#I know this can be better but I got head empty syndrome

[229zmi]

HEAD OVER HEELS

PAIRING: Kuroo Tetsurō/Reader

CONTENT: confessions, friends to lovers

WORD COUNT: 2.0k

“We need to talk.”

“Holy shit,” are the first words that escape your mouth moments after you open the door and step a singular foot into the hallway.

Before the person in front of you even has the chance to react to your very kind and courteous reaction, you proceed to slowly slide your foot back inside the classroom you were just about to exit, the noise of your sneakers scraping over the metal frame piercing the silence. Kuroo stifles a laugh behind his hand, smoothly playing it off as a cough.

Right as you’re about to shut the door, he swiftly sticks a foot in the doorway and then side shuffles his way in like a crab, all while combatting your feeble attempts to squash him with the door. Once you realise this guy isn’t going anywhere without a word with you, you give up with an aggravated sigh and step aside, giving him the Kubrick stare as he strolls past you.

You’re still glaring at him when he takes a seat on top of one of the desks, using the chair as a foot rest.

The table’s long enough that the two of you could comfortably sit side-by-side on it. He gestures to the empty space beside him, yet you don’t budge an inch from your spot. Instead, you opt to exhibit main character syndrome by crossing your arms and leaning against the wall at an uncomfortable angle. Seconds later, though, you shift your position, awkwardly shuffling to more comfortable pose.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Kuroo says in a stiff manner that leads you to believe he’s got a pre-written speech that he skimmed over only once before shoving it in his pockets. He glances around the room, everywhere but you. Fidgets with his watch, twisting it around and around his wrist. Clears his throat, before speaking up again when it becomes obvious you have nothing to say in response. “Actually— it’s been almost a month since we last talked. Now if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were avoiding me.”

He raises an eyebrow as if to silently question you.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you announce haughtily. You pretend to think long and hard by simultaneously placing a finger on your chin and averting your gaze to one of the cobwebbed corners of the ceiling as you rack your brain for any memory of a conversation with him over these past few weeks. Come to think of it, he’s right, as much as you’d rather not admit that right now. The number of words exchanged between you and Kuroo has been… low, as of lately.

But not zero.

You snap your fingers and smile at your newfound eureka moment. “We talked during our physics lab last Tuesday.”

All he gives you is a placid stare because he’s not really believing what you’re saying right now. Slowly, he responds, “I asked if I could borrow a pencil from you and you said no.”

“‘Cause I didn’t have an extra one.” Lies. Kuroo knows of your susceptibility to ordering cute stationery from sketchy websites online and bringing all of them with you everywhere you go. Nonetheless, he holds back on calling out your fib. “It’s still talking anyway, so I don’t really see the problem,” you say.

“…Okay, then I rescind my sentence. It’s been almost a month since we’ve last had an actual conversation,” he corrects himself, his tone hinting at the tiniest bit of spite. “My point still stands. You haven’t been answering any of my calls or texts. All of a sudden, you go out of your way to sit on the opposite side of the classroom instead of your usual seat next to me. And every time I see you around on campus, you turn around and speed-walk in the other direction before I can even wave hi to you. It’s like watching on you move at 2x speed every time.”

He holds up two fingers and then wriggles them upside down in a way that’s supposed to mimic your alleged speed-walking. Clearly unimpressed, your upper lip curls into a scowl.

“Sounds a lot to me like avoidance, unless you’re purposely playing hard-to-get all of a sudden.”

“Those are some bold allegations.“

“Sure. Maybe they are.” He doesn’t bother arguing with you on that, which you believe is out of the ordinary, and it leaves an unsettling feeling in your gut. In all the years you’ve known him, you can’t remember the last time he agreed with you just like that, no debate or annoying remarks or anything, because it’s always been like this: you say literally anything with no evidence or explanation, and he plays pretend as someone having PhD in whatever it is that you’re talking about.

Maybe, you think dejectedly, you really did ruin your years-long friendship that one fateful day, the day you accidentally had one too many drinks and ended up spewing into the air a mix of vomit, nonsensical philosophies, and a confession you didn’t mean to ever let loose from the sanctuary of your heart. Maybe, things are changing, for the worse; and maybe, a rejection is going to come hurtling at your face soon, sometime in next couple minutes— that is, if you make it through the rest of this conversation without actually exploding internally. Either that, or power-walking away like a coward, the way you’ve been doing for the past month.

Snapping out of your thoughts, you watch as Kuroo leans back, bracing his hand against the surface of the table. You think this is the moment; this is when he’ll say something along the vague lines of the two of you just staying friends and leave it at that, and for the weeks that follow afterward, you’ll mull around in your room, sulking over your very first heartbreak until the motivation hits and you get the coming-of-age movie glow-up you’ve always dreamed of.

However, the next thing you hear out of him is far worse than anything you could imagine, making the warmth in your cheeks flare up the second his words register to you — or rather, your words.

“But maybe they’re not as bold as you the day right before you started avoiding me, when you said, and I quote, ‘Tetsurō,’” he pitches his voice to sound more like yours, though the impression is done exaggeratedly, “‘I think I’m falling in love with you.’”

???? Why did he do that.

The nerve of this man. You want to scream. Punch the wall. Kick him in the face. Because if the embarrassment that crushed you like a hydraulic press the morning after your confession was enough to almost kill you, this just brought you straight to your grave without warning, burying you six feet under. You start mentally counting all his eyebrow hairs, partly because you can’t stand to see that heinously satisfied look in his eyes right now, but also because you hope your sudden focus on the forehead region of his face will at least dwindle his confidence by a little bit.

(Though, perhaps the less vengeful part of you is glad to see the familiar smug Kuroo you know so well, as opposed to the prior Kuroo who looked like he hadn’t taken a shit in several weeks.)

“You really suck,” you drawl, finally shifting your attention away from his eyebrows only to send him a glare. “Do you think my feelings are a joke?”

His lips morph into a frown. “Hey, no. I wasn’t—“ He shakes his head, then tries to reassure you, “I don’t think your feelings are a joke, and I’m sorry I made it seem that way. I brought it up only because I wasn’t sure whether you remembered or not and I was wondering if you really meant it.”

You don’t know what to say to that.

“At first, I wasn’t going to talk about it with you, especially if you weren’t going to bring it up first, but then you started avoiding me and… [Y/n], I miss you a lot. I miss waking up to your texts and pictures of the ugly squirrels outside your window.” (You mutter something under your breath about how they aren’t that ugly.) “I miss sitting next to you and watching you switch between twenty different pens and highlighters during class.” (You bet he misses switching the caps of your highlighters, too, whenever you’re not looking.) “And I hate acting like we’re strangers whenever I see you on campus because, as funny as it is, it hurts a lot right here.”

He places a hand over his heart with a wounded expression. Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you simply let out a dejected sigh.

“I.. I’ve missed you too,” you admit reluctantly. You twiddle your fingers and avert your eyes, wallowing in the awkward silence that ensues after. Kuroo seems to be thinking, centring his analytical gaze onto you as if trying to read your thoughts.

“Did you mean it? What you said at that party last month?”

Wow! Suddenly, that clock on the wall looks super interesting. “You know, my next class starts in a few minutes, I should really get going. See you—“

“I know your schedule,” he cuts in, his tone carrying a certain degree of slyness to it. “You don’t have class until four.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Weirdo.”

“Liar,” he retorts with a sickly sweet smile. For the second time in this conversation, you get the violent urge to scream, punch the wall, and kiss— sorry, kick him in the face all at once.

There’s another silence that follows and that you believe is the worst one you’ve sat through in a while, even worse than the silence you experienced in your first year after mispronouncing the word ‘organism’ during a presentation. You chew the inside of your cheek, feeling your heart thump wildly against your chest. He waits expectantly.

He really isn’t going to let this go.

“I did mean it,” you say eventually. Eugh, yuck! Even just admitting that already makes you want to coil into yourself. “You make me so sick to my stomach with your shitty grin and your shitty charm and your shitty hair, and sometimes I wonder what heinous crime or sin I committed in a past life to deserve this feeling because it never goes away, only gets worse the more we hang out and—“

“Woah, woah, woah. Hold on.” There’s a look of incredulity on his face, almost offended.

“…What?” you say.

“You called my hair shitty.” Again, you fight back the urge to roll your eyes, instead settling for a less-than-impressed expression. “I can’t believe you’d lie and say something like that. It’s practically a fine art, getting it to look like this, you know.”

“I’m sure it is.” You straighten your back and abruptly push yourself off the wall before ungracefully shuffling to the side, towards the door. “Well. We talked. You got your answer. Soooo, I am departing. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” He stands up and chases after you, nearly colliding with your back when you suddenly stop and turn around. There appears to be an unspoken agreement as soon as the both of you realise the amount of space in between your faces: mere inches. Neither of you seem willing to back away. “Before you go, I have something else to tell you.”

“Make it quick.”

A light laugh from him brushes against your nose. You try not to think about it. “You’re in that much of a hurry to get away from me already?”

Your face feels unbearably warm. “Shut up.”

“How sweet of you,” he coos, reaching up to pinch your cheek affectionately. Despite your irritated expression, you make no effort to swat his hand away.

He then leans in close, a debonair grin dancing at the corners of his mouth as his lips ghost over the shell of your ear. However, you note that in your peripheral vision, his ears are tinted red and in spite of his confident, teasing front, he still sounds the tiniest bit abashed as he whispers, “I think I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”

[darkstar225]

@woso-fan13 Updated Masterlist

Updated: 04 January 2024

I have no clue why I did this, I just love this writer sm and wish I could check everything in one place since I keep re-reading the fics lol

PS: If the writer wants me to delete the post and send it to you so you'll post it, feel free to message me! I just love the fics and felt like doing this :D

It didn't fit everything so check out @woso-fan13 for the other masterlist with the rest S2

Sicktember 2023

Number 1: Hopelessly Bad at Self-Care

Number 2: Quest For A Cure

Number 3: “What Happened To Your Phenomenal Immune System, Huh?”

Number 4: Hiding an Illness

Number 5: Preventative Measures (Not Taken)

Number 6: Sick & Injured

Number 7: “You’re A Jerk When You’re Sick”

Number 8: Persistent Fever

Number 9: White Coat Syndrome

Number 10: “The Only Place We’re Going Is To The Pharmacy”

Number 11: Beginner’s Guide To Faking Sick

Number 12: Home Remedy/Old Wives Tale

Number 13: Anxious Stomach

Number 14: “I shouldn’t be worried about you, but for some reason I am.”

Number 15: Sick in an Inconvenient Place

Number 16: Consulting the Internet/Web MD

Number 17: Magical Remedy/ Healing Potion

Number 18: “Wear Your Coat, You’ll Catch a Cold”

Number 19: Curled Up With a Pet

Number 20: Cramping Pain

Number 21: “But if you stay, you’ll get sick too.”

Number 22: Terms of Endearment/Nicknames

Number 23: Coughing Fit

Number 24: “Did you just sneeze?”

Number 25: Confused/Disoriented

Number 26: Forehead Kisses

Number 27: Uncooperative Patient

Number 28: “I should have stayed home”

Number 29: Side Effects/Adverse Reaction

Number 30: Patient 0

WHUMPTOBER 2023

Number 1: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.”

Number 2: “I’ll call out your name, but you won’t call back.”

Number 3: “Like crying out in empty rooms; with no-one there except the moon.”

Number 4: “I see the danger, It’s written there in your eyes.”

Number 5: “You better pray I don’t get up this time around.”

Number 6: “Do or die, you’ll never make me; Because the world will never take my heart.”

Number 7: “I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.”

Number 8: “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier.”

Number 9: “Learning everything ain’t what it seems, that’s the thing about these days.”

Number 10: “Can’t you see that you’re lost without me?”

Number 11: “All the lights going dark and my hope’s destroyed.”

Number 12: “I haven’t slept in days but who’s counting?”

Number 13: “It comes and goes like the strength in your bones.”

Number 14: “Feed me poison, fill me ‘till I drown.”

Number 15: “I don’t need you to help me, I can handle things myself.”

Number 16: “Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

Number 17: “You’re the lump in my throat and the knot in my chest.”

Number 18: “I tend to deflect when I’m feeling threatened.”

Number 19: “I’ll take one final step, all you have to do is make me.”

Number 20: “People don’t change people, time does.”

Number 21: “See the chains around my feet.”

Number 22: “They never saw us coming, ‘til they hit the floor.

Number 23: “It’s gonna get me by the end of the night.”

Number 24: “I’ve got a head full of chemicals; mouth full of ridicule.”

Number 25: “You’re not delivering a perfect body to the grave.”

Number 26: “Sometimes I get so tired; I don’t even know myself.”

Number 27: “You drew stars around my scars; But now I’m bleeding.”

Number 28: “We might not make it to the morning; so go on and tell me now.”

Number 29: “I only sink deeper the deeper I think.”

Number 30: “It’s okay, just to say, ‘I’m not okay’.”

Number 31: “I thought that I was getting better.”

Comfortember 2023

Safe

Sweater Weather

Leaves Changing

Warmth

Treehouse

Notes

Sick/Illness

Grief/Mourning

Aftermath

Sadness

Comfort Show/Movie

Dreams

Baking

Late Night Phone Calls

Plushies

Coffee/Tea Break

Heirloom

Cuddles

Loved Ones

Shopping

Relapse

Cry

Anxiety

Blankets

Rain

Friends

Soup

Flashbacks

Sleepover

The New Normal

[missadangel]

Little Bird in a Cage (Javier Peña x Reader)

Part 4: Stockholm Syndrome

gifs by perotovar - din-jarring

---------------------------- All episodes here ------------------------

The first rays of morning light entered Javi's apartment through the kitchen. You woke up and checked at the side of the bed with the back of your hand, it was empty, he still didn’t come back. You wanted to close your eyes again and go back to sleep, but you heard some noises coming from the kitchen and you quickly sit in the bed to check.

"Oh sorry, I made too much noise, didn't I?"

"Daniel?"

You wondered when he had arrived, why he was here, so you got out of bed, stepped towards him.

"I was making breakfast, are you hungry? What would you like to eat?"

You were starving but ignored at the moment.

"Where's Javi? Why are you here?"

"Mr. Peña, well, he's in operation," he explained as he putting pancakes -which looking perfect- on a plate. You felt your stomach growl with the smell of them.

"Operation?”

"Chepe confessed Miguel’s most possible hideout, same location as Jorge said us before.”

“Why aren't you with him?"

“I'm supposed to be here to look after you. He assigned me for this. "

"Ah, just like old times, huh?" rolling your eyes.

"Yes, that's right," his hand trembled for a moment as he spreading jam on the pancakes.

"Is everything all right, is he okay?"

"Yeah, yeah he’s the leader of the operation so he wanted me to stay here-"

"But there are already two policemen outside, you are here because of something else?"

Daniel look away for a moment then keep spreading jam on pancakes.

“Is it Jorge? His family is okay?”

“Yes, they fled to Bogota yesterday, they’re safe.”

You were nearly relieved but still feeling anxious.

Daniel was pouring coffee into your mug.

“Any news from my father?”

He stopped, tried to smile but he was not good at lying at all.

"What? Come on, tell me, please."

He sat in the chair next to you, his face looked tense.

"Mr. Peña is gonna kill me.”

“Daniel please, say it,” you grabbed his arm, begging.

“Miguel's men, yesterday, well, they attacked to your house."

"What??? Jesus, is my dad okay?"

You couldn’t breathe for a moment.

"Yes, yes, please don't worry, they can't do anything to your father because of his position, so-"

"So, they want to capture me again," you completed his sentence with trembling voice.

"We don’t know that, and they can’t, don't worry, this will be over today, it's only a matter of time before the good news comes. We have the exact location of Miguel, Mr. Peña and the others are now running a successful operation. This time we will get him."

After all the time you had spent with Miguel, you know how dangerous he could be, his killer gaze was still haunting you sometimes.

A wave of anxiety washed over you.

"I hope they get him, let this nightmare end, God," you moaned.

You buried your head with your hands.

"Please eat something, we can't do anything but wait."

------

Minutes and hours went by, every minute you get more and more impatient, desperate for some good news.

But luckily this time you have Daniel with you, much better than being alone.

Nearly three hours later that felt like an eternity, Daniel's phone finally rang and he immediately picked up. Anxiety caused your throat gets dry.

Please God, don't let anything happen to him.

You put your hands together like you were praying. When you saw Daniel's smile, you felt a huge relief.

"Yes, sir, I'll put her on the phone."

When he handed you the phone, you grabbed it immediately, heart is pounding so fast.

"Javi?" Your voice was shaking like you were about to cry.

"It's over, baby, you can fly free little bird."

"Oh my God, really Javi? Did you get him?"

Javi looked at the helicopter just behind him, ready to take Miguel to the prison. "That’s right, I fuckin got him."

"That's great, Javi, I knew you'd get him."

He smiled over the phone, "I'll be home soon, I have to go now. I-"

He stopped for a moment. He almost said he loves you, but he couldn’t. He frowned, looked like confused and has no idea why.

After he hang up, you kept holding the phone with your hands for a while, also were expecting him to say okay, I love you, goodbye, but he didn't.

Cruel man.

Maybe it was because he was too busy and tired. So you let those thoughts go.

----

About an hour later there was a loud knock on the apartment door, it sounded more like banging, repeatedly.

What now?

Daniel grabbed his gun and made a gesture with his hand for you to step back. You obeying him while your heart started beating fast again, getting frightened. Daniel looked through the hole in the door, frowning, confused.

"Open the door now!"

It was definitely an order, the voice was familiar to you, he used to scold you in that tone when you annoyed him.

"Dad?"

Daniel immediately lowered his gun and opened the door. Your father rushed in and without looking at Daniel, he came near you.

"Y/N, hurry up and pack your things up, we're leaving, now."

"Dad, what in God's name-?"

"Haven't you seen the news? They caught Miguel too, which means you're done here, you're safe. You need to go home now, How can I let you stay here, in his apartment?"

He was very angry, almost growling when he said ‘his’. But you suddenly got furious.

"I'm sick of everyone dragging me somewhere, I'm not going anywhere!" crossing your arm with anger.

"Don’t disobey me, I'm not in the mood, don't even try."

"Father," this time you sounded like you were begging.

"Please at least let me thank him before I go."

"For what? What are you talking about, didn't he kidnap you the first time? This all happened because of him."

Your father's men spreading around, and then Dolores came in too giving you quick look then picking up your things and taking them out quickly. Daniel was watching emotionless, didn’t know what to do.

"Dad, I," you said desperately.

How could you say you have feelings for him. Even if you tell him, he would never understand you and he would get even more angry. But it was so obvious you didn't want to go.

He realized that too, that’s why there was no way he’s leaving you here.

When they gathered your belongings he grabbed you by the arm, dragging you out, yes, just like the other bad guys.

But in the end, he was your father, what could you do?

When you are getting into the car, you felt like you were being kidnapped again, worse, there was no one to come to your rescue.

-

Two weeks had passed, two fucking weeks, and you haven't received any phone call from Javi.

Your father was in the house a lot more after what happened last time, he had barbed wire fences put up for security. Worse, he was keeping an eye on you all the time. You could only relax when you were at university

One day you told your father that you wanted to go to college by yourself. It was annoying his men accompany you all the time.

At first he got angry and said no, but eventually he had to agree. You should have thanked your psychologist for that.

Yeah, a psychologist, another pain in the ass. Your father thought the trauma was the reason for your change of behavior.

According to the psychologist you weren’t suffering the pangs of love, it was Stockholm Syndrome.

Bitch thinks she knows-it-all.

You knew it wasn't, your feelings were real. But again, what's the use? Your feelings only caused you massive pain while Javi acted as if nothing happened.

You were missing him very, very badly and hate him really.

One day you were walking out of your room and going downstairs, then stopped immediately. You heard Javi's voice in your ear, you thought you were hallucinating or something. Then you realized the TV was open, go for downstairs.

Damn it was coming from the TV.

"Yes, I'm telling you that the entire Cali cartel has now been completely dismantled, and we will do everything in our power to make sure that whoever aided and abetted them gets what they deserve through the legal process."

You missed his voice so much that it sounded like he was with you, even on TV. At the same time you got furious so you grabbed a cushion from the couch and threw at the TV. "Asshole!"

The TV shooked and fell backwards, then turned off.

You couldn't stop crying out of anger.

"Dios Mio, señorita Y/N," Dolores rushed in. "Did the TV do something bad to you?" She giggled and picked up the TV and put it back.

"Luckily it's not broken," she said later, look like worried but not because of tv.

"Don't you dare to open it!" you shouted and got out of there, directly to the garden.

Again your heart is getting hurt, because you see him again and hear his voice, after a long time. As far as you could see, he seemed fine, unlike you, he didn't look like he was in pain at all.

As if everything you've been through just a stupid dream you had. But it wasn't. You weren't crazy enough to know that.

But why? Were your feelings one-sided? The way he looked at you, the way he spoke, it was obvious that he cared about you, so why he is holding back his feelings?

For two weeks these questions have been torturing you in your head, and you have been struggling to find a way out.

His absence was consuming you, you were getting more and more desperate to see him again. Yet you weren't the kind of girl to grovel at a man's feet either.

In the following days you decided to started painting to run from all these thoughts which was haunting you. You already missed your brush, your paints, scribbling something on paper, coloring it. A few days later your room was full of paintings already and you decided to organize a new exhibition. This could manage to distract you a little from your thoughts.

At least in the daytime.

Then one night, your best friend, -well you don’t have many friends, only two or three- invites you to an opening of a new nightclub. You thought it would be good to hang out with other people. It had been a long time since you go out to have fun.

You  a black-ruffle-strappy mini dress from your wardrobe for that night, even though you didn't care much for it you shouldn’t go there with grocery shopping outfit. You did your hair as usual, put some powder on your face and nude lipstick on your lips. You were probably going to sulk and most probably pretend to having fun all night, but you still wanted to look stylish.

The club was looking great and modern, people were having fun and dancing like crazy, unlike them, you could barely smile, you were far from having fun.

Contrary to you, your friend Caroline was overdressed and her makeup was just look like, well like a cheap hooker. You realized why after two men joined you while you drinking. Of course she has invited the other boy for you. Well, he was nice but far from attractive, at least you thought so.

It wasn't his fault that he met you at the wrong time. 

Luckily he wasn't cocky, he was polite. So he understood when you preferred to sit while they were dancing.

You could become surprisingly good observer when you go to these kinds of entertainment venues to sulk and just look around, having no intention to dance or have fun. You could see things you don't want to see, even you could encounter someone you never expected to see.

And there you were sitting there, observing around, realizing a group of strange looking men were walking around with small packages in their hands, taking money from people in exchange.

"Narcos," you murmured.

So in a place like Colombia this kind of thing was very common. It was even legal, nobody would put you in jail for using drugs.

But that wasn't the point, strange thing about those guys was that you have seen them before and suddenly shuddered when you remembered where and how.

Narcos, drugs, Cali Cartel, Miguel.

That's where you last saw them, at least two of them, back at Miguel's mansion. First thing came to your mind is to hide, you couldn't let them see you, your heart was beating with fear again after so long.

Who needs it?

You covered your face with one hand, praying that they would go away. Unfortunately thing have gotten worse, David, Miguel's fucking son, was there too.

You recognized him immediately, as a hostage in Miguel's mansion, you have seen him once or twice from a distance. He wasn’t ordinary enough to be mistaken with anyone else. You're not sure if he'd recognize you, but you couldn’t take any chance.

Fuck my luck.

Then all of a sudden, for some reason, they started running in a hurry, and right after that couple of policemen breaking through the crowd and bursting inside, and then you were startled by a gunshot. Everyone started running out screaming. You instinctively lowered your head but your heart was pounding not with fear but excitement.

Cops, narcotics, could it be?

"DEA! Everybody out!"

"Come on, everybody out! Out!"

"Move!"

You didn't obey that order, you stood up while everyone else ran out, your eyes were looking for him, you felt he was there. You were almost sure.

And there he was, with all his appeal, coming right behind Chris and Daniel.

He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, while he was holding the gun down, his brown eyes searching for the ones who just ran away.

While everyone running to get out of there immediately by pushing each other in chaos, you just looked at him, standing, ignoring people who pushing and barging you involuntarily. Even if you die at that moment, the last thing you needed to see is him. No one else.

Just him.

You just realized how much you missed his warm brown eyes, his lips, his hair, his whole face, it was stupid to think you can forget him one day.

No that was impossible.

When his eyes finally met yours, he shocked and stood like a statue. Bu then he frowned and came towards you grabbing your arm angrily, pulled you away from the crowd.

"Y/N, what the fuck are you doing here?" there was concern and confusion in his voice. Which was perfect.

You were about to cry so you couldn’t even move your lips to say anything.

Daniel and Chris returned with the criminals they just captured and both of them looking at you surprisingly.

"Sir, we're taking them to the station," Chris informed him. “They, had to shoot David,” he added.

“Good,” said Javi his voice was cold as ice, gave a quick look at them but immediately turned his gaze back to you.

"Why don't you guys stay and keep investigating here for a while," said Daniel while dragging other criminal outside also chuckling.

Javi’s eyes never leaving yours, made gesture with his hand to them to leave then tucked his gun back into his pants.

He did his usual thing, put his hands on his waist. He usually does that it before asking questions or confused, how could you forget?

"Among all the bars, pubs and clubs in the city, how could you ended up here, especially tonight?"

The concern in his voice brought you back to life, back to reality.

"Just my luck, I guess," you said almost murmuring.

Javi looked around, everyone have left already including bartenders. Just two of you were there.

"Let's get a free drink," making gesture with his head, "I need to tell you something."

To drink with him, you walked where he gestured.

Javi poured you a drink like a bartender and then poured one for himself. He came over and clinked his glass with yours.

"I didn't know Miguel’s son was out," you said.

"Yeah, we've been looking for him for days, this is the last one, I'm done here."

The crack in his voice made you worried.

"What do you mean?"

He lowered his eyes, playing with his glass, shaking slowly, then he drank all of it.

"I'm going back to Bogotá, to my previous unit."

You didn't know what to say, took a sip from your drink.

"Is this why you were avoiding me for days," you said later.

Without looking at you he sighed deeply.

"Look, Y/N, what happened between us is not what you think it is, nor it should be. I mean, if I haven't kidnapped you in the first place, we’d probably never met."

“Don’t even try to say any shit about Stockholm Syndrome!”

You were trying to stop the tears from flowing, every word he said was like a dagger to your heart.

He turned his head towards you.

“A what?” he looked confused. “No, I mean... Well, It can happen to anyone, it's a natural thing between men and women.”

"What do you mean?" you frowned. Feeling super annoyed.

"Sexual attraction, that’s what I meant.”

You felt your blood pressure rise with anger.

How could he say that?

"What, so it can't be love? That's what you're afraid of? Falling in love? Every emotion, every feelings is sexual attraction to you?"

"It's better to think of it that way."

“Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself more than me.”

You stood up angrily from the stool and stepped on the floor. You turned your back, wanted to leave before cry loudly. You felt he was about to come after you too, suddenly something came to your mind.

All-or-none.

You turned to him.

"Okay, if you think so, there's a way to find out."

Javi raised his eyebrows and looked at you, listening curiously.

"We'll go back to the beginning, where we first met as strangers in that bar, that night. We will end that night, like a one-night stand."

His eyes flashed for a moment, but then he narrowed his eyes.

“What are you trying to-”

“I want to be sure, then I can let go.”

He licked his lips while he was thinking about it.

You bent over him, almost close enough to kiss him, making him swallowing hard.

"That's the only way I can be sure, what do you say? Deal?" you put one hand on his leg, other one touching his neck.

You loved making him nervous, smirked and stepped back, waiting for his answer.

Javi finished his drink quickly and stood up, came closer. His eyes locked on yours, also challenging.

"Deal, baby."

Game is on.

----

---------------------------- All episodes here ------------------------

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE CHARACTER SONG Vol.7 Seiron Syndrome by Mukami Yuma Mini Drama ”A Sweet Lesson”

Original title: 甘美な教え

Source: Diabolik Lovers CHARACTER SONG Vol. 7 Mini Drama

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Tatsuhisa Suzuki

Translator’s note: As a teacher who also taught at middle school for one year, I totally sympathize with the MC in having to try and teach someone who clearly does not care about learning at all lol. Although I guess in Yuma’s case, it’s a little more justified since these guys have been alive for a long time and they can perfectly survive without getting their degree so it must be pretty annoying to have to keep up with high school. :p Especially someone like Yuma who clearly wants to work with his hands and not with his brains. 

Yuma bursts into your room. 

“ーー Oi, Sow!! Teach me this school shit! ...If I don’t pass the upcomin’ midterms, Ruki will have my head on the choppin’ block for real.”

He walks up to you.

“Ah, god...What’s the big deal ‘bout gettin’ a couple of bad grades? Vampires don’t even need school for anythin’...! Come on, make some space for me at yer desk!”

*Rustle*

Yuma takes a seat.

“I brought the textbook and my notes with me, but I honestly have no fuckin’ clue what any of this shit means. ...I want ya to help me remember everythin’! Then if I still fail regardless, I can at least put the blame on ya instead...Right?”

“Ah, fuck off...! All ya need to do is do a proper job, right!? Get started already!”

You start teaching him.

*Scribble scribble*

“...I’ve never even heard of a grammar rule like that.” 

You frown.

“I can’t help it...! God, shut up! I just gotta get it inside my head, right!? Argh, damnit!”

*Crunch*

“...Ah? Ya want me to stop chewin’ sugar? Don’t ya know!? The brain needs carbs to remember all this crap!”

*Crunch*

*Flip*

“Ah! T-The doodles on that page areーー It’s nothin’ important!”

You chuckle.

“Hey, don’t laugh! Fuck...”

*Scribble scribble*

“...Why do we need midterms anyway? Damnit, I can’t be bothered with this shit...”

*Thud*

You flinch.

“God...Stop gettin’ scared over every lil’ thing. ...Whatever. I’ll just tell Ruki that it’s yer fault that I failed my exams. See ya!”

Yuma tries to leave but you stop him.

*Rustle*

“...!? Che...Don’t tug onto my clothes...”

You try to reason with him.

“...Hah? Ya can bet yer ass that I’m tellin’ him it’s yer fault! I don’t give a damn ‘bout how ya feel ‘bout it!”

You pout.

“Ahー Fuck! I wanna just go and water my plants already! So what if I’ve been failin’ my tests!? I’m goin’ to school at least so isn’t that the most important thing!?”

You tell him that he could always repeat his year.

“Ya really think I’m gonna stoop to the same level as that fuckin’ Sakamaki NEET and be held back a year!? God...! I just gotta do this shit, right!? ...But I’m only doin’ this one page today! ...’Kay, shoot me some questions. I gotta explain what these words mean, right?”

You pose question one.

“Haah...? I’ve never even heard of that word before...! I bet yer pronunciation just sucks! Read it one more time.

You repeat the word.

“Haha...Hahaha...Nah, got no clue. ...Ahー This isn’t gettin’ anywhere...I think I’ll go tell Ruki that yer a lousy tutor after all. ...Ah...This pisses me off...I’ll have some Sugar-chaーー”

*Cling*

“Ah!? Che...The jar’s empty...”

*Rustle*

“Hey, gimme yer blood. ...My irritation level has reached its peak now that I’ve run out of sugar on top of bein’ forced to study.”

He pins you down.

*Thud*

“I think I might feel a lil’ better if I have a sip of yer blood...Come on, where do ya want me to bite ya? Tell me.”

You protest.

“Haah!? ‘Let me go’!? God...That wasn’t the question...Guess I gotta punish that mouth of yers for spoutin’ bullcrap...”

*Rustle rustle*

“Ugh...”

 Yuma bites you.

*Sluuuurp*

“Nnh...Hah...Does it hurt, huh? Don’t talk back...It’d be a shame if yer blood were to drip down from the side of yer lips and go to waste...Nnh...”

*Sluuuurp*

“It’s kinda sweet...I bet you’ve been snackin’ on my Sugar-chan behind my back, haven’t ya?”

You shake your head.

“Don’t lie. Nnh...”

*Sluuuurp*

*Rustle rustle*

“Hahn...Nnh...Both yer lips and yer blood are kinda sweet for some reason...Anyway, guess I’ll suck from here next...Nnh...”

*Sluuuurp*

“Mm...Mmh...”

*Sluuuurp*

“...Hah. What? You’re tremblin’...Are ya expectin’ more perhaps? Hehe...Ya really are a Sow at heart. I can’t believe you’re gettin’ a kick outta havin’ yer blood sucked...”

*Sluuuurp*

“Hah...No more studyin’, huh? Hehe. Guess we’re partners in crime now.”

*Rustle*

“It’s all yer fault...So ya better don’t think ya can get out of this...Hahn...”

*Sluuuurp*

“I’ll savor ya thoroughly...Mmh...”

*Sluuuurp*

ーー THE END ーー

[lovelytsunoda]

dasher // nyck de vries

summary: its christmas in the netherlands, and nyck thought it would be a wonderful idea to bring y/n home to meet his family and feel what a small town winter is like. too bad she never told nyck that she didn’t know how to ice skate.

pairing: nyck de vries x female! reader

warnings: reader doesn't know how to ice skate, just general winter fluff :) minor mention of anxiety, especially over meeting nyck's parents for the first time, but it's barely there! small mention of blood.

author's note: i'm so excited to bring you guys the christmas collection !! holiday themed fluff (some minor angst by way of my mick schumacher fic), me wishing i had a boyfriend and my favourite holiday songs. i have fics planned for zhou, mick, george, pierre, daniel, charles, alex and lance. hope you guys enjoy : )

friesland, the netherlands.

the snow fell down in flakes as she sat on the windowledge, still dressed in her flannel pajamas and clutching a mug of hot chocolate in her hands as she rested her head against the window. her breath fogged up the glass as she breathed, and she found herself grinning as she drew a small christmas tree in the haze.

there was a knock on the bedroom door, followed by the creak of the hinges to indicate that the door had been opened.

"hey, baby." nyck smiled from the doorway, fully dressed and hair still damp from the shower. "i wondered if you might have been hiding up here."

"hiding from your parents? me? no, of course not." she remarked sarcastically, getting up from her window seat and crossing the guest bedroom to kiss her boyfriend softly. "it's just harder to win your parents over than i thought. my anxiety isn't being super friendly to me this morning."

"i'm sorry, darling. is there anything i can do?"

"a distraction might be nice."

nyck raised his eyebrows. " a distraction, you say?"

"not the kind of distraction that you're thinking of, casanova." y/n laughs, resting her forehead against his, trying to steal as much of the driver's body heat as she could. "i just want to spend some time with you. i feel like we haven't done too much of that since we got here."

"then today is going to be all about me and you. seychelle and my parents are going to the winter market. we were invited, but we can go out and do something else, or we can stay in if that's what you want."

"let's go outside and do something. i've barely seen the village."

nyck smiled kissing her on the forehead. "i've got a great idea. let me run downstairs and put some stuff together. dress warm, you'll need it out there."

she kissed him gently, whispering her affections to the driver as he ducked out of the room, leaving her to get dressed.

it was hard for the imposter syndrome not to set in. he was the hendrik johannes nicasius de vries, formula two and formula e champion. she hadn't even known that nyck was famous until their fourth date, when a group of fans accosted them in the streets. and as much as nyck reassured her that she was the one for him, every so often she wondered if he could do better than her.

coming back home to the netherlands with nyck felt like a nail in the coffin. it was a small village with an impossible name, and less than one thousand people. it was the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else.

and they sure as hell all knew who nyck de vries was.

she reminded herself to breathe, lacing strands of her hair into a fishtail braid before pulling a fair isle patterned sweater overtop of her tight, white turtleneck.

she grabbed her mug, exiting the room and jogging downstairs, anxiety spiking at the thought of running into nyck's mother, or even worse, his dad.

she exhaled when she realized that the kitchen was empty, save for nyck, who was filling a thermos with his mother's homemade hot chocolate.

"my parents just left, they're outside warming up the car." nyck said, passing her a covered breakfast plate. "my mom made you breakfast. she's a little worried about you. she likes you more than you think she does."

"i'm sure i'm just overreacting." y/n agreed, sitting down at the kitchen table and taking a bite out of the crispy bacon strip on her plate.

"it's okay, really. don't beat yourself up about it. i get it. meeting family is terrifying." nyck soothed, sitting next to her at the table. "now, i've got us a whole day planned."

true to his word, the whole morning with nyck had been a dream: homemade pastries in the town square, hot chocolate and a relaxing walk down main street, boots crunching over the snow. a disposable camera roll full of pictures of the two of them that she would get developed as soon as they were back in monaco.

with her hand in his, nyck and y/n walked in a cloud of love, laughter and smiles as the dutchman lead them to the final destination of the afternoon.

in the middle of the village, a large pond had frozen over, pairs and small groups of people ice skating with hands intertwined, dressed in thick mittens and hats with pom-poms on top.

"oh, nyck." y/n said softly. "this was such a sweet idea, but i need to tell you something."

nyck's face fell. "is everything all right, love?"

she laughed softly. "i can't skate, nyck. i never learned."

"that's it?" nyck laughed. "right, let's get you some skates. lucky for you, i'm a great teacher."

the wind kissed their skin, cheeks and noses bleached pink from the cold as the couple strapped on the rented ice skates. y/n was wobbly on her feet as she gripped nyck's arm, blades crunching over the frozen ground as the duo slowly stepped onto the ice.

she felt her foot slide forward, her mind instantly filling with panicked images of wiping out, breaking bones, blood splattered on ice.

"you're okay." nyck said softly, his breath warm against her skin. "just hang on to me."

"okay."

"just put one foot in front of the other, darling."

at first, everything went smoothly. so long as y/n held on to nyck, her anxiety subsided. she just kept putting one foot in front of the other, blades skimming the ice and creating soft scratches on the pond's surface.

"see, it's not that hard. muscle memory, babe. once you figure it out, you'll never forget it."

the couple just kept moving in the large oval, circling around with the rest of the patrons, with y/n becoming more and more confident in herself with every move she made, slowly releasing her hold on nyck.

nyck let go of her hand, confident that now she could skate at least a few feet forwards on her own two feet.

but once she felt nyck's hand let go of hers, she faltered, stomach sinking as she felt the blades on the bottom of the skates lose contact with the ice, unable to stop herself from falling backwards and landing on her tailbone.

"shit!" she shouted, garnering looks from mothers now covering the ears of their small children.

nyck laughed, reaching out his hands to help her back to her feet.

"you're a goddamn liar, de vries." she laughed. "i guess i'll jsut have to hold on to you forever now."

nyck smiled, gently kissing her forehead. "that sounds like a plan to me."

_____

tags: @sidcrosbyspuck @flannel-cures @libraryofloveletters @diorleclerc @magnummagnussen @daydreamingleclerc

[b-lizi]

After reading @99corentine 49th chapter, I thought about a lot of references about Chry's past. There will be spoilers about KFP2, Blue Eye Samurai and the fic GOL HAH DOV, but mind you : if a piece of media isn't enjoyable because you got spoiled, then maybe it isn't well made (unless it's an Agatha Christie but the whole point of her novels was the mystery) so bear with me.

In chapter 49, Chry wants to know about his past after a strange and stressful encounter with Elenwen. He tries to return to the place where he first awoke, one year before the events of this chapter, but without any success. He upset for several things, for his loss of memory of course but also the fact that he might have a family and even a spouse (with his ring at the marriage finger) that didn't go after him.

Firstly, there's the feeling of emptiness and shame about his worthlessness, how he compares himself to Miraak, someone who was important even as a pawn of Hermaeus Mora, when he was just good enough to be left behind by his supposed relatives and be used as a thrall by a cruel man in a foreign country. Chry feels like that all the glory he had in one year, even after killing Alduin, was nothing, like a fraud, that he's just worthless (these thoughts happens just when he has the post prophecy blues, like Teldryn said, so yeah Chry might feel depressed). That his past is was he is at core. Which isn't true but he believes it and that's something a lot of us can relate to (golden child syndrome, school failure, broken dreams, childhood trauma, etc.).

Fortunately, Miraak reminds him that Chry was the one who believed he could be a better version of himself, going to tyrant to leader (even though he still is at the head of a cult lmao), that his actions helped and saved so many people and that he's a great hypocrite for telling others they can be better when he tell himself the contrary.

It reminds us ofc of Paarthunax's iconic wise words "What is better ? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature though great efforts?" But I feel it echoes better to Miraak's case because he was in fact evil and became a bit more grayer thought the story, whereas Chry has forgotten his past and was just lost and miserable. In this case I was reminded of this sentence in Kung Fu Panda 2 : when Po discovers the calcined remains of his childhood village (that he forgot about because of PTSD), he's feeling sad and ashamed that his birth was in bloodshed and suffering, but the soothsayer who saved him says to him "Your story may have not such a happy beginning, but it doesn't make you who you are. It is the rest of your story. Who you choose to be." And that's pretty much Chry's case : he awoke in a place of suffering and when he left, he wanted to have a life of his own and to be greater than what he was before, to be in control. Man the parallels between him and Miraak are even greater ksjsjsks

Then let's return to the family problem. Even better (or worse idk), the spouse problem. If Chry had any family left in the Summerset Isles, they didn't care to go after him when he was gone missing.

There are several theories about why Chry wasn't found, if he ever had relatives : the first thing is that he's of mixed heritage because he has a greater physical strength than all the other altmer altogether and most importantly striking blue eyes ; altmer people don't have blue eyes* and it's a great deal for almost every Alinor citizens to be of pure lineage, so imagine having in your family a very unusual child with characteristics a little bit too close to Nords'. You just want to get rid of it to avoid shame on your family.

(*nota bene : in Skyrim game, altmer people only can have amber, golden or emerald eyes, whereas in ESO you can have them have blue eyes, but we're following Skyrim's logic here)

So if we follow this theory, Chry's supposed family wanted to get rid of this problematic scion, either by banishment... or marriage. A marriage that didn't go well at some point. And that's when I got reminded of Blue Eye Samurai (incredible series on Netflix, go watch it). Some context : in the Edo period (17th century in Japan), we follow the revenge journey of Mizu, a lonely samurai with mixed heritage (a Japanese mother and an unknown white father) with striking blue eyes. These eyes disgraced them because it was considered demonic at this time in Japan (like in ancient Greece, blue eyes were either vulgar or bad omens).

At some point in their story, Mizu finds their mother who they thought died years ago in a fire. She wants them to marry an old samurai who, like them, is a castaway, so they can in some way redeem themselves for their shameful life and at least be a good bride. They get married and although Mizu is a bit reluctant at first (because of how are viewed their eyes), them and the samurai fall in love with each other and have lovely years together as an odd couple. But it falls apart when Mizu wants to show their incredible battle skills to their husband, who gets scared and angry, calling them a monster, because deep down he still had this bias that blue eyes are demonic and bringer of destruction (an onryo). That he only loved Mizu because they were behaving despite their mixed heritage.

He betrays them, bringing mercenaries to kill them and Mizu, deeply hurt and enraged, kills everyone and run away to pursue their revenge of getting rid of the four white men who lives secretly in Japan. But I digress

Maybe something similar happened to Chry, that when he discovered his thu'um, he got shamed by his family/spouse and he went (or ran away) to Skyrim to search for answers or got abandoned here. Maybe we'll know and maybe we won't because there's still almost two chapters left for the fic to be finished and I am not well.

Anyway I had fun doing these parallels! Theories and psychanalyses my beloved.

Mizu my beloved

[nightswithkookmin]

A LITTLE LIL NAS METAPHOR COS I'M GASSED UP FOR REAL

Sometimes I try to mind my business and let shit go but really all I want to do is throw rocks at som of yall.

This is Lil Nas X. Iconic beautiful SLAY.

Certainly he made a choice to go out on the carpet because he's bold and he doesn't give a fuck what people think about him. Right?

Now of course it got most conservatives raging mad while others thought he is iconic- Just like Jungkook's Dorothy Explore moment at the premiere.

Yet there are those of us who saw that Lil Nas moment and immediately thought it was hilarious he pulled that stunt and went ahead and made memes of him- memes he willingly participated in- right?

Now supposing Lil Nas got all flustered on the stage and started giggling and acting coy, shy and I came out here as a Nas Stan and said well he's PROBABLY shy because he's conscious of all that air blowing through his ass cos his Naked bum in a room full of judgemental eyes- would that be shaming him?

How do you go from A to Z. How do you draw that conclusion. Makes no fucken sense to me.

If you don't like me making memes out of BTS and joking about them- IT'S A YOU PROBLEM.

It's only offensive if it's ill intended or makes the boys themselves uncomfortable. But I promise you, there's nothing I say here that I can't say to them in the face. I promise you- may be not the part I ship them that's wild but still.

And the tuktukker syndrome some of yall have- yall need to fucking stop. It's ew. Gross and disgusting. When you make assumptions about people and they tell you to the contrary you don't go telling them they lying mother fucker stop. It's unhealthy and immature.

It's how these empty headed hooligans keep calling JM a liar because he presents statements that contradict their delusional takes and assertions.

I take being called out pretty seriously because I'm not perfect and I don't know everything as relates to others and their culture and what not. If I am making insensitive jokes or comments about these men I do want to be corrected on it. You know? Because I would hate to be the source of their pain.

You don't know this but two years ago JM made a comment during live and from that moment I slowed down on making those in depth near psychoanalytic analysis. And when I have to do it, I try to keep it as respectful as possible.

I don't see anything wrong in correcting people. Some might be naive and ignorant or might be hurting people inadvertently. There's no need to be defensive about it.

Take the recent moments in this community where Chikoorita came under fire for defending some other account- don't know them don't care.

It was disheartening to see people go from trying to point out to them the errors of their ways to blatantly being nonbinaryphobic towards them, ridiculing them, invalidating them, and quoting Blaire White of all people as justification to call them a pronoun they preferred for Chikoorita.

I reached out to a few accounts to try to educate them on why this is problematic. Nobody knows the person behind Chikoorita's account. If they are telling you they prefer to stay "gender anonymous" there's nothing wrong in choosing to respect that.

Yall hide behind anonymous blogs all the time and each time you choose to use an anonymous Ask you are choosing not to define your gender as well. And even that, we respect you and do not assign a gender to you.

Would be weird if, we kept using a he pronoun to address an anon especially when they have pointed out they was a she or preferred not to be gendered at all.

Point I'm making is I am not above correction.

And I do take sentiments of that nature seriously.

But you better make sure it's not based on your feelings of what is right and wrong because feelings can be subjective.

Here's my feeling of your feelings

[ashdreams2023]

Can you write a s/o with polycystic over syndrome for Loki and Thor? The doctor just made the diagnosis and I'm feeling very bad, I need some comfort.

I’m so sorry honey, I hope this cheers you up I’ve got diagnosed with Ovarian cysts last year and it made me feel so sad

Also I didn’t know if you wanted them together or separate so I did both but please say if you want them separate

By your side

Thor and Loki were sitting in the common room when you came back from outside, they were waiting for you as pre usual but something seemed to be off about you.

You greeted them like usual but your voice seemed a tad bit dull and you were clutching your purse a little too tightly.

"I’m not really hungry, you guys go ahead and eat" then you dashed to your room.

Loki who was reading closed his book and blinked at his brother "That is quite abnormal, don’t you think brother?"

"Yeah usually she has an appetite after a long day"

Loki laid his book down and stood up, this was extremely unusual for you to skip meals, especially when you’re the one who got to pick, something must’ve happened that they didn’t know about.

Thor followed Loki to the hall and stopped at your door, he knocked first but no sound came.

Loki sighed "We know you’re not asleep, would you let us in please?"

"I’m not in the mood!" You yelled.

"But we’re worried and you can’t sleep on an empty stomach" said Thor.

Loki pressed his hand on the door "It’s either you let us in or we break the door darling, it’s your choice" you groaned loudly then the door opened. The room was dark and you were hiding underneath covers.

Thor kneeled beside your bed and lifted the cover showing your tear stained face "My lady what is the matter? Who made you cry?"

You hid your face with your hands "Nobody…I’m fine" you choked out.

Loki rubbed your back and leaned down to your ear then whispered "I don’t like when you lie to me darling, whatever it is that is bothering I’m sure we can make you feel better"

You sniffed then pushed yourself up on your elbows then grabbed your bag on the floor "Remember when I complained about my period a while back?"

They both nodded.

"Well, I did some tests and a scan, turns out I have polycystic ovary syndrome…that’s the reason why my periods aren’t normal and now I’m scared…" you pulled out the scan and gave it to Loki.

Loki who already knows what a normal one would look like frowned in concern then looked back at his brother.

Thor smiled at you then ruffed your hair "You have nothing to be afraid of, you’re a warrior, strong and brave"

"He’s correct, I’m sure it’s terrifying but you need to remember that you’re not alone, we might not experience the same thing but we’ll be here by your side through it all" said Loki, he moved the blanket off of you and pulled you up to sit instead of laying on your stomach.

"It doesn’t make you any less you, what happened just happened, now you just need to calm down and let it sink….you’re going to be ok my dear" Loki warped his strong arms around you gently and pulled you to his chest stroking your head "No need to be all grumpy now, Thor bought your favorite tonight"

"It is true and it’s going cold as we speak"

A small smile grace your lips before snorting "Can we eat here, in my room tonight?"

The two nodded.

They might not know how it feels at times but at least they were beside you, promising to be there when the pain is too much or when the symptoms start showing up, to comfort you and make sure you’re ok.

You’re precious and shouldn’t be treated any lesser that you are supposed to be.

[ohitshoneybee]

Don’t Fear the Reaper

Chapter 3

Movie!William Afton x OC

Series Content Warning: SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT ANY TIME, kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome, murder, MASSIVE age gap (it’s like 30 years), smut, like, a lot of smut, much more to come im sure

Chapter Content Warning: swearing, spooky, big loving dilfs hours

Credit and thank you to @bowersbubbles for the divider and beta reading!

Claras phone rings, waking her from her nap before class. She’s tempted to throw it across the room, but she knows better. She sits up, stretches, and flips it open, pressing the answer button. “Clara speaking.” She yawns, waiting a few seconds for a response.

“Hi, Clara, this is Steve. Steve Raglan. From the hiring agency. I just wanted to check in, see how your first night on the job went.” “Oh! Yeah, no, it was good. Mmm.. thanks for calling.” She smiles as she answers, still half asleep. “Good, good. Listen, if there’s anything you need, anything happens, call me.”

“Yeah, noted. Thanks again.” Clara mumbles, as she looks up at her clock, trying to read it in her half awake state. Almost 9:40 am. “FUCK, shit oh god, fuck fuck fuck!” She drops her phone on her pillow and stumbles out of bed, haphazardly throwing on a sweater and pants before throwing her sketchbook and some pencils into her bag. She snatches her phone from her bed and throws it in her bag, not realizing she didn’t hang up. She pulls her boots on and grabs her keys, her keychains rattling as she shoves them in her pocket. A soft thud on the floor and she looks down, her lucky rabbit's foot sitting at her feet. “God fucking damn it.. Fuck! Shit! I don’t have time for this!” Clara snatches the foot and stuffs it in her bag, barely making it out the door.

She makes it to her 10 am class in okay time, a little frazzled and worse for wear, but in one piece. The lesson isn’t exactly riveting, and she’s struggling to stay awake after the initial adrenaline from almost being late wears off. She catches bits and pieces, something about live subject sketching, but she can’t shake the feeling of someone watching her. It’s similar to the previous night. 

She makes it back to her apartment around 2 pm, the four hour lecture one of her least favorite things every week. She catches another couple of hours of sleep before waking up around 10 pm, making dinner to take with her, and heading back out to work. 

Night two. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. 

Clara pulls into the parking lot and parks in the same spot as the previous night, her eyes set on the door and she sighs, grabbing her bag and her keys. This time, she’s got a book and her sketchbook. 

The door opens with a little extra effort, and she locks it behind her, making a beeline towards the office to drop her stuff before she starts a routine. Go through all the cameras, put the too-big vest on and do a couple laps of the building. It takes about an hour, going through the entire building, and she manages to shake the feeling of being watched by going through her new routine.

Tonight, Clara pokes around the stages and finds a pulley to manually open the curtains, rather than starting up the whole song and dance again. She sits in a booth facing the main stage, her sketchbook open on the table in front of her as she doodles, little cartoon versions of all the animatronics spread across a couple pages, a Memphis pattern filling in the empty spaces. She starts to doze off around three in the morning and her watch beeps at 3:30, startling her awake. She gets up and stretches, trying to wake herself up. “Y’know, you guys would be a lot more fun if you could do things without the music playing.. I don’t think I can listen to that song anymore for the next month.” She crosses her arms and stares at Freddy, the tune to Talking In Your Sleep stuck in her head already. 

A faint clank comes from the kitchen, and freaks Clara out. “Okay, I didn’t mean do spooky shit like that, guys.” She peeks through the cashier window into the kitchen and sees one of the fridge doors cracked open. “I swear to God, it better be a raccoon or a squirrel or something, this isn’t fucking funny..” She takes a second to hyper herself up before throwing the kitchen door open, doing a full sweep before stalking over to the fridge and throwing the door open all the way, only to be met with Cupcake sitting on a shelf. 

“What the fuck?” She takes a half step back and looks back over her shoulder to the door. “But.. You were just with the others? How the fuck did you get here?” She picks Cupcake up and kicks the door shut, truly baffled as she makes her way back to the main stage. “I’m serious, no more spooky shit. It really freaks me out.” She sets the animatronic back on Chicas tray and hops off the stage, grabbing her sketchbook from the table. Clara wanders back to the office and plops herself down in the chair again, flipping through the cameras over and over until she’s sure she’s seen every video feed four times. She leans back in the chair with an exasperated groan, staring at the ceiling as she spins in the chair. Her watch beeps - four in the morning. She whines as she gets up, pacing around the room as she clicks through her speed dial on her phone. 

Tyler.

Ella.

Mom.

Dad.

Kelcee.

Steve Raglan.

The only contact in her phone she’s bothers to save with a last name. The only contact in her phone to call in the past week. The only contact in her phone that said to call if anything happened. She pushes the last thought from her head, not daring to explore those thoughts tonight.

Clara sits at the desk and fishes her fork and tupperware of salad from her bag, as well as her book. She opens up to her bookmark and starts reading, occupying her last two hours with said book before her watch beeps at six.

[strawberryscorner]

Forgotten Sins Chapter 7

Series Tags: Amnesia, Stockholm Syndrome, Drug Use (Bliss), Religious Cults, Fluff and Angst, Car Accidents, Family Member Death, Manipulation, Emotional Manipulation

Series Masterlist

You raised your hand, ready to knock but put it down again. You were too nervous to eat during lunch, your mind was too busy thinking about this moment. You had to do this.

You raised your hand again and knocked on the door. You didn’t want to confess anything to anyone, you wanted to run away but the door opened before you could move.

“Hi,” you said lamely.

“Hello,” Jacob said. “Did Joseph send you?”

“No, I need to speak to you.” You pushed passed him and into the room.

You heard the door shut behind you, no one else was in the room which was good. Maybe you’d be able to get the words out or think clearly enough to know what the words were.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m scared,” you said and started pacing. “Of, well, of everything. But mostly, right now, of how well I can shoot. I mean, what if it’s not just that I know how to shoot, what if I have anger issues? What if I’m a murderer and I don’t even know?” 

You paused and looked at him but he didn’t say anything, so you continued pacing. “What happens if I tell John I’m good at shooting and he makes up some sort of reason, like a murderer, and I get marked up with a sin that might be true but could be totally wrong and I have no clue what it means?”

“Then don’t tell him,” Jacob offered.

“Then I’m a liar.”

He chuckled.

“It’s not funny.”

“No, I know.”

He still looked amused as he walked up to you. He made you sit on a chair. No more pacing which had started to feel like the only thing keeping you from drowning in your worries.

“Look, Joseph and John do usually start pushing confessions somewhat early, but you don’t remember any sins to confess. They can’t push it with you, so relax.”

“But what if I am a murderer?”

“What if you’re a hunter? Or just someone who had an odd hobby?”

You forced your head to focus on his suggestions instead of your anxieties. They made sense, not everyone who knows how to shoot takes people’s lives. There could be so many reasons why a gun felt natural in your hands. Just an odd hobby, yeah.

Jacob pulled you out of your thoughts by clearing his throat. “I have to feed the prisoners, you’re helping me.”

He turned for the door. While you were getting tired of these men always telling you what to do, you had to admit, feeding the prisoners sounded better than him handing you over to John or worse, Joseph. You got up and followed him.

The bowls in your hand contained liquid, some soggy vegetables and a few chunks of odd-looking meat. You didn’t dare ask what the meat was. There was hardly any of the soup in the bowl, you weren’t sure if feeding them was actually helping them or if leaving them to starve on nothing was better.

Someone held the door open, and you followed Jacob into the room. You took the cages on the left side of the wall, some of the prisoners took the bowl, greedily swallowing its contents while others stayed, cowering against the wall, staring at you so you gently placed their bowls on the ground for them to take when they were ready. One of the cages was empty, it had belonged to the man from Eli’s group.

“Where is he?” you asked Jacob.

He shrugged. “Not everyone makes it.”

You wished you had felt something, but you didn’t, you just accepted the fact. It wasn't surprising considering the food they were getting and the injuries on their bodies.

You saw someone didn’t get any food, you didn’t have time to ask why that was as three of Jacob’s men gathered around the cell, one of the went in and grabbed the scared prisoner then dragged him outside.

“What do you do to them?”

“We cull the weak.”

“So, if they survive, they join you?”

“Me, one of the others, it depends.”

 Jacob started walking to another area. You didn’t know what else to do so you went after him. Joseph hadn’t told you to do anything today and since this was the furthest spot you could be from the Father so unless Jacob told you to leave, this was where you would stay.

Jacob grabbed a box filled with various sizes of bloody meat and carried it to a car.

“Get in,” he told you as he placed the box in the back.

Jacob got in the driver’s seat beside you as you put on your seatbelt. “Are we feeding someone else?”

“The Judges,” he said, turning on the car and speeding off. “They did well yesterday, so today, they get treats.” He nodded to the meat in the back.

***

The drive was quiet, he hadn’t even put the radio on. Once he stopped the car, he got out to get the box of meat. You opened the door to exit the car, but a dead body was on the ground. Gross. You had to jump out. The grass was wet with what you assumed was blood as it hadn’t rained so you slipped. Jacob grabbed you with one arm and helped you gain your footing.

“Be careful, dead Angels are everywhere now,” he said. “I don’t know why so many of them are here, they usually stay away. Come on.”

You were nervous to be near the Judges again, but you trusted Jacob knew what he was doing when it came to them and hoped he wasn’t leading you to slaughter. There were Angels scattered on the ground as you walked, some with bullet wounds through their heads and others with claw or bite marks. The bodies were fewer as you got closer to the wolves.

The giant white wolves were laying on the ground, a collar with a long metal chain around their throats, keeping them in place. Jacob set the box down and grabbed a few pieces of meat, telling you to do the same. He walked down a line of Judges and tossed meat at them, so you copied him.

Holding the bloody meat was horrible and you were trying to hold your breath as much as possible while digging your fingers into the meat so it wouldn’t slip. As you tossed the food to the wolves, they’d try to catch it in their mouths, some would succeed while others licked at the meat once it landed on the ground.

Part of you thought it was kind of cute, a group of giant wolves laying down and licking or chewing their food but the other part of you, the part that could still smell the meat, hated it.

“No one else needs feeding, right?”

He was about to answer when his radio went off, “Jacob, we need you.” You heard John’s voice yell over gunshots.

“On our way,” Jacob said before looking at you. “Still have your gun?”

You nodded and he ran to the car, you took off after him.

During the drive, you had time to get nervous and think about what was happening. Eden’s Gate only had one enemy, the Resistance. Jacob asked if you had your gun so clearly, you were expected to fight alongside Eden’s Gate. The thought of having to fight Adelaide nearly made you ask Jacob to stop the car, but you forced yourself to stay quiet. You couldn’t, you had said yes to joining Eden’s Gate. This was your choice. No one forced you.

The gunshots were deafening once you got out of the car, there was a yellow plane in the sky firing down on the people of Eden’s Gate as well. John was shooting up at it, cursing a man named Nick Rye. Jacob took one of his bigger guns out of the car and started shooting any members of the Resistance he could see. You saw one running up behind John, who was too distracted Nick, you pulled up your gun and shot them in the leg causing them to scream as they fell to the ground. John spun around and shot them in the head.

“Don’t be afraid to kill them, you know how,” Jacob said.

You knew he was referring to your perfect shot on that photograph but that was a picture, these are real people. People moved, they weren’t still, just waiting for the bullet like the photo was. People who when shot between the eyes like that, would stay down, making you a killer.

“You won’t get a nasty sin carved into you for protecting us or yourself,” he said. “So, aim to kill, and most importantly, don’t die.”

He ran towards his brother to make sure no one would be able to attack him again since John’s focus was back on Nick Rye.

You couldn’t see anyone you recognised around you; Adelaide was nowhere in sight. So, you raised your gun and started firing at men and women who were trying to sneak up on John and Jacob. You aimed for their heads, missing some and shooting their throat or shoulder. You weren’t as bothered by their blood or their screams as you thought, you were mostly bothered you kept missing what you were aiming for. You could do it; you knew you could. Jacob knew you could and right now, he needed you to do it again. Too many Resistance members were shooting at him and his brother for you to keep missing.

You hear cars driving towards you all, it’s more Eden’s Gate members. Nick Rye goes higher in the sky and flies towards the cars, trying to destroy them before they can help you lower the Resistance member’s numbers.

When you’re focused on the plane, a man from the Resistance runs at you with you a knife, John shot him in the head and the man falls dead at your feet.

“Thank you.”

You picked up the knife from the corpse’s hand, just in case, you thought.

It was like the Resistance members would never run out. Any time they died, more seemed to appear and they were doing a good job at making sure more of Eden’s Gate couldn’t come to your aid. The only things you could hear were gunshots and screams, you could feel your heartbeat picking up and your palms sweating around your gun. You weren’t sure what was happening but as tears stung your eyes and you started hyperventilating, you knew it wasn’t good.

You backed away from the man whom you had just shot, tripping over a corpse behind you and landing on the blood-soaked ground. A woman stood over you, but through the tears and the sun glaring behind her, you couldn’t tell who she was, but you knew she was pointing her gun at you. You stared up at her, preparing for the pain of her bullet. A gun went off, and her head flew back, pulling her to the ground. This caused her gun to go off and you screamed as the bullet ripped through you.

“Dawn!” you heard a man call out, but you passed out before he could get to you.

[megarabane]

Felix's Stardew Valley

The First Spring

The Stardrop Saloon

[masterlist and summary]

<><><>

“So, uh…question.”

“Shoot,” Leah shrugs, setting a basket of strawberries on the counter. “Where’s my water?”

“You’ve lived here a while,” Felix begins carefully.

“Couple years, yeah. Oh, here it is.” Leah flops into one of the kitchen chairs with a dramatic sigh, draining a water bottle in one go. It’s only when he reaches for his that Felix realizes that was his.

“Yo,” he scolds, affronted.

“Oh, you’ve got more. If you want me to help you make jam, I need to be hydrated.” She wags the empty bottle at him indicatively. “Was that your question? Because that wasn’t a question.”

“No, um, my, uh…” Felix clears his throat, turning away from Leah to studiously examine the three baskets of strawberries currently adorning his little countertop. He’d maybe gone a little overboard buying strawberry seeds from Pierre at the egg festival when his cauliflower wasn’t even ready to harvest yet, but apparently, the markets in Zuzu City are paying a premium for fresh produce—and there’s enough to try his own hand at canning and…jamming? Jam-making, probably. And plenty to eat. He loves strawberries. It’s kind of a problem.

All the windows are thrown open—even as warm as it is, the cross-breeze is a welcome movement through the little farmhouse that apparently doesn’t have central air. “My question. Right. Um. You’re friends with—with Elliott, right?”

The chair she sits in creaks interestedly. “I am.”

“Is he…” Single might be too forward. Gay really isn’t any better. Looking for a twink with terrible social skills and debilitating imposter syndrome isn’t…great. Felix bites absently at a hangnail. “Is—Is he— What’s he do?”

“He’s a writer,” Leah explains. “Moved here from some little town a handful of years ago—I don’t really remember where. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

Leah sighs, long and slow. “Well… Before he came here, he graduated college with an MBA and applied to law school in Zuzu City.”

Surprised, Felix turns to her. She’s thrown her legs up into the second chair at the table and is turning the water bottle in a shaft of sunlight pouring through the open window, although her gaze is fixed on something distant, a little frown tugging at her face. “That’s a pretty prestigious law school.”

“He didn’t make it past his first year,” Leah replies softly. “It wasn’t his grades or anything—he just realized his passion wasn’t actually in law.”

“That’s a long time to go and then realize where your passions lie.”

“The way he tells it, he was barely passionate about the MBA. It was what his family wanted him to do. They’d decided that writing wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and didn’t hesitate to tell him as much. Once he realized that he was just doing what they wanted and not what he wanted… Well, he dropped it all and came here. Bought a little two-room cabin on the beach and spends almost all his time focused on his writing.”

He starts to ask another question, but Leah cuts him off with a shake of her head. “Anything past that isn’t my story to tell.” She finally looks at him, head cocked with a playful little smile. “You’ll just have to get to know him yourself.”

Felix draws his hands protectively to his chest, like his feelings might be painted across his ribs and he could potentially hide them from her. “Well—Well—”

“Most of the town usually goes to the Saloon on Fridays,” Leah continues like he’d not spoken. “You should come tomorrow. Get to know him. Plus, it’ll be a good way for you to get to know the other townspeople, too. I think before the flower dance, most of them were convinced a ghost had taken up residence here. As it stands, I was getting my fair share of strange looks for ‘hanging out at the old Northridge place alone’ because no one had actually seen you.”

Felix blanches. “I’m—not good at making friends.”

Like that would stop the extrovert who had clearly adopted him as her own little basket case.

Leah shakes her head like she’s already decided. She probably has. “If you aren’t at my place by three, I’ll come get you myself, and we’ll go together. So, you can either come down and meet me willingly, or I’ll do it myself. Pick your poison.”

Felix taps his fingers nervously together and leans against the counter behind him. “I think I’m reconsidering the terms of our friendship,” he decides.

“Too bad.” Leah throws the empty water bottle at him, and it bounces off his shoulder and clatters noisily to the wood floor. “Signed in blood, I’m afraid. Completely unbreakable. Should have read the fine print the first time around.”

<><><>

Felix does his best to hide behind Leah as she throws open the front door of the Stardrop Saloon to raucous noise and jaunty tavern music. It proves to be remarkably unsuccessful, partially due to the several inches of height difference between them.

“Leah, my darling!”

Leah thrusts a hand into the air and waves, and Felix tries his best to blend into the wallpaper.

“Coming!” Leah turns up to Felix, beaming. “Why don’t you get us drinks—tell Gus to put it on my tab, no, shut up, not up for debate—and I’ll get Elliott warmed up for you?”

“I d-don’t need you to—to warm him up,” Felix stammers weakly. He makes the mistake of looking up from Leah and across the saloon, and immediately makes unobstructed eye contact with Elliott, who watches him with no small amount of surprise, a glass halfway to his mouth. His heart pitches straight through his stomach and crashes into the floorboards. “I’ll get the drinks anyway,” he decides in a rush, and he hurries up to the bar. He only trips over his own feet once.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Gus greets, polishing a glass and smiling warmly under his well-groomed moustache. “It was, ah, Felix, right?”

“Um, that’s—that’s right,” he replies, scooting onto a stool before his shaking knees can give out on him.

“Leah dragged you out tonight?” he guesses, tossing his towel over one shoulder and returning the glass upside down on a stack of its brethren. “It’s not a hard tell—she does this with anyone she adopts as her own.”

“Oh.” Well, at least I’m not the only one. Felix clears his throat behind one hand. “She was…pretty insistent.”

Gus laughs, passing his hand over the towel. “That’s sure one way to put it! Hear that, Em?” he asks over his shoulder, drawing the attention of the girl organizing wine bottles. Her short blue hair is pinned back with an ornate clip sporting a well-polished amethyst. “Leah’s just insistent.”

“Oh, more than that,” the girl agrees sagely, nodding. “She’s the unstoppable force every immovable object eventually succumbs to. A real natural disaster, even. In all the best of ways, of course,” she adds with a bright smile at Felix. He returns it, not really sure what he’s silently agreeing to.

“The mystery farmer makes an appearance!” Felix jolts badly as the stool next to him is suddenly occupied by Pierre, who slaps him bodily on the back and elicits a decidedly unattractive squeak. “We were starting to wonder if you’d died out there.”

“Pierre,” the girl scolds, tossing him a stern look. “You know what spreading rumors does.”

“Yes, yes, bad energy or whatever. My bad, Emily.” Pierre leans both elbows on the bar, holding a mug of beer in both hands, and examines Felix over the top of his glasses. “How’s the wilderness and that ramshackle little lean-to treating you? I’ve not heard any commotion at Harvey’s in the late hours, so I assume it can’t be that bad.”

“No, not at all,” Felix insists. “It’s very, um…quiet.”

“So’s death,” Pierre agrees.

“Pierre!” Emily repeats, harsher. Gus turns away to hide a stifled snort of laughter. “Don’t pay any attention to him,” she insists, pushing a tall glass across the counter to him, full of a bright red liquid and adorned with a brightly colored straw. “Either of them. This is Leah’s usual. What can I make you?”

Felix scans the bottles adorning the back wall quickly, more to buy himself time. What’s the strongest thing I can order without looking like a drunkard to make this entire ordeal more bearable? “Can—Can  you do a Tom Collins? With that Bombay?”

“Of course I can.” Emily turns away only briefly to grab the crystal blue bottle and spins back as Gus slides a highball glass in front of her. “How’s life on the farm treating you? Pierre, go away if you’re just going to make comments.”

Pierre snorts into his frosted beer glass, elbows propped on the bar. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“No use arguing with her,” Gus says with a shrug. “She gets it from yours.”

“It’s been good,” Felix answers as Gus and Pierre fall into a good-natured bicker. “Shipped my first strawberry harvest, and kept just enough to try my hand at…jam.”

“Oh, fresh strawberry jam!” Emily throws her head back in dramatic rapture as she tips a heavy splash of what seemed to be fresh lemon juice into the cocktail shaker. “You have to let me know when it’s ready. Please.”

“I-I’ve never actually made jam myself before,” Felix explains hurriedly, stomach knotting in sudden panic. “It might be shit. It’ll probably be shit.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Emily insists, slamming the two parts of the shaker together and hefting them into the air. “Ask Leah for tips—she’s a great coach! And even without Leah helping you, it’s pretty foolproof! Strawberries are so good.”

Gus interrupts just to slide Felix a glass of dark liquor and say, “For Elliott,” with a smile. “When they ask, I put it on his tab, not Leah’s, don’t worry.”

“And hey,” Pierre cuts in, shoulder-bumping him, “if it turns out good, I might just have an empty shelf at the store to prop ‘em up on!”

When Felix just stares at him, Emily slides him his drink and leans in to whisper, “He’s offering to sell your jam at the store.”

“Oh—Oh,” he realizes. “Uh—Uh, I have to see how the batch turns out, though; if it’s no good, I-I’d hate to sell a bad…product, y’know, at your store…”

“God’s sake, we gotta put a spine in that back of yours, kid,” Pierre snorts, and Emily flicks an ice cube at him with a sound of frustration as Gus laughs. Felix tucks his head, embarrassed, and takes a long drink of his Tom Collins. It’s fantastic.

<><><>

“You brought the new farmer,” is the first thing Elliott says as Leah drops onto her stool at his side.

“I did,” she agrees, batting her lashes innocently. Elliott misses it entirely, staring at the way he sits very straight on the bar stool, only to have his entire posture rocked by an already-inebriated Pierre throwing too much force into a shoulder pat. “We’re friends.”

“You adopted him, then.”

“’Course I did. You saw him at the egg festival.” Leah takes the glass from his hand and takes a little taste. Her nose wrinkles delicately and she pushes it back. “God, that never gets better. If he had it his way, he’d never leave the farm, I think.”

Elliott’s eyes trace the untidy ends of his hair—dyed a pretty sapphire once, surely, although the roots under the sun-faded color are an equally pretty blond—and the angle of his neck down the curve of his back and his long legs. He’s got a lot of leg for someone barely taller than Leah. “Uh-huh.”

“I’ve been helping him pick his strawberries,” Leah continues, apparently unaware of Elliott’s wandering attention, “and I’m going to show him how to make jam the proper way. I’ll save you some. I know you prefer cherry to strawberry, but he’s not got any trees growing yet.”

Felix nervously wraps his hands around Leah’s usual as he seems to order something at random, cheeks coloring a beautiful peach pink. Elliott raises his glass, suddenly wondering if his skin is as soft as one. “Uh-huh.”

Leah stares at him. “I could ask if he’s got cherries for you, though.”

This gains his attention. Elliott chokes on his drink and gives Leah a scandalized stare. “What?”

“He might have some preserves left; the old man was really into canning, remember?” She inclines her head, eyes round and innocent. “What did you think I meant?”

Elliott looks at her until her mouth twitches and she turns away, covering her laugh with one hand. “You are insufferable,” he declares, finishing off the rest of his drink. He holds the glass over his head until Gus looks up at him, and the bartender nods and gestures to Felix before turning away. “Is this why you brought him here? To bother me?”

“Well, I do like watching you fawn over pretty boys,” she admits.

“I have spoken to the young man twice,” Elliott reprimands her sharply. “I will not be fawning over him tonight.” Not publicly. “Potentially ever.”

Here’s the thing that Elliott hates—he’s down horrendous for the new farmer. The night of the egg festival, he’d gone home and laid in his bed, listening to the ocean and thinking about summer-green eyes until he was dizzy. The next morning, he’d headed into town at the first opportunity, doing his shopping and milling about in the faint hopes that Felix might show.

Instead, he’d run into Leah, sent on a mission for fertilizer from Pierre’s as a reprieve from planting strawberry seeds. She’d gotten that terribly knowing look in her eye as Elliott had stammered out a none-too-subtle question about Felix, then made an equally terrible excuse before she could even answer and had all but run back to his cabin, mortified.

A text had been waiting for him when he’d finally drawn himself from his embarrassed moping to check his phone, from Leah: Felix is doing great, followed by a kissing emoticon, and an attached picture. She had her tongue out, throwing a peace sign at the camera. Behind her, Felix was kneeling next to some freshly worked earth, shielding his eyes with one hand and squinting in a way that scrunched up his nose. He mimicked her pose with two fingers held out in front of him. The soft white button-down he wore was open almost all the way to his navel, exposing well-tanned skin, and he was barefoot, with the several years of leg he carried covered only by a pair of dirty white shorts that stopped above the knee.

He’s…not proud that he looks at that photo every so often.

As for ‘speaking to him twice’, their chance encounter in Pierre’s two weeks ago could barely be counted as a conversation, really, even by the most generous among them. Elliott, thinking about his novel, hadn’t paid attention before turning a corner, and he’d bumped into Felix, eliciting a yelp from the younger man, wearing heavy headphones.

“I’m so sorry,” Elliott stammered at the same time huge emerald eyes stared up at him, stuttering out an equal apology. Not unlike a cornered rabbit seizing its opportunity at flight, Felix just ducked his head and bolted to the counter to pay for his groceries, and had kept his eyes on the floor as he’d flown from Pierre’s. Elliott spent the rest of the day kicking himself, although he’s not entirely sure why.

“Not to mention, I’m likely ten years his senior or more, Leah,” he finishes sternly.

“Oh, do not put on that ‘I’m on my deathbed, call me a nursing home’ act,” Leah scolds. “Felix is twenty-six, I’ll have you know.”

Elliott blinks. That…only puts five years between them. That is not something he’d expected, really. Is he just…baby-faced? Or am I used to Samson and Sebastian? Or am I simply not used to guessing ages anymore? “Truly?” he asks softly.

“Turns twenty-seven in midsummer,” she confirms, glancing toward the bar. “He’d better get over here; I swear, if my drink is all watered down by the time he gets it to me…”

Like her muttering summoned him, Felix slides off the stool and stands up with three drinks supported deftly in his fingers. He stares stalwartly down at them as he walks, and lets go of a short breath as he sets them on the table between them.

“Gus said to make sure to say that Elliott’s drink is on his own tab and not yours, Leah,” he says, soft voice almost lost in the music and raucous noise of the bar. Elliott hadn’t noticed the saloon filling up with the rest of the valley’s inhabitants, although now he sees Pierre has been joined by Shane and Pam, and Robin and Demetrius are laughing as they dance in front of the fireplace. The clatter of billiard balls is punctuated by a loud roar of cheers and laughter from the other room.

Elliott takes his glass, and Felix’s skin is so soft under his fingertips as their hands brush. Elliott loses all nerve to make eye contact and just takes a heavy drink, focused on the light fixture over their table.

“I was just telling Ellie about your strawberry harvest,” Leah gushes excitedly, mixing her drink with a black bar straw and ruining Emily’s perfect ombre pour. “We should have plenty sealed by the end of the weekend, don’t you think?”

Elliott risks a look and finds Felix’s eyes watching him nervously, although they dart away just as quickly, his shoulders tucking forward. He takes a long sip of his drink through the straw, humming a non-committal answer.

He gulps down his mouthful of whiskey and steels himself to ask, “How is your first spring in Stardew Valley treating you?”

Felix glances up at him again, and his face turns red as he drops his gaze to offer, “It’s—It’s fine, um… I’m getting the hang of farming, I think.”

Intrigued, Elliott tips his head. “You didn’t know farming before coming here?”

“Mm-mm.” He shakes his head. “Grandpa just…left the farm to me. I’m still not sure why, why me over my dad or my uncles… I’ve only ever been out here a few times, and I wasn’t really old enough to remember it, anyway, but…yeah, he willed it to me.”

“That was some time ago,” Leah offers, eyes rounding with concern. Clearly, the topic of his family—and especially his grandfather—isn’t one she’d breached before. Elliott is inclined to agree—he’d thought the old man had passed away…what, four years ago now? Nearly five?

“It took me a while to get the nerve to quit my job at Joja,” he admits, and his shoulders tuck a little further, like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible. “It sucked, sure, but it was—it was steady, y’know?”

“Don’t I,” Elliott agrees, raising his glass in a mock toast. “Writing only pays the bills when you actually have something published.”

“You could ghostwrite,” Leah suggests for the hundredth time.

“I have standards, my love,” he scoffs, waving a hand dismissively at her. “Ghostwrite? And not have my name and face on the things I pour all my heart and soul into? No, thank you.”

Once the conversation is off of him, Felix seems to relax more, and by the bottom of his third drink, his cheeks are colored with intoxication but he’s laughing along with them. Emily takes some sporadic breaks to spend time sitting too-close to Leah, and Felix even joins in with Elliott in ribbing the two of them to just kiss already, which turns them both a flustered pink.

By the time he feels leaden with liquor, it’s well past midnight. Elliott pushes himself to his feet with an exaggerated grunt, eats the last of their shared pepper poppers, and announces, “I am going to go lay in the sand until the ocean reclaims me.”

“Coward,” Leah taunts, sucking down her second water. “How boring. You never close down the saloon with me anymore. You got all old and boring, Ellie.”

“I have a much longer walk than you, my dearest,” Elliott replies, patting her soothingly on the arm. “And inspiration oft strikes when the moon is full.”

He turns his attention to Felix, who is picking stray pieces of breading and cheese from the wax paper. He looks up, though, as if feeling Elliott’s gaze, and boldly says, “It was good to get to know you, Elliott.”

“And you, Felix,” he agrees, holding out a hand. When Felix takes it, clearly expecting a handshake, Elliott (he’s drunk, he’s so drunk, that’s the only reason he thought this was a good idea, obviously) just brings it up and lays a chaste kiss to his fingers.

Leah shrieks in delighted laughter. Felix’s mouth falls open as he goes cherry red, dumbfounded.

“Take care in your walk home,” Elliott murmurs against his skin, and returns his hand gently to the table before leaving the saloon.

The brisk night air almost immediately snaps him more awake as the doors shut behind him, but even so, he can’t really bring himself to be embarrassed. He turns his face into the night and smiles like a giddy schoolboy as he walks.

Under the smell of the bar and their food, his skin had smelled fresh like rain and earth, and sweet like peaches. Elliott is already obsessed.

God, he is down horrendous.

He somehow makes it through the front door of his cabin before he makes the decision out loud.

“I’m going to court him,” he announces to his single-room house, throwing his arms wide like a playactor. “I’m going to court the shit out of him.”

<><><>

Leah: How’d that work for you, Mr. “I will not be fawning over him tonight”?

Elliott: I firmly believe you were put on this earth to torment me.

Leah: The theory has merit—I’ve not seen any evidence to the contrary, and I do get joy from it.

[disorganizedkitten]

This Is The Road To Ruin Chapter One

Harry Potter | 2022 | 6,362 | Ao3 | Masterlist | Next

And We're Starting At The End Magic is real. That's probably supposed to be the most important bit, here, but to Eden's kids that doesn't mean much. There are a lot of magical children without families, just as there are even more nonmagical children without them. Eden's takes them both and tells them to get along, it's probably just genetics. The actual important bit is this: Harry Doe gets his Hogwarts letter on July 24th, 1991. For someone who's birthday is November 11th, 1980, that's a touch odd, but whatever. For someone whose magic doesn't work quite right, that's more odd, but he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Adapting to a largely new culture, making friends, and spontaneously bleeding whenever he's around a specific professor? Yeah, so there's a Reason Florine didn't think he'd make it to Hogwarts. Still, he's gonna make the best of it; even if that means ignoring That Weird Potter Kid, befriending the Obviously Raised By A Serial Killer Dormmate, and joining a conspiracy labelled 'blue and yellow make green for a reason, children'.

24/7/91

 Harry got his Hogwarts letter today! He was so happy about it. I am too. We haven’t been able to tell Clemencia yet, but everyone else knows. Aletris is already teasing him about his future house, although Hana’s reactions make me think he’s not remembering them right. Or maybe she’s just teasing; I don’t remember them either. They’re not important, so long as he makes friends and feels comfortable.

 Ravenclaw is the perfect place for the girls, so I can only hope Harry goes to one perfect for him.

 ... don’t tell Harry, but I was a little worried he wouldn’t get one. And it’s a year early, that worries me. We’re not going to edit the birth certificate, but if magic reads his birthday as before September first, that opens a whole new set of opportunities for his birth family. I don’t want them to find him, but we’ve had this conversation before.

 I was worried that his shapeshifting was going to be like Tansy’s smoke, a sign that something was supremely wrong and the wizarding world didn’t want him either.

I might be jealous, but only a little bit. I don’t want to know what would’ve happened if they were successful.

 Anyway, we’re picking up Clem first thing tomorrow morning, and heading off to Diagon Alley! Hana says that she has most of the third year booklist too, so we can get their supplies all at once, and send someone for the final things in August. Aletris-

***

 Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hummed as she looked at the unfortunately familiar building. Eden’s was painted on the little picket sign in the front yard, with a tree curving up over the word and an apple leaf instead of an apostrophe. Despite the sadness implicit in this place, she forced her thoughts to warm, considering the letter in her pocket.

 It was a familiar name, which made the trek to this place simultaneously more and less depressing.

 She entered the gate, looking warmly over the well-used yard. There were kids playing in a sprinkler on one side, and she waved when one of them caught her eye. That set off a chain reaction of kids waving, which made Minerva smile. How cute.

 She rapped sharply on the door, as was her custom, and was let in by the Matron of this not-orphanage. Minerva had called it an orphanage once and was promptly treated to a lecture about how orphanages were dead.

 “Hey,” she said with an easy smile. Mrs. Konstantina Calmiris was also a widow, and Minerva was relatively sure they had almost been in the same year, or would have been had Konstantina had magic. She was stout and kind, with graying blonde hair and blue/hazel heterochromia. As Minerva had heard it, Mrs. Calmiris had started the group home out of a severe case of empty-nester’s syndrome after her child had run off to the circus with her full approval.

 She also, oddly enough, had quite the knowledge of magic. Minerva had considered sending an Obliviator after her, but decided that it was justified as Mrs. Calmiris was essentially the single parent of fifteen kids. And with the number of muggleborns Minerva had delivered letters to either in this building or who had come back to this building at some point in summer, obliviating her would have been more work than it was worth anyway.

 “Good Morning, Mrs. Calmiris,” Minerva returned, just as warmly.

 “Is that Professor McGonagall?”

 Mrs. Calmiris grinned impishly and shouted down the hallway. “Yes, actually!”

 There was an excited yell, and one of her sixth-year lions came scrambling out of the drawing room. Jeanette Scott. “Awesome! Professor, I had a question about the Fawcett principle; it said in chapter seven that all transfigurations are finite and will fade, depending on the amount of magic put into it, right? But then what about magically transfigured houses? By all accounts they should fall, making it a completely illegal and unsafe building practice!”

 “The key to that, Miss Scott, is the materials. If you transfigured the shape of wood, but not the amount, the transfiguration doesn’t fade because there’s no extra energy there. The same cannot be said of turning your teacup into a kitten; not only do you change the mass, you change the properties.”

 “Huh,” Scott said. “Thanks, Professor. Are you here for Harry?”

 “Likely,” Minerva hummed. “Harry Doe?”

 “That’s the one. I’ll go get him.” Jeanette ducked outside.

 Mrs. Calmiris led her to the same office she had used every other time – Konstantina didn’t allow strangers, especially adults, into her children’s rooms, ever. It had been a fight the first time Minerva came to Eden’s, nine years ago.

 Minerva took her seat with grace. They existed in silence, Konstantina digging through her papers from behind her desk. “July thirty-first,” she murmured, nose in her pocket calendar.

 Minerva hummed inquiringly.

 Konstantina glanced up and shot her a tight smile, before putting a note in one of her many, many files. “You deliver letters exactly a week before birthdays, correct?”

 “Yes,” Minerva agreed.

 There was a knock on the door, and then a child popped their head in. “Jeanie said I was needed, Tanti?”

 “Yeah, come on in, Hawthorne.”

 Hadn’t they said Harry?

 He came in all the way and closed the door; after a quick glance at the other chair in the office, he hopped onto a clear corner of the desk instead. Minerva tried in vain to smother her smile as he looked at her, feet kicking. He was surprisingly pale for a child so late in summer, with just the touches of a sunburn across his nose and arms, wet, dark hair plastered to his forehead, and slightly disturbing eyes. They were bright green, as though someone had caught the killing curse in marbles and stuck them in. There was a pang of sadness as she pushed away a niggling sense of recognition; there had been too many orphans made of the last war, orphans whose parents she’d taught or fought with personally.

 “Are you Mr. H. Doe, of the Mint Room?”

 “Yep. Hawthorne Doe, nice to meet you.”

 “You as well,” she said warmly. As likely as it was that he already knew of magic, she still looked forward to explaining. “I’m Professor McGonagall, of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

 As she spoke, a look of excited awe dawned over Doe’s face. “Is this- do you- I thought not until next year?”

 And oh, Minerva realized with a pang. The poor child didn’t even know his own birthday. “No, Mr. Doe. We’d love to see you on September first.” She offered the letter, green ink glimmering in the office’s light.

 He took it reverently, smoothing out the folds gently. “You’re sure I’m supposed to go?"

 “The magic is never wrong, Mr. Doe. You’re part of the 1991 intake.”

 She watched happily as a smile slid over his face, and he turned to look at Mrs. Calmiris. “Can I go tell the others?”

 “Pack your bag for the weekend, and I’ll take you over.”

 His smile managed to get brighter. “Thank you! And you, Professor!” he added, turning to her. “Do I need to pen a formal acceptance?”

 “Merely say you’ll be there on September first, Mr. Doe, and it’ll be official.”

 He nodded. “I’m absolutely going to be at Hogwarts September first.”

 “Good, now, before I let you go-“ she made sure to stress the statute of secrecy, knowing it would likely be ignored anyway and not caring as much as she likely should, and also handed him a card for the Hogwarts Stipend. “Present this to the Goblins at Gringotts, and it should cover most if not all of your supplies.”

 Mrs. Calmiris didn’t even try to argue this time; the first few, she had, because apparently the muggle government gave her a stipend per child that she would gladly use to cover the expenses, but Minerva had talked her into it the second summer, after Konstantina had met her fuming about the home that one of her kids had been in for the first half of the summer. Minerva convinced her that even if she covered their expenses while she watched them, the money could be put into savings accounts and be there for an emergency, or, if all went well, be used to buy friends Christmas presents. 

***

 Tanti, as Mrs. Calmiris preferred her kids to call her (because it sounded like tante and Mrs. Calmiris was nothing if not in love with languages) was the best, for a multitude of reasons, but the most common one was that she got it. She’d had many kids throughout her years, and she understood and noticed that some of them got more attached than others did. She put in the work to make sure that they stayed in contact, if not outright together, which had been Harry’s saving grace when he was seven. Jacinta had moved out as soon as she was eighteen, moving in with Aletris and Florine instead. As she’d raised him up until that point, it was a big change. He shuddered to think of how bad his abandonment issues would be if he hadn’t been allowed to visit.

 Tanti made him promise to have one of them call her if he wasn’t coming home tomorrow night (he kindly didn’t tell her that this apartment was more home than Eden’s nowadays) before leaving him at the bottom of their building, secure in the knowledge that he’d be okay.

 With his siblings, what else could he be? He made his way upstairs to their apartment, and opened the door with a grin, catching sight of his favorite sister right away.

“Jacinta! Guys, guess what?”

 “Celosia’s food arrived?” Jacinta asked, only half serious. Or so Harry hoped. She was reading A Dramatic Retelling Of The Midnight Ride , the cover done mostly in bright blues and yellows reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting.

 "Not yet," Harry said, kicking the door closed and dropping his suitcase in the tiny entryway. "Are you running low?"

 He hoped not, but he couldn't remember the last time they had gotten food. He could talk them into swinging by the pet store when they go to Diagon Alley, though.

 "No," Jacinta said. "He's just whiny."

 Harry ducked his head, hiding a fond smile she wouldn’t see anyway, and darted into the little living room.

 The Garden Apartment was small, with only two bedrooms, one bath, and a kitchen-dining-living room that bled together. It could, generously, be called an open floor plan, with the kitchen and dining room each taking up a quarter of the floor, separated by a counter, while the other half had stained beige carpet and was their living room, denoted by the blue tie-dye sofa and large, glass windows. And the snake cage, with a heavy heat lamp and brightly colored serpent inside. "Celosia!"

 "Two-leaf!" The snake said, rearing up happily. "Smoke-nestmate is a wonderful hunter, you should let her teach you!"

  "She is," Harry agreed, a little uncomfortable. Florine's 'hunting' was… not something they talked about. "How are you?" He reached down, and Celosia wrapped around his wrist.

  Celosia began to regale him with tales of sneaking around the kitchen to try and eat a raw egg without Aletris catching him.

 Celosia was a blue coral snake, scales done primarily in dark blue, but with a pillar box red head and tail, and two light blue stripes connecting them.

 Harry carried Celosia over and leaned on Jacinta's back. "You didn't guess my news."

 Jacinta went stiff for half a second. Harry pressed harder into her side. Jacinta took a deep breath, and when she spoke next it was a little warmer, a little more excited. "Are you going to Hogwarts?"

 "I'm going to Hogwarts!" Harry agreed, vibrating.

 She leaned back into him, catching his head in a one-armed hug. "I'm proud of you."

 "Thank you," Harry said softly. "Do you know where the others are?"

 She nodded, twisting off her chair. "Aletris and Tansy are shopping, Clem's at work, and Hana's been practicing for her marathon. Clemsr's still with the Gibsons, so she won't be here for dinner but I'll get Hana."

 Jacinta Pérez was an odd woman, but Harry wouldn't trade her for the world. Aside from her latent ability to locate her family, she was also an absolute flower nerd - specifically, their meanings. Thus, everyone but Harry had a matching nickname, and his wasn't flower related only because Jacinta had been able to give him a flower as his legal name.

 Hawthorns were a flower of love and protection. Tansys were violent, a declaration of war . Edelweiss was for courage, devotion and loyalty. Salvia for connections, thinking of you. Heliotrope for ambition, Cornflower a good luck charm.

 (Harry meant ruler. Florine meant flower. Aletris meant corn grinder. Jacinta for beautiful, drawn from the Greek Hyacinth. Hana meant happiness, drawn from another flower. Clemencia meant merciful.)  

 "Well," Jacinta said, letting him bring her to the living room. "Tell me all about it!"

 He grinned, sat down beside her, and started talking.

 ***

 "Florine!"

 "Why is there screaming?" His eldest sister asked, half-materializing in the kitchen. The smoke of her form moved back and forth over brown skin, solidifying into groceries every time more wrapped around her hand. Florine Dupont and Jacinta Peréz could easily be mistaken for biological siblings, something they’d taken advantage of many times; both had brown skin and dark hair; black in Florine’s case, and brown in Jacinta’s. Florine’s eyes were hazel, when they weren’t a surprisingly demonic white.

 "Harry reached a milestone ," Jacinta sung proudly, leisurely following his mad dash to the kitchen.

 Harry slammed into her middle, not minding the freezing mist that danced around them both. "I'm going to Hogwarts!"

 "You're- Harry that's great!" There was a clatter as she dropped the rest of the groceries and scooped him up. There was the vicious feeling of too-hot too-cold not-there and then they were in the living room and she was cupping his face, brown eyes jubilant. Harry grinned back at her.

 "I know!"

 There were things they didn't talk about with the other witches in the family, like the fact that neither of their magic worked quite right. Harry hadn't expected a letter, even though Jacinta told him to keep his hopes up. (He told himself he would be okay if it never came, but he'd been dreading next summer - dreading the confirmation he was a freak, even among magicals.)

 Hot-cold fingers brushed away the tears he hadn't noticed were welling up. "You're going to be amazing," she murmured softly.

 "They're going to think I'm weird," he whispered back.

 "Pity them," Florine said seriously. "If they're so closed minded to care, they're not worth it anyway."

 He nodded, and dangit, he wasn't supposed to cry, this is a good thing, it's just-

 It's just-

 (Jacinta never said she was magical, but Harry will eat his own hand if Seeing isn't a magical gift. Florine has always been magical but people are scared of her, call her a monster, a killer, and they're not wrong. Harry was magical from the moment they met him, a screaming child who couldn't stop changing his face, his limbs, who made Jacinta taste blood the first time she held him.)

 (Hana and Clemencia never talk about that, never get odd, awed or disgusted looks just from using their magic.)

 It's just a lot.

 Florine kept brushing away his tears as they came faster, to the background noise of Jacinta putting away groceries.

 He's going to Hogwarts.

 He's going to Hogwarts!

 It feels surreal. 

***

 Aletris didn't trip on the bags at the door only due to his wonderful ability to walk blind. He stepped over and took in the scene in moments. Jacinta was putting away groceries, singing louder than usual. Florine was in the living room, for a given value of in, considering the amount of smoke bleeding off her into the air, wrapped around with Hawthorne.

 He left them to it, instead helping Jacinta. She didn't look at him for long, but she greeted him by bumping into him. He bumped back, and when her singing stuttered a few minutes later, started a new beat.

 She sang along.

***

 Clemencia grabbed for the nearest hand, looking in horror at the crowded interior of the Leaky Cauldron. How the heck did it manage to get more crowded than when booklists came?

 "Looks like we're aiming to be done before lunch," Aletris said, on the other side of Harry. Florine was after him, fingers curled into his sleeve, with Jacinta looped tightly at the elbow and keeping up a running commentary in Sign Language. Hana brought up the rear, wand in her teeth. She wasn't hanging on yet.

 Clemencia groaned.

 Hana shook her head. "Just- let's do this fast."

 Clemencia took off through the crowd to the back alley. The tavern was hidden with repelling charms, strong enough that Aletris always closed his eyes and let them guide him in to avoid a debilitating headache. Once inside, the entrance to the actual shopping district was down a dingy hallway, back outside to a group of rubbish bins and a blank brick wall. She wasn't sure why there were so many layers of concealment on the shopping district, but it did give her a chance to stop and look back at her littlest brother. "Ready for this, Haz?"

 Harry nodded at her.

 She slipped her wand out of the pocket she'd sewn into her sleeve, and reached up to tap the proper brick. Edge of the gray rubbish bin, five up, seven left, and a double tap.

***

 Harry gasped. It wasn't… it wasn't a new sight, not really, but somehow it felt like one.

 Maybe because this was the first time he was going as a student.

 Usually by now one of them had pushed forward, but it seemed everyone was waiting for Harry to lead the way. He didn’t move. The alley was bright and casually magical, with storefronts whose letters moved and displays that flickered with enchantments to mimic screens; the people were a hodgepodge of not-quite-Victorian dress and robes, with various headwear that Harry found himself cooing over and side-eyeing in turns.

 And yet, despite the familiar sight, despite the support at his back, he wasn’t moving. Someone slipped their hand back into his, squeezing. Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He squeezed Florine’s hand in return, and then glanced up at her. “Can we skip the threshold?”

 “Sure.”

 There was the uncomfortable feeling of his skin ripping apart, the rush of tripping into snow or a cold river, of standing too close to a fire, frostbite and freezer burn, and then he inhaled sharply as his lungs reformed. Florine had reformed them in the same positions, so Harry tugged her arm up so he could spin in and curl up; Aletris' swing dancing lessons had been passed on and reappropriated. She moved with him, pressing him to her side.

 "Come on," Jacinta said from behind, skittering her fingers up his shoulder blade. "Your friends are waiting."

 And, like he always had and always would, Harry believed her.

 He shifted so he wasn't leaning quite so much weight onto Florine's side, and as a unit, they stepped forward.

***

 "It wasn't this crowded last time," Harry said, looking at the lines inside the bank apprehensively. Jacinta had linked elbows with him as they climbed the stairs, and was now building a twelve string leaf pattern bookmark.

 "No, it wasn't," Clemencia agreed, eyeing the crowds both inside and out with distaste. “We usually come early so we avoid the letters crowd, I wonder what’s going on?”

 “I haven’t seen signs for any sales or book signings,” Hana said. “Maybe it’s a holiday?”

 “I don’t remember any holidays in July, but I guess it’s possible.”

 “Wasn’t there something about celebrating some famous kid’s birthday last year?” Aletris asked.

 Hana hummed. “That’s possible, if ridiculous.” She leaned forward and hugged Aletris, before opening one of the large doors for her family. Florine didn’t try to enter this time, just squeezed Harry’s hand before stepping back, fully solid. Aletris stayed out with her. Harry watched as the Goblin Guard’s dark eyes followed Florine until she was off their property, which began at the large marble steps.

 Jacinta led them to a line, still focusing on her bookmark.

 Harry leaned into her side and looked around. This wasn’t the first time he’d visited Gringotts Wizarding Bank (and every time he wondered at the name; the bank was run by Goblins, so why was it called the wizarding bank? Is there another branch for Centaurs and Werewolves? He’d been trying to find Gringotts Muggling Bank for three years and thus far had failed miserably) but Harry still found the architecture awe-inspiring. It felt like stepping into an ancient cathedral, the ones that featured in books on Renaissance art and stained glass history, if cathedrals were done out of brilliant white stone instead of deep wood.

 There were golden arches and inlays, patterned in such a way that Harry was sure they were some sort of hieroglyph, a tall domed ceiling, and no visible light fixtures. The desks lined the walls closest to the door, leaving the open floor for wizards to stand in twisty lines and walk around each other.

 Sadly, there weren’t any stained glass inlays. Harry didn’t know much about wizarding history, but he’s sure that anything important enough to become a stained glass window would be fascinating.

 Hana and Clem had moved on in conversation, talking about book lists and wondering if this year would be the year they’d get a decent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry enjoyed people watching instead.

 Some of the wixen were polite to the Goblins, some were sneering, some looked annoyed, and then there were the ones that looked scared. Harry couldn’t blame them that much; Goblins had little, dark eyes like guinea pigs, shark sharp teeth, and leathery, komodo dragon skin; if komodo dragons came in brown and gold. All in all, they were intimidating when you first met them, but it hadn’t taken Harry long to realize they were pretty chill. Loved money, loved weapons, loved to see who could make more interesting threats (Harry had gotten a lot of points for ‘by the time I’m done you won’t have enough soul to reincarnate into a flobberworm’, which he was quite proud of. Even if he hadn’t known until then that souls were real, and could be affected by magic), didn’t like people, and didn’t like threats to their safety.

 Hence why Florine had a permanent ban, despite never even misting inside the building. Apparently they could recognize what she was, and didn’t want to risk that in their tunnels.

 And even then, they hadn’t been horrible, once they got past the whole ‘ax at her throat bit’. (The ax did not survive the encounter. Florine did.)

 Aletris called it Orange-Blue Morality. Florine said Black-White Morality was boring anyway.

 “But are you sure he’ll still be using Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?” Hana said. “The upper years keep expecting him to die over the summer, we might not even get Kettleburn.”

 Textbook lists often didn't go out until August, or at the very least later in July, which led to a mob nearly as bad as Boxing Day sales caused. The Ravenclaws had teamed up to ensure they could go shopping whenever (not very many of them liked crowds, which Hawthorne could understand) by talking to upper years and the teachers. Except for Defense Against the Dark Arts, they had a margin of 89% success for getting the right books by passing down old booklists, and that was just because no DADA teacher seemed capable of staying more than a year.

 “That one’s on my list,” Harry said.

 His sisters turned to look at him, then shot each other questioning looks. “Really?” Clem said. “I wonder who’d be using it.”

 “Isn’t DADA supposed to cover creatures at some point?” Hana asked.

 “Oh thank goodness, we will have a good teacher this year.”

 Harry stifled his giggles, glancing at them in open adoration.

 Clemencia Doe was a thirteen year old witch, with white skin and Robin's-egg-blue tips dyed through her short black hair. Her eyes were also blue, although they were river-dark and could easily be mistaken for hazel. She was older of the 'twins', and had a tendency to force situations to work out in her favor, no matter how unusual or unlikely.

 Hana Griffiths was younger by four months and not afraid to start a fight. Her best friend outside of the Garden was a Hufflepuff, which explained a lot. She too was white, with dark brown hair she kept longer than her sister's, at mid-bicep. Currently it was loose, brushing her shoulder blades. Hana's eyes were also blue, but a much brighter, clearer shade.

 Jacinta, turning twenty-one in two months, was eight years older, with fathomless black eyes that would glow blue when Something Was Happening, brown skin, and darker brown hair, cut to her elbows. Playing with it was another of her coping methods, as was letting her siblings do the same.

 Then of course, there was Harry himself. He could whine about how there were no mirrors in Gringotts, but he didn’t need a mirror to know exactly what he looked like at any given point. Harry’s… abnormality was that he could shapeshift. He had a form for each of his siblings, whenever he wanted to feel biologically theirs, and he had his own face. Black hair that curled, pale skin, and bright green eyes. Long fingers, a flat nose, none of Aletris’ freckles or Jacinta’s moles. Although he’d dimmed his eyes today, from smooth greensnake to a muted swamp that made him look more like Clemencia.

 Clemencia and he still looked like biological siblings when he was himself, and sometimes he imagined they’d have been cousins had their parents not died.

 They were still debating whether or not it was worth it to go off last year’s third-year booklist when they reached a teller. Like most tellers at Gringotts, he was a Goblin. It was a Goblin run bank, so it made sense that Human employees were few and far between.

 "We have three for the Hogwarts vault," Hana said, looking up. Despite Goblins being short, they set up their desks tall enough they could look down on most, if not all wizards. The teller sneered down at her.

 "Keys?"

 They handed their key cards over together, and after a moment of silent inspection, were told everything was 'in order'. The teller called over another Goblin, ("Griphook!") and Jacinta unhooked her elbows and waved them off with a kiss each.

 "And you?" The Goblin asked.

 Harry didn’t hear Jacinta’s response, but having stayed with her the last two years he knew she had just silently offered up her own key.

 “Boneclaw! Take Ms. Rosier to her vault.”

 He pretended the tick in his jaw was because he was going into the tunnel system for the first time. Which, to be fair, he was a little nervous. Aletris had gladly stayed out with Florine after saying the carts put him off rollercoasters forever.

 On the other hand, Clemencia said it was the most fun of any Diagon trip.

 They ended up piling into a minecart, of all things, and setting off down a set of dark railroad tracks.

 It was terrifying, and fun. Harry was absolutely joining Clemencia's camp.

 Unlike the glowing marble in the main room, the tunnels were lit with lanterns that became orange blurs as the cart picked up speed, pointing downhill. Harry forced himself to look as well as he could, keeping track of their turns just because he could. Many of the turns were jerky, or fake-outs, which were terrifying, and he wasn’t sure if Hana would be able to hear when they finished.

 The tunnels, too, were rough-hewn and in some places it looked more like they were going through wide, dark caverns, full of stalagmites and stalactites and some things that looked like actual jewels. Did the goblins use these tunnels as a proper mine? Did they have canaries?

…was there a spell to use so they wouldn’t need a canary to ensure the mine was safe?

 Harry was still wondering about that when they reached the Hogwarts Vault. Harry had to lean on his sister because his legs were shaky, which was ridiculous because he hadn’t even used them!

 Bodies are weird.

 “How do you remember which is a stalactite versus a stalagmite?” He asked, watching Griphook stroke a finger down the side of the vault door frame.

 It was Hana who answered. “There’s a rhyme. I think it’s… the ones on the ceiling have to hold tight so they don’t touch the floor, and the ones on the ground might reach the ceiling?"

 “That sounds right,” Clemencia agreed. “I learned it as stalactites have a C for ceiling, and Stalagmites have a G for ground.”

 The door shuddered, and then melted away. That looked so cool. Harry wondered if they taught that to the other bankers, because he definitely wanted to learn.

 “Come on,” Clem said, leading the way. “I want to stay for dinner.”

 Harry frowned, but stood up and followed. Clemencia’s current foster family had a curfew, which was fine, and logical, except it was eight in the evening and meant Clemencia barely got to spend time with them.

 The vault was tidy, a room carved from stone with layers and layers of little bags hanging from hooks along the walls. They looked like red velvet, with little golden drawstrings. Hana grabbed one for both of them before dropping cross-legged on the floor to ‘key’ it.

 Harry fiddled with his, watching as she used her wand to make her finger bleed, before smearing it down the drawstring. The rope didn’t glow, as he half-expected it to; instead, Hana’s blood flashed spring green before vanishing.

 “Do you want help with yours?” Hana asked. Harry caught a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye and knew Clemencia had done the same thing.

 “What does it do?” He asked, even as he held out his hand for her to poke.

 “It’s a blood based enchantment, makes it so no one else can open it.”

 Harry paused. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

 Hana opened her mouth, but something in his face made her think twice. She murmured a quick spell to heal both their fingers, and handed him hers. “Here, shift and see if you can get in.”

 Two years ago, Jacinta had taken a pre-med class and part of it was learning how to test blood types. Harry’s had changed based on how deeply he shifted into someone else - and, once he’d learned how to do it to just his blood, as he chose.

 He didn’t normally think too deeply about it, just accepted that it took more work to shift into a deep copy of Aletris than it did any of his sisters. He wasn’t sure why, considering it took more shifting of organs to truly copy any of them, but more often coloring was enough so it wasn’t like it bothered him.

 Harry closed his eyes, felt the change wash over him like a wave of warmth, settling into the feel of Hana Griffiths. Hana felt like sunburns, like standing in a windy meadow and knowing it won’t last. She smelled like vanilla flowers and heliotrope, the same thing Jacinta Saw but could never explain. He felt his hair lengthen and smooth, the weight falling differently. He felt his organs rearrange, his limbs grow. When he pulled, the bag opened halfway before stopping.

 He handed it back to her. Clem stopped beside them, looking down in concern. “Everything okay?”

 “I’m scared it’ll lock on me,” Harry admitted, falling into his ‘default’ skin in a rush of relaxing muscles and cracking bones. He didn’t like growing his limbs, it always left him awkward and uncoordinated,

 The vaguely painful heat on his skin faded, the damp smell of the cavern replacing immaterial winds and flowers.

 “Just do it as yourself,” Clem said warmly. “You’re you, Harry, no matter what your face looks like or your blood reads. And if it does mess with it, just use your own face.” Clemencia wasn’t a seer, but sometimes it seemed like the universe answered to her, instead of the other way around. Thus, he believed her.

 He grinned up at Clemencia, and closed his eyes, making sure he was himself, completely comfortable in his skin. It felt like flopping into bed, comfortable and safe, warm and unequivocally his.

 Hawthorne Doe was a ten year old with glowing eyes and skin that didn’t break, he could talk to snakes and steal faces like a fae left behind. He was young and hopeful and loved with his whole soul, he had nightmares that felt more like memories and he was raised by traumatized pre-teens. He was an orphan and despite that fact had a family he would fight for. His magic smelled like lightning and cold metal, felt like granite and silk.

 When he opened his eyes, they were glowing bright enough he could see light reflected on the backs of his hands.

 He reached out, let Hana cut his finger and keyed himself into the bag before shifting his skin back over the cut, healing it prematurely. Clemencia helped them both up, before leading them out and to the minecart.

 The ride back up was just as fast, even without gravity adding momentum. Harry hid his face in Hana’s back because the air was cold, and he wanted to.

 They quite literally stumbled back into the light, not taking nearly enough time to readjust their eyes, and ducked outside to wait on the steps for Jacinta. The sunlight on the marble hurt, especially since they’d just been underground instead of in the equally-bright lobby.

 Jacinta was already outside, sitting a few stairs below the Goblin guards and drawing, singing under her breath. Harry flopped down beside her, leaned into her side as he absently shifted. His second favorite form was the one that looked like her biological brother, with brown skin and shorter, fluffier hair, although he never tried to match her eyes. His own were plenty unusual, thank you.

 “Just a second,” she hummed, leaning back into him. “Where to first?”

 Clemencia grimaced, looking out at the crowds that had not lightened in the slightest. Harry had never seen the alley this crowded. “It looks like there’s less people around the offshoots, maybe it’d be best to duck to Knockturn first.”

 “You just want your books,” Hana accused lightheartedly.

 Her sister stuck her tongue out, leaning heavily on her. “Or maybe I want to convert Harry to the side of antique books.”

 “I’d read them if I weren’t afraid of them falling apart in my hands!”

  “Sure.”

 “What’s on your list, Hawthorne?” Jacinta asked softly. Harry pulled it out of his bag, and spread it on his knee.

 The supply list was separated into three easy sections; Uniform, Books, and Other Supplies.

 “Three ‘plain work robes’ in black, a black hat, probably the cliche one some of them-” he gestured to the throng below, “-are wearing. Protective gloves?”

 “For herbology,” Clemencia said. “Lots of magical plants are worse than poison ivy and stinging nettles. And that’s without touching anything with thorns or teeth.”

 Harry stared. “The plants have teeth?”  

 “Sometimes.”

 How had he not heard of this yet? Were they going to get a biting plant for the apartment? …actually, that didn’t sound like such a terrible idea.

 “Anything else?” Jacinta asked distractedly. She was hunched over her drawing, adding more details to someone’s hair.

 “A winter cloak. And nametags, but I’m not sure if those’ll be here.”

 She hummed.

 “Then there’s books, a wand, a pewter cauldron, glass phials, an 'astronomy starter's set', brass scales, and a pet. Cat, toad, or owl.”

 “You can probably sneak Celosia in,” Clemencia said. “One of my yearmates said he was gonna get a tarantula this year, and I know an upper year with a pet rat, plus the four prefects with ferrets. I’m sure nobody will care so long as he behaves himself.”

 “Celosia always behaves himself,” Harry said, mock-indignantly. “Do we need our own Potions ingredients?”

 “If you want to practice outside of class, yes, but wait till we get there. If you decide extra practice is good we’ll hook you up with the smugglers,” Hana said.

 “They’re almost here,” Jacinta said.

 “It might be worth getting your wand first,” Clemencia offered, leaning bracingly on his shoulder. “That’s- that’s a pretty great feeling.”

 Harry’s answer was cut off by a familiar voice shouting. “Harry! Heliotrope! Salvia! Cornflower!”

 “Over here!” Clem called back, jumping up to wave like a maniac.

 Harry didn’t look up, but he wondered if Florine had dissolved. She could carry most of them when she discorporated to travel, but Aletris always had bad reactions. She’d have to either leave him behind or run loops, if she did.

 Jacinta was drawing what looked like a framed photograph, one of the ones with an ornate, oddly shaped frame. It almost looked like a Victorian standing mirror, with the sheen over some of the faces and the curls and spires at the top.

 He finally looked up when Hana yelled too.

 “Tansy!”

 Florine did flicker then, just dust for the last few steps. “Ready to go?”

 Harry smiled widely up at her, ignoring that they hadn’t actually picked a destination. “Absolutely! Where are we going?”

 She and Aletris shared a look that screamed conspirator, and she offered him her hand, palm up. Celosia, curled around her wrist, looked up and scented him. “Want to go and see the magic snakes?”

 The answer was, obviously, absolutely.

[randomly-a-fan]

Carnation into Deception

[Two Days Before Valentines Day]

Malon came home from school when she went to her parents. "Mommy, may I have $2.00 for school?" Malon asked. Jason turned back when he heard that Malon needed money. "Sure, what's it for? candy, juice from the vending machine?" MJ asked. "Each girl in class buys a carnation pin to give to a boy they liked for Valentines Day, while the guys buy a long stem rose for the girl they liked, the proceeds goes to The Red Cross." Malon explained. Jason didn't like the idea of Malon giving a boy a carnation, especially if there's a chance that the boy she gives the flower to, ends up liking her; as a father, it's natural for him to not trust a boy, especially at his daughter's age, which is 12. Unless, she gives a carnation to Archie, since he's quite fond of Pennywise's son, since they've been friends when they were much younger, but would HE give Malon a long stem rose? he hopes so.

[Meanwhile]

Archie came home from school as well, and he went to ask his mom for some money. "Mom, may I have $2.00?" Archie asked. "For what sweetie?" Aquarius asked. "It's for Valentines Day; me and the other school boys buy a long stem rose and give it to a girl they liked, the proceeds goes to The Red Cross." Archie explained. Then he heard Pennywise laughing. "Oooh, looks like someone has a crush! Who is she?" Pennywise asked. "Dad... No..." Archie gave his dad a stare. Pennywise was reading his son's mind and sensed something. "Who's this Gabby you're thinking of?" Pennywise asked in confusion. "Gabby? I thought you were giving a rose to Malon." Aquarius said in shock. "Both of you, please, it's no big deal!" Archie scolded before he barges out of the kitchen and into his room.

Pennywise smirked as his son left with humiliation before he turned to Aquarius. "Where's Kandy?" Pennywise asked with a smile. Aquarius dropped her dishes in the dish water and looked behind her to see the booster seat is empty. "Oh no, not again... Kandy, you better not try to leap out and scare me again!" Aquarius called out. Kandy reached an age where she can climb on walls like a spider; she turned her head in a-hundred-and eighty-degree angle and was going to pounce on her mom, until Pennywise caught her. "Gotcha!" Pennywise laughed. "You know better than to scare the crap out of your mother; that's daddy's job." Pennywise said to his little girl.

[Two Days Later: Valentine's Day]

Jason was taking Malon over to a destination where everyone has a Valentine's Party and hand out carnations and roses. Once Malon was at the party, Jason was stalking to see if Malon has a secret someone that he doesn't know about. "Hiya, Jason!" Jason jumped when he heard Pennywise right beside him. "Don't do that! What are you doing here?" Jason asked in his head. "I'm curious to find out who my son is giving the rose to; I'm assuming that it'd be this Gabby chick, since she's been in his mind for a while." Pennywise explained. "I take that you're watching to see who your daughter is giving the carnation to?" Pennywise read Jason's mind. Jason rolled his eyes as he knew that he can't hide anything from a creep that can read minds, so what's the point on lying to Pennywise if he knew exactly what he's thinking?

***

Meanwhile, every student was gathered and got their flowers. Malon was looking for Archie, since he's the only valentine for her, since he's the only friend who is a boy that she hangs out a lot, since Justin moved away to another State with his dad, so Archie is the only one.

While Malon looks around to look for him, Archie was waiting impatiently to purchase a rose. "Hi Archie..." Archie's spine tingled after hearing that annoying voice. "Hey Gabby..." Archie responded in an annoyed tone. "Getting a rose for somebody?" Gabby has Down Syndrome so she doesn't fully get the fact about personal space. "Aren't you getting a carnation for some guy?" Archie asked while not making eye contact. "I've already had, I was waiting for you to get your rose so we can exchange them together." Gabby answered.

Archie knew that Gabby has too much expectations and that she doesn't get the hint that he's not into her, or does he want her for a friend. "Yeah... I don't think so... I'm getting a rose for someone else, sorry..." Archie apologized before he purchased his rose and then quickly walked passed her. Gabby really wanted to get a rose this Valentine's Day, but no boy ever gives her one, so she tends to cry with tears. Archie was very annoyed and wanted her to stop, so, he had no choice. "Gabby... If I give you this rose, will you stop crying?" Archie asked in a serious tone. Gabby squealed as she wrapped her arms around him.

Malon was on her way to find Archie, until she saw Gabby from behind. "Ah man, not her again! She always gets needy on Valentine's Day." She said in her mind. "At least she's got a rose from someone." Malon added in her head. When she saw that it was Archie that gave her the rose, she was shocked. "Bye Archie!" Gabby exclaimed after she let him go and ran off happily. Archie grinded his teeth with anger as his eyes are turning red, that is until he saw Malon with a broken-hearted expression on her face. "Malon... This isn't what it looks like..." Archie tried to explain. Malon noticed a carnation that Gabby gave him, she looked at her carnation pin and then Archie. "I guess there's no room for this carnation to stick it to your heart." Malon said as she walked away and into the crowd. "Malon wait, just a minute!" Archie called out as he's trying to get past the crowd of students.

Pennywise and Jason saw their kids in a serious loophole, Malon felt hurt, and Archie felt hurt for hurting Malon. Jason thought of a solution. "What if we do something to fix this? we'll take our kids to dinner and they can make up... Nothing sexual though!" Jason suggested in his head. Pennywise looked over at Jason with a grin. "I like it... Now I understand why Archie was so angry the other day whenever I mentioned the name Gabby, she's been stalking my son like as if she's a space demon like me." Pennywise chuckled at the thought. "I gotta say, Gabby does look rather creepy-- OW!" Jason smacked Pennywise in the head for saying something awful about the girl with Down Syndrome. "My wife supports people like Gabby, and I don't want to hear any of that crap like that again, understand!?" Jason snapped. "Right, right... Down Syndrome is like Autism, I get it... Sorry..." Pennywise apologized.

***

Later that night, Pennywise takes his son to a destination that Jason thought of. Jason is taking Malon over to a destination where he thought would be a great place for Malon and Archie to eat at. Apparently, the destination was Pizza Castle, which is no longer appealing to Malon or Archie anymore; since they're now teenagers, they can no longer play.

Pennywise was staring at Jason unamused once they've met and seated. "Seriously... Pizza Castle? Our kids are not kids anymore, do I have to remind you?" Pennywise complained. "Dad, it's no big deal, they make the best pizzas." Archie explained to his dad. "But the pizza you liked to order is off the kids menu; what's it called again? Pizza Puppy." Pennywise remembered. "Yeah, because they add candy-coated chocolate for the eyes." Archie explained as he remembered.

Jason looked over at Malon and saw her looking down disappointed. "What's the point of coming to this place? I'm twelve years old and you have to be ten to order off the kids menu; I love their Kitty Cat Pizza. It's the only pizza where they add the licorice for the whiskers." Malon said sadly. Jason rubbed his daughter's back to calm her nerves. "Jason just said that the reason we brought you kids here is that so you two can have some time together at you guy's favorite pizza joint that you two loved so much as kids." Pennywise translated. "So, once you two place your order, Jason and I will move to another table while you two make up." Pennywise added. Jason looked over at Pennywise with his arms crossed. "Oh yeah, no kissing!" Pennywise warned. Both Archie and Malon stared at each other in disgust at the fact of the two of them kissing. "That's something we can keep our words for you." Archie answered.

***

As Malon and Archie got their order, and their dads sat at a different table, they were quiet for a moment until Archie spoke. "Malon... You know I was actually going to give you a rose, right? Gabby just assumes that I'm giving her the rose." Archie explained calmly. "Yeah... I figured that... Gabby is usually a drama queen and thought she can get things her way by crying... I'm sorry you have to go through with her." Malon said. "Me too... But you have to admit that she's been acting like a fool with other people, the way how she squints her eyes or how she smiles funny..." Archie went on.

Before, Malon find it amusing, but remembering what her mom told her about people with Down Syndrome is like Autism, which is what her mom has, she decided to step up. "Archie... Don't make fun of Gabby; it's not her fault that she has Down Syndrome; I've talked to my mom about Gabby, she told me that I need to stop criticizing her for her mental disorder that she was born with; she even told me that kids with Down Syndrome have to go through multiple surgeries for their hearts." Malon explained. Archie was shocked to what he just heard. "Dang... I didn't know that they have to go through that, I can't imagine myself getting a deadly surgery for my heart, that would be scary." Archie realized. "You know... Hearing that now, I feel like I need to give her a chance whenever I see her, and not be a jerk." Archie added. Malon smiled as she nodded. "I'll be doing the same thing, she's in my classroom, so I can be a friend to Gabby when she needs it, she has been through a lot in school, with all the bullying and back talk, just thinking about it makes me sick." Malon admits.

Jason was smiling when he sees Archie and Malon making up, non-sexual anyway. "Huh, that was fast, I didn't think they would make up this quickly... Well, I guess our work here is done." Pennywise smiled at Jason cheerfully. Jason nodded in agreement, even though they didn't do much of anything except just watch.

When the pizzas finally came, Malon and Archie share a pizza pie, which is meat-lovers. "You probably don't know this, but my mom is Canadian, and her favorite kind of pizza is known as Canadian; it's got pepperoni, mushrooms and bacon on it." Malon explained as she eats her slice. "Huh... I don't know anything about Canada, what's it like there?" Archie asked. Malon shrugs as she doesn't know the answer. "I was born somewhere in America, so I don't really know, my mom told me that some places in Canada is safer than the U.S. You should ask her sometime." Malon suggested. "I think I will, I've always had a thought about moving to Canada in the future." Archie replied. "Me too... For when I attend the University." Malon smiled.

Pennywise and Jason were eating their pizza, which is jalapeño. Pennywise likes adding eyeballs to his pizza, in secret from other humans of course. Jason wasn't uncomfortable with Pennywise's taste; he's been killing trespassers so gruesomely that he's been immune to gross stuff.

So, this Valentine's Day may be unusual, but the good thing for Jason, is that Malon doesn't have a boyfriend in the end.

The End

[montammil]

Marshall found alcohol' request so good!! thank you so much for writing this! I would like to see the sequel or if you not interested maybe you could just tell what kind of punishment Marshall will get?

Thank you, I’m so glad you liked it!!

CW: Stockholm syndrome, mention of mentally abusive parents, alcohol mentions, locked in basement, begging, panic attack, parental whumper, mentions of violence

...

"Ugh…" Marshall wakes up groaning. He forces open his tired eyes to see a light over his head. He winces and squeezes his eyes shut again. He sits up, seeing he's on the sofa. A faint memory pops into his head; the broken wine bottle… the piercing headache… the Disappointed Lawrence Stare.

Lawrence enters the room with a tray of chicken noodle soup, with crackers on the side, and a glass of water. He puts the food down, not making eye contact with Marshall yet. "This is good for hangovers. I want you eating all of this, understand? That includes the water."

Nodding, he picks up a cracker and takes a small bite out of it. After he swallows, his stomach aches and pains him, so he pours the cold water down his throat, hoping that it'll quench it. He glances up to see that familiar disappointed stare. "Are you still mad at me?"

"It's good to know you remember what happened, at least. That was very dangerous what you did."

"…It was just a few sips."

"A few sips, huh? Well, those few sips got you pretty damn wasted. Not to mention those."

Marshall meets his stare to see the bandaid on his leg. "It's just a small cut."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Lawrence lets out an exasperated sigh. "Two small cuts. What if you got alcohol poisoning? What if you did something even more stupid? What was going through your mind? Did it never occur to you that I was bound to find out?"

"I'm just tired of you being on my back all the time," Marshall snaps back. "Can we talk about this some other time? I have a huge headache, and my stomach feels like it's on fire."

Eyes hardening, Lawrence says, "Well, maybe if you listened to me, that wouldn't be the case. I was worried sick! What do I need to do to make you start listening to me? Go ahead, tell me."

"You could give me a little more freedom for starters." Marshall smiles somewhat bitterly.

Lawrence scoffs. "I tried giving you more freedom, and you ruined that. I'm not making that same mistake again. Once you're feeling better, we're going over your punishment. I don't want to hear any arguing, there's no avoiding this."

Marshall's smile instantly turns to a frown. "Wait, what're you going to do? You aren't-- you aren't gonna... do what you did last time, r-right?"

"No," Lawrence sighs. His tone becomes softer at the younger man's suddenly frightened voice. "For now, just get some more rest. If I see you off the couch, it'll only be worse for you from here. Okay, Marshall?"

"Okay." Marshall doesn't like the nicknames Lawrence gives him by any means, but he somehow prefers it over his name. Lawrence hardly ever calls him Marshall, and when he does, it's always when the older man is serious. He gets a shiver down his spine.

...

Marshall feels terrified after a couple hours go by. He's barely heard Lawrence, but he can tell he's in the basement, getting something prepared. Though he doesn't know what, he knows the basement is not somewhere he wants to be. Though it looks nice for a basement, it's still dark and cold.

Lawrence reappears a few minutes later. He takes the emptied tray and glass and goes to the kitchen, then comes back out. "Get up. We're going to the basement."

Frowning in confusion, Marshall asks, "Why?"

"It's your punishment, kiddo. We talked about this."

"But you said you weren't gonna do what you did last time," Marshall argues nervously. He feels Lawrence grab onto his hand, and he doesn't have the courage to pull away.

Lawrence nods. "I'm not. Not completely."

"You're scaring me... please, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, it won't happen again, please don't."

"I'm not trying to scare you, bud, I'm trying to teach you. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." Lawrence flashes him a small grin, but it's not very reassuring, considering how grim he still looks.

Marshall is led downstairs, and his frown deepens when he sees the basement. There's a mattress on the floor, chains sprawled on it, and a blanket, barely covering said chains.

He gulps, looking at Lawrence. He doesn't need to ask what the punishment is. "How... how long am I staying here?" Please don't be long, please, please, please...

Lawrence lets go of his hand to get the chains more straightened out. "I don't know, Marshie. Could be a few days, could be longer. It just matters on your behavior." He gestures to the camera on the corner of the ceiling with his free hand. "I want to see for myself this will never happen again."

Gasping in panic, Marshall begins to shake, tears filling his eyes. "Please, please don't lock me here! I said I was sorry! Please, I don't wanna stay here!" He feels on the verge of having a panic attack.

"Hey, hey, look at me." Lawrence's tone completely changes into that familiar soft and kind, but all the same sickeningly sweet and patronizing tone. "It's okay. Come here." He pulls Marshall into his arms and rocks him back and forth, even if that's the last thing Marshall wants right now.

"Please no," Marshall cries. "I'll do anything you want! Just-- no more!" After his last experience with the basement, he doesn't even want to think of it.

"I know, I know. It'll be over soon, I promise." Lawrence presses a kiss to his forehead. "For now, just breathe. You need to breathe, bud."

He obeys what sounds more like a command than a gentle reminder, heaving for air. He hates himself for clutching onto Lawrence's shirt, and he hates himself even more for crying into his chest. He doesn't know why, considering he's the reason he's crying to begin with.

"Slower, kiddo. Take slower breaths. You're gonna make yourself sick..."

Marshall finally manages to breathe normally, but that doesn't stop the tears rolling down his cheeks and onto the floor. He sniffs. "I don't wanna do this."

Lifting Marshall out of his arms, Lawrence sits him on the mattress, then grabs a towel from the box under the sink. Marshall doesn't realize how he leans into the man's touch when he wipes his face.

"Please don't make me do this," Marshall repeats.

Lawrence pulls the towel away and throws it in the trash. "Sweetheart, do you think I want to do this? I'm just trying to teach you what you did wasn't okay. I don't want to think about what would've happened if you drank too much, or if the glass gave more than just a few cuts. This is to just teach you."

Marshall wants to insist he already knows, but that won't do anything. He stiffens when he feels the chains clasping around his wrists and ankles. He notices they have padded cuffs connected to them, so at least it's not that bad...

Oh, who is he kidding? This is literal hell.

"There we go!" Lawrence smiles. "They should be a little comfier than the ones I got when you first came home. Your wrists are so small, I decided to get new ones, just in case."

Marshall can't even hear what he's saying, at this point. All his words sound like static to him.

Lawrence presses one last kiss to the top of his head. "You're so brave, Marshall. Once this is all done, we can pretend like none of this happened."

Numbly, he watches as Lawrence walks away from him towards the door. Those words sound familiar and he hates it. He lays on the mattress, wrapping the blanket around himself with the limited movement he has. He cries.

...

As each day passes, he feels dread. Though he hasn't been stabbed, he sure feels like it. At least he has a mattress this time, but Lawrence usually does come by when he's asleep, like last time. Each time Marshall wakes up, he begs Lawrence to let him go... just like last time.

Marshall has never felt as big of a regret as he does now. Why did he do that? Why is he such an idiot? Why does he blame himself, when he should be blaming Lawrence?!

Each day, Marshall finds himself crying and begging to be let go. The silence is louder than last time, he doesn't know why. He hates the silence, but he hates the sound of his cries. 

He wonders if Lawrence is looking at him right now through the camera. Most importantly, he wonders if he feels sorry for him. Surely not, because if that were the case, Lawrence would let him out already.

Sighing heavily, Marshall rolls over to lay on his stomach, burying his face in the pillow he had gotten during his time here. He feels like he's in prison, in solitary confinement. He wonders where he'd rather be between the two.

But... the more he thinks of it, maybe Lawrence was trying to help him out. He is sure he scared the older man, judging how he almost never sees his face look so angry. What if Lawrence really does love him?

Marshall wants to hit himself. No! No, it doesn't matter if he loves him! That doesn't change the fact he's an awful person who kidnapped him.

That's when his mind drifts to his real parents. He can't even miss them, if they saw him crying right now, they'd mock him for it, he's sure.

Lawrence wouldn't do that.

Marshall can't even hate himself for thinking that, because it's true. Sure, Lawrence treats him like a glorified toddler, but... that's more love he got from his parents when he was an actual toddler. They were always too busy for him. Lawrence is... always there.

Except now, but he can understand why. His parents never showed him discipline, they couldn't care less if he drank himself to death or not, they'd just yell at him.

But... maybe this isn't so bad? Sure, it's not the normal version of disciplining your kid, but maybe that shows he does, in fact, care?

Marshall cries for a new reason now. Lawrence, his kidnapper, loves him more than his real parents. He's never cried louder that day.

...

Lawrence comes back almost a week later, creaking open the door to see Marshall sleeping. He watched all the footage and nearly cried himself at it. He unclasps the cuffs, whispering, "Hey, marshmallow. Time to wake up."

Wiping his eyes and sniffling, Marshall slowly opens his eyes. He blinks a few times, then sobs in relief when he sees the cuffs are gone. He wraps his arms around Lawrence's neck, afraid Lawrence will put the cuffs back on any second now.

"Oh, it's okay, honey, I got you." Lawrence didn't expect this for a minute, but he definitely isn't going to complain. "Punishment's over. You did so well."

Marshall doesn't reply. He's shivering, and Lawrence doesn't blame him, given not only is he obviously emotional, but it's cold down here. He hadn't even realized until now.

Lawrence picks him up with ease. "Let's get you a warm bath, and then something to eat. How does that sound, hm?"

Wordlessly, Marshall nods. "Thanks, Da--" The young man is quick to cut himself off. "...--Lawrence."

"Of course, bud." Lawrence has never grinned so hard, even if Marshall was quick to correct himself. He has a feeling this will be the last time he needs to punish Marshall like this.

[pellucid-constellations]

ok. ok. so. i have been rereading your work. and thinking. and (re)rereading your work. (it’s a cycle — i get the rush of angst in my chest and then my synapses start connecting to form Thoughts)

first and foremost, i’ve got one (1) question. we’ve gotten inklings thus far on how the reader can still feel the tidings of the mating bond between them and az. does this mean that mans can still feel what the reader is feeling through the mate bond, too? if yes, then whoooooo boy.

the swell of panic. the pang of pain — the throb of it. the nagging, bullying feeling of blank and expansive unknowing. drowning in that feeling. if he’s feeling all this in time through the mating bond, on top of his own individual grief? yeeouch! i am suddenly understanding more things.

and further, if true, then this leads to the fruitful opportunity for more angst (shhh, ik i have a problem with loving angst more than the normal amount — please don’t think about it too much). as in, no happy ending for if it all falls. i doubt it’d be canon but i just think it would be so silly (diabolical) if az, amidst his grieving and mourning (his grieving and mourning of a person who’s still there, but are they really? is this somehow worse than being haunted by a ghost?) just. feels the bond snap.

it’s gone. it’s relief. it’s weightlessness. it’s emptiness. it’s phantom limb syndrome. it’s the ache that thrums through tired, torn thin muscle fibers after holding onto something too heavy for too long. it’s something gone horribly wrong.

it’s the reader, either rejecting the bond (not knowing what it is — just wanting it to stop in order to clear their head, maybe), or, more permanently, somehow dying, perhaps as a final culmination of the witch’s cruel curse. whatever it is, the last strand of connection — the last thread still linking az to the reader — is cut. (and he never even got to make things better. and he never even got to apologize, got to properly fight for you, never got to try and make things right again. gone, before he could even really get you back.)

i just think it would be sooooo silly. i’m thinking a lot of thoughts about it. my head is so heavy rn. (did i have to skim through my readings for class today instead of doing an in-depth reading of them because i was up so late thinking about this? i’ll never tell)

thank you as always for creating such wonderful, well-composed, thought-provoking work! it’s always a pleasure to read (and reread… and rereread)

- “as a treat” anon <3

First, the answer to your one (1) question is that the reader doesn't know about the bond at all so she isn't trying to keep a wall up or block anything. Hope that clears it up 😅

And ohhhh myyy god 😭 the thought of all that happening when so much has been left unsaid and unknown I am DECEASED! I'm not even sure if Az would live through that. Idk if I would live through that. It would be quite silly I do have to agree (and it would also kill me).

Once again I love you and all of your silly (ouch!!) thoughts ❤️❤️❤️ Thank you for reading and talking with me!!!!!

[some-one56]

A Dream is Not A Wish

Chapter Four~Part Of...This World?

You poor unfortunate soul~

In pain...in need...

Just come running to my cauldron, and I swear you won't regret~

Will I help you?

Wait and see~

Virgil and Patton yelped in surprise as they both fell out of the portal. They immediately fell to the ground, but the portal didn't close up. It stayed open, waiting for them both to return to it.

Virgil sat up, spitting out the sand that ended up in his mouth. "Blegh- that's foul-"

Patton snickers, brushing some sand off of himself. "Looks like we're at the beach! I wish we were here on vacation, instead of these circumstances though.." he sighs.

"You and me both, Pops," Virgil mutters with a sigh. He looks around the beach. "Okay so there's several Disney movies that involve a beach.. There's no telling which one this is."

"Do you know who is in which movie?" Patton asked Virgil curiously.

"All I know is that Roman's in Sleeping Beauty and Logan's in Alice In Wonderland. I don't know about Janus and Remus."

"Hm.." Patton frowns, looking around the empty beach. "So either Janus or Remus is here then..."

"Hopefully."

The duo began to walk around, checking up and down the beach. No signs of Janus or Remus, and no hints to which movie this would be.

However, a trail of footprints leading from the shore, to a large rock caught Patton's attention.

"Kiddo, look!"

Virgil turned to the footprints, narrowing his eyes as he began to follow them toward the rock. Patton trailed behind him.

"Hello?" Virgil asked as he got in front of the rock. He gasped when a male peeked out from behind the rock. Virgil recognized him immediately.

"Remus! I'm actually relieved to see you," Virgil grins, going over to hug Remus, but he immediately stopped when he realized Remus had no clothes on. "HOLY- okay- let's find you some clothes, holy shit. I never wanna see that again." He covered his eyes with his hand.

"I'll find something he can use!" Patton quickly said, searching the beach. He came back minutes later with half of a ripped up sail.

Patton handed Remus the sail, letting him clothe himself. Once he was decent, Virgil uncovered his eyes. "Is this...The Little Mermaid?"

Remus quickly nodded, glancing back out toward the sea. He looked back at Virgil, putting a hand to his throat.

"Oh shit...your voice is already gone?" Virgil asked, tensing slightly.

Remus nodded with a shrug.

"Oh no..." Patton mutters, looking at Virgil with concern. "What do we do...?"

"Maybe it'll come back once we're in a new story. Surely it's not permanent," Virgil said quietly. "The others are surely in danger still, and we can't stay here."

"We better get moving then," Patton said, watching Virgil head back to the portal. He began to follow after him.

Remus tried to follow after them both, but his legs felt shaky. He made a silent yelp, tripping onto the sand ground.

Patton turned around and quickly ran to his rescue. He helped Remus up, letting Remus use him as a crutch as they both followed Virgil to the portal.

Virgil glanced back at them as he stood in front of the portal. "Alright, let's get out of here."

             ~¤~

"For the last time, I said no."

"I'm not asking. I'm telling you."

"Love isn't something you can force upon someone. Even if you try to, it won't be real."

The Beast snarled in Janus's face, fuming with rage. Janus rolled his eyes, unphased.

"Oh yes, the attitude is making me so attracted to you," Janus said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

The Beast balled his fists, sharp claws appearing from his paws. He backhanded Janus across the face, letting his claws scratch the snake scales on the side of his face.

Janus screamed at the intense pain, crumbling to the floor. He gripped his cheek, feeling a bit of blood seep out of the wound.

The Beast towered over Janus, staring him down. "You will learn to love me. That is an order from your captor."

"I'm not into Stockholm Syndrome," Janus hissed back, holding his wounded cheek.

The Beast roared in fury, turning on his heels and leaving the prison cell. He slammed the door shut, locking it quickly. He looked back at Janus one last time.

"Then I'll make you love me."

And then he was gone.

Janus waited a minute to make sure the Beast was really gone. One he was sure, he winced in heavy pain. Some of his scales had been ripped and torn from those sharp claws. It didn't draw too much blood, but it stung like hell.

He curls up in a corner of the cell, hugging his knees close to his chest. He stared at the floor, beginning to dissociate.

He didn't seem to notice a faint light appear across the hallway. He did, however, hear the three sets of footsteps getting closer to him.

Janus hissed quietly, expecting it to be the Beast again, but he was thoroughly surprised when he saw Patton, Remus, and Virgil standing on the other side of the cell.

"What-" Janus gasped, hopping up to his feet. He flings himself over to the iron bars, staring at them with wide, thankful eyes. "You- how are you here?!"

Virgil smiles softly. "I'll explain later. But first, where's the key to this cell?"

"The hairy misogynistic bitch has it," Janus hisses quietly. Virgil just stares at him. Janus sighs. "The Beast?? From Beauty and The Beast."

"Ohhh, that makes sense," Virgil muttered quietly.

"How are we supposed to get the key..?" Patton hesitantly asked.

"You'll have to sneak up on him and grab it from his pocket," Janus sighed. "But he's very violent."

Remus looked at Virgil, pointing to himself.

"You wanna get the key?" Virgil asked.

Remus nodded with a smirk.

"Why isn't he talking? That's even more terrifying than him speaking nonsense," Janus said with narrowed eyes.

"His story is The Little Mermaid," Virgil muttered. He looked back at Remus. "Okay, just stay quiet and be careful. Got it?"

Remus gave a salute, quietly sneaking off into the dark hallway.

Janus sighed, rubbing his temples. "He's gonna die."

              ~¤~

Remus clung to the walls to keep his balance as he snuck down the winding hallways. He was getting better being on his feet, but it was getting easier.

It would be pretty funny if I took off this towel and ran around naked.

Remus smirked at the thought, but decided against it as he made his way to the main room.

Aha. Target acquired.

The Beast was asleep in a large chair next to the fireplace. His tail thumped against the floor quietly.

Remus could see something thiny dangling out of the Beast's pocket. He squinted to try and see what it was.

The key!

Being as quiet as possible, Remus snuck over to the sleeping Beast, being as careful as he could.

Slowly, Remus reached down, gently grabbing the keyring. Being as quiet as possible, he slowly pulled it out of the Beast's pocket.

Once he has the keyring in his grasp, he slowly backed away from the monster, keeping his eyes on him the entire time.

With a sigh of relief, Remus made his way back to the cell, grinning as he held up the key.

"Oh- wow, he didn't die," Janus said in amazement.

Remus grinned, unlocking the cell. He gave Janus a big hug.

Janus laughed softly, pulling Remus close. "Good to see you, Rat man."

Virgil smiled at them both. "Ready to go get Nerdbrain and Sir Doofus?"

Janus grinned. "Ready as I'll ever be."

              ~¤~

Taglist: @samders-sides @thegirlthatdoesntofficiallyexist

Prologue - 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 6 - 7