#when i was 7 a dog ate part of my upper lip

[colorisbyshe]

i was a freakish child because i loved to watch all of the vet shows on animal planet here they did like… open cavity surgeries on animals like i thought it was so cool

but at the same time i had to (and currently have to) look away when getting my blood taken cause i would almost faint if i saw a needle like that

wanna go back in time and psychoanalyze myself a bit cause girlie what…

[demonprosecutor]

YOU REALIZE THAT HANDSOME MEN ARE THE TALK OF THE TOWN

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11

the sheets smelled of lavender with the underlying hint of sweat, something unfamiliar and reminded you that you were far away from home, which was wasting away in the revelry of satyr-like monstrosities. the lack of warmth behind you was enough hint that zagreus was long gone from his post, the indented area cool to the touch.

in spite of the previous day’s... excitement, you felt incredibly well-rested even with the troublesome aches that came from riding myroclus without his saddle pad. hair clung to your cheek, eyes blearily blinking to take in the contents of the unremarkable room that you found refuge at. the travel pack was dumped onto the wooden table near the center of the room, animal furred rugs adorning the floors, and the window was scantly opened to allow sunlight within - brightening the insides in a manner that made it feel homely for the wayward traveller.

stygius was propped at the corner, almost careless in the way it was left, and you stare at it hard. you had been meaning to inquire zagreus about the weapon, about its origins. after wielding it briefly yesterday against anura, it was unnerving. alive almost. filled with a battle-hunger that you knew that you would not be able to sate. (whispering about ichor and ancient cyclopean hands crafting it and titan-flesh cleaved like flayed meat)

perhaps these were the moments where curiousity such as yours was not wise and you tear your gaze from the weapon meant for more than war (for desolation, for abject violence). a shudder marches like the myrmidon army, down your spine, unrelenting. it was time to turn thoughts towards more pleasant things.

you stretch, arching your spine and popping joints with a satisfaction of a well-fed feline, walking towards the door to open it. a bit of fresh air wouldn’t hurt anyone, you reasoned internally, only to find zagreus on the other side - poised to knock and awkwardly balancing plates of food and cups of wine, looking too much like a first-day servant in the palace of a king.

“oh! you woke up.” he says, shouldering his way in when you move to the side to allow him in. there’s a hint of disappointment in his voice that makes the arch of your brow go even higher than usual whenever zagreus was involved in a sentence.

“you sound...” the door clicks close, as you gesture vaguely. “disappointed.” the prince lays the plates and cups without spilling a drop, something that must’ve been noteworthy considering the way he softly cheered and grinned.

zagreus turns to you, smiling sheepishly and rubbing the back of his head. “i was looking to get you breakfast. in bed.” the meal was... strangely extravagant. a hot stew with meat bobbing inside the broth, steaming bread and wine. this would be more appropriate to call lunch or dinner. 

“this... is breakfast?” you ask, voice pitched uncertainly. how chthonic gods ate in the underworld was beyond you, but this meal seemed to be... pricy. that’s when the strangeness of the morning hits you, you rush over to the travel pack and open the significantly-lighter pouch before looking up at zagreus with accusation brimming your gaze, hissing. “you took money?”

“erm. yeah. it was just laid out there and i thought it was something that the both of us could use.” he looked genuinely confused by your ire, the breakfast and nice gesture left forgotten. “it wasn’t even that bad! just 2 dekadrachm for two meals and wine!”

you white-knuckle the strings to the pouch, hard enough that it creaked underneath your hands. “you got swindled, zagreus. two dekadrachm for that? i could’ve made that myself and in better quality!” the pouch now held drachmas, and obols. he had just spent the equivalent of twenty drachmae. you feel like a bull with the way your breathing goes heavy. “we’re going to talk to them.” zagreus was still two heads taller, yet in your fury, he looked smaller. you poke his chest, “and we are getting that dekadrachm or die trying.”

he looks crestfallen with the reaction given - completely opposite of what he had intended. “of course, let’s get that money back.” and as always you feel slightly bad.

hesitation pauses your actions, reaching out to lay a gentle hand on his arm before he turns, “look. i appreciate the gesture, ok? this was...” the words float around your mind, plucking it like magic. “-- sweet. but we have to save money now. we don’t have access to all of the same amenities as before.”

zagreus still doesn’t manage to meet your gaze, nodding slightly, taking the plates in the same silly manner as when he entered before the both of you leave the room.

the town was quaint enough, dirt roads flattened by the hooves of mules and the feet of men, a district for shrines of the gods, and a whole avenue for food and shops. zagreus leads you towards an innocuous restaurant, one with the seediest little man you’ve ever seen. oh zagreus.

the man rubs his hands together villainously, upper lip sparse with facial hair and receding hairline emphasizing the shine of his baldness. “hello there, traveller, have you come back for more?” he raises his knives in ready for the next order.

zagreus grimaces, setting the wine and plates down onto the table nearest to the chef. “not quite. my friend has something to say to you.”

the chef blinks, registers the food before levelling his smarmy gaze onto you, as if realizing you were there for the first time. sneering once the realization came that you couldn’t be duped as easily as the poor prince. “what is it.” he sets the knives down, and crosses his arms, lined with muscle and looking too much like he could snap you in half. however, you are reassured by the presence of zagreus who was definitely a million times stronger.

you gesture to the food aggressively - “two dekadrachm for that?” it’s difficult to not let accusation flood tone, but the two of you had a particularly stressful day yesterday and felt entitled to the bit of snappishness that came along with hunger and exhaustion. the chef, understandably so, was offended by the tone of voice, by the sheer aggressiveness of tone, and the status of occupation that was easily seen by the state of your clothing. it was clear, from first glance, that you were a servant. a servant for a goddess, but a servant nonetheless.

he sneers at you, smarmy eyes and demeanour completely different in comparison with how he spoke with zagreus. it takes you aback slightly (even if its something that you’re well-aware about, lady persephone and zagreus had always treated you as an equal...) the chef gives you a once-over that makes both you and zagreus bristle. “tch. what do you know about quality? you’re a mere servant, probably content to eat food off of the ground like a stray dog.” he spits on the ground, a sign of dishonour that makes your hands clench and brows knit together.

how rude. does he think you went into service like this because you wanted to? partly, yes, you wanted to thank the goddess for her willingness to allow you into her fold. but a lone, traumatized individual fresh from the horrors of desecration and war -- you were a lamb ripe for the picking. it was necessity.

hot shame curdles in your chest, tears pricking your eyes. zagreus notices your distress, the way your shoulders curled slightly forward as if to protect yourself, and its almost boyish the way he plucks at the back of your chiton. you have half a mind to allow him to go off on the chef, but you stop yourself - you cannot always rely on the prince to fight your battles.

so you swallow the bile down and straighten, zagreus’ knuckles bumping against the curve of your back. “i may not know much as a servant, but i do know my way around food. how would your customers feel if they figured out that you’ve been stinting them on the meat? that you use fats to thicken your stew to waste less ingredients? or that you’ve been swindling them for far too much money? servants are not good at many things, but they are good at gossip.”

your little tirade was loud enough to garner the attention of potential customers who look at the restaurant and the food that had been laid out for view pleasure with a grimace before swerving and moving away to other restaurants. the chef, of course, notices this, panic evident on his features, shushing you quickly.

the speed that it took the other to fold surprised the both of you, even more so with the way he tossed the dekadrachm onto the ground for you to pick up, plumes of snow tossed in the air by the action. zagreus looked rightly mad with the careless way the coin was given back, teeth gritted and body posture leaning forward, but you got what you came for and that was enough.

cheerfully, you hook arms with him and with no small amount of effort, yank him away before starting a morning brawl with the wrong person. “what the---- i was going to give him a piece of my mind!” there’s a brief moment of struggle before he acquiesces with the stern look levelled at him, not bothering to unwind his arm from yours. too much like a guard dog barely leashed. “you shouldn’t let people walk all over you like that.” crest-fallen, sad, indignant on your behalf, which was flattering, but.... you round the corner, nose lured by the smell of baked bread and cheese brought to you by the gentle winter breeze, something that had your mouth watering.

even if stew was something nice, winter had always begged for baked bread and it was a good staple to have on journeys. “oh shush. enough of that business.” you say dismissively, coins jingling in your pouch, as you stop before the quaint bakery. 

the main baker was a dark-skinned woman, dark eyes gleaming like tilled earth and smile reminiscent of the snow. her hair, voluminous and curled, was held back with two strips of faded-green cloth that characterized the average grecian woman’s hair adornments. “hiya! how can i help you both?”

you lean in, peering at her exquisitely-made bread and pastries, a block of cheese on a clay tablet nearby. zagreus mirrors you, as you rub your chin in careful consideration. “your bread looks so... well-made.” you praise, mouth watering once more. “crispy, fresh, and warm -- family recipe?” 

the woman laughs, a jovial sound that makes you flush slightly. “you got that right! passed down for generations and no, i’m not going to give it up just cuz a pretty face asked me to.” you think she was talking to zagreus who had moved further down the display to eye one of the pastry makers make their desserts, but she chuckle-snorts at you. “not him, was talking about you.” 

oh. you stare wide-eyed, straightening and blushing hot enough that you couldn’t feel the cold of demeter’s winter settling on your unfortunately-unprepared self. “oh. i...” the words leave you easily, flapping your hands as subtly as you could. happiness? fluster? who knew. “erm, thank you.” the baker’s smile warms as she peruses her wares with a hint of lord hermes-esque mischief. zagreus notes this, the way your face warms in a way that is starkly different from the heat that comes from the chill of winter, lips spreading wide in a smile. your gazes meet and he wiggles his brow impishly, prompting a look from you. he has the audacity to laugh out loud, laurels around his head flickering quickly before they fade back to a charcoal-black of inactivity.

“here you go!” the baker prompts your attention, holding out a clay plate filled with bowls. “i snuck you in something extra, seems like your friend there is someone who tends to eat a lot, on the house!” you blink owlishly at the plate, even moreso when she grabs your bag and carefully wraps the bread, cheese and tarts to be used for travel.

“this is too much,” you say weakly, attempting to deposit the proper amount that would fit her services. she looks at the pieces in her hands, picking out 3 drachmae before pushing the rest back into yours.

“it’s alright. like i said: on the house!” she exchanges a warm smile with you before turning her attentions to other customers. you stare after her, starstruck - well, at least until zagreus loops his arm with yours, chuckling quietly.

“it appears you have the wiles of lady aphrodite, my friend.”

that has you flushing even harder, swatting his arm with a hand, “quiet, i was merely... taken aback. that’s never happened to me before.” there’s a sense of giddiness in your chest. of course, you have never had... interest directed at you, so suddenly having it was... flattering! (if a better word could be found...) your eyes flicker about, spying the coy glances that passerbys tossed zagreus, men and women alike, eyeing him with an interest that he seemed oblivious to. a smile graces itself on your features, craning your neck to whisper, “and besides - i’m not the only one with the wiles of lady aphrodite. it seems that you have fans.”

as if for the first time, zagreus lifts his head and looks around, finally noticing the looks and the stares. a faint pink tinged the pallour of his cheeks. “oh.” the smallness of the word makes you snicker, and the way he waves almost shyly to a group of men and women, nearly has you cackling. “stop that! this is... new to me. this interest.”

you both are nearing town square, heading towards the shops that boasted more travel-appropriate items. you hoped that you could trade some of your nicer chitons for weapons and travel-clothing. but that wasn’t at the forefront of your mind. “wait, so you’re telling me this interest...” you gesture at the people doing double-takes at zagreus, brow arched, “is a new thing?”

zagreus shrugs lightly, “i mean: i guess i had people interested in me, and i them, but... you know, majority of people i interacted with were either my cousins, assholes or not a viable romantic interest.”

well, the cousins part made sense, he was related to the olympians, but the other two had your interest piqued. “i see. well, who was your first interest?” you had arrived at the avenue with all the shops, bustling with patrons and exploding with colour in spite of the temperature. various shop-owners displayed their jewelry and pots proudly, haggling with customers and counting drachmae with greedy fingers. 

the prince ducks his head, avoiding a low-hanging banner, face contorted as if not sure he was willing to reveal his secret or not. you’ve learned to be patient with him because you knew that he was comfortable with you and that he usually needed to work up the courage to talk about personal things such as this. (not that love or crushes was ever a topic you had tread upon.) “My first interest was... achilles.”

you think you misheard, nearly stumbling over a loose stone, looking at him in confusion. “achilles as in... ‘fought in the war at troy’ achilles? theeeeee.... ‘ended a whole war because his philtatos died’ achilles? that achilles?” zagreus nods at all of that, as you absent-mindedly go to the nearest clothing shop, running fingers over the cloaks and furred boots. “seriously?”

“as serious as death.”

“huh.” you weight the cloak before holding it out to measure it against the width of the prince’s chest. “well, he was a looker, good choice. did he reciprocate?”

zagreus allows himself to be measured, “no, his heart had already belonged to another. it’s a long story.” he takes the cloak and hangs it over his arm, as you look for a size most appropriate to you.

“well, i mean we’re going to be stuck together for a while, so i guess i have time for long stories.” you selected something warm and good at bracing against the cold, haggling with the owner with the cheapest price possible before moving on to a blacksmith.

“how about you? who was your first interest?”

you look up from an arrow displayed, thumb stroking the tip. “i don’t think i had any, i mean? there was a noble a long time ago, but i think it’s been a long while since i’ve had interest.” you toy with the idea of buying another weapon, even if it made your skin sweat and crawl. “do you think we’ll need another weapon?”

the cloak looked dashing on him, furred and lining the broadness of his shoulders attractively. a wayward travelling prince. “i don’t think so. you got your dagger and i got stygius - it’ll be fine.” that was true, and besides, if things got bad - you trusted zagreus to keep you safe. 

by the time you had returned to the inn, night had fallen, the sun dipping below the horizon and townsfolk scurrying back to their warm homes. you both were exhausted, despite just shopping, and lugging your wares for the night. a travelpack, dried food, medicinal supplies, and proper travel clothings. it was a good haul, if you were being honest. thank the gods that one of your skills involved haggling.

you stretch, rubbing your eyes, as you opened the door to your shared room ---- only to scream once you realized that someone was in the room. zagreus barrels past you, fists raised and eyes sparking with anger, pausing at the sight of hermes. “hermes? what in hades are you doing here?”

the initial shock wore off and now that you had time to truly study the other, there was a sense of otherworldliness that makes your insides tremble. his scarf floated around unnaturally, winged sandals fluttering to allow for him to float. lord hermes waved playfully, “hey boss! i knew that i would find you here. i tried looking for you at the cottage once i realized that the protections were down, and hooowe! what a mess that place was, crawling with satyrs.” the god spoke fast, not bothering to pause for breath. “and whoooo do we have here?” suddenly, he was in your face, eyes scanning over your features and breaching your boundaries. if it was anyone else, you would’ve shoved the back, but since this was an olympian... you let him have his fill of staring.

zagreus clears his throat loudly, “that’s my friend, lord hermes. we managed to escape the attack by the satyrs - is there a reason why you’re here?”

parcels overflowed his messenger bag, fluttering to the ground before fading away, lord hermes looked through it all, humming to himself. “well, coz, the family is in a bit of a tizzy right now! especially demeter, persephone had disappeared, and well, we heard some more troubling news! she disappeared in an area where it’s heavily shielded by magic. we suspect that the satyr cultists originate from there. we would go and raze it, buuuuuut there’s just too many.” he was far too nonchalant, barrelling on despite the fact that zagreus was still fixated on the part where his mother had disappeared. “anyways, i’ll give you one of my blessings.” lord hermes placed a hand on zagreus’ head, his entire being shining like a beacon, dazzling you before it dies down.

where hermes once was, he no longer was there, leaving a map behind.

sparks of light danced on zagreus’ body, face grim. “my mother disappeared.” he says quietly, sitting down on the cot and draping his forearms on his knees. you let him sit, bending down to grab the map and read it. it looked like a long, arduous journey - perilous, judging by the marks that indicated great danger. he sighs loudly, looking up at you, face pained. “you should stay here. it’s safer.”

the paper crinkles underneath your hands and you take a moment to set it onto the table, curling into fists once they were freed. “i don’t care. i’m coming with you!” you shake your head firmly, “i pledged my service to lady persephone and now, i pledge my service to you.” you drop down to one knee, fist against your heart. “prince zagreus, son of hades, son of persephone, charge of the goddess nyx, i swear that i will do everything in my power to help you.”

he looks soft, pulling you up to your feet and hugging you tightly. “ok, ok. we’re in this together. we have a long day tomorrow, let’s rest.” true, you were terrified. but you were determined to help zagreus and find his mother. then this family would find the peace they deserved. you arrange yourself in a familiar position, curled on your side with zagreus behind you, carefully wrapping an arm around your waist, he murmurs out a quiet good night, something that you return and allowed your eyes to flutter shut.

----

you’re awaken by a beam of sun hitting your shut eyes. a groan leaves your lips, as you push yourself into a sitting position. zagreus, like yesterday morning, was not there - his spot cold to the touch. maybe he was off getting breakfast from the nice baker. your body finally starts aching less, and you stand up, ready to wash your face to prepare for the rough journey ahead.

but something was off. half of the travel supplies were gone, stygius was gone, the map was gone. your mind was slow to alarm, but once the dots had clicked, anxiety rose like an unrelenting crash of waves upon the shores. “what the...” you look for the things, the conclusion settling itself onto your mind, before your attention is captured by a piece of parchment on the table. you lift it up and begin reading it:

when you wake up, you’ll find that half of the things are gone and i’m sorry for that. but the journey is too dangerous, i can’t have someone i care about get hurt for me. i want you to stay there and wait for my return, i won’t be long.

- zagreus.

ps. i borrowed myroclus for the time being.

you read the words over and over until they’re tattooed behind your eyelids. then rage swells in your throat, releasing in an angered yell, as you bang your fist onto the table, shoving it so that it fell to the side.

that bastard, that arrogant, little ... prick! you can make your own decisions for yourself. you didn’t need some prince to decide what was good for you and what wasn’t. argh!

it takes you a few minutes to stop screaming into the cot before you stomp down to the stables and yank the nearest stableboy to your face, seething. “i am very angry. did someone take my horse? about this tall, laurels around his head and mismatched eyes?”

the stableboy quakes and nods, “sir told me not to tell you, he took the horse and travelled out.”

“where?” he shrugs and you release him, tears brimming your eyes. how could he do this to you? how could he leave you behind? in a town with no friends and no one to turn to for help ---

you stop, spine straightening as you stare into the open air. you knew someone who could help you. your steps take you straight to the baker who was already getting ready for the day’s rush, she turns her head to smile at you, only for it to fall at the sight of the tears on your face. “----Thisbe? i’m going to go out for a bit, someone needs my help.” deep within the bakery, someone calls out an affirmative.

the baker grabs your hand and pulls you into her home, and seats you on a chair. she busies herself with brewing tea and grabbing bread, “you look like a mess, what’s wrong?”

you take the offered cup of soothing tea, tasting honey on your tongue before explaining everything that had happened. well, omitting the part about hermes and satyrs and so on. you look to the ground, eyes brimming with tears, “i thought he trusted me. but he left me here... i don’t have money or a horse or anything!” your hands cover your face, crying quietly.

she is silent for a long moment and she leaves your side. you think she’s going back to the bakery to ready for customers while you cried your heart out. but the sound of metal hitting together has you looking up. “here. this should be enough to last you until you hit the next town. if you go into the stables near here, the guy owes me something. he’ll give you a horse.”

she guides you to your feet, laughing at how baffled you look. “why are you helping me?”

the baker holds your hands, squeezing gently - “when i was trying to escape war, someone did the same for me, helped me start my life back up. i don’t know why, but it feels like lady hestia is telling me to help out. to... pay it forward.” 

you dry your tears with the back of your hand, “can i know your name? not just... for the guy to know, but so that i can remember the person who helped me.”

“menelaia,” menelaia leans forward and kisses your cheek gently, placing a piece of bread into your hands and nudging you outside. “go get that stubborn prince back.” you nod and rush out of the bakery, pledging to come back here to return everything to menelaia.

true to form, the man at the stable offered you a hardy steed. a chestnut stallion with a midnight black mane and a fire in his eyes. “he’s tough and fast, trust in him.” you stroke the horse’s side, “his name is amydros, he will get you to where you need to be.”

you place a saddle pad over your horse’s back, amydros nickering quietly, patient. you were pleasantly surprised to find that your stay had been paid for, but that made you that much more determined to catch up to zagreus and give him a piece of your mind.

the sun had scarcely risen above the frost-covered trees, amydos hitting the snow-covered ground with his hooves. you didn’t exactly remember the entire contents of the map, but you knew that he was headed to the next town. hopefully it had a temple to hermes, just so that you could pray to him and ask for help. (help with wringing zagreus’ neck until he got sense back).

your heels dig into amydos’ sides, prompting the horse to run down the well-beaten path of the open countryside, the next town scarcely able to be seen. as long as you stayed on the path, you’d be fine, you hoped...

[devnny]

CHAPTER NINE.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

this was too fun to write knowing what comes next, PLEASE ENJOY

Tenna leaned her cheek against her hand with a smile, swaying the leg that she had slung over her knee as she sat across the table from her unexpected guest. It was a mischievous, evil smile, Devi thought.

“So,” She tittered a little. “how’s your househusband?”

“Please, do NOT call him that.” Devi begged, eyes rolling firmly backwards in her skull.

Tenna continued her snickering.

“That what he is, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh come on.” Tenna scoffed, her mug scooting across the table as she extended her hands out. “How many times has he made dinner this week?”

“That has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING.” Devi pointed at her defensively. “He should be cooking for me – it’s not like he pays rent! That’s just him earning his keep.”

“Uh-huhhh…” Tenna nodded as if she was humoring the denials. Devi gurgled her irritation in the back of throat.

“But he is behaving himself, like a good little hubby might?”

“Tenna…” Devi gritted her molars, and Tenna belted out another set of laughs.

“WELL, IS HE?”

“YES, he is behaving fine. Like a dog might.” She answered, more comfortable comparing Johnny to a mostly-domesticated creature than even conceptualizing the joke of him being a spouse to anyone, especially her. Tenna bobbed her head along again. Devi settled back into her chair, hoping to relax.

“He’s been asleep all day.” She complained. “I want to wake his ass up so I can paint, because I can’t be blasting music in there if he’s sleeping on his desk, but he probably needs the rest. He supposedly hadn’t slept in ‘months’ before this.”

Tenna’s tongue poked out from behind her smile, followed by a sharp squeak from somewhere out of Devi’s line of sight.

“That’s so considerate of you, Devi—!”

“DO NOT even TRY to construe any decency I have as acts of kindness for him.” Devi cut her off with a squint.

Two more squeaks.

“Why are you so defensive about this? It’s okay to enjoy the company of your roommate.” Tenna teased again. Devi grumbled.

Tenna hadn’t let up on this topic since she found out that Johnny was officially moved into the apartment. At this point, laying on the couch aimlessly with a sleeping Johnny in the adjacent room was more appealing than sitting here and getting ridiculed for her wrongly-assumed-nice choices.

“Forget it. I’m going to go check—” Devi started as she stood, but cut herself off as her friend flittered another smile toward her.

“…go check on him.” She finished unhappily, then left before Tenna could mock her again.

--

TWO FLOORS ABOVE:

“No…!” Devi’s voice was waning, and he laughed.

“No, Johnny, no, don’t—”

Johnny dug the knife into her chest again, and felt a rush of satisfaction that she was helpless to stop him. He never held the control between the two of them, but this time she would be answering to him! She hardly even tried to push him away, only calling out with a voice that was growing softer with each gasp she worked to swallow.

She deserved this for being so rude to him! Awful woman – she had such biting words before, but now she had to reserve her fangs for biting back the blood that sputtered out past her lips. It made him laugh.

“Nny…” Devi croaked out.

He felt a sudden emptiness in his chest, and his arms chilled, startling him with the stark contrast of how hot his skin had felt just a moment ago, burning with the pleasure of revenge.

There was no pleasure in this.

She was dying.

--

Johnny’s body spasmed and he whacked his elbows against his desk as he awoke with a guttural gasp. He scrambled into a sitting position in his chair, slapping his palms on the surface of his drafting table like a scurrying animal. As he got his bearings, his head swiveled around frantically, until he was certain that he knew where he was – which was sitting in Devi’s art room.

A breath shuddered out of him through his panting, and he gulped as best he could past the dry lump in his throat.

Just another fucking dream. He had fallen asleep. GOD, he hated sleeping. The last thing he remembered was finishing the project that he had been working so madly on. He must have laid his head down on his desk afterwards and opened himself up to the horrors of his fervid mind.

He didn’t want to disclose it to Devi, but this was not the first dream he had about killing her since her intervention into his life. The first was the night after their tutoring sessions restarted, after their minor falling out due to him attacking her with a pen.

That week Johnny had cried his guts sore, then rode wave after wave of anxiety about meeting Devi again and attempting to apologize, then nearly combusted with joy that she actually forgave him. He must have burned himself out, he had figured, with the last of his drawing attempts the night following that, then had passed out when he got home.

Stupid emotions, so tiring.

He sneered and roughly rubbed his uneven hair, then turned his attention to his sketchbook that laid closed in front of him. He opened it to check his work, partly to distract himself from the lingering tendrils of his nightmare, and partly out of rampant curiosity of what the final result was.

His lower eyelid wiggled uncomfortably at the figure that greeted him.

DEVI? He had been drawing Devi this entire time?

Jeezus, how was he supposed to share this with her? He hadn’t meant to put a week’s worth of effort into a portrait of… her, but he had, and now he would need to hide it away to ensure she didn’t think he was a total creep and throw him out of her house on his ass.

Johnny pouted; it was the nicest thing he’d made in years, too. He really liked the lines, and how it was layered through multiple pages. He sighed and settled the cover closed again.

“So, you’re finally up, huh?” Devi stood in the doorway, previously obscured by the sketchbook he held up. Johnny screamed.

“AH—OH, UH, DEVI…!” He blathered, clutching the book close to his chest. Devi chuckled.

“It’s weird seeing you sleeping.” She commented as she walked the short way to his desk. “You snore a little bit, by the way.”

Johnny’s nose crinkled, unaware that he snored. Strange.

“I saw your little project.” She said, and his heart toppled into the hopeless abyss of his stomach. Devi laughed again at the terrified look on his face. She hated to admit that she felt more relaxed around Johnny than Tenna these days, but that could just be her pride talking.

“DEVI, I…” He gasped, then swallowed and tried again. “I-I promise, it’s, it’s really not as… uhm, intimate, as it seems—”

“Oh please don’t use that word for it.” Devi scoffed casually.

Johnny lowered nervously, partially hiding behind his sketchbook.

“Just promise me it’s not like, a testament to your undying love for me, and I won’t have to club you to death.” She teased, and Johnny’s eyes went wide in embarrassment.

“NO, NOT AT ALL.” He stood. “I just, I—I didn’t even realize this is what I was making until it… was done! Honest!”

Devi blinked at him skeptically.

“You… didn’t know what you were making?”

“Yes! It was like I was compelled to make that!”

She squinted at him with some suspicion.

“Do you think… Meat influenced you to create it, then?” She asked.

Johnny’s panic dissolved at the question.

“Oh…” His eyes wandered down to the sketchbook, but he was not worried about the idea of Meat’s interference with that. “No, I don’t think so.”

But with the mention of it, he was suddenly very suspicious that his parasite was the cause of his horrible dreams. He couldn’t understand what the Reverend would want as a result from tormenting him with bloody, anguished Devi’s, but Johnny was confident at least that the motive was part of the voice’s ‘plan’ for him. Against his better judgement, he kept those thoughts from Devi for the time being.

“What makes you so sure?” Devi crossed her arms loosely. “I mean, I guess it is creating, so the likelihood is low, but it’s still… me-related.”

Johnny shook his head and inched a ways closer to her.

“A lot of things right now are you-related.” He replied, almost a little smug, and Devi scoffed a smile again.

“Whatever.” She waved him off.

Devi returned to the living room, and Johnny trailed after her, stopping short when he saw her shrugging her jacket on. She had just wanted to paint today, but there was a more pressing issue on the agenda now.

“Hope you’re up for an outing,” She turned to him and gave him an annoyed look. “because we have to go to the store, seeing as you ate all my food.”

Johnny’s upper lip dropped low in surprise, then tightened back up into a guilty smile as he laced his hands behind his back. It was strange having so much food available to eat; he couldn’t recall his own cupboards and fridge ever having such variety. He had allowed himself to get a little carried away with his snacking while Devi was asleep – he still remembered, with some lingering pain, his whining and belly-aching after eating until he was far beyond full for the first time in maybe a year. Devi had shown little sympathy for him.

“Ah – of course!” Johnny shrugged happily, eager to sooth any irritation she had with him with dutiful agreements. Devi huffed a little and hitched her backpack securely onto her shoulders, then lead the pair out of the apartment.

--

AT A NEARBY GROCERY STORE:

Usually, Devi was content with shopping at convenience stores for her groceries, but the small-sized portions and limited selections at a 24/7 or a Grab n’ Go weren’t very good for restocking her entire food supply, so she begrudgingly parked her car in the lot of an actual grocery store. She and Johnny watched from the safety of Devi’s car as a mother wheeled a cart past them that was half full of food, and half full of wailing toddlers. Devi turned to give him a bitter expression, as if he had intentionally eaten her out of house and home and forced her to come here. Johnny offered a nervous smile as reply.

“At least it’s getting late?” He chuckled just as nervously. “So, maybe less screaming babies?”

Devi muttered her complaints under her breath and opened her door to get out, followed hurriedly by Johnny.

They walked briskly to the store’s front, with Devi ignoring all the annoying things she saw in the parking lot to the best of her ability, and with Johnny eyeing every unpleasant and rude act he saw with the shifting eyes of a predator. Neither of them enjoyed being among the masses even on a good day, but Johnny felt particularly on edge being near so many irritating things after such little recent exposure. If Devi wasn’t beside him, he was certain he would have snapped before even getting to the entrance.

He kept close to her side while she wheeled a shopping cart from aisle to aisle, and mused to himself how odd the action was. He never went to places where you’d even be offered the luxury of a shopping cart – not that he was ever buying enough things to require one, what with his meager funds and all. Devi dropped seemingly random things into it, and Johnny, rather than even attempt to suggest anything that he might want to eat too, only eyed the options that she chose inquisitively, settled in the idea that whatever she chose was all that would be available to him anyway.

Johnny had no complains about Devi’s taste in cereals or cheap instant food, and shortly found himself uninterested with their current errand. While Devi checked a carton of eggs for any broken shells, his eyes wandered around the length of the back aisle they were on, and a disruption on the opposite side of the store drew his attention.

When Devi turned back to ask him something, she was horrified to find him missing.

“JOHNNY!” She called out immediately, stricken with both concern and anger.

She got no response, and abandoned her cart to look for him, hoping that he was just a few rows away and got distracted by something shiny or sugary.

Two aisles, nothing.

Four aisles, nothing.

Devi’s anxiety rose the longer it took for her to find him, and after two failed sweeps of the store, it reached a fevered pitch. She had absolutely no concern for his safety, of course, but rather for the safety of every asshole in the proximity of the building. That thought spurred her to go check the parking lot, and she rushed to the front of the store again.

Her boots clanked on the sidewalk as she paced from one end of the parking lot to the other. It irritated a man soliciting near the entrance, but when he went to confront her about her annoying actions, Devi shoved him to the side and out of her way as she sped by. She opened her mouth to call for Johnny again, when a sickeningly damp, whacking sound hit her left ear, and she turned her focus to the alleyway that lead to the back of the grocery.

“Oh, no.” She winced. “Please, Christ.”

With all of her urgency to find him only seconds ago, the speed that she crept to the alley felt achingly slow. Devi hurried the last few steps, and whipped around the wall, convinced that Johnny is what she would see.

She wasn’t disappointed in that regard, at least.

Johnny stood some yards away with his back to her, his slender frame barely visible with the dark backdrop of the alleyway, but unmistakable to Devi. Some poor soul lay at his feet, and Johnny’s arm pulled back, revealing he was equipped with a pipe of some sort. Devi’s mouth hung open in dismay.

“JOHNNY C.” Her voice roared out of her, and Johnny’s body tensed instinctually.

His hand popped open like a talon, letting his weapon of opportunity fall to the badly maintained asphalt with a chorus of metallic clanking. He turned to look at Devi fearfully, and her stare only grew angrier from the clear view of the blood spatter that reached up to his elbows on both arms. Johnny’s face stretched uncomfortably as he forced an anxious smile onto it.

“D… DEVI.” He tried to laugh out. “I, UH… I can explain!”

One of his muddied hands swung back to gesture at the man laying beaten behind him. The man groaned incoherently, then went quiet again. Johnny grimaced, and jolted where he stood as Devi began to approach him with quickening speed.

“YOU—”

“NO, WAIT.” Johnny evaded her a moment by circling around her, suddenly worried about getting cornered just as he had his victim. His arms jutted out to the man on the floor again. “He was calling his girlfriend all sorts of degrading things! In public!”

“Johnny…!” She growled.

A bead of sweat slid down his temple.

“I swear I was going to let him live!” He insisted. “It wasn’t going to be a murder, just a little head bashing, that’s all!”

“OH, THAT’S “ALL”!?” Devi yelled at him, and slipped an arm free from the straps of her backpack. Both hands gripped the other strap, and she propelled it forward in an aggressive swing, tagging Johnny somewhere near his collar. The power behind the hit knocked him to the floor, and Devi stood over him with her knees bent to continue beating him with her bag.

“YOU IDIOT!” She hissed between swings. “I CAN’T TAKE YOU ANYWHERE!”

Johnny pleaded with her through fearful shrieks and all manner of breathless grunts from being struck, but nothing would stop Devi until her rage had run its course. All he could do was shield his face with his forearms until she decided his punishment was over.

At least her bag didn’t have much in it, from what he could feel. He was more concerned that she would abandon it in favor of her much more deadly clenched fists, or maybe the pipe that he had so mercilessly battered that jerk with, which was still laying nearby.

“Ugh!” Devi exclaimed with one final smack of her backpack on his chest.

She stepped over his form and readjusted her bag onto her shoulders, unconcerned about if the contents inside were broken or not. Johnny peeked an eye open at her from the ground, and watched her fix her frazzled hair a moment before scampering upright again. Devi scowled at him, and he replied with a sheepish smile, happy despite himself that she hadn’t cracked his skull open like an egg.

Devi’s nose crinkled, and she lowered her eyes down to his arms and hands, which still had patches of dirty blood on them. His fingers wiggled at his sides, as if in response to her staring, and she glowered.

This was not good. Even when she was right next to him, Johnny, the slippery little fucker, had absconded to commit some violent act – and she wasn’t sure she bought his claims that it wouldn’t have turned fatal, instead suspecting it only didn’t because of her timely appearance. Shit!

“What more do you expect me to do, Johnny?” Devi asked through bared teeth, and his smile dropped into an ashamed pout.

“I… uh, well, nothing.” He replied with a single scuff of his boot on the floor. He was more remorseful for upsetting her than he was for indulging in his desire for carnage, what with her doing so much to help him and all. She shouldn’t need to do anything more – it was just so difficult to control himself with bastards like that populating the city! Such hard choices…

“You need to clean up. You can’t go back into the store with blood all over you.” Devi snipped, and Johnny perked up, hopeful his answer would calm her.

“I’ll just wash off in the bathroom – no one ever notices the blood, anyway.”

“No, of course they wouldn’t.” Devi closed her eyes in annoyance. The universe just liked to hand Johnny free passes for getting away with dastardly deeds, didn’t it?

She started to walk out of the alley, and Johnny paid his latest victim a quick glance – he was still twitching, that was good! – before he followed Devi back into the store.

A myriad of low-spoken curse words ghosted past Devi’s lips as she waited for him outside the men’s bathroom door, and her bitter mood continued when Johnny popped back out to display his now-clean palms to her.

She was disappointed, again, and hated herself for getting comfortable, again. Why did she always fall into the same trap of overconfidence when it came to her ability to control this lunatic? Even with Johnny acting fairly normal and domestic with her at home, he was still like a volatile chemical, and mixing him with anything besides his routine could make him explode.

They returned to the cart that Devi had left near the dairy section, and she felt a tiny bit of relief that it was still sitting there untouched. After grabbing a couple more things, they went through a check stand, paid for their crap, and Devi glared at nothing, one bag in her arms, while Johnny gathered up the other two from the end of the counter.

Amongst her brooding, a blip of color in her peripheral caught her attention, and she looked to the woman that had been behind them in line. She was standing, talking cheerfully with the cashier, while her toddler daughter tried to rush over to the attractive, cheap toy and candy dispensers on the front wall. The poor thing couldn’t get far however, with her brilliantly colored monkey toddler harness and leash springing her backwards onto her butt every time she tried to charge ahead.

Devi blinked, her curiosity peaked, and she looked back up to the mother, who continued on with what she was doing, unbothered by her hyperactive child, unworried about having to watch her, with the pink handle of the leash held firmly in her hand reassuring her that her daughter was right where she expected her to be.

“What?” Johnny asked in regard to Devi’s thinking face.

“Hmm…” Devi looked off thoughtfully.

That might work.

--

NEXT.

[perspective-series]

Switched Perspective (7)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Fear, panic, cages, bruising

(Check the reblog for the links to the previous chapters and the prequel!)

This is a sequel to A Third Perspective! Read that first or you will be confused!

“Hellooooo?” Thomas called louder, setting the ice cream and toppings onto the kitchen counter. “Anybody home?” It had been a lot of fun choosing various toppings and explaining them to Patton. Well, ‘choosing’ might be the wrong term, as almost every single thing they had passed ended up in the basket. Thomas justified it by wanting to make sure Patton and Virgil’s first ice cream experience was as amazing as possible.

Back in the bedroom, Roman was now faced with a difficult choice. Should he call Patton into the room, hoping the human would scold Virgil? But maybe that might make things worse. After all, Roman’s whole argument revolved around forgiving people for the past. Maybe if they all just acted like this never happened, Virgil’s own guilt would prevent any further misdemeanors. Surely with time Virgil would come around...right?

Of course, Virgil’s guilt about harming Roman hadn’t stopped him from trying to scare Logan. Clearly Virgil needed more time than Roman originally thought.

“Virgil, put. him. down.” Roman instructed irritably, knowing they had limited time.

Virgil bit his lip, but did as Roman said and put Logan down next to him. Just in time too, as Patton walked into the room.

“There you guys are! Ice cream is here!” Patton announced, before staring at all of them with a frown. “...What are you guys doing in here anyway?” He questioned. Virgil coughed slightly.

“Uh, nothing. Just talking...hanging out.” He shrugged.

“Patton, Virgil was- “ Logan was cut off as Roman quickly slapped his hand over Logan’s mouth.

“Telling us about himself!” Roman’s voice was a little more rushed than usual as he fibbed. “How he’s...scared of the dark. And talks in his sleep. And is a wuss.”

“Oh! Well, I’m glad you’re all getting along!” If Patton was being honest, he had been a little worried about leaving them alone, but he was glad to see those worries were unfounded. “Now come on! I want to try the ice cream.” He walked over and offered Logan a ride.

Logan flinched away from the approaching hand, but when it stopped on the desk Logan gave a tense sigh. He had to remember this was Patton. It was only Virgil who held ill-will against him. Slowly Logan climbed onto the palm, feeling his new injuries beginning to ache now that the adrenaline of the moment was over.

Patton brought his hand to his chest and brought him into the kitchen where they had put the ice cream. As they left, Virgil sighed in slight relief, offering Roman a hand as well. “Why...Why did you stop Logan from saying anything? I mean, thanks, but…?”

“It wouldn’t mean much if Logan just called you out now.” Roman shrugged, staring at Virgil’s hand. He didn’t truly trust Virgil very much right now, but it was the easiest and safest way back. So, Roman begrudgingly climbed on. “You’d just be more mad at Logan and we’d all ruin Patton’s mood. And now when Patton inevitably finds out he’ll just be even more disappointed with you.”

Virgil didn’t say anything as he carried Roman into the kitchen. He still thought he was in the right, but the thought of Patton being disappointed in him...Virgil shook his head. When he reached the kitchen, he put Roman down on the counter, turning the the large pile of ice cream with wide eyes. “How much did you guys get?”

Patton shrugged. “Not sure, but we just had to! There are so many flavors, Virgil. So many.” Patton grinned. He was so excited to try some.

“Go ahead, try some!” Thomas encouraged, handing Virgil and Patton each a spoon.

Roman looked around the counter, spotting Logan amongst the various containers. He limped over to him quickly.

“Did you say anything to Patton?” Roman asked in a near whisper, too quiet for humans to overhear.

“Not yet.” Logan matched his volume, sounding annoyed.

“Good.” Roman jabbed a finger into his chest meaningfully. “Not one. Word.”

“Or what?” Logan almost laughed, raising an eyebrow. He certainly wasn’t afraid of Roman.

“Logan, c’mon.” Roman pleaded. “I’m serious. I’m trying to help you here.”

“Well you’ve certainly got an odd way of showing it.” Logan scoffed.

“Virgil puts on a front, but he’ll come around.” Roman insisted. “Acting scary is just his defense mechanism.”

“So I noticed.” Logan rubbed his ribs with a wince.

“If you tell Patton, it’s just going to upset him.” Roman pointed out. “You don’t want that, do you?” Logan considered it for a moment, looking up at the human in question happily enjoying some ice cream.

“I’m not going to lie to Patton.” Logan admitted quietly.

“You don’t have to lie.” Roman said, understanding. After all, if Logan still felt guilty about the whole betrayal-cage scenario, of course he would feel uneasy about any more secrets from Patton. “Just … don’t bring it up, and I promise I’ll make sure you and Virgil are never left alone with each other again. I swear it.”

“Roman, look at your stature.” Logan reminded him. “We are no longer in charge. Do not go making promises you cannot keep.”

“Okay, fine. But look at it this way: “ Roman took a second to pause, careful of his wording, “Do you think...maybe... you deserved it?”

Logan gave him an unamused glare. 

“I’m serious, Lo!” 

“Don’t call me that.”

“So, yes, Virgil doesn’t know his own strength.” Roman admitted. “And he certainly shouldn’t do it again and he’s definitely on an emo power trip, but at the same time... you did keep him captive. And lock him in a cage.”

Logan turned away from Roman, not deigning him with a response. Of course, there was a small part of Logan that agreed with what was being said. Logan knew he was a bad person, if he wasn’t still. Perhaps this was indeed a fit punishment.

“This is pretty good.” Virgil admitted as he ate another spoonful. And that was strange in and of itself. Eating with actual silverware. He was used to tinfoil and if not that, then his hands.

“This is the best!” Patton jumped up and down excitedly. “Oh! Logan, Roman, come get some ice cream! It’s great!” Patton said as he noticed the two by themselves.

“Uh…” Thomas looked back and forth between the spoon and the new borrowers. “How will they...eat it?”

“Ah, that’s quite alright, Patton.” Logan raised a hand in thanks. “We’ve both had ice cream before, and I doubt something that cold would be appropriate for our new forms.” Indeed, though it was early fall his apartment felt as though it was the middle of winter now that he produced so little body heat of his own.

“What!” Roman gasped, dramatically clutching his heart. “No ice cream? Are you mad? We could surf down an entire mountain of it at this scale! Doesn’t that thought fill you with a sense of excitement?”

“Sure.” Logan shrugged. “If I wished to die of hypothermia.”

“Aw, come on Logan! A little ice cream never hurt anyone! Right Virgil?” Patton asked as he took another bite. Virgil shrugged.

“You definitely wouldn’t die from it.” Virgil said, rolling his eyes.

“Again, how are we gonna do this?” Thomas was already trying to scoop some into everything from a mixing bowl to a teaspoon, trying to find something of relatively the right size.

“Thomas, if you could kindly stop making a mess of my kitchen that would be appreciated.” Logan sighed, taking a few steps forward to be closer. “I would suggest just scooping some out into one of the smaller bowls found in the upper left cupboard, and if the stature is tall enough it can be treated as a large cone.”

“You’re the boss, hoss.” Thomas did as instructed, placing the bowl between the two borrowers. Roman immediately dug in, using his hands to scoop some out and into his mouth.

“Ooh that’s cold!” Roman winced, shivering already.

“That’s what you get for using your hands for that.” Virgil chuckled. He turned to Thomas. “Logan’s got some tinfoil in that drawer over there if you can go get some?” Virgil pointed and asked.

Meanwhile, Patton brought his hands around Roman, though not enough that he was actually touching him. “It’s okay Roman, I’ll warm you up!”

“O-oh, ah, thank you Patton.” Roman said, feeling a bit of heat radiate off the palms invading his personal bubble.

“I meant to lick it like an ice cream cone. Like so.” Logan demonstrated by bending at the hip and leaning forward to give the mound a small lick.

“Well, now you look like a dog.” Roman pointed out, still shivering between Patton’s hands as melting ice cream dripped from his fingers. “So who looks stupid now?”

Thomas chuckled, listening to the two bicker as he grabbed the tinfoil for Virgil and handed it to him.

Virgil snickered at Roman’s remark, taking the tinfoil and tearing off a piece. He stopped to marvel for a moment how easy it was, before setting the rather large piece in front of the two shrunken humans. “If you want, you could try to make a spoon. It might make it a bit easier to eat.”

Patton grinned at Virgil’s idea. “Yeah! Here, I can show you how to do it.” He ripped another piece off and quickly molded it into a usable spoon. He held it up. “See? Do it just like that!”

“Ah…” Roman took a bit of tinfoil in his hands, looking down at it. Patton’s demonstration had been a bit too fast for him to follow, but Roman got the basic idea. He began to mold the material, tongue sticking out slightly as he concentrated.

Logan, however, had other plans. He pointed to the spoon in Patton’s hand. “Might I use that one, Patton?”

“Uh…” Patton looked back and forth between the human-sized spoon he had made and Logan. “I...guess…?” Patton set the tinfoil spoon down in front of Logan.

Virgil raised an eyebrow, watching Logan carefully. What was Logan planning? He didn’t actually believe he could use it, could he?

“Thank you.” Logan began to tear off a chunk of the handle of the spoon. There, Patton’s grip had bent the foil slightly, creating a divet. With just a few folds, the grooves left by the human’s fingerprints became a sort of bowl that was much more manageable. From there Logan could scoop out some of the ice cream that had begun to melt and slurp it if he so chose. Which he did, giving a quick demonstration to everyone watching.

“Aw, no fair.” Roman pouted, holding up his almost perfectly-formed spoon. “That’s cheating.”

“Yeah, you’re just being lazy.” Virgil said, trying his best not to full on glare at Logan. Patton hit him in the arm.

“Well, I thought that was really smart of you Logan! Borrowers need to use whatever resources they have in order to live and survive.” Patton praised, which Virgil grumbled at.

Logan’s smug look made Roman roll his eyes, taking a few bites of ice cream himself.

[pvntherz]

Summary: Kitty gets an amazing idea and drags the rest of the kids along with her (fluff)

A/N: I wrote 1, 830 more words than I should have. Which is to say I shouldn't have written this at all, because it's trash. Please be nice it's my first time writing.

Spell check?: Nope, not at all

Word Count: 1830 words of trash

----

It had been a long week. Rehearsals had been kicking all the queens in their respective asses. The kids had been tied up with school and had no time to just have fun. Today was different, today was Saturday.

At approximately 4:30am Katherine Howard had awoken with the best idea she ever had in years. She quickly got out of bed and brushed her teeth. After throwing on some more presentable clothes she peaked out her door. She looked left and right. It was empty. Just what she needed. She quickly ran down the hallway as quietly and as quickly she could. She stopped in front of Mary's door and opened it slowly. "Pst, Mary..wake up!" Mary shot up quickly and looked around. "Huh-why are you waking me up at 3am!?" Mary grumbled and ran a hand through her ginger hair. Mary had never been a morning person and she really didn't like waking up early on Saturdays at all.

"I have an amazing idea, I need you to wake up all the others up!" With that Katherine made her way towards the kitchen to prepare for her grand scheme. She opened the fridge and got the eggs and milk. She searched cabinets and pantry for sugar, salt, vegetable oil, and baking powder. "Right, cooking stuff!” Katherine looks through all the kitchen drawers to find everything she's looking for

It wasn't until Mary obnoxiously cleared her throat did she realized the others were in the kitchen “We're all here, what is it that you want?” Mary's eyelids were still heavy with sleepiness and it was hard to tell whether she was glaring at the older woman or just tired. “This better be good..”

“Yea..mommy isn't even up!” Little Edward rubbed his eyes and yawned. He still had on his paw patrol pajamas on. They were pretty clean for the most part, save for the damn spot of what could only be drool near the collar.

Elizabeth stretched slightly. Her upper arms were covered with paint splashes from an all nighter she never got to finish. “If we're doing what I think we're doing, I demand extra food.” Elizabeth's statement cause both Edward and little Mary’s eyes to light up with excitement.

Katherine couldn't help but smile at the excitement of the younger kids. "Elizabeth's right, we're gonna make our mom's breakfast, but we have to be quick and quiet. We don't wanna wake them up." Mae and Edwards nodded excitedly. Elizabeth and Mary nodded still too tired for excitement. "So here's the deal. We need someone to mix the batter, someone to make cook the waffles, and some one to prepare the plates." Edward raised his hand jumping up and down. "I wanna make the batter and I call licking the spoon!" Little Mary pouted and crossed her arms. "I wanna lick the spoon!"

"Calm down, once we finish there will be enough batter to lick up." Katherine clapped her hands together. "Alright, now…I'll start making the batter and you guys can pick what you want to put in the waffles!" Katherine turned around to face the small amount of ingredients she had laid. She paused for a moment. Her brows furrowed together and she bit her lip. "You have no idea how to make pancake batter do you?" Mary asked as a smirked dancer across her face. Katherine ran her tongue across her teeth and quickly pulled out her phone. "Hey siri how do I make pancake batter?"

There was a burst of giggles in the kitchen. "Whatever, one of you gremlins start making the bacon." Katherine grumbled as she followed the directions that the video had given her. "On it!" Elizabeth said as she grabbed a pack of bacon and a stick of butter out of the refrigerator. "How much do we need?" Elizabeth turned on the stove and placed a pan on top of it. "All of it!" Katherine said as she started mixing the batter together as well as she could.

"What about the berries, we need to clean them!" Little Mary said as she placed a box of strawberries and blueberries near the sink. "Right, you and Eddie start washing them!" Katherine order the other children around. "Mary you're one waffle duty with me!" Mary sighed as she helped Katherine pour the batter into the waffle maker. "If these turn out to be trash, I'm never letting you live this down." Mary grumbled under her breath. "That's fair."

Everything had be running smoothly for the the most part. It was already 5:30. Most of the other queens woke up no earlier that 7 or 8. They bacon had been cooked and the waffles were almost all done. All that was left to plate the waffle and serve it with the rest of the food. Everything was just fine until Catherine Parr decided to wake up early. "What's with all the noise?" Catherine said just loud enough for all the children up front to hear her. "Crap, Mary, go distract your mom so we can finish!" Elizabeth said in a hushed tone as she forced the go anger girl out the kitten and towards her mother.

With Parr distracted the rest of the kids worked twice as fast to get done. They piled the waffles onto plates along side a few pieces of bacon and a bowl of fruit. "Now for the hardest part, we have to sneak these into their rooms and then sneak to our own rooms and pretend like we were never awake." Katherine peaked outside the kitchen and motioned for Mary to get her mother away from the hallway. Katherine couldn't make out what Mary had said, but it had worked. "Let's go!" Running as quietly as the could down the hall, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Mary placed the trays of breakfast on the nightstands of the mothers. They all scrambled to get back to their rooms before their mothers could wake up.

Parr was the first one to see her plate of breakfast. The waffles were a little too soft to be waffle, more like a pancake with abs. "Mary sweetie, do you know who did this?" Mary shook her head. "Nope. No idea." Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?" Mary nodded again. "Yep, I have zero idea how that got there.." Mary smiled nervously as looked at her mother. “Alright then, let's eat!” Mary shook her head again. “No, i- they made those for you!” Mary pouted and made puppy dog eyes. "Please, just enjoy the food?" Catherine clinched her jaw. "Fine, I'll eat the magical fairy food." Mary grinned and happily made her way back to her bedroom.

Then there was Aragon. When she woke up she already knew who put it there. She was more concerned as to how her daughter managed to sneak in her room without waking her up. Catherine got out of bed and stretched. It didn't feel right to have it all by herself. Once she'd brushed her teeth and stretched, Catherine made her way to her daughter's room with the gray of food in hand. She gently knocked on the door. Neither of them were morning people and shaking Mary up didn't seem nice at all. Mary stirred in her sleep and rubbed her eyes. "Ma'am?" Catherine gestured at the food in her hand. "Did you want to share?" Mary nodded. "I'd like that a lot actually." Catherine sat the food down on Mary's desk and sat down in the chair. "Be honest, is this story bought?" Catherine chuckled as she took a bit out of a strawberry. "Of course not. Kitty woke us up at 4am to cook all of this stuff and then try to pretend to be asleep once we finished." Mary chuckled as took a bite out of the waffle. Catherine rolled her eyes. "It must have been hell getting you out of bed that early."

Then Jane woke up to find Edward looking at the plate of food on her nightstand. "Honey are you alright?" Jane asked as she sat up in her bed. "Yea..I wanted to make sure no one took your waffles.." Edwards gaze stayed focused on the tray of food in front of him. "Well, since you were such a good guard, you deserve a waffle!" Jane smiled watching her son hop up and down. "Come on sit with mommy." Edward smiled as he sat down on the bed. He scored closer to his mother and rested against her. "Here, say ahh" Jane held a strawberry in front of Edward's mouth, which he happily ate. "Now tell me, how'd you get all this stuff?" Jane watched her son stopped chewing and thought for a minute. "It's a secret." Edward said as he swallowed down his food. Jane raised a brow at her son's answer, but decided not to question it.

Boleyn followed soon after. Her nose twitched at the smell of breakfast. She took a deep breath and inhaled the scent, it smelt delicious. Anne sat up and looked at the tray. She shrugged. "No point in keeping it all to myself." The woman forced her way out of bed and carried the tray to Elizabeth's room. She quietly opened the door. "Hey Lizzie, you up?" Anne's voice caused Elizabeth to shoot up from her spot at her desk. "Huh- oh mom..hi.." Elizabeth yawned and rubbed her eyes. "What's up?" Anne giggled. "Well this breakfast, is way too much for me to eat by myself..did you wanna split it with me?" Elizabeth nodded and sat up. "Sure, no harm in sharing." The two smiled at one another as Anne sat down. "I'm not sure what these..square pancakes are supposed to be, but they are not waffles!" Anne proclaimed as she took a bit out of the waffle. Elizabeth shrugged. "Don't look at me, I didn't make the batter."

Finally there was Anne of Cleves. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked at her night and smiled at the tray of food. She glanced at the door to her bedroom. She could see a streak of bright pink hair passing by her door. "I know you're there Kitty." The German smiled as she sat up. "No you don't!" Howard held back a fit of giggles as she entered the room. "Thank you for the breakfast, sweetheart." Anne smiled as Katherine leaned against her. "Sorry I messed up the waffles, I can't cook for shit." They both laughed as Anne began eating. "Well, they aren't the worst waffle. They actually taste pretty good!" Katherine shrugged and yawned. "Well I hope you like it, I woke up at 4am just to make everyone breakfast." Katherine laid down on the bed stretching out. "By yourself?!" Anne paused worry written all over her face. "Of course not, the other kids helped me too.." With that Katherine fell asleep.

"God damn it, I have to wash the fucking dishes!"

[babygirlofwakanda]

Not Gon Cry | Chapter 7

Previous Chapters— Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

Characters— Black Reader X M’Baku X T’Challa

Content— Trials Of Black Love, Adultery, Broken Vows and Marriage, Humiliation and Manipulation

Plot— Based off of the song, “Not Gon Cry” by Mary J. Blige on her Share My World album. This is strictly based off of the lyrics, but a little twist. In addition, I STRONGLY suggest listening to this song on REPLAY while reading to get further feels, but hey..

Narrative— “Shit, T’Challa!” You exclaimed, as you felt your lower lips pulsate. T’Challa still munching on your clit and creaming opening ignored your protest.

After teasing the King about making his toes curl he got the upper hand as he pounced on you devouring your pussy. Feeling your body become weak in great agony from prior orgasms T’Challa continued to lap at your clit like a thirsty dog in the smoldering southern heat. His thumbs parted your waxed lips like the Moses did the Red Sea as he flicked his tongue against your rouge pink clitoris.

“Slow down, usana!” You cried, feeling tears surface making your vision blurry causing the brown figure between your legs to become pixelated.

Closing your eyes you felt the wetness trail against your skin as another weep escaped your lips.

You were certain you looked like a hot mess with your curls flat from constantly tossing your head against his pillows to your gold highlight smeared across his pillowcase and the fallen tears.

The tremble of your thighs was the least of your worries as you felt your subconscious carry you to another level of ecstasy. This would be the second time T’Challa would have committed murder on your pussy, and it wouldn’t be the last. Practically shoving your clit into his face you held a tight grip on his coils giving you a hint of security on his intrusive tongue.

Feeling the waves of pleasure crashing against your body the tingle in your feet become present from the increased pressure of the intense squeezing. The rise of your back concaved as T’Challa’s muscle worked it’s way into your opening, “—Fuck!” You exclaimed, thrashing your head against the colored fabric.

The nerves in your spine transferred electricity throughout your body from the peak of your nipples, the bud of your clitoris, and the tips of your toe nails.

The King of Wakanda worked your body like he had enrolled in classes about the female anatomy. It was like he knew the exact places to touch with the right amount of pressure. Attempting to keep up with him as long as you could be a challenge and as much as you didn’t want to admit it he was right.

He had control that you wouldn’t even get the opportunity to cross paths with.

Your thoughts were interrupted when you felt the rugged skin of T’Challa’s hands caress the top of your thighs as he pulled you closer to exploring your oozing opening in great depth.

Sensing the contraction of your vaginal walls the pleasure waves engulfed your body. Submerged in the ripples of bliss you released your sweet nectar directly into T’Challa’s mouth, “—Not again!” You whimpered, as you involuntary rolled your hips.

Not attempting to decrease his pace during your twitching the King continued to noisily eat you out.

Your cries of Xhosa were clashing with the drenching sounds of your gushing hole. His tongue still working against your plush opening you felt your abdominal muscles tightening and your shortness of breath increasing before the throbbing resurfaced.

Fluttering your eyes from the intense euphoria you abruptly felt your muscles tremor before a quick shot of liquid came from your lower lips; you squirted.

“—T’Challa!” You cried, as you panted desperately trying to get oxygen circulating into your lungs. The King of Wakanda reluctantly pulled away from your overflowing opening. You would think he would be upset that your bodily fluids soaked his expensive comforter and splashed up on his face, but nevertheless he flashed you a bright grin.

With your juices dripping from his beard he stared at you in complete astonishment before his brown eyes flashed with lust. Sticking his tongue out he swiped it around the perimeter of his mouth before another smirk crossed his face. Propping up your elbows on the bed cocking your head to the side you teasingly winked up at him before a smile graced your face.

Seductively running his tongue underneath his top row his teeth T’Challa peered down at you before he rose up from pressing on his chest and sat up on his knees. Your hazy eyes immediately lowered on his lengthy third leg standing proudly in between his muscular thighs.

“—whatcha’ gonna do with that?” You teased. The cocky smirk he gave you shortly before he ate your pussy appeared on his face. “I can show you better than I can tell you.” He assured, while he gradually lifted your legs pushing them against his chest.

Observing T’Challa gripping his meat in his rough hands you felt the bulky head of his penis graze the exterior of your lower lips. The mushroom tip starting from the bottom of your vagina to the top of your clit caused slight quiver to run through your body.

The faint gasp escaping from your diaphragm was in stereo to T’Challa’s amplified hearing only provoking him to continue toying with your sensitive organ.

Momentarily closing your eyes releasing a whine you flicked them back open revealing a horny expression.

This man was practically showcasing his dick infront of you like a nude model, but didn’t want to give it to you. What the hell? Letting out an exasperated breath you broke your gaze from his dick to his face only to find a playful grin staring down at you. “T’Challa you need to quit playing, either put it in or so help m—!”

Your vocal cords were temporarily dysfunctional as he abruptly thrusted his nine inches inside of your vagina completely fucking up your motor skills.

“Oh, fuck!” You shrieked, as your walls practically crumbled around his dangerous thick length. Giving you no time to recover T’Challa started to plunging his erected dick inside your spongy opening.

Bumping your head against the headboard you lifted your shaking fingers in attempt to decrease his quick pace by placing your hands on his abdominal.

Only becoming a barrier between you two T’Challa simply put his strength to use and gripped your wrists together pinning them to the headboard.

“Your going to fast, usana!” You sobbed, feeling your tears burn against your tear ducts as the liquid resurfaced once more.

Striving to maintain your strength as he plunges his dick into your hole you clawed at the surface of the vibranium bed once you felt the clenching of your cervix. However, you couldn’t hold your fluids within ashort time before the toe curling sensation overpowered your body.

Profound and intrigued T’Challa watched your facial expressions while you traveled through many stages of bliss. It was the way you held him to get a taste of reality, the way your hips simultaneously synced with his as you rolled your pelvic, the way your big brown eyes fluttered when the sensuality dominated your body and the way you called his name with ecstasy.

All of those factors weighed heavily on the King‘s chest as he held a firm grip on his sperm not to wanting to release just yet.

Pulling out his dick he glanced at his member coated in your milky fluids before removing your legs from the air and gripping on your hips to flip you over.

Giving your ass a smack creating a loud clap in the room you released a groan echoing throughout the room. Now holding a tight grip on your hips he slid his dick back into your dripping pussy.

Cursing at the quick breakthrough you felt T’Challa began to rock into your vagina before you felt your breath hitch as his mushroom tip hit your cervix.

The King of Wakanda hammered into your narrow opening creating obnoxious claps throughout the room. The sounds of your ass bouncing off his pelvis along with his heavy sack tapping your clit created a rhythm that you two couldn’t help, but participate in.

Grabbing at the comforter you yelled out, “I’m about to cum!” before biting down on the fabric. T’Challa’s clutch on your hips tighten before he threw his head back at the overwhelming stimulation. “—shit!” He exhaled, as his toes started curling.

Thrusting his hips into your pussy he felt his lower abdominal muscles flex on their own before the uncontrollable twitching of his dick occurred.

“I’m about to let go, mnandi!” He exclaimed, before the wave of euphoria washed over his figure. “Fuck!” He shouted, feeling his semen release. The twitching of his dick continued as the muscle attempted to get rid of all the built up frustration by releasing sperm.

Feeling the droplets of water sprinkle down your face you sniffled when T’Challa slowly pulled out of the gooey opening. The feel of his bulky penis trying to escape your vagina was harder than you thought. Your pussy clenched around his veiny dick every time he tried to pull out. Leaving the creamy white residue remaining around your hole you felt the bed dip as T’Challa got up and shuffled towards his bathroom.

Returning back in the room with a steaming rag and a soft dick switching from thigh to thigh he reached in between your legs. Parting them you felt the heat coming from the rag as it rubbed against your core.

Doing the same for himself you watched the white rag turn beige once he finished cleaning. Placing the washcloth back in the bathroom it wasn’t long before you felt his warm presence pull you in his comforting embrace. Snuggling into his chest you felt his hands playing with your tousled coils before you spoke up disturbing the comfortable silence.

“—you should invest in some silk pillowcases then you won’t be walking around with matted hair.” You sluggishly suggested, before giggling.

Hearing the boisterous laugh along with feeling the vibration of his torso you joined him in laughter. “Nah, I’m just fucking with you.” You said. The laughter in the room ceased before you felt the rise and fall of T’Challa’s chest. His baritone voice interrupted the quietness, “I hope this evening let you know how serious I am about you and how much I want this.”

Abruptly sitting up with his beige sheets loosely covering your areolas you spat, “Please, T’Challa this isn’t necessary. You don’t need to give me the sweet pillow talk after we just fucked.” as you attempted to scoot away off of the bed. Not giving you the option to break away from his hold he clasped his hand around your forearm keeping you still.

“Did M’Baku treat you so bad that you can’t realize when a real man wants to take care of you and give you nothing, but unconditional love for both you and your children?” He questioned.

Startled by his accusations you faintly nodded your head and bit on your lips as no rebuttal formed. You were dumbfounded as T’Challa continued to call out your hidden insecurities. “Listen Y/N I’m not trying to lead you on, I’m trying to love you. Matter of fact, I’m going to and your gonna allow me. I don’t care how long it takes you for you to completely open up, but I’m going to be here at your every beck and call in your process of healing.” He promised.

Grabbing onto your cold fingers T’Challa held them in his large palm before using his free hand to lift up your face. Staring into your bloodshot eyes he felt his heart swelling up with emotion as he caressed your face with his thumb before heavily sighing.

“What am I gonna do with you?” He asked, before pressing a sensual kiss on your plump ones. Smiling through your teary gaze you responded, “I’m pretty sure we can think of a few things.” You winked, as you placed a kiss on his moisturized lips.

While T’Challa and you were gasping for air during the exchanges of saliva on the icy mountain in Gorilla City M’Baku was pouting as he desperately tried to put a fussy Cebisa to sleep.

“—please go to sleep, mnandi.” He begged, before another voice interjected.

“You have to read her a bedtime story before she sleep.” The voice suggested. M’Baku turned around spotting his flesh and blood draped in furs; Mandla.

Looking at his son with questioning eyes he turned around to face Cebisa. Tossing his hands up in the air M’Baku squinted his eyes at his daughter, “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Cebisa giggling in response before he shook his head while he stood going towards her wooden bookshelf.

“Which book, sithandwa sa?” He asked, holding up The Little Mermaid and The Princess and The Frog.

Smacking his lips Mandla spoke up, “Utata, it’s always gonna be The Princess and The Frog.” he folded his arms leaning against the doorway.

Exhaling M’Baku placed the other book back before walking over and taking a seat on the bed. Opening up the book to the first page he began reading.

However, he was interrupted when Cebisa placed a hand on his wrist pausing him from flipping the page, “Can you read it in different voices like King T’Challa does?” She asked, looking up at him with big puppy dog eyes. Abruptly doing a double take M’Baku looked at his daughter with intense eyes.

“What did you say, little one?” He gritted out, keeping a strong grip on his boiling emotions.

“She said King T’Challa reads to her bedtime stories at night.” Mandla replied, before leaning up off of the door panel. “And why would he be there at that time of night?” He asked, trying to convince himself of any reason besides sexual relations.

“He comes over all the time to help umama out, you know? Since you cheated on her and she moved out of the kingdom since she couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive you. After your six months of sleeping with that woman you parade around the palace with the horrible cooking.” Mandla shrugged, before he smirked at his father’s appalled expression.

Finding satisfaction in his father’s reaction Mandla continued trolling, “—I don’t blame her.” He added, before stalking out of the room leaving his father with high blood pressure and a racing heart.

Translations—

“Mnandi.” means sweetheart “Usana.” means baby “Sithandwa sa.” means my love “Umama.” means mother “Utata.” means father “Mandla.” means to have power “Cebisa.” means to give advise

Author’s Note— I’m gonna have to repent tonight for that Red Sea line, but it was with great context..

Anyways, how do y’all feel? I need to know if my writing is actually reaching y’all on a sensually level or are they just words? Because I write these smut scenes with a poker face, lmaoo..

Taglist— @nyneebey @leahnicole1219 @minyara-kun @lalapalooza718 @mysticbrownie @profilia @siriuslycollins @therevolution-willbelive @hutchj @texasbama @thiccdaddy-mbaku @muse-of-mbaku @blue-ishx @destinio1 @ursapharoh05 @cmonkillmonger @drsunshine97 @autumn242 @royallyprincesslilly @ashanti-notthesinger @idilly @barely-emily @halfrican-heat @theshadesofbrown @lildashofmelanin @sisterwifeudaku @mbakuwifey @inlovewithmakeupcomicsanimelove @hold-me-like-a-heart-beat @soulmates8 @airis-paris14 @s0eul @taehyungsmelanin @inlovewith3 @jecourt @dakotapaigelove @blowmymbackout @504queen @sweetpeachjones @madamslayyy @savageiz @everybodylovesmormon @ambthegamer @inlovewith3 @brittyevans @stressedgyal @mermaidchansons @almostpurelysmut @brahvosunshine @ashleychristina73

[your-iron-lung]

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 8

AKA ‘Knock Knock Knock’; available to read on A03 HERE

Story Synopsis:  Some weird low-key occult parties start popping up that Steve can’t in good conscience ignore and takes it upon himself to investigate. Billy gets caught up in the consequences of his meddling, and isn’t it funny? For all the strange things the Upside Down has thrown his way, it’s werewolves that Steve has trouble accepting exist.

Chapter Word Count: 7213

Pairings: Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Horror-ish

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Next Chapter: 9

Notes: i dedicate this chapter to my boyfriend, who cleaned out the hole in my finger after my moms dog accidentally bit me. told me i needed stitches then slapped a bandaid on it. guess im a werewolf now awowooooooo

"He's doing it again."

There was a bitterness harbored in Nancy's voice that made Steve look up from the abysmal slop he'd been picking through on his food tray. The tenseness with which she squared her jaw made him frown, and he followed her stern gaze to where she held it, directed towards something over his shoulder.

Turning his head to see what she was referring to, Steve felt he already had a pretty good idea about what it was he was going to see, and, true enough, sitting three tables behind them sat Billy Hargrove and a group of his old friends. Instead of taking part in any of the conversations Tommy was trying to start, Billy was steadfastly ignoring him in favor of staring openly at Steve. Suppressing the slightest of shivers, Steve sighed and turned back around to his food with a resigned expression.

"Yep, he sure is," he said dryly. "Nothing I can do about it."

In the two weeks since the attack, Billy had gone through a series of shifts in demeanor when it came to interacting with Steve. When he'd first returned to school, he'd ignored him outright with a stubborn sense of determination, but his dismissal of him quickly flipped and turned into an obsession that was so prominent, people- or Nancy, at least- had begun to take notice. At any given time, if Billy happened to be in any relative proximity to Steve, he wouldn't be able to keep his eyes off of him, and although people had started to talk about it, their words did little to deter him.

Nothing stopped him from staring at Steve, and the attention was beginning to make his skin crawl.

But whatever it was Billy was doing, as long as it didn't get physical, Steve found he couldn't find the energy to care. He was still nursing his wounds, and had to worry about finding a job or something so he could pay his father back for ruining the BMW, and on top of that heap of responsibilities, there was the looming threat of finals, and while he was trying to manage all of those things as best he could, the simple fact that they hadn't yet found the creature that attacked him weighed heavily on his mind.

He had nightmares about it; about it descending from the trees in a heap of vicious limbs that lashed out at him, cutting his flesh to the bone- nightmares where he hadn't acted fast enough to be able to prevent Billy from bleeding out and, and instead had to hold him in his arms while his blood ran out of him, leaving him pale and gasping as the snow turned crimson around them. Hell, he still had nightmares about the fucking demodogs, so if Billy wanted to stare at him, fine. He had more important things to worry about, though he did have to admit that he found Billy's behaviour odd.

Was he staring at him because he realized that Steve had literally saved his life and was now thinking of a way to repay him somehow? He could start by replacing the car seat he'd nearly bled to death in, if that was the case, so he could cross that worry off his list. Or was his interest in Steve fueled by something more sinister, like a desire to seek revenge for belittling him somehow, despite the fact that Steve had done his damnedest to dispel any emasculating rumours that had surfaced after the incident? The last thing he wanted was for their bad blood to start flooding the school's hallways for everyone to slosh around in.

Nancy didn't bother lowering her voice when she spoke, and despite the general ambient tone of conversation that the lunchroom carried, Jonathan overheard what she'd said, and as he came to sit down beside her, setting his brown paper lunch bag onto their table, he looked at her for a confused moment before asking, "Who's doing what?"

He looked curiously between them as he began to unpack his lunch, setting a sandwich and a piece of fruit aside while Steve breathed out another sigh and tried to shrug off the eyes he could feel boring into his back.

"It's Billy," Nancy said when Steve declined to answer. "He's staring at Steve again."

Looking annoyed, Nancy let out a little huff and finally diverted her eyes away from where Billy was sitting to give Jonathan a small smile in greeting. Despite his growing annoyance with the situation, Steve managed to find some amusement in the fact that Nancy was more bothered by Billy's behaviour than he was. It showed she still cared about him somewhat, and that was one of the few good things he felt he had left.

"Why do you think he's been doing that?" Jonathan asked as he unwrapped the plastic surrounding his sandwich. His sunken eyes looked across the lunchroom for a moment to get a look at their subject of conversation before focusing back on his tablemates.

"Who knows with that guy," Steve commented indifferently, shrugging as he stabbed a fork into the meaty portion of his meal. "As long as he stays the fuck away from me, I don't care what he does."

"Even if you don't care, I don't like it." Nancy's eyes flicked briefly back to where Billy was sitting before taking a bite of lunch. Beside her, Johnathan had grown silent, eating his food contemplatively. "It doesn't feel right. It's almost like he's planning some kind of revenge scheme."

"Well you'd think if he was angry with you he'd have done something about it by now," Jonathan said, directing his statement towards Steve as he swallowed down a bite of food. A small smear of mayo streaked across his upper lip. "So far he's shown himself to be the kind of guy who acts immediately on his feelings, you know?"

"Oh, believe me, I know," Steve replied, unable to keep the slow drawl of sarcasm out of his tone, memories of nearly being beaten to death surfacing in his mind. Despite his reluctance to credit Jonathan with a good idea, he knew that he was probably right. If Billy had some sort of beef with him, he'd definitely have taken it up with him before now.

Besides that, whenever Steve noticed him staring and returned the look, he never really thought that Billy looked angry with him. He looked more lost than anything. Confused, even. He never even seemed to realize that Steve was staring back.

"Well if he's not thinking of ways to kill you, then what is he doing?" Using a napkin, Nancy reached out and wiped away the mayo on Jonathan's face, earning a timid smile from him in thanks. "He's been giving you weird looks all week."

"Hadn't noticed," Steve murmured sarcastically.

Nancy didn't appreciate the tone with which Steve spoke, but didn't press the issue beyond giving him a reproachful look. As their conversation died off, they ate in silence, offering Steve a chance to run through a mental list of who was hiring in the area, and what places he could reasonably send in an application, but having no prior experience with working, well, anywhere, left his options sorely limited. The places that would probably hire him were the places he had no desire to work at, but at the end of the day, what was it his dad was always telling him? 'Beggars can't be choosers'.

"The more I think about it," Jonathan said, stirring Steve from his thoughts, "the more I think it looks like he's trying to figure out how to approach you."

"What?" Steve shook his head in a way that he knew made his hair look good and laughed.

"What makes you think that?" Nancy asked.

Jonathan shrugged, looking down when Steve laughed. He picked at the crust on his sandwich as he spoke, peeling bits of brown bread away as he said, "The way he's been staring at Steve kind of reminds me of... me. Like, before I got to know you guys; back when I was on the outside looking in, sort of."

"Jonathan-" Nancy started, a sympathetic look creasing her brow.

The bell that signaled the end of their lunch period rang before anything more could be said. As they stood up and prepared to discard their trays and trash, Steve cast a look back to where Billy had been sitting. The boy was gone, though; lost in the transitional migration crowd as their peers began to make their way back to class.

Even if Steve wanted nothing more to do with him, he couldn't deny the fact that he'd been bonded to him in some regard when they'd both survived the 'bear' attack. If Billy had something to say to him, he'd listen, sure, but Steve wasn't going to be the one to initiate that conversation.

They hadn't even spoken since Steve had last seen him at the hospital, and that particular conversation had been weird enough to the point where he'd decided to give Billy the widest social berth he possibly could.

Whatever Billy wanted to talk about, he'd have to come to Steve first.

Coming back to school hadn't been easy for Steve; his injuries were so incredibly less severe than Billy's that he hadn't needed to take time off, but he wished he'd been allowed to. His writing hand was constantly sore because of all the numerous stitches running up his arm, and with the amount of last minute note taking he'd been doing in preparations for finals, he was half-afraid he was going to pop a few open as a result, but at least returning so soon had given him the opportunity to pretend everything was normal, and the more time that passed that allowed him to think that, the more Steve was inclined to believe that it really had just been a bear.

A mange-ridden, rabid, larger-than-your-average bear, sure, but it was better than the alternative; it was better than the unknown.

Despite his feeble self-assurances that carried him through his school days, he couldn't deny that he held an absurd amount of trepidation when it came to the simple task of opening his locker.

The last thing he wanted was to ruin his fragile psyche by finding more notes stuffed into his locker. But as the days went by and he hadn't yet found another invitation, he allowed himself to grow comfortable in the thought that the whole ordeal was behind him, and would remain as nothing more than another traumatic memory he'd just have to learn to live with.

He could manage that much. Or at least, he hoped he could.

The note that fluttered out of his locker then as he opened it threw his newly reconstructed confidence to the breeze. Steve stared after the offending piece of paper as it fell to the floor, already feeling a slight panic start to build up in his chest. The fear that the note had something to do with the woodland parties blinded him to the fact that this shred of paper was different from the invitations he'd received before.

Printed on fine cardstock that likely would have impressed a businessman like his father with its weight, the note that came fluttering from Steve's locker was the exact opposite of what he feared it was. This was a literal scrap of college-ruled paper, torn from a notebook and folded over itself lazily.

He turned away from the note lying on the floor and closed his locker quickly. He almost walked away without picking it up, and would have, too, if he hadn't caught Billy's eye at that precise moment.

Leaning against a row of lockers further down the hall, Billy was watching him, giving Steve reason to pause. Imperceptibly, Billy broke the stare between them and nodded once to the note Steve had left on the ground. 'Pick it up', he seemed to say.

Steve squinted at him, unsure of what his motives were. Driven by curiosity, he turned back to where he'd left the note and hesitantly bent down to grab it. Relief replaced that slight feeling of panic when he realized that the note wasn't like the invitations he'd received in the past. He turned back to Billy, only to find that he'd moved on. Crinkling the piece of paper in his fist briefly, Steve stepped back to his locker and unfolded the note.

'I need to show you something.

Meet me in the parking lot.'

Despite the fact that it hadn't been signed by anyone, the note had undoubtedly been written by Billy. Anybody else would have just asked to speak with him in person.

Tucking the note into his jeans pocket, Steve sighed miserably as he made his way through the hall, an uneasy feeling about the direction his afternoon was taking settling into his gut.

That feeling was improved upon when he finally stepped outside and saw just how gloomy it was. Wet, half-frozen snowflakes were falling from an overcast sky, creating an uncomfortable slush he had to trudge through to get to the student parking lot. Wind was blowing weakly, occasionally throwing a soggy flurry into his face that he had to wipe away in order to see.

People were peeling out of the lot as quickly as they could, desperate to escape the hideous weather conditions and get somewhere warm. His fingers played with the note in his pocket as he strode through the second-hand mush of winter and made his way to where Billy stood, leaning up against his car feigning nonchalance despite the fact that Steve could see him visibly shivering.

Because of his injury, Billy had taken to wearing his coat half on, half off. The brace that he'd been outfitted with to keep his broken arm in place wouldn't fit in the tight leather sleeve of what must have been his only winter coat. A smarter man would've dressed in layers, Steve thought, and then grinned a little because he himself had dressed in layers. Dress smarter, not harder.

"Wanna tell me what this is about?" he asked as he approached Billy, holding the folded note up for him to see.

"Thought I was being pretty clear when I wrote it."

Billy obviously wasn't in the mood for their typical banter, but Steve wasn't in the mood for being serious. He'd been stewing in serious thoughts all day, and if Billy was going to give him an opening to be an ass, then he was going to take it.

"Well, I mean, this could mean any number of things," he said, opening the note to read it aloud. Billy' looked away with a scowl. "I've only ever gotten notes like these from girls, you know."

"Christ, cut the shit Harrington," Billy said, rolling his eyes. He made to stand up, but was pushed back against the Camaro, a look of surprise overtaking his features as he felt Steve's hand wind itself into his jacket.

"No, you cut the shit, Hargrove!" Steve snapped, his pent-up frustrations boiling over. "You've been staring at me all week like a girl with a crush on me, and now you send me this? What is it you've got to show me? Your fucking dick or some shit? Because believe me pal, I am not interested in whatever kind of fucked up confession this is."

After his outburst, both boys went quiet, each of them stunned into silence after Steve's sudden eruption. Around them, the parking lot was nearly empty, mercifully allowing them a privacy neither of them had thought they'd need to have this conversation.

Realizing he'd had the lapels of Billy's jacket bunched into his hands, he let Billy go and took a step back, running his hand that wasn't wrapped in bandages through his hair.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself, then turned back to Billy, who had yet to say anything. "Well?" Steve snapped. "You got something you need to show me or not?"

A mirthful smile spread across Billy's face when he spoke, a mischievous spark lighting his eye. "Yeah, I do, but it's at my house. Get what I'm saying, Harrington? I'm asking you to come home with me, stud."

Steve stared at him blankly for a moment before breaking away to laugh, sucking in frigid air and snowflakes that melted in his throat. Billy shrugged his jacket back into place, covering his injured arm from the cold.

"You're a real piece of shit, Hargrove," Steve finally said, shaking his head. "Alright, fine. I'll 'come home with you', or whatever, but I swear, if you actually whip your dick out when we get there I'll fucking kill you."

"Relax, asshole, I'm not asking you over for a fucking conjugal visit," Billy drawled, rolling his eyes again. Steve waited for him to elaborate more about what the nature of the visit actually was, but Billy had evidently said all he was going to about the matter.

"You want me to follow you then?" he asked, gesturing towards where his car was parked a few rows over.

"Try to keep up," Billy replied, smirking a little bit as he rounded the front of the Camaro to the driver's side, whereupon he opened the door and slid awkwardly into the seat.

"Don't you have to wait for Max?" Steve asked, speaking loudly as Billy started his car, but he never heard the reply if there was one. Billy began reversing almost immediately, intent on driving out of the lot as fast as he could to make Steve work for it. Breathing out a hasty "Oh, shit," Steve started jogging towards his car so he wouldn't fall too far behind.

Compared to Harrington's house, Billy knew that his own had no way of stacking up against it. Hell, Steve's house had a pool and Billy's didn't even have a second fucking floor. Everyone that lived in Neil Hargrove's house all lived together on the same miserable floor, cramped together by circumstance, and even though Tommy had cast his friendship with Steve aside, that didn't stop him from talking up how awesome the fucking Harrington house was.

It was one of those things he'd had to punch him out for.

All that aside, Billy honestly didn't give a shit about the state of his house; it didn't reflect him or his worth- only his father's, for he had been the one to settle for the shit-heap. Not everyone could be born into their wealth.

Regardless, he averted his eyes away when Steve's eyes wandered up the front of his home, taking stock in its size and the rundown condition it was in after he pulled into the driveway. He didn't comment on the miserable way it sat on its foundation as he stepped out of the car, or of how grimy the windows were as he walked with Billy up the front porch steps, and even stayed quiet when the wooden boards squeaked and groaned with their weight.

As they stepped through the front door, Billy finally had to address the queer feeling he'd been harboring in his stomach as nervousness. Steve looked around their tiny living room, but refrained from saying anything about its size. But oh, how he must have wanted to; Billy could see it written all over his pretty face. The rich fuck wanted to brag about how much better his own house was, he could feel it-

"Nice set up," Steve said instead, gesturing to where Billy had his work-out equipment set out.

Whether he was being sincere or not, Billy couldn't say, but the compliment had done enough to derail his spiraling train of thought.

"Gets the job done," he replied casually, taking his coat off and throwing it over his workout bench.

"I'll say."

"What?"

"You said you had something to show me?" Steve said, frowning a little at the look on Billy's face. "Please don't tell me you took me all the way out here just to fuck with me."

"Who's fucking with who?" Billy said with a hint of a snarl curling his lip. He had to remind himself that he had been the one to initiate this gathering, and had to bite back on some of the anger that had surfaced out of nowhere. Steve didn't say anything in response, allowing Billy time to simmer down enough to point at his TV. "Turn that on."

"You bring me to your house so I can turn your TV on for you?" Steve scoffed, but Billy looked serious. "Fuck you," he said as he stepped across the living room from where he was standing to kneel down and press the power button.

The screen flickered for a moment, struggling to stabilize as the black screen turned grey before sputtering to life, the colour image slowly beginning to materialize on the screen. Steve took a few steps back as he waited for it to come into clarity, not noticing the way Billy had averted his eyes away from the TV. His gaze was, once again, fixed solely on Steve, waiting to catch and gauge his reaction from what he was about to see.

Billy had rented the VHS tape of 'American Werewolf in London' from the store after Max had returned it, intent on showing the creature on the film to Steve, but had been too unsure of how he was meant to accomplish that show him right away. They weren't friends, or even anything remotely close to that, but ever since he'd seen it he'd known he'd have to clue him in on what he'd found out eventually. That, and he had more than just the movie to show him.

As the movie scene that Billy had paused the tape on finally came to light, he felt his injured arm itch, and longed to scratch it.

"What the hell is this," Steve finally said after a moment.

His eyes had grown wide at the sight at the tormented figure of David lying on the floor, face contorted in pain as he was caught in the throes of mid transformation. It was all the affirmation that Billy needed to know that he'd been right.

"Look familiar?" Billy asked, running his tongue along his teeth.

Steve stared at the creature for a second longer before shaking his head. When he turned to Billy, his face no longer looked frightened, but angry.

"No, really, what the fuck is that?" His tone was accusatory, and he was speaking so loudly he might as well have been yelling. "If this is your idea of some kinda fucking joke-"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Billy snapped back, brow creasing as Steve went into denial. "I figured it out, asshole! The thing that got us in the woods- that thing that nearly ripped my fucking arm off- that's it! Right there on that fucking screen!"

Steve turned away from him to stare at the screen again, eyes running over the details presented to him. It did look remarkably like the creature he'd grown content to believe was a bear: the sparse patches of hair, the elongated canine jaw, and the harrowingly thin frame that carried it all left little to no doubt in his mind that this was it. Whatever 'it' was.

"How did you-" His throat had gone dry with the realization. Steve had to wet his lips before he could speak again. "How did you find this?"

Billy looked at him contemplatively, as one might watch a dog that has tried to bite them in the past but still wanted to pet it. "The rental place by the arcade. It's a movie; Max was watching it."

"A movie?" Steve balked. "So you're saying we were assaulted by a movie monster?"

"A werewolf," Billy said decisively.

The unease Steve had felt building up inside him seemed to vanish in an instant. His body wanted to shake with relief, but he wouldn't let it.

"Holy shit," he said, combing a hand through his hair, stifling a nervous laugh. He took a few steps to the side, pacing in front of the TV. "This is unbelievable."

Billy regarded his shift in demeanor calmly, but with a frown. He reached into the back pocket of his pants and grabbed his pack of cigarettes and pulled one out, setting it to his lips and then lighting it.

"I mean, do you hear yourself? A werewolf? C'mon, man," Steve continued, finally coming to a stop in front of Billy. He shook his head and uttered out another short laugh. "I really thought you were onto something here for a minute, you know? Werewolves aren't real. What did you expect me to do after showing me this? You want me to call Hopper up? Tell him that what he's been looking for all this time is a goddamn movie monster?!"

"Well what's your theory then?" Billy finally replied, sneering around his cigarette, his anger smoldering beneath his skin like the burning end of his cigarette. "If it looks like a werewolf, acts like a werewolf, then fuck, what the hell else could it be?!"

"A bear!" Steve shouted, throwing his arms up in frustration. "Werewolves don't exist, dipshit!"

"Then how do you explain my arm?!" Billy hollered, throwing his cigarette to the floor. He stomped it out angrily before he lifted his injured arm up, struggling to pull the sling up and over his head. Alarmed at the action, Steve stepped in to try and stop him but was roughly shoved away. "If it's not some kind of supernatural piece of shit, then how do you explain your hand?" he hissed, throwing the sling to the floor beside the crumpled filter of his wasted cigarette.

"What about my hand?" Steve asked, speaking levelly as he watched Billy's fingers fumble with the brace, managing to all but tear it free from his arm to drop it to the ground alongside the sling. "Are you fucking insane, Hargrove? What the hell are you doing, man, your arm-"

"My arm is fine."

Billy spoke curtly, practically cutting his own sentence short in his haste to show off what he meant. He peeled the bandages that had been wrapped around his arm away with hasty, scratching motions, and then held his arm up for Steve to see it. Where there should have been sections of stripped off flesh and bruises marking where his arm had been broken, there was instead… nothing. Astonished, Steve saw that there was not a single scratch left on his tanned skin. The mutilation he'd endured was gone.

As if that wasn't evidence enough to prove something supernatural was behind his miraculous recovery, Billy stepped towards his workout station and grabbed up one of his heaviest hand weights. Without so much as a grunt of effort or slight whine of pain, he curled it effortlessly in his arm, ultimately proving that his bones were no longer broken. Steve watched his display with wide eyes, mouth dropping open in confusion, because he'd known for a fact that Billy's injuries had been substantially worse than his own, and to see that his arm was totally healed now was baffling. His own arm still had all of the stitches in it, and throbbed painfully sometimes when he wrote with it for too long.

"Your arm was broken-" he stuttered, unable to fully put words behind his thoughts.

"Yeah. In three places," Billy said morosely, as though he were upset by the fact that it now seemed to be intact and unbroken.

"But then… What the fuck…" Steve whispered, reaching out to touch Billy's bicep to feel for himself if what he was seeing was true. The contact was short lived, as Billy immediately flinched away from his touch with a disgusted look plastered all over his face.

"My hand," Steve said flatly, pulling away without a fuss. "You keep saying it's all fucked up, but I don't see it. What the hell's so wrong with it?"

"No one else sees it- not just you; I've been watching people talk to you like it's normal all goddamn week."

"Tell me what you see, then."

Steve waited patiently, giving Billy enough time to put his thoughts in order. He'd been riled up before, and looked to be struggling with how to best describe what it was he was seeing that no one else could, his eyes focused entirely on Steve's hand.

"It looks diseased," Billy finally said after a moment. "There're these… puncture marks in it that just- look infected."

"Infected," Steve repeated, looking over his hand curiously, turning it forward and back. To him, it still looked fine.

"And it smells, too, like... " Billy sniffed and then immediately wrinkled his nose in disgust. "It smells like the air did that night. Rotten."

"It didn't bite me, though," Steve said, frowning. "My hand wasn't hurt at all."

"No," Billy said quietly. "It didn't, but whatever you saw at that bonfire did."

A chill made the small hairs on his body stand upright as Steve was forced to remember the disembodied wolfs head, picturing it in his mind with vivid clarity. He remembered its teeth sinking into his flesh, poking holes into his skin that had vanished the instant he'd thrown it away in shock. No one had believed him then, but the look on Billy's face said he was willing to believe him now, but Steve wasn't sure if he himself actually believed it anymore.

Along with his willingness to write the creature they'd encountered in the woods off as a bear, Steve had written off his experience with the wolf head as just a bad trip, and now Billy was trying to turn it into something else, forcing him to re-examine the trauma as though it was something that had actually happened.

"You can see where it bit me?" Steve asked, speaking slowly and with an air of trepidation. "And you're saying that, what, it's infected now?"

Billy didn't reply right away. There was a strange look on his face as he studied Steve for a moment, his eyes trained on the hand he claimed was injured.

"I wanna try something," he said at last, stepping past Steve and into the narrow hallway that lead to the other rooms tucked away in his house.

Steve followed after him, glancing once back at the image displayed on the screen, wondering if perhaps the idea of a werewolf existing in Hawkins wasn't as far-fetched as he initially thought it was. Walking down the short hallway to where Billy had slipped into the bathroom he shared with Max, Steve took a glance into what could have only been Billy's bedroom.

Beyond it being small, (much, much smaller than even the guest bedroom in his own home), it looked just like what a person might think Billy Hargrove's bedroom would look like. Hot women, a vanity station, and a stereo to blare his music was all a man like Billy could ever need.

"Here," Billy said, stealing Steve's attention away. "Let me see your hand."

"What? Why?" Steve asked hesitantly, holding his hand warily away from where Billy was holding out his own to take it.

"What are you, a fucking child? Just give it here," Billy said impatiently.

Groaning mentally, Steve relinquished his hand. Billy gripped him tightly around the wrist, pulling a face as he drew his hand closer towards him.

"What're you doing-"

"Just hold still."

With his other hand, Billy held a clean ball of cotton and slowly moved it towards Steve's hand, his face pinching up in disgust as he finally rubbed the ball against his skin.

"That hurt you any?" Billy asked as he released his grip over Steve's hand, switching his focus from Steve's skin to the cotton ball he'd just swabbed over it.

"N...no?"

Billy grunted lowly, furrowing his brows as he held the cotton ball up for Steve to see it. "What about this? See anything on this?"

And to his horror, Steve found that he could.

The little ball of cotton had been clean when Billy plucked it out of the package. Steve had seen that, and yet, as he stared at the gruesome mixture of pus and blood on the side Billy had used as a swab, he couldn't help but think for just a second that perhaps it had come like that. No way had that awful mixture actually come from him. The fibers of the ball were stained yellow and bright red, indicating that whatever it was that Billy was able to see on his hand was an open wound. A gruesome, open wound.

"What the hell?" he uttered, mortified by the sight of the cotton ball. He rubbed his hand over the patch of skin Billy had swabbed, but nothing came up on his fingers when he pulled them away. He ignored the way his hands had begun to shake as he inspected the back of his hand uncomprehendingly.

"You see this," Billy said, gesturing to the stained cotton ball, "but you still can't see it on you?" Steve didn't bother replying. "Fuck. Fine, alright, let me see it again."

"Why?" Steve asked, looking over his hands again and again, trying desperately to see what Billy saw and could, evidently, interact with.

"Gotta clean it out." Steve paused with his examination and looked up at Billy who'd gone back to rifling through the things he kept stored behind the sink mirror, sure he'd misheard him. When Billy caught the look of disbelief in Steve's eye he paused, placing a bottle of antiseptic on the rim of the sink. "I know you can't smell it, but I can and it fucking stinks. I can't fucking stand it anymore. If I clean it out, maybe it'll be less, I dunno, putrid."

"I mean, maybe?" Steve could admit that he had no idea if it would make a difference or not, but Billy's logic was sound. "If it'll get you to stop staring at me, have at it, I guess."

Even though Steve knew from experience that nothing Billy did to the wound would physically hurt him, he found himself recoiling out of habit when he poured the antiseptic over the back of his hand. Billy arched a brow at the reaction, but held Steve's hand firmly over the sink as the liquid flowed over his skin. It didn't run off clear.

The tainted antiseptic left murky, bloody streaks that trailed into the basin of the sink as it found its way to the drain. As the bodily fluids left whatever invisible plane they existed on, Steve thought he could catch a faint whiff of whatever smell Billy had been complaining about. A scent of what could have been construed as rotting flesh or a dead animal had begun to take up the small space of the bathroom they stood in, causing him to grimace as Billy began to clean out the wound in earnest. He would have said something witty about how focused Billy appeared to be, using q-tips and cotton swabs to clean out the hidden wound, if not for the strange situation they had both found themselves in.

Instead he watched him quietly, and found himself admiring the way Billy became lost with what he was doing when he decided to really put his mind into behind his work. It was a side of him that Steve had never seen before, and against his better judgement, he found the way Billy furrowed his brow in a way that it wrinkled his forehead kind of... endearing. When he wasn't full of adrenaline and anger, Billy almost came across as personable.

Almost.

"Now who's staring at who?" Steve heard Billy drawl, and he had to blink a few times to draw himself out of his semi-trance.

"Please, don't flatter yourself; I wasn't staring at you," he replied defensively, watching as Billy turned his hand from side to side to make sure he'd gotten all the gunk out of the puncture wounds only he could see. "I was clearly mesmerized by all this shit coming out of my hand."

Billy scoffed, but let the issue drop. Instead of offering up a retort, he said, "You probably need stitches."

This time Steve did yank his hand away from him, pulling it away so quickly it thumped into his chest with a dull thud.

"What the hell Harrington-"

"I am not about to let you put stitches into the imaginary holes in my hand!" He didn't mean to sound so whiny about it, but he couldn't help the way his voice lilted in distress.

"I didn't say I was going to," Billy snapped, his calm demeanor turning into irritation. He cast away the soiled materials he'd been working with in the small bathroom trash can and pushed past Steve into the hallway. "I only said that you probably needed them."

"Yeah, well, what the hell do you know," Steve said, following after him.

Steve continued to hold his hand against his chest as Billy moved into his bedroom. He stepped into the doorway and watched as he made his way to the small, self-constructed vanity and began to rifle through a box of his belongings. Unsure of what it was Billy was looking for, Steve took the time to gaze around his room, eyeing up whatever he could and mentally storing away things he could use to discredit him in future arguments.

"Here," Billy said after a moment, pulling out what looked like a small, self-made first aid kit out of a hidden box. "Gimme your hand again."

"What for?" Steve asked, eyeing the box warily.

"To fucking amputate it, idiot; just give it here." Billy held out his hand expectantly, and rather reluctantly, Steve once again trusted him with the care of his hand.

In the small, inconspicuous first aid kit was an assortment of bandages, gauze, and adhesive tape. Steve didn't ask why he had it; only watched quietly as Billy took out a box of butterfly bandages and began applying them to where the holes in the back of his hand must have been. It looked odd to Steve to see his perfectly fine skin get bunched up underneath the thin, white bandages, but if this was what it took to get rid of the mark (and he was sure, suddenly that it was a marking of sorts), then he'd allow it.

"God, that's gross," Billy mumbled, scrunching his face up before wrapping Steve's hand in the medical tape until the bandages were covered and hidden.

"Gee, thanks," Steve said, examining Billy's handiwork when he was done. He hated to admit it, but he'd done a pretty good job dressing his hand for him.

They stood in the door-frame of Billy's bedroom for a long moment afterwards, neither one of them speaking. The weight of their discovery weighed heavily on each of their minds as they individually wondered about what they ought to do with the information going forward.

"So, I guess I'll tell Hopper-"

"We need to talk about-"

Steve laughed when they spoke at the same time, but Billy only scowled.

"Get the hell out of my room," he said crossly, pushing Steve out of the doorway and into the hall. "I need to show you the rest of that fucking movie."

Steve didn't like the movie. He'd never been a fan of the horror genre- couldn't understand why anyone would be, really-, but the werewolf movie Billy was forcing him to sit through was so violent it was beginning to make his stomach turn.

Worse than the violence, though, was that he had to watch a large portion of the film alone. Not that he was scared to watch it alone, but he definitely would've preferred not to have to watch it by himself in a stranger home. In order to keep up appearances, Billy had left him to re-dress his arm once he'd rewound the movie to a suitable starting point. Steve understood that he couldn't just walk around town with his arm the way it was, but even still, he didn't appreciate having to sit through the horrific movie alone at his insistence.

"Why the hell did you make me watch that," Steve complained once the movie had ended.

Billy had come in around the halfway mark, his arm freshly bandaged and back in its sling. He'd caught Steve cowering on the couch, watching the gorey parts behind the selective censorship of his fingers, and of course he'd laughed at him. He'd taken a seat on his workout bench, leaning against the dumbbell supports and laughed at him for a good five minutes, but at least that instant of humiliation had taken the edge off of the worst of it. Steve had been able to watch the rest of the movie without issue, but he knew he was never going to be able to live that down.

Now that the movie was over, Billy didn't look quite as amused anymore. He was watching the end credits slowly scroll up the screen with a somber, dissociated look. Unsure if he'd heard him or not, Steve was about to repeat himself when Billy finally spoke.

"To make sure you understood what's coming." Confused, Steve could only look at him uncomprehendingly. With a groan, Billy sat up from his hunched over position and turned his eyes away from the screen. "I guess you didn't get to being the 'King' of the hick capital of the world by being smart. Did you pay attention to the movie at all?

"It was a werewolf, Harrington; even you can't deny that now, and you saw what happened to that guy who got bit by one, or did you miss that while you were watching the movie through your fingers?"

"Shut the fuck up," Steve muttered in embarrassment. "It was one part; I watched every other second of the damn movie!"

"Then work it out for me, pretty boy; exercise that tiny little brain of yours for once and show me you're better than all the rest of these inbred Hawkins idiots."

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but saw that Billy wasn't actually trying to initiate an argument. Instead, he was trying to reason with him. He hadn't forced him to watch the movie for his own entertainment, but was instead trying to show him something. There was something obvious Steve was failing to see here, and Billy was trying to open his eyes to it.

Mentally, he recounted everything he could that related to their situation. The bonfire, the attack, the recovery, his conversations earlier that day, the bite on his hand-

The bite.

"It- it didn't bite me," Steve finally said, his eyes going wide in realization as he recalled the conversation they'd shared not two hours ago. Billy's face lit up as Steve's succumbed to the horror the movie had exposed him to. "It didn't bite me, it bit you, so then, you- that makes you-"

Billy grinned at him sardonically, revealing his teeth.

"Guess I really am a monster now."

[hoshyeoms]

85 Statements

I was tagged

 by @sunkissedjae, thank you friend!!! ((((: 

THE LAST

1. drink: apple juice  2. phone call: joshua called me this morning cause my schedule was wrong and i was late for work *insert upside down smiley emoji* i was so frckn mad that i was late. i’m always 20 minutes early!  3. text message: if you count snapchat text, it was evie. if not, it was my family group chat lol  4. song you listen to: mercy - kanye  5. time you cried: last tuesday when i fell out of the kayak and lost my glasses in the river 6. dated someone twice: ...never dated anyone lol  7. kissed someone and regretted it: yee, but they were trashy boys and i should have never gotten involved in the first place 8. been cheated on: geez, i’d hope not with how exciting my dating life is 9. lost someone special: yeah, but they’re looking over me and that’s what matters most. they’re not lost when they become something other than alive, simply just transcendent.  10. been depressed: unfortunately, yes, but i’ve become a lot better since i moved out of mom’s house. 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: i’m oddly super conscious when i get drunk, so i know when to stop and thankfully have not thrown up

3 FAVORITE COLORS

12. periwinkle  13. dodie yellow 14. green 

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15. made new friends: i have!  16. fallen out of love: i mean i stopped loving a lot of artists i liked cause i realized they had/have morals that don’t better them as musicians, but make their image something that holds materialistic things higher than the passion of the craft.  17. laughed until you cried: literally anytime i think of the “joutjout” meme which is like everyday  18. found out someone was talking about you: nah, but like i have a very small circle of friends and we all support each other. we don’t have time for petty shit like that.  19. met someone who changed you: kinda, more they showed me why i don’t need to change. they opened my eyes to the confidence i never had, and showed me that my weird and quirky traits i hide myself behind only make me shine.   20. found out who your friends are: sure lol  21. kissed someone on your facebook list: i don’t even talk to more than 2 people on my facebook list lol 

GENERAL

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: yo last time i was on facebook was around when alex and i went to california, it’s all people from my hometown and it’s pretty toxic 23. do you have any pets: 2 corgis named Max (my snuggle bug) and Minnie! I really want a cat, but my grandma is allergic and we can’t have more than 2 animals in our neighborhood assoc. 24. do you want to change your name: when i’m at work yeah lol, i’ve met 2 people with my name but i see like 12 dogs a week with my name. literally i share a name with more dogs than people and it trips me up some days.  25. what did you do for your last birthday: dad and i went to a korean bbq place (and i suffered a v bad haircut), but then the week after alex and i went to disneyland after con and celebrated there too (which was frckn amazing we met Traci Hines) 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: watching dream high 2  28. name something you can’t wait for: Noon saturday (but i’m also super anxious, so i’m sure you’ll see a post or smthn of me yelling about my feelings) 29. when was the last time you saw your mom: in July (which isn’t that bad because our relationship isn’t the best. i love her, but loving her is hard when she treated me so poorly for so long) 31. what are you listening to right now: Power - Kanye (it’s just a ye playlist on spotify for now)  32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: yeah, he was a navy captain my mom knew. he’s in a betty white movie  33. something that is getting on your nerves: pretty much nothing, my anxiety but that’ll go down in a few.  34. most visited website: youtube 35. hair colour: brownish auburny color 36. long or short hair: it’s longer than it was a few months ago 37. do you have a crush on someone: not really, i don’t leave my house often and i don’t really find myself attracted to many people. maybe one day i guess 38. what do you like about yourself: my sense of humor, it’s slightly twisted but my family runs on puns so i’m always joking around. i do also like my smile, it’s a bit crooked but it makes my face brighter and happier.  40. blood type: O positive, I used to donate twice a year until college, i ate so poorly i got an iron deficiency and can’t donate anymore :(  41. nickname: chlo, chipotle, joshua calls me chole cause work spelled my name wrong on my clock in badge, evie calls me sunshine, dad and i have a joke that i call him jedi master and he calls me padawan, idk people just calls me names tbh. my grandparents call me by my cousin’s name sometimes, once they called the dog my name.  42. relationship status: single, but like not worried about it  43. zodiac: gemini 44. pronouns: she/her 45. favourite tv show: i don’t watch much tv, but i do really like game of thrones and rick and morty. those are really the only 2 i keep up with, my grandma and i watch “this is us” together cause it’s how we spend time together. When christmas comes around, I watch the hallmark channel with her cause they always play my favorite christmas movie!  46. tattoos: just one on my upper inner left arm, i was supposed to get another one but i used the money to buy a new purse since i’ve had the same one since 7th grade and it’s super dirty and worn out.  47. right or left handed: right 48. surgery: not that i know of

50. sport: i played soccer in middle and part of high school, i don’t really keep up with sports except detroit soccer over the summer. 

51. vacation: being cliche, but i want to eat pray love w a backpack all around the world, but if i do end up in school again, i hope to get admitted in the language program and get to travel abroad to work on translating and teaching alongside multiple linguists.  52. pair of trainers: pumas

MORE GENERAL

53. eating: nothing, but i just had a few clementines  54. drinking: water  55. I’m about to: watch another episode of dream high 2, maybe go to sleep, bre was right i get super sad late at night and shouldn’t put myself through that 56. waiting for: noon saturday  57. want: to go to a park and just sit outside. one perk of college was that i could go sit outside at this time and it be okay (except it was humid af how did i live in georgia for 18 years). Now I can’t go outside or walk around at this time without being scolded, and all I want to do is just sit under the stars or just enjoy the night air.  58. get married: hopefully one day, i went to planned parenthood the other day and they asked me when i wanted to get married, i said 26 cause hopefully by then i’ll be more stable and with someone, but like i have this feeling that i will be by myself forever, or end up in a very toxic marriage like my mom. I lived my whole life being called ugly up until now, and now i just feel like the people suddenly confessing to me only want to use me.  59. career: I work in a grooming salon now and could one day get an offer to go to grooming academy, but if I could get back into psychology I would, I also really want to get into linguistics and just kinda travel using my degree to do odd jobs in different places. Experience the cultures of different places by meeting and interacting with the people those places have to offer. 

WHICH IS BETTER

60. hugs or kisses: depends who is giving what, a hug is warmth while a kiss can be hunger.  61. lips or eyes: eyes 62. shorter or taller: i prefer tall, but i am short  63. older or younger: either or as long as there is nothing but 100% commitment 64. nice arms or nice stomach: why does that matter when i’m getting cuddles and love?  65. hook up or relationship: relationship, more meaningful  66. troublemaker or hesitant: i say this with a clear head but a troublemaker. being hesitant can really hold you back in this world, and will make you miss many chances you might not get again. 

HAVE YOU EVER

67. kissed a stranger: no 68. drank hard liquor: yes, but i’m more of a wine girl  69. lost glasses/contact lenses: yes :(((  70. turned someone down: ye, but that was because he had told me prior he was using me for sex  71. sex on the first date: guess who still has the magic v card  72. broken someone’s heart: i hope not  73. had your heart broken: uh no?  74. been arrested: no, my step dad is a cop he would personally start ww3 if i was 75. cried when someone died: kinda yeah  76. fallen for a friend: yes? but like he’s my best friend now and those feelings went away very fast

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

77. yourself: if i didn’t, who would?  78. miracles: kinda yeah 79. love at first sight: no, but someone could prove me wrong one day 80. santa claus: HoHoNO

81. kiss on the first date: if they treated me right and they date went well, there is no harm in a kiss on the first date 82. angels: i do 

OTHER

84. eye colour: i always thought they were hazel, but they are green with a ring of browny/amber in the center. in the right light and when i’m sleepy, they’re grey it’s p cool  85. favourite movie: i watch a lot of movies, but i did really like moana.

i tag: @parkjinyoungaf (i forgot the url annie i was like WHERE IS SHE OH NO), @doublebam1a @thekoreanguys (i hope you’re okay i’m v worried about you :(( )

[ax100]

[VLD][Uliro] Tourniquet

Title: Tourniquet Rating: T Characters/pairings: Uliro, mentions of the other Paladins, mentions of Allura and Coran Summary: Shiro patches Ulaz right back up. Ulaz helps Shiro put himself back together.

Also on AO3!

cross posted on tumblr bc I think people are lazy to follow links lol (@selina sorry not sorry for making this pop up on your dash again lmao)

Hope you enjoy! :)

“This is unneeded,” Ulaz says, exasperated, as he tries to yank his arm out of Shiro’s grasp. “I am capable of doing this myself. I’ve treated myself for worse injuries in the past.”

“I know,” Shiro replies, his brow furrowed with intense concentration as he holds on strong. In his other hand are a pair of tweezers, pinched around a cotton ball saturated with a homemade ointment Coran swore up and down would help Galra wounds heal faster. “Stop—Ulaz, hold still! I might accidentally stab you with this, and then we’ll have an even bigger problem on our hands.”

The thought makes Ulaz pause, and Shiro takes the opportunity to flash him a small, hopeful little smile. “Let me take care of you?” he asks. “Please?” he tacks on, giving his best puppy dog eyes for good measure. He doesn’t actually know if it’s a look Ulaz can appreciate, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Ulaz scrutinizes him for a moment, his eyes narrowed, and Shiro is almost sure he’ll be shooed away, but then is pleasantly surprised when Ulaz just sighs in defeat and looks away. His lips are pulled into a thin, straight line as he resigns himself to his fate. It isn’t exactly the wholehearted ‘yes’ he’d been hoping for (there’s a low noise emanating from Ulaz that sounds suspiciously like soft growling), but at least he’d stopped moving.

Huh, maybe the puppy dog eyes do work on Galra.

Shiro gets right to work and dutifully starts dabbing the ointment around the wound. There is no reaction—no flinch or hiss or flattened ears—and Shiro’s not sure if it’s because this is one of those medicines that miraculously doesn’t sting or because Ulaz is just used to the burn of disinfection.

Honestly, Ulaz was right. The scrape on his upper arm, while large, isn’t deep, and certainly not life-threatening. Just a scratch, really. He had gotten it a few hours ago when he had been thrown by his game across the rocky terrain of the planet he had been hunting on. At most, it’s just a bit of an eyesore, as patches of fur had been sheared off here and there, but nothing that needed more than a little disinfecting.

While the humans and Alteans were fine with food goo and what passed as vegetables most of the time, Galra were primarily carnivorous, a point that was brought to light only after Lance had jokingly pointed out that Ulaz seemed to stare at Allura’s mice an awful lot, like he wanted to eat them. The room suddenly went very quiet when Ulaz admitted that he did.

From then on, Allura had permitted him to go out on regular hunting trips. Every few days, he’d fly out in a pod and come back a few hours later with nothing more than a sack of neatly trimmed meat slung over his shoulder (he had been explicitly forbidden from carving on the ship). He always gave a portion of his kill to Hunk to cook, remembering that humans were omnivores and needed it too. And while he always sat down with the other inhabitants of the ship for meal times, he never ate in front of them—Alteans, as a race, were vegetarian (and whatever food goo was considered as) and would probably not enjoy the sight of him devouring raw, bloody meat at the dinner table. The thoughtfulness was much appreciated.

“All done,” Shiro announces as he secures the bandage into place—it’s some kind of Altean plant-based material that doesn’t need any adhesive, clinging onto Ulaz’s fur with little help. “See how fast it went once you stopped squirming?”

Ulaz snorts. “Unnecessary,” he says, but there is approval in his eyes when he looks at Shiro’s handiwork. “Hm. It’s quite neat.”

“First aid training at the Garrison,” he gives as explanation, standing up to empty the floating pan filled with used cotton balls into the trash chute at the corner of the room. “They had us wrapping bandages so much, I could probably do it one-handed with my eyes closed.”

That seems to impress Ulaz. “A useful skill to have in combat.”

“Well, they were probably thinking more along the lines of accidents, not fighting,” Shiro admits, plopping down next to Ulaz on the bed again. He only comes up to his chin, even sitting down.

Ulaz makes a sound of acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything more. He takes on a faraway look, as if he’s fallen deep in thought, as he stares at the wall directly across them. A few beats of silence pass before he turns to Shiro again. “Thank you for tending to me,” he quietly says.

Shiro smiles at him as he feels warmth stir in his chest. “You’re welcome,” he answers, then remembers something. “Oh, one last thing.”

Before Ulaz can react, Shiro leans towards him and presses a kiss to the top portion of the dressed wound. He pulls back and almost laughs at the look of utter confusion on Ulaz’s face. (Although to anyone else, it probably just looked like an angry glare.)

“Just kissing the boo-boo away,” he says, grinning like an idiot.

A blank stare.

“’Boo-boo,’ another word for ‘wound.’ Children use it,” he explains, then shrugs. “Kisses help them heal faster.”

Ulaz’s brow just wrinkles even further, like he’s trying to figure out the medicinal properties of kisses. “This was also part of your training?”

“Wha—no!” Shiro breaks out into giggles. “It doesn’t actually work. It’s just something that parents do to their kids.”

Ulaz suddenly jerks back with wide eyes and makes a strange face; it makes him look slightly constipated. “…and you…to me…?” he flounders in a strangled voice.

Shiro blinks. Now it’s his turn to be confused. Did he say something wrong? Ulaz is staring at him with wide eyes, shoulders tensed up and fur standing on end like a frightened cat, and it’s a bit unnerving. Shiro backtracks, trying to recall what he said.

And then it clicks.

He wouldn’t have been able to stifle the laugh that bubbled out of his throat even if he tried. Ulaz had explained it before during one of their many talks about the cultural differences between humans and Galra—social roles were a lot more rigid and defined in Galra culture, which meant that for Shiro to do something for Ulaz that normally a parent would do for their child…

“It doesn’t mean what you think it does,” he says quickly, noting the way that Ulaz is now glaring at him with his ears flattened against his head, obviously not getting what was so funny about the whole situation. Shiro, riding a sudden wave of fondness for this adorable 7-foot-tall alien, tries to pacify him by grabbing his hand, threading their fingers together. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just trying to be cute.” He brings the back of Ulaz’s hand up to his lips and kisses it.

Ulaz still looks pretty suspicious about the whole thing, but he starts to visibly relax now that he’s sure his lover isn’t implying that he sees him as his offspring. Still, he grumbles something under his breath in Galra, probably about how there’s nothing cute about it. But he’s probably not that annoyed, since he doesn’t extract his hand from Shiro’s grasp. Shiro, out of respect, tries to keep his giggling to a minimum.

After a while, Shiro nudges him. “Move a little,” he says. Ulaz is still a bit miffed, but doesn’t argue. With some maneuvering, they rearrange themselves so that Shiro is seated between Ulaz’s legs, his back leaning against the Galra’s chest.

It’s a position Shiro often seeks to be in. Back on Earth, it was actually quite rare that he got to be the little spoon, being as big as he is by human standards. And while having a partner much larger than him can be intimidating in many ways (not to mention the fact that said partner is also Galra), Shiro finds that he actually really likes this. It makes him feel small. Pampered. Well-taken care of.

He makes a contented little sound as Ulaz rests his chin on top of his head.

“You are incorrigible,” Ulaz sighs. The words are exasperated and fond in equal measure.

Shiro can feel a clawed hand gently trailing down his left arm. A question.

“Really? Lots of people back on Earth say I’m quite the role model.”

He takes the hand gently in his own and leads it down to rest on his abdomen. An answer.

Ulaz’s other hand creeps in from beside his other hip to join its partner, and the fingers thread together. The warmth and weight of his palms is pleasant on Shiro’s stomach.

“Hm, that does not bode well for the rest of your race then,” Ulaz murmurs as he nuzzles closer, making Shiro chuckle. Seated this close, he can both feel and hear the rumbling emanating deep from Ulaz’s chest—purring, he realizes.

His laughing gradually dies down and they find themselves settling into tranquil silence. Shiro slowly leans more and more of his weight against Ulaz until he’s practically sagging against him. Ulaz doesn’t stop him, and even goes as far as spread his legs more so Shiro can shuffle back even further. His clawed thumbs start drawing little circles on Shiro’s stomach.

Shiro closes his eyes takes a deep breath. The smile on his face feels easy and natural. He feels warm. Contented. Happy. Ulaz continues to purr away behind him.

They stay in that position for a long while.

Eventually, Ulaz shifts, making Shiro’s eyes flutter open. And before he can ask him about it, he suddenly feels thin lips brush against his shoulder. They drag up and press a soft kiss to the dip above his clavicle, right at the junction where his shoulder meets his neck.

The sensation is muted through the layers of his clothes, but Shiro still feels his entire face flood with heat as the kisses work their way up the side of his neck—slow, unhurried. The purring is even louder now. He can feel his heart rate start to pick up.

“Um, Ulaz?” He only gets a grunt in return. “Are you—“ He gasps as Ulaz’s lips seek out the sensitive spot behind his ear. He looks over his shoulder as Ulaz pulls away slightly. “Are you scenting me?” he asks, flushed and breathless and slightly bewildered.

It’s true—he recognizes these as the motions that Ulaz goes through when he complains that Shiro ‘doesn’t smell like him anymore’ and it ‘must be rectified,’ but usually, it’s just him pushing his nose around into the little nooks and crannies of his shoulders and neck, but the kissing. Well, the kissing is new.

Ulaz’s doesn’t say anything, just reaches up to brush the white tuft of hair away to kiss Shiro’s forehead, then leans down to do the same to his lips. Tender. Gentle. Loving. Shiro’s not sure if a blush can spread all the way to his heart, but that’s what he feels.

Ulaz nuzzles against the side of his face and gives his cheek a little lick—the Galra way of showing affection—before turning him around fully. Even sitting on his thighs, Shiro isn’t quite eye level with him; Ulaz has to lean down to gently knock their foreheads together, yellow eyes meeting gray. “I’ve been told that kissing can accelerate the healing process,” he says, his tone teasing.

Shiro chuckles. He’s already opening his mouth to tell him that he’s supposed to be the one ‘kissing the boo-boo away’ when he takes a good look at the way Ulaz is regarding him. It’s…almost sad, somehow. The words die on his tongue as it dawns onto him that Ulaz isn’t referring to his scrape.

Suddenly, something occurs to him, and his hand flies up to his shoulder--

From when a creature had latched onto him with its jagged teeth.

--trails up to his clavicle--

Broken under the weight of a crowbar in the arena.

--and settles on his neck.

Electrocuted by a guard for misbehaving.

“Oh,” he breathes out as his hand falls back down to his lap. The realization settles like a heavy stone in his stomach. He’s staring downwards, directly at Ulaz’s crotch, but it doesn’t awaken any heat within him. He feels naked all of a sudden, with all his scars and the wounds inside him on display for the world to see. His heart is thudding in his chest. He’s not sure anymore from what.

“Shiro?” Ulaz calls out to him softly. The concern in his voice is open and raw. Big, clawed hands come up to gently grasp his trembling, balled up fists, the thumb brushing over white knuckles.

His eyes slam shut. He’s on the precipice of a panic attack; his mind is starting to go into overdrive, and all the thoughts start coming in starts and stops in a disorganized jumble, no rhyme or reason to them, fast and frenzied, threatening to overwhelm--

“Breathe, Shiro.” Ulaz’s voice is barely above a whisper, quiet but unwavering.

The words sound distant and muffled, but he does as he’s told—opens his mouth to take deep breaths. They’re stuttering, at first, and for a moment, he fears that he’s drowning, but he shakes the thought away and tries to focus on something other than the roaring in his ears.

The touch of Ulaz’s forehead against his own grounds him.

He takes notice of the thumbs still running back and forth across his knuckles. They trail over them in a way that’s predictable. Steady. Coherent. He latches onto that, tries to match his breathing in time with their rhythm.

“I am here,” Ulaz murmurs. “Come back to me, Shiro.”

And he does.

It takes a while, but eventually, he does manage to re-center himself. His breathing gradually evens out and the tension in his shoulders drains away, leaving him feeling a bit lightheaded and weak. His skin feels slightly clammy from the thin sheen of sweat that has formed. But he’s okay.

“I’m here, Ulaz,” he says. He slowly opens his eyes, gray eyes meeting yellow. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” the other apologizes immediately, looking ashamed. His grip on Shiro’s hands is tight. “I did not mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay. I know you didn’t,” he tries to reassure him, giving a tired smile. “I’m…okay. Not good, but okay,” he says truthfully, grimacing a little. “It’s something that needs to be talked about, I guess. But not right now. Okay?” He tries for a smile again.

At Ulaz’s slow nod of understanding, Shiro rises up on his knees so that they’re really eye level with each other, and places a hand on Ulaz’s cheek. “It’s alright, Ulaz. I forgive you.”

Ulaz blinks slowly and takes a deep breath as he leans into the touch. Hesitation flickers over his face for a second before he turns his head a little to kiss the palm of Shiro’s prosthetic hand resting on his cheek.

Slow. Unhurried. Reverent.

Repentant.

The feeling that rushes through Shiro makes him gasp. It’s an action that carries so many implications that he finds his mind reeling again. But somehow, it’s different this time. In an instant, the last dregs of the haze that had settled over him in the aftermath of his almost-panic attack clear, and suddenly, things make sense. He finds himself hyperaware of just how close they are to each other, of the places where they touch and what Ulaz is trying to tell him with each of them.

Of the steady exhales fanning out over his skin, intimate in their proximity, telling him, ‘I am here. I am with you.’

Of the arms lined with corded muscle braced on either side of him, strong and elegant, silently reassuring him, ‘You are safe with me. I will protect you.’

Of the thin lips trailing over old wounds to reaffirm his unspoken oath, ‘I will help you heal.’

Of the bright eyes that meet his, a gentle request in their depths:

‘Let me take care of you. Please.’

He takes a shuddering breath. He is overcome, as overwhelmed as he had been a few minutes ago, but this time, for a completely different reason.

The healing process is a long and painful one. And on some days, it feels like it will never end, that he’ll never be able to rise up from the things that were done to him, that he’ll never be able to bare himself to another person again—physically, emotionally, anything, everything. Sometimes, he doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to handle being touched ever again without feeling like his blood has suddenly been turned into acid.

Ulaz knows this. He understands this. But he has always communicated his love for Shiro gently, using quiet words spoken in dim light, and even in the moments when they are together but do not talk, he touches Shiro like he’s something precious. And in the past, this would have made him recoil, would have made him choke and burn from the inside. But now, with new meaning, Ulaz’s touch makes him light up with new life; it soothes the dark ache deep within him. And while the batting average is not at a hundred percent, and there are still days when the contact sears his skin, it’s getting better.

He’s getting better.

He doesn’t bother wiping up the tears that have started to fall. He smiles—laughs even—and leans forward to kiss him. ‘Yes,’ he tries to tell Ulaz through their shared contact, pouring his whole heart into it. ‘Please stay.’

And he keeps going, melding their lips together, again and again—a soothing balm for their injuries, both past and present.

Kisses help the wounds heal faster, after all.