#yeah id buy from him he seems trustworthy

[chilling-seavey]

Qui Totum Vult Totum Perdit (d.s.) - 13

A/N Time to meet our last character 

Warnings: This story is centered around a murder so there will be graphic descriptions of blood, death/manslaughter, dealing with corpses, possible domestic abuse (physical/verbal), crime/covering up a crime, shock/grief, and other possibly heavy or triggering topics. Please read at your own discretion.

Jonah woke me up early the following morning by a shake of my shoulder. I winced as I lifted myself off the desk and stretched my arms above my head until my spine cracked.

“Sleep okay?” Jonah chuckled lightly as he glanced over my shoulder at the paper I had basically slept on top of.

I dropped my hands back to my lap with a heavy tired sigh, “I guess.”

“Any sleep is better than no sleep.” Jonah said. “We gotta get a move on though.”

I got up from the desk chair and turned off the lamp before starting to gather my things up again. The clock on the bedside table read 7:30am and I tried to ignore the ache in my limbs from exhaustion and my uncomfortable sleeping position as I packed up our few things in preparation to leave again. Jonah opened one of the cans we bought at the grocery store with a knife and stuck it in the hotel room microwave to warm up some sort of makeshift breakfast for us.

As I was packing up my laptop bag and Jonah was tending to our weak excuse of breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Our heads snapped over towards it.

“Housekeeping.”

The microwave beeped steadily three times.

Jonah and I looked at each other and I hurried over to the door to look out the peephole into the hallway.

“Close the bathroom.” Jonah whispered sharply.

I closed the bathroom door as instructed before speaking through the main door to the person on the other side, “We don’t need service, thank you.”

“Your check out is today so I need to come in and clean up.”

“Come back when we leave.”

“I was told to come by now.”

I glanced over my shoulder to Jonah who was standing a few paces back with his arms crossed over his chest and eyes narrowed in confusion and concern. He shrugged and I opened the door to the young man in the hallway.

He gave me a wide smile, standing beside a small housekeeping cart and wearing one of the hotel staff’s uniforms of sky-blue scrubs embroidered with the Riviera logo on the breast pocket and his nametag above it read ‘Corbyn’. The small rectangular shape inside the pocket caught my attention and I narrowed my eyes back up to his face.

“I won’t be long, Mr. Seavey.” he said reassuringly.

The statement of my name sent my heart to my throat, now regretting the fact that I gave my true information over to the lady at the front desk last night. I was now a prime suspect in a murder case and my whereabouts was suddenly incredibly easy to find. Not to mention my bright white Tesla sitting in the parking lot with my identification plates easy to see in the broad daylight. We had to get the hell out of there.

“Thank you, but we’re okay. Give us ten minutes and come back.” I tried to speak as solidly as I could.

“Is your wife here? May I speak with her?”

“My…my wife?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s none of your business.”

“Are you hiding something?” he asked bluntly.

“I just don’t want housekeeping right now.” I retorted.

I tried to close the door but he stopped it with his hand flat against the painted wood.

“Your brother said you left for a road trip…so can I speak with her?”

I reached into his breast pocket of his uniform and pulled out the small recording device before grabbing him by the arm and yanking him inside, slamming the door behind us. I shoved him backwards onto the desk chair and held him by the front of his shirt, glaring right into his light eyes.

“Who sent you?”

“That’s none of your business.” he pushed back on me.

“Are you a cop or a reporter?”

“I plead the 5th.”

“Bullshit.”

“I must say, Mr. Seavey, your panicked reaction to simple questions is quite concerning.”

I took a step back from him and Jonah moved up beside me. Corbyn smirked proudly up at us and started to get up from the chair. I shoved him back down.

“What do you know?”

“I know that you two are some of the most popular people in all of Los Angeles county. I know you have enough money to buy up this entire resort. I know that you’re currently on the run from the police in the possible murder of your wife.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Where is she?” Corbyn pressed. “I’m not a cop. I’m just curious. You…you can call me a fan of sorts.”

Jonah didn’t even need to see my panicked look before he was pulling the rope tie from the closed curtains across the room and tying Corbyn’s wrists together behind the chair. I unbuckled my belt and passed it over to Jonah too and he locked him to the chair around the middle with the belt.

“Nice. Real classy.” Corbyn scoffed. “Is this how you treat all your guests?”

“Shut up.” I snapped, reaching into his pocket to pull out his wallet. I flicked through his cards to find his ID and came across a Press Pass with his photograph and name under Corbyn M Besson. “Fuckin’ paparazzi.” I grumbled as Jonah looked over my shoulder at what I was finding.

“Paparazzi? Ooh, that’s insulting. I like to consider myself more of a journalist.”

“You’re a fucking stalker is what you are. How did you know we were here?” Jonah asked sternly.

“A magician never reveals his secrets.” Corbyn cocked his head to the side slightly as he stared sweetly at us, “So, tell me, how was the honeymoon, Daniel? Was it romantic and blissful? Costa Rica looks beautiful this time of year.”

Jonah and I knew perfectly well from a few years of being bombarded by paparazzi how to avoid questions and although this was much more serious than ���which artist are you currently working with?’, it was all one in the same. They were sly and Corbyn seemed no different; being able to hide his true malicious intent behind a handsome face and an almost trustworthy voice. He was one of the pros, no doubt.

“Don’t answer him.” Jonah spoke lowly to me.

“I know.” I mumbled.

“He’s trying to get under your skin to get some bullshit to publish.”

“I know.”

“What’s in that box?” Corbyn asked.

Jonah and I looked over at him and them followed his furrowed gaze to the equipment trunk by the wall. The towel was peeking out from under the closed lid and the blood stain on the corner was unmissable. I swallowed thickly.

“Music equipment.” Jonah answered flatly. “We always take work with us.”

“Yeah?” Corbyn peaked an eyebrow at us. “Avalon’s here helping you?”

I clenched my jaw and stuffed his cards back in his wallet with trembling hands.

Corbyn spoke gently as if we were nothing less than old friends catching up, “I met her before. She’s a really nice lady.”

“Honey?”

The front door slammed and I got up quickly from the couch at the sound of her sobbing and rushing down the hallway. I followed after her, right into our bedroom and she shook with tears, stumbling over each breath as her hands raked through her messy blonde hair.

“Ava? Honey, what’s wrong?” I asked softly as I stepped up beside her.

“Th-They cornered me!” she sobbed, accepting my comfort and she curled into my chest, her arms wrapping tightly around my waist.

“Who did?” I pressed gently.

“The paparazzi…some reporter…” she cried, her tears soaking through the shoulder of my t-shirt. “Cornered me outside of work and I-I thought he was going to hurt me he-he-”

“What did he say to you?” I asked as softly as I could as I stroked her hair soothingly while she cried in my arms, her whole body trembling.

“Asked me a whole bunch of questions ab-about you…who you are working with…about our wedding…said he was going to show up. Oh God, Dani, I don’t want paparazzi at our wedding!”

“I know. There won’t let there be any. I’ll make sure of it.” I promised, pressing a kiss to her head.

“He cornered me…pushing his phone in my face and asking all these questions and…and…and I couldn’t get him away and he grabbed me. He grabbed my arm so tight and I couldn’t get away! He knows where we live, Dani! He knows where we live and he said he’s going to get the information out of me one way or another…I’m so scared!”

I leaned back from her to take her face in my hands. Her tear-streaked cheeks and shimmering brown eyes made me furious as to who the hell laid their hands on my fiancé. My anger was easily overpowered with concern and I spoke gently to her as I wiped the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs, “I’ll take care of him, honey. Did you get his name?”

“His Press Pass said ‘Besson’.”

I held the Press Pass in my hand, staring at the surname of the man who made my wife fear for her life. I have stated many times that I was not the best husband, dear reader, this is a fact we cannot deny. I am human and I am selfish, and yet, I know the feeling of protective anger when it comes.

“You motherfucker.” I spat, dropping the ID to the top of the dresser in one swift movement and making a lunge for our captee.

Jonah grabbed me quickly before I could throw a punch and yanked me back.

“I know exactly who you are! You scared the fucking hell out of her and you made her scared to even live in our house!” I shouted angrily, Jonah desperately holding me back. “Do you know how many times she woke up from nightmares about you?! About you cornering her in that goddamn alley and threatening her like you did? You are a fucking creep!”

“Daniel.” Jonah spoke sternly from behind me as I thrashed in his arms.

“I was just doing my job. One passionate man to another I figured you might have understood my responsibilities.” Corbyn answered slowly, his face filled with stupid concern.

“If you have a problem with me then you come to me. What nutjob corners a woman in an alley at night? Huh? Threatening her and grabbing her like a psycho!”

“Daniel.” Jonah repeated but his voice was no where near what I was focusing on. Between my fear and my grief and now my anger, seeing red was truly what was happening in my mind. I wanted and almost needed to avenge my wife’s death and this man had guilty written all over him.

“She’s dead because of you!” I screamed.

Corbyn’s eyes went wide and he lifted his head up straighter at my sudden outburst.

“Daniel.” Jonah hissed against my ear, “You better stop talking right now.”

A little smirk tugged at the corner of Corbyn’s mouth, “Wow. The raise I will get for bringing this information in is fucking astronomical.”

I went to shout some more at him but Jonah smacked his hand over my mouth and pulled me backwards and into the ensuite, slamming the door behind us. He shoved me away and gave me a glare that was nothing less than ‘what the fuck’.

“He’s the fucker I told you about. The one who cornered her and scared her out of her mind.” I said through my teeth.

“Okay, but you have to shut the fuck up, Daniel. I’m serious. I get that you’re angry but you just blew our tiny bit of cover. You have to remember that everyone in the whole fucking state right now thinks you killed her and admitting that she’s dead is only going to screw you over.”

I huffed angrily and glanced down at Avalon still resting in the bath of ice.

“He’s a reporter for the paparazzi. He has no remorse and he is an expert at getting a scene out of people like us. He’s going to talk and you are going to be screwed.”

I sat on the side of the tub and held my face in my hands, “I just need more time.”

“I know we do.” Jonah sighed, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck in thought. “We can’t let him go now though; you gave him information that we can’t afford letting out.”

“Goddammit.” I grumbled, rubbing my hands over my face tiredly.

“We could just leave him here. Gag him and leave him tied. It’s not perfect but it will at least give us enough time to make it to the lodge.” Jonah suggested quietly.

I thought it through for a moment before nodding in agreement. It was our only logical option. There was no way I would be willing to take him with us otherwise we may have ended up with two dead bodies in the trunk. One was already far too much.

Corbyn was already tied to the chair so we just had to gag him. If the guy would shut up it would have made it so much easier but his constant pestering questions only made it easier to leave him there.

“You don’t know what you’re doing! I was just doing my job!” Corbyn protested, “I’d do anything for a good story and she was the easiest way to get it! I didn’t mean to scare her but it’s not my fault if she can’t even handle-”

I stuffed one of the cloths from the bathroom in his mouth and Jonah wrapped the silk belt from the hotel robe around his head to finish it off. Corbyn struggled a little but Jonah tied a tight knot around the back of his head to keep the gag in place and we hurried to pack up and get out of there.

Corbyn tried to continue his ranting but it only came out as a bunch of muffled noises. My heartbeat was in my ears. It was so damn loud.

Jonah and I pulled the equipment trunk into the ensuite and carefully lifted Avalon back into it, tucking the towel around her again before closing the lid and latching it up. I tossed my laptop bag over my shoulder and slid the hotel pad of paper into my pocket as we got ready to leave. Corbyn thrashed around slightly on the desk chair, trying to get his hands free of the binds that held him but Jonah and I didn’t give him a second look as we each took one end of the large trunk and carried it out of the room. To tell you the truth, dear reader, after everything I knew about that young man and his conniving ways, I was mostly worried about leaving my favourite belt with him.

The morning was just as hot and sticky as the previous evening when we arrived and perspiration was already forming at my brow when we stepped out of the hotel and into the parking lot. My mind felt as muddled as the desert humidity. I unlocked the car and we lifted the equipment case into the trunk before slamming it shut and getting into the front seats quickly, the denim jacket back in my hands. Jonah offered to take his turn to drive which I was grateful for and I let myself rest back against the window ledge as he pulled quickly out of the hotel parking lot and towards the freeway. I swear I could still hear Corbyn’s muffled screams from the hotel room.

The sun was rising above the mountains in the distance as we drove north-east towards state lines. Once we crossed over into Nevada, I felt like I could actually take a moment to breathe. I wasn’t safe yet, not until I could prove my innocence, but at least the distance gave me time.

Detective Team: @jonahlovescoffee​ @randomlimelightxxx​ @stuffofseaveyy​ @hopinglimelight​ @tempus-ut-luceant​ @br4nd1s​ @xkelsev​ @hiya-its-amber​ @the-girl-who-cried-wolf​

[fallingfor-fics]

Teachers Pet-chapter 18: legilimens

All chapters

chapter 17

It had been a few days now since my last encounter with Snape except in potions class, but we didn't really speak then, I assumed it was because he didn't wanna seem human in front of the other students. It was Monday and I was headed to the Gryffindor common room to meet up with Hermione as usual, I needed to talk to her about my situation.

 I leaned against the wall waiting for her to emerge from the doors. I closed my eyes for a minute thinking about a certain someone, its funny how when you develop these kinds of feelings, that person really does just habitat your brain all day long, I was thinking about Thursday, when our arms brushed, it was like something out of a movie, when the nerd girl drops her books and the popular boy helps her and their hands touch. Except I was a nerd student and he was, Severus. And had no intention of wanting me like I him. I felt so guilty thinking of him this way, but he was just so handsome and strong looking. Like he could just pin me to the wall and run his large rough hands u- "Hey Y/n you ready?" I was snapped out of my daydream, thank merlin, by Hermione. "Hmm yup" I said as we headed to the Great hall. I needed to ask her some advice, but I didn't want anyone overhearing, meaning the boys. "Hermione, I need to talk to you about some things. Can we skip breakfast and go to the library to talk?" I said looking around for any teachers. "Um ok yeah sure, what about?" She said confused as we switched direction to the library. "Well, it's a couple of things, but remember the questions I was asking you about Ron?" I mumbled quietly to her. "Yes, wait, I was right wasn't I? You like someone!" She said a tad too loud for my liking "oh my merlin shhhhh" I said nudging her. "Who?" she whispered as we approached the library. "I'll get to that in a minute." I said as I dragged her to the farthest corner of the Library and we sat down between the aisles of books. "Ok so I asked you those things, because I may...fancy someone." I said mumbling the last part. "Ok who?" she asked excitedly. I rolled my eyes not sure if this was a good idea, I know she's trustworthy, and she's a very good friend, but what if she's repulsed? I let out a breath, "Ok but if I tell you, you swear not to tell anyone and you wont judge me for it?" I said with a worried look on my face. "Oh merlin it's not Neville is it?" she said a almost disgusted look on her face, "Hey I could do a,lot worse than Neville Longbottom!" I said laughing, "but no, it's not Neville.." I looked down fiddling with my fingers. "It's snp" I said, murmuring the last part to where she could barely understand me. "What did you say?" she said looking at me with confused eyes just wanting me to spit it out, "Snerp"  I said still not looking at her. "For merlin's sake who is it Y/n!" she practically yelled, "Its Snape!" I said raising my voice a bit and cupping my mouth for saying louder than expected. She looked taken aback and her mouth was open a tad, "You don't mean Professor Snape?" she said whispering. I just looked away in shame. "Wow" she added. "I know it's horrible isn't it? I'm disgusting, kill me now, spare the world of my wretchedness." I said putting my face in my hands. "Well I'm sure people have liked worse, I mean some girls flirt with Lockhart sometimes, so it's not that bad" she said with an apologetic grin on her face. "Yes that is true" I said looking out the window next to us. "I just, ugh I feel awful, I haven't liked someone in years, and it was just an attraction, but this is like an actual crush, like real feelings. I didnt think it was real at first, but now i've gone full schoolgirl fantasy for him." I said sighing "Ew don't put it that way, But I mean I guess it makes sense" she said shrugging "really?" I asked looking at her, "i mean yeah if you look at it, you spend a lot of time with him and i'm sure those lessons helped you guys grow more comfortable with each other."

I thought for a moment she was definitely right about that, this probably never would have happened if I was good at potions. "Also the other night I went to the astronomy tower at night to..think, and he showed up and he didn't yell or take me back to my dormitory, he stayed and comforted me and talked to me" I said smiling remembering his scent and his kind words.''Well there you go, it definitely makes sense as to why you fancy him, I mean it's still strange he's a teacher and all, but your feelings are invalid." she said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Thanks to Hermione, that certainly makes me feel better about it. I think the worst part about it though is that, id never get to have him, and that thought sucks, I mean you liked ron and now you guys are able to be together, but Snapes just a friends." I frowned at the thought, this really was very shitty. "Yeah that does suck, but hey, these things usually work themselves out and before long you probably won't even give him a second thought." I nodded my head in agreement and pondered on that thought for a moment. "Ms. Granger! what are you doing-" a deep voice bellowed from around the corner, I froze and Snape looked just as shocked to see me being the one talking with her. I looked up at him with a worried face and then back at Hermione. "You two should be in the great hall right now!" he added, still using his stern voice, I internally panicked but pulled it together, "Sorry Professor, we were just studying for Potions!" I said lying to hopefully get him to just leave us be. "With no books?" he questioned lifting his brow.  "We were trying to list the recipe for Amortentia off the tops of our heads!" Hermione quickly added. He wasn't buying it and looked at us suspiciously, I made eye contact with him and his face softened a tad as I pleaded at him with my eyes, "Yes well, don't let this happen again, and do not be late to first period!" He stated and turned and walked away briskly, his cape flowing behind. Once he was out of sight I let out a groan "Oh my- Holy Fuckkkkkk'' I said face palming myself. "What if he heard ussssss!" I moaned out. "I'm sure he didn- oh wait.." she said looking at me with worried eyes.I looked at her and my face grew pale "What? what is it?" I said looking around the corner, "There's something I should mention that Harry told me..." she said in a tone that did not lead me to believe it was something good. "What?" I said scared. "Snape is a Legilimens.." she said with furrowed brows. I felt my heart drop and my throat get very dry. "He's a w h a t " I began having a minor episode, freaking out over this newly acquired information, "So you mean to tell me not only did he possible read our minds and hear this whole conversation, but he has also been knowing what goes through my mind when I'm with him in lessons and in class. AND in the astronomy tower?!" I began to breathe faster, "Well the good thing is most of the time you would know if he was in your head, at least that what harry said, but since Snape is a very skilled legilimens, that might not always be the case.." I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I mean what if he knows, and he's known this whole time, and that's why he wasn't the same after the night in the tower.

I learned all about Legilimency and Occlumency but I had never practiced either of them before. This just meant I was gonna have too. The bell rang and we both looked up, "Well we better get going." she said and I nodded. "I'll see you at lunch" I said speeding off to my first period. I couldn't focus in any of my classes. All I could think of was the idea that Severus was aware of my feelings and was going to resent me because of them. Before I knew it it was lunch, but I had decided, I was gonna learn Occlumency and Legilimency, and I was gonna learn from the best. I hurried to the great hall to grab a sandwich and then headed to Snape's classroom. I took a bite of my sandwich thinking of the best way to approach this, I needed to act the part, like i'm really capable of this and not the tiniest bit afraid, I kept my head high and knocked on his door, it wasn't a day for our lessons, but this couldn't wait. There was no answer, but I knew he wasn't in the great hall. I knocked again still nothing, I waited a few more minutes and decided to just walk in, I mean we were friends-ish so it couldn't be that big of a deal. I slowly turned the knob and peeked my head in, he wasn't in here, I went and sat my things down and looked around the room. I walked over to the storage closet and sure enough I saw the potions professor collecting vials. I wonder why he didn't answer when I knocked, or when I walked in. "Professor?" I said lightly to not frighten him. "Ms. L/n what makes you think that you can just waltz into any room of your choosing when someone does not answer your knocks?" he said not turning around. Keep your game face on Y/n. "Well I needed to ask you something and I was prepared to wait." I said crossing my arms. "What is it this time Y/n?" he asked in a dreadful tone turning to look at me and walk out of the closet, setting the vials down on a table in the front of the room, most likely preparing to brew Amortentia in our classes. "Well a little bird told me that you happen to be a very skilled Legilimens, and I would like you to teach me Legilimency and Occlumency." I said with confidence and a hand on my hip, letting him know I didn't come to play.

"Would this little bird happen to be named Granger" he said giving me a look. "Classified, but will you do it?" I said looking at him in the eyes trying to be as convincing as possible. "No" he said with no hesitation. "What!? Why not?" I said frowning, my hands dropping to my sides. "Because you don't need such skills." he said, not paying me any attention focusing on setting up still. I walked over and put my hand on the table in his way of setting the vial down. He looked down at me with an annoyed face. "What if I come across a death eater or something and I need to defend my thoughts!" I said looking up in his eyes. "Do you have knowledge a death eater may need Ms. L/n?" he said raising his brow, I looked to the side for a minute, "Well, no, but what about in the future say I run into The dark lord himself , and he takes me because i'm the headmasters goddaughter and he thinks I have information and I have no way to protect myself." I said my begging e/c eyes looking into his, now angry, black ones. "You are such a petulant child" he said moving my hand from the spot on the table. I felt a shock run through my hand and butterflies swarmed my stomach, I looked at his hand holding mine and smiled a tad. His felt just as I imagined and was so large compared to mine, I thought back to my day dreaming this morning, til he dropped mine to put the vial in its place. "Please please please! If you say no i'll just keep asking!" I said in a begging motion. "I'll do anything please Sir" I said, giving him my best act. He let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes, "You relentless little girl are going to be what kills me." he said in an annoyed and sarcastic tone. "Is that a yessss" I said wiggling my brows. "Fine but you must return my book to its place at once." he said and I froze up eyes wide and mouth agape. "How did you.." he smirked "Like you said Y/n Im a very skilled Legilimens." "Professor, I just wanted to read it and I was gonna ask you about it anyways I'm so sorry" I said not looking at him. "That's alright but hand it over" he said holding his hand out, I went to my bag and grabbed the book handing it to him, "Oh wait," I said grabbing it from him and tapping my wand to it, muttering the translation spell back to Latin, and handing it back to him. "You know if you had just asked I would have translated it for you." he said using his wand to put it back in its place on the shelf. "I did want to ask, do you know who left the flower in it and who wrote in it?" I said looking back at him.  

He paused for a moment thinking as if he didn't realize they were left in there, "Some boy many years ago I believe, no ones picked it up since" he said turning to shuffle some papers on his desk, I guess he thinks i'm completely clueless, but I wasn't going to make an accusations after he just agreed to give me more lessons on top of the potions ones. "So when should we meet for these lessons?" I said walking to his desk and smiling at him. "Hows after dinner Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays?" I wanted to get as much time in with him as possible, but now I had to really watch what I thought around him, which was gonna be hard, how does one stop thinking? "I cant Wednesdays I have staff meetings but fine." he said really not happy I was basically forcing him to do this. "Great! Sounds splendid. I can't wait! Thanks so much again Professor, I will leave you to it and see you in class!" I said grabbing my things and practically skipping off to my next class. I hoped this would go well, but I needed it too, not only was I going to get to spend more time with him, but I was gonna be able to learn to keep him from my thoughts and feelings, that just meant i'd need to be extra careful around him about what I think, I mean I don't know for sure if he's invaded the certain parts of my mind that would reveal my feelings, but I didn't want to take chances.

[artificialqueens]

Galactica, Chapter 23 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: We know our posting schedule has gotten slower, but we hope you’re still enjoying the story. XOXO! Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: The Galactica afterparty brought people together in many different ways.  

This Chapter: NYFW comes to an end, and the team leaves for London, some more enthusiastically than others.

***

Ivy strolled through the courtyard at Bryant Park, on her way to deliver a charged battery pack to Raja before the Ralph Lauren show began, since Raja was as incapable of keeping her own alive as she was caring for the plants she continually adopted, all of that falling on Ivy - who fortunately didn’t mind, enjoying the relaxing tasks of caring for them as a break from the craziness of corporate life.

Most assistants as experienced as Ivy would be annoyed at doing this kind of menial delivery task, some probably even seeing it as demeaning, but Ivy was happy for the excuse to get out of the office and observe the colorful chaos of New York Fashion Week in person. Especially today, on the last day, when people from every walk of life seemed to converge in Bryant Park in a strange and glorious blend of humanity.

If Ivy was being honest with herself, she was quite the people watcher. She loved sitting back and collecting knowledge about others, not because she wanted to do anything with the information, but just to satisfy her own relentless curiosity, which was as much a part of her as the gap in her teeth.

She’d seen so much over the course of this week, so many things that she knew people probably had no idea she knew. She had watched her own boss quietly panic a few hours before the Galactica show, a look in her eyes that everyone else missed--people always assumed that Raja was 100% confident all the time, but Ivy knew better. She’d seen the way Pearl showed up every day looking more and more hungover, the young executive clearly going through something that she was desperately trying to party away. She’d noticed Violet at the party last night, slipping away with Sutan, one of her first glimpses ever into Violet’s personal life.

After dropping off the battery pack, Ivy took her time returning to the line of waiting taxis, taking in the eclectic group of people swarming around and she stopped to buy herself an iced coffee. She was leaning against the wall when she noticed someone staring at her. Ivy definitely recognized the other woman, a redhead with even brighter hair than her own, but she couldn’t place her, which made her feel slightly uncomfortable as the other didn’t look away, their eyes meeting across the courtyard. A fellow observer, she supposed.

Ivy smiled a little, deciding to take a chance on fate, and raised her hand to wave, and the other woman returning it with the brightest smile Ivy had ever seen.

***

“Remember to check with the hotel if they have washed the sheets correctly. You know I can’t tolerate perfume.”

“Yes Miss.” Violet nodded as she jotted down the last of what Fame had asked her. They were leaving the last show of the week, the sun going down as Fame walked towards her car.

“And what about Monday?”

“Your travel itinerary is printed, packed and ready to go. I even emailed it to Mr. Bertschy.”

“Good.” Fame looked at Violet, her sunglasses perched in her blonde hair, and for a moment, just a moment, it almost seemed like Fame was smiling.

“That’s all.”

***

Courtney swayed a bit to the music in the crowded club. It was Saturday: New York Fashion Week was officially over, and on Monday, her boss was flying to Europe for three weeks. Three amazing weeks where she wouldn’t have to run around like a maniac fetching coffee or jumping up in fear every time she heard footsteps or trying to read her mind while on the receiving end of a withering glare.

“Uh oh…”

“What?” Courtney asked, seeing Willam’s furrowed brow.

“Four o’clock. Someone better call the wedgie police, because...yikes.”

Courtney giggled, turning her gaze in the direction Willam gestured and then immediately covering her face.

“Oh god, that looks painful!”

“I bet she’s bleeding.”

Courtney laughed harder. She’d been having a surprisingly good time with Willam; in spite of her apprehension about him, it wasn’t awkward at all. She felt comfortable, almost like she was with one of her girlfriends. He was funny and charming and when she said she was thinking about going vegan, didn’t make an annoyed face. He simply took out his phone and searched for the best vegan restaurants in the neighborhood.

He’d treated her to a pretty good dinner, where he’d again listened kindly while she vented about work, and then they’d made the short walk to the club, where Sólseturstríðsmenn was about to perform.

The best thing about Willam so far, though, was that he was such a perfect gentleman. He wasn’t trying to get her drunk, or getting handsy like most guys. He was treating her like a person, which Courtney supposed shouldn’t have been such a brand new experience on a date, but here she was.

“So, I know you said that you’re a lightweight, but I’m gonna grab another drink. You want one?”

“Um...yeah, okay,” Courtney said with a smile. “Why not?”

As he headed towards the bar, Courtney watched him closely, trying to gauge her attraction. As different as he was from the boys she’d dated in the past, there was something oddly compelling about him. She found her eyes drifting down to his ass--which wasn’t flat like most guys, but rounded, almost peachy, and Courtney wondered what it would feel like to just grab ahold of it. She looked away quickly, her cheeks growing hot.

She wondered if he would try to kiss her tonight. She didn’t love the idea of a beard against her face, but he did have full, soft lips, and maybe it would be nice. Maybe she did like Willam. Wouldn’t it be crazy to date a boy who didn’t make her sigh with irritation when his name came up on the caller ID?  

When he returned with the drinks, she accepted hers gratefully and beamed up at him.

“What?” he asked, those pretty blue eyes looking at her with amused curiosity.

“I was just thinking about what a good time I’m having,” said Courtney.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” he laughed. “I’m a very fucking good time.”

Courtney gave a cute shrug, then giggled, taking his arm and leaning a head on his shoulder. Maybe she should have tried dating a guy who wasn’t an absolute dickhead much sooner.

***

“You’re such a brat,” Pearl laughed, sipping a beer as she watched Trixie stuff clothes into his suitcase, pouting the whole time.

He had really hoped to avoid Europe this year, or at least be able to cut his trip short. But instead, Fame had decided that it was important for the whole senior creative team to be there the entire time, to absorb the inspiration. As if he couldn't get all the inspiration he needed right here in New York.

Trixie looked up at Pearl with a scowl.

“Don’t you have your own packing to do?” he asked.

“It takes me exactly 4 minutes to pack,” Pearl told him, a smirk on her face. “When you’re this perfect, everything looks good together.”

“All black everything helps too.”

“I have whites.”

“Whatever.” Trixie rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know why you’re pouting, man. It’s three weeks in Europe, paid for by the company. Partying on someone else’s dime.” Pearl flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “It’s the dream.”

“I don’t like partying.”

“You used to like partying,” Pearl said, adding, “You used to be cool.”

“Well, I guess I’m just not cool anymore!” Trixie snapped, just as Katya appeared in the doorway.

“Of course you’re cool, baby,” she cooed. “The coolest cat in the joint.”

Pearl burst out laughing, and Trixie crossed his arms.

“Are you mocking me now, too?”

“Nooo, never!” Katya dropped down to her knees beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “And just to show you how great I think you are, I’m making a special lunch just for you.”

“Oh yeah?” Trixie asked, suddenly interested.

“Uh huh…” Katya rubbed his back. “Now, I’ve never tasted this regional delicacy myself, but I have it on good authority that it’s one of your very favorites. It’s called ‘Tater Tot Hotdish.’”

“What? Tater Tot Hotdish? Seriously?” Trixie clapped his hands excitedly.

“Yes, baby, and I made enough for you to take a big old portion with you on the place tomorrow.”

“God, you’re the absolute best,” Trixie said, taking Katya’s face in his hands and laying a kiss on her. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“Aww, I’ll miss you too, along with the goods.” Katya squeezed his ass, giggling.

Trixie pulled back to study her face. She seemed normal, but he’d noticed her getting up early lately, meeting one of her friends from rehab in the mornings before work. They’d been together long enough for him to know that these things came in cycles, and getting some extra support was nothing to panic over, but with both him and Pearl leaving town at the same time, he couldn’t help but worry.

“Are you gonna be okay while we’re gone? Really?”

“Of course I am, sugarbutt.” Katya gave him one of her signature 1000-watt smiles. “Now, excuse me, I need to go check on your tots.”

He watched her go, still not entirely convinced. Maybe it would be a good idea for someone to check on her while he was away. Someone responsible and trustworthy...

***

Violet saw her work phone vibrate out of the corner of her eye, her screen lighting up. She tried to read it, tried to make out who had contacted her, when she was pulled out of her thoughts.

“Am I not entertaining enough?”

Violet turned to look, Sutan’s warm voice loud and clear, a smirk on his lips. They were eating breakfast at a cafe near his apartment, a plate of half eaten avocado on rye in front of her, while Sutan had opted for waffles and scrambled eggs.

“Of course.”

It had been Violet’s idea to meet up for breakfast before Sutan had to leave. She had meant to come over, had meant to spend more time with him, but the week had flown by, and suddenly it had passed without the two of them actually seeing each other.

“I just need-” Violet bit her lip and titled her phone, surprise hitting her when she saw that Trixie was the one who had texted. “Oh. I have to-”

“Lovely eyes-” Violet looked at him again, Sutan’s elbow leaning on the table, his fingers around a steaming hot cup of coffee. “What could possibly be more important than me?”

“Work.”

“Ow.” Sutan laughed, holding a hand to his heart, and Violet felt a surge of embarrassment crash over her.

“Sorry,” Violet hadn’t meant to be so blunt, hadn’t meant to dismiss him so harshly, “I didn’t-”

Her phone vibrated again, and Violet saw that she had gotten a second message from Trixie.

“I have to-”

“Ignore me if you must,” Sutan was clearly entertained by it, his tone teasing, “but know that I’m not usually treated like this Miss Chachki.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Violet opened the texts, quickly scanning them.

TRIXIE: Hi Violet. I was wondering if you could do me a favor? While I’m in Europe, do you mind checking in on Katya?

TRIXIE: Just once or twice if you have time.

Violet bit her lip. She considered Katya someone she liked, maybe even a friend if the blonde agreed, but she wasn’t sure and that she was close enough to check in on her, whatever that meant.

TRIXIE: You could bring her dinner? She likes chinese.

“So,” Sutan titled his head, his foot on tapping against her shin.  “Is it important?”

Sutan’s voice was still warm, his tone still light, but Violet didn’t want to push him any further, didn’t want to risk him getting annoyed or tired. Violet flipped her phone, turning the screen to the table. “It’s not an emergency.”

“Good,” Sutan chuckled, and Violet felt her stomach do a flip, the man stupidly attractive when he was laughing, his dark eyes ones she swore she could drown in. “I was worried for a minute that Fame had remembered she was flying tomorrow.”

“Ah,” Violet hid a smile behind her teacup.

“I’m just happy that I’m on an entirely different flight.”

She had never seen Fame on a plane, but she had heard first hand experiences from senior staff who had been with her, and had even helped her prepare more than once.

“Speaking about phones though-” Sutan smirked.

“We weren’t-“

“I looked for you on Instagram.”

Violet raised an eyebrow, her food still forgotten on her plate. “Why?”

“Because I enjoy your company?” Sutan chuckled, and Violet realized that she was being unnecessarily harsh once again, but she didn’t like that Sutan had gone looking for information about her, her chest tightening. “I couldn’t find you, do you have a nickname or somethi-”

“I don’t have an account.”

“Violet,” Sutan leaned back in his chair, “Just because I wasn’t upset about the assistant thing doesn’t mean I’m okay with you lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Please.” Sutan rolled his eyes, actually sounding annoyed now. “Why wouldn’t you-“

“I don’t use social media.” Violet ran her fingers through her hair, looking directly at Sutan. “I don’t have time.”

She wasn’t lying. When everyone else had jumped on the social media train, Violet had been busy, so she had never gotten on Myspace or Twitter or Instagram or whatever else people had profiles on. When Violet applied to Parsons, she had even deactivated the Facebook her mom had made her make when she moved to New York, the decision almost making itself.

Her lack of social media was one of the reasons she became friends with Pearl, the blonde absolutely fascinated by the fact that the only way she could reach Violet was by email or text.

She wasn’t unaware of the online world, Pearl keeping her in the loop of trends, and she sometimes used the office computer to look at pugs on Youtube, but all in all, Violet simply wasn’t interested in creating her own content.

“Do you promise?”

Violet was happy with being anonymous, was very happy that she didn’t exist online, and she intended to keep it that way for as long as she possibly could.

“I promise,” Violet nodded, leaning over the table to give Sutan a quick, closed mouthed kiss.

***

“Darling,” Fame tightened her grip, the fabric of Patrick’s jacket between her fingers. The hustle and bustle of the airport was all around them, and Fame wished she could disappear.  “Look at me.”

Fame huffed, turning her head and nuzzling further into Patrick’s neck.

“I know you’re upset-” Patrick ran a hand up her back.

To say that she was upset was an understatement. In fact, she was livid, anxiety and anger like a storm inside of her. She knew it wasn’t fair, knew she was being a child, but she didn’t want to fly without Patrick, didn’t want to risk her life without her husband at her side.

She had asked him to come along, had been ready to beg, but Patrick had work, had his own company to run, and it wasn’t fair of Fame to expect him to get on a transAtlantic flight with her, just so she didn’t have to do it alone.

“You’ll be fine.”

Fame sighed, the scent of Patrick filling her nose. They were waiting for Raja and Raven, Raja ready to take her hand and not let go until they touched down in London.

Fame knew that Raven hated it, but she could live with the stink eyes and Raven’s pouting if it meant that she had one of the few people she trusted by her side the entire time she was off the ground.

***

Courtney typed at lightning speed, adding the last three messages into Miss Fame’s phonesheet, then clicked back over to continue checking her emails.

Since most of the senior executives were on a plane to London, she had been expecting a chill morning, but it was the exact opposite: the phone was ringing off the hook: press requests for interviews and to borrow pieces of the collection, invitations, buyers, influencers. Not to mention the flurry of activity within the company to get the ready to wear versions of the Spring line into stores. Courtney could barely read one email before three more came in, she and Violet in constant communication as they made sure nothing slipped through the cracks.

The one saving grace was that apparently, it was tradition for things around the office to get much more casual while Fame and the others were away, and so she was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a cute Lululemon top.

The clothes were such a huge bonus that Courtney didn’t even mind that Violet had sent her to marketing three times: running up and down the stairs in sneakers was a hell of a lot nicer than doing it in heels.

Courtney was almost finished catching up on her emails when Violet stood up.

“I’m getting a cup of tea, do you want anything?”

Courtney looked up with a smile, thrilled that she and Violet were getting along so well today. Although the frenzied activity was a bit overwhelming for her, Violet seemed to thrive in it, and thus her patience had increased about two thousand percent.

“Um, I’ll take coconut water, if we have any. Thanks,” Courtney said, and Violet nodded, ducking into the kitchen.

The phone rang once again, and Courtney answered it, picking up her notepad and a pen. “Miss Fame’s office…”

“Hi, Bianca Del Rio for Fame.”

“I’m sorry, she’s unavailable right now, may I take a message?” Courtney asked sweetly. She couldn’t help wondering if Bianca might possibly recognize her voice, and found her cheeks coloring slightly at the thought.

“Oh shit. She’s on the plane to London now, huh?”

“Umm…” Courtney knew that she wasn’t supposed to reveal exactly where Fame was, but it was one of her closest friends, so maybe it would be okay. She settled on a slightly evasive, “...Possibly.”

Bianca laughed. “Very good work, Courtney. Protecting your boss’s privacy. I love it.”

“I do my best,” Courtney said, trying to suppress the grin she couldn’t seem to help whenever Bianca paid her a compliment. She wasn’t sure why, though, since Bianca obviously couldn’t see her, but even so… “Did you want to leave a message?”

“Nah...I’ll just text her,” Bianca said. “Bye, Courtney. Have a good day.”

“Bye, Bianca. You too.” Courtney hung up, just as Violet’s head appeared in the doorway, irritation all over her face.

“That better not have been Bianca Del Rio,” Violet said, a hand on her hip.

“Umm…”

“Courtney! We’ve been over this. You need to show people more respect. She’s the editor-in-chief of Marie-Claire, for god’s sake!”

“I know, but I…” Courtney trailed off, biting her lip. She wasn’t sure how to explain to Violet how wrong it would’ve felt to address Bianca as ‘Ms. Del Rio’ like she was supposed to. It was so stiff and formal, and their relationship felt much more casual than that. Courtney blushed, realizing that even the word ‘relationship’ was an overstatement. She was probably just being stupid, should probably just listen to Violet and shut up. “I’m sorry, I’ll remember next time.”

“You better,” Violet said. “Because if Miss Fame had heard that, she would’ve been livid.”

Courtney nodded, and Violet seemed satisfied with that, handing over the bottle of coconut water.

***

In the nearly four years that Ivy had worked for Raja, she’d lost count of the number of times people expressed amazement that the infamous “Dragon Lady” had managed to hold onto an assistant for so long.

In spite of Raja’s deserved reputation for being tough, Ivy felt immensely lucky to be working for her. For one thing, she was smart and insanely talented. And while she was by no means soft or low maintenance, Ivy always found her to be fair--even generous, when the situation warranted it. And the fact that she respected Ivy so much, often asking her for her opinions and consulting with her about important decisions, meant a lot--as did the trust she put in her to handle many things on her own. They had a system, and it worked for both of them.

But all that said, Ivy still enjoyed the few times a year when her boss was out of town. For one thing, it was nice to be more in control of her own schedule, and for another, it gave her the opportunity to work on one of her absolute favorite tasks: organizing the deep storage in one of their downstairs warehouses.

The styling closet next to Raja’s office was relatively easy to keep up with. Sure, it got a little messy at times, but if she stayed late or came in early every few weeks, she could manage. But the warehouse was another animal entirely. It often became the dumping ground for everything from design, referred to with nicknames like the Bermuda Triangle and the Couture Graveyard.

It was Ivy’s job to keep everything neat and labeled, and with how rare it was for her to get large amounts of time to handle it, this was no small feat. Right now, her task was to meticulously label and store every piece from the runway show, and to update her system to track the loans. She always felt a little bad about the cast-offs. In the past, they saved every garment, even the ones that were not approved, usually all smushed together in one extra-large garment bag--but this collection had about 10 times the amount of these little orphaned pieces as usual.

The three weeks of European Fashion Week were truly the greatest; all of senior management was  gone, which meant that the support staff could wear whatever they wanted to the office. Ivy was personally dressed in something she would never get caught dead in with Raja in the office, but sneakers and jeans were perfect for dancing along to Taylor Swift and moving heavy boxes as she got down to the nitty gritty of cleaning the warehouse.

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 24/?

CLAMP AU n.3 [chengyu? yucheng? (JC/MXY) edition. don’t...question my taste bruh]: “Somewhere, sometime.”

[tw eating disorders mentioned + tw suicide mention (body sacrifice)]

[ok fam. ok. I get it. I would basically ship JC with a rock if it meant I could play with my crack AUs. but I have solid evidence for this one. I promise you.]

[so, “Kobato” from CLAMP is possibly my favorite series from them. it’s 6 volumes long, roughly 40 chapters (and I only recently found out there was an epilogue...even though it was not there in my published version of the series. bc your local cryptid did in fact buy the entire thing in the flesh, that’s how much I love it)]

[in this AU I’ll change some things for the sake of consistency, but I suggest you read it bc the hurt/comfort and pining is enjoyable...so...if you read my silly AU I’m afraid I will spoil the plot for u :( and that’s the last thing I want to do...I understand if you decide to go read the manga and skip my prompt. it’s ok, I’m fine, go and have fun ;-;]

[if you kept reading, hi :D]

[now. am I uncomfortable with certain common tropes in CLAMP’s work in general? yes. especially the age gaps between some of the characters, some of which are not adults. hence the reason behind the changes in this AU. but! the aesthetics fam. the beautiful drawings. the cute outfits. (*ﾉ▽ﾉ)

do you see these?? how cute would Mo XuanYu look in these fam?? I honestly hc him enjoying skirts and feminine outfits a whole lot, but you can imagine him with pants and they would be just as cute. my favorite one is the second from the left btw.]

(imagine Mo XuanYu like this btw and check out the fancomic by the same op! an anon suggested it to me a while ago and now I’m hooked!)

[other mangacaps bc you need visuals:

yeah. angry boy meets bby with a mission to accomplish, bonding over their inferiority complex. yep. I only love the nicest things in life. that’s me.

also look at my baby girl ;-; so cuTe]

[the title is from the ost from the anime series, “Itsuka dokoka de” (check it out!). the anime feels more cohesive than the original manga, possibly bc the pacing is handled a little bit better (since the manga was cut short and the end felt a bit sloppy, but the emotional engagement was still good). and I remember being 17 and crying like a baby when this song came in. if you don’t have time for the manga binge the anime instead! there are plot holes in both of them and the stories are different but still both very enjoyable if you like soft things and angsty vibes.]

[enjoy!]

*

*

When YanLi saw him for the first time in front of her door, at the beginning of spring, she thought XuanYu was too pretty and too young for his own good. Sitting across her on the floor, a tea set between them as he politely answered her questions, the boy couldn’t have looked older than sixteen yet he assured her he was of age and well into adulthood. Which seemed pretty difficult to assess, not with the way he dressed: cute button down, beret slightly askew on top of his pretty head and an old-looking suitcases in hand. She didn’t mention the stuffed black rabbit poking out from the front pocket of his luggage, which seemed more of a comfort thing than a reliable source of company.

Moreover, Jin Ling seemed transfixed by him, toddling his way towards their guest asking for cuddles... something her son had never done in front of strangers.

XuanYu refused to give his last name, nor did he have an ID he could show her, nor did he seem worried about how strange that was. And YanLi knew ZiXuan would have been against it, but she couldn’t leave the kid looking all over Lanling for a place to stay... so she gave him the only available room in their rundown pension.

She only hoped Jiang Cheng would be a nice neighbor and leave the kid alone. Who knew what horrors XuanYu was running away from, after all.

*

When XiChen heard from YanLi of her new tenant, he would have never guessed the kid to look so naive. Not in a bad way, mind you. But his smiles, for how genuine they seemed to be, looked a little bit too big. A little bit too strained not to be a distraction tactic from his part. Or maybe XiChen had lived too long surrounded by fake smiles and closed off people to not worry.

That’s probably why he gave XuanYu a job when YanLi asked him to look over the kid. More to prove himself there were still trustworthy people in the world than to give the younger man a chance. He couldn’t even pay him a full salary, not with the debt collectors breathing on his neck as he tried to run his late mother’s kindergarten.

But maybe that would have been enough for now. A starting point for something better, something new.

*

A-Yuan had always known the kindergarten used to be an orphanage back in the days, but now he had reached an age where doubts stuck to his head instead of being forgotten with the passing of time. Wen Qing and A-Ning were always busy -be it in the hospital or in university- and A-Yuan didn’t know if they loved him enough to keep him. Ever since granny had passed away he had wondered, day after day, when his cousins would have left him behind for good.

He was thinking about such things when he first met XuanYu, on the man’s first day on the job as a teaching assistant. A-Yuan was mulling over his sadness when XuanYu had come to his rescue, asking him what was wrong... before enthusiastically praising his cousins for working so hard after hearing they were late to take A-Yuan home. XuanYu stayed with him and they played on the swings as they waited for A-Ning to come pick him up, apologizing profusely.

On the way home, his cousin held him close and kissed his forehead as he asked him if he had had fun with the new teacher. And A-Yuan felt less doubtful afterwards.

*

After hearing the story from her brother, Wen Qing had made it her job to look into XuanYu and his weird approach to life in general. She took every opportunity she could grasp to spy on the younger man, lunch breaks be damned. She needed to confirm if the kid was a trust worthy person or a runaway child pretending to be older than what he actually was. Well, maybe tailing an unsuspecting young man on the streets of Lanling in scrubs and sunglasses would be considered a bit much, she could admit as much. But it was the thought that counted, no?

Her friend MianMian told her to knock it off and talk to the kid like a normal human being, but the truth was that... well, XuanYu was really too weird to be considered normal. He seldom put himself in dangerous situations without much care, such as picking up a random (and still lit) cigarette from the ground just to give it back to the person who had “accidentally dropped it”. Other times he would cross a road without looking left and right first, risking to be run over by cars at every corner. He never, never, fumbled with a phone and he frequently talked to himself... sometimes even directing his words to that creepy stuffed rabbit of his.

No thank you, Wen Qing felt safer behind light poles and crumpled newspapers held upside down. Even if that made her look sketchy as fuck.

*

Wen Ning made sure to arrive on time to pick A-Yuan up after that time, often chatting with XuanYu as they waited for his baby cousin to retrieve his backpack and raincoat. It was refreshing to speak with the younger man, no matter how weird he acted sometimes. Like that time A-Yuan asked him to tie his shoe-laces for him and XuanYu didn’t know how to do it. Or that time they caught the man taking a nap on the floor in the middle of the school hall. Or that time XiChen had ordered a cake for one of the kids’ birthday and XuanYu didn’t seem to know how to sing the birthday song.

Wen Ning had no place to judge, after all. But XuanYu’s smiles felt like balm on his heart. And if his sweet voice followed Wen Ning home as he bounced A-Yuan in his arms, well. Nobody needed to know that.

*

The last thing Meng Yao would have expected to hear that summer day when he called the kindergarten was a voice so different from XiChen’s. Startled, he had confusedly asked if the kid worked there and how so, given that the school definitely couldn’t afford to hire anyone. He ought to know. He was the debt collector.

But the kid apologized, introduced himself, and then explained XiChen had offered him a part-time job out of kindness more than out of need. The idiot. XiChen should have remembered who his money belonged to instead of taking charity cases left and right.

But when Meng Yao said as much to naive XuanYu, the other vehemently protested, surprising the debt collector with strong opinions on how he shouldn’t underestimate other people’s intelligence and kindness in the first place.

Meng Yao laughed out at that, genuinely so.

There was more to that kid XuanYu than what one would have expected.

*

Nie HuaiSang caught a first glimpse of the mystery man only in late summer, when XuanYu stepped into his cake shop to look at the display. His coworker MianMian seemed to recognize the younger man immediately, greeting him by saying they had a friend in common, namely Wen Qing. The kid merely tilted his head and answered he had never formerly met “Miss. Wen” and that he only knew who she was from what the woman’s younger brother had told him about her.

MianMian shrugged and smiled at him.

To which HuaiSang asked him what they could do for him and XuanYu... just... stopped working. Saying that he had wondered if he could do something for them instead. Apparently, Wen Ning had let it slip they were currently understaffed and needed a hand to deliver their sweets.

Delighted, MianMian set him to work, no matter how many times HuaiSang assured her they didn’t need to force the kid to help them... also because they didn’t actually have the means to pay him in kind. But XuanYu refused money altogether, simply asking them to let him help.

To their amusement (and horror) XuanYu didn’t know how to ride a bicycle, so he insisted on covering the deliveries by foot in the neighborhood instead.

HuaiSang called XiChen on the phone that same evening, asking him to give the kid some slack the following day. And maybe buy him some balm for blisters as well.

*

Jin Ling was young but he wasn’t stupid. Turning three had made him wiser, he knew as much. So he knew XuanYu was magical. He just did.

His pretty-gege talked with stuffed animals, always wore nice things, and kept in his satchel bag a vial filling up with magical candies every time he did something nice for others. A-Ling had seen it with his own eyes, that time XuanYu had put a plaster on his scrapped knee and blew on it to make the pain go away: the golden candy had appeared in the bottle out of nowhere and XuanYu had asked him to keep the secret.

And A-Ling may have been young, but he wasn’t a snitch.

No sir.

*

ZiXuan eventually stumbled upon their new tenant even though YanLi had tried everything in her power to prevent it. He was very displeased with her: taking a scrawny kid in, cutting his rent in half merely because he couldn’t afford to pay the room in full. Utter nonsense.

No matter how much this kid XuanYu praised A-Ling’s personality or YanLi’s cooking, no matter how much he smiled and made himself look accommodating and unthreatening. ZiXuan didn’t work pro bono even at the firm, let alone for his wife’s business.

Yet, when he asked to be let inside the kid’s room to formally discuss the terms of his contract (and tell him to pack his things and leave at the end of summer), ZiXuan was left speechless. There was no bed, no table or chairs. The fridge wasn’t humming and the AC wasn’t working. The only things he could see were the younger man’s clothes neatly folded in his open suitcase or hanging by the window to dry. No books, no snacks, no nothing.

Usually tenants brought their things in right off the bat, their stuff mailed in within a week after moving in. YanLi was very particular about it, she would have not overlooked something like that. But maybe she had been too busy with A-Ling these past few months and hadn’t noticed the kid was actually too poor to even breathe.

And now that he looked at him, XuanYu looked suspiciously skinny.

Was he sleeping on the floor? Didn’t he have covers for the colder season? Was his fridge broken, empty, or -gods forbid- purposely left with no power because the kid couldn’t afford the electricity bill?

“Do you actually live like this?”

XuanYu didn’t answer to that, but smiled anyway. It looked sinister in a way ZiXuan couldn’t explain, afraid of the things such a young man may or may not have endured in the past. And was maybe still enduring now.

The following day ZiXuan gave the kid their spare futon they bought in Japan on their honeymoon. They never had guests anyway and they could afford to pay for a tenant’s electricity bill every now and then, they weren’t poor.

Certainly YanLi would have agreed with him on the matter.

*

JinGy saw it. He did! He wasn’t lying! Xuan-ge was there, surrounded by darkness and shadows, looking over the children during their nap time, only a sliver of light coming from the door left ajar... casting shadows on half of his pretty face.

And he saw him reviving that stuffed black rabbit he always had on him.

The rabbit just rose on his hind legs and turned his head up and started whispering things to Xuan-ge, who nodded every now and then in deep though.

JinGyi had read about how paper-man talismans had been stuff of legends in the past. His books spoke of ancient times in which even corpses could be brought back to life. How even animals could turn into godly beasts if enough resentful energy polluted them. But he would have never thought magic could actually be real and so easy to play with.

And Xuan-ge had looked nothing but beautiful as he was talking to the stuffed animal, humming softly under his breath.

*

When Jiang Cheng dropped out of university for the second time, YanLi didn’t say anything and instead welcomed him back in his old room. So much for enrolling in law school at twenty-three, uh? ZiXuan would have been disappointed in him like the first time that had happened in his bachelor anyway, no point in avoiding the man. It was autumn anyway: it was either going back to the apartment complex or look for a new flatmate. But the school housing had rightfully kicked him out after dropping out in the middle of the academic year, so there would have been little hope for him to find a new place anytime soon.

What he did not expect to find was a new tenant living next door.

Sleeping in front of the door, clutching a satchel bag and a fucking stuffed animal on his lap.

Jiang Cheng jolted him awake and took in the sight of his shoulder length hair, his long lashes and sleepy eyes and thought he looked ridiculous. Wearing a silly hat and moccasins, purple shadows under his eyes, a confused expression on his worn out face. When asked what the hell he was doing there, sleeping out of his room instead of inside of it, the younger man said he had forgotten his keys inside that morning.

He was clearly an idiot, so Jiang Cheng walked away and returned to his room after more than a year away. If someone asked him who had rung YanLi to bring the spare keys to help the idiot he would have shrugged at them and shut the door in their face.

He didn’t have time for that, he had to think how to ask XiChen to let him back to work at the school the following day.

*

A-Qing had seen many things in life, met many horrible people, dealt with the scum of the scum... but she had yet to meet XuanYu. 

A menace. A hurricane. A fool. The amount of times she had had to scoop him up from the ground after he had clumsily slipped on invisible bananas and such should have earned her a honorary title for outstanding citizen. It’s been months since his arrival and the kids had already learned to make way whenever they saw him. He inspired fear even in their tiny heads, honestly. What a fellow teaching assistant, really.

She was just there to score brownie points for his electives and internship program to become a social service worker, that was true. But she cared about the kids enough to know she had to do something about that. The children loved XuanYu and they were this fucking close to either worship him like a small deity or criminal and something ought to be done.

The last thing she would have expected to see, however, was Jiang Cheng coming back so soon. Crawling back from university to ask to work there, wagging his tail like the lovesick dog he was. She could easily imagine what the older student would have said to XiChen, something on the line of “you know goddamn well I’m not doing it for the money. I grew up here, I don’t want to see this place crumbling down. I’m definitely not doing it because I’m in love with you and seeing you sad makes me want to gag.”

Well, maybe the last part could be considered artistic license from her part, but judging by what she could overhear behind XiChen’s office door... yep. She had definitely nailed the part about being fond of the ex-orphanage and for the rest... the sentiment was there. The pining bastard.

“Do you need anything, A-Qing?”, XuanYu asked her out of no-fucking-where, startling her as she pretended to dust off the floor very close to a door. Cheek-plastered-on-it kind of close.

“Nothing. Mind your business,” she answered, flustered as fuck.

XuanYu couldn’t be that naive, he knew what he was fucking doing. His creepy little smile so similar to the one the debt collect always had on his face. No wonder XiChen had fallen for such a tricky bitch.

“Then will you help me find JinGyi? He doesn’t want me to help him with his project for the festival and went into hiding again.”

There, that smile and knowing gaze. Judging poser. He looked much older than his alleged twenty years. He knew what he was fucking doi...

“You?!”

Jiang Cheng’s honest-to-gods screech pulled A-Qing out of her thoughts. She turned and had to witness XiChen amiably patting Jiang Cheng on the head as their boss explained him how XuanYu worked there. 

“It’s been almost six months now, he’s a very valuable kid and helped out around here while you were studying.”

Jiang Cheng was both livid and red with longing, because his touch-starved ass was all over that hand patting him platonically on the head. He was also angry, which was default for him... but there was something else underneath. Something promising in the way he stared XuanYu down.

Maybe A-Qing could win some candy by betting with the kids about such unexpected turn of events.

*

ZiZhen believed A-Yi. If his friend had told him the new teacher assistant was a witch then he was right. So they had started researching witches at the school, but only found a couple of colored books on the matter, mostly useless. All but one, telling the story of a nanny called Mary Poppins... some western thing.

But everything checked for the most part. The hat was there, every day a different one, but ultimately never leaving XuanYu’s head. The umbrella was not, but both him and A-Yuan had seen their gege with a parasol once and that was enough. His satchel contained infinite amount of things, from sweets to possessed stuffed animals, like a qiankun bag from the legends! He talked with things as if he could control them.

Well, even the teacher sometimes tried to convince the printer to work with sweet words, gently coaxing it back to life... maybe that was just how adults functioned. Even his dad would ask the fridge where his favorite cake had disappeared sometimes. Adults were weird.

*

Fuck Lanling. Rain day and night, autumn planning everyone’s demise by flooding every bloody year. Xue Yang was over it.

He took a random umbrella from the rack by the door of the convenience store and left without a second thought, already wondering what he could say to convince XingChen to offer him dinner somewhere new. The man wasn’t married anymore after all, so Xue Yang could technically have his way with him now, right?

“Excuse me!”

Xue Yang was not in the mood for people calling him out on his bullshit that night, but he turned anyway and saw the weirdest thing. A young man roughly his age, maybe a year or so younger, drenched from head to toe after rushing to him. He was panting, clutching a plastic bag full of cleaning supplies from the convenience store Xue Yang had just left.

“I believe you mistakenly took my umbrella,” the other said, pretty face framed by wet hair sticking to his forehead and cheeks.

Amused, Xue Yang shut the clear plastic umbrella he had “mistakenly taken” and held it at arm’s length by the handle, directing the pointy edge to the other like a sword. Hell if he was going to get wet himself, he needed to prove something to the idiot. He could handle a bit of rain for the sake of being dramatic.

“You want it back?” Xue Yang asked, rising his chin and arching an eyebrow at the other. The man nodded, holding his now wet beret in place on top of his head as if he was more worried about it falling on the ground than keeping his crown dry.

“I knew it was someone else’s when I took it.”

“But...?”

“And what’ll you give me back for it? What are you gonna do about it?”

This should have taught him not to mess with him: he didn’t even have to use his business tone to make the other take a step back. Meng Yao, the bastard, had taught him smiles went a long way in dealing with stupid people after all.

“Right, if I take it from you... you won’t have one to go back home with.”

Uh?

“Wait here. I’ll go buy you one at the convenience store. I’ll be back.”

Uh??

The idiot actually run back to the store and purchased him a fucking umbrella. And Xue Yang was twice as stupid because he waited for him to come back, startled as he was. The idiot was smiling megawatt bright when he came back as well, what the fuck?

The sick bastard extended the clear plastic umbrella to him like Xue Yang had done earlier, but he held it by the middle, as if surrendering his weapon. It was fairly similar to the one Xue Yang had stolen anyway, why bother asking for his umbrella back?

“Did your dead mother give this particular one to you or something?”

The bite in his words only mildly deterred the other man, who pressed his lips together before forcing an even bigger smile on his face.

“No. It’s pretty cheap. But it’s mine. It’s the first thing I bought with my money.”

Xue Yang left after that. With the stolen umbrella. Because he was still a scumbag and not a sentimental asshole. But he was very quiet that evening when XingChen treated him to some fancy takeout on his couch while lovingly drying Xue Yang’s hair with a towel.

Nothing made sense anymore.

*

Qin Su worried over Jiang Cheng. He was her best worker, but she knew for a fact that he had a million part-time jobs in town and she didn’t want to overwork him. She also knew he would give all of his hard-earned money to XiChen anyway. All to pay a stupid debt. The huge lovesick idiot.

Was he the fastest delivery driver? Yes. Was he the most well behaved of his staff? Not even close. But he was respectful enough to work over his issues and she trusted him with doing his job at the end of the day.

So when she found a young man in a frilly outfit waiting for her on the lobby of her shop asking for Jiang Cheng... well, she was pleasantly surprised.

He introduced himself as XuanYu and held a lunch box in his hands, saying Jiang Cheng had forgotten it at home. Which left A-Su properly impressed. How could a man as angry as Jiang Cheng secure himself such a lovely person was beyond her comprehension, honestly.

He was adorable and she wanted to be his sister like, yesterday.

But when Jiang Cheng came back from a delivery, entering the dumpling shop with his helmet still on, he stared XuanYu down and told him off right off the bat.

“Not you again,” he said, to A-Su’s utter confusion, “Can’t you take a fucking hint? I’m already avoiding you at work. I don’t want to be your friend.”

Something akin to hurt painted XuanYu’s feature for a fraction of a second before he could retrieve his smile and point at the lunch box.

“Your sister asked me to give this to you on my way out. A-Ling helped making rice cakes this time and wanted to hear from you if you liked them or not.”

Qin Su could have easily missed the change in XuanYu’s voice at that, that’s how much of a good actor he was. But Jiang Cheng had no face even to feel ashamed for lashing out at the kid like that. How much older could he be from XuanYu, three years? Two? Had nobody taught him some respect?

“XuanYu, if he bullies you again you come here. Am I understood?”

Like hell she was gonna let this gem of a child slip away from Jiang Cheng’s hands.

Not in a million years.

*

Song Lan breathed in and out. In and out. The clear morning air surrounded him like an old friend, hugging him closely as he clutched the papers for his divorce.

XingChen had signed them in the end. Five years together were now in the past for him.

Maybe they had been too young back then, when they had taken the chance to get married the moment the government announced the change in the law for people like them. How old have they been, twenty-three? Twenty-four? Another lifetime. An existence away.

He wished he could cry. It would have been easier.

But, as he turned a corner, someone stumbled into him and sent the papers scattering on the sidewalk. Song Lan tried to save them from being dirtied on a puddle but was unsuccessful. He didn’t know why he bothered anymore. It felt like the last piece of his lover had left and Song Lan couldn’t even prevent something as simple as that. XingChen’s signature dirtied in a pool, but not enough to be washed away. What a joke.

The young man in front him bowed down, apologizing profusely, trying to save the documents at the best of his abilities. He even suggested finding a public toilet to dry the sheets under the hot air blowing machine, the silly man.

Song Lan smiled instead, reassuring him it was fine.

He was fine.

But the kid accidentally read the first few lines of the agreement before looking up at Song Lan. And where he would have expected pity, Song Lan only saw consternation instead on his pale face. It was so startling to see it, that he had to crouch back down on the ground next to the kid and reassure him everything was fine. It was just paper, it wasn’t important, he didn’t have to feel so guilty about...

“It is important. Your life is important.”

Such a dramatic sentence, uttered so vehemently, should have sounded weird to Song Lan. Especially because he disapproved of such antics in the first place. But it sounded so sincere, so earnest that he felt touched for a moment.

So he helped the kid up on his feet and asked him to walk a bit with him, to keep him company. Reserved as he was, he would have never thought possible opening up to a stranger the way he did that day. But there was something calming about the kid, almost as if he had been put on earth to soothe other people’s existence.

So he told him how his husband had fallen in love with someone else, someone much younger than them. How this had strained their marriage even if Song Lan had known all along his husband had the ability to fall in love with more than one person at a time. But Song Lan was monogamous and would have never justified forcing his lover to suppress his feelings just to please him. So it had been Song Lan himself to call it quits and wish him all the luck in the world.

The kid had started crying at some point, without Song Lan even noticing at first.

“Why are you crying? Please no, I didn’t wan to upset you.”

“So much love. In different ways but... it’s too much. There’s so much of it, of course I’m crying for you and your loved one.”

Song Lan was many things. Too stern, too rigid, too peculiar about who could touch him or not, too cold in expressing his emotions. But he felt warm then, in front of a kid crying for him in the middle of the street, one day of late autumn.

“Thank you.”

***

XuanYu let it slip once with Mrs. Jin how little he remembered of his past. 

It wasn’t a lie, he really didn’t remember what it had been of him before he had met her, asking for a room. But the kind woman just assumed he was talking about his past or youth, so he didn’t correct her on the matter.

Knowing the truth would have scared her, after all.

But he still let himself trust her that day as they sat in front of a pot of tea and he pretended to drink and eat the pastries on the low table. He didn’t need to eat or drink. He wasn’t even sure he had a digestive system.

“I only remember... a song.”

“A song?”

“Yes. Someone singing every night before falling asleep. I don’t think it was meant for me to hear... but my body remembers the shivers. The feeling of being loved.”

“The body remembers the weirdest things, XuanYu. You should trust it more.”

He smiled at that, wriggling his hands on the handkerchief where he had hidden the pastries from sight.

“I’m pretty sure that song wasn’t for me. My body was merely there to listen.”

YanLi looked uncomfortable at that, something scary painting her features.

“Maybe I was eavesdropping,” he reassured her with a self-deprecating joke, not sure if that would have made her feel more at ease or not, “Maybe I was listening in, hoping such lovely words could be directed at me for once.”

Mrs. Jin sipped her tea for a long while afterwards, before finding the resolution to look up and stare him down with a serious expression.

“Unrequited feelings hurt, don’t they?”

XuanYu didn’t know what she meant by that, but he nodded anyway.

He heard something rustling in his bag and hid the sweets inside of it the moment YanLi turned to clear the table. If A-Ling heard someone munching their protests away from inside of the bag, he didn’t snitch on XuanYu and retrieved playing with Fairy on the carpeted floor next to him instead.

*

Lan Zhan was disappointed in him, XuanYu knew that much. They were admiring the sunset from the small balcony in their room, folding laundry.

XuanYu always wondered why Lan Zhan assumed the form of a black stuffed rabbit, of all things, but he didn’t want to pry. He didn’t even know his real name. The other had told him he used to be a human in his past life and that he hadn’t technically reincarnated in this lifetime. That his current form was just a mean to a goal, that he could use it to guide XuanYu and help him better that way without expending much spiritual energy.

He told him someone dear to him taught him how to manipulate paper-man talismans in his previous life. How similar the process had been to move around in a stuffed animal’s body. How convenient.

XuanYu believed he secretly loved it, even if Lan Zhan would have never said as much. He already talked very little to begin with.

“You told her you don’t remember your past.”

“That I did.”

“Don’t do it again”

XuanYu folded the last towel on his lap and then let Lan Zhan take a nap on it. He felt silly having to take showers and pretend to be a normal human being. He hated inconveniencing the Jins with him, accepting their bedding and paid kitchen appliances and so on. But if he wanted to accomplish his mission he had to make an effort to look normal... instead of spirited away from another world or maybe simply another era.

“I won’t do it again, don’t worry Lan Zhan.”

*

Lan Zhan was disappointed, but he was also patient to a fault.

Sure, it would have been much appreciated if Mo XuanYu didn’t lose him around every other day. This time the younger man had forgotten to pick him up from the floor where he had been reading stories to the children at the kindergarten.

But Lan Zhan was also a stuffed animal now, so it wasn’t like he could move around and risk being seeing by normal humans. His body was a vessel and any damage would have had repercussions on his soul as well. 

What to do.

He tried not to panic when he felt someone picking him up from the floor after an hour or so. He silently prayed for them not to be A-Qing: even in this life she was too smart for her own good and he couldn’t risk being found out so soon. Mo XuanYu wasn’t even halfway to complete his mission and Lan Zhan couldn’t...

“I’m sure A-Yu is looking for you, little guy. What are doing all the way back here?”

It was always difficult to hear his older brother’s voice in this life. To see his face, to notice how sad he was even in this new reincarnation of his.

Lan Zhan didn’t move a single muscle as XiChen dusted him off and put him in his apron front pocket as he looked for “A-Yu”.

In order to give a second chance to Mo XuanYu, Lan Zhan had sacrificed any possibility to ever reincarnate until his mission was accomplished. So XiChen didn’t have a younger brother in this lifetime and he would have not had one for a while. Lan Zhan missed him, but they had to wait for a bit more.

They still had three months to fill the bottle the King of Hell had entrusted Mo XuanYu with. Then he would have entered the list for reincarnation once more and everything will have been fine in the end.

Lan Zhan owed the kid his life, so he trusted him.

No matter what.

*

XuanYu remembered the boy who had stolen his umbrella. He remembered him well enough to recognize him when he found him crawling on the floor, a stab wound in his belly, one winter night.

Panicked, he asked Lan Zhan what they could do as he instinctively pressed the wound with his bare hands. Lan Zhan didn’t dare move not to attract attention on himself. The other man snarled out at XuanYu, asking him why did he even bother, seemingly recognizing him.

“I took your fucking umbrella. Hate me and leave me alone.”

“Ridiculous.”

Lan Zhan would have been proud of him for that remark, but XuanYu was too scared to think about it. He didn’t have a phone and he didn’t even know the number for emergencies. He wasn’t even qualified to be a teacher. How had he survived until then. He was useless and stupid and...

“What the fuck?” Jiang Cheng’s voice came in a whisper behind him.

What a sorry view the older man had to take in that night: a pool of blood staining otherwise clean clothes, a moaning boy on the ground in restless pain, a crying mess of a sad excuse of a human pressing on a throbbing wound next to him.

Jiang Cheng muttered something about the boy being one of Meng Yao’s men, that they should leave him there to die for all he cared.

The man under XuanYu barked back, telling him he had tried to “convince the idiot of the same”. But XuanYu was horrified by what he had just heard.

“People die for nothing. People die for fucking nothing. You don’t leave someone behind just because you fucking hate them.”

XuanYu has never cursed in this brief, borrowed life of his. Maybe spending so much time with Jiang Cheng had rubbed some of his habits off on him in the end.

Startled, Jiang Cheng seemed to agree with him because he fished out his phone and called an ambulance right away.

The stabbed man laughed at that.

*

Lan Zhan was clutched in XuanYu’s hands as they waited in the corridor of a badly lit hospital. The kid was crying, hard. He must have remembered how his family in Mo Manor had mistreated him in the past, how easily his own relatives had starved him off just out of spite. How already impossibly emaciated he had been when he had sacrificed his body for Wei Ying, to bring him back in a weakened vessel just to seek revenge. Just to let his hatred run free.

Such cruelty had earned him nothing but distrust from the hell judges, who sentenced him to never be reincarnated again. Only when Lan Zhan had ascended to heaven -many centuries after reaching immortality- he had been able to make them relent.

If Mo XuanYu could prove to be a good human being during a trial time of one year on planet earth, filling a vial with good actions in the form of golden gems, then they would have considered Lan Zhan’s proposal. Mo XuanYu would have atoned his sin and be granted a new life, a clean record, and a second chance at happiness.

Seeing someone almost die in front of him must have awaken something ugly in him. His stained hands, the iron stench in the air. All that blood... like the last thing he had most probably seen in his previous life before his body sacrifice. A scarlet array under his feet, another soul replacing his in his own body.

Lan Zhan let himself be held tightly in Mo XuanYu’s hands that night at the hospital.

And hugged back without anyone else noticing.

*

Xiao XingChen. That was the name of the man showing up at the kindergarten one week later. XuanYu had never seen him before, but the man hugged him in front of the kids, alerting both XiChen and Jiang Cheng.

“Thank you,” the tall man said in between tears, holding him tight.

“I don’t understand. I...”

“You saved A-Yang. Thank you.”

XuanYu pressed his lips together tightly at that, so overwhelmed he didn’t know what to say. His fingertips hurting with sometimes akin to electricity the more he let himself be held so fiercely by the other man.

He started crying in earnest only after the man had left, surrounded by the children who worried and fussed over him. He fell asleep with them during nap time and when he woke up he found Jiang Cheng placing a quilt over him.

Caught red handed, the older man feigned disinterest in the beginning... but then he sat down next to him. Just like he had done in the hospital one week ago.

“Did you see someone die before?” Jiang Cheng asked then, awkwardly scratching the back of his head, “You had such a strong... reaction to my words. It was insensitive of me. I apologize for angering you. I’ll better myself.”

XuanYu didn’t answer at that. 

Jiang Cheng would have never understood what it meant to sacrifice yourself to hatred and revenge. How much it had scarred him to be brought back to life, but only as a worn out set of robes on top of someone else’s soul. How distant he had felt when the Yiling Patriarch had inhabited his body and had let himself be touched by someone else.

Jiang Cheng would have never understood what it meant to be touched in the flesh but be utterly unreachable as a soul. Or how much it hurt to become an empty body filled by someone foreign and new. Someone who could wear his skin better than him.

Jiang Cheng would have never understood. And thank all the gods for that.

So XuanYu... Mo XuanYu kept quiet and smiled instead.

*

Lan Zhan didn’t trust Jiang Cheng. He hadn’t in the past and he wasn’t gonna start now. Wei Ying would have been so disappointed in him for thinking badly of his baby brother, but there was little Lan Zhan could do about that.

Wei Ying wasn’t there to judge him for it.

Mo XuanYu would wake up every morning and wash himself, get dressed and tidy up the room before leaving. He would fix his appearance in a mirror Young Lady Jiang had gifted him in autumn, making sure his hat was still in place.

“What would happen if I were to...?”

“You must keep your hat on... even when you sleep. You know this much.”

“I wear a headband to bed.”

“And what of it?”

“It’s... silly.”

“Nobody can see you in your sleep. Why the sudden worry?”

Mo XuanYu said nothing in response to that, but Lan Zhan knew. The kid had never worried too much about his appearance aside from looking proper and well dressed. He had never fussed over his features, but recently he had taken the habit to walk dangerously close to makeup stores and check various displays at the convenience store close by. Lan Zhan knew Mo XuanYu had remembered his past... how he had quickly realized he was already an adult. With needs and desires.

But now a brand new reincarnation of Jiang WanYin would wait for him every morning to walk to work together. Now Jiang Cheng acted pleasantly enough to be considered kind and doting to someone starved of affection like Mo XuanYu had always been. Which wasn’t planned, it had never been.

Lan Zhan didn’t like where this was going.

He didn’t like it at all.

*

Nie HuaiSang came to bring a cake for XuanYu one day or so before the end of the year, snow sticking to his hair and flushed cheeks.

“I don’t know when your birthday is... so I’m pretty sure I’m late to the game. But I wanted to thank you for helping me and MianMian that one time. So I made a cake for you. I hope you like strawberries.”

Mo XuanYu had no idea if he liked them or not. He couldn’t even eat.

He started crying in the middle of his room, where HuaiSang had placed the boxed cake on top of his low table.

Panicked, HuaiSang jumped up and out of the room to alert Jiang Cheng next door. But upon seeing the other man’s worried expression XuanYu cried even harder.

“What did you do to him, you bastard?”

“I’m not the one who used to prank people all the time. Grow up!”

“You clearly did something horrible to him for...”

“A-Cheng we’re not twelve anymore. Who do you take me for?”

XuanYu took his chance to stuff his face with cake, gulping it down bit by bit even if he knew he didn’t have the necessary organs to process it without vomiting it all out in an hour or so. He had tried many times to hold food down to no avail. His body rejecting it as if it was poisonous and dangerous.

He had tried so many times... to practice. To be able to appreciate YanLi’s generous cooking, to help A-Ling and the children at school prep their lunches and maybe... maybe to eat with Jiang Cheng every now and then.

Nie HuaiSang hugged him and patted his head, confused but too scared to ask for an explanation. Mo XuanYu smiled at him and lied, saying his cake was the best he had ever eaten. It wasn’t the best. It was simply the first.

He had no way to compare it with anything else, really.

*

Wen Ning had heard about his “stomachache” from XiChen, who had known all about it from YanLi and Jiang Cheng. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise for XuanYu when he saw the older boy in front of his apartment complex the last day of the year.

But it was a surprise.

“Can we talk for a bit?” Wen Ning asked, holding his umbrella up for XuanYu to walk beside him, protecting him from the icy snow.

They walked to the nearest park, sitting under the gazebo to watch the snow falling down. Their heavy coats keeping them warm, despite the cold.

They used to take long walks back from the kindergarten with A-Yuan after school, since the Wens lived close to XuanYu. Before Jiang Cheng came back anyway.

Wen Ning looked uncomfortable, fidgeting with his fingers as he tried to find the right words. He surprised XuanYu by telling him how, in the past, he had suffered from an eating disorder and had been hospitalized for a while in his teens. How worried his sister and their grandma had been for him, how much they helped him in his recovery. How alone he had felt for years still, no matter how loved he was.

“A-Yuan told me he never saw you eat. So I was wondering if you needed help.”

It wasn’t the case, but XuanYu knew he meant well. Telling him everything was fine would have only worried him more, so he tried to explain an half-truth that could satisfy him. Saying it was difficult for him to process food, that in the past he had suffered from malnutrition and now he had digestive issues.

He was talking about his past life, but he figured that could work as well.

When they parted ways in front of the apartment complex, Wen Ning asked to hold XuanYu’s hands for a bit. He cradled them carefully, as if they were precious. His slender fingers cupping XuanYu’s smaller palms almost reverently.

“I know you don’t feel the same about me. But I’ll ask you to look after yourself anyway. Not out of obligation for me... but out of respect for yourself, if nothing else.”

The moment Wen Ning let go of his hands, Jiang Cheng stepped out of the front door of the building and saw them.

He said nothing and walked away after stepping out of the gate.

*

Lan Zhan would have very much liked to flip a finger at Jiang WanYin’s forehead. Hard. Wei Ying would have done the same, he was sure.

Wei Ying would have also smacked some sense in his baby brother, forcing him to face his feelings and take responsibility for what he was doing to poor Mo XuanYu.

Who was currently waiting for the other man’s return like a dog by his room balcony, surveying the front courtyard like a bird of prey from above.

Lan Zhan tried to coax the kid inside, reminding him snow was still falling down and that his beanie was slipping away. He tried to be gentle about it, knowing how much XuanYu had grown resentful of the hats he had to constantly wear.

But the younger man simply shrugged, saying he wanted to wait for another five minutes. Just one more. Just to make sure.

Jiang Cheng didn’t come back that night.

And Mo XuanYu cried in his sleep clutching the half-empty vial to his chest.

Lan Zhan spent the night watching over him, singing to him the song he had written for Wei Ying. He snuggled close to XuanYu and made sure his wide headband was covering the crown of his head, before pressing himself to the other’s forehead.

He never stopped singing.

Wishing he could take all the pain away.

*

YanLi, A-Yuan and even ZiXuan knocked on his door to greet him into the new year, despite how XuanYu should have been the one to pay his respects to his landlords.

But they asked him to visit the funeral home with them instead, to say their thanks to YanLi’s parents with offers and flowers.

He dressed in his best clothes, having never been in what seemed to be a modern version of the ancestral halls of his childhood in a past life. The establishment was fairly sterile, with shelves filled with plaques and pictures instead of wooden inscriptions on an altar. The lot of them bowed and said their thanks, chatting with the late Jiangs almost as if they had never left. YanLi apologized to her mother for Jiang Cheng’s absence that year like any other year, while ZiXuan told his father-in-law how they would have visited the Jin ancestors during Chūnjié to make it fair.

XuanYu looked at them and barely kept himself from crying.

On their way back, YanLi explained her parents had died when she was still twelve and Jiang Cheng was merely six. How they had lived in the orphanage run by XiChen’s mother and made friends with the boy, who was YanLi’s classmate. How the siblings stayed there until YanLi came of age and got custody of her baby brother. ZiXuan’s family of lawyers had helped her pro bono and that was how she had met the man and fallen in love with him. Even if it had taken a while for ZiXuan to notice her at first, preoccupied with university and law school as he had been at the time. But the Jins helped her with the inheritance left by the late Madame Yu: the apartment complex where they currently lived.

Watching them explaining their past in such detail moved XuanYu deeply. Feeling as if they wanted to make him part of their family by filling in the gaps for him.

That was still his older brother after all and those were still his sister-in-law and his beloved nephew and he... he loved them. He had missed them so, so much.

And he was about to leave them again soon.

*

Wen Qing finally showed herself up one day at the park, when Mo XuanYu was taking Fairy out for an evening walk. She approached him by telling the younger man she had assisted in the surgery Xue Yang had undergone some time back.

Lan Zhan (hiding in the kid’s coat pocket) could see how startled the kid was at the mention of the criminal, but he decided to trust this version of Lady Wen as he would have done in the past.

Wei Ying cared deeply for her, after all.

Whatever truths she was about to entrust Mo XuanYu with, Lan Zhan knew the kid could take it.

He hoped as much, at least.

*

Jiang Cheng came back only for Chinese New Year. Saying he had stayed at XiChen’s since the winter break allowed them to take it easy and figure some stuff out for the following school year.

It hurt to know where he had been all along, but XuanYu braved a smile anyway. He knew how much Jiang Cheng cared for the older man, how much he wanted to save the school from the debt collector. How much he didn’t love XuanYu back.

So he let himself cry one last time before waking up one morning and deciding he had had enough.

He talked with Lan Zhan, asking him to tell him all about Wei WuXian and their love. If XuanYu’s sacrifice had allowed them to be happy as they deserved in the end. If Lan Zhan hated him now, for forcing him away from his loved one, who was currently waiting for him to come back to heaven.

Mo XuanYu knew the couple had sacrificed their chance at reincarnation to allow him to seek a second lifetime for himself. He knew Wei Ying watched over them from up above, waiting for Lan Zhan to secure a new life for the kid.

They talked all day and then well into the night.

By dawn Mo XuanYu had decided what to do.

*

XuanYu properly met Meng Yao one day of early spring, when flowers weren’t yet brave enough to poke their way out and greet the sun. The man was dressed in black, his hair cut short, a sigarette between his lips as he waited patiently for the kindergarten to open.

It was XuanYu’s duty to open that morning, so he was the one to greet the man.

Upon hearing his voice, Meng Yao immediately recognized him.

“There you are. I was waiting for you.”

“Me?”

“You’re the kid who answered the phone. And the one who helped my subordinate back in winter, right?”

His dimples were so deep, his face so pleasant.

Mo XuanYu remembered him from another lifetime. He remembered how much he had cared for his older brother Jin GuangYao. How hurt he had felt when the other had lied and accused him of harassment just to get rid of him.

But this was a new life and Meng Yao was just a man.

Who happened to have been married with XiChen for a while before turning to a life filled with crime and gang violence.

Wen Qing had told him Meng Yao had initially tried to live far away from his adoptive father Wen RuoHan. All for the sake of marrying XiChen and keep him safe. But XiChen’s mother still had had a debt to pay for the construction of the orphanage, a price too high for her to pay with her poor health and delicate disposition. A debt that XiChen had inherited from her when she had died.

That was why Meng Yao had left him: to go back to his father and ask him to handle the debt himself, supplicating him to overlook such small issue and let him dry XiChen out of every penny and cent instead.

Wen Qing may have learned this only from the gossiping running in her family, with the Wen Clan being as big as it was, but she was pretty sure of what she had told XuanYu. That Meng Yao had simply faked having fallen out of love with XiChen to protect him from his adoptive father and his cruelty. That XiChen still loved him and was waiting for him to fight alongside him instead.

Mo XuanYu knew all of this.

So now he could act and fulfill his mission.

*

“I want to pay the debt XiChen owes you.”

“You are full of surprises, XuanYu. And how do you plan to do that?”

“I can do many things.”

“You’re very pretty, you can make good money out of it.”

XuanYu considered his words before shaking his head.

“It’s not something I can do.”

“Then what can you do?”

“I’ll solve everything.”

“I’m all ears.”

“But you’ll have to stop making XiChen worry so much.”

“That’s not how business work...”

“Lie to me. Give your word and I’ll... I will solve everything.”

Meng Yao humored him and nodded.

Then and only then, Mo XuanYu took his hat off.

*

Lan Zhan had watched the entire scene unfold before his eyes without intervening, trusting Mo XuanYu with such an important choice. He took in the sight of the beautiful spiritual light shining brightly on top of XuanYu’s head like a crown.

His soul in full display, its energy so raw it had slowed down time all around them.

Lan Zhan turned around and looked at XiChen, who had just turned a corner and had been walking towards XuanYu to greet him good morning. Frozen in time, his older brother’s face still looked peaceful... simply because he had had no time to notice Meng Yao’s presence quite yet.

Lan Zhan turned once more and saw Jiang WanYin making his way in a rush towards them, surely to protect XuanYu from Meng Yao. When did he arrive? His features trapped in a perpetual frown, scared for the one he truly loved in this lifetime.

Then, Lan Zhan looked up at Mo XuanYu and saw him taking the bottle only half filled with gold... which symbolized his goodwill and generous spirit.

“Will this be enough to grant a wish, Lan Zhan?”

When XuanYu said his name like that he sounded so much like his Wei Ying, full of hope and love.

“It depends on the wish, A-Yu.”

“I reckon it’s not enough for a new reincarnation, eh?”

“It’s enough to save a life... but not yours.”

XuanYu looked crestfallen, but he persevered still.

The bottle transformed into a bag filled with money and XuanYu made his way to XiChen and left it at his feet before smiling up at his mentor and employer.

“I cannot rewrite the past, but maybe I can plan a better future for you.”

Still smiling, XuanYu slowly walked over to Jiang Cheng and said his farewells.

Then he crouched down and took Lan Zhan in his hands, kissing him goodbye on the head affectionately.

“Erase me well, Lan Zhan,” he whispered then.

Before disappearing into thin air.

***

Wei Ying had agreed with him, suggesting the idea himself.

In the end the King of Hell had granted Lan Zhan’s request and offered Mo XuanYu a second chance anyway. Since this new self-sacrifice had been fueled by positive emotions instead of anger and despair, the hell judges had considered the atonement fulfilled and put the kid’s name back on the reincarnation list.

Twenty years had past and many things had changed.

For starters, the kid’s last name wasn’t Mo anymore, but Nie. The boy had, in fact, born into Nie MingJue’s family and had lived overseas in Japan for a while before moving back to Lanling when XuanYu turned twenty. Nie HuaiSang had met him many times during summer vacations and other festivities, visiting his brother and his wife every chance he had gotten to dote on his cute nephew XuanYu.

Nie MingJue had done a remarkable job in protecting him from harm. So, by the time their little family had decided to move close to HuaiSang, XuanYu had become a well adjusted adult with a brilliant future ahead of him.

Nobody remembered him.

Or so Lan Zhan had thought.

Apparently, he had forgotten to wipe Jin Ling’s memories thoroughly. So, when The Nie family had come to greet HuaiSang’s friends YanLi and ZiXuan, A-Ling almost had a stroke out of incredulity and happiness for being reunited with his “A-Yu”. Even if Jin Ling was now older than the pretty-gege from his memories. Even if he had spent years trying to figure out why nobody seemed to remember the weird uncle living next door to his Jiujiu years back.

XiChen and Meng Yao had solved their problems and had started running the school together right after Wen RuoHan sudden and mysterious disappearance. The man had many enemies after all. 

A-Yuan had grown up into a fine young man, someone Wei Ying would have certainly been proud of, working with his cousin Wen Ning at the local botanical garden while his friends still studied in university. 

Nie HuaiSang had married Qin Su and opened a restaurant with her. 

MianMian and Wen Qing had decided to live together and adopt a bunch of dogs just because. 

Xiao XingChen and Xue Yang still lived together while Song Lan had found his way back to them after talking it out with the couple. 

A-Qing was probably running some sketchy business in social services to protect kids from horrible families.

Lan Zhan was still, unfortunately, a stuffed rabbit. Following XuanYu in his new life in the most unexpected of ways. In the form of the first present the boy’s uncle had gifted him in childhood. If Wei Ying had pulled a string or two from heaven to make that happen, well, Lan Zhan himself was none the wiser. The only thing he knew was that XuanYu had always taken him with him in all his travels even if he didn’t know he could speak. Lan Zhan had preferred not to reveal his nature and let the kid have a normal childhood. Especially since he had no memories of his past as a tenant in Jiang YanLi’s house. Nor of his life as a cultivator.

Wei Ying had agreed they could wait to be reunited again. The both of them wanting to look over XuanYu for a little longer before getting their own chance at reincarnation. They had all eternity to be together again... they could definitely wait a bit more for the kid.

All was well.

Aside from the other person whose mind Lan Zhan had conveniently forgot to wipe clean of any memory of XuanYu.

In his defense, Lan Zhan had tried to make Jiang Cheng forget. But something about XuanYu must have touched him so deeply... that Lan Zhan had not been able to do much about it. The kid’s smiles and clumsy antics would always linger in the back of the other’s mind no matter how much he tried to ignore them.

Coming back from his job at ZiXuan’s firm, exhausted and vulnerable, Jiang Cheng decided to visit his sister the same day Nie MingJue had brought his family there. So he was particularly weak to the sight of a bright, soft XuanYu when YanLi introduced her younger brother to their guests.

To Lan Zhan’s absolute delight, Jiang Cheng immediately bowed down to a scary looking Nie MingJue and asked his son’s hand in marriage.

Yes, grovel to this precious boy and learn your place.

XuanYu only tilted his head at that weird man bowing to his parents and smiled.

His laughter ringing up to the sky, where Wei Ying was still listening.

From where he would have kept watching.

*

[I worked so hard on this please reblog]

*

[kobato means “little dove” I thought it was cute since XuanYu is a magpie! + I wanted MXY a chance at life and for once this is a reversal-sacrifice from WWX’s part and I think it’s neat.]

[JC would be 43 or so... which yikes. but this is all I could do. I don’t like huge age gaps but at least everyone is a consenting adult, okay?]

[the thing that started this was like “what if LXC was an only child and LWJ did not reincarnate bc he’s still in the afterlife or something? then the entire thing escalated so...yeah.]

now I will cry for ages. I worked so hard on this good god D:

[dragon-kazansky]

The hypnotist - Jervis Tetch x reader

Summary: Captain Barnes is slipping up and Mario has been infected. Seems as if Jervis has been playing the long game. Jervis finally gets to speak his mind to Jim about the hypnotism accusation.

This chapter is Jim’s point of view. The whole scene with Barnes is important for his talk with Jervis, so I couldn’t really see a way around it. It’s also a little all over the place. This is all just too important to leave out.

Chapter 6 - The Tetch Virus

Change was in the air for Gotham. Something was brewing and Captain Barnes was finding all the more difficult to restrain himself. He had been particularly riled up after his visit with Jervis several days ago.

A need to punish the guilty was strong in him.

Nathaniel Barnes was acting as judge, jury and executioner of Gotham’s criminals. If they were guilty, he would serve them justice.

Lee Thompkins engagement party had occurred and Barnes had been there, following a particular guilty man, whom he threw out of a window and killed. He had fled the scene before anyone could see what he had done.

Jim Gordon had managed to speak to the man before he had died and received a name. Barnes.

He didn’t want to believe that it was the captain who had done this, but he couldn’t ignore either. It was a lead. Jim knew he would have to look into it, but he would have to make sure Barnes didn’t catch on.

He had no idea what was happening to his captain. Not yet anyway.

Jim had gone to Harvey for help, but Bullock wasn’t overly happy with looking into his captain. Jim knew he was onto something, especially after he had heard about Barnes nearly beating Jervis to death at the founder’s party. It wasn’t like the captain to go all out like that, so something had to be happening.

Harvey reluctantly helped Jim, helping him to prove his innocence. Barnes was a good man with a good record.

You had spent the best part of the last few days working as usual. There was an awkward moment where Barbara had sent you to Penguin, apparently he needed someone trustworthy to a special job for him. You didn’t really want to face him, but went anyway.

It didn’t click right away, but it slowly dawned on him that he remembered you being there night, even if he didn’t speak to you then. You had your arm linked around Tetch’s when Jervis bumped into him. You were there when Tetch was pointing that gun in his face, and had done nothing.

Yet, he had also whispers, considering he had eyes and ears everywhere in Gotham, about your ‘condition’ and even had the audacity to show sympathy for you. It took all of your will power not to knock out the mayor.

You thought you had escaped the pity and accusations.

You should have known the mayor would have heard something. Oswald Cobblepot knew everything in Gotham.

You moved into Tetch’s safe house without alerting Gordon or Thompkins about it. They would only know if they tried to visit you.Many of Jervis’ things, though he didn’t have a lot with him when he came to Gotham, were still there. The house hadn’t been touched since that day.

You had ended up sleeping in the main bedroom, clutching to Tetch as much as possible. You had tried to deny that you had feelings for the man, but laying in there in that bed, thinking about him, you knew deep down it was true. You longed to be with him.

You wouldn’t say anything.

It would only complicate things considering the current situation. He was locked up in Arkham and you were more than certain that even now his heart only belonged to Alice.

You would continue to be the good friend you were.

The more days that passed without a visit from you, the more bored Tetch was becoming. He missed so you very much, but he knew you were also trying to keep low. You were working hard to get Jim off your back.

If only he wasn’t locked up in Arkham, he could get rid of James Gordon for you.

Jim, however, was starting to make connections back at the GCPD. Harvey had gone to the scene to get prints and hopefully prove Jim wrong. Gordon was looking through the captain’s office where he found a file on the Tetch siblings.

On the right was a photo of Jervis Tetch, on the left a death certificate with a photo of Alice.

Before he could even comprehend what Barnes was doing with the file, the man himself entered the office. It was very awkward indeed. Jim lied through his teeth about why he was in the office, looking for another file, Barnes seemed to be buying this story.

Jim lied some more when Barnes asked if, due to witness claims the victim was still alive, he had told Jim the killer’s name. Jim of course said no, despite the fact he had.

It was becoming difficult to tell what Barnes was thinking. He wasn’t giving away any indication he knew Jim was lying, but something wasn’t sitting right. There was just something in the way he was looking at him and talking to him that indicated he knew something.

“Well, for what’s worth, I called an old CI of mine with deep ties with the mob.” Barnes walked over to his desk and pulled a gun out of the drawer, loading it as he spoke. “He says that once I collared Simon, the higher ups got jumpy.” He looked Jim in the eye.

“You saying the mob had him killed?” Jim asked, concerned.

“He was giving these guys new faces, was probably the only one who could ID them.”

Something just wasn’t right about this.

Apparently his CI also had a name. That caught Jim’s attention. He said he would get someone onto him, but Barnes immediately denied that idea. The more time he spent with his captain, the more concerned Jim was becoming.

Barnes told him this should all be kept between the two of them, they would go see this guy together. He didn’t even allow Jim to tell Harvey where he was going.

Jim was able to leave Harvey a message when Barnes went to adjust something in the boot of the car. He was more sure than ever that his captain may be up to something. He just needed to prove it.

Barnes got in the car, handed Jim a gun and sounding rather chill as he said, “you never know what’s going to go down.”

Silence filled the car for the longest time, but Barnes was the first to break after driving for some time.

“I have to say Jim, I’m disappointed in you.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Jim narrowed his gaze at his captain.

“Lead detective for a high profile murder and you don’t collect statements from everyone present?”

Jim looked at him confused.

“Me.” Jim nodded. “Let’s do it now.”

“Did you see Simon at the party?” Jim asked, seeing he had no choice but to go along with this.

“Yes.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No I did not.”

“Did you see him go into the bathroom before he was attacked?” Jim side eyed his captain.

“Unfortunately no.”

“Were you ever in it?”

“Yes.” Barnes finally looked at Jim. “Before it was a crime scene, obviously.” He clarified. “So, detective, am I in the clear?”

“For now.” Jim gave a forced smile.

Barnes chuckled.

“This city is a cess pool, don’t you ever want to do something about it?” Barnes had a smile on his face as he focused on the road.

“I thought I was.”

“What, as a cop? I would have thought you of all people would find that limiting.”

“Not any more, came back to the GCPD to things right. Like you.” Jim eyed him again.

“Like me?”

“Last year at Galavan’s when we were attacked, you told me the law shows us where the line is, it stuck with me.”

“Some would say that our job first and foremost is to protect the citizens of this city, even if it means bending the laws.” Barnes told him, seemingly OK with those words.

“No. Break the law and we’re no better than the criminals.” If Jim wasn’t sure about Barnes’ involvement before, he was now.

Sure Gotham was corrupt and was run by the criminals, but that didn’t mean everyone had to live that way. Someone can still do good in this city. That’s what Jim was hoping for the GCPD, but it seemed even the captain had become corrupt.

“Is that what you were thinking the night that Galavan was killed? The first time. This city is at a crossroads, Gordon. Question is: Would good men fight for it? Will they do what’s necessary? The decision is yours to make.”

Jim turned away from his captain, letting those words sink in, but he didn’t sit still for long. He realised that Barnes had driven past their stop. He tried to tell Barnes, but Barnes changed the address to another, making out as a mistake earlier.

Jim rolled with it as they arrived to the second address and grabbed their guns, storming the area. They found the guy they were after and Jim was losing patience with this guy when he didn’t give any straight answers. He eventually fessed about not killing Simon, he swore by it. Jim believed him, but it’s what happened next that confirmed all his theories about Barnes.

“I think he’s telling the truth, but you’re not innocent.” He lifted his gun up at him and shot him.

Then his reloaded and pointed his gun at Jim.

Barnes ordered Jim to move the body. Considering he had a gun pointed at him, Jim didn’t have many choices and did as he said.

“That’s far enough.” Barnes told him, watching Jim drop the body and look at him. “You’re probably wondering why would captain Nathaniel Barnes, mister by the book, blow a hole in this unarmed scumbag? Could it be that he actually killed Simon? I know, Jim, that you have been investigating me.”

“Did you kill Simon?”

“Is that what he told you? I know he said something to you before he died.”

“Yes he did.”

“Probably the truest words that bastard ever uttered.”

Jim was getting the answers he needed. All he needed was Harvey to come. He hoped his partner had received the message he had left.

“I am the law.” Barnes looked James dead in the eye as he stated those words.

“What happened to you? How did you become this?”

“This? This is who I’ve always been, I just needed something to unlock it.” Barnes closed the distance between them.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re just going to say that I’m sick, but I’m not. I’ve never been so clear, so strong, in my life.”

“Alice Tetch’s virus. The files on your desk, you’re infected!” Jim finally connected the dots. This had taken longer than Jervis had originally anticipated, but it was happening. 

“You are a detective, after all!”

“Don’t you see? This means you’re innocent! We can get you help.” Jim tried to reason with him.

“Can you just skip the part where you try to get me to give myself up?” Barnes wasn’t having any of it.

“This isn’t you, this is the virus.”

“No! I’m not insane, and you, are not seeing the big picture.”

“You'e going to frame me for Sugar’s murder.”

“That’s up to you.”

It all made sense now. Barnes was having a God complex, almost. He saw the law as his to do with as he pleased. He was taking it into his own hands and serving justice his own way. As long as people were guilty of something, he would be their executioner.

If there was ever a more important moment for an antidote to exist, it would be now.

Barnes tried to recruit Jim, but he would never, NEVER, cross that line.

The conversation was interrupted when someone entered the warehouse to talk to Sugar. Jim used that distraction to run for it, Barnes shooting at him. Barnes gave chase. Jim was able to call Harvey for help. The GCPD had a call saying Gordon had killed someone and they were on their way to bring him in. Harvey went to Lee for help because they needed everyone to believe that Barnes was infected with the virus.

If not, Jim would be arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.

While this was all going down, you at the safe house. It was quiet and lonely, considering you were the only one there, but you were biding your time. After talking to Jervis, you hoped Jim would discover the truth soon. After everything he had put you through about being hypnotised, you wanted to see him struggle as he tried to save someone close to him.

You vowed to stick by Jervis’ side and be his partner in all of this.

Working with him would be a thrill. It had been so far, so why stop now? Especially when you had become so attached to him.

Harvey and company reached Jim. Barnes had been shot, no where vital and was being taken into custody.

He needed the antidote.

Back at the GCPD he thanked Lee for faking a medical report on Barnes. It could have ended much worse if she hadn’t.

Barnes was transferred to Arkham, where would stay until an antidote became available. That was his only way out of the asylum.

Jervis grinned from his cell further down the hall.

“Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.” On repeat.

Jervis knew that was captain Barnes, therefore knew Jim was aware of the situation. He was sure he would get a visit some time soon. Before he wanted to see Jim to mock him some more for what happened to his sister, but after your visits and what you had told him, he wanted to see Jim for a whole other reason. He couldn’t stand by and let Gordon accuse him of hypnotising the only person he had left who cared for him.

He couldn’t!

However, the constant shouting of ‘GUILTY’ was going to drive Tetch mad, more so than he already was. He could only take so much of that.

Jim didn’t have time for visits as Falcone’s car had exploded. He had a whole new case on his hands.

You had taken to writing to Jervis in the meantime.

When he received the first one his was over the moon. He knew you were back on the job and had to limit your visits anyway. Your letters were more than enough to satisfy him, even if he was missing the sound of your voice.

He had told you that Barnes had been arrested. You replied saying you had seen it on the news. Both of you were sure Jim knew about the virus now.

That talk didn’t last long, however, as most of the letters consisted of how much you were missing each other.

It was nice to know he was missing you.

Jervis would make Jim see, he wouldn’t dare do that to you.

Whispers on the street were telling you that the Tetch virus antidote was still being worked on, but they were getting close. Whispers also told you that Falcone’s son, Mario, was infected. If that didn’t rile up Jim, nothing would it seemed.

Jim Gordon hadn’t seen or spoken to you since his last visit. You had ignored every single one of his calls since then, and Lee was unable to carry out her sessions with you.

He had been attacked at the lab where the virus antidote was being made, but he hadn’t seen who it was that attacked him. He was only left with a message on his hand.

Arkham.

It was about time he made this visit. Jervis had been waiting.

“Hello Jervis.”

Jim walked into the room where the Hatter had been waiting. Tetch smiled at him, acting surprised to see him. He wasn’t.

“James, what an unexpected pleasure.”

“Someone else is infected with your sister’s blood.”

“You don’t say?”

“And I’ve been thinking it’s possible she infected accidentally.”

“Yes, possible.” Jervis smiled.

“But your reaction to me you knew, so you infected them after you stole your sister’s blood, but you stayed quiet, waiting for them to show symptoms.” Jim remained stoic as he spoke his theory.

“Well, that would be darn sneaky of my, wouldn’t it?” Jervis grinned.

“I need the name.”

Tetch chuckled as he looked around the room.

“You need the name? So, I’ve been quiet about it all this time and now I’m going to help you because we’re such good friends?”

“Because I can make your life here very uncomfortable.” Jim leaned forwards.

“More uncomfortable than having captain Barnes next door shouting guilty all hours of the night?”

Jim grabbed Jervis by the collar and pulled him closer to him.

“Give me the name!”

“I don’t think Y/N would be too pleased to hear how you’re treating me.” Jervis let out a little chuckle. “My poor dear Y/N.”

“While we’re on this topic, tell me how to break your spell over her.” Jim growled. “I know you’ve been controlling her all this time.”

“She told me what you said. You think I hypnotised her? How dare you say such a thing! Y/N is my dear friend and I would never think of doing such a thing to her. You just hate the idea that someone is being so kind and loyal to me.” Jervis grinned, but it went away rather quickly. “I’ve been waiting for this visit for a very long time, ever since she first told me your lies.”

“Why would someone willingly follow you after everything you did. Does she know you infected people? What would happen if I told her? If she really isn’t hypnotised, she would turn her back on you in seconds.” Jim was trying to get under Jervis’ skin.

“That’s what you want to think. Truth is, I think she would be impressed. She likes me, she does!”

“Where is she, Tetch? Her apartment is empty and if she’s been talking to you, then you must know something.”

Jervis gave a toothy smile. “Why would I tell you that? She’s safe from you. I don’t like how you’re trying to turn her against me, but I’m happy to know she isn’t falling for your lies. My darling Y/N is on my side.” He smile turned soft and his gaze too.

“Alice is dead and your heart is broken, you’ve turned to the only person who gave you the slightest bit of compassion.” Jim shook his head. “You fall in love too easy, Tetch.”

“How dare you! I wonder what my sister’s blood would bring out in you.” He grinned.”The beast in you is right there.”

Jim wasn’t winning. For some reason, he believed Tetch’s words. Perhaps you had been telling him truth all this time.

“So desperate to get out, and I know of whom you speak, oh yes indeed. I stabbed him and pricked him and caused him to bleed, but nothing you can say, no words you might posses can pry me from the smallest guess. For this game is my game. I say when it’s done and right now I’m having too much fun.”

“Want to play a game, Jervis? Fine, let’s play a game.”

Jervis frowned.

“Whoever you infected, has some sort of plan. I want you tell me the name of this man.”

“Wow, James, I have to give that effort and F. Can you really imagine that-?”

“Two are dead. More may die soon. This isn’t a game, give me his name.”

Jervis was growing frustrated with James as he glared at the man across from him.

“You will only know his name when it’s too late, when the one you love has been murdered by hate!” Jervis spoke quickly, caught off guard that he had Jim that. The answer was easy. “Guard! Take me to my cell!”

“What do you mean the one that I love?”

“Guard!”

Jim grabbed Jervis again.

“Give me his name Tetch.” Goodness, Jim was slow. “Give me his name or you share the blame!”

“Nothing, nothing. I’ll tell you naught! His name shall neither be spoken nor taught, he’ll cut and he’ll crush, his blood will run thick. Though from healer to killer is no easy trick.”

Jervis covered his mouth and groaned. Jim had him going and he hated how much he spilled to him. Surely Jim would get it now.

“Healer to killer... He’s a doctor.” Finally he got it.

“You’ll never stop him, James! He’ll kill and he’ll kill!”

Jim got his phone and ran out of there.

Jervis glared at him as he went. He was annoyed he had given Jim the answer, but he was more worried about you. He saw it in Jim’s eyes that he knew he was telling the truth. James didn’t know where the house was, so as long as you stayed there you would be fine.

The moment Jervis returned to his cell he began writing you a letter.

My dear Y/N,

James Gordon finally came, he still puts me to blame. A part of me thinks he finally believes me, however. I hope it won’t be long before we are back together.

I ask that you be wary of Gordon. I am unsure of his next move.... other than going after the man marrying the one he loves.

I must confess I haven’t shared with you my entire plan. I had a few select people infected with my sister’s virus. It would seem they are finally showing effect. I hope you are safe from these select few, though I have no doubt you could handle yourself if things went wrong.

I hope you are not too lonely without me there. I’m sure we’ll be together again soon, one way or another I’ll see you again.

For now stay safe, my dear.

Jervis.

He would wait patiently for your next visit. He knew you would come the next time you were able.

You received the letter the very next day. The day after the wedding of Lee Thompkins. Mario was dead, so you heard. Falcone would most defiantly be dealing with that.

There was no proof, other than Tetch’s words, that Mario was infected.

The virus didn’t seem to come up in tests.

Jim Gordon would be too busy with that issue to come find you. Perhaps you would be able to visit Jervis more.

His words in the letter made you smile. The way he kept calling you dear and how he was concerned about you. Your heart couldn’t take it. You adored this man all the more now.

You weren’t letting Arkham keep you from him.

At least now, if you met Jim again, he might actually listen to you about not being hypnotised. Would he arrest you too?

You knew you had lost your mind when you realised you wouldn’t mind that. With this line of thought, you would have a one way ticket to Arkham.

For now, you would wait and see what happens with Jim.

Tags: 

@mistressoftorture @fandombeehive @awyr

[rikumorimachisgirl]

Okay, let's try this one more time. This story was given feedback by the talented @cailannuesugi and @voltage-vixen. Thank you, ladies, for your help and encouragement when I felt like giving up.

Title: Meeting the Mogul

Ikesen Modern Day AU

A/N: This is my first fic, so please don't expect it to be perfect. I also don't own Ikesen Nobunaga and the other characters except my OC. Cybird owns them.

This is inspired by the artwork I commissioned from @shrimpalompa 💕

With her eyebrows furrowed, Mia allowed her feet to drag along the length of Manhattan's busy streets. Despite the crowd of busy professionals hurrying to buy their lunches from the food trucks lined up along 50th Street, and the incessant honking of cars and taxis stuck in traffic, all she could think of is how badly she messed up her last interview.

The delightful scent of sauteed garlic and onions wafting in the air made her stomach growl slightly louder than usual. There was nothing she wanted more at that moment than to eat a nice gyro sandwich at Lil Zeus Food Truck, but with only fifty dollars to tide her over until she finds a job, she took a deep breath, turned away from the food truck, and continued to walk. She took one step after another, until the concrete pavement was replaced by a patch of green, and the sound of car horns was replaced by the catchy melody of a marching band practicing nearby.

Central Park was beautiful at this time of day - mostly because the afternoon crowd and the throngs of tourists don't frequent the place at this hour.

She sat on the grass, defeated. She had one shot at getting employed as a clerk in the prestigious firm, and she totally screwed her interview. "Seriously, who asks about the President's background during the interview anyway? " she wondered out loud still feeling bitter about her failure at the hands of Azuchi Inc's, Vice President of Human Resources, Hideyoshi Toyotomi. She sighed again, took out her mobile and typed in the keywords 'Nobunaga Oda, Azuchi Inc'. Pages upon pages of news articles about the President and CEO appeared on her screen, much to her surprise. As her finger hovered over one of the articles, she silently cursed herself for not having thought of doing this yesterday before she finally gave in and pored over the details on the mysterious mogul.

***

He watched her as she sat on the grass with her back turned to him.  He winced at the last thought; then again, she didn't seem like the type who'd pick out her dates online.From where he stood, it appeared like she was playing a game on her phone or browsing one of those social media sites his employees are so fond of... Or maybe checking out a dating site. Though she didn’t seem like the type to rely on other sources to help her find a date. His thoughts drifted to their first encounter yesterday, and he smirked.

In an attempt to avoid the possibility of listening to his Vice President of Human Resources' complaints about his decision to ride his bike to work, he opted to enter the building through the ever-busy and usually crowded Talent Management Hub. Donned in a black button-down shirt, which he wore untucked with a pair of dark denim jeans, he handed his helmet to the seemingly dumbstruck guard and made his way to the exit leading to the main lobby. Just as he was about to step into the main lobby, he felt someone grip his wrist tightly.

"Excuse me, where do you think you're going?"

He turned and saw a girl - not more than twenty-four if he had to guess - looking sternly at him while she gripped his wrist tightly.

He heard collective gasps around them, but she didn't seem to have noticed. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the managers make his way towards them, but he stopped him before he could get any closer. The clock on the wall read 9:25 am, so he had a good five minutes before his weekly meeting with Marketing, but the girl holding on to him intrigued him so much, he didn't mind canceling. Just what was she trying to get at by stopping him, he wondered.

"Didn't you just arrive, Sir? You don't have an ID, so you must be an applicant, too," she said gently, as she tugged him to follow her to the waiting area. Still confused, he glanced at the other people who were quietly seated, trying to avoid his gaze. "It's unprofessional to cut the line, you know. Let's wait for our turn here."

He chuckled at the realization that she didn't know who he was. He decided to humor her by sitting beside her, but it didn't take long until she was called for her initial screening. It was at that moment that he decided they needed to hire her. However, when Hideyoshi dished out his infamous rapid-fire "Oda Fast Facts" on her, there was no doubt she wasn't going to be signing a contract with them.  The dashing dark-haired mogul frowned as he recalled the report he was given on the status of her application. He recognized potential when he sees one, and knew they had just let this one slip away. He left word that he was having lunch elsewhere, and took off with his Vice President of Operations following closely at his heel.

"You know what you should do next? You should buy that Lil’ Zeus food truck. Have you seen the line? It felt like ages before I got us some of these!" A familiar voice brought him out of his thoughts and he glanced sideways to see that his executive had just arrived carrying a gyro on each hand. "It's about time you got here. What was the matter, couldn't charm the ladies to get ahead? You must be losing your touch, Mitsuhide, " he teased.

The silver-haired executive smirked as he handed one of the gyros to his boss. "I'll have you know I snaked my way to the front of the line in less than 2 minutes. The cook ran out of oregano and they had to get a fresh batch." He paused for a second or two to take in the scenery before him. "So is there a reason you wanted to have lunch here?"

"No reason, " the dark-haired debonaire responded, his carnelian colored eyes sparkling with mischief as he stared at the girl whose back was turned at them once again. "I see, " Mitsuhide said, thrusting the other gyro at him. "Good luck, boss. I'll see you at the office." He flashed the young executive a dazzling smile before he turned and made his way towards the unassuming girl.

***

"That's funny, he has no pictures, " she mentioned, after opening yet another news article about the mysterious Nobunaga Oda - the sixth since she started - and there still wasn't any photos of the man in question.  

"Usually that’s the case when the person's not very good looking."

Startled at the sound of his voice, she jumped and turned around. Standing a few feet away from her was the man she met in the interview. Though she still didn't know his name considering she never asked in the interview, and he never introduced himself. Today, he was wearing a white button-down shirt, which was still untucked and a pair of khaki trousers. She never noticed how attractive he was until today - more like a model, with his tall and well-toned physique, which was evident in the cut of his clothes.  

"It's you, " she said. 

"Yeah. Me, " he replied. "Had lunch?"

"Yes, " she nodded, but her stomach wasn't having it. Her face flushed red as soon as her stomach growled. 

He snickered. "You know, I happen to have an extra gyro."

"Do you always happen to carry a spare gyro around?"

Her retort made him laugh, as he really didn't see that coming. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're hilarious, " he asked. He plopped down beside her in the grass and handed her one of the gyros. "And to answer your question, I carry them around in case I get lucky and see a pretty girl who is in desperate need of lunch." 

"My hero, " she smiled. "Thank you for this. I'm Mia, by the way. And you?"

He shrugged, ignoring the fact that she had introduced herself. "So, what were you doing on your phone, looking for a date or something?"

"Of course not, " she said, as she munched on her sandwich. "I was curious to see what Nobunaga Oda looks like."

"Why would you want to know how he looks?" 

She took out her phone with one hand and showed him the search results. "See these? I've read six articles about him, and not one of them contained any pictures of him. Isn't that strange?"

He scanned the titles and frowned. "Maybe he doesn't want his picture taken." 

"Why though? I think he's amazing. I mean, he's not even from here, yet he made a name for himself and he's been helping boost Japan's economy even from offshore. He's made a name for himself in a place where people least expected him to. His achievements are known all over Japan, and that's why I wanted so badly to come to New York and work at Azuchi Inc."

He cocked an eyebrow at her passionate response. It sure wasn't the first time he's heard people sing praises about him and his organization, but it felt different hearing it from someone who had nothing to gain from sharing this with him because she absolutely had no idea who he was. 

"Speaking of which, whatever happened to your application?" It was her turn to ask. For a moment, he almost forgot that she thought he was an applicant, too. She cleared her throat. "What's the matter? You know you don't have to be embarrassed if you didn't make it. I mean, I didn't -"

"Why did you fail?"

She frowned. That was twice he ignored her questions, yet he had the gall to ask her such a rude question. What kind of person is he exactly, she silently wondered. 

"If you're done trying to assess whether I'm trustworthy or not, would you mind answering my question?"

Rude. This man was just plain rude, she concluded. "Why do I need to answer that?"

"Because I gave you a sandwich, " he said, as he lay carelessly on the grass with his hands behind his head.. "And because you look like you're going to tell me anyway."

She sighed. Well, he wasn't wrong, she thought. "I suppose it was it because I didn't know a thing about the President and CEO of Azuchi, Inc, " she said, hanging her head low. "Except for his name, I didn't know where he came from, what his philosophy was, his advocacy, why he prefers to drink tea from Japan…"

"Don't you think that information is useless?"

"I used to. I'm not gonna lie that I felt really bad after the interview with Mr. Toyotomi. I felt bad because I thought those questions he asked me were ridiculous, " she said, as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "But I realized something while I was reading through the articles about Nobunaga Oda. I now understand that Mr. Toyotomi only wanted to make sure I knew and understood Mr. Oda's vision because it is only when you understand that you can actually contribute to that vision by working hard. I didn't really know that this morning, but now, I'd do anything to get another shot at that interview."

His eyes never left hers as she spoke, and with each topic, he found himself more and more entranced by her - perhaps it was the way her face lit up and her hands moved as she spoke about the things she was passionate about, or her wistful smile as she stared at the lake in between topics. He was captivated, so much so that he hadn't noticed that time has gone by until he felt his phone vibrate. 

Frowning, he took out the sleek gadget from his pocket and was briefly surprised. It was 3:00 pm - way past his supposed lunch break. Hideyoshi would have a fit, he silently thought, smirking. 

Sighing, he sat up and brushed the dirt off the back of his shirt. "As much as I'd like to stay and talk some more -"

"You have to go, " she said, cutting him off. She watched him quietly as he straightened his clothes up and ran his hand through his messy black hair. She had never been so drawn to a person before, but there was something about him that spoke to her - maybe it was the way he listened to her like what she was saying was important or the way he challenged her opinion every now and then… or even the way she saw her reflection in his eyes when he smiled. 

The light clapping sound that resonated in the air as he dusted off his clothes faded, and she suddenly felt her heart grow heavy - like all three weeks worth of homesickness had finally kicked in. 

"You look like you're gonna cry, " he teased, as he stood and offered his hand out to her. "Are you gonna miss me?"

"Am not, " she replied while he pulled her to her feet. "But did I get you in trouble?"

"I'm late for a meeting. Nothing I can't handle, " he winked. "I'm just gonna tell them that I met an interesting girl in Central Park."

"You make me sound weird."

He snickered. "Okay. How about I say a cute girl held me hostage?"

"They're not gonna believe you, " she replied, her face turning slightly red. 

"Here, " he said, handing his phone over to her. "Let's take a picture, in case they require proof."

"And make me the laughing stock of your team, "she retorted but allowed him to take a picture anyway.

"They wouldn't dare laugh, " he assured her as he checked their picture and smiled. "This is a good picture."

"Yes, it is." She peered at his handsome face in the picture and smiled.

"I don't like having my picture taken because I always seem to look strange, but I like this one, " he smiled back. "Well then…"

"Yeah, I guess this is goodbye."

"I'll see you tomorrow at 8."

"What? Here?"

He laughed, and the rich sound tickling her ear. "At my office, silly. Tell Mr. Toyotomi I sent you there. He'll be able to give you an orientation, " he said casually and then turned to leave. 

"Mr. Toyotomi - as in the guy from Azuchi, Inc? I'm confused… Whom should I say sent me, " she called out as he started to walk. 

"Oh. Tell him I sent you, " he turned to face her once again and exaggerated a bow. "Nobunaga Oda. I never told you before, but it's a pleasure to meet you, Mia. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."

Her heart pounded loudly in her chest as she watched him disappear in the distance, she almost failed to notice a new text message that read: 

'We are pleased to offer you the role of Assistant to the CEO. Please report to Mr. Hideyoshi Toyotomi's office at the 41st floor of Azuchi, Inc tomorrow at 8:00 am sharp. - Mitsunari Ichida, Director of Talent Management.'

End. 

[shittyfandomimagines]

Money is a Bitch

Angsty Fluff

Word count: 2,189

GIF creds to owner

“Have you seen my wallet?” Shawn peeked his head in as I was jotting down some notes. I lift my head up to see his face, he looked worried.

“No babe, I haven’t. Do you want me to help you look?” I ask as I put my book down beside me. “Yeah only for a few minutes, I know you need to study.” He flashes a smile through his panic. I get off the bed and head straight for the closet. I sift through the drawers to make sure he didn’t put there or lay it on top.

I go to our shared bathroom that was connected to our room, I clean up the countertop to make sure it wasn’t overlooked. I check the drawers and I even looked through the pockets of all the clothes that were placed in the hamper.

When I come out of the bathroom I see him going through his bedside table, he was huffing loudly, I could easily tell that he was panicking. I sit beside him on the bed and rub circles on his back. “It’s okay Shawn, just take a deep breath,” I tell him and he tries to.

“I’m panicking y/n. It has all of my cards, cash, and ID. I can’t let anyone get a hold of it.” He seemed in pain as he said it, I knew it was bad but I can’t imagine someone just losing their wallet.

“How long has it been gone?” I ask and he tugs on his curls harshly. “Well, I noticed that I couldn’t find it the other day but I didn’t really need it because I kept some cash around the house.” He admits and I nod along, have you checked your bank statements?” I ask and he nods. “No activity yet.” He says and I smile slightly.

“That’s good though! If no one is using the money of a well-known musician, then it can’t possibly be stolen.” I try to be optimistic but I could tell that he wasn’t buying it. “And if it is, they can take all my information too. Might as well move out of the house because they’d have the address too.” He was honestly catastrophizing, he was just assuming the worst.

“Babe, it’s going to be okay. I can help you go look downstairs.” I soothe and he shakes his head. “You need to study for your psychology final.” He states as he leans over to kiss my cheek. “Are you sure?” I ask and he nods, we both stand up. “You’ve got this,” I say as I tugged at his shirt a little. “Thanks, you too.” He kisses my cheek once more before walking out of the room.

I go back to writing down notes on my notecards, I really didn’t see me passing this exam. I really fucking need it to be done with this semester, I was so close to being done with my bachelor degree. I spent 4 years taking many classes of different phases psychology and even internships. I’m so fucking worried that if I fail this then I’ll have to retake this class and not have my graduation this year.

I write down more things about how vital educational psychology is for the school systems and for parents, I skip through the pages to find a quote from John Dewey, who was someone who first educated people about this line of study.

——

When I finished my notecards, I put them on a ring so I could flip through them easier. I started asking myself the questions and then try to answer them. The more I looked at the notecards, the more uneducated I felt.

“Shawn, can you bring me my other stack of notecards from my purse?” I yell and I hear him affirm that he would. I continued to study for my final as I waited for Shawn, it was taking longer than usual. “Babe?” I call out because it shouldn’t have taken too long. When there was no reply, I decided to get off of the bed.

When I walked down the long hall, I could see Shawn staring into my purse. “Shawn, they should be right on top,” I say as I get closer, I noticed that his fists were balled up, his jaw was clenched tightly. “Shawn?” I ask as I come up right beside him. “Did you seriously lie to me about my wallet?” He asks and I furrow my brows. “No! Of course not!” I was offended that he even asked.

“Then why the fuck is it in your purse?” He asks angrily and I shrug, I honestly didn’t remember because my thoughts have solely been focused on my exams.

“I don’t know Shawn! Why does it matter and why are you so angry?” I cross my arms and he just fucking laughed, he was so beyond pissed. “Because isn’t it convenient that it’s in your purse of all places?” He chuckles and I knew where he was going with all of this.

“I obviously didn’t take any of your money Shawn, I don’t need your money. You’ve already said that you had no activity on the cards.” I was trying to defend myself but I could tell that he wasn’t buying it because of how red he was in the face, his usually understanding mind was being distorted with anger.

“Yet, there wasn’t any activity yet. You probably needed to pay off all your college debt, I mean it’s almost time for your graduation anyways.” He sneers and I couldn’t even fucking believe him. “You’re seriously accusing me of trying to use your money to pay my bills? Wow Shawn, wow.” I shake my head and step back.

It hurt to think that he believed I would stoop so low as to use his money behind his back. I hardly ever asked for anything, I mean the last thing I remember that I asked for was a package of Reese’s from a gas station like last week.

“Well I mean it’s not the first time I’ve come across a gold digger.” He crosses his arms and I felt like I had been throat punched. I knew in my mind (after all of the classes I’ve taken) that he was only reacting because we both didn’t know why it was there and he was already anxious over it. However, in my heart, I felt like he was serious over the fact that I could do this to him. We’ve been together for 2 years and we never had to deal with this.

“Shawn, do you know where that bag came from? Walmart. Do you know where your wallet came from? Gucci. Wanna know where I got this shirt? Goodwill. Do you know where your clothes came from? Because I sure as hell don’t, I don’t familiarize myself with expensive brands. If I wanted something expensive I would’ve asked you 2 years ago.” I scoff and he just seemed annoyed still.

He picks up the wallet to check it out, there was obviously some cash in there because the wallet was bulging. Him even checking it sent me into overdrive.

“For your information, I hardly have debt because I was smart and went to a cheaper college. I did my homework over it, I applied for any scholarship that I was applicable for. And the fact,” my voice became grainy and it cut out because of the knot in my throat,

“The fact that you just assumed I stole money or would’ve even tried to says a lot about you, Shawn. I am not ashamed of myself at all because I know I didn’t take it, I’m ashamed of you.” I let the tears surface and I grab the notecards from my purse. I run back to our room quickly.

I shut the door and lock it, I didn’t want him even talking to me until we’re both calmed down. I knew from many sit-ins from my previous internship at a couples therapy that the most damage was created from anger.

—-

I told myself I was going to study and not be distracted from Shawn’s accusations, but I was. I was hurt and I felt betrayed in a way, I would have never stooped so low if I were the rich one. I just hated the fact that I didn’t know why it was in my purse, I had no memory of it and I feel like I should.

I know Shawn is untrustworthy when it comes to meeting new people, he has always been afraid that no one wants him for his true self, but his money. I never wanted his money and to be honest, I didn’t even know Shawn was famous when we met. I didn’t listen to pop music and I was hardly on social media because I was a full-time college student, had 2 jobs, and was doing internships.

I just felt myself sigh and I finally closed my book, I shoved the notecards into my bedside table and picked up my mess. I needed to talk to him, I needed to be validated and make sure he knew I was trustworthy.

“Shawn?” I ask as I come down the hall, he was sitting on the couch. The tv was on but the volume was so quiet. He jumps slightly and then turns to look back at me. He stands up quickly and I had my hands clasped together, I have never felt more awkward.

I could tell by his body language that he was sorry and that he didn’t know how to approach the situation.

“I didn’t take your money or steal your wallet. I don’t know how it got there.” I was being truthful and he nods. “I went back to check my bank statements, I used it the night we went to the hockey game. Then I remembered how I asked you to put in your purse because it was hurting the way I was sitting.” He explains, once he said it I remembered that night because I was wishing that my wallet was thick enough to hurt me when I sat down.

I chuckled a little at the memory and he looked relieved to see me laughing. “I remember that now, but why would you just assume I was trying to steal your money?” I ask and he just looks to the ground.

“I’m sorry, really. I know we’ve been together for 2 years but I never know anyone’s intentions anymore. I lose friends and I’ve lost old girlfriends over it, I just don’t want you to be one of them.” He admits and I can see that he was hurt to even mention it.

“Shawn, I have never and will never ask for money. I don’t want you to feel obligated to buy me things because you’re my boyfriend, I’m literally in love with you for a different reason.” I tell him and he seemed intrigued. “What is the reason?” He asks and I smirk.

“Obviously it’s for your body.” I joke and he just laughs as he shakes his head. “I can’t deal with you.” He says and I reach out for his hand.

“In all seriousness, I love you because you’re the best guy I have ever dated. You’re funny and so adorable. You give the best massages and you always hug me tightly. You let me wear your non-expensive shirts, you always compliment me, you never make me feel unloved. You hurt my feelings earlier but I didn’t feel like you weren’t in love with me, you just made me feel like I was using you. I never would do that to you.” I rub his forearm and he nods.

“I should’ve of never accused you of that, I mean you literally only ask for cheap things like candy. I mean you wouldn’t even let me pay our bill for our first date. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings and I should’ve just listened to you.” He admitted and I nod, I put my arms around his waist and push him into a hug.

“I don’t like fighting with you because I have been in the psychology classes for a long time,” I tell him and he pulls out of the hug. “I know and I’m sorry I’m such a grumpy asshole a lot.” He pecks my lips quickly and I nod.

He was running one hand through my hair and one against my jawline. “You’re not a grumpy asshole all the time. I mean you go through your man-period but I love you anyways.” I joke and he just rolled his eyes. He kisses my lips again and I smile.

“Do we need to study for the test?” He asks and I nod quickly. “Please,” I reply and he takes hold of my hand to drag me down the hall. “Can you just pay off my teacher?” I joke and he just shakes his head.

“The money joke won’t end now, will it?” He asks and I shake my head.

“Nope, you played yourself.”

In case anyone wants to know, I’m in the process of making a masterlist. I was gonna do it this afternoon but I had a dr appointment, so I’ll take care of it soon!

[rebeccahpedersen]

Would You Lease To This Mystery-Tenant?

TorontoRealtyBlog

With new legislation continuing to favour tenants over landlords, a landlord has to make very sure that he or she wants to effectively be “partners” in a real estate investment, since a tenant is very hard to remove once the lease is signed and the key is in the door.

I’ve always been extremely diligent when evaluating candidacy for my investor-clients.

Last month, I received an offer on a rental property with a very mysterious tenant.

Let me tell the whole story, and you decide whether or not you’d have this person as your tenant…

Okay, maybe that photo is a bit overboard.

It’s not like we didn’t see the tenant’s face in the story I’m about to tell.

But even when you do meet the tenant, and even when he or she is nice, pleasant, says all the right things, and seems trustworthy, it can blow up in your face.

Last month, there was a story about a “professional scammer” in Liberty Village who had duped at least twelve landlords and/or roommates.  Read the story HERE.

I’m also reminded of another story, this one from 2016, which is a classic “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson.

As this article reads, a “well-dressed, professional-tenant” had been duping landlords in Yorkville, and gaming the system designed to protect both landlords and tenants.  A 62-year-old man, seemingly-normal, wearing a suit, with tales of his career as a professional, had been moving into expensive condos, not paying the rent, and then forcing the landlords to chase him through the courts for eviction.

As I tell my investor-clients, the professional scammers usually stick to online ads, and don’t look to MLS for their prey.  If they do, they’re looking for an absentee-landlord, with an absent-minded agent, and if and when they’re pressed on personal info, they’ll simply flee, and move on to an easier target.

Nonetheless, I try to be very diligent when looking for tenants for my investor-clients, while trying to avoid doing anything that could be construed as “discrimination.”

What actually is discrimination can change like the direction of the wind, and as the word gets softer, and a lot weirder as we wind down 2017, I think a lot of people would cry “discrimination” if they could.

This is why when rejecting a candidate, you simply say, “We’re going in another direction,” and not answer any follow-up questions, as was the case last month when my investor clients turned aside a rather mysterious tenant.

Mysterious might not be the right word, as I alluded to above.

But “sketchy” is fair.  And I’m sure we could think up some other words to describe her.

But in the end, we just didn’t think she passed the “sniff test,” which is a very inexact science, but one that is often the most useful, nonetheless.

As is the case with many of my stories, I’m going to change some of the details to try to protect anonymity…

I had a listing for a 1-bed, 1-bath condo in the west end, up for lease for $1,995/month.

Surprisingly, it didn’t lease in the first 12 hours like most places in this red-hot Toronto rental market, and it actually sat for a full week!

On the eighth day of the listing, I received a phone call from a rather young agent who said he would be submitting an offer on behalf of his client, and that the client was a “Triple-A tenant with great income.”

He wasn’t wrong, on the latter part – at least not at face value.

Upon receiving the offer shortly thereafter, I scanned through the supporting documents.  Those documents, for those of you that don’t know, are usually the following:

1) Rental Application (OREA document – name, DOB, address, last two places of residence, occupation, present and prior employment, financial obligations, personal references, etc).

2) Credit Check (I always ask for Equifax, full version, with the “FICO Score” and all debt as well as credit inquiries).

3) Employment Letter

Beyond these, however, I insist upon “proof” of employment, such as recent pay stubs, or a screenshot of a bank account showing deposits from the employer.

I also look up the tenant on LinkedIn (any business professional without LinkedIn is suspicious), Facebook (see how they act in their spare time), Instagram, Pinterest, and anything else I can find online.

So upon receiving these supporting documents, the first one I looked at was the employment letter.

That was the first red flag.

Wait, that’s not exactly true.  The very first red flag was the very first thing you’d see on any rental application or offer: the tenant’s name.

Ruby Starr

Yes, this tenant’s name was Ruby Starr.

Now, I don’t think you have to be a regular visitor to websites that would crash your hard-drive to think that perhaps a name like “Ruby Starr” might be one you’d find in the world of adult entertainment.

The name was a bit odd, but I moved along regardless.

I got to the employment letter, and that’s when my spidey-sense really started tingling.

Ms. Ruby Starr, apparently, made $95,000 per year working at a sandwich shop.

But it wasn’t just any sandwich shop; it was one in Niagara Falls.

It really didn’t make any sense to me.

And the letter was on a blank, white, standard, 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, typed in Times New Roman, and signed by a guy whose name was something out of The Sopranos.

I looked up the sandwich shop, and they did indeed exist.  Not only that, they were quite well-known, with five locations in Niagara Falls.

The employment letter said that Ruby Starr was going to head up the expansion plan of this “family company” that sells sandwiches in Niagara Falls, as they look to open two locations in Toronto.

I called the gentleman who signed the letter, and he sounded somewhat legit.  He said that Ms. Starr would be driving around to different suppliers, managing the new locations, overseeing the construction, etc., and it all sounded good until he sort of trailed off, like he was focused on something else but still trying to speak into the phone, and he just started muttering random words like, “direct suppliers…….bakery buns…….you know, cold cuts………like two locations………it’s all good……..salads too.”

I can’t quite explain it, but I felt as though the person I was speaking to wasn’t really all there on our phone call.

I followed up with the cooperating agent and asked for a few recent pay stubs, and he emailed them to me within five minutes.

That was either very helpful, and convenient, or it was suspicious – as in why didn’t he send these over with all the other supporting documentation before?

The “pay stubs” weren’t really stubs of any sort.  They were basically two PDF’s, which contained deposit amounts and looked as though they were typed in Excel.

Anybody could have typed those up, clicked “Save as PDF,” and called them stubs.

But even more suspicious now was the fact that the address on the pay stubs didn’t match the address on the rental application, which upon further research, didn’t match the address on the driver’s license.

And I’m not sure if this matters, but that driver’s license had expired.

So we had three different mailing addresses, and none of them were in Niagara Falls where Ms. Starr apparently had worked for the past six months – according to her rental application.

Oh, wait, one more thing – the guy from The Sopranos said she had been working for him for over a year.

It was all pretty messy, if you ask me.

This girl made $90,000+ working for a family sandwich-chain, in Niagara Falls, having never lived there, and she had three different addresses.

And her name was Ruby Starr…

I looked her up online, and she had no LinkedIn profile.

I found her on Facebook, and she looked……..well……

….well, I asked one of the younger guys in my office, “Hey, what does this girl look like to you?”

He smiled, as though it were a trick question, and said, “I dunno, an escort?”

I asked him, “Come on, be serious.  What do you think when you see this photo?”

He said, “I think that girl is probably at that club (in the photo) to meet rich men.”

He identified the club as Cabana from the background, and then we went through four or five other photos of her at clubs, which he identified.

I felt somewhat guilty, simply judging or labelling this girl because of how she looked.  But the name!  I couldn’t get over the name!  The $95,000 salary too!  It didn’t add up.

I discussed the situation with my landlord-clients, and they said they wanted to meet Ms. Starr.

So I told the cooperating agent that my landlord would be at the condo on Saturday, and she could drop by and say “hello.”

My clients Brad and Allison, called me after the meeting, and they were pretty coy.

“We’re not quite sure what to say,” Brad told me.  “Something was…….off.”

“Yeah, something was off.  That’s a good way to put it,” Allison said.  “The girl just seemed so spaced out, and nervous!  Oh my word, was she nervous!  She wouldn’t look us in the eye, she kept staring at the floor, and she kept fidgeting.”

I asked for them to tell me a little more about her, and they said things like, “She was nice,” and “She seemed pleasant,” but it wasn’t really what I was getting at.

So I said, “Brad, I’m going to ask Allison this question so you don’t get in trouble.  Allison, was this girl attractive?”

Allison said, “Yes.”

I asked, “Very?”

And Allison said, “She was a rocket, David!  A rocket!”

Brad laughed, and said, “Yeah, look, I don’t know what she does for a living, and maybe part of me doesn’t care, but something seems off here.”

Brad then asked if her boss told me what she was doing, and I said yes, that he said she’d be driving around to different suppliers, the various locations they were opening, etc.

There was a pause, and then Allison said, “David that’s so odd, because we asked her if she wanted to see the parking space, and she said she didn’t have a car!”

That was strange.

But even stranger was when Ms. Starr also said she hadn’t seen the condo!  She said, “My agent just made this offer for me; I haven’t seen this place yet.”

Everything that this girl said raised another red flag.

At one point, she said she didn’t know where the two new sandwich shop locations were going to be, and when pressed, she said, “I can’t tell you, we’re not telling people.”

Then somehow or other, her background came up, and she said, “I’m from Russia, but I was adopted by a very wealthy family.”

When asked about the three addresses she provided, she said that she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and the address on her pay stubs were from his place, but she was staying with her parents (the second address), and she simply “forgot” what she was doing when filling out the rental application with the third address, because she was “rushed.”

It didn’t add up.

She made almost $100K per year working for a sandwich shop in Niagara Falls, but had never lived in Niagara Falls.

She provided us with three different addresses.

Her only piece of ID was an expired driver’s license.

She had never seen the condo when the offer was made on her behalf.

Her employment letter was typed on a blank piece of paper, and her pay stubs were just PDF’s from Excel.

She had no car, but her boss said her job involved driving around.

She said she had worked at the sandwich shop for six months, but her boss said over a year.

Her boss was just as sketchy as she was.

She was apparently from Russia, but adopted by a “wealthy Canadian family.”

Her Facebook photos were all of her, very dressed up, at nightclubs.

And her name, was Ruby Starr.

It was just all way too convoluted, and there was no reason for the landlords to take the risk that this wasn’t some sort of scam.

I’m sorry, this girl could end up being the nicest human on the planet.  I could be totally wrong in all of this.  There could be logical explanations for every single red flag I’ve raised above.  But in the end, there is always another renter out there, and with vacancy rates in Toronto at less than 1%, there’s no reason to work with this prospective tenant.

Of course, it helped that later that night – after the meeting between Ruby Starr and my clients, we received another offer on the condo.

This offer was from a 27-year-old who worked for RBC, and had 400 connections on his LinkedIn profile, with a dozen recommendations.  He made $80,000 per year, had a credit score over 800, virtually no debt other than a small credit card balance, and was living in a condo on Fort York Boulevard that his landlord was selling.

He checked out, with ease.  He was the very definition of a “Triple-A” tenant.

The final decision was up to my clients, of course.  But I told them I’d advise them to reject the offer from Ruby Starr, and lease the condo to the young man who worked at RBC.

And that’s what they did.

They felt bad, as did I.

It sucks to have to “judge” somebody, but that’s what we’re doing when “evaluating candidacy.”

Real estate scams are not just something you read about in the newspaper – they’re very common, and I’ve seen agents in my own office lease to people who turned out not to be who they claimed.

I’ve seen friends and colleagues scammed as well.

So when you’re dealing with your own investment property, that you worked hard to purchase, and you’re working harder to look after, there’s nothing wrong with being diligent.

And if your “spidey-sense” is tingling with respect to a certain candidate, move on.

As I said, there’s always another prospective tenant waiting…

The post Would You Lease To This Mystery-Tenant? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2BcWoWh

[creepypasta-fictions]

The Teacher (pt.8)

Susan removed her now wet, and shaky hand from the soggy inside of Amy’s schoolbag, only to discover that her hand was completely coated with blood. Thick, dark, brown & red, still wet blood. How did it get there? Amy had been dead for a week? And how hadn’t the police picked up on it? There had to be only one explanation - the blood had been put there after Susan had left the police station. Picking up the bloody jar from inside the bag that she had somehow missed, Susan cleaned up all of the blood out of Amy’s bag, not daring to speak a word of this to anyone. She decided to wash the jar, too, because she assumed that there wouldn’t be any more clues. However, whilst she was subconsciously washing the jar, she didn’t notice a small, soggy strip of folded paper fall out of the jar, and down the drain. It was a note directly addressed for Susan, and she was supposed to find it, but she didn’t. The note read;

“Susan Higginson,

I told you you wouldn’t get away with this Detective shit anymore. You little investigation is over.

Your time at Harvard is over.

Your time in life is almost over.”

Susan used the rest of the evening to ponder about how that blood may have got there, attempting to trace her every move.

***

She had stopped off at the corner shop to buy a large plastic bag for everything, however it was dark, so someone could have been following her and she wouldn’t have known. She had set the bag and all of Amy’s belongings aside for just one second. She then started a conversation with the strangely familiar looking cashier, who had long brown hair which appeared to be a wig. His face resembled Mr Andrews’ - even the purply tint from heavy drinking. Speaking of which, they both reeked of alcohol. Susan even remembered thinking ‘I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to drink on the job’ But the name badge, it didn’t match Stephen Andrews. It said... Daniel Shields... obviously he was trying to impersonate someone. Susan then thought back to the conversation.

“Did ya hear about the killer that’s going round killing law students? I heard he’s operating in multiple states right now,”

“Yeah, unfortunately, it’s been all over the news. How could anyone not hear about it? The last murder was a couple weeks ago, a girl named Amy Parker, was at Harvard. Since the Universities have both closed now, things seemed to have calmed down a bit.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Yale is still open, isn’t it?”

“It won’t be long before it closes. The headteacher is the same for Yale as Harvard and he travels. I have no doubt the area will remain safe,” She finished that sentence with a fake smile, unsuspecting of the fact this was Mr Andrews, until she looked back on it now...

“Here’s your receipt, Miss.” he said. Now this was the moment of opportunity for him to slip something in the bag. Susan was looking at her phone, telling her mom she would be home late. However, it seemed like the receipt wasn’t the only thing that was slipped into her bag...

On her way home, she carried the bag on her arm, and it did feel a bit heavier than what it did when she first arrived in the corner shop, although she put it down to the material, unsuspecting of the fact he slipped a jar in it, filled with Amy’s preserved blood, and a blank tissue as opposed to the receipt. And of course, the ominous warning note that Susan had received.

***

The next morning, Susan was awakened with a jump in shock, as a result of her mother calling loudly to her. “SUSIE! Get down here now, I need a serious word with you!!!”

Apprehensive, Susan shakily slipped on her slippers, and made her way cautiously down the stairs into the dining room, only to find her mother with one hand on her hip, and the other clutching a letter that was obviously from Harvard, holding it up high. “Can you explain this to me?!” She slammed the letter down on the kitchen table. Susan picked up her glasses and began to scrutinise the letter.

Dear Mrs Higginson,

I am writing to inform you that your daughter Susanne Higginson has been removed from Harvard University due to interference with private affairs. I am aware that she has had a rather difficult time in the past few months, especially since a peer unfortunately fell victim to the current state of affairs. Due to these unfortunate events, I have taken unprecedented actions and closed Harvard University.

As you are already aware, I am also the principal of Yale University in Connecticut, and students from Harvard have transferred there. Due to the recent exclusion of our daughter, she has not been present on the automatic enrollment list. That being said, if you are concerned about your daughter’s education and future, please do not hesitate to contact the American education authorities and work something out.

Yours sincerly,

Prof. Steven Andrews, Principal of Harvard University

“Interfering with private affairs - what’s he on about Susie?! If this is about Amy, then I told you to-“

“Stop playing Detective, I know! You’re not the only person who has said that to me. But no! I won’t stop playing Detective! You know why? Because I’m the only one who has clues!”

“But Susie-“

“No ‘but Susie’s’ either! I’m through with it! I’m done with all of everyone’s shit! Amy, Nicole and all of those other victims are still waiting for justice. Mr Blackburn is the killer and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to prove it!” Susan slammed the door, running away with the letter, off to the American Education office of Cambridge, hoping that they could sort something out at Yale for her. This was her last hope now. Mr Andrews and Mr Blackburn had jeopardised all of her other chances of catching them. Because Harvard was closed and there were no students left, they had no reason to be there, thus all the more reason to carry on murdering students up in the Connecticut University whilst Susan was out of the picture. In that letter to her mother, Mr Andrews had left Yale as an open option to Susan just so as not to make it obvious he wanted rid of her or whatever he may have insinuated with the whole “private affairs” statement. He was sucking up to her, and Susan did not appreciate it.

************

Susan was denied a place at Yale University, so she decided to continue with her degree at home. However, she made it her business to travel up to Connecticut whenever she could. She even stayed in a hotel there one night. That exact same night, she saw on the news...

“Breaking news, Channel 7. There has unfortunately been another murder and the victim was unfortunately a law student named Sally Claire, of whom attended Yale University. This has been our first murder up in Connecticut for a month, which makes us wonder, did the killer take a break? This has been addressed in the news, but warning goes out to all citizens, particularly Yale University law students, to watch your back. This may be unrelated, but the body has been examined by forensic pathologists and they have determined that the brutal methods of torture used on this individual match the killer’s methodical ways of killing the previous victims.”

Susan raised her eyebrows. This had been the first murder since Amy, which now dated back to a month ago. A lot had happened since then. Susan had since turned 19, she was way ahead of the national average on her degree, and was predicted to achieve a Grade A and possibly graduate early. She hadn’t seen Mr Blackburn or Mr Andrews since and ironically, there were had been no more murders. The news people were still blabbering on and on about the killer, though, as they thought he had gone into hiding, little did they know, he’d just moved, along with his partner in crime. Also, what was particularly disturbing about this murder case was the physical appearance of Sally Claire - the latest victim.

Brown hair, pigtails, braces, large glasses, pale as a ghost, slender, and dressed in very formal - almost masculine - attire. Susan could have sworn this was her doppelgänger. She wasn’t exactly the same as her, however she was eerily similar. Hopping on to the computer, she grabbed the first image of Sally she could find (unfortunately it happened to be from CNN, which she knew was fake news but she only wanted the image) and she proceeded to print it off, sticking it in her enquiry file that she had made especially for her own personal investigation into the murders. This folder included photographs of the victims (mostly photos of Amy) an autopsy report copy for each of the victims, news articles, and any information she could find from trustworthy news websites (which mind you, are virtually impossible to find nowadays).

After Susan had stuck in the photograph of Sally, she stuck a photograph of herself beside it. She chose the one in which made her look most like Sally, just so she could compare them both. There was virtually no difference. And it scared Susan, despite Mr Blackburn and Mr Andrews being oblivious to her secret trip to Connecticut, it seemed as though they had narrowed down her criteria.

Not only did they want to kill law students - they now were going after law students that looked like Susan Higginson.

***

When Sally’s autopsy report was published, of course Susan downloaded a copy.

Briefly glancing at her brown wristwatch, Susan threw on a green flannel shirt and some denim overalls before heading out, to the woods nearest Yale University. Upon getting there, she stumbled upon a pile of debris halfway down the public walkway. She knelt down and shuffled through it, hoping to find some kind of indication that something had been going on up here. There were several things; A wig, of a brown bowl cut hairstyle, a wallet, which contained the ID of Daniel Shields, (the photograph showed his hair resembling the wig) and a backback which appeared to be empty. Perhaps it was a mugging?

Name: Daniel Shields

Date of Birth: 17th January 1998

Occupation: Shop assistant at Thames St, Cambridge, MS, United States

Education status: Currently studying law at Yale University, previously Harvard

Current state: Connecticut

Susan came to an abrupt halt in her tracks when she heard yelling. However, it was too far away for her to comprehend what they were saying. However, she recognised two of the evil, booming voices as Mr Blackburn and Mr Andrews, who were now laughing sadistically. Frowning, Susan edged closer to where the shouting was coming from, and eventually could make out a series of desperate cries for help. Peering over the hill cautiously, she gasped in horror at the scene that was unfolding. There was a man who resembled Daniel Shields’ ID, who was tied up from behind, on his knees. In front of him was the purple-faced Mr Andrews, pointing a Glock .17 handgun at Daniel’s forehead. Behind Daniel was Mr Blackburn, with a large knife poised on his back, as if he was getting ready to stab him in the back (which sounds ironic in the circumstances).

Susan’s suspicions were confirmed now. She scrambled through her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. She knew this was an extremely fucked up thing to do and she felt guilty as sin, but she began filming. If she did not catch the perpetrators now, this video would be the only evidence she had in court. Whilst the video was recording, the conversation was as followed:

“I GAVE YOU MY DAMN ID AND WALLET?! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT, MOTHERFUCKER?!” Daniel Shields begged, crying for mercy. However, this just seemed to aggravate Mr Andrews even more. “That’s Professor Andrews to you, you little bitch! You are a law student! You’re destined to grow up and be one of the greatest lawyers in all of America!” His volatile voice reeked of sarcasm. Mr Blackburn was the next one to pipe up. “We can’t let that happen! You’ll send a down to court for the minor, petty cries we’ve committed! We can’t let law students expose us like that! I’ve already done enough time in prison!”

“W-will you let me go if I promise not to say a word?” Daniel sniffed.

“Pfft. Letting you to is outta the question now, kid. We got you, and you’re gonna die. Just like Nicole, just like Amy, just like Sally, and just like in the future Susan Higgin-“

CRASH.

.....

To be continued...

[anthonykrierion]

Marketing is Not About Making Claims; it’s About Fostering Conclusions

Imagine for a moment you are in the 10-items-or-less line at the grocery store. There is a man in front of you getting rung up. He’s wearing sunglasses and a suit. You note amusingly to yourself that he must be especially sensitive to fluorescent light. He’s talking loudly on the phone while the clerk patiently scans his only items: 11 huge containers of protein.

“I’m a closer Frank — it’s what I do,” he gabs into his late-model iPhone Plus. “I’m the best in this city. Believe me. You’ve never seen a closer as good as me, Frank. Frank? You there Frank? Yeah, did you hear what I said Frank? I’m a closer!”

Once the clerk is done ringing him up, he pays, mouths “thank you” and plops a glossy, white business card on the counter. Looking from the clerk to you he points to the card, shoots both of you a thumbs up, gathers his protein into his cart, and walks out the door continuing his deafening conversation with Frank.

His card features a typical real estate logo and a glamor shot of his bust without sunglasses. Though, you do make another half-amusing note-to-self that he is wearing the same tie.

Why Marketers are Just Like Frank’s Photophobic Associate

I took a while painting that picture for you because — every day — marketers do the same thing as Frank’s photophobic associate. We make wild claims about ourselves and expect people to be impressed. When, really, all we’re doing is helping them conclude that we’re not the kind of company they would want to do business with.

The worst part is that a business usually exists in the marketplace because they DO have real value to offer customers. But most of us don’t know how to communicate that to our customers effectively.

When we can get it right, however, and rather than make claims, foster conclusions in the mind of the customer, the results can be powerful.

Take this MECLABS certified experiment recently run with a single-product nutrition company.

Experiment: Background

Test Protocol: TP1798

Experiment ID: Protected

Location: MECLABS Research Library

Background: A single-product company that sells high-quality, all-natural powdered health drinks

Goal:  To increase order conversion

Primary Research Question: Which of the following pages will produce the highest conversion rate?

Approach: A/B multi-factorial split test

Experiment: Control

                            Now, take a moment to look at the Control in this test. Before you read any further, it might help you understand what I’m talking about better if you try to identify any photophobic-guy-like claims in the page copy.

Now, they aren’t as dramatic as our opening character, but they are there.

Boost Your Energy and Metabolism

Improve Digestion and Gastrointestinal Function

Detoxify and Alkalize Your Body at a Cellular Level

Save Time and Money

Limited Offer! Act Now!

There’s more, but let’s just focus on these for a second. It seems at face value to be good copywriting. The words are well-chosen, interesting, and they have a kind of energy to them. But at their heart, they are just bragging.

As a result, the conclusions in the mind of the customer who might be reading this page must be couched in a kind of suspension of disbelief if they are to continue. Maybe the people who buy already know the company is trustworthy so they go on to fill out the form and purchase.

But what about the people unfamiliar with the company? To them, this is just another fad super-food that claims it’s the best. There’s no evidence, no logical argument, no facts to back up what they are saying.

But now, consider the Treatment in this experiment as a contrast.

Experiment: Treatment

                              In the Treatment, we change a little bit of the copy, but we achieve an entirely different result in the mind of the customer. The copy has changed to focus not on claims, but rather facts, which, in turn, foster the overall conclusion that this is an excellent product and worth paying for.

Made from 75 whole food sourced ingredients in their natural form

Contains probiotics and enzymes for optimal nutrient absorption and digestion

Carefully formulated by doctors and nutritionists to deliver essential nutrients

10+ years of research to develop an easy to mix powder with naturally sweet taste

What’s the result?

Experiment: Results

The result is a 34% increase in conversion. And for an ecommerce product like this one, that translates to pure revenue.

Foster Conclusions, Don’t Make Claims, Make More Money

In the end, people are still people. We are mostly reasonable. We hear arguments and we can change our minds. But when we hear someone making braggadocios claims, rather than trying to rationally win us over, we are naturally repulsed. Your customers are the same way. And when we foster the right conclusions in their mind about us using facts, data, and tangible evidence, we will inevitably feel better about our marketing, and make more money in the process.

You Might Also Like:

The Prospect’s Reality Gap

The Web as a Living Laboratory

Brand: The aggregate experience of the value proposition

The Boston Globe: Discovering and optimizing a value proposition for content

Marketing is Not About Making Claims; it’s About Fostering Conclusions was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

[rebeccahpedersen]

Would You Lease To This Mystery-Tenant?

TorontoRealtyBlog

With new legislation continuing to favour tenants over landlords, a landlord has to make very sure that he or she wants to effectively be “partners” in a real estate investment, since a tenant is very hard to remove once the lease is signed and the key is in the door.

I’ve always been extremely diligent when evaluating candidacy for my investor-clients.

Last month, I received an offer on a rental property with a very mysterious tenant.

Let me tell the whole story, and you decide whether or not you’d have this person as your tenant…

Okay, maybe that photo is a bit overboard.

It’s not like we didn’t see the tenant’s face in the story I’m about to tell.

But even when you do meet the tenant, and even when he or she is nice, pleasant, says all the right things, and seems trustworthy, it can blow up in your face.

Last month, there was a story about a “professional scammer” in Liberty Village who had duped at least twelve landlords and/or roommates.  Read the story HERE.

I’m also reminded of another story, this one from 2016, which is a classic “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson.

As this article reads, a “well-dressed, professional-tenant” had been duping landlords in Yorkville, and gaming the system designed to protect both landlords and tenants.  A 62-year-old man, seemingly-normal, wearing a suit, with tales of his career as a professional, had been moving into expensive condos, not paying the rent, and then forcing the landlords to chase him through the courts for eviction.

As I tell my investor-clients, the professional scammers usually stick to online ads, and don’t look to MLS for their prey.  If they do, they’re looking for an absentee-landlord, with an absent-minded agent, and if and when they’re pressed on personal info, they’ll simply flee, and move on to an easier target.

Nonetheless, I try to be very diligent when looking for tenants for my investor-clients, while trying to avoid doing anything that could be construed as “discrimination.”

What actually is discrimination can change like the direction of the wind, and as the word gets softer, and a lot weirder as we wind down 2017, I think a lot of people would cry “discrimination” if they could.

This is why when rejecting a candidate, you simply say, “We’re going in another direction,” and not answer any follow-up questions, as was the case last month when my investor clients turned aside a rather mysterious tenant.

Mysterious might not be the right word, as I alluded to above.

But “sketchy” is fair.  And I’m sure we could think up some other words to describe her.

But in the end, we just didn’t think she passed the “sniff test,” which is a very inexact science, but one that is often the most useful, nonetheless.

As is the case with many of my stories, I’m going to change some of the details to try to protect anonymity…

I had a listing for a 1-bed, 1-bath condo in the west end, up for lease for $1,995/month.

Surprisingly, it didn’t lease in the first 12 hours like most places in this red-hot Toronto rental market, and it actually sat for a full week!

On the eighth day of the listing, I received a phone call from a rather young agent who said he would be submitting an offer on behalf of his client, and that the client was a “Triple-A tenant with great income.”

He wasn’t wrong, on the latter part – at least not at face value.

Upon receiving the offer shortly thereafter, I scanned through the supporting documents.  Those documents, for those of you that don’t know, are usually the following:

1) Rental Application (OREA document – name, DOB, address, last two places of residence, occupation, present and prior employment, financial obligations, personal references, etc).

2) Credit Check (I always ask for Equifax, full version, with the “FICO Score” and all debt as well as credit inquiries).

3) Employment Letter

Beyond these, however, I insist upon “proof” of employment, such as recent pay stubs, or a screenshot of a bank account showing deposits from the employer.

I also look up the tenant on LinkedIn (any business professional without LinkedIn is suspicious), Facebook (see how they act in their spare time), Instagram, Pinterest, and anything else I can find online.

So upon receiving these supporting documents, the first one I looked at was the employment letter.

That was the first red flag.

Wait, that’s not exactly true.  The very first red flag was the very first thing you’d see on any rental application or offer: the tenant’s name.

Ruby Starr

Yes, this tenant’s name was Ruby Starr.

Now, I don’t think you have to be a regular visitor to websites that would crash your hard-drive to think that perhaps a name like “Ruby Starr” might be one you’d find in the world of adult entertainment.

The name was a bit odd, but I moved along regardless.

I got to the employment letter, and that’s when my spidey-sense really started tingling.

Ms. Ruby Starr, apparently, made $95,000 per year working at a sandwich shop.

But it wasn’t just any sandwich shop; it was one in Niagara Falls.

It really didn’t make any sense to me.

And the letter was on a blank, white, standard, 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, typed in Times New Roman, and signed by a guy whose name was something out of The Sopranos.

I looked up the sandwich shop, and they did indeed exist.  Not only that, they were quite well-known, with five locations in Niagara Falls.

The employment letter said that Ruby Starr was going to head up the expansion plan of this “family company” that sells sandwiches in Niagara Falls, as they look to open two locations in Toronto.

I called the gentleman who signed the letter, and he sounded somewhat legit.  He said that Ms. Starr would be driving around to different suppliers, managing the new locations, overseeing the construction, etc., and it all sounded good until he sort of trailed off, like he was focused on something else but still trying to speak into the phone, and he just started muttering random words like, “direct suppliers…….bakery buns…….you know, cold cuts………like two locations………it’s all good……..salads too.”

I can’t quite explain it, but I felt as though the person I was speaking to wasn’t really all there on our phone call.

I followed up with the cooperating agent and asked for a few recent pay stubs, and he emailed them to me within five minutes.

That was either very helpful, and convenient, or it was suspicious – as in why didn’t he send these over with all the other supporting documentation before?

The “pay stubs” weren’t really stubs of any sort.  They were basically two PDF’s, which contained deposit amounts and looked as though they were typed in Excel.

Anybody could have typed those up, clicked “Save as PDF,” and called them stubs.

But even more suspicious now was the fact that the address on the pay stubs didn’t match the address on the rental application, which upon further research, didn’t match the address on the driver’s license.

And I’m not sure if this matters, but that driver’s license had expired.

So we had three different mailing addresses, and none of them were in Niagara Falls where Ms. Starr apparently had worked for the past six months – according to her rental application.

Oh, wait, one more thing – the guy from The Sopranos said she had been working for him for over a year.

It was all pretty messy, if you ask me.

This girl made $90,000+ working for a family sandwich-chain, in Niagara Falls, having never lived there, and she had three different addresses.

And her name was Ruby Starr…

I looked her up online, and she had no LinkedIn profile.

I found her on Facebook, and she looked……..well……

….well, I asked one of the younger guys in my office, “Hey, what does this girl look like to you?”

He smiled, as though it were a trick question, and said, “I dunno, an escort?”

I asked him, “Come on, be serious.  What do you think when you see this photo?”

He said, “I think that girl is probably at that club (in the photo) to meet rich men.”

He identified the club as Cabana from the background, and then we went through four or five other photos of her at clubs, which he identified.

I felt somewhat guilty, simply judging or labelling this girl because of how she looked.  But the name!  I couldn’t get over the name!  The $95,000 salary too!  It didn’t add up.

I discussed the situation with my landlord-clients, and they said they wanted to meet Ms. Starr.

So I told the cooperating agent that my landlord would be at the condo on Saturday, and she could drop by and say “hello.”

My clients Brad and Allison, called me after the meeting, and they were pretty coy.

“We’re not quite sure what to say,” Brad told me.  “Something was…….off.”

“Yeah, something was off.  That’s a good way to put it,” Allison said.  “The girl just seemed so spaced out, and nervous!  Oh my word, was she nervous!  She wouldn’t look us in the eye, she kept staring at the floor, and she kept fidgeting.”

I asked for them to tell me a little more about her, and they said things like, “She was nice,” and “She seemed pleasant,” but it wasn’t really what I was getting at.

So I said, “Brad, I’m going to ask Allison this question so you don’t get in trouble.  Allison, was this girl attractive?”

Allison said, “Yes.”

I asked, “Very?”

And Allison said, “She was a rocket, David!  A rocket!”

Brad laughed, and said, “Yeah, look, I don’t know what she does for a living, and maybe part of me doesn’t care, but something seems off here.”

Brad then asked if her boss told me what she was doing, and I said yes, that he said she’d be driving around to different suppliers, the various locations they were opening, etc.

There was a pause, and then Allison said, “David that’s so odd, because we asked her if she wanted to see the parking space, and she said she didn’t have a car!”

That was strange.

But even stranger was when Ms. Starr also said she hadn’t seen the condo!  She said, “My agent just made this offer for me; I haven’t seen this place yet.”

Everything that this girl said raised another red flag.

At one point, she said she didn’t know where the two new sandwich shop locations were going to be, and when pressed, she said, “I can’t tell you, we’re not telling people.”

Then somehow or other, her background came up, and she said, “I’m from Russia, but I was adopted by a very wealthy family.”

When asked about the three addresses she provided, she said that she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and the address on her pay stubs were from his place, but she was staying with her parents (the second address), and she simply “forgot” what she was doing when filling out the rental application with the third address, because she was “rushed.”

It didn’t add up.

She made almost $100K per year working for a sandwich shop in Niagara Falls, but had never lived in Niagara Falls.

She provided us with three different addresses.

Her only piece of ID was an expired driver’s license.

She had never seen the condo when the offer was made on her behalf.

Her employment letter was typed on a blank piece of paper, and her pay stubs were just PDF’s from Excel.

She had no car, but her boss said her job involved driving around.

She said she had worked at the sandwich shop for six months, but her boss said over a year.

Her boss was just as sketchy as she was.

She was apparently from Russia, but adopted by a “wealthy Canadian family.”

Her Facebook photos were all of her, very dressed up, at nightclubs.

And her name, was Ruby Starr.

It was just all way too convoluted, and there was no reason for the landlords to take the risk that this wasn’t some sort of scam.

I’m sorry, this girl could end up being the nicest human on the planet.  I could be totally wrong in all of this.  There could be logical explanations for every single red flag I’ve raised above.  But in the end, there is always another renter out there, and with vacancy rates in Toronto at less than 1%, there’s no reason to work with this prospective tenant.

Of course, it helped that later that night – after the meeting between Ruby Starr and my clients, we received another offer on the condo.

This offer was from a 27-year-old who worked for RBC, and had 400 connections on his LinkedIn profile, with a dozen recommendations.  He made $80,000 per year, had a credit score over 800, virtually no debt other than a small credit card balance, and was living in a condo on Fort York Boulevard that his landlord was selling.

He checked out, with ease.  He was the very definition of a “Triple-A” tenant.

The final decision was up to my clients, of course.  But I told them I’d advise them to reject the offer from Ruby Starr, and lease the condo to the young man who worked at RBC.

And that’s what they did.

They felt bad, as did I.

It sucks to have to “judge” somebody, but that’s what we’re doing when “evaluating candidacy.”

Real estate scams are not just something you read about in the newspaper – they’re very common, and I’ve seen agents in my own office lease to people who turned out not to be who they claimed.

I’ve seen friends and colleagues scammed as well.

So when you’re dealing with your own investment property, that you worked hard to purchase, and you’re working harder to look after, there’s nothing wrong with being diligent.

And if your “spidey-sense” is tingling with respect to a certain candidate, move on.

As I said, there’s always another prospective tenant waiting…

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