#WITH A FREAKING PLASTIC CUP IN ONE HAND AND A BRIGHT YELLOW PLASTIC BAG IN THE OTHER AND THEY'RE SO IMPOSSIBLY COOL ABOUT IT.

[kyouka-supremacy]

()

[callboxkat]

A Little Nightmare (part 1)

Author’s note: Surprise! This week’s Infinitesimal update is the first part of a short story taking place in the same universe! I decided to post it early, since it fits perfectly with an October prompt by @hiddendreamer67: “Underwater”. Remy’s genderbent because I can do what I want.

You do not need to have read Infinitesimal to read this story.

Summary: Remy’s just a little trying to live her life, which is a bit difficult when the humans in the house she lives in decide to call pest control. Tbh, that was pretty rude of them. For a five-inch-tall person, finding a new home carries some risks.

Warnings: drowning/near drowning, near death experiences, hunger, hypothermia, food mention, fear, death mention, censored swearing, nonsexual nudity

Word Count: 3976

Writing Masterpost!

Infinitesimal Masterpost!

Remy ran, her feet pounding on the dirt as she raced across the open patch of ground between two buildings, weaving between the tall blades of grass, weeds, and rocks that lay in her path. The bag around her shoulders bounced with each step, and she could hear something loose rattling inside; but she didn’t stop to make sure its contents stayed put. She couldn’t afford to spend more time in the open than absolutely necessary.

She hadn’t been able to bring much with her when she left home. Just the clothes on her back and the handful of items she kept in her emergency bag. For once Remy was grateful that her ex-girlfriend—she grimaced thinking of her; that was some baggage—had been so insistent on keeping a bag of supplies ready at all times. Remy hadn’t seen her in some time, but the habit had stuck.

Remy was a little. And for littles, life was often unpredictable, and usually dangerous. They were only five inches tall, after all. Any number of things could go wrong. They always had to be ready to run.

She spotted a shelter in the grass up ahead and dove underneath it: some kind of plastic children’s toy, lying tipped on its side. Remy crouched there, panting and trying to catch her breath. Maybe she should have been in better shape, given her lifestyle, but come on. She’d been running off and on all morning. Of course she was out of breath.

It wasn’t her fault that the humans in her home had chosen to call pest control. Maybe it had something to do with her getting a bit careless and tearing one too many holes in their bags of food, but… a girl had to eat, didn’t she? The humans had recently been being a lot more careful about sealing their food in containers, and Remy couldn’t just live off of crumbs they dropped on the floor. It wasn’t her fault.

In any case, it was too late to go back now. Remy just had herself, her wits, and the meager supplies in her backpack.

Finding a new home was hard work. She couldn’t just stop at the first building she came across and expect to be able to make a life there, certainly not one she’d enjoy. She had standards. And it wasn’t as if every human structure was livable for a little in the first place. They had to have hollow walls, access to supplies, safety… and, preferably, coffee.

What could she say? Remy was a bit of an addict.

Remy waited until her breathing had slowed to a more normal pace. When her legs felt a bit less like jelly, she slid the bag off of her shoulders and inspected it. It hadn’t come open, she was glad to see. She undid the button and looked through it, double-checking that everything was still there. She took a moment to rearrange everything inside, pausing when she heard a rumble of thunder above. That wasn’t good.

She briefly considered waiting out the storm under this small shelter of hers, but she decided that she still had enough time to find someplace better before it arrived. This spot was not exactly ideal. The ground would turn to mud fast in the rain, and Remy was pretty sure she was in a depression in the ground. She was not looking to drown, thank you very much. No ma’am. Not today.

She crept to the other side of the overturned toy—it appeared to be a yellow truck of some kind, but with a big shovel thing on the back. Remy didn’t understand how that could be fun, but she just shrugged it off. Humans were weird. There was no explaining that.

Looking out, she could see a relatively short stretch of grass, maybe ten feet, before it reached the house. It looked like there was a space underneath, covered with a wooden trellis. That would be her shelter.

Remy looked around, vigilant for any signs of danger. Humans, dogs, cats, pianos falling from the sky, whatever. Seeing nothing, she stepped out; and she made her way through the grass. She had to cross a patch of concrete, which was more than a little disconcerting given how exposed she was, but she soon reached the house. She hopped through a gap in the trellis that was meant to close off the crawlspace, grumbling as her clothes snagged on a splinter, and found herself a spot to wait out the storm. It wasn’t exactly cozy, but it was dry, and it was relatively safe, so it would do.

About ten minutes after Remy got settled in, the storm arrived. Rain pattered down outside, soaking the landscape. Lighting flashed and thunder shook the wooden beams above, sending debris raining down around her. A dog started barking in the distance. Remy hugged her knees and sighed, grateful that at least the old paving stone that formed the floor beneath her remained dry.

Remy sorted through her supplies once more; then, with nothing else to do, she listened to the rain and tried to guess when it would stop. She didn’t want to be stuck down here forever. It was dark, and dusty, and even if that trellis over the opening would keep any large animals from coming down into this crawlspace, it wouldn’t stop the smaller animals, many of which could probably still make a quick meal out of her.

She had hoped the storm would pass quickly, but while the thunder and lightning faded after an hour or so, the rain showed no signs of stopping. It soon grew dark, and Remy was still stuck there, leaning against the foundation of the house and wishing she had something to eat.

Despite her less than luxurious accommodations, Remy found herself starting to doze. She’d been running a lot in the past few days, and she needed the rest. Remy would have preferred someplace warmer, drier, more secluded, but apparently her body had decided that the crawlspace of this random house would do. The pattern of the raindrops outside lulled her to sleep.

…

When she woke, it was daytime again, and the rain had finally stopped. It must have been recent, given the mud and the raindrops that clung to the blades of grass around her.

She would have liked to sleep in a bit longer—Remy was not a morning person—but she knew that she had to keep moving. So, instead, she emerged from underneath the house, rubbing at a crick in her neck, and set off.

“Some coffee would be nice,” she muttered to herself, struggling to keep her footing in mud that rose halfway to her knee. After a few minutes, she came across a fragment of concrete, and she couldn’t resist the urge to take a break and stand atop it. She was already tired of not having something firm beneath her. Rubbing her hands on her arms, she looked up at the house she’d hidden under the night before. “Don’t suppose I can stay here, huh?” she asked reluctantly.

It honestly didn’t look too bad, at first. It was a house. People obviously lived there, and judging by the toys in the yard, at least one kid. But—oh, no. Never mind that thought. A cat sat in one of the windows, looking outside. It hadn’t spotted her, and it wasn’t as if it could get to her even if it had, but Remy was not about to go be housemates with a freaking cat. Not a chance.

“Bye, Felicia,” Remy muttered, hiking up her trousers and marching on.

…

Remy hoisted herself up onto the table with a grunt. Sitting on the edge, she let out a small, annoyed groan, and yanked her hook out of the wood. She was not cut out for all this work. She would very much have preferred to be sitting at home, sipping a cup of coffee or taking a noonday nap. But no, instead she was here, hungry and thirsty and tired, climbing up on a workbench.

The slick metal made keeping a grip during her climb difficult, but at last she had made it to the top. She’d worry about getting down later. For now, she wanted some food.

The tomato plant that Remy had spotted from the ground sat on the other side of the work bench, its pale green leaves glistening with water droplets left by the storm. Bright red fruit hung here and there, as well as some that were still orange or even green. Remy smiled, looking at it. She’d get a good meal out of this.

Remy finished winding up her rope, and she stuffed it and her hook back into her backpack. She looked around once more, just to be extra sure that there was no one else around—thankfully, humans didn’t seem to like going outside in the cold and the mud any more than she did. As much as Remy wished that she could follow their lead today and also stay inside, it was nice that she was alone. So she just got to her feet, adjusted the backpack around her shoulders, and approached the plant.

She had to stand on her backpack to reach the rim of the pot, but she made short work of hoisting herself up. The muddy potting soil inside was more water than soil, so Remy did her best to perch on the edge of the pot, holding onto one of the plant’s vines for balance. She did not want to step in that gunk. For all she knew, she’d sink right in and vanish. No, thanks.

Her boots slid slightly on the wet plastic, and Remy’s heart leapt into her throat, but she caught herself before she could fall. She let out a long breath, then looked back up at her prize. If she could just climb up a couple of vines, she could reach the lowest ripe tomato. It was the perfect size, too, and it wasn’t damaged by insects or anything.

Remy didn’t particularly like tomatoes, but her mouth was already watering at the thought of the meal that awaited her. That just showed how well her uprooted life was going. With that lovely thought, Remy grabbed at another vine and stepped onto the one she had been holding onto before. The little hair-like structures on the vine tickled her arms. She scooted forward, closer to the center of the plant, and reached up for the stem of the tomato.

“Come on, come on, just a little further, don’t be a scrub,” Remy chided herself. She reached up and grasped the stem. “Aha!”

The tomato popped right off the plant, and Remy let out a surprised cry, the unexpected weight causing her to overbalance. She slipped; and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought she was going to plunge right into the mucky water below. At the last second, she hooked her legs around the vine and lunged towards it, scrabbling for purchase with her free hand.

For a moment she simply hung there, wrapped like a koala around the plant, trying to catch her breath. Finally, she pulled herself upright and out of the pot, landing in a very dignified manner on the damp wooden table.

“She is beauty, she is grace,” Remy murmured, lying on her back. She turned her head to the side, and was glad to see that she’d saved most of the tomato from getting muddy.

She enjoyed her meal hidden between the tomato plant and the outer wall of the building, her backpack beside her. The watery juice of the tomato ran down her fingers as she ate—nasty—but she was too happy to get something in her stomach to complain. Remy decided that she might have to change her stance on tomatoes. This thing was delicious.

All too soon, Remy was finished eating, and it was time to set out again. She reluctantly got to her feet and walked to the edge of the workbench, shivering in the cool air. It was even colder than yesterday, and it was wet, which was so not fair.

Remy grabbed her hook and rope from her bag and wedged the hook into the top of the workbench.  Then she started to descend.

It was hard to find purchase for her feet on the metal table leg, which was not helped in the slightest by her muddy shoes. She peered over her shoulder down at the ground, hoping to reach it soon. Maybe not quite as soon as possible, though. She could see paving stones, weeds, and a bucket half-filled with rainwater down there. Those paving stones would not be fun to fall onto. She turned back around. Swallowing her apprehension, she continued her descent.

It seemed like it was going okay. Like she would make it down, perfectly fine, and go on her merry way.

Until her foot slipped.

And her tomato-juice-slicked hands lost their grip on the rope.

And she plummeted down towards the ground. Towards those paving stones.

She squeezed her eyes shut, reaching out blindly and kicking as if that would slow her down. She braced for a painful end to her fall, and—

Plop!

Under different circumstances, Remy might have been offended that she didn’t make a more impressive splash. As it was, she had more important things to worry about. She was hit by a shock of cold, and her eyes flew open. She gasped involuntarily, but water filled her throat instead of air. Bubbles swirled around her. She was underwater.

Her lungs were burning when she broke the surface, and she immediately started coughing and hacking uncontrollably, trying to clear them.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she gasped hoarsely, the coughing finally gone, spinning around and staring at her surroundings with watery eyes. “Oh, f*ck.”

She’d fallen into the bucket. The smooth, plastic bucket half-filled with water. Remy could swim, but staring at that tall, featureless white wall curving around her, she knew the odds of escape were slim.

She sure as hell tried, though.

She kicked, she slammed her hands against the walls, she even tried yelling for help—only a truly desperate little would try that, given that it was much more likely to attract unwanted attention than anyone who would actually help. Her rope and hook, the only things that could have saved her, were still attached to the workbench, firmly out of reach.

“I am not going to die like this!” Remy gasped, her fingernails scratching at the hard, plastic walls. She tried to jump, but she had nothing to push against, and the walls above her were taller than she was. Remy could feel herself growing tired. Already her struggles had slowed, and a helpless panic was setting in.

She tried to think, tried to come up with a solution. She had her backpack with her, maybe she could use something in there? But she could think of nothing within that would help. The backpack wasn’t even buoyant enough to try to keep herself afloat with.

Finally, the realization of the exact nature of her situation set in. Remy couldn’t escape. She was utterly and completely trapped.

She was going to drown.

She was going to die.

…

Joan pulled their car up to the side of the road and turned it off. The sudden silence, the absence of the rumble of the engine and the music they’d been listening to on the way, was jarring. They looked across the yard, towards the house that stood there, and sighed through their nose. Joan had promised their aunt that they’d do some yard work for her this weekend, but they were already regretting that promise. The rain the night before had soaked everything, and the ground was going to be nothing but mud.

But their aunt would be upset if they bailed on her, so here they were.

Joan unbuckled their seat belt and got out of the car. They paused to stretch, letting the sun warm their face even as a cool breeze made goosebumps lift on their skin. Summer was a fading memory. Autumn had officially arrived.

Joan opened up the trunk and took out some supplies: a rake, a pair of gloves, and a set of clippers. Then they locked the car and went around to the back of the house, glad that they had thought to wear their rain boots. The mud squished with each step, bubbling around their feet.

They made their way over to the workbench against the house and set down the supplies there. They looked around, humming under their breath, searching for something they could use. They had run out of paper lawn bags and didn’t have time to go to buy more before they arrived, but Joan’s aunt had asked them to pull some weeds. They could still do that, of course, but they needed something to put them in. Their gaze fell on a bucket beside the workbench, half-hidden by weeds. Perfect. They leaned over to look inside, hoping it was still usable. It was empty other than some accumulated rainwater, and a couple of soggy brown objects. One had sunk to the bottom, and the larger of the two floated just below the surface.

“Jeez,” Joan muttered, inspecting the floating object. Was that a drowned rat?

They grabbed a trowel off of the work bench and used it to scoop out the poor thing, deciding that it deserved more dignity than simply being dumped out into the weeds. As they lifted it out with the trowel, though, they processed what exactly they were looking at. And what they saw startled them so badly that they nearly dropped it.

It wasn’t a rat at all. It was…

“A borrower?” Joan said, staring down at it in shock. Joan loved those books as a kid, and they’d grown up searching for signs of tiny people living in their house. But borrowers weren’t real. This couldn’t possibly be one. It was much more likely that this was a doll, but they had to admit… it sure didn’t look like a doll. It was too realistic. Too… limp, where it lay on the trowel.

Joan suddenly jerked upright. Whatever this thing was, it needed help! Oh, crap, was it dead already?

They hurried to the work table and set down the trowel, gently lifting the tiny form off of it with trembling fingers. They laid it flat on its back, hovering uncertainly. It had a mouse tail, they noticed with a distant feeling. They didn’t remember borrowers having those.

“Hello?” Joan asked, prodding it in the side. “Can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Okay, okay….” Joan raked a hand through their hair, then rolled the borrower, or whatever it was, onto its side. Their side? Her side? Her, Joan thought. Possibly.

A bit of water dribbled from her lips, which were tinged blue.

F*ck.

Joan tried to recall anything they could about reviving a drowning victim. They were pretty sure they’d heard something about “rescue breaths” back in high school health class, but how were they supposed to give mouth-to-mouth to something so small? Should they find a straw or something? Would that work?

Joan shook their head. They didn’t have time for this.  

They turned the creature onto her back once more, tilting her head back to open up the airway as best they could. Then, using one fingertip, they started CPR—or an approximation of it.

A line from the Bee Gees song Stayin’ Alive repeated in their mind as they worked, trying to keep a steady rhythm. Joan watched with bated breath for any kind of response.

Just when they were starting to think they were too late, the tiny body beneath their fingertips gave a shudder. Joan retracted their hand with a gasp, and watched as the possible borrower spluttered, water streaming from her mouth and nose as she turned onto her side, gasping and choking. She drew her limbs together, curling in on herself as best she could manage, spasming as she coughed up the last of the water in her lungs and struggled to draw a proper breath.

A dizzying wave of relief washed over Joan, almost making them stagger. She was alive. She was still cold and wet, and weak as a day-old kitten; and she’d certainly have some impressive bruises on her chest, but she was alive. She was alive.

“Are you okay?” Joan asked as the form shuddered into stillness. Their fingernails dug into the tabletop, yard work entirely forgotten.

The tiny woman turned her head, staring up at Joan with half-lidded eyes. Her short dark hair was plastered to her head. Some color had returned to her face, and her lips weren’t blue anymore, but she looked like she was barely awake. She’d started shivering weakly, her breaths still ragged. She tried to say something, but Joan couldn’t make out what it was. They leaned closer, and she flinched.

“Sorry, I just can’t hear you,” they explained, feeling guilty even though they’d literally just saved this impossible creature’s life.

“Are you going to eat me?” she asked, her voice shaking with either exhaustion, fear, or cold, or possibly a combination of all three. Her words were so disjointed that a full second passed before Joan deciphered what she’d said.

“Wait—what? No,” they said, startled.

“Kill me? Keep me prisoner? Make me, like, a pet or something?”

“No, no! Nothing like that! I don’t—I wouldn’t do that. I just saved you. You drowned. I was just trying to help. I swear.”

She blinked, very slowly.  She seemed to consider for a moment, then let her head flop back to the side.

She muttered something that sounded like “Alright, then, babes.” Which seemed like an odd thing to say at that moment, but Joan supposed they couldn’t judge. Before they could say anything more—like to ask, for example, how she had ended up in that bucket, or if she really was a borrower—her eyes had fluttered shut.

Joan hesitated for only a second before they scooped her up in their hands. They carried her to their car, unlocking it with their free hand, and laid her gently on the passenger seat, turning on the seat warmer for her. They practically ran back to grab their gloves, clippers, and rake, tossing them in the back of the car. Perhaps they should have just left them behind, but they were rather frazzled at the time.

They sent a quick text to their aunt, apologizing and explaining that they’d get the yard work done once everything had dried off a bit. A reply pinged on their phone, but Joan had already shoved the phone back into their pocket, and they didn’t care to check it. With one more glance at their unexpected passenger, Joan stepped on the gas, racing for home.

…

Later, sitting in their living room, Joan did their best to dry off the tiny creature with a towel, but her clothes remained stubbornly wet. Finally, they’d given up. They muttered an apology and carefully removed the soggy garments, deciding it was more important to get her dry and warm. Hopefully she would understand. Joan’s gaze lingered briefly on the bruises already forming on her chest, but they quickly averted their eyes.

They wrapped her up in a blanket and laid that on top of a heating pad. They set the clothes off to the side, spreading them out so that they’d dry faster.

Finally, she was settled, and Joan sat back in their chair.

Now, all they had to do was wait for her to wake up. Then they could figure out what the heck she was and what they were supposed to do with her.

[entomancy]

(Fic) Daywalkin’ in Vegas

...let’s be honest, this ‘short backstory fics’ thing has done what my writing tends to do, and Escalted.  So let’s escalate.

Title: Daywalkin’ in Vegas (Wattpad) Setting: Increasingly not even serial-numbers-off-VTM. VTM infact exists in-world as a gaming system, which really annoys Fancy Vampires. Warnings: Gore; depictions of violence/ death against a child. Words: 6537 Summary: A failed siring gets the attention of two very different parts of Vegas Below; and a young blooded nosferatu puts herself in the centre of a dangerous balance.

-

Beep.

Twenty-eight forty.

Beep.

Thirty-one seventy.

Beep.

Nox watched the till display tick up, comparing the total to her mental tally.   She had enough; she knew she did.  It might have been in tattered bills, tarnished coin rolls and bits of change so old they were chipped like gears around the edges, but she was always real careful to plan these trips down to the grubby dime.  In and out, as unobtrusive as possible.

Beep.

A final bag passed, the green-yellow numbers flickering one final time.  The cashier smiled in customer service plastic as she read out the total, then followed it with a look of awkward concern.

“That’s all for you?  We - er – we have some good specials,” she said hesitantly, nodding towards the little stack of brightly-labelled packages beside the register. It was mostly sweets and tampons, and Nox bit back on a grin at the sight. Nice thought, but that hadn’t been her ‘bloody’ problem for a while now.

“That’s it,” she replied, adding: “Thanks, though.”   Sure, it was an upsell, but a kind one. The girl even managed to keep back any disgust at the state of some of the cash; it had been cleaned up, but people didn’t tend to drop crisp ones into a cup on the sidewalk.

Nox carried everything out to the repurposed shopping cart that she’d left just inside the little bodega’s doors. The thing was unbalanced and took corners like a drunk, but it was better than playing pack mule herself. The new bags settled down on top of the day’s earlier buys: bulk discount batches of toilet roll, bleach and superglue, along with cheap fabric for bandages. Plus, now, thirty-eight dollars and eighty-six cents’ worth of the cheapest mince and frozen shrimp available within a four-mile radius.

There had been a time when she’d had to worry about dietary fibre. Or vitamins.

The cart’s wheels creaked and rasped on sidewalk dirt as she headed it away, hunching down over the handle as she pushed; partly for more control, mostly to keep her face in shade. Her battered baseball cap and hoodie did a pretty good job – accompanied by garish plastic sunglasses and a stained bike mask – but every little helped. It also added to the overall ‘bag lady out on an afternoon shuffle’ aesthetic she was going for. The trick was to inspire just enough awkward pity to be invisible, but not enough to be a target.

Apparently, her act was off today. She’d just turned a laborious corner, distracted by trying to keep the bags all stacked, when she felt a hand clamp down onto the top of her head and yank hard. She didn’t move, but the hood pulled away and she heard a yelp of disgust even before she swivelled around. Two young men stood behind her, gawking in revulsion at the revealed state of Nox’s scalp, in all its piebald, peeling, erratically-thickened glory. A thin braid slithered down her face, torn too-easily free along with the hood.

She gave the scene one more heartbeat to really settle in, before grinning widely. Faced with a mouthful of teeth like broken ivory, the youths managed to look even more horrified.

“Aye, that’s how I caught it too!” Nox cackled theatrically, before snatching the hat back from now-unresisting fingers and jamming it back into place. “Don’t go scratching yerself anywhere pretty fer a bit, eh?”

The lad – and his already-retreating backup – hesitated, then let out a string of bravado-born obscenities. Freak – gross – blah blah blah I-have-a-tiny-dick blah. He kicked at the cart as he started follow his friend, and Nox let just enough spill out to sate the petty spite.

Once they had gone, she picked up the packets again and began to fix her hood. The exposed skin was stinging and smarting already, a poison-ivy prickle that calamine wouldn’t touch. At least it was late enough in the afternoon that she probably wouldn’t blister from the exposure. More annoying was the missing chunk of hair, and she probed at it gingerly. No deep wound, thankfully; which probably meant that the straggly braid had been almost ready to fall out anyway. She tended to keep about half a head of hair going, on average; so it’d grow back.

The lads were long gone by the time she was ready to set off again. With any luck she’d be nothing more than an awkward moment in a day of shoving their weight around; quickly forgotten. Being gross in the eyes of idiots wasn’t a Breech, after all.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. Streets gave way to alleys, sidewalks to cracked paving, to rotting asphalt, and even the graffiti began to wane as she got closer to home. The main occupants of this ass-end of nowhere – a ghetto’s dumpster of a place – didn’t exactly make it their business to advertise where they were. Those that needed to know; knew. Those that knew, generally didn’t care – which was honestly a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Nox had heard the stories of what it had been like only twenty years ago. It was strange to feel that there was any sort of luck to her history, but six years wasn’t twenty.

Reaching a gap in an otherwise unremarkable wall, she glanced around quickly, making sure that no one was watching. Then she straightened up, gripped either side of the overloaded cart, and hefted it up through the broken brickwork in one smooth movement. She vaulted in after it, dropping down into cool shade, and let out a sigh of relief as the accepting touch of Karloff’s Invitation washed across her. The sense was like a door opening in welcome; like taking the first familiar turn towards home after a long day’s drive. It also meant no more unwanted attention – without that explicit permission, you’d never be able to recognise the entrance, or even keep your attention on what you were looking for. She was as invisible now to all other turned-aside eyes as everything else within the Invitation’s borders.

A few more rattling corners later, Nox finally turned into the Homestead grounds. The whole area had once been a crammed-in mess of squat apartment blocks, copy-paste civic solutions built without charm to fill the need for cheap rooms. The Homestead was the only one of its kin still standing, now surrounded by an opened-out area of recent amateur demolition and scrap-built fencing. Bright splashes of street art cut across sagging concrete and the blacked-out eyes of the windows, although the tags and themes chosen indicated the difference between these creators and the more standard ones of the world outside. Most of this had been painted at night, for example, with rather more variety on the theme of ‘hands’ grasping the tins.

There was a lot more inside, and below, but she felt a particular warmth at these murals. Out here, on the surface. Bright in sunshine that most of them could never see. The Nosferatu might be Vegas Below’s crusty little secret, but they were damn well there.

Bits of cracked paving clicked and skittered beneath the cart’s wheels as Nox made her way through the fences and to the big, bolted main doors. There was a rough porch built around the frame, mostly to give extra shadows, and she looked up at the tiny glints of watchful glass sunk into the surrounding wall. She waved.

“Dimestore-Blade’s grocery delivery,” she announced, and listened to the familiar rattle of bolts start on the other side of the door. A few moments later it swung open and a hunched figure peered out, wincing back from even the thick porch shade. This was Max; an older woman than Nox in both kinds of age, who managed her marks via a combination of extensive bandaging and even more extensive needlepoint. Watery black eyes looked past her, squinting through a gap in the heavily-embroidered scarf wrapped around her head.

“All okay?”

Nox nodded and lifted the trolley over the threshold.

“Fine.” She didn’t mention the youths. Didn’t seem a lot of point. “Let’s get this lot into the freezer before it can walk on its own, yeah?”

Safely inside the slightly-fetid gloom of the entrance, Nox took the opportunity shed her bag-lady layers. True, she couldn’t actually overheat, even on a Nevada afternoon, but being swathed in that many layers was still claustrophobic. Beneath the mismatched fabric strata was an increasingly-threadbare pair of yoga pants and a dark vest, and Nox gave a small sigh of relief as she folded up the rest of her daylight-drag, shoving it onto a shelf nearby.

“Right,” she muttered, as much to fill the air as anything else, and turned back to the trolley. Max had already transferred much of it into precarious piles in her own arms. Her scarf had slipped down, revealing a hairless head webbed with splitting skin; much of it made whole again with patterned patches of colourful thread. The fabric discoloured over time, of course, but it reduced the leaking.

Balancing their burdens, the pair made their way further into the Homestead. Closest to the entrance was the most decrepit part, occupied mostly by shelves and old furniture crammed full of clothes and patched umbrellas for venturing out, and with years of dumped debris building up in corners. Rooms with windows – even those as thoroughly blacked out or bricked up as these were – mostly housed the rat runs or storage, because no one wanted to spend a lot of time somewhere where crap mortar could result in dayburns. Similarly, the roof and most of the top floor was given over to pigeon roosts and No avoided them whenever possible. She’d never much liked pigeons before this, and she still held that even their vitae tasted of garbage, somehow. Still, they were much dumber than rats, and they did lay eggs, so that helped.

The really lived-in part of the Homestead was underground. Everybody knew Nosferatu lived in the sewers, right?  Okay, so Nox would admit she hadn’t much understood the difference between ‘sewer’ and ‘storm drain’ before her life had taken its scabby turn, but she sure did now. Vegas had extensive storm drains – large concrete tunnels that lay under much of the city, designed to quickly shift heavy rain away from the tarmacked surface above – and they were ideal: underground, dark, not monitored.

And not actually full of shit.

The arrangement used to be… messier, Karloff had told her. When they hadn’t been so organised; when they’d lived closer together with others who had slipped through the cracks Above. Some of the Family had started off as those same ‘unfortunates’ after all; those who were aftermath-sired in a broken frenzy, or from the bloody jaunt of some fuckfang cutting through the ranks of those who wouldn’t be missed. Splitting their claimed tunnels off from the main circuit and establishing the Homestead proper had happened later, after the Vegas Accord had given the Nosferatu a Clan-status, and hunting them for sport stopped being an acceptable weekend activity.

Six years sure ain’t twenty.

Max chatted away as they walked; an idle litany of gossip, social media tidbits and reports from watchers all over the city, woven together into what Nox tended to think of as ‘Radio Max’. Spying on people was apparently another nos stereotype; but honestly when you didn’t really sleep, were functionally invisible to large portions of society, and had worked out how to divert half-decent broadband from badly-secured leisure networks overhead, it wasn’t difficult to get ahead on current events.

Plus the rats, of course. 

Information was power, and they had precious little of any other. Although Nox sometimes wondered how much of those scant threads of power that Karloff put such value on would diminish if Clanpires in general figured out how to just Google things.

They had reached what she thought of as ‘mainstreet’ of the Homestead tunnels – a long space with concrete pillars linking floor to ceiling every thirty feet or so, quite cheerfully lit by a mishmash web of light fittings rigged up overhead – when yelling broke out further down. Nox and Max shared a look of alarm at the commotion, but it was when her name became suddenly clear in the shouts that Nox’s stomach dropped.

“Get this stuff away, will you?” she muttered, carefully setting her packages down beside Max, and turned to meet the oncoming figures. Even wrapped in a heavy coat and thick gloves, she knew the loping form of Skaad instantly.

With features which sagged so violently that his bruise-yellow skin frequently tore at the edges, and a mouth like a lipless sharps bucket, Skaad was nonetheless gifted with some of the keenest senses in the clan, plus a damn-near eidetic memory. Which meant he spent most of his time skulking in hidden places, listening to things he shouldn’t, and following people who thought they were alone in their secret business. Having him sprinting towards you, so fast his eyelids were visibly flapping, wasn’t a great sign.

Back in the world Above – before her life had gone to hell in a weirdly specific way – Nox had been a paramedic. It was useful in the day-to-day, being the closest thing this bunch of ragged immortals had to a resident doctor, but there was only really one sort of actual emergency left down here.

Skaad skidded to a halt, and grabbed her arm with a worrying urgency.

“Got a phresh one. Get yer kit!”

Fuck. A fresh one meant one thing: someone had found a dumped fledgeling, one who’d been showing signs of the Change going wrong and been tossed aside by their disgusted sire. Intervening quickly could help, particularly getting a pigeon smoothie down them fast, but the panic on Skaad’s drooping face didn’t line up with -

“What’s so – ?” she started, but he shook his head, steering her towards the plastic-covered tunnel they used as a makeshift clinic. He leaned in to shove her again, but lowered his voice and muttered just before he did – and the words sent ice down her spine.

“It’sh a kid.”

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

-

You didn’t turn kids.

When your working knowledge of vampires had been a general pop-culture miasma and some blurry memories of teenage Buffy marathons, finding yourself on the other side of the supernatural coin came as a shock in various ways. One of which was the weird sensation that you should have studied it all harder, somehow. Nox had certainly felt stupid, in her early days, as a man with a face like a charred wasps’ nest listened to her stutter her way through half-remembered fiction and worse-remembered reality. But she’d apparently got a few things right, and somewhere in that muddle had been the idea that you shouldn’t turn kids.

There were all kinds of theories as to why – from the debauched to the practical – but she found that in many ways it didn’t matter. Whatever fucked-up intention you had, it wouldn’t work. Too young just… didn’t take. And when a siring didn’t work, there was every chance the result would end up on her table.

She scrabbled through the assortment of old drawers and boxes that stored her gear, pulling out anything she thought might work. Bandages, thread, craft superglue, repurposed bottles of hard spirits that would do in a pinch for sterilising. The best-case scenario things. And the rest. Old herb pots of fine powders; thrift-store silver cutlery hammered and polished and changed into a very different set of tools. Sharpie-labelled bottles of liquids that moved weirdly in the light, and a range of refillable lighters that definitely didn’t contain hydrocarbons anymore. All the things she’d picked up in the last six years that fitted in with other sort of medicine.

The plastic curtain behind her was yanked back and a sound she had been trying not to hear finally demanded her attention. It wasn’t even a scream, and Nox hated, hated hated hated that she recognised the cadence there perfectly: raw, animal agony of sound torn from a throat that was violently reforming around it. She turned to see Skaad forcing flailing limbs down, looping thick restraints around rippling flesh, and finally allowed her full attention to turn down to the spasming form.

Gore looked different through vampire eyes. It was hard to describe exactly how – partly because wordsmithery had never been one of her strong points, but more because trying to compare feelings from now and then was always going to have a huge fucking hurdle of shifted species in the way. She’d still probably seen more human blood in nine years on the ambulances than during the half-dozen in and out of Vegas’ shadows, and but everything afterwards had been… different. Displaced. Detached. Just didn’t seem as visceral as it used to do.

But this did.

Acid tightened in Nox’s throat as she stared down at the shuddering mess in front of her. Blanched skin bubbled and writhed, tearing as it pulled away from the muscles beneath; themselves little more than contorting ropes of livid tissue that pulsed under dying heartbeats and spilled black fluid from ever-widening rents. The throat was gone, now a bubbling pit of desperate breaths, sucked past exposed tendons that wriggled like furious worms. Half-clotted ichor was pooling from gashes along the arms, down the stomach and further: the marks of peri-sire wounds, those that had been still fresh as the invading blood forced itself into collapsing veins. The eyes were side-to-side a sickly crimson-yellow, bloating out from a face that was collapsing in on itself, and throughout it all, the kid screamed.

It was revolting. Nox had to bite down on the vicious spikes of fight-flight that were going off in her mind, so violently she could feel her hands trembling from the horror and her disgust at her own reaction. It was an instinct, an unbidden response to a failing siring – she knew that – but understanding it didn’t make it easier. Everyone down here had ‘gone nozz’ during their own Turn. Hell, a few of those brought to her were walking around now, not seeming any weirder than any of them, but she’d still felt that awful surge of fundamental wrongness about them before they stabilised.

Nox gritted – all of – her teeth, and slammed her kit down on the table.

Instincts can fucking blow me.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

-

It turned out what they could do, wasn’t much. Cleaning, sewing, cutting, sealing – nothing held. Stitches fell from uncertain skin, or tore great new holes as fresh spasms pulled at the edges. Wet rags soon littered the floor, sodden with black and yellow fluids that turned the rough concrete into a slippery, stinking mess. The bleeding wasn’t slowing, even as the body seemed to be crumpling in on itself, gradually liquefying around the bones.

The sound had gone quieter, if not softer, and Nox didn’t have much hope it would stop soon. It might be days yet, before the final sparks of vitae or life or cruel continuation finally went out.

Too young. The kid – the girl, most likely, going by anatomy – had been just… too young.

They had to have known that.

“I’m outa tricks,” she said, although the words felt thick and sharp in her mouth. She wanted to keep going. She wanted to, so fucking much. But somebody had done this. Somebody who knew this would happen.

“I’m gonna make her comfy,” she continued, then hesitated even as she pulled out the frankly-horrific cocktail of morphine and street drugs that might make a dent in a system caught somewhere between undead and alive. Skaad looked at her, and held out a clawed hand.

“Want me…?”

“Nah.” Nox shook her head, and swallowed. “You can get the others outta upstairs, though. I need to – to make a call.”

Skaad stiffened, his jaundiced eyes flicking between her and the table for a moment, before he let out a low hiss and ducked away through the curtain. Nox administered the mix and tried to convince herself it would have any sort of palliative effect. Then she went back to the drawers and rummaged again, right at the back, until her fingers closed on the ridged plastic of an old nokia.

There weren’t many numbers in the phone, but it was the first one she selected, under B.

- SUMFCK SIRED KID. ITS BAD -

She threw the phone back into the drawer and hurried out, past the plastic sheet and into the tunnels, leaving sticky footprints in her wake. Not a great look, but everyone would already know what was happening. Nosferatu gossiped like – well, like a society of insomniac, semi-immortal shut-ins.

Overhead, an erratic cluster of repurposed pipes trailed down through the domed roof, emanating from the rat runs above. Drainpipes, corrugated plastic, bits of plumbing, and all of them shaking slightly with the constant pass of tiny feet within. They opened out onto tiny highways of shelving that lined the walls, all heading in the same direction as she was. Pairs of black-beady eyes glanced at her as they passed, and with so many concentrated here, she could feel the faintest flick of Attention in each one. They were all headed to a squat metal door at the end of an offshoot passageway. The rats passed freely back and forth narrow holes punched in either side of the door; but Nox knocked. She knew she was already expected and entered after a respectful moment.

Karloff’s chamber was bigger than it looked like it would be from the doorway. Nox wasn’t sure what the space had originally been – some kind of maintenance room? – but it was now dark, and warm, and smelled less of rats than might be expected given the constant rodent tide. Shelves lined the walls, full of books and occasional pieces of recycled pet furniture. One floor-ceiling tower was filled entirely with old radios, police scanners, walkie talkies and the like.

The old man himself lay where he usually did, propped up in a nest of pillows and blankets in a box-like bed in the centre of the room. He presented an impossibly gaunt figure: papery-brown skin layered like peeling paint across sharp bones, with eyes so thickly clouded they sat like grey-milk marbles in unclosing sockets. His face looked scorched, blackened at the edges of the old dry wounds that had taken his nose, torn away most of his lips, and presumably shattered the broken fangs that jutted from his mouth. There was – as usual – a huge white rat lazing across his chest, nearly the size of a terrier and wearing a dark silken ribbon, and its sharp crimson eyes fixed on Nox as she entered.

She bowed her head, and tried not to leave bloody footprints on the rug.

“I need a temporary Invitation,” she said. It was blunt, but there was no point in dancing around it. He’d already know anyway. As she spoke, the huge rat sat up. It’s pale paws were clasped in front of it, folded in a strangely human-like gesture, but Karloff himself turned his head only slightly.

“’Belton,” he said softly, in the throat-based hush of his voice, and Nox nodded. Her fingers twitched into fists, and she felt the sticky remnants of gore slide between them.

“I… I’m running out of options, and she – ” the words were sticker than her fingers, getting caught on her lips “ – she’s real bad.”

The rat cocked its head and Karloff drew a slow breath.

“You will not do it?” he asked. Nox’ throat tightened.

“If I gotta. But I want him to see her, cos I – I could do this, but I ain’t got a snowball’s chance of doing anything about it.”

Karloff’s head turned further, and the clouded eyes passed over her with an intensity that Nox could feel, as if they skipped sight entirely and went right into her heart instead. There was another stretched moment of silence, then the pressure dropped and the rat turned away, curling itself neatly under its master’s chin.

“It is done,” Karloff said. The long fingers on one hand twitched slightly, and the faintest hint of a frown dug into his face. “...take care with the old death. You have seen little of him.”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you,” Nox added before she headed out again; first to check that the cocktail of drugs had at least calmed the kid’s screams, then back into the upper house. A few rats followed her as she slid into the squeaking, busy dimness of the runs to use the sink that still stood in one corner, using brownish water to at least scrub some of the stains from her hands. Then she set to wait, pacing with nervous energy.

No one joined her. By now, everybody would know what was happening, and no one wanted to be around when he came calling.

The problem – okay, so one of the problems, in a dreadful, tangled ball of ever-more layered problems – was that it was very, very difficult to kill a fledgeling in any way that could be considered humane. A body already in the process of tearing itself apart was resistant to most damage for the same reasons that you couldn’t punch a fog. Getting any kind of drug to land in an even-partly vampiric system was difficult enough at the best of times, and this…

Well, there was sunlight, but everything about Nox’s very being baulked at the idea of using that method. She knew with personal, hellish intimacy that the agony from that would get through even a Change. Torturing someone to death with one of the few things worse than what they were going through was really not the point.

Plus, there was a tiny, tiny part of her mind that hoped she was wrong. She’d only been dealing with this stuff for a handful of years, and while rumours varied widely about how old Belton actually was, he’d seen a lot of shit. Maybe she’d missed something. Just maybe…

It seemed to take an eternity before the roar of an engine outside broke through Nox’ whirling thoughts. She hurried to the door, took a careful breath, and peered out through the little viewing slot. Not that anyone else would have been able to ride a motorcycle up to the Homestead without the permission of Karloff’s Invitation, but it never hurt to keep caution.

A huge bike was settled just beside the front steps. It was black, but in the way a magpie’s wings were black, with oil-slick iridescence hinting around the edges. The rider – dressed to match, in that seamless continuity of clothing that Nox had started to think of as ‘vampire sunscreen’ – had already dismounted and was stood beside his bike, the raven-sheen of his helmet turned towards the door. There was no visible gaze to meet, but the weight of his attention was like ice down her spine, and she opened the door as deliberately as she could.

“She’s downstairs,” she said, as the figure came up the steps. The sun was already going down, barely spilling dying light over the surrounding wall of buildings, and the porch shadow was very deep there. It only got deeper as the big man stepped into it – and then paused, right on the edge of the frame.

“May I enter?” His voice was never as heavy as she expected, with a melodic edge that absolutely did not match what she knew lay under that helmet. Nox rolled her eyes.

“I texted you, and you’re here, right?”

He was always so… old fashioned about this. It wasn’t like it was a general requirement. Nox stepped back, gesturing inwards.

“Come in already,” she added. The man might have been big – although ‘fucking enormous’ would be a better description, needing to visibly turn and duck to get through the doorframe – but he moved deceptively fast, and was well inside the hallway, starting to remove his helmet before she had had time to shut the door. She turned to look, not even pretending not to stare as he unclipped all the security bits and lifted it smoothly free. The dramatic effect was only slightly spoiled by the oddly-bulging balaclava he had on underneath – but Nox supposed that if her ears could meet at the back, she’d want to keep them restrained inside a helmet too.

Belton looked… well, he looked like Belton. There just plain wasn’t anyone else like that. The best description she had ever been able to come up with was that he looked like someone had tried very hard to make a bat in the character creation screen of a pro-wrestling computer game. It was as if the underlying architecture that should have made a human skull had been stretched and tweaked and twisted into something approaching Chiroptera from the other side.

It probably said something worrying about her own psyche that – somewhere in the mess of emotions that Belton inspired – a part of her really, really wanted to see an xray of his head.

No time for this.

“C’mon,” she nodded him to follow her back down the Homestead’s passageways. The rats watched them from every surface; their skittering highways unusually still as the majority of glinting little eyes were fixed on the visitor. They were the only visible watchers, and Nox tried not to notice how empty every space they passed through was. It added another level of eeriness, with the just-abandoned debris of life seeming like some extremely localised Rapture. Even Nox’ rapid explanation of the situation fell muted around them; for his part, Belton just listened and nodded every now and then. He didn’t look around.

How familiar was he, with this place?  He’d come a few times since she’d been here – and of course, that first time meant he’d sure known where it was. Nox’ gaze slid sideways. Belton had removed his gloves by now, and the hands revealed couldn’t even remotely be thought of as human; the fingers were too long, bone and tendons standing stark beneath mottled grey skin; capped by black claws that curled from the nailbeds, polished to an obsidian gleam.

How many times had those hands run across the outer walls of the Homestead; at Karloff’s limits; searching for a way in?  How many times had those claws torn into sagging flesh, or crushed furry watchers into broken blindness?

How many times had he come before he had brought her here; a crispy mess of fledgeling coated in sand and gravel and gore, spat out by the desert and into hands that immortals feared…?

The plastic curtain seemed to rise up like an exclamation, a cold shot of right now breaking her thoughts, and Nox came to a sharp halt. There was still sound from inside: a bubbling, slurred collage of moans that had made it past the drugs, and her hand froze halfway to the curtain. The swell of renewed, visceral revulsion felt like she’d choke on her own fucking hypocrisy, and she couldn’t suppress a slight hiss.

“It’s – ” she started, through gritted teeth, but cut out as Belton gently touched her shoulder.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Nox’ fingers twitched, then she turned away, moving until she could lean heavily against the nearest concrete pillar and rested her forehead against the pitted surface. The groan might as well have been coming out of the air. It pressed down around her and her skin crawled.

She hated this, and she hated that she hated it like this. Some depraved motherfucker had dragged a fucking child into very literal hell and she’d tried, she’d tried with every stupid, macguivered bullshit tool she’d put together out of garbage; she’d tried everything and it was never going to have meant a damn thing and all she could focus on, really really focus on right now was how fundamentally disgusting that fucking sound was –

And then it stopped.

Nox physically sagged against the pillar, relief and nausea chasing each other through a stomach that was dropping into her boots. There was only one reason for the sudden silence, and she let her eyes slide closed, muttering the same half-wordless prayer she’d always used when a case went bad, or a patient flatlined in the ambulance. Whatever that meant now, she’d never been sure, but it still sort of fit.

She’d known. She’d known when she picked up that damn phone.

But fuck me if hope isn’t a bitch.

It wasn’t long before there was the faint brush of plastic again and Nox opened her eyes to see Belton smoothing the curtain back behind him, covering the sudden stillness. There was a long moment of silence before he turned to her. His eyes were the most human-looking part of his face, and the grey gaze sought hers.

“I’ll be on my way, then.”

Nox nodded numbly. They went out the way they came; still alone, still watched at every step by a hundred rodent stares. Back up, back to the door and out into the thickening dusk of the evening – and it wasn’t until the porch steps were creaking under his boots that Nox’s nerve rose again.

“Hey – Belton?” she managed, and the big figure paused. He looked back at her and one curled brow raised, moving an ear with it. Nox pulled the Homestead door shut behind her as she sought the right words. “This… ain’t your job, right?”

“I don’t have a real tight specification,” he replied, then shrugged. “But broadly?  No. To be honest with you, my boss couldn’t give a rat’s twat what happens with the Nosferatu.”

“So why’d you come?” Those words came fast, but Nox didn’t try to stop them. Belton paused again, then hung his helmet and balaclava over the big bike’s handlebars. He sat down on the steps, hunching a little in that strange shape his back took when he wasn’t standing, and Nox slid down beside him at the unspoken invitation.

Belton shook his head, what might have been a wry smile tugging at the edges of his too-wide lips. Glints of needle teeth flashed in the dusk.

“It’s a question of perspective, see,” he said quietly. “For someone like you?  This’ll ruin your whole year. Getting all Lady Macbeth with the inevitable. But for me?” He held up a hand and slowly flexed the clawed fingers. Once; twice; and Nox couldn’t draw her gaze away from the mottled skin as it shifted over his bones. Belton sighed. It was an old sound, so old that any hint of what it might contain had worn away like stone under rain.

“What’s one drop in an ocean?  Don’t get me wrong – ” he added, with the edge of smile falling away again “ – I’ll feel bad about it; but I’m not losing myself any sleep.”

She should have been angry. She wanted to be angry, at the casual way this bat-faced bastard just said it; as the so-recent feel of the kid’s crumbling flesh slammed against her thoughts and ghosted under her fingers, and bile she wasn’t even sure she had anymore swirled at the back of her throat. She should be angry.

“...thank you.”

“No need for that,” he replied – but Nox shook her head.

“Nah; there is. Things need saying.” She fidgeted with the hem of her pants for a silent moment, before continuing. “Don’t believe you actually sleep, though.”

This time there was no mistaking that Belton grinned; and the resulting expression was exactly as unpleasant as it sounded.

“No?  Not even if I say I’ve got little bats on my pyjamas?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Now that there’s uncalled for.”

Nox grinned, and even as she did she could almost hear Karloff’s voice in her head. Be wary of the old death. 

And yet…

There was another long silence, although this one felt less tense.

…fuck it. When am I gonna get this chance again?

“They found her in the desert,” she said carefully, scuffing dust across the steps with one toe as she spoke; an idle motion to distract herself from the nerves inside. Belton nodded.

“Aye. Letting lady sun do the dirty work. It’s an almost foolproof method, really.”

Nox looked down at her own hands; where the patchwork of thickened tissue traced patterns like dry riverbeds over her pallid brown skin. The sun burned bits went blistered red, then dark and crackly, then sickly pale when that peeled; slowly edging back to her default. It sure as hell wasn’t pleasant; but it wasn’t the chemical-melting collapse of flesh that she’d seen on others.

“So, that make me a fool or an outlier?”

“I said almost.” Belton leaned back a little, looking up into the dark expanse of sky. “Always going to take a risk when you don’t stay to watch. Although I’ll admit it takes some big balls to stick around for that sort of disposal. What with the deeply ingrained phytophobia of your classic vampire, and everything.”

Nox raised her most intact eyebrow.

“This is more about your junk than I want to know.”

Belton laughed. Really laughed; the kind of melodic tone that bordered on a snatch of song and that was so very out of place coming from within that face.

“Oh, I’m not claiming that kind of testicular fortitude. Sunlight scares the piss out of me as much as it ever did. Don’t think it’s the kind of thing you can get over. Built-in, you know?”

“You ride about in the day,” Nox pointed out, and Belton waved a hand back towards his helmet.

“I’ve got some really bespoke protective gear, see. Amazing what’s been done with polymers in the last thirty years.”

Nox blinked.

“…you’ve got bike pleathers?”

“Technically I’ve got an integrated neo-polymer baselayer,” Belton stopped and his nose crinkled – which was quite an extensive expression. “…ah fuck, that sounds like I’ve got plastic pants, doesn’t it?  Keep that one to yourself, will you?”

“Sure.” Nox’s shoulders sagged again as reality dropped back suddenly. She decided to just go for blunt. “With… the kid. Someone did that, and before that they – ” her words choked again, at the thought of where some of those peri-sire wounds had been.

“I know.” The amusement had gone from Belton’s voice as he stood up, heading back to his bike rather abruptly. The engine roared into life as he swung himself astride it, folding his ears into their cover, and Nox had to shout to be heard above the rumble.

“Do they… just get away with this?”

“There’s plenty that think they should,” he replied calmly; oddly easy to hear over the din, as he slid the helmet into place. “It was like that for a long time.”

Nox’s lips drew back, almost of their own accord, working to some defiant instinct she only had partial control over.

“And you?”

“Me?  I’m a monster on a chain that I put there.” Belton looked up, and just before the visor snapped closed, there was a flicker of crimson in his eyes.

“But I’ll see what I can do.”

-

[mimymomo]

Chocolate Flavored Surprises

So, I was still super sick yesterday and while I was bedridden I decided to write this! Plus, I just really missed my Miko-mi (yes, that’s my nickname for him!). Enjoy this belated Christmas/but sike not really Christmas story!

Also, titles are so freaking hard to come up with! 

...

It was a cold winter afternoon. Snow rapidly cascaded down from the gray clouds, covering every inch in a soft, powdery white. The wind shook the dead branches in the towering trees, long frozen icicles dangling tightly to their wood. The sky was light and so was the sky, the world glowed in bright white. The winter had anything but a breeze in the past month, yet also utterly beautiful and enticing all the same.

Miko watched the scenic view from his seat by the one window, wrapped snug in an old, knitted blanket. He blew on to the window, the puff of air fogging up the glass, and drew a crude stick figure family- a slender man, a smaller woman with stick hair and a tiny child in between them. Orpheus, Eurydice and himself. 

“Miko?”

The boy turned his head to see Orpheus semi-stunned, standing in the doorframe. The front door was wide open and bags of groceries laid at his feet. As he pushed the door closed, Miko grinned and quickly broke free of his blanketed cocoon, and rushed over to Orpheus’ side. Orpheus swiftly scooped the boy into his arms and hugged him close, the small boy's arms wrapping perfectly around his neck.

“Hi, Papa!”

Orpheus smiled serenely, Miko may have been living with the two for months by this point, but the sound of Miko calling him “papa” never failed to send happy jitters all throughout his body. “Hello, you,” he poked his son’s soft stomach causing him to giggle and twitch. “Up and awake huh?”

Miko, face still glowing, nodded, “Mama’s still sleeping though.” That didn’t surprise Orpheus, his wife had to work a full day shifts, opening until closing, the past three days and was without a doubt exhausted. When Orpheus had left for his early morning shift, Eurydice hadn’t woken even a smidge. Not a blink, stir or even groan, she was dead asleep to the world around her. Miko had been fast asleep too when Orpheus had kissed him and his wife goodbye, but he shouldn’t have been surprised to see the boy had awoken in the few hours he’d been absent. “What’s in the bags, Papa?”

“Oh, right!” that’s when Orpheus had remembered his big plan. He wanted to do something special for Eurydice and Miko for a while now. The winter was never a season Eurydice truly enjoyed Orpheus wanted to do something to cheer her up and thought today would be the perfect afternoon to put that idea into action. Sure, Miko being awake wasn’t apart of the initial plan, but to Orpheus, having Miko join him would be even better. “Miko, would you like to help me with something?”

Miko’s eyes widened, and he began squirming with excitement in Orpheus’ arms, “Yes! Yes, I wanna help! Wait, help with what?”

The musician laughed, placing the curious child down on the floor, “it’s a surprise for Mama.” 

“For Mama? Okay!” Miko cheered, flapping his arms and doing a little jig, his joy was absolutely infectious. Orpheus chuckled reaching down to grab one of the bags. But before he could lift the other, Miko had already snatched it up, heaving slightly at the weight, and hustled into the kitchen. Orpheus shook his head and followed his son’s hustle. “So Papa, what'd we making?” Miko questioned.

“First, cookies.”

“Cookies!” Miko yelled in childish glee. 

Orpheus gently shushed the boy, placing a finger over his mouth, “shh, we don’t want to accidentally wake Eurydice up before her surprise is ready, right?”

“Oh, okay. Quiet, shh” Miko agreed, he copied Orpheus’ ministrations and put his finger up over his mouth as well. Much quieter than before, the two set out and began their baking prep work- pulling out bowls, spoons, and baking trays, laying out the ingredients on any available table and counter space and pre-heating the kitchens relic of an oven. They mixed butter and sugar by hand, Miko desperate to stir first before quickly growing tired and handing the large spoon over to Orpheus. Then came the addition of vanilla. Vanilla was quite expensive but to Orpheus, surprising his overworked wife was worth the splurge. Cracking open the bottle, an invisible cloud of sweetness immediately spread all throughout the already pleasant-smelling kitchen. After pouring a more than necessary amount of vanilla into the bowl, the two boys passed the bottle of dark brown liquid back and forth, taking large whiffs of the aromatic scent each time. 

“Vanilla smells so good,” Miko said, passing the bottle to Orpheus.

“It does.”

“Does it taste good too?”

“I-” Orpheus paused, “I really don’t know.”

“Can I try some?” Miko asked. 

“Why not?” Orpheus shrugged, passing the bottle back into the child's hands. In all honesty, he was genuinely curious about the taste as well. Miko dipped his finger the tiniest bit into the bottle then stuck his finger in his mouth. He instantly recoiled, face scrunching up in dismay. His teal eyes watery and dyed with utter betrayal, “ack, yucky!”

Orpheus winced, “really bad?”

“Bad. Bad, bad,” Miko exclaimed, his nose crinkled up and mouth in a disappointed pout. “Why vanilla? You smelled so good…” Orpheus patted the young boy on the back, passing him a plastic cup filled with milk to help mask the bitter taste. Miko gulped the drink down with exaggerated vigor, letting out a loud ‘ahhh’ when he pulled the cup back from his lips. 

They soon get back to work. With careful precision, Orpheus measured out cups of flour and handed them over to Miko. Miko then, as of handling flour shifted from the gods themselves, would pour them into the bowl. A white puff of flour dust flew into the air as the stirred the mixture, getting all over the counter and themselves. A few minutes later, after adding a large pinch of salt, they wrapped the dough and placed it into the fridge. As they waited for the dough to chill, they started cleaning the kitchen. They wiped down the counters and washed the dirty, used up dishes, Orpheus scrubbed while Miko rinsed. An accidental spray of misdirected water led to an all-out war of soap and water between the two resulting in soaking wet clothes and an even dirtier kitchen. By the time they completed recleaning the kitchen, the dough had finished chilling. 

The two rolled out the dough into a semi-thick width. “Now, we got to cut the cookies out into rectangles,” Orpheus said, pulling out a knife from the drawer. 

“Ooh, Papa, can I do it?” Miko begged, jumping up and down. 

“Don’t tell your Mama, okay?” Miko zipped his mouth shut, locked it and tossed the imaginary key over his shoulder. Orpheus carefully transferred the knife into Miko’s hand, showing him how to grip the sharp utensil safely. He then proceeded to guide Miko’s hand with his own, slicing the dough into about two dozen long rectangular shaped cookies. Once they were done cutting, they placed the unbaked cookies onto a baking sheet and dusted them with more sugar. Finally, the cookies went into the oven. 

As the cookies baked, they got started on their next venture: hot chocolate. Orpheus had learned the recipe from Hermes, who used to make the treat for the boy every winter as a child. 

First, was the whipped cream, which needed to be refrigerated. They poured heavy cream and sugar into a bowl and took turns briskly stirring until the liquid turned into a fluffy, sweet whipped cream.

Next, they boiled water in a pot and added cocoa powder, sugar and a touch of salt, mixing them together for a few short minutes over the heat. As Miko continued to stir, Orpheus poured in cup after cup of milk and some vanilla, turning off the burner and removing the pan from the dying heat. Orpheus grabbed three mugs from the cabinet with Miko’s input (“the red one is yours, Papa, the yellow flower one is Mama’s and the blue one is mine!”) and divided the hot cocoa evenly between them all. Miko plopped marshmallows into each cup, counting to make sure everyone got an equally copious amount. 

“Miko.”

“Hmm?” the young boy glanced up from his task to see Orpheus facing him, mouth wide open. Miko smiled, understandably and began tossing marshmallows into the air in the direction of Orpheus’ mouth. It took a few attempts, but finally one managed to make it into the waiting musician's hungry mouth. “Yes,” Miko clapped. 

Just as they were finishing up, the timer on the oven began to blare, meaning the cookies were ready. Declining Miko’s eager offer to help, Orpheus pulled the trays out of the oven and set them on the empty space on the stove, the shortbread a perfect, appetizing light brown color. A sugary scent of warm, buttery vanilla and velvety chocolate wafted throughout the house.

“I thought I smelled something good,” a voice called out from the opposite side of the room, causing Orpheus and Miko to jump. Eurydice stood in the entrance of the kitchen with her arms crossed, a tired, bemused smile plastered to her face. She wore one of Orpheus’ old T-shirts and a nightshirt that reached past her knees. Outlined creases from her pillow marked the sides of her face. 

“Mama,” Miko ran straight to Eurydice, burying himself in her legs. He lifted his head and gave her the biggest smile, eyes twinkling with elation, “morning!”

Eurydice ran her fingers lovingly through Miko’s wavy curls and down the side of his face, cupping his cheek, “Good morning baby.” 

Orpheus sauntered over to his lover, “Morning ‘Rydice.”

“Good morning to you too, lover boy,” Eurydice smirked. She stepped onto her tiptoes to press a short kiss to Orpheus’ lips, squishing Miko between them in the process. “Or should I say, good afternoon at this point? Gods, how long was I asleep? What time is it?”

“Four o’clock,” Miko answered innocently below her.

Eurydice sighed, “so I slept nearly all of my day off away…”

“You were tired,” Orpheus countered firmly, wiping away streaks of dried, crusty drool from the corners of his wife’s mouth with the pad of his thumb. With a feather-light touch, he lovingly pinched her cheek, “you needed your sleep.”

“Mama,” Miko said, lightly pulling on Eurydice’s old nightshirt. The child teetered up and down on the tips of his feet, bouncing as if he would burst in any second, “Mama, we made you a surprise!”

“You two did now?” Eurydice said, feigning a slightly bloated shocked tone. She glanced up and over at her husband, but Orpheus just smiled in response.

“Yep!” Miko grinned, pulling back from the warm embrace, “come see.” He towed Eurydice into the kitchen to show off their finished surprise. The cookies and hot cocoa were in their same spot on the stove and counter, steam still radiating off the burning hot treats. “Ta-dah!”

“Wow,” Eurydice gasped, truly stunned at the display in front of her. Sure, she had heard all of the commotion from her and Orpheus’ bedroom in her sleepy haze and smelled the saccharine air but she hadn’t known what was actually prepared, and that it was, in fact, for her. “You two made all this?”

“Mhmm,” Miko nodded, actually jumping by this point, “Papa said he wanted to surprise you. He let me help!”

Eurydice turned to Orpheus, the poet scooping generous amounts of white cream onto the warm chocolatey drinks, “this was your idea huh?”

“Maybe,” Orpheus grinned, passing the mug with the yellow cartoon sunflower over to Eurydice’s waiting hands. Next, was Miko’s “here’s yours, Miko, extra whipped cream. Be careful, it’s still really hot.”

“‘Kay, thank you,” Miko said, sparkling eyes glued at the mountain of whipped cream that was piled high on top and cascading down the sides of his mug. “Mama, can we sit by the window?”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Eurydice agreed, letting the hyper boy tug her in the direction of the wide-open window. 

Orpheus stacked a numerous amount of cookies onto a plate. And with his mug, he joined his family in their makeshift living room, plopping down right in front of the window next to Eurydice, Miko comfortably sitting in her lap. A cute whipped cream mustache lined his upper lip.  

And at that moment, there was peace. There were three bodies close together, two covered in stay traces of dusty flour and dried cream and faintly emitted of vanilla and chocolate, one still wiping sleep from her eyes. Eurydice sat still, breathing in the air, the feeling burning hot chocolate sliding down her throat. She watched as the snow gently fell outside the frosty window. Tomorrow, she would have to brave the chill and icy weather. Tomorrow, she would have to serve round after round drinks to the dizzying crowd at the bar. She thought about how just like the falling snow, the time they all shared together would slowly but surely melt away. But today, today she had her shortbread cookies, her yellow sunflower mug filled to the brim with simmering hot chocolate, and her boys. Her boys who were sweeter than any dessert could ever dream of tasting. Right now, that’s all she needed. 

[aratorejke-blog]

Marco Aratore

https://hotmyfreecams.comJessica looked in the mirror and sighed, she hated her long brown hair. It cascaded down to just below her shoulders, still smooth and shiny from her shower this morning. Jess grabbed her yellow scarf, which she had slung over her chair on her return from college that afternoon, and draped it over her head. Pulling it down with her hands either side of her head covering her awful brown hair. She posed and pouted like she had seen the movie stars she idolise do, imagining her hair was a golden blonde.

At 18 Jess had never dyed her hair, her mother was very strict and wouldn't allow this. As her mother would say, "I will not have you dying your hair like the other Harlots in your class."

As Jess stood there in front of the mirror looking quite ridiculous with this bright yellow scarf on her head she sighed again. Suddenly her peace and quiet was interrupted by the voice of her father calling up to her.

"Hun, what was the name of the film you and Kim are watching again."

"Shit." Jess murmured "Uh, The Hunger Games dad, it's based on the books I read last summer."

"That's the one." Her dad hollered back. It was Friday night which meant Jess was off to the movies. One of the few pass times her parents permitted.

Jessica's parents were very strict and she knew if she was honest with them over the real film the girls were going to see this evening they would never let her out of the house. Jessica was a blossoming young woman, exploring her sexuality and she had a bit of a crush on Channing Tatum. Jess would often think about his ripped body while in the shower, he really turned her on, and tonight the girls would be going to see the male stripper film Magic Mike. But before Jess could go to the cinema she needed to choose an outfit and quick. She wanted to be the one greeting Kim not her prudish parents.

Kim had been Jessica's best friend since primary school. They stayed best friends when they moved up to secondary school even a brief falling out over Kyle Golding in year 9 couldn't derail their friendship. When Kim left school at 16 Jess feared they would drift apart. Luckily for Jess, Kim put a lot of effort into their friendship, Kim would even sometimes be waiting for Jess when he came back from college. https://bestpornever.me

Checking the clock on her dressing table Jess realised Kim would be pulling up her drive shortly. Instead of choosing an outfit, Jess was day dreaming about changing her hair colour. Jess still hadn't picked out an outfit, she moved to her wardrobe and stood looking at her frumpy outfits. None of these would do and Jess grabbed her neck in frustration and started to massage herself hoping inspiration would strike.

As Jess stood there in her white lacy bra, which pushed her 34DD round globes together creating a mouth-watering cleavage. Her matching white thong disappeared into the crack of her pert tight ass. Jess took one last look in her wardrobe hoping her clothes would miraculously change into something a normal girl would wear. As Jess scanned her wardrobe a large plastic bag on the floor of her wardrobe caught her eye, she swore it wasn't there this morning. As Jess pulled the bag out and started to rummage through it, Jess realised she has her hands on a goldmine of revealing outfits.

When Jessica was younger she went through a typical teenage rebellious phase, which only lasted a summer. Jess would go out with Kim, buy skimpy outfits and hide them at the back of her wardrobe. Realising the change in Jessica's attitude her mother would monitor Jessica's wardrobe and remove any clothes she didn't think were suitable. After clothes started to disappear from her wardrobe the arguments started. Jess felt her privacy was being invaded. A few groundings later and Jessica's rebellious side disappeared. She realised fighting her mother on her wardrobe was fruitless and expensive.

But now as If by magic the clothes had reappeared. Jess had grown up a fair bit recently, filling out in some noticeable areas, it just meant the clothes would be even more revealing. The thought of her body being on display coupled with the knowledge these outfits were forbidden excited Jess. Her right hand instinctively reached up and cupped her firm left breast. The gentle pressure her fingers placed on her boob comforted Jess like only her security blanket could when she was a child. Jess also started to pinch her nipple through the thin fabric on her lacy bra.

In the bag Jess saw short skirts, tight shorts, revealing 2 piece bikinis, skimpy tops... It was a smorgasbord of outfits but knowing she was pressed for time Jess settled for a pair of bright blue jeans and a white tank top. Jess pulled the tank top over her head. Being 3 years old the top was tight and it was a bit of a stretch getting it down over her tits. Jess would not be denied though and pulled hard as the material expanded and clung to her body. The bottom of the tank top came down to just above Jessica's flat navel and the bottom of the tank top hung loose away from her body. Jess glanced in the mirror, the top had stretched nicely over her firm breasts showing a good eyeful of cleavage.

Next came the jeans and Jess quickly realised these were the £200 Versace jeans her dad bought for her birthday a few years ago. She actually got to wear them a few times as being Versace and costing over £200 trumped any comment Jessica's mother could make against them.

"Only a Harlot would wear such tight jeans!" Her mother said when she saw them for the first time.

"A Harlot wouldn't be able to afford such expensive jeans." Jess retorted. For a time this was enough for Jess to keep the Jeans. However Jessica's mother wasn't stupid and she knew Jess only wanted them because they almost looked painted on and soon they too disappeared from her wardrobe.

As Jess poured herself into the tight jeans she glanced in the mirror her hour glass figure was quite a sight. At 5, 7" and being a size 10, Jess would catch the eye of most men in bin bag. These tight form fitting jeans nicely accentuated her thin legs and tight pert round ass. They were low cut and left plenty of stomach on show. Unfortunately Jess would have to cover her stomach for now so she could leave the house.

Jess grabbed a pink shirt to cover tight body and firm tits. The shirt was a little loose so didn't show off Jessica's fantasting cleavage, which was fine for now. Jess had a plan to alter her outfit later. She knew how to show off her body and planned to untuck the shirt and tie it off exposing her newly pierced belly button. While at the same time undoing the top 3 buttons of her shirt to ensure her fantastic 34DD tits were on display for anyone to see.

Just as the doorbell rang, letting Jessica know Kim had arrived, Jess finished applying a hint of makeup. She had only just been allowed to have a small makeup kit since she turned 18, little did her mother know Jess had been applying makeup for years. Jess would steal and borrowing what she needed from shops, friends and her own mother. The light eyeshadow and pink bubble-gum flavoured lip-gloss Jess applied didn't do a lot. She still looked younger than her years, but it gave her a small boost in confidence.

Jess grabbed her pink Gucci purse and slipped her black velvet choker in the inside pocket. Another small change Jess would be making to her current outfit when she was out of the view of her parents. She slipped on a pair of flats, heeled shoes where strictly forbidden. Finally after one last quick glance back in the mirror Jess was bouncing down the stairs to open the door for her waiting friend.

Kim was a bit smaller than Jess at 5, 5" with equally round mouth-watering breasts, they were also 34DD's. Kim had a toned, stomach and round ass which she worked hard on to keep tight. Kim could be a bit of a fitness freak at times. Jess knew Kim didn't have the same dress code set by her parents so wanted to reach the door before Jessica's parents could see what Kim was wearing. No doubt it was much sluttier than Jessica's current outfit.

Jessica's heart sank when she saw her father had not only beaten her too it but was in quiet conversation with Kim. While her father wasn't as strict as her mother he was no fool. He knew girls matured faster than boys. So letting his little girl out with another, acting older than she was, wouldn't be permitted. Jess couldn't make out what was being discussed but from her view on the stairs it looked intense. Suddenly Kim's face came into view over her father's shoulder "Hey Jess!" Kim Shouted.

Kim's had golden blonde shoulder length hair and while Jess had an angelic face, largely owning to her sparse makeup, Kim's face was much sexier. This in part was due to her naturally thick red lips and Cindy Crawford style mole. Kim also used more makeup than Jess often wearing too much eyeshadow in Jessica's opinion.

As Jessica's father moved aside Kim's outfit came into view and Jess suddenly had a pit forming in her stomach. Kim had black knee high boots, black stockings (Even though Jess couldn't see the stocking tops Kim never wore tights). A flared black skirt stopping halfway down her thigh, with a tight blue boob tube, which barely contained her large cleavage. A short black leather jacket rounded out the outfit. Jess figured the jacket was new, as she had never seen it before. Fear crept across Jessica's face and she felt panicked, there was no way Jess's father would let her out with Kim dressed like this.

"Hi pumpkin." Jess's father said smiling at his daughter. Jess moved next to her father, he was 6ft and kept in good shape, this owed to the fact he was only in his late thirties. He and Jessica's mother had Jess when they were quite young. Kim noticed the panicked look on Jessica's face but her father was seemingly oblivious. https://hotmyfreecams.com

Jessica's dad threw his arm around her shoulder "You kids enjoy the Hungry Games movie tonight." Jess was in shock that her father had no opinion on Kim's clothes. Deciding a quick exit was the best option, she didn't even correct her father about the name of the movie, they weren't even going to see.

As her father bent over to kiss Jess on the forehead Kim grabbed Jessica's arm pulling her away from her father's embrace. Leading her down the path and into her car. Jessica's father stood in the door way beaming and waving to his little girl. Jess was in shock, it was only 3 months ago that her father had forbidden Jess from ever seeing Kim again. The row erupted over the way Kim dressed and acted.

It was decided Kim acted far to grown up and Jessica's father believed Kim was a bad influence. While her father relented in the last month Jess was sure Kim's current outfit would send him round the bend, but it didn't.

"How are you Jess." Kim's words snapped Jess back to reality. She dragged her eyes away from her father, now disappearing as the car reversed off the driveway into the street. The look of panic had disappeared and was replaced by a smile on the teenagers beautiful face.

"I'm great now I'm out of the house." Came the jubilant response from Jess. It's not that she hated her parents but with all the rules Jess felt a sense of freedom every time she was out with Kim.

Both girls laughed and chatted on the drive into town. On the way Jess modified her outfit. Untucking the pink shirt and undoing the top three buttons. Jess then took the bottom of the shirt and lifted it up so she could pull it through her neckline. This caused the material on her shirt to pull tight against her firm chest. Jess tied the shirt off showing plenty of cleavage and stomach, giving her a schoolgirl style look. Next came the black choker from her purse. The choker always made her feel sexy. There was a slight tingle in her panties after she finished changing her clothes.

"Tadah! What do you think Kim." Jess was very pleased with herself and wanted the adulation which normally followed an outfit change.

"No no no that won't do at all." Came Kim's response. Jess felt let down by this as she put a lot of weight in Kim's opinions.

Kim continued, "Don't get me wrong you look hot as hell but we need to change a couple of things. Don't worry I brought my makeup kit and a spare pair of pink pumps for you." Jess was confused, makeup and high heeled shoes? They were only going to the cinema, who would see them?

That's when Jess realized they missed the turn to the high rise carpark by the multiplex cinema and where headed back out of town. "Kim you missed the turn!" Exclaimed Jess.

[unholyhelbiglinked]

Dead Ivy | Chapter Five

CHECK IT OUT FROM THE START | AO3 LINK

Beca Mitchell rocked back and forth on her trainers. They squeaked against the linoleum floor, but not enough for anyone but her to notice. This store made her nervous, had made her nervous since she ran into Chloe Beale here a day and a half ago. Besides that, the lights were too bright and unnatural, the scent of freshly procured produce clawed at her throat.

She held the basket like a good helper, even though she was the older one in this situation. The plastic felt uncomfortable against her grasp and she was trapped in the loaded loop of anxiety that came with accompanying a kid to a candy store. It looked suspicious, and she was still very much drenched in sweat from her three-mile jog into town.

Riley had wiped the tears from her cheeks and was now glaring openly at the list in front of her. She had mentally checked off more than one of the items, making the basket heavier. She looked paler under the fluorescents, her eyes a vibrant shade of blue.

“I think that’s everything. You know you didn’t’ have to stick around? I could have gotten this stuff by myself.”

“I don’t mind, really. Besides, I had to cool off a little.”

Both of these things were half-truths. Beca had enough buzzing energy to take off and run to the docks another two miles away, and then the five back. She was itching to get out of this grocery store. They passed the aisle with the rubber gloves and Clorox wipes and Beca blinked away from it.

While they walked Riley talked about anything to fill the silence: The way they switched to getting their food from big corporations now because it was cheaper, and how they were thinking about remolding the store to fit current times but Mr. Roberts didn’t have that much money to front and why change something that was working in the first place.

Beca wondered that herself. She put the food that they had pilfered from the shelves on the conveyor belt and nodded along to the girl’s ramblings. Everything here had been a safety net, and some people are fine with making a hammock out of it- why change it. But she thought that was cowardice and would personally write a check for Mr. Roberts if he hadn’t caught her shoplifting spearmint gum when she was just past Riley’s age.

“Beca Mitchell?” The cashier’s jovial tone was enough to pull her over the edge. She was a stout woman that had the vague reality of being familiar, but not competently registering. She found herself flicking her eyes down to the obnoxiously lime green vest that had a tag pinned to it. Jenny. Emo Jenny from homeroom that almost burned down the school, or Band leader Jenny who could do the splits and deep throat anything in the name of school spirit? “Oh, my word, I heard you were back in town from a little birdy.”

Band Leader Jenny, it is.

“Yeah, not for pleasantries, I’m afraid.” Beca cupped her fingers behind her neck as Riley looked up at her with a squinted expression.

“Oh yes, you poor thing.” She clicked her tongue, or maybe sucked her teeth, Beca wasn’t sure. “When I heard about your brother, I said to myself, who thinks to do a thing like that? Who drinks and drives when there are plenty of other reckless things to do without harmin’ others?”

She had scanning things at a fast pace, placing them in paper bags like Tetris. Beca could feel her fingers reach for her wallet as she searched for her card, still making eye contact with a random girl she barely knew from high school.

“Anyway, how are you doing?” She finally interrupted, seeing as no one else was in the line for the chatty woman. She knew it would never end unless she changed the subject.

“Pretty good, sweetie, thank you! I married Chet and the two of us settled down right on the edges of town. We have three kids now, they're all one year apart and practically triplets if you can believe it. I swear they are joined at the hip- your total is 22.75- and they’re starting school soon. I’ll be glad to get them out of daycare, you know?”

“Oh, I can’t imagine.”

She plastered on a cheesy smile that made Riley snort and press her fingers against her lips. Beca could feel the corners of her mouth turn up into something more genuine as she grabbed the bags from Jenny and promised to catch up with her in a less public setting before she headed back off to that high-class life of hers.

Beca passed the bag to Riley and relished the hotness of the sun for once in her life. Her fingers felt numb and cold- apparently, everyone goes to the grocery store, because she couldn’t’ seem to avoid slaps in the face from her past. She had smiled as she did at the funeral. This seemed raw though. She started walking towards the direction that she came from.  

“You didn’t’ have to pay for that. My mom gave me thirty bucks.”

“Pocket it and don’t tell her, kid. Start saving up for something.”

“Like a bus ticket?”

Beca stopped in the middle of the sidewalk at that. She turned and stared at Riley, who was breaking a sweat trying to keep a handle on the paper bag that looked like it was about to bust through. She had a defiant look on her face and one eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I mean, that’s what you did, right? You got a bus ticket out of here as soon as you could.”

“No, no I didn’t.”

She was chained a full year after she had walked across the stage, and maybe that’s what hurt her the most. The fact that she didn’t’ hop on a Greyhound the second she finished the obliged diploma. Instead, she shut herself away in the clutches of her old ranch house. Her chest felt tight and her throat felt even tighter.

“What that woman said about your brother-“Riley spoke softly “What happened?”

Beca let out a soft breath and raked her hands through her sweat caked hair. This kid had no sense of boundaries, none at all. She had half the mind to steal the thirty off her and sprint back home for a long and numbing shower: instead, she squatted down, taking the bag from the girls’ hands. “He died. A car accident a month ago.”

Riley blinked a few times and stared her down, scouring her features.

“Aren’t you going to say it?”

“Say what? That I’m sorry?”

Beca nodded dumbly. She had seen her fair share of head tilts and the way there was an instant glazed softness to people’s eyes. The way they thought about their own brother, their own sister or parent succumbing to an accident- a freak accident set into motion by bad choices. But Beca didn’t’ see that in Riley.

“I’m not going to say it. I don’t’ think you need to hear it again” She said, taking the bag back in her hands “Thanks for the groceries.”  

She watched the key that shook in her grasp. The vibrant oranges and earth-shattering yellows of the fallen sunset reflected off the windows like a forgotten blaze left to burn in the hills of a forest. The lawn had grown darkened and brown, the paper that Beca had yet to cancel continued to stack up in front of the door like a barricade of daily news.

Beca had placed her hand against the red painted wood and felt the head the morning sun had left behind. There was a chill picking up in the air, her hair still wet and thrown into a loose bun on the top of her head. She had been avoiding this for most of the day, waiting until the end of the day to pull herself back out of bed.

She clenched her jaw and watched.

Jason wanted to get a dog after his wife left him, but he never had. He would busy himself with projects. Ripping up the carpet in the house and replacing it with wood in fear that the dog would ruin the fabric. Putting up a white picket fence because an animal with that much energy needs to have space to run freely. Searching through links on Facebook and visiting the pound every other day. He used to tell Beca that nothing truly clicked. He never felt that special connection he was craving and Beca didn’t’ think he would, not with an animal.

“Are you going to go in or not?”

“I went in the first time.”

Beca stilled her gaze on the old woman. Her features were shaded by the sunset. She looked younger somehow, leaning over the white picket fence with her hands grasping the wood as hard as she could. Her eyes shined like a dark forested day. Greener without that large hat of hers. She felt more daring when garden sheers weren’t waved in her view.

“Not for long.”

“Don’t you… I mean why is this a thing for you?” She pivoted on her sneaker for a moment, slinging her arms against her chest. “To prod and poke until you get the answers that you want?”

She edged her mouth into a thin line, lilting her head to the side in the same exact way Jenny from the Stop and Shop had earlier. This time it was more condescending and Beca didn’t care much for the fact that she didn’t’ have a garden tool as a weapon anymore, she still terrified her. Beca continued to stand her ground.

“Jason would come to mow my lawn, has been for the past four years. I would make his lemonade too sweet and he would tell me all about his family. His wife. You, his sister, I presume.”

Beca didn’t’ notice how unruly the lawn looked aside for the pristine bushes of red budded flowers and sharp thorns. The grass was growing too high, almost reaching past the woman’s ankles. Still- it was green and thriving compared to the patchy grass of her brothers spotted land.

“People are probably doing the most to step around you right now.” She continued. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve spoken to him more than you have in the past years. That I’ve been a constant presence and you’ve been…”

“Gone.” Beca ran her thumb over the edge of the house key that was warm like putty in her grasp.

“Not gone,” She took a step away from the fence. “Just absent. He missed you.”

“I uh-“Beca blinked away from the woman with a jungle for a lawn. “I have to go inside. Clean this place up.”

“Okay,” She nodded, the corner of her mouth turning up in a slight smile. “Okay.”

Beca turned her attention back to the door. Back to something she didn’t want to push open again. She waited until she heard the creaking of the screen to her right. She could hear the crickets that chirped against the surrounding forest and the way the air got heavy with moisture as clouds filled the sky. She could sense the electricity, stare evenly at the red paint.

Beca took a step back and pocketed the key.

[unoutan]

you still taking prompts? what about shindeku with some "i was randomly assigned a college roommate and he's actually super cute" AU 👀?

Also posted on my Ao3, so be sure to show me some love there there too! Enjoy reading and I hope you like this!

“Hitoshi-kun,” His mother’s voice raised to a higher tone from the phone squished against his ear with his raised shoulder. The damn key isn’t working for him, he’s struggling with trying to open it, and around both his shoulders and back are heavy bags. “Be sure to be wary of your surroundings at all times in the subway.”

That is an important tip.

“Yes mom,” The door opened and Shinsou held his phone again with his hand, rolling his eyes at the door and throwing his key on a bright orange chair next to a desk. Shinsou dropped his two hand carry bags, threw off his dark red backpack and wheeled his two huge suitcases into his empty room. His roommate didn’t arrive yet and that made him secretly happy since he could choose which bed and side of the room he wants first. “I will be wary at all times. I’ll even buy some mace.”

Even though his quirk will do just fine, but extra precautions are always great.

“And Hitoshi-kun, please don’t stay out too late or sleep too late or drink too much or something. Make sure to have a good nights sleep everyday.” The worry in his mother grew and he had to calm her down.

“Yes mom, please don’t worry too much. I’ll try to sleep well, not be out too late, and you know I don’t drink anyway…plus there is a strict age limit here and zero tolerance.” Also that the Asian blush is the bane of his existence since one drink for Shinsou Hitoshi and he’s a goddamn tomato three sips in.

“And eat well!” His mother scolded him and he could imagine her finger waving at him all the way back in Japan. “You’re tall and fit, but you still need to eat properly and not just one meal all the time like Katsudon! Oh! Find a good Japanese eatery there for a taste of home!”

“I love you, Mom and I will, but first I have to figure out how to use the subway! I’ll take this step-by-step. Talk to you later okay?” Shinsou tried to sound as cheerful as possible for his mother worrying for him on his phone, but his stomach was feeling funny. He’s nervous…or hungry and tired. It’s all three since he just arrived by taxi from the airport a few minutes ago.

“I love you too. Call me when you can! I miss you already! Be safe! Use a condo-”

“Mom!!!”

“You know I love you! Take it easy and be smart!”

“I will mom! I love you and I’ll visit during the end of this semester!” Shinsou hung up when his mother said her farewells again, dropped his phone on his desk and sighed the loudest sigh he has ever sighed. He was happy that his mother called him as soon as he managed to get a taxi, but he can feel it, he can feel his anxiousness rising.

He just arrived in a new country and he’s already having second thoughts on…everything. His mind is a building whirlwind of shit.

This was a spur of the moment for Shinsou Hitoshi: To go to college out of his home country. He didn’t expect to even get into the college since they didn’t seem too helpful with assisting him with transferring credits, despite being an international friendly University, and he almost missed the cut off point for applications, but in the end it worked out somehow. Dumb luck on his side. Now here he is…in a new country, a new city and in a new college working towards a degree in Psychology; The new country being America, the new city being New York City and the New College being the UA University, top University in Psych, The Arts and The Sciences.

How did he get here again? Shinsou Hitoshi is definitely having a mini-existential crisis right now as he’s laying down staring at the ceiling.

Shinsou is resting on his unmade plastic bed, the bottom of his legs dangling off the tall bed with drawers underneath. He’s staring up at the florescent dorm lights annoyingly flickering in his eyesight, blinding him and he wonders if this was a good choice to decide to study abroad like this. His high school had descent English classes so his English is fine, he’s not worried about that, but he is worried about…people.

And sure people are everywhere on this planet, but he cannot help his worries.

People have always been an issue with him due to his mind controlling quirk, so he has varied reactions from people. Their reactions consist of their nonchalant, insult disguised comments about his quirk being suited to be for a villain, fear for being in his vicinity or frustration with having someone like him exist. Other people do not click with him, but it’s not like he doesn’t want that. He tried before and no one has…as soon as they meet him they ask and…

He’s frowning harder now at the lights on his dorm cieling. So, he closed his eyes and lets out another big sigh to escape from his mouth, alongside all the feelings he has boiling inside him. Calm. He must calm down. He covered bother of his eyes and took another breath and counted to 10. He’ll be fine. He’ll be okay.

He transferred here to get away from people who see him as a villain to be and only that back home, but that is only one reason. He transferred here to meet new people, diverse people, people who…don’t know him from high school days and to excel in the selected field he has chosen.

And he will succeed in his field, he is determined with that. Howver, he also wants…a new beginning for himself. He didn’t like his origin story back home, so he has taken a chance, taken a risky step to create a new one.

It is then the door handle to his dorm room began to wriggle. It started off calmly wriggling and then more violently wriggling. Shinsou sat up on the bed he claimed on the far right corner of the room at the back, next to the window, and held his breath.

Oh no. He completely forgot about the random assigned roommate thing that every freshman is unable to opt out of no matter what. He just shrugged his shoulders at that before, but now he’ll be living with a freaking stranger. Only now did his brain register this, for even though he has people issues and people have issues with him, this was the least of his worries when applying.

The door handle rattled more, but he heard the muffled voice of a boy mutter, “Dang it, really? Of course, I get the room on the highest floor and a broken door.”

Shinsou’s mouth twitched with an aborted smile that disappeared immediately as he stood up quick and crossed the room to open the door for his new roommate. When he reached out to open the door, the door swung open and all he felt was pain.

He might have blacked out for a split second or more. He’s not sure what happened, but someone is gripping his shoulder tight, pinching his nose even tighter and all he can see is white clouds.

And blood. Ah, the door hit him and he has tissues shoved in his face.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m soooo sorry!” Shinsou felt the hand that was previously on his shoulder slide to cup his face near his jaw. The boy, his roommate that he didn’t even see yet, continued in a lightning quick jumble of words, breath brushed against his nose from their close proximity, “Oh my god, this is horrible, I’m the worst new roommate ever. Why did I open the door so quick? I-I-I am sooooo sorry, please tilt your head back ohh my god this must hurt so much!”

“…” Shinsou still has his eyes squeezed shut, blinking open occasionally to look at the ceiling obscured through tissues, trying to take this all in and he could not catch the rest of the guy mumbling panicked words. His nose hurts a lot.

There is a hint of an accent in his English and Shinsou recognized it to be Japanese. The world seems like a small one sometimes. What a coincidence.

“K-keep pinching your nose! And keep your head back! A-a-and I-I’ll go a-and find the RA! They might have more tissues! I saw a vending machine on this floor so hold on! Oh God, I’ll be quick!”

Shinsou Hitoshi managed to listen to the frantic voice of this boy, who apparently is his roommate, fuss over him since he slammed a door open on his face. He opened his mouth to say his delayed reaction, to try and calm the other person a little, to say that the door opening is also his fault since he was slow, but the other boy ran off.

Shinsou opened one eye to look, but only a blur of green is what he managed to catch running out the door and all he got out of his mouth to respond was an unhelpful, “Hahh?”

His foot touched an obnoxious looking All Might hero duffle bag when he moved to sit up on the chair he was pushed on. Head still tilted back and nose pinched with tissues, Shinsou swiveled slightly to see a big yellow backpack and a huge suitcase still by the door entrance keeping it propped it open.

“Ohhhh god! Ohhh god! Ohhh god!” The distant sounds of ‘Oh God’ grew louder to Shinsou Hitoshi’s ears and so he put his head down a little to see how his roommate looks.

And ‘oh god’ indeed.

Big emerald eyes wet with tears hovered over him, rushing close to him again, and Shinsou’s own eyes widened at the face so close to his own. Dark green, fluffy looking hair is a wild halo around his new roommates head and short bangs cradle his face. And the other boy has freckles. A sprinkle of freckles is all over his roommate’s cheeks, and his face is so round, soft looking, and Shinsou’s one eye twitched when he felt a hand touch him. A hand touched the back of his head, fingers confidently slipping through his blue hair, brushing against the back of his neck and he felt sweat fall down one side of his face.

The other boy is coaxing him to lean his head back more and so he does with the consequence of feeling his heart beat even harder in his chest. A cold can of some soda calmed a part of his face and he can picture steam flying from his face from the contrasting temperatures meeting each other.

A cute boy is holding him, touching and pressing themselves so close to him and Shinsou doesn’t know how words work. He forgot to breath, but luckily his mouth is wide open like a fish since his nose is KOed and bleeding. He blinked his eyes a few more times to see if the image would disappear and he’ll realize he’s just dreaming.

But no he’s not.

This cute boy is leaning over him, standing close to his body like an angel from all the best fantasies he’s ever had, and the bloody tissues he is holding in his free hand…oddly doesn’t diminish the overall image. The boy is still so cute, even though he managed to slam a door open so hard that it gave him a nosebleed.

Shinsou Hitoshi felt heat rush to his cheeks, the rise in his overall demeanor forced a bit more blood to drip down his face, but he stop it when another tissue was offered to him at just the perfect time. When the other boy asked him with a trembling pout, Shinsou clenched his fist and looked away from the boy’s face to stare down at his neck area instead, “A-Are you okay? I’m really sorry. This is a horrible first impression.”

And staring at his neck was a mistake because, the other boy is leaning over and his white shirt is a deep V-neck, so it’s showing his collarbones and a part of his chest. The cute boy looks pretty fit and…nope focus. Shinsou gulped. “N-No not horrible.”

“Huh?” The cute boy seemed confused now. And when this boy stood up straight from leaning over him, Shinsou noticed that he’s so short and that just adds too his cuteness! Oh god. His new roommate took a step away from him, to give him appropriate room to breathe, proper aquaintance distance, and Shinsou estimated that he looked about 5 feet 5 or 6 inches in height versus his 5 feet 11 inches height. Something like that…Shinsou has to get used to dealing with the different measurements in America from the rest of the world.

“I’m…alright.” Shinsou patted the tissues pressed on his face a few times more and saw that the bleeding is slowing down in his right nostril. “I-I’ve actually seen worse first impressions towards me.”

The boy wiped his tears away on his bright red hoodie sleeve and then looked at him with shock and disbelief, “R-really?! H-how? How can anything be worse than this?”

“Oh there are worse people out there.” Shinsou replied to the other boy who held out more tissues for him, which he politely declined since he seemed okay…

The corner of Shinsou’s lip twitched upward when the boy giggled slightly and then nodded saying, “I agree with you on that. I could have let you fall to the ground and left you to bleed out. I knew some people like that a while back in my childhood.”

“Well, good thing that’s past tense and you don’t know them anymore.” Shinsou smirked when he managed to lighten the mood and make the other boy laugh.

“I agree! Those people don’t need to be in my life anymore. S-So then…” The boy put a hand on the back of his head and rubbed his curly green hair nervously. “W-well, I guess introductions are in order, but first…are you Japanese? I don’t want to assume, but I had to ask since I’m Japanese too. Japanese American.”

Shinsou put down the bloody tissues from his face so that he could get a good look at his new roommate up and down slowly. He didn’t miss the other boy’s face slowly turning red, so he quickly answered him to cover his unintentional rudeness, “Yes I am. First time in America actually, I’m an international student.”

“Oh that’s so cool! I miss Japan. I haven’t been since my last year of middle school! I’ve been in America here in New York, for a while with my mommy and mom since then. Maybe you can meet them someday! Do you want to speak together in Japanese?” The boy’s smile is even cute and Shinsou prayed to the heavens that he won’t mess anything up. Though he won’t be surprised if the other boy is thinking the exact same thing by how he kept biting the bottom of his lip. He seems pretty nervous with him too…a natural response due to what just happened coupled with the fact that they shall be living together for year.

“Let’s continue speaking English.”

“Okay!” He took a mental note to buy himself a pair of sunglasses if this boy’s smiles were always going to be like this 24/7. He has a bad feeling that his roommate might be a morning person too, but that’s alright with him. Not everyone is perfect and if they were then they’d be the most suspicious, untrustworthy person in the world. “I’m fine with that! So…um…I have a personal question to ask you.”

Here it comes, the quirk question. “Sure and then I’ll ask you one too.”

The next question his new roommate he thought would make this conversation spiral downward, completely took him off guard, “So, um…where are you from in Japan?”

He obviously hesitated in his answer, but at least he answered as calmly as possible, “Saitama…prefecture.”

“My moms and I are from Shizuoka Prefecture.” Shinsou’s new roommate smiled a friendly smile at him when he exhaled the breath he was holding and he wondered if his nervousness was even more clear.

“My turn.”

“G-go for it!” The nervousness is still shared though and Shinsou feels a bit better at that.

“I assume you like All Might. Going by your merchandise bag there?” The All Might bag is on the floor and Izuku gasped to retrieve it away from the floor. He dusted his bag off. Shinsou immediately knew he has a fanboy as a roommate. He can live with that. It’s the morning person thing he is dreading to find out about in the future of their roommate daily lives together. Mornings suck and Shinsou’s semi-permanent eye bags agree.

“Yeah! He’s the ultimate best actor ever and his new superhero movie is amazing! He’s so handsome and his muscles are so defined in that outfit don’t you think? T-though Aizawa Shouta as his co-actor is amazing too and has that b-bad boy rugged look to him t-that I l-like a lot too. You like All Might films?”

His new roommate began to stutter again during the whole ‘bad boy’ declaration and he mentally pictured the clothes he is currently wearing: Fitted navy and white stripped shirt, grey salt and pepper hoodie, black skinny jeans ripped at both knees and leather ankle boots with pointed toe and studs. Shinsou felt his cheeks grew pink again and he willed the screaming in his head that he should not jump to conclusions!!! He’s not a bad boy!! HE-HE…okay he may have that image, but he’s far from a bad boy. He shouldn’t be thinking about irrelevant things like this.

Shinsou forced himself to focus, wipe as much dried blood off his face and answered, “I do like those two actors, but sadly I didn’t see his newest superhero movie yet.”

“Maybe we can watch it together! I don’t mind watching it again!” Those green eyes widened in excitement, but then he cleared his throat, took a deep breath and seriously addressed him, “Wait. Um, I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Izuku Midoriya. I’m your new roommate and I’m an Illustration and Design major. It’s nice to meet you!”

Standing up from the chair he sat in so that he could greet the other guy properly, Shinsou threw his used tissues in the finished empty McDonalds paper bag he ate this morning and bowed. “Shinsou Hitoshi, Psychology major. And it is very nice to meet you too.”

“Nice to meet you too Hitoshi!” Shinsou’s face lit up like a traffic light again, his face is burning. He snapped his head up to look at this Midoriya Izuku with wide eyes.

“O-Oh I’m sorry! I mean, Shinsou-san? I’m sorry for just jumping ahead again a-a-and-” Midoriya Izuku’s face is red too and both of his hands gripped his hair as he apologized to him again, bowing quickly three times, “I’m so sorry! Again! Ahhh-”

“No no, please, it’s okay…” Shinsou’s eyes darted away from the short boy to look at the bare white walls of their dorm room. His roommate stopped bowing at him and froze low, head down practically 90 degrees at his waist. To break this awkward moment, Shinsou hesitantly said, “I-Izuku. I just…I’m just all-”

This Midoriya…well Izuku Midoriya, shot up straight with arms still stiff at his sides and stared at him with a determined expression on his face with his eyebrows furrowed and soft looking lips turned down into a firm pout.

Two hands then grabbed Shinsou Hitoshi’s hand, his hand not stained with dried blood, and that made him look back down at the boy that moved closer to him again. He’s on his tiptoes and Shinsou is screaming inside his head, pure blood curdling scream, and the other boy’s mannerisms are as cute as a kittens. He might die. He might actually die today and he just arrived in this damn country!

“It’s okay, don’t force yourself okay?” Izuku grinned up at him, his eyes closing from how happy an expression he has gracing his face. Shinsou wants to kiss freckled cheeks, so heavens do strike him down immediately. Shinsou internally said a prayer when the boy opened his eyes and tilted his head slightly, a smile still on his face and said, “You can call me whatever you want and I’ll call you the name you want to be addressed, it’s no problem. A-a-and since I hurt you before I even introduced myself, maybe I can treat you to an early dinner? There is this nice Japanese eatery and grocery called Sunrise Mart. It’s in Midtown and I go there all the time. They have good katsudon and ramen.”

Shinsou squeezed one of the hands that cradled his own and smiled at Midoriya, a calmness overflowing his mind and body by this warm welcome from this cute boy. He could get used to this. Tucking the soda Izuku Midoriya gave him to cool his previously bleeding nose, Shinsou welcomed the kind gesture given to him, “I’d like that.”

“That’s great!” Izuku then turned around and clumsily hauled his bags into the room and made sure he had his keys, school ID, phone and wallet, so Shinsou also did the same. In the back pocket of his black jeans, Shinsou double-checked that he had his ID there, keys and wallet too. He picked up his phone and shoved it in his hoodie pocket. Very important and would be so bad if they both forgot it on their first day in the dorms. “Let’s head out! B-But first…”

“Hmm?” Izuku pointed at his face and Shinsou raised his eyebrow at him confused at what he was insinuating, pausing while putting on his black jean jacket.

“L-let’s make sure your face doesn’t look like a crime scene or people will think I’m a bully on the first day.” Izuku chuckled, zipping up his red hoodie half way and then stuffing his hands in his light blue skinny jean pockets.

“You…” Shinsou looked Izuku up and down again, shrugging his jean jacket on, and held his hand an inch above the curly green hair that he really wanted to touch, but couldn’t. Not now. Maybe…later. He smirked when Midoriya Izuku’s face puffed up like an angry puffer fish, his face pouting up at him when he smacked his hand away. “You? Bully me?”

“You know size means nothing and I’m not that short!” Izuku turned his nose up at him, while locking their dorm door. But a smile is on his face for he accepted the teasing and Shinsou smiled as well, chucking under his breath at the other boy. “Okay, I deserve the teasing. I did slam the door on your face. I’m so sorry. I really am!”

“I know you are since you’re paying…” Shinsou and his new roommate, Izuku Midoriya, walked together to the common bathroom on their floor, so that he could wash his face.

“I am!” Izuku leaned against the bathroom entrance watching him wash his face, waiting for him. His voice echoed in the huge bathroom, “And it will be an ‘I’m sorry early dinner’! And-And I-I’ll buy you ice cream too! Next door is another Japanese place called Café Zaiya that has this popular Matcha and sesame ice cream!”

Drying his hands on a paper towel, Shinsou smirked at the boy treating him to dinner, “Lead the way then short boy.”

“I’m not short!” Izuku crossed his arms over his chest and stood up straighter, an attempt to seem taller in Shinsou’s opinion. “Did you know that men have two growth spurts in their lives? I still have time!”

“You do.” Shinsou held his hand out for the other boy to enter the elevator first and said with no emotion to his voice, revealing nothing, “Cute people first.”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Midoriya happily grinned at him and walked into the elevator, Shinsou following after. They both clicked the first floor button and shot away from each other when their fingers touched. “W-well, er, lets have you get a metrocard for your first venture out into the wonderful streets of New York, Hito…Shin…w-what would you like for me to call you?”

“…Hitoshi is fine.” Shinsou rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from the sweet looking smile directed at him again. “You can call me Hitoshi, Izuku.”

“O-o-okay, then H-H-Hitoshi.” Hitoshi felt something bubble in his stomach…he was probably hungry, but no, he knows he’s feeling things. Things he does not want to think about at the moment, but he can’t help it since people like Izuku Midoriya always make him like this. But…

They arrived at the first floor and Izuku stepped in front of him before the doors opened, preventing him from getting out first. When the elevator doors opened, Izuku stepped to the side and copied him, holding his hands out more dramatically than how he did it and bowing slightly, “Cute people first.”

Shinsou Hitoshi thinks he will be okay here…with this Midoriya Izuku as his roommate. He lightly knocked his arm against the other boy’s outstretched arm and the giggles that followed, walking next to him out of the building to the streets made Shinsou smile again. Yeah, he’ll be okay with Izuku here with him. He’ll be okay.

Thank you for reading! -Unoutan

[lightshadowverisimilitude]

Painting meatballs

For @copperbadge: Sounds like you could use some cheering up this week. :) 

Most days, being a superhero did not pay off. He’d been chased through probably twenty miles of tunnel, managed to drop his last nine arrows down an open manhole (who just leaves manholes open?), and it was only by the grace of his fingertips that he hadn’t gone down after them. He’d forgotten to go grocery shopping, he had a headache from somewhere south of hell, and he was almost hungry enough to share a bowl of Kibbles ‘N’ Bits with Lucky and call it a night.

“Happy freaking birthday to me,” he grumbled as he trudged up the stairs to his apartment. By the time he realized that his keys had apparently gone the way of the arrows, he didn’t even have enough frustration left in him to swear. He dropped his head forward, hitting the door about ten million times harder than he’d meant to, and jerked away with both hands over his forehead.

He definitely didn’t think anyone could blame him for being a tiny bit slow to react when his apartment door opened by itself, but he did manage to have a knife up by the time the interloper leaned around the doorway.

Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him. “Is that a sharpened butter knife?”

Clint glowered at her and slid the blade back into his boot – one of only three, but his count, that hadn’t ended up buried in some guy’s thigh, or washed away in Shit River. “I had to improvise,” he defended. “Why are you in my apartment?”

The other eyebrow quirked up to join the first. “Why are you not in your apartment? Also, you smell like sewage.”

“Long story.”

She tipped her head to the left to examine him, and maybe he was projecting or something else that the group home counselor would have said was unhealthy, but he was positive she could see right through the smarting mark on his head and read his mind. Without a word, she stepped back to hold the door open and gestured inside with one hand.

“I’ll get you a beer.”

“Don’t have any,” Clint muttered. He had about half a bottle of Nat’s shitty vodka somewhere, though he’d used the whiskey for antiseptic the week before.

“Good thing Jan knows how to throw a party,” she said. Her smile softened slightly and she gestured in again. “Though Tony thought jumping out and yelling ‘surprise’ was a smart idea for all of twenty-two seconds.”

Clint shuddered just imagining the heart attack he would have had if he’d opened the door and yelling had been the result. He was suddenly grateful that he’d lost his keys – he’d forgotten all about Stark’s threatened birthday party, and he was more than a little surprised that everyone else had apparently remembered. Now that he was paying attention like an ex-assassin and current masked superhero with poor apartment security and lots of enemies should be, he could hear the faint chatter of about half a dozen people and the subtle clinking of forks on plates.

He glanced at the door and then over to the elevator. “Maybe I should just go get some chips or something.”

Natasha shrugged. “If you want. But your meatballs will probably be cold by the time you get back.”

Clint’s stomach emitted a loud snarl, and his mouth instantly flooded with saliva. Nat might have been kinder than most people gave her credit for, but she still laughed at him as he stood rooted to the spot, doing a good impression of a meatball-zombie. 

“Please tell me they’re not those bullshit fancy meatless-meatballs or whatever Pepper had A Thing about,” he begged.

“Nope, they’re the cheap frozen meatballs you get out of a bag and dump in the oven.”

He could have kissed her. He definitely did moan, “My favorite.”

His apartment had been cleaned, and it smelled like Pinesol and sweet sweet processed meatballs fresh from the oven. Every lamp he owned had been moved into the living room, which had apparently not been enough, because there was an Iron Man suit standing in the corner and glowing like a six-and-a-half-foot art deco lamp.

“Surprise?” Tony offered, from the kitchen, and Holy Patron Saint of I’m never letting you live this down, was wearing a bright yellow apron liberally splashed with hearts and smiling sunflowers, a matching pair of oven mitts, and a lime green party hat.

“Why are you like this?” Clint blurted out with a laugh.

“Laugh all you want,” Tony said, setting down a tray of freshly cooked previously frozen guaranteed delicious meatballs so he could point at Clint with one bemittened hand. His eyes transferred over Clint’s shoulder and he nodded faintly. “But I’m leaving this here when I go. You can thank Jan.”

“Happy birthday!” Jan said as soon as Clint turned to face her, looking like she was ready to burst. “I really want to hug you, but you have been out doing things that got you a little too close to a sewer. Air hug!” She announced and crossed her arms over her own chest, squeezing hard and twisting side-to-side.

It looked like a really nice hug, and Clint was even sorrier about the damned sewer. He looked between his bathroom door and the piles of warm meatballs, and made a noise that he normally would have blamed on Lucky, but Lucky was on his back in the middle of the living room, shamelessly soaking up the belly rubs from Thor and getting his muzzle petted by Steve.

Natasha pushed past him to the kitchen, piled a dozen meatballs on a purple plate with the Hawkeye symbol stamped in the middle, and nudged him away with one finger. “They should be cooled down by the time you wash your hands. Go!”

Clint eagerly took the plate, leaned over, and lipped one of the meatballs right off the top. He tried to smirk at her, but was too busy sucking air in around the molten mouthful as she pushed him toward his bedroom.

~*~

Despite orders to the contrary, Clint had devoured the plate of meatballs before his shower, and he felt less likely to gnaw someone’s arm off by the time he made it back to the living room. A long folding table had been wedged between the couch and the bar, and it looked like Jan had dumped the entire Hawkeye section of Party City on top of it. It was cheesy, and stupid, and perfect. He stood in the doorway for a second to just look it over – they were all pretending that he wasn’t staring at them, and that was what good friends were for when you just got off of a Hell Week leading into Nightmare Night. Lucky was up on his back legs so he could have his front paw on Tony’s lap and was doing his damndest to get at the mountain of meatballs in the center of the table.

“I’m not feeding you,” Tony told the dog seriously, but his hand was wrapped around Lucky’s ribs to rub at his belly. “Seriously, have I ever fed a single thing in your entire life? Why don’t you go to climb in Steve’s lap? He’s a dog person, and I know for sure that he’s fed you at least once tonight.”

“That was just a treat, Tony,” Steve protested.

“He said the word treat,” Tony told Lucky, which just got him a messy kiss across the cheek and Tony leaning comically sideways in the chair to in a vain attempt to avoid it.

“Just push him away,” Clint suggested, stepping into the living room and climbing over the couch to get the open chair.

Tony gave him a frankly scandalized look, but turned back to Lucky to say, “You’re not getting anywhere with this. I am immune to canine flattery.”

“Not all canine flattery,” Natasha muttered, and for some unfathomable reason, Steve blushed and kicked her under the table. Natasha neatly dodged, and held an open beer out for Clint, so cold that it had mist curling out of the neck and droplets running down the sides.

“I love you,” Clint told her very seriously.

“I know,” she answered.

He swallowed about half of it before pressing the cold bottle gently to his forehead and rolling it back and forth. This was the life – why did he not have a million roommates again? He set the bottle aside and looked down to realize that what he’d mistaken for plates were actually large plastic painter’s pallets with little cups of “paint” set around the edges. There was a bright purple cup of paintbrushes sitting opposite his beer, and a stack of napkins with the Avengers Assemble cartoon Hawkeye at his elbow.

Jan leaned forward to explain, but Clint just shoved his finger in the yellow paint and licked it off – spicy mustard, the kind he got at Chinese restaurants and poured over everything.

“Or you could just do that,” Jan finished, laughing. “It was Steve’s idea.”

“This,” Clint said, snagging a meatball off the pile and a paintbrush, “Is the best birthday idea ever.”

Jan nudged Tony, who was still not-really fending off Lucky’s affectionate begging. “And you wanted to bring wine,” she scoffed.

Clint had three painted meatballs stuffed in his mouth when Jan climbed out of her chair and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She leaned over to press their cheeks together and squeezed hard, rocking him gently side-to-side.

“Happy birthday.”

“’appy meathba’ ‘ay,” Clint corrected, but he reached up to squeeze her wrist and leaned back against her.

Maybe he was just imagining it or something, but it seemed like his headache was gone.