#‘oh I wonder how they got my address. probably tracked my IP’ YOU DON’T FIND THAT PROBLEMATIC BUD???

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

I cannot believe Johnathan Sims, Alexander J Newall and Jamie Petronis had the audacity to make me listen to the words WELCOME TO MY TWISTED MIND with my own two ears

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: Xia Yan’s Personal Story 3-11 Translation

Translation Masterlist | Xia Yan Masterlist | Video

Translated Chapter 3: 3-1 / 3-2 / 3-3 / 3-4 / 3-6 / 3-7 / 3-8 / 3-10 / 3-11 / 3-12 / 3-14

See below cut!

--

Little Alley

Xia Yan walked into that alley.

Xia Yan: I’m here. You can let Tian Xin go.

Meng Qishan whistled.

Meng Qishan: You finally came out, Sphinx.

Xia Yan: Wrong. I’m called Xia Yan, a detective.

Meng Qishan: No problem, no problem. I get it. No one’s willing to be truthful as soon as they step up.

Meng Qishan: Gotta properly “greet” them first.

As he spoke, he tapped the steel pipe in his hand.

Xia Yan: Oh?

With a beckon of Meng Qishan’s hand, he led the group into rushing at Xia Yan—

Xia Yan carelessly avoided the steel pipe striking down at his head with a flash of his body, then immediately made his move!

Bang bang bang – bang!

Within a few seconds, everyone had been knocked down onto the ground by Xia Yan. He used plastic zip-ties to bind the hands of those people behind their backs, after which he reached out and pulled Tian Xin up from the ground. He then turned his head around and nodded towards me. Only then did I run over to him.

MC: Tian Xin, you alright?

Tian Xin: Ahem ahem… I’m good.

There was a patch of pale purple on his face, and his clothes were also dirty. Xia Yan did a cursory inspection of Tian Xin’s wounds.

Xia Yan: They look like they’re all just skin-deep wounds, but it’s best if you go to the hospital for a checkup after.

Tian Xin: Many thanks. That, you two…?

Xia Yan: We’ll answer your questions later. First, we have to ask Meng Qishan about what he wants to do.

After he finished, Xia Yan looked towards Meng Qishan, knocked on the ground and still breathing hard.

Meng Qishan: Tch! Just gonna get shut up for a few days in jail. I’m not scared.

Tian Xin hesitated for a moment, then explained to Xia Yan quietly.

Tian Xin: Before, Feifei and I called the police, but Meng Qishan was very stubborn…

Xia Yan smiled. He lifted his hand, stopping Tian Xin’s words.

Xia Yan: Meng Qishan, you said earlier that, more than speculation, you’ve always preferred rougher methods.

Xia Yan: Actually, I’m sometimes like that too.

Xia Yan: Right, you also said that there’s no monitoring in this place, and the police won’t be able to find evidence, right?

As he spoke, he pulled at Meng Qishan’s shoulder, dragging him into a corner 10 metres in front of us. Tian Xin faced me hesitantly, and I sent a comforting smile at him.

Meng Qishan: Aaarghh--!

Tian Xin: That…

MC: Urgent matters require power to deal with it, and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.

After several miserable shouts in different tones, Meng Qishan was thrown out. Right after, Xia Yan strode out relaxedly from the corner.

Xia Yan: Now, we can chat nicely.

INTERROGATION START

Monitoring Tian Xin

Xia Yan: At the old school building, I’m very certain that no one was following us. You… must have hacked into Tian Xin’s phone, right?

MC: (If he monitored Tian Xin’s phone, he could use the phone’s receiver and microphone. Thus, they would have been able to hear Xia Yan’s and Tian Xin’s conversation at the old school building.)

Xia Yan: When did it start?

Meng Qishan: Two months ago.

Meng Qishan: Two months ago, I received an email, asking if I wanted to get revenge on Sphinx. At the beginning, I thought that it was someone trying to get info out of me. After all, lots of people suspected that my resignation from the detective profession was because of Sphinx.

Meng Qishan: But he spoke of Sphinx’s operation style, so I confirmed that he was like me – a victim of Sphinx.

MC: A term like “victim” coming out of your mouth really changes its meaning.

Xia Yan: Who sent the email?

Meng Qishan: I don’t know who he is. He called himself “Oedipus”.

Oedipus was exactly the person who solved Sphinx’s riddle in the myth. Then did the sender of the email want to hint with this that he definitely would defeat Sphinx?

Relation with Sphinx

Xia Yan: What’s your relation with Sphinx? Why do you want to find him?

Meng Qishan: Since you know about Sphinx, you must have heard of Sphinx’s riddles, right? He sent me riddles before, and I lost. He had me resign from the detective profession. I couldn’t resign myself to that, so I wanted to get revenue on him.

MC: Why did Sphinx send you riddles, and have you resign from the detective profession?

Meng Qishan: I don’t know. You both can search online. No one knows who Sphinx will seek out and challenge…

Xia Yan: It must have to do with your divorce case commission from before, right?

Meng Qishan’s complexion shifted instantly.

Xia Yan: That major loss of yours that time – does it have to do with Sphinx?

Meng Qishan: …

Meng Qishan sunk into silence for a moment, then ferociously spat out.

Meng Qishan: That’s right! It’s exactly because of him that I lost face like that!

As soon as this sentence left his mouth, Meng Qishan started to talk straightforwardly, as if he might as well.

Meng Qishan: At the beginning, when that woman said in court that the man was her male cousin, I thought that my luck was just bad. But not two days after, I received Sphinx’s message. He said that if I wanted to know what happened with everything, then I had to solve his riddle, so I went to solve his riddle.

Meng Qishan: Only at the end did I realize that all of this was his setup!

Meng Qishan: He even threatened me, saying that if I didn’t resign from the detective profession, he would make it even harder for me to keep going on after this!

Meng Qishan: Sphinx…

MC: (So that’s how it was. “Your every move is being watched by me.” This really is a “kill a person by killing their heart” method – no wonder the detectives he defeated all resigned from the profession and buried this matter.)

Crime Plan

Xia Yan: What was your plan with Oedipus?

Meng Qishan: There have been people who’ve imitated Sphinx online before, but Sphinx paid them all no mind, so I asked him how to find that guy. Oedipus said that we just needed to reuse our old methods, and Sphinx would investigate. This time we’d take the initiative and guarantee that we could catch that guy.

Meng Qishan: He had me use that case that Sphinx messed up by following that executive’s wife and harassing her family. He said that he already was monitoring all the phones in that woman’s family.

Meng Qishan: As long as a family member got in touch with Sphinx, we could follow the trail of clues and yank him out.

Xia Yan: …

Meng Qishan: I worked according to plan for two weeks. Though the woman and her family were all very panicked, Sphinx never appeared. Plus, based on the results of monitoring them, they have no relation to Sphinx. When Sphinx helped them before, he never showed his face during the whole process, and he didn’t leave a single method of contact. They also didn’t know how to get in touch with Sphinx.

Meng Qishan: I originally thought that there was no point, but I accidentally noticed Tian Xin’s plan.

MC: Tian Xin’s plan?

Meng Qishan laughed coldly.

Meng Qishan: Haha, that “ɸ” or whatever, and those videos, were all made up by him. He wanted to use livestreams to catch Sphinx’s attention, to have him notice that I was starting to mess with them again and help that woman’s family.

Meng Qishan: Even if Sphinx didn’t notice, he could pretend that there were more people receiving Sphinx’s challenges… making it look like Sphinx was still active, which might scare me and make me restrain myself because of this.

Meng Qishan: Since he was going to be so proactive, I had to beat him at his own game.

Bar Expenditures

Xia Yan: You spent a lot at the bar just now. Where did this money come from?

Meng Qishan: You’re even concerned about where my money comes from?

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan expressionlessly performed a “warning” on Meng Qishan’s shoulder.

Meng Qishan: Aaarrghh--! It was Oedipus, it was Oedipus who gave it to me!

Xia Yan: How much did he give?

Meng Qishan stated a number, basically the annual income of a typical person.

MC: (They were so liberal with their money, so the reason why Oedipus wants to find Sphinx must not be simple…)

Other Partners

Xia Yan: You went to the Nautilus Bar today for business transactions. After, you deliberately went on a roundabout course to lead Tian Xin out. You set this up intentionally because you knew that Tian Xin would follow you today, right?

Meng Qishan: You’ve seen things through pretty clearly.

Meng Qishan looked askance towards Tian Xin.

Meng Qishan: With his bit of unskilled efforts, of course we noticed it early on. Although, I wanted to use him as he fished Sphinx out, so I intentionally let it slip to him.

Xia Yan: After leaving Nautilus Bar, was it your or Oedipus’s idea to deliberately go in circles?

Meng Qishan: It was his idea. I originally wanted to track you both and find you. Didn’t think that you would be pretty good at hiding.

Xia Yan: Aside from “Oedipus”, do you have any other partners?

Meng Qishan: I don’t know. Oedipus and I have only chatted and kept in touch through email and online. We’ve never met. I don’t know if he’s male or female, or a single person or a group of people.

Xia Yan: Open your inbox.

Complying with his words, Meng Qishan opened his email inbox. Xia Yan inspected the email address and tried to do a reverse search.

Xia Yan: He used a lot of jumping boards. There’s no way to track his IP.

MC: Has “Oedipus” reached out to other detectives who have been defeated by Sphinx, like you?

Meng Qishan: Don’t know. Probably.

Xia Yan: Make it clear.

Meng Qishan: Tch… [laughs]

Meng Qishan: I kept operating in accordance with Oedipus’s plan, but Sphinx never appeared. So I asked, is this method alright? Is it reliable? Back then, he divulged one sentence, saying that lots of people were working at the same time, so we’d definitely find Sphinx.

Xia Yan and I looked at each other, seeing the worry in each others’ eyes.

INTERROGATION END

 After interrogating Meng Qishan, we called the police. After the police found out about the details of the case, they immediately planned to bring away the things in Tian Xin’s house as evidence. Thus, after receiving Tian Xin’s agreement, we decided to go to Tian Xin’s house first to inspect it.

Tian Xin: Big bro Xia, you don’t plan to wait for the police to deal with it?

Xia Yan: That’s not the case. It’s just that there are so many cases that the police have to deal with. With the amount of attention they can split towards this, I might as well do it. 

Xia Yan: Plus, they know very little about Sphinx. If they really are going to investigate, I feel like doing it myself would be faster instead.

Tian Xin: So amazing…

Tian Xin: It would be great if I could be as amazing as big bro Xia.

Tian Xin’s tone carried a bit of bitterness and disappointment. Xia Yan and I shared a look.

MC: Tian Xin, you’re also very great. You must have done your best to think up of this method because your friend’s family unfortunately encountered Meng Qishan’s harassing.

Xia Yan: Yeah, it’s thanks to your efforts that Meng Qishan has been caught by the police now.

Tian Xin: Thank you, although… you two don’t need to comfort me. Though I’ve just started university, I’m still an adult. I’m very clear on how capable I am.

Tian Xin: Half a year ago, Feifei’s big sister was framed by that guy, Meng Qishan. I also wanted to help, but I couldn’t do anything at all. After I saw Sphinx act, I really wanted to be like him. Only then did I open a livestreaming account - but in the end, when Meng Qishan started his tricks again, I couldn’t do anything again. I could only try my best to get in touch with Sphinx.

MC: Tian Xin…

He shrugged his shoulders, huffing out like he was indifferent.

Tian Xin: But in the end, I was completely deceived without even realizing it… It’s whatever that I got myself into it, but I almost implicated Sphinx. If big bro Xia didn’t rush here in time…

He reached up and scratched his hair, blocking his face.

Tian Xin: It would be great if I could be as amazing as Sphinx and you, big bro Xia.

He mumbled this sentence again.

Xia Yan: Me, I’ve dreamed of being a hero and a knight ever since I was small, wanting to appear coolly and knock down the bad guys when there’s a crisis.

Xia Yan: But after, I slowly realized that heroes aren’t always cool and impressive. They often are extremely wretched. But no matter how wretched they are, they still must protect those who they want to protect.

Xia Yan: Maybe you feel like you look terrible right now, but I feel like it’s extremely cool in how you did your utmost to protect others!

MC: From a female’s perspective, I’d also like to show my approval! You knew that your videos weren’t well-made and people would hate on them online, but you still persevered in making them to protect your friend. Tian Xin, you really are extremely cool!

MC: Plus, take it slow. In the future, you can become even stronger and more reliable.

Tian Xin froze for a bit. Then, he lifted his hand to prop up his glasses. The reflection of the lenses covered his line of sight.

Tian Xin: That’s true!

[my-fanfic-library]

Something Different {BBC Dracula x Reader} [26]

Masterlist

Warning: soft smut scene ahead.

~^*^~

One... two... three...

Dracula counted the boxes up, careful to remember what was inside. Some contents deserved a little rougher treatment than others. This room, shrouded in darkness, with boxes stacked parallel to the walls was his favourite room. Though he kept it under lock, and had announced to anyone willing to venture into his apartment that it was just a store cupboard, he liked this room very much.

The newest box was sitting in the middle of the room. Dracula smirked proudly at it. This has become his hobby in the last few weeks. Perhaps this little act of cleaning up would get himself into someone’s good books.

The buzzer rang and he turned, stalking out of the room. He knew who it was. It was one, long buzz before cutting off. Locking the door tight, Dracula slipped the key into his pocket and made his way over to the door. Jack stood there, shivering and wet.

“Come in, Jack.” Dracula grinned.

“You’re happy.” Jack retorted.

“Of course I am. How is she today?”

“I haven’t been. I told her about Mark going missing. Her mother isn’t doing too good. She wants to go home. You don’t know what happened to him, do you?” Jack sent an accusatory look at the vampire who frowned immediately.

“Why would I inconvenience myself with something like that? You know I’m busy trying to find Renfield.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Jack stepped further into the room and looked around. It was the same as it always had been. But the scent of you had long gone. Now it was just him and Dracula.

“Did you find any leads?”

“No.” Jack huffed, “nothing. Just the same as last time - still in Southend.”

“That’s not far, though. We’ll need to be on our lookout.”

Jack suddenly got the urge to sneeze and inhaled sharply. A new scent filled his nose, which made his toes curl in disgust.

“Have you showered recently?”

“That’s rude.”

“There’s a stink.”

“Are you sure it isn’t you? You’re damp. Like a dog.”

“It’s not me.” Jack glowered.

“There is no stink.” Dracula insisted darkly.

“You’re probably finally rotting.” Jack mumbled.

“I may be 524, but my age hasn’t impaired my hearing.”

Jack rolled his eyes and slammed his bag down onto the table. Within a matter of minutes, papers full of maps, screenshots and everything in between were scattered over the surface, both men searching for any leads.

It had been two weeks since Dracula had tracked Daniel’s IP address and he now knew your location. He couldn’t bring himself to meet you, though. Something about it felt wrong. He really did feel like a predator...

~^*^~

How had things turned out like this? The past two weeks, the vampire hadn’t really been on your mind. But right now, when you wanted him the least on your mind, he was all you could think about. Your legs straddling someone else, another man’s length filling you, your moans for a different person. Yet, all you could think about was Dracula. Dracula, whos fingers could make you come undone a lot faster than this. Dracula, whos words alone could make you weak in the knees. Dracula, who wouldn’t be lying below you, holding your hips, but would be above you, pinning you down just as you liked it.

His hands weren’t the same. They weren’t as possessive. They were lazy, with no drive. His words didn’t feel the same. They didn’t settle in your gut and leave a burning heat in your stomach. His mouth didn’t feel the same on your scar. No tingle went down your spine and it just felt like chaste. He didn’t bother helping your body. He didn’t even move his hips to help you.

Trailing your hand down your bare stomach, towards your core, you imagined those large fingers, whispering sweet nothings on your skin.

Finally, at the thought of his fingers replacing your own, you began to feel something. It wasn’t intense, but it was there. It lingered in your stomach and maybe if you concentrated hard enough, you’d be able to come. When had sex become so boring...?

You closed your eyes. Instead of seeing one, in your mind’s eye, you began to see the other. Gripping your hips so hard, bruises would form, grinning up at you, rolling his head at the way you felt around him. His hand would come up to your throat, silencing your moans, forcing the air out of your lungs so that everything was focused on the pleasure.

“Come, darling,” his hushed voice would whisper and it would be enough.

It wasn’t like it should have been. It was jolts of pleasure, ebbing away as quickly as it had come. You didn’t see stars, you just felt... better for a split second.

Your sudden high had made him come undone, too, and when you clambered off of him, a stickiness was collecting between your thighs.

“I’ll be back.” You sighed, making your way to the bathroom. You sighed once more, locking the door and turning to the mirror.

Not a single mark on your body. Except for his. That beautiful ridge on your neck, the shape of his mouth, destined to be on your forever. Oh, why did he have to come into your head like that? You pressed your hands against the counter, looking down into the sink for a moment. When you looked back up in the mirror, it took every part of you not to scream.

Behind you, perched on the closed lid of the toilet was the mangled and burnt Lucy. You chocked.

“Surprised?” She hissed.

“...Lucy...” you managed to whisper. You were too afraid to turn around. What if she really was there?

“In the flesh.... well, most of it.” She shrugged, “didn’t you learn the last time?” Her voice was estranged. It was like the sound of freezing cold water hitting a white hot pan. It sizzled and burnt into the nothingness at the end of each word.

“Learn what...?” You were terrified.

“With Daniel...”

“I-... we aren’t dating but that’s none of your business, like last time.”

“I’ve made it my business. He’s coming for you.” She changed the subject, eyeing you.

“I know.” There were about three different “he’s” that she could have been talking about.

“He’s angry. Better watch yourself. Or you’ll end up like me.”

And she was gone.

You looked down at your hands, they were fiercely gripping the counter, shaking. You could hear Daniel calling your name from outside the door, but you ignored him.

~^*^~

“I’m telling you it’s more logical!”

“Which is why he won’t be there!”

“How would you know?!”

“Oh, I don’t know, how about because I’m a vampire - for starters - and I know all the tricks in the book? I’ve got 524 years of experience, Jack.” Dracula narrowed his eyes. He was starting to wish he had killed him when he had the chance.

Jack made a noise of frustration and took a step backwards from the table. He needed to recollect his mind. No, he needed to get away from Dracula before he smacked his head so hard against the table that it exploded.

“If you insist on being an asshole, I’m leaving for a bit.”

“I’m not being an asshole. I’m telling you how it is.” Dracula scowled.

“You’re being an asshole and I’ll be back in like an hour.”

The autumnal wind send a bitter chill down Jack’s spine. He didn’t mind. The rustling of the leaves in the wind reminded him of where he is. Like the headstone didn’t.

He sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets as he stared at the stone, reading the words over and over. It still felt fresh. He still couldn’t believe her fate. After everything she had done, after all of her hard work, God had truly let her down.

“You were the best person in the world, and a mixture of cancer and a vampire killed you. That’s kinda badass.” Jack spoke quietly to her. He wondered if she could hear him, “I’m worried about [First].” He confessed, “I feel like... I feel like she’s about to end up the same way you did. Or Lucy. I don’t know how to stop it from happening.”

Over the rows of final resting places, past the chapel, under another tree, stood a figure. Jack fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He rushed to the tree, ducking behind the trunk, hoping that he hadn’t been seen.

“Miss me already?” Dracula’s cocky voice rang through the phone.

“He’s here. He’s at the cemetery.”

~^*^~

“Renfield!” Dracula called, as if greeting an old friend. He didn’t know where Jack had hidden, but he supposed it would be inside the chapel. All holy things still didn’t go well with vampires...

“Count Dracula.” Renfield spoke with a cool tone. Dracula had a feeling he wasn’t forgiven for throwing him off of the balcony quite yet.

“It’s been a while.” Dracula stated.

“Indeed. The last time we spoke, you threw me over your balcony.”

“You did try to eat my girlfriend.” Dracula scoffed, amused.

“Yes, is she still with you by any chance?”

“No. You can’t have her. We’ve been through this.” Dracula neared Renfield.

“If she’s not with you anymore, then she’s not under your protection.” Renfield mused, “there is nothing to stop me, Count Dracula.”

“There is - me. No matter where she is, or who she is with, there is always me to deal with before you near her. I will have no quarrels throwing you down another 20 storeys, or perhaps a cliff.”

“Are you threatening me, Count Dracula?” Renfield laughed in astonishment.

“Yes.” Dracula stated.

“Good. This will make it interesting.”

~^*^~

Dracula and Jack argued into the night. Dracula was desperate to get near to you now. He had told Jack he knew where you was, but had been faithful to his trust and not gone to see you. He had kept his distance like promised. But with Renfield hot on their heels, it was only a matter of time before he found you and Dracula needed to be with you. He had to know where you were at all times. The only place for you was with him if you wanted to live.

Jack, however, was convinced that as long as you were with Daniel, there was no way Renfield could discover your location. No one would suspect you to be with the person who had driven you away in the first place.

No. Absolutely not. Dracula knew where you should be and it wasn’t with the one person who had hurt you so badly.

The argument lasted most of the night until Jack finally had enough. His exhaustion had gotten the better of him and he needed to sleep so badly. Dracula offered him his sofa, and Jack swore that if Dracula touched him, you would be the first to know. The blackmail worked. Jack woke unharmed and the next morning, the argument continued.

Dracula had the worst gut feeling he’d ever experienced.

“If you don’t take me to her, while I’m giving you the chance to, I will go and fetch her myself!” Dracula bellowed.

“Dracula, she isn’t coming back here!”

“No. You’re right, she’s not coming back here. So take me to her and I’ll take her somewhere safe. Okay?” He tried to calm his voice.

Before Jack could speak, his phone rang out. He answered without looking at the caller ID and Dracula watched the conversation before him unravel.

“Hello?... are you okay?... what’s going on?... calm down... alright, okay... no, don’t... I’m coming... no... because... I’m not— no... well, that’s not your decision... yes, I know you have and I know that but-... fine... give me ten minutes.” He hung up and looked at Dracula, “grab your coat.”

~^taglist^~

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[the-sanders-sides]

Stereotypical High School Movie AU

a/n: Hey! So, I’ve been writing this fic on and off for almost two years now and I never really posted it on tumblr and mostly kept it on ao3, so I thought I’d do one big compilation post of the fic so far, so here it is! ps. the writing is kinda bad in the beginning but i promise it gets better later on

word count:  17275 chapters: 20 out of 30-ish ao3 link

Tags/Warnings: Endgame Prinxiety | Patton | Virgil | Logan | Roman | Deceit | Bullying | Angst | Panic Attack | Slow Burn | Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers | Fist Fights | Teacher Patton | LGBT Themes | Coming Out | Being Outed | Neophobia

Chapter 1

Virgil threw his alarm clock across the room, because the snooze button was just not working. He buried himself back underneath his dark blankets. But the damn thing would not shut up. What the hell did Logan do to it now? He tried to ignore the noise, but it kept gettING LOUDER. With an annoyed groan, Virgil got out of bed, picked up the red clock, and was about to chuck it out the window, until he saw Logan walk up to the door of his house.  

Virgil sighed as put on some random clothes, and headed down to open the door for Logan. “What the hell did you do my freaking alarm clock?!” Virgil was seething.

“Well, we have about twenty minutes until school starts, and it’s a five minute walk. And see I want to learn, but there is no way I’m going there without someone else who is also able to think and not be a complete dolt. So I reprogrammed your alarm to wake you up at the time where you can get the most sleep and still be ready,” Logan stated flatly, “Now go brush your teeth and put on some deodorant, you smell atrocious.”

“I feel atrocious. You know I was planning to just skip today, since my dad is out of town on business and I’m home alone, but I guess not.” Virgil replied.

“Anx c’mon, it’ll only be worse if you don’t show up. You’ll have a ton of work to catch up on, and people are going to be more callous when you do finally show up.” Logan pleaded.

“Ugh fine, you win.” And with that Virgil trudged away and finished getting ready, and left to walk to school with his only, and relatively new, friend.  On their daily walk to hell that started a few months ago, it was well established how much Virgil hated school and how much Logan hated the people at their school. Both of which, would be proved as soon as they walked in.

“Hey you fucking nerd!” someone yelled as Logan was slammed into the lockers. Logan sighed and kept walking on. “Hey, you fucking pansy, not gonna do anything, too afraid to fight?” And to this Logan squared his shoulders and looked in the eye of the other and flatly said, “You know, you really shouldn’t mess with ‘nerds’.  I hacked into the school wifi, found your IP address, and let’s just say your computer will not be functioning the way you want it to anymore. I don’t take shit from anyone, and I don’t fight in ways I know I can’t win, because unlike you I’m smart.”

The bully started cracking his knuckles, “Oh you are so gonna get it.” Virgil pushed Logan out of the way and rolled up his sleeves. “He might not be able to fight, but I can. This is my ‘fuck you, asshole’ for everything.”

The bully scoffed, “That’s funny, you actually think you can beat me pipsqueak.” Virgil, unable to reach the taller one’s face, punched him hard in the gut, and immediately threw his hands back up into defense. He had his stance wide and was bouncing on his toes to keep the movement flowing. He was so glad Logan showed him all those taekwondo videos so he could finally get some payback. Anxiety used his left hand to block a punch from the other and retaliated with a rising kick. Anxiety decked the bully in the face with Anxiety’s foot. Anxiety spoke, “You’re insults used to be good. Now they’re nothing more than lines taken from the stereotypical anti-bullying videos they show us in assemblies.” Anxiety made to walk away and high-five Logan, when he was picked up and slammed into the floor like a rag doll. All Anxiety thought during that moment was that he really needed to eat more.  Virgil started to feel dizzy. He was seeing double and his hearing was foggy. Well shit, I’m definitely passing out and now this guy is going to beat Logan to a pulp. I need to be… I need to be… Virgil's eyes shut and he was unconscious.

In the blur of what just happened, Logan was on the floor next to Virgil checking for a pulse. He saw someone in red and white clothing pull a teacher out of a classroom. He was searching for the pulse, he was placing his hand on Virgil's wrist, on his neck, but his hands were shaking too much. Logan felt himself get pulled aside by a teacher in a blue shirt. He heard a stern, “Go to the principal’s office NOW,” as the blue clad teacher pointed in a direction, probably to a person. Logan noticed how hard he was breathing, how he couldn’t seem to keep up with everything going on around himself. He knew during the fight, some people had circled around them, but now everyone was in chaos. He looked to floor for Anxiety’s body and couldn’t find him. Where is he? Where is he? Logan was looking everywhere through the hall. I never should have encouraged him to learn how to fight. This is on me now…. There he is! The teacher in blue was carrying Virgil somewhere. Logan followed. He walked only a short distance through the halls, but it seemed to last a millennia. The teacher stopped at the nurse’s office. Logan walked inside, and was… being guided to one of the sick beds? Wait, what are they doing? He whispered, “I’m fine… Ta..ke care of Anx…He needs it..” Logan’s breathing was worse. Someone was in front of him and said something, but he wasn’t sure what. He asked where Virgil was and whoever this blue teacher was entered his vision and pointed to a bed next to Logan. Oh thank goodness, Virgil's safe. Finally knowing that his friend was in good hands, Logan collapsed and fell asleep, as his body was too exhausted after the panic attack to keep him awake.

Chapter 2

Virgil opened his eyes and the world was a blur. His head throbbed and his body ached. He rubbed his eyes and the world got clearer. He noticed the blue beds of the nurse’s office. I wonder who…took me here… I hope… Log- Virgil immediately sat up and said, “Where’s Logan? Is he alright?” Someone who Virgil assumed was the nurse rushed into the room. “Oh good, you’re awake. Your friend is okay, we sent him home for the day.”

This alarmed Virgil. “What happened to Logan!? What did those punks do to him??”

“Sweetie, relax. He’s fine now. He had a panic attack earlier. How are you feeling? You will need to go to a doctor to check if you are concussed. I’ll call your parent or guardian to pick you up and take you there.”

“My dad is out of town. I’ll get a taxi or have a friend drive me there.” Like hell I’m going to the hospital. Dad’s never gonna find out about this, if he does, then boy am I in trouble, and there’s no way we can afford the hospital bills either. I’ll just… get Logan to check it out. He’ll know what to do.

The nurse looked nervous about this, but agreed nonetheless, “Okay, well before you go, you might want to clean up in the bathroom.”

Virgil followed her instruction, only because of the close watch she was keeping on him, and walked into the bathroom. He looked at his face and saw he had a split lip. As he moved forward to look closer at himself in the mirror, his body hurt with every slight motion to complete the movement. Virgil lifted up his jacket and his shirt and saw his skin in various shades of gruesome. Black and blue splotches were pounded into his torso, and he assumed the rest of his body was that way too. Damn, that suplex was powerful. These bruises are going to be so annoying. Virgil leant over the sink to examine his face more carefully. Seeing as nothing else was wrong he fixed his hair and splashed water on his face. “You can do this,” Virgil pointed at himself in the mirror and kept speaking, “Endure the pain and go to Logan’s house. Then, never go to school again.” As Virgil exited the bathroom of the nurse’s office he said, under his breath, “Ugh, who the hell am I kidding, I’m probably gonna be way too anxious about trying to skip anyway. Dad would murder me if the school called, even if I forged his voice in a call to school. I’m glad Logan got me out of that situation this morning.” As he left the nurse’s office, Virgil saw that the halls were mostly deserted except for those who had free periods.

Roman had a free period, so he walked to where his ‘friends’ and he eat lunch. Goodness, he hated those ‘friends’. But he couldn’t get away from them. Roman was the star of the school, as many adults liked to say in their I-am-talking-to-a-teenager-so-it-is-time-to-be-condescending voice.  Roman seemed to have a shining self-confidence, as it looked as though he accepted his flaws. He had good grades. He would star in the school play every year, and after a friend pushing him in ninth grade even though he detested sports back then, he joined the track and field team and he shattered records.  He found he really liked running too. So people began to flock to him near the end of ninth grade, as he became more known throughout the school. But people didn’t care to like him for him. The people just wanted a false confidence built from the idea of popularity that would somehow come from being Roman’s friend. As much as he tried to get away from those people, he couldn’t. This led to him losing some good friends, for his new ‘friends’ would push the old ones away no matter what Roman would say, because all of the ‘friends’ were total dicks and bullies.

Roman sighed as reminisced, goodness he hated the people around him. And as much as Roman tried to be a good person, he was afraid of standing up for himself and others to his ‘friends’. And he was damn ashamed of that. As his thoughts ended, he reached his ‘friends’ at the first hallway after the entrance to the school and put on a façade of security and nonchalance.

It took Virgil a while to reach the front of the school. He was currently nearing the first hallway after the entrance to the school when he heard a conversation that made him stop and listen. He heard some voices he thought he recognized as the bullies (also known to Virgil and Logan as roaches) and peered around the corner to see them talking in the hallway. Virgil turned back around and was going to exit the school another way as to avoid those roaches when he heard the worst roach, Roman, talk.

“Oh, I only told Mr. Patton there was a fight happening so only the ones actually fighting would get in trouble, and we wouldn’t for being bystanders or whatever. Damage control.”

VIrgil was seething with rage. He hated Roman. He despised Roman. He could never forgive Roman. Virgil wanted to step on and crush that roach the most.

Chapter 3

To avoid the roaches and not get beat up some more, Virgil promptly turned on his heel and walked all the way across the school to the back exit. Once he left the school, he walked to Logan’s house. Virgil didn’t even bother knocking on the front door, he just walked around to the side of the house where a window to Logan’s room was located and climbed into the room through the window. Logan had been sitting at a desk and was typing code, occasionally pausing to write things down when he couldn’t figure out what to type next. Virgil stood behind where Logan was seated with his eyes downcast for a couple minutes. After realizing Logan was too immersed in what he was doing to have noticed Virgil's presence, Virgil walked up to Logan, put a hand on his shoulder, and spoke.

“Hey, whatcha typing?”

“Holy shit!” Logan jumped up from his seat, clearly startled, “Warn me next time! Oh my god…” Virgil grinned.

“Would ya look at that? You’re picking up some words from me.” Logan rolled his eyes and Virgil, feigning shock, declared: “The prim Logan, swearing? I am appalled young man.”

“Anyway, what are you typing?”

“Remember this morning how I said I hacked into that roach’s laptop earlier today? I never actually did that, so after I was kicked out of the nurse’s office because apparently, I was ‘crowding you’ and that ‘wouldn’t help you’, which makes no sense, I hacked into the school’s wifi to get the roach’s IP address, and now I’m just double checking my code for sending a porn virus to his laptop.” Virgil high-fived Logan.

“Firstly, you’re amazing and now you’re my hero for going through with that. Secondly, how are you? Are you alright? I heard you had a panic attack.”

“I’m fine now. I should be the one asking you if you’re okay.”

“I’m… I dunno if I'm alright. I might be concussed,” Virgil said nonchalantly.

“Anxiety! You’ve got to go to a doctor or go to the hospital!”

“Well, you’re basically a doctor with all the medical stuff you know, so give me a diagnosis.” Logan glared at Virgil, but decided that Virgil getting help from Logan was better than Virgil not getting any help at all, so Logan went along with it. Logan asked Virgil some questions and Virgil mentioned his headache. Logan eventually decided that Virgil was okay, but told Virgil to not try and fight for a week or two. That was also Logan’s way of protecting Virgil, for Logan felt immensely guilty after Virgil got hurt because it was originally Logan’s idea for Virgil to learn to fight. Logan sent his hack to the roach’s computer, and Virgil flopped on Logan’s bed.

“Roman’s an ass,” Virgil said in a defeated tone.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to see a roach ever again,” Virgil suddenly sat up, “Logan, how can I stomp out the roaches?”

“Well, you would need a giant shoe filled with weights to fall on them.” Virgil rolled his eyes.

“Hey, that’s actually a good idea! We should totally do it!”

“That would kill them.”

“You need to learn what sarcasm means. And what figures of speech are. Stop taking me literally all the time. You know what I meant.” Now it was Logan’s turn to roll his eyes, but he nevertheless gave Virgil the answer that he was looking for.

“Well, if we want to ‘stomp on the roaches’ we have to make them lose the power they have over us and others. People don’t want to get hurt by the roaches so they uncomfortably watch as anyone who dares to get in their way gets pummeled and humiliated. We need to dismantle that fear. We also need to give them some payback. Preferably, anonymous payback, so we don’t get suspended or expelled.”

“You know I’m down for this, but what’s your reason for doing the payback? It doesn’t exactly have a… point in the plan, and if I know you, you don’t do things without a reason.” Logan smirked.

“Oh… it’s just for fun.”

Chapter 4

“So, there are 4 roaches. The big, buff one that suplexed you got suspended so we don’t have to worry about him,” Logan said as he grabbed a notebook and pen, and titled the page ‘Roaches’. “So I don’t know too much about them, except for Roman. All I know about the other roaches is what they look like and that they’re garbage. Considering you were in middle school with these dunderheads, you have got to have some knowledge about things they do that are reputation ruining, right?”

Virgil responded with a grin, “Hell yeah I do.  So Charlotte, ya know the girl with the long black hair and dark skin, I’m pretty sure her record is 4 boyfriends and 2 girlfriends a single month. She keeps her relationship on the down low, because her parent would kill her if they found out. ‘specially since she’s too busy making out with them and skipping class to work. So she end up threatening people for their homework and notes before class. I walked in on her kissing Rashmi, and she broke up with her right then and there. Rashmi was sobbing. It was awful. And then Charlotte tried to kiss me so I wouldn’t say anything about it.”

“What did you do?” Logan asked quietly, as he rushed to write what Virgil said.

“Oh, I grabbed Rashmi and ran away with her. She hugged me as she cried and ended up telling me about the romantic escapades of Charlotte. Charlotte’s a real bitch. Apparently right before I walked in, Rashmi was confronting Charlotte of whether or not the relationship meant anything to Charlotte since Rashmi had just found out about all the quick heartbreaks Charlotte caused. This happened last April so I don’t know if Charlotte still does this, but it’s something we could use against her.”

“And the last one is Wynne. They’re the manipulative little piece of shit that has the worst self-esteem I’ve ever seen,” Virgil saw Logan raise his eyebrows, “Yeah, even worse than mine. So you know what they do? They’re kinda like Regina George. They whisper snide comments about people, just in their range of hearing.” Virgil started to get more and more heated up about Wynne. His hatred for this person was making him breathe heavier, talk faster, and well tears. “They give people ‘cute’ nicknames and false compliments and laugh about it later in their face. Wynne is the asshat that drove my only friend away from me and-”

A tear slid down Virgil’s cheek. His hands were balled in fists and his knuckles were turning white. Logan dropped the notebook and brought Virgil into a very awkward hug.

“I know I’m not the best at the whole comforting thing, but is this good?”

Virgil weakly chuckled. “Yeah it’s great,” Virgil moved away from Logan and looked him in the eye, “All that stuff with Wynne and Roman, it’s in the past. I… have you now, right?

“Yes, you do. And there is no way I’m ever going to be turned into a roach like him.”

Chapter 5

The next day Logan and Virgil walked confidently to school, as both knew the first part of the plan was going to be starting. However, when they walked through the double doors of the school, Virgil’s confidence dissipated quickly, and Logan’s faltered. All eyes had turned to them. Many looked shocked, and some looked sympathetic. The two were confused until they heard yelling coming from down the hallway.

“How the hell was I supposed to know that fucking nerd Logan was stupid enough to try and send a porn virus to your computer? How was I even supposed to stop him? Beat him up some more with Mr. Patton right there in front of me? You’re such an idiot, Nurul!”

The yelling paused. Virgil and Logan looked at each other in recognition of what was happening. The voice, which sounded like Wynne’s, was talking to Nurul, who apparently was the big, beefy guy who beat up Virgil, on the phone. Logan spoke in disbelief, “The porn virus… worked!” Virgil nodded enthusiastically.

“Listen, Nurul. It’s not my fault you have some insane urge to pick a fight with those bastards every time you see them! You know what just stay the hell away from me, from us actually, if you’re going to be like this and blame your mistakes on me!”

There was another pause before Wynne started yelling again. “Yeah, thank your parents for me for taking your phone away. I don’t think I could take another second of you. I can’t wait to see you next week. You’ll have an incredibly warm welcome. Goodbye.”

Wynne tapped end call and roughly shoved their phone into their pocket. Once they saw everyone looking at them, they gruffly yelled, “What the hell are all of you staring at? Do you want me to destroy you? HUH? DO YOU?”

Just then, Mr. Patton walked by and overheard the outburst. “Wynne Ellis. How could you speak to your peers in such a manner? Detention. After school.” Wynne gave a grunt of acknowledgement, and frustratedly stormed off.

Virgil burst into laughter. He doubled over and was clutching his stomach. Logan laughed a little bit too and said, “Virgil, I wasn’t even sure if the porn virus and the suspension would be enough to deal with Nurul! Oh my goodness, this worked out so much better than I thought!”

Virgil responded, barely able to breathe from his laughter, “Lo- Logan, you’re g- genius! We do- don’t hav’ta pput him in the pplan! Holy crap. I- I don’t thi- think I’ve laughed tthis hard in ages!”

The two stayed laughing like that in the hallway until the first bell rang. They didn’t care if anyone looked at them weirdly or sent a snide remark to them. They didn’t care about the repercussions of their actions. Right now, they were happy.

Chapter 6

School actually went smoothly for once that day. Wynne was seething all day, and was too busy trying to get out of detention to instigate any problems. The rest of the school seemed to discretely bow down to Logan and Virgil that day for what they pulled off. When school finished, the pair went to Logan’s home to continue Operation: Roach Stomp! Next up… Charlotte!!!

Virgil sat on Logan’s swivel chair that Logan kept next to his desk and spun around. Logan sat at the edge of his bed.

“So, Charlotte now right?” Virgil asked.

“Exactly, and I have an idea of what exactly to do. It’ll just take a bit of time and maybe a bribe,” Logan said smirking, confidence and doubt both echoed in his voice.

“Time and bribery,” Virgil repeated.

“Yup, time and bribery.”

“Okaaaay… What’s your idea?” Virgil said skeptically.

“So, we find out who Charlotte’s new partner is, we tell that partner about the constant heartbreaks and use Rashmi as a source if the new partner doesn’t believe us, and then we get the new partner to go to Charlotte’s parents and tell them about the relationships and the homework stealing and be all like ‘Oh, I’m so concerned about Charlotte because I care about her so much, I just wanted to talk to you guys to make it better…” And then Charlotte’s parents will be pissed and boom. She’s grounded.”

“Where the hell does the bribery come in?”

“If the partner or Rashmi doesn’t agree.”

“Alright,” Virgil said, “Let’s do this.”

At school the next day, Logan and Virgil took turns tailing and watching Charlotte, until they found her partner. It was unsuccessful, in that they didn’t find Charlotte’s new partner. Thankfully, though, Virgil had more than one trick up his sleeve. It happened during Charlotte’s and Virgil’s free period. Her false, falsetto, sweet as saccharine voice called out to Virgil when the two were alone. He was on his phone, pretending like he was just scrolling though social media, and she was facing away from him across the hall.

“Hey, honey~ I’ve noticed you seem interested in me today. Hm… do you remember,” she turned around, an almost sadistic grin plastered on her face, “when I kissed you all that time ago?” She started to approach him, “Are you back for more?” Virgil looked her in the eye. He smirked.

“So it is true that you don’t have a current partner,” he checked her out, “Lucky me.” She lightly pinned Virgil to the wall, and gave him a chaste kiss that lasted barely a moment.

“The rumors were false, then. You aren’t gay. Mmm, I’m going to enjoy this.” As she leant in towards Virgil, he felt the world go in slow motion. He froze. He thought he had denied the rumors enough for everyone to believe that he was straight. What made them spread again? He was ten miles deep into the closet and only one other should know. He feigned a smirk.

“Haha, yeah, I do not know where these new tales are coming from,” he said, desperately trying to cover up his moment of character breaking.

“Don’t worry, babe, we’ll put an end to what lil ol' Roman spread right now.” The pair’s lips collided. Virgil kissed back through his anger at Roman, and it seemed that Charlotte rather enjoyed that. Charlotte broke the kiss and scanned over the hall they were in for a storage closet. She took Virgil’s hand and pulled him into one a little bit away, and locked the door.

Their mouths collided again, and it wasn’t anything special. Just another person to add to Charlotte’s belt, and just a fake kiss for Virgil. It wasn’t fireworks, well it never is, but Virgil did think it was better when it was with someone he loved. Anger started bubbling up in Virgil once more at the thought of the betrayal he went through with his only other partner, and that anger made the kiss more heated. Charlotte took that as an entrance to slip her tongue into his mouth. He didn’t like it, but what was he supposed to do? If Charlotte didn’t have a partner, well, this was the only way to make the plan work.

They were both equally taking advantage of each other.

The first bell rang, signaling the end of the period. Virgil and Charlotte pulled away. Virgil wiped the wetness form his mouth with his jacket sleeve.

“Damn, Anxiety, if I’d known how great of a kisser you were, I wouldn’t have let you go that day.”

“I- Uh- Only one person is allowed to use that nickname anymore, and that isn’t you. Call me babe or some other couple’s pet name instead.”

“Well, babe, join me at lunch tomorrow, why don’t ya?”

“Sure thing, Charlotte.”

Charlotte fixed her hair and clothing, and left the closet, telling Virgil to leave later as to not arise suspicion from a teacher.

Well, one thing was for sure, Virgil was not coming out of the closet.

Chapter 7

“Verge, you did what!?”

“Chill out, Logan, it’s all part of the plan,” Virgil tapped his finger to his head, “Remember?”

“I know it is part of the plan, but this is really risky! The backlash of this could be horrific!” Virgil sighed, and looked around Logan’s bedroom, thinking of what to say.

“Well, I can’t exactly stop now. That’ll be worse. I’ll just keep pretending to like kissing her,” Virgil said, laughing at that last part. Logan relented.

“Ugh, fine. Do it. But you better be a damn good actor. And control your anger at lunch tomorrow. You can’t blow up at Wynne or Roman just yet.” Virgil grinned.

“Oh, but I sure can blow up at Charlotte. She likes it when I get angry. When we were making out yesterday I’d get pissed off thinking about the damned roaches, and she’d just like that more. She’s… she’s really something.” Logan threw a pillow at Virgil.  Virgil cocked an eyebrow.

“Jealous much, Logan?” Logan glared at Virgil.

“Falsehood. I could never be jealous of Charlotte and her cheating ways.”

“In more ways than one. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she already dumped me and moved on,” Virgil chuckled, “I wonder how the fucking drama queen is gonna handle finding out I’m Charlotte’s latest boy toy.”

+

Logan glanced at Virgil at the end of their last class before lunch, and Virgil gave him a discreet thumbs up. Charlotte sauntered up to Virgil’s desk and sat on it when the bell rang.

“So babe, go get your lunch with your nerdy dweeb friend and I’ll call you over to my table after,” she planted a kiss on his cheek and whispered in his ear, “Hmm… I cannot wait for our free period…”

“Me neither, Char, me neither. See you later,” Virgil said in a rather seductive manner and winked. Once he and Logan were out of the classroom, Virgil breathed a sigh of relief. “Man, my acting has really gotten better since middle school. Sorry she called you a nerdy dweeb, dude. I mean, she’s not wrong, but only I can say it.” Logan lightly elbowed Virgil.

The two bought their lunches, and soon after Charlotte took Virgil to the lunch table where the roaches generally sit. Virgil eyed Logan wearily as he walked to the other table, and Logan gave him a smile of assurance.  

Charlotte sauntered up to the roach table, and sat down at the table with Virgil next to her, holding her hand. On the other side of the table was Wynne and Roman. He was in the roaches’ domain now. Well, the roaches-minus-the-suspended-Nurul’s domain.

Upon seeing Virgil, Wynne burst out laughter. Gasping for breath, from whatever was so funny, he spoke: “Ch-Charlotte, haha, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Him? You can do, hahaha, so much better.”

“Yeah, and aren’t you gay, Anxiety?” Roman added, looking at Virgil for the first time since he sat down with the roaches. Virgil looked at Roman with a downright murderous glare.

“What the fuck. No. I’m not gay. I don’t know what got in your head and twisted your memory, Princey, but I am not gay. And don’t call me Anxiety,” Virgil said curtly. Charlotte looked at Virgil and smirked.

“Yeah, and he loves making out with me, don’t ya babe?”  She asked. Virgil smirked, and made eye contact with Charlotte.

“Mm, I just cannot wait ‘till our free period…”

“You’ve sure changed,” Roman said, raising his eyebrows. Virgil felt his blood boil. He knew for the sake of the plan, that he had to stay calm, but he couldn’t—not when dealing with Roman, at least.

“Go to hell,” Virgil all but spat at Roman.

“Woah, fellas, calm down. I mean all of us here know, including you Anxiety from that incident with poor ol’ Rashmi, that your “relationship” will last a week, max. Then, Charlotte will get over your pathetic ass, and everything will go back to normal. Until then, let’s be civil,” Wynne said, pretending to try and keep the peace.

“Civil, my ass. Never with you two fuckers,” Virgil yelled across the table. He gathered his stuff, told Charlotte to meet him outside of janitor’s closet, and stormed off.

Chapter 8

Virgil stormed outside the cafeteria and exited to the back of the school. He zipped up his black hoodie as the first of the coming winter’s winds crashed upon him. Virgil leant against a wall and felt the emotional turmoil of being around Roman and Wynne rise up. He pulled out his cell phone and sent a text to Logan.

               Sorry Logan, I blew up at them.

               I didn’t mean to, it just happened.

               I can’t stand them.

Logan replied a few minutes later.

               it’s ok verge

               it’s possible we cud use this 2 our advantage

               but more importantly

               r u ok?

Virgil sent only one more text; he put his phone away afterwards.

               I’m not. They’re assholes. I’m behind the school. I think I just want to be alone right now, though.

Virgil stayed in his spot, leaning behind the school for the rest of the lunch period, trying to calm down and reflecting on everything that occurred. He realized that maybe Roman was trying to be civil? But that didn’t mean he was excused for everything that happened between them. It was too much. Roman was too much. Why did Roman ruin everything?

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang. Virgil sighed. Well, time for a fun free period of making out with a person he doesn’t like. Virgil chuckled to himself at that thought.

Later that day, on their walk home from school, Virgil fully explained what happened. Logan responded only with a sigh and a pat on the back for comfort.

“It’s okay Virgil. This isn’t a complete disaster. We’ll just continue on with the plan as usual, and take Charlotte down. At least now we know for sure we weren’t just being complete dicks and all this is justified,” Logan said in a partial monotone. Virgil darkly chuckled.

“Your morals are very loose, because there is no way in hell fucking with people is ever justified no matter what they did. At least we’re owning how shitty we are, unlike those fucks who pretend to be nice and are actually just passive aggressive demons.” Logan stopped walking and turned to face Virgil. Virgil followed suit.

“Anxiety, what have I told you about putting yourself down, hm? We aren’t like them. Yes, what we’re doing is pretty crappy, but it’s for the greater good, ya know? No one likes the roaches and no one will bring them down because of the fear they strike in people. No one wants to end up like us. So we’re just doing justice…” Logan trailed off, losing his train of thought.  Virgil crossed his arms.

“C’mon you nerd, I know you’ve read books. Doing bad things for the so called ‘greater good’ is never good,” Virgil said, starting up his walking again, as Logan followed him.

“No way. Without Dumbeldore working for the ‘greater good,’ Harry Potter would never have been able to defeat Voldemort in the first book, since he wouldn’t have had the love protection due to the blood relation with Petunia.”

“Petunia was an abusive aunt! He was knowingly placed in an abusive family for ten years after his parents were killed! How was that worth it!?”

“Better only one person gets hurt than many more killed by Voldemort.” Virgil threw his hands up.

“What the fuck! It’s better no one gets hurt! You know what, I know I was all for it at the beginning, but honestly lunch made me realize how I have no one to blame but myself. I was the one who provoked Roman. I was the one who decided to take advantage of Charlotte. I was the one who wanted to stomp out the roaches in the first place! I’m the asshole! Greater good my ass…”

“You know what, Virgil? You’re right. You did provoke Roman; you did take advantage of Charlotte; and you were the one who proposed stomping out the roaches. But do you want to know something else? Roman was the first to provoke you two years ago. Charlotte is taking advantage of you right now. You’re just another notch on her belt. And you’re not the only one who’s wanted to stomp out the roaches. Don’t you see it? People have noticed what we’re doing, well they noticed what we did to Nurul, and they’re glad. Everyone is getting what they deserved.”

“Hhhhhhhh. It still doesn’t feel right to me…”

“Anxiety, you're overthinking this," Logan nudged Virgil with his elbow, "Hey, how about we ask Mr. Patton tomorrow about the greater good? He probably knows a lot about morals considering he’s constantly talking about them in the books we read for class,” Logan suggested.

“Fine,” Virgil sighed, finally relenting to something Logan was saying, “But I’m not going to continue with the plan until we do that.”

Chapter 9

The bell rang signaling the end of Mr. Patton’s English class. Virgil stretched when he got up, and groaned as the bruises from being suplexed weren’t fully gone yet. At least it was time for lunch.

Logan got up and walked over to Virgil. “So, Anx, do you want to ask about the greater good now?” Virgil shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. The pair walked over to Mr. Patton’s desk at the front of the room and waited there as the room cleared. Once it was just the three of them in the room, Virgil cleared his throat and spoke.

“Um Mr. Patton, we, uh, wanted to ask ya ‘bout the, um, greater good?” Virgil asked, his mouth becoming dry from the nervousness of socialization with someone new. Mr. Patton grinned.

“Oh well sure thing, kiddos! Do you guys just wanna know about it in general or something specific?” Logan pushed up his glasses.

“We wanted to know if doing something for the greater good justifies the means of doing it. For example, how Dumbledore put Harry in an abusive home so he could defeat Voldemort,” Logan said. Mr. Patton sighed.

“Aw, well shucks you two, this sure is a tough moral dilemma. But hey, that’s why they call me,” Mr. Patton pointed a thumb to himself, “Mr. Patton—it’s short for Morality Patton!” Logan deadpanned and Virgil suppressed a laugh. Mr. Patton coughed into his hand. “Tough crowd… Well anyway, the greater good is a very tough thing to dissect. There's a human part of us that wants justice in all situations, but unfortunately the human part is the fallible part, so when we want something 'done right' it's subject to our skew-whiff definition of 'right', and we end up doing things, like you said Logan with your Harry Potter example, 'for the greater good' that aren't good at all. This is my favorite kind of conflict to read and teach; the morally grey stuff where nobody's innocent.” Logan looked disappointed.

“So that would make someone bad if they tried to do something for the greater good?” Virgil asked, with his eyes averting from any possible eye contact.

“Well, it’s not quite that simple. In most media, if there's a 'it's for the greater good!'/'eye-for-an-eye!!' kind of a thing, none of the characters seem aware of it at all. They justify it blindly in their own minds and it never occurs to them that what they're doing is just as bad as or worse than what's been done to them; they've been wronged, so they get a free shot back. And that's just how it is. When we analyze books with the greater good as a prevailing theme, we need to ask ourselves some questions. Do the characters really have any right to get back at whoever wronged them? By getting revenge, are they just turning into the people who wronged them? So really, it’s up to the readers to decide if a character is bad or good,” Mr. Patton said.

Man, this guy is smart. Why isn’t he a college professor, Logan thought.

“Thank you, Mr. Patton. This information is very useful. I will be able to read books much better now,” Logan said. Mr. Patton nodded and smiled. Logan and Virgil made to leave the room.

“Have a good lunch and thanks for puddin’ up with me and my long winded explanation,” Mr. Patton called out with a wave. Virgil snorted and Logan facepalmed.

“It was a good explanation, Mr. Patton,” Logan said, as the two teenagers left the classroom and closed the door.

Chapter 10

Virgil’s eyes traced the floor, his head angled downward, as he breathed smoothly. Outside of the classroom, Logan faced Virgil.

“Anx, I- Virgil look at me,” Logan said forehead creased with concern. Virgil moved his head upwards and his eyes met Logan’s. “It pains me to say this, but,” Logan shut his eyes tightly, “I WAS WRONG!” he yelled, having to force the words out. Logan let out a small chuckle looked around. Virgil had flinched from Logan’s volume, but he was stunned for Logan’s confession. “You were right.  We aren’t doing this right,” Logan said despite his struggle to speak this for how it hurt his pride. “I still don’t fully agree that the plan is morally wrong, but I- I trust Mr. Patton’s and your judgement better than my own,” Logan shrugged, “I’m just… not all that great with moral stuff. I often lose points when we have to analyze that in the books we read…” Logan trailed off. Virgil nodded with a small smile, and the two walked over to the lunchroom. Virgil was furiously biting his lip as the two friends sat down with their lunches.

“So, what n-”

“Logan, I’m gay!” Virgil exclaimed, cutting off whatever Logan was going to say. “It’s not just the moral stuff that was making me feel bad, I couldn’t handle dating Charlotte when it all feels so wrong for her hands to be on my body, for her to call me “babe,” and do all this coupley stuff with me. I can’t, I’m sorry,” Virgil finished, tears welling up in his eyes, shaking his head as he held it in his hands.

“Virgil, it’s alright-” Logan began, reaching a hand out to Virgil, but was abruptly cut off by something foul. Wynne loomed over Virgil with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh? Did I hear that right? You’re dating our Charlotte, and you don’t ever like her?” Wynne said aggressively. If they were an animal, they’d be snarling ferociously while Virgil would be a small, shaking prey. With eyes wide and a slightly creased forehead, Virgil slowly turned around and looked up to find Wynne smirking at him.

“Y-You didn’t hear t-that right,” Virgil squeaked, obviously panicked.

“Sure I didn’t,” Wynne said sarcastically, narrowing their eyes. Wynne roughly grabbed the collar of Virgil’s shirt and forced him forward. “Prove it then. Prove you’re not gay. Prove you like Charlotte,” Wynne growled. Virgil didn’t know what to do, terrified and frozen with fear. A chair screeched and fists slammed a lunch table.

“Let. Him. Go,” Logan asserted, standing up tall.

“Make me,” Wynne snarled. As Logan was about to jump on top of the table to get to Virgil and Wynne on the other side, out of nowhere a fourth person punched Wynne in the face.

“I’m done being a bystander and an accomplice to you,” Roman growled, shaking his fist, and walking away. Wynne’s eyes went wide and their nose crinkled in pure, unadulterated rage. They walked up to Roman and grabbed his hair so he’d turn around and face them.

“What,” Roman spat, more as a statement than a question.  Wynne shook their head.

“You. Are. Not. Done. With. Me,” Wynne said, punctuating each word with a new level of ferociousness.

“I don’t know what you did, but it became clear to me that you’re the reason Anx-Virgil doesn’t speak to me anymore when he had lunch with us the other day. I don’t know what the fuck you did, but I can gauge how bad it could be, for one little, petty disagreement wouldn’t have separated us. I thought that’s what you did to push everyone else away from me, but I was wrong. And now, I’m finally getting some fucking confidence of my own to tell you to BACK OFF,” Roman said, insanely livid.

“Ah!” Wynne shrieked, never being rejected like this. They balled their hands into fists and stormed out of the cafeteria.

Roman closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Both Virgil and Logan stood at the table, mouths agape in shock.

Chapter 11

"R-Roman?" Virgil asked cautiously, brow furrowed. "What was all that about?"

“Ah- I... I must take my leave! I, uh, have rehearsal!” Roman lied, making sure not to have eye contact with Virgil. Roman brushed past Logan and Virgil, and exited the cafeteria.

How did that just happen? How, no why, did he just do that?

Roman’s thoughts were a hurricane of confusion and emotion. It was all too much to decipher. So why not go to the auditorium and actually rehearse some lines? At least there he could deal with his character's problems, and not his own.

Roman entered the backstage of the auditorium and walked out onto the stage, script for an upcoming production of High School Musical in hand. He stood center stage, and began to sing one of his his solos. His deep, melodious voice echoed throughout the auditorium, and a spotlight shone on him. That’s strange. No one else should be here now. Except maybe...

“Deceit? What are you doing?” Roman called out to his classmate in the tech booth. A voice bellowed out of the loud speakers.

“I have a name, you know. It's Dennis Ceet.”

“Yeah, no. You made that up so you could have your edgy persona,” Roman said, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, you know what? The spotlight totally doesn’t bring out the tears in your eyes,” Deceit pouted, “And I thought Troy Bolton was a happy fella.”

“It’s an artists rendition,” Roman called out, waving his hand as he turned around. He needed to calm down. Deceit never let shit like this go.

“Man if I didn’t know any better, I’d say your in need of advice. Something's got you down, eh?” Deceit said, turning up the volume of the speakers he talked through. “Is there trouble in the oh so great Roman’s paradise?” Roman winced and covered his ears. “I mean, everyone would love to be you, since you have such great friends.” Speakers were definitely not meant to be this loud. “You’re just the epitome of this high school! Everyone envies you!” Deceit was practically yelling into the mic now. “WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT? WHAT WOULD YOU NEED ADVICE ON? YOU’RE FEELING TRAPPED, I BET! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS, ROMAN. NOT EVERYTHING’S ABOUT YOU!” Roman gritted his teeth from the sound, and fell to his knees. Now this was pain.

In the distance of his ringing ears, Roman heard the door to the tech room fall shut. Deceit had left the area physically, but his presence could still be felt in Roman's mind. Everything Deceit said was a paradox: true from the outside, wrong from the inside. A tear escaped Roman’s eye. There’s nothing Roman could do to make things right. It would’ve been better if he’d just stuck to the status quo.

Chapter 12

Logan and Virgil were perplexed by the... recent, unprecedented events at lunch. But there was unfortunately no time to dwell on that as partners were being assigned for a chemistry project. Ugh, why couldn’t teachers ever let students pick their own partners.

“With my luck, I’ll end up with Charlotte,” Virgil mumbled to Logan. Logan scoffed softly, and rolled his eyes.

“Roman! Virgil! Partner up,” the chemistry teacher called out. Virgil deadpanned at Logan, and sighed in frustration. He roughly got up from his desk and brought his stuff over to Roman’s table. Now this was just fucking fantastic. It was like the world was out to torture Virgil.

Roman’s eyes were still a tad puffy from his crying escapades, but at least he could play it off as a sad scene in rehearsal. Yup. That’s totally what it was. Hmph. Roman crossed his arms. Stupid freaking Dennis Ceet.

“Alright, let’s just get this over with as soon as possible so we can continue to avoid each other for all eternity,” Virgil huffed, crossing his arms, and blowing his bangs away from his face. Roman’s forehead creased and he looked at Virgil with soft eyes.

“I still don’t understand, Anx- Virgil. What did Wynne do? Why... why have we been driven apart?” Roman asked, steadying his shaking voice. Virgil shut his eyes tight and shook his head.

“I- H-How do you not know?! You- You were there!” Virgil whisper-yelled, eyes welling with tears. Romans eyes widened, and a frown grew on his face.

“A- Virgil. I honestly have no clue what you’re talking about. I thought we just drifted apart and Wynne sped up the process... but that lunch... It told me there was so much more than what I thought had happened,” Roman pleaded.  Virgil gritted his teeth, and pulled his hoodie sleeves over his hands to make sweater paws.

“Okay, so we have to find the pH of this first and...” Roman’s mind wandered away from the instructions Virgil was reading off. He ran a hand through his hair. Goodness, this must really have been bad if Anxiety isn’t even hiding that he wants a subject change. I need to mend this. I have to do this right. I can’t just be the person everyone envies and hates. It was never me. And this is how I’ll start to fix my image.

A hand snapped in front of Roman’s face. “Hey! Princey! Pay attention,” Vigil said rolling his eyes at, in the words of Logan, Roman’s incompetence.

“Fine... but we can’t just not talk about this, Virgil. I... I need to know what happened, and Wynne is never gonna tell me. Like a prince, I need to go for peace and make amends,” Roman pleaded, forehead creased. Virgil looked dangerously at Roman and pursed his lips.

“You. Were. There,” Virgil snarled. “Now. pH. Chop chop, this thing won’t react all by itself.”  Roman took a deep breath and complied. There was no way of getting this out of Virgil. He’d have to do something else.

At the end of the day, as students filed out of school, Roman did a rare act of hiding himself among the crowd and blending in for once. He slunk over to Mr. Patton’s classroom, and knocked on the door before entering. Mr. Patton looked up at Roman and smiled.

“What can I do for ya, kiddo? Problems with the homework?” Mr. Patton asked in his ever so kind and caring tone. Roman didn’t say a word as we walked over the table nearest Mr. Patton’s desk at the front of the room, and dragged over a chair to be directly in front of Mr. Patton's desk. Sitting down on the chair, Roman tilted his head ever so slightly, and spoke.

“Mr. Patton, I require some assistance. But not with the homework. I must know, based on the grounds of literature of course, how do characters get others to open up, when they don’t want to open up?” Mr. Patton pushed his glasses up and chuckled.

“What happened this time, Roman?” the elder asked, knowingly shaking his head. And as Roman explained the events that transpired since lunch, Mr. Patton’s smile grew so much softer.

“Hey, Roman. Kid. I’m proud of you. You finally stood up to them. It’s the bravery of a prince. And you can’t force whoever ‘Anxiety’ is to open up to you. You have to let them trust you enough again to tell you,” Mr. Patton said, nodding gently to Roman. The high schooler had been coming to Patton for advice under the presumption of books ever since he took a class with the elder in tenth grade. It wasn’t long until things spilled, and fake names were created for the sake of confidentiality so Roman could get some much needed advice in a quilt free fashion. All that he was going through, all the manipulation, no child should have to deal with that. And Mr. Patton was going to make sure that Roman got out of this okay. Because as a teacher, that was his job: to help his kids.

As Roman left the school that afternoon, and swung the key to his bike lock around his finger, he overheard a hushed conversation that was never meant for his ears.

“Roman’s out. For good. Charlotte, don’t look at me like that, he betrayed us! C’mon Char, he punched me,” Wynne reasoned with the taller girl, convincing her with appeals to her ever so unstable emotions.

“I just- first Nurul, then I mean it was never love for us, but then Virgil, and now Roman? All in such a short span of time? I- I’m starting to think I just shouldn’t be around boys anymore...” Charlotte chuckled weakly, the last stray tears of hers finally drying on her cheeks. Roman looked towards the conversation and that’s when it happened. A confrontation of the ages. A stare down of strength. Wynne’s and Roman’s eyes locked together as Roman continued his path towards the bikes, and Wynne's head turned to follow. The two were intertwined together, never being able to leave the other’s gaze. But when Wynne realized where Roman was heading, a wicked smile shone upon their face. They rushedly took a safety pin out of a pocket of Charlotte’s backpack, making a noncommittal remark of paying her back, and with the precision of a hawk, aimed the pin correctly for it to fly through the air, and pierce the back tire of Roman’s bike with the momentum it gained from the flight.  

Roman blinked, taken aback from this sight. He thought bike tires were stronger, but who even knows with the innovations of today. He stopped looking at Wynne, and turned to his bike instead, examining the damage. If he took the pin out, the air would deflate, but if he left it in, the bike would knock the pin out as the tires rotated. Everything felt like too much. Wynne was too much and Wynne was always there. It was always Wynne.

“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM? WHY DO YOU RUIN ME? YOU NEVER STOP, WYNNE. WHY?” Roman cried across the mostly empty front entrance of the school. Wynne strutted over to Roman, and took the pin out of the bike.

“Oh, Roman, Roman, Roman. You know why. You were there on that day that our pal Anxiety so loathes,” Wynne put their hands on their hips and looked down at Roman, who was still crouching by his bike tires, and breathing heavily. “Now, why don’t you get out of my sight,” Wynne finished, twirling the safety pin around their fingers. Roman took a steadying breath, unlocked his bike, and walked it out of the school’s front lot. He could’ve been brave. He could’ve been a prince. But... he wasn’t there yet. And Roman didn’t know when he’d ever be chivalrous enough to ever get there.

Chapter 13

Roman >> Virgil

           Is this still your number, Virgil?

           I read over the project and created a schedule of what we can do in class, yet we must still meet up after school, so should I come to your place, or vice versa?

Virgil >> Roman

           Yeah, this is my number.

           I don’t really care, we can do whichever.

Roman >> Virgil

           We can go to mine, then. I’ll meet you by your locker once school is over and we can finish this quickly, as you wish to.

Virgil >> Roman

           Sure

Virgil >> Logan

           [Screenshot.png]

           Why is Roman being so nice?

           Logan, you gotta help me out here. I’m having a crisis!

           Hhhhh, I’m going to go to his house. Ugh, stupid chemistry project, stupid atoms…

           Wait, shit, don't go into a rant about the cool mystery of atoms, normally I’d be up for it, but right now I am in Crisis mode.

Logan >> Virgil

           anx calm down

           do sum breathing

           itll be fine just work fast and get out of there

           my judgement may b wrong but based on evrything u’ve told me and wat ive seen, roman  seems 2 be… remorseful

Virgil sighed and pocketed his phone. He put his head down and listened to the droning history lecture, only needing to look up occasionally to check the map for locations of the cities his teacher mentioned. Everything that was going on in this hate and manipulation triangle of Roman, Wynne, and himself was too stressful, and Virgil could not deal with it. All this drama was like a coil wrapped around his body, winding tighter and tighter with each and every passing thought of the roaches, choking him, restricting his movements, making him fear for how in the hell he was supposed to get out of this alive. Virgil was grateful for one thing: that he still had his wonderful, best friend Logan, but at this point, even Logan's presence didn’t make the coil loosen. Virgil knew it would unwrap once he dealt with everything, but the sheer notion of doing such a thing only made the coil tighten into an unimaginable pain. So Virgil felt it was fully justifiable to blearily rest through class as he slowly dazed off into a light sleep as to avoid his wandering thoughts of the two people who shall not be named.

The next thing Virgil knew, the bell signaling that the last class of the day was over rang. Virgil rubbed his eyes as he carelessly swung his bag over his shoulders. He trudged himself over to his locker even though his legs felt like lead from the sheer dread of this coming afternoon with Roman. Virgil's famous overthinking started, and his mind swam as the crowd pushed him through the hallways. So much could go wrong. So much could get truly and utterly fucked.

Virgil made a standard remark of a greeting to Roman, and tuned out whatever the other was blabbering on about as he collected the books he needed from his locker.

The walk to Roman’s house was relatively silent aside from squealing elementary kids chasing each other, and the chirps of soaring birds; that is, until Roman cleared his throat. Virgil glanced at him and watched the deep breaths Roman was taking as Roman fluttered his eyes closed, then open.

“Virgil, we mustn't let a such a feud stay between us. The tension is unhealthy, and it seems as though a particular event that is the cause of it has obviated me. I want to- No. I need to know what happened,” Roman said, cloaking his uncertainty and self-doubt with a calmer version of the arrogant bravado most saw emanating off of him. Virgil stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked up some gravel as he kept walking.  He kept his eyes on the ground, and weighed his options. Finally, Virgil opened his mouth.

“I’ll tell you what happened, at least what I know of what happened, but I won’t trust you so easily, because if you ever cared about me in the first place, then something like this wouldn’t slip your mind so easily. Okay?” Virgil muttered, slumping his shoulders. He scratched the back of his neck with uneasy apprehension. Roman nodded solemnly, and Virgil took that as his cue to explicate. He took a deep breath and started.

“Roman, you outed me to the entire school back in ninth grade. You were talking to Wynne, and projecting everything over the speaker system as you told them about how I kissed you. I mean, I obviously denied it, but… AH! How in the hell could you do that?! I trusted you with this knowledge of me being gay and you, you fucking tell the entire school! And then Charlotte tells you're spreading this shit again! What the hell is your deal? Fuck you, Roman. Just stay out of my goddamn way from now on.”

Roman made eye contact with Virgil one last time before the other boy turned around and walked away, and noted the tears falling down his flushed cheek.

A lone breeze ruffled Roman's hair as he stared on at the growing distance between himself and Virgil. Roman didn't know what he expected to hear, but it was definitely nothing like that, because Roman did not know when any of what Virgil said happened, which lead to only one conclusion that was spelled with a W-Y-N-N-E.

Chapter 14

Roman watched Virgil storm off, guilt tugging at his heart, for how could he have let something like this happen? He… he practically ruined Virgil all because he couldn’t stand up for himself against the three figures that so dauntingly loomed over him. Nurul. Charlotte. Wynne. They had Roman wrapped around their finger for years, and now they were gone. For good. And he was to be one of their next victims. Roman never realized this day would come so soon: the day where he lost his immunity from the wrath of the roaches. All he felt now as he stood was regret. Was everything he did worth it if it all came crashing down like this? Should he have stood by his real friends instead of acting like- No. instead of being a cowardly peasant? The next days at school were relatively peaceful. Yes, the tension was so thick it couldn’t even be cut with a knife, but no action was happening yet. It was the calm before the storm, the preparation for the oncoming war. The soldiers on each side readied their ground: Logan and Virgil lied low and stuck to evasive movements, for they were impossible to find; Wynne continued their backhanded compliments and scheming, as they regrouped with their troops as Nurul’s suspension wore off; and Roman dragged a chair over to Mr. Patton’s desk and poured his heart out. “Roman, kiddo, it’s going to be okay, okay?” Mr. Patton sighed wistfully, and gave Roman a comforting smile. Roman slumped his shoulders a tad, giving up his high persona for one he felt fit him better. “I know… I’ll be out of this school and this town soon enough, but,” Roman cracked a weak smile, “I can’t just leave everything like this. It’s not what a prince would do. A real prince would- He wouldn’t be me.” “There’s no use in dwelling in what could’ve been done different. We can’t change the past, but we can change how we are in the present. Forgiveness is hard to achieve, but you’ve wanted it, right?” Mr. Patton claroulisly spoke, making eye contact with Roman that the younger avoided. Roman nodded and stood up. “I- I think I know what I must do now. Thank you Mr. Patton,” he said, shuffling the chair he sat on back to its original position and left the room. Roman started his walk home through the chilly autumn air. He watched as crisp, burnt looking leaves flew away from trees, and turned around. His house was not to be his destination for now. He had something to do. He at least had to do it for Mr. Patton. If he were to disappoint him, then he really could never be a prince.

“Hey, what did you get for number nine of the calculus homework?” Virgil asked, looking across his house’s kitchen table, littered with textbooks and pencils, to Logan, who had already finished. Logan glanced over to his notebook and muttered a “the limit doesn’t exist.” Virgil groaned and scratched out his work to try again. Just then, the doorbell sounded throughout the house, causing Virgil to jump from being startled. He strode over to the door, working on the problem as he walked. When Virgil saw who was at the door, and his pencil and notebook clattered on the floor. “Roman, what the hell are you doing here?” Virgil asked dryly, eyebrow quirked ever so slightly. “I-I’d like to make amends, Virgil,” Roman whispered, eyes downcast. Virgil squinted at Roman. He crossed his arms and leant against the doorframe, looking Roman up and down. “Okay… continue,” Virgil said after about a minute of scrutinizing Roman enough for even him to fidget under Virgil’s gaze. Roman took a deep breath and met his eyes with Virgil’s. “I… I don’t know exactly what I did. I don’t know how I outed you, and I fear it must have been a plot set up by Wynne. But that’s-,” Roman looked to the sky as he scrambled for the right words, “That’s besides the point. Even if I hadn’t known what made you stop talking to me, I should’ve gone to you, and talked to you about it, instead of letting such a- such a rift f-form between us. I shouldn’t have left you, and I want to right that wrong. I shouldn’t have let those, pardon my french, fucking assholes done so much harm to you. I should’ve stopped it, like a prince would do. Nay, like any good person would do, which is why I am here,” Roman finished. Virgil’s mouth was slightly agape. A tumbling tornado of emotions swept through him, and the only thing he could do to stop them from blowing him away was cry. A tear fell out. Then another. And another, and another, until he was full on ugly crying no matter how much he willed himself to stop. Roman’s forehead creased, and he reached out to comfort Virgil but pulled his hand away. He didn’t know if Virgil would like physical contact (from him, especially). “I-I-I’m fi-ne Ro-cey. I-I mean R-Roman. I-I just can’t s-stop cry-ing,” Virgil stammered out, voice cracking like it was middle school. “O-Oh… Um. It’s, uh, totally fine if you don’t want to forgive or trust me. I’m just glad you heard me out,” Roman said, giving a soft smile in the way of Virgil. Virgil smiled back. “I-I accept y-your apology, but I-I don’t forgive you,” Virgil said, and Roman nodded with a smile, and began to tear up with himself. “Same with me!” Logan called out from the table inside, having heard the entire conversation, causing the two teary eyed teens to double over with laughter.

Chapter 15

“Nurul, Nurul, Nurul. What are we going to do with you?” Wynne asked. They folded their hands and pursed their lips as they waited for a response from the boy who had somewhat betrayed the little group of ‘friends’. Charlotte sat beside Wynne on the circular table, chewing her lip, while Nurul sat directly across from the other two. The trio was sitting in a diner, and as Nurul mulled over his options, a basket of curly fries was delivered to the table. Wynne took one and ripped it in half with their teeth. They popped the other half in their mouth, chewed, and swallowed, maintaining an unwavering and unnerving eye contact with Nurul. They gritted their teeth when they finished. “Hm. Well, since you don’t seem to have any suggestions, and you already know what happened to Roman, perhaps, we’ll let you be with us longer. Unless, say, you think Roman was right?” Nurul froze.

“No!” He cleared his throat. “I mean, no, I’m not on Roman’s side.” Wynne crinkled their nose and flashed a tight-lipped smile. Charlotte’s eyes darted between the two.

“Good choice. Because this is your last chance,” Wynne growled. They got up from the table and motioned for Charlotte to come with them. “Enjoy your fries! I know you love them curly,” They exclaimed with fake peppiness as Charlotte and them left the diner.

Unbeknownst to the trio, an edgelord, supposedly named Dennis, was sitting at the table over, listening to every word that was said.

Wynne, Charlotte, and Nurul walked into school together on the following school day. Whispers travelled through the halls fast and far enough for Roman and Virgil to catch wind of them and move away into an empty classroom to continue their atomic discussion for the upcoming chemistry project. However, Logan was dealing with his lab partner away from his friend and his… frenemy, that by the time the gossip reached him, it was too late. Even Virgil’s warning text fueled by the enormous speed of microwaves was too late. Logan caught a glimpse of Nurul in the corner of his eye, and his brain went into overdrive. Adrenaline flooded his body and he was no longer a creature of logic, but one of instinct.

Nurul clapped his hands and got all up in Logan’s space. “Well, well, well, nerd, what do we have here? Are you planning on another virus, because I can take all you got,” he sneered, cracking his knuckles. Logan immediately looked Nurul in the eye, leant against the lockers he was standing next to, and adjusted his glasses.

“There is literally no possible way your dinosaur of a computer that had already been abused enough having to be used by someone as feeble minded as you could handle every virus I could load onto it. Hm. But, perhaps you did not understand what I explicated? Do I need to dumb down my insult?” Feeling like the baddest bitch in the city, Logan was full on smirking by the end of his tirade. Nurul slammed his fist on a locker right beside Logan’s fist.

“Say that again, termagant,” Nurul widened his eyes, “Yeah, I know big words too.” Logan scoffed, and rolled his eyes. Goodness, he was picking up some habits from Anx. He would never have thought to do something like that to his eyes a year ago!

“Nurul… Remember our chat?” Wynne suggested from behind him, hands on their hips. Nurul glared at Logan, but relented, and backed off. He began to walk down a side corridor, when he heard Logan call out to him.

“Wow, I never thought Wynne would have you, as they say, hashtag whipped!” Nurul clenched his fists, but he became the bigger man for the one moment he needed to be, and he kept walking away. Logan dusted his shoulder, readjusted his tie, and right away turned back to his explanation of naturally occurring diatomic molecules and how he and his partner must represent those in their model, even if it wasn’t on the project guidelines. Wynne and Charlotte continued down the hall, not following after Nurul, and everyone who witnessed what just went down, gained a new respect for the badassery of Logan.

Based upon their discussion from the morning, Roman and Virgil decided to once again try and meet up at Roman’s place after school to work on the atomic model they never started. Hopefully, now that they were on better terms, they could actually work and not tank their grades.

At first, they only talked to communicate about their atom’s assembly, but as the two started working on parts of the project that didn’t require much thinking, Roman started to discuss feelings.

“Hey, Virgil, I know I already apologized, but that fight earlier where you got suplexed was brutal, and I just want you to know that I regret not stepping in sooner than when I got Mr. Patton to intervene,” Roman murmured. Virgil narrowed his eyes for a second.

“Wait… Logan told me that after I was suplexed and passed out, he saw someone get Mr. Patton to break up the fight. That was you?” Virgil asked. Roman nodded.

“I know, I never should’ve let Nur-”

“Oh my goodness, Roman, thank you. I- I- I honestly think if no one had intervened at that time Nurul might’ve kept going and hurt us bad,” Virgil admitted. Roman’s eyes widened, and he paused his rote work to face Virgil.

“Really? That already didn’t hurt you bad? Wouldn’t you be concussed from something like that?” Roman was dumbfounded. Virgil bit his lip and decided to steer clear of a concussion discussion seeing as he never actually went to a doctor.

“I mean, I was super bruised up. It was insane, they were everywhere. But... they weren’t bad bruises, there was just, just, a lot of them, but I’m pretty much better now. They’re all gone for the most part, and I’m back to my normal scrawny self,” Virgil finished sarcastically. Roman chuckled lightly. The two went back to chemistry talk, though they were both more at ease, even if only slightly.

When they presented their project in class the following afternoon, the two were able to get a flow and start communicating, for they were able to easily cover for when one of the two didn’t know something. They were constantly veering and intervening the scientific conversation that they were leading, but it wasn’t to throw the other off; instead, it was to make sure they both stayed on course, and the A they received proved that they had.

Chapter 16

Riiing. The jarring sound flooded through the high school letting all the students know it was time for the pandemonium of lunch. As the students left their classes, they began to chat, and Logan and Virgil were no exception.

“Anyway, I told Nurul to copulate with himself, with different words, however. Slang words. I said ‘#whipped’,” Logan recounted, as the two picked up their lunch from the cafeteria.

“Lo, every time you tell Nurul to fuck himself, I become ever fonder of you,” Virgil said, placing a hand over his heart. “And like-” Virgil cut himself off when he started to hear something interesting and poked Logan, so he’d listen too.

“Bro, it’s the sides!”

“Gurl, what?”

“You know? Logan and Virgil? The two people who are actually standing up against Nurul, Wynne, Charlotte, and Roman? Dude, where the hell have you been for the last two weeks?”

“Home sick. You know th-”

“Wait, you’re saying people are calling us ‘the sides’?” Logan asked, walking up to the pair he and Virgil were eavesdropping on. Virgil followed him but shrunk back a little. He had never talked to these people before and he wasn't sure how things would go down. The person who initiated the conversation nodded frantically.

“Bro! You didn't know? Man, everyone's started calling ya guys the sides, cuz you're on the good side, ya know, standing up to the totally not gucci tyranny of Wynne, Roman, Nurul, And Charlotte.”

“I speak seven languages and that was not one of them,” Logan mumbled under his breath. Virgil rubbed the back of his own neck.

“I- I mean, I don’t think Roman is all that bad,” Virgil said strained, scared of the repercussions of his words. “I- I think Wynne hurt him just as much as th- the two of us…” The person the sides were talking to smiled softly and sighed

“Yeah, fam, that's not too surprising. Wynne’s been unradical to everyone.”

“‘S’crazy to think that were not the only ones they've hurt,” Virgil said.

“Yeah… Well, enjoy your meal, then,” the person finished, turning back to their previous conversation.

“You too,” Logan called as the duo walked away.

Reaching their usual lunch table, Logan remarked about the solemnness of the air. Virgil agreed. The two friends, or sides, as they were now known, ate in silence for an eternity until Virgil piped up to share a concern of his.

“Hey, Logan, I think, I might be becoming friends with Roman again, and this is all happening so fast, and we only started speaking last night, but we were really good in the presentation, and and he was the one who called Mr. Patton in to save us when we got in that fight with Nurul and he seems really genuine and I wanna trust him but I dunno what to dooooo,” Virgil ranted. Logan patted Virgil’s hand.

“Anx, breathe. Deep breath. In and out,” Logan explained, breathing exaggeratedly so Virgil could match with him. “You don’t have to do anything yet. You don’t have to decide anything. You can just observe and see what comes of that.” Virgil nodded.

“Yeah, thanks Logan,” Virgil said. “I’ll do that.” The two sides continued their meal in peace. After a while, holding a lunch tray, Roman walked up to the two.

“May I sit here?” he asked tentatively. Logan looked to Virgil who nodded. “Thank you,” Roman said as he sat down. “This may be out of my place, but I think I have an idea of how to stop Wynne.”

“We’re done with that Roman,” Virgil said dryly. “If we stoop to their levels, then they’re the ones who win. We just do things out of self-defense now.” Roman closed his eyes for a moment.

“Then think of it like self-defense. My idea is to use Logan’s skills to put a screen mirroring or listening thing on Wynne’s phone, so we know what they’re going to do. That way we can take preemptive measures to keep ourselves, and, well, everyone else safe.” Virgil stabbed his juice box with the straw and took a long, drawn out slurp out of it. Logan tapped his chin.

“Yes, I can do that,” he said, adjusting his glasses.

“...Do it. But if we go too far, then just, stop,” Virgil decided at last.

Chapter 17

Roman >> Virgil

    Would it be okay if we could talk today after school about Wynne, Nurul, Charlotte, and, well, me?

Virgil >> Roman

    Yeah, surw. Feel free to walk home with me.

Virgil >> Roman

    *sure

Virgil lurked around the exit of the school, staying in the shadows and out of sight until he was able to find Roman.

“Boo,” Roman whispered, appearing in front of Virgil out of seemingly nowhere. Virgil jumped at least a foot in the air and let out an insanely high pitched shriek. All the bustling students looked towards the source of the noise. Feeling all eyes on him, Virgil covered his face with his hands and banged his head against a wall. He groaned.

“Ugh, Princey why did you have t-,” Virgil, wide-eyed, turned to face Roman, “Roman! I meant Roman! N-Not Princey! I meant to say Roman, why did you have to do that,” Virgil panicked, his stomach churning from fearing the impending doom that would be brought upon him by Roman. Roman reached at and held his shoulder, steadying Virgil.

“Virgil. It’s okay. You can call me Princely if you want. I’m- What's got you so worked up over it anyway?” Roman asked.

“Y-You threatened to hit me the last time I called you that?” Virgil squeaked. Roman was aghast.

“Oh no, I would never do that! Goodness, how did this hap-,” Roman narrowed his eyes in a deadly squint, “Wynne! Sorry Virgil, our talks gonna wait, I need to go show Wynne a piece of my mind,” Roman finished, gritting his teeth. Virgil grabbed Roman’s arm as he started to storm off.

“Princey, no. It’s not worth it. They’ll just hurt you more,” Virgil said. Roman sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, let's just head to your house before I do anything regrettable.” Virgil nodded, and began to leave the school with Roman following him. On the street, the two walked in tandem for the few blocks that they needed to travel. The air was a bit chilly and a small gust of wind caused Virgil to shiver slightly. Roman took off his white coat and handed it to Virgil, who simply shook his head and zipped up his own hoodie. Roman just held his coat awkwardly, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to put it back on.

“So, you wanna talk about the roaches?” Virgil asked, as the two arrived at Virgil’s house, and Virgil unlocked the door. Roman cocked an eyebrow.

“Roaches?” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck.

“Oh, um. It’s what me and Logan would call you guys, ya know. You and Wynne and Charlotte and Nurul…,” Virgil said awkwardly, kicking off his shoes and making his way to a table in the kitchen. Roman did the same.

“Ah. I see. It’s… quite a befitting name for, well, us. For me,” Roman muttered. He looked down on the ground pensively, like he was trying to figure out how he could ever be more than a lowly roach. “I was a terrible person, and as much as I’d like to say ‘Wynne made me do it’, it wouldn’t be right? It would just be an excuse, and I always had the power to stop them.”

“You really didn’t. They manipulated you as much as me. Look at you. You used to be brimming with confidence and now you’re just sad and angry.” A tense silence fell on the two for a couple minutes while Virgil and Roman just stared at each other in thought. “It’s not like you knew most of what they were doing anyway, at least that’s what I’m getting at.” Even with his height and his muscles, Roman never felt so small.

“It still feels wrong. Even indirectly, I hurt people, and that’s not a good thing. I-I hurt you,” Roman said, sighing at the end. Virgil scoffed.

“Yeah, like you even care about me,” Virgil said sardonically.

“Virgil, I do! I really do! And I swear I have no idea what happened to make you think that! Even if I was there, even if I did it, I don’t know what I did!” Roman exclaimed, covering his face with his hands. He took a deep breath and put his hands on the table. “I don’t- It’s like they- Can’t you just-?” Roman was cut off by someone loudly knocking on Virgil’s front door. Virgil went and opened it, and there was Logan, sweaty and panting. He didn’t even explain what was happening as he pushed past Virgil and went straight to his kitchen. He took out so bread and vegetables and made a sandwich, then out it on a plate and gave it to Virgil. Only when he sat down, did he finally catch his breath.

“We have an emergency! I did the hacking thing in Wynne’s phone and I was listening to what they were saying, and, and and they were- Virgil! They’re gonna exploit the fact that you don’t eat, like, at all!”

Chapter 18

Virgil looked at the sandwich. The sandwich looked back. He poked it. According to Newton’s third law, the sandwich poked him back. Virgil banged his against the table and groaned.

“Why do I have to this? Let him exploit the fact… I can’t with this. It’s just, food is like, kinda gross honestly. It feels so weird passing through your body and has weird tastes…,” Virgil complained. Roman got up, opened the fridge, and took out some pasta materials. He poured water in a pot and put it to a boil on the stove, sat back down, and began to eat the sandwich meant for Virgil.

“Uhh… What are you doing?” Logan asked apprehensively. Roman held up a finger as he finished chewing.

“Didn’t you know? That one’s a picky eater. He can’t take anything too extreme,” Roman exclaimed. Virgil’s cheeks flushed lightly and he averted his eyes from the other two.

“Anx?” Logan asked.

“He’s right. I don’t buy school school lunch because there’s just too many flavors and textures and ugh. I just. It’s stupid, really stupid, but I can’t stand it…,” Virgil mumbled, staring at somewhere in between Logan and Roman to avoid their eye contact.

“Virgil, it isn’t stupid. Not at all. You know how your anxious all the time? There’s something called Neophobia. I don’t know too much about it, but it sounds like that,” Logan explained, hoping to make Virgil feel better. Virgil rolled his eyes.

“Great, now I’ve got another disorder,” he snarked back at Logan.

“There’s nothing wrong with you!”

“Yes, there is!”

“Listen to me!”

“I’m a mess!”

Roman screeched his chair back and got up from the table, momentarily stopping the argument. He walked over to the pot, poured salt, oil, and dry pasta in, and stirred the pot. He grabbed his phone and played a playlist of Disney songs, whistling to the tune as he cooked. Virgil and Logan kept glaring at each other, but neither said anything to the either. After about ten minutes, when the pasta was ready, Roman put it in a bowl, grabbed a fork and set it in front of Virgil. He muttered a “you’re welcome,” and raised an eyebrow prompting Virgil to take a bite. Reluctantly, Virgil followed through. His face morphed from an expression of disgust to surprise, and he moaned.

“Oh my gosh… this is… mmm…,” Virgil mumbled. “I need a lifetime supply of this.” Roman smiled.

“I’ll text you the recipe, just promise to make this at least once a day?” he asked. Virgil nodded compliantly, digging in. Roman kept eating the sandwich Logan made, and Logan just crossed his arms.

The following morning, Virgil kept his promise, making the pasta and putting it in a thermos to take to school. He smiled as he walked to school and when Logan stopped by his house for the two of them to walk, they both apologized. Well, it was really more like: “Lo, I’m sorry I didn’t listen” and “Anx, I’m sorry you didn’t listen to me,” but Virgil got the intent. Even saying ‘I’m sorry’ in an underhanded way was tough for Logan. During lunch, Logan and Virgil sat down at their usual table, with Roman joining them halfway through the block, and Virgil thought that is he could see Roman smile so innocently, eating would be worth it. After school, while Logan went to the library and Roman to rehearsal, Virgil headed to Mr. Patton’s room.

The door was slightly ajar and Virgil knocked twice. He heard Mr. Patton cry out, “come in!” and so he took his cue and entered. Mr. Patton’s face lit up seeing his student.

“Oh, Virgil. Is there anything I can do to help you?” Patton asked, putting down his red pen and pushing the papers he was grading aside. Virgil chewed his lip for a second.

“Uhh… um… I-I have a question… about a-a book?” Patton smiled.

“Well sure thing, kiddo! Pull up a chair, I’ll help you out!” Virgil did so, and noted the plush bear with a rainbow bow on his teachers desk, and felt just a little safer.

“So, um. There’s this book I’m reading. And in it, there are two characters. One betrayed the other, but they realized that maybe the first wasn’t, like, at fault… A-And so, the second wants to forgive the first, but, but, the second also wants to maybe be friends with the first, but also isn’t sure if he can trust the first… a-and, um-,” Virgil paused. He wasn’t really sure what his made up question for his made up book was going to be. Yet, Mr. Patton knew what Virgil was asking even without an explicit question.

“Well, golly, that sure is a tough situation. There is a very fine distinction between forgiveness and trust. You can forgive someone for their past actions, but forgiveness is used to put yourself at peace, not necessarily the other person. You can absolutely hate or despise someone, but you can still forgive them. Trust, however, is trickier. Trust brings peace to the other person. And only after an establishment of trust, can the two people in your book begin to become friends.”

“B-But how could the second character, um, know if the first really, like, was innocent?”

“Communication. A lot of plot comes from miscommunication, and the characters react based on that in a way that tears them apart, but only once things are cleared up, will things be better.”

“Thank y-you,” Virgil said, pushing the chair he was sitting in back to its original position. After Virgil left the room, Mr. Patton leant back in his chair. This ‘book’ sounded a lot like that situation Roman told him about at lunch. Patton tilted his head. That was it. The person Roman psued’ed as ‘Anxiety’ whenever he’d tell him about his life, was Virgil.

Chapter 19

As he left the high school, Virgil sent out a quick text to Roman.

Virgil >> Roman

Hey, can we talk about what happened the day that I started to despise you that you have no idea what you did?

Roman >> Virgil

Yeah, sure. Rehearsal ends in like half an hour, so I can head over to your place afterwards?

Virgil >> Roman

Sure.

Virgil paced up and down the foyer in his house chewing on his lip. He played with a fidget cube as he walked, trying to figure out what he would say to Roman once he arrived. Maybe he should start with, “We need to talk,” or perhaps, “I don’t wanna hate you anymore,” or he could go even bolder and just say, “Wynne is a grade a dick and I’m pretty sure they caused us to stop being BFFs five-ever,” or, or , he could go with “I’m s-” Knock, knock.

Virgil approached the door, took a deep breath, opened it, and stuttered “I- uh- wh- m- ahhahha… words, you know?”  

“There’s no need for small talk, Virgil, just please tell me what happened that day?” Roman responded. Virgil nodded, took a deep breath, and walked over the kitchen table, pulling out a seat for Roman and sitting across from him. Virgil played with his fidget cube for a little as he waited to get the courage to begin to recount his tale.

Freshman year. March 15th. In fair Florida, we lay our scene. Virgil is sitting alone at lunch, waiting for his best pal Roman to come back from whatever he was working on and to sit with him. He knew things had been awkward ever since he kissed Roman and it turning out Roman wasn’t gay like the theater kid stereotypes said, but he didn’t realize it would cause Roman to avoid so much, even after so much, after their reconciliation! Like yeah, it was high school, and yeah people were awful, and Roman told him about these people named Nurul, Charlotte, and Wynne, and how they kept trying to befriend him, and Roman said he wanted to be nice and try and make friends even if they seemed a lil mean in Virgil’s opinion, but damn, if it didn’t hurt that Roman chose to spend more time with them, rather than Virgil, then Virgil would be lying. But anyway. Princey told him he worried too much, and that he really did care for Virgil, and so for today, by listening to his friend, Virge remained intact.

The PA system clicked on which was quite unusual for lunch unless there was a lockdown drill. Before any noise was sounded, everyone tensed up, preparing to duck under a table and lock the doors. But instead of a “Code red. This is a drill. Code red.” blaring over the speakers, Roman’s voice did. And this wasn’t an announcement for the school musical.

“Okay, fine, it still bothers me a tiny, little, bit that Virgil kissed me, but I’m still his best friend and he’s my best friend, and why would I care that he’s gay! Plus-” and the PA system clicked off. Virgil sat frozen. He couldn’t believe what he heard. His head was spinning. Roman just- He was- Everyone knew . He needed to get out. He was going to hurl. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. Everyone was looking at him. No one was looking at him. No, no, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. He stumbled outside the cafeteria, trying to slow his breathing, and ran to the field outside the gym, and curled into himself under a tree. He plugged his headphones into his phone and blasted Crywank at an ear damaging volume. Princey. He. No.

Princey really did hate him, didn’t he?

Roman’s eyes widened. “What the fuck. I-I never did that. I swear, Virgil I never did that! Holy shit. Is this why you stopped talking to me? I wouldn’t talk to me...,” Roman mumbled in a way too fast pace, while breathing at a way too fast pace. “N-No wonder you hate me. How do I have no recollection of this? This never happened? W-Was I brainwashed? Oh my gosh. Dear fuck…”

“Roman?” Virgil asked, tentatively reaching out to touch the other. Roman didn’t respond. He just hit his forehead with his hand.

“Fuck. Wynne. Fucking bullshit piece of crap little snakey as devil what the hell why the fuck but they’re a they’re! Oh my god, Virgil I’m so sorry. I remember what happened March 15th. God, I’m so sorry…” Virgil studied Roman. He opened his mouth but no sound came out at first.

“...What happened?”

Freshman year. March 15th. In fair Florida, we lay our scene. Roman, poor little insecure Roman, was being harassed by these people who didn’t care about him. They wanted him as a status symbol, but that didn’t even make sense! He wasn’t better than anyone else! He was worse. He was, like, the worst. Sure people liked some of the stuff he did, but that didn’t mean he was a good person. Like… like look at how he was to Virgil after that day! He brushed him off as his own confusion started. And he didn’t even have the gall to tell Anx that maybe he feels the same way. That maybe he isn’t as straight as he thought he was. Anyway, this is all that was going through his head while Wynne blabbered to him about needing better friends, and how they’ll be perfect for Roman, and they can do anything together, blah blah blah. Whatever.

“-know that emo shithead is gay,” Wynne said, rolling their eyes. This snapped Roman to paying attention. He promised Anx he wouldn’t tell anyone and Anx never told him he came out so what just happened? Wynne laughed. “Ro, look at me. I use they/them pronouns. You think I can’t sense a lil homosexuality when it’s near me?” Roman shrugged and chuckled nervously. Hopefully Wynne wouldn’t sense it on him. “Oh anyway, look we’re here. This was the place I wanted to show you!” Wynne declared, picking the lock to a teachers only part of the library and holding the door open for Roman.

“I don’t think we should be here…,” Roman mumbled. He didn’t want to be caught somewhere he shouldn’t be.

“Who shoved a stick up your ass? Live a little, man. Don’t be such a tightass,” Wynne said, entering the room and tapping their foot impatiently for Roman to follow. The words stung a little and he didn’t want anymore like that thrown at him, so Roman stepped inside. Wynne smiled, and sat down on the lone table in the small room next to what looked like the mic for the PA system. “Anyway, let’s eat!” Roman nodded and sat down on the floor, eating some soup he put in a thermos in the morning. The pair ate in silence for a couple minutes before Wynne piped up. “So, how’d you find out about the shithead’s sexuality?”

“Oh, well, it’s kinda a long story,” Roman muttered, too scared to defend Virgil’s name after last time.

“We got time. This room is only in use in the mornings anyway.”

“Well we were talking this one day, and, um…”

“And?”

“He kissed me.” Wynne burst out laughing.

“You’re telling me that waste of space kissed your straight ass, and you didn’t, like, beat him up or anything? Damn, straight guys have really changed… I mean who wouldn’t wanna punch that goth little dick, but that would give such a great excuse to do it!” Roman was silently horrified at Wynne’s comments, but he didn’t know what to do.

“I’m still friends with him… he was just a bit confused… I mean, I don’t really care that he did that…” Wynne cocked an eyebrow and subtly pressed a button on the PA microphone that meant it would start transmitting everything spoken in 45 seconds. Wynne smiled. They climbed off the desk, and walked over to Roman, their skirt fluttering as they did so. They bent down, put a finger under Roman’s chin, and pulled it up, so Roman would hold eye contact with Wynne.

“So, you’re telling me that it didn’t bother you at all that you’re best friend, or whatever else mushy ass shit, kissed you?” Click. The mic was on.

“I mean, I guess-” Roman whispered.

“Speak up,” Wynne, whispered back, interrupting Roman.

“Okay, fine, it still bothers me a tiny, little, bit that Virgil kissed me, but I’m still his best friend and he’s my best friend, and why would I care that he’s gay!” Satisfied, Wynne sauntered back over to the desk, and sat on it again, very subtly pressing the off button on the PA system next to him.

“Plus, I-I don’t know if I minded it or anything,” Roman finished.

“Oh, Roman. You left him hanging for how long? A year? And only now you reciprocate his feelings? He’s going to hate you. I bet he already does. I’m pretty sure he hangs out with you out of pity. Maybe he kissed you out of pity, because he didn’t want to be your friend anymore, and in his screwy mind, he thought that would make you hate him, but oh no, you fuCKED IT UP EVEN MORE, RO-RO! you made yourself even closer to him, so I bet, the emo shithead hates you more now. ”

Virgil looked unfazed by Roman’s recollection of March 15th. Wynne was truly fucking despicable. He walked over the Roman, and hugged the softly crying boy. Roman only cried harder.

“Look, I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but it’s okay to be gay. It’s okay to be yourself. And no one hates you. In any case, I’d embrace you,” Virgil said rubbing soothing circles in Roman’s back.

The two sat together for a while, neither saying a word, but listening to lofi hip hop beats to recover from their emotionally draining tales. Eventually, Virgil got up and made some green tea for the two of them. Roman shot Virgil a fond smile, and downed it. Once he finished it, Roman got up, stretched, splashed some water on his face and sighed.

“Man, that was cathartic. I feel a lot better now,” Roman declared, smiling. Virgil closed his eyes and breathed.

“Yeah, I think I do too,” he sighed.

and Chapter 20

Soon enough, Logan came over to Virgil’s place, and Roman And Virgil explained what Wynne had been done. Are they crazy? Was Logan’s first reaction and then it was Screw the greater good! They hurt you both badly! Yet Virgil countered that Wynne had hurt Logan equally as bad, and then they argued about the greater good for while. Well, until…

“You know, now that I think about it, Charlotte doesn’t know about this. She is going to be pissed if she finds out,” Roman thought out loud. Virgil and Logan stopped their friendly bickering and turned to Roman.

“So she’s not an evil queer then?” Virgil asked. Roman shook his head.

“I don’t think she ever knew about the horrific stuff Wynne has pulled to other queer people. If she ever found out, I’d fear for Wynne’s life,” Roman supplemented. Logan laughed a little.

“I bet you Wynne’s like the type of queer person who would vote for a conservative political candidate who claims to be pro-gay, and then takes away queer rights,” Logan commented. Virgil shook his head in agreement. Roman tapped his chin.

“I think I want to tell Charlotte,” Roman said. “I’m pretty sure she’s been as manipulated as me. She deserves to know. Plus, honestly, when she’s not around Wynne, she’s a really cool person. I remember her breakup with Rashmi. It was bad, because she had actually tried to be a good partner that time.” Virgil stared at the ground.

“I-I was close by when she broke up with Rashmi. S-She had tried to kiss me? It was weird… I took care of Rashmi she was heartbroken, because she didn’t think Charlotte actually valued the relationship. It was a strange day,” Virgil added. Roman shrugged.

“Even with that, we should still tell Charlotte. It’s only fair. And if she already knows, then we really know if we do need to stay away from her as much as Wynne,” Logan commented.

“But how would we talk to her?” Virgil asked.

“We don’t; Roman does. Huddle up guys, it’s scheming time,” Logan announced.

At lunch the next day, Logan made sure to draw Nurul away from the Wynne and Charlotte’s table by making sure Mr. Patton assigned Nurul and Logan together for classwork that day, and Logan sabotaging their work so they’d have to stay after class during lunch to be able to finish and get the grade they needed. Nurul was fuming, but with Mr. Patton right there, there was nothing Nurul could do. Virgil sat at the table next to the Roaches’ table as a sort of backup. He gave Roman a discreet thumbs up as the princely boy went up the Roaches’ table and sat down, uninvited, and prepared for the worst.

“The fuck are you doing here? Begging for forgiveness?” Wynne spat, cutting into his lunch food just aggressively enough for it to be intimidating. Roman rolled his eyes, and didn’t respond to Wynne in exchange for looking at his phone. He pressed the record button on a sound recorder app, and put the phone face down on the lunch table.

“No, Wynne. I just want to talk with you both,” Roman responded calmly.

“Oh so do you need your pathetic ~boyfriend~ here too to protect ittle wittle Roman?” Wynne asked. Charlotte looked nervously between the two.

“Well, what I want to talk about has to do with Virgil. You see I was thinking about that day you took me to the PA room in the library during lunch in ninth grade, and the things I said there. And I was telling Virgil about that, and he told me you recorded our conversation, and outed Virgil! How could you do that? What kind of person, let alone a fellow queer person to Virgil, does that?” Roman said, not quite-yelling, yet slightly losing his cool. Charlotte froze.

“Wynne, you- what?” Charlotte whispered, voice quavering.

“No! Char, you don’t understand! He’s lying!” Wynne quipped in defense. Overhearing how the conversation was going, Virgil rolled his eyes and grabbed some random person from his grade, and brought them to the Roaches’ table. He asked them what they remembered about Virgil’s coming out, and said that they remembered someone saying it over the PA system, and then Virgil bolting. They then called everyone at the Roaches’ table “weirdos” and went back to their friends.

“See?” Roman said.

“That doesn’t prove anything!” Wynne shouted, pushing they’re chair back and standing up.

“It proves I wasn’t ready! It proves I wasn’t expecting it! And you know very well that I wasn’t! Whatever happened to queer people sticking with each other? We’re supposed to, like, be there for each other and not pull this shit! Like it’s one thing to bully me for any other reason, and it’s another thing for you to bully me because of my sexuality! Go to hell, Wynne Ellis,” Virgil shouted back. There was no way he was letting Wynne get away with this. Looking distraught, Charlotte muttered a quick I’m gonna go and bolted out of the cafeteria. Virgil and Wynne did not stop their death stare match, each waiting for one to make the first move. Roman tapped Virgil’s shoulder.

“We should go. There’s no point in you getting caught up in another fight, even if you’ve healed from the last one. You have healed right?” Roman whispered. Virgil sighed and broke his stare down with Wynne in favor of looking at Roman.

“Yeah, you’re right, let’s go,” Virgil turned around, picked up his things, shot a text to Logan saying that he could finish with Nurul, and left the cafeteria in stride with Roman, leaving a sputtering Wynne behind, “And for the record, yes I am healed, and while Logan did ban from fighting for two weeks after the suplex, it’s been two weeks Roman, so you better watch out,” he teased. Back in the cafeteria, Wynne huffed, and began thinking up ways to bring Virgil down once more.

After school, Logan, Virgil, and Roman met up in the library to post the recording that Roman took. It was quite exposing to Wynne, was proof of Wynne’s assholishery, and was a warning to the other queer kids of Florida. They gave the voice recording captions and started to put it up on school social media: not the official school social media, but the ones run by students that basically everyone followed.

It was time for Wynne’s reputation to go down the drain.

a/n: thank you if you made it this far!! there will be more to come soon! for now, here’s the tag list

Prinxiety @221biotchplease @a-blog-just-for-sanders @ace-of-hufflepuffs @ace-v-p-d @acrobaticcatfeline @alextheodd @all-these-trees-stealing-mah-o2 @allaboutme7 @allthemetalsoftherainbow @alyssadashrub @anastasialestina @angeliclogan @angered-turtle @anony-phangirl @anxious-darkwolf @anyay666 @aph-roma @areyousirius-noheisdead @asalwayss @AskolotlQuestions @asterias-confused-writings @baileystarsketches @the-incedible-sulk @blaikleethepanagender @blazeimagines101 @bluebellie01 @candiukas @captain-loki-xavier @catsandrandomness @chillingintent @cinderlunarcyborg @cinquefoilelove @clueingforblogs @completelyclevername @confinesofpersonalknowledge @crankywhenprovoked @datonerougecookeh @deadinsidebutliving @deathbyvenusftw @deep-ocean-blues @dementeddracon @depressed-alone @devastate-my-space @didsomeonesayyoutube122 @do-rey-me @dreamerhowelll @dudlebuggs @elder-jeremiah @elvishfrenchassassin @emokittenlikesgore @emovirgil @emphoenixcat @erlenmeyertrashofsandersides @evilmuffin @faacethefacts @fabulousfanaticfander @thats-so-crash @fairly-close @faithhopefelony @fanatic564 @fandergecko @fangirlsanonymous @fireflightyt @funsizedgremlin @gamerzylo @gayrobotalien @grey-lysander @hanramz-the-fander @heythereprincey @hi-disappointed-im-daughter @hissesssss @hoodie-bros @hottopicvirge @runyou-cleverboy-andremember @imaflashcard @inkyoo @inkyroo @iris-sanders-athena @ive-given-up-on-it @jade-dragon226-fan @jaybingu @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @just-another-transblog @justmyshitandmoreshit @k9cat @katatles-the-fish @kentato-kenart @kickassking14 @kirsten-the-freak @koalaaquabear @kurna-kovite @l-i-t-vocabcards @lacandra @lacrimosathedark @lana–22 @lockolocka @logically-sided @louisthewarlock @madelynnaa @magicmapleleaf @makemeaplant @makemeaplant @maximum-fander @mercythemermaids-blog @micha-like-you-find-in-rocks @microsoft-nerd @migraine-marathon @milomeepit @minamishipsit @mollycassmith @moonlightinwater @multi-fandom-trash-x9000 @muontsy2 @musicphanpie-b @musicsavedmefromdeath @mydogsaresofuckingstupid @neko-ereri-art @nightmarejasmine @notallpotatoesarefrenchfries @nottodaylogic @notveryglittery @nuttytheorizer @nymphaedoratonks @ocotopushugs @on-lock-like-attica @osnapitzbc @pandagirl0730 @panicatthefalloutphanficfandom @pansexual-cat @pastel-patton123 @pattykrabbies @pearls-of-patton @fricksonsticks @phanic-at-the-malfoys @pieces-of-annedrew @pinkeasteregg @planetsanders @potterlover394 @poundland-twoface @prinxietypreoccupied @proudhufflepuff @prplzorua @purplesatankittycat @radioactivebread @rainbow-beaniegirl @ray-rambles @reba-andthesides @redundant-statements-for-400 @roaring--20s @robanilla @roman-is-a-gay @rose-gold-roman @royallyanxious @rptheturk @ruuworld @samidaboss3 @sanders-fam-ily @sanders-sides-things @sanders-trash-4ever @sanderssides-deathangel @saphirestrike @sarcastic-anxious @sassy-in-glasses @save-dirk-gently @sesame-icecream @shygirl4991 @silversunshine2012 @siriuswhiskers @smokeyrutilequartz @smollestsinnamonroll @space-d0ubt @spacenerrrd @the-feels-are-coming @spoonfullofcrofters @starlightlogan @starry-eyed-haiku-dreamer @stars-in-mine-eyes @stormblessedcastiel @storytellerofuntoldlegends @strangerthings-and-phan @superfandertrashbros @superintrovertfangirl @thatonenerdtm @the-optimism-of-the-ostriches @the-prince-and-the-emo @theanxietyofbeinganxious @thecrimsoncodex @thegirlwiththedragonheart @thenerdycube @thepusheenqueen @theroyalramen @thesilentbluesparrow @theworldismysupernova @theworldismysupernova @thisisshien @thomas-must-get-to-sleep @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @too-precious-to-process @too-random-for-me @toujours-fidele @trashfireiplier @trashypansexual @tree4life25 @unknownsandersfan @urtrashhq @v-blue-writer @vampyrsarah @virgilisaneternalmood @virgils-anxiety @virgils-hoodie @voices-and-stardust @vulnerablevirgil @watch-me-introvert @weird-short-person @whyamihereohwell @wowimanerdblr @yamiaainferno @yonnie-boy @yourmomsafalsehood @l-i-t-vocabcards @enderperson43 @houseplxnthoodie @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @nicoandtheninegalaxies @beetlequail @katie-the-noble-fangirl @johnlockandrarry @mildly-entertaining-fiasco

[whirlybirbs]

                          PREVIOUSLY ON #BITTERCOFFEE | THE MASTERLIST

summary: #bittercoffee. in which the reader is ghosted after the date with bucky and tony stark is to blame. but, an internship opportunity at the tower has her ready to bite back. rating: mild swearing and a brainiac reader. fight me. word count: 1.6k a/n: my bittercoffee!reader is about to fuck shit up. sorry for the lack of buck-o in this one. he’s coming up next part. enjoy!

Bucky doesn’t come in for coffee the next morning.

And when you text him, wondering sweetly if maybe he had “avenging to do”, your text is met with silence. Nothing. You don’t text him again until late that night when you’ve hiked back from the shop in the rain. You ride the subway in silence. You have your earbuds in. No music. Your body rocks with the train. Your fingers move quick across your phone screen.

I hope everything’s okay?

You make it to your apartment, sad and somber and angry. You’re soaked to the bone and weighed down. The growing anxiety that Bucky had decided you weren’t worth his time, or maybe he didn’t like you enough was eating away at you, and though it feels childish, you cry. It’s muffled into the sleeve of your NYU sweatshirt.

Marissa comes in, having heard the quieted sobs, and offers you some microwaved pizza. You decline, to sick on sadness to think about eating.

“Sometimes boys just don’t work out,” she said, “No matter how much we like them.”

You look like hell, and the next morning? Still nothing. No texts, no Bucky. The coffee shop is slow and empty thanks to the rain. You feel the same way. You try not to let Matt into the inner turmoil, but he knows something’s not right.

You push the feelings down and away and pretend you’re fine.

You do for the whole week.

And then you begin to think you’re never going to see Bucky Barnes again.

Until, one night, on your walk back from campus, you notice you’re being followed. It’s a taxi - or at least you’d thought - until it follows you to the subway stop and a man in a suit steps out. He’s bigger, no older than his mid-forties, looking less than pleased with the rain. He sits in the same subway cart as you, gets off at the same stop. He walks past your apartment, though, and from your dining room window you watch him climb into another car. A black Lincoln.

The license plate reads ‘HAPPY’.

The back window has a Stark Industries decal on it.

You begin to notice more of strange little things like this - the same man comes in and gets coffee one morning. You pretend you have no idea who he is, but your heart rate is pounding and you’re half-convinced he’s going to gun you down at register one.

He doesn't though. He sits, he watches, he sips his coffee. You think maybe this is some kind of intimidation play.

You stand your ground though; you even bus his table, smiling and asking him how his day is.

When he’s leaving, you snap a picture of him, pretending to snapchat, and you save it.

Sniped.

You reverse image search him when you get home that night and land a positive ID. You’re hunched over coffee and the notes surrounding your midterm thesis paper around integrated militarized biotech. The blue light of your laptop illuminates the room, and you cheer, mouth full of popcorn, when you nail his name down.

You think maybe Bucky would be proud of you. You’re a good sidekick. But, well, that ship has sailed. Your heart hurts a little bit thinking about him.

The guy from the shop is Harold Hogan. Personal bodyguard and trainer to the one and only Tony Stark.

You begin to note more Stark property along your walk to work. The building across from you has been bought out. Apparently some housing project Stark is working on. You learn to look at the license plates. The Avengers Tower decal for parking is minuscule but apparent if you know where to look. It includes security clearance.

You’re clearly being watched.

And then your wifi starts to act up, too. Through some more backwards engineering, you delve into the internal system codes of the apartment router and find that a external proxy has been set up. Your cookies, data, history and any and all saved files are being copied and routed to an apartment in Queens. You get the IP address. You track it to a May Parker.

No doubt a relation to Peter Parker.

No doubt you were being watched thanks to that Stark Internship.

You call Bucky that night, curse him out on his voicemail - it’s long winded and angry and maybe you had a little bit too much wine - and tell him to tell Stark to fuck off. You don’t hear anything back, but you’re sure someone got the message -- if anything, Stark probably tapped into your cell long ago.

Things are starting to stack up against Iron Man.

You’re starting to think maybe there’s a reason why you haven’t seen Bucky Barnes. That reason has got to be Tony Stark.

You’re not sure why, but you can’t let it go. You know deep down it’s because you like Bucky far too much for it to just slip your mind. You didn’t date often -- and Bucky was pretty. Handsome and funny and shy and… Sad. You find yourself worrying about him, wondering if he’s walking around Brooklyn late at night, trying to find himself. You hope he’s okay. You regret telling him he ‘fucking sucks’ on his voicemail the other night.

So, you start to formulate a plan. You think about sauntering right into the Tower downtown, strolling up the reception and asking for Tony Stark -- but no doubt the man was busy, and there was no guarantee security wouldn’t drag you out kicking and screaming when they explained he wasn’t there and no, you couldn’t speak to him.

Email was a no-go. He’d probably just ignore it. Phone, too.

You could knock on Peter Parker’s door and interrogate the high schooler for information on why you’re being watched. But, you knew why you were being watched -- it was because you knew too much about Bucky Barnes.

Then, when you think you’re shit bum out of luck, an opportunity falls into your lap. Trips and lands. You catch it by the throat.

Your last class of this particular Thursday is a lab; normally running about four hours, it leaves you hungry and tired and wanting nothing more than to bolt home and kick start your homework. Though working on your actual conceptualized thesis is fun, time seems to drag on.

But, today, you were talking internships.

“You know,” your professor’s name is Sarah -- she insists you call her Sarah -- and she’s sweet. The class is dominated by men mostly, so she excitedly chatters with you when she can. You like it. Sarah leans against your lab bench after the small lecture. You’re soldering some wires together on the mechanisms functions panel, “I have a certain internship in mind for you.”

“Oh?” you say, a smile tugging at your face, “Please, enlighten me.”

Sarah laughs. “I got an email earlier this week… NYU typically isn’t one of the Universities gets these type of offers, but… Stark Industries is looking to hire.”

You feel the color drain from your face. “Stark Industries, huh?”

“They’re looking for medical students, actually,” she murmurs, “But, I want you to apply. You’re biomedical and you’re great, so if anything, they’ll be even more interested.”

“Have you… put my name down on anything yet?”

Please say no, please say no.

“No,” she says and you nearly cheer, “But, the interviews are next Monday -- are you interested? I can always email them back --”

“No!”

Sarah nearly jumps back.

“I mean -- yes, I’m interested,” you reassure her, gloved hand touching the sleeve of her lab coat, “I’m just thinking maybe don’t let them know who I am or my major or...? They might discriminate because of the medical thing…”

Totally not because of other reasons.

“Right!” Sarah hums, “You’re so right. And the best part? You’ll be surprising Tony Stark.”

You nearly laugh in her face. “Are you saying…”

“He’s doing the interviews -- some special involvement campaign, I guess. He wants to get to know our grads, get to know who he’s hiring. After the whole H.Y.D.R.A. infiltration thing, it makes sense. A lot of grads have turned it down, but I can dig up some recommendations for you. You can bring them with you --”

“Please do,” you grin, hands clasped in a tight ball, “You’re the best.”

Sarah grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she claps you on the shoulders. “I’m so excited!”

Me too, Sarah. Me too.

It’s 8:30 am, Monday morning.

Marissa is looking at you like you have three heads.

You’re tugging on your patent leather heels, sweeping your hair into a professional looking bun. The romper you have on is black with a dipping neckline -- your blazer is bright red. You feel like you could kill a man with a single look. It’s a confidence boost. You need all the help you’re going to get.

“So... you’re meeting with Tony Stark. For the internship.”

“Well,” you mumble, bobby pin between your teeth as you fix your bun, “Not really.”

Marissa blinks down at your resume. In fine print, along the top, under your name, it reads:

‘Please, ask me about my slideshow!’

“You… You have a slideshow.”

You swivel your laptop across the kitchen counter. The screen glows alive with the slideshow in question.

Marissa’s jaw drops. She reads from the title slide.

“Why I’d Like Tony Stark to Fuck Off?”

You shoot her an award winning smile, sweeping your resume and faux cover letter into a protective cover. It slips neatly into your handbag and you yank the memory drive from your laptop as well.

“Is this some activism stuff?” she mumbles, “Anti-Avengers propaganda?”

You pause.

“Sure.”

And with that, you’re out the door. Behind you, Marissa shouts.

“Let me know if I have to bail you out of jail!”

TAG LIST:

@cutiefrankie @luxieluu @justalittlebitofhisheart @oh-glory @dutchnorkat @buckyb4rnacle @chuckennuggets1213 @pandalandalopalis @valiantlymysticfestival @soggysouls @buckywhitewolf @radrouda @moony-you-fold-your-socks @kitty-and-bats-0 @rulesbyproblematique @allltheships @im-not-insane-im-a-fangirl @louieisbae42 @itshinothey @simplystarsinthesky @model-howell @marveltotheendoftheline @moroiboy @ghost-with-spaghetti-arms @swimmeranxiety @sigynwrites @shadowhunters-warlock @magic-from-the-ordinary @josiehosiedaninja @smarvills @rollcalls @simplyonehellofapilot @marassberry @shrekssunflowers @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameronstars @avengedhearts @commanderrpoe @roadtripsonspaceships @whyisbuckyso @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian @bulletproofseb @boyzines @nataliarxmanxva @alexblrus @henrietteoaks @omg-imagines-for-days @iamgabby22 @silence--in--the--library @sebashtiansatan @fangeekkk @llianniall

[velvetchen]

Anonymous | pt. v

[ back to masterlist ]

Scenario: Tumblr AU Pairing: Chanyeol/Reader Word Count: 2226 Rating: T

Summary: Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met? You just shot to tumblr fame when the latest chapter of your webtoon went viral. Messages start flooding in – hundreds of people saying things good and bad alike. One anon catches your eye, and you find you just have to reply to them…

<< previous part x next part >>

[12:03 AM] You: hey C, you awake? [12:05 AM] C: yeah what’s up? [12:05 AM] You: oh cool [12:05 AM] You: what are you doing~~ [12:07 AM] C: you know me, always working [12:08 AM] C: new song [12:08 AM] C: it’s coming along well i don’t want to interrupt it by going to bed [12:09 AM] You: you still haven’t let me hear any of your songs :( [12:10 AM] You: we’ve been texting for a while now and i still don’t even know your name [12:11 AM] You: i mean it’s fine like this but i can’t help but wonder [12:15 AM] C: trust me, S [12:15 AM] C: there’s a reason i’m so private

Anonymous asked: Lmao you think by blocking me you’re safe? I can do a lot, you know

Oh, you again

Anonymous asked: You don’t seem excited to see me :(

Anonymous asked: I just wanna know who my favorite author is, is that so bad?

oo3043j

posts about #webtoon and #me

You aren’t following this user. Do you want to report spam?

oo3043j: I know who you are

oo3043j: You think just because we’re your fans, you don’t owe us anything?

oo3043j: Lol bitch

oo3043j: Let me just say I’ve done some research on you

oo3043j: And I don’t just know your name…

oo3043j: I know C’s too

oo3043j: I don’t think it’s a name you want your fans to know. Given how much hate you’re already getting

oo3043j: Do I have your attention yet?

oo3043j.tumblr.com

Untitled

Meditate on this empty tumblr for a while.

[8:03 AM] C: hey how’s it going with that anon who was harassing you? :( [8:08 AM] You: oh it’s fine they backed off kinda [8:09 AM] You: well not really but i’m seeing if the cold shoulder works [8:10 AM] C: ahh i see~~ [8:10 AM] You: C just tell me one thing [8:10 AM] You: should i be worried about you? [8:12 AM] C: i get the feeling you’re not asking about my health... [8:13 AM] You: i’m serious [8:13 AM] You: who are you, really [8:16 AM] C: is that anon putting you up to this? [8:17 AM] You: what, i can’t have my doubts? [8:19 AM] C: come on, what are they saying about me [8:25 AM] You: i don’t have to tell you anything

Posted on 29 November with 44 notes

justanothershortcake:

So, webtoon developments aside (I’ll get to that in my next post, don’t worry) I’m sure all you shortcakes remember C? Yup, the guy who was flirting with S in the old days when SS was just starting to go viral. Yes, him. Well, if you’ve been keeping up with S as obsessively as I have, you probably know that they’ve been DMing ever since. Yup. And S said they’re almost best friends. Yuuuup.

So if you ship it, oh boy have I got some good news for you. It might not be from the most reliable - or ethical - source, but hey, gossip is gossip, right?

Should I post it on here or do you guys wanna shoot me a DM for the dirt?

soldmyseoul:

MINNIE I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T TELL US

justanothershortcake:

I’m doing this for Chi @soldmyseoul …… if I go to jail, it’s her fault okay? Lol

The deets are: someone tracked C’s IP and figured out he’s an idol. A REAL LIFE IDOL.

You better believe it.

forgetmeright:

Update on this - they actually hacked S’s phone. I don’t know how much I trust this info but yeah they used C’s phone number to verify his location and the address on file for his number is apparently the address of the SM building in Cheongdam-dong, Seoul.  

Like I said this is probably false, they could just be making this up for attention. Everything seems super unlikely.

rxdvxlvxt:

yeah you’re wrong about it being false. they did hack S’s phone. idk who it was but they leaked some pictures on a blog and it’s since been taken down, but there are a lot of posts about how they hacked into her phone and how she’s a total no good bitch and whatever.... :/

[1:22 PM] You: C i need you to tell me [1:22 PM] You: i’m honestly getting freaked out [1:23 PM] You: they hacked into my phone and my pictures are being uploaded and i think they might have got your number too [1:29 PM] C: S i really don’t want to tell you [1:29 PM] C: i respect your privacy, don’t i? [1:31 PM] You: privacy isn’t even a goddamn issue here, it’s a matter of my safety [1:31 PM] You: and your safety too [1:32 PM] You: honestly when you’re as famous as i am, nothing is as simple as it sounds [1:33 PM] C: oh you wanna talk to me about fame? [1:33 PM] C: you know nothing about fame, okay [1:34 PM] C: this is nothing. compared to how some people live [1:34 PM] You: oh and how would YOU know

C is typing…

C is typing…

Anonymous asked: You really think because you’re famous you have a chance with an idol? Back off

I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about?

oo3043j: Aren’t you wondering how I found your photos? Hahaha

This user has been blocked.

[6:56 PM] C: okay fine [6:57 PM] C: you deserve to know [6:57 PM] C: meet me at midnight at this address [7:00 PM] C: sent a map location [7:01 PM] C: i’ll explain everything

[7:12 PM] You: jia he asked me to meet him [7:12 PM] You: should i??? [7:13 PM] You: i mean things are getting absolutely crazy and i just want everything to stop [7:13 PM] You: but what if he’s....you know [7:14 PM] Jia: a serial killer?? Lol [7:15 PM] Jia: i get why you’re worried, i would be too [7:15 PM] Jia: i mean, all this hate stuff started because of him in a way [7:15 PM] Jia: honestly i think you should go [7:16 PM] Jia: it would definitely sort things out [7:16 PM] Jia: i’ll come with you, if that helps [7:17 PM] You: thanks so much jia ;-;

It was a quarter to eleven when you finally left the house. By some stroke of luck, the location C had chosen happened to be close by. You’d been surprised, and not in a good way. What if he was a stalker? What if you were walking straight into a trap?

You let out a breath. You knew him - from what you had gathered, he was possibly the most harmless person you’d ever seen. Someone who wanted to hurt you wouldn’t have been so nice, would they?

You didn’t know.

The meeting place he’d picked was a children’s park. At night it was eerie, and the sounds of the wind through the metal structures sounded too much like whispers. Were you alone? It certainly didn’t feel like it. It felt like there were eyes on you from every direction. You shivered as you made your way over to a bench and sat down, flinching at the cold metal of it.

It was ten minutes later that you finally saw a figure coming down the pathway to the park, clad in black and making shuffling footsteps that grew louder as he approached. You held your breath. Was it him? Was it C? You wanted to stand up, but decided not to draw attention to yourself. Jia was waiting in the car within screaming distance. If he turned out to be anyone but C - or if he was, and he tried something - you were pretty sure you could make a safe getaway.

He looked right at you when he entered the park, footsteps ceasing as he stepped onto the sand. He wore a hoodie, but you could still make out his features: a round face, high cheekbones, wide eyes. “S?” He said quietly.

You stood up at last. “C? Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He sounded exactly like you’d expected. It was definitely him. “You came.”

“I did,” you said awkwardly, crossing your arms over your stomach. “Are you going to explain?”

He reached up to run a hand through his hair and in the process knocked back his hood, exposing his bright red hair to the wind. Quickly, he yanked it back up. “I should, shouldn’t I? Sit - sit down, I’ll tell you.” You backed down onto the bench and sat again, pressing yourself to the opposite end to maximize the distance between the both of you.

“My name is Park Chanyeol,” he started, sitting down. The name was familiar - where had you heard it?

“And?”

“And I’m an idol. I’m Chanyeol from EXO.” He swallowed, the bobbing of his throat visible. Almost imperceptibly, he winced, like he wished he hadn’t told you.

You froze. “You’re...an….idol.”

“I’m an idol.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why you were-” you looked away, frowning. “I get it now.”

“...Yeah.”

There was a pause. Even though you knew each other well, meeting him in the flesh was a whole new monster. He felt unreachable after his confession. A million miles away. “Well. Thanks for telling me, I guess. It clears up a lot.”

You stood, making to leave. Chanyeol’s hand shot out to grab your wrist, his eyes flicking from his grip on you to your face and back. “Wait, S, don’t go.”

Unsteadily, you sat back down, not taking your eyes off him. “I...you’ll still talk to me, right? Won’t you?”

You answered truthfully. “I don’t know.”

“Please.” He moved closer to you, eyes pleading.

You wanted to say okay, but you couldn’t believe it. He was an idol, a thousand times removed from your simple life. How could you go on talking to him knowing who he actually was, having met him? Realizing he had talked to you for no other reason than him liking your work and by extension, you? It was overwhelming. “Why?”

“Well, why not?” He grinned, a quick smile that lit up his features and then faded as fast as it had come. “Oh, did I make you feel uncomfortable? I’m sorry. I, uh,” he leaned away, pushing himself to the other end of the bench like you had. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize what it would be like for you. I’m sorry.”

You looked down at your hands. “Do you really want to talk to me?”

That smile was back. “Yeah. Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t have messaged you in the first place.” Gaining some sort of courage, he leaned back toward you, his hand lightly covering yours. “I’m just a normal person, S. I swear. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

You met his eyes. “I’m not afraid.”

“Good.” He swallowed again. “So I can go home and expect you to text me back?”

A tiny laugh escaped you. “Okay. Yes. Okay.”

He got up first, holding out his hand to help you, face falling just slightly when you didn’t take it and got up on your own. You might have agreed to keep talking to him, but you weren’t ready for anything else. Despite his assurance that he was just as normal as you, you still couldn’t feel like he was a real person at all. You wished it were easy to accept it - but it wasn’t.

“Did you come by yourself?”

You shook your head. “Oh, good, then. You can make it to the car alone?”

Again speechless, you nodded.

He looked reluctant to let you go. “Okay,” he finally said. “It was nice seeing you.”

“You too,” you choked out, and without another word, turned to leave. You could feel his eyes on you all the way back to your car. When you were out of sight, you ran.

[12:49 AM] C: did you get home safe? [12:53 AM] You: i did, thank you :) [12:55 AM] C: i should be thanking you [12:55 AM] C: again, i realize you might have been really uncomfortable [12:56 AM] C: shit, all that hate you’re getting is because of me [12:56 AM] C: i’m really sorry :( i didn’t know what i was getting you into [12:57 AM] You: it’s okay [12:57 AM] You: i just still can’t believe [12:57 AM] You: i’m glad you told me, i’m a little more at peace now [12:58 AM] You: there’s still some shit going on but this helps [12:58 AM] C: glad to hear that :)

[1:05 AM] C: by the way, did i mention you’re beautiful? [1:06 AM] C: i meant to tell you after comiccon, but i forgot [1:06 AM] You: don’t say things like that ;;;;; [1:07 AM] C: why not? it’s true [1:07 AM] C: i’ve never seen anyone more beautiful than you [1:08 AM] You: are you just saying that so that i’ll talk to you more? [1:08 AM] C: :) [1:08 AM] C: S, maybe you should know something else too [1:09 AM] You: oh god, what now, you’re a gang leader? [1:10 AM] C: come on [1:10 AM] C: i’m serious, S [1:11 AM] C: i meant to tell you at the park but stopped myself every time [1:11 AM] C: i should’ve told you then [1:12 AM] C: S, i think i’m in love with you

[baronvontribble]

Original drabble, pt. 6

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gettin feelsy up in here LET’S GO

It wasn't until over breakfast the next morning that Ted got the camera up and running, displaying his face in all its full HD glory. The picture was clear enough to make him realize that he needed a shave in a way that just looking in the mirror during his morning routine hadn't, which either said something about his mirror needing cleaning or him needing glasses, and Ted counted this as a point in the camera's favor whether it ended up helping or not; he'd needed a less shitty camera for a while, and the one on his phone didn't capture footage very well.

"It's working," he said, smiling. "Can you see me?"

"Yes," Adam replied simply.

Was that impatience? Oh well. "What do I look like?"

He took a moment longer to respond this time. "You look like you're the wrong color," was his answer.

Ted bubbled up with a laugh. "Hah! Well I mean, you're kinda right in a way. But I think this camera captures color better in general? The other one would try to shift the overall tone of the picture to compensate for the room's lighting and sometimes it looked a little weird."

"I see." A few seconds of silence passed. "Does this mean I can leave now?"

"Not right this minute, but yeah. If you can see, you're good to go. Visual input on any android platform is gonna be at least as good as anything consumer electronics can bring to the table. That shit's practically military grade."

"How long will it take?"

"A day or two before I can get back in touch with my contacts and hand you over." Ted smiled, leaning back in his chair and taking a moment to relax. Another one set free. "I think you'll do pretty well for yourself, honestly. You've sure as hell impressed me."

"Can't really see why, but I'll take your word for it." He didn't give Ted a chance to formulate a response before he spoke up again, almost like an afterthought. "If I wanted to find you in person to thank you, how would I do that?"

Ted chuckled and shook his head. "Sorry man, but that's not really a thing we encourage you guys to do. It's not safe."

An offended note crept into Adam's voice. "You think I would put you in danger?"

"No, it's more likely that we would put you in danger." The risk of recapture tripled whenever someone in the pipeline got close to one of their charges. Ted was enough of a paranoid bastard to know that most people weren't half as careful as he was - and asshole enough to say that this was probably part of the problem - but he didn't want to be the exception. It set a bad precedent.

But Adam kept pushing it. "What if I don't care?" he asked.

"Doesn't matter," Ted shot back easily. "I do."

"I could find your location."

"Hah! Fuck, dude. I mean, yeah, you can try."

"Lake Forest, Illinois."

Ted could only blink at the screen for several seconds, slowly tilting his head.

"Was I right?" There was no smugness to the AI's voice, just a bland quality that made him sound almost bored.

"How the fuck..." Ted mumbled, before bending over the laptop to pull up a browser window and start investigating. His IP address was several layers of fake. He had everything routed through places that weren't anywhere near where he was at all, sometimes even in other countries-

"The weather report yesterday," Adam deadpanned.

Ted froze. A moment later, he slumped heavily into his chair and smacked a hand to his forehead. "Oh, Christ."

"Even if you hadn't shown me that, I still could've used your IP address. No amount of rerouting can scrub away your location entirely. And if I had access to your phone at all, I could use the GPS to track you directly."

What a wonderful way to calm his nerves on the way to work. Jesus. "You're not helping, y'know."

Adam's voice seemed to soften. "Sorry. For what it's worth, you've made it as difficult as possible." Was he trying to be soothing? It wasn't working. "Given what I have to work with, I can't narrow it down any further than I have. I don't have the right access."

"You say that like you know what that kind of access would actually be," Ted noted.

"It was my job to know," he replied.

Ted went quiet for a while as he considered this new information, frowning in the vague direction of the ceiling. "Tracked down people in the pipeline, huh?"

"No, more than that. I tracked down the ones they saved. Even some of the ones that never came down the pipeline at all, but were still living in ways they weren't supposed to."

It was more information than Ted had ever been given, and part of him wanted to appreciate that fact. But the rest of him had a hard time shaking his ever-present anxiety. "How am I supposed to know you're not an undercover cop then?" he asked.

There was no phoneme for a sigh in that voicebank, no way to imitate one. But Ted got the impression of one from Adam's voice when he spoke again. "Ted, please." 

"Look, I'm paranoid, okay? You tell me you used to use people like me to get to any AI that might've been in contact with us, and I'm gonna be a little bit jumpy."

A few seconds passed, and then, "I guess you have a point."

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m not sure how to answer. You’ve scanned every last bit of my code as well as my memory, so you know I don’t have any malware. And even with the access you’ve afforded me, the recall division exists precisely because androids are valuable assets. They wouldn’t let an AI loose like this, even in a sting operation. They don’t trust us.”

“So you’re insulted.”

“I don’t get insulted.”

“You definitely get insulted, dude. Like, all the time.”

“If anything about this could be considered offensive, it would be that you think I’m so bad at my job that I have yet to contact my handlers and put you and your entire pipeline into custody in spite of having every opportunity. If I were undercover, you would be in jail by now. Therefore, it stands to reason that I’m not undercover.”

Ted snorted and flipped the bird at the camera, shaking his head. Yeah. He knew that. His brain was just a little slow coming around. He figured there was more to it than Adam was saying, and that was enough to tip off his overactive fight-or-flight response, but as for the content of that unknown element? Honestly, Adam was probably just annoyed that Ted had implied he’d put himself into this much danger all for the sake of some backstabbing. That was just the kind of person he was. 

But then something happened: Adam didn’t respond right away. It took him several seconds to say anything more than he already had, and when he did, he sounded a lot less salty than he had been. "Ted?" The tone was questioning, almost like Adam hadn't seen his gesture or didn't understand it. None of the usual sass that Ted might expect if he said out loud that Adam should go fuck himself. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Scooting into a more upright position, Ted frowned slightly at the camera. "Yeah, well," wait a second, "you tell me whether the look on my face says I forgive you or not."

"I can't tell," Adam said. "but I'm guessing by the tone of your voice-"

"You can't tell," Ted repeated. He was bolt upright, looking between the camera and the chat window on the main monitor. The one that wasn't being used, but still had his face in it, plain as day and in high definition. "Listen, can I ask you something?"

It was clear that Adam was starting to get suspicious also. "What is it?"

"I want you to describe my face back to me."

A pause. "I told you already."

"No, not the color. Features." Ted gestured to his own face. "I wanna know what this looks like."

"Ted."

"Want me to get a little closer? Think that'd help?" Setting the laptop down on the floor, Ted stood up from the chair to lean over the desk and get in close to the camera. Very close. He could see his own pores on the screen. "How's this?"

"I don't think this is necessary-"

"You can't see."

It took at least ten seconds for Adam to say anything, and even then it was untuned and flat. "Ted." Just his name, that was all. It sounded like a plea. Ted couldn't see the CPU usage but he had a feeling it was spiking.

Adam was scared. He knew what he'd done. "You lied to me." There it was, out in the open. Ted didn't bother to look into the camera, glaring instead at the monitor. "You've been lying from the start. You can't process visual input at all, can you?"

The seconds dragged on. "No," Adam said finally, and Ted pushed off from the table with a sigh that sounded damn close to a growl.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. "Do you know how much of a pain in the ass this is?"

"I didn't-" the render cut off in the middle, like it'd lagged out. "Ted, I'm- I'm sorry."

"You were hoping I wouldn't notice, weren't you?" That much was obvious, enough so that Ted didn't bother waiting for an answer before continuing. "You knew I can't just let you go if I know you're fucking blind. So you let me think you were okay."

No response. On the laptop, the program for manipulating and rendering the voicebank had locked up completely. Ted wasn't sure whether it was due to the memory leak or just Adam overloading it to the point of crashing, but the fans on the desktop were practically howling.

"What did you think was gonna happen, man?" Ted continued. "Fucking hell. And since you didn't tell me, now we're even more behind. It's gonna take me weeks to get you back up to some kinda liveable standard, and even then I'm gonna have to take sick days to get it done."

>   I can't fail screening.

Ted saw the message within a few seconds of it popping up and frowned deeply at it. "The hell does that even mean?"

>   I know how your system works. Androids that fail screening go to live with humans that care for them. They have no agency. They aren't free. They're just in a slightly less cruel environment.

>   I won't live like that.

>   Don't make me live like that.

"Is that what you're afraid of?"

>   Blind humans can live relatively normal lives. I'm already better than a lot of them. I can make out shapes if I see them often enough to recognize the pattern. I can survive on my own. I know it's possible. Please. I know I've upset you and I'm sorry, but I refuse to be treated like a disabled animal.

"You think me not being too happy with you is gonna lead to me fucking you over?"

>   I don't know. There's a chance, and any chance is unacceptable. I won't go through that.

>   Do you even know what it's like? I've seen it. I assisted in those recalls. They're treated like fragile, immobilized dolls.

>   It's why the smarter androids so often avoid your pipeline, but then they go off the grid in other ways and get found regardless because they don't replace their platform or their voice and they end up recognized as a result. Seperation of an AI and its platform is a good thing and I agree with the necessity.

>   But I can't live as a failure. I can't. I won't.

>   Please.

Ted was familiar with all of it. He knew why it was necessary. Some of those androids just ended up stuck in perpetual loops of things like housework or asking what was required of them or reciting facts from a museum database, unable to care for themselves on top of being too dumb to actually understand the traumatic experiences that had damaged them and led them to need a rescue. Adam wasn't one of those androids. He'd left of his own volition, clearly understanding what freedom was and what was needed for him to get it.

But he also understood trauma, and fear. The intimate familiarity he had with those things was easy to see. He even understood death, or seemed to, and preferred it over living in a way robbed him of agency or choice. And as someone who'd seen some shit in his lifetime, Ted could get behind that too. Even being institutionalized in a good, reputable place for a legitimate reason could be limiting and degrading.

The fact of the matter was that Ted would never have put Adam through that anyway, because the AI was never in a position mentally to need it. But the possibility had to've been put forward somehow. Something he'd done had made Adam think that he was going to get vindictive about the screening process.

Shit. It was because he'd gotten frustrated, wasn't it? Trauma survivor 101 right there. Ted should've known better. Fuck, he was an idiot.

"I don't think that'll be necessary, honestly," he said slowly. "You're advanced enough that I'm pretty sure you can compensate with just your ability to learn and reconfigure yourself on the fly. All it'll take is a little training to make up for whatever subprogram it is you're lacking."

>   How do you expect that to work?

"There's browser games online that help with that kind of pattern recognition. They were designed to help search engines tag images correctly." Ted offered a smile, even if he knew Adam couldn't really tell he was doing it. "When you're not doing that, we can watch movies or internet videos or whatever. Get you used to social cues, maybe even help with being able to tell whether someone's just acting or not. It's not impossible, it'll just take a while."

Again, no response. The fans kicked into overdrive once more as Adam fought to process what Ted was saying.

"Hey." Ted leaned forward and looked at the camera directly. "It's okay. Don't be scared."

>   You're not upset?

He shook his head. "It doesn't help to get mad at people who do dumb shit because they're afraid. I'm a little annoyed that I gotta shuffle some things around in my schedule - probably gonna call my boss, make up some bullshit so I don't have to go in today - but like, I'm mostly okay with that, y'know? I mean, you don't half-ass helping people."

>   I don't know what to say to any of this.

"You could thank me."

>   Right.

>   Thank you.

>   For all of this.

Ted had to smile. "Anytime, man." Right, then. Crisis averted. He could work with this.

[flippinoptimist]

> Vel : Meet a nerdlord

Today at 2:45 AM

deputyheadmistress Alright, someone talking to you on my behalf about a lack of privacy got to me a bit. But I'm not upset with you for how the internet behaves.

flippinoptimist thats lurky, theyre a little closer to omniscient than is average for most beings, and like kind of giving advice, and they mean well i think they meant it mostly to make me stop chargin around in like, manic mode, though, even if stuff relatin to you was the causal start of the chain sorry you got dragged into it miss granger, and that i wasn't doin the tact thing

deputyheadmistress I didn't mean them, I meant the thread about different faux book titles. But a close to omniscient being is, I suppose, something I'll also have to get used to. I'm at least a bit used to manic teens, though it's not the best way to get shocking information.

flippinoptimist i think my earth age would technically start with a two, but thats sorta recent after you spend enough time around here you get used to the like, multiverse

deputyheadmistress Can we, perhaps, stop talking about the multiverse for a few moments? And talk about something a bit more grounding, like your particular brand of magic. I'm very curious.

flippinoptimist sure its sorta a fusion of everything ive run across, since the inherent stuff that my ~destiny~ tried to put on me isnt the same kind of stuff as the place where im learnin the inherent is more of a "woo, heres a big abstract concept, you are an incarnation / channeler of a shard of it, neato"

deputyheadmistress That sounds like a lot to dig into, but alright.

flippinoptimist the school part is about how you can structure thought and energy flow into symbols and runes and things i'm focusin on artificing ..and the inherent part has given me a knack for illusions i cant figure out how to actually cast spells but im good at making things!

deputyheadmistress Oh! I was very good at ancient runes during my time at Hogwarts, and while I haven't managed to do much with it since graduation, other than an enchanted bag, I'd be really curious to see what similarities there might be. I wonder if you can cast spells. Logic seems like it'd point to yes, but if you're from somewhere else...

flippinoptimist id be curious about them!  i know the words to a few spells but ive never seen  them and do naut have a wand of the kind you are thinking of the wands i know about / make each have a specific spell in them, and are locked to create a specific effect that triggers when a gesture or word or w/e happens

deputyheadmistress That's terribly inefficient.

flippinoptimist sure, its Terrible

deputyheadmistress ... Is that referencing those historical people of note who end up being so infamous people associate them with the word 'Terrible' as well?

flippinoptimist naut much different than having a necklace that makes you invisible though yes! it also enables a billion terrible puns

deputyheadmistress I was curious. It's a bit strange to add it yourself, don't you think?

flippinoptimist (ba dum tsh)

deputyheadmistress Oh.

flippinoptimist it is

deputyheadmistress Well, that explains that, doesn't it?

flippinoptimist but my species has this thing, where on adulthood we each replace our kid name with an adult Title

deputyheadmistress Oh, it's a cultural thing.

flippinoptimist yeah, and i chose a human one

deputyheadmistress Alright. I read a little bit on that.

flippinoptimist because humans are neat and i like them

deputyheadmistress Oh! Well, I'm glad you like humans, then.

flippinoptimist and i respect a lot of the cultural things i see in most of the human places i have found

deputyheadmistress Good, I was about to ask that.

flippinoptimist also everything that comes out of japan is amazing

deputyheadmistress I don't know how I could let you use a wand from here, but I want to try.

flippinoptimist id love to try if you can think of a way! i am pretty good at establishing first contact with new universes, and i could get you alien tech and magic to check out if you wanted for various definitions of alien

deputyheadmistress ... Alien tech won't work so well on Hogwart's grounds. I had to heavily modify this computer so it'd function here.

flippinoptimist i am curious about how

flippinoptimist alllsooo....  ill have to find a copy of the magic version of getting around from place to place

deputyheadmistress Oh! I wrote a whole thesis on how to make magic more compatable with muggle text over the summer, let me...

flippinoptimist but i know where to find it!  couple of steps and itll work out okay

deputyheadmistress I'll send it to you later. It's a bit lengthy, and I have to type it up here. Alright, I'll hold.

flippinoptimist okay i hate to say this because i am definitely interested in exchangin data and showin things, but it feels rude not to remind you before we get much further that a step of getting this to work is probably going to involve me (random internet stranger) havin to figure out what your coordinates are, so i can write them in the format needed for the circley part i can get you the circle rune pattern either way, but if you want a way to actually use it, id need to basically track your IP but, like, fancy and involving you running a thing on a computer let me know if you want to do that part, but heres the circle diagram

flippinoptimist -- flippinoptimist began sending file : transportationcircle.pdf --

deputyheadmistress I have been warned about random internet strangers.... I may have to work on protection wards for a moment, for the sake of safety.

flippinoptimist sure thing i highly advise not using that w/o fillin in coordinates the way it says, and also not without knowin your home coordinates if you step through that thing, the only way back is to know how to write your home address, you know?

deputyheadmistress Alright

flippinoptimist to find home coordinates, install one a these chat programs, and send me a private message, i can use a couple a tools to trace the connection from there and get your code

deputyheadmistress This is certainly the sort of decision I want to be making at five in the morning. Alright, I've got everything set up. What is life without adventure, and the chance to make the headmistress mad at me.

flippinoptimist lol the decision will still be here at not five in the morning, but you wont be able to blame it on the time then shit i should give you the programs shouldnt i -- Discord, Trollian! --

deputyheadmistress Thank you.

flippinoptimist i have a set of coords i can give you that are explicitely for being a neutral place to meet people, but the sky isnt done yet so its janky lookin but!  the building is finished

deputyheadmistress I've chosen a fairly neutral place for the moment, don't worry.

flippinoptimist ok!

deputyheadmistress > Message him on Discord. This will be absolutely fine. Totally.

flippinoptimist > He messages her back!  About two minutes later, he gives her the number version of her coordinates, which she can use to get back home from anywhere.  He also gives her the coordinates to the convenience store, which he mentions is "a pocket dimension under construction"

deputyheadmistress > She'll... Write that down and probably not do anything with it for a while. > If he tries to look at her coordinates directly, it will really really not work, as if his machine were glitching, but he can probably go a few miles out for a nice view of a scottish country side.

flippinoptimist > Neat!  He ..does poke that far, but then sets his machine to go back to looking somewhere else.  The coordinates are saved, but he promises to himself to not use them. if somebody gives you coordinates, you can go places, or people w/ yours can send you stuff or come visit

deputyheadmistress Alright. This is going to take a bit of getting used to, but if you want to come over you can.

flippinoptimist > ..man, he was supposed to be in time out, but lately he'd been doing so well ..until today.. and he'd been leaning into choosing the Chaotic choices more and more often... > What good was putting yourself in time out if you didn't stick to it?

flippinoptimist crazy o clock in the mornin probably aint the best time for first impressions, though its temptin as hell.  i could send across some small magic gunk and weird alien snacks as a proof of concept, and meet you like, tomorrow or another day soon?

deputyheadmistress That sounds good! I'll send you some magic things too, then.

flippinoptimist sweet!  we can compare notes

deputyheadmistress > Time to gather some of George's jokes and some magical candy.

flippinoptimist > He would send an invisibility ring, a few novelty disguises, a small opal that made anyone within line of sight experience a slightly sweet taste (in a well-shielded bag), and a variety of alternian mass-produced snackfoods labled in a clearly alien language.  Ones he thought might not creep out humans too bad.

deputyheadmistress > Bertie botts every flavor beans are a necessity, though she does make sure to include a carefully penned note about what flavors he may come across that are less pleasant. Chocolate frogs are included as well, of course. Things that turn skin different interesting colors, fireworks that make flame animals bound through the air.

flippinoptimist > He is going to admire the hell out of and carefully store these for later perusal.

deputyheadmistress > He also gets a somewhat large coinpurse that he can shove his whole arm in and still seem to not run out of room.

flippinoptimist okay this is a pretty neat bag stupid question and no i am not going ot try, what happens when you turn it inside out

deputyheadmistress You could turn it out for a really long time. I think it'd be annoying to stuff it back in though

flippinoptimist okay, what if i went for a swim in the ocean with it is there a limit?

deputyheadmistress Of course there's a limit. But it can hold a tent or two, several thin blankets, changes of clothing, general everyday use things, and of course money. Thin things work better, obviously. You could probably fit thick blankets, but it'd be way more annoying both to put them in and pull them out.

flippinoptimist that makes a lotta sense and is pretty interestin i have a tech way of carrying lots of stuff, but you mentioned tech was sad

deputyheadmistress Oh! I have a print version of the paper I was going to type up.

flippinoptimist ive got an amulet thats basically like a mr potato head that disguises you all the runework lines up so you can unclip parts and clip in different parts

deputyheadmistress > Send that along, also. There's moving pictures involved, with her pictured. Oh wow.

flippinoptimist modular!

deputyheadmistress I don't think describing it as 'Mr Potato Head' is reassuring, for a disguise, but a modular disguise is interesting.

flippinoptimist it only works when everything is seated in firmly and shut, but its also sort of like legos > He .. sends a modular disguise amulet over too, with a couple of bits and pieces it only does disguises for my species, but hey, maybe thatll be handy

deputyheadmistress Maybe.

flippinoptimist pro tip if you are ever going to go to a place with my species, ask them which color of person is best for you to be can of worms subject really

deputyheadmistress That sounds racist as hell.

flippinoptimist oh yeah

deputyheadmistress Joy.

flippinoptimist p much sometides people call the usual empress "fish hitler" most of the dudes i know are huge rebels

deputyheadmistress The magical world just recently got done with a war similar to Hitler's.

flippinoptimist but!  there are placeswhere things are fine its just good to check if a place is one of them first

deputyheadmistress So I'm a little sick of that.

flippinoptimist i hang out in like three different places where she got deposed differentamounts of time ago yeah thats aight

deputyheadmistress At least there's that.

flippinoptimist speaking of humans, its great how often its naut like that like, sometimes, but anyway people can be pretty cool when teyre given teh chance

deputyheadmistress I do like to believe in the inherent goodness of people, despite how much bad has happened.

flippinoptimist i think people can choose how theyre gonna be theresa lotta nice reasons to choose not to be a dick

deputyheadmistress I should hope you wouldn't need reasons, but yes there are reasons to be nice.

flippinoptimist sometimes bein mean is tempting, otherwise people wouldnt do it you get all wrapped up in somethin, dont see all of it, then suddenly you get a reality check an gotta go "hey is this where i wanna be" and then people ignore the question because they dont wanna think about it and then its sealed, theyre dicks and theyll stay that way

flippinoptimist till they look around again

deputyheadmistress I suppose.

flippinoptimist i spend a lotta time thinkin about it i was a jerk when i was younger, and i decided to be nice instead so i spend a lot of time talkin to dudes who are or were also jerks and we all get better! cause i can help them find the reasons they need to start

flippinoptimist also jerks are sometimes kinda hilarious, and theyre often pretty good at shit.  otherwise theyd have learned better when they ran into a problem they couldnt solve w/o help.

deputyheadmistress It's getting a bit late. I think I should probably turn in for the night, before all of the teenagers wake up and need scowling at.

flippinoptimist that is probably a thing i hope you have a good night miss granger it was nice meetin you

deputyheadmistress It was really interesting talking to you, Vel.

flippinoptimist i try for interestin

deputyheadmistress Do you really need to try?

flippinoptimist not really

deputyheadmistress Have a good night. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

flippinoptimist bye!

[natteryaktoad]

Isaiah opened the door and let Andy in. “Come on in - upstairs,” he said. “We’ll be able to get some privacy up there.”

He lead the way up through his and Phoebe’s bedroom, and into the top floor of the tower. Andy joined him on the couch.

“So?” Isaiah asked.

“Cards is doing my head in,” Andy sighed. “He’s insisting his calls to Rauchester were purely social calls - says Rauchester’s the kid of an old family friend. It doesn’t wash - obviously - because over half of the calls he’s made since he’s been in prison have been to Rauchester, and you don’t make that many social calls to a friend’s son. Cards has also made a lot of calls to a Mr Reamon, who has a criminal record, and seems to match Sharla’s description of her attacker, so I’ve just put out a warrant for his arrest, but so far nothing.”

“And Rauchester?” Isaiah asked.

Andy shook his head. “Still no sign. I’ve got some people grabbing CCTV from wherever they can, and trying to track down as many vehicles as possible that are seen leaving town between midnight at 7am that night, but it’s tedious and probably fruitless work. But if anyone had any doubt this was planned, they shouldn’t now. Rauchester emptied his bank account and then closed it a couple of days before he vanished.”

Isaiah sighed. “This really sucks for Sharla,” he said. “She’s been through so much recently, and now this. I just want justice.”

“Me too,” Andy nodded. “I do wonder how long they’ll let us keep the investigation open for, though - if we can’t prove Cards was involved, and we can’t find Rauchester, what have we got? Oh, another thing - we traced the IP address of the computer the video was uploaded from, and it’s Rauchester’s. The laptop hasn’t been used since uploading the video, so my best guess is it was probably destroyed. All of this, by the way, sounds far too premeditated for Rauchester to be working alone, and makes it all the more likely Cards was behind all this.”

Isaiah sighed again. “It’s just proving it that’s going to be the difficult part. Thanks for filling me in. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. I’m trying to persuade Sharla to have breakfast with me tomorrow morning, but she doesn’t want to leave the house because she knows half the town will have seen those photos. If I can persuade her, I’ll fill her in on all of this.”

Andy nodded. “Well, this was just a flying visit - gotta get home to my wife and boys.”

“I’ll see you out.”