our gray cat can hop up on these stools and thus is able to avail herself of Attention and Snuggles. (I had worried I'd have to get her a stepstool I'd have to then leave set up, so she could reach this window.)

[Image description: a gray and white cat is encircled within a man's arms on the kitchen counter, and has the back of her neck pressed against his face, her eyes closed in contentment.] She was rubbing her ear against his nose, which is a thing she for some reason loves to do.

So. All is well. I've been putting things in cabinets and taking them back out, and running everything I possibly can through the dishwasher, and to my astonishment haven't wrecked a thing yet I didn't intend to (I already know from being at my sister's that a certain category of plastic container will mostly melt in there but that's fine if you're just trying to get it clean to recycle it, it's not like it gets onto other things). And Dude realized the dishwasher has an app, so he paired his phone to it.

At Middle-Little sister's prompting, we've named the dishwasher Suds MacKenzie, since it lets you pick a name and that's the funniest one we could think of.

We retrieved our groceries from Dude's mom's house and cooked dinner and set off the smoke alarm so now we've really broken it in.

The stove is *really level*. For the record.

[subspaceember]

Things I do not understand about the design of my parents house

Bathroom

The shower head is mounted a foot too low. I'm around 5'10 and my eye level is right where the pipe comes out of the wall. (This is the case for every shower in the house) which means the water starts to hit you around your nipples

The toilet paper holder thing is in between the toilet and the tub and requires an uncomfortable reach, actually hard to use, and so no one does

None of the towel racks are within reach of the tub, there's one on the opposite end of the room and on the opposite side of the toilet

There is a fan - however it just vents into the attic - no actual vent was ever installed - also it's the scariest looking fan ever made, you can put your hand through it. The one downstairs was a complete afterthought, when we moved in there was just a random plug hanging out of the ceiling that went to the fan - which vents into the drop ceiling... of the basement

That's right the bathroom that's in a basement and has no window that can open and also used to have carpet in a house with no HVAC system has NO FUNCTIONAL VENT FAN

There is a window - it's just a regular window that faces the front lawn, so hopefully no one's out there. There's blinds on it, but they're mounted away from the window so you can still absolutely see in if you stand in the right spot

It has an absurd amount of countertop - not really a bad thing, but it's very overkill for a bathroom

The soap tile thing came off the wall and refused to be glued back on - so there's just a big duct tape patch there now

General

The entire downstairs is drop ceiling, yup like an office building.

On top of that the entire downstairs was originally only lit by single bulb fixtures, like for closets, just bare bulbs in a dark, damp basement - except bathrooms which were fluorescent lamps

The basement has a very uncomfortable hallway, it's about 3 feet wider than most hallways and is of course lit by one light bulb

There's a random angled wall here, so one of the rooms has a random angled wall for some reason

The house has TWO water heaters, a more common full size one and a smaller like half sized one. Guess which ones plumbed to the showers - that's right the small one, the big one is only connected to the kitchen sink, washer, and the nasty added on shower in the garage that no one has ever used.

Right - there's technically a third bathroom, it is IN the garage, i mean it's literally added on it's like a box that just juts out into the room. No one has used this bathroom as it is - like i said in the garage and thus smells of dust and mold and also there's no floor.

The floor plan is very odd, there's a BIG room and I mean big on both the first floor and the basement, and lots of tiny rooms, including the one my parents tried to move me too, which is quite frankly too small for a twin bed what you're supposed to do with a room that size I don't know.

There's no water filter of any kind here, not really a big deal, although the water is literally pumped out of the ground so uh sediment is in everything - like, the water filter for drinking has dirt in the top of it

The dust the downstairs of this house has dust like no other dust, the networking stuff is out in the garage where the dust is the worst, and it's killed 2 ethernet switches and a modem, it's this thick brown dust that - even though the house has been cleaned - will never go away

The deck - which is covered in plastic fake grass terf carpet and is nasty - is actually held up by a big iron rod that was clearly added much later than when the house was built, along with a much newer staircase

There's just a big gap in the wall on the side of the carport with a 5 foot drop - no one knows why it's there

Oh yeah also- the carport is on top of the garage - the garage is not accessible for cars, as it's on the basement level, so hearing a car roll ON TOP OF THE ROOM YOU'RE IN is really nerve-wracking

There were no lights of any kind originally installed in the back of the garage, it was literally permanently dark (the part under where the cars park btw

I mentioned the lack of HVAC - the house does has an oil-burning furnace - which smells of oil and makes a loud BANG every time it turns on and off

The stairs

The stairs don't really fit so there's no landing and instead there's a angled stair to rotate into the hall basically right across where the landing should be - I've tripped and nearly died on this a lot.

The stairs have only one light, at the top, which is almost impossible to reach to change bulbs, (you have to put a ladder at the top so you're at risk of falling down the entire stairwell if you fuck up) oh and this means the weird angled step is ALSO in the dark :)

The stairs extend out into the hall which is great for tripping over and dying on the concrete floor.

I'm living in the house of leaves

[captainderyn]

Kiss prompts for whoever speaks up: …as a ‘yes’.

This took me forever to answer, but Five and Roslynd (pre-relationship...sort of) spoke up! Thank you for the ask :)

Five/Roslynd

--

Staring at the name written in bold text at the top of the dossier, Roslynd wondered exactly what strings of fate had crossed as she wove through the hallways of Imperial Intelligence headquarters.

Her sharply polished boots clicked across the tile with each measured step, far steadier than her heart, which galloped away out of control beneath her pressed jacket.

It had been years. The coincidence would have been funny had she not run into Rhys, now designated Cipher Seven, and received an off the record briefing with details Keeper had left out of the dossier.

Many details.

Roslynd paused at a nondescript office door, closed, the windows into the hallway tinted so it was difficult to make out more than the shadow sitting behind the desk.

Though she raised her hand to rap her knuckles on the door, she paused and glanced once more at the dossier.

Designation: Cipher Five

Legal Name: Valetyn A. Slovoko

The name plate on the door read Cipher Five, followed by a hand written note tacked beneath listing out when he'd be in office.

She knew she was stalling, rocking side to side, but she inspected the note. His handwriting had always been frustratingly neat where hers had always been rough scrawl, his letters still slanted ever so slightly to the right. Figures he'd still hand write everything when he could.

If she stood out here any longer he'd probably come and investigate, there was no way he hadn't seen her shadow pass by the window. She let her knuckles fall thrice against the door.

"Come in." The familiarity of his voice struck deep in her chest, tugging at long buried strings.

She pressed the pad to the side of the door frame and it slid open with a soft swish. A rush of cool air from the vent in the ceiling washed over her, sending a shiver down her back.

Valetyn's office was exactly what she would expect it to be. Clean kept, bare bones, but pockets of himself hidden away. She recognized the old globe of Dromund Kaas on a shelf behind his desk. She distinctly remembered every time he'd snapped at her to quit spinning it when he'd been trying to study and she'd long grown bored of the tedious readings.

The harsh overhead lights were switched off in favor of two lamps, lit with soft yellow bulbs, enveloping his office in a cozy wash of light in contrast with the gloom outside. Why hadn't she thought of bringing lamps into her office?

Seconds ticked by with her silence and she knew she should say something, snap a salute even if she technically out ranked him, anything to not make things awkward. Though the door had hissed open, he hadn't ceased typing. The keyboard clacks were distracting.

Her mouth was bone-dry, her eyes locked on Valetyn. Her brain was spinning in circles, fumbling several different words into an unintelligible tangle.

He broke the silence first, flicking his wrist to check his watch, "If you've got something to say, say it quick, I have a meeting in...well, now."

The bluntness, she couldn't stop her soft chuckle, "Glad to see you're still one for pleasantries."

He paused, head whipping up. She froze beneath his gaze that fixed on her, watched transfixed as his eyes narrowed, then softened, his brows drawing low. Once more he glanced at his watch, then clicked on his monitor before his eyes snapped back to her.

She might as well be pinned in place by that look. The years gone by had dampened the memory of how intense his presence was.

"Fixer Fourteen?" Though formal, the edge smoothed from his voice.

"I'm she." Roslynd shifted her datapad from arm to arm, daring to step deeper into his office. The door whoosed closed behind her as she moved from the motion sensor.

A sense of intimacy hung in the closed space, she tried to shake it off, "It's good to see you Val."

"That's classified."

Her brows knit, "...what?"

"My name." He closed something off of his monitor and pushed his chair back to stand, "That's classified. It's Five."

Rhys had mentioned Five had his...tendencies. Things he'd latched onto over the last decade of service. He'd mentioned other things as well, some more concerning than others.

"Alright then...Five." She pressed her lips together at that, "It's my understanding that Keeper had assigned me to take over for your previous fixer. It appears we'll be working together again."

If she wasn't mistaken, a ghost of a smile flitted across his face. But that couldn't be right, it was gone before she could catch it.

Their meeting was brief, it had been timed to be an introduction as if they were strangers, not the reunion of two old friends or...wherever they had stood when he'd left for his first assignment.

While she should've been listening without distraction as he explained his work preferences, how he worked most effectively, she couldn't help reconciling this Valetyn with the one she'd known.

He'd always been handsome in a refined, old fashioned way, but the grey coming in at his temples, the crows feet forming at the creases of his eyes, had aged him like fine wine and it did little to help her focus. Valetyn always looked like he would be more at home in a plush library with a glass of whiskey than the gleaming chrome of Intel.

Rhys hadn't lied about the effect this work had on him though. While Rhys was all healing scars and a heavier build, Valetyn was sharp lines and dark smudges under his eyes.

"Fourteen, are you listening to me?" Her designation swept over her and Valetyn repeated himself, "Fourteen?"

She blinked, realizing too late she'd been staring at the clean pressed lines of his uniform, how it was either better fitted than those issued by the Academy or he'd filled out, "Sorry, I promise I've been listening."

It was nice to know she still had a type. Her cheeks heated. His lips most certainly twitched up at the corners now before that too flitted away.

"I'm looking forward to being a team again." Roslynd cleared her throat, "And maybe getting to know each other again, covering these last several years."

If she could pick things up with Rhys like a day hadn't gone by, maybe the same could happen with Val. If time hadn't changed them both too much.

A chime sounded from the monitor on Five's desk and irritation settled across his features, hardening his eyes and deepening the lines across his forehead.

Roslynd made to take a step back, glancing back towards the door and checking her own watch, "I should let you get back to it, seems like Keeper has you booked."

Valetyn grimaced, leaning across his desk to click something several times over until the chiming stopped. She was reaching for the door when he caught her hand, her fingertips almost grazing the button.

He paused, wrapping his fingers around hers in a gentle squeeze, and his eyes darted between their hands, her, and the door. Then he blinked and before she registered what he was doing, his lips brushed across the back of her hand.

"I'm looking forward to working together, Roslynd."

The way he said her name washed over her in a rush of heat, rising up her cheeks. His monitor began chiming again insistently and he scowled back towards his desk.

"We'll meet up later." Roslynd managed to get out with some semblance of normalcy, mashing the door button with a hand that didn't want to work. Her skin was alight where his lips had brushed.

Valetyn gave a nod, alright slinging himself back into his chair. Whatever glimmer of energy she'd seen flash through him when recognizing her had drained out of him.

She slipped out the door, letting it close behind her before she let out a breath, tucking her datapad under her arm so she could press her chilly hands to her flaming cheeks.

"How'd it go, Ros?" She jumped, the datapad slipping from beneath her arm. It clattered to the ground and she swore.

"Dammit, Rhys!"

"Stars, Ros, you're redder than a Korribani sunburn, did it go that bad?"

Glowering at him, she grabbed his arm and tugged him out of earshot of Five's office, "No not bad, idiot, could you say that any louder?"

Rhys trotted after her, grinning from ear to ear, "Ooh, I see. So I see you've still got it bad for--"

"Shut up, Rhys." She warned, glancing around pointedly for any other agents milling around. It didn't take much to get the rumor mill turned in this office, especially in a division as small as the ciphers. Nothing would help her working relationship with Five than putting him into the spotlight ten minutes after she'd stumbled back into life.

"Fine." Rhys held up a hand in surrender, "But after hours? Meet me at the bar on the corner of Tenth and Quadrant and you're going to have to tell me exactly what he did."

"Fine." Roslynd grumbled, tucking her hand close to herself. She swore she could still feels his lips on her skin. It was benign, chivalrous in that infuriating way of Val's, but filled with so much promise. Clearer than any words he could've said.

That whatever bond they'd built, whatever comradery they'd shared, wasn't completely lost.

[bluegarners]

found this old wip i don’t think i am ever going to finish so, here’s my proof of writing life :)

  dick has sudden bursts of meltdowns and tells himself it’s nothing because he recovers from them so quickly- that he has nothing real to worry about because he’s fine right after he cries- the vent fic of all vent fics

The shower turns on with a whine, a spray of cold water splashing against the tile. Dick waits on the bathmat, not particularly looking at anything as he idly waits for the water to warm up. It’s only another few seconds before steam begins to rise and fog up the mirror, a hasty glance at his missing reflection the last thing Dick does before stepping into the spray. It hits him suddenly, near boiling against his back, and Dick waits again for his body to acclimate to the temperature, gaze drifting over to the bottle of shampoo he keeps tucked away on the floor. He should invest in a rack to hang on the wall. He should do something about that.

It’s as he’s lathering soap into his hair that he feels it. Sharp, aching, tight in his chest. His heart clenches and pulses inside of his ribs like someone is squeezing it, invisible fingers poking into his arteries and flesh. It travels into his face, contorting the muscles into a fowl grimace, lips pulling down dangerously as his eyes scrunch up in a banal attempt at calm. 

The first sob leaves him unwillingly, teeth clacking together in an effort to keep the noises contained and inside of him, where they belong. It’s an enormous amount of effort that Dick doesn’t understand, the pressure building until he’s gasping around another sob, tearing through his throat in a desperate, howling sound. He feels it rattle his teeth, scorching his tongue and trailing liquid fire down his face, each heaving breath another battle to fight against as his ribs shudder with the strain not to fly apart and splinter onto the bathroom floor. It feels like he’s cracking apart, his agony echoing against the walls and ceiling, colliding back into him and punching the air from his lungs every time. 

The soap is running down his forehead, fingers latched in place in his hair as he presses his lips together, willing, willing, wishing away the thing clawing against his throat. The water pounds away at his back, the heat seeping into his tired body, and by the time Dick is able to quiet the sobs into quick inhales through his nose, he feels drained. Dick blinks, and with a last chest-rattling heave, he quiets completely, any hollow echo of his tears falling down the shower drain just as easily as the soap in his hair.

He blinks again and finishes washing, wiping at his face and shutting off the spray. He steps out the shower, red and faintly dizzy, and reaches for a towel, roughly dragging it across his legs and arms, scrubbing it back and forth until the only moisture left is in the air. Dick reaches out a hand and wipes away the condensation on the mirror, staring back at the warped reflection of himself, red under eyes the only indication of his meltdown. He smiles, an action that feels just as desperate as it was in the shower, and stretches his lips until it feels less like someone carved the grin into his mouth and more like he’s merely pulling them back with his fingers. 

“Get it together, Grayson.”

[avas-wonderland]

“Breached”

(CW: gore, lots of it)

Something for @anomalousalchemist’s Danganronpa x SCP AU

————————-/

The Chaos Insurgency building is quiet for once tonight.

Crickets chirped outside the gates. Cicadas were droning from the grassy plains and the sky shimmered with stars. Perhaps tonight was to be the longest this building has ever been quiet for some time if not for the two captives that intel had “borrowed” from their rival company.

The corridors have a hollow hum in its interior. Tonight, it was disrupted by the squelch of fluids followed by a shrill scream.

A burnt hand belonging to a soldier plopped down onto the ground.

Joining it was a spleen, a rib, and a foot twitching with little sparks of light. Two webbed hands slammed into the body’s abdomen. Bolts of bright lighting roasted it’s corpse to a crispy shade of black. Around the corpse’s neck was a pair of handcuffs that once held #7948 captive, aka the anomaly that the soldier had the balls to call a “wimp”.

The Iris of its one visible eye, the other hidden under its bangs, stared daggers at the corpse with a coy toothy grin.

Sirens screeched an ear-piercing signal that sent a torrent of militia rushing to the corridor.

Guns that were blasting bullets now clattered on hard titanium tilted floor

What echoed through the building was the warbled roar that belonged to the figure who dashed along the ceiling. It dodged the bullets that left dents along a neat line on the ceiling, slithering swiftly into an open air vent.

“Don’t stand there, jackass! Get th-“

Another soldier had his sentence cut short when a pair of dark green claws punctured the flesh of his throat. Rows of teeth yanked at his uniform before his body was ripped in half by the claws.

A few soldiers shot at the reptile as quick as they could.

Whatever bullets somehow hit its body felt like nothing more than the bite of a mosquito.

Its eyes—a haunting hue of yellow—flashed bright with infuriated bloodlust.

A swipe of the anomaly’s tail decapitated the heads of three other sentries that charged towards it.

Looking down at the squirming guard in its grip, #682 lifted him up high above the floor

It tossed the two halves of the body onto the floor. A loud “thud” echoed and the corpse was slathered in a pool of his own entrails. The fragrance of blood wafted through its nose, a familiar smell he’s fond of

#682 growled a nearby soldier that backed away slowly from it in attempt to catch off guard with a bullet.

A snarling noise forced her to look up above the open air vent oozing with a red sticky trickle of down-pouring blood.

Sasha leapt out of the air vent, sticking the end of its tail straight into the brain of the unsuspecting sentry, making her drop her gun as it electrocutes her.

It’s tail slid out to rip off the sentry’s head with Sasha taking a hearty bite out of the the abdomen of its limp prey.

Blood spurted out, drenching some of the soldiers so much they they can’t see.

It scampered off the body to go and rip out the jugular veins of another soldier trio among the clutter of guns collapsing onto the tiles.

As vocal cords were being torn left to right, another group of soldiers stormed in only to slip on the puddles of blood below. Multiple skulls cracked against the titanium while a few had brains split open from the impact.

Sasha dove back into the vent from before, a soldier accidentally slamming their face into the vent edges and squishing their face straight through the glass of the helmet.

Hiro unhinged its jaw to chomp a couple soldiers in half, gleefully adding onto the carnage of the hallway.

Sasha emerged out of the vent again in a flash of an electrical adrenaline rush, paralyzing some more soldiers.

Red flares of light harmonized with the blaring sirens from above. A fitting setting for the eruption of insanity that stirred within the halls. The Insurgency’s steel plated walls—once clear steel—now painted with splotches of warm viscera and broken bones.

Hiro roared as its hands slashed open the throats of charging sentries, blood spraying in individual rays of droplets staining its skin and shirt.

Another soldier ran but tripped over a blue tail that clutched her and pulled her into an open vent.

Sasha emerged with a sparking, twitching corpse in its grip before tossing it to three more sentries, shocking them all along wit it.

Screams and sirens surrounded the area but the sound of the anomalies blood spilling drowned out the silenced voices.

Hiro ripped out a soldier’s liver before slamming it into his brain and dragging out the rest of his organs in a trail of sickly sweet stenches.

Bullet shells and torn or electrified bodies littered the floor.

Sasha pounded across the floor, emitting 800 volts of light and striking a group of soldiers upon instant contact before they could even aim their guns at it. She dove into the group with hands sparking wildly with volts.

A loud crash of thunder launched the soldiers into a bloody clump of mangles bodies.

Hiro jumped onto the wall behind a soldier, scaling the building. It ripped out their spine with his own teeth, tossing the open-spined corpse in the air like a chew toy.

The corpse slammed smack into a wall. It slid down, a splatter of blood slid down with it. The hinges holding the one slab of wall together fell apart.

It swung down and crushed three more soldier against the wall, splitting their waists from their torsos.

One moment, the two anomalies were chained up behind a solder after a lengthy capture. But now they were mauling any solder and every soldier they can get their claws on.

The corridor had become a dingy, dry-blood coated, gut spilled plethora or a massacre, all because the damn Insurgency had chosen to “borrow” them from the Foundation without any warning.

A call command rang out on the P.A system for the soldier to retreat.

Two loud roars, Hiro and Sasha respectively, sent the surviving guards to scurry through the guts and bones and through the exit. With the last of the soldiers who were barely alive, escaping via the call command, the corridor was silent once again with the exception of blood slowly dripping into a puddle from above the ceiling.

The sickly sweet smell of organs were in every nook and cranny of the corridor.

Yasuhiro was standing above a soldier’s crushed skull with Sasha standing before another soldier’s charred corpse.

Relief filled the two anomalies that looked at each other in the middle of the hall.

Sasha wiped the residue of blood off its face. She stumbled a little while hurrying towards Hiro, bloody footprints trailing from her webbed feet and tip of iys tail. The humanoid reptile approached the eel woman without hesitation.

Yasuhiro held Sasha tight,sliding down against a bloody wall with Sasha in its arms.

It lifted its feet up to its chest, cuddling the humanoid reptile.

“Huh….it feels like a date.”

Sasha’s voice is sore from roaring but not so sore that Hiro couldn’t hear it. And it heard Sasha loud and clear.

“We should do this more often.”

“Maybe…”

Sasha nuzzled against Hiro as he ran its hands through its hair. That didn’t stop them from hearing the clack of two familiar pairs of shoes on the ground.

“Oh for crap’s sake!”

A slightly exhausted from running Dr Akamatsu and a conceded Dr Gokuhara stood upon the organ-scattered hall of the corridor.

“Those damn soldiers don’t tget it…”

“Gonta shall contact breach center.” The tall man smiled.

Kaede gave him a halfhearted smile.

“Remind me to get a mocha while you’re at it..”

[3wisellamas]

Deltarune Halloween Prompts Day 29: Tricks

---

Cap'n was a monster.

Not only literally, in that he'd given his bandmates a couple sneak previews of that year's expertly-crafted zombie costume, but also in HOW he'd given those sneak previews, scaring Sweet nearly half to death as he suddenly jumped out of hiding. Between that, and the Halloween sound effects CD, and the fake spiders in the fridge, and the glitter bomb in his coffee, and the silly face drawn on the back of his head while he slept that took forever to finally wash off, Sweet was about at his limit with the boombox.

It was time to trick him back, and Sweet knew just how to do it.

He loosened one of the tiles in the shop's drop ceiling, poking his head and a flashlight through to get a good look. Cap'n changed where up there he hid his journal every few weeks, but a few minutes of searching produced results, and Sweet replaced the tiles once he'd pulled out his prize. He liked glancing through it sometimes, both for entertainment value and to get a sense of what Cap'n really thought of him.

He really liked to pour out his most private, inner thoughts where he figured no one would find them, and that included a lot of surprisingly-competent-but-still-embarrassing poetry as well, which never failed to make Sweet snicker. With Cap'n out running errands, and K_K busy doing whatever they were doing in the kitchen, it was the perfect chance for Sweet to re-read a couple of those, out loud this time into a mic, making his own personal mixtape...

When the boombox returned Sweet sat there at his desk, unassuming, the journal returned and nothing amiss save for the tape he held in his hands. "Hey, how's things with Seam?"

"Ugh, kept me for hours with their stories..."

"I like them, though!" K_K popped their head out of the kitchen to greet him, as he set his purchases wherever he found space, but Sweet caught Cap'n before he could head into the kitchen for some milk.

"Hey, you know that Halloween mix I've been remixing for this year? Made a little demo, why don'tcha see what you think so far?" Holding back snickers, Sweet handed him the tape, and watched Cap'n load it and hit Play.

The first few tracks were nothing too alarming, a couple spooky beats to lull him into a false sense of security, and Cap'n smiled, giving him a thumbs-up of approval before going to finally get his milk. Sweet didn't try to stop him, just listening from the next room, waiting patiently for track 4, and...

"SWEEEEEEET!!" Only a few lines in Cap'n recognized what he was listening to, spitting out the tape and smashing it under his shoe with extreme prejudice. Snarling, he dashed out of the kitchen to find the speaker howling with laughter, holding his head on the desk. "YOU SON OF A-"

"I couldn't help it, Cap!! I just wish I'd gotten to see your face..." If Sweet could cry they'd have wiped tears away to see it now, bright purple instead of silver and literally steaming, with Cap'n's whole body shaking as he desperately resisted the urge to jump on them right then and there. "Hey, after all those 'tricks' you pulled on me this year you were overdue for one of your own! I really gotcha, huh?"

"You...YOU..." For once, Cap'n was at a loss for words. "You...READ MY FUCKING POETRY??!"

"Some of it's actually not bad though!" Sweet took a step back, as Cap'n inched closer, almost close enough that the speaker could actually feel the steam pouring out of his vents. Oh, shit, maybe this prank had gone a little TOO well, with Cap'n more than just a little pissed off! "I-I mean, some of it...th-the one about the moon, that'd actually make a nice s-sample, if you're...o-okay with that..."

"Sweet...we're pals, right?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Y-Yeah?"

"So I'll give you a three second head start."

It turned out to be a lie, as Sweet only counted two seconds before Cap'n came at him, as he ran into the kitchen to hide behind K_K, the only place he could think to.

[sunbizroofing]

Comprehensive Guide to Tile Roof Leak Repair

Tile roofs are admired for their durability, aesthetic appeal, and longevity. However, even the sturdiest tile roofs can develop leaks over time due to various factors such as severe weather, aging materials, or poor installation. Prompt and efficient repair of tile roof leaks is essential to prevent further damage to the structure of your home. This guide will walk you through the process of identifying and fixing tile roof leak repair effectively.

Identifying the Leak

The first step in repairing a tile roof leak is to identify the source of the problem. Common signs of a leaking roof include water stains on ceilings, damp walls, or a musty odor in the attic. Once you notice these indicators, it’s crucial to locate the exact spot where the water is entering.

Begin by inspecting the interior of your home. Look for any visible water stains or damp spots. Next, examine the attic for signs of water intrusion. Pay attention to areas around roof penetrations such as chimneys, skylights, and vent pipes, as these are common sources of leaks.

Exterior Inspection

After identifying the general area of the leak from inside, move to the exterior. Carefully inspect the roof tiles for visible damage such as cracks, chips, or missing tiles. Damaged tiles are often the primary cause of leaks. Also, check for debris accumulation in the valleys and around the flashing, as this can obstruct water flow and lead to leaks.

Repairing the Leak

Replacing Damaged Tiles

If you find cracked or broken tiles, replacing them is crucial. To do this, you’ll need a few basic tools: a flat pry bar, a hammer, and replacement tiles.

Remove the damaged tile: Carefully lift the tiles surrounding the damaged one using the pry bar to create space. Gently slide the damaged tile out.

Install the new tile: Position the new tile in place and secure it. Ensure it sits flush with the surrounding tiles to maintain the roof's integrity.

Repairing Underlayment

Sometimes, the leak might be due to damage in the underlayment rather than the tiles themselves.

Remove tiles above the damaged area: Gently remove the tiles covering the compromised underlayment.

Cut out the damaged underlayment: Use a utility knife to cut away the damaged section. Ensure you extend the cut to an area of sound underlayment to ensure a secure patch.

Install the new underlayment: Cut a new piece of underlayment to size and secure it with roofing nails or adhesive. Replace the tiles above the repaired section.

Fixing Flashing Issues

Flashing around roof penetrations is a common source of leaks. Inspect the flashing for gaps, cracks, or corrosion.

Seal minor gaps or cracks: Use a high-quality roofing sealant to fill small gaps or cracks in the flashing.

Replace damaged flashing: If the flashing is severely damaged, remove it and install new flashing. Ensure it is properly integrated with the roof replacement to create a watertight seal.

Preventive Measures

Regular maintenance can prevent future leaks and prolong the life of your tile roof. Schedule periodic inspections, especially after severe weather events, to catch and address potential issues early. Clean the roof and gutters regularly to remove debris that can cause water to back up and penetrate the roofing materials.

[unknownjpegs]

things

Maran dances his fingers together and apart in the air, great sweeps of threads connecting to specific points as he gestures to the ceiling and recounts the facts.

“Right, so. Dr. Robertson slept with Dr. Robertson —” 

“Not related.” Benny reminds him from the bathroom. “That’d be extra fucking w-weird.”

“Anyway, Robertson’s fuckin’ Robertson, Delgado doesn’t know. And then Jansen gets a book review expedited for Robertson.” Maran frowns. “Wait. Which one?” 

“O-chem.” 

“Yeah, knew that. So o-chem Robertson wins big. They get more citations, which apparently fucking matters. And that has Delgado thinking, 'oh, shit, something is going down, heh, or someone, and —” Maran kicks back on the bed, wheeling his feet. “Oh! Forgot about Smith and the bioengineering holiday party. Proper fucking orgy, huh? Does everybody just shag at those things?” 

“Pretty m-much.”

They go in circles like that for a few minutes while Benny gets dressed; Maran relating gossip he’s heard before and asking for updates, Benny giving them with an amused edge. He pays attention to the politics of academia, but not in a way that means he genuinely cares. Tidbits and intel. He collects them like a magpie and shiny things. Just for the fun of it.

Maran ends up sleepily rubbing his cheek against the duvet. He’s planning on a nap while Benny presents research at a panel and then does the necessary (bullshit, his drawl in Maran’s head) elbow rubbing at a bar afterwards.

The bed is comfortable. He’s never been in a hotel this fancy. Never been in a nice hotel period. Before joining Benji in the States, he didn’t have much need to travel out of Merseyside at all. And when he did, lint and pennies in his pockets meant the cheapest room available. Usually at the sort of establishment where he’d debate wedging a chair under the handle at night. Sometimes tempted to sleep in the bath, baseball bat to his chest, shoes squeaking against white porcelain; on, in case he needed to go.

This hotel has a bath. It has a very nice bath. Jets and not a single spot of mold around the tiles. He imagines cooking in it like a lobster until he’s just as red. 

“In or out?”

“Hm?” Maran’s focus lifts from his phone, and as it does his jaw comically drops. 

“Tucked?” Fabric bunches in a fist, tugged out beneath a shiny black belt. There’s a flash of skin. Maran’s eyes drop to it, and then they drift back to the belt, and then away over hands and defined arms and shoulders and down again, belt, up down, stomach, down — they feel like they’re going to spin out of his fucking skull. 

“Or n-not? Does that look s-s-stupid? I don’t fucking know how they —”

“What the fuck.” Maran sits up from the comfortably plush bed, shoulders stiff. He blinks rapidly. The air conditioning vent is right above him, blasting on full, but the shiver isn’t at all related to temperature. He’s comfortable. Actually, he feels a little warm. He’s very warm. “What the fuck?”

Benny’s mouth drops into a frown. “That bad?” 

A long, thin mirror hangs from the wall opposite the bathroom door. Maran watches him — could fucking do nothing but watch him, right now — pause in front of it to assess the outfit. Benny pats at himself, turns this way and that, brushes his hair back and plucks at the high collar of the black turtleneck encasing him. Matching dark pants, shoes that shine with disuse. 

It’s not bad, Maran could say. Help alleviate some of that self-conscious energy rising off Ben in squirming waves. But it is that bad. It’s fucking awful. It is really, really fucking awful.

“You can’t just.” Maran starts the sentence without know where it ends. Tries again: “If I’m not there — and that…people are gonna —” he snaps his mouth shut, eyes widening in frustration. Benny stares at him, sunglasses tipping down his nose. 

Please don’t, Maran screams internally when his hand lifts. The watch’s glass glints in the golden, late afternoon sun streaming through the huge windows. Ben reaches towards his face, everything sluggish and slow like his brain’s been set in slow motion. Please do not do that thing you’re about to do. You know the one. Don’t fucking do it, Ben. 

Benny nudges the edge with his knuckle, tilts his chin as the sunglasses go smoothly into his hair. Pushes it all back off his forehead, opens up his face, and there’s that and the shirt and the belt and —

Maran flops over on the bed, head tucked between his arms. “Fuck’s sake.” 

He hears quiet footsteps across the carpeted floor, but before Ben can offer a comfortingly concerned hand, Maran slips away and to his feet. Rounds the bed back towards him, quick strides that bring them close once more. 

“Wh-what’s — hah.”

He watches his own hands move across black. It’s not soft fabric whatsoever, which probably accounts for how uncomfortable Benny is at the moment. He tucks two fingers into the edge of the sleeve, entranced, and pushes slightly to reveal more skin. More hidden ink. Maran gulps and tugs the fabric back in place, pats them, his other hand flexing on Benny’s shoulder.

“Is there, like, a name for this?”

He licks his lips, pulling a face of confusion. “Turtleneck?” He’s not joking, but Maran has to laugh at that, or he’ll make another noise. Do something else. 

“No, Ben, fuck. I mean…is this a thing?” His eyes point up through his lashes, land on Benny’s. His hand strays back and forth across the rippling bunch of fabric at his throat. His throat. Ben’s fucking throat. 

“Like, a thing?”

“Oh.” Benny’s eyes go wide as Maran tucks one finger inside the collar, pulls it down and away. His breathing is slow and deliberate. Manual. He’s gotta fucking breathe manually right now; in, out, in. If he doesn’t, he’ll forget how. Fucking suffocate and die. Collapse on the ground.

Maran leans forward and rubs his mouth to the pale skin just above his knuckle. When his bottom lip touches itchy fabric, he scrunches his face and shies from the tickling sensation. Frustrated because he can’t get to the spot he’s thinking of at this angle, he yanks at the sweater harder, tugs it down inch by inch. 

Ben stumbles towards him; a pair of hands cup his elbows.

Soft. He rubs his thumb in there, eyes locked to how the sharp tip of the scorpion’s stinger, dotted with a single drop of inked venom, points to where Ben’s shoulder meets neck. He puts his mouth there. Puts teeth there. Tongue, teeth, mouth again. Offers each side of the column biting kiss afterr biting kiss, head tilting lazily. He goes slow. Feels liquid in his limbs, head swimming. Like he’s not moving his own body. 

Maran lifts the fabric back in place, watches the scorpion disappear, and then pauses before pulling it away harder than he had the first time.

“I’m gonna —” he says quietly, roughly. Skin shivers beneath his lips. That distracts him enough to trail off. Tilt his head another way with a frustrated noise. He nudges closer, seeking the spot out. He’’ll stretch out the fabric pulling so hard, but he only distantly cares about that. Ruined sweater means Benny can’t wear it again. Means nobody else gets to see it.

Something clicks into place in his skull. 

Maran touching his nose gently to the spot, follows that with yet another gentle press of his mouth. Another. A slightly harder one behind his ear, a suck to his jaw. Someone groans softly. In contrast, his hand snaps up and pushes Benny’s chin harshly to the side to make room for his face. 

He does it again, that soft pitchy oh, so Maran pauses and lifts to look Benny in the eye. 

They’re nearly black. Lock immediately to his mouth. Maran licks his lips. 

“Fuck.” He sighs. Benny lets out a long, wheezingly low breath as well. It’s only then that his heart kicks up, chest rising and falling more rapidly as they gaze at each other. His fingers squeeze so tight over his cheek, his jaw, that they leave reddening indents. Maran closes in again, shuffling until their hips press together.

“Fuck, Ben. You’re —”

“Please,” he groans. The soft, reedy quality of that plea makes Maran freeze. “S-Stop fucking teasing and kiss me.”

Maran bursts into motion, completely and blindly incensed by that neediness. He does as asked, their mouths crashing together so quick that Maran’s lip tingles where it connects with a canine. Benny stumbles back. That confuses him…until he realizes his hands have slid down broad shoulders to flatten against his chest. That he’s pushing Ben backwards, their legs briefly tangling. 

As they collide, paw at each other, they keep moving. Maran doesn’t stop walking when Ben does; he pushes himself close, close, close. Slips his hands from his black-clad chest to tangle in soft blond hair. Benny groans into the kiss, catches himself with hands thrown back as he knocks against the television stand. 

The thing wobbles as it’s shoved back against the wall with a bang! thanks to their combined weight, rattling an ugly landscape painting that hands above. There’s a sharp knock from the neighboring room. They ignore it.  Maran’s sparsely packed duffle topples onto the ground, spilling clothes everywhere. They ignore that, too.

“This.” Maran breathes into his mouth between kisses, sliding a hand between their bodies to fist at the turtleneck, shake him. “This.” It goes lower, jerks the fabric over Benny’s stomach up enough that he can touch trembling knuckles below his navel. Maran’s teeth sink into his bottom lip, forehead slipping across his cheek as he glances between them. 

His chest looks good from this angle, wrapped up in black. It’s not revealing at all — not in the slightest. Is that it? He wonders. Is that why I feel like I’m going to die with a fever?

“After the mixer,” Maran pants against his mouth, holding his face tight so he can’t lean in for more. “Come back here. Like, immediately come back here. Don’t go out, don’t —” he sucks in a breath as Benny’s back arches, notching their hips and thighs together in a way that is very distracting. 

Maran reaches down, offers the palm of his hand for Benny to rock against. “I am so dead fucking serious, Ben. I need you to come back and fuck me in that.” 

He sags a little. “I —”

But Maran’s brain hasn’t paused, it’s just his mouth struggles to catch up. “No, wait. Oh shit, no, I really — no, wait, wanna fuck you.” He blinks several times, then rattles off a list of other thoughts. Considerations.

*

They can’t act on those ideas yet, which makes Maran pout. Not enough time. 

Benny struggles to leave the room. Goes for several attempts, actually. Each gets foiled in a different way than the last. First Maran yanks him back by the elbow, crowds him bodily against the door. The second time, Benny makes it out into the hall but slips himself back in the cracked door, eyes hazy and ringed by a thin sliver of blue. Maran has to push him out with a hand to the center of his chest.

He’s panting when he flashes an encouraging grin, foot wedged on the opposite side of the door so he can’t shove in. “Fucking hell, go, you bastard. C’mon. You’ve got it, Ben. Gotta tell me how the presentation goes.” His smile twists filthily. “Be right here waiting.”

Benny stands in the dim yellow of the hallway. He’s got his wallet in one hand and bundle of highlighted notebook pages bunched in the other. It’s a summarized script of his paper. He’s gone over it dozens of times. Practiced and practiced and even more practice. 

Beginning patient and then almost always concluding with frustration. He’s hard on himself, because the information was confidently there but the words aren’t always so easy. Benny has obsessed over this — and rightly fucking so, it’s a massive undertaking and Maran’s proud beyond words — for the past month. Now, he stands in there in the hallway and blinks owlishly at Maran. Both of their mouths are swollen from kissing. There’s a red mark on Benny’s jaw that peeks out from the sweater.  Maran reaches out and tugs the neckline down so it’s more visible. 

Benny’s pale throat bobs. 

“Presentation?”

[romanceable-corn]

a painting with a secret // marvel cinematic universe

wherein Peter Parker finds out about Tony Stark's darkest secret.

AN: this takes place before Infinity War -A

part one: "a painting with a secret"

There's a forgotten room deep in the Avengers' tower. Peter thought that he knew of them all - he was wrong.

As the spider-boy flew into the wall of Avengers' tower, gripping to the reinforced glass, he noticed he didn't recognize the room on the other side.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., what's this room?" Peter asked, and immediately the AI responded by dropping him to the nearest terrace, one belonging to Natasha Romanoff. He knocked on the glass until the sleepy Avenger opened the sliding door.

"Peter?" She asked, watching him haphazardly remove his mask.

"Black Widow ma'am, do you know about the room above yours?" She shook her head, suddenly seeming much more awake.

"What's in there, Peter?" He shrugged and glanced around Natasha's room, before finding the object of his search.

"I'll be back," Peter responded, shooting a web to the ceiling vent and pulling it off with ease. Before she could even begin to argue, he jumped into the vent's tunnels and began to crawl upwards. Peter got about a few feet towards the next room up before he heard a voice behind him.

"If you're going to make someone curious, expect them to follow you." He shivered at the sound- Natasha's voice always terrified him half to death- but kept climbing until he found the right vent. Pushing it off its hinges and hearing the clang as it hit the floor, Peter dropped to the tiled floor and heard Nat land almost silently behind him.

"Black Widow ma'am, whose that?"

There was a moment of silence, until Natasha cleared her throat and glanced at what Peter had been staring at.

"That's Tony, and his daughter Maria."

"Mr. Stark has a daughter?!" Peter shouted, causing Natasha to cover his mouth with her gloved hand.

"Quiet kid, we don't need the whole tower to know." He removed her hand and his mouth gaped at the portrait. It contained an image of a rather young Tony Stark, definitely from before his life as an Avenger, and a toddler attached to his hip. Her black curls bobbed to her chin as she beamed towards the viewer, and Peter could almost hear her laughter through the painting.

"She's adorable," he whispered, getting closer to read the plaque on the bottom. 'Tony and Maria II Stark, 2006'.

"She was born six years before he became Iron Man," Natasha explained, pulling Peter away from the painting softly. "Tony hasn't heard from her since she was nine." He glanced down at his phone, and typed in the words 'Maria Stark', but all that came up was the elder Maria: Tony's mother.

"I have to get out of my suit, thanks for telling me all this Black Widow ma'am." Natasha nodded and watched Peter slide back up into the vents.

About twenty minutes later, Peter stood in front of the home of Amelia Foster and a seventeen year old named Maria, who on her Instagram had a striking resemblance to the portrait. Before he could raise his hand to knock, the door pulled open from the inside.

"You're Peter Parker, you work for my deadbeat dad."