#yes read into whatever the fuck is happening with kat and sun

[khaothanawat]

what i appreciate about midnight motel is that it’s super fast paced, in a really engaging and hilarious way, but it’s also slipping out details about the characters in what feels like the slowest way possible.

the details get fed to us in tiny slithers, flashing unobtrusively up onto the screen in between the beats of the main story - and that makes the pacing of those reveals feel dissonant to the rest of the episode in a really cool way.

and it’s fascinating because it feels like they’re just leaking out small drips of information and then not talking about them again.

but because this is a dark comedy, it’s so hard to know how seriously to take it all - like, are these tiny bits of character story clues as to what’s actually going on? or should we just be taking it at face value, for the wild heightened reality it is?

we’re halfway through and there are all these tiny little plot threads that are appearing without being resolved - like who has pat’s money, what was up with that conversation between mote and doy about kat, who is the boss, what the fuck even happened to pat exactly. also why could tawi from not me track pat’s car, but not his PHONE? bitch, you don’t have find my friends on? also i have questions on literally everything involving sun and kat. so so many questions. also is mote really a teenager bc off jumpol is my age and i look youngish but “teen” is a stretch and like… off… off, my hetero husband, i swear i’m gonna save you from being cast as a teenager one day like i KNOW you’re talented but you don’t deserve to be teencoded like this like i’m gonna help i’m gonna get you out of here-

i’m just so curious as to whether i should be paying closer attention or not to the little things the show has been quietly telling us, or if it’s simply better to just go with it, because it’s a 6-episode comedy that repeatedly breaks the fourth wall, and why think about it too hard.

[britswriting]

Devotion (12)

Devotion Masterlist

Read on Wattpad

Warning: talk of affairs, talk of drinking and driving, talk of drugs, talk of addiction + rehab

*Colby's POV*

"You fucking idiot!" I winced, feeling the duvet being yanked off of me; my eye popping open to see Sam hovering above me.

I immediately squinted, the bright morning light shining through the giant hotel windows causing my head to pound even worse.

"Chloe?! Fucking really?" Sam continued, smacking me on the side of the head, not helping my headache.

"Ow! What the fuck!"

"How long!"

"What?" I winced, wishing my best friend would calm the fuck down for two seconds.

"How long have you been fucking Chloe?" He repeated, ignoring my discomfort as my head pounded.

"I haven't been fucking Chloe" I groaned, rolling over on the bed, hoping to hide my eyes from the obnoxious Nevada sun.

"Save your lies for someone else Colby! I just kicked her out of your fucking hotel room after having her get dressed in the bathroom!" Sam continued, pulling at my legs so I started to slide off the once comfortable bed, my body falling onto the floor, a deep groan slipping past my lips.

"Why are you here?" I groaned, not yet processing that he just pulled me out of my bed; my knees stinging from the hotel carpet.

"Why did you fuck Chloe?"

"I didn't fuck her" I grumbled, the side of my cheek resting against the floor, not bothering to get up.

"Your used condom on the floor says otherwise!" Sam scolded, my eyes widening as I quickly shoved myself up off the floor.

"I didn't fuck her!" I repeated, struggling to scan the room for the used condom.

"I threw it away. That was disgusting" He gagged, my eyes rolling.

"I swear I didn't fuck her" I kept up, Sam going blank face for a minute.

"If you didn't fuck her, then whose condom did I just throw away!" He grimaced.

"I don't know, I swear I didn't fuck her"

Sam groaned, "Can you stop lying to me for two seconds? What's done is done, at least own up to it!" 

"I didn't fucking do it!"

"SHE WAS NAKED, TITS OUT AND ALL IN THE BED! Cut the shit Colby!" 

"I swear to god-"

"Colby! I know what a post sex room looks like when I see one! The used condom, the messy sheets, her clothes thrown about, her pants and underwood in a pool on the floor" He listed off, my forehead wrinkling as I tried to think about what happened last night.

The last thing I remember is telling Sam I was gonna head out.

Seeing that picture of Gemma... It really felt like a slap in the face. 

"Why Chloe?" Sam asked, but it sounded more like a disbelief statement.

"What?"

"Why Chloe? Not that I promote cheating, but why the fuck would you cheat on Leighton with Chloe!"

"I didn't-"

"Fuck off Colby! Yes you did! It's all over the goddamn room!" He exclaimed, his hand motioning towards the wreck that was my hotel room.

I felt my head spin, ignoring Sam as I worked my way to the bathroom, hoping there was some sort of pain reliever in here.

I didn't cheat on my fiancé, did I?

I was in the car with Sam and Kat, we got to the bar, the girls ordered shots, we took photos, I talked to a few of Kat's new Vegas friends... I don't remember seeing Chloe?

Was she there?

Katrina was there, Stas was there, there was that blonde hair girl that Kat said her name was something like Jasmine or Jaylynn, the brown haired girl that I never caught her name who hung around Stas... How did I meet Chloe?

I groaned, slamming the drawer shut, coming empty handed with pain pills.

"You break it, you buy it!" Sam reminded as I slammed another drawer shut.

"Was Chloe there?" I suddenly asked, spinning around on my heel to face him. "Because.. I don't.. I don't remember here there"

"Chloe?-"

"There was that Jasmine girl or whatever, wasn't there a Nicole? I don't fucking remember!" I groaned, coming up short with any sort of explanation of how the fuck this happened.

"I don't know how you found Chloe" he stated, making it worse.

Sam never saw Chloe?

Then how was she in my room if neither of us recall seeing her?

"I didn't cheat on Leighton" I shook my head, refusing the believe whatever bullshit Sam was for some reason trying to pull.

If neither of us remember Chloe being there, then clearly he's playing some sort of prank on me.

My head snapped up from the ground, my eyes finding Sam's, "Where's the camera?" I snapped, my eyes darting around the room.

This had to of been a prank. But why would he prank me? We're past those.. right?

"What camera? Colby, what's going on?"

"You tell me! First you somehow barge into my hotel room and now you're accusing me of cheating on my future wife!"

"I walked in on her naked in your bed!" Sam exclaimed, his voice beginning to raise out of frustrated desperation.

"HOW DID YOU GET IN?!" I shouted, pushing past him to find the fucking camera.

This had to be some sick twisted joke that I was far too hung over to give a shit about playing into.

"The front desk had a key. I made up some lie about us sharing a room and getting locked out" he explained, following me through the room as I started checking every corner, shoving curtains around, tripping over a chair, cursing as I caught my fall. "There is no camera Colby" Sam announced, my chest huffing and puffing as my head thumped.

"I didn't fucking sleep with her!" I continued, shoving the chair out of my way before plopping down onto the bed, my chest heaving as I tried to gain my self control.

"Then what the fuck happened Colby!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" I shouted, grunting as I pushed myself off the mattress, Sam's arms crossed in front of his chest as he stared at me.

"There was a used condom Colby! Clearly something fucking happened!"

"I don't fucking know, okay?! Fuck! I don't know! I don't remember!" I rushed, feeling the panic start to set in my chest.

Did I really fuck someone else?

No! I love Leighton! I would never hurt her like that in a million years!

"Where's the condom?" I asked, watching confusion consume Sam's facial features.

"What?"

"The condom you've claimed to throw away"

"It's in the trash? Colby, are you losing your fucking mind?" Sama asked, watching as I marched towards the small trash bin by the mini fridge, seeing it only contain a coffee cup or two.

Quickly turning on the bathroom light, wincing at how bright it got, ignoring my head that wanted to murder me the more I ran around this tiny hotel room, I saw the tied transparent condom, my heart sinking to my ass.

I really slept with someone else?

No.

I never in my right mind would fuck someone who wasn't my partner.

But I wasn't in my right mind..

That's not an excuse!

Did I really cheat on her?

"Colby? Are you okay?" Sam asked, his voice laced with worry, my hands coming up to my head, praying to conceal the thumping that was my hangover.

"No I'm not okay!" I snapped, my head quickly moving to look at my best friend. "I apparently was unfaithful to my future fucking wife and I have no recollection of it!" I freaked, "I need to get home! I need to see Leighton, and Gemma.. I.. I need-" I began to panic, my body eyes darting around the bathroom, looking for anything I had left behind, needing to get the hell out of here.

"Woah! Colby, calm down" Sam's hands gripped my arms, forcing me to face him.

"I can't calm down! I.. I.." my breathing began to pick up, my tense shoulders starting to fall, Sam pulling me into a hug.

"We'll figure it out" He said, my head immediately shaking.

"I fucked up.. I.. I fucked up, and I don't remember it!" 

"Colby, there isn't anything you can do about it now" Sam tried, letting me pull away from him as I shook my head, pushing past him to find my bag.

I needed to get home, and see her.

I needed to fix this.

I can fix this, right?

How am I supposed to tell her I fucked up, if I don't remember it? 

I started haphazardly tossing my shit into my bag, snatching my phone charger out of the wall, almost tripping over the pair of jeans from last night.

Fuck.

"Colby, you're hungover! Can you calm the fuck down so you don't hurt yourself please!" Sam begged, my body wobbling as I snatched my betraying jeans off the gross floor. "Colby!"

"WHAT?!"

"Chill!"

I tossed my unzipped bag onto the messy bed, turning to face Sam as my breathing turned into a pant, "I can't fucking chill Sam! How the fuck are you going to tell me to chill, when you barged into my hotel room ready to beat me up!?"

"What's done is done! Freaking out of it and injuring yourself isn't gonna change anything!"

"How the fuck am I supposed to tell Leighton I cheated on her, when I don't remember it?" I asked, "I can't tell her why! I can't.. I can't.. fuck!" I groaned, my hand coming down to punch the comforter, the bounce back causing my wrist to hurt.

"Feel better?" Sam mocked, my eyes rolling.

"Fuck off"

"What are you going to tell her?" He asked, his brow furrowed, not bothering to help me collect my things. 

"What do you mean?"

"How are you going to tell Leighton you cheated on her?"

"I don't fucking know Sam! I just said that!" I snapped, Sam's eyebrows shooting up.

"How do you cheat on your fiancé and not remember it?" He judged, my shaky hands struggling to zip up my duffle bag.

"Stop saying that!" I harshly replied, tossing the bag onto the floor, kicking it out of my way, pissed off that this room was such a mess.

"Saying what?"

"That I cheated!"

"But you did?" He questioned, his eyes narrowed as he turned to watch me quickly walk back to the bathroom.

Where was my toothbrush? 

Why the fuck is my toothbrush missing?

How do you lose a toothbrush? 

I practically turned this bathroom upside down before muttering, "Screw it, I'll just buy a new one", slamming the drawer shut again; flicking off the light and snatching my bag off the floor.

Sam followed me out of the hotel room, practically jogging to keep up with my quick strides, his slurred words going in one ear and out the other as I spammed clicked the elevator button; my leg bouncing, finally turning to face Sam when I heard him snap my name.

"What?"

"Where are you going?" he rushed, the elevator dinging as it opened.

"Home" I replied, quickly walking into the elevator, hitting the Lobby button before Sam even made it onto the elevator.

"How are you getting there? You're in no state to drive Colby"

"I don't know Sam, but I need to get out here!"

"Can you just take a moment to think this through, please?"

"I don't have a moment Sam!"

"Whatever is waiting for you at home, will still be there-"

"You don't know that! What if I've already lost her?"

"Can you let me finish?" He glared, ignoring my huff. "However you tell her what happened, her reaction will still be the same no matter when. Take the moment to collect your thoughts. Calm down. Breathe. I don't want you driving anywhere in this state of mind. You're not even supposed to be here until your community service was served. Last thing you need is to be pulled over for reckless driving again, and then get arrested for breaking the rules"

"Glad to know you have some faith in me" I huffed, my grip tightening on the duffle bag.

"You're acting erratic!"

"How am I supposed to act Sam? How is one supposed to act when waking up to their best friend hitting them in the head because he apparently had an affair that he doesn't even remember! I- I would never do that to her Sam! I don't know what I'm going to tell her! I just know I need to get home"

"Well you have to tell her. Whether you actually remember or not, she needs to know" He stated, acting like this wasn't some sort of life or death conversation for my relationship.

"I can't tell her anything when I don't even know what happened"

"Wait- You're telling her, right?" He asked, his eyebrows pulled together, lips parted, his head tilted to the left.

I knew that look.

"I don't know" I confessed, removing my eyes from watching his facial features contort into whatever guilt tripping expression he wanted to show me.

"Colby! You can't not tell her!"

"There's nothing to tell!" 

"Like hell there is! You fucked someone else!"

"You said it yourself! I need time! I need time to figure out what the fuck happened!"

"What, are you going to track Chloe down? Chloe's done nothing but try and ruin your relationships since the start! You're a completely different person when you're around her! I don't think that's a good idea"

"Then what should I do Sam?-" I asked, the elevator opening quickly halting my outburst.

The two of us dropped off our keys, pushing out the double wide door as the stupidly hot Nevada sun beat down on us.

"I need to go home Sam. I have to be home for the community service anyway" I sighed, already dreading the ten hour drive I had ahead of me, adding on however long it took me to hunt down Advil.

"Please drive safe, and just.. think about it okay? She deserves to know. You've already put her through so much, might as well get it all out of the way, right?" He suggested, acting like that was good advice.

How is telling her I slept with someone else going to help me in schmoozing back into her beautiful broken heart?

"I will, I really need to get started. It's going to be late by the time I get there" I sighed, tossing my bag in the back of the car, slamming the door shut.

"Please text me when you get home. I know I've been hard on you, I just don't want to see you self sabotaging anymore. We'll figure it out, alright?" Sam tried to reassure me and I just nodded, bidding my best friend goodbye; feeling like I had the entire world's weight on my shoulders.

How do you tell someone you're sorry, when you don't even remember it happening?

~

Pulling up into the familiar apartment complex felt like a knife through the heart.

Every single memory was locked behind those doors.

Was she home?

Does she want me home?

What if she hates me?

What if Gemma hates me?

I wouldn't blame either one of them, and they don't even know what I've done.

I slowly made my way to our door, the elevator ride feeling way longer than it used to; my thoughts running rampage through my ready to implode head.

 I flicked the lock open, my baited breath pushing past my lips.

The lock still works.

That's a good thing, right?

Pushing the lightweight door open felt like I was transported back into a time where everything was right under my fingertips.

Leighton and Gemma's spare shoes kicked off by the door, right next to a pair of my old shoes. Their jackets hung up right next to mine.

The door softly shut behind me, my feet carrying me throughout a place I used to call home.

Every corner I glanced at felt like a graveyard of what once was.

A place full of love and laughter felt so cold and lifeless the more I emerged myself in the space.

There was no tiny messes from a toddler. No dishes from dinner. Not even a laundry basket was thrown off to the side like I knew Leighton tended to do when she had too much on her plate.

If I didn't know any better, it looked like they hadn't lived here in months.

My heart immediately sank as I opened Gemma's spotless bedroom.

Leighton stress cleaned.

I could feel my eyes begin to sting as my hand grasped the metal doorknob that once was Leighton and I's safe haven, the bedroom looking spotless besides the unmade bed.

The single tear officially fell when I saw my side of the bed still made, but my pillow positioned on the side of the bed where Leighton laid, the once poofy pillow now squished up and wrinkled.

The weight on my shoulders came crashing down to my feet as I sat down on my side of the bed, the dip feeling foreign.

It all felt wrong, and I hated that.

I've broken my family, and there wasn't any way to fix it.

No one ever comes back from broken trust like this.

My eyes scanned the room, spotting the half full hamper by the door, the dresser that displayed a few Knick knacks, and one of Gemma's stuffed animals.

I turned towards Leighton's side of the bed, seeing the peppermint oil on her nightstand, a few different kinds of crackers and a little plastic bucket.

I was the worst partner in history.

I got off the bed that was once mine, feeling undeserving of lying where Leighton and I shared our most intimate moments.

How could Chloe let me do this?

Did she not feel remorse? 

Was she just as drunk as I was?

What would've happened if I woke up and she wasn't there?

Would I just not have known?

The familiar shriek of "Coco!" echoed down the hall, stopping me right in my tracks of exploring, quickly turning around to see my beautiful blonde hair blued eyed three year old running down the hall like her life depended on it.

"Hi Gem Gem!" I faked enthusiasm, hoping the emotion in my throat couldn't be read through my cracked tone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic to see my sweet baby girl who thinks I hang the moon every night; but that's the problem.

She thinks I hung the moon, and I'm so undeserving of her sweet innocent mind thinking so highly of me.

"Colby?" Leighton's confused voice broke me away from Gemma's tight grip around my neck, her legs wrapped around my waist as I stood up from my crouching position.

I watched Leighton walk down the hall towards us, my heart beat picking up in pace as I scanned her.

She looked beautiful.

My eyes lingered on her beautiful little bump, a lump forming in my throat.

"H-Hi"

"Wh-what are.. are you doing here?" Her stunned voice wavered, shattering my entire heart as the lump in my throat won, the tears spilling over, my eyes falling closed to try and prevent it from showing.

"I'm- I'm so so so- so sorry" my voice cracked, the touch of Gemma's tiny hands on my cheeks making my glossed over eyes open, her sweet face blurred.

"Why cry Coco?" She asked, my nervous system shot as her baby blue eyes stared at mine.

I was undeserving of her.

"Just missed you, that's all Gem" I replied, sniffling quietly, placing a quick kiss on her cheek.

"I saw baby Coco!" She exclaimed, confusing me.

"You saw a baby?"

"Momma's baby! In 'er tummy!" She giggled, pointing over at Leighton.

Oh.

Shit.

I looked up at Leighton, nerves written all over her face.

"You saw the baby?" I asked and she nodded slowly.

I missed it.

"I'm sorry" I spoke softly, Leighton staying still.

"Coco?"

"Yes baby?"

"Why.. Why no.. no call?" She asked quietly, her insecure tone making me feel like the worst person to walk the earth. "A'ways.. ways call" She said, her face scrunching up as she wiggled out of my grasp, let me set her back down, crouching in front of her.

"I'm sorry bug" I apologized, Gemma's lips pursed.

"Why?"

"Why am I sorry? Because I didn't mean to hurt your feelings" I tried to explain, Gemma immediately shaking her head.

"Why.. Why.. Why no.. no.. no call?" She stuttered. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I watched her eyes lose the buckets of love she constantly had for me. Her shining blue eyes looked like I was a monster under her bed.

Do I lie to her and say I was busy? That I was in a different time zone? Maybe out of the country?

I have no excuse that's a good enough reason to lie to her.

If she asked me why, I'd have no response.

"I'm.. I'm sorry Gemma"

"But.. why?"

I wished so desperately to turn back time..

"I don't know baby" I confessed, hating watching those innocent blue eyes filled with endless amounts of confusion.

I glanced up towards Leighton, her green eyes watery as she gnawed on her lower lip.

I expected her to be mad. Yell. Explode. Really let me have it for leaving her; but she was standing idle.

"You came home" She said, her voice cracking a little.

"I'm sorry"

"Sorry for coming home? For leaving? For not calling Gemma? For ignoring your second baby on the way? For getting arrested? For drinking and driving? For running away to Nevada? For not speaking to me?" She rattled off, gaining the composure she let slip for a second, my shoulders dropping.

There it was.

I knew I deserved whatever reaction she wanted to throw at me, but I was so fucking tired of dodging thing after thing.

Before I could reply to Leighton, Gemma was dragging me to her room, telling me about everything I had missed, just like she would each night I called when I was away; really twisting that knife deeper into my chest.

How am I going to fix this?

The closer bedtime got for Gemma, the more it felt like I was walking on eggshells.

I knew Leighton and I needed to talk, but I truly didn't know what to expect.

Was she pissed?

Did she want me here?

She seemed.... indifferent about my "surprise visit".

"Coco go night night wif me?" Gemma asked, Leighton helping Gemma wash her hands from her before bed snack.

I agreed, Leighton handing me Gemma's nighttime water bottle, the two of us wandering off to Gemma's room.

"Wook Coco! Papa.. Papa got.. me... anoder Barbie! See!" She grinned, holding the Barbie towards me, "Just ike.. ike you got.. got me!"

"That was really nice of him, did you say thank you?" I asked, Gemma nodding.

"Yes! And.. and.. un..uncle.. Wandon! Uncle Wandon got.. got me.. me.. um.." She paused, tossing the Barbie to the side, pulling out a little cubie drawer from her cubicle, digging around in it before quickly pulling something out to show me, "Shhhh! No.. no tell.. tell momma!" She snickered, holding her little finger up to her mouth, showing me the little baggie of hidden candy, my face breaking out into a grin as I chuckled, forgetting I'm supposed to be parenting her and teaching her not to hide things from her mother.

She opened her little bag of M&M's, grabbing a few and plopping them in her mouth.

"Gemma!" I gasped, hearing her giggle, "You just brushed your teeth!"

"Shhhh! No.. no tell!" 

"Gemma" I cocked my head at her, giving her the look, Gemma frowning.

"No.. no tell! Coco no tell!"

"I won't tell if you go put them in the kitchen" I bargained, Gemma keeping the frown.

"But.. but.. I tell.. tell Coco?"

"Gemma, you're not supposed to have candy before bed. You just had a snack" I tried, Gemma's scowling.

"I tell Coco, no tell momma!"

"Gemma, you can't have M&M's right now" I held out my hand, Gemma looking down at the bag, then me.

"Mine!"

"They are yours, can I have them though? You can have them tomorrow" I tried to reason with her, Gemma shaking her head.

"No for Coco!" She began to cry, a high pitch wail piercing my ears, Leighton's voice behind me making me jump.

"What happened? What's wrong? What hurts?" She panicked, approaching Gemma; only for the three year old to quickly back around, twisting her torso to hide the candy from her mother.

"She's not hurt" I immediately replied, wanting to ease her panic, Leighton looking over her shoulder at me, her forehead wrinkles before she carefully crouched down in front of her daughter.

I couldn't hear what she said, but I watched Gemma frown as she handed over the bag of candy, Leighton standing up and leaving the room, Gemma following behind her.

With curiosity, I followed as well, Leighton putting the candy in the cupboard, handing Gemma a puff ball that I didn't know she was even still using.

"Thank you bug" Leighton smiled softly, "Let's go to bed so you can see April and Noel tomorrow, okay?" She said and Gemma nodded slowly, Leighton's eyes flickering up to mine, "I've got her" She stated, her hand on Gemma's back, softly leading her to the toddlers bedroom.

What just happened?

I took a seat on the barstool, my eyes scanning the room, seeing the little mason jar of puff balls next to a sticker chart from when she was potty training.

How did I miss that when I looked around the apartment?

Next to the sink was the bowl from her snack, a toddler cup right next to it. On the fridge hung up a piece of toddler artwork with a magnet that I didn't know we had.

Were they new?

Curiosity struck and I began to wander the apartment again, taking a closer look now that I knew Leighton stress cleaned.

Gemma's living room toys were tucked in a bit, pushed next to the TV stand, the laundry bin I knew was usually around was empty, placed on top of the dryer, one of Gemma's shirts laid across it, appearing to be drying.

A sense of comfort washed over me as I picked up on the tiny details that I thought were missing; they were living here.

"What are you doing?" Leighton asked, scaring the shit out of me.

"Was just looking around" I quickly replied, taking a calming breath, watching her head tilt.

"Why? Leaving again?" She accused, her facial features becoming stern.

"No"

"Why are you back?" She asked, the look in her eye sending me back to when we first met and I wanted to kick her out.

She looked so mad, and hurt, but also confused; and I hated that.

I hated that I did this to her. That I've fucked everything up and that the moment I tell her what I did, even if I don't remember doing it; it's going to ruin things to an even worse, if not unmendable level.

"You're using the puff jars again?" I asked, Leighton's eyes narrowing.

"What?"

"The puff balls. In the jar. From potty training. You're using them again?" I asked, instantly regretting being short with her, watching her jaw clench as her lips pursed, nodding.

"Don't fix it if it isn't broken" She stated, "It worked with potty training and it works with her listening to me. It helped with you being gone" She explained and I nodded slowly, letting out a short breath of air.

"I'm sorry" I tried again, Leighton looking fed up with me; a pit forming in my stomach.

"For what, exactly?"

"For everything"

"Do you even know what you did?" She asked, confusing me.

"What?"

"Do you know what you did?" She asked, not helping me at all.

"What do you mean?"

Leighton groaned from the back of her throat before taking a deep breath; "The hurt. The pain. The worry. The betrayal. All of the things you've caused. Do you know what you've done to me, to Gemma, to Sam and Kat, your parents, your yourself?" 

"What?" Where is she going with this?

"Oh my god" Her stare became stern, "You cannot waltz back into this house acting like you haven't caused any sort of pain! I get you were hurting, going through some stuff, whatever; but you hurt so many people! Hurt people, hurt people.. but if you think you can hurt my daughter and I'll just accept you back into our house without any sort of conversation or consequence, you're insane!"

"You don't want me here?" I questioned, even more confused. 

I understood what she was saying. I know I fucked up, and I regret it. Truly. But did she not want me home? Did she not want me a part of this family anymore?

"That is not what I said Colby. You don't fucking listen to me!" Her eyes widened, looking bewildered at me. "Your actions hurt me! And you know what? I'm a big girl, I can deal with that. Shockingly Colby, your actions and choices aren't the worst thing I've ever gone through. But my daughter? That beautiful three year old girl that you've claimed to love so much? She cried because of you. She asked questions I couldn't answer, she got her expectations crushed. Promises broken. You hurt her in a way I can't fix, and now you're just going to come home? Open your arms up to her and allow her endless love and affection without any sort of remorse? No apologies, no answers? You can't just come and go as you fucking please all because you're having a bad depression day; or because you don't know how to communicate! Listen to me, and listen to me closely. I. Am. Not. Doing. This. Again. If my child cries over you again, we're done. There is no do over. There is no apology. I don't care if you hurt me. I'll get through it. But don't you dare hurt my baby again. Either one of them for that matter"

My chest tightened as I glanced down at her stomach, then back up at Leighton's shaky composure. Her green eyes twinkled with tears as her breathing picked up, watching her swallow what I assumed to be the lump in her throat.

"I'm sorry" I said softly, having no idea what I could say to truly express how I felt. How much remorse I did have.

Did she think I wanted to leave? That I didn't want her or Gemma? Because that's far from the truth. 

Would I have proposed to her if I didn't see this going somewhere? 

I know I fucked up, even worse than she could know—

Shit

"I. Am. Not. Doing. This. Again. If my child cries over you again, we're done. There is no do over. There is no apology. I don't care if you hurt me. I'll get through it. But don't you dare hurt my baby again. Either one of them for that matter"

I can't tell her.

I can't.

She can't know.

I can't hurt her again. I'll lose her if I tell her.

What is there to tell?

That I apparently slept with someone? That I woke up in a hotel room to Sam smacking me? Having no idea what happened?

Leighton's face dropped, "Apologizing to me does not erase the hurt and pain Colby"

"What do you want me to say Leighton? I can't fix it"

"You could have at least acted like you gave a fuck"

"A fuck about what?" I argued, Leighton's face quickly dropping the frown as she glared.

"Exactly! You don't even fucking know what you're apologizing for! You're just trying to make it all go away!"

"I'm apologizing for everything!"

"That's not good enough! You can't just walk in here after disappearing for over a week and say sorry and expect all to be forgiven!"

"What do you want from me?" I asked again, hating how she was so pissed off on something I can't reverse.

What else am I supposed to say other than I'm sorry?

"Change! I want change Colby, and I don't think you're capable!"

"What does that even mean? I'm very capable of change" I snapped, Leighton's lips pursing in anger.

"We do this again and again! I'm fucking tired! You. Can't. Change. And it's evident in this constant fucking cycle! I'm not dumb Colby. I'm aware we keep going in fucking circles. I've just held onto this hope. This hope that.. that.." Her tone dropped, "That one day, it would change" her voice cracked, Leighton's eyes flickering away from mine.

I watched her compose herself, her once watery eyes flickering back to mine, the slightest glisten pulling at my heart strings.

"Why did you come home?" She asked softly, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment before blinking back open, her green eyes shimmering under moonlight from the window; the only light on being in the hallway and kitchen.

"Because I missed you" I told her honestly, Leighton appearing to not believe me.

"So it took you over a week to miss me?"

I quickly shook my head, "That's not what I meant"

"Then why did you come home today? Why surprise drop the fact that you're home on us? it couldn't have been the midwife appointment, or you would've been here sooner"

"I was finally ready to come home" I stated, Leighton gnawing on her lower lip, the fragile skin turning flush against her skin.

She stayed quiet, her eyes falling to the floor before finding mine again; "Why?"

"Because I had my time and space to think" I replied, pulling that one straight from my ass, praying to god she believed it.

"To think about what? Us? Me? Gemma?"

"Me"

"And what did you decide?"

"That losing you isn't worth it"

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure you made that crystal fucking clear when you up and left multiple times" She spat, her beautiful green eyes turning dark. "You know, tell me why I'm standing here with you in OUR living room, carrying OUR child and I've never felt more alone? I've never felt less loved? Like I need to fight for you, when you're the one that left for reasons you won't tell me. You tell me you want change, but then you aren't willing to put in the work for me! You tell me you needed time and space to think without even considering the idea of including me! Of thinking about US together! You make me so fucking alone when you get caught up in your head, and you don't even really feel sorry! You were just finally ready to come home. I told you this was my life Colby! That we aren't kids! This isn't fucking house. You can't just drop the role whenever you please! I shouldn't be carrying your goddamn kid and feeling so fucking alone! I don't want to lose you.. but I don't want you either. I don't want this! I want the person I fell in love with; not whatever the fuck is standing in front of me right now. The Colby I knew a year ago would have never done this to us. To her. My daughter deserves better.. and I.. I really thought you were better"

I could hear my heart shatter as the tear slipped down her cheek, Leighton quickly swiping it away, her eyes falling shut as she took a deep breath.

The silence was deafening as I tried to form a coherent thought, my mind going a mile a minute, trying to articulate what I really meant to say; Leighton beating me to it.

"I wish you didn't come home" She said softly, my eyes widening.

"W-what?" I stumbled, the shock slapping me in the face.

I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it.

"I was having a pretty good day. I mean, I got to see our baby today! I got to show him or her to Gemma. I got.. I got to be a mom today.. and then.. and then you just came home! You didn't give me a warning, or any time to prepare Gemma, or even myself! I just.. I opened the door and there you were! I feel like.. like.. like I can't fucking think! Like.. like I said hello and goodbye to you at the same fucking time! You've been chipping away from me for weeks.. and then.. and then you just fucking left. Cut off ties and left us. I feel like I have to mourn the person I once knew, and then you just came back! You came back like nothing happened! No warning, nothing! I had to see my baby today, knowing you were supposed to be there. Mourning the fact that you didn't want to; and don't fucking tell me that isn't true. You knew, and if you forgot, that's honestly worse. This baby means something to me, and I hope to god it means something to you because you know what? I don't need you to do this! I've done this all on my own before. It'll fucking suck, but it'll be so fucking worth it! You need to fucking step up and change.. or.. or I'm fucking leaving. My babies deserve so much better then whatever the fuck is going on" She harshly replied, my air getting caught in my throat as she lectured me, the tears in her eyes turning to fire. 

"I want this" I whispered, my own eyes filling with tears, Leighton's stone cold stare becoming a blur.

"Then fucking act like it!" She exclaimed, her eyes flying out towards me in emphasis.

She doesn't even know I've cheated, and she's ready to walk.

How am I supposed to save us and tell her what I've done all at the same time?

"Stop asking me to build a bridge when I'm just trying to find my footing!" I snapped, all the tension in my chest beginning to boil over.

"You've had over a week to find your goddamn footing Colby. How do you expect me to glue the pieces together that you've shattered and then taken out of state? I can't single handedly fix your shit Colby! I'm tired of dealing with my shit, and yours! You have to fucking try and if you don't want this. If you don't want me, then this baby. I can assure you that if you land in fucking jail again, I'm not saving you. I can't. You haven't even fucking thanked me yet. I want my baby to grow up with the father figure Gemma once knew, not whatever the fuck this dumpster fire is. I don't care what you have to do, but get it together or me and the kids are leaving"

"Okay" I nodded, having no room to argue with her.

After all, I've fucked up way worse than she even knows.

I need to play by her rules, or I guess.. I guess I can kiss this family goodbye.

"I'm taking Gemma to my parents tomorrow" She said and I nodded, knowing that was her usual work routine.

"No. You don't understand. Gemma and I are packing a bag, and we are going to my parents tomorrow"

Oh.

"What? Why"

"Because I refuse to let you hurt my little girl any more than you have. I don't care how excited she was to see you. You didn't hear her cries. I can't let you shatter her. You need to pull your shit together before I come home"

"You're just going to take her away from me?" I asked, feeling the tension build again.

If Gemma missed me so fucking badly, why would Leighton pull her away the second I come home?

"When you can prove you can stay, you can have her back"

"How the fuck is that going to do anything? That's not playing fucking fair Leighton!" 

"Hard shit calls for hard punishment Colby. Did you think I liked being kicked out when I was on drugs? Get your shit together"

"So what, that's just fucking it? I come home and you fucking leave?"

"Are you that fucking selfish?!" Her voice raised, "You think I want someone who got arrested for a DUI to be around my daughter?!"

"I would never-" My voice wavered.

She really thinks I'd put Gemma in danger like that?

"Don't!" She warned, my chin quivering out of desperation, my eyes burning.

"Leighton, please-" I tried, the pit in my stomach growing bigger when she held her ground.

"No! This time, you fucked up. Own up to it and pay your fucking dues!"

I could feel myself chest start to shake as the tension bubbled from my stomach to my chest, all the way to my throat.

"You relapsed"

"What?"

"You relapsed!"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You relapsed and you still got to fucking see her!" I fought, Leighton's jaw dropping.

"I WENT TO FUCKING REHAB YOU ASSHOLE! I didn't get to fucking see her!"

"No no no" I shook my head, "Not that time"

"What?"

"Every time you've fucked up, you've still gotten to see her"

"I'm her mother!"

"And what am I?"

"The person I thought I wanted forever with"

* * * *

Hi! It's mental health awareness month, so I thought I'd let you know why there has been lack of updates (besides like when I had covid and shit lol), Depression has been kicking my ass since March lol, so my motivation has been low and I've just been doing stuff that sounds fun (like playing sims an unhealthy amount lmao), and atm I've had a little bit of writers block with articulating and executing Colby's storyline. But now that that's done.. I hopefully should be better lol. Sorry for going off my "schedule" of every 3 days, even though I never actually committed to that lol, it's just how the cookie crumbled <3 Anyway, Happy Mental Health Awareness Month <3 it's okay to not be okay ):)

Written on: April 30th, May 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th 2023

Published on: May 15th 2023

Word Count: 6.7k

Part Thirteen

[likelightningafterthethunder]

Like Lightning After the Thunder: Chapter One: Damned Smile

Fic Summary:

His breath wavered as he stared into Katsuki’s eyes. He knew he could get out if he tried. He could knock Katsuki out, hope that no one else would find them, and run back into the shadows where he belonged. Katsuki may have had him pinned down but he was in Denki’s range now and it would take little effort to send a charge through Katsuki to paralyze him temporarily.

It would take barely any additional effort to kill Katsuki.

As the sparks began to charge, lighting up the air around him, Katsuki refused to back down.

–

Katsuki always knew he was destined for great things.

He didn’t think he’d have to turn his back on all he’s ever known to get there.

Rating: T

Warnings: Eventual major character death, implied/referenced child abuse, psychological trauma

Other Tags: Bakugou Katsuki/Kaminari Denki, slow burn, alternate universe - canon divergence

Read on Ao3 (links to corresponding chapter) or read below

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Fic navigation to read the fic on tumblr 

--

Even years later, that damn smile haunted his dreams.

There was absolutely no reason for him to still think about the event. Everything had been taken care of when it had happened― injuries were treated, authorities alerted, information secured, and a press conference to tie it all up in a big red bow. There were no loose ends, no surprise second coming, no physical reminders of what happened lingering in his daily life. Katsuki would have labeled it as done, dealt with, and no longer relevant, shoving it aside in his memory so he could focus on actual important shit.

Except his mind had different plans.

When he was lucky, he could completely forget about the event for months. Other times, his dreams would be filled with nothing but that damn smile, taunting him with its silence. He could usually predict when the dreams would come― the anniversary of the event for example― but other times, it seemed like anything could trigger the memory. He once saw a bright yellow balloon and for the rest of the day, every time he closed his eyes he saw that damned smile, never wavering despite the curses and insults Katsuki spewed.

He wanted to forget it. He wanted so desperately to forget it. For the image to erase itself from his mind, for it to take the feelings away with it. He could deal with the anger, he could always deal with the anger, but when his memory reminded him of the wave of hurt and betrayal that nearly blinded him…

When his alarm jolted him from his sleep and freed him from the smile, he couldn’t get out of bed fast enough. He woke up drenched in a cold sweat, sheets singed and smoking lightly as he unclenched his hands, and Katsuki was, for once, very relieved that not all of his sweat was explosive. He slapped the singes a few times to ensure that all of the embers were put out before heading for the bathroom, cursing under his breath as he flinched at his own reflection in the mirror.

There was nothing particularly wrong with his appearance, if you didn’t count the dark circles under his eyes from a fitful night’s sleep or his clammy skin, but after being plagued by the smile, Katsuki could barely look at himself. His reaction to the smile made him feel weak, like he couldn’t handle himself and that there was something wrong with him. It was just a smile after all. There was no reason for him to react to it like a nightmare, no reason for him to lose sleep over it or to feel overwhelmed by emotions at the thought of it.

Yet when he saw the smile and saw how the corners of his mouth were tugged a bit too tight, how his eyes were open a bit too wide, how the only shine in his eyes were the reflections of light on tears that refused to fall…

Katsuki cursed.

The icy cold shower did little to help distract him from the memory, nor did his morning run nor the steaming shower he took after. He wasn’t supposed to head into the agency today, so he didn’t have any planned beatdowns for today, and yes he probably shouldn’t be hoping for it, but part of him hoped for a sudden emergency villain so he could distract himself by focusing on beating some villain’s ass into next week.

A few hours later when his phone refused to stop buzzing, Katsuki wondered if throwing his phone across the room until it stopped would be close enough to beating villain ass to work. He reluctantly decided that talking to people so they’d leave him alone was probably less hassle to deal with than having to replace his phone and distribute his new number (even if it would give him an excuse to ghost some of these damn extras).

A few individual texts and a group text were the cause of the buzzing. As the group text’s new message count continued to rise, he figured it would be easier to respond to the individual texts first. Just in case he changed his mind about destroying the phone.

Four Eyes (Rocket Legs): Hello Bakugou, this is a reminder about the upcoming Class A reunion. As the head of the reunion committee, it is my duty to ensure an accurate headcount for the event, and I have yet to receive your response about your attendance. Please ensure to respond via the following link by this Friday at 11:59PM. [Class A 10 Year Reunion RSVP]

Four Eyes (Rocket Legs): In case you missed the previous messages regarding the reunion, the event is March 28th starting at 7PM at the Shinjuku Hotel in Musutafu. If you need to rent a room for the night or the weekend, please alert the Shinjuku Hotel staff that you are part of the Class A reunion party by next Wednesday for an event discount.

Katsuki frowned. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the possibility of being surrounded by all of his former classmates and even less at the idea of being socially obligated to spend the entire evening with them. At least when he met up with his friends elsewhere, he could always claim needing to leave early so he could make the last train or that work needed him to come in early the next day.

He closed out of the conversation, figuring he still had a few more days to decide if he really wanted to deal with his classmates for an entire evening.

Midoriya: Hey Katsugou! I was wondering if you’re going to go to the reunion? Tenya said the deadline to RSVP is coming soon and we haven’t heard from you, so I just thought I’d check in!

Katsuki: The fuck is Katsugou?

Midoriya: Oh sorry!! Typo!!

Midoriya: Anyway, are you coming?

Katsuki closed out of the conversation and moved on to the next one.

Shitty Hair: Katsuki! Are you coming to the reunion or not dude????

Katsuki: Fuck off.

Shitty Hair: Aww dude that’s no way to talk to your best friend, you know you love me!!

Katsuki: I’m blocking you.

He did not, in fact, block him. But he did close out of Eijirou’s texts.

Save for the newest text sent directly from Eijirou, all that was left was the backlog of texts in the group text. It had kept going off while he was reading the other conversations, so Katsuki figured it meant that everyone was either off for the day or on their lunch break.

Raccoon Eyes: guys!!!!! the reunion is COMING UPPPPPP!!!!

Raccoon Eyes: i cant wait to s

Raccoon Eyes: ee all of u guys again!!

Tape Face: lmao you saw us last week

Raccoon Eyes: yes

Raccoon Eyes: an eteRNITY ago

Raccoon Eyes: and like

Raccoon Eyes: kats left early so we didnt have everyone

Raccoon Eyes: so it doesnt count

Shitty Hair: Yeah Katsuki don’t leave early next time!!

Raccoon Eyes: we just have to hold him hostage next time

Raccoon Eyes: or like

Raccoon Eyes: AMBUSH him

Tape Face: i can always tape him up

Raccoon Eyes: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

Raccoon Eyes: tape him to the wall

Raccoon Eyes: and then like

Raccoon Eyes: steal his wallet

Raccoon Eyes: cant get on transit w no moneys

Raccoon Eyes: ei and han hold him down

Raccoon Eyes: i run to hide his wallet where he cant fi

Raccoon Eyes: nd it

Raccoon Eyes: probs keeps kats tapped to the wall all night

Raccoon Eyes: free up his arms so he can have a drink????

Tape Face: explosion palms dude

Raccoon Eyes: oh u right

Raccoon Eyes: he can just have a cup w like

Raccoon Eyes: a REALLY REALLY long straw

Raccoon Eyes: make sure u tape him up w his hands behind his back

Tape Face: you got it

Shitty Hair: He’s in this chat guys he’s going to see the plan

Raccoon Eyes: whatevs we can still totally blindside him

Raccoon Eyes: ANYWAYS

Raccoon Eyes: ure all going right?????

Tape Face: ya I rsvpd a while back

Shitty Hair: Yep!! Wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Raccoon Eyes: what about u kats

Raccoon Eyes: kats???

Raccoon Eyes: KAAAAAAAAAAAAATS

Raccoon Eyes: k

Raccoon Eyes: a

Shitty Hair: I’ll text him separately

Raccoon Eyes: t

Tape Face: he probably has this muted lmao

Raccoon Eyes: s

Raccoon Eyes: !!!!!!

Raccoon Eyes: how dare u ignore us

Raccoon Eyes: after everything weve done for u!!!!

Raccoon Eyes: thought we were ur ride or die hoes

Raccoon Eyes: dont tell me ur not going!!!!!

Raccoon Eyes: im so offended

Raccoon Eyes: how could u do this to us kats

Shitty Hair: Maybe he’s at work today?

Raccoon Eyes: boo

Raccoon Eyes: how dare he prioritize wo

Raccoon Eyes: rk over us

Raccoon Eyes: his best friends

Raccoon Eyes: the suns of his life

Raccoon Eyes: the bit of happiness in the cold

Raccoon Eyes: cold

Raccoon Eyes: cold

Tape Face: coooooooooold

Raccoon Eyes: COOOOOOOOLD

Raccoon Eyes: thing he calls a heart

Shitty Hair: Lmao

Tape Face: its got a bit of warmth

Tape Face: most of it is his temper

Raccoon Eyes: boom boom POW

Raccoon Eyes: well while we wait for kats

Raccoon Eyes: help me pick some photos for the slideshow!!

Tape Face: are you doing only UA pics or some stuff since then

Tape Face: somehow iida managed to not specify lmao

Shitty Hair: The info email was like ten pages, how did he miss it

Tape Face: idk

Raccoon Eyes: ive got plenty for both!!

Raccoon Eyes: momo said pref UA pics but some new stuff is good too

Raccoon Eyes: show how far weve come n all that

Tape Face: oh cool let me get some opinions then too

Shitty Hair: Anyone have any pics of the camping trip from second year?

Raccoon Eyes: before or after todoroki and kats’ fight turned it into a icy hot springs

Shitty Hair: Both lmao but probably before it went to hell

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: ofc ive got us chillin in the springs

Raccoon Eyes: well most of us

Raccoon Eyes: kats u never get in the water w us :C

Raccoon Eyes: lets go to the beach next time!!

Tape Face: hed prob boil the water w you in it if you dragged him in lmao

Tape Face: spicy acid time

Raccoon Eyes: id like to see him TRY

Shitty Hair: Don’t tempt him lmao

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: i got like a shit ton more

Raccoon Eyes: should i send some of THE FIGHT

Shitty Hair: Maybe not

Tape Face: yes

Tape Face: well

Tape Face: depends on how many pissed off katsuki pics youre putting in lmao

Raccoon Eyes: OH

Raccoon Eyes: OHHHH

Raccoon Eyes: OHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Tape Face: ?

Raccoon Eyes: dude

Raccoon Eyes: do u have the POMERANIAN pic

Tape Face: o shit

Tape Face: image.png

Shitty Hair: I still think Katsuki should’ve taken that pup home

Shitty Hair: They’re matching!

Tape Face: image.png

Tape Face: i also have this one

Tape Face: when she tried to bite his nose off lmao

Raccoon Eyes: kats couldve named her king explosion murder

Raccoon Eyes: or just murder

Raccoon Eyes: p sure she wouldve tried to murder kats at least o

Raccoon Eyes: nce

Tape Face: lmao she basically tried when he found her

Shitty Hair: Maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t keep the pup

Tape Face: look what i found

Tape Face: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: AWWWW YES

Raccoon Eyes: LOOK AT USSSSS

Raccoon Eyes: we look FABBBB

Shitty Hair: Is that from the dance?

Tape Face: ye

Raccoon Eyes: guys what if we recreate that pic at the reunion

Raccoon Eyes: the fits?

Raccoon Eyes: immaculate

Raccoon Eyes: the pose?

Raccoon Eyes: perfection

Tape Face: hotel?

Tape Face: trivago

Shitty Hair: I’m down for recreating some pics!

Raccoon Eyes: yessssss

Raccoon Eyes: u have no choice either kats u gotta do it

Raccoon Eyes: wherever u are

Shitty Hair: Oh he replied!!

Raccoon Eyes: SWEET

Raccoon Eyes: what he say

Shitty Hair: He said fuck off

Tape Face: as expected

Shitty Hair: Lmao he threatened to block me again

Tape Face: thought he said he was blocking you last week

Shitty Hair: Yea exactly

Raccoon Eyes: HOW RUDE

Raccoon Eyes: as punishment for not paying attention to us

Raccoon Eyes: im gonna send this

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Tape Face: LMAO whend you make that

Shitty Hair: Is that Katsuki with a cat face and ears

Shitty Hair: Dude I don’t know if he’s going to kill you for that or for the pink hair first lmao

Raccoon Eyes: lmao made it just now

Raccoon Eyes: well MAYBE if he ANSWERED us

Katsuki: Delete it.

Tape Face: O SHIT

Tape Face: you summoned him

Raccoon Eyes: NO I WILL NOT

Katsuki: Delete it Raccoon Eyes or else I’m coming for you.

Tape Face: are you coming for the left shoes and shittin in them

Raccoon Eyes: NOOOOOOO not my shoes!!!!!!!!

Tape Face: its just the left shoes tho

Raccoon Eyes: BUT THATS MY FAVE SIDE

Katsuki: What the fuck are you two going on about?

Raccoon Eyes: DONT COME FOR M

Raccoon Eyes: Y LEFT SHOES KATS IM SORRY

Katsuki: I’m not coming for your fucking left shoes. Or any of your shoes.

Katsuki: I will be coming for you if you don’t delete that picture, though.

Raccoon Eyes: FORGIVENESS

Raccoon Eyes: I BEG

Raccoon Eyes: PLSSSSS

Katsuki: Delete the picture.

Raccoon Eyes: ugh fiiiiiiiiiine

Raccoon Eyes: its deleted

Raccoon Eyes: i wont send it to momo for the slide show

Katsuki: Good.

Raccoon Eyes: IF U COME TO THE REUNION

Katsuki: Fuck off.

Shitty Hair: C’mon Katsuki!! It’ll be fun!!

Tape Face: ya it wouldnt do if we didnt have our exploding star

Raccoon Eyes: ill send momo WORSE if u dont come

Raccoon Eyes: nd u wont know WHAT til AFTER

Raccoon Eyes: so PLSSSSSSSSSS

Raccoon Eyes: PRETTY PLSSSSSSS

Raccoon Eyes: PLS COME TO THE REUNION

Raccoon Eyes: ill spam u a lot worse if u dont show us proof of rsvp

Raccoon Eyes: pls kaaaaaaaaats

Raccoon Eyes: kaaaaaaaaats

Raccoon Eyes: k

Raccoon Eyes: a

Katsuki: Ugh fucking fine, I’ll do the RSVP now then.

Raccoon Eyes: t

Raccoon Eyes: YAY

Four Eyes (Rocket Legs): Good afternoon, Bakugou! I just wanted to confirm with you that I have received your RSVP for the Class A reunion. As a reminder, if you need to rent a room for the night or the weekend, please alert the Shinjuku Hotel staff that you are part of the Class A reunion party by next Wednesday for an event discount.

Katsuki: image.png

Katsuki: image.png

Katsuki: Four Eyes is watching the RSVP form like a fucking hawk apparently.

Raccoon Eyes: YAAAAAY URE RSVPD!!!

Shitty Hair: You know him, always dedicated to his work

Tape Face: sweet

Raccoon Eyes: are u guys getting rooms

Tape Face: yea musutafus too far for a round trip

Tape Face: esp since itll prob end late

Shitty Hair: I got one for the weekend!

Tape Face: wbu mina

Raccoon Eyes: booked a room already!!

Raccoon Eyes: kaaaaats wbu

Raccoon Eyes: u should

Raccoon Eyes: we could have a brunch or lunch or s/t thats just us

Raccoon Eyes: plsssssss kats

Katsuki: I’ll think about it.

Tape Face: better than a no lmao

Shitty Hair: If they run out of space or if you decide last second, you can room with me dude

Raccoon Eyes: awww why not a yes

Katsuki: I haven’t asked the other Four Eyes for the time off yet.

Tape Face: is this four eyes no4 or no15

Raccoon Eyes: four eyes no69

Raccoon Eyes: no wait

Raccoon Eyes: no420

Tape Face: haha blaze it

Raccoon Eyes: BLAZE IT

Shitty Hair: It’s number 7

Katsuki: Fuck you, I don’t have that many Four Eyes saved in my phone.

Shitty Hair: I’d be surprised if you had 420 contacts period dude

Raccoon Eyes: would b hilarious tho

Katsuki: Yes, it’s Four Eyes number 7.

Shitty Hair: I was right!!

Katsuki: Why would I ask any of the other Four Eyes for time off? They’re not my fucking bosses.

Tape Face: dunno

Raccoon Eyes: idk maybe ure secretly dating one a

Raccoon Eyes: nd have to confirm that its ok

Raccoon Eyes: ARE U SECRETLY DATING A FOUR EYES

Raccoon Eyes: U HAVE TO TELL US IF U ARE

Raccoon Eyes: URE LEGALLY OBLIGATED

Tape Face: o shit

Tape Face: scandalous

Katsuki: Shut the fuck up, I’m not dating anyone, secret or not.

Raccoon Eyes: thats what they all say

Katsuki: Whatever. I’m not dating anyone.

Raccoon Eyes: kats n four eyes no420 sittin in a tree

Raccoon Eyes: k

Raccoon Eyes: i

Raccoon Eyes: s

Raccoon Eyes: s

Raccoon Eyes: i

Katsuki: I’ll blow up all of your left shoes when you’re not home.

Raccoon Eyes: n

Raccoon Eyes: NO

Raccoon Eyes: IM STOPPING DONT DO IT

Shitty Hair: Hey what do you guys think of this photo

Shitty Hair: image.png

Tape Face: dude yes

Raccoon Eyes: AWWWW OUR FIRST BILLBOARDS AS PROS

Katsuki: Do we really need to send them pictures? It’s not like we fucking forgot this stuff already.

Tape Face: you can be a killjoy if you want lmao

Tape Face: im sure mina will send more than enough to cover for you

Raccoon Eyes: U BETCHA

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Raccoon Eyes: image.png

Tape Face: lmao why do you have a pic of katsuki throwing ei

Shitty Hair: I still can’t believe you did that bro

Shitty Hair: WITHOUT WARNING TOO

Katsuki: I gave you plenty of fucking warning.

Shitty Hair: Saying “I’m throwing you” AS YOU’RE THROWING ME is NOT PLENTY OF WARNING DUDE

Raccoon Eyes: im always ready to document golden moments

Katsuki: Shut the fuck up. We won the training exercise so what’s it fucking matter?

Shitty Hair: YOU THREW ME!!

Katsuki: Tape Face caught you before you could get hurt.

Shitty Hair: YOU /THREW/ ME!!!!!!

Tape Face: barely caught

Katsuki: Whatever.

Raccoon Eyes: im still impressed by how eASY u made that look

Katsuki: What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?

Raccoon Eyes: o look conveniently timed distraction photo spam

Katsuki sighed as he continued the conversation, commenting here and there on the photos his friends sent for judgement. In retrospect, he probably should have tried to talk to Shion first, since there was a chance she would have denied the time off for the reunion. Although, knowing her, she would have accepted just to force Katsuki into socializing. He opened up a new text message, figuring that if Shion did decide to deny the time off, he would at least have a screenshot to send to his friends explaining the sudden change in plans.

Katsuki: I need March 28th and 29th off.

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): Do my eyes deceive me? The great Katsuki Bakugou, asking for time off?

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): I’m amazed! Usually I have to ask you to take the day off!

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): Nay, not ask, but force!

Katsuki: Are you going to give it to me or not?

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): Depends! What do you need the time off for?

Katsuki: Class reunion.

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): Oh those are fun!

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): Fill out the proper time off paperwork and have it on my desk by Monday. I’ll approve the time off.

Four Eyes (Shitty Shion): Just keep your phone on you in case we need you to come in for an emergency, but I’ll try not to ruin your reunion with work.

Katsuki: Thanks.

Well, so much for an easy way out.

Katsuki pinched the bridge of his nose when he noticed that his phone had already accumulated another thirty texts in the past few minutes, no doubt primarily from Mina. He scrolled through the backlog, sending a few mostly empty threats when he saw photos he did not want projected for the entire class to see, freezing when his gaze met a pair of familiar amber eyes.

Shit.

In his scramble to close out of the photo, to escape the genuine smile that somehow was more haunting than the one in his dreams, he left the group text completely. He briefly thanked his past self; he’d impulse or rage quit the group text plenty of times before that this wasn’t unusual behavior. If he was lucky, his friends wouldn’t have noticed the timing of his departure and would assume he was just fed up with the notifications or the conversation.

Shitty Hair: You okay, Katsuki?

A weak laugh escaped Katsuki’s lips as he read the newest notification. Of course Eijirou noticed.

Katsuki: I’m fine.

Shitty Hair: Okay

Shitty Hair: We don’t have to talk about it

Shitty Hair: But if you want to, I’m here dude

Shitty Hair: I’ll tell the others that you left so your phone would shut up and not to add you back yet

Katsuki: Thanks. Really.

Shitty Hair: No problem dude

Katsuki put his phone down, silently praying for the smile to leave him alone.

When he finally laid down for bed that night, he repeated the short prayer, for a peaceful night’s rest free of the smile, of the hurt, of the pain, of the guilt.

But as always, the smile came.

[hopeatermeetsgodzilla]

Chapter 15

“-and he’s lived on Mara since then.” Madison finished, Florès humming and nodding in acknowledgment. The younger girl was currently reading the files about the Titans as the mechanic tinkered away on the new model for the ORCA.

It’s size was between the original prototype and the smaller one he had given Emma. This one was supposed to have a wider range of available sounds than just the options to make a Titan stand down or provoke them to a fight. “Damn, that’s a sucky backstory. And you’re telling me Rodan jumping in a volcano in an effort to be with his wife in death may be related to why he can live in one?”

“Yeah. I mean, Mothra can reincarnate.” Madison said with a shrug. “Magic that allowed someone to survive lava doesn’t seem that far-fetched.”

“Magic doesn’t exist.” Florès said, shaking his head as he got up from his chair, walking to the coffee machine and mini-fridge he kept in his office. “It’s just science no one has figured out yet. You want any snack?”

“Chocolate. And how would you explain reincarnation then, uh? Or Isla de Mara just... vanishing without a trace?”

Florès seemed to think for a moment. “Either Mothra is actually a really long family line of moth Titans who leave notes to each other in order to pull the longest scam in history- catch,” He threw a kit-kat at Madison. “-or the theory of genetic memory is actually right. As for Mara, I dunno. Probably something with physics...”

“What would you do if you learned magic was actually a whole science in itself?” Madison asked as she opened the candy. “Would you be mad?”

“I would be mad, yes. What about the last ones?” He asked as he started the coffee machine.

“Alright, so... Ghidorah...” Madison started. “There’s three of them, but we don’t have records of their actual names. But we do have nicknames: One who is Many, Golden Demise, Death Song of Three Storms... wow, there’s a lot.”

“Just give me facts, like with the others- powers, known relationship with other Titans, current whereabouts, and whatever backstory Dr. Chen scrounged up.”

“Alright, so: last seen near Mara, and disappeared at about the same as the Island. Everyone seems to hate them, and the feeling is mutual.” Madison turned to look at Florès, breaking her kit-kat up.

“What about their powers?” Florès asked, pouring himself a cup and coming closer.

“Uh... bio-electrical, energy draining, meteokinesis, flight of unknown nature, suspected to have a high level of telepathy, independency from oxygen...” Madison listed off.

Florès nodded, taking his seat again. “Is it noted somewhere why he doesn’t need oxygen. Like, are they deep-sea weirdos, or something?”

“... Look in the opposite direction.”

“What do you mean, look in the opposite direc- no.”

“... yeah... it says in the ‘myth’ section that they fell from the stars...”

“No no no no no no no- we’re dealing with fucking aliens!?” Madison nodded. “¡Qué cojones...!” Florès snapped, slamming his cup on his desk. His attention then snapped at the unfinished ORCA. “I need to finish this.”

“Most of the myths they’re in also all portray them as malevolent.” Madison added. “Like, ‘inspiration for the Christian Devil’ malevolent.”

“Mmm. Don’t like that.”

“What, you’re Christian?”

“Raised catholic, yeah.” Madison eyebrows shot up to her forehead. “Comes with the territory when you grow up in Venezuela. But I doubt these guys fell from grace, or anything.”

Madison hummed, going back to looking at the computer screen, even if she wasn’t reading anymore. “I talked to one of them, you know?”

“Did you?” She nodded. “How?”

“I... one of them was able to get outside of his body.” Madison started, Florès nodding and taking a sip from his cup. “And he talked to me. Brought me to mom when she came to get me in Antartica. And... told me he and his brothers just wanted to be free.” She buried her face in her hands. “I should’ve trust my instincts, should’ve known he was lying...”

“Well, you’re twelve.” Florès noted, patting Madison on the shoulder. “You can’t know everything. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Plus, you’re not the one who freed him now.” He then turned back toward the ORCA. “If I had been in your mother’s position, I would’ve done the same. And I can guarantee you that your mother would’ve still saved you if she knew all that stuff. So stop blaming yourself for getting kidnapped, alright Russellita?”

“Alright.”

-

Oh, that rock he was laying on was comfy.

Rodan never wanted to get up, curling up a bit even as he finally opened his eyes. The sun had risen a while ago, indicating he had slept in. Which made sense, seeing as he had stayed up talking and star watching with Ghidorah, who had been... surprisingly nice.  They just talked about places they remembered seeing beyond the world Rodan knew, pointing at locations in the sky when it turned dark.

Now that it was locked away from reality, the night sky had gained it’s stars back. He used to think that Ghidorah were vengeful souls back from the dead, but he supposed that stars being a map of the world beyond their own made just as much sense as them being the imprint left by the departed.

Nevertheless, the scenery this morning was still very pretty. With the sun reflecting in the water with thousand of sparkles and illuminating the golden strands of hair around him, it was as if light was bouncing off of everything.

Wait a minute...

Rodan opened his eyes more fully, looked up, and realized with horror that he was laying in Ichi Ghidorah’s lap, who had his hair undone for once and forming a curtain around him. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

Rodan screeched, jumping to stand up and suddenly very awake, only to stumble and land on his ass. “How long have you been watching me!? And why was I sleeping on you!?”

“Since my brothers woke up a while ago. And you fell asleep while we were star watching last night. The ground didn’t look very comfortable, so I moved you.” Ichi answered, still sitting as he leaned toward Rodan, who looked around him with a panicked expression. “You asleep looked like you were agreeing...”

“Okay, don’t manhandle me when I’m unconscious. And where did those two go!?”

“Ni is exploring what’s left of the human settlement. San is looking for rocks.” Ichi answered coolly, hoping the little bird would calm down eventually.

For now, to no avail. “Why are they doing that!?”

“Ni wants to see if there’s any humans left. As for San, he just wants to find rocks.” There was a pause, Ichi debating whether or not he should open up a bit. “He will also inevitably smash one of these rocks on my head as revenge for telling him to do things, but that can’t be helped.”

“... there’s no humans left.” Rodan angrily muttered, finally taking his eyes off Ichi. “They all left some times before you came here, and those that didn’t were probably flung away when I fell for the humans’ bait.”

Ichi raised an eyebrow at that. “Bait?”

“Humans figured out how to create calls.” Rodan explained bitterly. “They used one to bait me into flying into your storm.”

Ichi chuckled. “Oh, we’d have found you either way. The whole reason we came here in the first place is because San wanted to see you.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t have had to fight off the three of you in the middle of a raging storm.” Rodan retorted, bringing his knees up to his chest.

Ichi simply shrugged, going into meditation. {Ni, there’s no humans left. They all left before we came here.}

[Are you sure?]

{The little bird told me they left.}

[You’re really just going to believe him?]

{What?}

[What if it’s a trick?]

{What would he get out of lying about that!?}

(Also, he’s telling the truth.)

[Hello, brother San. How do you know that?]

(Hi Ni! Humans have a really strong emotional presence despite being so small and stupid, so they’re really easy to spot. Along with Rodan, we’re the only ones here.)

{And you didn’t tell us anything for some reason because...?}

(I thought you guys already knew! I mean, I get Ni not noticing because he’s so bad at it- no offense-)

[None taken.]

(-but brother Ichi!? You should’ve noticed ages ago.)

{Okay then-}

[Brother San, we haven’t even been there for a full day yet.]

(You know what I mean.)

{You two-}

[Anyway, I think humans figured out electricity, and how to generate it.]

{What!? Are you su-} Ichi was snapped out of his thoughts as he felt something lean on his leg. He opened his eyes, looking down at Rodan. The smaller being was leaning his head on his thigh, eyes closed. Was he... was he sleeping?... no, just resting. {The both of you come back as fast as you can. Ni, bring back some evidence.}

(But-)

{That’s not negotiable, San.} Ichi ignored his brothers as he put his hands on Rodan. One under his back, and the other one under his knees.

Rodan opened his eyes, confused. “What are you- gah!” Ichi had lifted him, only to promptly set him down on his lap. He chuckled as Rodan’s face started glowing brightly, twirling a lock of red hair around his long fingers. “Wha- telling you not to manhandle me when I’m sleeping wasn’t code for ‘do it when I’m awake’-”

“Don’t move.” Ichi told him, fingers carding through long red hair and separating it. “How do you usually style it?”

“Uh... simple ponytail, and I use another twisted strand to keep it together.” Rodan explained hesitantly. He looked down as Ichi started humming a little tune to himself, taking a strand of hair right above his ear and braiding part of it.

“How high do you keep your hair?” Ichi asked Rodan, who hummed in confusion. “I know it’s not high like San’s, but it doesn’t seem to be at the base of your head either.”

“J- just do it however you want.” There was a pause were there was no movement, Rodan fidgeting. He then brought a hand to the back of his head, claws tapping the middle of the back of his skull. “It doesn’t immediately become a problem if it loosen up, that way.”

“You don’t have to be so shy, you know? Why don’t you tell me what happened to you while we were sleeping.” Rodan shrunk on himself at that. Ichi leaned down as the other started debating it to himself, taking the braid within his teeth before lifting a sleeve up. He tied off one of the short ribbons he usually kept for his hair.

“I... became the Fire Guardian.” Rodan finally admitted.

Ichi hummed, starting to gather hair for the ponytail, letting go of the braid in the process. “What happened to the last one? The bird with the colorful feathers... what was her name again?”

“Quetzalcoatl. And she... died. Out of control volcanic eruption, the smoke is what killed her.” Rodan’s voice had broken on that fourth word.

Ichi raised an eyebrow, tying the ponytail with the ribbon. “You two were close?” He was pretty sure the only people Rodan had been close to was Godzilla.

“We met after you guys got sealed.” Was the only context he offered.

“I see...” Better not push the subject for now less San’s plan gets ruined from trying to dig too deep too fast, but it would be interesting ammunitions for later. He tied the braid around the base the ponytail, passing whatever wasn’t braided under it. “Done~”

Rodan hesitantly pat the braid on the side of his head, before shaking his head a bit. It seemed to be holding better than normal. He was about to thank Ichi, before remembering he was still sitting on his lap and jumping off with a yell. This time, he was able to right himself, and looked at him. Since the Ghidorah was sitting down, the two were at mostly the same eye level. He coughed hesitantly, the flush on his face lessening a bit. “Th- thank you.”

“You’re welcome, firebird.” Rodan’s flush immediately came back, his face almost glowing a golden color.

“Still better than ‘little bird’...” He muttered to himself. Rpdan than turned, facing away from Ichi. “I’m going to go for a short flight, ascertain the damage you and your brothers did. Do not try anything while I’m gone, got it?”

Ichi chuckled. “You’re cute when you’re trying to be intimidating. And understood. I’ll be right there when you come back.”

“... Good.” And with that, a strong breeze lifted an extremely flustered Rodan of the ground, leaving Ichi alone and in a good mood.

Said good mood immediately faded away as he felt something collide with his head. He looked to his right, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Ni who had smashed something made out of wood on his head, “Really?”

“I wasn’t finished searching, and you were getting too touchy-feely.”

“Yes Ni, that’s the plan.” Ichi reminded his brother. “Get close to Rodan in order to manipulate him.”

“You were getting touchy-feely- here’s the human tech.” Ni dumped what was left of the pole on Ichi’s lap. The older brother took a look at it, frowning. Certainly what was needed to transport energy from one place to another, but not enough to not lose any in travel, and there was too many pieces.

“That doesn’t make sense.” Ichi grumbled. “This is too primitive compared to the flying machines they had. It should be more in line with it. The other civilizations we saw always had a consistent level of tech on the entirety of their planets, if not always in line with other civilizations.” 

“Not all of them.” Ni reminded him. “You remember the Exif, right?”

“Of course I remember the Exif.” Ichi hissed. The first (and the last) civilization to ‘loan’ Ghidorah from the Xiliens for a period of time that could be counted in years. In this case, for the upper class to intimidate the lower ones into believing their Gods had come to smite anyone who would dare oppose them. And since Gods were supposed to be immortal, they had stayed for several Exif centuries.

But then the Exif ended up believing their own lies, and upon San’s request, found a way to disconnect them from the Conductor. Enveloping their planet in an endless storm and watching it die had given Ghidorah such a rush they just knew that it’s what they had been taken away from their own world for.

“Not sharing everything in an equal manner between all seems like something they would do.” Ni commented. “And humans always lived in small, separated communities with a clear leader. Maybe it became more apparent as time went on? It goes very fast to them, after all.”

Ichi groaned, taking one last, distasteful at the components in front of him. “Still. There’s never that big of a gap in technology on singular planets. If they have figured out space travel, the furthest they would be able to go to is their moon.” A rock landed on the back of Ichi’s head. “Welcome back, San.”

The youngest brother sat down, giggling as Ni gave his own snort. His arms were full of rocks “Sorry, needed to get it out after you interrupted my search for cool rocks.”

“Did you find any cool rocks?”

“Not really...” San whined, handing the rocks to Ichi, who started looking them over. Most of them had the same hard quality as the ground. “You called us back before I could find good ones... oh! But I did find this!” Out of the tissue he usually draped himself with, San got out a glossy black stone that had a powdery, golden sheen to it.

Ni’s eyes widened by a fraction, making a grabby motion for it. When San shook his head, his face soured. “Why?”

“I want to give it to Rodan. Show of goodwill.” San explained. “By the way, where did he go?”

“For a flight. He wants to see how dead his island is.” Ichi answered off-handedly. “Are you sure that plan of yours is going to work? Fire bird has... quite the temper. He might not break if we tell him the humans were the ones who did this.”

“Someone angry at us but more at our target is still easier to use than someone who’s just angry at us.” San replied, before frowning. “Also, I thought he was  ‘little bird’?”

“’Fire bird’ sounds less insulting than ‘little bird’.” Ichi answered, shrugging. “Like you said, show of goodwill. That, and doing his hair.”

“... Brother San, give me that rock.”

“No, Ni!”

“It’s not for me. I want to be the one giving it to the fire bird.” Ni answered. Upon his brothers’ confused faces, he continued. “It’s easy for the both of you to pretend to be nice- oblivion, San is actually nice. It’s not for me. But the plan isn’t going to work well if it doesn’t seem like I’m at least trying to be nice. So?”

After a few seconds, Sa handed the stone to Ni, the message in his eyes obvious. Don’t screw this up.

We cannot screw this up.

[have-each-others-six]

face to the wind, eyes to the sun (pt. three)

part one

part two

well, well, well.

look who finally showed up, huh?

my apologies, work is kicking my ass.

today’s two posts will be very close together as i have been at work all day crying over courtney stapleton!

enjoy the angst!

***

four.

When Anna of Cleves wakes up from a horrifying nightmare the morning of the day she will die, she feels fine.

Or, to be more accurate, she feels nothing.

It’s sunny and bright outside, rare for England, but the joy and excitement that she should be feeling at the nice weather is absent, apprehension taking its place.

She pulls open her curtains, standing there in her pajamas for a moment, letting the sun hit her skin.

A bird flies past, a swallow, leaping and diving and chirping as it goes by the window.

Anna remembers Germany, remembers how a whole flock of swallows lived in one of the turrets of the castle, and how they would take flight whenever the carriage was brought out, soaring through the clear, bright air.

She misses it sometimes.

The other girls are all from around here, except for Aragon and Anne, but Catherine came to court when she was fifteen and died here, and Anne saild over from France when she was twenty.

Anna, though, Anna had lived in Germany for most of her life. She’d come here for Henry after the painting had intrigued him, but always with the intention of returning to her homeland.

She never did, though.

And now she never will.

A knock on her doorframe startles her out of her reverie.

“Hey.”

It’s Anne. She didn’t take her makeup off last night, and it’s been smudged with tears and sleep.

“What’s up?” Anna asks, rather rhetorically. She knows what’s bothering Anne.

“I’m going to get beheaded again tonight,” Anne says drily. “It’s put a bit of a damper on my day.”

“Ah, what a shame. I’ve only just found out I’m supposed to die of cancer tonight, so I won’t be too chipper either.”

“Did you ever find out what type of cancer?” Anne asks curiously. “Like, did you look it up when we got in this time or anything?”

“Nope,” Anna responds, popping the ‘p’ as she says it. “When I was dying, they told me it was consumption. Nothing beyond that. I don’t think they even knew what cancer was back then.”

“So you were dying, and they just made up an illness to give you a placating explanation even though they didn’t know?”

Anna nods, giving her a weak smile.

“That’s fucked up,” Anne says, and she’s silent for a minute before continuing. “You know something? I was about to say ‘I can’t believe that they did that to you’, but I can. I can believe that they did that. And that’s just depressing as hell.”

Anna shrugs, although it takes far more effort than that to brush off the truth in Anne’s statement. She stretches, turning away from the window, and her walls are back up. 

“Let’s check on breakfast.”

Once downstairs, the heavy feeling of dread gets even stronger as she looks around at the other queens.

Aragon’s making eggs, Parr’s picking at a hangnail, and Katherine is sitting with Jane at the table, reading.

It would look almost normal, if it weren’t for the fact that Aragon’s eyes are red with leftover tears as she stirs, or if Parr wasn’t flinching at every unexpected noise, or if Katherine and Jane weren’t both shaking as they turned the pages.

“So what are we going to do?” Anna asks the group, surprising even herself. 

“I don’t know,” Anne replies behind her, and everyone else stays silent.

“Well, we have a show today,” Anna reminds them, keeping her voice from trembling. “That’ll be a proper sendoff.”

“What are we going to tell the audience?”

Jane’s the one who asks it, putting down her book. It’s not like the rest of them haven’t thought of it, but if they tell their audience, it will suddenly all become real.

“We can’t lie to them,” Aragon says, still facing the stove. 

“But we don’t have an explanation,” Anne argues. “‘Oh, sorry, but we’ve only just found out we’re going to die alone tonight. Cheers, mate, buy some merch on your way out!’” She mimics a high-pitched happiness that she clearly doesn’t feel.

Anna chews the inside of her cheek, considering both of their viewpoints. It’s rare that she’s the mediator in their debates, that’s usually Jane’s job, but she doesn’t think you could take Jane away from Katherine today if you pried her off with a crowbar.

She tries to weigh both sides. If they tell them, they won’t have a moment to breathe today. It’ll all be questions and pleas and stunned, disbelieving conversations.

But if they don’t, the disappearance of six prominent musical stars will likely make the news. An investigation’ll be opened, the people who were closest to the queens targeted as suspects. There’ll probably be mourning once people realize they’re never coming back.

But honestly, anything could happen.

So Anna doesn’t know what she’s going to say until she says it.

“We should tell them,” she says, and Aragon nods seriously in agreement. “But not all of it.”

“How do you mean?” Jane asks, facing fully towards Anna now.

“We wait till the show’s over, then we tell them that something’s gone wrong and we’re unable to continue the show at this time. We don’t tell them about-” 

Her voice doesn’t work, so she clears her throat to fight off the tears. “-about us… not being around anymore.”

“Dying,” Anne corrects bluntly.

Anna shoots her a withering look.

“But I don’t understand,” Parr starts, raising her hand timidly, “because if we tell them that, they’ll just ask us question after question.”

“We can say we don’t know the specifics yet. That’s not a lie, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Jane responds, and Anna sees her unconsciously reach out for Kat’s hand, as if to confirm that she’s still there.

Aragon looks doubtful. She scrapes the eggs out of the pan onto a plate, gives them to Katherine with a soft smile in her direction, and looks back to Anna, crossing her arms like she’s protecting herself.

She opens her mouth to say something, likely an argument against Anna’s proposition, but then a soft voice interrupts her.

“We should do it.”

All the heads in the room turn towards Katherine, who hasn’t talked all morning.

“These people have supported us for months, haven't they? They deserve to know, but we don’t need to tell them everything because it’ll only hurt them.”

Aragon looks more convinced after Katherine speaks, and she turns back to Anna with a look of resolve on her still-tearstained face.

“Okay. We’ll do it.”

Anna squeezes her hand in appreciation, and they all sit down for their last breakfast together.

It’s way too quiet.

Anne isn’t making a mess of the syrup as she normally does, and Jane isn’t reprimanding her for it. Kat isn’t laughing hysterically at a joke Anna just told, Parr isn’t scribbling down thoughts on paper, and Aragon isn’t walking around cleaning up after everyone.

“We’re all going to die in fifteen hours,” Parr says, like she’s forgotten the rest of them are even there, eyes haunted and fingers fidgeting with the silverware.

“Yes, because we’d all bloody forgotten,” Anne snaps. 

She’s clearly terrified. When Anne’s scared, she either gets funny or she gets venomous, and this is very quickly shaping up to be the latter.

Parr shrinks back, curling in on herself like a hurt animal, and Jane’s jaw tenses but she doesn’t say anything.

There’s an undercurrent of panic in everything they’re all doing, and Anna knows she isn’t the only one picking up on it.

She feels like she has to look at everything, take in every last sight and smell and sound, because after tonight she won’t be able to anymore.

There’s a vague memory of feeling like this when she died the first time, but mostly she remembers the slow path of the pain working its way through her brain and losing the ability to remember, to move, to speak, to do anything. 

The familiar weight of guilt sits just below her ribs. 

Henry was a monster. He ruined six lives forever, traumatizing every woman he ever married and taking two of their lives far too soon.

But Anna didn’t suffer as long as some of the other girls. Christ, Aragon was married to him for twenty-three years, and Anna’s marriage to Henry only lasted for a few months.

Sometimes, she feels like she doesn’t deserve to be here with them, telling her story. She wasn’t beheaded, nor did she die horribly in childbirth. 

Tonight, when they all are thrown back into the worst moments of their lives, Anna knows that everyone else will be screaming in pain and misery and fear, and she has no doubts that she will be too. She knows, though, that just before she died she was practically brain-dead, unable to process anything around her or recognize faces.

She probably won’t even be able to tell when she’s dead, so deep in delirium she won’t feel any pain.

She’s the lucky one.

“Anna?”

Parr’s voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and she swallows the tears that are threatening to fall.

“Yeah, babe, what’s up?” she says, forcing a levity in her voice that she doesn’t feel.

“I asked if you could pass the berries.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, sure.”

When breakfast is over, they all sit listlessly in the living room, the TV playing some game show that Parr mumbles the answers to on reflex.

After ten agonizingly slow minutes of this, Anne stands up abruptly and claps her hands together.

“Okay, this is bloody ridiculous.”

“Anne-” Aragon starts to say, clearly about to reprimand her, but Anne holds up a hand to silence whatever she was going to say.

“This is our last day on earth. And we’re all on the verge of tears sitting in front of an old rerun of goddamn Wheel of Fortune. This isn’t what we should be doing right now, we should be outside doing what we’ve always wanted to because we won’t be able to after tonight. We’ve got fifteen hours left, right? So let’s fucking do something with them.”

She stands there, jaw clenched, desperation clear to see in her eyes.

“Technically, it’s fourteen hours and thirty-eight minutes,” Parr murmurs, and Anne gives her a look.

“Fine. More to my point, then. Let’s go.”

“Where?” Anna asks, setting down her book that she’s been pretending to read.

“I want to eat a bloody bag of animal crackers or something before I go and get my head chopped off. Come on, let’s go to a petrol station or something. I just need to get out of this room.”

“Our show’s tonight,” Aragon reminds her, nervously picking at a loose thread on the couch.

“I know that, Glare-agon,” Anne says flippantly. “I’m just-” She falters for a moment, her brave face broken for a moment by fear, but then it’s back. “I just want to go out and do something.”

“She’s right,” Anna says. “We shouldn’t sit around and waste our last few hours.”

“Can we go to the park?” Katherine asks softly, from her now-typical position of being practically glued to Jane’s hip. They had always been cuddly, Anna knows, but now the pressure and terror has caused them both to start clinging to the other like a life preserver.

“The park sounds good, babe,” Anna responds, giving Kat a grin. It’s fake, but hopefully she can’t tell.

Slowly, all of the queens agree, and as they get up to leave Anna hears Parr mumble fourteen hours and twenty-six minutes.

Fourteen hours and twenty-six minutes.

She’ll be nonsensical and in pain when she dies, but the rest of them will be going through so much worse.

You didn’t have to suffer as much as they did, says the little voice of doubt that’s always there in the back of her mind.

You don’t deserve to be here.

You will never belong.

The rest of them head to the front, pulling on shoes and trying to make small talk, but Anna is rooted to the spot for a moment in guilt and memories.

She pushes the feeling down, making it smaller and manageable and easier to put aside, and moves forward, joining everyone else, and if there are tears in her eyes no one mentions it.

They’ve all cried too much today.

[katandabbieslife]

Back from Summer break. Explanation/Apology

Hello everyone, this is Abbie. I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from us, we’ve not given up on the site, although we figure you’ve given up on us, and we can’t blame you. We’re college girls and were on summer break. We hit 4 music festivals, went on a 1 week vacation with our friends Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho about 3 weeks ago. We were also given a job to do that had to be done.

Our main reason for not posting to the site has been the fact we had a job over the summer. We pretty much made our own hours, but we had a job we had to get done, and we worked usually from 7am until 5 or 6 pm, out in the heat and sun. When we were done for the day, all we wanted to do was relax in the pool, or the hot tub, which was turned off all summer. We did party a little on the weekends but nothing major.

We’re sorry we haven’t posted in so long, but we also just really just wanted to relax when we were done with work for the day. I also became disheartened back in the summer when we started receiving messages that were borderline abusive. Kat tried several times to finish the second part of my birthday story and would say she was going to post it “soon” but she is a perfectionist and would find something that needed to be changed. Some of the messages we received from a certain follower were like “What the fuck is going on here? Why the Hell haven’t you posted yet?”, and then continuing on to tell us “You should have more respect for your followers.” It got to be too much being talked to like that, considering we get absolutely nothing from posting our stories to you other than knowing some of you enjoy reading about our sexual adventures.

To be honest, when we made this new page for text only, since Tumblr banned the adult videos and images we used to like to reblog, and occasionally still do, we did not have even a 10th of our followers, follow us here. We don’t blame you though, like we all know, we are inconsistent with posting. One reason, Kat is a perfectionist, and two, we usually keep the vanilla stuff to ourselves. Yes, we have a lot of sex, even after two years of dating, we are still daily, if not two or three times daily. We just tend to write about the bigger events. The threesomes, foursomes, and parties we have (which I will be posting about one soon). Since those are not like weekly events, we don’t always have something to write about. If you want, we can write about other exciting things going on in our lives, other small sexual events, similar to the parking lot story from last semester, and just other things we’re excited and proud of? They would be shorter posts, but they would also be more frequent, and possibly give you a chance to get to know and understand us a little better. Let us know. At this point, we may do it anyway since we mainly started this site for us and not really expecting any sort of following. We just enjoy knowing others get off reading about us getting off.

As I write this, we’re on the plane heading back home to Idaho since school starts next Monday. Madi and Alec have watched our apartment and Kat’s SUV over the summer for us and we figure we need to get back and get the fridge stocked, and outfits bought for the beginning of the semester. So, please accept our apologies for being so inconsistent over the summer. As I said, we’ll probably post more, smaller updates, and the bigger stories, since they happen infrequently, will be written about and posted when we have the time. I’d like to say we’ll let you know when we’ll be posting them, but as we know, when we say we’re going to have something posted, it doesn’t happen, then we get abusive messages in our inbox. The main one was from someone who always used the “Ask” link to message us anonymously. During the time Kat was really trying to finish and post the second part of the birthday story, he DM’ed us on Twitter. Not so anonymous now! I had been posting on the twitter account we made for this Tumblr, and he said “What the fuck is going on here? Why are you posting here and re-blogging things on Tumblr but not posting the second part of the story?” That was one message that pissed me off. I, Abbie, was posting on Twitter and re-blogging on Tumblr while Kat was the one writing and trying to finish her story. Am I supposed to just fucking give up having fun posting on twitter hashtag games while she writes? Or am I supposed to take over her story and post it myself? The berating he gave us in Twitter DM’s and the berating I gave back led me to telling him to just fucking unfollow us and that I didn’t give a shit. So he did, he unfollowed and blocked us on twitter. I don’t care. I don’t know if he unfollowed us here or not, so, Swim Nudist, or whatever your Tumblr name is, Fuck YOU! Unfollow us or not, I don’t give a fuck.

As far as our job over the summer, I will be writing about it “soonish”. I have some backstory on it that will be posted first since this all started back in the fall. It is a really big opportunity for Kat and me, by proxy. So, again, we’re sorry we’ve not been consistent; we hope to post more frequently this semester. Like I said, probably more, shorter updates, similar to the parking lot story from last semester. Some things may be non-sexual, but like I said, it may give you a chance to learn a little more about us, if you want.

 -Abbie P.S. We got home last night, ordered food and passed out. So I did not get this posted last night.    -Abbie

[pvrestwolff]

---- that's right, pleased to meet you, i still won't tell you my name. don't you believe in mystery? don't you want to play my game?

trident’s task 005; character questionnaire number two.

---- basic character questions

first name? ekaterina. surname? kashkanov-zamolochikova-markovy. ( usually just goes by markovy as a last name ) middle names? mikhailovna aliena. nicknames? erica, kat, kati, katya, nina and kitten. date of birth? eleventh of january, nineteen eighty-eight. age? thirty years old.

---- physical / appearance

height? 5′4″ weight? 135lbs, but has lost muscle and weight since being on the island. build? slim, slight and lean. hair color? honey brown. hair style? thin and soft but abundant, naturally curly, normally sits a little longer than shoulder length but has gone uncut since being on the island. eye color? blue with a hazel ring around the pupil. eye shape? almond/round. glasses or contact lenses? both. distinguishing facial features? eyes, lips, cheekbones, jawline. which facial feature is most prominent? eyes. which bodily feature is most prominent? biceps. other distinguishing features? hands, legs, waist, tattoos. skin? tan/olive. hands? slender palm, long fingers. make up? concealer and foundation with a nude lip and simple eyeliner for everyday use, concealer, foundation, highlighter and contour with a bright red or pink lip, complementary colours of eyeshadow and dramatic eyeliner for functions, parties, appearances or photoshoots. scars? straight, deep cuts all across her body at varying angles from sword-fighting practice that have faded to be near unnoticeable, a scar from a switchblade she copped while trying to protect charlie, scars across her knuckles from punching either a face or a bag too hard and splitting the skin, and small indents from chicken pox when she was a child. birthmarks? a mark on her forearm that is similarly shaped to a rabbit; she shares the mark with her mother. tattoos? a tiger on her left middle finger, a butterfly on the back of her neck, four birds on her left forearm, a sun and two stars behind her right ear, a tree on the right of her torso and hermes wings on the outsides of both her ankles, the word “cariad” in looping script, on the left the side of her ribs. physical handicaps? short sightedness and astigmatisms. type of clothes? neat blouses, skirts, heels, vests, a jacket, comfortable pants and the heaviest boots she can find. how do they wear their clothes? fitted if they are for show, for function if they are not. what are their feet like? her feet are well taken care of, has calloused balls and heels from dancing and running barefoot. usually wears comfortable and clean socks with whatever boots she can find that are wearable, even if they are a little too large. will wear heels for a party, however. race / ethnicity? caucasian ( russian, belarusian ) and ashkenazi jewish. mannerisms? miming out piano scales on surfaces while she is thinking, stretching her hands, tapping her thumb and middle finger together, tapping her foot to an imaginary beat, furrowing her brow while reading, tracing her fingertips over the lines of her visible tattoos. are they in good health? yes, for the time being. do they have any disabilities? borderline personality disorder.

---- personality

what words or phrases do they overuse? “i am fine.”, ”shut up.“, “idiot/pizdabol'.”, “fuck/kurva.”, “whore, slut, bitch/bliadz’.”, “fucking whore/kurva piardolanaja.”, “bastard/bajstruk.”, “no,”, “fuck you.”. there are many more and they are all offensive. do they have a catchphrase? “no.” or “fuck you.”. are they more optimistic or pessimistic? both. are they introverted or extroverted? both. do they ever put on airs? without a doubt. ekaterina is incredibly good at acting or pretending to be someone she is not, or feeling what she is not. what bad habits do they have? catastrophising, focusing on details, smoking tobacco and weed, drinking alcohol and coffee, swearing (though she doesn’t consider it a bad habit), needing to know everything, pursuing activities or people that she knows are bad for her. what makes them laugh out loud? children falling and completely eating shit, instant karma, dark and morbid humour, shakespeare’s comedies acted well. how do they display affection? ekaterina does not like PDA, usually. part of her enjoys the idea of a little PDA in order to make it known who belongs to her. in private, however, ekaterina is much more affectionate, and she can act extremely different. if they are new to it, she might touch someone on the chest or arm, perhaps even caress their jaw, but if she is well acquainted, she might straighten out their clothes, trace over their skin, neaten up their hair and brush locks out of their eyes, hold their hands, hug them and if they happen to be lying down, she might bury her face in their neck or hand while holding them. it very much depends on who it is she is showing affection for. mental handicaps? borderline personality disorder. minor depression. obsessive-compulsive tendencies, sociopathic tendencies. how do they want to be seen by others? ekaterina truly wants to be someone that people fear or respect, as she knows deep down that she is the kind of person who could do something earth-shattering if she set her mind to it. she wants to be seen as strong, unfailing, reliable, mysterious, perfect and perhaps even unattainable. how do they see themselves? the furthest thing from desirable, and as a truly evil creature. how are they seen by others? probably as an angry, mean yet just person who will fight anyone who sets her off. strongest character trait? determination. weakest character trait? intrapersonal emotional intelligence. how competitive are they? extremely. ekaterina is the type that wants to win everything, even if winning does not mean anything. do they make snap judgements or take time to consider? it depends on the situation. if she is bombarded, she won’t take the time to ponder, but if she is far more at ease, she tends to allow discovery before she judges. how do they react to praise? sometimes awkwardly, sometimes she will brush it off and other times, she will gladly accept it. how do they react to criticism? that depends on what someone is criticising her on. if it is her personality or who she is as a person, she will snap on them, but if it is about something that she does, she can accept it. as long as it’s constructive. what is their greatest fear? rejection, failure, losing her loved ones and being totally alone. what are their biggest secrets? she murdered a man when she was fourteen to save charlie’s life, she has killed other despicable people while in league with the belarusian mafia, she enjoys torturing people that have done abhorrent things, and takes special pleasure in drawing out their deaths so that they suffer until the last second. on a lighter note, she had a two long year secret relationship with grace ( that people still are not aware of ), she slept with luka ( several times ), and they have still not yet told his friend, the other prince who vied for her attention. she knows that the guilt weighs on them both but they have chosen to not speak of it. and finally, she is intensely attracted to roman tulach. ( @gunnerflanagan​, @classiciisms,​ @luka-rossi​, @roman-tulach​ ) what is their philosophy of life? talk less, smile more. don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for. when was the last time they cried? when she realised that charlie was both alive and well, and now a pirate. what haunts them? a few nights in her lifetime where she was coerced into sexual acts while she was not sober and had not properly consented. the mornings after those encounters ekaterina felt as if she could say nothing to anyone and so has kept it to herself, giving her a warped impression of her value, and the death of her cousin, lorne dùghlas. she had been rather close with him, given their similar ages and it broke her heart to learn about his murder. what are their political views? she is a liberal in some aspects, but has slowly been losing faith in the current ideology the world shares since she was thrust into meetings and talks that her mother insisted she learn about. when it comes to running a country with absolute monarchy, she does not agree, and believes that the people need a voice as well. what will they stand up for? justice above all else, no matter the cost. who do they quote? niccolò di bernardo dei machiavelli, william shakespeare, friedrich wilhelm nietzsche, socrates, rené descartes, george orwell, f. scott fitzgerald, joseph conrad, vincent van gogh, oscar wilde, albert einstein, mae west, dr seuss ( yes, look up his quotes ), marilyn monroe. are they indoorsy or outdoorsy? both. what is their sinful little habit? a drug-fuelled orgy or murder seems a little obvious, so perhaps it is her pining for and silent flirting with either ex-lovers, or taken/unattainable people that she quietly adores. what sense do they most rely on? instinct. how do they treat people better than them? as long as they treat her with respect, she will do the same. how do they treat people worse than them? as long as they treat her with respect, she will do the same. what quality do they most value in a friend? loyalty and patience. what do they consider an overrated virtue? purity or honesty. if they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be? ekaterina is the kind of person that would change everything about herself if she could, but she would never truly be happy, and continue to change each aspect on a whim, eventually losing all that used to make her, her. what is their obsession? absolute perfection, blades, lingerie, leather, literature. what are their pet peeves? when people chew with their mouth open; ignorance; stupidity, unreliability; self-centredness; being used for her status; people who expect respect when they have not earned nor given it; people who complain to complain; people who corrupt their morals for material gain; people who tell her to speak in english if she is speaking in one of her mother tongues; people who dog ear books to bookmark their page. what are their idiosyncrasies? when observing a fight, she will add in comments to fuel the anger between whoever is arguing in order to turn it into a brawl; smoothing out dog ears on pages in books; continually adjusting her glasses ( when she has them ); chewing on the end of the pencil or pen she uses to journal or document things; arranging objects on a surface so they are straight and line up with each other.

---- friends and family

is their family big or small? who does it consist of? her family is quite large, including three royal branches. the markovy family adds six members; her mother, her father, ekaterina, nikolai and her two middle siblings; the nikolaevna family adds another six; her aunt, her uncle, tatiana and her three younger siblings; the dùghlas family adds another seven; her aunt, her uncle, ainsley, her three older brothers and one older sister; also included would be her paternal grandparents, her grandmother on that side being her babushka, her maternal grandparents, all of that brings the total up to twenty four known relatives, alive or deceased. ( @nikolaimarkovy, @tatiana-nikolaevna, @hrhxainsley ) what is their perception of family? ekaterina would give anything for her family, and that is the utter truth. no matter the request, no matter the risk, she would do whatever they asked of her; family is extremely important to her. do they have siblings? older or younger? ekaterina is the eldest of four, with two sisters in the middle, and a brother, nikolai, the youngest. describe their best friend. over the years, the title of best friend has changed hands many times, though she can confidently say that her brother is one of her closest friends and  regardless of who else may hold when she was younger, it was her father ( whom she still calls her daddy in an innocent way despite the fact that she’s thirty ); then the second eldest ukrainian royal; it fell to charlie while she was in paris; after that, she floated about without many friends to speak of, none of them coming close to that connection. in fact, it is her cousins and siblings who were often her best friends in that period of time. however, after a personal bodyguard was hired for her and they began to bond, she considered him her best friend; of course, all of those were ex-best friends, in the kindest of meanings. when she met lola through mutual connections, she felt as if she had found someone who she could truly call a friend again, and as they bonded, she became more and more attached. the island has only strengthened their relationship, and she would consider lola to be her best friend now. though, it is starting to feel as if the fine line between friend and possible lover is becoming exceedingly blurred. ( @lola-gutierrez ) ideal best friend? ekaterina likes a best friend who can challenge her, but also show patience in the face of her mental and emotional struggles. she wants to be able to trust her best friend with confidence, and for them to be there for her as she would be for them. describe their other friends. it would be safe to say that her friends are people like nikolai, luka, charlie, tatiana, ainsley, nael, grace, ottavio. ( @princenaelxdlf, @ottavioxrossi ) describe their acquaintances. carlos, oliver, rhys, and roman ( though it is more attraction than an alliance/acquaintanceship ) ( @blueblxod, @first-mate-sebastian, @rhys-tclford ) do they have any pets? two dogs; daisy, a maltese shih-tzu and jay, a labrador kelpie. who are their natural allies? her family, grace, charlie, lola, people who believe in justice, and people who do not jeopardise the safety of others through impulsivity. who are their surprising allies? i mean, this one has to be roman tulach.

---- past and future

what was your character like as a baby? as a child? ekaterina rarely cried as a baby, only gazing up at her parents with her now well-known big, blue intense eyes. as child, however, she was very selfish and upset when she could not see her parents due to their royal commitments. she still holds resentment for that fact. did they grow up rich or poor? very, very rich. did they grow up nurtured or neglected? neglected. her parents were not there for her formative years, though her father seems to be only one of the two who regrets that. what is the most offensive thing they ever said? from what she can recall, it was: “call us fags once more and i will shove david’s star up your cunt.” it was said to a female orthodox preacher who harassed her and a girl she had taken out to dinner as they walked by holding hands, both for being gay and for being jewish. what is their greatest achievement? managing to maintain a semi-normal relationship for as long as she did with grace and reducing crimes in belarus through deals with members of organised criminal syndicates. what was their first kiss like? like fireworks. they’d been running through a cobblestreet alleyway to avoid her bodyguards when ekaterina tripped and scraped both of her knees, causing her to yelp in pain and scoot away from the line of sight down the path. in an attempt to distract her from the pain, charlie kissed her. she’d wanted him to kiss her for a long time and although it was clumsy and awkward, as most first kisses are, she wouldn’t have changed a thing about it. what is the worst thing they did to someone they loved? she turned luka on his best friend as both of them fought for her affections, eventually sleeping with luka and keeping it a secret from his friend to avoid adding fuel to the fire. truthfully, she wanted both of them, and still wishes she could have had a night with the other prince. she also distanced herself from grace after their break-up because of her own pride and stubbornness. what are their ambitions? true freedom, and to make an impact on the world and never be forgotten. what advice would they give their younger self? bad times will always come with the good, but do not let what happens to you define who you become. what smells remind them of their childhood? the smell of books, old and new, from her father’s library. what was their childhood ambition? to make an impact on the world and never be forgotten. what is their best childhood memory? when she was finally allowed to take up sword-fighting as a hobby. what is their worst childhood memory? the first time she was announced officially as heir to the throne and had to give a speech to the public. did they have an imaginary childhood friend? no. when was the last time they were crushed with disappointment? when she realised that charlie had become a pirate. what past act are they most ashamed of? she turned luka on his best friend as both of them fought for her affections, eventually sleeping with luka and keeping it a secret from his friend to avoid adding fuel to the fire; she also regrets reacting so harshly toward grace during and after their break-up. what past act are they most proud of? saving charlie’s life. has anyone ever saved their life? her personal bodyguard was stabbed before, when a girl rushed her at a club. she is still forever grateful for his actions. strongest childhood memory? lying awake and listening to her father read her stories/sing to her.

---- love

do they believe in love at first sight? no. are they in a relationship? technically yes. she is betrothed, though she does not consider it a relationship. how do they behave in a relationship? usually the same as she does out of one. there just happens to be more sex and more emotion to it. when did you character last have sex? god only knows. SHE NEEDS IT THOUGH. what sort of sex do they have? all kinds. she enjoys slow, gentle sex but also loves rough, animalistic sex, and enjoys incorporating BDSM into her encounters. has your character ever been in love? yes, with charlie and grace. have they ever had their heart broken? yes, by charlie and grace.

---- conflict

how do they respond to a threat? usually with defensive action. are they most likely to fight with their fists or their tongue? both. what is your character’s kryptonite? grace, someone who can match her mind games like roman, strawberries on pancakes, or someone she loves crying. if your character could only save one thing from their burning house, what would it be? it would depend on what’s inside. likely her dogs, or her family if they were still trapped. how do they perceive strangers? as strangers. she does not judge until she learns a few things about them. what do they love to hate? herself. what are their phobias? autophobia, atychiphobia, atelophobia. what is their choice of weapon? knives, swords, guns, fists, or anything she can find. what living person do they most despise? she has killed most of the people she truly despises. have they ever been bullied or teased? yes. where do they go when they’re angry? usually to her private space so that she can be alone, lest she be provoked into a physical altercation. who are their enemies and why? anyone who stands in the way of her goals, anyone who is despicable enough to commit crimes like rape, child abuse, human trafficking and nazis.

---- work, education and hobbies

what is their current job? crown princess, heir to the belarusian throne, grand duchess of vitebsk, killer for hire. what do they think about their current job? she does not particularly enjoy being royalty nor being the heir though she knows she has no say in it. she does, however, love the vigilante justice that comes with killing horrible people. what are some of their past jobs? none. what are their hobbies? exercising, fencing, martial arts, fighting, reading, playing piano, exploration, sketching, creating/using ciphers for her journals, assassinations and murder. educational background? has a masters degree in history of piracy with a minor in cryptography. intelligence level? 135 IQ, superior intelligence. do they have any specialist training? yes. fencing, martial arts, sword-fighting, gun-handling, cryptography, cartography, scuba diving, basic latin, history, history of piracy, etiquette, ballroom dancing. do they have a natural talent for something? strategy and leading. do they play a sport? are they any good? yes; fencing, sword-fighting, lacrosse and cross-country running. she trains intensely in order to excel in the sports she attempts. what is their socioeconomic status? upper, royal.

---- favourites

what is their favorite animal? a tiger, or a bird. which animal to they dislike the most? she doesn’t loathe any animal, but spiders are not exactly on her favourites list. what place would they most like to visit? the parts of the world that she has not yet seen. what is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen? the ocean. what is their favorite song? la vie en rosie by édith piaf or dream a little dream of me by the mamas and the papas. music, art, reading preferred? all. what is their favorite color? purple. what is their password? usually something unguessable, but she won’t tell you what it is. favorite food: strawberries and pancakes. what is their favorite work of art? the creation of adam by michelangelo simply for the scientific secrets within it or the birth of venus by sandro botticelli for the same reasons. who is their favorite artist? antoni gaudí i cornet, leonardo da vinci ( if only for his similar approach to coding his work ), vincent van gogh. what is their favorite day of the week? thursdays.

---- possessions

what is in their fridge: usually a lot of fruit and vegetables, yoghurts, basic ingredients for meals, white wine, prosecco and vodka-- but usually not anything filled with sugar. what is on their bedside table? a book or three, a glass of wine, phone charger, watch charger, remote, a jewellery box that holds her ‘engagement’ ring for her betrothal, the ring from her previous arrangement and her family’s signet ring. there was a frame photo of herself and grace there before, but it was put it in her forgotten box. what is in their car? not much, usually a bottle of water. what is in their bin? crumpled up codes, sketches, old receipts, what is in their purse or wallet? in her wallet: her id, her credit cards, business cards and numbers to call, photographs of her family, a small amount of money and international sim cards for when she travels outside the country. in her bag/purse: her phone, her wallet, a deck of cigarettes, a small flask of whiskey, a lighter, a pen, a taser, make up for touch ups, her passport. what is in their pockets? usually nothing. she keeps her possessions either strapped to her body or in her handbag. what is their most treasured possession? her forgotten box, as it is a place she can keep sentimental items, but lock them away so she is not constantly reminded of them.

---- spirituality

who or what is your character’s guardian angel? grace thomas, or the devil. do they believe in the afterlife? no. what are their religious views? she practices jewish and eastern orthodox holidays, but does not really believe in either religion. what do they think heaven is? she doesn’t believe it exists. what do they think hell is? life on earth. are they superstitious? no. what would they like to be reincarnated as? a feline of some sort. how would they like to die? drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra. what is your character’s spirit animal? a tiger. what is their zodiac sign? capricorn // rabbit yang fire or tiger yin fire.

---- values

what do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person? sexual assault of all types, being sold into slavery, drugging a child, the judas chalice torture-- though she would take pleasure in any of the aforementioned perpetrators of such heinous crimes being placed upon a judas chalice. what is their view of ‘freedom’? for ekaterina, freedom is living her life as she pleases, with no one dictating what she does and being able to love who she wants to love. when did they last lie? all the time. everyday. all the time. what’s their view of lying? it is better than a horrific truth. when did they last make a promise? to grace, that her family would not be harmed in this revolution. did they keep or break their last promise? she hasn’t had the chance to do either yet.

---- daily life

what are their eating habits? ekaterina is a vegetarian, and tends to eat infrequently but it is always good food. do they have any allergies? no. describe their home. her part of the palace of snov is neat and tidy. nothing is out of place. she has a large bed, a very effective heater, a mounted television on which she streams movies and documentaries, a desk with her computer and other papers and books neatly stacked with stationary close by, a vanity where she lines up her make up and other products such as perfumes. her room also has a large window with a beautiful view of the rest of the grounds. are they minimalist or a clutter hoarder? a minimalist. anything she doesn’t need, she passes on to someone who can use it. what do they do first thing on a weekday morning? go for a run or go to the gym. what do they do on a sunday afternoon? participate in her sword-fighting sessions. what do they do on a friday night? if she is feeling up to it, she will make an appearance at a club, drink and take drugs and dance until it is six in the morning. what is the soft drink of choice? none. what is their alcoholic drink of choice? whiskey, vodka or rum.

---- miscellaneous

what is their character archetype? the rebel or the ruler. who is their hero? vincent van gogh. what or who would your character dress up as for halloween? either alice liddell, or daisy buchanan. are they comfortable with technology? yes. if they could save one person, who would it be? her father, nikolai, one of her sisters. or, the person who would benefit her the most. if they could call one person for help, who would it be? her father. what is their favorite proverb? “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” what is their greatest extravagance? her rare buell motorcycle, or her engagement ring that she received from her first betrothal or any gift grace has ever give her. what is their greatest regret? never standing up to her mother regarding her role as heir. what is their perception of redemption? one who has made actions to prove they have changed. what would they do if they won the lottery? donate all of it to lgbt+ charities in the eastern european region. what is their favorite fairytale? the snow queen. what fairytale do they hate? sleeping beauty do they believe in happy endings? if one puts in the effort and makes it possible, then yes. what is their idea of perfect happiness? freedom and the opportunity to be with the people she loves. to marry grace would also provoke total happiness within her, but she isn’t sure how, if or when that could ever happen. what would they ask a fortune teller? nothing, she doesn’t believe in them. if your character could travel through time, where would they go? to the future, to see if roman’s plan achieved what he wanted. what sport do they excel at? fencing, lacrosse, cross-country running. what sport do they suck at? none, really. if they could have a superpower, what would they choose? she would not want one, but if there were no choice, pathokinesis.

[kikkieabby]

Bakugou and Fem Izuku in: Secret lover’s! Chapter 2- Teasing~

Kikkie: This one is a bit short, but cute/hot none the less. When will I start the naughty stuff? I don’t know. Enjoy!

“Katsuki!” Oh god, it’s the fangirls again. Seriously, I need to find a better route to school that doesn’t involve the brigade of annoying wet pussy! But speaking of pussy, I saw a familiar sight in the corner of my eye. Turning my head a bit, I saw the deku herself bending over to get something. And as she was bending, parts of her ass was exposed to Hanta and Eijiro. Oh my god, what is she doing!? “A little lower!” Hanta shouted at her. She bends down, even more, not caring about the two boys staring at my ass! Yes, my ass! That bitch is mine! “DEKU!” My voice must have caught her off guard because she fell to her knees. In front of her was something weird, a barrel? A gold-painted barrel that had the words ROLES on it. What the hell was she doing over that? “Dude!?” Eijiro shouted at me, guess I ruined his fun! Whatever fuck him! He can suck my biggest nut for all I care. “I got a pink ball,” Deku responded, making me turn my head to look at her. In her hand was a pink ball that her small fingers could barely wrap around. On the ball was a giant purple letter: I. why an I? “I am invited to the party!?” She shouted in glee. What a minute!! What party, what the hell did she just agreed to!? “Party?” I asked. “HEY MORON! GET BACK IN LINE!” The fuck? Looking over my shoulder, I saw a long line of idiots standing in front of the barrel. Again, what the fucking-fuck is going on!? “Katsuki? Didn’t you get an email last night?” Hanta asked me. Like hell, I read those things, waste of my time unless I am actually doing something important. “What email?” “Shota sent out an email saying that students who got pink balls with I’s would be allowed to attend the festival ball tomorrow night. Hosted by You-Quang corporation!” Eijiro explained to me. The You-Quang corporation…why are they here… “Are you going to try it?” Izuku asked me as she plays with the ball in her hand. Ugh, this stupid thing. If there’s one thing I learned from my childhood, there is a trick to this game. “I’ll give it a try,” I told her before sticking my hand into the water. The sounds of screaming pissed off idiots fill my ears as my hands move all around the water. Passing ball after ball in order to find the right one. See, the trick is, most of the I’s are located in the middle of the barrel. And another trick is to feel the texture of the I. See, each item has a unique design…found it! Pulling my hand out, I found myself holding an exact replica of Izuku ball. Much to her delight, she claps for me as I held this piece of shit in my hand. “Congratulations lo-I mean Katsuki!” She responded. Goddammit, she nearly shouted Love! Ugh, why was she so stupid!? “I need to go to class. See you later guys!” She shouted before running off to do whatever! Without even thinking, I follow her straight to our empty classroom. Once inside, she sticks the ball into her bookbag before looking over to me. “So…this party is being hosted by your family?” She asked me but doesn’t even look at me. Fucking Deku… “The old man has nothing on me, he’s a fucking waste of my time.” He told her. “Yea, he wasn’t very nice when we were kids.” She chuckled, and she wasn’t very wrong either. “Will you be going to the party?” “Will you?” I asked. “Well, I already agreed when I stuck my hand in the barrel. So yea!” She tells me in a happy gleeful voice. What is wrong with her? My grandfather an asshole! Why would she agree to go to anything he has? Ugh, fucking Deku! Katsuki.” Her voice rang in my right ear, snapping me from my thoughts as I looked up at her smiling face. She stood in front of the classroom window. Allowing the morning sun to shine on her, making her look…angelic. Never in my lifetime would I have thought to say this…but she looks like a goddess. Setting her books down, she walks over to me with that smile on her face. Once close, she stands on her toes practically to reach my level. In a flash, our lips were stuck together like super glue. Her lipgloss smears on my lips, filling my nose with the sweet scent of coconut and pineapple. When we separated, I couldn’t help but lick my lips of the aftertaste of her luscious lips. Looking down at the bitch herself, she was breathing heavily with deep red cheek and eyes filled with water. A thin line of saliva falls down from left cheek as she tries to wipe it away. “That was…” She was lost in words. Trying her best to clean herself as she wipes the saliva off her mouth. “Amazing,” I told her before gripping her tight big ass. Seriously, how did I not notice this thing before! “Kat! We have class soon!” She shouted and moaned at the same time. The sounds that escaped her lips were enough to set fire to my cock. Just a small touch and were both like this. I wonder what would happen when I breed her. Breed her like the bitch in heat she was. “Kat, I like that nickname. You can call me that on our wedding night.” I tell her. Making her blush even more. Before I knew it, she pushed me down to the ground. No seriously, she pushed me down to the ground like I was a villain. What the fuck is wrong with this stupid cunt!? “I…I…uh…” She was stuttering. Confused, and shaking. What, did I press a button? “What Deku?” I asked. “Wedding? Marriage? Uh…me hav….e your babies.” She muttered. “Eh, so much!” Ugh, this girl is just a bomb waiting to go off. Which is why were perfect together. After getting to my feet, I rushed her. Pushing her body against the wall, I trapped her in the corner of the classroom. This made her face turn red as an apple. She tries to look down and away from me, only to fail when I grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look up. Those Deku eyes…I wonder how it would look on my son? Or daughter, but mostly son. “Deku, don’t you want to marry me? You know what I am worth, what I can do, how I make you feel.” Tell her. Leaning down her ear, I press my lips to the sensitive skin that was her earlobe. “Maybe you do and your just teasing me…” “I’m not!” She moaned. She moves her head a little to the side, pressing her earlobe to my lips. The second we touched, I chomped down on the sensitive skin. With a low gasp, she tries to move away from me in a hurry. Such a Deku, she should know by now I don’t give up so easily. “Oh, Katsuki!” God she moaned! Her voice was so hot! Her small hands pressed against my chest. I don’t know if she was trying to break free of feeling me. Whatever the reason, she needed to stop. I may be 16, but I am willing to be a father if it meant I saw that pussy bounce on my cock. “Class will start soon.” She moaned. Fuck, she was right too! Moving away from her body, I let out a low sigh before heading to my seat. Luckily no asshole came into the class. Taking my seat, I watch the Deku take her seat. A few minutes later, the class begins to fill in with idiots of all shapes and colors. No matter, in the end, all I saw was my Deku. That’s all I needed in the end…the end…oh dammit!

[lunaschild2016]

Worth Fighting For Chapter 34 - Stubborn Thy Name Is

Rating: M (violence, smut, language, references to abuse and violence)

Romance/Tragedy

He was ruthless, cunning and completely committed to protecting his city but her arrival to Dauntless called everything he ever thought he believed into question. Duty and following orders were no longer enough. They both found more than they ever thought possible. They both found something worth fighting for. Eric/OC AU M Tragedy/Romance

@kenzieam@ericdauntless@jojuarez26@jaihardy@iammarylastar@captstefanbrandt@badassbaker@readsalot73@fuckthatfeeling@dani5102@beltz2016@beautifulramblingbrains@affabletimelady@irasancti@meganbee15@meganbee15@lauraaan182@gylisaa@scorpio2009@bookgirlthings@pathybo@violetsonthelam XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chapter 34 - Stubborn Thy Name Is Kat

“Where did you go to at lunch?” Tris asked me and pulled me to her by my arm.

I tried not to wince at the action because I saw Eric across the room watching closely. His jaw and body tensed. I looked away and back to Tris with a shrug.

“I just needed to, I don’t know, think. So much has been happening from the moment we got here and I was feeling angry. You know how I am about that.” I answer honestly.

She sighs with a nod. “I always envied that about you a little you know. How you seemed to be able to let things go so easily.”

I huff as we walk to the area where the targets are set up still. “It was and is never easy but that is why I preferred to be alone when I got angry. If I am left alone I can reason out my anger. Figure out if I am just being stupid and emotional about something that I shouldn’t be or if it is worth it to be so angry about. If I am pushed though..”

I trail off and she laughs in memory. I smile at what I know she is thinking about.

“The scandal we caused when I kept nagging at you as we walked home from school that day. I couldn't have been more than eight and you were seven? I just could not let whatever it was go, even though you kept asking me to. Begging me even. Then you just...snapped...and we went to the ground in a tangle of limbs wrestling each other. I am sure those Amity women thought we were possessed or something.”

Will, Al and Christina were beside us while we were talking. Al looked horrified between the two of us while Will and even Christina were laughing a little.

“I thought my sister and I were bad about fighting.” Christina smiled a little sadly.

Will just shrugged. “Cara and I never physically fought but we had heated debates. She was always urging me to ‘question everything’, to ‘not just accept something as fact’ because someone said so. I think that is why she was top of her class and is so successful now.”

I smiled at Will as he talked about his sister. Over the last couple of weeks when he had been hanging out with us he had told me a few stories about his sister. I had to admit that from what he had told me she sounded brilliant and like a great person. I knew he was positive she would be here on visiting day to show her support of him and his decision.

I lost my smile when the reminder of that day came to mind. There was very little chance that either of our parents would be coming on that day.

As if she sensed my line of thought, Tris squeezed my hand and gave me a sad smile. Four called us all back to our target practice. Feeling better physically, I went back to my own and passed the rest of the time loosing myself in the exercise.

At dinner, where Eric, Zach and Chase had all joined our table and I somehow ended up next to Eric, I started to notice the pain of touch is still there but not as bad. I also notice that my sense of touch is more enhanced.

The brush of my arm against the table, or my fingers running through my own hair, little inconsequential touches against my skin seem to be amplified.

At first it is more uncomfortable than anything. There are still the moments of pain and now that they are calmed I can tell it is from the nerve endings being overstimulated. This causes other odd things in me to happen, like losing my grip on things or fumbling a little after the sensitivity gets to be too much.

I get quiet at dinner as I try to process this and just deal with it. Overall the whole thing is leaving me exhausted. So I do something I think might actually be a cardinal sin here in Dauntless, I decide to go to bed early.

Eric was very careful about keeping enough distance that he wouldn’t be touching me in any way. Somewhere along the way that had dissolved and now his leg was being firmly pressed against mine. If I thought being touched by him or just being near him had sent my body careening through a whirlpool before, this new found sensitivity kicked it into overdrive.

By the end of dinner while everyone was eating cake, I was a barely restrained quivering mess of whimpers.

Eric’s elbow nudged me as I tiredly plunged my fork into my cake. I looked up to him and he had a raised eyebrow looking at me.

I shrugged and looked over my friends. Tris had decided to sit with Christina, Will and Al tonight. I think once she realized Eric was going to be at the table she couldn't stomach sitting down with the man she believed was torturing me and had caused me to suffer so much.

“I think I am going to head to bed. I know, I know...cardinal fucking sin to go to bed before the sun sets. But seeing as I don’t actually get to see the sun or the sky at all anymore, I am going to call this day good and take my sorry ass to bed then go comatose.”

“Ok, Kat. Hell, I was wondering when you were going to stop being such a stubborn ass and take a rest.” Uri grumbled out and slumped with relief at my proclamation.

“Not a stubborn ass.�� I grumbled moodily back and stab the cake a few more times.

There are snickers around the table and Lynn whisks my plate of cake away from me. “That is cake abuse and you, Kat, are the Queen of the Asses Stubborn.”

I chuckle a little at that. “What is that like...my own personal band of knights?”

“Sure is...the Knights of Assland; Realm of the stubborn and hardheaded.” Uri grins and steals half of the cake from Lynn.

“That must make you, Uriah, the court jackass...I mean...jester.” I say with false sweetness.

More laughter at this and Eric pressing closer. That is about the limit and I rise tiredly. “Well, this queen is going to head to her boudoir and pass the fuck out.”

“I’ll walk ya since Uri has stolen all the cake anyways.” Lynn scowls at Uri who just shoveled a mouthful in, and stood up with me.

“Bye guys” I say with a tired wave to everyone. I barely catch the way Eric looked to me before looking away and down to his plate. He was struggling, maybe as much as I was. It didn’t make me feel better though.

We walked out of the dining hall in silence but Lynn was brooding. I gave her a tired look and sighed. “Go ahead Lynn.”

She refused to look at me, just staring straight ahead, her face stoic. “You’re my best friend. Did you know that?” Her voice is low enough for me to hear it but not quite a whisper. She didn't let me answer. “Before, I would have said it was Mar, but considering certain things I have always been the third wheel. From the start though, I knew you were going to be my best friend.”

I give her a smile when she pauses for a second and she holds up a hand to stop me from speaking. “I am proud of how you handled yourself. Proud of your actions….but I swear to god Kat if you ever get yourself killed or hurt like that again...I will bring your ass back so I can kill you myself.”

I chuckle a little as she lunges and pulls me to her in a pretty damn bone crushing hug.

“Oh fuck, Lynn, goddammit. I love you too but...could you please maybe…” I gasp before she lets me go, her forehead all scrunched up in worry.

“Should we go to the clinic and…”

I shake my head vigorously. “No. I am good, it will pass. I just need to get some sleep.”

She stares me down for a minute before muttering “Yes, my queen.” and then turning with me to stalk her way beside me to the dorm room. “Have you gotten to read much of those books I left you?”

She asks me with a smirk on her face while I blush and clear my throat. “Umm...a few here and there. Not exactly had much time to be honest. I was thinking of reading another one after getting a shower.”

She nods thoughtfully. “So...what is going on with you two then?”

I sigh wearily when we get to the dorm room finally. “Nothing..other than maybe we might have been going somewhere but now…”

I trail off and she frowns. “Now what?”

“Now I will be lucky if he shakes my hand.” I mutter as she sits on my bed and I go to my trunk and start pulling out clothes to change into. Then I get clothes to lay out for the next day. She quirks an eyebrow at me as if to say ‘explain’. “Did Shauna tell you what happened to me? I mean, what is going on with me?”

She sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth and nodded. “She isn’t supposed to but because she knows how close we are…”

She trails off and I nod with a small smile. “Well she probably didn’t tell you because she might not know but I have something happening. When I am touched, by anyone or anything...I...I have pain.”

She pales and a hand goes over her mouth. “Oh my god, Kat. Does leadership know?”

She got my worry immediately. The same one I had in the office with Eric, Chase and Zach.

“Eric, Chase and Zach know. But Eric just gave me a speech saying that it would only affect me if I let it and was I going to let it win or not. He said..that he...they...believed in me.”

She lets out a relieved and disbelieving breath for a moment. “Wow. I mean that is great..it’s just. I never would have thought Eric...but then again it makes sense with how he has been.”

I frown and shake my head. “I don’t understand what that means but it doesn’t even matter. Once he realized what was going on...god you should have seen how fast he jumped back from me. Like I was poisonous to him or something.”

“You don’t really believe that is why though, do you?” She scoffs at me.

I sigh and sink down on the bed beside her. “No. I think that he is determined to not see me hurt if he can help it.”

She quirks a smile and then laughs heartily. “You two are seriously...just all kinds of…”

I look at her with my lips twitching. “I know it is kind of ironic considering the whole, him trying to beat lessons into me.”

She shrugs and winks at me then gets serious. “Did they say this is going to be permanent though?”

I nod. “There is a chance but already things are changing...getting better. Before the pain was pretty constant but now it comes and goes. The odd thing is that...well...while there isn’t pain it feels like I am super sensitive to anything against my skin. Like picking things up I can feel each detail and texture, or the slightest change of temperature against my skin.”

I sigh and throw myself back on my bed, remembering Eric’s leg pressed against mine.

“And those are bad things?” Lynn asked with a blush and wide eyes.

“It is when you can’t do shit about it.” I growl out causing her to laugh.

“So tell him. If he knows you aren’t in pain anymore, maybe even the change that is happening…” She trails off as I look at her and waggles her eyebrows at me playfully.

I break out into laughter, turning red. “Maybe. I don’t know if I can...or if he even wants to..”

She sighs and shakes her head. “Well you already know my opinion on all of that so I won’t preach any more. Just take the night and rest. You have had a couple of pretty messed up days.”

I laugh at the understatement and nod. With a groan she helps me sit up, gives me a hug and then goes on her way for the night.

I am grateful that the dorm room is empty. It allows me to get showered without the usual shy shuffle where Tris and I try to cover each other while we hurriedly bathe. It makes me long for that shower I had at Eric’s apartment. Not just for the absolute luxury even his simple bathroom provided compared to what had been at home or here, but for the safety I had felt. Knowing that I could shower in peace and nothing was going to fuck with me there.

I was also loving the time to not have to see the other girls practically parading around in various states of nudity. It wasn’t that I thought they shouldn’t or that there was anything wrong with it. No, why I minded was the absolute reminder of just how much I lacked in so many areas as a woman.

I shook my head under the shower spray, shaking away the bad thoughts and knowing there wasn’t anything I could do to change that. Stepping out of the shower, I wrap myself tightly in a towel and begin to use the lotions and moisturizers that Mar and Lynn bought me. I have my hair piled into a wet messy bun at the top of my head and am allowing myself to air dry under the towel before I put my pajamas on.

“Fuck.” I mutter out loud when I remember that I left them lying on my bed when I had taken out the book I was going to read myself to sleep with.

Grabbing my bag of toiletries, I step out of the bathroom and into the dorm area, then give a startled gasp when I notice someone standing beside my bed.

“Shit! You scared me Eric.” I grumble, clutching my heart.

He doesn’t say anything. Just stands there staring at me with a heated gaze, causing me to wriggle a little in the towel as if I could feel his eyes as they move over my body. As if it was his hands and not a gaze.

I can almost feel the heat of his body from the few feet he is in distance to me, pulling me closer as I take a few steps. My movement seems to break whatever trance he was under and he frowns then takes a step back.

He clears his throat. “I came to….” his voice is husky and deep, making goosebumps break out over my skin.

He has paused so long I can’t help feel a little smug that he is apparently flustered right now.

“You came?” I emphasize the last word but am already turning red as hell at my innuendo.

Eric’s fists clench at his side and a low rumbling growl starts to bubble from him before it is cut off. He muttered something under his breath that I barely caught and sounded like ‘fuckin wish’. A small smile tilts the corner of my lips.

“Jesus...could you...fuck will you get dressed, Kat? I can’t…” He turns his head away with a scowl.

Why am I feeling pleasure at this? Why do I feel like dropping my towel right there all on the pretext of only doing what he just demanded of me?

I realize that my hands went to the towel to do just that when Eric huffs, turns from me and walks to the wall and faces it. Like he is some damn kid that was just put in timeout.

I bite my lip in embarrassment at what I was just about to do.

What if I am reading this wrong? What if those times I thought just maybe he might want me, are all wrong.

Maybe he is turning away because it would be like seeing a little sister. His reaction plus others….where he seems upset or scowls after moments like these...just reinforce my belief that there is no way he could really want me like that. I have been putting in my own desires and hopes to the moments instead of seeing them for what they are.

I sigh as I start to get dressed how I normally do. With the towel still wrapped around me, pulling my clothes up under or over it before I unwrap it from me. I had turned slightly away from him in doing so. After I am done I toss the towel at the end of my bed and sit down on it tiredly.

“Done.”

He lets out a breath and I feel the bed dip beside me, causing me to look up at him. He is holding out his open hand and in it is a handful of pills.

“Your last round of meds for the day.” He said with a strained tone then handed me a water bottle I hadn’t seen sitting on my bed.

“Oh.” I say in realization that was the reason he came. “Thanks.” I take the pills and pop them into my mouth before I take a sip of the water he gave me.

Too tired and disappointed to even argue with him or worry about what was in them. I trusted him by now to know he wouldn’t give me anything bad. Besides when they had kept me drugged up after the attack. But I think I could understand that. It might have been the only way.

He nodded with a sigh and raised his hand, then slowly and carefully, he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers barely skimming over the skin of my ear but it was enough to send shivers down my spine.

“You should get your rest. I expect you at training the same time as always in the morning.” He gets this all out as he holds my eyes and let’s his finger graze along my jaw. Watching me closely for any sign of pain or discomfort.

There is no pain, only the heightened awareness and pleasure at even that small of a touch. “Ok Eric.” I say, my voice breathy and breathless at the same time.

His eyes soften and I see a small amount of relief in them as his lips twitch.

“Good girl.” He says just before he leans in and presses his lips to my forehead.

I melt into it but don’t get time to really relish it. He pulled away and up before the warmth of those lips can sink into my senses.

He is walking away as I slide into the covers of the bed, the book clutched in my hand. He looks back at me over his shoulder once before he disappears through the doors to the dorm. The look alone sends shivers through me, that heated and charged gaze deepening the blue of his eyes.

I sigh and close my eyes for a moment. I lay back into the scratchy bedding and instead try to imagine myself back in Eric’s bed. Wrapped in his arms, protected and warm. Cherished even.

I had meant to read but lost in the memory of that and other fantasies, I drift into a deep sleep.

[corvid-knight]

Demon Eyes - chapter 10

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740258/chapters/31990530

Karkat's right; it only takes about forty-five minutes for the pleasantly weird dizzy feeling to mostly wear off. Mostly. There's still a comfortable bit of euphoria left over. It makes everything just a touch more pleasant, for no reason at all.

Dirk offers Karkat a room, and the demon just shrugs and grumbles something about how he wants to keep an eye on you. And yeah, maybe that gets a raised eyebrow from your cousin, but he doesn't say anything about it. Which is good, because even with the leftover magic high you probably would have gotten immediately, intensely uncomfortable with any questions Dirk could've asked.

So the room that Karkat carried you to so you could come down, that's your room. (And his.) For as long as you stay, anyway. Which could be a while—you did promise Rose you'd stick around until she came down to see you, after all. Anyway, you'll be here long enough to justify bringing your shit in from the truck.

Karkat's been shanghaied by John again; Hal makes at least an attempt to help carry stuff in, but after a couple trips back and forth, he notices Bro's laptop, its bag tucked under the seat, and pulls it out with a quick glance at you. "How open would you be to my going through this? I'd like to see if that asshole had any info he wasn't sharing with the rest of us."

"It's probably gonna be encrypted, but knock yourself out." The phone's on the console between the front seats; you snag it and toss it to him. "Might be shit on that too—just, like, be careful going through the pics if you decide to do that."

Hal grimaces as he catches the phone, sliding it into one of the outer pockets of the laptop bag. "Unless he collected glyphs of unmaking—"

"Not sure what that is, but I don't think so."

"Right. Good. I'll be fine, then; fucked-up shit doesn't bother me quite as much as it does Dirk or the others." He pauses halfway through the movement of digging out one of your bags, a thoughtful look spreading across his face. "...which might possibly say something about my morals, I suppose. Or lack thereof."

"How come?" You yank the bag all the way out—Hal seems more hesitant to treat your belongings roughly than you are—and try to remember what's in it. Bro's clothes, you think. Karkat can take anything he wants, and you're making a goddamn bonfire out of the rest.

"The obvious assumption for a normal human is that a person who isn't immediately and viscerally disgusted by graphic images is one who's comfortable with them." Hal shrugs, taking the bag out of your hands and slinging it over his shoulder. "Maybe even desensitized to them, possibly approving of them."

"Are you?" You don't really expect an affirmative answer, but you're curious as to how exactly he will react. You're probably risking pissing him off...but that didn't occur to you until after you asked.

Hal just shakes his head. "I do have morals. I can recognize atrocities as such—not sure if that's the right word for what's on the phone—"

"It's. Uh. It's a pretty good word for some of them."

"Ah." There's a hesitation, maybe just to acknowledge what you just said and maybe to give him time to consider what you might mean. You're not going to enlighten him. "...that's not the sort of thing that upsets me, but I'm as capable of knowing what's morally wrong as anyone is."

"Well, other than Bro. Obviously." Damn, I seriously didn't need to say that.

"Obviously," Hal agrees, and glances at you as you stop to get the door to your room open. "Would you mind if I saved any images that'd incriminate him as..."

This time, the hesitation is definitely him hunting for a word that's descriptive but also inoffensive enough not to hurt you. He really shouldn't be worried about that second one.

"As a sick fucking bastard?" you supply, and Hal smiles a bit.

"Exactly that. Just in case."

You almost ask in case of what? but you guess you do know, actually. Just in case anyone tries to say that his death wasn't justified. Just in case you and Karkat need protection later.

"Take whatever you want off of there, dude." As you take the bag back from him, you think of an exception to that offer. "...uh. Just, like. Do me a favor, alright? Delete anything of me that you find."

He gives you a sharp, very-like-Dirk look that you pretend not to notice at all. "So I'm going to find compromising photos of you?"

"Maybe. Dunno." Bro didn't usually keep the kind of pics you're thinking of longer than overnight—at least you don't think he did. It's entirely possible he's got a whole file of them, buried deep enough that you never found it in your quick forays through his electronics. More than possible; probable.

You don't want anybody seeing the pics he took of you like that. Bad enough it happened at all—it'd be fucking horrible, humiliating almost beyond anything Bro did to you, to have anybody else know.

Hal's just watching you, head tilted. You realize that you let this pause go on longer than is comfortable. Fuck.

"Look, if you do find any? Delete 'em. I sure as hell don't want 'em."

"Of course." He nods, stepping out of the room. "And I'll show you anything I want to save before I save it, just to be sure."

"Yeah." God, you don't know how to thank him for that. "That's, uh. That's good, that's great." Dammit. You're not good at this kind of shit.

Hal doesn't seem to mind, at least. "Give me a couple hours and I'll have these back to you," he says, and then he shuts the door and you're left to finish unpacking by yourself.

Which is also, actually, good.

It's more like four hours before Hal reappears. You spend the time sorting out shit you want from shit you don't, making Karkat go through the latter category to see if there's anything he wants (other than a couple shirts, there isn't) and obtaining permission from Dirk to torch it in the backyard.

Piled into the firepit and soaked with a cupful of diesel siphoned from the truck, it all burns pretty damn nicely. Maybe petty destruction shouldn't make you feel this much better, but fuck it. You think you've earned the right to be petty against the fucker this stuff belonged to.

Rose calls Dirk before you're all the way done watching the fire. She wants to talk to you, once she knows you're there, and he ends up bringing the phone out and leaving you with it, and you talk to her for a good hour, sitting in the grass and watching clothes get converted to ashes as you do.

She tells you that she's engaged, to a vampire. Kanaya, she says, and you have to grin at the way she says it. Rose is most definitely in love, and you're more than happy for her.

She tells you that she and Kanaya are flying down in a week or so, and they're stopping to pick up Jade and bringing her down too. Then she has to ask you if you're okay, because you managed to choke on absolutely nothing at the mention of Jade and cough into the phone for a solid minute.

You're fine. Just. Surprised. With a couple questions.

Yes, Jade is fine. Apparently she's a shifter now (which gives you a definite what the fuck moment), bitten by a werewolf a couple years ago. Rose spends maybe five minutes rambling about the fascinating interaction of the bite's curse and Jade's latent magic (you didn't actually know she had magic at all), which combined to make her something distinctly different from a were. Yes, she remembers you; she's excited to see you. Yes, she knows you're traveling with a demon, and she's more than okay with that.

The fact that everyone's okay with you being this close to a demon is taking more than a little getting used to.

By the time Rose has to hang up, the sun's half-set. Dirk and John are working on what you assume is dinner, and Jake's using the floor of the living room to do a tarot reading for Karkat. You try to avoid stepping on any of the cards as you sit down on the floor next to the demon. "He tell you anything you don't already know, 'kat?"

"A couple things." He shrugs and scoots a few inches closer to you, enough to just barely touch. "I think Jake's being flattering. There's no way those fucking cards are calling me heroic as often as he's claiming they do."

"Oh, be quiet." Jake huffs and looks up from his work, pushing his glasses back up. "My interpretation is the most accurate you're going to get, Mr. Vantas."

Karkat groans at that name, rolling his eyes. "Please fucking forget I ever told you my last name."

"No can do; I need that for accurate divination." Jake smiles brightly, reaching down to gather his cards up into one pile. "Dave, I'd like to do a drawing for you tomorrow."

"Uh." He'll know shit about you, maybe more than you strictly want him to. But Jake's not going to use whatever he learns against you. "You can do me now, if you want."

"I'm afraid I might've already done a few too many rounds today, actually." He shrugs, giving you a quick, apologetic smile. "My own stupid curiosity, making me keep fooling around when I have a headache. I'll be fine so long as I stop trying to do readings for a bit." He finishes straightening up his cards and gets to his feet, almost bumping into Hal on his way out of the room.

Karkat raises his eyebrows as Hal comes straight over to sit where Jake was a minute ago, watching as the shikigami opens the laptop he's holding and starts typing. "You look pissed over something."

"Accurate." Hal nods, eyes fixed on the screen. He doesn't look upset to you. Well, not unless you really focus on the set of his shoulders and the stiffness of his calm expression. "Dave, question."

"What?"

"Do you still want to see the images I wanted to save, or no? I...didn't quite realize how bad some of these are. I know you might not want to look..."

Karkat growls softly as Hal trails off. Dave, don't you dare.

I can take it, you think at him, and nod at Hal. "Yeah, it's fine. Lemme see."

He spins the laptop to face you, and you immediately regret that decision. There's just thumbnails up, but you can still see the pics well enough for your brain to supply the details. You got to see most of these in all their original bloody horror, after all.

Fuck. Fucking bastard.

"Fuck this," Karkat growls, reaching forward to shut the laptop; you catch his hand right before he can touch it.

"Hold up. Hal, this one—"

He leans over to see which one you're pointing at. It's not a really bad one; just an image of a tattoo with blood mostly obscuring the pattern and a series of teeth marks dug into it. Human teeth marks; you know that even if it's hard to tell from the picture. "The one with the fucked-up protection rune?"

"Yeah. Delete it." Just looking at the image provokes a faint phantom pain at the base of your neck, and you have to restrain yourself from rubbing uncomfortably at the scarred tattoo there. "And any other pics you saved of it, I guess. Copy whatever else you want and delete the originals, okay?"

"Of course." He nods, spinning the computer around again. "Twenty minutes tops."

"Yeah. Thanks." Without thinking, you lean against Karkat.

The fact that his immediate reaction is to wrap an arm around your shoulders is so comforting.

You wake up at somewhere around two in the morning, briefly confused by the fact you're curled up on top of someone before you remember that it's Karkat. The grin that that realization provokes brings on the second realization that you really need a drink of water.

Getting off of Karkat and out of the room without waking him up isn't all that hard. Finding a fucking glass in the kitchen is more difficult, actually; every cabinet door creaks, and every time you make any kind of a noise you can't help but freeze, even though odds are nobody can hear anyway.

Call it force of habit.

Eventually, though, you find a cup and get your drink, rinse the glass off and leave it in the rack to dry. When you turn around, Jake's standing in the doorway, watching you.

Which nearly gives you a heart attack. How the hell did you not hear him?

"Uh..."

"Hello, Knight of Blades and Fortune." The words come out of his mouth at what seems like half-speed, and he cocks his head to one side, eyes half-closed as he smiles at you. "You've come a long way."

"Jake, what're you—"

You stop when he shakes his head slowly. "The Page of Wands sleeps."

"...okay, then." You're not entirely sure what's going on, but Page of Wands would be as good a card for Jake as any. He is a bearer of important news, after all. "You oughta go back to bed if you're asleep, man."

That earns you a slow smile from him. "The Page is asleep."

"And you're not?"

"Perish the thought." Okay, that comes out closer to how Jake normally sounds. "Tomorrow."

"What about tomorrow?"

"A task for the others. It wasn't meant for you, but without you—" He raises his hands, cups them in front of him and then jerks them apart, bowing his head. The gesture's oddly terrifying, and even though it should be meaningless you know it does have a meaning. Destruction.

Well, fuck. Not like you can let that kind of thing happen. "So I gotta go along on whatever job y'all end up getting, huh?"

Another shrug as he raises his head. His eyes are closed now. "Free will is yours to invoke, Knight."

"Yeah, yeah. C'mon, let's get you back to your boyfriend, alright? Let him figure out your prophecy shit."

Jake doesn't react to that, but he lets you lead him to Dirk's room, and Dirk doesn't seem all that surprised at being woken up. He just nods when you tell him what Jake said, mumbling a sleepy thank you before pulling him into the room.

You can hear Jake start to talk again as Dirk shuts the door, and you can't help but wonder whether it's more predictions or just sleeptalk. Either way, Dirk might be up for a while.

Karkat growls at you when you crawl back into bed, opening his eyes for a second before pulling you back on top of him. "You were scared for a minute there?"

"Jake came up behind me, is all." You could tell him that something might happen tomorrow. Then again, you could not do that, and just go back to sleep. You decide on the second. "It's all good."

He just grumbles something unintelligible and drapes an arm around you. With him this comfortingly close, it only takes you a little while to fall asleep.