#and while it could just be him reaching a breaking point and then bailing on Kai | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alchemistc · 10 months ago

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i present my latest offering of an au first meeting: the poker game.

Big Blind

Tommy's been on plenty of bad dates in his time, but this one might actually take the cake for worst first date he's ever had. They're just -- not right for one another, and it's clear they can both feel it, but for some reason Jeff just -- keeps talking. About his border collie rescue, and his sixth fourteener (this year), and the his upcoming promotion and the Cybertruck he's thinking about getting wrapped in matte black --

"Jeff," Tommy cuts in, when he starts in on Tesla stock talk. "I'm gonna pay the check and head out. It's been..." he gestures. Considers calling Stout right here at the dinner table to tell him no more blind dates with his stock broker brother-in-laws friends, no matter how gay they are.

He's gonna get shit from Stout's wife the next time she stops by with a casserole, but honestly a half-hour tirade on politeness from Heather Alexandra Stout sounds better than learning how much of an Elon Musk fanboy Jeff really is. Jeff looks like he might be offended by the implication that he wouldn't have paid, but Tommy's already waving down his server and gesturing to the bar by the time Jeff even thinks to reach for his wallet.

"You have a good night."

Andrea slides his check under his elbow with a raised brow and doesn't say a word when he hands her his card immediately, but he can tell she's judging him. Third date in a month he's barely contained his disdain for long enough to pay up, although this is the first he's outright ditched before the bill was even paid.

Gary slides a beer across the bar to him and refuses the cash Tommy tries to give him for it. "Do I look that pathetic, Gary?"

Man of few words, Gary just taps his nose and tips his chin to his date, who is doing a terrible job of trying to sneak out the door.

"You're too good for him, anyway," says Andrea, back already with his card. He tucks an extra twenty into her folder and downs the beer in silence while they watch through the window as Jeff seems to get into an argument with the Uber pulling up in front of the restaurant.

"Maybe it's me," Tommy says, and Gary hums in commiseration. Or maybe he just has gas. "Maybe I'm the problem."

It's been a string of bad dates, and before that a relationship that'd gone up in metaphorical but nearly literal flames. Tommy's spent a lot of introspective time wishing he could kill Gerrard with lasers so that he doesn't have to blame himself for staying in the closet so long that blind dates and Grindr meetups were his real introduction to the dating scene.

"Someday, Tommy, you'll meet someone who can't get enough of your morbid humor and your pessimism and your obsession with haunted cars."

"One car," Tommy argues, although that's beside the point. "I think maybe I should give the search for love a break, Gary."

Gary hums, again.

Tommy drinks the rest of his beer in companionable silence and pulls up his phone to order an Uber himself. Jeff is, thankfully, long gone, and Tommy's halfway through confirming his home address when he remembers the invite he'd received last week that he'd hesitated scheduling a date around. He shoots off a text instead, and updates the address before he slides from the bar stool.

Gary shoots him a look. "Headed home?"

Tommy shifts on his feet. Shoots a look behind the bar. "Nah. Gonna try to hit up a work thing. Pour me a shot of Tullamore for the road?"

Gary accepts the twenty this time and doesn't make a comment about the way Tommy downs a sipping whiskey, which Tommy appreciates.

He's halfway to his destination, enjoying the chat with his driver, when the text comes in from Lucy.

Had to bail, but you should go if the date went that badly. Williams will enjoy slowly ruining the remainder of your night.

Tommy taps his phone once, twice, three times before he makes up his mind not to be the asshole who changes his destination halfway through the ride. Worst comes to worst, he'll tap out early and Venmo Mehta the rest of his stake.

Better than moping at home with the pint of freezer-burned Ben and Jerry's.

-----

He's fairly rushed down the stairs once he's in, because apparently Williams is on some sort of time crunch, or something, and he's fairly certain the drinks are catching up to him as he takes in the table. Mehta and Wilson are regulars, and he's seen Rosen around, but there are two new guys settling in across the table and Tommy has to take a long, long moment to remind himself this is technically a professional setting before he can look too closely at either one of them.

Yeah. Shit, he'd definitely drank most of that second pitcher by himself, listening to Jeff talk.

"Kinard. We weren't expecting you." Rosen's eyes glimmer with amusement. He'd caught maybe six months of her probationary year, but every time she sees him she likes to remind him of the first time she'd seen him post-transfer, at a gay bar in WeHo, and introduced him to the first guy he'd dated seriously in his entire life. Tommy returns the favor by reminding her exactly how terribly that had ended for all parties. "Poker night dress code usually includes more buttons than date night," she jabs, finger circling the olives in her martini glass, and Tommy contemplates tossing one of Mehta's chips at her. Her grin goes wide.

With the momentary distraction, Tommy feels a little more prepared to face the two men now eyeing him curiously.

"Tommy," he says, leaning over the table, hand out to shake. Turtleneck raises a curious eyebrow when Mr. Red Velvet Smoking jacket practically leaps across his lap to shake back. "I'm over at 217."

"This is Eddie," Red Velvet introduces, and Tommy's gaze dances between them, curious. "I'm Evan. We're with the -- wait, 217 -- Chimney's Tommy?"

Tommy's brows dance up the same time as Eddie's do. He is still shaking hands with Evan. Or - holding is more accurate, he supposes, but for the sake of his sanity and the possible date Evan and Eddie are on, if he's reading the introduction or any of the vibes right (they're both stunning and Tommy is smarting from another shitty date, so who knows), Tommy keeps it to shake in his mind. "Well I don't think Howie can claim ownership of my person, but -."

"Sorry, no, I just meant..." Evan's gaze drops to their clasped hands, still now over the felt of the poker table. He gives one more firm pump and drops Tommy's hand. "We're both at the 118. Pretty sure you helped save this guy's ass once." He tips a thumb sideways to indicate the man he'd introduced as Eddie.

Tommy's eyes drift. He's had a few drinks, and up until about halfway through the date he'd been expecting a very different outcome for his night, so he's maybe not keeping a lid on things the way he normally would in a work setting. He's guessing the ass he's purported to have saved would look great, if it weren't firmly planted in his chair and out of view. The rest of the view ain't bad, either.

And.

Shit.

Williams is giving him a look, which means he's not being even a little subtle. "The gas main explosion," Tommy finally gathers from the cobwebs of his brain, and wouldn't it be his luck to transfer out of the 118 just in time for two annoyingly attractive men who may possibly be boning each other to take his place.

Evan grins. Beams, more like, and Tommy slides firmly into his own chair and tries not to be blinded by it. Or entranced by it. God he needs to get laid. Get this - whatever this is - out of his system.

Tommy's cool. Tommy's calm and collected and he hadn't even had that much to drink, actually, so why is he having such a hard time behaving like he's had forty years of experience dealing with attractive men?

Tommy sorts through the memories.

Eddie he can pinpoint fairly easily -- he'd shot off a message to Chim the moment they'd learned one of the 118 had been shot, and had been happy to break the news of his recovery to an anxious Harbor station in the tense days after it had all gone down. Evan, though - he doesn't have a clue who that could be. He's still got a few buddies from B Shift he talks to on occasion, but he doesn't remember any stories about an Evan from them, and Howie hasn't mentioned one, either.

Of course, it's not like either one of them does a great job of keeping in touch.

The mystery is solved a moment later when Williams tips her head at him. "Feels like we're being overrun by the 118 tonight," she says with a grin, but her gaze slides to Evan, rather than Tommy. "And we've got an honest-to-goodness legend tonight."

"You know I still can't believe you survived that, Buckley," Mehta says, and the puzzle piece slots itself into place. "Uh, although we're all glad that you did."

Buckley. Tommy shifts. Reassesses. Eyes the glance between Diaz and Buckley like he's gonna figure out their deal while he's already four and a half drinks deep into the night and hasn't already heard the larger than life tales of this duo from half-a-dozen gossipy paramedics. According to some, there's a secret torrid love affair going on behind the scenes of their codependent friendship. According to others, the ones he more or less trusts not to stretch the truth too far, they're friends -- closer than most, and maybe a little weird about each other, but friends all the same.

Buckley's a shark. Or, if Williams is to be believed, a bit of a cheat.

As the game goes on, and the conversation drifts from the morbid details of Buckley's three-minutes-seventeen-seconds of lifelessness, past the special skills near death experiences are rumored to cause, past the time out where they'd all admired the pictures of Buckley's Lichtenburg scars ("They faded pretty quickly," Evan says, with a soft little frown like he's a bit disappointed not to have any physical proof beyond a few shots of his naked brick shithouse of a chest.) Tommy can't help but admire the shift from bashful to smirking and smug as Evan keeps racking up monumentally improbable hands. He's a bit of a brat, actually, and Tommy can feel Rosen's eyes burning into the side of his head every time he ups the ante just to watch the flicker of triumph aimed in his direction every time Evan wins a hand Tommy raised.

Tommy's no slob with cards, on a normal day, but he's too busy trying not to read anything into the way Evan's eyes keep drifting to the v of the shirt he hadn't buttoned back up just to spite Rosen, or the way he keeps licking his fucking lips every time Tommy takes a sip of the whiskey at his elbow to really care as his chips dwindle to nothing. Tommy can't be entirely sure, but it seems like maybe Evan pouts, a little, when Tommy pushes back from the table to join the rest of the losers crowded around to watch Williams, Mehta and Buckley battle it out.

He's trying to think of a subtle way to ask Howie if Evan Buckley is just like that with all the men in his life when Eddie slides in beside him with a refill on his whiskey. Tommy grimaces. "I shouldn't."

"Thought you were trying to drink away a bad date?"

Tommy shoots Rosen a glare over Eddie's shoulder, but she's too busy chasing her straw with her tongue to notice.

"He was a Tesla fanboy," Tommy intones, and the braces himself for the reaction. He's used to it, now -- the constant cycle of coming out and waiting to see which new acquaintances bow out of getting to know each other any better. This is... earlier, than he usually drops it, but he hasn't been in the mood to lie about it in years, and Eddie had asked. He gets a raised brow and a grimace.

"Don't tell me you didn't know ahead of time," Eddie says, and Tommy loosens the grip on his glass.

"Hazards of blind dating."

Eddie's look is commiserating. He tips his beer bottle against Tommy's rocks glass. "Yeah, my tia keeps finding reasons for me to run into the eligible daughters and granddaughters of all her friends." Which Tommy supposes is answer to half of the question that's been plaguing him since he sat down.

Buckley gets cocky a few times, but it's clear the night is going his way even before Jeshan Mehta's pot gets swept up in Evan's arms. Williams holds out as long as she can.

"Beginner's luck!" Buckley crows, when Williams' last chip is added to his pile. Eddie's been supplying him with a steady flow of drinks for the past thirty minutes, and his smile is crooked as he tilts backwards in his chair for a fist bump. His eyes flick to Tommy's once he's received his congratulations from Eddie, and Tommy pretends he's not a little bit fascinated by the pull of his jacket over his arms, or the way his closed hand lingers near Tommy's even after Tommy has smacked his knuckles against his as well.

Evan Buckley is frustratingly adorable. Tommy's had too many drinks for any kind of decent decision making. He bows out while Evan and Eddie are collecting his winnings.

-----

Tommy's eyes flick to the readout on his phone. He doesn't recognize the number, but it's a local area code, so he picks up on the forth ring. "Go for Kinard."

"Uh - hey, hi. Hey Tommy." The voice is familiar, sweet and low. "It's Buck - Evan. Evan Buckley. I uh -- I got your number from Chim, I hope that's alright?"

Tommy's got a solid fifteen minutes before he has to leave for work, a raging headache that has thus far refused to accept electrolytes or Advil as tribute to his overindulgence the previous evening, and a full understanding that he's going to spend his shift listening to Donato swear up and down she's the better option for finding him a man, but the voice on the other end of his phone might at least give the headache a run for it's money.

"Evan. Hi."

"Hey. So -- you dipped before I could ask -- which is fine, obviously, I'm not -- uh..." He pauses. Tommy can practically picture the way he wets his lower lip while he searches for the right words. "Anyway I was wondering -- would you maybe wanna grab a beer, sometime?"

Tommy spends about fifteen seconds rearranging his entire schedule in his mind. Says, cool, calm, collected: "Sure. When are you free?"

Evan's voice goes distant for a second -- he's putting Tommy on speaker. "I, uh -- I didn't expect you to say yes so quickly. Actually I didn't expect you to answer -- who answers unknown numbers, anymore?"

"Who calls expecting to get sent to voicemail?"

The brat rises up immediately. "Uh, literally everyone. The missed call is just an excuse to text. It's basic phone etiquette, Tommy."

Tommy likes the way he says his name. Soft, sweet and slow, rolling over his tongue like molasses. This feels incredibly like flirting, but he can't get a fucking read on this kid. "Clearly I've missed out on an important cultural shift. I can hang up and we can do this the right way, if you want."

"No!" It's sharp -- louder, like he's raising the phone back towards his mouth. Tommy can't hide the grin leaking across his face. "Uh -- no, it's fine. Too late, anyway, I already know you don't know phone rules."

"Hopefully that doesn't change your opinion of me too much."

"I could be convinced to ignore it, with the right incentive."

"I'll buy first round," Tommy says, and wonders if he's got any other shirts he can play off as fitting better with three buttons undone. The flirting should be enough, but -- Tommy's still not sure drinks isn't just drinks.

"Wednesday night," Evan says, voice further away again. Tommy has a sudden, desperate urge to see what his Google calendar looks like. For all that he'd cut loose at the poker game, Tommy bets it's color coded by type of activity. "If that works. Or Saturday, any time, really. I'm uh -- I'm free then."

If Tommy bows out of trivia on classic car week Cynthia will have a whole ass bitch fit. And it makes him seem a little less eager, to boot. "Saturday. I've got a shift early Sunday, though, so maybe something in the afternoon?"

"Yeah -- yes, th-that works." The stammering isn't something Tommy can get a read off of. He'd done it just as much with Eddie as he'd done with everyone else. "There's a new brewery just off Pico and Prosser -- Chim said you were a fan of craft beer?"

Sounding more date like by the minute, but -- some guys toe the line. Could be Evan Buckley just wants to know more about flight operations, for all Tommy knows. "Text me the details. Look, Evan, I'd love to stay on this rule-breaking phone call and chat but I've got to head in for a shift. Just -- let me know the plan." He's got five minutes to brush his teeth and rue the moment he'd asked Gary for his first whiskey of the night. He's also rolling back his last few sentences and cringing at how abrupt he'd been. "And yeah -- good to know Chim hasn't forgotten the three facts I ever told him about me."

Evan laughs, just a soft little huff but Tommy already knows the grin behind that sound is all sorts of knee-meltingly sweet. "Cool. So. Yeah, I'll text you."

"I'll talk to you later, Evan."

"Yep. Talk to you -- talk to you soon."

Tommy waits a moment in silence. The call doesn't end. "Goodbye, Evan."

Evan huffs out another awkward laugh. "Yeah. Bye, Tommy."

The call disconnects just in time for Tommy to press his forehead into the cool tile beside his bathroom mirror. He might be monumentally screwed if this isn't a date. He hasn't been this fucking charmed by a man since -- well, it's been a while.

Tommy's phone buzzes in his hand. It's a pinned address from a number he doesn't have saved. Tommy swipes into the contact and updates it before the next text makes it through. Saturday 3PM?

Tommy brushes his teeth, downs the rest of his preworkout in the hopes that it'll ease some of the nastier parts of his stupid decision to keep drinking liquor past midnight, and stares at the text all the way out to his truck.

See you then, Tommy sends back, and he has to toss his phone into his passenger seat when he gets a series of incomprehensible emoji's almost immediately in response.

He holds up a hand to Donato the moment she catches his gaze, halfway across the parking lot. The brow goes up, the hand slots to her hip, and she rolls her tongue over her teeth, clearly ready for her speech about how Stout doesn't have a clue how to find Tommy a proper date. Tommy has other problems.

"You worked with Evan Buckley, for a while, didn't you?"

Her head tilt rights itself. The second brow dances up to meet the first. Whatever she'd meant to say disperses behind her eyelids as she seems to work through something in her mind. "Oh, this is compelling," she says, and practically skips forward to loop her arm in his.

#bucktommy #bucktommy fic #tevan fic #listen idk shit about poker #i do know tommy would be absolutely smitten with evan buckley as he got cockier and cockier with every hand of that poker game #anyway after this tommy realizes the drinks aren't a date but they COULD be #and like an idiot he decides he's gonna befriend and then romance the shit out of the oblivious bi boy #tommy helps buck deliver kam and connors baby and buck maybe kisses him about it #bucktommy alternate meeting

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grlsinterrupted · 8 months ago

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i hope your requests are open again but if not im so sorry!! but i was wondering if u could do a dallas winston x fem!reader where reader is having problems at home (her parents being shitty yk?) and she is just having a really bad day and shes on the verge of a break down but then dallas calls and says he needs bail but she cant bring herself to be angry or else she’ll finally break so she just agrees and goes to get him but he senses somethings wrong and tries to get her to talk to him and basically just a really really really soft dallas

sorry if thats too much😭❤️

but tysm i luv ur work🫶🏼

love is a gentle thing, your’s is thicker than a velvet ring ࿔*:･ﾟ

you’ve reached your breaking point | dallas winston x fem ! reader ⊹ ࣪ ˖

it’s insane how much a piece of paper dictates what you can do, what you can’t do, who you can talk to— your entire life, really. though it holds no monetary value, your report card has always seemed to define your self worth, and better yet, served as a constant reminder that you’ll never truly satisfy your parents. no matter how many hours you spent slaving away on your assignments, fighting back the urge to fall asleep right on your desk, your dedication will never be enough.

a thick silence fills the room, the only sound coming from the faint chirping of crickets and the rhythm of your rugged breathing. you’re seated on the corner of your bed, your hands shaking as you grapple onto the edges of your report card. the paper is crinkled, stained with tears and remnants of your mascara smeared across the letter ‘b+.’ the memory of your mother lecturing you about your grades replays in your head like a song you want to unhear. one single letter was enough to spiral you into a loop of madness. suddenly, the silence is broken by a ringing phone. you flinch, reaching over your nightstand to answer it.

you clear your throat, sniffling. “hello?”

a familiar voice huffs out a chuckle behind the phone. it didn’t take you long to realize that this accented tone belonged to none other than your boyfriend, dallas. “hey, doll. y’know how the fuzz are, they’ve been on my ass all week.”

“dal? are you seriously calling me from jail?” your voice is shaky as you bite back your tears, the report card’s weight heavy on your lap. despite how desperately you needed to cry, right now wasn’t the time. you’ve gathered all the composure remaining in you to deal with dallas’ reckless behavior.

“listen, i’m g’na need a couple bucks for bail. you’d do that for me, wouldn’t ya?”

all you can do is sigh. of course he’d called you for bail. even though you wanted to blow up at him over the phone and tell him to pay for his own bail, you couldn’t bring yourself to be angry at him. you were just as troubled as he was, if not, worse— the only difference being that you prioritized your future more than he ever would.

“sure, whatever. i’ll just- i’ll drive there right now. don’t do anything while i’m gone.”

dallas grazes his bloody knuckles against his a bruise on his cheekbone, wincing. somehow, he’d gotten into a fight with a soc while he was walking to buck’s place. granted that you’ve been silent the entire time, he could sense something was wrong with you— the way your eyes have lost that little sparkle in them, the way your head tilted downwards as the two of you walked out of the police station, and most of all, the fact that you didn’t even hug him once he was released.

despite the amount of times dallas has tried to reisist your post-jail hugs, they’re all he looks forward to while he’s stuck in his cell. your hugs blanket him with a sense of security— the kind of security he’s never had. without that subtle gesture, he felt as though a part of him was missing.

“you’ve been awfully quiet.” dallas mutters under his breath, looking down at you.

you shrug, shaking your head. “i never noticed.”

“yeah, but ya know what i notice?” he pockets his hands. “sum’s wrong with ya.”

you can feel your throat begin to close up as you reply. “nothing’s wrong, dal,” your voice begins to tremble as you tell yourself, do not cry in front of your boyfriend. “let’s just go home, now. i’m tired.”

“are ya mad at me for getting into a fight?” he raises a brow, nudging you with his shoulder. “‘cause if you are, he came onto me first.”

something in you snaps, emotions overflowing like a dam bursting. the stray tear that you’ve been fighting to hold back runs down your cheek. you’ve finally reached your limit. “i’m not mad at you for that! well- i am, but i’m just.. i’m stressed, okay?! everyone is stressing me out!”

dallas goes silent for a second, just watching you shatter in front of him. once he replies, his voice immediately softens. “y’know you can talk to me about anythin’, right?”

you gulp, wiping away the tear as you nod.

dallas runs a hand through his hair, biting the inside of his lip almost as if he’s hesitant to say something. he then begins to speak up.

“you forgot somethin’.”

he pulls you into a warm embrace, brushing his fingers through the strands of your hair as you cry into his arms. this time, the hug is offering you that sense of security that dallas yearns for. you’re finally safe in his arms, safe from all of the expectations set on you.

‘love is a gentle thing, your’s is thicker than a velvet ring ..’ .ᐟ ₊˚⊹♡

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igotanidea · 5 months ago

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Red light: Jason Todd x reader

instincts are a funny thing that works regardless of what your brain tells you.

He was standing at the red light because something told him that on this particular day speeding through might be a bad idea.

And then something told him to turn his head to the right.

And he noticed her.

The girl sitting in her car on the sideway, engine turned off, face full of tears running down her cheeks.

With a heavy sigh he switched lanes, not caring about the middle fingers pointed his way and knocked on her window, but she was either scared of a stranger doing so or simply didn;t care at all.

"Are you okay?" he mouthed, hoping to get her attention, looking like and idiot, standing in front of a shut down car, half-yelling while she pretended not to hear.

"Hm? Sorry, I didn't get it. What?"Finally the window was opened and she turned to look at him, not making any move to get out of the vehicle though.

"I said are you okay?"

"Yeah. yeah, I am okay--"

"Sorry to break it to you, but you don;t look okay."

"Then why asking?" she scoffed, finally looking at his face.

"It;s polite way to do. Or so I've heard. Not that I know much about politeness."

"Why did you ask me in the first place?"

"Cause you look like you need help."

"I;m okay... It;s just - my car broke down and - I got into an accident and- "

"Do you want me to call someone for you?"

"hm? what? what do you mean?"

"call. you know, get that little device that people use to reach out a long distance and let people know what happened?"

"haha, very funny,"

"I'm being serious. You are in no state to get anywhere by yourself." he pointed at her shaking hands and tears on her cheeks and she immediately wiped them out. "Friend? Boyfriend?"

"Oh! oh, no, no. I'd rather not call my boyfriend." she objected before biting her tongue. And those words, coming out of her mouth so fast, got his attention and put him on alert. "It's just - " the girl stuttered "he'll get mad and he;s not acting nice when he's mad and-"

"Your car broke down." Jason pointed out. "It;s not like it's your fault. Shit happens. Why would he be mad."

"It's just - oh, it's nothing really. I don;t want to upset him-"

Clearly, that girl was in a relationship with a bastard who didn;t treat her right.

"Okay fine. You know what, here;s what we're gonna do. We're gonna call a trailer and I'll drive you home. How about that?"

"But- but-"

"Great. Come on."

Jason grabbed his phone and within half an hour Y/N;s little fiat was at the mechanic's. He even managed to get her a discount dropping BRuce's name here and there in a conversation a few times.

And after all the technical details were taken care of, he pulled her onto his motorbike, right behind him, waiting patiently until she decided to wear a helmet.

"Have you ever rode a bike before?"

"Nope."

"Well then I am afraid you're gonna have to scoot a little closer and hold on tight. I won;t speed, but I'd rather not have you falling behind."

"Okay. fine." she hesitantly wrapped arms around his waist and with a laugh he took off taking her home. Subconsciously wishing her place of residence was somewhere further so the trip could last.

"Thanks for your help today..." she almost jumped off the bike, quickly discarding the helmet, almost running to the apartment as if scared someone could be watching her interact with Jason on the driveway.

"Jason." He was not about to just let her bail like that.

"Right. Jason. Thanks for your help Jason. I - I really gotta go and- "

"You owe me."

"Hm? What?"Those pretty e/c eyes grew a little wider and she blinked a few times, before understanding the meaning and blushing a little. "Oh! Oh, right..."

"What's your name?"

"My name?"

"Yeah, your name. You owe me that much after all" Jason chuckled.

"I'm Y/N."

"Nice to meet you, Y/N."

"Mhm... I really, really gotta go. Thanks again for your help and - "

"Y/N!"

There was a guy standing in front of the building calling her name and looking half-concerned, half-angry at the sight of his girlfriend interacting with another man.

"Coming! I'm coming!"

There was a brief moment of tension and eye-crossing between Jason and the guy who already was coming off as an asshole.

However, since Y/N was already back home there was no reason for Jason to keep staring, regardless of how much he wanted to.

But there was no way in hell that he was not going to do a little digging on the domestic violence in the neighbourhood.

And damn, if he wasn;t going to use his Red Hood persona to make a few things right.

#jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd x y/n #red hood x y/n #jason todd x you #red hood x you

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kkeidawrites · 5 months ago

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The Return

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Chp. 8

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The cars sitting around her honked and inched forward in their lanes impatiently, while Y/n took this time to wipe the condensation off the inside of her windshield. It was getting worse throughout the ride and Y/n was getting frustrated.

She knew traffic was garbage in Gotham but this was way worse than normal. Y/n sits back in her seat and sighs, why did everyone have to evacuate the same time that she was evacuating?

“I won’t get to my parent’s for hours.” She mutters and crosses her arms.

She looks to her left to see a man get out in the pouring rain and shout at the cars ahead of him to keep it moving. Y/n shakes her head in disbelief as she watches more people fight back and forth from their cars.

Slightly entertained by the ongoing arguments around her, Y/n uses this time to inch her car closer to the car in front of her. A huge black truck that was slow to move their car forward and Y/n blew a raspberry in annoyance.

“If the other cars are moving, you should be too, buddy!” She yells.

As soon as she was done scolding, the sound of glass breaking from beside her makes her bring her hands up to cover her face.

Y/n yelps in surprise and hears multiple voices from outside her car. Moving away her hands, Y/n sees a masked man decked out in militia gear, reaches inside of her car to unlock her door. Y/n elbows him in the throat and punches him, making him fall back. Another appears on the passenger’s side, breaking that window and Y/n takes out her pistol from the console box on her door.

Turning off the safety, she shoots at their chest area, making sure that she was aiming at their shoulder and chest. Screams from other drivers are heard and people are scattering towards the bridge on foot.

Y/n uses the butt of her gun to knock out another goon that was reaching inside her car to grab her.

“Crazy woman!” Her arm is grabbed and Y/n shoots at the one holding her.

“Get your hands off me!” She yells pulling away.

A smoke bomb is thrown into her car and Y/n uses her shirt to cover her mouth and nose. She has no choice but to bail out of her car and Y/n removes her seatbelt. She pushes open her door with a force that the next goon that tried to get her was pushed back and knocked out by another opened door.

Y/n rolls out of her car and holds up her pistol to anyone else that could try and catch her.

Using the smoke screen to her advantage, she runs off towards the bridge, cloaking herself with the crowd.

“Find her!” She hears one of the militiamen yell and Y/n curses, putting on her hood. She sees out of the corner of her eye that the men scatter around the parked cars and running people to track her down.

Dipping into a nearby alley, Y/n presses herself against the building to avoid any of the street lights that were visible on the trash cans in front of her. Booted footsteps run past her as Y/n presses herself further into the building.

Once she felt they were all gone, Y/n runs down the alleyway, being careful to avoid stepping in big puddles.

The rain had soaked her entire body and it was becoming more difficult to see through the droplets on falling down her face.

Making a left, Y/n keeps her gun ready against her chest as she sees the road ahead of her would lead her back to the bridge.

Hastening her stride, Y/n knew that in just a couple of feet she would be home free. If she had to walk on the bridge to get to her parents then so be it. She could get another car.

But before she could arrive at the end of the street leading to her freedom, she’s stopped when something drops down in front of her.

Taking a few steps back, Y/n points her gun at the crouched figure before her.

Slowly, they rose up to their feet and blue computerized eyes look at her. Y/n’s brow frowned in annoyance, why in the world did she have to run into this person again?

“What are you doing here?” She demands.

Y/n watched as they balled their fists by their sides and stare at her, unusually quiet.

“Were those your goons that were after me? Did you send them?” She continued.

“Yes.”

“The hell for? What do you want from me?” She is bold enough to take a step closer to them, ready to fire if necessary.

“They were ordered not to hurt you. Just to bring you to me.”

“The fuck for?”

“To show you something.” They say. Y/n furrows her brow in confusion.

“Your men broke my damn windows out of my car and threw a smoke bomb, and you think that would have made me come willingly?” She asks.

“They weren’t supposed to go that far.”

“Whatever! I am giving you till the count of one to let me pass or I’ll shoot your ass.” She aims her gun to their chest.

Holding up their hands in defense, they come closer to her, their chest pressed against the gun’s barrel.

“I want to show you something, and if you still want to shoot me, then feel free to do so. I won’t even attempt to fight back.” They tell her and Y/n’s brow furrow deeper in confusion.

Y/n watched closely as they raised their hands to press a button on the side of their helmet, a hiss leaving the sides as depressurization allowed the mechanism to move.

Before Y/n had a chance to see their face, a thudding sound resounded behind her and Y/n turns around to see the one and only Batman.

His cloak engulfing his entire body as he watched the two of them.

“Batman? Why are you here?” Y/n asks.

“I got a tip from a friend. Get away from him, he’s dangerous.” Batman says as he takes a step forward.

“Look at the pot calling the kettle black. I haven’t brought any harm to this woman and yet here you appear.” They say and Y/n takes a step back still holding up her gun to the person in front of her.

“You’re the Arkham Knight, what does Scarecrow have planned?” Batman demands.

“Like I’d tell you. He wants what we all been waiting for: the identity of the Batman.” They say raising their hands in jubilation.

“Quite frankly, Scarecrow is doing Gotham a favor, all those who stay will be finally dealt with. Something you failed to do all these years. It’s what everyone’s been wanting.” The knight explains.

“Then what do you want?” Y/n speaks up. The knight glances over at her then back to the Batman.

“To kill you. You are disease that has yet to be cured and I’m ready to be the one to pull the trigger.” The knight takes out their gun and points it at the man dressed as a bat.

“I just have to wait a little bit longer. Unfortunate.” The knight shoots Batman in the shoulder, and the cloaked hero yells out in pain, falling to his knees. Y/n gasped in shock and shoots at the knight who took the bullets with no problem as they bounced off their armor.

“I’ll be in touch doll.” They say and use their grapple gun to fly off onto a building.

Changing out the clip, Y/n walks over to Batman and looks down at his trembling form.

“You alright?” Y/n asks uninterested.

“I’ll be fine.” He slowly pulls himself to his feet and grunts. Y/n could see the bullet lodged into his armor and frowns.

“That must of hurt like a bitch.”

“It does.”

“Good, now I need some answers. How the hell did you know where I was?” She asks.

“I had Dick put a tracker on your car, it signaled to me that you were in danger and I followed you to the bridge. I also had some radio signals regarding the Arkham Knight in this area as well.” Batman tells her.

“I can take care of myself.”

“That’s an understatement. You should have went with Dick when he was there-“

“Last I checked Bruce, I don’t have to do anything you tell me. I don’t need the Batman’s assistance 24/7 and quite frankly you’re under attorney orders that you have no right to speak or interact with me. If I wanted to I would have your ass sent to jail for breaking that contract.” She holsters her gun in her hoodie pocket.

“But I can’t because this city needs the Batman. Stay away from me Wayne, or else.” Y/n’s eyes glowed at him in the downpour of rain and Y/n turns away from him to continue her evacuation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoy the read and be sure to read the previous chapters!

Be sure to like, reblog, and comment!

#fanfiction #my writing #black reader #black!reader #x black reader #black reader x dc #dc x black!reader #dc x black reader #dc jason todd #arkham knight #arkhamverse #jason todd x black!reader #jason todd x black reader #black reader insert #dc animated universe

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pinkbowbluehatgoldlocket · 3 days ago

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Fiercest Wheel, Fairest Wheel

The now former sixth grade students of P.S. 118 poured off the bus and through the entrance of Dino Land. Summer was beginning and the uncertainty of junior high was far enough from everyone's minds for the excitement of a beautiful day at the theme park to prevail. With a few exceptions, that is. Two pre-teens had been sniping at one another for the whole bus trip, and as the lines for the most popular rides filled up, their best friends were already losing patience with them.

“Helga, cut it out!” Arnold grumbled, shaking another piece of popcorn out of his hair as the thrower snickered at him.

“Don't look at me, dork-wad. I'm not the only one with a snack around here.”

“You're the only one who shoots spitballs at me, so it's not exactly a lucky guess.”

“Who’s making spitballs? Don't flatter yourself. Like I'd wanna waste my attention on you.” The shorter boy crossed his arms and faced forward again.

Gerald looked wanly at Phoebe behind him. “Are they gonna do this all day? I don't think I can take it.”

Phoebe frowned back at him. “I must say, I agree. Perhaps we can find a way to get a break from their relentless friction.” She spoke quietly but Helga, focused on aiming another kernel at the back of Arnold's head, wasn't listening.

“Why do you gotta always wear that stupid hat? I'm getting tired of looking at it.”

Arnold winced but recovered fast. He lowered his eyelids and grinned slyly. “Funny you should say that. You wear that bow in your hair every day and I hope you don't stop. I like it.” Gerald raised his eyebrows and glanced at Phoebe but neither spoke.

Helga's heart fluttered. What was that look all about? “Pft. What do I care what you think?”

“I wondered the same thing. You sound like Rhonda, critiquing people's accessories.” Helga's fists flexed. The nerve of this boy! And yet . . . he still liked her bow? The one she wore for him, after all this time?

The two boys were now at the front of the line and when the ride attendant opened the gate, Gerald reached back to grab Phoebe’s hand and pulled her, giggling, up onto the platform and into the open seat.

The other two cried their names in unison. “Don’t leave me here with this football head!” But all they could do was watch as the wheel rotated their friends up into the air. The riders in the next seat were at platform level, lifting the safety bar when

Helga shoved past Arnold. “I’m not getting out of line after waiting all that time and I’m not riding with you, Hair Boy. Outta my way.”

“No single riders,” the attendant said flatly.

Helga crossed her arms and sputtered with frustration.

“Quit holding up the works, Helga!” Sid sneered from behind them. Harold impatiently pushed between the clashing blonds and took the open seat, where Sid joined him.

Helga weighed her options in icy silence while the two boys rose into the air and the next carriage was made available. “Fine. Join me, then.” She grabbed Arnold’s elbow and yanked him across the platform.

“Sure, don’t even ask me if I WANT to!”

“Yeah, you really dragged your feet there.” The bar was already being latched into place, so the option for Arnold to bail was off the table. He turned away and fixed his eyes onto a point in the distance, not really seeing it.

“Would you scooch over? You're crowding me!”

“This thing’s three feet wide, where am I supposed to go?”

“I don't know, figure it out!”

“You're the one who dragged me along rather than just find someone else to go with!”

“Ugh, would you two shut it? You’re ruining this for everybody!” Harold whined from the seat just behind and above.

Helga bellowed, “YOU shut it, Pink Boy! Mind your own!” All this without taking her eyes off Arnold’s face or lessening the ire she directed at him. He matched her expression.

“What IS your problem with me anyway, Helga? I know your home life sucks and you take it out on everybody, though it’s no excuse. But I’ve never seen you be as hard on anyone as you are on me! What did I ever do to you?”

“You get under my skin, Hair Boy!” She was on her back foot with this verbal sparring, but he was so close . . .

“That’s all you have to say? YOU get under MY skin, Helga! Maybe you could just try being a little nicer!”

“Maybe you don’t need to be such a football headed geek!” Helga sputtered.

Something in Arnold snapped. “Maybe YOU didn’t need to be so quick about taking back what you said on the roof!” But as soon as it was out of his mouth, which now hung open in shock, Arnold wished he could call those words back, too.

“Wh-w-what?” Helga stammered, gawking at him. The ride brought them around almost a full rotation before either of them spoke again.

“Silence at last!” they heard from Harold and Sid’s carriage. Arnold summoned his courage and started talking quietly.

“Look, after all the FTi business, I gave that moment a lot of thought and there’s a lot over the years that still doesn’t make sense to me. Though maybe some of it does, and it all points to me thinking maybe it would be nice if you l-loved me. And it kind of hurt to think maybe you didn’t want to. There’s a lot I like about spending time with you, especially when you're not pushing me around so much. Do you- did you mean any of what you said? Before you took it all back?” Helga could only nod. He smiled and looked away for a few seconds. “Okay, maybe we could talk about that sometime?”

Helga stared dumbfounded at Arnold, her eyes wide and full of all the unsaid things she’d been keeping from him over the years. He gazed back at her, unsure what to say next, or whether to speak at all. Suddenly, the attendant was next to them, disengaging and raising the safety bar. Their ride was over. Arnold stood, holding his hand out to the stunned girl. She slowly reached out and took it, letting her beloved pull her to her feet. They silently made their way to the exit. Taking a deep breath to steady his voice and slow his hammering heartbeat, Arnold turned to Helga’s blushing face and asked, “maybe we could try a do-over?”

“I could go around again,” she replied, the beginnings of a smile pulling at the sides of her mouth.

From a bench in the shadow of the wheel, Gerald and Phoebe sat, watching them get back in line, hands still clasped together. “Finally! I’ve been wondering when those two were gonna figure it out! If this doesn’t mean they stop fighting and start getting along, I might need to find a new best friend.”

“Oh, I think there will be an improvement on that front,” Phoebe responded. “Just think, the passion with which they argued may now be channeled into affection for one another.”

Gerald’s entire face drooped. He hadn’t considered that outcome. “Aw man, gross! That’s worse!” Phoebe laughed behind her hand. Above them, on the ride’s boarding platform, Helga allowed Arnold to help her step onto the seat’s footrest and smiled as he sat down next to her. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be paying much attention to the view this time either; a more beautiful sight was already right next to him.

#helga pataki #hey arnold #shortaki #shortaki week #shortakiweek #shortaki week 2025 #ferris wheel prompt

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delusionalvenusian · 2 years ago

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Summary: your first kiss with soft Wakanda Bucky

Listening to: Unchained Melody - Alex North

______________________________________________________________

The afternoon sun was high and blazing as you sat waiting by the water, food still neatly packed in the basket you’d put together. You weren’t sure of the exact time, but you did know that, based on the rumbling sounds of hunger your stomach was making, it was now well past lunchtime, and Bucky was uncharacteristically late.

He’d never intentionally stand you up, or miss a meal for that matter, you were certain. Theorizing he must’ve been held up by something in the pasture and that he could use the sustenance, you gathered up your basket and headed off through the tall grass.

“White Wolf-- umfazi wakho,” the young goatherd teased as you approached the paddock in the distance, earning a pointed look from Bucky as his suntanned cheeks began to redden, mortified at the thought of you hearing someone refer to you as his wife. “I’ll leave you,” he said with a playful grin, stalking off.

Bucky had come tremendously far in his healing, now free from Hydra's programming and beginning to feel human again. Your friendship had blossomed naturally, spending time together each day as you oversaw his recovery in Steve's stead, and quickly developed into mutual love that was obvious to everyone but the two of you. You both yearned for more than companionship, but you wanted to be patient with Bucky and respect his boundaries, and he couldn't see how someone like you could or would share the adoration he felt for you, so you remained strictly friends silently pining for each other, to the amusement of all who observed.

“Thought you could use some food,” you said, smiling at him sweetly as you reached the fence. “Hope you have cash for tip,” you joked with a wink.

“I'm so sorry,” Bucky replied sincerely. “Nocawe went into labor this morning and I got behind on everything. I couldn’t get away.”

You shook your head and waved a hand in dismissal. “No apology necessary—I knew you wouldn’t leave me hanging without good reason.”

“Thanks,” Bucky sighed out, relieved to hear he hadn't let you down.

“Can I help you finish up,” you asked. "That way you can have a little break and not have to be here 'til sundown."

“Sure,” Bucky said, eyebrows raising slightly in surprise.

You smiled and set your basket down.

You chatted together idly over your lunch about everything and nothing. Bucky listened intently as you updated him on the progress Shuri was making on her latest invention, having spent the last week "helping" her by keeping her company and giving moral support, then gave you a crash course in goat kidding. You finished your last bites over a rousing game of guessing where in the world Steve, Sam and Natasha were currently hiding.

The two of you spent the rest of the afternoon loading and unloading bails, spreading hay about the paddock, finishing at golden hour before the sun began to set. Bucky, ever the gentleman, hadn't allowed you to do any of the more strenuous jobs, so the only muscle soreness you were left feeling was in your cheeks and stomach from all of the smiles and laughter, having bantered flirtatiously while you worked alongside one another.

You stood on the cart, shifting the last hay bail to complete the neat stack you'd been working to perfect. "That wasn't so bad," you said.

"No, not at all," Bucky agreed. You readied your body to hop down, stopping suddenly when Bucky stepped up closer to the side of the cart. "Whoa, wait, lemme help ya there," he said, quickly offering his hand.

"Why, thank you," you said with exaggerated coquettishness, placing your hand in his. It was rough from the day's work, and you noticed deep redness on his palm as you took it. "Your hand okay?" you asked as your feet met the ground.

"Oh, yeah, that's nothing. Just a little rope burn. It'll be gone before tomorrow," he assured, knowing that it was no match for the serum that coursed through him.

"Let me at least clean it," you insisted.

Bucky smiled at the ground shaking his head, suddenly feeling shy from being offered such care. "You really don't have to."

You walked over to your basket, pulling out a clean cloth napkin and wetting it with some extra drinking water you'd packed in case he needed more than whatever he had on hand. "I want to."

"Okay," Bucky said, chuckling as a piece of hay sticking out of your hair caught his eye. "Wait, here," he said, plucking it out when you returned to him.

You thanked him bashfully, feeling butterflies form in your stomach. The simple act felt so intimate.

Bucky watched as you took his hand once more, gently dabbing and wiping at the harsh red lines with the cloth, sure not to miss a single speck of visible dirt.

Once each mark appeared sufficiently clear, you raised his palm and blew on it softly to dry what dampness remained on the surface. "There."

Between the feel of your supple skin, the temperate way in which you wiped clean his wounds, and your cool breath hitting his warm palm, Bucky's heart was pounding so hard in his chest he was sure you could hear it. He tore his eyes from your joined hands, taking in the soft features of your face in the warm light of the early evening.

Still holding Bucky's hand in yours, raised close to your lips, something came over you under the weight of his gaze. Without a thought, you closed the distance between his palm and your mouth, leaving a delicate kiss where you'd cleaned.

Bucky's eyes went wide, thrown over the edge now by the tenderness of the moment.

The change in his expression snapped you out of your reverie, suddenly realizing what you'd done and the boundary you'd likely crossed. You let go of his hand. "Oh, James, I'm-"

Before you could finish your apology, Bucky slid his hand to your cheek, brushing your bottom lip with his thumb so lightly you could barely feel it. "I-," he stuttered, "can I-?"

You nodded franticly, understanding exactly what he wanted and not wanting to waste another second.

He slowly tilted your face, never breaking eye contact, and bent to you cautiously, as if you'd startle if he moved too fast. It felt like an eternity, but then his lips were on yours, soft and sweet and wanting, and your hands were in his hair. Your lips lingered a moment, neither of you wanting to stop feeling the other. Bucky felt the tip of your tongue lightly sweep his bottom lip, causing his need to grow-- to deepen the kiss, to echo your move and taste you on his tongue-- but apprehension crept up and he broke the kiss.

You could read the apologetic expression on his face, understanding that he was sorry to have contained himself and, in his eyes, ruin the moment. In a gesture of reassurance, you placed a hand over his as it remained resting on your cheek, turning your head to kiss his palm once more. "It's okay," you muttered comfortingly. "Take your time."

His doubts now eased, from then on he knew he was welcome to give in to his hunger for you. He’d never hold back or take his time again.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes oneshot

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lilac-5ky · 2 years ago

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Roommates from Hell, pt.4 (Toji x Fem!Reader)

Chapter 4: Jungle Schlong

Chapter 3 | Chapter 5 | Story Masterlist | Masterlist | Requests

A/N: Commentary at the end because I think I'm funny.

Warning: Without spoiling a thing: porn, IKEA and angst.

Out of the many survival skills people who live alone develop during their self-imposed period of solitude, the ability to share a flat —and by extension, its features— is not among them. For example, while you knew exactly how many sips it takes to empty the milk bottle, you didn’t account for Toji’s intake being twice your own. It took multiple shakes and peeps through the hole for you to reach the shocking conclusion that you were indeed out of milk and hurried to announce it with pompousness second only to an anchorwoman’s.

Breaking news! Manslaughter at the center of Shibuya: 18 dead and 37 missing— and Y/N’s fridge is devoid of milk! Well, not exactly phrased like that, though Toji’s reaction rivaled that of a disinterested viewer’s zapping to the next channel.

Apathy. And it suited him so well; speckles of fury shimmering in his darkened eyes like residues of a stubbed cigarette whenever they happened to cross with yours. You preferred him when he lashed out. At least then you could lock horns and get it out of your system, but he’d been the same since last night. Cold-shouldering your every inquisition, and if an answer was required, then it was curt and gruff like the rest of him.

The only thing his stoic expression eagerly rubbed in was how he didn’t give a damn whether you had an ounce of milk to drench your already-poured cereal with, a place to sit and eat, or even warm water to shower with. And normally, he’d be out the door searching for the next woman (read: victim) to leech from, but today he valued his word. He’d take you shopping and use it against you for some extra petty points whenever he decided to throw his tantrum.

The drive wasn’t any more enjoyable than breakfast. Your attempt to turn on the radio was slapped away, while your dissing a woman who’d stopped the entire traffic to fix her eyeliner in the rear-view mirror of her shit-colored Datsun fell on deaf ears. That one hurt the most. Humoring idiots together was your thing.

Traitor. Although you both knew who the real traitor was, and that was why you willfully took the punishment, biting back any back-handed comment and half-assed apology your tongue mustered. Not that he’d accept one in verbal form anyway; oral was more like it.

You kept your mouth zipped until he pulled over at IKEA’s parking lot, his hands glued to the wheel and the gear lever even after you’d stepped out of the vehicle.

“Aren’t you coming?” You questioned and he finally spared you a look that was more mischievous than contemptuous, a smirk trembling at the end of his scar.

“Said I’d drive ya, not that I’d stick around.” His left hand jerked the gear downward. “You pay for what you get. If you want my services, better pay upfront.”

Your bag’s straps creased under your fingernails. This was where you drew the line.

“We came here to get furniture for your ass to fit in, and you tell me you wanna bail?”

“Missed the part where I said I needed shit,” Toji shrugged. “Your house, your rules, right? Your furniture, too. Don’t involve me.”

Your nostrils flared in response. “Fine! I’ll do it myself, don’t need your sulking ass raining on my parade. Pretty sure they sell dog houses your size, and—” You switched to yelling as he stepped on the pedal, “forget about gas money ‘cause you ain’t getting shit, you hear me? Hope you get a flat tire and lose your way, fucking—”

And just like that, he was gone. Fuck. And you’d just ridiculed yourself in front of every onlooker that involuntarily eavesdropped on your crude spiel without witnessing the full scene of your unjust abandonment. Even bigger fuck.

You lowered your head and dragged your feet toward the store’s revolving door, where a little girl who’d made a game out of the doors bestowed you a genuine smile— of sympathy, you hoped.

Since Toji lacked the courtesy to let you use the bathroom before towing you all the way to his car, you were still in your homewear, tan sweatpants and all. “Disheveled” didn’t even begin to describe the frantic state of your hair. The person inside the glass had the deranged appeal of someone who’d jumped into a hornet’s nest with some seriously angry wasps, each strand attached pointing in a different direction.

However, credit where credit’s due. You’d done well to bring your trusty shades. They hid both your dark circles and bloodshot-from-all-the-crying eyes while giving off some of that washed-out rock star air you desperately needed to feel somewhat human.

You pulled the hoodie over your head and fastened the knot below your chin. You gave your door-riding companion a practiced smile and asked if her parents knew her whereabouts, like the exemplary adult you were.

She pointed at a couple near the gift-wrapping section. Her spitting image in high heels and a strict pencil skirt held onto a vase that a scrawny man in a duffle jacket—the father, you assumed— helped wrap in decorative paper. A bit late for Christmas gifts, isn’t it? Neither seemed to worry that their little angel was talking to a stranger, so you took it upon yourself to warn her, tucking a golden curl behind her ear and ushering her to their side.

As expected of a preschooler, she grimaced in defiance and tried to extort you from a soft serve, but ultimately agreed to lock pinkies and promised to return after one final ride.

The doors aligned, and you stepped out, walking slowly enough to watch the girl be scooped into her dad’s embrace, her tiny arms looping around his neck while he pressed a kiss on her forehead. Her mom set the vase on the counter to rub her back, a goofy smile contorting her otherwise sharp features.

Sorrow withered like a flower of decay in your heart, the display turning into thorns the longer you perceived it. Not now. Not again.

You tore your eyes away and headed further in, beelining straight to the supply rack by the escalator. You grabbed a yellow tote bag and stuffed it with the usual suspects —a map of the store, a paper measuring tape, a couple of shopping forms, and a miniature pencil— before drifting to the second floor.

The first area of the tremendously vast showroom displayed everything from 4-seat sofas with installed chaise lounges to hand-woven rattan footstools and miscellaneous decorative pieces such as faux antler horns and brazen candlesticks. Every living room was carefully considered and well put together, attracting the appropriate demographics.

Frilled cushions and fairy lights for the young romantics; futuristic ceiling lamps in curious shapes and slick TV benches for a breath of novelty in your space; functionality over flashiness in rooms with spacious cabinets and railway-sized couches to accommodate those who couldn’t keep it in their pants and birthed a horde of happy-go-lucky squirts; warm textiles for a cozy atmosphere; cooler hues for a more urban style. A plethora of choices meant to daze and bedazzle the stingiest shopper into buying not what they needed but what they wanted at an affordable price.

A true celebration of capitalism.

You paced around the rooms, mindlessly picking on random objects and price tags, working quick math in your brain for items that would be forgotten as soon as you entered the next scenery of artificial palm trees and sand-filled wooden tiki bowls. Perfect for beach lovers, the sign said, though you couldn’t fathom the tackiness of a man with a hammock amidst his living room.

Unable to beat your childish urge to ascertain whether the sand was real, you dipped your hand in one of the bowls and glanced over your shoulder just in case you were busted—you weren’t. And it wasn’t.

Your interest was extinguished, only to be rekindled by the golden sheen of a picture frame that stood remarkably plain between two spiral seashells on a wall-mounted shelf behind the aforementioned hammock. Normally, frames either sported an image of some stupid logo that wrote “Love” or “Happiness”, or encased a placeholder picture for the owners to replace at a later date. But this one was vacant. Naked. Forgotten.

You didn’t have any frames in your house. Didn’t need any. All remnants of the past were safely tucked inside an old shoe box below your bed —memories you occasionally fished out but mostly wished to forget. All, except one. A token from your graduation that you always kept inside your bag as precious memorabilia, not of the event itself but of the man whose arm lazily slung over your shoulders and of the smile that stretched from the western tip of his scar to the eastern end of your grin.

You’d rather be mugged off every worldly possession, even your mother’s handwritten cookbooks, than part ways with this picture. That’s why you never let it off your eyes and never properly framed it, though looking at the empty frame, something finally clicked.

You pulled out the picture and unscrewed the safety clips, fitting it around the edges, and then locked it in place.

Your thumb brushed over Toji’s face as gently as if it were his actual cheek you touched, and last night’s fiasco began accelerating with the momentum of a three-foot boulder that wrecked everything in its passage. Frustration stirred your insides, urging the coarse cereal to spill out your guts and paint the baby-blue mat a dubious streak of remorse. You wondered what color that’d be. Nothing pleasant to look at, for sure.

With a sigh, you brought the picture closer to your lips and whispered, “I’ll say this once and only once, so better stop giving me that smug look. I’m sor—”

“That bored without me you talk to lifeless objects now?”

The gravelly voice flowing not from the frame but from the person behind you made you nearly knock the entire shelf to the ground. This habit of his was getting old real quick.

“Is scaring people your hobby, or do you get paid for it?” You leered at him, slyly stuffing the frame in your tote bag, confident he hadn’t gotten a proper peek.

“If only,” Toji smirked. “Could make a fortune out of you alone.”

You rolled your eyes and crossed the tote bag over your free shoulder, progressively scanning the parts of his body you didn’t want to slot a pacifier in. He was holding onto a paper cup, the keyword being “a” as in singular and not plural. As in one, and not two. As in, he got fresh coffee from the machine at the entrance for himself, but not for you.

Jerk.

“Couldn’t keep a dime if it was glued to your forehead with super glue,” you huffed.

His free hand reached your face, fiddling with the laces of your hoodie. “Kept you all these years, didn’t I?” voice dropped an octave. “My goldmine.”

You couldn’t tell if he was being flirty or simply condescending; his thin eyebrows bearing hints of annoyance in how they furrowed, as opposed to the curl in his lips that almost seemed amiable. You didn’t reciprocate either sentiment. Instead, “Thought you said you weren’t coming.”

“Changed my mind,” his eyelashes fluttered heavily over his cheeks. “Didn’t want to leave you all alone to carry that shit. Wouldn’t sit right with me.”

You questioned whether the Toji in front of you was the real deal or a stand-in for his otherwise “no can do unless I’m paid” self. Unless…

“You ran out of gas, didn’t you?”

The smile dropped from his face and rose to yours as he took a step back, his tail between his legs. He drained the coffee in one sip and squashed the cup in his fist, flicking it at the bin closest to him without caring that it was part of the exhibit.

The words swirled in his mouth, bitter, and taut, and doused in caffeine. “You have my money.”

“My money,” you corrected. “You said I could keep it.”

“I did?” Toji asked, confirming it a second later. “I suppose I did. I take it back. Give it back.”

His palm unfolded in your direction, fingers beckoning you to react, which you did, though not in the way he’d hoped.

“What do you think y’are doing?” Jaded green eyes entered a game of ping pong between the items you’d shoved in his hand and your undeniably cheeky expression.

“You are so right. I’m bored out of my mind when you’re not around, but now that you are here, I feel sooo much better!”

Toji arched a brow at your admission, not convinced in the slightest.

“I’ll give you some of the money back,” and this was the kind of sentence that seldom went without a but. “But you have to stay and help.”

His mouth opened to express disagreement, which soon turned into acquiescence.

“I’ll buy you soft serve after.”

“Deal.”

The two of you wandered around the labyrinth of lamps and sofas with a different gait each; yours were quick steps full of determination and moderate excitement, stamping individual items and running after them, while Toji’s were long-drawn strides with no real purpose other than to follow the thread you dropped behind in hopes of it leading to an exit. You presented one object after the other, weighing the pros and cons he didn’t care to consider, merely jotting down the unpronounceable Swedish names and their corresponding codes.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t have much of an opinion regarding his lodgings. He claimed he could sleep anywhere but was visibly vexed when you pointed at an adorable bone-shaped dog bed, gritting his teeth and saying that your bed could fit you both just fine if you weren’t such a “little bitch” about it.

Only when you got to the rooms with very particular and niche equipment did his disinterest fade, giving way to disbelief at how anyone could ever think to create something as useless as an egg yolk separator or vegetable cutting gadgets that a single knife could easily replace. He wasn’t wrong about that, but he was dead wrong to assume you were letting him bring a Cookie Monster-esque atrocity of dyed sheepskin back into the apartment. Or a portable charcoal grill for that matter. Or a bike trailer when you couldn’t even bike.

“Are ya dumb? Biking isn’t knowing, it’s doin’,” he’d said.

A side-eye was typically enough for him to return them to their places, but when it came down to his peak fascination with a voice-activated toilet flush, things got excruciatingly hard. He insisted on calling it a worthwhile investment when he’d previously dubbed your portable drawer unit a waste of cash. If it weren’t for the three extra zeroes at the end of its crumpled price tag, he would still be there tossing rocks just to hear the toilet praise the size of his dung.

You each made an exception for the other to buy one non-pivotal item, as long as it didn’t exceed 3000 yen. He got himself a neck pillow. You got a ghost night light that apparently looked nothing like curses, much to your disappointment, and while his attention was diverted, you shoved another in the bag to give him as a welcoming gift, hoping the cuteness of the green, chubby ghost would help bury the hatchet.

Eventually, you plopped down at a dining table in a room obscured by the shop’s many corners, Toji on the head and you on the foot, as if you were holding an official conference. You went over the shopping forms together, but coming to a decision when neither was remotely capable of pronouncing the names proved a challenge. And while each butchered the language in your own irreverent way, you were the first to break into chuckles, finding Toji’s heartfelt conviction that Frihetten and Fry Hatred were one and the same positively endearing.

Flustered, he threatened to break your bones into furniture, but not even he could take himself seriously anymore when his answer to the question “What would you name me?” was “The Stupenbraten”.

The mood lightened, and after some necessary discourse, you decided upon a gray sleeper sofa to replace your current couch and a chair from the same set you had in your kitchen, as well as some covers for the remaining winter nights. All was well again; aside from the total cost exceeding the initial budget by a few hundred yen.

You were back to square one, though a new plan became apparent faster than anticipated. A plan wearing twin pigtails and a smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial that resiliently lurked wherever the two of you went. A plan who fidgeted with the name tag on the left side of her canary-colored shirt a bit too much, her knees wobbly under her tight-fitted navy jeans. A plan too naive for her own good.

At first, you assumed she’d received a report for the terrorist-looking female in the orange hoodie who double-checked the price of each individual plate in the service, but then you put more effort into deciphering her alert eyes and concluded that the target she was ogling was none other than your partner in crime.

He who, although dressed identically to you, stood out among the regular customers like a celebrity that’d failed to mingle with the crowd at their own premiere, a dandelion among a field of dried weeds, or even a conch amidst a sea of pebbles; out of place and infinitely extraordinary; easy to miss and hard to notice, but when you do, there’s no taking your eyes off it.

The employee tracked you down as if her career depended on it, infatuated with the mere idea that a man like Toji could give her attention, and when he actually did under your direction, the plot began writing itself:

Straight out of a Wong Kar-wai movie, the dark and brooding, albeit confident, male lead slowly enters the hesitant female lead’s orbit. He hangs around the information desk, where she pretends to work, and flips through the pamphlets with faux interest. He lets her study him up close and plants an idea in her head, convincing her the first move is hers to make—that she’s in charge.

Her head lifts up, and their furtive glances catch fire. He bows forward, and his lips move without making a sound, a joke only for her ears to assess. And it must be terribly funny because she is laughing, and with her, the whole world beams, with sequences of time-elapsed blurs and filtered close-ups spurring everyone into the mood for love.

That’s a true pro for you.

You stayed until you saw them exchange papers. It’d only been five minutes, and they were already plotting their next tryst away from the prying eyes of the audience and the mastermind behind their affair. Admittedly, this was neither your best nor proudest moment, but if conning an impressionable sweetheart out of a minor discount was your ticket to hell, then you’d better go ahead and save yourselves front-row seats.

For the time being, you left Toji to his own devices and leisurely padded along the corridors, finding yourself a sanctuary in a room where the sounds muffled into ambient sound and the colors bled into shades of chaste white that dribbled from the ceiling to the king-sized bed in the middle. You dropped your bags on the bed stool and fell back against the polyester duvet, limbs stretching across all four corners to create idle snow angels.

You glimpsed at the price that neared half a million yen and wondered what kind of people could afford a bed like this. Was it old money who lived in luxurious mansions with fourteen bedrooms and twice as many servants to tend to them, or a young couple with too much love to spare? Did it belong to a loft that overlooked the city, or was its place on the outskirts of the countryside? How many surprise breakfasts could it host, and how many kids could bounce against the planks to wake up their weary parents before the springs broke?

Could a bed like this ever be yours?

“People who fuck for a living, obviously.”

Rings of saturated smoke poured out of Toji’s lips as he lit up his cigarette and took his first real puff of disappointment. He’d hoped that after popping two and a half bottles of overpriced carbonated piss, smoking ought to at least rouse a tingle, but he’d only managed to further soil his mouth with more filth.

“Want that?” he asked, despite stubbing it in the ashtray. With the amount of alcohol you’d downed, you’d probably let him put it out on your tongue without objection.

You tracked the movements of his fingers, inevitably following them to where the dark spirals of his hotel-provided yukata met with the creamy complexion of his sculpted thighs, elbow propped against his one knee, and wrist dangling freely in the gap between his legs. He was still on his back, his tousled raven hair having spilled over the pillow, and the ebony fabric fitting tight around the bulge of muscles, leaving only his pecs completely exposed.

A sight for sore eyes and those with the hunger to eat it up, while you tried your hardest not to gawk, directing your attention anywhere that wasn’t him, such as the baroque chandelier on the ceiling, the plasma screen on the opposing wall, the leftover beluga caviar and Dom Pérignon on the service trolley, or even your own legs dressed in the same piece of clothing.

The two of you painted quite a sinful image: a girl barely of age and a boy slightly above sharing a bed the size of your house at one of the country’s top-rated hotels, your clothes scattered around the floor like some perverse artistic signature. How cliche, but every cliche comes with an “It’s not what it looks like”.

You received the message on your beeper a few blocks away from school at an unoccupied payphone; Toji’s voice requesting help on the other side of the line. He didn’t specify anything other than his location and seemed particularly elated to find you at his suite’s doorstep fifteen minutes later with your heart in your mouth. At that point, he’d already jumped in his yukata, sporting a pair of fluffy gray slippers and a sardonic smile that widened at the sight of your summer uniform.

Alcohol blurred your memories quite a bit. You couldn’t remember why you’d changed out of your uniform, but were certain it had something to do with his indecent commentary. Not that the yukata covered more skin, but it did feel smooth against your body.

You quickly realized that Toji was neither in danger nor in dire need of help. He’d just received his biggest paycheck to date and wanted someone to burn the money with, and as much as he hesitated to admit it, your phone was the only number engraved in his memory outside his handler’s.

In retrospect, your evening felt more like a fever dream than a real one. You ordered every exorbitant French specialty off the menu, drank through the contents of the minibar, and flipped through the various cable channels, paying thousands of yen for movies you lacked the attention span to finish.

You were so out of it. You dismissed the crude answer he’d given to your question for the sake of recounting events that hadn’t aged past six hours.

A subtle hue of red bloomed across your cheeks, dipping lower down your chest to sheathe in the pit of your stomach as liquid fire. The feeling itself wasn’t unpleasant; simply unprecedented. This was your first time drinking, and in all honesty, you could do fine without being reminded every three seconds —the exact interval between your glances— of how well he wore the traditional attire.

“So it wasn’t just an urban legend, huh?” Toji mumbled to himself, fumbling with the buttons on the remote until he landed on a channel that piqued his interest.

“Hey, wanna watch some porn?” The second question was definitely meant for you, his hand ghosting over your eyes as if to snap you from whatever trance had absorbed your conscience.

You blinked in surprise, eyes dancing between the numerous naked ladies that flaunted their assets in provocative stances and Toji’s serious expression while he eagerly awaited a response.

“Uhm… sure?” You asked him back, clearing your throat of any doubt, and then repeated the same word.

He gave a tiny smile and scrolled through ridiculous titles named after popular American movies, such as “Pulp Friction”, “Cum-busters”, “In Diana Jones”, and your personal favorite of the bunch, “Yank My Doodle, It’s a Dandy!”.

“Probably nothin’ too extreme, right?” You mindlessly nodded. “A’right, gotcha.”

While you stacked up the pillows behind your neck, Toji clicked a few more buttons, and eventually, a movie began playing, starting with a picket fence house in the suburbs and a jolly housewife who awaited something on the door. The “something” revealed itself to be a “someone”— a pizza guy, more specifically, on whose pizza both Toji and you placed bets.

“Pay up,” he grinned when the man announced it was a pepperoni one, only to grunt after the pizza box fell completely empty to the floor. A directorial oversight.

The man proceeded to make out with the housewife in front of her house’s doorway, backsteps bringing the scene into the kitchen, where the woman removed her apron to expose her —surprise, surprise— naked body underneath. She sat the man on a chair and kneeled before him, caressing the tent in his jeans and slowly tugging it down, she set his cock free.

A gulp disrupted your swallowing, your eyes zooming in as the woman’s hands wrapped around his dick and pumped it up and down with expertise his moans revealed. Your thighs clicked together in sync with your teeth, your mouth more parched than it’d been before you gobbled all that alcohol up.

Without being aware of it, you’d scooted closer to his side of the bed, almost curling against his arm. You stole a glimpse at him, his brow quirking at the sudden closeness. You pretended to watch the movie, and partially you did, although there was no ignoring Toji when your entire vision became that of uneven black strands.

“Are ya wet by any chance?” He smirked, eyes darting lower over your body, if only for a second.

“N-not sure, but I… really want to pee,” you admitted, causing his face to crack into a fond simper. “Been that way since the champagne—” you tried to explain, and you tried to hide your colored shame in the crook of your neck, but he wouldn’t let you do either.

“No need to be embarrassed,” Toji said in a reassuring voice that begged to filter all bashfulness out of your system. “Still a virgin, mm? Well, there are other adult stuff we could try together. Other than drinking champagne, or” his hand rubbed against your outer thigh, “watching amateurs fuck,” fingers carefully squeezing their way in. “I bet we could do so much better than that.”

“Whaddya say, pretty girl?”

The rasp in his voice mellowed into a candied hum as he tilted his head to the side, and when he did, you didn’t move— not because you didn’t want to, but because you didn’t know how to without your inexperience showing or your heart betraying how much you’d longed for this moment to come, as his lips finally crashed against yours and you suddenly gained all the knowledge in the world.

You knew how to squeeze your eyes shut slowly enough to catch his green eyes fading past his heavy eyelashes along with the intensity behind them. You knew exactly how to move your mouth in accordance with his, letting your upper lip be sucked into the kind of warmth that could never be replicated—a warmth that was unique to Toji and the softness of his lips and the roughness of his palms—and that gradually seeped into your stream, flooding and then drowning all your senses until he was the only lifeline for you to grab onto to stay afloat.

He flipped you to your back and crawled on top of you, the bed dipping against the accumulation of weight while the kiss deepened. His tongue slipped into the wet cavern of your mouth, taking its time to explore the basis of every snarky remark and withheld affection meant for him. A soft, visceral sound was swallowed by a stifled groan as your hands clutched onto the fabric around his waist and pulled him closer, your hips abruptly snapping upward.

You weren’t thinking until Toji gave you permission to, the string of saliva that united your mouths now tearing you apart. His tongue swiped over his dampened scar, hooded eyes zeroing in on the pink ribbon at the center of your bra’s band as the friction caused the cups to spill out of your kimono. The sounds in the background were barely audible over the sound of your panting as he took hold of your breast and firmly palmed it over the fabric.

“Feel any different now?” The hand on your thigh prodded at your stomach, even though he’d never stopped fondling your chest and still maintained a loose grip over your hip—

Oh.

You mustered enough courage to peer at where your bodies connected, finding a bulge akin to the one in the non-pizza-carrying pizza guy’s pants, albeit much bigger, more real, and definitely palpable, and although you were no busty hotwife, you’d made this happen.

Things were moving so fast; too fast, that your brain short-circuited between two contradictory notions, the first gathering as slick between your thighs, while the second argued this wasn’t something you should be doing—not something that friends should be doing.

But you liked Toji, and when he looked at you with raw desire burning in his eyes, you swore that you loved him.

“I really,” you croaked, rapidly losing composure under his fingertips unraveling your bare skin, his larger palm set on capturing as much of you as possible. “R-really,” you bit your lip before breaking into a literal yelp when he tried to tug off the strap. “Really, really, really need to pee!”

Without either of you entirely comprehending what happened, you slithered away from his grasp like an eel and bolted to the bathroom, locking yourself in with a loud “bam”, lest he push it open.

You looked in the mirror, confusing the image with that of a peeled tomato straight out of the can with how flushed and moist you appeared. Beads of sweat dripped from your forehead to your neck, and—God, his touch hardly qualified as groping, but nothing was in its place anymore; everything loose, disheveled, and so terribly lewd.

Reluctantly, you drove a hand between your thighs, coaxing a high-pitched gasp at the sheer amount of wetness drenching your underwear, an outcome entirely dependent on him. Toji. Toji, who’d given you your first kiss and who would have given you more— every last inch of him. Toji, who must’ve been laughing his ass off, cursing you, or doing both simultaneously.

Nothing could be done about the butterflies rummaging in your stomach, rabidly swarming your heart as if there were nectar at its core. You could only force yourself to sober up by throwing cold water on your face and carrying on with your “duties”, returning to the main room ten minutes after you’d perfected the most laid-back smile from your extensive collection of insincere expressions.

“Took ya long enough,” Toji exclaimed, a spoon sticking out of his mouth. “Thought you got flushed down the drain or somethin’.”

No such luck, you thought to yourself, sitting noticeably further away from where he dug through the remaining caviar. The porn was switched out, or paused—you couldn’t tell—with the hotel’s logo in cursive letters traversing one corner of the screen in favor of the other. And as for your previous reason for distress—

“Did you know they have Acqua Di Parma toiletries?” You panted more than asked, leaning closer to the tray to pinch a green olive between your fingers.

“It’s a French hotel, what did ya expect?” he shrugged.

“They are Italian.”

“Who cares?” He grimaced, dropping the spoon back into the crystal bowl. “Overpriced shit. Shoulda been 12 yen instead of 12k.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” you chuckled. “Plus, you are doing it all wrong. You shouldn’t chew, you should move the roe with your tongue until the flavor falls apart.”

Toji stared at you as if you belonged to an alien tribe that’d descended to earth on its way to world domination, his eyebrows creasing at the middle of his forehead. “Now you reveal you were raised as a silver spoon? Woulda been nicer to you if I knew.”

A short laugh cracked into a nasal snort, your hands cutting the air between you. “Not at all! It’s just, my father would make me tag along to some of his business soirees when I was a kid, and they always had the best food there. Well, not the best, but certainly the priciest shit an eight-year-old can put in their mouth.

“And what do you mean nicer?”

He hummed, washing the fishy taste from his mouth with some of his unfinished champagne. A regrettable choice, considering he’d forgotten how disgusting the alcohol felt on his tongue. He winced, “First time I hear ya talk about your family.”

“What? Can’t be true; I mention them all the time.”

“Mention,” he echoed. “Ain’t the same as talking.”

You wondered at what point your roles were reversed. He was the one who stubbornly refused to mention his folks, and up until a month ago, you didn’t even know what his last name was.

“There’s not much to talk about.” Your lips pursed around your glass while Toji insisted on drilling holes through your thick skull. He had no intention to drop this.

“I’ll tell you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s all boring, anyway. If you fall asleep—”

“Cut the intro.”

You bit back a comment and dug straight into the story.

“My dad started off in the textile industry. Used to run a small yarn company with a fellow classmate. They made it big for a while; branched out from Tokyo to Fukuoka and their rep grew nationally. Every clothing store in the country used their wares, and they must have thought ‘Hey, why not test our luck elsewhere?’— I wouldn’t know; I was too young.

“Thing is, when compared to Japan’s fish tank of a market, China is a whole damn ocean with man-eating sharks. Quality doesn’t cut it versus sweatshops, and it didn’t take long before they went bankrupt, closing their stores and losing all of their investments.

“Yamada-san flew to Korea, and they never talked again, while dad—he,” you paused, lifting the glass to your lips, champagne tasting like tar. “He drunk. All day long and all evening long, he drank himself unconscious on the couch, the carpet, and even the front door once. His excuse being that he couldn’t get himself a new job, that no one was hiring at the moment, and that damn moment lasted 5 whole years before he decided he’d had enough and slammed the door on us.”

“What about—”

“Mom?” You smiled habitually. “She was there. Down with one sickness or another, her symptoms varying from a simple cough to weeks of catatonia. It was as if whatever poison my father injected in his veins made it back to her, and with him gone and her in that state, I was the only one available to take care of the house. But it was fine, you know? As long as we were together, I was fine cleaning, cooking, and playing nurse.”

Silence stilled the room, somber at its best and deafening at its worst.

“Wanna know what the final straw that made him leave was?”

Toji didn’t answer, certain you’d go on regardless.

“Donburi.” A strained chuckle poured out of your lips; dark, hollow, and devoid of any ebullience. “Fucking donburi. She tried to cook him donburi for his birthday but couldn’t keep an eye on the stove ‘cause she got dizzy and the fish burned to a crisp. She served the rice and the vegetables, all intact, but the fish was missing and h-he… He broke the plate against the kotatsu and packed his things right after. That was the only time Mom talked back to him. She asked why, and you might think that’s pathetic, but—”

You rearranged your thoughts. “She asked him why, and all he said back was ‘Because she isn’t deadweight. Because she doesn’t smell like death. Because she doesn’t let the fish get toasted.’ That was the final thing he said the final time I saw him. Don’t even know if he’s dead or alive, and as for my mom… You know she’s not here anymore. Passed away three weeks after he bailed.

“And that’s my shitty life’s shitty story,” you concluded, consciously leaving out the part that linked your culinary cultivation and hopes for your father’s return.“Nothing interesting or fun about it. Just a big pile of shit piling on top of each other from the beginning to its ending.”

You were about to give yourself a refill when his fingers snared around your wrist. You locked eyes, your vision of him distorted as the green in his eyes overflew, his pointy nose, and the slanted scar of his lips trading places. He appeared like one of those Picasso cubism paintings from your art textbook, except his features were more beautiful than a human brain could ever perceive to draw, even in their disarray.

You let him return the champagne glass to the trolley while his fingers studied your face with the same curiosity your eyes studied his. You thought he was going to kiss you again, and maybe the notion crossed his mind too, but he must’ve decided against it, using his mouth to try and console you instead.

“Should’ve let me fuck you, stupid,” Toji mumbled, the pads of his thumbs repeatedly swiping below your eyes like windshields, his facial structure making sense once more. You’d lost track of how many sobs you’d kept bottled up until they started to hiccup out of your throat and wet his fingers.

I wish I’d let you fuck me.

“Lost your motivation?” Your voice was still unstable.

“Nah,” he shook his head. “Just don’t want your sappy face ruinin’ the mood. Can’t make ya cry under my dick if you’re already crying for someone else.”

Your reflection stirred in shades of green as you threw your head against his shoulder, laughing harder than you thought possible. He always came up with the worst things to say, and yet nothing could have comforted you more than the inner frustrations of a teenage boy in heat.

His hands dropped limp between your bodies, while yours looped his neck in a tight embrace. “Can’t believe you tricked me into sayin’ all that when I don’t know the first thing about your family.”

“Your folks are dead ‘cause they died. Mine been dead to me since birth.”

You propped your chin against your elbows. “What do you mean?”

“That I don’t have a family,” he said.

“You wouldn’t talk like that if you didn’t.”

“Then I don’t need one.”

“Don’t say that. If they’re still alive—”

“Then I’ll kill ‘em dead,” he hissed. “How’s that for an answer?”

Convinced that ought to shut you up, Toji planted his fingers at your ribs and attempted to detach you from his body with half-baked conviction, when your mouth opened again and you uttered the one thing he wasn’t prepared to hear—not on that day, nor in a million days either.

“What if I was your family?”

A complaint scratched his throat, his own words prickling his tongue before dissolving into a heavy sigh against his chest, one that served as your cue to continue.

“Even if we don’t need anyone—no, even if no one else needs us, how about we need each other just a little bit? I’ll need you, and you’ll need me. So let’s be family, Toji.”

He remained deep in his thoughts for a long while, unknowingly kneading your sides as if you were a life-sized stress ball meant to relieve his tension. You couldn’t read him. Not from that angle or any other, for that matter. He wouldn’t let you. He didn’t want you prying at a side of him so pathetically ugly and insecure that not even he had the guts to stand up to.

And so he took his time waiting, testing the waters with every combination of verbs and articles already tried out. Words that’d earned his face red smacks and gotten his hair soaked in all types of beverages—not excluding the hot kind. He’d fill you in on the terrible, horrible things he’d done to deserve hatred, give you a glimpse at the true nature of an abomination, as his parents endearingly called him, and if that wasn’t enough, he’d show you. Overpowering a fragile little thing was nothing. He’d force himself on you, squeeze you for all your body’s worth, and then toss you aside like a squeezed lemon cup.

It was that easy, really, but the longer he let the words fester, the keener he found himself to plug the holes in his ego with a more permanent solution.

“Y’are throwing yourself into a bigger pile of shit, know that?”

You held onto a chuckle, unaware of the effort poured into his statement, while you lightly toyed with the frayed edges of his hair. “Used to the stench. Besides, stepping on shit is said to bring you luck, no?”

By the time you pulled away, an intimidating frown was etched deep into his features, his expression similar to that of a cat being hugged against its will. It didn’t take long for the two of you to nest back into the pillows (with one acting as a partition), share a pepperoni pizza upon his request, and browse through the hotel’s porn archives anew—only this time, he’d given you the honor of choosing.

“The hell is a doodle?”

Your brain was still asleep when your eyes fluttered open, failing to identify the humongous white fluff that warmed your face until you peeled it off. Bear…? No, not just any bear. A panda bear, though that didn’t explain its origins or the reason it sat on your head either. You wondered if someone had tried to suffocate you only to give up halfway through, but when you nearly lost your eyesight to the blinding lights above, you appreciated the kindness in the proprietor’s heart.

You buried your face back into the plushie’s belly and rolled onto your side in a fetal position, the memory of your sunglasses too distant for you to question their sudden disappearance. For now, all you wanted was for the lights to go away and for the voice in the speaker to quit yapping—

As if a current charged your joints with electricity, you jolted against the bedpost, the realization of you enjoying a nap in a semi-public space coming with a heavy dose of panic once you spotted a pair of stretched legs to your left.

“Don’t like the jungle schlong?” The legs, or rather, the mouth that belonged to their owner asked.

A deep exhale jogged your memory of the furniture store and present-day Toji, his younger counterpart vanishing as an apparition of the past.

You flipped the toy around until you spotted the tag hanging from its right foot. Djungelskog.

“Very funny,” You exclaimed, shoving it against Toji’s face, who in turn threw it under his armpit. “How long was I out of it?”

“An hour, more or less. They wanted to call security but changed their minds after some Chinese couple bought the same bed,” he sneered. “Got such a cute sleeping expression when ya drool all over yourself.”

You scrubbed your jaw with the back of your hand, feeling the crisps of saliva deteriorate. What were the death rates for suicide by plush toy asphyxiation in Japan again?

“Y’are welcome,” he answered in case you felt like thanking him for saving you some face.

“So, how did it go with the salesgirl? Shagged her yet?”

Like a gravure model, Toji propped himself against the bed, tilting his cheek into his palm. “Jealous?”

You scoffed. “Hardly. Just wondering how long before you lose your touch now that you are nearing your thirties. Should find yourself a dutiful young wife to clean your denture before it’s too late, old man.”

He was uncharacteristically quiet until his hand dug into his pocket to reveal a rectangular blue note that he slid across the covers. “Not a chance, kiddo.”

You seized the paper, thrilled to see the words “10% off” spelled in yellow capital letters. “That’s actually impressive! How did you do it?”

“Trade secret,” he shrugged.

You decided you didn’t need to hear the rest. This was enough for both the furniture and his treat— maybe even groceries, if his mood remained unspoiled. “Just won yourself a second cone,” you beamed, wiggling your way across the edge of the bed. “Come, let’s get the stuff and go home.”

“I’ll go first,” Toji declared as he leaped to his feet.

“Don’t want your new girlfriend getting the wrong idea?” you smirked. “Fine, fine. I’ll meet you at the warehouse.”

Without confirming your assumption, he hastily strode off through the doorless entryway, leaving the bear plushie behind to endure your wrath for when you’d finally discover there were two sides to the coupon and the backside that read “Newlyweds Discount”—his name reaching his ears about five rooms later.

A/N: I have the need to mention that their IKEA date was inspired by 500 Days of Summer and that the toilet was a gag in Better Call Saul. In the Mood for Love is an amaaaaazing movie, that I definitely recommend for angst lovers! Also, all the porn movies I mentioned are LEGIT lmao, I wish I was joking. Oh, and this chapter features a lot of foreshadowing for the next one, guess what it is and enter the giveaway for a--- yeah, no. I'm joking, but the foreshadowing stands.

tags: @absoluteindulgence , @evansuvamp , @sarwhorius , @liluvtojineteyam , @whodoesthatanymore , @m00dycr4nkybitc , @tzutology , @lilykitt3 , @whispers-of-lilith , @batafuraikisu , @zerotwo-sciencequeen , @vel1ia , @allen-444

Just went ahead and tagged those of you who commented, hope I got everyone right.

Comment to be tagged on future updates!

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mister-random · 5 months ago

Text

Ok last one I swear, I just really like writing things I imagine based on songs

For some reason Abel goes back to Argentina with Mauga during carnival times, in that moment their relationship reached a point where Abel could no longer avoid expressing what Mauga made him feel.

Abel meets with some friends who are murgueros (Argentine murga is an artistic expression that is characterized by the combination of music, shiny costumes and dances, and is performed in parades, carnivals or corsos) Abel and his friends paint and dress up Mauga so that he can be part of the vibes, Abel dresses for the occasion too. They spend their time dancing, playing music, participating in foam wars, eating, drinking, and at one point Abel gets brave and joins the murga to perform a song for Mauga while he's dancing.

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Negra Murguera

Como un curda que despierta arruinado en un fuentón Like a drunk who wakes up ruined in a fountain Se levanta y empieza a recordar He gets up and starts to remember Los sucesos ya lejanos, de la noche anterior The distant events of the previous night Una negra, polvareda y revolcón A black woman, dust cloud and a tumble (Tumble in spanish is a way of saying intercouse)

Sos la murga que nace en la entraña del malón You are the murga that is born in the guts of the malón De la raza que destila este sudor Of the people that distills this sweat Con un ojo emparchado y un cacho de corazón With one eye patched and a piece of heart Cuando se pone pura grasa la pasión When passion becomes pure fat

Murga murguera Murga murguera Agua de zanja Ditch water Piel de vereda Sidewalk skin Llevame con vos Take me with you

Al suburbio mundano que no tiene escalafón To the mundane suburb that has no hierarchy Donde pintan buenos-malos, qué sé yo Where there's good, bad, what do I know? La tristeza es un vaso que también se desfondó Sadness is a glass that also broke down Ese día que al tum-tum la gambeteó That day when he randomly dribbled her

Murga murguera Murga murguera Agua de zanja Ditch water Piel de vereda Sidewalk skin Llévame con vos Take me with you

Murga murguera Murga murguera Bajo tu cielo estrellado Under your starry sky Se agitan las melenas The manes flutter Llévame con vos Take me with you

A tocar hasta que sangren las manos To play music until our hands bleed A tocar hasta que sangren las manos To play music until our hands bleed A tocar hasta que sangren las manos To play music until our hands bleed A tocar hasta que To play until

En medio de la resaca In the middle of the hangover Intenta muy lento la murga entonar The murga tries to intone very slowly Pero es un vago lamento But it is a vague lament Parecido al viento que lo hace pensar Similar to the wind that makes him think

Sos la musa minusa que me trae inspiración You are the beautiful muse that brings me inspiration Yo te juro que no dejo mi tambor I swear I won't leave my drum Porque verte, morocha, es tan linda sensación Because seeing you, brunette, is such a nice feeling Sólo toco para que bailes vos I only play so you can dance

Negra murguera Black murguera Subí a la comparsa Get on the comparsa Y mové tus caderas And move your hips Llévame con vos Take me with you

Y en la calle ya se dice que no era como soy On the street they already say that I was not who I am Qué querés, si la ternura me brotó And what do you want? If tenderness sprouted from me Y estos versos tan melosos que tu danza se robó And these sweet verses that your dance stole Son la prueba irrebatible de un amor They are the irrefutable proof of love

Negra murguera Black murguera Subí a la comparsa Get on the comparsa Y mové tus caderas And move your hips Llévame con vos Take me with you

Negra murguera Black murguera Desde la luna azulada From the blue moon Se ve tu pollera Your skirt can be seen Que rompe el dolor That breaks the pain

Y me da ganas de meter la pata And it makes me want to screw up Y me da ganas de meter la pata And it makes me want to screw up Y me da ganas de meter la pata And it makes me want to screw up

Y me da ganas de (negra murguera) And it makes me want to (black murguera) Y me da ganas de (negra murguera) And it makes me want to (black murguera) Y me da ganas de (negra murguera) And it makes me want to (black murguera) Y me da ganas de (negra murguera) And it makes me want to (black murguera) Y me da ganas de And it makes me want to

Él mientras vuelve a su casa He while returning to his home Repasa los pasos que tiene que dar Review the steps he need to take Y culpa a la borrachera And blames the drunkenness De haberse olvidado a la negra... Having forgotten the black woman... Donde, Camilo?, donde? Where, Camilo? where? En un bar In a bar

#overwatch 2 #overwatch #ow2 #maugaloa malosi #mauga #oc x canon #ow mauga #overwatch imagines #delulu land #I just imagine him really getting into dancing and enjoying the celebration and makes me so happy #He doesn't understand a word of the song but from the physical gestures Abel makes he can imagine that it has something to do with him #All of Abel's friends looking at him like “U down bad for real”#Everyone would be in awe for Mauga tbh look at him #Youtube

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dexterswifey · 7 months ago

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Mysterious Fangs - Chris Sturniolo Part 7

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Part 7 Part 8

Relationship:vampireoc!Meris Hawthorne x human!Chris Sturniolo

𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: 𝙰 𝚕𝚘𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎—𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜. 𝚂𝚒𝚡𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗-𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛-𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝙼𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚜 𝙷𝚊𝚠𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝. 𝚃𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚟𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚊𝚐𝚘, 𝚜𝚑𝚎’𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚗𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚒𝚐𝚑 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚕 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚑𝚒𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍, 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜, 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚞𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚜’𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎. 𝚃𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢’𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚝 𝚊 𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚎𝚝 𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚏𝚎, 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚊 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚋𝚘𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚜 𝙼𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚜’𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚊𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚞𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗.

⚠️𝙸𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚎𝚜⚠️: 𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍, 𝚂𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗, 𝙰𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝, 𝙵𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏, 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚖𝚞𝚝??

The group had reassembled in the living room, the energy bubbling even higher as Marliene clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Alright, people,” Marliene announced, her grin absolutely devious. “We’re upping the stakes. It’s time for seven minutes in heaven!”

The room erupted into a mix of laughter, cheers, and a few groans of protest.

Meris froze. Seven minutes in heaven? Seriously? She shot a glare at Marliene, who winked back unapologetically.

“Classic rules,” Marliene continued. “We spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on gets seven glorious, uninterrupted minutes in the closet with their partner. No bailing!”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Ash groaned, though he was clearly amused. He grabbed an empty soda bottle and placed it in the center of the circle.

“Who’s first?” Marliene asked.

“I’ll go,” Roxxane volunteered, kneeling down and spinning the bottle with a flourish.

Everyone leaned in as the bottle slowed, finally pointing at Felix. Roxxane smirked while Felix blushed furiously, but they both gamely got up and disappeared into the hallway closet, leaving the group to wait and shout jokes after them.

When they returned a few minutes later, laughing and dodging teasing questions, the game continued. One spin after another paired up unlikely duos, each new round adding to the hilarity and drama.

Eventually, it was Meris’s turn. Her stomach twisted as she reached out and spun the bottle, the shiny glass reflecting the string lights as it whirled.

Please don’t let it land on Chris. Please let it land on literally anyone else.

The bottle slowed. Everyone leaned in.

And then it stopped—pointing directly at Chris.

The room erupted into whoops and cheers, and Marliene’s grin could have powered the entire town.

“Well, well, well,” she said, her voice practically dripping with satisfaction. “Looks like our new favorite pair gets some alone time.”

Meris felt her cheeks flush, and she risked a glance at Chris, who looked equal parts surprised and amused.

“I mean, rules are rules,” he said with a shrug, standing and offering her a hand.

Meris hesitated for only a moment before taking his hand and letting him lead her toward the closet. Marliene shoved the door open dramatically, revealing a small but cozy space crammed with coats and shoes.

“Seven minutes,” Marliene called, her voice teasing. “Make them count!”

The door shut behind them with a click, muffling the laughter and noise of the party.

Meris leaned against the wall, her nerves jangling. The closet was small, and Chris stood close enough that she could see every detail of his face in the dim light filtering through the cracks.

“Well,” Chris said, breaking the silence with a soft chuckle. “This is… definitely not how I expected the night to go.”

Meris let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, same.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke, the quiet feeling oddly intimate.

“So,” Chris said, his voice gentle, “are you okay? You seemed a little nervous earlier.”

Meris looked up at him, caught off guard by his genuine concern. “Yeah, I’m fine. Parties just… aren’t really my thing.”

Chris nodded, his expression understanding. “Mine either, honestly. I came tonight because—” He stopped himself, his gaze flicking away for a moment before returning to her.

“Because what?” Meris prompted, her voice quieter now.

Chris hesitated, then smiled, his honesty disarming. “Because you invited me. I wanted to spend more time with you.”

Meris’s chest tightened at his words, her defenses wavering. He was so open, so sincere—it made her feel both vulnerable and safe at the same time.

“Chris…” she started, but she wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

“What about you?” he asked softly. “Why did you invite me?”

Meris swallowed, her mind racing. She couldn’t tell him the full truth—not yet—but she also didn’t want to lie.

“Because you’re… different,” she said finally. “In a good way. And I… I like being around you.”

Chris’s eyes softened, and he took a small step closer, his presence warm and grounding.

“I like being around you too,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

The moment stretched, charged with an energy Meris couldn’t quite name. She felt her instincts flare—the heightened senses, the awareness of his pulse, his warmth—but she shoved it all aside, focusing instead on the way he looked at her.

Before either of them could say more, the door suddenly burst open, and Marliene’s face appeared, grinning like she’d just won the lottery.

“Times up, lovebirds!” she declared.

Chris stepped back, laughing, and Meris tried to keep her composure as they rejoined the group.

As the teasing started up again, Meris glanced at Chris. He caught her gaze and gave her a small, reassuring smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back.

Maybe tonight wasn’t so bad after all.

The party eventually began to wind down, and as the crowd thinned, the energy shifted. The pounding music was turned down to a low hum, and people sprawled across couches and chairs, talking and laughing in quieter tones. Meris found herself sitting on the back porch, wrapped in the cool night air.

She hadn’t planned on escaping out here, but the noise inside had started to feel overwhelming again, and she needed a breather. She leaned against the railing, looking up at the stars. The crisp air helped clear her mind, but her thoughts still circled around Chris.

The sound of the door creaking open behind her made her turn.

“Mind some company?” Chris asked, stepping out with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets.

Meris smiled softly. “Not at all.”

He walked over, stopping beside her at the railing. For a while, they just stood there in comfortable silence, their breaths visible in the chilly air.

“It’s quieter out here,” Chris said after a moment, his voice low.

“Yeah,” Meris replied. “Needed a break.”

Chris glanced at her, his expression thoughtful. “You seemed kind of off in there. Are you okay?”

Meris hesitated, her instinct to keep her guard up clashing with the growing trust she felt for him. “I’m fine,” she said eventually. “Sometimes I just… need some space. That’s all.”

Chris nodded, his gaze returning to the stars. “I get that. I feel like I’m always trying to figure people out, but sometimes it’s just easier to step away.”

Meris glanced at him, surprised by the way his words mirrored her own feelings. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Chris turned to her, his eyes searching her face. “You don’t have to tell me, but… if there’s ever anything you want to talk about, I’m here.”

The sincerity in his voice caught her off guard, and for a moment, she felt the weight of her secret pressing down on her. She wanted to tell him��to explain everything—but the risk was too great.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

Chris leaned against the railing, his shoulder brushing hers. The small contact sent a jolt through her, and she was hyper-aware of how close he was.

“You’re kind of hard to figure out, you know,” Chris said, a teasing smile tugging at his lips.

Meris raised an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”

He shrugged, his smile softening. “You’re quiet, but then you’ll say something that completely surprises me. It’s like you’re letting me see little pieces of who you are, but never the whole picture.”

Meris swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “Maybe I’m just… complicated.”

Chris chuckled softly. “Aren’t we all?”

They fell into another silence, but this one felt heavier, more charged. Chris shifted slightly, turning to face her more directly.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, his voice softer now.

“Sure,” Meris replied, her heart picking up despite herself.

“That thing you said during the game, about letting someone in… Was that about me?”

Meris froze, her mind scrambling for a response. She felt exposed, like he could see right through her.

“Maybe,” she said finally, her voice quiet but steady.

Chris’s eyes searched hers, and then he smiled, the kind of smile that made her feel like the rest of the world had fallen away.

“Good,” he said simply.

Before she could respond, he reached out, brushing a stray strand of hair away from her face. His hand lingered for a moment, his touch warm and grounding.

Meris felt a pull between them, something undeniable and magnetic. Her instincts warred with her emotions, but for once, she let herself lean into the moment.

Chris moved closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’re full of surprises, Meris Hawthorne.”

She smiled faintly, her gaze flicking to his lips before returning to his eyes. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

For a moment, it felt like the rest of the world disappeared. The only thing that mattered was the space between them, shrinking with every second.

But then the door creaked open again, and Marliene’s voice broke through the spell.

“Meris? Chris? Are you guys out here?”

Chris stepped back, his expression a mix of frustration and amusement. “Looks like we’ve been found.”

Meris sighed, giving him a small smile. “Yeah. Guess we should go back in.”

As they turned to head inside, Chris leaned down slightly, his voice low and meant only for her.

“This isn’t over,” he said, his tone making her shiver.

Meris didn’t reply, but the warmth blooming in her chest said everything she couldn’t.

taglist: @ncm9696 @heebiemyjeebiesposts

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toyota-supra · 10 months ago

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points on Bomb Rush Cyberfunk so far:

I've only really used the skateboard and the inline skates so far, but I much prefer the former. something about the latter does not go with me so good and I'm not even sure if they're actually different

that said, the movement as a whole feels really good, so it's easy to forget the objectives and just keep doing combos for fun

however, for a game that's so fun to combo in, it really bothers me how much it likes to interrupt you. most story triggers happen when you reach a certain number of tags or get close to a certain area, and then the game cuts to a scene showing this happen and then back to you. sometimes it just teleports you somewhere else, breaking the combos entirely! this is genuinely such awful pacing for exploring a level it baffles me. and the game even has the mechanic to talk to npcs, so why not have story events start that way???

similarly, while the police is an interesting mechanic to keep players going, the heat builds too quickly, and every time you get a new heat level, another cutscene interrupts your flow

another thing with the police is that it seems that they prevent you from changing characters, so you have to get rid of them by finding a bathroom, but the bathrooms aren't marked in the map, and if you've already visited one in this run it'll be locked, and sometimes the game changes your character to Red for a story moment, so now you're stuck as him for the time being,

I really wish you could maybe permanently get rid of the police in an area by getting enough heat that a special boss shows up and if you beat it, they're all gone. or if you just get every tag in an area

in Tony Hawk's games, whenever you had a timed objective, if the time ran out while you were doing a combo, the timer would then stay on zero until you landed the combo or bailed, which is when the game would move on. In Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, as soon as the timer is over, the game stops you, even if your combo was still going. and it doesn't even stop your combo, it just stops the game as a whole and you don't get to see the final result

the story is pretty fun

like, this game took so long to be made and it was made with a lot of care, so I'm really just frustrated because some of these are basic things that these types of sports games already figured out decades ago

#brc post

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themegachessatron · 1 year ago

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A Review of my time in Skyrim's Prisons (Featuring some followers): Castle Dour Dungeons

The dead speak! This is part six of my ongoing series reviewing the prison facilities in each of Skyrim's major cities. I'm sorry this one took longer than the others, I just came back from a place with very poor internet and could not post for a while.

In this chapter we examine the capital of Skyrim, Solitude. Expectations for the Castle Dour Dungeons are high given its location in the imperial and indeed national capital. I'm anxious to see if it lives up to such lofty expectations or falls short and gives the Stormcloaks another reason to hate Tullius' guts.

Upon entering my cell I was presented with a notably scarce décor. There is a table provided with seating for two and a single sleeping space (are they expecting us to have friends over for lunch?). Also supplied was an adequate lighting source, an additional chair off to the other side of the cell (for all one's third wheeling needs), a waste disposal bucket, multiple sacs into which things can be placed and a pile of hay which is presumably to act as sustenance in the event a steed ends up in here for horsing around the city. I had noticed that the southern-left wall appeared to have some faulty bricking installed which I have to consider a shortcoming of the maintenance of this facility. I was about to investigate further when I encountered an issue.

He keeps doing this. It's become a recurring issue. I am here to experience this prison fully from the perspective of a prisoner and yet Inigo insists on quickly releasing me at every turn. I had asked him this time why he paid my leave and how he had acquired the funding to do so, but he responded by saying that he hadn't paid any bail at all and refused to elaborate further. I'm scared. This Khajiit clearly knows something I don't which worries me deeply.

I at this point decided "to the Far Shores with it" and did the review at whatever way I so chose. Inigo made it clear that integrity was for the feeble anyway. I examined the central room outside my cell and was greeted with a truly breath-taking sight. Apart from some choice walling which I will elaborate on later, this building is simply magnificent in terms of architecture and structure. It's a sight to behold with expertly laid out cells and a torture chamber, a feature not seen in any other prisons so far. Though the presence of a torture chamber is likely motivated by the civil war, it can also function as an effective deterrent from any hopeful escape artists trying to free themselves or reach the belongings chest to retrieve their potions of vigorous well-being or the like. The layout and structural design of this facility puts every one previously reviewed to shame, with one exception.

This wall is frankly pathetic. It obviously stuck out from the moment I arrived and exposing it to so much as a minor gust fully collapsed a person-sized chunk of the wall leading to a potential escape route. Now, I'm hardly a qualified construction worker but this does not seem well put together at all and creates a myriad of issues, least of all giving prisoners an escape route. Falling bricks may not only put the safety of prisoners at risk but unattended bricks may be used as weaponry to attack innocents. This is simply shoddy and nothing else. I had expected better.

Following the resulting path led to a greater issue. This path goes directly to the prisoner belonging chest and leaves said chest fully exposed. Now admittedly the chest, like all belongings chests, is protected by a very strong lock but the point still stands that easy access is granted to prisoners who are afforded the luxury of retrieving their aforementioned potions of vigorous well-being to keep themselves in shape during the escape should an altercation break out. This opening, much like the faulty walling that created this escape route, is also the result of shoddy build quality and upkeep in Castle Dour. It may look impressive but it very evidently folds like a deck of cards.

Beyond this lay a very short trip to the exit out into the city through a sewer drain. This exit combines the worst elements of Dragonsreach Dungeon and Riften Jail to form an utterly uninspired and uninteresting route to escape that leaves little to make the escape feel special for the fleeing criminal. Still, I suppose beggars cannot be choosers when you are escaping prison.

Emerging from the drain onto the city streets reunited me with my team who, with the exception of the ever-unpredictable Inigo had decided not to partake in the bulk of this review. They had been fortunately spared from the events that led to my Solitude arrest which may or may not have involved getting up onto a stage in the middle of a public execution and singing a song about Goblins (A song which Jordan found particularly entertaining). What I had failed to account for during my following of the escape trail was the Imperial guard finding the wall hole during my escape and following it to chase me down under a new separate charge of destroying Imperial property. This was unexpected, but not unwelcome as it showed diligence in the Imperial guards which I hadn't expected from soldiers not out in the front lines of the war.

In closing, Castle Dour Dungeons were not quite what I had hoped they would be. I had expected a gold standard of quality and while they do excel in guardsman training, interior design and torture, they fall flat in furnishings of cells and structural integrity, two areas I had expected the very wealthy capital city to excel in.

Final score: Seven Potions of Vigorous Well-Being out of Ten Potions of Vigorous Well-Being

Thank you for reading this review. Next time we examine the opposing side of the civil war and see what Ulfric does with people who feel like being just a bit too kind to the Argonian dock workers.

PS: Don't expect another long gap between reviews. That was a one-off and regular service should resume.

#skyrim #tes v #tes v skyrim #skyrim prison review #inigo #inigo the brave #sofia skyrim #Castle Dour #Castle Dour Dungeon #solitude #Jordan the Reikling #lydia skyrim #cool jail #i'm so back #Collapsable walls #imperial legion #Why can't they make a decent wall?

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illbeyourreasonwhy · 2 years ago

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when the time comes, baby don't run (part 3)

(listen, we're just going to ignore how this update is over two years late, okay?)

Part 1

Part 2

“How was your date?”

“It wasn’t,” Alex answers, the words sticking to the back of his throat.

“Dude, you’re still pretending it wasn’t a date? I’m telling you –”

“He didn’t show up.”

Luke, Reggie and Julie all freeze, staring at him with varying levels of shock and confusion.

“What do you mean he didn’t show up?”

“I mean he didn’t show up,” Alex says, swallowing so his voice won’t crack. “I went there, and I waited, and he never… he never showed up.”

His voice breaks at the end. He squeezes his eyes shut, hating it, and when he opens them Julie’s look of indignation has molded into something sadder, sorrier, and she extends an arm to him. And as much as Alex doesn’t want the pitying looks he is sure to receive from the three of them, he is feeling pretty terrible and is in need of comfort, so he joins her on the couch, allowing her to wrap an arm around him and to card a hand through his hair while he rests his head against her shoulder.

“But you were gone for over two hours,” Reggie says, sounding almost as upset as Alex feels. “You waited for him for two hours?”

Alex swallows, feeling incredibly stupid, and doesn’t answer. Julie’s arm tightens around him and he turns his head to bury it in her shoulder, hiding away from the world. She shifts a little, no doubt exchanging looks with the boys over his shoulder. Alex doesn’t have the energy to care about that right now.

“Are you okay?” Reggie asks cautiously, which is really a stupid question based on Alex’s current everything, so he doesn’t bother answering.

Reggie sighs and moves closer, so that Alex is sandwiched between him and Julie, and that’s actually comforting, so he moves away from Julie’s shoulder to offer him a small smile. Reggie smiles back, just as small and sad, and reaches over to squeeze his arm gently.

Next to them, Luke is fuming.

“I can’t believe this,” he rants, pacing angrily. “How could he – how dare he ask you out and then bail on you? Who does that?”

“Luke,” Alex starts wearily, “it’s okay –”

“No!” Luke shoots back. “No, it’s not okay! You deserve better than to be stood up on your first date, which he asked you out on, by the way –”

“Luke,” Julie says sharply, and he stops. “Sit down.”

Luke doesn’t move for a beat, then huffs and stomps his way over to the couch, dumping himself onto the armrest next to Julie. He still looks outraged, but he’s not ranting anymore, and Alex shoots Julie a grateful smile. As much as he appreciates Luke being upset on his behalf, he can’t deal with the anger right now. Maybe tomorrow. But not right now.

She squeezes his shoulder in answer, then straightens up, dragging Alex with her. “Do you want to do something?” she asks him.

“Do something?” he repeats blankly.

“You know, like play a game or watch a movie or something, to take your mind off things.”

It suddenly occurs to him that it’s past ten o’clock on a school night, and that Julie definitely waited up on him to see how his date went. He thinks he probably would have been embarrassed by that if things had actually gone well, but right now, the fact that she is here, that she is hugging him and offering to stay up even longer just to try to cheer him up, makes him so damn grateful for her.

“Shouldn’t you get to bed soon?” he asks anyways, just to give her an out.

“What are you, my dad?”

She rolls her eyes and holds his gaze for a few seconds, just to make a point. Then she smiles a little and shrugs, nodding imperceptibly as if to tell him it’s okay, he’s worth staying up for.

So damn grateful.

“Ooh!” Reggie says, sitting up excitedly and jostling Alex in the process. “Can we watch Big Hero Six?”

“It’s up to Alex,” Julie says, still looking at him. “Do you want to watch it?”

What Alex wants is to see Willie, to ask him why he stood him up on a date he asked Alex out on. That, or he wants to get behind his drums and play as hard as he can until the sun comes up, until his sticks break and his hands are raw, until his heart stops feeling like it might tear itself open every time he breathes.

But he can’t do either of those things right now, not unless he wants to wake up the entire neighborhood, so he nods and shuffles closer to Julie.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

They turn the movie on, and Alex is too busy feeling sorry for himself to fully take in what is happening on screen, but he’s tucked between Julie and Reggie with Luke sitting at his feet and resting against his legs, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s going to be okay.

It’s going to hurt like hell for a while before that, though.

Alex doesn’t see Willie over the next two days. He doesn’t exactly go looking for him, either. Lately, Willie was always the one to seek him out, but he is staying away now.

Considering the fact that Willie was about 50% of his social life, Alex finds himself now having a lot of time on his hands. That isn’t helped by the fact that the other 50%, the band, don’t seem to be around much either. Julie is in school most of the time, and Luke and Reggie keep mysteriously disappearing for hours at a time. Alex has his suspicions as to where they might be sneaking off to, but he doesn’t have to heart to call them out on it, so he lets them be.

Until –

“We have a confession.”

He looks up from the guitar – he was using this extra free time to strum a tune; he’s no Luke, but he’s half-decent – to meet the slightly sheepish looks in Reggie and Luke’s eyes.

“Oh, you’re back,” he comments. “Next time you two decide to go gallivanting together on a band getaway, maybe let your drummer know beforehand.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“That’s what the confession is about.”

Alex watches as they hesitantly sit across from him; Luke looks jittery, his leg bouncing more than usual, while Reggie won’t meet his gaze, twiddling with his ring.

“We kind of … went looking for Willie.”

They both wait, apparently anticipating a big reaction of some kind – maybe tears, or anger, Alex doesn’t know. But he only sighs.

“Yeah, I know.”

“What?”

Reggie stops wincing to instead stare at him, dumbfounded, while Luke looks utterly confused. “Since when?”

“Since you two started disappearing right after Willie stood me up? It wasn’t hard to connect the dots.” The boys at least have the decency to look a little bit sheepish. “What I don’t get is why.”

“Why what?”

“Why did you go looking for him?”

Luke stares at him as if it were obvious, while Reggie shrugs.

“To give him hell for messing you around?”

It sounds like a question by the end of his sentence, his voice getting more and more hesitant as he watches Alex’s face react to this information.

Alex groans.

“No. Guys, no. Tell me you didn’t go fight Willie on my behalf or something as stupid as that.”

“We didn’t!” Reggie hurries to say.

“Because we didn’t find him,” Luke adds. “That’s kind of why we’re here. We were wondering if you knew where he might be?”

“I’m not telling you guys where you can ‘give him hell’,” Alex states firmly. “He’s a good guy, I’m not going to let you haunt him.”

“A good guy who stood you up,” Luke mutters.

That stings. He knows Luke didn’t say that to hurt him, though, that he is only upset on his behalf, so he just sighs.

“I don’t need you to fight my battles.”

“Then come with us! I mean, you must want to give him a piece of your mind, right?”

“Not really,” he lies. “And if I did, I wouldn’t use that as an excuse to harass him.”

“We’re not harassing him,” Luke huffs.

“We haven’t even found him,” Reggie points out. “But yeah, it’s not about that. We just think he owes you an explanation.” He looks at Alex with a wounded sort of sadness. “Don’t you want an explanation?”

Yes. Yes, he does. He wants to know why Willie asked him out only not to show. He wants to know if he did something, if there’s a reason Willie has been avoiding him for two days. He wants to know if everything they had meant anything to Willie, the way it did – does – to him. He wants to know if Willie knew that Alex was going to sit on the beach and wait for two hours for him.

“He is the one who stood me up,” he says after a long moment, ignoring the way the words pain him. “If he wants to explain, he can come on his own. He knows where to find me, and we clearly don’t.”

The others must be able to tell he means it, because they don’t mention that he could probably find Willie, and instead let the matter drop.

They don’t bring up Willie at all, actually, until the next day during rehearsal. Willie is noticeably absent, which hasn’t happened in a while, but no one mentions it. That is, until Alex can’t handle the way everyone seems to be walking on eggshells around him and he snaps, slamming on his drums a fraction too loud and causing everyone to turn to him in alarm.

“Stop doing that,” he snaps. “Stop hovering, stop glancing at each other when you think I don’t notice, and stop looking at me like I’m going to break.” He notices the way Reggie withdraws into himself and winces, forcing himself to lower his voice. “I’m sorry,” he says, quieter. “I didn’t mean to yell. But I’m fine, so please stop acting like I’m not, because all it’s doing is making me think about why he’s not here, which then makes me mess up the songs.”

It’s quiet for a beat, then Luke says, “Yeah, dude, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you kind of botched the whole pre-chorus there.”

His voice is light, teasing, although his eyes are still searching for any sign of distress on Alex’s part. But Alex feels himself smile, relieved to slip back into familiar territory.

“Yeah, because you guys’ fretting is throwing me off my game,” he shoots back, although there is no heat to his words this time. “So can we try that again?”

“Actually, let’s take five,” Julie says, standing up. “We’ve been at it for hours, and my voice will break if I don’t drink water right now.”

She pats Alex on the arm as she passes him but other than that doesn’t say anything, which he appreciates. The same can’t be said for Flynn, who is sitting on the couch.

“So, I only caught parts of that rant, you were kind of flickering,” she says, leaning forward, “but I’m assuming it was about Willie?”

Alex shrugs, not in the mood to open up about this, but she goes on, undeterred.

“How are you doing?”

“Peachy,” he replies.

She snorts, then her face goes back to serious. “Seriously, I’m sorry about what happened. Willie seemed really into you.”

“And how would you know?” he says, a little shortly, but sue him, he doesn’t want to talk about this.

Besides, Flynn doesn’t seem bothered. “We talk,” she says simply, apparently missing the four curious looks this causes the others to send her. “Well, talked. I haven’t heard from him in a few days. Otherwise I would have chewed him out for standing you up.”

Alex feels something in him soften at her words. He likes Flynn, but they aren’t close by any means, and they haven’t really had the chance to ever properly talk. But the fact that she is loyal to him enough to be willing to talk to Willie on his account means a lot.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says, though, because she doesn’t, and because he already told Luke and Reggie off for wanting to do the same thing.

“Yeah, well, he didn’t have to be an asshole to you,” Luke cuts in.

“But that’s the thing,” Alex says, frowning, because something doesn’t add up, “he’s not an asshole. He’s a good guy, and I don’t get why he would just stand me up and then ghost me afterwards.”

Flynn looks pensive, and she must be taking this seriously if she won’t even comment on his use of ‘ghost’.

“Maybe he didn’t mean to, and now he’s embarrassed,” she says hesitantly, although she herself doesn’t look like she really believes it.

“Didn’t mean to?” Julie repeats dubiously.

“Yeah, maybe it was an accident,” she says, sounding a little surer of herself. “Maybe he lost track of time or something. I mean, that’s what happened to you guys at that club the night of the dance, right?”

And just like that, Alex feels the ground give way under his feet.

Not literally; he’s still standing here, in the middle of the studio, but he can’t see Flynn in front of him, can’t hear Luke speaking next to him. Everything around him seems distant, faraway, as he stumbles with the weight of his realisation.

“Caleb,” he gets out.

Suddenly Julie is there, bracing a hand against his chest, and his vision clears enough to focus on the worry in her face.

Somehow, he manages to pull himself together, take in his friends’ expressions. Based on the looks on their faces, they’ve reached the same conclusion he has, but he still needs to say it out loud.

“Caleb – Caleb must have found out. He must have found out that Willie helped us, that he told us about the stamps and he helped us with the Orpheum and he’s been coming here and god, that’s why he didn’t show up, that’s why he hasn’t been around, Caleb has him somewhere and that’s why you couldn’t find him…”

His voice is ragged and his breath is coming in short, desperate gulps. Julie’s hand is still on his chest, her other cupping his cheek as she tries to get his eyes to meet hers instead of darting furiously from place to place.

“Breathe, Alex,” he hears Reggie say.

But how can he breathe with the knowledge that Willie is out there, at Caleb’s mercy, has been for days and Alex didn’t even notice because he was too busy feeling sorry for himself?

“Alex,” Julie says seriously, calling for his attention. “Look at me.”

He does.

He does, and when he meets her gaze she reaches for his hand and squeezes, taking a deep breath and indicating for him to do the same. He takes a breath, and then another, and then another, and the buzzing in his ears slowly fades out and he can focus on his surroundings again. Julie looks relieved to see him back to himself, squeezing his hand again.

“We don’t know that’s what happened,” she reasons.

And she’s right, of course, this is just a theory, they don’t know that Caleb found Willie out, but they don’t know that he didn’t, either.

“We can go looking for him,” Reggie adds. “Do you know any of his hiding spots, anywhere he might look for shelter?”

It’s an eerie echo of what he asked not a day ago, and Alex could kick himself for bailing on looking for Willie just because he was sulking. For goodness’ sake, he knew that Willie was worried about Caleb, they talked about it not even a week ago –

He can’t focus on that right now, though. Reggie is right, they can go looking now, make sure that this didn’t actually happen. Now that Alex is coming back to himself, all he can think of is that he needs to see Willie, right now, to make sure that he is okay.

He chances a look towards Julie, feeling slightly guilty about ending an already subpar rehearsal, but she is already nodding.

“Go,” she says.

He poofs away the next moment.

He ends up at the boulevard. It’s where he and Willie met, where they agreed to meet up more than once after that. He looks around wildly as if Willie might be waiting for him here. There are hordes of people around him, talking, ambling aimlessly down the street. But no Willie.

Luke and Reggie appear next to him.

“Hey,” Luke says, resting a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Where do you want to start?”

Alex looks at the two of them, feeling lost. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where, how to start.

He looks around at the boulevard again. He hadn’t really had a destination in mind when he poofed away, just thought of Willie and followed his gut. Willie isn’t here, but Luke and Reggie are. They followed him. They always have.

He doesn’t even mean that in the sentimental way. From the start, from the moment they showed up as ghosts in Julie’s studio, he has been able to get a sense of how far Luke and Reggie are when they’re not around. It’s in that split-second before he starts to poof away, when he is still thinking of a destination; he can feel them, can feel a pull towards them, and he can trust that following it will lead him to them. He knows they feel it too. It’s what brought them here now.

He has felt that pull towards Julie, too, since the Orpheum. But not towards Willie. So how is he supposed to find him now, when he doesn’t even know where to start?

Except –

Willie must feel that pull towards him. Because Willie has always been able to find him, to show up out of the blue in the most random of places. So maybe… maybe it’s a skill ghosts have, and if he tries hard enough, it’s a skill he can hone in enough for it to lead him to Willie.

It’s worth a try. He has to try, if it will help him find Willie.

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and thinks of Willie. He thinks of his smile, of the mischief in his eyes, of his laugh. He thinks of the feel of his hand in his, of how warm Willie’s gaze makes him feel, of his never-ending support and patience. He thinks of the way Willie makes him feel: free, and hopeful, and like anything is possible.

He thinks of their first meeting, of Willie complaining about his board when he was the one to knock Alex over, of Willie taking his helmet off and making Alex’s mind short-circuit, of Willie cheekily telling Alex to keep up, of him patiently answering each one of Alex’s questions. He thinks of himself falling for Willie, even then, and somehow knowing already that Willie was meant to be a part of Alex’s life for a long, long time.

He thinks of Willie, and tries to find him, wherever in the world he might be.

“Alex?” Reggie asks after a few moments.

“I don’t know,” Alex cries out, frustrated, feeling the last of his concentration slip away. “I don’t – I have no idea where to even start.”

His heart is beating wildly in his chest and he can feel himself start to spiral, but he can’t help it, not when this is Willie’s existence on the line. He can’t – he can’t –

Reggie finds his hand and squeezes it.

“That’s okay,” he says, and it’s not, it’s not okay, but Alex tries as hard as he can to believe that it is. “Alex, that’s okay. We can do it.”

It takes everything in him, but Alex is able to take a deep breath and push the panic at bay, thoughts coming a little clearer. The panic is still there; he doesn’t think it will leave until he knows Willie is safe and sound. But he can focus on Reggie now, can listen to what he and Luke have to say.

“We can?” he asks, his voice breaking. He’s too worried to be embarrassed about it.

“Of course we can. We will.”

“We can split up,” Reggie says. “Cover more ground. Can you think of anywhere you’ve been with Willie before? Anywhere, it doesn’t matter.”

“Uh…” An image pops into his head. “Above Sunset Boulevard. On the roofs. We went stargazing there once.”

“I’ll go,” Luke offers at once, and Alex could cry with how much he loves his friends.

“Great. Where else?”

“Skate park,” Alex says. He can’t believe this isn’t the first place he thought of.

“Which one?”

“All of them. The ones in LA, I mean. Oh, and Justin Bieber’s pool, too.”

Luke frowns. “Who’s Justin Bieber?”

Alex laughs. It’s short and breathless and a little hysterical and doesn’t sound quite right. “No idea.”

“Alright, I’ll go there,” Reggie says. “Luke’s got Sunset. You take one of the skate parks, we’ll go to others once we’re done with our places.” He meets Alex’s gaze. “We’ll find him. We will.”

Alex nods, at the moment unable to form any words.

“And if you think of anywhere else, let us know. We’ll go there too.”

He nods again, and Reggie smiles a little. It’s strained and worried but the sentiment is there and Alex is so grateful for him.

Reggie poofs away. Luke prepares to go too, then pauses and squeezes Alex’s shoulder.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Alex swallows. “Thanks, Luke,” he says quietly, hoping Luke can tell how much he means it.

Luke just smiles and leaves, and the next moment Alex disappears to the skate park.

They search for the rest of the day. By the time night falls, Alex can’t count the number of places they have gone to. Skate parks, rooftops, street corners, random spots on the beach.

He saves the museum for last. Everywhere else he went – the beach, the parks, the roofs where they would sit and talk for hours – all those places he checked with a frantic sort of desperation. But the museum he can’t bring himself to go to until he has nowhere else left to look. It’s too painful. He has never been there without Willie, and the memories of everything that happened there – the handholds, the heart-to-hearts, the screaming – hit him like a truck when he steps inside.

More than anything, he misses Willie, in a way he didn’t let himself think about until now, too buried under the hurt and then the fear. But he does. He misses Willie like a crushing weight on his chest, misses their talks and their banter and everything in between. He just wants to see him again.

But he’s not there.

As Alex walks around the museum, he realises there was another reason he saved this place for last. If this is the most likely place where Willie might be hiding, he doesn’t know what he will do if he doesn’t find him here.

As it is, each step he takes feels harder than the last. Unlike all the other places where he searched frantically, he takes his time here. He looks everywhere, checks every corner, makes sure to leave no figurative stone unturned. He can’t afford to miss anything.

It isn’t until he has gone around the museum three times that he accepts – has no choice but to accept – the fact that Willie isn’t hiding here.

Alex screams for a long time, alone this time.

He spends so much time worrying about what might have happened to Willie and whether he will ever see him again that when he does, he freezes.

He is sitting on the roof of the studio, trying to trick his mind into taking a break from imagining the million different ways Willie might be suffering right now by taking in the warm evening air, when Willie appears.

By appears, Alex means he comes into view around the corner and walks up to the studio as if all is well in the word, as if he hasn’t been missing for four days, two of which Alex went half out of his mind searching for him. He walks, no skateboard in sight, hugging his arms to his sides and wearing a slightly guilty look on his face, and Alex is so stunned that Willie has almost made it to the door before he reacts.

He shakes himself out of his daze and slides off the roof, landing right in front of Willie, who jumps.

“Willie,” he breathes.

Willie’s eyes widen, darting across his face.

“Alex.”

Alex can’t move. Having Willie here, in front of him, okay, after Alex spent the past two days in varying states of distress over his wellbeing, is too much to handle. All he can do is stare, stare, and stare, take in, drink in the sight of Willie being here, being okay.

Then Willie says, “Alex, I’m so sorry,” and something in him unlocks.

He all but tackles Willie into a hug, pulling away before Willie can even properly wrap his arms around him back so that he can give Willie a once-over. “Are you okay?” he asks frantically, distantly aware that he is patting him down as if searching for injuries. “I was so worried, are you alright? I thought something happened to you, I thought –”

“Alex,” Willie says, reaching out to grasp Alex’s flailing hands. He lets go as soon as Alex stills, and Alex tries not to focus on how much that stings. “I’m alright,” Willie says, swallowing. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Alex nods once, twice, eyes still roaming Willie’s face with a sort of wild desperation.

“Where,” he starts; his voice catches and he clears his throat, trying to get a grasp on his jumbled emotions. “Where have you been?”

Willie’s face twists guiltily. “I’m sorry. I – Caleb came back.” Alex’s breath hitches in his throat and Willie hurries on, placating. “He doesn’t know about the Orpheum, or any of the rest. But he definitely suspects, and I… I had to stay away.”

Alex takes in the information, feels himself calm a little. It’s okay. Willie is okay. That’s all that matters.

“When you say he suspects…”

Willie hugs his arms to himself again, his thumb rubbing circles against his wrist. Alex desperately wants to reach out and hold his hand, provide some kind of comfort, but he doesn’t know if it would be appreciated in Willie’s quiet, fragile state.

“He knows you and I are close,” Willie says, managing the ghost of a smile, the first one since his reappearance. “And you guys found out about the stamps and found a way to defeat them, so – definitely looks a little suspicious.” He frowns. “By the way, how did you beat his stamp? Did you ever find out?”

Alex pauses, confused, before suddenly realising that he never did tell Willie about what happened the night of the Orpheum. At first he was too overcome with emotion because of his reunion with Willie to go into detail, and then… it just never came up.

“It was Julie,” he says simply now. “She saved us. She found us, and she was able to touch us. When she hugged us for the first time, we became stronger.” He pauses, the memory of that night enveloping him, the warm feeling that wrapped itself around him and his bandmates when they realised they were free, they were going to stay together. “She said she loved us. It’s her love for us that saved us, I think.”

Willie’s expression has molded into something like awe. “I have never heard of anything like that.” He shifts, smiles a little. “But I’m glad it happened. Good thing Julie has superpowers, huh?”

Alex is able to huff out a small laugh. It doesn’t land quite right. He doesn’t like this, doesn’t like this sort of distance that he feels between himself and Willie that wasn’t there before, but he doesn’t know how to fix it.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he ends up asking, his voice coming out softer than he intended.

Willie starts, looking surprised by the question, but he recovers quickly. “Yeah,” he says, smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He looks so tired. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

His voice, at least, sounds sincere, so Alex decides to let it go. Willie can talk to him when he is ready.

“Okay, good,” he says, ignoring the worry churning in his gut.

Willie opens his mouth, closes it, looks away. He rubs the back of neck, glancing back at Alex. He hesitates, then sighs.

“Listen,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry about… about not being able to come to the beach.”

Alex feels his heart jump to his throat, because they haven’t talked about this, about what it meant. But Alex can’t stand the look in Willie’s eyes, looking wrecked with guilt as he avoids Alex’s gaze.

“It’s alright,” he says. And it is, but it isn’t, but Alex isn’t going to put this on Willie; it’s not his fault that Caleb decided to resurface right on time to ruin their maybe-date. “What matters is that you’re okay.”

Willie swallows. He is still hugging his arms to his sides, and this time Alex gives in to the urge to reach out and pull one of his hands into one of his own, intertwining their fingers.

“Maybe,” he says, heart beating wildly in his chest, “we could try that again? One of these days?”

He waits, hardly able to breathe. Willie looks at their hands for a long moment, before squeezing once and letting go.

“I don’t know, Alex,” he says quietly. “With Caleb back… I’m going to have to be really careful.”

Alex feels himself nod, shoving his hands into his pockets. He can feel tears building in the back of his throat and firmly shoves them down. He gets it, of course he does, and he knows it’s not about him, that Willie needs to take his precautions to stay safe and off Caleb’s radar, but he can’t help but think it feels like rejection.

It doesn’t help that the next thing Willie does is clear his throat, glancing behind him, and say, “Well, that’s all I came here to say, so…”

He trails off, glancing behind him again, and shuffles on his feet as if readying himself to leave. Alex watches him, heart in his throat, and wishes he knew how to make this better.

“Okay,” he says quietly instead.

Willie nods, his eyes still on Alex, and starts to turn around.

Alex’s arm reaches out. “Willie.”

Willie whirls back around, eyes lingering on Alex’s hand on his arm briefly before flitting back up to Alex’s face.

Alex swallows. “You know you’re always welcome here, right? Always.”

Willie offers him a wobbly smile. “Thanks, hot dog.”

Alex smiles back, and Willie lingers for another few seconds, looking on the verge of saying something. In the end he shrugs, giving Alex one last smile, and leaves.

Every time he left before this, he has always either skateboarded or just poofed away. Alex doesn’t think he appreciated those times enough. He wasn’t ready for how much it hurts to watch Willie walk away from him.

The following days are… odd.

Willie is back, which is great; but it’s also kind of not. He comes by the studio, albeit less often, and he watches them perform, but he doesn’t participate the way he used to. Where he used to hover near Flynn, he now tucks himself into the corner of the couch, folded into himself. Where he provided them with feedback after a song, he now remains in an almost sullen silence. Where he used to find any excuse to get close to Alex, he now only touches him sparingly, almost only when Alex initiates the contact in the first place.

His eyes are still on Alex, though. That, at least, hasn’t changed.

It’s especially evident about a week after he returns. Practise is just ending, Luke wants to go over the bridge of their new song for the third time, and Willie just said he was about to leave. That is another thing that has changed; Willie used to stay well after the actual rehearsal, but he never lingers now. Alex assumes it’s because he has to be more careful now that Caleb is back, but it’s hard to read Willie these days. (And doesn’t that hurt to think about.) His friends have been a lot warier around Willie since he hurt Alex, despite Alex telling them not to, so maybe that has something to do with it, too.

Whatever the reason, he is about to leave, waving goodbye at the lot of them from across the room, casually breaking Alex’s heart with the distance between them.

And that’s when Nick arrives.

“Hi, Julie!” he says brightly, something familiar in his smile that Alex can’t place. “Am I catching the end of rehearsal?”

Alex doesn’t hear Julie’s answer, because Willie freezes. His face goes slack, eyes darting wildly between Nick and the band. Alex wants to go over and ask what is wrong, but he can’t, because they’ve noticed they are most often visible right after playing, which means Nick can definitely see him now and it would look weird if he were to speak to thin air. The irony of being a ghost unable to speak to another ghost due to his visible state is not lost on him. He suddenly feels a lot more sympathetic towards Julie.

He settles for trying to catch Willie’s eye, but Willie seems to be determinedly not looking in his direction. He has schooled his face into a neutral expression, looking so unfazed Alex might think he imagined it all in the first place. He knows he didn’t, though.

None of the others seem to have noticed a thing. They are all focused on Nick, who is speaking with Julie.

“It’s just something we’re working on,” she’s saying.

“Doesn’t that sound promising,” Nick says.

He is still smiling, but Alex can’t help but think it looks odd, like his smile is too old for his face. Okay, that sounded weird. That’s just – those are just the words that came to mind.

“Can I hear it?” he asks.

Julie looks like she is about to say yes, but Luke beats her to it.

“It’s not quite ready yet,” he says cheerfully, all but glaring at the kid. “We’re going to keep it under wraps until then.”

Julie rolls her eyes, but Nick doesn’t look annoyed. In fact, he almost looks amused.

“Of course,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to be difficult.”

He says that last part pointedly, although Alex has no idea what he might be hinting at. Julie doesn’t either, based on the confused look on her face, which is even stranger.

“Maybe we can play something else,” Reggie suggests. For half a second it looks like Luke might protest, but then he seems to realise, like Alex, that they could lose their visibility any minute, which would be very complicated to explain to Nick, so maybe they should play some music.

Julie moves back to behind the piano, and Alex chances a glance back at Willie. His face still looks carefully blank, but his eyes betray panic as he watches Nick move further into the studio, and what the hell is that about? Why is Willie so nervous about Nick? There is no way he is afraid of some lifer kid, so what is it?

Nick settles on the couch, unknowingly placing himself right next to Willie, who doesn’t seem thrilled by this. Alex tries to catch his eye again, but he is staring straight ahead, not even looking like he is seeing anything.

Alex keeps looking at him, so concerned that he doesn’t even notice they have started playing. It is only when Julie gives him an amused, “Alex?” that he realises he missed his cue.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says hastily, forcing himself to focus back on his drums and not Willie’s odd behaviour. It’s a lot easier said than done.

“It’s okay to have a false start,” Nick says pleasantly, as though Alex asked for his input, “as long as in the end you get results.”

“I have to go,” Willie says quietly at the end of the song, effectively snapping Alex out of focus and reminding him that, yeah, Willie said he was leaving five minutes ago. He is finally looking at Alex again, too, but there is something urgent in his eyes, screaming at Alex to understand, and Alex doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just say it, it’s not like Nick would hear…

And then Willie waves, glances from Nick back to Alex, and walks out of the studio.

Okay. So. What the hell?

Alex has been turning it over and over in his mind all day, trying to figure out what the heck was up with Willie today. And so far, he has come up blank. It just doesn’t make sense. And Alex hates not knowing what is going on with Willie, hates that he is so out of touch with him that he has no idea what is going on inside his head.

Okay, he can’t focus on that right now or he might cry, so he should go back to trying to figure out what happened today.

He doesn’t have to wonder long.

Willie stumbles through the studio doors, so out of breath it looks like he might collapse. Alex barely thinks about it before poofing down from the loft to Willie, catching him and helping him stay upright.

“Alex,” Willie gasps. “I just – managed – to get – to get away,” he heaves.

Alex blinks. “Did you – did you run here?” He’s about to ask why Willie wouldn’t poof over or even skate, when Willie taps his arm urgently.

“Alex – it’s Caleb. Nick – it’s Caleb.”

Alex frowns, dragging Willie over to the couch. “What’s Caleb? Breathe, you’re not making any sense.”

Willie lets himself be sat on the couch, but he clings to Alex’s wrists when he starts to move away, eyes dead serious.

“Caleb is Nick,” he says, still out of breath but not gasping for air anymore. “He’s possessing him.”

Alex drops his hand in shock. “He’s – what?”

“He is possessing him,” Willie repeats. “Today, when Nick came to rehearsal – that was Caleb.”

Alex’s blood runs cold. “What?”

His mind flashes back to all the times Nick has been coming to rehearsal, so often since the Orpheum. If it was Caleb – if Caleb has been possessing Nick – he has been using him to get close to them, he has been here, watching them, in their space without them even knowing…

“Why didn’t you tell us?” he says, feeling like his heart is about to bound out of his chest as he takes in what all this means. “We let him near us – we let him near Julie.”

“I didn’t know,” Willie says desperately. “I didn’t know it was someone you knew, that he was doing it to get close to you, until today.”

Alex thinks he nods, barely aware of what he is doing. His mind feels like it is in overdrive, buzzing with thoughts flying around too fast for him to tape them down. He needs to find the others, warn them, figure out what to do, how to protect themselves.

“I have to go,” he manages.

Willie’s hand shoots out before he can move.

“There is more.”

“There is more,” Alex repeats, his voice raising half an octave. “I don’t know if I can take another bombshell.”

Willie is still on the couch; he has caught his breath, but now he lets out a distressed huff and runs a hand through his hair. He meets Alex’s eyes and swallows.

“You remember the day I asked you out on a date?”

And despite the absolute everything of this situation, Alex’s ridiculous heart skips a beat because this is the first time either of them has acknowledged that it was actually, really, truly supposed to be a date.

“I meant to come, Alex, really, I swear I didn’t mean to leave you hanging, but Caleb came back.”

“Yeah, I know,” Alex says, a little confused because Willie has told him this already, so he doesn’t understand the urgency in his voice.

“He came back, and he just… he knew everything, Alex.”

Of course he did, Alex thinks, seething quietly, because if he has been possessing Nick this whole time, then he would have been there the day Willie came back to him the first time, after the Orpheum. Willie wouldn’t have paid attention to him, wouldn’t have noticed anyone besides Alex, but Caleb noticed. He noticed everything.

“What did he do?” he asks, almost afraid of the answer. But it can’t be that bad, right? After all, Willie is sitting in front of him safe and sound, right?

“He threatened to wipe me out of existence,” Willie answers, his voice barely above a whisper, and okay, it is that bad.

“But he didn’t,” Alex says, aiming for reassuring, but Willie’s face twists guiltily and he feels a chill run down his spine. “He didn’t,” he repeats.

“Not yet,” Willie says. “He has taken away my skateboard privileges, but that’s not everything.” He swallows, suddenly looking afraid to meet Alex’s eyes. Alex itches to reach for his hand, but something holds him back. “He said I had to find out how you were able to escape his stamp. He said it was my last chance, or I was gone.”

Alex goes through a very rapid of succession of emotions then. First comes terror at the idea of Caleb following through on his threats. Then, more dread at the realization – no, confirmation – that Caleb won’t ever stop trying to own them, and that he is willing to use Willie to get there. And then, finally, his stomach drops when he realises that he already has.

“By the way, how did you beat his stamp? Did you ever find out?”

Willie’s words ring in his head; the memory of him evading Alex’s touch, avoiding his eyes, is all-encompassing as he remembers it all. It had been the first thing he asked when he got back, and Alex had told him, had told him about Julie, god…

“I didn’t tell him.” Willie is still talking, his voice growing desperate, begging for Alex to listen to him. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I swear I didn’t tell him, Alex. I swear. You have to believe me.”

The thing is, he does. Maybe it’s naïve, or even downright stupid, considering everything he just learned, but Alex knows Willie, and he believes him. This is the first time he is acting like the Willie he knows and lo – cares about since this whole thing started. And that has to mean something.

Plus, if Caleb is still posing as Nick, then he must still be fishing for information.

But if Willie doesn’t give him what he wants…

“What about you?”

A small smile makes its way onto Willie’s lips. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Have we met?”

Willie doesn’t stop smiling, but Alex can tell he has never been more serious.

“I made my choice. I’m not putting you or your friends under his control ever again. So I’m not telling him anything, and I’m leaving.” He pauses, wrapping his arms around himself. “I don’t know if I can escape him, but I have to try.”

Alex thinks his mind must finally be shutting down from trying to process all the new information, because it has slowed down to one simple thought. “You’re leaving?”

Willie nods slowly. “I just came here to warn you about Nick. And to say goodbye.”

Alex finds himself unable to say a word. His mind is still reeling and there are a million things he wants to say to Willie, but at the moment he has no idea what they are. He can only look at him.

Willie reaches out then, one hand cupping his face, thumb caressing his cheek almost absent-mindedly, and Alex can’t breathe.

They stay like that for a few seconds, and Willie smiles wistfully, a small, sad smile, before pulling away.

“Bye, hot dog,” he whispers.

He lingers for another moment, then turns to leave. And Alex finally comes back to himself.

“Willie, wait!”

Willie turns around, face open and wary and afraid and maybe a little hopeful.

“Don’t go.”

Willie sighs. “Alex, I –”

“We can figure this out,” he insists, and he knows he sounds desperate but he can’t not, because this is Willie and he can’t lose him again.

“Alex,” Willie says, and he sounds so defeated, so sad, and Alex’s heart breaks for him. “There is nothing we can do, okay, Caleb owns my soul, it’s not like there is a loophole we can use or anything like that.”

“Maybe there is.”

Willie’s arm jerks minutely, like an aborted attempt to reach for him. “I’m just trying to protect you,” he says.

“I’m trying to protect you,” Alex says, and means it, even if he has no idea where to start.

Willie pauses, eyes searching him wonderingly. “Why do you want to help me?” he asks, frowning. “I just told you I was spent to spy on you.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t.” In a knee-jerk reaction, Alex almost said that Willie didn’t have a choice, but the truth of the matter is that he did, and he chose not to tell Caleb what he found, and he is choosing to leave now to attempt to keep Alex and his friends safe from Caleb. “And I… I care about you, too, Willie,” he adds softly. “I don’t want you to go.”

Willie’s face twists at his words, and he looks like he might cry. Alex reaches for his hands.

“At least let us try,” he says. “We’ll call everyone, we’ll all put our heads together, and we might be able to find a solution. We can try, okay? Just…” He squeezes Willie’s hands, breath catching in his throat. “Don’t leave.”

Willie takes a deep breath, visibly shaken, but eventually he nods. “Okay,” he whispers. “We can try.”

An emergency meeting is called in the studio. All that has been said so far is a recap of everything that Willie revealed to Alex, and Alex watches as his friends take it in, silently reeling. Julie took the news of what happened to Nick especially hard, and Alex has no idea what to do as he helplessly watches her pace the studio.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she mutters, mostly to herself. “He doesn’t deserve this, and I… I didn’t even notice – I should have known…”

Luke has been watching her worriedly from his seat on the couch, but at those words he stands up. “How could you have known? We didn’t even know possession was something Caleb could do.” He takes her hands gently, finally getting her to look at him. “Julie, you can’t blame yourself. If we hadn’t been so bent on getting revenge on Trevor, none of this would have happened.”

Willie shakes his head. “No, this is on me. I never should have taken you to him in the first place.”

And Alex might be feeling just as guilty as everyone else in the room based on the looks on their faces, but looking around, seeing how miserable his friends look, spurs him into action.

“No,” he says, somehow finding himself on his feet. “Okay, no, we’re not doing this. We’re not playing the blame game. What is happening isn’t our faults. It’s no one’s fault but Caleb’s.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Alex blinks and suddenly Flynn is there, appearing in the doorway. She looks just as stressed as the rest of them, but she manages a comforting smile when she meets his eyes.

“You called Flynn?” Reggie asks Julie, sounding surprised. Alex doesn’t blame him; it’s nearing midnight.

“We’re going to need a good plan, so we need her,” Julie says, and yeah, that sounds about right. "But I didn’t expect you to come in the middle of the night,” she adds in direction of her best friend.

“I was awake when I got your text,” Flynn shrugs. “And when I read what happened, there was no way I was going to sleep, so. Here I am.” She raises her phone. “I texted you to say I was on my way.”

“Oh.” Julie fishes her own phone out of her pocket, presumably to check for Flynn’s message. “Sorry, I’ve been distracted.”

“Yeah, can’t blame you.” Flynn glances around the room. “Is everyone here?”

“We’re all here.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow. “Huh. I can see you,” she says, gesturing to Alex, “and you,” this time she pointedly looks at Luke, who is still holding one of Julie’s hands, “but not Reggie. I guess you don’t all have to be visible at the same time.”

Huh, indeed. They should probably start figuring out the patterns and variables of their visibility and solidness once all this chaos is over.

“Anyways,” Flynn says, clapping her hands, “Blondie here is right. There is no need for anyone to blame themselves, and frankly, there is no time for it, either. So chins up. We need to figure out what we’re going to do, and fast.”

“Hey, Julie?” Reggie says. “Calling Flynn? Good call.”

And despite everything, Julie musters a smile. “I know.”

“Know what?” Flynn asks, looking around as if finding Reggie would let her hear him.

“That you’re awesome,” Julie says. “And that we can’t do this without you.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow, looking pleased despite herself. “Damn right you can’t. So, what exactly are we looking to do?”

“We need to free Nick from Caleb,” Julie says at once, burrowing closer to Luke for comfort.

“And save Willie’s soul,” Alex adds. “So that he can be free of Caleb too.”

Flynn lets herself drop onto the couch, unknowingly landing between Reggie and Willie. “Nothing too complicated, then. Great.”

“In movies, people usually break free from possession when they have people they love remind them of who they are,” Flynn says.

“That’s in movies, though,” Julie refutes. “Besides, none of us know Nick well enough to break him free, and it’s not like we can get his dads involved.”

They have been at it for hours now. Reggie became visible two hours in and startled Flynn, who shrieked and jumped from the couch when he suddenly appeared right next to her. She is sitting next to him again now, her head lolling back against the back of the couch as the late hour starts to get to her. Pillowed against Luke in the armchair, Julie is blinking sleep out of her eyes, but she still wears a determined look on her face. She won’t go to sleep without a solution. None of them will.

They have been bouncing ideas back and forth, deciding to focus on how to help Nick first as it seemed like an easier issue to solve. They haven’t really gotten anywhere yet.

“Even if you could, it wouldn’t work,” Willie says. “Caleb is too strong. He needs to choose to release Nick.”

“How are we supposed to get him to do that?” Luke exclaims in frustration.

“Do what?” Julie and Flynn chorus.

Luke repeats for them, and Julie folds into herself as she hears, looking just as hopeless as him. Flynn, however, leans forward, a curious look on her face.

“Okay,” she mutters. “Okay, so we just need to find a reason to convince him to do that.”

“Like what?” Reggie says.

“You planning on blackmailing an evil ghost, Flynn?” Luke asks at the same time.

Flynn’s eyes brighten. “Now there is an idea.”

“No!” Julie straightens up in a flash. “No, are you hearing yourselves? That’s too dangerous!”

Alex secretly agrees, but Flynn raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, because what is happening to Nick right now isn’t already dangerous.”

“That’s my point!” Julie cries. “We’re already in enough trouble as it is, and provoking Caleb is only going to make things worse. We need to be careful. I can’t… I can’t lose anyone else.”

Flynn immediately softens, moving across the room to squeeze her hand. “Okay, no unnecessary provoking Caleb. It was a stupid idea, anyways. I mean, what do you even use to bribe an evil ghost who has been dead for five hundred years?”

Julie musters a smile, while Willie clears his throat. “Actually, he’s only been dead for about a hundred years.”

Alex isn’t sure who that was meant for, since Flynn can’t hear him, but Reggie perks up with an interested look on his face. “Really? I would have thought it would be at least two hundred. You know, so that he would have time to assemble all that power and influence.”

“Nah, Caleb has always been a pretty influential guy. Besides, a hundred years isn’t nothing.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“He actually died in the twenties. That’s where the whole aesthetic of the club comes from.”

“Ohh, yeah, I thought I had noticed –”

“Guys!” Alex, Luke, Julie and Flynn all say.

Willie and Reggie both stop talking, pausing to turn to the rest of the crew sheepishly.

“Not that this isn’t interesting,” Luke says, “but we do have an urgent matter to get to.”

“Right, right.”

“Sorry.”

Flynn glances between the two of them. “You were talking about Caleb, right?” Reggie nods, and Flynn’s eyes cloud pensively. “This is good. We can use this.”

“Use what?”

“This,” Flynn replies, waving a hand in Reggie and Willie’s general direction. “Willie’s knowledge.”

Alex winces, wishing she had worded it differently. Willie has been used too many times already. But Willie doesn’t flinch, only looks at Flynn, waiting for her to continue.

“Willie,” Flynn continues, looking at a spot close enough to where Willie is sitting, “what do you know about Caleb?”

Willie shifts, looking uncomfortable with the sudden attention on him.

“I mean… He likes attention? He likes music, and putting on shows. And talent. He is always on the hunt for new talents, that’s why he… he was so interested in you three,” he adds more quietly.

Alex worries at his lip. None of this is exactly new information, and he doesn’t see how they could put any of it to use against Caleb. Willie seems to realize that, and he goes on, obviously racking his brain.

“He likes dealing with people,” he says after a moment. “Making deals, I mean.”

Something in Flynn’s eyes glitters when Alex translates that. “Like bargains?”

Willie nods. Flynn hums, and Julie looks at her warily.

“So we bargain with him,” Flynn says slowly. “Find something he is willing to trade Nick for.”

“And we’re back to blackmailing.”

“This isn’t blackmailing, though. It’s a trade-off. And if he likes deals, this will probably go over better.”

Julie looks a little uneasy, but she nods. “There is less of a chance of that ending badly, probably.”

“But how are we supposed to find something worth bargaining with to someone like Caleb?” Reggie asks helplessly.

“Raid Caleb’s dressing room,” Willie says, at the same time as Flynn says: “Snoop through Caleb’s things.”

Alex, Luke and Reggie stare between the two of them.

“That was freaky,” Reggie says.

“What was?” Julie asks, eyes wide.

“Willie and Flynn,” Luke answers, gesturing vaguely between the two. “They, like, both suggested criminal activity at the same time.”

“It’s not criminal activity,” Flynn says, rolling her eyes. “It’s just digging through his stuff. After what he has done to us, I think my conscience can handle a little snooping.”

“Digging through his stuff implies breaking and entering,” Alex points out. Flynn only raises an eyebrow, as if to say, “So?”.

“It’s not a bad idea, though,” Luke says. “I mean, what better way to understand that guy’s mind than to see what kind of weird shit he has got behind closed doors?”

“Exactly,” Willie and Flynn say adamantly, once again perfectly in sync. Reggie’s eyebrows fly into his hairline; Alex decides to just roll with it.

“How do we accomplish this breaking and entering, though?” Julie asks, ever the practical one. “Flynn and I don’t even know where this Hollywood Ghost Club is.”

“Neither of you will be setting a foot there,” Luke says sharply.

Julie looks like she is about to argue, and Flynn seems furious, so Alex quickly cuts in.

“It’s not because we don’t trust you, or we think it’s too dangerous. I mean, it is, but that’s why it better be ghosts doing the snooping. At least we can make a quick escape if things start to look like they will go south.”

Julie deflates, but she doesn’t look happy about it. “I don’t like the idea of doing nothing while you guys are out there risking your lives.”

“Afterlives,” Reggie corrects absently.

Julie gives him a look. Luke moves to wrap an arm around her and she all but sinks into him, worry lines creasing her forehead.

“I also can’t really do that quick escape thing,” Willie says. “I mean, I can technically poof away, but as soon as I do Caleb can track me. If he catches me and decides to follow me, I’ll lead him right to you.”

That would explain the amount of walking he’s been doing recently. Alex’s stomach churns uncomfortably at the notion of Willie’s every move being watched and followed. The reality of his situation hits him full force all over again: until they get him his soul back, Willie is trapped.

Flynn’s lip curls unhappily, like she was just reminded of the same thing, but she nods. “Okay, then you won’t be with us.” Willie’s brow furrows, but she continues before he has the chance to protest. Not that she would hear it, anyways. “We’ll find something else for you to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like distracting Caleb,” Luke suggests, eyes glinting. Willie and Alex both flinch, and Luke glances at them apologetically, but goes on. “Think about it. If he is talking to you, then he isn’t in his dressing room walking in on us looking around.”

Willie clenches his jaw and nods. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Something in Alex’s heart clenches, constricting painfully. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’ll do it,” Willie repeats.

Reggie lets out a breath. “Alright, that’s… something. That’s a plan, right? This feels like we have a plan.”

Julie manages a smile. “It’s the beginning of a plan, yeah.”

Flynn nods, eyes flickering back to where she thinks Willie is. “You can give him a reason for why the stamps disappeared. Not the truth, obviously, but something he’ll believe. That way we’ll send him on the wrong scent, and you get into his good books.” She pauses. “Or, you know, less bad books,” she amends.

“That’s a great idea, Flynn,” Willie says quietly.

“Have I mentioned I’m really glad you’re here to make this plan with us?” Reggie tells her.

There are huge bags under Flynn’s eyes, her hair is a mess, and it looks like she is only running on pure adrenaline and the three sodas she kicked back at the beginning of the meeting. But she smiles at Reggie, looking genuinely touched, and the exhaustion seems to fade from her expression for a moment.

“You three,” she says, pointing her finger at each of the ghosts in turn, “you be careful. And you bring us back something we can use to talk Caleb into releasing Nick.”

“And Willie,” Alex adds.

She nods vehemently. “Yes, and Willie.”

“Wait, guys,” Willie says, looking between them. “Asking Caleb to let go of Nick’s possession is already a pretty big deal, I don’t know if adding to that is a good idea. It might backfire.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Reggie says. “We’ll just have to find something to give us the upper hand when we bargain with Caleb so that he has no choice but to hear us out.”

“Yeah, Willie,” Alex says, moving closer to him. “We’re getting both you and Nick back. That’s the plan. We’re not backing out of that.”

“But if it starts looking like you’re losing that upper hand,” Willie starts, and Alex just knows he is about to say something stupidly sacrificial like they should forget about freeing him and focus on freeing Nick instead, so he shakes his head before Willie can get another word out.

“We’re not going to leave you with him, Willie. We’re just, we’re not going to do that. That’s just not going to happen.”

Willie frowns. “I put you all through enough already. You don’t need to go through all this trouble for me.”

“Willie,” Alex says, “we want to help.”

He doesn’t know how else to put it so that Willie can understand. It’s that simple, really. Willie is their friend, and they want him to be alright. They want to help.

Something about his words seems to floor Willie, and he pauses, staring at him, before his eyes slowly drift to look at Luke, then Julie, then Reggie, then Flynn, then back to Alex. He swallows, suddenly looking more lost and vulnerable than Alex thinks he has ever seen him.

“I’m not used to… caring,” he says finally, his voice rough. “About people. And having people care about me.”

Alex looks at him, tries to find the words to explain that they do care, that they are his friends and this is what friends do, that no one has cared for Willie in the right way in far too long but that they are willing to try to make up for all of it, that he knows Willie was alone for so long but that he doesn’t have to be anymore.

“We do,” Flynn says quietly, and maybe those are the words Alex was trying to find all along.

Willie shakes himself, and Alex breaks out of the daze he didn’t realize they were both in, registering that someone must have repeated Willie’s words to the girls in that time. He didn’t hear, nor did he see the look on Flynn’s face as she took them to heart, but he is glad she did, because Willie is looking at him now, looking at all of them, like he might believe them.

He moves closer, grasps Willie’s hands. “You’re getting your soul back, okay? End of discussion.”

Willie releases a shaky breath. “Okay."

“Good.” He turns back to the rest of the group. “So everyone is okay with this plan, then?”

He catches Julie’s eye. She is looking between him, Luke and Reggie with a kind of heartbreaking reluctance, one he recognizes all too well. He hates the idea of sending Willie into the lion’s den, hates that this plan has him confronting Caleb and lying to his face, hates what might happen if Caleb were to catch Willie in this lie, but he also knows that it’s necessary if they want this plan to work. He thinks Julie might be feeling similarly about sending them back to the club.

He waits for her to protest, or to tell them to be careful. Instead what she says is:

“When are you guys ready to do this?”

“Tomorrow?” Luke says. “Might as well not waste time.”

“Alright,” Julie says. “Tomorrow.”

It’s like settling it wipes the energy out of her. In the blink of an eye, she leans back against the chair, blinking sleep out of her eyes as the hour catches up to her. Flynn isn’t much better, letting out a loud yawn as her head drops against the back of the couch.

“Alright, let’s get you both to bed,” Reggie says. “If we’re doing this tomorrow, you need to be in shape.”

“Why, it’s not like we’re actually playing a huge part in this plan,” Flynn mumbles, though Alex can tell it’s more for show than anything.

“We need you,” Luke says anyway. “We’re a team, okay?”

Alex smiles slightly at that – it’s such a Luke thing to say, to make them all feel equal, included, special. He has been doing it since the nineties, when they were still busking and struggling – whenever they were tired and ready to give up, he would be quick to rally them, to remind them that he might be the frontman but they were all in this together, his version of all for one and one for all understood in his “We’re a band.” And now he has updated it to “We’re a team,” because they are. They’re all in this together, and Alex knows he wouldn’t be able to do any of this without every single one of them. And he loves Luke for always reminding them of that.

He steps away from the group as Luke drags Julie off the chair, Reggie attempting to do the same with Flynn and apparently forgetting that his grip will simply slip through her, and moves closer to Willie instead.

“You sure you’re okay with doing this for us?” he asks in an undertone. He knows Willie is, but he needs to hear it from him.

“I’m sure.” Alex waits for him to say that it’s the least he could do, that he owes them, or something. That seems to be where his mind is at most. Instead Willie smiles softly and says, “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

“Yeah.” Alex swallows. He suddenly is hyperaware of his hands hanging limply at his hands, and wonders if he should be doing anything with them. “Yeah, you’ve more than proven that.”

The moment lingers between them; Willie holds his gaze, jaw working like he is pondering whether or not to say something. He apparently decides against it, simply cupping Alex’s cheek with so much gentleness he could cry, and smiling. Alex fidgets with his hands, unsure what to do with them, what to do about anything when he feels like his face is on fire.

Willie pulls away, still wearing the softest look Alex has ever seen on him, and Alex immediately feels cold from the minute distance between them.

He wants to reach out, wants to hold Willie’s hand, wants to swing his arms around his neck and pull him close, wants to kiss him until they’re both breathless and then some. But he is rooted on the spot, and he watches as Willie moves to join the others again.

With great effort, Alex shakes himself out of his trance and follows him.

Julie and Flynn have apparently elected to crash on the couch, too tired to make their way back into the house, and Reggie is laying a blanket over them when Alex reaches them. The sight has his heart settle inside his chest, warm and solid and feeling a little like he is home. This is his family. Everyone in this room is his family, and he loves them so, so much, and he will be damned if he lets anything happen to a single one of them.

“So,” he says, quiet so he won’t wake the girls. “Tomorrow, then.”

#jatp fic #jatp #willex #alex mercer #willie #julie and the phantoms #my writing #*#when the time comes baby don't run #listen i know better than to promise the next (and final) part will be out within the next few days at this point #but i will say that it's almost completely written so it's *likely* that it will be out soon #feel free to hold me accountable on that

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