#Email scraping from Just dial

[revlyncox]

Beyond Welcome: Hospitality, Inclusion, and Inherent Worth

This sermon contains a little bit of "insider baseball," discussing some insights and some work specific to The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick. They are a great congregation! And every group of human beings needs a gentle nudge sometimes. This sermon builds on the anthology of essays Beyond Welcome: Building Communities of Love, edited by Linnea Nelson. In particular, the sermon draws from the essay “Built Through Trust,” by Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti. In our communities, we work toward an ethic of hospitality and inclusion that truly reflects a deep commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This sermon was presented on May 19, 2024, by Rev. Lyn Cox.

The first time I attempted to attend a Unitarian Universalist congregation on Sunday morning, I picked the one that was closest to where I was living at the time. This was early in my young adult life, when one partner and I were barely getting by in a two-room apartment while doing odd jobs and office temping. We had a car borrowed from my partner’s parents that often worked, though not for much longer. 

I knew about the Unitarian Universalist congregation because some older friends had gotten married there, and I was so impressed with the way the minister had woven earth-honoring traditions into the ceremony, and the way the brochures in the lobby referred to ancient history as “Before the Common Era” rather than “Before Christ.” Little things that members had probably forgotten about made an impression on me as I was hanging around before the service at my friends’ wedding. There were inclusive banners, windows that looked out on beautiful trees, and comfortable chairs instead of pews. I had another friend who had grown up UU. She had told me all about incorporating the Interdependent Web into the faith. But my friend was at school in another city, so I tried to make the Sunday morning visit on my own. 

For context, I should say that this was around 1996. The internet existed, sort of. I had used web browsers, and had worked during college at an Internet startup where we helped people get connected to dial-up and sign up for their first email address ever. There were no smartphones. But this was just on the cusp of the era before congregations started building websites, and we certainly didn’t have internet access at home or in our odd jobs. So there was not an easy way to check the details about the congregation. They had their service time listed on a wooden sign in front of the building, but too small to read while driving past and keeping up with traffic. I supposed that 10:00am was a logical time for a Sunday morning service, so that’s what I aimed for. 

I pulled into the parking lot, and was finally able to get a good look at the sign. It said there were services at 9:30 and 11:00. So I could come in conspicuously late, or hang around awkwardly in the parking lot, or come back later. My anxiety got the better of me, and I turned the car around and left. Then we were busy with figuring out our lives and getting ready to move, and I didn’t visit that congregation again until years later as a guest preacher. 

My second attempt at visiting a UU congregation on a Sunday morning came the following year on an opposite coast. The partner I lived with had started graduate school, and we were staying in grad housing. I had another temp job, but this one was a steady, long term temp with internet access and a computer at my desk. And we were in Silicon Valley, where congregations were seizing the moment with building web pages. By the end of November, we had scraped enough money together to buy a car. So, with more reliable information, more reliable transportation, and a little bit more stability in my life, this time I successfully entered the doors of the building in time for the service. 

I had an advantage over some other seekers who visit UU communities, which is that I had grown up in a liberal congregation that wasn’t UU, but had a lot in common culturally. My family had been active at our church growing up, and I had considered ministry in high school, but decided I was too much of a heretic. My congregational upbringing helped me figure out that I should enter on the social hall side of the building, where I came upon friendly folks hanging around before the service, instead of entering directly into the sanctuary, which was very quiet until shortly before the service. I didn’t worry too much about what to wear, because I could rely on my past experience. I was prepared to be the only person in my twenties, and was almost correct. The Director of Religious Education was a similar age to me, and he and I are still friends. I knew that a small congregation would be about making connections and joining activities, not about passively absorbing sermons, as much as I liked the sermons. I came in with the skills I needed to gather up the ingredients of belonging. I joined at the first opportunity, and have always been glad that I did. I figured out pretty quickly that heretics could, in fact, be ministers, but it took me another couple of years to follow that thought, and that’s another story. 

Every Unitarian Universalist who attends a congregation makes a choice. Sometimes that’s the choice of a lifelong UU to keep attending during a time of great personal change, or to try a new congregation when they move. Sometimes that’s the choice to tune in online, even if in-person attendance isn’t possible. Sometimes that’s the choice to add Unitarian Universalism to a complex, spiritually pluralistic life. Sometimes the choice to become a Unitarian Universalist means leaving behind a different faith that no longer supports your thriving, even if that’s painful in terms of friendships or family. Sometimes exploring Unitarian Universalism is a choice to try something a little more organized, when life up to that point has been spiritual but not religious, and the customs and skills of being in a faith community are entirely new. We all make choices. 

For those of us who have been Unitarian Universalists for more than a minute, we make choices, too. And those choices go beyond simply coming in the door or clicking “join” on the Zoom. Every community that is composed of human beings will break your heart at some point, and then we have a choice about what to do when our relationships and our covenants have been disrupted. For those of us with one or more marginalized identities, our beloveds are not going to be skillful about our tender places 100% of the time and we have a choice whether we’re ready for that risk on any particular day. For those of us who hold aspects of privilege, knowing that perfection is not possible, we have a choice to turn toward repair and connection instead of shame when we make a mistake. Unitarian Universalism is a faith that calls us to make choices every day. 

Not only do we make choices for our own participation, we make choices about how to proactively include others. We make choices, intentionally or not, about how to maintain or dismantle barriers like racism, classism, and ableism that can get in the way of our neighbor’s sense of belonging, and certainly get in the way of the congregation living into its mission and values. Each one of us made a choice to put ourselves out there at some point, and it’s easy to overgeneralize about our own experience, but I hope every established friend and member of the congregation can remember that feeling of vulnerability, that question of belonging. Let us remain curious so that we can open our minds and hearts to ever new ways of welcome and inclusion. 

This brings me to the text we’re drawing from today, Beyond Welcome: Building Communities of Love, edited by Linnea Nelson. This is an anthology of essays by nineteen different authors published by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Skinner House Books @skinnerhousebooks designed to help congregations to build compassionate, authentic, and equitable communities. As the editor says in the introduction, the book Beyond Welcome “explores liberation through personal and collective reflections on belonging. These heart-felt essays explore the essence of what it means to each author to be in Unitarian Universalist Community.”

The authors of the essays in Beyond Welcome explore different aspects of inclusion, and they illustrate with personal stories. Each essay begins with a question for individuals to reflect on and journal about, and each essay concludes with a discussion question about applying another facet of welcoming and belonging to the reader’s own community. Some aspects of inclusion covered in the essays, like race, are topics that we have discussed before and will discuss again, because we are always learning. Some, like disability access and Transgender inclusion, are topics we have touched on and could use more focus. Social class is a topic that would be helpful and evocative for us to learn about together. All of the essays are interesting and personal, and worth some group study with your favorite TUS committee or affinity group, especially as we enter the coming year of working on this congregation’s Mission. 

There are people in the world who would benefit by having a religious community that is warm, accepting, covenantal, anti-oppressive, non creedal, and spiritually grounded. We want there to be as few obstacles as possible for the people who need this community to find it, and to find a sense of belonging and shared mission once they arrive. We need to be open and curious about that, because, while each of us can sympathize with that feeling of vulnerability, the obstacles that new people face may not be the same as the ones we faced. We cannot assume that the solutions that helped us to arrive and to stay are the solutions that will work for everyone. 

When I was a newcomer, I needed help with information. Members of the congregation I visited, not staff, did the work of being on the cutting edge of communication so that the information was available. Part of how I found a sense of belonging was in shared work for a common project, but some new people prefer reflection groups or social groups or one-on-one mentoring to find that sense of belonging. If there had been information on the website to help me figure out public transportation, I might have been able to get there sooner, and it remains an obstacle that so many UU congregations are not accessible without a car. The congregation I joined had done work in advance that helped lower barriers to inclusion, such as reflecting on multigenerational community and going through the certification as a Welcoming Congregation for LGBTQ inclusion. When congregations work on dismantling racism, classism, ableism, and other legacies of oppression, more people are able to find their spiritual home. That’s part of what the book Beyond Welcome is trying to help congregations to do. 

In addition to the essays that deeply explore one aspect of identity and belonging, there are essays that weave all of those threads of diversity, equity, and inclusion together in a larger tapestry, a vision of beloved community with some ideas about how we might live into it more fully. The essay that we heard an excerpt from earlier in the service, “Built Through Trust,” by Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti, is one of the big-picture articles in the anthology. 

Rev. Manish contrasts a dominant culture version of belonging, “a form of social currency that can be owned and bestowed,” with a form of belonging that he has observed in Indigenous cultures, where people understand coexistence as intertwined, and where community is grounded in “mutuality and multiplicity.” 

Even in Unitarian Universalist communities faithfully and persistently on the journey toward justice and wholeness, the cultural water we swim in is salty with characteristics of dominance and control, and sometimes this affects the way we talk about belonging and membership in our congregations. Rev. Manish writes: 

In our Unitarian Universalist circles, we might encounter, at times, questions related to the financial sustainability of a community. Invariably, at that juncture, outreach strategies and newcomers are invoked … Or, perhaps, the same cadre of congregational leaders is tired from having led the same programs and activities for so long. Here too, invariably, the conversation turns to newer people in the community: how do we get new people to lead the activities and programs that have been beloved, in the same way that familiar leaders have? In both of these scenarios, newer members are framed, explicitly or implicitly, as a commodity — a commodity that has utility for those who already belong. In his conceptualization of the ‘categorical imperative,’ the philosopher Immanuel Kant spoke vociferously against treating other human beings as a means to an end. We are not actually honoring the humanity of others when we do so.

Here at The Unitarian Society, my assessment is that specific new people are honored for their interests and needs and gifts. At the same time, in wishing for a return to a fuller sanctuary,  fuller classrooms, fewer leadership vacancies, and the camaraderie and relevance that comes with having members from a diverse range of backgrounds and life stages, I do hear comments about longing for theoretical, not-yet-arrived newcomers who will come and help make things easier without making any major structural changes. I would like to challenge the idea that an advertising strategy will restore the congregation to a previous status quo. Outreach is still important, because there are people out there whose thriving would be enhanced if they could find their way here; it’s about their inherent worth, not about the organization’s needs. 

If you are a visitor or a newcomer or a prospective member, it is my sincere belief that the members of this congregation warmly welcome you just as you are, and that they want you to find your calling in the congregation in a way that supports the unfolding of your own soul. Members want you to find connections and activities that help you to make friends and to feel empowered as part of the body of the congregation. I believe that is true, and I also know that sometimes we are less skillful or considerate than we might be when we discuss reaching out to potential visitors and members. 

I believe that there are great possibilities ahead that do not depend on theoretical people. The future is interdependent. Focus on being ready to change and grow as we practice reciprocity and care. Get ready to meet the spiritual needs of all who journey together under this congregation’s covenant, equipping yourselves and each other to live out Unitarian Universalist values collectively and effectively. Start with the purpose that burns in your core as a spiritual community, not on outcomes like numbers or programs. This may require creative thinking and major structural change. It may require letting go of some things that feel like touchstones of stability. Focusing on purpose requires courage. Without that courage, maintaining the things we don’t need and can’t let go of becomes our unspoken purpose, at the expense of fully living into our mission and values. 

Rev. Manish offers an alternative to the idea of belonging as social currency, and that’s “belonging as an unconditional facet of existence.” He points out that “we Unitarian Universalists are already–today–the most diverse we have ever been.” He invites us to rest in and operate out of truth, with all of the mutuality, reciprocity, curiosity, and multiplicity that infuses our commitment to the interdependent web of existence and to the inherent worth of every person. 

To be the people we are meant to be, we must live into the fullness of who we are right now, not waiting for some other people to come and revive us to who we once were, but to care for each other in the here and now. Let us listen to all of the gifts and limits and creativity that are already among us in our multigenerational communities. Let us open the doors and the windows wide so that all who are called can enter and find themselves at home. 

So be it. Blessed be. Amen. 

[ploverbear]

honestly me developing these skills for scraping my data up completely i somehow want to transfer into like. some sort of investigative work somehow for others. like if people are also seeking their old accounts or information or something.

but im not sure how this would transfer really; its mostly just calling and emailing and moving myself down google maps on streets i knew where places used to be and dialing numbers and getting receipts and tickets and emails and scraping and looking and from seeing those memories creating endless chains. addictive. my first link in this chain was literally "when did i create this single minecraft account" and then moving backwards and forwards in time from march 22nd, 2014

[webdataextraction]

How Business Email scraper help for business marketing?

Do you aware about Email scraping and Email scraper tool?

Email scraping is method of collecting Email addresses from various websites within less time. Email scraping services providers gives such type of scraping services and provides Email addresses database by using coding. Another way is scraping services provide ready Email scraper tool by coding as per your requirement. You can use this Email scraper tool whenever you need by simply clicking and it will provide you Email addresses data.

How to scrape Emails from business directory?

Generally people look for business Emails. Business directory sites are main resource of Business Email. But it is very tough to scrape Emails from various business directory sites by automated way. Sometimes Email scraper tool cannot extract Emails from all the websites because of high security of some business directory sites like Just dial in India. Only best business Email scraper or Email extractor tool can work properly and generate Email database. In such condition rather than go for website Email scraper best option is web scraping Email addresses with help of expertise Email scraping services. Such Well known web scraping companies have all resources and well developed system.They knows how to scrape Emails from Justdial?   Using that they can easily scrape Emails from any kinds of website.

Email address is prime need for every business for their growth. Business owner plays with all types of marketing tricks for successful running of business. Email marketing is one of the successful marketing ways for generating business leads. To gathering accurate and targeted audience Emails is very necessary for getting leads.

About us

Infovium web scraping services is expert Email scraping services provider from all websites. We offer yelp Email extractor, Yellow pages Email extractor, Just dial Email extractor etc. Also providing Email scraping services for all business directory sites like Yelp, Yellow pages, white pages, Just dial, mad pages. We have expertise particularly in Email scraping from Just dial. Number of times we have scraped Just dial business directory and delivered accurate Email addresses to our client.

For getting more about benefits of Email scraping read on https://infoviumwebscraping.com/email-scraping/ or drop us mail at info@infoviumwebscraping.com.

[maokomi]

No but 🤔 we've heard of Idol!Kazuha in 6reeze, who meets a reader who is a fan of his and hits it off with him, but what about a swap of that 👀👀

Like Imagine something where you're the idol and Kazuha is a fan. Imagine Kazuha, semi-broke English Lit student, scraping together all the money he has to spare just to be able to attend your concert. Even if he doesn't get front-row seats, even if he's gonna be cramped amongst other loud, jumping bodies for who knows how long just to catch a glimpse of you in person and to see you perform live, he's never wanted anything more. Tomo, his best friend, teases him for how much he likes you and how much he's done just to be able to afford concert tickets, but really at this point all Kazuha can do is bashfully shrug because, hey, it's true.

And then —in an absolutely crazy stroke of luck— just as Kazuha buys his and Tomo's tickets on the official online website (because despite all the well-natured teasing, Tomo isn't gonna let his friend go alone) there's a small box that pops up on screen, complete with small animated confetti and a pretty-looking Congratulations! at the top of the box.

Kazuha has to re-read it one. Then twice. Then a third time. But... there's absolutely no way. He scoffs a little, both at himself and at the website. He's a fool for getting his hopes up— this is just a scam or something, and the website's security must be worse than he thought.

It's only when he goes into his email inbox to forward the tickets to Tomo that he pauses as he reads over the details on last time and he's frozen. Mouth drying, his eyes flick up to the sender bar, just to check that, yes, this is indeed the official email from the company handling your tickets. Kazuha feels a thrill go through his veins. He can't decide if his blood is pumping hot on adrenaline, or if it's frozen in place.

He dials Tomo's number.

"Hey! Did you get the tickets?"

He's usually so calm and composed, but in the face of this he feels like his grip on reality is slipping away with giddiness.

"...Kazuha?"

"I got the tickets," he blurts out, so rushed and frantic, so unlike him. There's a grin on his face and his eyes are wide. "But they're not— they— They're VIP."

There's a rustle on the other end, likely Tomo sitting up in bed. Kazuha knows that there's a furrow to his brow. "VIP? Kazuha, you've seen the prices on these things. Those are way out of our budget—"

Kazuha just shakes his head, even if Tomo can't see him. "I didn't buy the VIP— there was a... a raffle. Lucky draw. Something. But it's legitimate, Tomo. The ticketing company really sent those tickets. And I didn't realize at first, but they're not just VIP either."

Kazuha swallows. The nervous yet excited thrill making his stomach flip. He stares at the monitor of his laptop, his stare intense enough to drill a hole through the screen.

"They're also backstage meet and greet passes."

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

hello lovely! do you have a tag for "derek is obsessed with stiles' moles"?

I sure do!

Friends Don't Let Friends Drunk Dial by Hatteress (goddammitstacey)

(1/1 I 1,849 I Teen)

But no one said anything about sisters.

Wherein Derek drunk dials Stiles, Stiles didn't know ANYONE was that interested in his moles and Laura can't stop laughing.

Bite Down Hard by orphan_account

(1/1 I 25,730 I Explicit)

For a moment, Derek can’t breathe.

Because moles aren’t the only thing marring the pale skin of Stiles’ neck. Oh no, that’s –

– that’s a bond bite. A bond bite which Stiles definitely did not have yesterday, and which appears to have roughly the same dimensions as Derek’s own mouth.

Shit.

(Or: In which Secret Service Agent Derek Hale accidentally gets bonded to First Son Stiles Stilinski. Oops.)

Werewolf-Friendly by badwolfbadwolf

(3/3 I 27,288 I Explicit)

Derek is a junior in college, never could get the hang of social interaction, and is, you know, a werewolf. A werewolf and a virgin. And it isn’t like anyone is banging down his door to hop on his werewolf dick, save for the few pervs who acted like he was some kind of exotic toy to be played with and experienced. So, when he sees Stiles' ad on Hot Men 4 Rent, Derek is... interested.

And who is he kidding, he’s read that bio every day since that sad evening with the chocolate chip cookies, and has every facet of it memorized.

Stiles, no last name. Eighteen. Student. Good conversationalist. Likes to crack jokes. Fan of junk food but enjoys running. Werewolf-friendly. Werewolf-friendly.

And there is his phone number and an email address. Plus all the moles.

Dreams come slow, and they go so fast by Samcgrath

(16/? I 72,793 I Mature)

Derek is in his last semester at Berkeley and working on his thesis, he doesn't have time for stupid freshmen talking about getting drunk every weekend. Stiles and Scott are just starting college, they're super excited but that grumpy guy who sits behind them in Bio ruins all that excitement by pooping all over their parade and they both hate him with a vengeance.

But it gets confusing when Stiles realizes that the grump is Derek Hale, the guy who saved him from himself after his mom died years ago. And Derek doesn't know what to do, he hasn't even looked at anyone that way in years but now he can't stop thinking about constellations of moles dotting pale skin.

Cue, an epic angst-fest.

Who Knew by SourWolfie (pieprincess_andthe_fallenangel)

(26/26 I 88,291 I Explicit)

Stiles finally scraped together enough money to get his own apartment and he’s really fucking proud of it, okay? He just wishes shit would stop breaking. He also wishes he hadn’t just bitched out his incredibly hot landlord, but that ship has sailed right along with his dignity.

[purelyfiction]

To the Ends of the Earth

Nathan Drake x Female Reader

Word Count: 5,331 words

Summary: You’ve started dating someone new, and he’s full of surprises. Frankly, he’s the best you’ve ever had and you’ve adored it. However, he’s got a couple secrets he’s been hiding. Secrets that put you on a hunt to find out what they are.

Content Warning: canon related violence, major injuries, blood mention, gun use, cursing

Author’s Note: We’re finally writing something other than Bond! Also i don’t know how this got so long.. oops

You’re crazy. Absolutely insane. At least that was what all your friends had told you when you said you were leaving on the next flight out to Brazil in search for your boyfriend. You had your reservations about it too, it had been about five months since you’d started dating and here you were investigating his disappearance.

His disappearance. What an odd thing to say. Nathan had been a stranger to you almost seven months ago now, and here you were, running after him in the breadcrumbs left behind.

The two of you had met at an airport of all places. You were returning on a flight back to Boston from DC after a conference for work. When this incredibly handsome guy sits not even two seats from you. He’s tanned, and has multiple bandages over his exposed skin, so your curiosity got the better of you. “Can I ask what exactly happened to you?” He’d looked from his journal where he’d been doing something, smiled at you and tucked it away. “I was on a trip for work and took a fall. Kind of ended up pretty scraped up.” From there, the two of you talked through the half hour delay, the entire flight back, and ended up connecting before returning to your respective homes. He’d called to ask you out two days later.

Nate had mentioned work very little in the time you were dating. Only mentioning it required him to travel a lot and for him to do a very large amount of research. He’d spend hours online in attempts to find information. About what? You never knew. He’d always said work took up so much of his life he didn’t want it to take up any of yours. Which was sweet in a way. He wanted to focus on his time with you and you were more than happy with that. Until he’d gone off on yet another trip for work, but now, you’d not heard from him. Nate had left over three weeks ago. No texts, no calls, no emails. No letters or postcards. You assumed it just meant he had no signal, but when it was still radio silent on week three, you’d worried. He’d told you where his spare key was to his place, and you decided to search for answers. Getting there, you’re finding artifacts, gold figurines, drawings and piles of old letters and articles. The most recent was on top. Stories of an ancient civilization in the mountains of Brazil that had been taken over by pirates centuries ago, long prior to the one you lived in. As you push around the letters and things on his desk, his laptop jumps to life. On the screen is his flight information to Rio, three weeks ago. A single one way ticket for one Nathan Drake. 

In the pile of things you’d found on the desk, you found a cellphone number. A Victor Sullivan. Maybe Nate’s boss? Either way, you’d dialed it up while leaving your boyfriend’s apartment, locking up and returning the key in place. When the lock engages a rough voice comes through the phone. “Hello?” 

“Hi, is this Victor?” You’re moving down the hallway, and to the steps, pace quickening as you think. The only way you’re going to get a hold of him is to find him. You’re mentally packing your bags, while the voice speaks again. 

“No one calls me that. Sullivan’s the name. How can I help?”

“I’m looking for my boyfriend? He left almost a month ago and I haven’t heard from him once, I found your number at his place-”

“You’re Nate’s girl, aren’t you?” A small smile comes to your face at the words. Yeah, you were. His girl. 

“Yeah, yeah. Do you know where he is?” The tone your voice is paired with shows the concern you’re feeling - it’s growing by the minute.

“Unfortunately, no. However, finding a missing Drake is one of my specialties, sweetheart. When are we leaving?”

You’d meet up with Sully at a local airport, a backpack full of your things at his recommendation. As you stand in the boarding line, he’s asking for what you know. “Well, I wasn’t in his place long. But he had articles about a hidden city in the mountains of Rio. Someone named Taylor Sutton and a golden ship’s head? I know very little about Nate’s work, he never wants to talk about it.” You shrug, and Sully lets out a sigh as you sit in your seats. It’s there in the taxi lane that he starts to tell you about your boyfriend’s ‘work’. 

&&

Near dead in Tibet at the wreckage of a derailed train, century old curses, forgotten cities, lost treasures, found remains of legendary pirates. A whole long list of opposition and enemies that were the reasons for the countless scars you’d memorized in recent weeks. Months in prison after backstabbing partners turned on him. The career he’d made that didn’t come with a paycheck. When you asked how he got by, he explained that a lot of times he’d come back with small trinkets here and there that would get him by, or he’d run around Boston thieving tourists. Eventually, Sully was tuckered out and ended up taking a nap, leaving you to unravel all the information he’d laid out. 

Nate was a treasure hunter. A thief. An adrenaline junkie. None of that life was what you’d seen. You’d seen date nights in arcades, playing stupid video games and winning 20 cent stuffed animals. Making dinner while you explained work and rambled on about your friends. You’d brought him around to them too. Everyone adored him. Some of them swore that he was your endgame. Some swore he’d not be around much longer. Either way, you were sticking your neck out for him. To figure out what the hell he’d been up to the past few weeks.

Not long after landing in Rio, Sully has found you a 4x4 Jeep and you’re climbing through the roads, looking at a paper map in your hands. Paper map. You’d not used one in years, but still, you’re looking at the sharpied section of the map. It’d been the direction of the employee at the rental shop when Sullivan had asked what he knew about a place called Moscazar. Now you sat listening to the grey haired male as a cigar bounced in his bottom lip. “Moscazar was this big city that held runaways from the beginnings of Rio. People who didn’t agree with the leadership that was there. So they found a new place and started fresh.” 

“In the mountains above the city? That’s crazy.” You speak, astonishedly, looking at the material that he’d printed off. Drawings that had aged so much they were yellow and could crumble if you bent them the wrong way. “Why’d they have to hide?” 

“Legend was that they were a very elite society and did not want just anyone coming in. You’d needed a certain skill set, a specific kind of mind to be a part of the civilization they were creating.” Sully speaks as he approaches a parking lot. 

“What are we doing here?” You question, looking up the hill that led to the giant statue that overlooked the city. Sully takes one of the papers from your hand. He then points out a section of text. 

“May He guide us outcasts into a unified community under his watchful eye.” He speaks, which makes you look over it. It’s in Portuguese, so you wouldn’t have been able to make anything of it, luckily you’d found Sully’s number because there was no way you were getting anywhere without him. 

“How do you know that this is directly correlated to the Redeemer statue?” You ask, climbing out of the car as Sully starts out as well. 

“You gonna keep asking questions? I’m just thinking like Nate here, kid.” He suggests, opening the back trunk where a silver case sits. Locks disengage and when it opens, two pistols and multiple rounds of ammunition lie there. “You know how to shoot a gun?” Your jaw slacks slightly, looking at him with a bit of fear. 

“I mean - yeah I’ve been to the range...” You mumble as he sets a weapon in your hand. He then teaches you the safety and how to properly secure it in the holster he’s helping strap to you. It’s hidden from sight, which was important, seeing the plenty of tourists that surround you. “Sully, why do I need this?” You ask with concern. 

“If this boy of yours is following a pattern, you’re gonna need it.” A lump builds in your throat as you follow the other up the hill, metal digging into your back as you do so. This would take some getting used to. 

Despite your questioning, your newfound partner is able to locate the hidden entrance, hidden in the brickwork of the base to the statue on the far side of the public access point. The bricks receded from the wall, leaving a small opening just wide enough to pass through. The elder of the two of you moves through, tossing you a flashlight as he moves into the passage, which is pitch black. You follow hesitantly, watching your step on the crumbling steps below you, looking at moss lined walls as Sully rambled off about something. He had a flashlight in one hand, a radio in the other. Soon, there’s a drop off, and he’s jumping readily into it. A light flashes up in your direction as you look down at him. “Well we haven’t got all day.” With a harsh swallow, you’re following him to the lower drop, rolling on your side ungracefully upon landing. A curse as you feel scratches on your skin. Sully helps you up, dusting you off. “You’ve got some work to do.” 

That you do. You soon enough learn how to vault over large cavernous gaps in the path, results of the ground shifting and eroding away, learn to climb up ledges. By the time you get to the lowest point, you’re exhausted begging Sully to take a second to rest. No wonder Nate was in such great shape. He had to be to navigate these areas. You find a spot on a fallen pillar, where Sully gives you a radio. “We’re likely going to end up getting separated at some point. I’d rather be safe than sorry, no?” A nod as you pant, taking the device. He’s mentioning something about the channel to use, and you’re scrolling through them when you hear something on one of them. 

“Damn it! I’m in an ambush. Chloe watch your six, they’re coming in quick, they know we’re here.” You can barely make out Nate’s voice over the background. It’s loud and obnoxious, and you can’t tell what it is. 

“What the hell is that noise?” 

“Gunfire.” Sully groans, looking around the room before he sees a small glint of light. “Kid, help me with this?” You stand up finally, moving to his side to help move fallen debris out of the way, leaving another opening. When you’re finally through you’re greeted with a jungle with stone buildings littered through the area, a cavernous ceiling above you, an opening at the top giving sunlight to the city below. 

“Holy shit...” you sigh looking over it in astonishment. The city does exists. You’re still taking in the entire view, the sounds of waterfalls nearby, birds above you and the rustling of trees. It’s interrupted with a harsh vibration under your feet, paired with birds leaving falling trees in the distance, smoke coming from that direction. 

“God damn it, Nathan.” Sully mutters, starting down the descending staircase to the ground below. 

“Was that an explosion??” You ask, rapidly following the male down the steps. He’s quick to hush you and finds cover by a nearby crate, leading you to do the same. Peeking over the top of it, you can see a group of soldiers, guns drawn and blocking the main entrance to the city. You look at Sully as fear grows in the pit of your stomach. He’s counting them up and nodding with hushed voices. 

“Stay here. I’m going to take these guys out, quietly. We’ll be able to get through here once I’m done.” Before you can even say anything, he’s disappearing into the jungle. 

&&

You’re alone. You’re alone with one gun, and barely any experience in this type of situation. It takes a while, your muscles are cramping from hiding, but eventually, the familiar rasp comes from your radio. “Alright, should be clear kid. I will wait here- shiiit.” 

“Sully?” You’re speaking into the radio again and you get nothing. So, slowly, you stand, looking around you as you pull the pistol from it’s concealment. As you take your first step forward you swallow your fears and subsequently your pride as you enter the city of Moscazar.

You’re sweaty, you feel gross, you’re absolutely parched. It had been hours now, getting lost in the jungle. There’d been no sign of Sully, you’d had to take on mercenaries on your own multiple times now, leaving you shaky. Common sense said to get to high ground to try to spot Sullivan, so that’s what you’d done, found a nearby building and gotten climbing. It was rather large in size, with some intricate doors, logic says that was where Nate had been headed. So, with what little strength you had left, you’re pushing them open, and sliding in. The door swings shut behind you, a pant leaving you. With your gun drawn, you’re taking careful and slow steps into the firelit rooms. The hallway opens up to a large room, intricate ceilings, ornate trimwork... it was stunning. 

Your gaze is interrupted by the sound of a gun cocking, leaving you to turn around and aim your own weapon to the sound. When you do, you come face to face with the very man you’d been searching for. You pull your weapon down and sigh. “Nathan. Thank god, you’re okay.” You’re quick on your feet, approaching him and throwing your arms around him. 

He catches you, arms embracing you too before pulling you off him, hands gripping your arms. “Hon, I’m so glad to see you but what the hell are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.” Nate looks over his shoulder, as though he was looking for something. 

“I could ask you the same thing. Work?? Nate, I haven’t heard from you in three weeks. I thought you’d been kidnapped, or worse, dead.” You scold, watching as he turns back to face you, eyes looking at you with concern. 

He looks rough, but familiar to when you’d first met him. Minus the bandages. Scratches along his forearms, a pretty significant cut to his temple, busted lip, absolutely filthy.

“Are you going to introduce us, or am I going to be kept in the dark?” An Australian accent comes from behind Nathan, echoing into the room, making you move him to the side. When you do, a brunette woman stands with a hand on her hip, waving a pistol side to side like she were waving. 

“Nate?” You ask the question, without really asking, and he’s backing up. 

“Babe, this is Chloe. She’s a partner of mine. Chloe, this is my girlfriend.” He hums, tucking his weapon away, looking back to you. “How did you get here?”

“No, no, we’re not past this part. You’ve been running around with Chloe for three weeks? And not once thought to reach out to me? Does that not plant red flags to you, Nate?” You ask, taking a step back when he reaches out to you. 

“It’s not like that.” He offers sympathetically. You look at Chloe who nods. 

“I want nothing but treasure out of this idiot of yours, love.” She speaks and you give a nod, finally answering his own question. 

“I found Sullivan’s number on your desk. He was able to connect the dots, but we got separated along the way. Care to catch me up to speed?”

“I- look I do treasure hunting-”

“Oh no, no, no, Sully filled me in on that. This isn’t your first lost city. Well aware of that, by now.” You speak a little sharp tongued. “Which when were you planning on telling me? Nate, you could’ve never come home. I wouldn’t have known. Sully wouldn’t have known. Do you not realize that?” You ask, feeling the emotions rise to heat your face as you take steps towards him. “You could’ve died, and you didn’t bother to even tell me.” 

“I was going to tell you, hon, I promise. I just.. couldn’t find the words.” He defends, reaching out to take your elbow. “I promise, we can talk more about this when we get home, but right now-” His sentence is cut off by a loud BOOM followed by cracking. The three of you look up and see the ceiling flood with a large crack, light filling the newly formed gaps. 

“Move, move!!” Chloe shouts, causing the three of you to run to the door, all of you working to open it. When it finally gives way, a vibration from the floor under you causes you all to fall, starting to tumble down the steps of the building. As you all come to a halt against a barrier, you watch the building collapse. Nate lets out a chuckle. 

“That was close.” He snickers, before another crack is felt under you, the landing of the steps starting to crumble. A large piece falls away and you let out a cry as you feel your body freefalling, leaving you to grab the nearest ledge. 

“Nathan!!” It’s the first thing to come to mind - the first to leave your mouth. It’s filled with sheer panic and fear, dangling from an edge 30-40 feet. You make the mistake of looking down, which makes you panic more. His head pokes out from the edge, his hands grabbing your wrists. 

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Nate’s pulling you up onto the ledge, Chloe’s got a hold of him to keep him from falling over as well. Once on the brick, he’s pulling you to his chest, arms tight around you. “I’ve got you.” He repeats with panting breath. You’re absolutely shaking, now recognizing the tears that had left your eyes in those moments. The two of you don’t say anything, just sit there, both of you absolutely terrified to move. 

“Hate to ruin the moment you two are having, but we need to get out of here.” Chloe speaks up, slowly standing up herself. Nate nods, shifting to move until he’s shouting from above you. 

“Oh crap, Chloe, get down!” As the sentence leaves him, you can see the trailing smoke coming your direction as an RPG missile launches through the air, landing mere feet from the three of you as Chloe drops to the stone below her, Nate’s grip on you tightens as the landing falls apart from under you, falling through the air. 

This is it. The last moments. The fears that you’d been worried of the entire time you’d been looking for him. You’re anticipating the crushing thud of the ground in the wake of your landing, but it never comes. Instead, you come to a quick halt, leaving you to open your eyes, seeing Nathan’s grip on a rope, attached to a grappling hook to one of the countless trees. The two of you are suspended in the air, softly swaying as you look around. “How the hell do we get down?” And just like that, he’s slowly lowering the two of you until you’re about 8 eight feet off the ground, where he lets go of the rope, holding on to you still. He tucks the two of you into a roll, Nathan taking the brunt of the force of the landing, a groan leaving him as his back meets the ground below him. 

You’re still clutching onto him, tightly as he coughs, getting his breath back. You hear a thud nearby, looking over to see Chloe landing on her own two feet, and approaching carefully. “You guys alright?” She asks, Nate humming. 

“Never better.” He chuckles between coughs, Chloe resting a hand on your shoulder. 

“Give him a minute to catch his breath, dear.” She offers, which makes you let go, slowly crawling off of him as the other woman helps you up. Nate sits up with time, catching his breath. As he raises to his feet he looks at you with terror.

“Baby. Do not, move.” When the words leave him, Chloe’s drawing her own weapon, Nathan still somewhat hunched over as he recuperates. The heavy weight of fear in your stomach returns as you feel a presence behind you, and soon a cool metal on the back of your head. 

“Deacon. Leave her out of this.” Chloe demands, pistol aimed just over your shoulder. “She’s not a part of this.” A shake of her head as a deep voice comes from behind you. The accent is thick, deep and it’s intimidating. Not the most reassuring thing to hear when you’re in imminent danger. 

“Well, clearly she is if she is so important to Mr. Drake.” He snickers, while all you can do is helplessly watch mercenaries approach the other two from behind. “Throw your weapons down. Maybe then we’ll talk.” Deacon offers, and in seconds Nate’s guns are on the ground, Chloe looking at him with sheer shock. 

“Really?” She asks dumbfoundedly. 

“Do you not see what he’s threatening me with?” He offers, a hand raising in your direction. You’re still frozen, silent tears running down your cheeks. Chloe groans but tosses her own weapon down. With arms up in surrender, Deacon shoves you in Nate’s direction, causing you to catch yourself on your hands and knees in the dirt, the brunette approaching you and helping you up. “You’re okay, it’s okay.” It’s like that’s all he has to say right now. Which, to be fair, he’s not got much to bargain with. Once you’re on your feet you can finally see the person who’d been threatening you. 

A large burly man, with short cropped grey hair, tattoos aplenty. He wore tactical gear and had an array of weapons attached to his toolbelt. With two goons flanking him, and two behind you, the three of you were just barely outnumbered. “Now. Drake. If you and your ladies would like to get out of here, alive, you’ll hand over what I’m looking for, and you can be on your way.” A grunt, leaves your boyfriend when one of the guards pushes him from behind. You hold up a hand in their direction, a gentle offer of ‘leave him alone’. He’s slowly moving, mainly because he’s in pain and likely has broken quite a few things in the last few hours. He’s pulling the map from his pocket, holding it up, the guard from behind him snatching it from him. 

“Sure, sure, sure take it. Not like I was using it or anything.” He snides, looking over at you. The guard makes his way to Deacon, handing it over, who then looks over it, one hand holding the map, one hand still aiming his weapon at the three of you. Deacon looks at Nate with a snicker, pocketing the map. 

“Thank you for your cooperation. It makes this much easier.” His lip snarls upward in amusement. 

“Great. Glad that’s settled. Can we leave now? The treasure’s yours Deacon.” Nate sighs, looking over at you and Chloe, who are also patiently waiting. The burly man looks over the group of you and grunts.

“Pick one.” He waves the gun towards you and Chloe, a guard pulling Nate away from you. You take a step to him, helplessly as Deacon clocks his gun to you. The brown eyed man looks at you and shakes his head, a silent plead to step back, despite the way his own arm is pinned behind his back. “Don’t make any stupid decisions, beautiful.” You glare at the man, eyebrows furrowing at him. “Now, Drake. I told you. Pick one.” 

“I’m not going to do that Deacon.” He huffs, a whine of pain out of him when they twist his arm a little further. This hurts you. You might not have much physical pain lingering, but seeing Nathan like this, against all odds, unable to help you, or himself... all you wanted to do was pick up a gun from off the ground and shoot the damn fool who threatened him. 

“Fine. You’ve made your choice then.” The gun in his hand shifts from being aimed at you and Chloe to Nathan, and then fires. 

“No!” A shout leaves you as you see Nate slowly drop to his knees, the guard letting him go as he slowly falls to his side. You make a step towards him and Deacon fires in your direction, missing the two of you as he and his crew start back towards the building you’d just narrowly escaped. 

“You’re going to have to wait a minute. Patience is a virtue after all.” Deacon snarls as they start in the direction opposite to which they came, gun still pointed at you both. His steps are slow and it makes you watch as Nathan writhes in pain, moving to push pressure to his wound in his abdomen, sounds of pain from him. Finally when you look back to Deacon, he’s turning the other way. 

With your jaw clenched, you pull the pistol Sully had given you out of your back holster and start blindly firing in their direction. Pulling the trigger as many times as you can until the rounds are emptied, Chloe pulling the weapon from your hand and repeating your name. “C’mon, it’s not worth it, we’ve got to get him out of here.” She reminds you, ducking when enemy fire returns from your shots. 

You’re ducking as well, moving to Nathan’s side, looking at him as he lays back. “Hey, hey, look at me.” A hand cups his cheek as Chloe’s starting rounds into the oncoming brigade of soldiers. “We’re gonna get you out of here, okay? Okay? Nathan, tell me it.”

“Okay.” Closed eyes open, looking up at you, exhaustion clear in his face, mixing with pain from the new injury. You’re suddenly remembering the radio on your belt, pulling it from your side, trying to reach Sully. 

“Sully? Sully are you there?” 

“Kid, I thought you were a gonner! You find Nate and Chloe?” He asks, a rather loud background behind him. You look at your boyfriend who’s smirking at you, making you shake your head as you respond. 

“I found them. Where are you at? Nate’s injured, we gotta get out of here.”

“Shit, how’s he doing? Can ‘e walk?” The man below you guides your hand closer to him. 

“Doin’ just fine, Sully. We just need a way outta here.” He responds as Chloe jogs over. 

“That won’t be the last of them. What’s the plan?” Before any of you can speak again, a vehicle comes roaring into the opening, dust flying over all of you as you see a utility vehicle from Deacon’s men approach and eventually park, the horn honking. Sully’s voice comes over the radio.

“Someone need a ride?”

&&

With Chloe’s help, you are able to get Nathan into the bed of the truck, where you sit with him, a hand of your own on his wound. Sully starts back to the entrance of the city, Chloe in shotgun - literally - while you keep Nate awake. You were looking up in the trail ahead when you look down at the man, seeing his eyes fluttering. 

“Nate.. Nate, hey, you’ve gotta stay awake.” A hand moves to his neck again, looking at him intently, patting him as eyes open again. When they do you look at him with a smile. “Hey, there we go.” You hum, reassuringly. He’s taking your hand that’s not on his stomach into his, looking at you like you were some kind of angel. 

“I’ve been to a million places. I’ve seen forgotten cities, recovered treasure people haven’t seen in years.” A cough interrupts him, leaving you worried. You grip his hand a little tighter. “Been shot at, kidnapped, drugged... I’d do it a million times over if I had to. Especially for you. I’d go to the ends of the Earth for you.” Nathan’s speech is slowing, leaving you to shift, hand pushing more pressure to his stomach, causing him to groan. 

“I’m sorry...” You whisper, looking over his face for any hint of pain he might be hiding. 

“No, no. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be in this mess.” He coughs again, rather violently this time. He lays back again, wind flowing through his hair as the truck flies past relics and the history that lays around you. 

“This is you. Everything about this is you. It might be a mess but it’s your mess. And that’s the type of mess I want to be in.” You reassure, a thumb running over his hand in reassurance. “Did you find the treasure you were after?” You try to keep him talking, keep him engaged, awake.

“I found you, didn’t I?” He looks at you with a smirk, making you smile widely. 

“Always the charmer.” You hum, watching him. His smirk fades as his eyes flutter closed and open. “Nate,” you warn, seeing that he’s not responding anymore, “Nate, open your eyes, C’mon you’ve gotta stay awake.” You try, hand cupping his head, shaking him a little. “Nathan. Nathan!” You don’t realize it but you’re shouting now as the truck starts to slow. “No, no, please wake up, please - Nate, please.” Both hands, bloody as they were, cup his head, trying to wake him. You can feel the tears welling in your eyes as you keep trying. “Don’t leave me - please -” Your voice breaks as your head dips, your forehead on his chest. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. Don’t take that from me.”

&&

Sully somehow managed to carry an unconscious Nathan all the way to the Jeep, you and Chloe close behind as you start down the mountain again to the nearest hospital you could possibly find. As you are moving you hear an explosion and you and Chloe look behind you to see smoke coming from the base of the Redeemer statue. Chloe snickers. “Deacon must’ve found the ships head.” She laughs, looking at you, leaving you confused. Chloe’s about to speak when the head in your lap moves. 

“Good for him. He deserves it.” You’re quickly looking down, seeing Nate slowly coming to, just barely, but it’s better than the alternative. Chloe’s put her attention back to the map in her hands, trying to find the fasted route to medical care. 

“Why’s that?” You ask, looking at him and pushing hair that was stuck to his forehead away. 

“Building was. Rigged. Full of explosives. Ships head was a decoy. The original was lost at sea years prior,” a sharp breath, “ and no one wanted to admit to it. So they made a decoy to deter people from trying to get it. No one could live to figure out the ships head wasn’t there.” He lets out a shaky breath, making you look at him. 

“And you two figured this out?” You ask with amusement.

“Do you one better.” He offers his journal - the same journal he’d been writing in when you’d met. “We’ve got the coordinates where it’s actually at.” Chloe looks at you both in amusement, making you look to him with a sigh, before carefully pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. 

“You’re reckless.” You warn him, and he looks up with a grin. 

“Sure, but I’m your wreck.”

[rpsocsandcanonohmy]

A Fighting Chance

Note: This is part of an ongoing story that can be read on AO3 here. Reading previous installments is reccomended for context purposes but is not required. Posted here for Whumptober 2021 @whumptober-archive

Day 6: Bruises

-------- The next day, Lori was tasked with helping Abilene around the house. Despite the size of the house and how many people trekked through it on any given day, very little of the work centered around cleaning. No, today, Lori was going to be testing her patience with cooking and food prep.

Lori knew how to cook. In theory. She knew how to use an oven (electric, gas, and the occasional wood-burner). She knew how to heat up something in a pan or a pot. She could even make a few things from scratch, assuming she had the ingredients handy, mostly eggs and pasta.

Food prepping for a ranch was a much different story.

There was no experimenting to see if the temperature dial was accurate. There was no obsessively checking the clock in lieu of a timer. There was no double-checking the instructions written on the box. 

Nope. Abby’s kitchen was run with fresh ingredients that were either being prepped for a later meal or being used in a current one. Abby had (semi-correctly) assumed Lori didn’t have much experience with cooking like this and just put her in charge of cutting vegetables or stirring sauces. Technically she was also a Taste Tester but that seemed more like an honorary title than a useful role.

She was chopping some apples under Abby’s not-so-subtle watch when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” she said, leaving Lori to her chopping. A few moments later, she heard giggling and the sound of loud footsteps coming near the kitchn. “Oh, Cordi’ll be so happy to see you! It’s been ages… Oh, Lori! Hoyt, this is Lori. She’s one of Stella’s friends from school; her dad’s out of town so she’s staying with us for a while.”

Lori smiled softly and waved. “Hi….”

“Howdy.”

Abby snorted and gently pet Lori’s back. “I’m gonna go check on Bonham and Liam. Will you two be alright alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

She turned back to her chopping. Hoyt came around the counter and grabbed a few pears to chop with her.

“So,” he started. “What happened?”

“Pardon?”

Hoyt chuckled. “You’re at home for the day on a school day, you’re working in the kitchen instead of being sick in bed, and I noticed that bandage. Something happened.”

Well. That was her caught. Lori shrugged, clearing away some apple chunks to make room for the next one. “I got into a fight. Some girl was being a bitch to Stella and August so I broke her nose.” There was no point in lying; it’d probably just come out later anyway.

“I can respect that,” Hoyt said. “Sounds like the kind of stuff I used to get into back in those days.”

Lori nodded, focusing on her chopping.

“You’re a good friend. Stella’s lucky she found you.”

She liked the way he said that, like she wasn’t some lucky charity case that got picked up out of pity. That didn’t make it any (potentially) less true, but still. Lori wondered if he had his own experience in a situation like that.

-----------

Lunch was miraculously uneventful. Hoyt didn't even ask her about why Liam was being careful around her, course he was likely too busy telling wild stories about whatever mess he’d gotten involved in while he was away. She was just glad not to be the topic of conversation at a meal for once.

She felt her phone vibrating in her pocket while she was putting away the last of the dishes. Checking to make sure no one was paying attention to her, Lori ducked into the next room and pulled out her phone. The text was from an unknown number, but she knew who it was. Only one person would text her out of the blue like this without an introduction.

[Text from: Unknown]: Hey boo. You still in Austin? There’s a tourney starting next week and I’d love to put your name in the ring. Withdrew your entry fee from my bank account today xo

[Text to: Unknown]: Hey. Yeah, I am. I’m not sure if I can compete though; I’m under a little surveillance atm

[Text from: Unknown]: When has that ever stopped you before lol xo

[Text to: Unknown]: It’s different

[Text from: Unknown]: Come onnnnnnn

[Text from: Unknown]: It’s a massive payout. Big city, big names, big tournament. It’s all monsters right now though. They’ll flip if they get a hunter in. Massive bucks sweetie 

[Text to: Unknown]: There’s always a massive payout

[Text from: Unknown]: Not like this. We’re talking almost 5 digits if you make it to the top

Okay, that was impressive. It would definitely come in handy when she met up with Dad again. They would definitely need the cash even if she didn’t have to pay bail this time.

[Text to: Unknown]: You know me so well

[Text from: Unknown]: Is that a yes?

[Text to: Unknown]: Duh

[Text to: Unknown]: Just get me the time and place

[Text from: Unknown]: I knew I could count on you xo

[Text from: Unknown]: I’ll get you the deets. Meet me in the locker room and we’ll discuss my cut

She wanted to respond but the number was blocked. Of course it was. That was how he operated. She’d never get used to that. He’d get her the address later, probably through email, and they’d just go from there. Like they always did.

All Lori had to do now was figure out how to sneak out….

------------

One day, Lori was going to suggest the Walkers invest in a security system that wasn’t accessible through a smart device. She’d have to figure out how to bring that up without mentioning she’d been able to bypass the alarms on Cordell’s phone with relative ease first though.

Regardless, she was out and headed for her destination. Why are these things always held in the most out of the way place possible? she thought as she entered the abandoned warehouse. She worked her way through the crowd, holding her duffle bag with her gear close to her chest, and headed for the locker room area. Once she was there, she got dressed and checked her first aid supply while she waited

“I was afraid you might back out,” came the all too familiar voice.

“Like I’d ever squelch on a deal with you,” Lori replied with a grin. She turned around and there he was, standing uncomfortably close as usual. “How’s the crowd looking?”

Darian grinned. “Very good turnout. I worked the room a bit, lot of people looking forward to seeing you in the cage. And, get this, they put you against a Were for your first fight!”

Of course they did. Hunter v. Monster fights drew a crowd as it was. Pitting a Hunter against their Thing? Pure gold. “Do you know anything about them?”

He shrugged. “Just that he’s a small thing with a big temper. It’s not his first rodeo but he’s not as well known as you. A lot of people are betting on you to win.”

“I take it you tossed your hat into that ring too?”

Darian smirked. “Always. Don’t worry, you’ll get your cut of that once you get to the top.”

Classic Darian, working all the possible angles. He was a smart guy, for a shapeshifter. She was about to respond when the fighting bell rang and her name was called over the loudspeakers.

“Showtime, babygirl. Make me proud!” Darian waved her off as she headed for the arena.

Lori took a deep breath and her mind cleared as she entered the cage. The crowd roared and she let it all wash over her. The sounds, the lights, the smells, everything. This was it. In here, she wasn’t a pitiable soul taken in by a friend. She wasn’t a reminder of her mother. She wasn’t a forgotten soul in the wasteland of The System. Here, she was Lori fucking Graves, one of the best fighters in the ring and the youngest hunter in the system. She was a badass, an icon, the love-to-hate-em fave. And she owned it.

The bell rang and the fight was on. Werewolves were tricky because of their claws and teeth, especially when she didn’t have a weapon of her own. But she’d been in worse situations before. A swift kick to the nuts took him to his knees and gave her the chance to land a few solid punches to his face before he got back up. A part of her couldn’t wait to see the bruises later. The larger part of her was regretting she couldn't run away faster when he lifted her above his head and threw her at the chain-link wall. That was going to smart later. But she could handle it.

Punch, kick, jab, punch, dodge, swerve, punchkickjabdodgepunchkickswerve and on it and on it went. Once she got into a rhythm, she could work off muscle memory and fall into a state of near zen. This is why she loved the fights. This is why she’d never walk away. This is why the payout was always worth it. This is why working around the bruises and scrapes would always be worth it, no matter who she was with.

It felt glorious. 

Her opponent was tiring out and she took advantage of that to elbow him in the face and knock him to the ground with a kick to the shin. She pinned him down and spit in his face while the ref counted her. 

She won.

She was bloody and bruising and she was definitely sleeping in tomorrow. 

But she won.

“Excellent work, darling.” Darian smiled proudly and gently clapped her on the shoulder as she stepped out the ring. “Payout for tonight is $915. Well, minus my cut, of course….” He handed Lori the cash and she stuffed it in her bag.

“Thanks. When’s the next one?”

“They’re gonna finish out the first round over the next couple days. I’ll text you the morning of so you have time to figure out your excuses.”

Lori shouldered her duffle bag and made her way to the back exit. “Alright. I’ll see you then.” 

It was a long walk back home, but the bills she counted later were more than worth it. She just had to figure out how she was going to hide the evidence from the rest of the house…..

[cmfan3]

If I Ever Lost You Part 2

Pairing: Jennifer Jareau X Emily Prentiss

Warning: Strong Language & Violence

Words: 5.6K

Emily woke to the sound of sirens. Everything was blurry and her head was pounding. In a futile attempt, she covered her ears, trying to block out all the noise. What happened? Why does my head hurt so fucking much? Suddenly it all came rushing back. JJ. Emily instantly turned towards the passenger seat causing stars to flash against her eyelids. “Ugh,” she let out a groan of pain. When the stars faded and she was able to see, Emily was terrified to see that the passenger seat was empty. A feeling of dread settled in her heart as her eyes laid upon a note that was placed on the seat like it was mocking the agent. With a shaking hand, she reached over and picked up the paper. She opened the note and when she read the three words, her world stopped.

I have her.

The paper dropped from her hands, fluttering down onto her lap. She pushed open the car door, leaning over the side and emptying her stomach contents. She felt hands grip her shoulders. Derek shouted, “come on princess, snap out of it. I need you to focus,” but everything was muffled. All she could hear was her own voice in her head. The unsub has JJ. He has the woman I love. It’s my fault. The next hour felt like it passed by in slow motion. Emily was checked over by the paramedics. The cut on her head was stitched up and she was told to take it easy for a couple days. Take it easy. Sure, I’ll take it easy when I have JJ back in my arms.

Derek opted to drive Emily back to the precinct while the rest of the team met them there. As she slid into the passenger seat, tears pricked her eyes. She willed herself not to cry. I have to be strong for Jen. I can’t cry right now. Before starting the car, Derek looked over at the brunette, noticing how she was closing herself off. “Nuh uh princess, I know that we have to get back to find JJ, but talk to me. Don’t shut everything in, not again,” he requested. The simple request was too much for Emily and the tears that she tried holding back fell down, leaving a trail along her cheeks. “I can’t Derek. It’s my fault she’s gone. I should’ve seen the car coming. I should’ve protected her. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” she sobbed, dropping her head into her hands. Unable to comfort his friend with words, he reached over and began rubbing small circles on her back. Once Emily’s breath evened out, Derek turned to start the car, but he heard such a faint whisper, he wasn’t sure if he imagined it, “I love her.” His hand froze, a mere centimeters from the ignition, “well princess, it’s about time you admitted it.” He looked over and when he saw the shocked reaction from the woman, he cracked a small smile. “Emily, you’re not as subtle as you think. The entire team knows. Hell, Garcia was the first to figure it out. Not to mention the jet incident,” Derek explained. Emily was silent after hearing the confession. The silence was only broken by Derek when he promised, “we’ll get her back princess.” Emily had one thought. I’m coming JJ. I promise.

As soon as the team got to the precinct, they got to work. Emily’s phone rang, glancing upon the number, her stomach dropped when JJ’s name flashed across the screen. Everyone gathered around her as she answered. Fear dripping from her voice, “Jayje, please tell me you’re ok. Tell me where you are and I’ll come pick you up.” “My my. Her knight in shining armor, I’m sorry to say, but you won’t be finding her,” a man’s voice rang out. Derek immediately dialed Penelope and she answered almost immediately, “baby girl, I need you to track JJ’s phone.” “I have been ever since you guys landed in Washington, but as soon as she got into the crash, I lost the signal” Penelope confessed. Hearing the clacking of keys on the other end, the team held their breath waiting. The only person who wasn’t focused on Penelope was Emily. Desperate, she pleaded, “please, whoever you are, let her go. I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt her.” Hearing the laughter from the other end of the line, Emily’s stomach turned over itself, “you don’t have anything I want. Goodbye agent Prentiss.” The call cut off, causing Emily to drop to her knees, despair taking over as sobs shook her body. Penelope’s voice rang out, her voice breaking, “I don’t- I don’t understand. I wasn’t able to track it. He had the signal bouncing around different towers.” Derek was fuming, “who in the hell does this son of a bitch think he is.” Anger crossed Hotch’s features for a split second so the team wasn’t sure if they imagined it. He called out, “Garcia, look into the list and narrow it down as much as you can. Do it fast. Reid, look over the geographical profile, I want you to cut it down. Work with Garcia to eliminate as much as you can. Rossi, look over the crime scene photos and see if we missed anything. Morgan and Prentiss. You two have to look into the victim’s lives, find out what connected them. Find out how the unsub got to them. I’ll handle the media.” Derek crouched down to Emily and enveloped her into a hug as the rest of the team got started. One second she was sobbing into his shirt and the next it was as if nothing happened. She got up and wiped at her eyes, “we don’t have any time to waste,” she stated. I’m gonna get this son of a bitch. Hang in there Jen. I love you.

The first thing JJ felt when she woke up was pain. Her body seemed to hurt everywhere. With a groan, she lifted her head and peaked her eyes open. As her vision cleared, she realized that she was being suspended in the middle of a dim lit room. Her feet were barely scraping the floor and the more she tried moving, the deeper the rope dug into her skin. She cried out in pain when the rope rubbed along her raw wrists. She looked around the room, noticing how it was completely barren except for a chair in front of her and a door. Suddenly, the door opened, causing JJ to turn her head from the sudden change in light. Keeping her eyes closed, she heard shoes padding across the floor until they stopped in front of her. She held her breath, waiting. Her silence was met with a stinging slap across her face, causing her head to turn roughly. Holding in her cries, she looked up at the unsub with hatred in her eyes. His face turned into a sneer, “this is going to be more fun than I thought.” His voice sounded like his words were scraping across sandpaper. JJ had to crane her neck to look him in his eyes. Blue eyes locked onto brown eyes. His eyes gleamed with something menacing, “we’ll see how long you can last. Hopefully you’ll be more fun than the others.” He gripped her face roughly, causing her to thrash, attempting to free herself from his grip, “you’ll learn your place soon enough.” He let her go, causing her chin to drop against her chest. Before he walked out, he turned to the blonde and pointed to a camera in the corner that she didn’t notice before, “say hello to your team. Give Emily my regards.” JJ’s head snapped up at the name. “Don’t you dare hurt her,” she screamed. He simply laughed, “all in due time Jareau, all in due time,” and walked out, shutting the door behind him. Emily. I can’t let her get hurt. God. Please keep her safe. I love you Em. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. She turned towards the camera, grief stricken across her features, she mouthed, “I’m sorry,” before she let herself fall unconscious.

Penelope was sitting in her lair when she got an email from an anonymous user. Out of curiosity, she clicked the link included. Her breath caught in her throat when the video popped up on her screen. “Oh no. This is bad. This is so so bad,” she gasped.

The team was working in the precinct like a machine when Hotch’s phone rang. He picked it up, answering immediately, “what is it Garcia?” “You guys have to see this,” she replied breathlessly. They turned their attention to the screen in the front of the room, freezing when the video of JJ bloody and limp came up. Emily’s breathing became labored when she saw her love hanging from the ceiling, feet barely scraping the floor, and a red mark growing on her cheek. “No,” she whispered. Morgan’s jaw clenched, his eyes roaming over the blonde. Reid was frozen in shock when he saw the woman who was practically his older sister in such a state. Rossi had tears pricking his eyes as soon as the video popped up. Hotch seemed unfazed by the video which angered Emily, but his eyes told a different story. “Track it Garcia,” he yelled out. “I’m already trying sir,” she cried, “but nothing’s coming up. The signal’s bouncing across different towers.” The team turned back to the screen when the audio suddenly turned on. Dread settled in the pit of Emily’s stomach when she heard a door opening and the thud of footsteps. On screen, JJ’s head snapped up when the footsteps stopped. Unable to see the unsub, the team had to focus on JJ’s facial features. The same voice that had talked to Emily on the phone earlier rang out from the TV, “now, if you want some water, you have to behave.” In response, the blonde spit in his face causing a scream of outrage. The blonde’s head snapped to the side when she was met with a slap. Her groans of pain caused Emily’s heart to shatter. Looking at the screen, the team felt despair when the unsub sent a flurry of punches across JJ’s ribs. After a particularly strong one, JJ cried out. “He must have broken a rib. Her breathing looks like it’s getting shallow,” Reid noticed. Seemingly satisfied with himself, the unsub’s footsteps sounded like they were fading. JJ turned towards the camera and with a groan of pain, she whispered, “he has bro-“ then the audio cut off. Emily jumped out of her seat, rushing towards the TV, “No!” she cried out. The brunette stared into the blonde’s eyes through the screen, and it was almost as if JJ felt it because she stared into the camera, her features softening and her mouth forming into the words, “I love you too,” before she lost consciousness, causing her head to drop. Emily cried out, her breathing became labored. Derek pulled her into an embrace, keeping the woman from collapsing on the floor. Penelope and Emily’s sobbing was the only sound that was heard in the otherwise silent room.

When JJ woke up, she didn’t know what time or day it was. It feels like it’s been weeks. I have to stay strong for Em, but I don’t know how much longer I can last. I need water. Her throat was parched and when she tried to call out, it came out as nothing but a whisper, “please, I need water.” The door opened to reveal her captor. He had a smirk on his face as he strolled in the room, “well you’ll have to behave won’t you.” Unable to speak any longer, JJ nodded, hoping to get something to satisfy her thirst. Suddenly, the unsub lunged towards her, gripping the rope that was suspending her, keeping her from thrashing. He pulled out a knife that JJ didn’t see until it was too late. He used the tip of the knife to rip her shirt down the middle. She tried getting out of his reach but it was useless. He was fixated on her tan stomach, pulling the knife up to scrape along it. JJ let out a groan of pain when the knife broke through her skin, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. This continued for what seemed like hours when in reality it was only a minute. When he was satisfied with his work, he put the knife away and ran his fingers along the cuts, causing JJ to cry out. Smearing the blood across her abdomen, the unsub reached up and cupped JJ’s face, causing the blood to mark her face. He patted her cheek, turning away with a grin on his face and walked out.

Emily was the only one who saw the entire scene unfold. She gripped the edge of the seat until her knuckles turned white. Her jaw clenched and the hatred in her grew. She stared at the blonde, praying that they could catch a break. On the screen, JJ coughs racked her whole body. When her body stilled, Emily’s fear grew. As she watched JJ, she was heartbroken to see the frail agent’s body shake with sobs. The tears ran down her face, washing away the blood that was smeared on. Unable to see more, Emily turned from the screen, staring at her phone, willing it to ring with good news. Garcia’s contact popped up on the screen, and praying that it wasn’t a cruel joke from the universe, Emily picked it up, “please PG, tell me we have something to go off on.” “I was able to cut down the list to three men. I already told Hotch. The team is going to the properties and see if they can find her,” informed Garcia. She continued, “go find her E,” and cut the line. Emily rushed out of the room, running up to her team. Hotch glanced at her and started, “Reid and Morgan, you two head to the Smith property. Prentiss and Rossi, head to the Johnson property. I’ll head to the Cox residence with the captain.” The team grabbed their vests and rushed to the cars.

Derek and Spencer got to the Smith property as the sun was setting, the orange glow washing over the house. As cop cars drove in behind the agents, they rushed from the SUV and towards the front door. Their guns in their hands, Derek pounded on the door, ”FBI! Open up!” After not getting a response, he nodded to Spencer to brace himself. Morgan then kicked the door open, allowing Spencer to walk in first. The two split, each followed by a cop while they searched the property. They searched every part of the house, anger and fear growing every time they walked into an empty room. By the time they finished searching the house, the sun had set completely and the sky was getting dark fast. Frustrated because they didn’t find anyone, Derek called Hotch, “there’s no one here man. She’s not here Hotch.” Hotch replied with the one answer he was dreading, “she’s not here either. Head to the Johnson residence. I haven’t heard anything from Prentiss or Rossi.” Jumping into the SUV, Derek pulled out of the driveway, speeding towards the third residence.

Not willing to wait for backup, Emily rushed towards the house, causing David to chase after her. She craned her neck towards the door to see if she could hear anything, but when she didn’t hear a sound, she tried opening the door. Realizing that the door was locked, she got down onto her knees to pick it while David kept watch. After a couple minutes of antagonizing silence, the two were relieved when the click of the lock rang out, causing the door to swing open. Picking up her gun, Emily cautiously stepped into the house, her eyes straining to see in the dark. Dave motioned towards the stairs, telling her that he was going to search upstairs. Emily nodded in response and ventured further into the house. Unable to find anything in the living room, she moved towards the kitchen and dining room. The place was eerily quiet, the only sound that she heard were her own footsteps, causing chills to run down her spine. After she cleared both rooms, she turned towards the hallway. Seeing a staircase leading to darkness, she couldn’t wait for Rossi so she cautiously ventured down the stairs. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw a single door leading into a faintly light room. Swinging the door wide open with her gun drawn, she held her breath as her eyes scanned the room. If she didn’t notice the blood stains on the floor or the chain hanging from the middle of the room, she wasn’t sure what she would’ve done. She’s not here. That son of a bitch still has her. Even though the blonde was no longer here, she felt a surge of hope when she realized that she still had to be alive, otherwise the unsub wouldn’t have moved her. I’m coming JJ. I promise.

To JJ, it felt like they were walking for hours. She wasn’t sure which direction they came from. All she knew was that they were moving for a reason. She realized what was happening, “they found you, didn’t they? I knew they’d find me. You’re nothing compared to them. Compared to Em-” she was cut off when he threw her on the ground, causing the air to leave her lungs. Chest heaving, she tried taking deep breaths, each one hurting her ribs more than the last. “Shut up,” he whispered menacingly. “Or what? You’ll kill me,” JJ egged him on. He let out yell of rage, “I said shut up you stupid bitch!” The next thing she knew, his foot was flying towards her face. She couldn’t bring her hands up fast enough. She had one thought. Emily. His foot connected with the side of her temple and then she was out cold.

JJ woke up tied to a post in the middle of what seemed to be a barn. It was still dark out so she wasn’t sure if it was the same day or if it was twenty-four hours later. Her head was pounding and her vision was swimming. A voice rang out from the corner, “you’re finally awake. I must’ve kicked you harder than I realized.” She heard a chair scraping across the floor as the unsub went to sit in front of her. As he sat down, he pulled something out from behind his back. The blonde turned away from him when she saw the moonlight gleaming off the knife, but that wasn’t the only thing she saw. “You know, you were the best one I had,” he claimed. She looked at the knife again, hoping to see what was on it. Angered by her silence, the unsub lunged towards her, holding the knife up to her throat. When he brought the knife closer to her, she realized what was on it. Blood? I don’t feel any new cuts, it can’t be mine. Who’s blo- Her thoughts were interrupted when the unsub realized that she was staring at the knife. Pulling it back, he roared with laughter, “you’re trying to figure out who’s blood this is, aren’t you agent Jareau? Well, let me tell you a little secret.” He leaned in next to her ear, causing her to turn away, and whispered, “it’s your precious lover’s. Emily.” She instantly turned her head towards him, staring at him, fear prominent on her face. “No. No. You’re lying. You have to be,” she mumbled. Satisfied with her reaction, he pulled back and continued, “you should have heard her. She kept begging that you don’t get hurt. She was pathetic-” JJ interrupted him, shouting, “no! Don’t talk about her like that. You don’t even deserve to say her name.” Realizing that she went too far, her eyes shot up to stare at him, scared of what he might do to her. He simply smiled, “well you shouldn’t worry. You will be joining her soon enough Jennifer.” He turned away from her and walked out of the barn, leaving the blonde to be consumed with grief. Her sobs ripped from her throat, leaving her out of breath and shaking. Unable to process the information that her love was gone, her body felt numb. All she could do was stare at the empty chair, reminiscing about all their memories together. The memory that she held onto was their night in the hotel room. Emily’s words ringing in her head as tears streamed down her face. I love you.

The team gathered outside of the Johnson house, planning their next move. Emily told the team what she found, “she wasn’t there, but I did find the room where the unsub was keeping her. There was a chain hanging from the middle of the room and there were blood stains on the floor, they looked somewhat fresh.” “There was nothing upstairs except for a room filled with computers. That’s where he would’ve made the call and video ping off of different towers,” David added. Before they could add anything else, Hotch’s cell rang with Penelope’s number flashing on the screen. “Talk to me Garcia,” he answered. “I was looking into Elijah Johnson and I found a number of interesting things. The first is, his mother abandoned him when he was only six, leaving him with his grandmother. Before he was abandoned, he had frequent visits to the hospital for injuries like a broken arm, bruised eye, broken rib, and more. Every visit resulted with a different excuse, but it seemed like he was abused by his mother,” Penelope informed the team. After a beat of silence, her voice rang out again, “Oh, this is bad. JJ looks exactly like his mother.” Spencer was the first to speak, “he’s using JJ as a substitute for his mother. He feels like JJ should pay for his mother’s actions. He might even think that JJ is his mother if his rage becomes too much to handle. There’s no telling what he’ll do to her.” Penelope answered, “boy wonder’s right. I’m currently looking at the map to see if there are any properties nearby.” After a couple of seconds, a squeal of victory was heard by the team, “there’s an abandoned barn three miles northeast of your current location. The address has just been sent to your phones.” “You’re the best baby girl,” Derek called out. Penelope laughed, “oh don’t you know it chocolate thunder. Go get our girl back.” Before she ended the call, Penelope’s voice rang out once more, “stay safe my lovelies.” With a newfound strength, the team jumped into their SUV’s and rushed towards the barn.

JJ awoke to the feeling of her hands being untied. Her head was still throbbing from the news she received earlier. When she looked back, she was shocked to see that it was the unsub who was untying her from the post. “They’re here. Your team found us. We have to get moving,” he informed her. When she was finally free, she knew that this was her chance to stall him so she dropped to the floor. He grabbed her, roughly pulling her from the floor, “get the fuck up. This is not the time for your shit.” JJ didn’t respond, she simply let her body go slack. The two looked up to the entryway as they heard footsteps pounding towards them. The unsub pulled JJ up, wrapping one arm around her abdomen while pressing the knife to her neck with the other. Derek and Spencer ran through the front entrance, pausing when they saw the unsub threatening JJ with the knife. Soon after, Hotch came in from the left and David came in from the right. JJ’s heart shattered when she didn’t see the brunette come in, realizing that the unsub was in fact telling the truth earlier. Her body sagged from the grief and she tuned everything out, unable to stop the tears from falling down her face. Hotch’s called out, “you don’t have to do this Elijah, you’re surrounded. We know your mother hurt you and you want your revenge, but look at agent Jareau. She isn’t your mother. You have to let her go. No one else has to get hurt Johnson.” Elijah laughed at the agents, “even if I let her go, I’ll spend my life in jail, if I don’t get onto death row. Not happening. If I go down, she’s coming with me. She’ll be dead before any of you even pull the trig-” He was cut off with a gun shot that came from behind him. He dropped to the floor, blood pouring from his head, causing JJ to collapse to the floor, tears still silently streaming down her face. She heard footsteps rushing towards her and then her face was cupped, trying to make her look up. Giving in, she looked up and was shocked to see that it was Emily who was holding her up. JJ’s breath froze, “please don’t let this be some cruel dream,” she whispered. Tears shining in her eyes, Emily smiled, “I’m here Jayje. I’m here and I’m never leaving you again. I promise.” JJ smiled gratefully and leaned into Emily’s touch, closing her eyes. Emily leaned down and kissed her forehead, “you can rest now Jen. I’ve got you.” Knowing that she was safe in her love’s arms, she let sleep take her.

Emily was allowed to ride back in the ambulance with JJ. Holding her hand, to reassure herself that JJ was really there, Emily couldn’t stop gawking at her. No matter what happens to her, she still looks beautiful. They were halfway to the hospital when JJ coded. Emily’s body went frigid as the sound of JJ flat lining rang out. She squeezed her hand, hoping for some kind of response, but when she didn’t feel anything, she was crushed. The paramedics made Emily move to the front of the ambulance as they worked. She protested, trying to stay next to JJ for as long as she could, but she gave in when she realized that she was in their way. As she moved to the front, all she heard was the sound of JJ coding. She stared out the window, oblivious to everything around her, hoping that the paramedics could save the younger agent.

When JJ woke up, the first thing she felt was someone gripping her hand like it was a lifeline. She opened her eyes, curious to see who it was and when she laid her eyes on the brunette who was holding her hand while she was sleeping on the couch, her heart swelled with the love she felt for the woman in front of her. JJ continued to stare at Emily until she stirred, opening her eyes slowly to adjust to the brightness. The older woman’s eyes roamed the room until they settled on the blonde who was staring at her with a smile tugging at her lips. Emily instantly shot up off the couch and leaned over to hug the blonde who was more than happy to oblige. Laughing slightly, JJ joked, “well, I guess someone’s happy to see me.” Emily pulled back from their embrace but didn’t let go of the blonde, her smile reaching her ears, “of course I’m happy to see you Jen.” After a moment, the smile faded from her lips, and she whispered, “I was scared Jayje. I was scared I lost you in the ambulance.” Noticing the sadness behind the brunette’s expression, JJ squeezed her hands and tried to reassure her, “but you didn’t. I’m here with you, aren’t I?” Smiling softly, the brunette replied, “yeah, yeah you are.” As if remembering something, Emily’s face lit up, “Jayje. When you were held captive, did you mean it when y-” She was cut off when they heard Penelope’s excited scream, “you’re awake!” “For fucks sake,” grumbled the brunette. JJ gave Emily a glance as she laughed softly, turning to see the overly excited woman in front of her. Penelope started talking at a thousand words a minute, “Are you okay? I’m so sorry sweet cheeks, you didn’t deserve any of this. I swear if Emily didn’t shoot him, I would have made his life a living hell. No one messes with-” “I’m okay Pen. I’m scratched up, but it’s part of the job,” JJ interrupted. Before Penelope could open her mouth to disagree, the rest of the team walked in, overjoyed to see JJ awake. Since he wasn’t one for showing affection, JJ was shocked when Reid was the first to her bedside, enveloping her in a hug. “Don’t ever do that to us again,” he whispered in her ear. Unable to form words at his show of affection, she simply nodded, hugging him tighter. After a second, the two let go of each other, allowing Derek to grab JJ's hand, “you scared us there blondie.” Smiling at the man, she joked, “you had me scared for a second too ‘chocolate thunder.’ It took you guys long enough.” At the use of the nickname, Penelope whined, “only I get to call him that.” The rest of the team laughed at her sudden outburst. David walked up to JJ next, kissing the top of her head as a father would. He smiled fondly at her, “I’m glad you’re ok bellissima.” She grabbed his hand, squeezing it softly and whispered, “thank you.” The team then turned to Hotch, waiting for him to say something. He simply nodded in JJ’s direction and stated, “I’m glad you’re okay Jareau.” She nodded back, smiling at her boss who seemed to never show emotion, but she saw in his eyes just how relieved he was to have her back. The team stayed for a few more hours before Emily saw how JJ was struggling to stay awake. She made everyone leave, promising that they can come visit her tomorrow. They all left the room, one after another and the last to leave was Reid. He turned towards the blonde and called out, “I love you JJ.” The corner of her mouth quirked up, she called out, “I love you too Spence.” Satisfied with her answer, he turned and walked out the door.

As soon as he left, Emily shut the door behind him, praying for no more interruptions. She turned towards the blonde who was laying in the hospital bed. “The doctor came in when you were sleeping earlier. He said you got stitches for the cuts on your stomach when you were out and that you have a mild concussion. Because you were severely dehydrated, you have to stay here for a day so your body can heal and they can keep an eye on you,” she informed JJ. Seeing the annoyance on JJ’s face, Emily quickly added, “but don’t worry, I’m staying with you until you can leave.” That lifted the blonde’s spirits so she decided to scoot to the side of the bed, patting the empty spot next to her. “I see you gave me the left side,” Emily joked. Eyes gleaming with joy, JJ responded, “well of course, you did say it was your side of the bed.” Emily threw her head back and laughed as she joined the blonde under the blanket. Turning towards each other, Emily reached down and grabbed JJ’s hand, rubbing small circles on her knuckles. JJ hummed in response, happy with the physical contact from the brunette. After a moment, Emily looked up into JJ’s eyes and took a deep breath. She started, “I have to tell you this before someone else interrupts us. Jayje, I’ve loved you ever since I can remember. As soon as I saw you on my first day, I knew you were the one. You’ve been there for me since we’ve met. When I thought I lost you when you were taken and when you coded in the ambulance, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t imagine a life without you. You’re the reason for my existence Jen. I love you.” Waiting with a baited breath, she was upset when she didn’t hear a response.

Removing her hand from JJ’s, she whispered, “I thought you felt the same. I’m sorry.” Before she could finish, she felt JJ’s lips crash onto her’s. Not wanting this moment to end, Emily rested her hand on the smaller woman’s neck, pulling her closer. In response, JJ tangled her hand in the brunette’s hair. Both women started smiling, causing them to break apart. They rested their foreheads against each other, brown and blue eyes staring into each other, both glistening with happiness and love. “I love you too,” JJ faintly whispered against Emily’s lips before kissing her softly. The brunette’s heart swelled with joy at the blonde’s confession, pulling her flush against her side. Emily had her arm wrapped around JJ, tracing circles on her back while running her other hand through the blonde hair. JJ rested her head on Emily’s chest, the smaller woman’s arm wrapped around the brunette’s torso, listening to her lover’s heartbeat. JJ had one thought running through her head as she fell asleep. I love you Em. The younger woman’s breath evened out, telling Emily that she was asleep. Emily smiled fondly down at the blonde who was laying on top of her, kissing the top of her head, causing a hum of approval from the sleeping woman. As Emily succumbed to her exhaustion, she had one thought running through her head. I love you Jen.

[tibbinswrites]

Hi! If the slots haven’t been filled yet could you do prompt #635, Destiel, something in cannonverse (so preferably not au or endverse) and angst with happy ending? Thank you! I love love love your writing, you are one of my favorite Destiel writers! You capture the characters so perfectly! I hope you have a nice day!

*grovelling, so much grovelling* I am so, so sorry that this took so long Anon, especially as you picked a prompt that I was hoping someone would pick for ages! When it came to actually WRITING for it though I drew a huge blank. I wrote 4000 words then scrapped them all, then I cycled through about three other possible ideas but none of them did this prompt justice, and THEN I got an email about my big project deadline that I had completely forgotten about so I had to sort that, and then I was in that horrible mood where I was hating everything I wrote so I had to take a break and THEN I came back with fresh eyes and this happened. Thank you so much for bearing with me. I hope it’s worth the wait! You are far too kind! I’m so happy you like how I write. I still have one prompt slot left. I have now done prompts for: #1, #2, #4 and #16, #9, #10, #20, #26, #33, #77, #78, #170 (part 1), (part 2), (part 3), #327, #502 and #635 Anyway, ON WITH THE FIC!  635. “I can’t be mad because I let you slip away…”

Things had been kind of weird since Jack got his soul back. There were more tears than Dean was comfortable dealing with and more apologies than he knew how to forgive. There was only so much he could push aside for the kid’s benefit after all, and only so many times he could hear his mother’s name emerge from the mouth of her killer.

He hadn’t yelled yet though. He’d been trying so damn hard to keep his temper in check ever since Purgatory had him sobbing on his knees. The realisation of what his anger had almost cost him—more than once on reflection—had been burned into his very lungs. It had been a pretty big wake up call to say the least. So he hadn’t yelled at the kid. It wasn’t Jack’s fault. That was his new mantra and he replayed it every time he saw Jack start to tear up, every time he tried to (not so subtly) get Dean alone, as though it was the presence of Sam and Cas that was bothering him and not the fact that he couldn’t forget the weight of his mother’s body in his arms, or the all too familiar stench of her pyre as she burned for the second time. Dean had so far managed to dodge him, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before one of the others intervened on Jack’s behalf.

It had been a couple weeks now and Sam was starting to give him pointed looks whenever he made his feeble excuses about needing to make a grocery run or how he’d love to stay and talk but there was a special sci-fi movie marathon at the local movie theatre that he’d been wanting to go to, or how the washing machine had been acting up and he’d really need to concentrate while fixing it. Those looks were slowly inching from understanding towards judgemental, but he just wasn’t ready yet. He couldn’t look Jack in the eye and tell him honestly that he forgave him for killing Mary, because he didn’t. He might not exactly blame the kid anymore, but that didn’t mean Mary was forgotten.

It didn’t matter that Jack needed to hear the words from Dean’s mouth, this was something he couldn’t compromise himself on.

He hated that everyone else seemed to have a timeline for how long he was allowed to grieve, now that he had the time to grieve. It was different for Sam. It felt petty and resentful to think it but it was. Sam hadn’t missed Mary the first time, not really. You can’t miss what you never had after all and while Sam had definitely felt the absence of Mary growing up, in the spaces that Dean had been unable to fill, and he had peppered Dean with questions about her more than once, they had been more curious than sad. He hadn’t lost her the same way Dean had, nor did he remember the fire like Dean did, nor did he truly understand how different John had been before Mary died.

He wasn’t sure why that made a difference but it did. And sure, Mary had never been the idol he’d imagined her to be as a kid, but now he was struggling so hard not to put her back on that pedestal. He’d sorted through so much of his childish crap. Having Mary alive and well and fiercely stubborn had helped him to do that. Her unwillingness to compromise her independence and love of hunting in order to fulfil Dean’s fantasies of having someone tuck him in at night and tell him that it was all gonna be okay had helped Dean grow up in the way that he should have grown up the first time; not forced into it at four years old, confused and scared, the only thought in his head watch out for Sammy, but in the healthy way that Sam already somehow managed, true maturity instead of faking it because he had to.

Not just a mom, were the words he remembered most clearly.

But now he’d lost her again, and with her any chance of showing her how far he’d come. A foolish, selfish notion perhaps, but one that he’d been nursing in his chest for a very long time: the desire to prove his father wrong, to prove to himself that he wasn’t broken beyond repair, to prove to Mary that it had been her, not John, who had been the one to lay the foundation for the person he wanted to be. The person he could choose to be.

Without her he was struggling to remember why he should bother. Doing things for his own gain felt stupid and narcissistic, another lesson that John had imprinted in him. If somebody else didn’t need it from him then what was the point? Not that Mary had needed to see Dean figure out how to become a person but when she was alive at least he could lie to himself.

He’d retreated since Jack got his soul back. From everyone. Sam had been giving him space, Jack he actively avoided, and whatever progress he’d made with Cas had backslid into tiptoeing on eggshells around the guy, not wanting to hear how much he hated Dean for not showing his son the courtesy of accepting an apology, and definitely not wanting to risk a fight that led to him taking off again. He didn’t know how to fix any of it. How could he make himself forgive Jack? How could he make himself come to terms with everything he’d lost that his mother had represented to him? How could he stop missing Mary herself? The empty hole inside, imperfectly shaped, moulded around the two different Mary’s that he’d known just seemed to grow more ragged at the edges.

He was out in the woods, of course, at the spot Mary’s body had reappeared. This was where he came now when the air felt too stifling inside. It was like a grave, he supposed, a place to come and think about what a person meant to you. He’d never really had that before. He’d only been to Mary’s grave in Lawrence twice, on the day she was put in it and the day, twelve years later, that he’d had to go back. They’d moved around too much when he was young and though Bobby had offered to take him more than once when John had dumped them at his place, Dean had always refused, knowing his dad wouldn’t like it and not really seeing the point anyway.

He understood the point now. Even without a marker he still felt her here. Which he knew was dumb, because she was in Heaven with a husband who’d never really existed and two children who she’d never got to see grow up and hopefully, hopefully the two adult sons who’d grown up without her, the ones she could be proud of.

He sniffed. He always cried when he came here, he’d stopped trying to fight it. He didn’t talk to Mary, of course. She couldn’t hear him and he didn’t have anything worth saying anyway. He just came here to try and untangle the mess of thoughts in his head, maybe so he could figure out what to do next, how to fix everything without undoing whatever progress he’d made for himself.

“Dean?”

He froze, the age-old tactic of ‘if I don’t respond it’ll go away’. It didn’t of course. And to make matters worse, it wasn’t an it, it was Cas.

“What are you doing out here?”

Dean shrugged, casual. “Just needed some air.” He didn’t turn, but he heard the sound of recognition Cas made when he realised the significance of this particular spot.

“Avoiding Jack?”

Dean turned to automatically deny it but Cas’ face was calm and without judgement. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I know he’s coming on strong,” he continued. “I’ve tried to get him to dial it back a little but he really wants to talk to you.”

“I can’t do it, Cas.” Dean said, looking back to the place his mother’s body had materialised, his voice little more than a scrape. “I can’t look him in the eye and tell him that that I’m over it. I’m not. I might not ever be.”

There was a click in Cas’ throat as he swallowed. Then, “Your forgiveness is only part of it,” he said slowly. “Albeit a major part, but he understands, Dean. He understands that what he did can’t be written off, he just wants to hear it from you. If you explain it to him, tell him that you just need time and you’ll go to him when you’re ready, he won’t keep apologising. He’s just trying to get a reaction, I think, though sometimes even I want to snap at him.”

Dean chewed that over for a moment. Cas made it sound so simple. Maybe it wasn’t so black and white as either lying to the kid or yelling that he’ll never forgive him—the only two options that Dean had been able to come up with so far—of course, it meant talking, which Dean was notoriously bad at, but the way Cas broke it down, it didn’t sound so hard. Jack was a smart kid for a three-year-old after all, and he could definitely understand ‘I don’t hate you but I need time’, which was basically what his feelings boiled down to. He didn’t have to explain everything. Hell, he’d never even tell Sam everything but Jack deserved at least the basics, what with the way he’d been freezing the kid out lately.

“What’s the other part?” he asked suddenly, remembering the first thing Cas had said, he twisted his neck around to see Cas frowning at him, his head tilted adorably to one side (yeah, he thought it, so what?).

“Isn’t it obvious? He misses you.”

Dean just blinked stupidly. “Huh?”

Cas huffed and walked forward to stand at his side. Somehow he knew not to walk in front of him and obscure his view of the clearing, but instead stayed a solid presence next to him. Cas was good like that, Dean thought, he just knew things so they didn’t have to be said; he understood in the quiet kind of way that meant more to him than he could ever express, but he was pretty sure Cas knew that too. Still, sometimes he toyed with the idea of saying it aloud.

“He misses spending time with you,” Cas clarified. “You took him fishing once, let him drive your car, taught him how to fire a gun and got him hooked on those horror films you like. He loves you, Dean, and he hates that he hurt you.”

Dean looked down then, and he dug the toe of his boot into the soft dirt. “Oh.”

A comforting weight landed on his shoulder and he didn’t need to look up at the sudden touch. Somehow, Cas had become a safe person even to his subconscious. He didn’t know when that had happened, honestly he tried not to look too closely at it, but he’d arrived at a place now where he could admit to himself, however briefly, that he really, really liked that it had.

“You’re his father too, Dean. Just as much as and me and Sam. You know that, right?

Dean shrugged the shoulder Cas wasn’t touching, not wanting him to remove his hand. “I was thinking of myself more like the fun uncle,” he said, trying to keep his tone light through the ball in his throat.

“No you weren’t.” Cas said, soft but firm, not letting Dean joke his way out of this. Which, actually, he was okay with. Cas always knew how far he could push, how far Dean needed to be pushed. Even when Sam couldn’t get the balance right, Cas always could. Still, he wouldn’t be Dean if he didn’t try.

“Prove it,” he said, flashing a grin at the angel, who merely rolled his eyes and let his hand drop. Suddenly, he was the one toeing at the grass, a hint of pink on his cheeks.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said. “For what it’s worth.”

“I’m right here.” Dean said, and then it was too late to take it back, because this wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. He was supposed to make another joke, a playful jab, not admiring the way the freckles of sunlight through the trees highlighted the chestnut in Cas’ hair, nor heeding the gentle warmth in his belly that only happened around Cas, nor stepping forward to place his own hand on Cas’ shoulder because he needed the contact, he needed to be grounded in these last few moments before he fucked everything up, again, and that pleasant warm feeling was beginning to twist into panic.

But then Cas met his eyes and he breathed again, even though the look in them was melancholy.

“You haven’t been,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me as well. Or, not avoiding but you’ve been different. I wonder if perhaps you’re unable to forgive me either, but too kind to say so.”

Dean almost snorted. He was a lot of things, some of them even good, but kind wasn’t even in the top fifty. Cas gave him a look that said he knew what he was thinking and not to respond to it, so instead he pushed through his instinct and went with pure honesty.

“I can’t forgive you because I never blamed you, Cas, not really. I was just lashing out because… I dunno, because I expect more from you than I should, I guess. And it’s not fair, I know that, I just… I’m used to you fixing things, and I don’t know what to do when you can’t. And you left because I was being a dick and I can’t blame you for that. I can’t be mad because I let you slip away.”

Cas’ expression shifted then, and it was only that moment that Dean realised they were standing so close. One of Dean’s hands gripped at the arm of that damned coat and Cas was so close that he could probably—fuck—he could probably see the small tracks his tears had made. Dean was so close that he could make out the hope in Cas’ eyes, and for the first time, he wasn’t scared shitless at the sight of it. Or at least, he wasn’t so terrified that he could let Cas slip away again.

“I’m right here,” Cas echoed.

“We could be something.” Dean said, his voice a very unattractive croak, well aware that talking about this shit was so far from his wheelhouse it had a different zip code. His breath hit a few errant hairs on Cas’ forehead and they flinched in rhythm to the slight bump at the crest of each inhale where their chests nudged together. “If, you know, if you wan—”

Cas was already kissing him.

[milky-mochi]

before you (2) | cyj

genre: nerd! yeonjun, nerd! reader, aged up! yeonjun, college! au, boyfriend! yeonjun

pairing: choi yeonjun x reader

summary: falling in love with choi yeonjun was like breezing through the chapters of a book, with highlights of him bookmarked in your head.

listen to: 🎶 me after you - paul kim 🎶

chapters: intro | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

the first time you realised you liked yeonjun, you couldn’t believe you had been blind to it for so long.

four months had passed since that first day of library club. since then, you and yeonjun formed a friendship you had come to depend on. it started out by sitting next to each other during lectures. then, it evolved into study calls, which turned into talking on the phone for hours. at the height of it all, your weekly study sessions.

thursdays were reserved for your time with yeonjun, when you both would sit at the cute little cafe across the road and pour over your books. misery felt a little less bad when done with another person.

initially, you were just there for the friendship. the study sessions became a source of comfort. the both of you were working hard to keep your reputation afloat, and yeonjun was the only one who understood your struggles. he felt your pain and your joy. there was sincere companionship in this boy that you had never found in anyone before.

eventually, these meetings meant more and more to you. they became the highlight of your day, before climbing its way into becoming the highlight of your week. before you knew it, you depended on it so much that just thinking about it brought you excitement.

but you didn’t even realise it then. you did, however, in one study session.

one thursday, your professor asked to see you after class. at first, you didn’t want to go for it. you were waiting anxiously to go see yeonjun instead. the temptation to give your professor an excuse and run off was overwhelming, but he did mention giving you some good news, and the overachiever in you had to give in.

picking up your phone, you speedily dialed yeonjun’s number. he picked up after only three rings of the dial tone, startling you. in the background, you heard the sound of cars driving by, indicating that yeonjun was already off campus.

“hey y/n! i’ll be there in a few, i’m walking over now!”

“hey yeonjun, i’m so sorry, i’m gonna be late. my professor has something to tell me so he asked me to meet him after class. i’ll probably be like, 15 minutes.”

you braced yourself for his reaction, expecting his voice to fall in disappointment or disapprovement and your heart to twist in pain. instead, his chirpy voice rang in your ears. “oh it’s okay don’t worry about it! i hope it’s good news?”

you sighed in relief, releasing a breath you didn’t even realise you were holding. “he slipped that it was regarding a new opportunity, so it should be good?”

“hell yeah! go get that thing! whatever it is! i’ll wait for you at the cafe, yeah?” yeonjun said.

you laughed before humming in agreement. seeing your professor bidding you to come over, you ended the call and made your way over to his desk.

“hi professor, you wanted to see me?”

“right, y/n,” your professor started, gathering a stack of papers, “you know about the praestantia award right?”

everyone knew what the praestantia award was. it was the most prestigious scholarship a person your age could get. the scholarship was a guaranteed ticket to all the embellishments on your portfolio. all the opportunities you were dying for would easily be within your reach.

“yes of course, sir.”

“well it’s nomination period, and the english faculty has decided to nominate you under the language category,” he said, handing you an envelope. “i’ve emailed you the portal for the application, and these are the resources you’ll need to complete your application. thank you for all your hard work, y/n.”

receiving the envelope with a nod, you smiled graciously at your professor. your heart was beating out of your body with excitement. all your hard work had finally paid off into something you could be proud of. as soon as you saw your professor leave, you scooped your bag out and dashed out of the lecture theatre, heading straight for the cafe.

after running at top speed, you reached the cafe. grabbing the handles of the glass front doors, you swung them open. inside, yeonjun sat comfortably, staring down at his books. a single earbud was in his ear as he picked his pen up to write something down. his coffee sat patiently beside his pencil case.

“hey yeonjun i’m so sorry i’m late,” you sighed, sliding into your seat. after placing your bag down, you took another look at the table. raising your eyebrows, you asked, “what’s all this?”

yeonjun flashed you a sheepish smile. “well, you said you were gonna get good news, so i wanted your coffee to be here by the time you were. i got you a cake too!” he said, gesturing to the second drink and plate in front of him. “i got your favourite, hot white chocolate mocha, and the red velvet cake. i even got them to add marshmallows into the coffee, since we come here so often.”

you felt like melting, like said marshmallows were melting into your mocha.

he remembered your order. not only did he remember it perfectly, he remembered the coffee you drank for celebration, which was different from the coffee you drank when you were sad (a cold brew with coconut milk and extra sugar, yeonjun remembered that too).

“yeonjun, oh my goodness, thank you so much,” you gushed, “how much was the coffee and the cake? i’ll pay you back-”

“don’t worry about it,” yeonjun waved, melting you with yet another smile, “my treat. you deserve this, y/n.”

shit.

it was at that moment awareness knocked on the door of your mind. everything fell in place: all the stolen glances, all your smiles at the thought of him. this was the moment you realised your oblivion melted away to reveal what you had been blind to: you liked choi yeonjun.

it was, however, a very weird moment for you to realise. it was nothing like all the love scenes you had read in your books. usually the female lead came to this epiphany when the male lead hugged her in the spur of the moment, or when she got jealous of another girl, or even when he brushed his hand against hers to reach for something.

but no. you realised you liked yeonjun because he bought you coffee and a cake.

but it really did mean a lot to you. it meant so much that yeonjun cared for you enough to want to celebrate your good news, without even knowing what it was for. he made you feel seen. so, maybe, it wasn’t that weird at all.

“thank you, yeonjun,” you thanked him once again.

he smiled and told you to try the cake. you complied, picking up the fork and scraping a piece off its side. when you tasted it, your face lit up. yeonjun laughed at your smile and offered you a napkin to wipe the cream cheese frosting from the corner of your mouth.

over cake and coffee, you talked instead of studying, for the first time this semester. usually, your conversations would unfold on the way to the bus stop afterwards, and on the bus home. but that day was not a usual day, given the two new pieces of information that had shaken your world. that day, the both of you had synced mentally, subconsciously aware of the fact that both of you wanted companionship, and not to study.

you talked for a long time, about anything and everything. about all the weird times you’d experienced together: the time you caught two people making out during library club, the time your professor brought his dog to class, the time an old lady asked you guys for a recommendation on the cakes and then bought you said cake. you talked until every drop of coffee had been sipped and the white plate by your side held nothing but maroon crumbs.

once yeonjun realised that you were both finished, he asked, “by the way, what did your professor want to tell you just now?”

“oh,” you said, mouth full of your last bite of cake. you swallowed it before continuing with a proud smile staining your face. “he told me the english faculty is nominating me for the praestantia award. under the language category!”

yeonjun let out a laugh, a mixture of surprise, happiness and pride. he put his hand up, offering you a high five. “y/n that’s incredible! you deserve it so much!”

smiling brightly, you high fived yeonjun. in his excitement, yeonjun held your hand and shook it as he commended you on your achievement. he gushed about all the opportunities it would bring you, about how high you could fly with that award. he didn’t even realise your hand in his.

a blush crept up on your cheeks as you felt yeonjun’s fingers on your. how else could you respond when the guy you liked held your hand, and didn’t even realise it?

it took yeonjun a while, but when he did realise, he pulled his hand away, the same way you did the first time you placed your hand on his shoulder during library club. under his breath, he muttered a sorry as he darted his gaze away from you. you swore you could have seen a light pink dust his cheeks too.

yeonjun cleared his throat to try clearing the awkwardness lingering in the air. “well you did amazing y/n. i’m so proud of you! we should go celebrate.”

your ears perked up at his words. he wanted to celebrate your achievement? with just the two of you? your heart picked up speed as you nodded meekly, unwilling to reveal what you were actually thinking.

“where do you wanna go?” yeonjun asked, almost nervously, as he placed his hands on the table.

“the new bookshop across town,” you answered, almost too quickly. “i heard they have cats in it, and they publish their own poetry. they publish their books with the binding i like.”

“the ones with a wide margin before the text starts?” yeonjun asked. he didn’t know why he did, if he was being honest. of course he remembered your favourite type of book binding. you liked it that way because then you could read without creasing the spine of the book.

delighted that yeonjun remembered such a little thing, you nodded with spritely energy. “and they use e.b. garamond!”

looking at you geeking over the books, yeonjun laughed and promised to bring you there over the weekend. it excited you to no end. but you had to chastise yourself for being unabashedly thrilled to go to the bookstore with him. your heart swelled with unknown and unfamiliar feelings, categorizable only by whatever you had read in books. and yet, you told yourself that your life wasn’t a romance novel. this crush would go like all the ones you had before. it would result in a one-sided pining for someone who would never like you back. you told yourself not to get too ahead of yourself and to cut all this crush stuff out. yeonjun could never like you back.

but little did you know, yeonjun’s heart resounded with the same feelings for you.

---

next chapter

[grim-faux]

13 - Too See

There was only black and I began to wonder if this was death.  Was this the great beyond scholars and science speculated when the brain finally died, when the soul departed the body?  Penetrating and encompassing black?  Was this eternity? Then I coughed, and felt the dull ache in my side.  Everything in me ached.  I was hurt, but I wasn’t dead.  My senses trickled in little by little, I could pick up the stagnant veil of this place, the cold digging into my skin - though my arms felt warm crushed and numb under me.  Couldn’t feel my hands, didn’t care about that.  I tried opening my eyes and saw only black.  Typical.  And I was laying on top of that camera again.

It was a requisite.  Car keys, a cell phone, a nice pocket knife, you nod of with one of them in your pocket, it will dig into your side.  Damn camera was bigger than those, I was going to wreck the NV sooner or later.  I could cart it through sewers, keep lunatics with clubs from smashing it, but sleep on it and it’s all over. I feel asleep?  How?

I didn’t bother to figure this out, or try and get of the cold vent. It was quiet and I needed a few seconds to get my bearings, and make certain that I was awake this time. The nightmare had shaken me, I still felt those shears in my chest and the blood spilling from the wound. How unsettling to dream about my own death in this place. Made everything feel ten times more dangerous than it already was, if I touched the walls they’d scorch my hands. Same thing happens whenever I see a rattlesnake, suddenly every bush and every rock has one.

Grunting, I turn over getting off my poor camera and let the cold work its way into my coat, the thin metal buckled as my weight was redistributed.  I felt a little better, more so than that crappy fifteen minute break before I stumbled into the basement. I pulled my camera up onto my chest and stopped the recording, in order to wind it back to where I stopped. I guess when I was crawling to the edge of the vent toward the light I just passed out. Probably needed it, I’m just damn thankful I didn’t keel over while I was still at the opening or when Trager was….

That damn psycho.  I had nearly forgotten him.  Couldn’t outrun him in my nightmares. I couldn’t bear to view the footage.  The way the hoister was designed would still allow the cameras eye to record, idea for when security got involved and ordered me to put it away.  The picture was not always the best, but it’d catch the more obvious actions and conversations.  I put my hand over the speaker feed as my voice came through, panicked and pitiful.  Sounded like a different man. An hour and fifteen minutes.  Felt longer in the dream, felt like I had dreamed something else after it.  Something worse than death, either of which I didn’t care to remember.  While I was MIA Trager could have lost interest in me and found someone else to cut up.  Maybe Father Martin.  Now that was praying to god. Getting out of the vent was tricky, after my muscles had relaxed in the cramped space.  I lowered myself carefully over the edge, bracing with one arm to relieve some of the pressure in my sore hands before I dropped, then limped off the resulting shock.  I staggered into the nearby lavatory and gave the area a hasty scan.  No sounds to suggest Trager was near, or anyone for that matter.  Just the soft patter of rain on glass. What an odd sense of Deja’vu. At least the walls weren’t covered in blood, and there was no bucket full of severed head.  It had all seemed so real, so vivid.  No surprise, I had great source material.  This place could still fuck itself though. I checked the stalls before I gave pause, nothing was contained in them, not even severed limbs.  The janitorial closet did have a small table cart with files spilling over it, the pages covered in a fine silt made apparent as I shuffled them around.  I pulled out a few to view and shut the main door to the room, before settling near the shattered mirrors. Male ward.  Check.  I didn’t think I would be using the bathroom for a while, fuck you very much psycho doctor.  Sinks lined one wall and they did work.  Carefully, I washed the blood from my hands and around the ragged digits, but I didn’t mess with the injured area too much.  I would be going through hell to keep the scabs, let alone the surface from getting more ripped up than it already was. I poked a bit more at the index finger where the bone was exposed, a little amazed at how the minimal pressure didn’t bother too much.  A translucent skin still coated the bone’s surface and I could make out….uh veins…. The granola was still in my coat.  I don’t know if it was safe to eat, but it was still sealed.  I fished it out of the breast pocket and inspected it, there was a bit of blood and some dirt smudged on it, from whenever I dug around for the notepad.  The label didn’t do its contents justice, promoting high fiber in a balanced diet.  I needed sugar in my blood and this little thing was better than some overpriced dinner. I rinsed it and shook most the water off, then gingerly took the edge of the package in the thumb and middle finger of my right hand, as I pinched it normally with the left.  It was easier than I anticipated to pull the wrapper apart, but the bar was a little melted and impossible to get out whole.  I ate what I could and drank some water, a lot of water.  Then got up, moved around a bit, jumping and springing back and forth, and prepared myself for what may come. I went ahead and recorded some of the files I had picked up, nothing relevant to the Project Walrider, but there was an interesting Request notice. From: David Annapurna  To: hresources.us@murkoffcorp.lu  Subject: Request for Reassignment  To Whom it May Concern,  This is my third asking for reassignment after two months without an answer.  I don’t want to work at Mount Massive any more. I have been an orderly my entire adult life, but have never experience such a consistent level of secrecy and disrespect.  I even have suspicions that some of the patients may be being abused.  I know personally two of them who have been moved to the basement ward and never returned.  If I don’t get an answer to this email, I will be forced to resign, and my very well consider contacting the press.  Thanks for your time.  David Annapurna I said the name aloud then looked through the files for anymore emails or reports that related to this.  David Annapurna.  I couldn’t say I ever heard the name before, but he mentioned the press.  Was this my contact?  Why the fuck didn’t he warn me about this place?! Well, he wasn’t high clearance.  That was a pissy excuse.  He could’ve at least alerted me to the nature of some of these people?  Don’t note, “They have massive anger issues,” when the fucker throws people out of windows!  Put down, “He’s fuckin scary and he’ll eat children!!  Hope you have a pilot’s license.” Have you also met or local physician in practice?  He likes to cut off fingers, and tongues, and peoples balls off!  By the end of this, you’ll no longer have grievances for cold water. Good god, I needed to get out of here. The door gave me some trouble, the knob stuck and my palms had fresh lines of blood.  I managed to force it with little sound and stepped into the connecting hall.  Still no sign of Trager, and anything living for that matter.  I was running on borrowed time, sooner or later I’d get a nasty surprise.  The next door gave no trouble, and the room beyond looked deserted.  Beds had been left at the back near the barred windows, I almost expected to see patients chained to them but they were void of life.  The room felt colder than those that held the doomed people, but I attributed that with the lack of electricity. Even the light at the front of the room felt cold. I walked around the beds but found nothing that stood out from the usual, some files to record but nothing noteworthy.  The ominous doors loomed at the end of the room, and I stood before them studying the dry kindling that comprised their matter, the gray tone adopted after years of neglect.  I inhaled slowly and slipped one open, as always listening for the danger.  The hall beyond was short and didn’t extended into the dark depths as I thought it might, bed frames had been crammed between the walls at the left.  In the other direction was another set of duo doors, blocked with boards. I stared into the small office across from me, the dial tone of a phone hummed on the floor somewhere.  This seemed more than coincidental, this looked exactly like it did in my dream.  Except…there was a key hanging on the wall now.  I slipped over the counter and crossed to it, the label above read Elevator.  Well, now I had it. I took the key and dropped it into my pocket.  The door was jammed but with my weight braced to, the frame snapped.  I tumbled out catching the wall against my hands, the pain stretching through my knuckles nearly overshadowed the menacing scraping noise of those scissors as Trager stepped in from the next hall. “Hey buddy, where you been?” I slammed the door in his face, completely forgetting it was already busted.  He still had to swing it open, while I had already sprint over the counter and lunged into the other room.  I flung the next door shut and retreated to the middle of the room, where the shadows were not diminished by the outside light.  As I slid under a bed, the grating chatter announced Trager’s entrance.  I buried my face in my shoulder to muffle my heavy breathing. “You’re overreacting.”  He snipped the shears and scanned the room.  “How can I set you to ease?  I swear, you’re not gonna get a better deal elsewhere.” Seriously, I didn’t understand what the fuck he was talking about.  Made me hate him even more.  I tensed when it sounded like he was directly beside me, but he was nearer to the wall clinking as he dropped down to check under a bed.  He wasn’t facing me. I crawled out from my hiding spot and slinked across the room, ducking down again and faced the wrong way as he stood up snipping the shears.  For a minute Trager stood in total silence gazing over the room, the odd monocle glinting in what light slipped in through the barred window.  Where did that light brave from, through the storm?  I could almost see him clearly, the sharp textures accenting his skeletal skin.  I slipped the camera into its pack and watched him unmoving.  Waiting.  Waiting for someone to blink, someone to give in.  The rain drummed gently on the glass and I heard something thudding hard, like the desperate rap on a door. My heartbeat. Trager fixed his eyes on something in the distance to the side, and I waited for my opportunity to move.  When he turns his back, when he averts his gaze, that will be my chance.  Thunder crackled right outside the window and a sudden blaze of light lit up the room, his face snapped to where I lay. “Hey!”  He dashed over to me and reached under the bed, as I rolled away and leapt over his back, the door in my sights.  He thrust his elbow up catching my knee in midflight, and I flopped against one of the pillars.  He spun around as I recovered, “Come on now, don’t be difficult.”  He swept the shears out as I twisted away, they slapped my shoulder and I dropped hard to my knee. A bed was right beside me, I had enough time to crawl under as Trager brought his weapon down through the thin mattress.  I yowled when the shears pierced my backside, he grunted as he attempted to force the blades down but the metal frame prevented that.  I jerked out from under them, and rolled away as he tore the shears free.  As he vaulted over the next bed, I crawled under the last and shoved myself upright and sprint for the open door.  I didn’t bother to shut it as I went, I needed to reach that elevator. I exited into the original corridor, with the two rooms and the patients.  The elevator was just down at the end. Everything was as I left it, the shelf shoved aside and the door left wide open and welcoming my dubious return.  I zipped through into the cheerfully lit elevator, with the foreboding blood splatter right at its entrance.  I paid it no heed as I dug the key from my pocket and being as gentle as broad panic would allow, inserted it into the slot.  I hit the down button and stood back, breathing a sigh of relief when the gate jerked shut.  The grumpy machine gave a stubborn lurch before it began to descend.  Once I was stationary I began to notice the painful throbbing in my hands and recalling the wounds, checked to see fresh blood spilling.  This didn’t surprise me.  In my desperation to escape, I had dug my fingertips into whatever was within reach.  Just had to ignore it, and for a while I’d forget. I was slipping down to sit when I heard the gate of the elevator rattle below, and all at once I forgot. “I’m not giving up on you, buddy,” Trager grunted, accompanied by sharp metal clinks and snaps. I backed up into the furthest corner and watched him force the shears between the lock on the elevator, the mechanism snapped and the gate came loose.  He shouldered his way through and raised the shears over his head. No.   I lunged forward snaring his elbow in one hand and used the other to shove him backwards.  Trager looked stunned by this retaliation, and slapped at my face as I bullied him out the opening.  The shears spun wild in his grip grazing my hair, I tucked my face down and glared with the edge of my eye.  He snagged my coat sleeve as I pressed him out, the elevator was still going down throughout this and I was losing leverage as he leaned onto me.  I grabbed the metal frame on my right, rammed him in the chest with my elbow and threw him back out. Just DIE! Trager recovered and lunged, thrusting the metal blades at my face.  I pulled myself UP out of the lift to snag them at the base, and felt them breeze by my forehead.  We were suddenly fighting face to face, I was teetering on the edge while Trager struggled to wrench the scissors from my grip.  If he had another chance to lunge, I didn’t think I could stop him.   Something happened in that instant.  I turned my face up to his and looked into his murky eye.  I swear I saw something there, something fleeting in his expression.  And it scared me.  That ‘look’ in his face scared me more than ‘Doctor’ Rick Trager himself. “Wha—?” he stammered. Just fucking die. My foot slipped and I latched onto his shoulder, jerking him with me.  He yelped as he toppled forward, his fist gave me a good smack as he fell halfway into the elevator.  I winced from the sudden impact and snapped my arm up, when he swung the shears for my head.  He cut a long slice up my sleeve instead.  I stooped lower as they snapped once more in empty air, but it probably wasn’t necessary.  He took one more swipe at me, even as the lift lowered over his torso. The mad doctor gave a sharp squeal of pain as the machine compressed his organs, I heard bones crunch and skin splint as the metal frame nearly cut him in half.  I stepped back as he gave a small whimper, his hand finally releasing the shears - they fell between the connecting floors and thereafter lost to the depths of hell.  With the unyielding obstruction, the elevator ground to a despairing halt.  It was almost worth it. For a while I stood, back pressed against the wall as I gazed at Trager, wondering if this were true.  Was he…dead?  Was it possible to kill him? I pulled out the camera and filmed.  A little bit of blood was dripping from his lips, his oily hair had settled over the top of his bald head in clumps, and he finally shut up.  He must’ve been dead, regardless, he was no longer a threat. “How To Make Trager Juice Step 1:  squeeze.” I tucked the notepad away, wincing as my exposed bone got caught on a loose thread.  It cut at the remaining skin, but didn’t hurt the bone.  I snapped the troublemaker free and zipped the pocket shut, then turned to locate a way out.  There was an escape panel in the roof.  I secured the camera in its hoister and unlatched the panel.  I gave the now deceased Trager a final glare, before I climbed up.  A hot pain made itself known in my backside.  Where he stabbed me. The elevator hadn’t gone down very far, I still needed to reach the ground floor.  I paused under the light that greeted me, but saw a stronger source down a hall where some filing cabinets had fallen over.  An open gate was there as well, a good place to start in my search for the exit.  I stood by the cabinet and turned as far as I could to view the damage.  There was a tear in my coat, revealing my shirt and red had spilled all the way down, soaking the back of my pants almost to the back of my knee.  The wound felt soggy and it hurt when I applied pressure through the coat, but nothing else was broken.  Nothing serious.   I had to take a moment to look at my hands.  Yeah, anything short of decapitation and I’ll feel insulted. This definitely was an older section of the asylum.  The stairs looked ancient, the wood railing worn with the slick polish of a thousand hands, everything was wood and each step creaked as I took it gently.  I couldn’t shake it, but I thought I could smell something burning.  Maybe just the stale air of the hall playing tricks with my mind, it was hard to think fire with the storm outside and the soft rain splattering the windows. I walked down the steps relying on the nightvision, despite how low I was on batteries.  The current charge was still good, a little less than half remained. The gate at the steps bottom was locked effectively blocking my progress, but in a small corridor on the left was a partially rotted wall.  I crept around the railing and peered into the break, where someone had torn away the plaster surface.  The wood was loose enough that I could get some of the panels out, allowing me to lean down and squeeze through.  On the other side was a small office setup and a phone with its typical complaint.  I picked it up and set it on the receiver as I looked over the room. The desk with its neglected monitor seemed out of place in this museum.  Billboards hung on the walls, pinned with notices, a few filing cabinets lined the walls.  A shattered chair lay on the other side of the room, I flipped through the shelves loaded with medical books and boxes of files, but nothing held my interest.  On the wall hung a Team Work plaque.  I scoffed at it and searched the desk.  A few batteries had made home in a CD player. CD player?  They still made those things? I crossed to the door and paused listening before trying the handle.  I winced when my finger brushed against the rough wood.  Careful, I didn’t need to be leaving little blood trails all over the place.  I’d seen enough of that. On the other side was a larger office with only a small desk situated near an outdated furnace.  Heating must have been terrible in this place.  Not far from this set up, a crushed door was pinned in its frame.  The door didn’t matter, there was a massive hole blown out of the wall a few feet away.  I wondered if someone came in here, or if they tossed the filing cabinet through the wall.  It didn’t look like it had been previously tossed.  Glass crinkled underfoot as I stepped through, and lowered the camera to view the new area. The exit was near the kitchen, that’s where Trager caught me.  Bad memories, all of it behind me now.   It was on this floor, I’m sure.  Just needed to find a way over there.  I wasn’t certain where I was.  Some large open hall with overturned desks and files scattered everywhere, chairs lined the walls between the large decorative and ornate pillars embedded with the plaster.  The air was musty, everything used and worn out then forgotten.  This place resembled an atrium or waiting room, but with less grandeur.  Had I gone back in time?  Everything was beginning to look ancient. I had to keep in mind the Asylum was shut down in the seventies, it wasn’t exactly the medieval times but it had been built long before the more modern conveniences.  Most likely when Murkoff took over, the outdated facilities were condemned for public appearance, then they built the newer areas for their precious staff and left everything else – old drafty building and prison blocks - to the patients.  Grade A bastards right there. Then, did this mean the patients had not been in the newer section of Mount Massive when everything began?  It was clear now they traveled between the two sections via their own means, but Murkoff never bunked them with their people?  It did make sense.  If you viewed it from Murkoff’s perspective, whom barely credited their victims with a shred of humanity.  I’m sure they didn’t want the scientists awoken in the dead of night to the shrieking, when god knows what was being done. I walked along filming the walls, taking in details.  This area looked much tamer than the other section of the asylum, a lot less death and gore.  No one had been on this side at the time when the shit storm hit, probably never made it here with the front doors on lockdown.  There were no mechanical doors on this side, I had seen that first hand.  That exit was wide open and waiting for me Movement behind the windowed in office startled me, and I had jumped back several feet before a light shown through at me.  I let out an exasperated sigh as I resumed my path to the dark figure.  I didn’t get too close though, despite the wall between us.  Who knew what He was up to? “Thank God, you survived,” Martin gushed.  I sighed and lowered the camera to my side.  “I feared that secular maniac would carve you up like the others.”  He glanced around, as though he expected someone other than me to be listening or nearby.  “Meet me outside, we’re close now.”  With that vouch of encouragement he turned and jogged off. Close to what?  He took the exit, but that’s as far as I could tell.  This just made matters worse.  I had no idea what this ‘Father’ was getting at, he kept leading me around the Asylum and the idea he could locate me easily never settled well.  Not after he jumped me in the Security room. The door was nailed tight, and the glass was that shatter proof junk.  Unless the big fucker just appeared on the other side, I wasn’t getting through.  It might’ve been easier do tear the rotten wood beneath the windows, but the interior wood was either too thick or reinforced in some manner asylums included in their layout of inconvenience. On the left was a large archway that led into more dark halls, for a change of pace.  This place was a maze of halls, and I was the mouse.  The mouse that smelled burning feathers.  I’m sure something was burning, it was a blistering and out of place scent among these frigid walls.  It had that bad plastic stink from a microwave, or when an idiot burnt the popcorn.  Piercing and lingering after each exhale. The hall took a right, but beyond that at distance trailed the thin line of light beneath a door.  I pushed aside a small cart that was in the path and paused, listening as the oppressive silence wound around.  Something was hissing, a pipe in the wall, the sound was soft and inconsistent.  The light danced in its little slice of heaven and a thick vapor did not go unnoticed as it crept between the thick slats of shadow.  I gave the door a light push and tilt around the frame to see inside, the NV wasn’t necessary in the restroom due to the light wavering in the sink.  I gaged at the foul air that stung my throat and pressed my arm over my mouth.  Ugh. An arm and leg roasted away, the skin hissed and bubbled, most of it scorched with dark smoke billowing off the cooked pieces.  For some reason they were on fire.  I didn’t understand why, or what sort of logic could be behind this.  Did someone light them or was someone playing with a lighter?  This did not bode well.  The smog began to dissipate immediately with the door open, but not enough to clear the air or make it any more breathable.  Fucking hell, this didn’t even surprise me anymore.  I wish it did, I really do, but I think it’s expected by now. The fumes were making me nauseous, prompting me to shut the door and move on.  It wouldn’t be worth it to risk checking the stalls if the pyromaniac was still there, more unstable than usual due to smoke inhalation.  I didn’t doubt there was a fire here somewhere, and I’d stumble upon it too soon.  How it came to be was a mystery, but I should either do something about it if I could or try a little harder to find that exit.  Now. Let this place burn to the ground, but not before I’m outside to watch. I returned to the foremost corridor, passing by pictures of the Asylum’s founders, and an abandoned wheelchair.  Somewhere a patient or another of Murkoff’s surviving personnel shrieked, I barely paused before trying the unobstructed door at the end of the hall.  Tile walls met the NV, and as I entered the distant echo of crashing came.  I waited in the doorframe staring up and blinking, the sound of my steady breathing seemed thunderous in the small space.  The noise eventually settled into a less threatening fumbling, I tried to figure out its origins as I shut the door and slipped down the small hall.  Could it be people in the walls?   It was a short walk then a left, and I stopped to peer around the corner and listen for the natural symphony of the Asylum.  Most old buildings creaked and settled, this place murdered and screamed. I shut off the NV and scanned around.  A large shower room for the male ward, rectangular in shape with a wall built through the center.  Showers lined one wall with lockers on the other, benches to sit at and laundry baskets scattered near the lockers.  A couple of the doors looked to have been torn open, I envisioned someone was searching for the guard that lay bloody and beaten on the floor. I stepped by the man and checked the backside of the room where it ended via uprooted lockers.  A box of files had been dumped here, the contents ruined by a lot of blood and water leaking from a cracked shower head.  I flipped through some of the salvable pages and found a note that was pertinent. From: r.trager@murkoffcorp.lu  To: p.walsh@murkoffcorp.us.com  Subject: Annapurna, employee no. 531920  Mr. Walsh,   Please accept the immediate resignation of Orderly 531920, David Annapurna, and process him as a patient of Mount Massive to treat his prosecutorial delusions. Treatment should continue until the time of his death. Thanks, buddy.  Rick Trager  Murkoff R&D This couldn’t possibly be the same Rick Trager that liked to tie people down and cut them up.  Not by a long shot.  I noted the guard as I walked by, his wounds appear fresh and the puddle of blood still crept along the tile’s cracks.  Which only meant his killer was nearby, which didn’t mean a whole lot.  Every other persons killer was nearby, it would be weird if I ran into a none psychotic, lucid patient.  I pause and note a trail of bare feet prints leading around the next corner, and the only path currently open to me.  The shower room had excellent acoustics, but I carried on with caution when slipping around the corner. Urinals lined the wall on the other side, no lockers of alcoves for a person to crawl into.  The end of the room had no light leaving the NV as my only visibility.  The smell of smoke was getting stronger and the air was unbearably stuffy and thick, I was coughing before I opened the door and stepped into a wall of heat.  My left was blocked by tables and cabinets, I was forced to the right where the visibility was obstructed by the thick hazy.  I lingered in the next hall and checked my corners before stepping out. High above, windows wavered with orange and yellow streaks.  I walked along the wall determined to find a way around rather than through, I didn’t care how many magnet key cards I needed to pull off dead security.  The hall on the left ended in what looked like a blockade, with tables crammed at a door just to discourage the trip. The only door into the room, cafeteria the plate said, was stacked with more tables and containers, setting me a bit to ease.  I didn’t need to fight the door yet, and no one could break it down.  I navigated around discarded furniture, a broken desk and a wheelchair, toward a shattered door frame beckoning at the other end.  There had to be a way around, there had to be an alternate route to the cafeteria. The fire crackled on the other side, and the smoke seeped through a high open window.  I breathed a little easier upon stepping into the next hall, across the way another door nailed shut.  I ventured left listening to the wood crackle behind the walls, sweat gathered on my brow to slip down around my eyes.  The halls end was obstructed by all manner of useless crap, but a door had been left ajar on the right.  I was beginning to surrender to the concept of just climbing through that window. Behind the door was a small utility closet.  Fuck. There was only the open window into the heart of hell.  Fuck.  I retraced my steps and found bloody handprints on the edge of the window.  Fuck.  I climbed up, getting a face full of heat as I pulled myself over into the room.  Everything was on fire.  Even the fire was on fire. I hate this place. Upturned lunch tables, long table carts, everything piled and jammed in every direction as though orchestrated to utilize the mother of bonfires. The wooden tables were a wild blaze and at first glance it looked like there was no way through without roasting, but the floor ahead was plenty clear enough.  If I didn’t fall sideways.  The metal wasn’t on fire, only the walls and most of the ceiling.  I noted to myself to use caution with the camera, the heat could damage the memory drive and that would just wreck this entire ordeal. No matter what, I would get out of here with all my evidence, everything.  That had always been my goal in the beginning, and it has been what kept me going.  It might seem petty, but someone had to remember what happened here, and that everyone had been killed by something – the former victims, Chris Walker, a lunatic with a fancy for taking people apart.  And people were not done dying. The heat had swelled within its small confines until the room had all but burst, I coughed against the smoke and kept low out of the heavy fumes.  I stepped around the small pieces of kindling that had already fallen from the ceiling, scanning the bright yellow fingers for the safest path.  My face was beginning to feel parched as my sweat dried, and my fingers ached against the brutal onslaught.  I ducked to the side as some of the timber from above crashed down, sending a swirl of red embers across the tile.  Needed to get out of here before it collapsed. Some tables were stacked over each other, but I could see no other way around.  I pulled my collar up around my neck and ears before I knelt low and crawled underneath.  A couple dozen trays had been scattered across the floor, which I kept away from as I stood up and stopped.  A patient sat on the table beside my current path, his feet had red coloration but that could have been the orange flames mingling with my vision.  I coughed a bit at the smoke as I stepped closer to him. “I had to burn it.  All of it.”  Subtly, I raised the camera from the pack to film him. “Murkoff took so much from us.  Used us.”  He held up his hands, indicating the mutilation.  If he turned his head to my left, he looked almost normal.  “Turned us into these things because nobody cares about a few forgotten lunatics.”  He dropped his hands over his lap and slumped forward. “So let it burn.  Burn the whole god damned thing down.  Get out.” He indicated me with a thumb.  “If you still want to live.  You can get out through the kitchen.” Good to know.  But the kitchen was on fire too. “I’m not the only victim here, not by a long shot. I watch a man wait to burn to death, the most painful death imaginable, rather than stay in this place.” I put the notepad away, and wrinkled my nose at the stench of burning meat.  A Murkoff or someone was pinned under a table, rotten and on fire, a horrible combination.  There were not many areas open to me, most the tables were engulfed with flames or getting there, I crawled over a shelving cart left sideways.  A piece of timber from above hit my back, and I swatted it away before damage could be done.  I picked up the pace, before the whole roof could crash down, or worse. I snapped the camera into its hoister and pulled my coat up over my head more, as I navigated the furnace.  A table in my path was catching fire, but not enough yet to deter me.  On the other side more of the staff lay slain, dried blood stuck to their cloths and fire chewing on their skin.  I was able to get under a shelf into a side of the cafeteria that hadn’t been overwhelmed by flames.  I exited through an open door to the other side, and shut it behind me.  To keep the fire from following.  I fixed my coat and fanned some of the heat from its surface.  Felt good to be dry and warm for once, it was difficult to recall what being cold and damp felt like.  The cool threads digging into the fibers of my coat reminded me that we’d be reacquainted here very shortly.   The hall went two ways, the right had nothing but a dead end and boarded up double doors.  To suffice my curiosity I made sure those nails were tight, then wove my way around broken wheelchairs and a crushed shelf to the other side.  Cabinets and industrial shelves had been stuffed into the hall, my only path would be the dark corridor that was open opposite of the way to the inferno.  Things were looking up. An archway straight ahead would have led to another room, if not for the stacks of shelves and whatnot packed into it.  Continuing to the right was another set of double doors, one open and accessible.  The churning roll of the flames had died down once I turned the corners into this corridor, and the creeping chill enveloped my skin.  How despairing the decrepit and harmless walls around me were less unfavorable, than that of the inferno. When I entered the office wing, I shut the door and exchanged out the battery.  I examined the room over extensively seeking a way out, an alternative path much better than charging through a kitchen that was on fire.  There was little to this room, it was large but most of that were the segregation walls and an area to the side encircled by a counter, inside, the walls had a few bookcases loaded with files and books.  A receptionist’s desk?  I glanced over a few but it looked like outdated pages before Murkoff.   Through an open doorway on the left side was another member of Murkoff slumped over his desk and blood staining the carpet under him.  His wrists were black, but that was the most of his injuries.  He might’ve committed suicide, but why?  Had he received word of what was happening in the Asylum and given up hope for escape?  What had been so horrible? The other side of the room had another desk, and a dead employee slumped beside the base, soaked with blood and multiple wounds wrecked his body.  An obvious contrast between him and his colleague.  A few files had been left on the desk, I flipped through finding one that made me uneasy IF YOU’RE SEEING THINGS, SAY SOMETHING. There’s no shame in Psychopathologist Proximity Stress Disorder (PPSD). Talk to your supervisor to get help from a Murkoff Success Counselor. Well, sure!  We want you to further the Murkoff Charity Association, also called BULLSHIT.  And you too can further OUR research with your mangled corpse, or highjack your brain and make you see some scary shit! Trager had also mentioned cutting employee pensions, wonder if this was part of his scheme to collect more bodies for the fucked up carnival ride Murkoff was running.  None of this surprised me, this was Murkoff after all.  Every underhanded and malicious tactic seemed to have been employed by the cooperation in this Project Walrider, and now they reaped what they had sewn.  Death, chaos, religion, and me at the center of it all. Burning was too good for it. There was little else in the remaining section of the room, just a box of pamphlets warning about sanitization work areas, nothing to note.  Nowhere to go.  The double doors on the other side were nailed tight, unless I really wanted to fight them.  I still had no idea what would be on the other side.  Nothing? I returned to the previous hall and looked over the shelving that was stacked there, and found a few carts and things that I could dislodge.  Easy, just drag them out and push the rest through.  I squeezed through, then stopped on the other side to check my back.  The fabric was stiff but that meant the bleeding had stopped.  I’d need a mild procedure later to fix that, the wound will have set long before stitches and I was certain it needed stitches. More dark, more failed security.  Another door on my left, barricaded shut from the other side with shelves and a table.  Might be one of the doors I’d viewed from the cafeterias hall, I’m certain I did come from that direction.  I stepped along murky windows hearing…a curios tapping, almost like the rattle of pellets, but I couldn’t find the source.  It faded as I continued and I decided that was a plus.  Whenever I heard that sound…. A plaque on the wall indicated Baths and Laundry ahead, and the Cafeteria was indicated the former hall I’d come from.  From where I stood, the faint outline of a medical table was visible, laying parallel to the wall.  Beyond that a door bolted up from inside the room and therefore not worth wasting my battery.  The NV was also giving me a mild ache, the monotone green haze dug into my concentration.   I could see through some of windows on the wall, within was a room with large vats, tile floors, but I had no way of accessing it.  At the moment it didn’t seem important, unless it provided an immediate means of escape.  There was no visible door that I could make out. The hall took a left and at the end light scared away the dark, but there was a door at the wall just before the corner.  Above the frame a plate labeled the room Emergency Sprinklers.  That seemed useful, if not better than nothing at all.  Though this section of the Asylum was out of date, it would still have the barest of fire prevention.  Either it was shut off along with the lockdown, or the basement was now a pool. I entered the dim room and found a pressure gauge, surrounded by its large pipes and a tank to the side.  The gauge was not as helpful as I had thought and read zero pressure for the water.  There had to be a way to get water back into the system.  I had no idea where to start, no map was available to indicate where additional tanks would be located. Sounded like someone in the floor above was having a wrestling match.  I stepped out of the room staring up, wondering if whatever was up there would tumble down here.  Or were people trying to escape the blaze that was catching.  Maybe both. At the halls end, where the light began, was another plate reminding where the Baths and Laundry Room were, and the cafeteria that was currently on fire.  This hall would lead back to it if it wasn’t blocked by the shelves and cabinets I had viewed from the opposite side.  It might’ve been easier to climb over, if it looked stable at all.  I sighed and pivoted to the lit hall unexplored. There had to be a way to redirect water into the emergency tanks.  The bath would be a good place to start, I’d have to check and get out of there fast.  Or find a bucket for water, that would be better than nothing.  I wasn’t asking much. The only light source was a lone lamp.  Beyond, the next room was dead with electricity, but on the opposing side was another light.  From my position I could make out silhouettes, the shapes obscured by the window frame on my side.  I moved towards the open doorway, where the door was I didn’t care, it wasn’t on its hinges and therefore could NOT be locked.  I jerked in my tracks catching the flutter of a shadow on the far wall.  I saw that!  I saw that! Then the big fucker marched into view, and I receded to the dark hall I had stepped from.  I knelt down and checked the corners edge to see if he was coming, I don’t think he saw me.  Chris stepped through the shadows towards the doorframe and paused, examining the area over.  In my new position, with the camera aimed and zoomed I could easily identify the body of Murkoff’s own, suspended by a cord fixed to his throat.  Another suicide? No matter what, I was getting out of this place.  Whatever it took.

[spoopycreepyhorrorcreepypasta]

Stay Safe

I’m on the sixth floor of my apartment complex. It’s a small studio, and almost fully furnished. The only items I moved in were my twin-sized bed, various personal belongings, and kitchenware. Included in the apartment is a desk that folds out on the right side of the wall, a dresser, and coffee table. 

Pat, my realtor, smiled at me with wide eyes when she showed me the apartment. “What do you think?” she asked, hands clutching her clipboard. “It’s fine, I guess,” I said. I had never lived on my own before. I was about to start college at DePaul. Chicago is a big city, and I didn’t know anyone yet. 

“Great!” she exclaimed. “I’ll send you the final paperwork via email as soon as I get home, Becca.” She ushered me out into the hallway, taking a nervous glance behind her as we made our way to the elevator.

The only way that I can explain it is that her vibes were off. But, the apartment was actually below my price-range, and in a decent neighborhood (or so I was told by Reddit), so I couldn’t say no.

That first night, I barely slept. I was startled every time I heard the rushing of trains a few blocks away. Dogs were barking, car horns honking. This was so different from the small, quiet town I grew up in back in Indiana.

I didn’t have to start school until the next month, so I had loads of time to unpack and adjust to my new life in the big city. To help with motivation, I put on pop music and sung along as I unfolded all of my clothes and put them away into my new dresser, put away my kitchenware, and set up my desk space with my new office chair, which I had just ordered from Amazon.

The fold-out desk looked old. I wasn’t sure when the apartment complex was built, but it must have been decades ago. It was a little squeaky, so I dug out the WD40 my uncle had slipped into one of my boxes began dripping the liquid on the rusted metal parts of the desk.

I saw scratches on the underbelly of the wood. This was odd to me as the desk folded down to about thigh-height, so it’s not like anyone could have been underneath, clawing away. Perhaps someone had been working at this desk with some sort of severe anxiety and had dug their nails into the wood. I looked closer. The scratches were tinged with dark red stains. Chills ran through my body. I immediately whipped out my Magic Eraser and began scrubbing. 

The stains were not rubbing out. I clenched my fists and scrubbed harder, to no avail. The scratch makes made my skin crawl, and I was really uncomfortable at the possibly that there would be stained blood right underneath me while doing schoolwork. 

The days were long. I did begin to feel more comfortable as all of my items from home were coming together nicely in my new space. 

The nights were longer. The trains still irked me, the dogs barking was unnerving. The third night, things got worse.

The scratching began. 

As I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a “skritch” on the other side of the wall, opposite the desk. I thought nothing of it. The scratching continued, small noises, intermittently, with no distinct pattern. I tried to ignore them as best I could. I assumed it was a neighbor painting their wall, or maybe it was furniture of theirs scraping for some reason. Maybe they had a desk like me, which wasn’t sturdy, and they were working overnight.

The next morning, I made myself breakfast on my tiny kitchen stove. My eyes were drawn the to the desk, and my wall behind it. 

“I’m going to take out the trash,” I thought to myself, “and explore my new building.”

The trash bag wasn’t heavy, as I didn’t have much to dispose of yet, but this was a good excuse to meander about. As I exited the apartment and turned to lock the door, I realized that there was no apartment on the left hand side of me, as my apartment was snuggled into the corner. The left side of the wall was where the scratches were coming from. 

I ran to the garbage bin outside, tossed the bag, and headed back inside the building. As I approached my door, I questioned myself as to why I was so antsy to go back in. 

"You're being stupid," I told myself. "There must be something in the walls. Maybe I can track down a neighbor and ask them if they've had similar experiences." 

I did run into a neighbor that weekend, in the lobby. 

I mustered up my courage to approach the strange man. "Hi," I said. "I'm Becca. I'm in apartment 608. Do you mind if I ask you a weird question?" 

He was handsome, and his brow gleamed with sweat. His name was Greg, he said, and he was actually moving out. He set down the box he was carrying and brushed off his shirt. I could see the U-Haul parked out front of the complex. 

"Oh," I said. "Congrats on the move?" You never know if someone is moving because they found a better opportunity, or worse, if they are breaking up with a partner. 

"Hah," he said, chuckling a bit. "Yeah, I can't stay in this apartment much longer. So, your question might not be so weird." He chuckled a bit but I could see a glint of fear in his eyes. 

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you have a weird question, but I bet I have a weirder answer. Let's sit down."

I froze, worried that he would invite me into his apartment, but thankfully he pointed to the couch on the other side of the lobby, next to the Keurig machine (which sadly isn't free, I noticed). 

"Listen," he said, leaning forward. "This place is fucking weird." 

I was taken aback. I wasn't used to cursing nor was I prepared for what he was about to say.

"I moved in about six months ago. I mean, this is a pretty cool place, right? Decent location, close to the train." He looked around, as if reminiscing. "Shit started to go down within the first week. I'm alone, right? How are my keys going to be place on my desk and when I turn around they're in my bathroom? Or in my fucking bathtub?!" He shook his head. "I'm thinking I'm going crazy. I'm hearing all these weird noises. I swear something is watching me. I'm finding nails on the floor. I'm seeing all this weird shit outside my window. And I'm on the third floor!" 

My mouth fell open, agape. 

"Bro, I had the creepiest feelings, too, I can't even explain them. Just like, the heebie-jeebies. Someone is watching me." He said it again. Someone was watching him. "I'm not even religious at all, but I'm praying every night. I had to get out. I was just done. I called the landlord and I broke my lease and I said 'I'm out, I gotta go.' She actually didn't ask questions..." He pondered this for a moment. "..and I didn't ask questions, either. So two weeks later, here I am, bailing."

"I've been hearing scratches," I said shakily. "They started a few days after I moved in. I also feel really...weird."

"The scratches!" He exclaimed. He took my hand, and I instinctively pulled away, but he held on. "The scratches is how it begins. You gotta get out," he said. "You need to leave."

He stood up quickly, before I could ask any questions. "Listen," he said. "I gotta go. I'm on a time crunch here. I really hope you, uh..." he was at a loss for words. "Stay safe." 

Greg picked up the box he had left up front and hauled it out the front door, glancing back at me once, nodding his head, as if confirming his words, which echoed in my head. "You need to leave," he had said. "Stay safe."

I sat in the lobby for another ten minutes, cursing myself that I didn't have quarters for the Keurig. I could have gotten some hot cocoa. My aunt always made it for me when I was feeling anxious or scared.

I didn't want to go back into my apartment. But I had no choice. 

Greg was right. The scratching was how it begun. It got louder, and louder. The scratches sounded longer, like someone scraping their nails across the walls in long strokes. I began to sleep with my AirPods in. The soothing sounds of ocean waves washed around me. "He was just messing with me," I thought. "It's just rats, or mice," I thought. "It's just a creaky old building, this is just in my head, this is all a dream, just a fever dream..."

I was reading in bed one afternoon. The sun was glimmering through the window, and the scratches started again. But they weren't coming from behind the desk. They were coming from the wall behind me.

I jumped out of bed, and flung my bed to the floor. I couldn't stand this anymore. I began knocking on the wall. "Hello!?" I said loudly. "Please be quiet!" 

The scratching became louder. The noise traveled up the wall, creeping over my head, and onto the ceiling. RIPPP! SKREEEET!

I screamed, grabbed my phone and keys, and ran to the lobby, then outside, gasping for air. I looked around. Where was I going to go? What was I going to do?

"My realtor," I thought. "She has go to know something." The memory of her odd behavior when I accepted the space entered into my mind. 

I dialed her number, and surprisingly, she picked up almost immediately.

"Hi Becca," she said. "So... how are things?"

"Listen, Pat. Please be straight with me. What is going on in this apartment."

She drew in a long, labored sigh. "What's happening to you?" she asked.

"Scratching!" I exclaimed. "My desk, it has stains on it. It's like, fingernail scratches and there is blood! There is blood, Pat! And the skritching, the scratching, it's like... creatures trapped in my walls! Is it rats? Mice? Racoons? Greg told me he heard it too." The words were rushing out of my mouth. "He said he saw something outside, Greg said that he was freaked out, Greg is moving out!" I'm almost yelling at this point.

"Hon," she said. "It's going to be okay. Meet me at the Starbucks down the street tomorrow. Does 3pm work for you?"

My breathing is slowing. "Sure," I said. "Sure. I'll see you there."

"I need to go," Pat said, sounding distracted. "I uh, I'll see you tomorrow." She hung up. 

I didn't meet up with Pat the next day.

That night, the pitter patter of rain tapped gently on my window. I decided to not sleep with my AirPods in, as the rain was soothing enough.

Tap, tap! "It must be raining harder," I thought. "Tap, tap, tap." This didn't sound like rain though. 

Scrreeeeeeeeeech! The sound of nails dragging on glass. Scriiiiiiiitch! 

I closed my eyes tighter. "This isn't happening," I told myself. "I am dreaming, you are dreaming." 

SCRIEEEEEEECCCH. I couldn't ignore it.

I shifted my head toward the window, moving at the slowest pace possibly, and saw it.

It wasn't a shadow. It was darker than a shadow. But solid. I was frozen.

Sunken eyes, sunken jowls, sunken cheekbones. The longest face, a dripping chin, like melting wax. Arms raised above it's head, claws like a bird's beak, scritching, scraping down my window. Head tilted, it noticed my presence. A small hole formed where a mouth would be. A small hole growing larger, wider. The scratching, it was scratching faster, and faster, the mouth growing larger, and larger, until it screamed louder than I could have possibly imagined, piecing my ears. Like a banshee, like a demon, a sound from the pits of hell. 

I couldn't move. I couldn't look away. The shrill shriek seemed to last for eons. But then it stopped. It tilted it's head once more, and then scurried sideways out of sight. 

The next morning I gathered my essentials, rented a car, texted Pat that I couldn't make it, and drove back to Indiana. 

I had to break my least, which was a kick in the butt financially. I called Pat about a week later and told her that things just didn't work out. 

"Oh," she said, sounding downtrodden. "Can I ask why?"

"No," I said firmly. "I am never speaking of it again." I hung up the phone. 

I still see it. I see it in my nightmares. I see it in the corner of my eye. I ignore it. I think I made a mistake. I shouldn't have looked at it. I shouldn't have looked in those eyes. Those blackened, sunken eyes. 

[big-idiot-wolf-boys]

Nightfall: Twilight Reimagined -2-

-1-

Still feeling very much like canon here, and very much the day to day life of Bella Swan. Check out my fancast here if you want to know what I’m imagining these characters to look like as I’m writing them!

                                                          ****

    The next day wasn’t much worse than the first, I guess that had to count for something. The second day of school is easier than the first because you know what to expect. Like Mike sitting next to me in English and then escorting me to my next class. Eric glared at Mike the whole time. Thankfully, everyone outside of the group I had somehow been adopted into seemed to have forgotten about me already.

   The rain appeared to be gone for now, but the clouds were dark and dense-- it could always decide to make a comeback.

  We had a surprise test in Trig, and I didn’t even know the formulas we were supposed to be using. I made a mental note to hide my grades from Charlie, I couldn't manage to do much more than basic algebra. In Spanish, Jessica and I were paired together to translate recipes from Spanish to English. All morning, I worried about lunch. Not where to sit or what to eat; I was worried about having to endure those strange, hateful glares from Edward Cullen. If it were anyone else, I’d just ask what his damage was. Something about the Cullens struck me as strange, though. I remembered Edward’s coal-black eyes and shuddered.

    It turned out that I had nothing to worry about. When Jessica and I entered the cafeteria, Edward was nowhere in sight. A quick scan of the room proved the rest of the Cullen siblings were sitting at their usual table, but he was not with them.

   Mike spotted us and bounded up to lead us to the table. Jessica was thrilled, and the others from yesterday quickly joined us. Today, I picked up some of the names I hadn’t yesterday. Lauren, Tyler, and Ben rounded out this loose collective of friends. Lauren had long blonde hair, pale skin, and pretty green eyes. She hadn't spoken to me much, and I tried not to take it personally. Tyler was tall and athletic-looking, with dark skin, his hair and eyes were a matching brown. Ben was the shortest of the group, he had golden-brown skin and black hair that he wore with bangs swooped to one side, landing just above his glasses. I tried to focus on the conversations going on around me but my thoughts kept wandering back to Edward. I was dreading the moment he entered the room and turned his angry gaze on me.

   My anxiety only grew while I waited. My appetite never appeared, my muscles were tense, and my knee was shaking so much that the chair under me squeaked in protest. He never appeared, rendering all my anxious energy useless.

   After lunch came Biology. I approached the door with dread coiling in my stomach. Maybe he'd decided to get lunch somewhere else in town, which meant he would still be in class. I hesitated outside for as long as I dared, but the warning bell sounded. Classes were starting.

   Edward wasn’t in his seat when I entered, and the dread faded. Until about halfway through class when the realization hit me, it had merely transformed into a messy combination of guilt and irritation.

   How could I have pushed Edward away before I even had a chance to speak to him? How could he hate me so much he’d skip school to avoid me?

   I told myself repeatedly that  I couldn’t possibly be the problem. After all, Edward didn’t even know me. Still, the voice in the back of my mind that said it was all my fault just wouldn’t go away.

   The day took a turn towards terrible when we had soccer in gym. I tripped over my own feet several times, fell in the mud, scraped my palms, and even misaimed a kick so much that the ball hit one of my classmates in the face. After that, the teacher told me to stand in the corner of the field and watch. When school finally let out, I practically ran to my truck. I slammed the door in my hurry to get inside and cringed over it. Then I turned the key and put the heater on high, waiting for the warm air to come rushing out of the vents.

   I backed out of my space and into the line of people waiting to exit the parking lot. As I waited for my turn to leave, I saw the Cullens and the Hale twins getting into their car. A shiny Ford. Of course. Previously, I’d been too dazzled by the Cullens’ supernatural beauty to notice their clothing, but now it was obvious they came from money. I felt a brief stab of jealousy. It wasn’t enough that they were so pretty, they had to be well off, too?

   I yanked my gaze away from them but I could feel the group stare at me as I drove past them. Did they share the theory that I drove Edward away?

   This morning, Charlie had asked me to pick up a few things from the grocery store after school. It was only a few minutes away- but so was everything else. The bright lights and stocked shelves reminded me of doing the shopping back home. I fell into the familiar pattern with ease. It was practically second nature how I ghosted through the aisles, keeping track of Charlie's budget in my head.

   When I got back to the house, I shoved the groceries wherever they could fit and began to prep dinner. All it took was tossing some steaks in a marinade and throwing some potatoes in the oven. This was a meal that I knew Charlie would approve of, and the perfect way to introduce him to the idea of me doing the cooking.

   When I finished the prep, I took my backpack upstairs and threw on a pair of pjs, tying my hair up afterward. Glancing at my school bag again, I sighed. Most of the homework I’d been assigned today was covering things I’d already done back home-- and I wasn’t looking forward to repeating it.

    Instead, I put the effort into checking my email for the first time since my arrival. Charlie still had dial-up, and the laptop beeped and screeched at me as it connected. Renee had signed us both up for a service called NetMail through AOL so we could stay in touch through e-mail.

   Three unopened messages.

    Bella,

      Write to me as soon as you get time. I want to know everything about your flight! How is Charlie doing? Is it raining there? I’m sure it is.

      I miss you already. I’m almost finished packing for Florida, but I can’t find that pink floral shirt. Do you know where I put it?

      Phil says hi and good luck at school tomorrow. We love you!

      Mom

    That was sent about three hours into my five-hour flight to Seattle. I sighed and clicked the next one. It was sent eight hours after the first.

    Bella,

      Why haven’t you emailed me back? I’m waiting to hear from you.

      Mom

    The newest email was from this morning.

    Isabella Swan, if I haven’t heard from you by 5:30 pm, I will call Charlie.  

  My mom and I had always gotten along well, but Renee had leaned on me for a lot. I was sure that she was spiraling already. I glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen. There was still an hour until mom’s deadline, but I had a feeling she would get antsy and call early.

    Mom,

      Everything is   fine.    Don’t worry. I was just waiting for something to write about.

      Bella.

    Send.

   Now that the danger of my mother interrupting Charlie’s workday was out of the way, I began a second email.

    Mom,

      Your blouse is at the dry cleaners, you were supposed to pick it up after dropping me off at the airport.  

      Of course it’s raining. I have to slosh through puddles to get to every single class I have. Speaking of, school is fine. Repetitive.   I’ve already done most of what we’re covering. Easy graduation credits, I guess!

      Charlie bought me a truck! I couldn’t believe it. It’s this old, sturdy thing. Which is good. You know. For me. I love it.

      I miss you too. I can’t check my email every five minutes, though. Breathe. It’ll be okay. I’ll write again when I have something interesting to talk about, I promise. I love you.

      Bella

    The novel we were studying in English was Wuthering Heights, which happened to be one of my favorites. My copy of the book was a well-worn hardback, the edges of the cover softened with age. It was easy to sink into the familiar fictional world; by the time Lockwood was having his first nightmare, the sounds of the world around me had blurred and faded into the background.

   “Bella?” My dad’s voice rumbled downstairs.

  Oh, crap, I had forgotten all about dinner! After hastily shoving a bookmark into place, the book was tossed onto my pillow. I rushed downstairs, tripping over my own feet at the bottom step, but Charlie was there to catch me by the shoulders.

   “Where’s the fire?” He asked, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

  “I forgot about dinner,” I explained sheepishly, leading the way to the kitchen to pull the potatoes out of the oven. I put the steak in to broil before turning around to look at Charlie with an apologetic smile. “I wanted to have it ready for when you got home.”

   “Bells, you don’t have to do that.” He said with a small frown. He must think I had the same bizarre food tastes as Renee. Her experiments in the kitchen often ended up in the trash, completely inedible.

    “It’s just steak and potatoes.” I shrugged dismissively, fluttering one hand. To balance out my mom’s wacky dinners, I had learned how to fend for myself and make it taste pretty good, too.

   “That’s not what I meant,” Charlie said, hanging his jacket on the back of his chair at the table.

  “What did you mean?” He set the table while I pulled the food out of the oven. I caught him sniffing appreciatively at the air.

   “I  mean,  I should be the one cooking dinner, not the other way around.” There was an unspoken  duh. As if nothing in the world made more sense than for Charlie to cook dinner for us. My throat tightened a little and my eyes watered. I turned to get myself a glass of water so I could collect myself without him seeing how something so simple had affected me.

   “Oh.”

   Charlie sat at the table, and I sat across from him.

  “It smells good, though. Thanks, Bell.”  He smiled warmly at me and I noticed how his eyes were beginning to crinkle at the corners. He was beginning to show signs of age now; lines in his face, salt and pepper flecked his scruff.

   We ate in silence for a while, which was more than fine by me. Charlie and I were quiet people and though I had misjudged my role here, we were good housemates.

   “How was school?” He asked, interrupting my thoughts, “Make any friends yet?”

  “Well…” I tapped some pepper onto my potatoes to stall for time. “Everyone’s really nice. I sit with a group of people at lunch, but I don’t know if I’d say we’re friends yet.”

   “Sitting with people at lunch is a good way to start making friends,” Charlie encouraged me. Was it that obvious how worried I was about being the new kid? And the reaction I’d gotten from certain classmates…

   “Do you know the Cullen family?” I asked suddenly, curiosity overtaking me before I could stop it.

   “Dr. Cullen’s family? Sure.”

   “The kids don’t seem to fit in.” I decided not to worry Charlie with Edward’s reaction to me.

  “Dr. Cullen has been a huge help to the community, you know,” Charlie said, more strongly than before. “We’re lucky to have him. He could have his pick of jobs all over the place. His wife wanted a small-town life, though. Sure, I was worried when they moved here with all those kids, but I haven't had one ounce of trouble from them.” He was really gathering steam now. “But just because they’re new to town and a little different, people just have to gossip about them.”

   I rethought my approach.

  “I just meant that they sort of stick to themselves.” I tucked my hair behind my ear before continuing. “They all seem pretty smart.” Or just pretty.

   Charlie shrugged one shoulder. “Guess there’s not much you can do in a town like this. People decided they were outsiders, so why should they try to make friends? Maybe you’ll have something in common with one of them.”

   I didn’t answer him, too busy thinking about what he’d said. We finished eating in silence, and he cleared the table before I had a chance to. I stood next to the table, feeling a little useless.

   “You don’t have to take care of me, you know,” I said, nodding to the pile of dirty dishes that Charlie had just finished stacking next to the sink.

   “That’s my job, Bells.” He kissed my forehead before retiring to the living room to put on the game of the night. I blinked quickly to counter the sudden wetness that sprung up in the corners of my eyes.

   Determined to help out around the house somehow, I turned back to the dishes. Charlie might want to take care of me, but that didn’t mean I had to be a freeloader. I washed the dishes by hand, and set them in the rack to dry. With no other preoccupations, there was nothing left to do but trudge upstairs to work on my math homework

   When I finally tumbled into bed, exhausted, I slept dreamlessly.

  The rest of the week flew by in an uneventful blur. I learned where all my classes were and how to get to them the fastest. I was also able to place most of my classmate’s names to their faces- and they knew not to pick me in gym class. Jessica was still happily chatting my ear off at every opportunity, and when I needed a reprieve from that- Angela Weber was there to quietly discuss Wuthering Heights.

   Edward Cullen didn’t return to school.

  The whole week, I shared my first class of the day with Rosalie, but I could never gather the courage to speak to her and ask what her brother’s problem was, or if he was coming back. Every day, I watched their table to confirm that he wasn’t there, then I could relax. Recently, Mike had really been pushing the idea of a weekend beach trip, and Jess and Angela always made sure to mention that I was welcome to come. I agreed to go, mostly out of a want to get to know my new friends. Whatever they called a beach here would only fall short of my expectations. By Friday, I confidently walked into Biology with the knowledge that Edward wouldn’t be there with his strange, hateful stare.

  My first weekend in Forks was, predictably, boring. Charlie, who had been working weekends for the last fifteen years, spent most of his time at the Sheriff’s Office. I spent my time cleaning the house, reading ahead for English class, and emailing with my mom.

   On Saturday, I went to the Forks Public Library but I was disappointed by their selection, and didn’t even bother to get a card. I looked at the local stores to see what their small selections had, but no dice. It seemed I was going to have to make a trip out of town if I wanted any new reading material. Would my truck be okay on the freeway?

   Thankfully, the rain remained a soft pattering and didn’t hinder my sleep too much.

  On Monday morning, people smiled and waved at me in the parking lot. I waved back, even at the people whose names escaped me. It was cold this morning, but the rain had taken a hiatus.

   In English, Mike sat next to me, reliable as ever. We had a surprise quiz on Wuthering Heights, no doubt I would get an excellent grade on it. I was more confident and comfortable in Forks High School than I had expected even a week ago. More comfortable than I had  ever expected to be in Forks.

  When English ended, the class streamed outside… and into a flurry of white tufts in the air. I could hear teenagers yelling gleefully from every direction. My nose twinged in the cold.

   “Snow!” Mike grinned.

   I shoved my hands into my pockets, surveying the sidewalk for ice. “Ew.” I wrinkled my nose.

   “You don’t like snow?” Mike asked, his gleeful look dampening significantly.

  “I guess it’s better than rain.” I conceded. “But I thought it was supposed to be prettier than this. Distinct flakes or whatever.”

   Mike looked at me with all the disbelief he could muster. “You’ve never  seen snow?”

   “Well, yeah. On TV.” I said defensively.

  Mike laughed, but the sound was cut short by a ball of slush hitting him in the back of the head. I anxiously looked in the direction it had come from, ready to use my backpack as a shield. Eric had his back to us, walking in the wrong direction for his next class. Mike knelt down to scoop up his own ball of mush.

   “You know what, I’ll just see you at lunch,” I said hurriedly, beginning to make my way towards the school. “Once people start throwing things, I get out of range.” I shot him an apologetic smile, but his eyes were trained on Eric’s back.

  The only thing anyone wanted to talk about was the snow’s sudden arrival. I bit my tongue, to not ruin everyone else’s excitement. It seemed like I was the only one who wasn’t fond of the cold, wet weather.

  When it came time for lunch, I hurried to the cafeteria with Jess. Snowballs were flying left and right, though they didn’t really stick together well enough to be qualified as a ball. Jessica thought that I was being dramatic about the whole thing, but she was nice enough to not pull me into the brief snowball fight between herself, Mike, Eric, Ben.

   The fight only lasted from building 3 to building 1, where the cafeteria was. Mike opened the door for us. They argued about who had won as we waited in line to pay for our food. Nothing but habit brought my eyes to the table that the four Cullens occupied every day. Only today there were five of them. I froze where I stood. It would be better to be back out in the snow.

   Jess tapped on my shoulder. “Earth to Bella! Hello?”

  I looked down, feeling the heat from my cheeks up to the tips of my ears when I blushed. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, though, I firmly reminded myself.

   “Are you alright?” Mike asked, leaning over Jessica’s shoulder to look at me.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled, tucking my hair back. I carelessly tossed an apple and milk crate onto my tray and followed my friends.

   “Are you sure you feel okay?” Ben pressed.

  “Actually, I feel kind of sick,” I admitted, sitting next to Jess and keeping my eyes down. Twice more during lunch, someone asked how I was feeling. For a fleeting moment, I considered playing it up so I could skip my next class. Biology with Edward. I almost shuddered at the thought but reminded myself that I’d done nothing wrong. Edward was the one with the problem. I steeled myself and looked at the Cullen’s table. If he still looked at me like I was some kind of loathsome monster, maybe I  would skip.

   At the end of the table, Mike laughed boisterously at something; this was my excuse to look in that direction, and then peer past him to the table where the otherworldly family was sitting. None of them looked at me. I sat up straighter. They were joking and laughing with each other. They appeared to have snow in their hair, though it was melting rapidly under the school’s heating system. Rosalie and Edward were leaning away as Jasper shook his head like a dog- causing icy water to fly at them. They were just enjoying the snow like everyone else, only they looked like movie stars.

   Besides how loud and happy they were compared to last week, there was something else that was amiss about the scene. I found myself staring at them individually as I tried to figure it out. I was the most familiar with Rosalie, since we shared a class, so I started with her. She looked the same as ever: stunningly beautiful. The others looked the same as always too, maybe the scene had seemed off because Edward had returned.

   I looked at him with the most attention. He was flushed, for one. Maybe from laughter, or the cold. It looked like he had finally gotten a good night’s sleep, the bags under his eyes were much less pronounced. There was still something, though…

   “Bella, what  are you staring at?” Jess asked me, pushier than usual. How long had I been spacing out?

   Her eyes followed my gaze.

  Edward looked our way as if we had called out to him, even though we were all the way across the room. I looked away quickly, but not quickly enough. Our eyes met for just a second. He wasn’t wearing that angry expression from last week, he looked curious again.

   What was this guy’s deal? Why couldn’t he make up his mind?

   “Edward Cullen is staring at you.” She said in a hushed voice.

  “Really?” I squeaked. “I don’t think he likes me.” I felt queasy, and offered to trade Eric my milk for his water bottle. He accepted and I took a large gulp of the refreshing liquid as soon as he passed it over.

   “It’s okay, Bella.” She said comfortingly. “The Cullen’s don’t usually like anyone. But he’s still looking at you.”

   “Stop looking!” I hissed.

   She giggled, but looked away. I took a smaller sip of water, focusing with all my might on not looking at the Cullens.

  Mike spoke up then, and I had never been more thankful for his interruption. He was planning a snowball fight after school, and announced it loud enough for everyone to hear. Jessica agreed enthusiastically, but I was starting to think she would agree to do anything as long as Mike was involved. I decidedly didn’t speak up, and began to plot where to hide until the fight was over and I could safely make it to my truck.

   When the bell rang, I made my way to the door quickly-- hoping to avoid walking to class with Mike, who seemed to be a large target for snowballs. But he and my other friends caught up to me in two long strides. When we got to the door, everyone groaned. The snow had pretty much stopped coming down, and what little snow had stuck to the ground was muddy and gross. I hid my pleased smile and tested the iciness of the sidewalk. As good a grip as any other day. Well, on a good day for me. Mike complained about the snow’s disappearance until we got to the door of the biology classroom.

  I was relieved to see my table was empty and rushed to it as if getting there first allowed me some kind of claim on the space. Of course, this wasn’t the case, but it made me feel better nonetheless.  I had been here all last week, after all.

  Mrs. Ramone began to hand out microscopes and slides, and my classmates chattered quietly among themselves. I doodled on the cover of my notebook, sketching out the sparrow I could see from the window next to my table.

   The chair next to me was pulled out with an unsettling screech, but I very carefully kept my eyes averted from my tablemate.

   “Hello,” Said a quiet, musical voice.

  This was the first time one of the Cullens had spoken directly to me, and something about the windchime quality of Edward's voice sent a shock through me. I sat rigidly and whipped my head around to face him.

  He was sitting at the furthest end of the desk, like last week, but his chair was turned so that he was facing me. It almost seemed casual but something was jarring about the whole thing. He seemed unnatural somehow, like he didn’t belong here. His expression was friendlier than I expected, a polite smile gracing his features, but his eyes were guarded.

   “I’m sure you’ve already gathered by now, but I’m Edward Cullen,” He continued, “And you’re Bella Swan, right?”

   My mind swam. Had I completely imagined Edward’s hostility? He was friendly now, if a little strange.

   “Why did you call me Bella?” I blurted.

   “Oh, is Bella for friends only? I just-” Edward faltered.

  “No, I prefer Bella. Everyone called me Isabella when I first got here… I guess Charlie- I mean, my dad- must call me that when I’m not around.” I explained, feeling even more out of my element than usual. I felt tongue-tied in front of this strange guy.

   Thankfully, Ms. Romane clapped her hands together to gather our attention. I was incredibly grateful for being saved from any more embarrassing small talk. Today, we were going to be identifying and sorting cells into the phases of mitosis without looking at our books. The teacher would be making rounds at the end of class to see who got it right.

   “Let’s get going everyone!” She clapped her hands together again.

  “Shall we?” Edward asked, smiling crookedly as he pushed the microscope towards me. I was once again struck by his dazzling beauty-- until his smile began to fade. “Or I can start,” He added. Shoot, I must have waited too long to answer him.

   “I can do it.” I shook my head a little to clear it from the fuzz that had momentarily clouded my mind. I hoped I wasn’t blushing.

   Okay, maybe I wanted to show off a little. My previous school had been more advanced than Forks High, and I had already done this before. It was easy. I slid the little glass slide into place and adjusted the microscope until it was properly focused. It only took me a few seconds for me to assess the slide.

   “Prophase.”

  I started to remove the slide, but Edward reached out to stop me. “Mind if I look?” His hand was freezing, as if he had just come in from playing with the snow. I couldn’t help but gasp and pull my hand away. Besides being cold, it was as though he had shocked me. I tried to chalk it up to static electricity he took the microscope.

   Curiously, I watched him examine the slide. He had barely looked at the thing before writing  prophase gracefully on our worksheet. He switched out the slides and glanced at the second one just as quickly as the first.

   “Anaphase,” He said, writing it down as he spoke.

   “Mind if I check?” I asked, sounding more courageous than I felt.

  Edward pushed the microscope my way, this time avoiding any contact between us. I tried to look as quickly as possible. I was disappointed, he was right.

   “The next one?” I asked, my competitive nature peeking out. He handed it to me, still careful to not let our skin touch.

   “Interphase,” I announced. He took the microscope from me with an amused smile.

  Despite our competition, we were the first team finished. Mike and his partner, a girl named Ali, were comparing two slides repeatedly. Another group seemed to have broken a slide and were trying to tape it back together. I tried to hide my own amused smile at that. Unfortunately, finishing first meant that we had nothing to do but wait for the end of class. I tried not to look at him, but that didn’t last long.

    When I glanced up, Edward was looking at me with intensity. Frustrated again, like he was trying to remember something. Suddenly, it clicked in my brain. Why his family looked so different.

   “Are you wearing contacts?” I asked. Oops. I hope that wasn’t being rude.

   Edward blinked in surprise. “No,” The way he said it, with a lilt towards the end, made it sound like a question.

   “Oh.” I mumbled. “I just thought there was something different about your eyes.”

   He shrugged. “They are kind of a weird color, right? I think it’s genetic.”

  I was sure that it was something other than a mutated brown color, though. I could distinctly remember the black color of his eyes the first time I had seen him. The stark contrast between his hateful stare and the pallor of his face. Only today, his eyes weren’t black. They were a dark butterscotch color, the golden tone that shone in them complimented his bronze hair. I couldn’t make sense of how that could be. Unless he was lying about the contacts. Maybe I had just imagined the darkness of his eyes in my anxiety.

   I glanced down. Edward’s hands were clenched into fists. Only for a moment. Then they smoothed out and he smiled at me. I almost forgot to be suspicious of him.

   Ms. Ramone came to check our work. She squinted at the paper then frowned at Edward. “You didn’t share with your partner, Edward?” She asked, looking at the worksheet holding only Edward’s elegant handwriting on it.

   “Bella actually identified three out of five of the slides, Ms. Ramone,” Edward said with a charming smile.

   She turned to me then. “Well done, Bella. Have you taken this class before?”

   “Not with onion root,” I admitted with a sheepish smile.

   “Whitefish?”

   “Yeah.”

   She nodded. “Were you an advanced placement student in your last school?”

   “Only in science and English.” I couldn’t help being a little proud.

  “I suppose it’s good that you and Edward are partnered, then.” She said with a small chuckle, moving on to check Mike and Ali’s work. I began to doodle on my notebook again, filling in little details to my drawing from before.

   “Too bad about the snow, huh?” Edward asked, his musical voice jarring me out of my thoughts. I hated small talk, and I had the feeling he was only forcing himself to be polite to me, anyway.

   “Not really.” I mumbled, past bothering to hide my irritation with the weather.

   “You don’t like the cold?”

   “Or the wet.”

   “It doesn’t sound like Forks is your kind of place, then.” He said, thoughtfully.

   “You have no idea,” I grumbled, glancing at the window and privately shooing the clouds away.

   He looked like I had said something incredibly profound. I impossibly tried not to be distracted by his expression.

  “So why’d you move here?” His voice was pure curiosity. He didn’t want to know because I was the shiny new toy, gossip for his friends. He seemed genuinely interested and no one had bothered to ask me that yet, especially so pointedly. It took me by surprise.

   “Um.”

   “You don’t have to tell me.” It looked like he couldn’t bear not knowing.

   I hesitated, but met his eyes. His golden gaze captivated me, and I blurted out an answer without even thinking about it.

   “My mom got married.”

   “Oh, and you didn’t like the guy?”

   “No, Phil’s great. Really.”

  “So why didn’t you stay with them?” Edward’s voice was still burning with curiosity, but there was an underlying kindness to it.

    It didn’t make any sense why he was so interested. He was staring at me like I was holding the answers to the universe. If he was always this intense, it was going to give me whiplash the next time he decided that he was going to be hostile.

   “Phil’s a minor league baseball player, so he travels a lot.” I smiled, remembering piling into his van with my mom to travel with them. It had been fun, for a while.

   “Is he famous?” Edward asked in a light tone.

   “I don’t think you’ll have heard of him.”

  “So your mother sent you here so that she could travel with her new husband?” Edward tried to untangle the threads of my story.

   I shook my head, almost insulted. “No,” I said indignantly, “I sent myself.”

   His brows furrowed. “I don’t get it.”

   I sighed. Why was I explaining this to him anyway?  Why did he care?

  “Well. She stayed home with me for a while, but she missed him. It made her unhappy, that didn’t work. So the three of us traveled together for a while. That was fun, but it wasn’t…” I struggled to find the right word, “Stable. So I decided that it was time that I came to be with my dad.” I tried not to sound glum about being stuck in Forks because the truth was that I really  was glad to spend time with Charlie. I just wished we got to spend time together somewhere else.

   “But you’re not happy.” He said simply.

   “So?” I raised an eyebrow.

   “It’s not fair,” He shrugged, but their eyes hadn’t lost their intensity. “It sucks.”

   “Why’s it matter to you anyway?” I demanded, resisting the urge to childishly stick my tongue out at him.

  “Good question.” He muttered, mostly to himself. That seemed like the only answer I was going to get. This was confirmed by Ms. Ramone interrupting us by calling for the class’s attention. I couldn’t understand how this bizarre, beautiful boy had gotten me to reveal more about my life to him than any of my new friends had. And there was still the mystery of whether or not he hated me. He had seemed friendly enough during our conversation, but I could see him leaning away from me now, hands curled into fists again.

   I tried to at least look like I was paying attention to Ms. Ramone’s debriefing.

   When the bell  finally rang, Edward swiftly took his leave. He moved gracefully, like a large cat on the prowl. I stared after him in amazement and Mike took this as an opportunity to hop to my side.

   “That sucked!” He groaned. “I couldn’t tell any of ‘em apart. You’re lucky you had Cullen to do it for you.”

  “I identified half of ours,” I snapped at Mike, stung by his comment and frustrated by Edward. Immediately, I regretted taking out my strange mood on him. It didn’t seem to dull Mike’s mood much.

   “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” He said, holding his hands up in surrender.

  He changed the subject to the beach trip, lamenting that the snow from earlier indicated that it was still too cold to go. His chattering just couldn’t hold my attention as we walked to gym.  He was on my team today, and graciously let me sit out. I still managed to catch my toe on the lip of the doorway and almost tripped on my way out after class.

    A mist was gathering in the parking lot as I made my way to my truck. I idly thought about giving it a name, if it had enough personality to warrant giving it one. Time would tell on that. As per my new routine, I hopped into the cab and turned the heater on high. My cold hands warmed in front of the vents before fluffing up my damp hair so it would dry out on the short drive home.

   Before backing up, I looked around to make sure no one was behind me. I noticed a still, pale figure in my mirror and realized it was Edward Cullen. He was leaning against his Ford, staring right at me. My heart jolted in my chest, causing my foot to jump off the clutch too fast-- the engine stalled. I groaned and rolled my eyes. Turning the engine over again and cautiously pulling out, I stared ahead as I drove. As I passed, I could swear Edward was laughing at me.

[5typesoftrash]

Good Morning, Darkest Secrets

For @specialagentrin because goddammit, she has inspired me to write so much fic recently. It isn’t even funny. I loveeeeeeee youuuuuuuuuu

RATING T RELATIONSHIPS Dean/Cas, Sam/Cas FANDOM Supernatural Words 2,715 Comments/Warnings angst, pining, unrequited love (I’ll let you see which side), tw: suicidal thoughts/actions/ideation, depression, tw: abuse

***

A boy climbs through his window. “Ow!” he says when he hits the floor.

Dean sits up in bed and looks at him. “Who are you?” he asks. The boy sits up.

“Huh,” he says instead of answering, peering at Dean’s face in the dark. “I must have overshot. I’m looking for Sam Winchester.”

Dean closes his eyes in exasperation. “Wrong bedroom,” he manages. “Sammy’s down the hall. Why are you breaking into our house?”

The kid shrugs. “Felt like it. Which door?”

Dean watches him. He moves weird, kinda like Sam and Dean themselves do, and Dean wonders what that means. He’s almost got it, it’s on the tip of his tongue-

“First on your right. If he hits you, I wasn’t here.”

The kid glances over his shoulder and flashes Dean a grin that makes his knees weak. “I’ll remember that.”

Dean is ten years old.

--

The boy’s name is Castiel. He’s in Sam’s class. He’s seven. (Sam is eight.)

Dean learns all of this the next morning at breakfast, after his dad’s yelling wakes him up. Something about Sam having a boy in his bed and how John refuses to let his sons be homos. Whatever that means.

Mary calms him down with a soft voice and a hand on his arm and invites Castiel to breakfast. Dean’s eyes follow this mysterious new boy the whole way down the stairs.

Castiel’s shoulders still shift awkwardly under his coat (which Dean can see in the light of day is a trench coat. He didn’t know those came small enough for seven-year-olds) and Dean still burns to find out why that looks so familiar. But he refrains.

There are things he can’t blurt out at the breakfast table.

Mary gives Castiel three slices of toast and almost half their jam. He stares at it with wide eyes for almost thirty seconds. “It’s food,” Dean says helpfully. “You eat it. Are you okay?”

Castiel looks up at him with blue eyes free of guile or blame. “Are you sure you can spare this much?” he asks of the entire room. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

“Dude, nobody talks like that,” Dean tells him, laughing. Mary smacks the back of his head.

“Yes, of course we can. I wouldn’t give it to you if we couldn’t scrape by.”

Castiel looks down at his plate in shame. “This is more food than I’ve gotten at one meal in three years.”

Dean’s mouth drops open. “No way.”

Castiel turns red and takes a bite of his toast. No one says anything else. Mary tells Dean off later for being rude and insensitive.

Dean is still fascinated.

--

Castiel is new in town, but he stays for a long time. He starts coming home from school with Sam every day. They’re obviously best friends.

Dean is… Dean is jealous.

Of Sam.

That’s never happened before.

He hangs out in the same room as them a lot of the time, but they are always very obviously hanging out with each other. He’s just the weird big brother who’s also there.

And Cas – Dean has no idea when he became ‘Cas’ – seems to avoid him at all costs, if he can. Dean tries not to push. He just doesn’t know why Cas is so uncomfortable around him. But it doesn’t matter, because it goes away after a few months. By July, they’re all hanging out together, playing Mario Kart and marathoning Star Wars.

But Dean is still jealous.

--

Dean’s a freshman when Sam starts middle school. He and Cas have three of six classes together, and Cas comes over to study every chance he gets. Dean stopped being jealous of Sammy around the end of seventh grade, but he thinks he’ll always be bitter that Cas seems to prefer Sam to him.

Especially at night, when he opens the little box that he keeps locked in the back of his mind. It sits on a shelf, gathering dust, and inside are all the feelings, the thoughts, the little things Dean catalogued in those first two years. Dean shoved them all in their when he realized what it was, and he never lets them out, except when he’s miserable and alone.

He’s spent the last two years since then praying that it would go away. He needs it to go away. He can’t be like this, he can’t be a freak, he can’t be that thing that his father was so scared of when Dean was just ten years old. He can’t.

He is.

One day, he lays on the floor of Sam’s room with his giant-ass AP World History textbook wide open on his face when Sam says it.

“I kissed Cas today.”

Sam is on his bed, on his stomach, flipping through his Alg-one notebook, trying to make sense of the notes he took in class. He says it nonchalantly, out of the blue, and Dean almost does a spit take.

“Um.” Dean’s voice is muffled by the college ruled pages above him. He sits up and closes the book. “You did what now?” he asks incredulously.

Sam looks at him evenly. His hair is a little bit too long – he’s been growing it out this year. Dean tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. “I kissed him,” he repeats.

There’s a pause, then Dean says, “well, what happened?”

Sam scoffs. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you! Nothing happened. I liked a guy, I kissed him, he kissed back, end of story.”

“He kissed back?” Dean doesn’t know why he can’t seem to process any of the information that’s being thrown at him. (That’s a lie; it’s because he’s so fucking blindsided by all of this that he can barely register Sammy likes guys, let alone Sammy likes the guy that I like or the guy that I like likes Sammy back.) “So what now? Are you like… boyfriends?”

Sam shrugs. “We haven’t gotten that far. It was at lunch break and we haven’t seen each other since.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have fifth together?”

“Yeah, we sit on opposite sides of the room and we were doing a lab today so we couldn’t even email back and forth like we usually do in that class.”

Dean lets out a whoosh of air and collapses back onto the floor. “Alright then. Well, good luck.” He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say.

Sam makes a derisive noise. “Right. Thanks, Dean.”

“Whatever, bitch.”

Sam flips him off without looking away from his notes. “Exactly, jerk.”

Dean is miserable now.

--

They are boyfriends.

Dean discovers this six days later. It’s Tuesday, which is a cursed day in his opinion, because it’s the day he dies every week. (Tuesdays are inspection day. He has to wear his uniform into school and he’s not allowed to touch anybody or wear a hat.) And now it’s more cursed because it will forever be the day that Castiel Novak told him he was dating his brother immediately after spilling iced coffee on him.

“Okay, asshole, it is on,” Dean snarls, only kind of playing. “This is my ROTC uniform. How fuckin’ dare you.”

Cas just laughs when Dean shoves him. “Dean, I apologized. I’ll get it dry cleaned for you.”

Dean grumbles as he wads up napkins and dabs at it. “You don’t have the money for that,” he says finally. “I’ll do it myself.”

Cas closes his mouth, then opens it again to say, “are you going to kill me if I date your brother?”

Dean’s head snaps up. “Why would I kill you?”

Cas can’t meet his eyes. “Well, you’re incredibly protective of him, and when I first moved here, you didn’t seem to… like me very much.”

Dean scoffs. “Fuck me,” he sings under his breath. “Nah, man, you’re great. I’m just a dick like that. But don’t worry about it, okay? No, go ahead and date Sam. He’s been crushing on you for like, ever.”

Cas looks incredibly relieved. “Great,” he says quietly. “Good. Thank you.”

Dean just nods his acknowledgment and waves Cas away. He needs to hit the road in the next fifteen minutes if he’s gonna get to the school on time, and Cas and Sam have to catch their bus.

(Dean fails his inspection that day.)

--

Cas is a freshman when Dean finally finds out why he moves funny.

Dean is a junior, and he’s about .3 GPA away from dropping out of high school, and he goes to pick Cas up one day because he is the one chaperoning Cas and Sam’s dates. Because their parents don’t even know Sam’s gay.

(Bi? He mighta said he was bi. Dean really has no idea, all his tiny brain has room for is Sam likes Cas.)

He walks into Cas’s house and the first thing he hears is the wet smack of flesh on flesh. The second thing he hears is something thwip-ing through the air. The third thing he hears is crying. The fourth thing he hears is Cas’s voice, and Cas is begging.

“Please stop,” he cries. “Please, Luci, I’ll do anything, please! Just stop!”

Dean pushes the door open and there are three boys inside it. One looks about a year older than Dean, with pale hair and evil-looking eyes. One is Castiel, who looks terrified, like a deer in headlights as he stares wide-eyed at Dean. And one is shorter, sandier, unconscious, and bleeding.

“Did you kill him?” he demands the tall one. He assumes this is Luci, especially considering the bloody gashes on Cas’s exposed back – holy shit, Cas isn’t wearing a shirt and Dean has only just registered that – that match the bloody metal end of the belt Luci’s holding.

Cas kneels, in Luci’s moment of distraction, to press two fingers to the short one’s throat. “He’s alive,” he whispers, and his voice wavers and breaks. Dean glares at the tall guy.

“Get the hell out of here,” he commands. Luci looks confused and defiant but leaves the room. Dean pulls out his phone and dials 911.

“Who was that?” he asks when they’re riding in the back of an ambulance. Cas doesn’t look at him.

“One of the twins, the two oldest. Lucifer. He likes to hurt the rest of us. He does it for sport.”

Dean purses his lips. “Right,” he whispers. “I should’ve known.”

Cas does look at him then. “Why should you have known?”

Dean meets his eyes with sorrow. “Cause I’m an abuse victim too.”

--

Somehow, Sam and Cas are still going strong by their sophomore year, celebrating 3 years in October. On their anniversary (the fourth), Cas stands outside of their house with a big sign. Dean sees him through the open front door.

He stands in the doorway to read it. It says “HOMECOMING?” Dean grins.

“Yeah!” he shouts. Cas shakes his head, laughing.

Tell Sam, he mouths. Dean turns his head and shouts up the stairs.

“Sammy, I’m taking your boyfriend to homecoming!”

“Whatever, jerk!” Sam yells back.

“You won’t be saying that when we’re doin’ it in a limo, bitch!” Dean declares, then drops a wink at Cas and disappears back into the house.

--

Sam still seems happy by junior year. Dean has long since dropped out by now and is working part-time with their uncle Bobby. He never sees Cas anymore, and that’s probably for the better, considering that every time he does, he is in desperate need of a cold shower.

Sam still raves about him obliviously, and Dean still listens with a straight face – a talent he’s mastered after years of hiding his own stupid bullshit. Dean doesn’t let on. He’s gotten very, very good at not letting on.

He breaks down, once, and Sam finds him. It’s embarrassing and humiliating, and it’s made more so by the fact that he can’t even explain to his brother why he’s crying on the floor of the bathroom. Sam doesn’t seem to care, though. He just grabs Dean and pulls him close to his chest and doesn’t let him go for a very, very long time.

Dean hates everything.

--

Dean hates how amazing his little brother is. Sam is such a great person, and he deserves the kind of happiness he’s found with Cas. They’ve been together for six years and they’re both so much happier than they were before. Dean’s seen the change happen firsthand.

He hates how much he resents it. He hates how much he wishes he could ruin it for them. He hates how terrible a person he is, for wanting to destroy this beautiful thing that Sam managed to create for himself out of the ashes of their old life.

He hates himself.

Dean has Castiel’s phone number. He’s used it a grand total of once.

He uses it now.

You and Sam deserve each other is all his message says. It doesn’t say any of the other hundreds of things he wants it to say. It doesn’t say that Dean’s a coward. It doesn’t say that Dean is a terrible person who doesn’t deserve Cas’s friendship. It doesn’t say that Dean hopes Cas and Sam are happy together. It doesn’t say that Dean hopes everyone’s happier without him.

It doesn’t say that if all goes well, Dean will be dead before Cas reads that text message.

He almost jumps out the fourth-story window. He manages to stop himself.

He spends the night in the hospital with a pump in his stomach.

Sam is the only family member who waits with him.

--

Shit hits the fan when Sam comes home for Christmas break. He’s been off at Stanford for three months – and Cas with him, because Cas swore to follow Sam anywhere – and they both come home for two weeks in the end of December.

Mom’s dead; she killed herself eighteen months ago. Dad was killed in a drunk driving crash. Sam and Dean are all alone, just the two of them and Cas and uncle Bobby.

Bobby pays for the house, the upkeep, the water and electric; he takes care of everything so that Dean can keep living there, in Lawrence, in a huge fucking house that he doesn’t need, all on his own.

He should just sell the place, move to Palo Alto to be near his brother, and get a tiny apartment for less than a thousand dollars a month if he can hack it.

He doesn’t sell it because it’s the last place their mom was alive.

Sam and Cas come home and they all get a tree together. They decorate it on the nineteenth. On the twenty-second, Sam asks Dean why he’s been avoiding them all break.

“I’m not avoiding you guys,” Dean denies, even though he is.

“Then why won’t you look at me? Why haven’t you said more than five words to Cas since we’ve been here? Why do you spend all your time holed up in your room?”

Dean rolls his eyes and tries to shrug it off, but then Sam says something that cuts deep.

“Do you still not approve of me dating him?”

Dean freezes.

“What?”

Sam’s face looks broken. “He’s tried so hard to win you over, to make you like him. Do you still hate him that much?”

Dean can’t hold it in anymore. He can’t.

“No, I don’t!” he screams. “I never hated him! He’s my best friend, man, and I care about him as much as you do! But no, I don’t approve of you dating him.”

“Why not?” Sam asks. His cheeks are glistening and his face is broken. His eyes look hopeless.

“Because I’m in love with your boyfriend, Sammy!” Dean yells.

There’s silence for fourteen seconds before someone speaks.

“I should leave.”

Dean glances around. Cas is standing in the doorway. He presses his eyes closed.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” he whimpers.

“Yeah, well, I did,” Cas replies. He pushes past Dean and leaves the front door open when he walks through it. Sam shoots Dean a look and follows him.

As they walk away from him, Dean thinks he’s just ruined the only thing he had left that was actually important to him.

Good going, Dean.

[giogio-gucci-gangstar]

Dont Stand So Close To Me (pt. 2)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349577/chapters/55997644

He had sent an email. Innocuous enough. Simply describing the bare minimum of what she would be doing which boiled down to being in his company. He had thought of a few set tasks she would be expected to do: make tea, edit chapters, read reference books, etc. 

Jonathan was so terrified to even think of her response. She had already agreed in person. Shouldn't that be enough?  No, he knew it wasn't. Nothing would ever be enough but having it in writing before him, having something physical to hold describing how bound she was to him was a start. 

Soon. 

Soon was in fact sooner than he thought, as she replied enthusiastically within minutes. Jonathan couldn't leave his desk, he just kept rereading her email. What did she mean when she said she was “delighted to work in such esteemed company” Was that flattery? How would she have said “I would love to grab tea with you sometime to go over details?” He imagined the words flying off her lips like a song. What was the exact intent behind her saying “love”? Was it absentminded? Intentional? A romantic implication? Regardless of the actual meaning, it was by far his favorite sentence in the email. 

Holding the email so tightly in his mind, he almost felt badly for offering her a position that didn't exactly exist. But it exists now, even if I only created it yesterday. While all Jonathan could think about was spending more time with her, however innocent, he started to worry if this was good for her. Am I just wasting time when she could have an actual job? When she should be with her friends? Writing her thesis?

No, he reasoned with himself. He was a world renowned anthropologist by the age of 25 and had gladly accepted the title of professor at the ripe age of 27. No, being with him would be good for her. He could take care of her, and her career too. Having his name on her resume, as an employer, a recommendation, he could even write her in as coauthor if this book ever started to form beyond scribbled notes. He would gladly help her with her thesis, and would have no issues financially reimbursing her for her time. 

No, this was not simply a selfish plan to be with her. He truly had her best interests at heart. 

~~~~~~~

Two days, an entire two days sustaining himself with only memories of her face, had passed. Finally it was time to see her in lecture again. Though one of the most difficult tasks of his life, he forced himself not to stare, and in fact avoided eye contact entirely. He was quite proud of his self control, though he secretly feared she would see him as rude or cold. 

It didn't appear his treatment had bothered her at all as she walked up to him after class beaming. 

“Thank you for your email, were you by chance able to see my response?” she asked unassumingly. I've read it hundreds of times. I never knew four lines could excite me so much.

“Yes, I'm sorry I never got a chance to reply!” He ruffled a hand through his hair, quite proud that he had refrained from a gushing email in response. “It's been a very busy week for me between grading papers, meetings and such.” That sounded a lot more professional than ‘I was laying in bed for two days trying to remember your voice’. 

“Oh well if you’re not terribly busy at the moment would you like to grab tea now?” She asked, her big round eyes wide with hope. She is definitely asking for a date. 

“I think that would be a wonderful break from all of this stress. If you don't mind I know the perfect place.” Jonathan was practically glowing, so terribly excited that this little date was her idea! 

The pair strolled out of the academic building idly chatting then somehow she missed a step and nearly face-planted on the ground. Luckily Jonathan’s eyes had never left her, so he was quick to the catch, carefully hoisting her up as she laughed at herself. 

“You tripped me!” Was she joking? Did she like my touch? 

“I did not! You fell down the stairs.” Jonathan protested. 

“Blaming your faux pas on an inanimate object is insulting.” There was that little quirk of her lips again, like she was challenging him to fight and tease back. 

Jonathan blushed a bit, rapidly letting go of her waist, “Just please try not to get hurt. I've gotten more scraped knees on these stairs than I care to count.” And she laughed. He was positive it was the most heavenly sound he’d ever heard. It rang out deep, throaty, and totally uninhibited, despite there being many students around. 

They made it a few blocks farther as she started telling a story about a Latin teacher she had in high school. She assured him that the teacher was insane in all of the best ways. She was so busy describing their reenactment of the roman tortoise formation that she tripped over her own foot- and right into Jonathan’s arms. Now it was his turn to laugh.

“Was that intentional or are you usually this clumsy” Or do you like being in my arms as much as I love holding you? 

“No no, it's just hard to focus on walking when you’re next to me” She didn't look down or pretend to hide her blush, she just continued to grin and look up at him. In that case should I just carry you the rest of the way?  Could I pass that off as a joke in case she was being witty?

Sadly they were nearly to the shop. Jonathan had taken her to a cozy little English tea shop nestled in what looked like an old townhouse. He greeted the old couple who ran the shop warmly. He was such a regular, and one of the few Brits in the city, that they had become quick friends. 

She quickly exchanged her greetings with the owners before taking a seat with Jonathan at a prim little table. She had only ordered a cup of lavender earl grey, but Jonathan proceeded to change it to a pot, and then added on a pot of Irish breakfast, and a three tiered tea stand. When it arrived it was filled to the brim with tea fancies, sandwiches, marmalades, and biscuits. She stared at him agape. 

“Sorry, I didnt have lunch and I'm quite hungry,” He ran his fingers through his hands again, not wanting to look like a man who stuffed his face. “Have as much as you like though! I can always order another.” She simply smiled and took a small biscuit. 

Over afternoon tea they discussed the details of her job. She would edit transcripts, mail them to the publisher (whose address in this case was Jonathan’s P.O. box), read any books that may pertain to the subject of his thesis, and any extraneous activities that he may need. Such as making tea (he could not function for long without a cup), bringing lunch, keeping him company etc. Is it too late to add sucking me off under my desk as a routine event? Those were the sort of things normal assistants did right? Pleasing their boss for a raise?

 Jonathan shocked himself with the perverted and unwelcome thought. He pushed it far down within himself gritting his teeth with disgust. He loathed the way he thought about her like that, especially when there was nothing but a flimsy table separating them. But he couldn't deny how often that situation played in his mind.

With the details agreed upon, she would start compiling and digitizing his notes the next day. The lunch ended soon after, but not before Jonathan asked for her phone number for faster contact of course. Definitely not for more personal conversations. 

~~~~~~~

Walking up to his office the next evening Jonathan heard some girls whispering rather loudly as he approached. One glared daggers at him so he paused to listen, but could only make out phrases of their conversation. 

“Professor Joestar”

 “that girl from his 11:00 class” 

“couldn't keep their hands off each other” 

“Teacher’s pet”

“Probably fucked in his office” 

It took a good deal to make Jonathan mad, but this was more than enough. He was practically vibrating with rage at the blatant disrespect of her and himself. Over things that haven't even happened yet No things that would never happen. Things that couldn't happen. 

“Excuse me girls, I couldn't help but overhear your rather loud conversation concerning me and your classmate. If you have any issues I would be happy to discuss them with me during my office hours.” He peered between the girls, all of them haughty with sneers of jealousy on their faces. “But I dont think Ive ever seen any of you there before…”

“Teachers pet, you said?” Jonathan looked into the redhead’s eyes, the girl who had made the snide remark. “Kaylee is it? Perhaps you would be ‘teacher’s pet’ if you attended office hours and didn't already have a C in my class two weeks in.” He glared at all the girls now, giggling at their friend’s misfortune. 

“I recommend putting more effort into my class than this nonsense.” 

Horribly cruel girls, he couldn't believe they had the nerve to mock not just their professor, but her too. He gave them a curt nod before walking quickly away, though not in the direction of his office. He could skip grading papers this evening. He needed her immediately. 

He took out his phone and finally dialed the number that his fingers had been itching for. “Hello?” 

“Jonathan, is everything alright? Did I forget to do something?” 

“No, everything is fine. Are you free to come over to my apartment tonight?” Oh that sounded too suggestive  But before he could think of some reason she must immediately come over, she replied. 

“I’d be happy to,” he could practically hear her grinning through the phone, “what’s the address?”  

~~~~~~~

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Part 14

“And I think you know I am most definitely at yours,” he said. “Have been from the get-go, since you first barged into my office. I must… I… I must confess,” he bowed his head and brushed his lips over the flushed skin at the peak of her breast, “that the thought of you, when I was reading your emails to me that first evening… I….” He paused, keeping his head low, but peering up at her beneath his long lashes.

“You what?” she gasped at the wanton grin that crossed his features, at the hunger that burned behind the blue of his eyes, at the clutch of his fingers on her thigh, on her back. “What did you do? Tell me.”

“I… I touched myself,” he growled. “I touched myself and imagined it was you. Just from reading your words on the computer screen, I wanted you.”

The air coursed from her lungs on a rough, shaky breath as her eyes blew wide, caught in his gaze, as her mouth went dry as a desert. She swallowed as he skin went pale and bright pink at the same time. “I think,” she rasped, “I think we should go. Now.”

Wordless, Ansgar stood. He stood and brought her to stand with him. “Yes,” he hissed. “Now.” He grabbed her roughly by the hand and strode toward the back  of the small room. A shove of his palm against the wall, and the paneling gave way with a click and a quiet schuss. A thick, heavy door, hidden from prior view, swiveled to reveal the starry midnight Stockholm sky above and the city beneath.

“What the?” Joline ogled. “How did you do that?”

Ansgar smiled down at her, his teeth bright and white in the glow of the streetlight. “I designed this place,” he said. “And I always include an escape route.”

She frowned. “Escape? But what about –”

“Our desserts will be delivered in the morning, just in time for breakfast,” he winked at her as they turned the corner from the alley on to the sidewalk. “And don’t worry about the bill. I’ve already paid. Now, come on,” he tugged at her, “I want to get you home.”

They strode quickly, hand-in-hand, his loafers slapping the concrete, her heels stabbing. The sound - in sync, echoing along with their heavy breaths off the glass of the buildings, absorbed in the wind and the hiss of traffic on the streets.

Only to be cut by a voice. A voice, accompanied by a quiet, sinister click. “Your wallet, her purse, and your watch, fuckface.”

Joline gasped. “Sgar!”

Ansgar froze, his breath caught in his chest, trapped there by the sharp poke of a gun barrel in his back. He lifted his hands, slowly, slowly…. “Okay,” he said. “Just, put that thing down, get it off me, and we’ll talk. Okay? I’m… I’m just going to turn around now, and we’ll have a little chat.”

The man took a step back.

Ansgar turned slowly in place, his hands still in the air. He shifted his eyes quickly toward Joline, signaling her to move, praying that she understood. She did. She stepped toward the shadow of the building, and stayed there.

But to no use. The man, his own fetid breaths coming heavy and full of fear, re-aimed his weapon toward her, one-handed, arm extended.

She gasped. “Ansgar!”

“Ssh,” Ansgar brought his finger to his lips, his hand still spread open. “Quiet, now. Stay still.”

The man lifted his stubbled chin at Ansgar. “Put your wallet and all your shit on the ground. Tell the bitch to gimme all her jewelry, and them shoes too.”

“Take it easy,” Ansgar cooed. “Take it easy.” One hand still held aloft, he reached toward his trouser pocket. “My wallet’s in here,” he pointed. “Right here.”

“Ansgar –”

“Ssh, I said.” he clipped. “It’s fine. It’s all fine. It’s all good. I’m simply going to give the man what he needs, and he is going to go away, isn’t that right, my good friend?”

“Gimme your money!” the man barked, waving the gun. His hand started to shake, his bony arm trembled. His eyes blew wide in his increasing agitation, his head swiveling left and right as fear, as impatience washed over him. “Do it fucking now or I blow your brains out!”

And there it was. Just like downtown. The moment Ansgar was waiting for. It was as if in slow motion, the movement of the gun in a shaky arc away from Joline, toward him; and in that limbo, in that sweep through the aimless no-mans land, Ansgar struck.

And he struck with precision, his movements sharp, purposeful and, above all, swift.

Turn the body. Grab the wrist. Twist up. Up. Up. Down. Down. Christ, he reeks! Struggle. Rrrrip. Damn it. My suit’s torn. Fucker. Roar. Wrist lock. Yes. Break the fingers. Like that. Just like this. Snap!

Gasp. Ah! Ah!

More. More. More! A vicious kick – heel to the knee. Watch him bend. Feel the give. Feel the pop! Mmmmmm. Yes. Relish in the screams. Like music, oh, so beautiful.

Elbow to the face. The cartilage crack! The blood flows warm oh so warm. Oh oh, that’s good! Backfist to the ribs. Left hook to the jaw. Now, take him down. A two-knuckled rabbit punch to the throat. Steal the breath.

Choke. Gasp. Gag. Wheeze.

And it was done. The man collapsed in a heap on the ground. He wailed, balled up, knees to chest like a wounded animal. Ansgar stood above him, panting, snarling, growling - the gun, the weight of it warm and happy and welcome in his hand – the safety off, the barrel cocked, and his finger clutched expertly upon the trigger.

“Ansgar –” Joline’s voice was distant in his ear. Far away. In his mind, maybe. Joline… Joline…. he could have hurt Joline, he could have….

“Bastard!” Ansgar roared at the quivering hunk at his feet. He bent at the waist and bellowed. “Don’t you know who I am? Who the fuck do you think you are!?”

The man rolled onto his back, and looked up, pleadingly at Ansgar. “Wait!” Blood poured from his nose, painting his filthy, pained and fear-laden, snot and tear streaked face with red smears. He held his hands aloft, shaking violently, two fingers bent at an unnatural angle. “Don’t… don’t shoot. I’m… please don’t shoot me, man. Don’t do it.”

Ansgar took a step closer and bent down, the gun held casually across his knee. “You fucked with the wrong man,” he gnarled, but before he spoke again, before he could issue another threat or make another move, he felt gentle hands on his shoulders.

“Ansgar, please.”  

He tensed. Her voice. He heard her voice, close, so close, and his mind shook, checking his body before he turned on her, before the lion threatened to rise again and unleash hell upon the wrong person.

“Leave him be,” she said, patting Ansgar’s arm. She came around to his side and lowered herself, holding out her hand. “Give the gun to me,” she said. “Give it to me. Leave him here. Take me home.”

Ansgar huffed and swallowed, coming back to himself. The fight, the instinct to rip and tear and hit and break washed off of him with her words. The adrenaline dialed back, dissipating, evaporating. He looked at her, and his face fell, anguished. “Jesus, Joline,” he dropped the gun into her hand and lurched forward, gathering her into his arms, taking her with him as he stood. He brushed his hands over her hair, her face, down her body. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Tell me you’re okay.”

Joline watched in horror, fearing for her own life, then for Ansgar’s, and finally for the life of their assailant looking for a quick payday. The roles quickly reversed and Joline learned firsthand how the man she’d just met claimed a lion as a self-portrait. He was ferocious and powerful and agile, his movements so quick and well-landed that she felt her reactions were four beats behind him.

She hated violence, never saw the sense in it or the logic behind it. The bleeding coward huddled on the cement only used it as a scare tactic; that was clear enough. But he folded like a gingerbread house under the threat of an expertly equipped opponent in Ansgar.

She heard the sickening crush of the asshole’s fingers, then felt it in the sinking nausea all the way to her feet, finally then saw the evidence in the way he favored that hand. Joline couldn’t ignore the growing instinct within her to help the man in need, despite his adversarial position. The diplomat that she inhabited at the opera house wanted to diffuse and neutralize the situation before catastrophe struck.

She took a step forward on her right foot a split second before the crumble of nasal cartilage against face jolted and jostled her. She jerked awkwardly on her ankle, stepped at a weird and unnatural angle, effectively cracking the heel of her borrowed Louboutin. She stumbled to the ground, but recovered herself quickly with an inconsequential scrape on the heel of her hand.

Ansgar bested the coward, no contest. He gained control of the gun then, and threatened the nobody with it. The barely contained and incredulous arrogant rage she saw in her date scared her. For a split second she wondered if he even knew she was there anymore. Manager mode kicked in before she could dwell on it for any amount of time. As she handled the hotheaded Lionel in the set department when he screamed his voice raw about a director changing his vision, Joline pitched her voice low, pleadingly, “Ansgar, please.”

The force of his vehement fury became the magnitude for his concern for her. His hands on her hair were confident tenderness, fierce loyalty and the change in him threw her. She couldn’t look away, as if the switch in his demeanor would write an explanation on his face in plain black and white print.

“I-I’m fine, Sgar. Come away with me.” She spoke evenly not to upset the balance of his temper.

He grasped her hands in his and squeezed. The pressure caused her to wince when her scraped palm tinged in discomfort. “You are hurt,” the irritated beast growled, unrolling her palm to inspect the damage. He snarled at the wounded animal, left but not forgotten where he dropped.

Joline raised her abused hand to the straightedge of Ansgar’s cheekbone, encouraging him away from the blubbering mess of a man on the ground. “Ansgar, look at me. You’ve a scratch, a scratch on your face… just here.” She traced underneath the small slash of raised skin, raw from the scuffle. It didn’t bleed, just hollered to make itself known.

“That doesn’t matter,” his face still turned toward the unexpected victim. “He hurt you.”

She tried again to get him to focus on her instead of the fight, “Sgar, please… I fell. He didn’t hurt me. I caught myself up trying to break my fall.” She softened to mimic her voice in the restaurant, “Now come away with me. Take me to yours.”

The first few steps away were hesitant and tense, Ansgar intent on teaching the mugger a lesson. Joline attempted to temper his bad mood. The broken heel underlined the silence between them, as she didn’t want to draw attention to the scene.

“FUCK!!!!!” No sooner than the elevator dinged to a close behind them, Ansgar threw a lamp from the foyer across the vast width of his open concept flat. The thing shattered against the oblong white quartz kitchen island. It sailed from his hand in a straight shot, an aggravated growl accompanied it. The act of aggression only made him wince and crumble in pain from over-exerting his bruised ribs.

Joline dropped her clutch on a low end table with a matching lamp on it, toed off the borrowed shoes and went to him. “Hey, hey, hey… let it go, Sgar.” She touched his arm to recall him back to their night. “Very little damage, very little harm…” She clutched the air as he stalked away from her. “An annoyance is all it was.”

She reached for him to situate him onto one of the sectionals in the room overlooking a wall of windows showing a panoramic view of the city of Stockholm. The lights glittered and sparkled and moved to become its own living, breathing and beating epicenter. Her tiny hands on his broad, broad and stressed shoulders didn’t stop him. “The little cretin is nothing to be angry about, Sgar.” She recognized her own manager voice modulating and appealing in its even and soothing resonance.

The savage part of Ansgar, his baser, more animal slice of him couldn’t let go of the fight, needing to maul the threat and protect what was his. “I’m not stupid or unobservant, Joline,” he spat, pacing along the wall of windows.

“I never—“

“You didn’t tell me about the fucking shoes, Joline!!” He pointed to the Louboutins that she’d taken off as subtly as possible.

She’d worked with egos, arrogant and assertive people for most of her career, but maybe not one as ferocious as Ansgar, and never in a personal capacity. She was almost sure that he wouldn’t hurt her on purpose, but he was capable of it. Calmly, she approached him, “Tonight wasn’t about the shoes, the gun, or a common criminal. Don’t let the last twenty minutes ruin all that happened before that.”

He continued to stomp from one end of the room to the other through the largest lounge she’d ever seen, maybe the size of the O2 arena in London. He stalked from the pristine kitchen island to the cover of the fireplace that dominated the whole of the opposite wall, the nightlife of Stockholm herself as his backdrop. The lines and the angles of the room were stark, precise and showed no imperfection, order, uniform and clean. Ansgar didn’t have time for disruption, in his home or out of the street.

Joline tiptoed over to him, blocking another pass of the couch, and took his hands. “Don’t let this upset you, Sgar. The little brat isn’t worth a second thought, the shoes even less.”

“He could’ve hurt you, Joline!! Fuck! The brat motherfucker turned a gun on you!” His voice boomed through the massive room to the grand piano in the opposite corner, close to the front door.

“A misguided youth, Sgar… seeking money he didn’t earn,” her voice low and calm, to sooth. “Truly. Nothing happened.” She smoothed her hands from his shoulders down his chest after placing his hands on her waist. As her fingers ascended again, she insinuated them under the lapels to push the ruined fabric off his oh so deliciously wide shoulders. “He didn’t win.”

Ansgar held fast to his anger. “Why didn’t you tell me about the damn shoes?”

Joline shimmied the arms of his suit down the length of his arms and chucked the useless garment aside. “They’re not important, only this.” She pressed her body against his, working to swing his focus. Her fingers started at the top button of his white dress shirt, unlooping them one by one.

“You, you should have told me.”

Joline fluttered her lashes up at him as her fingers continued their task. “Okay, Ansgar, why? What would’ve you gained from knowing that?”

He suddenly couldn’t answer, he’d forgotten why her non-disclosure angered him so much when her hands touched his chest. Up and over his shoulders, she slowly undressed him, tossing aside any reminder of the events after the restaurant.

Joline took a step back from him long enough to unzip her dress and let it fall to the floor at her feet. She stood before him, naked and stealing the last of the fight in him. “You don’t want to argue with me.” She took up his hands and placed each on one of her breasts, one and then the other. “These hands don’t want to fight. I’ve seen that. Show me that your hands know… how not to fight.”