#Yes This Is Technically Classwork

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

just a girl with one (1) braincell

[pumpkinsy0]

early 2000s au hcs

-curly has a computer (with SUCH shitty camera quality) that he records stupid shit on with pony l, like pony would come over wnd theyd sit at his chair doing god knows what

-like YEARS later into the future, curly sees the vids again and is like “holy shit???” and makes pony watch it w him

-pony fucking loves domo, mostly bc he’s so easy to draw, hes drawn a lot on ponys classwork

-pony and angela love the prince of egypt movie, yes it technically came out in the 90s but i say they grew up watching it so it counts at early 2000s stfu🙄🙄

-marcia love hatsune miku

-twobit would love nickelodeon cartoons

[decora-kai]

Been a while since I've made an update on my diagnosis situation but I just had my last physio appointment today so I suppose now is as good a time as any!

I was meant to have this appointment like 2 months ago but I missed it due to pain but also the fact that my parents simply forgot 😭 instead of rebooking i was told to do MORE blood tests, Yippee! /s so I did around three more and finally was able to rebook my appointment and have been waiting for a while now. Until, of course, today.

I again wasn't feeling great, but I went to school in the morning and after break went for the appointment at the hospital. At first, my physio was just asking how I've been and talking about my blood test results (All fine, apart from slightly low vitamin D and Iron). She then said that if my blood was normal, it must either be that I'm weak and lazy (her actual fucking words), or that my diet is bad. Now yes, my diet is not the healthiest in the world but I try my best. Anyway, that pissed me tf off and I literally wanted to scream but luckily, she started to consider that maybe, maybe it was something else (OBVIOUSLY IT IS OMFG).

She did all the like pressure points, asking where it's painful and where it isn't and concluded that i seem to have quite a lot of bone pain rather than muscle pain which i actually didn't realise myself because i dont know the difference (not that I don't have muscle pain but the bone pain is more prevalent apparently) So now I'm finally being referred to an orthopaedist which should hopefully take 4-6 weeks + A chronic pain clinic!! I'm really hoping that I'll be able to get a diagnosis finally but also I'm trying to not get my hopes too high, just in case.

Something else that happened is a meeting with my school attendance lady 😭 but she was actually really nice luckily. Basically she was talking about how my attendance had slipped below 80% which is not good but also saying that they are going to talk to my doctors and see if I can get any accommodations! since I'm not diagnosed, it's quite hard to get accommodations within school but this would be like life changing, even though it would probably only change a few small things such as

Using a computer instead of writing (my hands get achy when writing some days)

Not having to do PE (physical activity worsens my symptoms)

being able to study in the library (do my classwork outside of class)

able to leave the classroom if/when I need a break

And possibly (I'm hoping for this but technically nothing was said)

Doing exams in a different room to most (I can get bad brain fog + overstimulation which causes more pain)

So, that's it for the update and I hope to bring more good news next time! >:3

[lacepockets]

That Time I Helped A Book Get Published

I've been what you would classify as "an artist" for pretty much my entire life. Or, at least, as long as I could hold a pencil. As soon as I even vaguely figured out how to make a picture transfer from my brain onto paper (or whatever surface, including the walls, and woe betide anyone who tries to clean that away), I completely unloaded on the world.

Not much of my art survived until now, but here's a few from I think around when I was 8 or 9 years old. Forever stuck in the 3/4 angle facing viewer left.

That said, I was never much of a fanartist; I've always preferred to create original characters, either that exist in series I was a fan of (which I GUESS is a type of fanart? but not really what people think of when they say fanart) or I would make up entire worlds and populate them. I would make up stories to go with this too, and often made either comics or pseudo-books out of them which I just stapled together. Some things never change, really.

I would even LARP my stories all by myself (I was every character), complete with costumes and background music that was usually comprised of the soundtracks of Disney movies, video games, and later anime, which I would blast from my awesome 1990s audio player.

(I also had a Discman eventually but I have more memories of this thing)

When I learned how to, I would even make like mixtapes from the songs I used to make up my story's soundtrack. I would pretend(?) that these stories were "real" as in they were actual cartoons or whatever that I was a fan of. I didn't have any friends so it's not like I shared these things with anyone, but that didn't really stop me. I simply talked to myself about them and wrote my own critic reviews and "episode summaries".

I really do not know how I was not screened for autism when I was a child, but whatever, I'm here now.

Drawing and making up stories and such took up pretty much all of my time that wasn't already taken up by video games or books.

I was even drawing in class. To be honest I was a terrible student — I never really paid attention to anything unless it happened to be about something I was already hyperinterested in, and I subsequently did not give a flying hoot about grades. Instead of doing classwork or, yknow, listening to my teachers, I would be drawing. Some teachers caught on to the fact that I was drawing, and for those classes I switched to pretending to be taking notes or doing work but I was actually writing about my OCs.

Anyway, all this is to say, one of my teachers really liked my drawings, even though they weren't really any better than typical child doodles in my opinion.

I don't fully remember what grade this was, maybe 2nd or 3rd? This teacher was supportive of my drawings even though it was technically disruptive of my learning. She'd ask to see what I was drawing and would talk to me about it, though I wasn't ever really keen on talking about it with her, and sometimes she asked me to draw something for her. She really liked Mickey Mouse so it was usually him.

One day this teacher told me she was writing a children's book, but she needed an artist to illustrate it. So she asked me if I wanted to be the illustrator for her book. I said yes, and she and I worked together on the book for I think a couple months? I can't fully say what the book was about, all I remember is that it was about a little girl with freakishly big pigtails. I don't even remember the title, I wish I could.

The book was eventually published.

It's really funny to think that there's a book out there that my 2nd or 3rd grade teacher wrote and little baby me illustrated, and I just have zero memory of what it is. I sometimes wonder how many people have read the book or bought it for their kids or something and I am just completely ignorant of it.

[looosey]

Lucys Main Quest: Hireability

I work very hard. In fact, I'm working all the time. I work all the time very hard, but I'm still not hireable. I have very few hireable skills.

1. Hireable on Resume

When I look at my resume, I am pretty distant from it, because it has few lines of substance and even those lines I don't really resonate with.

The best possible read of my resume is: she can code python and has done so for MIT labs and classes. Okay???

But can she code a server? Has she ever deployed a personal website? Does she know how to use public API's? No... Can she solve coding challenges? No. (Is she passionate about anything she has learned so far at this institute?) [1]

To think I have to put in hours outside of school to achieve these things makes me sad. I spend most of my hours outside of classwork on dance, painting, cooking, reading, writing, listening to music, and traveling on MIT money. When @tumblasha and I talked about dream job assignments, mine was organizing Lollapalooza. It was not programming graphics, video, and music software for the entertainment industry (as is written on my resume).

2. Hireability at MIT

My friend recently switched her major to design (in her junior year of college), and that's changed her MIT experience 180 degrees for the better. Which is inspiring because imagine if you aligned all of MIT's resources to back what you're actually passionate in. You would be unstoppable. You could do anything you really wanted.

It would be a shame to let go of this opportunity, a shame to trickle down the path of least resistance. Because I'm hard working enough to manage the burden of the path, but not hard working enough to sit down and forge my own.

I wanted to write something about hireability since the beginning of this semester. MIT's career fair was last month, and even before that I had an inspiring coffee chat with an MIT alum/startup CEO (I stepped in for a friend who wasn't feeling good). This Friday, I went to Harvard's creative careers fair, which was a small thing held at the top floor of the smith center. It was small and exclusive, see side story [2]. But I met an artist manager from Chicago who worked with people on Lolla last year. An old white grandfather. A Bizarre exchange continued.

He was very interested in my passion about music work, I was interested in the fact that he worked on Lolla, and I handed him my resume which had a bunch of technical gibberish on it, and he told me that he hadn't thought about paying his interns this summer but this could change if needed.

It was bizarre because I didn't know what I wanted from that exchange. Would I drop everything and be okay with bringing nothing MIT-grade to the table as an entertainment hunchman?

3. The future of things

But all is not lost at the same time. Inklings of hope arose this semester. I'm working towards something, because my classes have FINALLY began to move from fundamentals/tools to how to use this tool to build something of your own design. I can finally speak creative stories because I have learned enough of the technical vocabulary. So now, it's the next step: if I had a portfolio full of work that would attract the right crowd what would it look like?

My goal by the end of this school year is to have a resume I am proud of. Not by Course 6 standards or industry standards. But my own. To have done personal projects I want to show off to people and a body of work that speaks for me.

[1] I feel this cognitive dissonance/out-of-body experience when I read my resume... Exactly like when someone asked me who my favorite artist was and I responded Sza. I was weirded out at myself because I felt like I was lying: yes, I listen to her enough, but like I can't name multiple albums of hers. I am not a fan fan. I am a fan fan of Tyler the Creator, Billie Eilish, and Ariana Grande. But they didn't come to my head at all. What is going on????

[2] Security stopped me on the first floor because I was an MIT student with an email invitation but was not on their registration form. They let my boyfriend with a Harvard guest ID through. Harvard Career Advisors stopped him on the tenth floor because it was for current registered students only and then told him "you can go sit at that chair over there though." And let me through. So much gatekeep.

[nyaifyz]

My Headcanons #2

Imma prob post a lot today because I have very little classwork to do

Anyways, have some reddit screenshots that I yoinked to discuss/show + other rambling

(I use to post in the reddit, I no longer do but once in awhile I peek in)

Uzi was definitely a member^ ain't no way Uzi wasn't, if not she was the warrior cats kid

This one was just funny I had to add it^

I do hc that Uzi and Lizzy at least had a crush on each other when they were younger, and I blame one specific doodled comic I saw for causing me to like the idea so much. They give me Savy & Brooke vibes from LpsPopular

THIS RIGHT HERE^^^^I think about it a lot

so ahem transfem Lizzy time

Back on Instagram months ago I kept seeing transfem Lizzy mentioned, but no one explaining it, then on google I would see both transfem and transmasc Thad

Drones are meant to mimic humans, so technically speaking they can mimic the realization and transition humans do

Murder drones have assigned genders yes, but workers 'reproduce' and therefore assign genders to these children

I already figured out how such robot transition would work as me/my dronesona are trans

but lets go back to the headcanon of transfem Lizzy & transmasc Thad:

If both Thad and Lizzy are trans, I imagine they had swapped outfits when they were little !! I think it would be cute and a very interesting concept to write about

which, I might

[asbestieos]

Nazuna Nito Idol Story - Kindness

Author: Asbestieos

Characters: Nazuna, Asta

Season: Summer

Location: Seisoukan Apartment Library

“Then again, that’s what happens when you pile too much onto your plate — you can’t eat it all, and what’s leftover goes to waste. Even if you pace yourself when eating such a large meal, being full is still being full.”

Asta: Grrrh…

Asta: Mmmnhhh…

Asta: Raaah!!!

Nazuna: …

Nazuna: Asta, maybe we should take a break…?

Asta: ! I was waiting for you to say that!

Nazuna: I’m hungry, anyway. We should go grab a snack. What do you think? Should we go out to a cafe?

Asta: Cafe break, cafe break! Let’s go to Café Cinnamon since I have an employee discount.

Asta: Yippie!!! All this mathematical work is frying my brain.

Asta: I’m totally useless at this calculus stuff. Don’t get me started on discrete math…

Asta: I feel like I’m just bothering you for answers at this point. We’ve been studying for hours, and I don’t have much to show for it.

Nazuna: Don’t be discouraged. It’s not so bad, is it? You have half of that sheet done! That’s progress.

Asta: Grrr.

Nazuna: Grrr?

Asta: Nana, y’ got all your work done, didn’t’cha? You’re just sittin’ there, typing away, pretending to be working, to spare my feelings of inadequacy.

Nazuna: Um… Yes, and no. I got my classwork covered, but right now, I’m technically doing more schoolwork.

Nazuna: Official stuff, like registering for next semester.

Asta: Ohh?

Nazuna: Actually, I’m also sending a request to drop a class for this semester.

Asta: Oooh?! Really? Which class?

Nazuna: My lab class for chemistry, eheh. Somehow, my labwork always ended up being saved for last, and on top of more important classes, I could never get it done.

Asta: Aah, I had to do that, too! As long as you contact the dean of the chemistry department, it should be fine. Make sure to CC them if you’re emailing.

Nazuna: Oh? I was just going to email the professor. I didn’t even think of the dean.

Asta: Yeah, I didn’t think that neither. But there were a bunch of classes I had to drop ‘cause I just couldn’t do ‘em, so I learned through my own errors that dropping a class is easier if you go directly to a department head.

Nazuna: I heard you had to drop most of your classes. There’s no shame in it, y’know? Post-secondary education is super hard, and you gotta take it at your own pace.

Asta: Mmyaaah. I’m not ashamed, but it’s real frustrating.

Nazuna: Mhm. It’s like, ‘I can totally do this work if it was the only thing I had to do, but as it stands, I have so many other things to worry about that this has no room in my mind!’

Nazuna: ‘There’s just no way I can catch-up with what I missed!’ and all. It’s not like I’m never taking the class again, but since it’s a general education class and we can take it later, I’ll fit it into my class schedule next semester.

Asta: What a long-winded way to put it! You’ve been thinking a lot about dropping this class, huh?

Nazuna: I guess so. Like you said, it’s frustrating. Even with all my determination, I just couldn’t keep up with this class.

Nazuna: Then again, that’s what happens when you pile too much onto your plate — you can’t eat it all, and what’s leftover goes to waste. Even if you pace yourself when eating such a large meal, being full is still being full.

Asta: What an analogy!

Asta: From one class-dropper to another, I’m not judging you, Nana. Besides, you’re juggling a lot between idol part-timing and college work. You’re amazing, y’know~

Nazuna: Well, my idol activities are extremely far and few between… But whenever Ra*bits requires a plus-one, I’m their go-to, and I try to leave my schedule open for them.

Nazuna: Don’t you have to balance work and school, too? You work as a producer, right?

Asta: Hah! Work as a producer! With what unit? Nyaaah, but it is kinda tough balancing my part-time jobs with schoolwork. Even though I now take like, two classes this semester…

Asta: Aaahhh, I dunno! After this semester, I might just take a leave of absence.

Asta: At Reimei, we had this philosophy that it’s okay to reach for your dreams, but it’s also okay to wait, you know? Like, Rome wasn’t built in a day, so if you don’t immediately get what you want, don’t sweat it.

Asta: Sooo~ It’s totally okay to take off from work and school if I plan on coming back later, right?

Nazuna: It sounds like an excuse you’re using to withdraw from everything, though—work, school…

Nazuna: Hmph, from me, too! Even getting you to study with me today was annoying. I mean, didn’t’cha basically ghost my texts?

Asta: Weh?! I’d never ghost you, Nazunyan…!! It wasn’t on purpose, I promise!

Asta: I just saw your messages when I was super depressed, and I thought ‘oh, I’ll respond when I’m feeling better’. But then I didn’t end up feeling better until way, way later…

Nazuna: (Grabs the ears of Asta’s headband)

Asta: Waaahhh?!?

Nazuna: That happens when ya overwhelm yourself, y’ fool! Ya can’t let yer frushtration an’ disappointment take control of ya!

Nazuna: Don’t take a leave o’ absence! Neither from work, nor school!

Asta: Okay, okay! Release me, fiend!

Nazuna: (He lets go) …From what I understand, you overworked yourself, right? Regardless of the classes you dropped, this life at present is the life you’ve chosen, and it looks like you’ve been coping well now that you’ve dropped the classes stressing you out. Compared to the life you had before, it’s not too much, is it?

Asta: Mmmh… It’s not too much. This math work is wayyy easier than the things I was doing before during my time at Reimei.

Nazuna: Right? Do you think giving up on what you’ve got now is okay, just ‘cause things are difficult? Is that fair to the you who fought to be here?

Nazuna: Hardship’s to be expected, so give yourself a break and don’t push everything away just because you don’t think you can handle it. If you need help, you’ve gotta ask for it, too.

Asta: Aaahhh! Raaah! Okay, meow! That’s sensible.

Asta: I gotta be kinder to myself. I’m really trying to do that. I didn’t get enough kindness from myself when I was young, so I’ve got to be nice.

Asta: Sooo…

Asta: For the sake of being kind to myself, could you teach me how to solve this matrix…?

Nazuna: Ah, this one? You know how to solve it! You’ve gotta arrange it like so first…

Asta: …Oh! Oh, I see! When you set it up like that, I just have to multiply across and then… Pop, pop, pop… (Focusing)

Nazuna: Right, then you just have to… ? Asta?

Asta: Baa, moo moo… (Focused)

Nazuna: Asta??

Nazuna: Woah, don’t write so fast, you’ll give your hand a cramp! You’re way too focused right now!

Nazuna: Can you even hear me…?

Nazuna: Aww… W-What happened to taking a Café break…

[ambyandony]

Cloud Nine Contrails: Main Protagonist; Limbo Adkins

Context for Cloud Nine Contrails

Limbo Adkins

(リンボ・アドキンス Rinbo Adokinsu) ✈ 17 years old ☮ female, she/her ☮ ~ 160.02 cm (5'3") ☮ Metro Popper ✈

Modified transcription of above profile:

Could be a distant relative of the Joestars, but there's really no evidence to suggest it, so who knows? She's never been shown with the star birthmark, but she's never been shown without it, either.

Though her father is Japanese and her mother an Englishwoman, Limbo was technically born American, even if she doesn't consider herself as one. Due to her parentage and upbringing, she speaks Japanese and English as a native bilingual.

Similarly to her brother, Limbo's Stand potential and face birthmark were apparently inherited maternally; their father is the only non-Stand User in the immediate family although he's well aware of what Stands are.

Her parents are separated; she lives in Detroit with her Standless father while her older brother and mother live somewhere in Europe, supposedly Eastern France, near the Italian border.

A rising indie musician, but works under a pseudonym online and only ever performs behind the anonymity of a full-face mask, so nobody really knows it's her.

Diagnosed with and medicated for ADHD-C. Has undiagnosed anxiety. Goes to therapy but what the fuck am I supposed to tell my therapist about stand-related issues??? Fuckin'... guess I'll take it to the grave!

Vastly knowledgeable about aviation and aerodynamics. Has a long-standing hyperfixation on aircraft.

Never wanted to end up in a gang, but it's not like she can just leave…

Still in high school. It's hard juggling crime, classwork and Stand conflict, even harder when you're trying to keep your dad out of it.

Limbo lives with her now-single father Tategoto and their puppy Kumori. Her mother, Aurelie-Adele, and her brother, Josh, live in Europe.

Coloured and uncoloured full body references, back and front; profile and 3/4ths view headshots!

Abbreviated personality description from my wiki page for her:

"Limbo is a typically soft-spoken and well-meaning individual. She has a gentle demeanour but chaotic sense of humour ... typically abstract ... [and] borderline Dadaistic. ... [When] put under large amounts of stress, she tries to twist the situation into some form of comedy.

She's incredibly insecure, but rarely speaks about it ... [A] large part [of her insecurity] can be attributed to ... rejection-sensitive dysphoria. ...

She is incredibly modest and polite, sometimes to a fault. ... She is overly apologetic ... be the wrongdoing minor or major, real or perceived, or not her fault at all ... [as] a result of her anxiety ...

She generally likes her privacy ... [to] the point of [wearing a] mask ... to keep her "work" and "personal life" separate. ... [She] doesn't want to be associated with the Metro Poppers any more than she has to.

Though capable of ... and having enacted it on multiple occasions, she greatly dislikes [violence] ... only [harming] others in retaliation and under extreme distress. She seems ... [like] a pushover and ... [as] she's settled into the position, putting her foot down isn't an easy task ...".

why yes, i did just discover the joy of ... and [ ] in quotations!

Design notes for Limbo to help me stay on model! dont mind the gap at the bottom i overestimated how much blank space i needed and also I ran out of things to write. same applies to all of these pictures

「Cloud Nine」

Cloud Nine - Stand of Limbo Adkins

Modified transcription of above profile:

Cloud Nine's ability is to detect, disrupt and disconnect signals. A signal can be defined as an intangible and invisible connection (generally) between two or more things. Cloud Nine's ability applies to anything that is considered a signal or can be defined as a signal by that criteria, be it mechanical, organic, or anything else. It takes the form of a small plane, reminiscent of a drone in size, resembling a commercial jet liner with a few minor elements of a fighter jet. It's not combat oriented, nor is it really suitable for combat, as it's not armed with much beyond a single rotary turret hidden by the central landing gear, which can only wound superficially. It cannot--or at least generally does not--create new signals other than communication signals by radio wave.

Power - C

Speed - S

Potential - A

Range - A

Durability - D

Precision - C

not that stand stats mean anything-

Modified transcript:

Cloud Nine combines elements of a fighter jet and a commercial jet liner. Specifically, the Airbus A320 and the F-18 Super Hornet.

Cloud Nine is similar in concept to Aerosmith, it is a small, roughly toy-sized plane. Beyond that, there are few similarities.

It's a jet, so it uses turbines to fly, meaning propellers would be obsolete and, given its sleeker design, would only get in the way of any artillery. However, it's very lacking in armaments, possessing only one small rotary turret underneath it by the landing gear. Because of this lack of firepower, it possesses a set of propellers to function specifically as a weapon, doing more significant damage than the turrets can.

It does not appear to have propellers, because the propellers typically retract into the nose, and only emerge when they're needed as a weapon.

...It does disrupt its ability to fly if any "viscera" gets caught in its blades, however, so there's a good chance it needs to be cleaned off sometimes. It's a bit gross.

There's a little shadow visible through either windscreen, and it does seem to move sometimes, but it's not clear if this is just a visual effect or an actual entity.

It has two cockpits, one as intended for commercial aircraft and the other as intended for military aircraft. It also features a false canopy on the bottom, which only mirrors the upper cockpit.

For reference, Cloud Nine is a bit smaller than Aerosmith, up to around half of Aerosmith's size, but it may just look that way largely because it's a lot sleeker.

It has antennae-like protrusions underwing on the ends of both wings. These have an indicator light attached to the tips. The antennae are by default retracted and unlit, but when its ability is in use, the antennae extend and the lights switch on. The lights display green when detecting or restoring signals, and red when disrupting or disconnecting them.

Cloud Nine has a headset. Whenever the Stand is summoned, this headset typically appears already over Limbo's ears, or around her neck. It's a fair-quality over-ear aviation headset with good noise reduction as well as a movable boom mic, facilitating two-way communication. When giving orders to her Stand, Limbo speaks to it through the mic.

Interestingly, Cloud Nine actually shows a degree of sentience and is also capable of actually speaking, which is pretty rare for Stands (presumably all Stands can telepathically communicate (or facilitate their Users to do so) but only a few are able to speak non-telepathically, like Spice Girl, Sex Pistols, and Whitesnake); however, it can only speak through the headset. Anyone who can put the headset on can hear and communicate with the Stand, not just Limbo.

It's very rude, though, especially to Limbo herself, and it always sounds like it's yelling. The starts and ends of transmissions are usually marked by a sound like a walkie-talkie.

It relays signal information to Limbo through the headset as dynamic auditory indicators and coordinate info, which Limbo is able to visualise as a sort of "radar grid" to easily determine where and what signals are. It's an effective system Limbo has acclimated to and mastered over time. So, to anyone else, the report is nigh indecipherable.

Another defence mechanism is the ability to spread thick clouds from its contrails, creating areas of low visibility and dense air that's hard to breathe. How it pulls this off isn't made explicitly clear, but in theory, it manipulates some kind of chemical-environmental signals that are meant to dissipate clouds as would normally happen, causing the vapour to condense. Limbo jokingly refers to it as 'making a cloud nine'.

[cyath]

======================================

Authors note:

This was something ask of me and sorry that it took me very long to respond but I finally got some answers:b

And yes at the current time I'm writing this is 3:00..in the morning..

Btw this is the post I'm referring to ( I would recommend reading it to kinda get what's going on)

But anyway let's get into it!

======================================

1. Can you choose multiple clubs,

Yes you can choose multiple clubs, but it depends on the individual record. For example let's say your a trouble maker who doesn't have the best grades. The president of the club will take a look of your school record and has the ability to deny entry into a club it's the same thing with sports. Half of the clubs meetup after school but the other half meetup during a period like a class.

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2. How is the school year split.

The year is split weirdly because since they are long living demons. But since diavolo started putting in his own rules and all the breaks started becoming more frequent (at least to demons) it started reassembling more of a human school year but no quite

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3. Which class give homework and how often,

[Mostly all the classes give you homework🥲]

Seductive speech craft- seductive speech craft gives you sometimes group projects and other times writing essays. Gives Homework sometimes and at other times no.

Curses and hexexs- Gives you homework is mainly has to do with books and worksheets and research papers. So in this class you do have homework weekly.

Potions and Brewing- potions and brewing gives you classwork and if you don't finish during the time given, you'll have to stay after school and finish. Theres quizzes on what does what & what you need to make them. But sometimes you have group projects to work on a potion

So in the end you don't really have homework for this class unless you don't finish the classwork

Devildom History- does give you homework that also mainly consists of alot research papers and reading books. There's also daily quizzes so enjoy that 🥲

Art- dosent give you homework Lol

Philosophy- does give you a lot of books to read, like the most out of all classes, safe to say that the teacher takes their job very seriously. Presentations you have to to give so ahaa. In this class you don't have much homework, except read books weekly them give a presentation of the subject by the end of the month.

Mathematics- does out of spite give homework, I have nothing else to say.

Jk

The teacher for this class gives out packets of homework and also there are quizzes at the end of the month.

Biology- Gives out worksheets to do and you have to write a paper at the end of the week about the thing you learned. There's also quizzes at the end of the month.

Music- kinda does give you homework, but it's all about practicing and weekly check ups to see how your doing with the subject.

Theater- Doesn't really give you homework

Phisical Education- Doesn't really give you homework just

Devildom law- does give homework and is not merciful about it. the teacher will grain the subject into your head and make sure you don't forget. The homework for this class is writing weekly argumentative essays about the subject. You also have to give daily presentations about the topic you're learning. There's alot of reading, writing and research In this class

Astronomy- [To be clear the astronomy in devildom is not like the astronomy in the human realm.]

Technically this is a magic class. Studying the formations of the stars and also the Moon. And also the stars (in the obey me universe) are made of magical energy and if used and study correctly can be used in many different ways. Like surprisingly gardening. Bc we know that the plants in the devildom has to grow one way or the other.

This class does give you homework, like reading, analyzing also doing experiments, and also group projects like for example recreate a constellation or smth. the teacher gives out homework weekly.

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4. Are there school archetypes/stereotypes

Oh yeah definitely, you have the rich noble spoiled demons, the rule breakers, the jocks, the theater kids who are a menace to everyone, the nerds, the bullies, the popular kids, and the people who just want to get through life. Everyone knows everyone, and there's a variety of demons in this school.

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5. Are the sports in separate seasons? Or year round?

Some sports are year round like fencing and dragon Riding while sports like fangol, baseball and all that are in separate seasons

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6. What are the breaks/ holidays.

Hmm now this is a bit of a tricky because of how the holidays seem to sometimes just pop up even though we'Ve never heard of it but anyway,

A holiday I know for sure is diavolo's birthday, but other then that I have no clue.

Like I said before in the "how is the year split" question the breaks resemble more of a regular human school but not quite. They are about 2 and a half weeks long. But when a new school year starts it takes longer to start because of the approval system. Many demons want to go to R.a.d and is a hard academy to get into.

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Authors note: [again] I haven't been posting as much as lately because of exams I have to take, so I wanted to get this out. :D

I have many ideas for animatics so can't wait to work on those!

Until next time

Later gators 🐊

•🄾🄱🄴🅈 🄼🄴 🄼🄰🅂🅃🄴🅁🄻🄸🅂🅃•

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[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK]

NOTES: Wow, that was quite a response to just reposting the prologue! Hopefully you all enjoy the rest of this fic as much as you've been anticipating it; I know it's been a lot of buildup to it, unintentionally I promise you. Here you go, better late than... well, you get it.

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

The next morning had been a hard one for Anna. School just felt strained and weird without knowing for sure where her mother was. Punz helped her through it, and she managed to do most of her classwork, but her mind kept wandering off.

Tomorrow was the earliest they could report her missing to the police. Of course, she had a feeling that it wouldn't matter one way or the other, but it was the strongest hope that she and her father had. Knowing what they knew about time travel, they had refrained from calling John or Wendy for the time being; she might come back.

She had to come back.

So when she walked into the living room after school and saw her mother sitting on the couch, looking quite weary but whole, safe, normal, she ran into her arms. It didn't even occur to her to ask about her father, or what she was doing there, or anything else. Need overrode curiosity.

"MOM! Oh my god… oh Mom, you completely freaked me out, I didn't know what happened!"

Elsa wrapped her arms around Anna, hugging back just as a tight as a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh spilled from her lips. "My angel… I'm so sorry for worrying you like that. Really."

Anna felt her eyes well with tears. She had been unwilling to truly face the idea that Elsa was truly gone, but seeing her here threw into sharp relief just how much she had been terrified. Her arms grew tired as she held on, but there was nothing that could make her let go. Not at this moment. Even the mere thought had her arms tightening their hold, squeezing just a little harder.

"Please don't leave again," she said softly. "Not- not without telling me first. Dad- Dad came home last night and we were gonna go to the cops and-"

"Shh…." Elsa hushed her, inhaling deeply. "I promise I'll never do that again without telling you. I'm so sorry, Anna."

Tearfully, Anna drew her head back, just enough so she could look in Elsa's eyes. "Where did you go? Did I… did I do something?"

Oh God. Elsa could see the forty-something version of her daughter, asking that same exact question. "No, no, baby. No you didn't do anything."

"But you just left me…" Anna's words, cracked and small, were also so heartfelt. So sincere in their pain that it made Elsa want to cry, too. How could she even have thought of giving this up? Of leaving the person who, truthfully, had become her entire world?

"I waited until the day your father would come home. That way, you wouldn't be without someone to… look out for your well-being, no matter what came to pass."

Clearing her throat and sniffling, Anna pulled back and gazed at her mother. "What… came to… Mom, what happened? Where did you go?"

"I was figuring some things out. Took a few weeks. And I've come to some decisions." She took a deep breath, then let it out very slowly before she took both of Anna's hands. "I'm not leaving you."

"Okay. I'm… b-but you made it sound like you… wanted to?"

"Not 'wanted'. But I thought it might be best." She released her hands. "However, there are going to have to be a few changes around here."

Still incredibly relieved at not losing her mother, Anna slumped downward. Then she said, "Okay, okay. You want me to stop hitting on you? Is that pretty much it?"

Elsa nodded slightly. "For now. I'm… willing to revisit that at a later date, but you have to promise me something. From now until you are in college, this stops. We have to learn to keep our hands to ourselves. It's going to be difficult, I know; we've already proven that it will be. But that's very important to me. You might technically be of age, but… you're my child, and you live in my house. There's no pretending that won't affect which of us has the power in a… in… well, in a romantic relationship."

"O-oh." Anna wasn't sure what to say. This sounded like bad news, but it also sounded like there was some good news attached. "But… what about when I'm in college?"

Only now did Elsa smile slightly. "Depends. I want you to really take this time to think hard about you and I. We both will. And we'll try our best to be a normal family. I'm never, ever going to stop loving you!" Her smile faltered slightly, and she looked away with red cheeks. "And if, once you're out on your own, not… being 'parented' by me, you still want to be something more than mother and daughter… we can try that. I know it's a long time-"

"Oh, Mom," she breathed, crushing her with her arms again, sore as they still were. "God! Of course, I… oh I'm sorry, I'm so dumb, I kept trying to… I d-don't know, I'm stupid, I'm so stupid!"

"Shhhhhh." It was soothing and sweet, and she kissed the crown of her head. Anna hummed a little through her tears, glad for the gentle gesture. "It's okay. Everything's okay, Anna; you're going to be just fine."

"B-but what if we try it, and I hurt you somehow? Make you sad th-that your daughter is… disgusting?"

"Don't ever think that. Even if I've been a little disgusted by your desires, by my own, that does not mean I think you are 'bad' or… or anything! And it never did. Do you hear me, sweetie? You'll always be my sweet Anna, whether or not I can handle you being my Tori at the same time. Always."

With renewed vigour, Anna hugged her mother so aggressively. Elsa returned the expression – and, where once she would have hesitated, now there was no sign of that reluctance. It was just what Anna needed.

"I should… really call Punz," she said finally. "Let her know what happened."

Elsa's lips quirked. "I should probably ring your father," she said. Still, neither of them moved. If anything, Anna seemed unable to stop herself pressing closer.

"What if… what if I can't?" she whispered. Even in that low tone, it was obvious she was scared – terrified – of something. "You want me to stop until college, but what if I can't? Or, if I slip up? Mom, I can't lose you just because my balls get ahead of my brain sometimes."

Squeezing tight for a second, Elsa chuckled and closed her eyes. "Accidents happen…" she began. It wasn't good enough.

"No! How can we trust that it would even be an accident when I want you so bad? It hurts, Mom!" Anna sniffled. "It hurts to have you so close sometimes when I want so much more but you… don't…"

"Anna, listen to me." Elsa had Anna's face clasped in her hands, giving her the ability to look directly into her eyes. "You have no idea how much I want you. But right now is the wrong moment. For you, for me… and sweetheart, you need to think of Punz, too. That girl adores you. And-" Elsa lowered her voice, though she smiled now, too. "I would love to be her mother one day, too. Well, mother-in-law."

"That still doesn't solve this problem," Anna said. Her words were monotone, but she felt herself blushing at Elsa's suggestion. It was easier to deflect than it was to think on the future and whether or not Punz would be part of hers.

"You're right. But I guess what I've realised is… this problem is not worth me leaving you behind. I want to work on it together. And if we slip up again, we will deal with it like adults. We aren't animals who have no willpower."

"Are you sure?" she asked with a weak laugh. "You came pretty close that morning."

At that, Elsa leaned in and whispered, "I really did. I was very close." The double meaning made Anna's cheeks grow yet rosier. "But I'm serious; I won't try that while I'm 'in charge' of you. That's not right. Even if we try to treat each other equally, we can't be equals until you're out on your own. And I'm not going to let you drop out of school or anything like that, before you ask," she warned.

"Damn, you caught me," Anna hissed, and Elsa chuckled. "Still Mom with your freakin' parenting chess moves, ten steps ahead. Man… that's so long, though."

"Is it? I know it seems that way to you, because you're young."

Sighing, Anna admitted, "Maybe not. And you're right, like… the past couple of weeks have been great! Not just the parts where we flirted, but everything. All three of us hanging out together was nice, too."

"See? We can make that work. And as I said, if I know you're making advances on purpose, then I will have to leave until you've graduated. Just for my own sanity, and to make sure I don't hurt you – and then I'll come back. But a few slip-ups here and there can be forgiven, Anna."

Anna's hand stroked up and down Elsa's side for a moment. Again, she didn't flinch away, but she started to look a little less comfortable, so Anna stopped. "Okay. I… don't really get the whole 'I can't be in charge while we're dating' thing, because like, you parenting me is totally separate. But I do trust you, Mom. So… so I can try it."

"Not as separate as it should be. But thank you, Anna," Elsa said honestly. She was smiling, too, so that was a good sign. "Now I really must contact your father." She got up and was halfway to the kitchen before Anna spoke.

"Hey, Mom?" she asked. Elsa turned.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

Suddenly, Anna felt very gun-shy and guilty. Like she was going to ask her mother for a treat after her father had already said no. "Can I ask a favour?"

"Of course!" Elsa turned more fully towards her daughter, and Anna felt her mouth grow dry. Just for a second, but it was more than enough, really.

Swallowing hard around a lump in her throat, Anna looked away. "Can I… have a kiss?"

Her mother answered with a sigh, but it was more weary than truly upset. "That would seem to defeat the purpose of giving us this dry period, wouldn't it? Unless you just mean a cheek-kiss."

"I didn't," she admitted readily. "Um… and I do kinda get what you mean? Cooling off to make sure this is what we really want, cause we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. But like, I already did that. The past couple weeks were me trying not to feel things for you, and it didn't work. But if you want to try for longer…"

"I think, if a few more months go by and you still want me the way you did a couple of days ago, then it will prove that we're really intended to be that for each other. And if the feelings fade for you, then won't it be better that we never went too far? That we never… crossed the line that cannot be uncrossed?"

Anna was having trouble wrapping her mind around what Elsa was trying to get through to her. What would be the difference at this point? She already let her go down on her once before, even if it was her younger self and not this mother standing in front of her now. But she supposed there was probably some wisdom in this plan that she simply hadn't considered.

"Just tonight," Anna whispered very quietly. "Like, to get it out of my system. Then tomorrow, we can go back to 'Mom' and 'daughter' and all that, and… see where we end up when I go to college. And I know, I sound like an ungrateful brat, and it's demanding, a-and… I'm sorry. But I think it'll drive me nuts if I never get to touch you from now until I'm out of the house!"

"It's not a good idea, Anna." But she relented. "Fine. But you have to make all the moves. I already basically attacked you in 1985, and now that I really am your mother…"

That part, Anna could understand. Especially after she explained the whole 'being in charge' aspect; if she was worried about wielding power over Anna, she would give it all to her. Smiling, Anna placed her hands on Elsa's waist. "Just a kiss. Maybe it won't even feel right and we won't have to worry about anything more."

Both seemed to realise at the same moment how silly a thought that was. Anna could feel it already, that pull. Her mouth was no longer than dry – no, she was almost salivating at the thought of doing this again. Her cheeks warmed and her heart picked up, trotting in her chest as she took a step closer.

"Just a kiss," Elsa echoed, though her voice had suddenly lost its power.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Anna leaned forward. Elsa wasn't much taller than her – wasn't much taller than she had been in '85 – but still Anna missed. Her lips found Elsa's chin, and Elsa let out a snort of what could have been laughter.

Anna didn't correct herself upward, however. Contrarily, she moved away from Elsa's lips, grazing hers down to lave at her mother's throat.

"Anna…" Elsa tried. It was meant to be a warning, but instead it came out hoarse and throaty. A small noise slipped from Anna as she wrapped her hands more solidly around Elsa's waist. It was more of a hug now, and it had the side effect – intended or not – of bringing them even closer together.

Eyes sliding shut, Anna merely enjoyed the taste of her mother's skin. She felt gentle fingers tangling in her hair, and was prepared for when Elsa tugged her away. Even if it was a gentle distancing.

"This isn't quite what we agreed to," she sighed nervously. But she could see her mother was uncertain. Guilty. There had to be a way she could remove that guilt. What would make this woman she adored more comfortable with her how much she adored her?

"Elsa… you can call me 'Tori' tonight if you want," she murmured. "If that makes it easier. I could even dress up in 80s clothes or something? Like… since the whole problem is me being your daughter, I could be her instead."

At that, Elsa let out a soft laugh. "I didn't know we were doing an all-night affair. But… well…"

"Well?" Anna asked after a few seconds passed and her mother didn't finish the thought.

"I did ask Kristoff to get a hotel room. Give us space enough to figure things out." Anna drew back to see Elsa looking ashamed, but also smiling very slightly. "Not that this was what I had in mind. Just wanted to be prepared for any… eventuality."

For a few seconds, Anna had to suppress the tingles burbling up through her body. From very specific places. Elsa had planned for them to sleep together. Not as an intention, but a precaution – though that was still more than she had hoped lips pushed into Elsa's neck again, hearing a sigh. Then she whispered, "What if I just keep kissing? All over?"

"An- Tori," she corrected, and Anna smiled against her neck.

"You don't have to do anything back. I'm good. But… I want to try this out. See how far I can get before you need me to stop. Or before I need to stop."

"Let's just stick to kissing above the waist." When Anna pulled back to grin at her, head starting to duck downward, she hastily added, "Above the shoulders! Jesus Christ, how did I raise such an opportunist?"

"You didn't; the other Anna probably wasn't as bad as me. And she also wasn't as hot for you as me…" Knowing she was pushing her luck, she leaned up to whisper into Elsa's ear, "And I'm pretty hot for you right now."

Elsa let out a sharp breath that was probably covering something else. "Anna…" she tried one last time. This one felt breathier and needier than before, and Anna could feel the warmth pooling just below her navel.

"I just want you," Anna said softly. "To touch you… in whatever way you let me." Her hips rolled very slightly against Elsa's – not enough for any real friction, but certainly enough to give truth to her words. Elsa gave out another shuddering breath. "But for now, a kiss will do…"

And she did just that, sealing their lips together once more. Elsa sank down into it as if it were a warm bath, perhaps grateful that she no longer had to speak. It didn't really matter.

Slowly, Anna began to back away, leading them back to the couch. It seemed safer than heading for one of the bedrooms. It took Elsa a moment to realise what she was doing, but when she finally caught on she wasted no time in guiding Anna. Despite what she had said, she seemed to be a little less willing to stop now.

But finally they were seated, a strange parody of that moment in Doc's car. Anna had little doubt that she wanted to try paying her mother back for what she had done there, either. Hopefully Elsa felt the same.

Anna slipped her tongue between Elsa's lips, and she only groaned and accepted it with her own, leaning back until she was lying on the couch with Anna over her. Her arms never tightened around Anna, and she never gripped her shoulders; only laid her hands gently on her biceps. Seemed she was deadly serious about not making any 'moves', after all.

When they broke apart again, Anna's hips still grinding, Elsa warned her breathlessly, "This is… more than a kiss."

"Yeah. But hey… tonight is our night, huh? Like, the last one to be Tori and Elsa."

"It is. Even though we aren't going as far as you think we're going," she told her, resolve returning as she pointed a finger up at her.

"Right, I get it. So…" Biting her lip, she got up from the couch, leaving Elsa briefly confused. "Let's do it. Let's dress up."

What an adorable blush crept into the middle-aged woman's features. "Oh, you… were serious about that?"

Dancing backward a little, she said, "Remember that outfit I made you buy? The one that you said you wouldn't wear out of the house, short-shorts and crop top? You can put that on, and I'll find some stuff in my closet that makes me look really… different. Really Tori for you. And I'll change my hair, and wear the shoes from the dance!"

"Oooh," Elsa sighed at the mention of the shoes. Apparently, that was such a strong tie to the memory of going down on Anna that it instantly heated her up. Then she cleared her throat. "Well… I suppose it wouldn't hurt to simply look the parts. Might help create necessary boundaries."

She knew what her mother really meant; it would help assuage her guilt if they were recreating the past, instead of forging a new, sinful future. Clapping her hands, she started to head for the hallway. "You just wait! This is gonna be amazing!"

"I hope you're right," Elsa chuckled as she started to follow her. They were both going the same way, after all. "But I just wanted to reiterate..."

Hesitation. So she prompted, "What?"

"No matter what happens… I'm always going to love you. That was never in danger at any point, Anna."

"I know. Don't worry, we got this. Promise-promise."

"Now, that sounds familiar..."

Anna had no way of knowing what Elsa meant; she hadn't said it yet, after all. But she was all smiles as she retreated to her room with glee, only sparing Elsa one last glance over her shoulder to see her mother was standing in the doorway to her own room with a bemused smile on her blushing features.

Still so beautiful.

                                         To Be Continued…

[bnhayyy]

The Call (1)

Chapter Title: Slayer

Wordcount: 4.1k

Ao3 Link: Click

Notes: Written for day one of @aot-au-week , since a Buffy AU very technically counts as a College AU, and because it's the least I owe @cookietonwrites for convincing them to take on another fic. As you can see, the idea quickly spiraled into a multi-chap, for which I am not even remotely apologetic.

Summary: There is only ever one slayer at a time; the chosen one, a girl strong enough to fight against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness.

 Mikasa has accepted that for her, being the slayer means living a reclusive life, haunted by the image of the first person she failed to save and unable to ever truly let anyone in. However, everything is called into question with the arrival of Annie, a girl who claims to also be a slayer. Mikasa's life becomes much less solitary seemingly overnight, but friendship is followed by a deadly conspiracy, and with it, the threat of loss and heartache.

Mikasa's world consisted of a haze of blurred vision and the gentle buzzing in her ears. She blinked, and the figures on the paper before her solidified into numbers for a heartbeat before fading out once again. Trying it a few more times didn't yield any better results. It only made her aware of how much her eyes burned and how heavy her eyelids were. How heavy her entire head was. How easy it would be to just slip forward and… 

The buzzing reached a crescendo. A hand reached out to grab her shoulder. She jerked back upright to find Armin sitting across the table from her, one hand still extended and a worried expression on his face. 

Mikasa faltered. Words played at her lips, semi-contradictory things like 'it's fine' and 'what's wrong', but none of them felt right enough to actually be voiced. Instead, Armin was the one to break the silence. 

"When's the last time you slept?" he asked. 

Mikasa sighed. He must be really worried if he was cutting straight to the point like that. 

"Don't worry about it," she said, even though she knew it wouldn't work. 

Armin's frown deepened as a hint of disapproval trickled onto his features. He pitched his voice into a whisper to say, "you don't need to go out every night. You can't- you shouldn't be doing this alone."

"I do," Mikasa countered. "I'm the only one who can. You know that, Armin."

There was one girl in the whole world charged with keeping the forces of darkness at bay. She couldn't cast that duty aside just because she was tired.

It was with that thought that she realized that her gaze had begun to drift back toward the table. She snapped it back up as Armin asked, "does Erwin know how thin you're wearing yourself?" 

Mikasa pursed her lips. "Erwin's only been here for a few weeks. He'll get used to it."

"You shouldn't be used to it," Armin insisted, the softness of his voice warring with the rapidly mounting undercurrent of anxiety. He was still talking, too, about how Erwin wouldn't approve and she would be more productive if she wasn't dead on her feet. She didn't absorb any of the actual words, his voice fading back out into that gentle, incoherent buzzing.

Then there was a flicker of movement as something faded into sight in the corner of her vision, and everything Armin said became utterly doomed to sail right over her head.

Mikasa very determinedly did not look at the figure. She didn't turn her head and didn't allow her eyes to move in his direction beyond that first involuntary twitch. It didn't matter. He leaned forward, and she caught a glimpse of the green eyes peering out from what she knew would be a placid-yet-piercing expression.

"He's right, Mikasa," he said. "You need to take better care of yourself."

She allowed her eyes to flicker shut even though it did nothing to block out the man's voice. The voice of her own imagination.

"You've always been like this," he sighed. His voice had a whisper of warmth in it today, a touch of fondness tucked within what sounded like age-old resignation. "But you shouldn't. You're at your best when you have our friends with you."

Something flickered within her at the comment, although she was pleased to note that she managed to keep it within. There was no need to remind the hallucination that she didn't have any friends. Not even Armin, truly. Because for all that they were fond of each other, no amount of fondness could ever make up for-

"-kasa?"

It was the hint of iron intertwining itself with the worry in Armin's voice that got her to open her eyes. Mikasa forced herself to look at Armin and only Armin, who was leaning halfway across the table at this point.

"You really need to get some rest," he said. She moved to open her mouth, but he cut her off by asking, "you don't have trigonometry for five more hours, right?"

Mikasa nodded.

Armin gave one short, decisive nod, which appeared to be more for himself than anything. "You should take a nap, then."

The shift in her expression was subtle, just a faint downward turn to her lips, but apparently still enough for him to catch, because he quickly added, "you're going on patrolling again tonight, aren't you? Even a couple of hours would be better than nothing. I promised to meet up with Annie in a little while, but. I could walk you home?"

Mikasa didn't bother asking who Annie was, but she didn't protest either. She could see the logic in his argument, even if it felt painfully like a waste of time. "No, it's alright," she said. "I can walk myself."

Armin frowned. "Okay, but you will-"

"Go home and take a nap. Yes." She was already standing up as she finished agreeing. If she was going to keep her word, then it would be better to get it done sooner than later. The earlier she left, the sooner she could return. "I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.

With that, she turned around and left without taking another look at the boy who maybe, in another world, could have been her friend.

Or the distorted memory of Eren Jaeger.

*

Mikasa laid in her bed and closed her eyes.

*

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Cl-"

Coughing. Choking, sputtering, straining, a strain in her chest that turned into an ache resonating throughout her entire body. A pain worse than anything she had ever felt in her fourteen years.

Shouting. Rushing. Urgent voices talking rapidly. Not to her, with her aching body and spinning vision, but to each other. White coats and flashing lights. They were talking, talking, and there was something she had to say, something more important than the flashing lights or the unreal pain or the whisper of strength that shouldn't be there. There was something, someone, she had to ask about-

Her voice cut off in a hoarse croak when she tried to speak. Her throat stung, like it had been worn ragged by- by-

Salt.

Memories flashed by her in a dreadful kaleidoscope. The parents. The men. The boy. The other man, the one they'd thought would help. The sea - he'd thrown them in the sea, her and-

A jolt of energy. Mikasa forced herself upright and grabbed the wrist of the first person she saw. Surprise was on his face. Surprise and discomfort; her grip was stronger than it should have been. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was-

"Eren," she croaked.

"Eren." The white-coated man's voice was softer than she needed it to be. Focused on her. He needed to be focused on not her. "Is that your name? Eren?"

Through parched lips and a throat like sandpaper, she croaked out, "where's Eren?"

The man gave her a long, sad look. No. No. He shouldn't be looking at her like that.

"He saved me," Mikasa pressed. "Then he- the-" monster “- we went in the water together."

One faltering moment that lasted for an eternity.

The man redirected with talk about her. What's her name, can she describe what she's feeling, she's okay, it'll all be okay - it didn't matter. It didn't matter and it wouldn't be okay. It didn't matter, because in that moment, he didn't need to answer.

His expression spoke only of death.

*

She woke up feeling more awake, but just as tired as she had been before.

*

Mikasa didn't even try to pay attention during trigonometry. The nap may have refreshed her to some degree, but not enough for that. Besides, she still had a solid C. Spending class zoned out was... admittedly detrimental, considering that she had been in a similar state for her last two classes, but not so devastating that she wouldn't be able to recover from it. She would just have to cram as hard as she could once she had the opportunity to spend a few nights on her classwork. It wasn't a pleasant routine, but it had gotten her through her first two semesters of college. She could make it work for this one as well.

Besides, she had more important things to spend her brainpower on.

A girl had been marked absent during roll call. Mina Carolina. A single absence was not unusual in and of itself, but although Mikasa couldn't claim to know Mina well, she had not seen the girl take a day off before. That didn't mean that she couldn't - she could be well and truly sick, or an emergency could have popped up. People took days off all the time, even those who normally didn't.

The trouble was that there had been a marked increase in people turning up absent lately. Most of them never returned. There were no bodies found or hints as to their whereabouts. They were simply never seen again.

Mikasa didn't want to feel a sense of distant mourning. She wanted to hope that Mina would show up at their next class with some excuse for the teacher about how she can sick or had to deal with an unignorable situation. However, that same part of her had also wanted to hold out hope for Franz and Hannah when they disappeared from her American Literature class, and now they were nothing but faces on missing posters.

The semester had only been in swing for a month and a half. Mina would be the third victim person she had shared a class with. Not third overall - just that she had shared a class with specifically. When she scaled the radius up to encompass the entire campus, she would be the fifth disappearance.

According to Erwin, Paradis' level of supernatural activity was on the low side of average. She suspected that that was the reason he had been hinting that they should relocate. He felt that she was wasted here, and as her Watcher, he wasn't comfortable doing nothing about it, no matter how new to his position or unwelcome he was. And truthfully, five people disappearing off of a college campus during the first semester and a half wasn't unusual. College was stressful. She didn't know the details regarding two of the disappearances, and even with the couple who had seemingly disappeared off the face of the like, a human culprit was just as likely as a demonic one, if not moreso.

So why was she so certain that Mina Carolina had met her death at some point since she had last seen her?

Why did she feel like she had failed to stop it?

Once the feelings of dread and guilt grew strong enough for her to be actively aware of them, Mikasa decided to redirect her attention to the students who were there. 

Armin probably would have been one of her classmates if she hadn't insisted that he not take any classes that run past sunset and directed him to the morning trigonometry course instead. However, it wouldn't have been a large class even with him and Mina. 

Four of the students scattered across the room were unknown to Mikasa. However, her seat near the back of the room allowed her to keep an eye on them with relative ease. That, in turn, allowed her to be fairly comfortable in her assessment that they were normal human students. 

She could say the same of her four other classmates as well. They, however, were a little higher on her radar. 

Closest to her, his desk seated directly in the last few rays of evening sunlight, was a muscular blond man. Mikasa thought that his name began with an 'R', but didn't know much else about him. He'd caught her attention with a loud, outgoing personality and general demeanor that made him seem like an odd fit for the class. At the moment, it looked like he wasn't paying much more attention than Mikasa herself, fiddling with the ring on his left hand and only occasionally glancing up at the teacher. 

The blonde next to him was as much of a stranger, but she at least looked like she was focusing. She had gained Mikasa's attention by joining a week after classes had started. Since then, however, she had proven quiet and distant, only interacting with her classmates when she glared at the man next to her for trying to talk to her while she was working.    

Jean Kirstein, meanwhile, clearly didn't want to be a stranger. Over the past year, he had made a few attempts to reach out that she could admit were enduring. If she didn't have her duty, he might be someone she could consider a friend. As it was, she couldn't bring herself to do anything but brush him off, for his own sake. He didn't pay her much attention in class though. That wasn’t to say that he was completely focused, even though he had claimed a seat at the front of the class. She often glimpsed him speaking to the student next to him. There’d also been enough instances when she’d heard a frustrated comment from him regarding the course for her to get the sense that trigonometry wasn't particularly easy for him. However, she also suspected that he was hardworking and dedicated enough to make up for it.

The student next to him was Marco Bott. Cheerful and painfully earnest, he was honestly mostly notable to Mikasa because he was Jean's friend. He seemed like a good person though. That meant he was a reminder of why Mikasa couldn't let Jean become her friend no matter how hard he tried or let herself rest no matter how much Armin tried to insist. If she faltered, if she slowed, there would be consequences.

Mina used to sit behind Jean and Marco.

The sound of chairs being pushed back and writing implements being put away drew Mikasa out of her stupor. Rather than look at the clock, she glanced out the window.

The sun had already begun to set.

She quickly stuffed her textbook, pencil case, and notebook in her bag, feeling only a brief pang of guilt for the blank sheet of paper that stared back at her. The items landed haphazardly, and she knew that if she looked, they would likely only partly obscure the stake, crossbow, and knife that laid carefully arranged at the bottom. She zipped it shut before anyone could get curious and try to sneak a peek; a reflex even though she knew that no one would be bold enough to try that with her.

Despite being the last one to start getting packed, she was the first one out of class. Just like she always was. From there, it didn’t take long to get off the campus.

The first two blocks of Mikasa's walk went like she was heading home. It was as she reached the third - the one that would have lead back to her apartment - that she took a sharp right. From there it was four blocks straight on, then one block to the left. A simple route, but one that had come to haunt her nightmares.

Dusk had descended on the cemetery by the time she reached it.

Logically, she knew that she wasn't likely to run into anything for several more hours.

Instinctively, she knew that Mina Carolina wasn't likely to return to class.

This wasn't a night to take risks.

Mikasa wandered deeper into the graveyard, where she was less likely to be spotted by any passerby, and pulled out her stake. There, she began to wander.

It wasn't a small cemetery by any means. That was what made it the ideal hive for demonic activity. Not only were cemeteries where the majority of newly turned vampires rose, but large ones were also rife with additional dead bodies and crypts. This one was even separated into several different sections, which made it easy to get lost.

Getting lost made it easy to watch the time slip by.

A couple of hours into her patrol, a familiar figure flickered into existence at the edges of her vision. She didn't say anything to him, and he followed her silently, gaze occasionally flickering to one side or another as he took in the graveyard. As if he might notice anything before she did. Technically speaking, she supposed that he might. He had "caught" things a few times in the past, when she was subconsciously aware of something but hadn't been fast enough to process it with her conscious mind. It was the only thing that made sense, for all that she desperately wished that it wasn't.

A slayer whose hallucination needed to point things out for her couldn't mean anything good for the world.

She forced herself to look away from the figment and focus on her surroundings.

Not five minutes later, the sound of shifting earth caught her attention. Mikasa turned and strode toward it, her grip on her stake tightening and her gaze fixed straight ahead. Within seconds, she had spotted it; a grave with the earth beneath it stirring. As she watched, a hand punched up and out of it, grasping desperately at the ground. The head came next - an unfamiliar man, his face distorted by lumps across his forehead and nose, slitted yellow eyes, and fangs. The visage of a vampire prepared for predation. It glared at her as it struggled and snarled, eventually freeing its other arm. Once that was done, it had a much easier time dragging itself to the surface.

It never got the chance to free itself fully. The second its chest was completely exposed, Mikasa sprang into action. She grabbed the thing by the lapels of its dirt-stained tuxedo and dragged it upward. Fear flicked across its face, causing the predatory features to fall away and leaving a normal face behind. A face that could have been human if she didn't know better. She didn't allow herself to look closely.

In a blink, she had rammed her stake through the vampire's chest and into its heart. It dissolved into dust a few seconds later. Mikasa stood and watched the flecks flutter back down to earth.

She was drawn out of her reverie by a firm, "you shouldn't be patrolling tonight."

Mikasa grit her jaw. "I already rested," she pointed out.

"It isn't enough. You've been exhausting yourself, one little nap isn't going to make up for that."

"You just saw me kill a vampire."

"Yeah, and it took way more out of you than it normally would."

Mikasa whirled around to face the figment. Something in her chest threatened to hitch as she allowed herself to look directly at him, just as it so often did, even years after he first manifested.

The thing before her almost could have been a ghost. It wasn't though; god knew she had done enough research on the subject. Ghosts, when they visibly manifested at all, took the appearance they wore at their time of death or at another point in their life.

Eren Jaeger had been fourteen when he died. Even if he responded to the same name, this grown man with distant, unreadable eyes couldn't be him.

He wasn't anything. She'd run all of the tests as she learned more about the Supernatural. She wasn't haunted, there weren't hints of a demonic presence lingering around her - there was nowhere he could have come from other than her own mind.

He was nothing but a manifestation of her guilty conscience. She had come to terms with that years ago, yet she was still wasting time arguing with him.

At that instant, it was suddenly very tempting to look away. However, she forced her gaze to remain steady as she coldly said, "leave."

The figment blinked. "Mikasa-"

"No," she interrupted.

Something flickered in the illusion's eyes. It was difficult to identify, caught behind that distorting wall that so often covered his emotions, and she didn't even bother to try. He opened his mouth again, but she didn't let him get another word in.

"I'm not willing to put up with you tonight," she said. "Get out."

His expression finally came together into something real and visible. Alarm. "Mikasa, move!"

Mikasa lunged to the side just in time to avoid being grabbed by the shoulder.

She spun around to find a burly vampire standing over the ashes of the one she'd just killed. He was musclebound and bulky enough that he might be somewhat difficult to face in hand-to-hand combat - but not so much as to stand a real chance against her. "Slayer," he snarled. "I am going to grind you into dust."

Mikasa didn't bother responding. He lunged forward and she spun to the side, ducking beneath his flailing fist to get behind him. As she moved, she noticed that Eren had disappeared. Good. She sprang forward, stake in hand, only for the vampire to swing back around at the last moment and grab her wrist. He squeezed, a horrible grin on his face, and she had to fight to keep from automatically releasing her grip on her stake.

As the vampire leaned forward, she twisted to punch him in the sternum with her free hand. It only made him falter for a moment, but it was enough for her to wrench her wrist out of his grasp. It was also enough for her to come to a terrible realization.

Her blows weren't as hard as they usually were and she was moving slowly.

Eren was right.

There wasn't any time to ruminate on that. The vampire lunged forward, and Mikasa dove to the side again. She leaned into the momentum and swung her leg out to land a kick to the vampire’s side. He stumbled, a curse on his lips.

It didn't bring her any sense of victory, for as she brought her foot down, it landed on uneven ground. Not observant enough.

Pain shot up her ankle and the world began to tilt.

Eren still wasn't anywhere to be seen. Funny. If her mind was going to conjure up even a distorted version of Eren Jaeger, she would have expected it to happen when she died. She had thought that he would watch.

Mikasa hit the ground, the side of her head slamming hard against a flat gravestone. The world continued to spin around the sound of the vampire chuckling. She clenched the hand holding her stake, only to find that it must have fallen out of her grasp during the fall.

She forced herself to sit up, hands pushing hard against the ground to make up for the way the world was spinning around her. When she looked up, the vampire was glaring down at her. She tried to stand up, to scurry back, but her ankle gave out when she tried to bear weight on it. A sprain - just a sprain - nothing that wouldn't heal in a couple of days with her abilities, but even a sprain couldn't bear weight immediately. The vampire was saying something now, but she couldn't make out the words, couldn't hear anything past the buzzing in her head, couldn't feel anything but the sensation of warm blood oozing from the cut in her head.

The vampire was reaching for her.

She hadn't wanted to take a risk, and because of that, she was going to die tonight. And Eren wasn't even there to see it.

Maybe that was fitting. She hadn't witnessed his final moments either. Maybe he wanted her to die alone as well.

The vampire's hand closed around her neck. She forced herself to look up, to at least look her death in the eyes-

- and the vampire exploded into dust. In his wake stood the blonde girl from her trigonometry class, stake in hand and gaze locked on Mikasa.

The girl said something. Mikasa blinked, hearing her words, but unable to process them. The girl frowned, and Mikasa grit her teeth, just to give herself another sensation to focus on.

"Repeat that," Mikasa ordered.

The girl extended a hand. "I asked how badly injured you are," she said.

Mikasa ignored the hand and moved to force herself to her feet. Her injured ankle protested once again, but she bore the majority of her weight on her other leg and managed to get upright. "I can handle it," she said. "Who are you?"

The girl didn't seem at all off-put by Mikasa's blunt question. If anything, she seemed like she expected it. "Annie Leonhart," she said.

She paused for a moment. It did nothing to prepare Mikasa for her next, impossible words.

"I'm the slayer."

*

Weeks later, armed with only an axe, her memories, and the desperate research of a lonely girl scared she was losing her mind, Mikasa went hunting.

She found the one who had snatched them from the bodies of the original monsters and tossed them into the ocean.

She took his head, and he turned to ash at her feet.

[the-ss-zemyx]

PVP(umpkin Spice Lattes)

Zexion and Arpeggio are Discord friends. They chat in private messages, raid in Verum Rex together, and may or may not have feelings for each other.

Ienzo and Demyx are college roommates. They hate each other, for the most part. At least they can both agree on pumpkin spice lattes.

Happy 2nd Zemyx Day of 2020!!

Specifically for today, the S.S. Zemyx Discord Server hosted a collaborative fic-writing event! Over the course of the past five days, four of our writing members teamed up on a Google Doc in one glorious, inspirational, chaotic, frankenstein-esque fic-writing bonanza! That's right, the fic you're about to read is the product of -four- people's efforts!  Enjoy!! :D

(A HUGE thanks to my co-writers: Aliceslantern, Ennarcia, and Carbonpixel. This was a hell of a lot of fun to do and I'm immensely proud of us!! - Mod Arxsia)

Also available on AO3!

__________

      Demyx hated his roommate. Okay, no, hate was a strong word, and Demyx did his best to be a friendly, outgoing sort of guy, so ‘hate’ was definitely too strong a word. He liked to make friends. Having friends was nice. Having friends was very nice, and so, he tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But his roommate was a different story, and Demyx did not like his roommate very much at all.

At least he was easy on the eyes, because everything else about him got on Demyx’s last nerve. His name was Ienzo, but his name might as well have been "Jerk," with a capital J. When he wasn't hogging the Internet bandwidth doing God-knows-what on a chunky Alienware laptop, he was lecturing Demyx on the virtues of keeping the floor free from dirty clothes and giving empty soda cans a proper burial in the plastic wastebasket by the door. Lame. Also, he was a little condescending. That jerk . 

One day, Ienzo burst into their dorm room with the gusto of a hurricane aiming to speak to a manager about a botched coffee order. He swung his laptop bag onto his mattress. It bounced when it landed. "Out," he commanded.

Demyx looked up from his phone. He sat with his legs crossed on his own bed, his Discord app open to a private message thread on his phone. In a few minutes, one of his server friends, a guy with the display name "The Cloaked Schemer" but going by his Discord handle, Zexion#1309, would be starting a voice call with him. It was kind of a big deal--they had been chatting in their shared server for almost a year, and in private messages for almost as long, but they had yet to actually speak to each other. "I'm actually busy," Demyx said.

"I don't care. Out."

It turned into an argument, of course, neither yielding and probably disturbing their neighbors with the yelling. Yep, Demyx didn’t like his roommate one bit. 

He ended up in the lounge by the kitchen, utterly fuming, cursing his idea to “go rando” with a roommate all the while. It’s the best way to make friends, Demyx , his mother had told him. What better friend than a roommate?

Very funny.

At least he’d been able to grab his phone. Of course, Zexion was wondering where the hell he was. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Do you need to reschedule?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: roommate’s being a dick and kicked me out. Sorry!

The Cloaked Schemer: Ah, I too am having roommate troubles. I can sympathize. I know too well what it’s like when one’s privacy is denied.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: he’s driving me NUTS! 

The Cloaked Schemer: Have you tried talking to him about it?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: He didn’t exactly uh seem receptive to talking

The Cloaked Schemer: It’s always a good idea to try for maturity first.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I did! Not my fault the guy wasn’t having it.

Anyway. Id hate to let that guy take up any more time.

Hru?

The Cloaked Schemer: Doing as well as I can, I suppose. I’m enjoying my classes so far. It seems a little easy, but then again, it is only one of the first weeks. Things should pick up more by midterms.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: ure too smart zexy. And didnt you skip a grade?

The Cloaked Schemer: A year, yes. I don’t think they call them grades in college.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Considering some of the people ive met, couldve fooled me.

The Cloaked Schemer: If I’m hoping to have a grad degree within five years, I have to fast track it. I’d rather not spend much more time in undergrad than necessary.

Though I am especially resentful that, despite the fact that I am technically a sophomore, I’m considered enough of a freshman to still be required to dorm.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: That blows

But dude, ure here. Might as well try to enjoy the journey, yaknow?

The Cloaked Schemer: Oh, Arpeggio. Your naivete is too obvious sometimes. It’s sweet, I think.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: har har

The Cloaked Schemer: I am disappointed though. I was looking forward to meeting you--in a manner of speaking. You’re probably one of the most sane people from our Verum Rex server.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Issa game, bro. Some of them, idk, take it a little too seriously

The Cloaked Schemer: Well, aspects of it are worth being taken seriously, but I understand what you mean.

Though the ship wars are grating.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: ha! Yeah.

The Cloaked Schemer: We’ll have to find some other time, then.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Mann i was hoping to see if you sound as smart as you type

The Cloaked Schemer: You flatter me.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Do you think if we lived near each other we would hang out?

The Cloaked Schemer: If it’s all the same, I’d prefer to keep my location anonymous.

At least for now.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I know. Just a hypothetical question

The Cloaked Schemer: I’d like to say yes.

But for all I know, you’re actually a forty year old serial killer who lives in his mother’s basement.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: harsh

You listen to 2 many true crime podcasts 

Anyway, I g2g. See if the roomie will let me back in. Got homework.

The Cloaked Schemer: Enjoy your night, Arpeggio.

Hopefully one of us has a good one.

Demyx closed the app and repocketed his phone. He flopped back on the lounge couch, eyes squinting at the fluorescent lights above and his limbs ragdolling in uncomfortable directions. A good night, huh? It’d be better if he could spend time in his own room without having to engage in guerilla combat whenever he wanted to exist in his own space. Wishful thinking, he thought.

__________

      Ienzo stared at the chatlog open on his computer screen. The circle next to Arpeggio’s icon turned a dull gray, and the remaining bits of Ienzo’s hope for decent conversation dulled with it. He had finally caught up enough with his classwork to have some free time to spend, finally arranged to voice chat with Arpeggio, finally gotten Demyx to leave the god-forsaken room so he could have the one conversation he’d been looking forward to for weeks , and now… nothing. All that planning, gone to waste. Another wave of irritation hit him, and suddenly he was out of bed and grabbing his keys. He needed some tea.

Ienzo didn’t get tea at the coffee shop, despite his plans. The alluring, hipster scent of pumpkin spice hit his nose instead, and he caved before he could stop himself.

The college employed students as baristas in the campus coffee shop, as part of the work-study financial aid, so it wasn’t uncommon to see one’s peers at the shop. “Hey, Ienzo,” Riku said. It was getting late; chairs were already on top of all the tables. They’d met in Ienzo’s anthropology class.

“I’m not too late, am I?”

“I can bend the rules for you.” He went back behind the counter. “What’ll it be? Your usual?”

He blushed guiltily. “Pumpkin spice. Please.” Curse that glorious, wonderful scent.

He smirked. “Coming right up.”

“I know it’s dreadfully popular.”

“Yeah, cause it’s good ,” Riku said. “As long as you’re not one of those “half-caff, no whip, vanilla and almond, five shots” type of people.”

“Why complicate coffee so much?”

Riku handed him the paper cup. “At that point, just drink coffee-flavored syrup.” There was a pleasant lull for a moment. Riku began cleaning the espresso machine. “So why are you out so late? Don’t you have an early class tomorrow?”

Ienzo grimaced. “My roommate and I got into a fight.”

“...Again?”

“We are not well suited for each other.” A sigh. “I went to the Residence Life office to try and apply for another room, but the period for that is over. I was told, and I quote, “unless he’s hurting you, tough it out.””

Riku chuckled. 

“He is simply-- obnoxious ,” Ienzo continued, the pressing need to vent taking over. “Slobby, loud, and always around at precisely the most inopportune times. I was supposed to have a call with a good friend of mine, and it took some doing just to get him out.”

“Right, your Discord friend.”

“You have a good memory.” Ienzo swished the coffee around a little; it was slightly too hot to drink.

“The one you have a crush on,” Riku said with a grin.

Ienzo flushed painfully. “I do not have feelings for him,” he said.

“Dunno. You managed to bring that call up in almost every conversation we’ve had. If he was really just your friend, would you be that excited? Enough to hype about it for weeks?”

Ienzo shrugged. “I do not know where he’s from, I don’t know his real name, I don’t even know what he looks like. For all I know, he only uses he/him pronouns online.”

“And?”

“I just… see no reason to desire something I cannot have.”

Riku wiped at the counter. “Oh, don’t be so doom and gloom,” he said. “If the call matters so much, it’s going to happen eventually.”

“I know.” He smiled. “Well, thanks for the tea and sympathy. Er, coffee and sympathy.” 

“Any time.”

“Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“You too. Play nice.” 

“Just promise to bail me out if things go awry, will you?”

“Ha, on my salary?” Riku winked.

Ienzo left the coffee shop. He didn’t want to return to the dorms yet, but the fall night was calm and quiet. He checked his phone (maybe Arpeggio was free? Though he did say he had homework…).

As a stroke of luck, he had a message waiting for him.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I have a room again! \o/ 

the jerk was gone when I got back!

The Cloaked Schemer: How fortunate for you. I assume you’re flying through your homework now?

Mel0d10us N0cturn3: nope! :p 

this science paper is kicking my ass!

Im really no good at this sort of thing

The Cloaked Schemer: Do you have any tutors available? Ordinarily I’d love to help but it might be easier and more private to go there instead.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: \o/

We actually do have one of those tutoring centers I think! Thanks for the idea!

Don't want you to waste your special brain-powers on little ol’ me lol

The Cloaked Schemer: I’d hardly call helping you a waste of my “special brain powers.”

It’s not a bad idea to check your local resources though.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: o7

Don’t think I’m gonna make any progress on this paper tonight tho lol

The Cloaked Schemer: Giving up already? I didn’t have you pegged for a quitter.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Awww, come on! Don’t guilt meeee

My poor brain!

It’s mush!

;-; will you not spare some mercy for my poor mushy brain?

The Cloaked Schemer: I suppose just this once, provided you use your resources and go to the tutoring center.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: o7 Yes sir !

First thing in the morning!

My mushy brain thanks you for your mercy and endless kindness!

Ienzo’s cheeks grew warm, but whether it was from the message on the screen or the sip of pumpkin spice coffee currently running down his throat, he neither knew nor was willing to explore.

Despite the late hour, there were plenty of students milling about campus, taking up their little spaces. It had taken him some time to find an empty bench to sit on, but one eventually caught his eye and he claimed it immediately, sitting down with his coffee in one hand and phone in the other.

The sky was inky black, dotted with stars, the sun long gone by now. Nights were starting to grow just a tad chilly, the beginnings of autumn seeping into the atmosphere. It was Ienzo’s favorite season and the aroma of pumpkin spice wafting past his nose was just what he needed to make up for the disappointment of having his voice call with Arpeggio abruptly cancelled.

Well, maybe not entirely. He’d been really looking forward to hearing Arpeggio’s voice for the first time, but this did nicely enough, he supposed. It was better than sitting around stewing in annoyance over his damned roommate anyway.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: so what are you up to right now?

The Cloaked Schemer: It’s a lovely night out. I needed some tea. Got coffee instead.

What is it about pumpkin spice that’s so irresistible? 

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Never wouldve pictured YOU as a devotee of the PSL.

The Cloaked Schemer: Guilty pleasure. 

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: theyre so good. I can’t have that many of them cause caffeine makes me SLEEPY

The Cloaked Schemer: Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me at all.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: whats that supposed to mean?

The Cloaked Schemer: Nothing derogatory, I assure you.

Though the idea of you being hopped up on caffeine amuses me.

You seem like one of those people who has energy all the time.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: i wish

The Cloaked Schemer: I should--begrudgingly--head back to my room.

You should try working on that paper.

I mean it about the tutor.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: yeah, yeah. I hear ya

Hopefully your roommates not being a dick anymore

The Cloaked Schemer: Fat chance. M3l0d10us N0cturn3: enjoy your coffee~~

__________

      Demyx sat for a long time looking at that exchange. He could’ve heard Zexion say those words. He was just so painfully smart, but Demyx could listen to him say anything. About anything. For hours.

He showered and got ready for bed, hoping that Ienzo would stay gone. But as it was, he was back. Ienzo scowled in greeting.

“Nice to see you too,” Demyx muttered. He noticed the coffee cup Ienzo had set down. Ienzo seemed to live on caffeine and spite. 

“I needed to clear my head, as I do not have the luxury of privacy.”

“Well I gotta sleep somewhere,” Demyx said. He crawled into bed. Ienzo rolled his eyes. Demyx saw him grab his own shower caddy and head out to the communal bathroom. He thought he smelled--he blinked. Slowly, ever so slowly, he got up, crossed over to the cup, and sniffed it.

Of course he likes pumpkin spice lattes, Demyx thought bitterly. Ugh.

He went back to bed and fell asleep listening to music.

__________

      The universe thought it was just so funny. Demyx had taken Zexion’s advice and the tutor he’d met with was his jerk of a roommate. At least Ienzo was unhappy too, if the scowl on his insufferably nerdy face was anything to go by.

“What are you doing here?” Demyx blurted before he could stop himself.

“I work here,” his jerk of a roommate answered in response, “as a tutor, for my work study. I take it your procrastinating finally caught up to you and you need some last-minute help?” Did he really have to be so damn condescending though?

Demyx hiked his backpack strap a bit higher on his shoulder and rapped his fingers on the tutoring center's reception desk. Ienzo could glare daggers at him all he wanted from his seat at the computer behind the desk, but the curious eyes of the other tutors and students around meant that he would have to maintain decorum. They both would, lest Ienzo lose his job and Demyx lose his tutoring privileges. He took a deep breath. "I need help with a biology paper."

Ienzo's expression tightened. "Would you like to make an appointment?"

"No? You said it yourself: this is last-minute." Demyx tapped on the desk. "I need to talk to the science tutor on duty, please."

"It seems like we're both out of luck tonight, then," Ienzo replied dryly, absently clicking at something on the computer monitor. "I'm the science tutor on duty at the moment."

"You? Gross." 

"I'm not particularly happy about it right now, either."

Demyx considered his options, and cringed at his conclusions. His paper was due in two days, and it was only half-drafted. Without a passing grade on the assignment, he would set himself up to fail the class. Petty squabbles were not worth the hit to his GPA. He sighed. "Well, can you help? I'm kind of desperate, here."

Ienzo returned the sigh. "Fine. Follow me."

Demyx followed Ienzo around the reception desk to a square table in the far corner, a plastic chair on each side. Ienzo alighted onto the seat closest to the wall. "This better not be a waste of time."

Demyx pulled his laptop out of his backpack before sitting down across from Ienzo. "Has anyone ever told you that you have excellent people skills? Because if they did, they lied to you."

Ienzo rolled his eyes. Yep , Demyx thought, amazing people skills. They were off to a great start. Getting through this paper was going to be agony. "I'm paid to tutor, not practice social niceties."

The laptop screen lit up as Demyx swiped one finger over the trackpad. A screenshot from one of his more memorable raids in Verum Rex guarded the rest of his files behind his login password. Demyx typed his password as quickly as he could, shooing the image of his and Zexion's avatars away before Ienzo could ask any unwanted questions. Evidently, he did not type fast enough. 

“Verum Rex? You're familiar with it?” 

Demyx nearly jumped, shoulders tensing. He knew Ienzo was there; that shouldn’t have startled him as badly as it had.

“Duh? It's only the best MMO on the market right now. Not that you would know, since you're so committed to the whole 'smug asshole' thing,” He snarked on reflex, feeling slightly guilty about it afterwards. Ienzo was being friendly for once, or was at least making something of an attempt at it. Yikes. Demyx wasn't usually one to make low blows like that. He opened the Biology folder on his computer and selected the draft of his paper, making an effort to get along with Ienzo while they were forced to sit together. "Please help me with this? If you would be so kind, please?" Demyx made praying-hands in Ienzo's direction in apology.

Eyebrow rising - was it just one, or both? - Ienzo shot him a look, obviously unamused in the slightest. “If you’re trying to be cute, it’s not going to work.”

Demyx pouted and opened up his biology paper, turning the laptop toward Ienzo. “Fine, fine, just help me?”

Rolling his eyes yet again, Ienzo was just about to lean in to read what Demyx had so far, when the familiar sound of a Discord ping had Demyx scrambling to turn the laptop back toward himself. Shit. He’d forgotten to close his Discord window before showing up at the tutoring center.

While Demyx closed the Discord app, Ienzo watched him carefully, contemplative. “You use Discord?”

Turning the laptop back, Demyx gave him a look, half in disbelief because surely Ienzo was too much of a nerd, but not in the cool way, to know what Discord was, and yet he did. Shit, it would be really awkward to end up in a server together. “Yeah, who doesn’t use Discord these days? I mean, especially if you play games or are into, I dunno, any fan community stuff.”

For a moment, Ienzo said nothing, slowly turning to look at Demyx’s biology paper on the screen. “Alright, let’s see what we have to work with so far, if anything.”

Demyx sighed. Asshole.

__________

      Was this some kind of joke? Ienzo was being pranked, wasn’t he? Any moment now Demyx would start laughing about wasting his time and walk out, like the lazy slacker he was. Halfway through, he half collapsed on the table.

“This is impossible,” Demyx whined. “You don’t really understand this stuff, do you? You’ve gotta be lying.”

Ienzo felt his eye twitch. “Not all of us are lazy fools who give up after 15 minutes. Why are you even here?”

“Because my friend said I should, and I trust his advice. He never leads me wrong, so even if I have to spend time with you , I’m gonna do this.” 

"Your friend sounds like he has the sense that you very much lack," Ienzo deadpanned, scrolling through Demyx's paper. He took stock of the misformatted section headings, missing in-text citations, and the off-center data table in the middle of the mess. The topic of the paper did not appear in any of Demyx's written work. "Can you tell me what this assignment is supposed to be? I can't tell from what you've given me."

"It's…" Demyx shrank back in his seat. "I don't know what it's supposed to be. My professor gave us all a table of data-results-things and told us to organize and analyze them. I don't know what he wants, exactly."

Ienzo huffed, and almost slammed Demyx's computer closed on the spot. Thankfully, his better faculties kept him from breaking Demyx's laptop. "There's your problem. You can't complete an assignment if you don't know what the assignment is . Email your professor for clarification and request an extension. If you do it early enough, they might grant you leniency."

"Really? That's your advice? Beg my way out of it?"

"Not begging. Requesting. It shows forethought, self-awareness, and emotional maturity, even if you don't actually possess any of those things. The adage of faking proficiency to gain proficiency has some truth to it." Ienzo pushed the laptop over to Demyx. "Is there anything else I can help with?"

Demyx's arms crossed, and his expression took on the quality of a betrayed toddler. "You didn't even help me with what I came in for, asshole."

Ienzo waved away Demyx's indignation with a dismissive hand. "There's only so much I, or any tutor, can do without having a good idea of what your professor expects. Emailing is the best advice I can give right now."

"So if I email my professor, you’ll help me?” 

“I give you my word.” A promise made in haste, if only to appease the barest responsibilities of his job. Hopefully Demyx wouldn’t make him live to regret it.

Not long after Demyx was gone, Ienzo checked his Discord app, surreptitiously on his phone behind the reception desk, to find a message from Arpeggio.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Zexy, this worst thing ever just happened!

My roommate is my tutor!

Save meeeeeee

The Cloaked Schemer: That is peculiar. Though colleges are small worlds, so I hear.

What did he have to say re: the paper?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Ugh he couldn’t even help

Because I had licherally no idea what the professor wants

I mean, the dude has an F on ratemyprofessor so

He said to email and beg for clarity and an extension

The Cloaked Schemer: ...That is sound advice, actually.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Youre taking his side???

The Cloaked Schemer: Not exactly.

But in academic situations, it always looks good on you to take the initiative and seek help when you need it.

I guarantee the professor will work with you, and perhaps be able to refine that same assignment in the future.

If he’s worth his salt, he’s seeking to improve himself the way you are.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I GUESS

You wanna do a raid tonite? 

The Cloaked Schemer: Alas, I, too, am a college student with coursework.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: RUDE

Ienzo leaned back in his chair in the campus library. How coincidental, he thought. He’d just given Demyx the same advice. Then again, college papers--especially in the sciences--were not always diverse on the gen ed level. He recalled Demyx’s paper; he should’ve asked him to see the email, or post, or handout with the assignment on it. Chances are the moron had merely misunderstood.

Demyx liked Verum Rex. Perhaps they could have this to talk about. Ienzo wondered who he mained. Probably Yozora, he thought with a sneer. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Actually, I can do one raid.

ONE. Brief. Raid.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Thats more like it! \o/

One raid turned into two, then Ienzo ended up staying in the library, at the tutoring center, until it closed.

__________

      Demyx begrudgingly took Ienzo’s advice. After his marathon raid session with Zexion, he sent a brief email--agonizing over the wording--to his professor, who responded almost instantly with an apology. Several students had already asked him about the assignment, it turned out, so he was going to extend the entire class’s deadline. But if Demyx needed a few days after that, he could have it.

“You were right,” Demyx murmured out loud, as he read the email the next morning. 

“Of course I was,” Ienzo said, not looking up from his desk. “See? All it takes is a little maturity.”

The irony. Demyx grimaced. He looked over at him. “So you’ll help me?”

“When--and only when--I am on duty,” he said. “I have a life outside of work, you know.”

Demyx wondered how true that was. Ienzo spent a lot of the time in the room if he were not in class or in the library. Did he have friends? Did he go to societies? He nearly asked. Then he looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in weeks. He had bags under his eyes, and was washed out, books spread in a circle around him. “Outside of studying, too?”

Ienzo opened his mouth, then shut it. “I am not here to socialize. I am here for a degree.”

“But don’t you… have any friends?”

“Of course I do,” Ienzo said, just a little too quickly. 

Like he would honestly tell Demyx. “Sure,” he said, shutting his laptop and tucking it into his bag. “Well. I got class. I’ll see you at the center later?”

“Much to my chagrin,” Ienzo responded evenly.

Demyx’s day was ordinary other than that. After the professor clarified what he wanted in class (and, to Demyx’s immense relief, it was much less daunting than what he’d thought), he stopped by the library to check out some books which might point him in a vague direction. Ienzo could tell him if they were any good. He stopped by the coffee shop to grab a croissant and a coffee, and, on impulse, got one for Ienzo as well. The idea of it made him nervous. Maybe I’ll say they made an extra by mistake, he thought. He already knew Ienzo drank them.

There Ienzo was, sitting in the office. “It’s you,” he said in an unreadable tone.

“It’s me.” He cleared his throat. “Um…” He thrust out the coffee without saying anything else.

“Is this for me?”

“Uh, yeah.” He felt his face heat--though why? 

Ienzo took it, looking confused, and sniffed the small hole in the lid. “Oh,” he said softly.

“I wasn’t sure if you liked--”

“No. I do. That was kind of you.” He blinked, his expression odd, slackened; Demyx realized it was without malice. “Let’s get to work, shall we? I don’t want this to take any longer than it has to.”

Ienzo helped him structure the paper, and reviewed proper citations with him. It would take a little work, but seeing it outlined, Demyx felt a lot less overwhelmed. Something he thought was a mammoth project would maybe take an hour or two to write.

“Once you have it written, come back and I can help you with grammar and syntax,” Ienzo said.

“Awesome.” He took a deep breath. “I feel… a lot better now.”

“One typically does when one stops procrastinating,” Ienzo said. He leaned back in his seat. For a second--but just one--he sounded like Zexion, all firm and proper, genteel without being rigid.

__________

      "You got your grade back already?"

Demyx beamed as he held his laptop screen-out, his browser logged into the university's online grading system. One score was listed under BIO 101, labelled "Paper 1." The percentage displayed next to the assignment name was higher than Ienzo expected from Demyx. "I didn't completely fail!" he practically cheered.

"So you didn't," Ienzo agreed, nodding slightly at the number from his desk. "It's amazing what a bit of work will do."

Demyx dropped himself onto his bed and turned his laptop. He bounced on the mattress a few times while he looked at the number. "This is the best news I've gotten all semester and it's the best feeling. Is this what it's like to be a genius and get good grades all the time?"

Ienzo returned his attention to his own laptop, where a half-drafted essay mocked him with its blinking text cursor and nonsensical thesis statement. He clacked another line of bullshit into the document. It was for English class, he reminded himself. Any answer was correct if it could be argued well. "No, not really. You get used to it."

"I… I should thank you," Demyx said, after a beat of silence. "For your help. I wouldn't have had anything to turn in at all if you hadn't told me to email my professor."

Another line of bullshit trailed across the screen. Ienzo squinted at it, unsure of what he had typed. "Don't mention it. It's my job."

"But still. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Ienzo could hear Demyx shuffling on his bed. "So… you play Verum Rex?"

"Fairly regularly, yes."

"Do you do raids or multiplayer at all?"

Ienzo shot Demyx a warning glance. "I already have a raiding group. I'm not looking for another one."

Across the room, Demyx had tucked himself into bed, his Star Wars sheets pulled all the way up to his chin. He blinked at Ienzo unceremoniously. "Jeez, forget I asked. No need to be snippy about it."

Demyx's head disappeared under the covers, and Ienzo returned his attention to his essay. At least, he tried. The Discord notifications in the corner of his screen kept distracting him.

Eventually, Ienzo admitted defeat and opened Discord. All of the messages were from Arpeggio.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: hey, do we have an opening on our raiding party?

Zexion?

Oh nvm he said no

What are you up to?

I'm taking a victory nap after getting a good grade on that paper I had to 

write a while back

My roommate is typing something and he's so loud

What is he writing that makes him so angy

The Cloaked Schemer: I am also typing angrily at something

It is a universal collegiate experience

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: still so angy tho

Are you angy atm?

The Cloaked Schemer: I am… frustrated

I'm meant to be dissecting the themes in a short story but I feel like I'm only spewing garbage on the page

Perhaps if I present the garbage with enough conviction, I will be able to maneuver through this class

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: if youre writing it, it's definitely not garbage :P

you need to have more confidence in yourself, Zexy

The Cloaked Schemer: Ha. I think my roommate would disagree

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: well then he's a bum

Tell him that

Arpeggio says so

Ienzo looked back at Demyx, cocooned in spaceship bed sheets and doing who-knows-what under the cover of bed linens. He thought he saw the flash of a phone screen through the fabric, but the light disappeared as quickly as he caught it.

The Cloaked Schemer: I'll pass. He seems busy.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Busy doing what? Bum things?

The Cloaked Schemer: I certainly hope not. We're in the same room right now.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: oh. Awkward

The Cloaked Schemer: I’ll say.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: so you know ive been thinking

The Cloaked Schemer: Have you? What a concept.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: ha ha.

Its been a while since we tried voice chatting

Maybe we could try again?

The Cloaked Schemer: You would want that?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I want to hear your voice. To see if youre actually as smart as you write

Maybe youve got, like, a transatlantic accent, or something. Thatd be cool

Ienzo blinked, staring hard at the screen. His heart beat a little faster. It was so hard to determine tone through text. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Maybe I’m not as cool as I seem.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: highly, HIGHLY doubt it

Youve kept me sane

I really appreciate our

Ienzo saw him type “thing” and then frenetically edit to “friendship.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

The Cloaked Schemer: The feeling is mutual.

A long, long pause. Ienzo did not know what else to say. His face was burning.

The Cloaked Schemer: Normally I’d rather be caught dead than admit this.

But it does get somewhat lonely here.

It’s nice to have someone to talk to.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I know what u mean

Sometimes i feel like i dont really know who i am

And like college is supposed to be about finding that

But its hard.

The Cloaked Schemer: You don’t have to tell me twice.

Part of why it’s so easy to exist in online spaces, in games. Appearance doesn’t matter. It’s like being a more concentrated version of oneself.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Do u feel like a more concentrated version of yourself?

The Cloaked Schemer: When I talk to you.

Ienzo’s heart was pounding. He thought he heard Demyx sigh across the room. Was he typing too hard?

Arpeggio started and stopped typing several times, just making Ienzo more nervous. What is he going to say? Did I push it too hard? Was I too forward?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Me too, Zexion

I wish we knew each other. Like, irl

Getting to do raids in person

That would be so fun

And i dunno, maybe do other things

Go out to eat. Go to the movies. Maybe go dancing.

Do u like clubs?

The Cloaked Schemer: I’ve never been.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: it takes some getting used to

But the energy of a crowd is electric

Especially with people you know

Oh god oh god oh god , Ienzo thought. His hands were trembling. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Where would we go to eat?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: anywhere you want

Well. on a college students budget anyway

-laughs in poor

The Cloaked Schemer: Ah, so, five star cuisine, then.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Just dont order the lobster

In all seriousness. We need to vc sometime

The Cloaked Schemer: Yes.

There’s going to be a raid event on Saturday. Perhaps then?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Depends on if i have the room :/ 

Wanna say yes so bad

The Cloaked Schemer: I know the feeling.

I suppose if I get desperate enough I can rent out a study cubicle in the library.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Awww you’d do that for little ol’ me?

The Cloaked Schemer: Yes, I

His finger slipped, hitting the enter key a moment too soon before he could even finish the thought in his head. His hands felt almost clammy, the inner mechanizations of his mind working on overdrive, as if trying to race against the pitter-patter beat of his heart. Shit. Perhaps… Riku was right after all? Had Ienzo, usually so level-headed, actually developed a crush on Arpeggio? It was utterly nonsensical, and yet he couldn’t deny that he felt a comfort with Arpeggio that he didn’t feel with anyone else he knew, online or offline. Was it possible to fall- ...to develop a smattering of feelings for someone based on typed text alone?

Well, wasn’t that a theme in literature? Two people falling in love over written letters? For all Ienzo knew, there could very well have been instances of it happening in real life, in the days of old, long, long before the age of technology and the internet. A pair of penpals, miles and miles of distance between them, communicating through the written word; it could happen, couldn’t it?

Hold on. When the hell did he turn into a sap ? Frowning, Ienzo ran a hand over his face, feeling like a lovestruck fool.

No. No, this couldn’t be a crush. Just because it was so easy to talk to him, just because they’d been talking for a year or so by now, it didn’t mean-

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Zexy?

You ok?

Shit, how long had he zoned out for? 

The Cloaked Schemer: Sorry. Got distracted.

But regardless, I think we should aim for Saturday.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Great!

Hoping we don’t get interrupted by our dick roomies

The Cloaked Schemer: Quite. It’s a date, then.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Yes :3

Ienzo took a deep breath. Regardless as to whether or not this was practical, it seemed that Arpeggio reciprocated his flirting.

Wait. Ienzo looked at the screen, cheeks heating up as he realized he’d typed the word ‘date,’ and Arpeggio said ‘yes .’ He couldn’t deny the little flutter of his stomach in that moment.

__________

      Demyx set his phone aside, his heart beating heavily in his chest, his face bright red. He swallowed. There was no way sleep would come easily now, and it probably wouldn’t be until Saturday.

He thought about the nature of crushes. He’d never seen Zexy’s face, or heard his voice, but he was so adept at weaving words in the way Demyx wanted to be with music. He tried to imagine him, what he might be like.

He rolled onto his back. Ienzo’s frenetic, noisy typing had stopped. Demyx sat up, rubbed his eyes, and pretended he’d been napping the whole time. “You good?”

Ienzo shut his computer quickly, like he’d been doing something questionable. “Yes. Fine.” He was a little out of breath. What the hell had he been writing?

Demyx blinked. “I’m gonna go get a coffee,” he said instead. “Want me to bring you one back?”

“Sure,” Ienzo said, his face flushed.

Demyx shook his head. Well. If Ienzo needed to take care of that he had at least a few minutes now. “Cool.”

The whole time he was at the coffee shop, he kept thinking about Zexion, all their little conversations. It was evolving, and evolving fast. Demyx knew from brief experimentation with dating apps that just because a person sent you some flirty words didn’t mean anything would come of it. For all he knew, Zexion lived in New Zealand, or something.

That didn’t stop him from wanting it.

He drew a deep breath, exhaled. Well. Saturday he would find out.

Demyx wasn’t going to let Ienzo ruin his chances of meeting Zexion. He decided to strike preemptively, pausing at the door of their dorm room and sucking in a breath, steeling himself. He could do this. He could ask his roommate for the room for one night, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Hey, so, I have a thing Saturday,” he said vaguely. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t coming off as strongly as he intended, but he could still try. ��Mind if I hang here alone for a few hours?”

Ienzo glanced up. The flush was gone, and he seemed much more composed. “Yes, that’s fine. I was going to go study anyway.”

“Study? Don’t you ever have any fun?”

“Perhaps I find studying fun,” Ienzo said.

“Suit yourself.” As he passed on his way back to the bed, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Ienzo had Discord open.

__________

     Friday night, Demyx barely slept. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous. Crushes didn’t usually… hit him this hard. It’s dumb. It’s so dumb. His loneliness was getting to him. Even Saturday morning, there were some hours until the events started. He looked at his DM history with Zexion. They’d spoken briefly, only to confirm a time and place for their characters to meet and chat. He sat at his desk, his hands trembling, as the game booted up.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: You ready?

The Cloaked Schemer: Of course.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Cool.

My mic isnt like great

But you can still hear me

He was shaking. He was shaking. “Get it together,” he muttered to himself.

The Cloaked Schemer: You’re a broke college student. I’m not expecting a professional setup here.

Though I will say my booth is pleasantly soundproofed.

Let me connect.

And Demyx thought his heart might stop. I’m so gay, he thought. A second later he heard that familiar call connection. He twitched a little, and his mic clattered loudly on the floor. Shit!

“Arpeggio? Are you alright?”

“I just dropped the--”

A long, long pause.

He knew that voice.

“Zexion?” He picked up the mic and set it down.

“Arpeggio?”

“I dropped the mic.” Demyx swallowed.

“You…” Zexion fumbled for words. “Speak a little more, please.”

“Is that really you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re in a library right now.”

“And you had an event… Saturday.” 

“Ohh my god,” Demyx mumbled. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, just that he was feeling a lot of it. “Ienzo. You’re Zexion?”

“It’s an anagram,” he said, his tone numb.

“Seriously, this whole time--”

“Evidently.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but at the same time, there was something warm in his chest.

Wait, no. No. This was Ienzo, and they hated each other--

Demyx realized he was panicking. He also, vaguely, in the back of his mind, realized the call had disconnected.

Demyx spent the next few minutes desperately trying to control his breathing, trying to not focus on how Zexion- No, Ienzo- was so disgusted it was him that he’d immediately dropped the call.

Of course. Of fucking course. The universe hated him. The universe had it out for him, surely. Why else would this have happened? He finally meets this sweet, smart, wonderful guy who takes him seriously and actually likes talking to him, on a regular basis , and then… And then… It turns out to be the very same roommate who hates him. That would just be his damned luck, wouldn’t it?

Grabbing his pillow, Demyx face-planted into it, pressing it furiously against his eyes to stop them from burning, to stop the tears that threatened to spill. Of all the people it could’ve been. Why Ienzo ? 

Demyx had been nervous enough as it was, afraid the person on the other end would think him annoying - his voice, his tone, the way he just couldn’t fucking shut up sometimes when he got excited about something. Alternatively, the filter between his brain and his mouth was immensely weaker than the filter between his brain and his fingers, and he could’ve said the wrong thing, unable to stop himself in the same way his hand can catch itself on the enter key before hitting it, or quickly delete the message before Zexion could read it.

But this was so much worse, because Ienzo already knew him, already had an impression of him, and that impression was far from good. It’s no wonder he disconnected the call so suddenly. He likely couldn’t stand hearing the truth any longer, stomach churning with disgust, head filled to bursting with regret, and not just regret over the voice call, but everything .

An almost entire year’s worth of conversations, soiled now, because Demyx was, well, Demyx . A slob. A slacker. An idiot. He wasn’t worth Ienzo’s time, and now he knew he wasn’t worth Zexion’s.

A sharp ache spread over his chest, cold and numbing, all of him tense with it. He… liked Zexion. He very genuinely liked him, so excited to get to talk to him, his bristling nerves aside. All week he’d thought about it, daydreaming, wondering what the person on the other end would sound like, if he’d love that voice as much as he loved the text on his Discord screen.

It no longer mattered, not when it was now clear that Zexion - no, Ienzo , was utterly disgusted with him.

It was over. It was all over - their friendship, a year’s worth of personal conversations, these budding feelings he was beginning to have, or that he’s been having for a while now…

On the flipside, was Demyx disappointed that it turned out to be Ienzo? He… didn’t know the answer to that, still reeling in the fact that Zexion, his dear friend and crush, hated him. The pillow was starting to suffocate him and he instinctively pulled it away from his face, eyes still burning. He sucked in some deep breaths and just when he was finally on the cusp of calming down, his door swung open so fast Demyx feared it’d break off the hinges. 

Ienzo leveled him with a determined stare. “You.”

__________

      Ienzo sat.

And sat.

And stared, and sat some more.

He was dizzy. Slowly, so slowly, all the pieces clicked together. The coffee. The references to Verum Rex. How they were always just missing each other. The whole tutoring scenario. Good god . So this person he’d been harboring feelings for this whole time was--

He pressed a hand to his forehead. And yet, a small part of him… was relieved?

It could be…

No, it couldn’t be anything! They hated each other! They’d complained to each other about each other more times than Ienzo could count. They had--

Ienzo felt the walls of the study booth begin to close in around him, pushing the breathable air out of the room. His ribcage constricted around his lungs, and his heartbeat pounded at his temples. He gathered his laptop and microphone in his arms and burst out of the room, chest heaving.

He braced himself against the outer wall of the study booth and willed himself to breathe normally, his head tilted all the way back to rest on the door. This was real life, and he was fine. He would be fine, anyway, with a bit of finessing. Okay, perhaps a little more than a bit.

Ienzo retrieved his backpack and stowed his equipment inside as he analyzed the situation. Arpeggio and Demyx were the same person. A strange revelation, but not world-ending. He could find another raiding party. He could join another server. There was more than one person with whom to play Verum Rex.

But--

Ienzo caught himself zipping and unzipping the top pocket of his backpack, more forcefully than necessary each time. A new server didn't sound appealing. A new raiding party, even less so. He would have to chat with new people, learn their idiosyncrasies and fighting styles, learn their pseudonyms and remember how they differed from their usernames. It all sounded so… hard, and boring, and unnecessary. 

He zipped his backpack closed for the last time and held it at his side by its tiny top handle. Its back straps kicked at his calves as he raced out of the study area, through the main lobby, and into the courtyard. His mind was set. His choice was clear. The only thing to do was follow through.

Ienzo made a beeline back to the room. He found Demyx sitting cross-legged on his own bed, his computer accessorized with a small budget microphone and his face awash with something that looked like guilt. His eyes widened when Ienzo crossed the threshold. 

"You." Ienzo's statement rang out like a gong.

Demyx swallowed. "Yeah?"

"We need to talk." Ienzo shut the door behind himself. It slammed closed, though Ienzo had not intended for that. 

"...yeah." Demyx turned back to his computer, fiddling at the USB port where his microphone connected to the rest of the machine. "Ienzo, I--"

"Shut up." Ienzo stalked into the room, single-minded. He stopped at the edge of Demyx's bed. "Shut up and listen, for once."

Demyx's shoulders rose to his ears. He stayed quiet.

Ienzo dropped his backpack to the floor. Though his fingers trembled, his resolve held firm. The moment of reckoning was upon him. "Did you know?"

Demyx shook his head.

"Did you want to know?"

He responded in a whisper, pained and hushed. "I wanted to meet Zexion."

Ienzo's hands trembled faster. He balled them into fists to compensate. "And now that you know," he said, "do you regret it? Wanting to know? Learning the truth?"

A tear trailed down Demyx's downcast cheek. "No."

Something deep inside Ienzo wanted to reach out and wipe away the tears that followed, while Demyx's breath caught in gasps over his laptop keyboard. Ienzo steeled himself. "I… don't regret it, either."

"You don't?" Demyx looked up and met Ienzo's gaze with caution. Aside from the red tinge at their edges, his eyes looked almost hopeful. 

Ienzo softened, relaxed his fists. "I don't want to find a new server, or a new raiding party."

Sniffling, Demyx nodded. "I don't, either."

"I don't want to stop talking to Arpeggio," Ienzo continued, his heart playing timpanis in his chest. "He is a close friend of mine."

"He's also your lazy roommate." Another tear escaped, this time going down the side of Demyx's nose. Demyx wiped at it with the heel of his hand. "Ienzo, I--"

"We've had differences. We've also had commonalities, albeit in virtual space. There's no reason we cannot bring the two together."

"Ienzo--"

"There's no reason we should be at each other's throats. We--"

"Ienzo!" 

He blinked. The drum performance in his chest missed a beat, then started from the top at full speed. "Yes?"

Demyx unplugged the microphone from his computer, sighed, and tossed it to the far edge of his bed. "I don't think that will work."

Ienzo frowned and crossed his arms. He was beginning to remember why he and Demyx didn't get along in meatspace. "Why, pray tell, is that?" he asked.

Demyx swallowed again, more conspicuously than before. "It's just… I…"

Ienzo leaned forward, his head cocked to the side. "You what?"

"I, um, I…"

"Go on. I don't have all night."

Demyx pushed his computer aside and drew his knees into his chest. "I… shit. I had a thing for Zexion." His shoulders hitched with sardonic laughter. "Shit. Fuck. This sucks." He reached behind himself for his pillow and buried his face in it. "This is so embarrassing," he whined, his voice muffled.

Ienzo's budding anger deflated. "You… you did?"

Demyx nodded into his pillow. "Uh-huh. And now you know, too."

Ienzo opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't make the words in his head form coherent phrases. His throat sputtered with half-formed consonants instead. Words. For fuck’s sake, wasn’t he good at words? Why was this suddenly so damn hard?

"This is the worst," Demyx groaned. "Just kill me now. Make it look like an accident. Tell my family I loved them. Don't let my sister take my bedroom at home."

Ienzo's faculties returned in the bumbling, clumsy way that drunkards stumbled home from dank local pubs. "I... don't think that will be necessary," Ienzo managed, through his own confusion.

"No?" Demyx put his pillow back in its place, and faced Ienzo with dried saline clumping in his eyelashes. "What, are you gonna torture me instead? Make me regret being born? Because you're a little late on that front, buddy, I already do."

Ienzo took a deep breath. His crossed arms dropped to his side, then held each other at the elbows. "I may have developed… similar feelings. For Arpeggio." Ienzo's mouth went dry. The drum performance upgraded itself to a full marching band drumline, twenty-five snare drums pounding paradiddles and rolls in synchronized sweeps. 

A silence consumed the space between them, interrupted only by Demyx's sniffling and Ienzo's heartbeat. It stretched into the abyss and the stratosphere in equal measure, and stung more acutely than the idea of never speaking to Arpeggio again.

Demyx broke the silence by clearing his throat. "So…"

Ienzo coughed. "So..."

"Are we…" Demyx unfolded his legs and swung them over the side of his bed. His hands grasped at his mattress, and his head hung from his shoulders  "Are we, y'know… do we still, like…"

"Do you want to be?" Ienzo shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Friends, cohorts, party members, server mutuals? Or…"

"Or what?" 

"Or…" Ienzo trailed off. Or what, indeed? Friends with benefits? Significant others? Boyfriends? The mere thought made Ienzo's palms sweat. "Or…"

In the moment between Ienzo's efforts to name his emotions and act on them, Demyx had sprung up from the bed and slipped his hands around the sides of Ienzo's face, his thumbs resting just below the apples of Ienzo's cheeks. His breath tickled at Ienzo's nose and lips. "Or… this?"

Heat seared at every inch of Ienzo's face. If he could feel Demyx's breath, Demyx could feel his as well. "...I suppose, yes."

"In that case," Demyx murmured, somehow purring and wavering at the same time, "tell me no." He rested his forehead on Ienzo's. "Tell me no, and we won't. I promise. Things can go back to normal."

A whimper, wholly undignified and unbidden, escaped from Ienzo's higher register. "I can't," he whispered.

Demyx leaned forward, and Ienzo followed. At some point, they met in the middle, and the world's axis shifted two degrees to the left. It was a tentative press of lips, but Demyx’s hands on his face kept him anchored. It didn’t feel like Ienzo thought it would, and self-consciousness invaded. Suddenly Ienzo felt very young and immature; vulnerable .

But… after a moment or so, not so much. Demyx was so warm against him, and Ienzo realized it was a learning curve, one he was picking up with his usual speed. He was shaking a little in disbelief. It was so-- nice.

Demyx pulled away and brushed his fingers across his cheek. "You're trembling."

"Forgive me. I--" He swallowed.

"No, it's cool." Demyx pulled away and smiled, brighter than Ienzo had ever seen someone smile before. "Do you… want to go again?"

Ienzo did, very much so. "I'm not opposed, per se, but I think we should… explore our relationship a bit. Perhaps starting with our mutual interest in pumpkin spice flavors." 

“Sounds like a plan to me, Zexy,” Demyx grinned.

__________

      Riku set the pair of pumpkin spice lattes down on the little square table in the back corner of the coffeeshop, glancing at Ienzo, then Demyx, then back at Ienzo, one eyebrow shooting up into his hair. “Is the world ending? Did I miss a memo on the corkboard in the back room?”

Ienzo coughed. He was vaguely aware of the heat rising in his cheeks. Damn it all to hell. Of course Riku was here, why would it have been anyone else? Sighing, he gestured to Demyx, bracing himself for the inevitable bit of humiliation, courtesy of the one friend who knew about his very apparent crush on his Discord friend. “Riku, meet Arpeggio.”

Riku’s other eyebrow shot up into his hair. “You’re shitting me.”

Demyx looked across the table at Zexion, clearly trying to fight the incoming of a shit-eating grin. “You talked about me to people?”

"Only the unimportant ones," Ienzo said, picking up his cup and sipping loudly.

“Psh,” Riku spat with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, and every damn minute of the day. If I had a dollar for every time you made heart eyes at the ceiling while talking about him, I could quit this job and pay off my tuition.”

Ienzo balked at that, nearly choking on his latte. “It was not that often.”

Waving a hand, Riku corrected himself, looking pointedly at Demyx. “Wait, no, he’s right. I’m forgetting that half the time, he’d be complaining about his horrible room-”

“Shouldn’t you be behind the counter?” Ienzo hissed, glaring at Riku. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Demyx’s gaze flicking between him, like he was watching a game of ping-pong. “Or should I text Sora and Kairi about all those little hearts you like to draw around their names on the garbage receipts every time they come in?”

"Go ahead. I'm ninety percent sure they're both into me, anyway."

Ienzo pulled his phone from his pocket and brandished it at Riku. "Are you willing to test that theory?"

"Make sure you write it down," Demyx chirped, blowing into the hole in his drink's lid. "If you write it down, it's science. I learned that in Biology this semester."

"I'll do more than that," Ienzo said, tapping on his phone screen with both hands. After his phone played a short 'whoosh' sound, he placed it face-down on the table. "Images sent. Now we wait for our results."

Riku scoffed, then balked, then turned beet-red. "You're an asshole," he hissed through his teeth.

"Relax. I was just kidding,” Ienzo said with a glint in his eye that Demyx barely caught.

"Forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical." Riku scowled for a moment, but eventually softened into a smirk. "Whatever. Enjoy your Discord date, Casanova." He knocked on the table once before returning to the checkout counter.

"Discord date?" Demyx asked, taking a swig of his pumpkin spice latte. "I thought we were hanging out in real life."

"Let's not split hairs. We're about to see a show." Ienzo jutted his chin in the direction of the cafe's front door. As if on cue, Sora and Kairi burst through it like a duo on a mission.

“Oh Riiiiiiiiku!” they chorused in sing-song at the top of their lungs.

"Sometimes," Ienzo said, turning back to Demyx, "I like to watch the world burn."

“Yeah, I know. That’s actually kind of hot,” Demyx admitted, taking another sip of his latte. "Remind me not to piss you off again, though."

[museflight]

The Call (1)

Chapter Title: Slayer

Wordcount: 4.1k

Ao3 Link: Click

Notes: Written for day one of @aot-au-week , since a Buffy AU very technically counts as a College AU, and because it's the least I owe @cookietonwrites for convincing them to take on another fic. As you can see, the idea quickly spiraled into a multi-chap, for which I am not even remotely apologetic.

Summary: There is only ever one slayer at a time; the chosen one, a girl strong enough to fight against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness.

 Mikasa has accepted that for her, being the slayer means living a reclusive life, haunted by the image of the first person she failed to save and unable to ever truly let anyone in. However, everything is called into question with the arrival of Annie, a girl who claims to also be a slayer. Mikasa's life becomes much less solitary seemingly overnight, but friendship is followed by a deadly conspiracy, and with it, the threat of loss and heartache.

Mikasa's world consisted of a haze of blurred vision and the gentle buzzing in her ears. She blinked, and the figures on the paper before her solidified into numbers for a heartbeat before fading out once again. Trying it a few more times didn't yield any better results. It only made her aware of how much her eyes burned and how heavy her eyelids were. How heavy her entire head was. How easy it would be to just slip forward and… 

The buzzing reached a crescendo. A hand reached out to grab her shoulder. She jerked back upright to find Armin sitting across the table from her, one hand still extended and a worried expression on his face. 

Mikasa faltered. Words played at her lips, semi-contradictory things like 'it's fine' and 'what's wrong', but none of them felt right enough to actually be voiced. Instead, Armin was the one to break the silence. 

"When's the last time you slept?" he asked. 

Mikasa sighed. He must be really worried if he was cutting straight to the point like that. 

"Don't worry about it," she said, even though she knew it wouldn't work. 

Armin's frown deepened as a hint of disapproval trickled onto his features. He pitched his voice into a whisper to say, "you don't need to go out every night. You can't- you shouldn't be doing this alone."

"I do," Mikasa countered. "I'm the only one who can. You know that, Armin."

There was one girl in the whole world charged with keeping the forces of darkness at bay. She couldn't cast that duty aside just because she was tired.

It was with that thought that she realized that her gaze had begun to drift back toward the table. She snapped it back up as Armin asked, "does Erwin know how thin you're wearing yourself?" 

Mikasa pursed her lips. "Erwin's only been here for a few weeks. He'll get used to it."

"You shouldn't be used to it," Armin insisted, the softness of his voice warring with the rapidly mounting undercurrent of anxiety. He was still talking, too, about how Erwin wouldn't approve and she would be more productive if she wasn't dead on her feet. She didn't absorb any of the actual words, his voice fading back out into that gentle, incoherent buzzing.

Then there was a flicker of movement as something faded into sight in the corner of her vision, and everything Armin said became utterly doomed to sail right over her head.

Mikasa very determinedly did not look at the figure. She didn't turn her head and didn't allow her eyes to move in his direction beyond that first involuntary twitch. It didn't matter. He leaned forward, and she caught a glimpse of the green eyes peering out from what she knew would be a placid-yet-piercing expression.

"He's right, Mikasa," he said. "You need to take better care of yourself."

She allowed her eyes to flicker shut even though it did nothing to block out the man's voice. The voice of her own imagination.

"You've always been like this," he sighed. His voice had a whisper of warmth in it today, a touch of fondness tucked within what sounded like age-old resignation. "But you shouldn't. You're at your best when you have our friends with you."

Something flickered within her at the comment, although she was pleased to note that she managed to keep it within. There was no need to remind the hallucination that she didn't have any friends. Not even Armin, truly. Because for all that they were fond of each other, no amount of fondness could ever make up for-

"-kasa?"

It was the hint of iron intertwining itself with the worry in Armin's voice that got her to open her eyes. Mikasa forced herself to look at Armin and only Armin, who was leaning halfway across the table at this point.

"You really need to get some rest," he said. She moved to open her mouth, but he cut her off by asking, "you don't have trigonometry for five more hours, right?"

Mikasa nodded.

Armin gave one short, decisive nod, which appeared to be more for himself than anything. "You should take a nap, then."

The shift in her expression was subtle, just a faint downward turn to her lips, but apparently still enough for him to catch, because he quickly added, "you're going on patrolling again tonight, aren't you? Even a couple of hours would be better than nothing. I promised to meet up with Annie in a little while, but. I could walk you home?"

Mikasa didn't bother asking who Annie was, but she didn't protest either. She could see the logic in his argument, even if it felt painfully like a waste of time. "No, it's alright," she said. "I can walk myself."

Armin frowned. "Okay, but you will-"

"Go home and take a nap. Yes." She was already standing up as she finished agreeing. If she was going to keep her word, then it would be better to get it done sooner than later. The earlier she left, the sooner she could return. "I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.

With that, she turned around and left without taking another look at the boy who maybe, in another world, could have been her friend.

Or the distorted memory of Eren Jaeger.

*

Mikasa laid in her bed and closed her eyes.

*

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Clear!"

Thud.

"Cl-"

Coughing. Choking, sputtering, straining, a strain in her chest that turned into an ache resonating throughout her entire body. A pain worse than anything she had ever felt in her fourteen years.

Shouting. Rushing. Urgent voices talking rapidly. Not to her, with her aching body and spinning vision, but to each other. White coats and flashing lights. They were talking, talking, and there was something she had to say, something more important than the flashing lights or the unreal pain or the whisper of strength that shouldn't be there. There was something, someone, she had to ask about-

Her voice cut off in a hoarse croak when she tried to speak. Her throat stung, like it had been worn ragged by- by-

Salt.

Memories flashed by her in a dreadful kaleidoscope. The parents. The men. The boy. The other man, the one they'd thought would help. The sea - he'd thrown them in the sea, her and-

A jolt of energy. Mikasa forced herself upright and grabbed the wrist of the first person she saw. Surprise was on his face. Surprise and discomfort; her grip was stronger than it should have been. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was-

"Eren," she croaked.

"Eren." The white-coated man's voice was softer than she needed it to be. Focused on her. He needed to be focused on not her. "Is that your name? Eren?"

Through parched lips and a throat like sandpaper, she croaked out, "where's Eren?"

The man gave her a long, sad look. No. No. He shouldn't be looking at her like that.

"He saved me," Mikasa pressed. "Then he- the-" monster “- we went in the water together."

One faltering moment that lasted for an eternity.

The man redirected with talk about her. What's her name, can she describe what she's feeling, she's okay, it'll all be okay - it didn't matter. It didn't matter and it wouldn't be okay. It didn't matter, because in that moment, he didn't need to answer.

His expression spoke only of death.

*

She woke up feeling more awake, but just as tired as she had been before.

*

Mikasa didn't even try to pay attention during trigonometry. The nap may have refreshed her to some degree, but not enough for that. Besides, she still had a solid C. Spending class zoned out was... admittedly detrimental, considering that she had been in a similar state for her last two classes, but not so devastating that she wouldn't be able to recover from it. She would just have to cram as hard as she could once she had the opportunity to spend a few nights on her classwork. It wasn't a pleasant routine, but it had gotten her through her first two semesters of college. She could make it work for this one as well.

Besides, she had more important things to spend her brainpower on.

A girl had been marked absent during roll call. Mina Carolina. A single absence was not unusual in and of itself, but although Mikasa couldn't claim to know Mina well, she had not seen the girl take a day off before. That didn't mean that she couldn't - she could be well and truly sick, or an emergency could have popped up. People took days off all the time, even those who normally didn't.

The trouble was that there had been a marked increase in people turning up absent lately. Most of them never returned. There were no bodies found or hints as to their whereabouts. They were simply never seen again.

Mikasa didn't want to feel a sense of distant mourning. She wanted to hope that Mina would show up at their next class with some excuse for the teacher about how she can sick or had to deal with an unignorable situation. However, that same part of her had also wanted to hold out hope for Franz and Hannah when they disappeared from her American Literature class, and now they were nothing but faces on missing posters.

The semester had only been in swing for a month and a half. Mina would be the third victim person she had shared a class with. Not third overall - just that she had shared a class with specifically. When she scaled the radius up to encompass the entire campus, she would be the fifth disappearance.

According to Erwin, Paradis' level of supernatural activity was on the low side of average. She suspected that that was the reason he had been hinting that they should relocate. He felt that she was wasted here, and as her Watcher, he wasn't comfortable doing nothing about it, no matter how new to his position or unwelcome he was. And truthfully, five people disappearing off of a college campus during the first semester and a half wasn't unusual. College was stressful. She didn't know the details regarding two of the disappearances, and even with the couple who had seemingly disappeared off the face of the like, a human culprit was just as likely as a demonic one, if not moreso.

So why was she so certain that Mina Carolina had met her death at some point since she had last seen her?

Why did she feel like she had failed to stop it?

Once the feelings of dread and guilt grew strong enough for her to be actively aware of them, Mikasa decided to redirect her attention to the students who were there. 

Armin probably would have been one of her classmates if she hadn't insisted that he not take any classes that run past sunset and directed him to the morning trigonometry course instead. However, it wouldn't have been a large class even with him and Mina. 

Four of the students scattered across the room were unknown to Mikasa. However, her seat near the back of the room allowed her to keep an eye on them with relative ease. That, in turn, allowed her to be fairly comfortable in her assessment that they were normal human students. 

She could say the same of her four other classmates as well. They, however, were a little higher on her radar. 

Closest to her, his desk seated directly in the last few rays of evening sunlight, was a muscular blond man. Mikasa thought that his name began with an 'R', but didn't know much else about him. He'd caught her attention with a loud, outgoing personality and general demeanor that made him seem like an odd fit for the class. At the moment, it looked like he wasn't paying much more attention than Mikasa herself, fiddling with the ring on his left hand and only occasionally glancing up at the teacher. 

The blonde next to him was as much of a stranger, but she at least looked like she was focusing. She had gained Mikasa's attention by joining a week after classes had started. Since then, however, she had proven quiet and distant, only interacting with her classmates when she glared at the man next to her for trying to talk to her while she was working.    

Jean Kirstein, meanwhile, clearly didn't want to be a stranger. Over the past year, he had made a few attempts to reach out that she could admit were enduring. If she didn't have her duty, he might be someone she could consider a friend. As it was, she couldn't bring herself to do anything but brush him off, for his own sake. He didn't pay her much attention in class though. That wasn’t to say that he was completely focused, even though he had claimed a seat at the front of the class. She often glimpsed him speaking to the student next to him. There’d also been enough instances when she’d heard a frustrated comment from him regarding the course for her to get the sense that trigonometry wasn't particularly easy for him. However, she also suspected that he was hardworking and dedicated enough to make up for it.

The student next to him was Marco Bott. Cheerful and painfully earnest, he was honestly mostly notable to Mikasa because he was Jean's friend. He seemed like a good person though. That meant he was a reminder of why Mikasa couldn't let Jean become her friend no matter how hard he tried or let herself rest no matter how much Armin tried to insist. If she faltered, if she slowed, there would be consequences.

Mina used to sit behind Jean and Marco.

The sound of chairs being pushed back and writing implements being put away drew Mikasa out of her stupor. Rather than look at the clock, she glanced out the window.

The sun had already begun to set.

She quickly stuffed her textbook, pencil case, and notebook in her bag, feeling only a brief pang of guilt for the blank sheet of paper that stared back at her. The items landed haphazardly, and she knew that if she looked, they would likely only partly obscure the stake, crossbow, and knife that laid carefully arranged at the bottom. She zipped it shut before anyone could get curious and try to sneak a peek; a reflex even though she knew that no one would be bold enough to try that with her.

Despite being the last one to start getting packed, she was the first one out of class. Just like she always was. From there, it didn’t take long to get off the campus.

The first two blocks of Mikasa's walk went like she was heading home. It was as she reached the third - the one that would have lead back to her apartment - that she took a sharp right. From there it was four blocks straight on, then one block to the left. A simple route, but one that had come to haunt her nightmares.

Dusk had descended on the cemetery by the time she reached it.

Logically, she knew that she wasn't likely to run into anything for several more hours.

Instinctively, she knew that Mina Carolina wasn't likely to return to class.

This wasn't a night to take risks.

Mikasa wandered deeper into the graveyard, where she was less likely to be spotted by any passerby, and pulled out her stake. There, she began to wander.

It wasn't a small cemetery by any means. That was what made it the ideal hive for demonic activity. Not only were cemeteries where the majority of newly turned vampires rose, but large ones were also rife with additional dead bodies and crypts. This one was even separated into several different sections, which made it easy to get lost.

Getting lost made it easy to watch the time slip by.

A couple of hours into her patrol, a familiar figure flickered into existence at the edges of her vision. She didn't say anything to him, and he followed her silently, gaze occasionally flickering to one side or another as he took in the graveyard. As if he might notice anything before she did. Technically speaking, she supposed that he might. He had "caught" things a few times in the past, when she was subconsciously aware of something but hadn't been fast enough to process it with her conscious mind. It was the only thing that made sense, for all that she desperately wished that it wasn't.

A slayer whose hallucination needed to point things out for her couldn't mean anything good for the world.

She forced herself to look away from the figment and focus on her surroundings.

Not five minutes later, the sound of shifting earth caught her attention. Mikasa turned and strode toward it, her grip on her stake tightening and her gaze fixed straight ahead. Within seconds, she had spotted it; a grave with the earth beneath it stirring. As she watched, a hand punched up and out of it, grasping desperately at the ground. The head came next - an unfamiliar man, his face distorted by lumps across his forehead and nose, slitted yellow eyes, and fangs. The visage of a vampire prepared for predation. It glared at her as it struggled and snarled, eventually freeing its other arm. Once that was done, it had a much easier time dragging itself to the surface.

It never got the chance to free itself fully. The second its chest was completely exposed, Mikasa sprang into action. She grabbed the thing by the lapels of its dirt-stained tuxedo and dragged it upward. Fear flicked across its face, causing the predatory features to fall away and leaving a normal face behind. A face that could have been human if she didn't know better. She didn't allow herself to look closely.

In a blink, she had rammed her stake through the vampire's chest and into its heart. It dissolved into dust a few seconds later. Mikasa stood and watched the flecks flutter back down to earth.

She was drawn out of her reverie by a firm, "you shouldn't be patrolling tonight."

Mikasa grit her jaw. "I already rested," she pointed out.

"It isn't enough. You've been exhausting yourself, one little nap isn't going to make up for that."

"You just saw me kill a vampire."

"Yeah, and it took way more out of you than it normally would."

Mikasa whirled around to face the figment. Something in her chest threatened to hitch as she allowed herself to look directly at him, just as it so often did, even years after he first manifested.

The thing before her almost could have been a ghost. It wasn't though; god knew she had done enough research on the subject. Ghosts, when they visibly manifested at all, took the appearance they wore at their time of death or at another point in their life.

Eren Jaeger had been fourteen when he died. Even if he responded to the same name, this grown man with distant, unreadable eyes couldn't be him.

He wasn't anything. She'd run all of the tests as she learned more about the Supernatural. She wasn't haunted, there weren't hints of a demonic presence lingering around her - there was nowhere he could have come from other than her own mind.

He was nothing but a manifestation of her guilty conscience. She had come to terms with that years ago, yet she was still wasting time arguing with him.

At that instant, it was suddenly very tempting to look away. However, she forced her gaze to remain steady as she coldly said, "leave."

The figment blinked. "Mikasa-"

"No," she interrupted.

Something flickered in the illusion's eyes. It was difficult to identify, caught behind that distorting wall that so often covered his emotions, and she didn't even bother to try. He opened his mouth again, but she didn't let him get another word in.

"I'm not willing to put up with you tonight," she said. "Get out."

His expression finally came together into something real and visible. Alarm. "Mikasa, move!"

Mikasa lunged to the side just in time to avoid being grabbed by the shoulder.

She spun around to find a burly vampire standing over the ashes of the one she'd just killed. He was musclebound and bulky enough that he might be somewhat difficult to face in hand-to-hand combat - but not so much as to stand a real chance against her. "Slayer," he snarled. "I am going to grind you into dust."

Mikasa didn't bother responding. He lunged forward and she spun to the side, ducking beneath his flailing fist to get behind him. As she moved, she noticed that Eren had disappeared. Good. She sprang forward, stake in hand, only for the vampire to swing back around at the last moment and grab her wrist. He squeezed, a horrible grin on his face, and she had to fight to keep from automatically releasing her grip on her stake.

As the vampire leaned forward, she twisted to punch him in the sternum with her free hand. It only made him falter for a moment, but it was enough for her to wrench her wrist out of his grasp. It was also enough for her to come to a terrible realization.

Her blows weren't as hard as they usually were and she was moving slowly.

Eren was right.

There wasn't any time to ruminate on that. The vampire lunged forward, and Mikasa dove to the side again. She leaned into the momentum and swung her leg out to land a kick to the vampire’s side. He stumbled, a curse on his lips.

It didn't bring her any sense of victory, for as she brought her foot down, it landed on uneven ground. Not observant enough.

Pain shot up her ankle and the world began to tilt.

Eren still wasn't anywhere to be seen. Funny. If her mind was going to conjure up even a distorted version of Eren Jaeger, she would have expected it to happen when she died. She had thought that he would watch.

Mikasa hit the ground, the side of her head slamming hard against a flat gravestone. The world continued to spin around the sound of the vampire chuckling. She clenched the hand holding her stake, only to find that it must have fallen out of her grasp during the fall.

She forced herself to sit up, hands pushing hard against the ground to make up for the way the world was spinning around her. When she looked up, the vampire was glaring down at her. She tried to stand up, to scurry back, but her ankle gave out when she tried to bear weight on it. A sprain - just a sprain - nothing that wouldn't heal in a couple of days with her abilities, but even a sprain couldn't bear weight immediately. The vampire was saying something now, but she couldn't make out the words, couldn't hear anything past the buzzing in her head, couldn't feel anything but the sensation of warm blood oozing from the cut in her head.

The vampire was reaching for her.

She hadn't wanted to take a risk, and because of that, she was going to die tonight. And Eren wasn't even there to see it.

Maybe that was fitting. She hadn't witnessed his final moments either. Maybe he wanted her to die alone as well.

The vampire's hand closed around her neck. She forced herself to look up, to at least look her death in the eyes-

- and the vampire exploded into dust. In his wake stood the blonde girl from her trigonometry class, stake in hand and gaze locked on Mikasa.

The girl said something. Mikasa blinked, hearing her words, but unable to process them. The girl frowned, and Mikasa grit her teeth, just to give herself another sensation to focus on.

"Repeat that," Mikasa ordered.

The girl extended a hand. "I asked how badly injured you are," she said.

Mikasa ignored the hand and moved to force herself to her feet. Her injured ankle protested once again, but she bore the majority of her weight on her other leg and managed to get upright. "I can handle it," she said. "Who are you?"

The girl didn't seem at all off-put by Mikasa's blunt question. If anything, she seemed like she expected it. "Annie Leonhart," she said.

She paused for a moment. It did nothing to prepare Mikasa for her next, impossible words.

"I'm the slayer."

*

Weeks later, armed with only an axe, her memories, and the desperate research of a lonely girl scared she was losing her mind, Mikasa went hunting.

She found the one who had snatched them from the bodies of the original monsters and tossed them into the ocean.

She took his head, and he turned to ash at her feet.

[siswritesyanderes]

i feel like Tom Riddle is the perfect yandere. can you do some dark fluff with him and a fem s/o (both Hogwarts age)? thanks so much!!

An aspect of his personality that would one day be oft-overlooked was how generous he was to people who gave him what he wanted. Normally, this applied to teachers and followers (He had learned early on, when he had observed the preferential treatment Mrs. Cole from the orphanage was capable of giving to people who weren’t him, that it was important to immediately and consistently charm people in positions of power over him or in a position to provide services to him.), but it could apply to…other people, as well.

And he knew that you were special to him, so why shouldn’t it apply to you?

Whether he loved you in the way that most people loved other people was a complicated question whose answer was unknowable. What he did know was that your presence pleased him, your absence distracted him, and he wanted you to feel good about being with him. He wanted you to be happier than you had ever been, because now you were his.

And pragmatically, he wanted you to be in the right state of mind to give him all of your attention. So, he made sure that he assigned some of his followers to “helping you” with your homework and classwork. (“My servants are your servants,” he had said to you more than once.) He had them escort you places when he could not (“Walburga, walk with her to the lavatory for me.” “Yes, My Lord. Ready when you are, My Lady.”) and fetch you things when he would not (“Are you deaf, Dolohov? She said she’s thirsty!”). He used persuasion and the professors’ goodwill to arrange exemptions for you where necessary, so that any pesky claims on your time could be eliminated.

He wanted you to always be happy, since you were with him. Which meant that nothing was allowed to upset you. He had one of his followers brew a potion to keep you in a good mood, which he dosed you with every meal, and anyone who bothered you…

Well, no one did. They weren’t stupid.

He dreamed of what he would do to anyone who upset you.

And he went out of his way to show you that you were special. His disposition changed so drastically whenever you entered or exited a room that it gave people whiplash. 

They couldn’t be sure which was preferable, because when you were present, he had so many rules for how they could behave and what they could say (“She doesn’t like hearing that word, Abraxas; we’ve been over this. I do hope I won’t have to tell you again.”), but when you were absent, he was an utter nightmare of temper and impatience (“M-my Lord, shall I g-go see when Walburga and Our Lady will be b-back from the lavatory?” Scathingly: “Exactly how are you going to do that, Lestrange? Stick your head in? By Salazar, you’re all such idiots, I don’t know what deprives me of the pleasure of sending you the way of poor Myrtle and finding someone competent to take your place.” “Yes, My Lord. Sorry, My Lord.”).

As far as his treatment of you individually was concerned, he became surprisingly eager for physical contact after the relationship’s very beginning. At the start, he was cautious, but growing up in such a cold environment had made him rather touch-starved; he greedily leaned in whenever you put your hand on his head or shoulder or face, and he often caught your wrist when you tried to break contact. Most days, when classes were over, he would bring you to his common room and sit you on his lap by the fireplace. He got antsy whenever the two of you kissed on the mouth for a long time, feeling as though he was drowning in you and scared of what that meant. He enjoyed kissing you in short, successive pecks all over your face and neck and ears and hands. It felt like he was repeatedly, invisibly branding you as his. (And sometimes not so invisibly.)

“You’re mine,” he would tell you in between kisses.

“Mm-hm,” you would respond, almost noncommittally.

“Mine,” he would whisper, dropping a kiss right above your pulse. “Are you Malfoy’s?”

“No.”

Kiss. “Are you Black’s?”

“No.”

Kiss. “Are you Parkinson’s?”

“No.”

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. “You’re mine. Just mine.”

“Hmm.”

Sometimes the list went on for longer. He seemed to enjoy explicitly eliminating everyone else you knew, one by one. Not Crabbe’s, not Goyle’s, not Lestrange’s, not Finnigan’s, not Macmillan’s, not Richardson’s, not…

He often talked about the future, and how you would be like a queen once he took over the wizarding world. (A combination of the contentment potions and social politeness made you tolerate his ambitions.) How he would be immortal, and how you would be immortal- he would make it happen, he promised -and how you would have nothing to do but adore him, and how he would make sure that you had every jewel and comfort the world had to offer.

He was never really cross with you. He expected you to obey him, but when you disobeyed, he did not so much punish you as ensure that you could not disobey him in the same ways again. If you refused to stop talking to other boys, he merely scared them away. If you insisted that you wanted to watch the Quidditch match instead of spending the afternoon in the Room of Requirement with him, he merely arranged a small…safety concern…that would make the professors cancel the match.

There was always the Imperius Curse, too, but he avoided that. He liked you better with free will (Without it, you could have been just anyone.), and besides, he knew that Dumbledore kept a curious eye on his relationship with you, and the old man would just love to find out that Tom was casting Unforgivable Curses on his girlfriend.

On the whole, it was surprisingly easy to be Tom’s girlfriend. He was so thoroughly in control of himself and you at all times that you never had to worry about anything. You never concerned yourself about potentially breaking up, because there was never any conflict between you, and you knew that he would never allow you to leave him anyway.

“Perfect,” he murmured, with his lips pressed to the vulnerable space right under your jaw. “Mine.”

He often told you that he loved you. He wasn’t sure if it was technically true, but he wanted you to be happy, the happiest you had ever been, because you were his, and he was definitely as close to love as he could ever be.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phango - Phabulous Phashion

(”It’s not gay if he’s dead + Tucker punches Vlad + Identity Reveal)

Danny’s gonna use the school hallways as his personal fashion runway.

Danny’s walking by a store but jerks to a stop, walking backwards some to stare in through the window; lips twitching up into a lopsided smile.

-Next Morning-

Danny walks up to his locker with a cocky grin, spotting Sam and Tucker. Danny quickly leans against the lockers and puts his hand on Tucker’s shoulder, “hey”.

“Did you just...give me the shoulder touch?”, Tucker snorts, “dude, that’s so gay”.

Danny just wiggles his eyebrows dramatically and waits for Tucker to notice. Sam notices first however and promptly facepalms. But her eyeballing gets Tucker to look down at Danny’s shirt, reading ‘it’s not gay if he’s dead’. Tucker blinks once, twice, three times, before curling up and laughing; clapping Danny on the shoulder multiple times in the process.

“Dude! Where!”, straightening up, “also, that was the single best joke you’ve ever made”.

Danny smirks, the joke really only works because he knew what Tucker would say, “lets just say, there’s a wonderfully spooky new store in town and I am broke”, Danny waits a bit while his two friends shake their heads with mischievous smiles before he picks back up, “I also need a bigger closet”.

Sam and Tucker share a look before Tucker looks at Danny, “so you’re actually going the wear different clothing every day for once?”.

Sam smirks, “do we need to set up a fashion runway? I’m pretty sure there’s actually one in my house”.

Danny smirks almost cruelly, “wonder how long it’ll take before people start questioning my fashion choices”.

Sam and Tucker sigh, speaking in unison, “this is going to end badly”.

--Line Break--

Danny’s pulling books out of his locker and quickly hides his smirk as his two friends approach. Speaking as Tucker opens his own locker, “so the new Pokemon game’s coming out. Who you gonna choose?”.

“The rabbit thingy I think, you?”.

Danny closes the locker door and smirks. Tucker, remembering yesterday's bullshit promptly looks down. Danny’s shirt reading, ‘CHOOSE DEATH’, Tucker can’t help but laugh, “now that’s a little on the nose”, pointing at Danny, “and you didn’t choose shit”.

Danny huffs, “hey now, I went in knowing full well what would happen the second time. And y’all never forced me to go it in, in the first place”.

Tucker rolls his eyes, “debatable. Plus, you’re not technically dead. At least not entirely”.

“Yeah, I guess death isn’t one of those things were a half-off coupon really applies”, Danny smirks slightly, “and if y’all think you’re even slightly truly responsible, then maybe you two should get ‘Reaper Crew’ shirts. Thinking you’re my little personal reapers and shit”.

“Danny dude, we literally reap ghosts. As in we gather them up? You really should study vocabulary once and a while”, Tucker slightly regrets his words as he watches a wicked smile spread across Danny’s face.

--Line Break--

Danny’s still trying to figure out how he’s going to make a joke out of today’s fashion choices when Dash practically hands it to him. Overhearing Dash jeering at some freshman, “what you think hiding around your tall friend’s gonna make you bully-proof?”.

Danny snaps his head around painfully and near inhumanely fast, Sam and Tucker exchanging a glance as Danny strides over and floor slides dramatically to be in front of Dash. Danny grins, “everybody knows I sure as shit ain’t, but guess what I am?!?”, Danny gestures at his shirt because he knows Dash is an idiot.

Dash looks down and reads Danny’s shirt ‘Death Proof’ and mutters, “goddamnit Fentoast”, and restrains a chuckle.

Tucker leans over to Sam, “I like how yesterday’s shirt basically said ‘I’m dead’ and today’s says ‘I’m not dead’. Not to mention subtly hinting at the whole probable immortality thing”.

Danny smirks at them as he dodges out of the way of Dash trying to grab at him. Both of them running after him to hide behind the school.

Danny digs in his pockets and shoves t-shirts at them. Tucker quirks an eyebrow, “seriously? I thought you were broke”.

“I’m broke-er”.

Sam looks over the black ‘Reaper Crew’ shirt and shrugs. Pulling it on while gesturing at Danny’s pans, “why do you guys always get to have such massive pockets”, looking down at the shirt before quirking an eyebrow at Danny, “did you memorise our clothing sizes?”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “I’ve literally worn your bodies, I know how they fit”.

Tucker blinks, “you know, that sounds way creepier when you actually say it like that”. Danny just chuckles.

--Line Break--

Danny’s laying in his desk as Mr. Lancer comes in. Quickly calling attendance and ignoring how Danny smirks when he says, “here!”. But he can’t help but chuckle, amused by Danny’s antics, when he gets fed up with Danny’s inattentive resting and calls on him to sit up straight. Actually having to pause and laugh to himself a bit at Danny leaning back in the chair and throwing an arm over the back of it. Making his shirt, which reads ‘Here Lies’ over the image of a tombstone, very noticeable.

Lancer grumbles to himself, “I wish he’d put as much effort into his classwork as jokes”, then raising an eyebrow ever so slightly over Daniel suddenly looking a little sheepish and rubbing his neck; pretty well sure Daniel has somehow heard Lancer's mutterings.

--Line Break--

Danny planned out his next apparel choice with precision. Waiting till Red was in a pissy enough mood to go after Phantom a bit more aggressively before school. Struggling to keep the smile off his face as he slips out of the bathroom after changing back human and fixing up his wounds.

Sam grumbling at him as he gets to his locker, her looking at her phone -going over today’s morning ghost news- all the while, “she’s going after you pretty aggressively again. What did you do to piss her off now?”.

Danny shrugs, “might be because I kept stealing her captures”.

Tucker elbows him, “one of these days she’s going to genuinely get you good, you know”. The girl was cute and he knew Danny still liked her but she was really a threat.

Danny smiles more earnestly then, sighing almost wistfully, “maybe she’ll really be the death of me”, shrugging, “not that I mind”. Since, apparently, he liked danger even in his love life. Which yes, was absolutely stupid, but he did stupid damn well.

Sam rolls her eyes and sighs, she really wished Danny would cut it out with his soft spot for the huntress, “you should mind”, glaring at his soft-looking smile, “and you better not still be interested in her. She hates ghosts, no matter what that’ll get in the way”. Tucker firmly decides not to comment on that.

Danny just grins wide and you could practically smell the mischief wafting off of him. Sam pinches her nose but Tucker bursts out laughing just before she looks to Danny’s shirt. Danny just grins smugly as she groans at reading, ‘Death Cannot Stop True Love’. Glaring at Danny, “I hate you, you moron”.

Valerie walks by and comments with a smirk, “well I don’t”.

Danny sticks his arms out dramatically at Val’s retreating form, “at least someone loves me”.

Both Sam and Tucker replying, “she just doesn’t know any better”. Danny just rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, though he honestly loves all the shit they give him.

--Line Break--

Danny makes a point of massaging his sore shoulder and thusly covering up the chest of his t-shirt as he walks over to his two friends at the being of school.

The two give him worried looks over what looks like blood having seeped through the side of his white t-shirt. Tucker frowning as it doesn’t really look right, “you really should just stop wearing white”. Sam, being more sensible, asks the more important question, “are you okay?”.

At that Danny smirks, as he’s finally close enough to them that he knows they damn well will pick up really quickly that the ‘blood’ is just part of the shirt's design. Lowering his arm to the side so they can read the ‘I’m fine’ written across the shirt. Both of them promptly start hitting him.

Though they both do have to admit, as the day goes by, that everyone doing double takes over Danny’s shirt is rather hilarious. Even if everyone’s used to Danny’s shit enough to not freak out too much.

--Line Break--

Sam and Tucker chuckle at Danny’s ‘Ghost Gym’ Gengar gym shirt, pretty sure the only reason Tetslaff is letting him get away with it is because the design is workout related. Well that, and, if you knew what to look for, Danny was clearly extremely physically fit.

Tetslaff looks around at everyone and nods curtly, “alright you maggots, it’s gymnastics day. So I want to see some serious acrobatics and running!”.

Dash gapes as Danny does a clean and one of the fastest obstacle runs in the entire gym class. Shaking his head before shouting, “you cheated Fentwerp!”. Dash is honestly only more annoyed as Danny locks eyes with him, grins wickedly and walks into the changing room.

Dash was about to storm after the little freak when Danny exits the changing room, still grinning a bit manically. Dash scowls but can’t help but feel a little less interested in beating the weirdo up. After reading the sweater, ‘CHEAT DEATH’. That is until Danny speaks up, why did the little freak have to have such a damn mouth on him? And why’d he have to use it to diss him? Why didn’t the weirdo know his damn place!

Danny flips Dash off, “there’s only one thing I cheat bitch”, before booking it off. While Dash shouts at him, “why you little-FENTON!”, and runs after him.

Tetslaff is far too pleased over the physical improvements of what was formerly the worst excuse for physical fitness, to really care about reprimanding him for his language.

--Line Break--

Vlad walks into the Fenton household, he’s a little early but that hardly matters. Gives him plenty of time to scope out any new inventions or lord his mental and ghost power prowess over Daniel’s head.

Looking around to quickly spot Daniel and those two friends of his all sitting around the living room. All three promptly getting up, Daniel snapping, “you’re early frootloop. What? Cat brush you off for date night?”.

Vlad rolls his eyes but stops halfway and stares at Daniel’s shirt ‘WANTED DEAD & ALIVE Schrödinger’s cat‘. Shaking his head, coming to stand in front of Daniel and gesturing at his attire, “I know you’re reckless, but isn’t this a little on the nose Daniel?”.

Danny grins almost wickedly at that, “nope, but you know what is?”. That’s the perfect set-up for their little ‘no one expects the geek’ plan.

Vlad quirks an eyebrow as Daniel leans to the side; only for Tucker to punch him in the nose. Daniel chuckles, “that was”, while Vlad steps back, hand over his now bleeding nose, and glares at the teens.

Tucker looks back at Danny with a giddy grin, just as Jack and Maddie come in trough the door.

Maddie smiles slightly over seeing the creepy old Masters bleeding, she’s got no clue what’s happened but she’s sure that whoever had more than good enough reason. While Jack, bless his heart, takes Vlad into the kitchen to help fix up Vlad’s nose.

Vlad glares bloody murder at the teen trio from a stool, while Jack honestly just makes the bleeding a bit worse. Maddie eventually taking pity and actually helping.

--Line Break--

Tucker closes his locker door and immediately looks at Danny’s shirt as he approaches. Tucker raising an eyebrow over the simple grey shirt with a tiny grim reaper poking out of the chest pocket, “what? Ran outta joke shirts already?”.

Danny snickers, “naw, just figured I should stop brushing off other body parts”.

Both turn as Sam slams her locker door closed rather aggressively. Tucker muttering, “well someone’s clearly in a piss poor mood”.

Sam flips him off, “I’m a ray of fucking sunshine, fuck off”.

Danny beams, yet another perfect setup, “is it something I can shoot?”.

Sam sighs, “not really, but...”, Sam throws a flower-girl behavioural Guidebook into Danny’s locker which Danny wastes no time in shooting an ecto-ray at while giving Tucker a shit-eating grin.

Sam slams Danny’s locker door shut on his hand when she sees why he’s smiling like that, reading the words on the backs of his gloves ‘Death Rays’, and then storming off.

Danny rubs the forming bruise on his hand, “worth it”. While Tucker wheezes.

--Line Break--

Mr. Lancer stands at the front of the class, “alright everyone, as you know there is a group assignment portion to your grade. Now I will be assigning the groups...”, glaring at a few jocks in the room, “due to certain actions last year”.

Dash and Kwan glare at Danny as he snickers but don’t say anything as Mr. Lancer lists off the different groups, eventually getting to the jocks, “Dash, Tucker, and Danny. And for the final group, Kwan, Sam, and Valerie”.

Sam, Valerie and Tucker all look horrified; Kwan doesn’t honestly mind all that much.

Dash grins cruelly while Danny looks down at his shirt, reading ‘this is booshit’ and grumbling, “this one was a bad idea”. Deciding not to waste his opportunity, he shouts, “oh that’s booshit!”, and uncrosses his arms to throw them out to the side.

Lancer sighs and shakes his head, slightly confused as to why no one’s told Daniel to change his shirt; it’s definitely against dress code. Pointing at Daniel’s shirt, “please change your shirt, Mr. Fenton”. While Dash sneers at Danny, “you should be thankful, not often shoe scum actually gets to work with Highschool perfection, Fentenisshoe”.

Danny blinks, he firmly can’t believe his luck, before turning and giving Dash a slightly manic open-mouthed grin. Promptly ripping off his top shirt -of course he expected someone to call him on the first shirt- revealing the second shirt underneath. Revealing what he’s sure is just an Amity version of an online ‘pop culture’ shirt, reading ‘ECTOPLASMIC SCUM’.

Tucker slams his face into his desk, wheezing slightly. Both Sam and Valerie burst out laughing, multiple people joining them. Dash glares around at everyone, making most people shut up; but really, Sam, Tucker and Valerie just laugh harder.

--Line Break--

Tucker takes one look at Danny’s shirt the next day, ‘let’s have a wail of a good time’ and promptly claps a hand over Danny’s mouth, “no”.

Danny tilts his head down and makes a show of seeming completely downright defeated. Speaking as Tucker removes his hand, “awwww”.

--Line Break--

Sam and Tucker shake their heads at Danny’s shirt ‘this is my ghost costume, I’m just dead on the inside’. Tucker gesturing at Danny’s shirt, “okay this one is definitely pushing it, dude. It’s literally literal”.

Danny rolls his hand in the air and tilts his head around, “not quite, I’m not literally in my ghost costume. Unless you want to say that my Screaming Fan form is a costume my ghost is wearing”.

“Dude, that's basically correct. Frying Pan is closer to who you really are. This”, Tucker pulls on Danny’s black hair gently, “is pretty well just your disguise at this point”.

Danny shrugs, they weren’t really wrong but smirks as the new ghost drill alarm goes off. Snickering as everyone pulls ghost masks/costumes on quickly, as part of a new plan for dealing with any ghosts. Because someone had the ‘brilliant’ idea of ‘tricking’ ghosts into thinking the students were ghosts. Ghosts were not this stupid. Not even kind of.

Mr. Lancer, who always gets stuck playing the role of the ‘real’ ghost, stops and stares at Danny. Who just gestures at his shirt with a wily smirk. Mr. Lancer shakes his head, “that would never work”, remembering the role he’s supposed to be playing, “boOOoOOoOooOOOo”.

Danny chuckles and grabs Tucker's red ghost mask, pulling it off his face slightly and snapping it, “neither would this”. Tucker just turns his head and glares slightly at Danny, even if that didn’t really hurt.

--Line Break--

Danny saunters into the school with a massive lopsided grin on his face. There was absolutely no way he’d be able to make reference to his shirt today but the recent situation he’s found himself in made it too good to not get this shirt.

Valerie pauses as she was walking past, looking at Danny’s shirt ‘I for one welcome our new ghost overlords’, squinting slightly, “you’ve sure had some interesting clothing choices but what could this one even be referencing?”, glaring slightly, “the ghosts defiantly do not rule us or this town”, glaring a bit more, “and why would you support that?”.

Danny chuckles, in the eyes of the ghost Phantom had always ‘ruled’ Amity Park. Shrugging, “well if you wanna get technical about lairs and shit...”, Danny trails off as Val just glares even harder.

Valerie snaps slightly, “Amity is not a ghosts lair”. Danny can’t help but snort and laugh a bit.

Danny sends her a bit of a sympathetic smile, not really looking to get into it with her. Instead deciding to throw her through a loop and throw her a bone at the same time, putting a hand on his hip, “got nothing to do with that though”, smirking at her raised eyebrow and leaning his elbow on her shoulder, speaking with a slightly sultry look, “don’tcha know? The ghosties got themselves a knew high and mighty king”.

Danny winks as he walks off, Valerie gapping at him before speed walking to catch up with him. Sticking her head around to be in front of him, “who?!?!???”.

Danny tilts his head back and laugh exaggeratedly, “who do you think? Literally only one reckless idiot went and fought the previous one”.

Valerie mutters, “oh my Zone”, before walking off, clearly a little in her own head.

Not even seconds later Sam and Tucker punch him in the shoulders. Tucker smirking, “fucking congrats dude, but you are also an idiot”.

Sam shakes her head, “we all really shoulda seen this coming. Why did you tell her though”.

Danny smirks, “tell me about it and because of timing”, slapping a hand on his chest, “I had a joke to make”.

Tucker looks at the shirt and shakes his head, “we should be the ones wearing that. You’re welcoming yourself”.

Danny just smirks as the sit down in class.

--Line Break--

Sam and Tucker both facepalm as Danny walks towards them like he owned the entire damn school. He was decked out head to toe in ghostly fashion. ‘I AM A GHOST’ t-shirt, ‘I’m dying inside’ beret, ghost emoji leggings, knee-high ‘#LITERALLY DEAD’ socks, ‘the ghost inside’ shorts, blood and ectoplasm spattered shoes, ‘monster mortuary’ jacket, coffin sunglasses, and a ‘BOOOO!’ choker.

Danny poses dramatically in-front of his friends while Tucker groans, “Danny dude, you are practically begging to be shot or found out at this point”. But Tucker gestured to his own t-shirt, Ash vs the Evil Dead ‘Ghost Beaters’ design. Danny smirks and gives an approving nod. Sam takes this as her queue and gestures to her T-shirt with a little ghost nurse carrying bandaids reading ‘Boo Boo Crew’. Danny looks over and laughs.

Danny claps them on the shoulder as they start walking to class, “so y’all found the store huh? Spook Spot is a name I certainly approve of”.

Sam smirks, “damn right we did, this town is the only damn place we’re a ghost focused apparel store would actually be profitable. Fucking capitalism”.

Danny chuckles, personally he was glad, there was so many good jokes to be made and it really would get lots of business. “Think I should collect part of the profits? Seeing as I’m the entire reason why it’s able to be successful”.

Tucker, ever interested in a quick buck, “you damn well should!”. While Sam just grumbles about, “not feeding the man”.

Dash glares at the little Fenton freak as he enters the classroom, “what you think all that’s gonna make you cool enough to be like Phantom? Fentoenail”.

Danny chuckles darkly, “oh I’m certainly spooky enough”.

Sam smirks, “a spooky baby”. While Tucker elbows Sam, “more like spooky babe, riiiiiight Sam”, he wiggles his eyebrows at her earning a glare from the goth.

The two friends stop and gape a little as Valarie walks in and pelts Danny in the face with a t-shirt. Danny just letting it fall off his face and onto the floor. Raising an eyebrow at Valarie while she says, “you absolute fool, I can’t believe you”, before taking her seat.

Danny looks down at the t-shirt, one half has a skull on it the other half reads ‘only half dead’. Danny chuckles, picks it up, stuffs it in his pocket and mutters into his hand, “well damn”.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance and then facepalm.

—The Previous Night—

Valerie crawls into her bed, puts a sore arm over her eyes and sighs. Snapping her eyes open seconds later before blinking and jerking to sit up, muttering, “oh my Zone, he fucking winked at me. And halfas and she looks just like Phantom but black hair and blue eyes and oh my Zone, Danny.....”. Thinking over the past weeks before shaking her head after a beat, “I dated the most colossal idiot ever”.

Glancing to her computer before scrambling over to it and heading to google to find some joke shirt, muttering at it, “I have to get you back, you damn Spook”.

End.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Personal Assistant

It was only one more day before the Club Fair. Ru’Yi was hard at work in the Library once again typing up her final two reports for Monday so she would have enough time to get herself a club and Tom a club too.

Even though he was laid up in the hospital there was no reason he couldn’t have people to support him. A music club, a reading club, or other low energy clubs like that would help him fill his time while he recovered.

She looked down at the papers she had printed out, accurately copying the citations. It was almost lunch time. She’d promised her father to not skip lunch, but pushing it back a little later wasn’t technically ‘skipping’ it. 

Her phone buzzed and her eyes widened. “Professor M... I mean David? I haven’t heard from him a while.”

She answered putting the phone to her ear. “Hi! Long time no talk!”

“Yes, sorry I’ve been out of touch. How are you doing? How’s how’s the Dragon Lord presentation coming?”

“Oh. I’ve already finished it! I’m working on my other two class assignments right now.”

“What? Are you serious? I didn’t think you’d be able to with... everything that has happened. I was calling to maybe give you some support with it...”

“Yes, actually I had just finished it before all the excitement, so we’re good! Thanks though.”

His speechless pause gave her a sense of pride. “Amazing... To think I was worried over nothing. Well...”

“That’s right! I’m your star student!” She chimed.

“Indeed. Hm. Well, I can also take the orchid off your hands if you’re free. How is she?”

“Eh...” She did try to mist it when she remembered. “It’s... okay I guess? It’s not dying.”

He chuckled. “It’s the least I can do. They keep piling on new projects. I asked the Vice Chancellor to cut you a break. Why are you still working on classwork?”

“Oh so that was you?” She asked, surprised. “You really shouldn’t have. I’m here to learn as much as I can.”

“That’s what he said you’d say. So you didn’t take him up on his offer.”

“Not yet... but my dad says I should put priority on my current project and not neglected for my studies. So I still have the voucher.”

“You talk to your father a lot?”

“He insists that I talk to him every day. And I won’t be rid of him now that he thinks my habits are slipping.” She pursed her lips, her fingers moving over the keyboard as she typed out a few more phrases.

“Habits?”

“Yes, I’ve been sleeping later, eating less. Right now I’m supposed to go to lunch but I’m almost finished! He’ll be upset if I miss lunch so I’ll just push it back.”

“What about dinner?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but then her guard went up again. She’d almost forgot his constant come ons. “He said it’s okay to skip it.”

“But why? If you don’t have to. Where are you now?”

“The library... I’m about to go to lunch though.” 

“How about I bring you lunch there?”

“That’s... really not necessary.”

“I wouldn’t want you in trouble with your dad. If it makes your life easier, I don’t mind picking something up for you or making something for you if I’m going to be doing those things anyway, and it will cut down on your stress.”

He was right. But did it have to be him? She sighed. No one else was offering. “Oh... Alright.”

“What’s wrong?”

“No it’s just...”

Silence on the other end. She chewed her lip. 

“I’ll drop it off for you. Better?”

“Yeah.” She let out a breath of relief. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Let me know when I can pick up the orchid.”

“Sure... thanks a lot, David.”

“My pleasure, see you later.”

“See ya.” She hung up the phone and then put her head on the table. She didn’t know whether to feel guilty at wanting to refuse his help or if she should tell him to go away.

She scrubbed her face. “I need some more friends.”

She saved her work and looked over at the club fair roster. Her top picks were Yoga Club, Tea Club, Book Club and Music Club. She wanted things she could do with Tom. She especially liked the tea club and planned on visiting their booth first.

She hoped that sitting and drinking tea would encourage him to strike up a conversation and make more friends. That way he wouldn’t just be opening up to her. While she did understand why they wanted her to help get information, it put her in a bit of a bind. What if he started to like her?

Brian was already jealous.

After thirty more minutes, she finished her assignments. She smiled and stretched her spine, raising her hands over her head.

“Uh... yes um.. Ru...Ru’... I’m sorry, I can’t  pronounce this.’

She smiled at a guy in jeans t-shirt and a cap that said “Speedy Bento”. “Oh... is that for me? I’m Ru’Yi. You can just call me Ruby.”

“Yeah this is you. Okay, thanks.”

He set the bagged lunch down and she smiled. She was really hungry. She opened it up and found the receipt. It had a note on it. “Don’t worry about Dinner either. Just be home at 6. - David.”

She let out a sigh. But her smile came despite her feeliings. Maybe... she should give him a chance.