#and god... being a college student AND having a cat sounds like a nightmare

[buttercupshands]

I may or may are about to have a cat but the responsibility of being a cat owner and having a choice not to be if I'm too scared... is even worse honestly

[warpriest-writings]

Red eyes on Grandmother's grave. 

    Sticks broke under her feet, running as fast and hard as she could but it felt like running through jelly, her feet caked in heavy mud. 

“Someone! Help me!!! Please!” She cried out but couldn’t hear her own voice.

Before her was the pair of sharp, red eyes out in the middle distance. She couldn’t make out a face; she wasn’t even sure if the eyes were attached to anythin, just floating there, haunting her. Those hungry, starved eyes that wanted to devour her. The eyes just hung there as she sat there frozen. 

“What do you want!?” she screamed out, but again her words came out silent. 

The sharp, red eyes narrowed, then rushed towards her as a hand reached out at her.

With a difficult, almost pained, inhalation of breath, Patsy woke with a startled jump, accidently knocking her kitty out of bed.

She gasped, “Bean! Come here. Mweh, mweh.” She made kissy noises to her large Maine Coon. Rubbing her fingers together as she did so attempting to soothe Bean and entice her to come back into the bed. Not that Bean needed much convincing; no one in the Desoto household could remember a single night that cat hasn’t slept in Patsy’s bed. By the time she got Bean back in bed and started petting her, Patsy had almost entirely forgotten her nightmare about the...was she running? Regardless, after several minutes of kitty snuggles, she checked her phone, loathing to discover that it was 5:53, merely thirty minutes before her alarm would have gone off anyway.

Of course, she wouldn’t have been lucky enough to wake up from her scary dream at a reasonable 1:17, or even a moderate 3:32. Good, god given times in the early morning a girl could go back to sleep too. Patsy sighed and entered an anxious state of contemplation, debating getting in the shower now and getting that out of her morning routine or laying there, blissfully enjoying the time before she had to get up for real. An absolute miserable time that went on in her head until her alarm went off. Ah, yes, neither productive nor relaxing. Thank you, Anxiety.

Getting out of bed with a less than encouraging groan, Patsy began her morning routine. Feeling emotionally and mentally exhausted by 6:45 AM, Patsy walked briskly down the stairs while putting her long and bouncy kinky hair into a ponytail.

“Morning, Mom!” 

Her mom, Elana, looked back at her as some toast popped out of the toaster, “Hey, Sweetheart!”

Joseph, her dad, poured two cups of coffee before handing one to his wife as she handed him the plate of now buttered toast. “Hey, Pats. Finished your homework last night?” Giving Elana a quick kiss.

“Course, Dad,” she said, silently beaming that her parents were still happily married after nearly sixteen years; it was more than could be said about several of her friends at school.

Her mother was the manager at a local small diner, it was a nice little place, near enough to her school that Patsy would usually walk there at the end of the day and hang out with her friends or finish her homework before her mom’s shift ended at six when the night manager came in. Her father worked from home, and studied. Technically, he was still a student at the University of Illinois, but he worked a lot of sub contracted programming and coding jobs on the side. Once she asked him why he was still in college and his reply was, “Sometimes people are just...nervous about getting out there, and sometimes you just so happen to be very good at filling out grant applications. Your momma has a steady job that takes care of us, and my work on the side makes sure we stay in the green.” 

“Need a ride to school today, Pats?” her dad said, snapping Patsy out of it.

“I’m good; I kinda want some time to just think,” she told him.

“It’d be nothing, it’s getting colder out and I love driving my babygirl to-”

“Joseph,” her mother interrupted.

He backed down, “Alright, alright. Letting Pats be all independent.” 

“Thanks, Dad. I think I’ll have breakfast at school today, I’m going to get going,” Patsy said.

Joseph began reaching into his pocket, “Need money?”

“I’m good, I still have twenty from helping out at the diner.”

“Now hold on, that’s your money. It’s our job to feed you,” he said, and offered her a five, “Take it, and make sure you grab an apple or an orange or something those school food scientist freaks can’t turn into half-baked prison sloop."

Patsy nodded, “Okay, okay.” She took the money, then gave her dad a quick hug and kiss on the cheek, “Love you, mom. Love you, dad.” Then grabbed her backpack from a kitchen table chair and made her way to the door, only partially catching what her dad was saying about Patsy being braver than he was for voluntarily eating school food.

From her house it was roughly a twenty-minute walk to school. Normally, she would have jumped at the opportunity for a quick ride to school, but her mind was still preoccupied by that dream. Most of it was lost, faded just beyond her consciousness’s reach. Those red eyes; Patsy could still see them crystal clearly in her mind. She could almost feel them on her back now. Patsy shuttered at the thought.

As she walked she barely heard the wizzing of bike tires until they were right behind her, lost in her thoughts Patsy made a sound reminiscent of an “Eek!” and jumped off to the grass beside the sidewalk. The biker slowed to a stop, “Miss. Pascala, are you alright?”

He knew her name? Patsy looked at the biker, as she had been largely looking at her moving feet up until that point and the fact that from her perspective the biker was right in front of the morning sun, she had to squint and couldn’t really make out his face, “Uh, yes. I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Hmm?” he took off his helmet, revealing quite the head of curly locks, “Miss. Pascala, a little out of it this morning?”

As her eyes adjusted she suddenly realized, “OH! Mr. Morales, sorry. It was all sunny, and I was kinda lost in my thoughts, and I’ll just stop talking now.”

Her history teacher looked at her with a bit of a raised eyebrow, “I shall see you in the third period, Miss. Pascala, have a pleasant walk. Homework is due by the end of class.” He awkwardly coughed and rode off, quickly moving into the bicycle lane of the road.

Sometime later, after what is by all rights and definitions a poor excuse of a breakfast that would send Mr. DeSoto into a rambling state of disbelief that this was the best that taxpayer money could do for feeding America’s youth, as well as Patsy’s first hour math class (math first period of the day, she was convinced that the school gods hated her) and her second period economics class where they learned..something, Patsy was sure of that. She remembers taking notes and everything. There was a presentation with slides and everything, so they must have learned something...So after econ was her history class with Mr. Morales.

She liked Mr. Morales, more than her math teacher that’s for sure. “Math is the language of the universe.” She was taking English and French and frankly didn’t feel like she had time for a third language course. Mr. Morales was different, he got swept away with the subject sometimes and seemed to have a real love for it.

“We can learn much from history, but the people who made it weren’t trying to teach morals, and they weren’t thinking about just how important that what they were doing took place in 1776, or during the first or second half of the twelfth century. The past is made up of the actions of people who were concerned with living their lives, and if what they were doing was the right thing to do, or the right thing for them.” Mr. Morales said on the first day of school. He was also just a bit odd. His thick curly hair, a trait he described as indicative of his strong greek heritage, was peppered ever so slightly. Otherwise he held onto his youth remarkably well. looking closer to mid twenties rather than late thirties.

After the class ended, Patsy went up to her teacher, “Uh, Sir, excuse me.”

Mr. Morales looked up from his tablet from which he often powered through novels, “Hmm, yes, Miss. Pascala?”

“I was just going over that pop quiz you handed back today and I would have gotten one hundred percent if you didn’t mark my answer for question two wrong.” She said,

He set his tablet down, “That is usually how people do not get full marks. Allow me to double check that.” He held his hand open.

Patsy handed him the paper, “You see, I’m certain the correct answer is B and I’d like to get full credit.”

“Third century B.C. Yes, you are correct. I’ll be sure to update the gradebook and parent portal to reflect this. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss. Pascala, I imagine I marked everyone else who answered as you did as incorrect as well.”

He handed her back the quiz after remarking her score and immediately wrote a note he then stuck to his computer monitor.

She excused herself and left with a bright smile, making her way to her next class, and then on and so forth with her day. As she was heading towards her computer typing class after lunch (which was not notably better than the breakfast, it is a wonder that these children survive long enough to eat microwaved ramen in college dorms.) She accidentally bumped into the Principle as she was turning a corner.

“Ooft!” She said, feeling like she walked into a lumpy brick wall.

Principal Robertson cleared his throat and looked down his nose at the young lady, “It is not becoming to run down the hails and blindly around corners.”

He had been the principal at her school for well over fifteen years now, and he seemed to live for it. Participating in school spirit events and playing along with the dress up days, at least he did last year. No one wanted to really mention it but over the summer he lost a lot of weight and his skin got paler...greyer was almost more accurate. Hushed rumors said he was diagnosed with some cancer or another but refused to stop working while on chemo and Patsy wasn’t sure what to think of it all. Looking down at her now she wasn’t feeling very comfortable.

“I, uh, I really need to get to class.” Patsy said

The sickly Principal sighed a heavy breath, “Just slow down.”

“Right, of course. Thank you Mr. I mean, Principal Robertson.” With that she took off, carefully walking not-to-quickly.

Passing around the next corner and with her computer lab in sight Patsy let out her own sigh of relief. The bell ringing just steps away, “Whyyyyyyy?” Patsy said in a hushed, exasperated tone.

She quickly rushed into the room and to her seat, hoping maybe she wouldn’t be marked late. The class lesson began and she got to work with her typing program. 

“Hey, Patsy,” Her friend Abby said, “Think your mom would give me a ride home after her shift at the dinner?”

“Course, Abbs.” She replied, “You getting anywhere with these?”

“Not really, my hands know the keyboard but my words per minute is garbage.” Abby said.

“My words per minute is fine, but I have to force myself to type the way that we’re supposed to. It doesn’t help that at home I always just type with my pointer and middle fingers.”

“You type a lot at home?” She asked, “Are you writing something?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin, “No! of course not...I just look up a lot of random stuff when I’m bored.” She must never know.

Abby raised an eyebrow, “Mhm, right.” 

Over the intercom the school receptionist called out, “Pascala DeSoto to the Principal’s office, Pascala DeSoto to the Principal’s office.

Abby winced, and tried to give her a reassuring smile.

She tried to return it, her thoughts were racing. Surely she wasn’t being called down to the Office for accidentally bumping into the Principal in the hallway was she? Why wouldn’t he just take her there right after she did it then? Maybe it wasn’t about anything she did at all. Oh God...what if her dad accidentally started another grease fire trying to make home fries? What if Mom got into an accident on her way to the dinner? Her mind was a beehive that someone just punted halfway across a football field. 

The receptionist must have noticed the worry on her face and gave her a very sweet smile, “Don’t worry about it too much, Sweetie. Just keep your chin up and remember none of this will matter in ten years.” Reassuring words, either her parents were fine or she was just as unsure why she called down Patsy as she was herself.

Bracing herself mentally, Patsy opened the door and pushed it to the magnetic door stopper that held it open.

“Closer the door behind you, Miss. DeSoto.” Principal Robertson said.

Her stomach did an uncomfortable flip, she wasn’t sure why she was feeling so destressed over this. She hadn’t done anything as far as she could remember or mentally justify. She closed the door, getting a last glimpse of Mrs. O'Riley, the nice receptionist.

Run! Every nerve in her body screamed out but she moved forward to sit in the chair opposite Principal Robertson at his desk anyway. He spoke up; she only saw his lips move, the words not landing correctly in her ears.

“I’m sorry, Sir. Could you say that again?” She asked.

His brow furrowed, “I do not care for repeating myself, Miss. Desoto.”

She sank in the chair. “Sorry.”

“And do not mumble. Speak clearly or not at all!” 

Patsy sat back up in her seat in shock, “Principal Robertson, I don’t think you’re allowed to speak to me like that.”

“Do not speak back to me, you’re the one in trouble here.” He said venomously.

Trembling she stood up, “I need to go.”

He got up as well, “I think not, DeSoto. You’ve been hiding really well, tricked everyone but not me.” He licked his upper lip.

A full body chill ran through her entire being and oddly, in retrospect she felt, Patsy really wanted her kitty Bean there. She said, “Principal Robertson, you can’t be serious right now!? Think….think about your wife!”

Robertson frowned hideously, “That bint isn’t important.” He smiled, which was so much more disturbing to the young lady, “not like you, DeSoto, you have been worth all of my effort and patience.”

He reached out for her when the door opened, “Principal Robertson,” called out an all too reassuring voice, “I was wondering if you had the chance to look over those field trip papers I….” His hand less than two inches away from her, Patsy’s whole body was trembling but she couldn’t make her legs run.

Mr. Morales stood in the open doorway, his eyes moving quickly from Patsy to Robertson. “Miss. Pascala, behind me.” He said putting himself between them.

The Principal scowled in frustration, “I’m not entirely sure what you think you are doing, Linus. You are acting like I am some sort of threat to the girl.”

“This doesn’t look good, James.” Mr. Morales replied.

Robertson scowled deeper, and Patsy in that moment of fear and confusion thought his scowl pulled unnaturally at his skin. 

Mr. Morales raised his hands defensively, “What are you?” Striking a serious tone with his voice that she had never heard from her history teacher before. It was a cold voice that set her skin on edge almost as much as Principal Robertson had.

Before her eyes the late fifties Principal of clear declining health grabbed Mr. Morales  and threw him against a glass case containing various trophies for academic and sports accomplishments. Patsy left out a loud scream and Mrs. O’Riley’s own scream wasn’t far behind. 

Later the police officers that responded to the Receptionist's call would ask Patsy what happened next, and she told them the truth. It all happened so fast she wasn’t sure what exactly happened. Mr. Morales, who had bruised ribs, and some cuts from the glass but was thankfully otherwise alright, shouted something that didn’t make sense to her at Robertson and the Principal ran off. She didn’t get to hear what Mr. Morales told them but they questioned him for a good long while. 

School was cancelled early and parents were furiously calling the school board and the district for answers. There was a warrant issued for Robertson, and some people were threatening to pull their kids altogether. No one wants their kids to go to the school where the principal threatened a fifteen year old girl and assaulted a teacher. 

Superintendent Wilkens sent a parent portal wide email that a warrant was formally filed against Mr. Robertson and the police had opened an investigation. In addition to Resource Officer Thomas three more Iron county police officers would be stationed at the school for security and rest assured that school would be open again Friday.

“No, no...this is ridiculous. My daughter was threatened by that man.” Patsy’s dad said to the Superintendent’s secretary. “Don’t put me on hold! ….Yes, I believe that you do have another call coming in. I….” he sighed heavily, and tossed his cellphone into the living room sofa.

“Sweetheart.” Elana said, putting her hands tenderly on Joseph’s shoulders.

“We worked with that man in the ice cream socal last year, Laney.”

Just out of their sight, sitting against the hallway wall Patsy hugged Bean. Now more than ever the tridactyl kitty gave her some comfort. She kept replaying it over in her mind, Robertson’s face looked so...uncanny valley. Elana had tried to reassure her that it was just her mind playing tricks on her, wanting to think that he was somehow less than human because of how he was acting. 

Her phone buzzed, touching the wall it tapped rapidly and loudly and Patsy reactively tried to grab it before her parents noticed.

“Pats? Babygirl, I thought you were laying down.” Her dad said, walking over to her, flipping the hallway light on. “Well, I thought you were scrolling through your phone, pretending to be laying down.”

She gave Bean a little squeeze like when she was littler, “I tried, but I couldn’t take a nap.”

“It’s okay, Pats. How'bout I make up some of my famous root beer floats?”

She slowly nodded, “That would be good.”

“Come on, Patsy.” Elana said, “We can sit at the table while your father makes us a feel better treat.” 

She got up and walked over to the kitchen table, Bean closely trailing her like always. “Hey, think I could maybe sleep in your guys' bed tonight?”

Elana quickly glanced at her husband, the pair of them sharing a whole conversation in a moment.

“Of course, Pats.” Her dad said, “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”

“It’ll be like when you crawled in my bed when you were little after a nightmare woke you up.” Elana said.

Her father was scooping ice cream into three tall milkshake glasses as Patsy pulled Elana into a hug, “Thank you for being my mom.” she said softly.

Elana returned the hug, remembering the first time Patsy told that to her and felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She was Pascala's mom, there wasn’t any doubt of that. She didn’t give birth to Patsy though. Her birth mom and Joseph’s first wife passed away when she was less than six months old, an oncoming driver didn’t stop at the red light as she was going through the intersection on her way home from work. Elana was her birth mother’s best friend and Patsy’s godmother. After the funeral she just kept helping Joseph out with Patsy, eventually moving in with them. Joseph and Elana married when she was seven, but she had really always been her mom.

As frustrated as he was with the situation, Joseph did his best to cool down and help Patsy feel better, telling his corny dad jokes he spent hours and hours looking up at his computer desk. 

He spent almost a half hour that night checking and double checking that every door and window was locked that night, as well as making sure their security system was armed. Unlike Patsy, who almost couldn’t sleep without Bean snuggled next to her, Elana found the heavy cat overly warm but she gritted her teeth through it for Patsy’s sake.

The next morning, Thursday, the day after her high school Principal threatened her, assaulted a teacher and just disappeared. She woke up to the smell of her dad making eggs, over cooking them. Elana always made them a little runny. Everything seemed to run by a little slowly. Like she had been jerked out of a deep daydream and couldn’t pull herself entirely out of her own head.

Around noon she and her mom were watching a cartoon as Joseph entered the room on the phone, “I see, well, thank you, Linus. Yes? I’ll ask her now, we were planning on going to the diner for lunch anyway.” He pulled the phone slightly away from his face and turned to the pair on the sofa, “Pats, Mr. Morales is out of the hospital. He asked if it would be alright if he met us at the diner today.”

She let out a huge sigh of relief hearing he was out, that meant he was okay, “Yeah, that sounds good!”

Joseph put the phone back to his face, “She’s okay with it. We’ll see you there at one. Yep, bye, it was good hearing from you too. And...thank you, Linus.” he hung up and put his phone into his pocket. “He said the superintendent pushed the school’s opening back to Monday, I guess we angry few can make a difference.”  

Elana pulled her legs onto the sofa and sat cross legged, turning towards him, “That’s great! I think that’s what WIlken’s should have done from the start, but hey. So we’ll be eating with Patsy’s english teacher?”

“History teacher.” Patsy said, correcting her.

“Linus is also one of my work associates, but yes. He just wants to check in with Pats.”

She nodded, “Alright, I’m going to take a quick shower before we go.” 

She gave Joseph a quick kiss on the cheek as she left the room, her husband replacing her spot on the sofa.

Patsy gave her dad a big hug. “So Mr. Morales is alright?”

“Some cuts and bruises but he sounded alright, he didn’t talk about himself much.” Joseph said.

Before long they were sitting down as Margret, one of the servers at the diner, was bringing over a pot of coffee for Joseph and Elana and a Shirley temple for Patsy. “Hey, Patsy.” the retirement age waitress said, “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m okay, Margret.” She said, putting on a cheerful voice.

“That’s the spirit, I’ll be sure to bring you over the biggest slice of cake.” She said

“Yay cake!”

Elana laughed a little, “We’re going to wait to order, Margie. We’re waiting on another person.”

The older waitress nodded her head slightly, “Sounds good, Laney. I’ll be back in two shakes with your refreshments.” With that she was off to serve some of the other customers, or guests as corporate would like they be referred to.

The three of them chatted while they waited for Mr. Morales, while they did Patsy’s thoughts drifted to the bizarre notion that when you see someone you only ever see at school, or school related events that when you see them out and about in everyday life the person is suddenly almost unrecognizable. Like in those children sitcom shows where someone says “Wait, you mean teachers don’t live at school??” or something else mildly insulting to the audience about their perceived intelligence. Still, Patsy wondered if it was going to be super weird seeing Mr. Morales not just outside of school, but on purpose outside of school. He normally dressed in clean but not ironed dress pants and some sort of long sleeved shirt, either a button up or a sweater; would he be wearing a rock and roll band t shirt and shorts? What if he wears his curly hair in a manbun outside of work? The horror.

It was almost a disappointment when Mr. Morales showed up in tan dress pants and a blue sweater, as well as a sling that held his left arm, some bandaging on his cheek with some purplish bruising around its edges.

“Linus,” her dad said, “Glad you could make it.”

“We’re both just so grateful for what you did yesterday.” Elana said as her husband scooted further into the booth, making room for him.

“Oh, I only did what any good samaritan should have in the situation.” Mr. Morales said, sitting down. “Ah!” He smiled at the pot of coffee sitting on the table, “May I? I’m afraid I skipped my usual morning cup...come to think of it, skipped most of my usual morning routine today.” 

“Go ahead, refills are free.” Patsy said.

“Are they?” He asked with a smile, awkwardly pouring himself a hot cup.

Margret returned, prompting her mom to say that they’ll probably need a few minutes for Mr. Morales to decide what he wants.

“Oh, go ahead.” The teacher reassured, “ I know what I want, a short stack of pancakes, and two pieces of bacon on the chewier side.”

“Oh, alright!” Elana said, “Brunch it is then, I guess we’re ready to order. Patsy, you go first.”

Patsy put in her order, a belgian waffle with strawberries and a lemon poppyseed muffin. Her father ordered the same as Mr. Morales, but he wanted his bacon crispy. Elana ordered two sunny side up eggs and some toast to dunk in the yolk. With that Margaret took off again.

“It just seemed so...out of nowhere.” Patsy said, suddenly.

Surprised, Elana reactively gave her a side hug, “No one ever expects these sorts of things to happen, Sweetheart. All that matters is that you’re safe.”

“Principal Robertson wasn’t...normal, right?” She asked, addressing her teacher.

Mr. Morales avoided her gaze, looking down into his coffee.

“Pats, Robertson wasn’t the man we thought he was, or he changed or something messed up.” her dad said.

“You saw his face too, right Mr. Morales, you asked him what he was.”

Her parents, worried for Patsy, then looked to the teacher they invited out.

“Miss. Pascala, I don’t know what had gotten into him, or what had become of him. That certainly wasn’t the man I have worked with for over two years now, but rest assured. He wasn’t some abnormality, he was a man, a man who revealed himself to be quite the monster.” Mr. Morales said finally, just as their food arrived.

To her parent’s relief, Patsy dropped the subject. They ate and her dad asked Mr. Morales how she was doing in his class.

“She is an ideal student” he told them, “Attentive, curious, she has a mind for nuance, and seems to genuinely want to understand why people did what they had done in the history lessons.” Which unfortunately made her quite uncomfortable, like she was in a parent-teacher conference all of all of a sudden.

As Patsy began to withdraw into herself, Elana asked her, “So, Patsy, is there anything else you’d like to do in town today before we head home?” She hoped to bring Patsy back to the surface of her own mind.

“Huh?” Patsy asked, she heard what her mom said, but her brain hadn’t really processed it yet. Something it usually would do about a split second after someone repeated what they said to her. “Oh, uh...well I was hoping we could go swing by grandma’s grave?” She stated her request with the inflection of a question. Her grandma wasn’t buried very far from where they lived. However, she knew that her dad always had a hard time going. He stayed in the car when they visited her grave a couple weeks before school started.

Joseph swallowed hard, but nodded, “Of course, babygirl.”

Mr. Morales raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t realize you had family buried here. I was under the impression that your family moved here from Louisiana.”

“We did, but Joseph is from here originally, we moved back here after his mother got sick.” Elana explained.

Mr. Morales turned his gaze back to his coffee, “I see.” Patsy could see his eyes darting swiftly like he either realized something or was thinking very swiftly. She felt like she could relate. “Miss. Pascala, Joseph, Elana. Please do not take me for overreaching but I’m not sure it is safe for the three of you to go to a location like that right now. If Robertson is following you it would be quite the place for an ambush.”

“Linus, don’t speak like that in front of my daughter.” Joseph said, something of a warning in his voice. 

“No, dad, it’s alright.” Patsy said, “Mr. Morales, do you really think it’s a bad idea to go to the cemetery?”

Mr. Morales looked to Joseph, who wore an expression that clearly said “Be careful how you say things.” He looked back at Patsy, with a small sigh, “I think, perhaps you should at least wait under after school starts up again Monday? Thank you all for this lovely meal, but I think I should be going. This should cover my food.” He swiftly got up and pulled his wallet out and with just his right hand awkwardly pulled out some bills. Leaving forty dollars on the table as he took off.

“I think you scared him.” Elana said simply, pouring herself another cup of coffee.

They ultimately didn’t go to the cemetery, to both the annoyance and relief of her father. In fact they stayed in for the rest of the day. Watching TV, playing a popular kart racing game which Joseph began quite smuggly. Only to lose to his daughter because of an npc driver launching a nuclear option that blasted him back to third place less than half the track away from victory.

Patsy told her parents that she felt comfortable enough to go to bed in her own room that night, and Elana made chicken parm hero sandwiches. All in all the day drifted by quickly after their lunch with the odd Mr. Morales. It was almost 10 at night when she finally told her parents she was going to bed, and they reaffirmed their own tiredness from the day and wouldn’t be up much longer themselves.

Of course, Patsy wasn’t really going to bed.

She stayed up for hours, just to be sure they had actually fallen asleep. Her dad. Patsy disarmed the security system and left the house, heading straight for the cemetery. She had to see her grandmother’s gravestone. Something about how Mr. Morales reacted just didn’t sit right with her. It had to be around 1:20 in the morning now and it was very dark and while it was brisk out during the day her fingers quickly started going numb and she could see her breath.

The ground of the cemetery was hard and bumpy from thawing into wet muddy ground under the sun during the day. Patsy walked through the cemetery at a brisk pace, wanting to get to her grandma's grave and back before her parents could wake up to find out she snuck out of the house...or worse she was taken by Robertson. The made her stomach clench up, and she began regretting this whole idea. There was a rustling in the bushes and she began to sprint, she felt like running home and forgetting all of this but she was painfully aware she was heading right towards the grave.

She came to a quick stop, looking down at the engraved stone. Ellinore DeSoto, 1961 to 2017. She knelt down, tears building in her eyes. Deep down she knew coming here now was a mistake, her grandma wouldn’t want her sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, especially not under the current circumstances.

She sniffled, alright she got to the gravestone and proved exactly nothing. Time to get home as fast as she possibly could and swear off stupid impulsive decsions forever.

The wet smacking of lips that made her skin crawl.

“Pr.principal Robertson?” She tentatively asked, standing up and turning towards the gross sound. Her eyes widened in grotesque terror as she looked at the swollen thing that only scarcely held the appearance of her principal, the purplish grey skin stretched uncomfortably tight as the creature smiled wider than nature as she knew it allowed.

“Pascala Desoto,” It still spoke with Principal Robertson’s voice. “So courteous of you to come to me, now we may continue your...disciplinary measures, young lady.” The creature stuck out it’s purple tongue which extended down past its belly.

Patsy wanted to run, scream, anything, but her legs refused to move. Her body frozen. It walked up closer to her, and it’s foul breath was like a thick miasma that made her lungs clench up and burnt her throat, she couldn’t even tremble in fear.

“Speechless, DeSoto?” It leaned in and inhaled deeply by her hair, it chucked out as it spoke, “Yeeheeehesss. Your flesh will do, your form will do.”

Over the creature’s shoulder Pascala saw another, and the ghoul’s smile turned into a scowl. Apparently it noticed him as well.  It wrapped it’s unnaturally large hands around her, its index finger on her shoulder and its pinky on her waist. Turning to face him it snarled out, “This is my Witch, get your own.”

The man stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight, the beams catching on his glasses, “Let her go, Corpse eater.” He held a revolver in one hand, and an old medieval looking sword in the other. His arm wasn’t in the sling anymore and he didn’t look injured at all.

“Morales, I knew I should have crushed your throat when-”

Her teacher cocked the pistol and aimed it right at his head.

“G...go ahead. I am not something you can kill with a bullet.” The ghoul said smugly.

“In your state it will hurt, it’ll be a whole world of agony.” Morales said, calling the monster’s bluff.

It took a slight step back, balking out a grunt in some fear. “We can split her! I don’t need her blood!”

Patsy’s eyes widened at the suggestion.

“Don’t worry, Miss. Pascala. This thing won’t harm you...and survive.” His voice was cold again, and she couldn’t help but feel an intense fear. Maybe from the slight tremors she felt through the ghoul’s hand, but somehow she knew that this thing that used to be her Principal was terrified.

“I can’t go back to the corpses people bury, they poison them, and every time I feed I whimper in agony for years, only to need to feed again, the cycle is torture! Have mercy!” The ghoul begged.

“You do not want my mercy, Corpse eater. It is at the end of my sword.” He began walking forward.

The ghoul released Patsy and pinched her throat, “Another step and I’ll break her neck!”

Reactively she reached up at the monster’s finger’s “I don’t want to die!” she sobbed, were she in a more clear headed situation she may have realized she can move again.

Mr. Morales paused, scowling back at the hellish beast. 

“That’s right! You...you have a fondness for her, your student, HAH! So long as I have her in my grasp you won’t risk harming her.” The ghoul grinned hideously in it’s little victory.

Her history class teacher inhaled sharply, then said, “If you are going to do something, now would be the time!”

Principal Robertson the ghoul frowned, “What are you playing at?!” 

Out from the bushes a large orange cat ran up much faster than Patsy had ever seen in her life and pounced on the ghoul’s forearm, clawing and tearing at it. The ghoul released her and she dropped, quickly and frantically crawling into an upright sprint several yards away from the monster.

Bean used the ghoul as a springboard and sprinted over to Patsy. The Ghoul was screaming and clutching the wounds the cat had left on it, as Morales lunged forward and with a clean swift strike cleaved the monster’s head from it’s shoulders.

Patsy’s breaths were short, and she pulled Bean into her arms as she tried to calm down. Morales wiped his blade off on the grass before sheathing it and steeping over to his student as he holstered his gun.

“I’m sorry, Miss. Pascala.” He said, “Are you alright?”

“What, what was that!?” She asked, looking at the ghoul’s limp body.

He paused, like he was unsure he could answer, “...Is there any world where you could accept that this was all a bad dream?”

She shook her head, “No, I have nightmares all the time, this is real.” Patsy looked at her teacher and gasped, she tried to step back but only fell backwards. “Those eyes!”

Mr. Morales sighed, and pulled his glasses from his face. His eyes were a hungry deep red. “Please, Miss. Pascala, I mean you no harm. You have my word, my oath as a man who has spent his very long life guiding the minds of the youth, and protecting everyone who I find in need of help.”

She tried to steady her breath, with Bean in her arms she felt much bolder and confident, “Those eyes, I’ve seen them in my nightmares, I trusted you and you’re another one of those things!” She pointed to the ghoul.”

He was taken aback, and gestured at his face, “You’ve seen these eyes in your dreams? Miss. Pascala, I assure you I am not a corpse eater.” He grabbed his lip and pulled it up, revealing a long and sharp fang. “I am a vampire, and amazingly you seemed to have augured my presence in your dreams.”

She stared at the fang with wide, slightly horrified eyes. “...Huh.”

“Huh. That...is a first.” The Vampire said, “I imagine you have questions, and you deserve answers. Especially if you refuse to accept this night was just a bad dream.”

She nodded, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to, trust me I’m trying. Still here, next to my vampire history teacher.”

“Very well, Miss. Pascala. This ghoul was hunting you because you are a Sorceress, and whoever gave you that cat was as well. Seeing as how that animal is a Familiar, your Familiar.” He said, “Monday, come to my class after school, and I will tell you more. For now just go home, you’ll be safe there with the cat. I need to clean this up before anyone comes by and finds it.”

It was be a difficult thing to believe that Patsy would just accept things at that, that she would just go home and enjoy her long weekend with her folks, and she could just scratch Bean behind the ear knowing she was some magical protector her Secret Sorceress Grandma had given to her as a little kitten. That she could be nearly eaten and just go back to bed. All that can be agreed upon is that Patsy got out of bed the next morning around 10:30, that she took a shower and had slightly runny scrambled eggs for breakfast. Another thing that can be certain is that Patsy would never doubt what happened, what she saw and what she heard, and that the story of Pascala DeSoto, The Sorceress of Illinois had only begun. 

End Chapter

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[giorno-plays-piano]

Your place

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader (High School AU)

Warnings: yandere, obsession, bullying, threats, non-con.

Words: 1510.

Summary: You suffer in the arms of America's golden boy, the one who has been bullying you for years.

P.S. I just realized most of my smut fics are about Bucky, so I decided to write one with Steve instead. Btw, all characters had reached 18 years of age. Hope you'll enjoy!

______________

"Damn girl, you better put some makeup." Someone's loud voice behind your back made you flinch. "Y'know, you can still do something about that face."

You heard a burst of laughter and bit your lips. It had always been a part of your daily routine for several years once you moved to New York and went to Abraham Lincoln High School. God, you regretted it with all your heart.

"Come on, Sam. Give her some credit." You didn't even need to turn your head to know who was speaking. "She's the natural beauty, isn't she?"

You spun on your heels, watching harshly the group of guys leaning against the wall and smirking at you, all beefy, muscular and tall. The biggest assholes in whole Brooklyn; players of Howling Commandos, your school's basketball team; the ones most of the girls dreamed about and to whom they sent love letters every goddamn week, as the guys claimed. They had been your absolute nightmare since you got transferred to this place.

You glanced at Steve Rogers, America's golden boy, incredibly handsome with those blonde hair and blue eyes; the picture-perfect image of a diligent, polite student; the one whose face they put on promotional posters every year. You knew better than anyone else who was hiding behind this facade of "just a kid from Brooklyn".

"What, are you moody after yesterday's game?" You smirked, knowing very well that they had just lost against Hydra, the team Steve always hated with all his soul. "Go fuck youself and calm down, dear. Or are your buddies gonna lend you a hand, maybe?"

The smile fell from his face as the guy frowned, his bright blue eyes burning a hole in your figure. You guessed he really missed those days when you just listened quietly while he and his friends kept insulting you, but these days were long gone. You grew some teeth by the end of your final year.

"Listen, you little..." Bucky hissed, but Steve raised his hand and made him fall silent as you grinned, clenching your lunchbox in your hands.

Oh, he was mad. You knew well how much Rogers detested swear words, especially if they were coming from a woman's mouth.

"Watch your language, girl," his voice was unusually hoarse, his eyes watching you intensely, "or I'll have to teach you how to speak to a man myself."

"I'd like to see that." You giggled nervously, relieved there were enough students passing by to prevent Steve from doing anything stupid. "But if you want to complain to Mr. Banner to give me a detention, please feel free, dear."

You turned around with a silly smile on your face, waiting for him and his friends to give you some more empty threats, but you heard nothing at all as you kept walking. Suddenly feeling victorious and somewhat invincible, you laughed to youself, hurrying away. Did you just make those assholes silent, gasping for words at your audacity? Did it truly shut their goddamn mouths? God, it was unbelievable. Well, maybe going against Steve Rogers wasn't wise, but you couldn't pretend you were okay with that attitude of his after all those years of pure humiliation. You did nothing but protected yourself, right? Besides, he could hardly do anything since you were never alone at school, and after finishing your classes you were lucky to be driven home by your dad who worked close.

But maybe buying a mace wasn't a bad idea.

You laughed at yourself, finally arriving at the cafeteria and landing on one of the seats with a loud sigh. You knew Steve and his friends wouldn't do anything - their college admission was at stake, and you'd be happy to provide police with all the details if anything were to happen to you. Surely, they wouldn't risk it for just a few words you exchanged with them this morning.

_________________

Shit, you were so late for your PE class! Everyone was already at the field while you ran to the locker room, gasping for air. You didn't need Maximoff to yell at you the third time this month.

You threw your bag to the floor once you spotted your locker and jumped to it, abandoning your skirt in a matter of seconds and desperately trying to get your shorts out. You didn't care much about your surroundings as no one else was inside the locker room. Class had already started 10 minutes ago.

You didn't think anyone could be waiting for you here on purpose.

Before your heard the lock snap, somebody slammed your body into the locker, pressing you to its cool metal door so hard you lost your ability to move. Frightened to death, you were ready to scream, but someone's hand clamped over your mouth, muffling the sound. God, what was happening? Who was that? Why didn't you see anyone?

"Shhh, it's okay." You knew this voice too well. "You can keep screaming, but there's no one around, you know that."

You grunted against his hand, trying your best to throw the huge guy off you but achieving little: Steve was a bull of a man. His enormously big body leaned so close to yours that you could feel his every fucking muscle with his chest pressed to your back. His other hand gripped your throat tighter to make you stop squirming.

You needed to keep your mouth shut today instead of provoking him.

"Yeah, like that." Steve shushed you in a mockingly gentle tone, lifting his hand from your mouth and nuzzling against your ear, inhaling your scent. "I like when you're quiet."

"What the fuck are you doing, Rogers?" You asked him furiosly, pretending you weren't frightened to death. "Have you lost your head?"

"Language." His low gutteral growl made you shiver as you felt his palm on your neck moving.

Clenching your teeth, you tried pushing him away once more, but instead you just grinded against his heated body and realized he was... aroused, the bulge in his pants obvious as you moved your ass. God, no. No, no, no! You were at the edge of going into hysterics, shaking and pushing and crying with his hand on your mouth again. It was hard to breath with so little space Steve gave you, his unbearably hot body covering yours.

"What happened, dear? Cat got your tongue?" You were disgusted at his sweet loving tone. "Aw, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you. You wanted me to teach you how to speak to a man, remember?"

His grip on you was madly strong - you winced in pain once Steve had squeezed the cheek of your ass with his huge calloused palm, your head pressed into the cool metal locker as he hovered above you. When he started kissing your neck, you bit your tongue in utter despair. He was fucking sick. Deranged. He was ready to do this over some little quarrel when the only thing you actually did was responding to his bullying.

Your mind was hazy as you started losing your strength after good five-minute struggle. Rogers didn't relent in his efforts to keep you pinned and completely defenseless.

"This is rape, Steve." You whispered, exhausted and anxious. "Do you understand?"

"Come on, what are you saying?"

His hand travelled down to your hips as he caressed them gently and moved to tug your panties down your legs.

"You're so wet for me, dear. How can you call it rape?" You shut your eyes when Steve touched you down there, forcing you to spread your legs and settling in against the craddle of your thighs. As he moved the elastic of your black panties, his fingers were playing with your folds, and you realized with shame he was right as he spread a bit of your wetness on your skin playfully. "Admit it, you have a thing for bullies."

"No, I d..."

Before you could bark at him he forced you to turn your head and kissed you hungrily, pushing his tongue in your half-opened mouth. You squirmed, grasping his hand, yet his arm that he used to hold your chin before swept yours away as he pushed you against the locker even harder. You could feel his erected cock through the fabric of his school pants.

Making a soft noise at the feeling of his tongue rubbing against yours, you heard Rogers groaning, his chest heaved. If you could pull away, a shudder would rush down your spine at the sight of his face. Instead of a school bully there was a predator waiting to tear his prey apart.

"Stop, please..." You panted heavily once he finished kissing you, his fingers still caressing your womanhood, your juices leaking down your thighs. "Why me? What have I done? You have hundreds of girls who want to throw themselves at you."

He smiled and rested his sweating forehead against yours, teasing your entrance.

"You see, it's easy. You get off on being bullied, and I get off on bullying you." Steve started rubbing little circles on your engorged clit, admiring your blushing cheeks. "We can have so much fun together if you just stop resisting me and take your place."

___________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki ​ @helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin ​ @lovelydarkdaydream

[queernarchy]

Statement of Elizabeth Williams, regarding a box of tapes found in the basement of her student house. Statement given October 18th, 2018, 105 Hill Top Road, Oxford.

[INT. OXFORD, 105 HILLTOP RD, UPSTAIRS BEDROOM]

[TAPE CLICKS ON]

[SOUNDS OF BETH STUTTERING, APPARENTLY SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING TO SAY]

[A SHAKY INHALE]

BETH

Right. Um. I, uh. Right.

[PAUSE]

BETH

To be perfectly honest, I’m not really sure what I’m doing. I- I found this. It’s the only one I’ve found in the box that’s blank. You know, I’ve never actually seen a tape recorder, like in real life? It’s quite - Well, I’m not even sure I know how to use it. Except … I do. Because I turned it on. I hit the button and now I’m talking to it, like it’s a person. Like I’m crazy, which … I might be. God, I might be. 

[BREATH]

BETH

I probably am. In fact, I hope I am. I hope I was just dreaming it all up. Another sign of an overactive imagination. Spending too much time with those books and not in the real world, as mum would say.

[PAUSE]

Even if it was real, there is no reason for me to be talking to you - no, to this. [TO HERSELF] It’s a tape recorder, Beth, it’s not a person. [BACK TO NORMAL] But I am. It feels right to, to tell you. So I’m going to. I’m going to tell you what happened and then it’ll be over. And I can go back to my life. 

BETH (STATEMENT)

I’m not great at this. The talking, the explaining, the storytelling, it’s not really my thing, at least not anymore. 

When I was a kid it was easy, you know? I was always latching onto one thing or another, letting it consume my brain and then going on and on about it to whatever poor soul I could corner long enough into listening. My parents didn’t let me use a computer until I was well into my teens - something about them making nightmares worse? It was all bollocks, really, how would they know that if they never actually let me use one? But, anyways, before that I used to spend hours in the Wokingham library touring the sections. Once, when I was twelve, I read a book on oceanography: Vanished Ocean: How Tethys Reshaped the World, and spent a solid week scouring the corners of every bookshelf for anything I could find on ancient supercontinents or vanished fault lines before giving my report to the first unlucky and unsuspecting librarian who happened to be out in the open. [LAUGHS] Poor Mike.

I never cared what the genre was, nonfiction, mystery, fantasy, that was never important to me. I just loved the pursuit, and the compelling joy of walking through a new world. It was like a secret between me and the writer, something that we knew that nobody else did. 

I always dreamed of being a writer too one day, but like I said, the storytelling part never actually came natural to me, no matter how many books I consumed. I suppose it must have been that lack of skill that bugged the people around me to no end. My father spent most of his time at work and I didn’t really get along with my brother or sister, but let’s just say that my mum was never as ... enthusiastic about my new interests as I was. 

It wasn’t her fault, I was deeply, deeply irritating. But to my credit, the minute I realized that, well, that’s when I finally started to shut up. Thinking back, I think that’s where it started. I had always kind of been afraid of pretty much anything and everything. But when I got old enough, I started to routinely feel a gripping terror bubbling up through my stomach, my chest, shaking my limbs and rooting me to the spot whenever I spoke for more than a minute at a time. 

All this to say, a few years ago I graduated secondary school with absolutely no skill in writing, the one thing I actually enjoyed, and a lot of anxiety. It seems inevitable that I would end up studying library sciences, doesn’t it? It’s practically what I’ve always done anyways - sorting and researching. And a future as a librarian with a couple cats and a cozy cottage, surrounded by books, well … there are worse things. Much worse. 

I moved into student housing right before my first term started at Oriel. I call it student housing, but it’s not, not technically. The actual dorms were a bit out of my price range, so when I saw an ad looking for flatmates in Cowley, only a 20 minute bus ride from the college, it seemed meant to be. There were ten living here all together, to start. George moved into his boyfriend’s place last year, leaving nine of us. [DARKLY] Well, eight, now, I suppose.

It was a proper house, renovated a few years back, I think, but it was already thoroughly  trashed by the time I showed up. It was one of those places that, the minute you walked through the door, you could just feel the grime lurking between the worn couches and stained mattresses, that musty smell of overuse. I tried to ignore it, I did, but one Friday night a couple weeks after I’d settled in, I waited until everyone had gone and walked to the closest shop to buy a blacklight. It went about as well as you’d expect. I spent that entire weekend scrubbing this house from top to bottom. I even cleaned Sam’s room. It’s not like I’m a germaphobe or anything, I just like to know where things have been. And if they dirty again, well, at least I know it’s the slobbery of my friends rather than that of strangers. 

I didn’t touch the basement, though. None of us ever did. I’m not sure why, it was always just an unspoken agreement between us. I must have asked about it when I moved in. I must have. I mean, it would be one thing if it just never came up, if it was just an unfinished and unsafe part of the house we didn’t go down to and that was that. But, you know, thinking about it now, we didn’t even mention it, not once. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what you can ignore. Right up to the moment you’re devoured by it.

I don’t remember the exact moment things started to feel wrong. Can’t have been more than a couple weeks ago. It was subtle, at first. Doors swinging closed on their own, misplaced items, shadows that didn’t really ... fit. All things that could be chalked up to the mind playing tricks out of boredom, or fatigue - just a consequence of one too many sleepless nights. I didn’t really think about it too hard, even when Sam brought it up at breakfast, started insisting the place was haunted. That was easy to dismiss, she’s always going on about some supernatural this or that and I don’t believe in ghosts, but even that would have been easily digestible as an explanation. 

It was like that for a few days, and all the while, that feeling of wrongness lurked in the background, pulsing beneath us. I honestly don’t know if I would have even taken notice if Milton hadn’t started behaving the way he did. Milton is - was - every bit the hipster film student of your wildest imaginations. I swear, I saw him wear a beret once, completely unironically. We’d been friends, as I was one of the few people who would listen to him ramble on about whatever arthouse film had caught his attention that week. We got on fine, well, actually, for flatmates at least. That’s not to say that I always liked him - I’d acted in a few of his student films, just by convenience, and he wasn’t exactly the most easy to work with. Everything always had to be just the way he wanted it, down the most minute detail. I swear, if he could have tied strings around our limbs and puppeted us from afar, he would have. [PAUSE] Sorry, that’s … that’s poor taste. 

It had to do with the cassettes. You see, Milton had always insisted on using magnetic tape for his recordings, refusing to even entertain the idea of a digital camera. Something about being more authentic - I never understood it, but far be it from me to get in between a film major and their precious ‘analog charm.’ He loved those tapes, and we all got used to seeing dozens scattered throughout the house at any one time. Which is why it struck me as odd when last week, they vanished entirely. When I asked him about it, he just said that he'd been editing a new project that he needed them for. I wasn’t sure what kind of project would require that many cassettes all at once, but he certainly spent enough time working on it. He’d be locked away in his room for hours, sounds of whirring machinery coming from behind his door. When he did come out, he was exhausted, gaunt. I tried talking to him about it, you know, but he’d just ignore me.

It was strange behavior, sure, but not supernatural. Perhaps I would have chalked it up to stress, just a bad week, but that’s when the nightmares started. I had always had them, just a side effect of my anxiety, but they’d died down a couple years ago, after I moved to Oxford. One sleep after this started, though, I saw Milton. He was sat at a desk, a mess of cassettes unspooled into piles of thin black magnetic tape scattered across it. He was tangled in tape as well, almost every limb bound by it. He stared at the pile in front of him with dull eyes, completely still. 

I didn’t realize until the tape began to lift his arms that he wasn’t just tangled in it. The long, metallic strands were embedded directly into his skin. The strands controlling every movement, he grabbed a spool, and, very slowly, raised it to his mouth. His jaw unhinged, farther than anything natural, and he began to stuff the tape down his throat. Again, and again, and again, until the entire pile was gone. I had never felt relief the way I had when I finally woke from that dream. I didn’t know that was only the first time that I would have it.

I woke from one of these nightmares late one night, heart beating fast and body sticky with sweat. I climbed downstairs, trying to clear my head, and found Milton sitting in the living room, staring at our small television screen playing his movie. At least, that’s what I assumed it was. There was no coherence, no audio, just rapid, violent black and white images that flashed across the screen sporadically and bits of static that faded in and out at random. Occasionally, I’d see the corrupted and disjointed image of my own face cross the screen, along with the other actors. The pattern was hypnotic. Every few minutes, the images would perfectly align, shaping spindly, bony legs that almost seemed to reach beyond the glass face of the TV.

After a while, I finally managed to ask him if he was alright, if the cassette had become corrupted somehow, if there was any way to fix it. He had always been so fiercely protective of his tapes, and with the state it was in I expected him to be furious, or devastated, at least concerned. But when he turned, there was none of that written into his face. Just a calm, blank expression. He studied me carefully for a long moment, before finally speaking. ‘We should feed our guest. She’s so happy to have arrived, and she is very hungry.’ He smiled after he said that. When he did, I could have sworn I saw that thin black film tape weaved inside him - webbed in the back of his throat and threaded right through the fleshy center of his tongue. I went back up the stairs immediately and locked my door, sat in bed until the sun came up.

I managed to avoid him the days after that. I thought about telling the others, trying to explain it to them, but I knew it wouldn’t end well. They wouldn’t believe me, why would they? I wasn’t even sure that I believed me. I thought about moving out, of course I did, but I had nowhere to go. No money, no real friends outside of the ones I already lived with. And who knows if I was just overreacting, imagining it all. So I decided I’d just ignore him as much as I could until he went back to normal or I’d saved up enough money for a new place.

It didn’t last, though. It was three days ago that it happened. It was late, and I had carelessly lost time sitting in the kitchen, studying for my history exam. I was alone when he walked in. He didn’t say a word, just, met my eyes with that calm look, like an invitation. Then he turned, with a finality I had never seen before, opened the door to the basement, and vanished down the stairs. 

I shouldn’t have followed him. I could have just walked away, went upstairs and buried my head in my pillow. But I didn’t. I had to know. To see. 

So, I walked down those old stone steps, dodging cobwebs. I don’t remember if I closed the door behind me, or if it did that part on its own. The cellar was warm, far too warm for October. It was unfinished, and empty save for an old, lidded cardboard box that sat neatly in the center of the room. A long, jagged crack ran through the floor and up into the far wall, as though the foundation had been damaged in an earthquake or something. Milton stood facing away from me, towards the crack in the wall, whispering something I couldn’t quite make out. I called out to him, and he turned to face me, expression wild with … something. Excitement? Panic? He had started to say something before, all at once, dozens of shadowy, spindly tendrils, adorned with what looked like coarse hairs crept from the crack and began to wrap themselves around him.

I felt that familiar terror bubble up, running cold through my veins, stronger than I’d ever felt it before. I wanted to run or scream, but I couldn’t. He didn’t scream either, but I could see the fear growing in his eyes, silently pleading. He didn’t move, not even as the tendrils began to … unspool him. They reached into him, breaking into his body like plaster, and pulled. He was hoisted from the ground, his limbs yanked in different directions and elongated. They just dangled there, arms and legs and head only still attached by threads of dark, magnetic tape, like an old, torn doll hanging together by string. And then the tendrils began to move him. They took their time puppeting him, and at the end, they pulled up his head, forcing his gaze to meet mine. His cheeks were strung up into a grin, but I saw the tears that flowed freely down his contorted face. 

I don’t know how long I stood there, watching him stripped him apart, piece by piece, slowly and deliberately. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I felt hot tears roll down my cheeks, although I couldn’t tell if they’d come from the terror of it all or simply because I no longer possessed the ability to blink. I watched and watched. And when it was over, and he was gone, I waited. I waited for them to take me, a part of me just relieved that I didn’t have to watch anymore. I had already shut my eyes tightly before I understood that I could. I felt my hands twitch, regaining their will. When I finally opened my eyes again, I was alone, in that old, dank basement, with nothing but that long dark crack, and, in the center of the floor, the cobweb covered cardboard box, now open, and filled to the brim with tapes. 

I don’t remember the rest of the night with any real clarity. I know I stood there for a while. I know at some point I calmly bent down, picked up the box, and walked it upstairs. I spent most of the last two days just staring at it. I’ve missed all of my classes. Sam has come to see me a couple of times, to ask how I am. This morning she actually brought me a plate of spaghetti. Imagine that, spaghetti for breakfast. I do appreciate the thought, even if it makes no practical sense whatsoever. Must be an American thing. She did mention that a man stopped by yesterday. Short, greying hair, lots of weird scars, asking about ‘strange happenings’ in the house. Sam told him about her hauntings, and apparently he had been, less than impressed. He told her he was sorry, and that she should move out, and then left without another word. [LAUGH] Creep.

I finally got up the nerve to look into the box. It’s pretty much what it says on the tin: Tapes and stationary. And cobwebs. So many goddamn cobwebs. 

Nobody has said anything about Milton. I expect in the next few days someone will notice he’s gone. How do you explain something like that? I’ve been seeing it again, though. My nightmares … my nightmares have been getting worse. I keep ending up back there. I just watch, and watch, and watch, and I can’t turn away. 

BETH (POST STATEMENT)

Statement ends, I suppose.

[STATIC RISES]

[STUTTERS, CONFUSED]

…. Statement? I, I don’t, I didn’t -

[STATIC FALLS]

[A SHORT SIGH]

I don’t feel better. I really thought I would. I don’t know why. Why in the world did I think that telling my stupid story to this thing would make me feel better? 

The box is still sitting at the foot of my bed. I want to get rid of it, I do. So why don’t I just toss it? It would be so easy. Just … throw it out. But I can’t. 

[RIFLING THROUGH THE TAPES]

Oh, huh - 

[STATIC RISES]

This tape’s blank as well. I thought I’d sorted through them all, but I guess I missed one. Hm. 

[TOSSES THE TAPE ASIDE]

They’re quite interesting, you know. I haven’t played any of the tapes yet, but I glanced at a few of the written accounts. Some of them are so illegible I can’t even read them but others are. Compelling. They make me feel, right. Scared, but [SIGHS]. I don’t know how to explain it. 

I did some research on them, the ones I read anyways. I say research, I mean some quick Googling, a bit of asking around. They’re not real. The Magnus Institute, that’s the logo printed onto the stationary, isn’t a real place. And, as far as I can tell, these people … these people don’t exist. Anywhere. I mean, I found a few names that match but nobody who lines up to the descriptions and when I reach out to them they claim to know nothing about any of it. One of the people I called, Timothy Hodge, his name is, actually gave me the number of his psychiatrist. [LAUGH]

So maybe it’s fiction. A collection of short stories about fictional people and fictional suffering. Just a practical joke. Except, I know that it’s not. I can’t explain how, I just … Know. 

I should probably move out. Only an idiot would stay in this place, after something like that. When I leave this room, I’m going to have to walk by that basement door. Every single day.. I should leave. I want to leave. I will leave. Just, not yet. 

I need to understand, to unravel the mystery, and I’m getting the feeling that there is something in this box that’ll help me do just that. I’ll try to record whatever I find out. I do have another blank tape, after all. [HM] End recording. 

[TAPE CLICKS OFF]

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #420

lol blaze it (i’m funny i swear)

In your opinion, which fast food place has the best fries? Without a doubt, Bojangle's. Good. Shit. Are there hurricanes where you live? Yeah, they're common here. What do you hate the most about yourself? I'd really rather not get into this right about now. What song are you listening to right now? "Beast of Gévaudan" by Powerwolf. What was your first concert? Alice Cooper. Also my only concert. What’s your favorite Johnny Depp movie? Alice In Wonderland. Who did you last say “I love you” to? My sister. Do you like pumpkin pie? Anything pumpkin-flavored is a hell no from me. Do you know anyone named Austin? Knew, rather. Do you know anyone who is having a baby? My friend recently announced she and her husband are having their second child in December. What was the last thing you cried about? Just PTSD. Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk? I like both, but I prefer chocolate. Do you think you are an argumentative person? Definitely not. How many deep dark secrets do you have? Two or so, idk. What was the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? Some wings at Buffalo Wild Wings with one of the hottest sauces. Wanted to die. ... Yet I continued to get that one whenever I went for years lmao. Who last called you sexy? I don't know. Would you class yourself as a good role model? In some ways, but in a lot of other ways, no. Are you scared of the dark? No. Do you have a motto? No. Who did you last see on webcam? The doctor that overlooks my TMS progress. Do you need a haircut? I need a trim for sure. How would you react if your mother told you that she was pregnant again? Well, considering 1.) she's way past menopause and especially 2.) she's had a complete hysterectomy, y'know... that's kind of impossible. She also hasn't been with a guy in many years, so she would have to be joking. You log into Facebook and see the red ‘1’ notification next to the message icon. Who do you want it to be? -___- Would you rather exercise alone or with other people? ALONE. You will NOT see me exercise in front of other people. What is the most difficult or involved video game you’ve ever played? The most involved is DEFINITELY World of Warcraft, and I guess you could consider it the hardest too, given some of the much more difficult things I've done in it. It itself isn't a hard game whatsoever, but you can pursue some really hard achievements. Ever watch the show Supernatural? If you have, then what’s your favorite episode? I used to love it, but just stopped watching eventually. My fave episode... Man, it's been too long to remember many. Probably one of the funnier ones. I remember I specifically liked the bit where they were in your everyday comedy show, as well as the one where I THINK Dean kept trying to prevent Sam from dying. I just remember the "Eye of the Tiger" bit that is pure gold. Ever heard of flavored honey? If so, what’s you’re favorite flavor? Oh, no, but that sounds good. Do you remember what your favorite show was when you were little? Yeah, Pokemon. Do you put anything besides cheese on grilled cheese sandwiches? Besides butter, which I think is pretty standard, no. When it comes to books, what do you think is the “perfect” amount of pages? Uh, I dunno. It depends on the book. I don't really care about page numbers. Would you ever be interested in going scuba diving? Yeah. Out of all of your friends/relatives, who would you say has the best vocabulary? Girt, probably. Are any of your fingers or toes deformed? What about the nails? I don't think so? When is the last time you cried? I was sobbing earlier today, fun stuff. Would you ever date somebody that has been divorced more than once? Most likely not. ESPECIALLY at my age. What are some stereotypically nerdy things that you like? Oh god. WoW, M:tG, big glasses, anime (does that count? idk really), video games... a lot of stuff, really. Have you ever attended a wedding that ended where the bride and groom didn’t actually get married? What happened? Y I K E S, no. That would be SO uncomf. What scares you the most about becoming a mother (hypothetically, if you don’t want to have children)? Actually raising it properly, physically and emotionally. Would you ever want a job in fashion? What would you enjoy about that type of job? No. Would you ever be a surrogate mother? No. What do you think would be the best and worst parts about being a twin? It'd be cool to have someone you feel an almost supernatural connection towards, but I'd also feel like I wasn't as "original" as I would be if I was born alone. Do you feel that your childhood was more rough compared to others around you? I mean it wasn't awful at all, but sure, in some ways compared to at least someone. How would you react if you found out today that you were actually adopted? Well today I'm a wreck, so don't tell me. I want to know that I wasn't lied to for 25 years. Have either of your parents ever cheated on one another before, that you know of? How would you react if you found out today that one of them cheated? I'm not entirely clear on this, but I'm 90% sure Dad cheated on Mom with his now-wife. Dad also accused Mom of cheating, but I HIGHLY doubt that's true. Do you like cleaning and organizing? Not really. How would you react if you found out you were infertile? If you don’t plan on having kids to begin with, what is a long-term goal you’d be crushed to find out was impossible to achieve? Fuck having kids. I'd be a terrible mother. So to answer the other question, I'll be pretty, pretty sad if I can't get permission to spread Teddy's ashes at Yellowstone. Would you take your dream job if it were out of the country? Well, obviously not considering my dream job is a meerkat biologist, and I'm not moving to Africa. Have you ever been robbed? No. Is anyone close to you an alcoholic? Not anymore. Dad was, but he's recovered. Have you ever dumped anyone? Yes. What kind of tea do you drink? I hate tea. Do you know anyone in a gang? No, and I hope I never do. What’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for you? Risk his fucking sanity and health to try to hold my fucked up self up. What is your orientation? Gay? Straight? Metrosexual? Anything other? Bisexual. I've kinda been questioning pansexual of the late, though. I don't know. Have you ever done anything really dangerous or illegal with friends? Not to my memory. Name three feelings you’re feeling right now: Regret. Hopelessness. Loneliness. And the reasons for these feelings? Take a wild fuckin' guess. How do you feel about your life right now? It's an actual dumpster fire. Is it easy for you to like yourself? Why or why not? Fuck no. Because there's just not very much TO like about me. Even on my good days, I see flaw after flaw in myself. What subjects come naturally to you? English, some aspects of science. What subjects do not? Math, economics, politics, history... Do you read more fiction or more non-fiction books? Definitely fiction. When I read a book, I want an escape from the real world. How has today been for you? BOY HOWDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What did you do? Went to TMS therapy. Sat on the Internet. Cried. :^) Are there any candles lit in the room you’re in? No. Are there any lava lamps near you? No. I want one, though. Do you like cats or dogs better? Cats. Are any of your friends a pothead? Yes. What’s a goal you’re trying to accomplish soon? Start losing weight again. That'd be pretty goddamn grand. Are you a high maintenance person? Definitely not. The last time you yelled as loud as you could, what was the reason? I was having a nightmare. Have you ever been heartbroken? For sure. Who did that to you? First Dad, then Jason. Did you go through an ugly stage as a kid? Boy, did I. The last type of sandwich you made or ate: A pb&j. The last time you spent most of the day in bed: Literally every day. I do just about everything in bed. Pathetic, I know. The last friend or acquaintance you made: Ummmm idk. The last thing you took pictures of: A hydrangea bush. The last time you were scared: Now. The future is terrifying, my friend. The last thing you looked up online: The definition of a word to ensure I was using it correctly. The last thing you disagreed with: So I've been watching John Wolfe's old stream of him playing Alice: Madness Returns, and he went on a total soapbox about smoking being okay essentially because we're all gonna die eventually from something, and I really disagreed with it. Does your house have a separate laundry room? No, just like a closet. Do your parents still help you financially? I'm still entirely dependent on them. Does your car have a backup camera? No. Have either of your parents ever been in trouble with the law? Not to my knowledge. Have you ever had a pet that lived to be really old for its breed/species? REALLY old, no. Teddy was definitely up there, but beagles have lived longer. What was the last strong scent you smelled? Lysol. Have you ever told someone to their face that they were ugly? Christ, no. Is your bed against more than one of your walls? No. Have you ever been attracted to someone’s parent? Don't think so? Have you ever pole danced before? No. Have you ever broken into someone’s house? No. Have you ever seen a live bat? Yes. What is the most amount of money you’ve spent on a meal before? I dunno. Have you ever taken a woodshop class? No. How much time do you spend on Facebook, if you have one? Funny you ask, because as of today I decided to take a break from it for awhile. I've found it's nothing more than a breeding ground for envy and making me feel like a horribly incompetent adult. Has a teacher ever made you hate yourself/your work? I had one photography teacher in college that I was NOT a fan of. He was super, super hard on everyone, like to an unnecessary degree. We were students, not pros. Have you ever been on the barrier or front row at a concert? No. Are your parents supportive of you? Somehow.

[welcometomy20s]

February 8, 2021

Welcome to the final part of the Introduction of Nijisanji. Thanks for going through all of them, if you did. It was pain to work with so much and so little. This part would cover everyone who has debuted in the year 2020.

Nijisanji IN 1st Gen

Aadya - The name means beautiful. 21 year old, who likes to play games and sing. Does dancing as a day job, so acts as a gaming nightingale. She has a knack for games in my cursory view, but that might be just the competitiveness.

Vihaan - The name means breaking dawn, kind of. Likes gaming very much, and plays them very loudly and complaining... which to be expected from this crew.

Noor - The name means light. Likes BL, coffee and beer, BL to the point she learned chinese from watching a BL drama. Basically a middle-aged man at heart, including a very nice husky voice. Does talks and games. Sings randomly and looks up to Rion, of all people. Ange mentioned her, Ange likes to mention foreign people.

Nijisanji KR 1st Gen

Min Suha - Knows the culture through their parents and has a nice voice. Sister Claire likes him, and who doesn’t? He’s freaking cool, man!

Shin Yuya - College student in virtual Seoul. Always has a smartphone at hand, does self-searching on a constant basis. Definitely has otaku knowledge, likes singing, drawing and cute things. Doesn’t like horror games, but played a lot on stream.

Plays a lot of different games, including FPS like Apex, and this is where she gets to collaborate with Japanese senpais, which is always fun to see.

Gaon - Originally Moarin’s brother, but Moarin left, so the lore changed. Has a twintail for attention purposes. Only member of Nijisanji KR to work as a job, but quit as the end of 2020. He’s pretty cool. Not nice, but definitely not a mean person either.

Han Chiho - He’s a time-displaced psychic, and so speaks with a high register. High register is usually seen as old, people don’t use it anymore, but it’s usually perfectly understandable... it’s an interesting quirk. Other than that, pretty normal streamer.

2020 Part 1 (Jan-Apr)

Furen E Lustario - During debut, expressed a liking choking oneself... so we know who we are dealing with. Has to add using fingers, as to illustrate her math prowess. But overall a fun person to watch, and has a pretty good variety of streams.

Melissa Kinrenka - Wants to be a songwriter, but still needs help. But she is a great singer, and can write and mix songs. Usually called Meli. Has a deep side, basically.

Ibrahim - Originally an oil prince, but now runs an onsen. Acts like a child at times due to his supposed past, and he is muslim, as the lore and name implies. But overall, fits right in with the child-like male of Nijisanji... kind of.

Nagao Kei - He’s an exorcist, but really does any job. Pretty good at all kinds of fighting. Pretty old in terms of human member at the age 26. Very much like Ibrahim, but much more bishonen, which melts a woman's heart. Oh, he’s good at learning stuff. Like he tries to learn morse code, and completely memorized the KTANE manual. Just to make Fumi, one of his seniors, happy for a while. That’s some big dedication.

Genzuki Tojiro - Works as a secretary for the gods. Has that unmatching haircut. Very good at making songs and does mixing for Nijisanji events.

Kaida Haru - A demon researcher, but too lazy. Quiet and nice voice leading the viewer to see him as a mother figure, but as you guess, he doesn’t like it due to the work. Oh, said a slur on stream but got banned less than Yumeoi, which is quite sus.

Nijisanji ID Gen 3

Azura Cecillia - An alien angel. Has a sword with a really long name, but calls it Chonsuke for short. She’s pretty cute and a little bit ditzy, from what I remember. Got mistaken as a boy, which is such an odd thing, but maybe it’s the deep voice?

Nara Haramaung - A princess of a tribe. Originally released as part of 1st gen, but got delayed here, but the gen mates fit together very well. Sings spontaneously sometimes.

Layla Alstroemeria - Time-traveling history major. Definitely more airheaded of the group and most child-like of the generation. But she’s pretty fun to watch, regardless.

Nijisanji KR Gen 2

So Nagi - Traveling virtual Japan, speaking fluent Japanese with a nice clear voice. Likes Ange Katrina, which she readily repriocates. Seen as the top seed in Nijisanji KR.

Lee Siu - A female kitsune, and yes from the same illustrator as Fubuki. Likes dad jokes and an endurance player and does speak three languages. Roha likes her. Occasionally can hear the apartment announcement, which is always a fun moment.

Chae Ara - She’s an angel, and a great singer. And likes to people-watch. Has a cute voice, and good at hosting. I really liked her in the streams that I watched. There’s something about her personality that speaks to me.

2020 Part 2 (May-August)

Sorahoshi Kirame - Made her name through twitter, and traded fan art with KR members. Has the same illustrator as Kanata. Couldn’t stream due to money purposes for four days, got his PC after a month of hard work. Overall a poor and diligent girl.

Asahina Akane - 1st year high-schooler. Very energetic and follow people well. Likes a Jpop band, and likes to travel as well. Also does a lot of collabs with senpais.

Suo Sango - The youngest member of the theater club, which is the theme of the latest generation. Has a wide range, and likes Sanrio and tomato. Very motherly calm voice.

Like girly anime, you know Pretty Cure and stuff. Likes western pop music as well.

Todo Kohaku - Third-year high schooler. Said she’s a lady, but she’s definitely just a normal girl. Had a good cover of Mela, and overall a decent streamer.

Kitakoji Hisui - Middle-school transfer student. Likes a lot of different things, but Minecraft is what she is most known for... I guess it makes sense.

Nishizono Chigusa - She’s the troublesome one of the theater group. Very frequently makes sexual quips. Also I thought she was a boy when I first saw her. Definitely my favorite of the newest group, and also did a stream with Matsuri as well.

And that actually has a history. You see this is not Chigusa’s first rodeo... as it is apparent, and during her previous life Matsuri and her did a sleepover, and was quite close as well... so this is actually a really nice reunion. I didn’t know that until now.

Nijisanji KR 3rd Gen

Nun Bora - A second-year high schooler, likes drawing and playing the recorder which she has a battle with So Nagi. Quick learner, apparently. Plays APEX and Fall Guys, but is competent in pretty much any game. Definitely top tier APEX player.

Akina Ray - Japanese streamer who streams in virtual Seoul. Does a morning talk show, likes baseball, since she’s from Hiroshima, and Shadowverse. She’s actually an art student and a meat lover. But overall, the most seiso art student of Nijisanji.

Lee Roha - Idol trainee from outer space, a mixed race. A bit of a ditz, with the appropriate thumbnails. Streams in Japanese on YouTube, in Korean on Twitch. Does a lot of League of Legend on twitch, and does evening piano stream. Likes Lee Siu.

Nijisanji ID 4th Gen

Etna Crimson - Half supernatural, likes to make everyone happy. Definitely not Amber from Genshin Impact, because Amber is Kizuna Ai. Okay, bad joke. Yeah, she’s good.

Bonnivier Pranaja - Originally a fisher, but quit after being swindled. Usually appears with KR streams, actually. Maybe likes Hana? Who knows.

Siska Leontyne - Security officer for shady company. Pretty good at games involving killing... make sense considering her profession. Pretty cool and laid-back.

Nijisanji KR 4th Gen

Ryu Hari - Likes to collect nightmares, likes reading and playing the electric guitar.

Shin Kiru - A 25-year old NEET, has an odd way of speaking and strange topics. Likes Rock and horror movies. He seems pretty laid-back as well.

Yang Nari - 19-year old girl from a different world who now lives in the countryside. Pretty good at hosting with her cute voice. Likes sewing, and talks in high status. She has a thing of suffering, and that kind of comes out from lore.

Oh Jiyu - She’s a female vtuber, although she looks and sounds boyish. Third-year college student representative. Speaks Korean and Japanese, and like gacha and also singing... so maybe a boyish Suisei? I’m sure she’s more normal, though.

Nijisanji ID 5th Gen

Nagisa Arcinia - Wannabe fashion designer, speaks a bunch of languages... but that’s normal for ID... yeah, she’s cute and might be a little psychopathic. Typical.

Derem Kado - 16 year old girl going to magical school, always looking for a cat, but a special cat that makes contracts and stuff. High pitched scares and gets lost.

Reza Avanluna - He’s a world chronicler, he visits and chronicles worlds in his dreams. Has a ship going on with Hana, I think? I’m not sure. Please correct this, if untrue.

There you go! All 139 extant members as of February 8th, 2021, which is the third anniversary of Nijisanji... that was a long post... even though it was in three parts. Sorry for filling the days with this... I have been busy with collecting data and so on. But I hope you have a good inkling of the landscape that is Nijisanji.

[glamrayvision]

A WIP oneshot

This was intended as horror but immediately turned into crack, what can I say?

I will post the whole thing when I'm done, along with some art.

Warning for cursing and menton of covid.

Summary: A young adult Miraculous Ladybug fanartist gets a suprise when her drawing of Chat Blanc comes to life! But as a student of Zoom university in the middle of 2020, nothing scares her anymore. So she thought.....

FANART

'Hmmm' I think to myself.

14 year old me would be proud. College girl me is absolutely disappointed in the way I drew his hands (ya know, the blob with sad excuses of tentacles) , but hey. The only artists who can draw hands probably have divine powers anyway. However, the other eye looks pretty rad.

Chat Blanc is the first thing I drew in this sketchbook. I got it for a quarter at a thrift store. Yes I'm bragging. Everything I own cost me less than $10, and that is a peak accomplishment, even more so than drawing two cat eyes correctly on an angry human face. But I digress.

Am I too old for this fandom? If you say yes I dare you to pry it from my cold dead hands.

I put away my art supplies, neatly for once in my life, and scrub the oil pastel and charcoal residue from my fingers. Chat Blanc looks at me, sprawled across the kitchen table, aiming his cataclysm at me.

"Meow!" I drop finger guns at him, laughing at myself.

My phone buzzes. It's my student portal. "Glad to see I'm still failing calculus " I say with all intended sarcasm. "Perks of Zoom university!"

I set my alarm clock for my 8 AM class and plop on my pillow.

My insomnia haunts me

And I am out like a light!

------

"Fuck you!"

It does nothing, its screams only get louder.

And louder.

And louder.

After fumbling for the off button on my alarm clock for ten minutes I decide to just rip the plug from the socket. It's not a problem anymore!!!

Another ten minutes to get me out of bed.

Then I crawl to the kitchen, with nothing but a tank top and underwear. Thank God I live alone off campus.

I grab a yogurt from the refrigerator. It takes another five minutes to realize that my sketchbook from last night is completely empty.

Another two to notice the cat boy on the ceiling light fixture.

Another five seconds to drop my yogurt and scream.

"What the- what the fuck!!!"

"Hi there! "He says with a goofy, toothy grin.

What does a completely rational person do in this situation?

No, she doesn't call the police or anything.

She gets dressed and logs onto her Zoom meeting.

Because if public school taught me anything, its that being late is more anxiety inducing than your supervillain fanart coming to life and invading your house.

As I go to my desk to turn on my computer, Chat Blanc sits behind me.

"Ain't you got shit to do?" I say with the fury of a zombie teenager. I log into the meeting.

"Not really " he shruggs. "What class is this?"

"Engineering "

Uh oh. He has an idea. "Can we turn on the camera?"

"Why?"

"I'm lonely " Chat whines.

It's way too early in the morning for this shit. "Look, we can go to the grocery store and get ice cream later. But now I have to go to class and pretend to be awake enough to care"

"Fine" For some reason he crawls on the couch and sits like an actual cat, ready to pounce. "You're no fun. I'm probably gonna accidentally destroy this world too, ya know. " Chat begins yo sniffle. "I miss Ladybug!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Fuck it I'm never gonna focus like this. Besides, I'm the reason he's here. And I don't want to bear any resemblance to his father. I put down by pen and grab some tissues. "It's ok, kitty. You'll see her again. I'm sure of it"

"You're not" he growled. "Everything from my world is... gone "

"I won't pretend to understand, but-"

"No you don't understand! " he pushes me off. The Akuma is controlling him now, I'm sure. As much as Adrien keeps trying to fight back, he must be exhausted, poor thing!

Chat Blanc stands up, his feet grounded in attack and a cataclysm glowing at his fingertips.

"Cataclysm this stupid pandemic, will ya? " I grumble as I dodge the blast, letting my wall take it instead. My land lord is gonna be a frickn disaster once he sees this. Oh well.

The dust settles as my worst nightmare comes to life!

My Zoom camera and and microphone have somehow turned on!!!

My tears begin to fall as he corners me with another cataclysm ready. A supervillain I can handle. Online video social interaction is a horror movie. Now everyone can see me crying like the 2 year old I am. Great.

"Shhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttt!!!!!!" I make a dash for my computer. Chat leaps in front of me. I screech to a halt.

"Where's Ladybug!!!!"

"In Paris in an alternate timeline, you dumbass cat! Why don't you chill so I can help you!!!" I sob.

My class stares in complete horrified silence.

I grab a broom.

"LET "

Smack!

"ME"

Smack!

"SHOWER"

Smack!

"YOU"

Smack!

"WITH"

Smack!

"LOVE!!!!"

"Never!" He snaps the broom in half.

In desperation I grab my car keys on the counter. There's a lazer light attached. "Please God let this work! "

I turn it on and point it twards the hole in the wall.

His ear perks up and he attacks the red dot! Yes!

As he discracts himself I apologize to my class for "my insane cat" and turn off the video and sound.

I release the button on the lazer pointer.

Sinister blue eyes point twards me. I wonder if I should call animal control. His claws are sharp, all fours digging into the wooden floor.

He smirks at me.

Pounce!

His arms wrap around me tightly when he lands "A friend! A friend! I miss having friends!"

I hug him back. Despite what just went down, I still want to help this kid. Chat is baby!

[carol-effing-danvers]

knock me the fuck out (i dare ya, babe), part one

TEACHER STEVE AND SOFT BILLY 

Ten years, eight months, three weeks, and nine days ago, Billy had escaped this Lovecraftian nightmare town and never looked back. He’d come into Hawkins believing that it was his own personal hell and left it certain that it was actual, literal Hell.

(this got long so i decided to divide it into three parts) If you prefer the Ao3 format, click here

Billy’s first thought as he rolls back into Hawkins for the first time in ten years is: I cannot believe Max stayed in this deathtrap. 

He didn’t. Ten years, eight months, three weeks, and nine days ago, Billy had escaped this Lovecraftian nightmare town and never looked back. As soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital, he spent most of his savings on a shitty Ford Bronco (he did NOT miss that car), packed up his records, and hit the fuckin’ road. He’d come into Hawkins believing that it was his own personal hell and left it certain that it was actual, literal Hell.

Billy wonders, a bit guiltily, if Max’s life woulda turned out like this if he hadn’t left her in this Midwestern madhouse all by herself. Only twenty-four and she was already getting a divorce. 

He’s never like Justin van Haut but at first, Billy attributed that to the fact that the dude was dating Max - he had a right to hate any dude trying to fuck his sister, he figured. Facts was just facts. But then they got married and it didn’t get better. If anything, Billy might’ve hated him more. 

Justin reminded Billy way too fucking much of himself, of the strutting arrogant little dirtbag that he used to be - only, van Haut had the money and the influence to get away with his bad deeds. He was the kind of guy who wanted something only until he got it, and then he didn’t want it anymore. 

Billy wasn’t that person anymore. He couldn’t be. It took too much energy that he didn’t have - like the Shadow Monster had sucked all the rage out of him. And without it, there was so little left of Billy Hargrove.

Old Billy would’ve gotten drunk and drove to South Bend. Old Billy would’ve beat the shit outta the bitch-ass pussy who’d spent six and half years cheating on his sister. Old Billy would’ve spent the night in the county lock-up. 

New Billy didn’t do that, because New Billy promised Max he’d be there by dinner time. New Billy knew that Max would just have to bail his sorry ass out of prison with money she didn’t really have. 

But either way, Billy knew even if he had the chance to, he’d never change the way it worked out, because in the end-

“UNCLE BILLY!”

-in the end, he got his girl.

As soon as he opens the door, she launches herself at him. “Who is this?” he demands seriously, stabilizing her on his lap, letting her grip the stirring wheel in two tiny hands. “Who are you? Where’s my Lulu?”

She giggles at his theatrics, tugging at his leather jacket, wisps of red hair escaping her little braid. “I’m Lulu, Uncle Billy!”

He gasps, feigning shock. “You can’t be my Lulu! You’re such a big girl!”

“I’m going to Kindie-gar-den now!” she says proudly, with a cocky little toss of her head that reminded Billy of her mother so much that he couldn’t hold in a grin.

“Yeah? Do you like school, Lulu?” They get out so that Billy can grab some of his things from the trunk.

“Uh-huh. My teacher is really nice!”

“Yeah? What’s your teacher’s name?” he asks absently, resting Lulu on his hip as he pulls his bag from the trunk.

“He’s Mister H!” she says, and his brows bounce up. Male kindergarten teacher? That was pretty unusual. Maybe Hawkins was finally getting outta the Stone Age. He doubts it, but hope springs eternal.

From inside the house, Max yells “Lauren!”

“Mommy, Uncle Billy is here!” she shouts, and squirms back down to the ground, running for the front porch. “Mommy says you can have my room!”

Billy thinks with no small horror of the pink room with Mickey and Minnie Mouse’s faces staring out from the wallpaper. Jesus Christ. Lulu beams at him, utterly delighted at the prospect of her uncle moving in, and he barely has to lie when he says “Fantastic, princess.”

Max gives him a wry smile as she appears in the doorway, practically reading his mind as she wipes her wet hands on a dishtowel. “Welcome home, big brother.”

Old Billy would’ve told her that this town might be home, but it wasn’t his. Home was a place he lost when his mother left him with Neil. New Billy knows Max isn’t talking about Hawkins. “You’re gonna get so sick of me,” he promises, dropping the paper bag he’d taken from the trunk. “Here.”

“What the hell is this?” she asks, laughing. “You better not’ve brought me a bag of p- oh my god, Billy.”

He chuckles at her open-mouth as Max stares down into the stacks of cash inside the crumbled paper bag. Rubbing the short hair at the back of his neck, he awkwardly answers, “Rent.”

“This is way too much!” she protests, trying to hand it back, like she didn’t miss a mortgage payment last month.

Billy dances out of the way, picking Lulu up and twirling her around. Grinning like a madman at her delighted shrieks, he throws her across one shoulder. “Wanna help me set up the stereo, Lulu?”

“Yeah!”

“Billy, get back here!”

“Can’t hear you, Max! All that loud metal music, y’know!”

---

“I’m home!” he calls, pushing the door shut with his hip. The apartment is completely silent and then Steve hears a familiar ‘thump’ and grins.

With her bushy tail held high, a black cat races down the hall, wailing “Waah!”

“Hello, Angie,” he coos, crouching to scratch her under the chin. “How are the birds today, huh?”

“Waah,” she repeats loudly, pleading at him with her huge yellow eyes.

“Missed me?” he asks, stroking the fluffy black fur along her back. “Let’s have some dinner.”

He must’ve told Dustin a thousand, maybe two thousand, times that he did not want a cat, but the very morning that Dustin left for MIT, he dropped the fluffy soot-black kitten on Steve’s doorstep and raced away anyway. “His name is ‘the Witch-King of Angmar’, good luck, Steve!”

Ha. The joke was on him, though. His ‘Witch-King’ was actually a queen and Steve called her Angie and she was a fucking delight – he suspected that Dustin was just overly dramatic. Steve supposed that the cat was a nice compromise, considering that Dustin had tried not to leave for college at all.

That had probably been the worst six months of Steve’s life.

He’d never fought with one of the kids before, let alone Dustin, but they spent nearly all of his senior year fighting – because Dustin managed to get a scholarship, a two-year free ride to Princeton, and he didn’t want to leave Hawkins. Or more specifically, he didn’t want to leave Steve.

Lucas was bound for Howard in DC, Will and Mike were reuniting at MIT, and Dustin got into fucking Princeton, but he didn’t want to go.

(“What the fuck are you talking about, you don’t wanna go? I don’t give two dicks what you want, shithead. I’m an adult, Dustin, and I can take care of myself! You’re not going to throw your whole life into the toilet because you think I’m LONELY!”)

So, yeah. Steve and Dustin spent Dustin’s senior year of high school fighting, and now Steve has a cat and Dustin is in graduate school, because college was where he fucking belonged, just like Steve had told him.

Filling Angie’s bowl, Steve idly dances around the kitchen to no music, pulling open the fridge and peering inside. “What should we have for dinner, Angie? What do ya think Aunt Robin wants to eat?”

Angie doesn’t bother turning her head away from her cat kibble, but her tail swishes at the sound of his voice. Humming ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, Steve throws together a stir-fry.

Cooking has become one of those parts of being an adult that Steve finds unexpectedly pleasurable. Cutting up the ingredients, mixing spices and seasonings, tending to the food – Steve enjoys that.

He hears jingling in the hallway as Robin comes through the door, purse swinging from her arm. He can also hear her swearing under her breath and she kicks her shoes off onto the mat beside the door. “Angie, Angie baby,” she coos as the cat runs to greet her. “Please feed me, Steve-o. I’m gonna fucking kill Bobby Monroe.”

“Parent-teacher conference didn’t go well?” he asks lightly, fluffing the rice with a fork before he pulled his stir-fry off the fire.

“NO,” she says shortly, before calling “How was the dentist? Is this a bad time to say that I picked up a banana cream pie at Baker’s Square?”

In a rather bloodthirsty tone, Steve replies “Cavity or no cavity, we are eating dessert, Rob.”

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to get out a torch and a pitchfork.”

“What happened with Bobby Monroe?”

Oof, speaking of bloodthirsty. Robin’s teeth grind together and Steve pokes her pointedly in the side as he takes their plates down from the cabinet. “His kid is on the verge of going to juvie and this guy just…Does Not get it, Steve.”

Steve’s glasses were on the verge of slipping down the bridge of his nose as he cracked open the tops on two beers. “That’s ‘cause Monroe is golfing buddies with Mayor Walsh and my old pal Tommy Hall, Rob.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh,” she mutters, then brightens a bit. “I got to read another one of Holly’s essays.”

Smiling at his plate, Steve says “Yeah?”

He was a little sad he got into teaching too late to have Holly or any of the other kids as a student, but Robin got the joy of having both Erica Sinclair and Holly Wheeler pass through her classroom. “Her analysis of the creation of the Constitution was…I wanna send it to Harvard, Steve. She’s only fifteen, but she can already understand how to translate nuance in the document. Half of my graduating class couldn’t write something that impressive on early US history.”

“That’s fantastic,” he says, grinning.

“How was Munchkin Land?” she asks, through a mouthful of vegetables and rice.

Laughing slightly, Steve says “The Lollipop Guild always keeps me on my toes. Thank god for naptime!”

They eat banana cream pie on the couch in front of ‘Frasier’, Robin’s toes shoved under his thigh as Steve tries not to fall asleep on the damn sofa. She laughs at him, throwing one of the cushions at his face.

“It’s seven-thirty, you old man,” she teases, coaxing Angie onto her lap.

“Leave me alone,” he whines, melting into his secondhand couch. “I’m an educator of young minds!”

Rob stuck her tongue out at time. “It’s called ‘narcolepsy’, Steven.”

“Please leave me to die in peace.”

She does leave, an hour later, and Steve locks the door behind her like a Responsible Adult.

He is surrounded by almost total silence again. He’s a helluva lot more comfortable with it here in his apartment than he was in his parent’s house. Maybe it was because there wasn’t quite so much space to echo the silence back to him. Maybe it was because there was no steaming blue pool waiting in the backyard. Maybe it was the lack of judgmental silence, which persisted whether his parents were home or away. 

He turns off the television and the lights in the living room, babbling baby-talk at Angie as he brushes his teeth and gets into bed, putting his glasses on the nightstand and sliding between the cool sheets.

Angie curls up behind his knees and Steve closes his eyes and listens to the empty space all around him.

Briefly, he spares a thought of apology for the Dustin of years past, because he’d been right. Steve was lonely. But at least now that he was a real grown-up, he was comfortable with it.

Mostly.

---

“You don’t have to do that,” Max mutters, head resting against the back of the sofa. Lauren was put to bed an hour ago and the only sound down in the house in the constant quiet tick of the grandfather clock in the hall.

“Hm?” Billy asks sleepily, sipping his beer. It was a thirty hour drive between San Diego and Hawkins and Billy had only slept once, and not recently. Honestly, that was probably the best state to experience the Horror of the Mouse that awaited him in Lulu’s old room.

Max gestures restlessly to the stacks of hundred dollar bills hastily stuffed into the paper bag. “Don’t pretend that isn’t your entire savings, Billy.”

“Don’t have to anything but die, Max,” he murmurs, his free hand subconsciously drifting to the tight silvery mass of scarring beneath his shirt, even as his eyes remain closed. With a damp shaky sigh, she leans against his side and Billy shifts that hand to drape around her shoulders. “Don’t fuckin’ argue with me, you know I ain’t gonna let you win.”

His t-shirt gets a little wet. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she admits, sniffling. “I missed you.”

His throat clicks as he swallows. “Missed you, Mad Max.”

Though Billy’s exhausted and goes to bed early, he spends an hour in Lulu’s full-sized bed, flat on his back and staring at the ceiling.

Despite his best-laid plans, here he is. Back in Hawkins, Indiana.

Funny that he still kinda feels like a mess, even though he’s a better mess than he used to be.

When his alarm goes off, Billy has the taste of antifreeze in his mouth and though it’s nearly March and Max keeps the heat low, he’s sweating.

Getting Lulu ready for school is a breeze. Firstly, because she’s smart and independent and she knows the routine she’s supposed to be following by now. Second, because once you fight an interdimensional alien monster and temporarily die, not much phases you anymore.

“This one, Uncle Billy!” Lulu says eagerly, pulling him along through the halls, towing her uncle with single-minded determination. "You can meet Sam and Freddy!"

Samantha Cross and Fred Ferris were Lulu's little friends. "Alright, slow down, you're gonna run someone over," he says, amused. She reminds him so much of Max, it's insane. "This one, Lulu?"

"Yeah!" A dark-haired man wearing a navy cardigan over a collared shirt is helping a pair of identical twins with their coats, crouching near a row of cubbies with sixteen name tags on them – from here, Billy can see Lulu’s near the end: Lauren V. "Hi, Mister H!"

Mister H-who-wears-the-dorky-cardigan turns his head and the bottom of Billy’s stomach drops out.

Steve Harrington gives Lulu a dorky little smile, all cute and happy, squinting from behind the lens of his big nerd glasses, and warmly says “Hello, Lauren.”

As a teenage boy, rolling fresh into Hawkins, Billy had fallen into a wild spiral of lust for Steve Harrington the moment he saw him standing next to Nancy Wheeler at a Halloween party. Closeted and angry and unable to escape his father’s rage and his father’s expectations, all Billy wanted was some of Steve’s attention – he hadn’t dared to let himself seriously consider getting more than that. Steve, being a straight teenage boy with a girlfriend, with popularity and money, had froze him out at every turn, and it drove Old Billy fucking crazy. No matter what he did, he never got a reaction more interested than bland annoyance. 

As hot as his passions for him burned, Billy couldn’t make the Hawkins ice princess melt even a little.

But at a certain point, when you grow up, you can look on certain things you got attached to or certain things you enjoyed as a teenager and find your attachment sort of silly, maybe even comical. New Billy had sort of looked forward to reaching that conclusion here.

This isn’t like that at all.

Actually, Billy thinks it might even be worse than before. Billy feels a dull flush beginning to form over his face and swallows the urge to say something stupid to get Steve’s attention – that was the ghost of Old Billy talking.

God, he looks so good.

All grown up, the knitwear clinging to the tantalizing hint of strong biceps, Steve’s eyes are huge and dark behind the lenses of the geek glasses, bangs hanging down into his eyes. Beneath the cardigan, his collared shirt shows an enticing view of his clavicles and the moles high on his neck. Billy used to jerk off to a fantasy of sucking on them and seeing what kind of noise he would get.

He looks soft and sleepy, like Billy could just curl himself around him and press his mouth to that bare skin and Steve would just-

“This is my Uncle Billy!”

Billy is abruptly pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Lulu’s voice and realizes that he’s well on his way to pitching a tent in his pants in front of Steve Harrington and his five year old niece. What the fuck is his life, seriously?

“Harrington.”

---

“Harrington,” the man next to Lauren drawls, and suddenly, Steve’s attention is focused and sharp.

This is my Uncle Billy.

He’s…wow, he’s really…grown up.

The sneering boy with a headful of dirty blond curls and a baby-fine mustache has aged into a grown man with a full beard – the old mullet has almost reversed, with the hair at the back and sides nearly shaved off and the hair at the top slicked back away from his face.

Oh my god.

So. So so so so so.

The thing about Billy- “Hargrove,” he greets, hoping that he sounds friendly and surprised and not breathless. “Max didn’t tell me you were coming back to town.”

Billy Hargrove was the very first boy Steve was ever attracted to, and after he left town, the realization that 1) he had a big gay crush on him and 2) he wasn’t ever going to see him again, were sorta the things that began his big bisexual breakdown – what Robin affectionately calls Steve’s ‘all dicks tour of ‘86’, even though she still doesn’t know what started it.

And now Billy’s standing here, in Steve’s classroom, the muscles he used to flash now hidden beneath leather and denim and flannel but possessing every inch of them as much as he had ten years ago. He looks like he could toss Steve over his shoulder and carry him off somewhere, like a caveman.

But hotter, Steve thinks, helplessly staring at the long sweep of his lashes. His lips, the same deep, full red of ripened berries. The dusting of freckles over Billy’s cheeks from hours standing in the sun.

For a moment, Steve feels a stab of uncertain fear – has Max ever told Billy anything about what happened in ’86?

No. His relationship with Max may have gotten slightly distant, especially after she officially married Justin, but he was pretty confident that she wouldn’t have told him such embarrassing and personal information about Steve, not when she that knew Billy had hated him.

At least she seems to be right, though – Billy had calmed down a lot.

Billy shrugs, in that effortless, careless way of his. Steve experiences a visceral urge to have that short beard rub his mouth raw and it makes his stomach twist with desire, uncomfortable in its intensity. “Got tired of San Diego – thought I’d see my best girl. Right, Lulu?”

Lulu. God, that’s cute.

Lauren grins up at Billy, proud as a peacock, and Billy smiles back at her for a moment, so nakedly adoring that Steve’s stomach gives another twist, his insides melting into goo. “Billy lives with me and Mommy now, ‘cause he missed me so much,” she declares, lifting her chin. “I’m his best girl.”

“That’s right,” he vows, cuffing her lightly over the head.

“That’s…really nice of you, Hargrove,” Steve says lightly. He knows that Max is getting a divorce – the entire town knows. Honestly if he didn’t think Max would kick him in the nuts, he’d have a nail bat with Justin’s name on it. 

Lucas, chewing on his jealousy like a wad of bubblegum, had told them that Justin had basically spent their entire relationship cheating on her. He’d gotten the most willful girl in school to be his girlfriend and got bored with her almost immediately afterward. 

He has a feeling that was the real reason for Billy’s sudden appearance in town after ten years of absence.

Billy shrugs again and peers at Steve through those long lashes. “Max didn’t tell me you were Lulu’s teacher.” He grins, tongue held between rows of sharp white teeth. Steve’s heart kicks up in his chest. “Kindergarteners, Harrington?”

He smiles awkwardly, dodging the question. “Lauren is one of my best readers,” he says instead. No matter which child it is, Steve can always find a reason to brag about one of his kids. “And her penmanship is terrific.”

Lauren gasps, bouncing with excitement, one of Billy’s rough hands clutched in both of hers. “I read a chapter book with Mommy and she only had to help me with two words, Mister H!”

“That’s awesome!” he says, unable to keep himself from beaming down at her. “Did Mrs. Diaz help you get a library card?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Maybe your uncle can help you, then,” he says brightly, neatly side-stepping anymore conversation with the boy – the man, god, Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone more of a man – who can apparently still make his heart race, even ten years since he’d last saw him.

In the doorway, he spots Marcy Roberts holding her little brother’s hand. “Morning Marcy. And good morning, Martin.”

“Morning, Mr. Harrington!”

---

“Alright, Lulu, it’s almost time for your class to start,” Billy says, tucking her too-long bangs behind her ears. “Mom will be back to pick you up, okay?”

For the first time, some of Lulu’s uncertainty shows through. “You’re still gonna be here, right? You aren’t going home?”

Billy pauses. Fuck, this kid’s dad has done a number on her.

Justin was hardly ever around anyway, but he’d just packed up and left in the middle of the night – Billy doesn’t even know the last time he bothered to talk to her on the phone. Lulu’s gotten upset when she and Max had to say goodbye to Billy in the past, but she’s never acted this insecure with him. “I’m home now, Lulu,” he says, crouching down to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be there to say goodnight, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees in a tiny voice that steals his whole fuckin’ heart away.

“Who’s my girl?” he asks in a whisper, tugging gently on the end of her ponytail.

Her face brightens. “I am.”

“The best, Lulu.” He winks and she giggles. “Be good, okay?”

“Kay!”

He stands to his full height and Harrington’s eyes accidentally meet his. There’s still a small smile lingering around the soft shape of his mouth and as soon as he looks into those big brown eyes, Steve looks away. Billy bites the inside of his cheek, resists his automatic urge to say something spiteful, something that will get those eyes back on him.

He would like to be able say that it’s because New Billy knows better. But it’s really because he already knows from experience that it won’t do anything but make Steve that much colder. He wants fire, and all that’s there for him is ice.

He leans against the wall right outside the classroom door and…just listens.

Listens to Steve speaking, his sweet patient drawl used for the children in his classroom. “Alright let’s take attendance and then I want to hear all about what you did this weekend, class. Evan Adams?” He stays there, listening with eyes closed, until he hears, “Lauren van Haut?”

“Here!”

Billy shakes himself, pushing away from the wall. No sense mooning over a straight boy who thinks he’s lower than dirt.

TBC

[incorrectlit]

my trash son rodion for the modern au?

I already answered for Raskolnikov, but here’s a list of modern au headcanons I have for him (and C&P in general):

- Raskolnikov has a cat named Empress Josephine (credit to @tinwhistlings )

- Dunya and Sonya have a holland lop bunny

- Rask and Raz are law school students

- Razumikhin wants to be a DA

- Raskolnikov wants to be a prosecutor

- Zossimov just graduated from med school and is dating Nastasya

- Nastasya is in nursing school

- Zamyotov and Dunya are seniors in college and are good friends

- Luzhin is a meninist

- Svidrigailov is that one creepy professor

- Sonya (precious Sonya) is a college freshman

- Sonya and Rask are BFFs

- Raz and Dunya are Bros

- Rask and Dunya are sibling goals

- Rask was a history and criminology double major and everyone is pretty sure he’s killed someone

- Porfiry is Razumikhin’s cousin who shares an apartment with him and Rask HATES Porfiry

- Zamyotov WORSHIPS Porfiry

- You KNOW lebezyatnikov is a Bernie bro

- Sonya takes care of her younger siblings and loves them more than anything in this world

- Raskolnikov has oh so many nightmares

- He’ll wake up in a panic screaming and Razumikhin just has to hold him tight until he calms down

- Razumikhin is honestly the best bf he’ll do ANYTHING for Rodya

- Raskolnikov always protests when Razumikhin shows any signs of affection but GOD FORBID raz leaves him alone for ONE SECOND and Rodya will drape himself over raz and refuse to move until raz drops whatever he’s doing to cuddle

- (He’s much like his cat in that way)

- Both Raskolnikovs will drop anything they’re doing if their sibling calls and will ALWAYS be there for each other

- It’s just something that everyone has to accept

- The Raskolnikovs will never love anyone more than each other

- Dunya and Sonya are all about PDA and Rodya HATES it so damned much

- He is NOT about that pda life

- If raz ever tried anything like that god help him

- Honestly Dunya and sonya Are the cutest

- Razumikhin loves video games

- NEVER LET DUNYA AND RODYA PLAY ANY GAME TOGETHER IT WILL NOT END WELL

- the raskolnikovs are both SUPER competitive

- Razumikhin drags everyone camping at least once a month

- Rodya Does Not enjoy the great outdoors but he’ll endure it for Raz

- Dunya, on the other hand, loves camping

- Zamyotov is a nerd and Rask loves nothing more than to mess with him and sound like a complete sociopath while doing so

- Sonya loves snuggling

- Razumikhin does frequent pub crawls

- Rask and Raz are both hipsters

- Dunya smokes pot

- Rask is nietzsches greatest fan

- Rask loves pretentious films (black swan and mother are some of his faves)

- Raz is obsessed with the die hard franchise

- “If John McLean can do it then so can I” “dmitri no” “DMITRI YES”

- Dunya loves horror/slasher movies

- Saw is a favorite

- Sonya has a soft spot for romcoms (her fave is 27 Dresses)

- Raskolnikov is kin with light yagami

- Raskolnikov is so fucking skinny wtf

- Hip bones so sharp they could cut a man

- He has a huge burn scar on his back

- Razumikhin is taller than Rodya but they’re both still pretty tall (Raz being 6’4 and Rask being 6’1)

- Dunya is also really tall (like 5’10)

- SONYA IS SO SMALL

- SHES ONLY 5’1

- Dunya thinks it’s adorable

- Everyone thinks it’s adorable

- Raskolnikov is a die-hard Harry Potter fan

- He’s a slytherin, Dunya’s a gryffindor, and Sonya and Razumikhin are both hufflepuffs

- “It sounds like you have a crush on Dmitri” “how could I POSSIBLY have a crush on him??!?? He’s a HUFFLEPUFF”

[dyaz-stories]

If you’re still taking prompts (no worries if not!) I was wondering if you could do #4 teacher/single parent au for InuKag? I loved the soul mate one!

Hey! Took me forever I know, but here it is (: Hope you’ll enjoy. I’m glad to know you liked the soulmate AU and I hope this won’t disappoint ^-^ And this is the last one of the requests I had gotten!

(the school system is kind of based on France? I think? I mean I don’t know how different things are in other countries… Just thought I’d let you know)

.

Thegeneral reaction, when Inuyasha told someone he was a teacher, was toburst out laughing. Miroku, his high school best friend, when he hadran into him. Sango, Miroku’s wife, who he had never even metbefore the dinner Miroku had invited him into. Kagura, his brother’swife, almost choking on her glass of wine. Hell, even his indifferentasshole of a brother hadn’t been able to contain a brief but amusedchuckle.

Soyeah, maybe he wasn’t your typical teacher. Maybe he was loud,maybe he could be abrasive, and yeah, sure, he was pretty fuckingrude.

Heknew no one believed in him, when he got the job, and there was not adoubt in his mind that he was sent to this area because of howdesperate everyone was to find a way to deal with demon kids. Thereweren’t that many demons who wanted to work as teachers, and mostof those who did specialized in history. Sometimes PE. As for humans,the ones with spiritual powers had other jobs most of the time, wherethey could actually use said powers. Because not many parents likedthe idea of having a teacher who had the capacity of destroyingtheir child.

Whenhe had arrived at Shikon Middle School, it had turned out they didn’tlike the idea of having a half-demon teacher much better. Theheadmistress, Kaede, who wasa priestess, hadn’t said anything about it to him, but he found outlater that she had insisted they should take him, which he wasactually rather grateful for.

Thoughit probably had more to do with the fact that they were one mathsteacher short.

Surprisingly,it had gone pretty well with the kids. At first, yeah, there had beena bit of a struggle for power, but now, after five years, he hadacquired quite the reputation and apart from a few students here andthere, he didn’t really have disciplinary problems.

Hedid have the reputation of being a teacher you should notcross, but the kids he had actually kinda liked him. His vulgarity inparticular delighted them, and his very clear lack of appreciationfor parts of the institution seemed to please them immensely.

Allin all, his professional life was just fine.

Well.

Exceptfor Shippo Hojo.

IfInuyasha was completely honest, he would admit that he had always hadmore trouble with kitsunesthan with other demons. Wolf-demons and dog-demons, he handled justfine after a bit of a fight for dominance. Some demons instinctivelyknew they were weaker than him, some, like cat-demons, didn’t everreally trust him, but they still never were a problem.

Kitsunes,now… Well, it was kind of their whole point, wasn’t it? Theyweren’t about power, though there were obviously some incrediblystrong ones. Some of them had tried to drive him insane before, buthe’d managed to put them back in their place more or less subtly.

Shippodid notgive a fuck. He wouldn’t be intimidated, and his complete lack ofinterest for maths seemed to make it impossible for Inuyasha to gethis attention for long enough to build some sort of relationship. SoInuyasha had resolved to doing what he neverdid.

Hehad asked to meet with either of his parents. It had been a brief,written exchange, but she had somehow managed to still sound overenergetic, which only made him dread tonight’s encounter more.Explaining to a proud mother or father why their child was notas amazing as they imagined was always an absolute nightmare, butwith a full demon, not to mention a kitsune?

Ugh.

Sheknocked on his door right on time, and he found himself frowning ashe went to open it. No demon smell. Weird, but a possibility withkitsunes,though that wouldn’t be good news. It meant power, and powerfuldemons were even more of a pain in the ass.

Heopened the door, and for a few moments, all he could do was staredown at the little, black-haired woman standing there with a brightsmile.

“Kagome?”he finally blurted out, which he realized wasn’t the bestdemonstration of his social skills — but considering said skills,not that far either.

“Inuyasha,”she replied softly with a short nod. “It’s nice to see you.”

Shit.Shit.He was looking at his high school crush, the person he had almostbroken up with Kikyo for, and maybe he should have, he thought asnostalgia hit him hard.She hadn’t changed much. She looked older, yeah, with a fewwrinkles around her mouth and eyes, but they were still shining, hersmile was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and herscent was just as intoxicating. Kikyou and him hadn’t worked outanyway, and had walked away from each other only after years of painand hurting each other and—

Wait,Hojo?She’d married the boring, bland, stupid guy from high school?Dammit, he’d always known the guy had a crush on her but—

Ah.Maybe that was it. He remembered the tears streaming down her facewhen she had told him he had to chose because she didn’t deservethat, deserved better than to be strung along. Maybe then, after thepain hehad inflicted her, she just needed someone who loved her.

Hecleared his throat self-consciously.

“Erm…Come on in. We’ll, erm, yeah.”

Greatjob Inuyasha. Amazing. He sat at his desk and invited her to sit onthe chair he had prepared for her.

“Ihad no idea it’d be you,” he commented, trying to avoid meetingher eyes. Having her smell in the room was enough of a distraction onits own.

Shelaughed awkwardly. “No, I… Well, I knew it was you. Miroku toldme you’d become a teacher, so there wasn’t much room for asurprise there.”

He held back a growl at the mention of Miroku — so that asshole had stayed in contact with her all this time? —, thennodded hesitantly. He had nofucking ideawhat was appropriate right now in the conversation. Yeah, they hadbeen close, but that was years ago. She had clearly moved on, and,well, he thought he had, but… Ah, fuck it. “So, Hojo?”

Kagomeseemed surprised for a second, then let out a light laugh and God,he didn’t even know how much he’d missed it until then.

“Sortof, I guess? We, erm, we’re separated now. He…” Her eyesdarkened and she lowered her voice. “He wasn’t too happy aboutadopting Shippo, which I realized too late.” He’d given her anultimatum: him or the child.

Shedidn’t know how he had thought he stood a chance.

“Yeah,so about that…”

Thememories disappeared and she brought her attention back to Inuyasha.He hadn’t changed a bit, though she had to admit the shirt lookedgood on him — really made those muscly arms and shoulders of himstand out. He also looked a bit uncomfortable. He had barely lookedat her in the eyes, and she had, of course, noticed the way his earswere flattened against his skull. If she was completely honest, shewouldn’t mind letting him feel guilty for a little while. He hadn’tjust broken her heart. He had crushed it.

Thiswas all years ago though, and even if his discomfort was rather fun,there wasn’t any real anger there anymore. Just some vague sort ofsadness for what could have been, completely overshadowed by Shippo.She would do everything for her sun, and if not being with Inuyashawas a part of that, well, then so be it.

“Shippo’sbeen…” acomplete fucking pain in the ass“quite a problem in class, recently. His level in maths reallysuffers from it, and even if it didn’t, it makes it harder for theother students to focus.”

Kagomesmiled. There was something really cute about watching Inuyasha actall professional like that. “I’m really sorry,” she sighed. “Hehas, erm, a short attention span, as a lot of kitsunesdo, and, well, he’s not a fan of maths.”

Hecouldn’t help but grin. “Right, and you have nothing to do withthat?”

Kagomelet out a surprised laugh, and, for a second, it was like nothing hadchanged. Like they were the best of friends, maybe more, and—Right. And it made Kikyo terribly jealous.

“Noton purpose,” she replied, breaking eye contact. “But it’s truethat it’s harder for him to focus on his homework if I’m not hereto help him or talk about it with him. Which I can’t really do formaths.”

“Wouldya consider trying though?” he offered, his accent showing withouthim noticing, as it sometimes did when he was feeling comfortablearound someone. “I know it wouldn’t be fun for you, but sanctionsclearly aren’t working, and if classes are just me and himfighting, everyone’s suffering from it, y’know.”

“I-Iknow,” she mumbled. He heard the tears in her voice and he cursedunder his breath. Fuck, no. He’d promised himself he would never,ever make her cry again, even if that meant he should never see heragain, and he was doing exactly that in the first ten minutes hespent with her? What was wrongwith him?

Beforehe knew it, he’d walked around his desk, setting both hands on hershoulders, holding her with a strange mix of care and awkwardness.“Hey, don’t— I don’t want to forceyou to do maths,Kagome, it’s just, we need to—”

Shelaughed through tears, shaking her head, and for a brief moment, shegrabbed his wrist to squeeze it. “I know,Inuyasha, don’t worry, it’s just— I’m really taken with myjob. My mom helps me sometimes, but that’s just not her thing, andSota’s in college, and Hojo, well…” She let out a disgustedsound that made clear exactly what she thought of Hojo. “It’sjust been hard.But you—you’re right, and I’ll—I’ll talk to him, okay?Shippo’s a smart kid— a really, reallysmart kid. I’m sure I can set something with him.”

Well,that only made him feel more like shit. He knew he was going toregret it the second he opened his mouth, but he didn’t really havea choice, did he? “If you can’t do it, just contact me, ‘kay?I’ll— tutor him or something. ‘m sure we can work somethingout.”

ButKagome shook her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bother you,Inuyasha. Just— If there are problems with him, try talking to him,maybe? I’m sure he’d understand what you said about it being abother for the other students better than a sanction. I’ll— I’lltry. I promise.”

Thereshe went, again. Taking all the problems in the world on hershoulders, and he didn’t feel like he had a right to offer to shareit with her. “Here,” he mumbled, grabbing a tissue on his deskand offering it to her. “I’ll do that, but you have to promise meyou’ll ask for help if you need any.”

Shegrabbed the tissue gratefully and nodded. “Sure!”

“Kagome…”

Shechuckled. He really knew her, didn’t he? “I promise, Inuyasha,”she said softly, and when she looked up, there just was somethingin her eyes and in her smile, and he wondered if feelings truly everwent away. Because right now, he felt like a teenager all over again,heart beating loudly in his chest and all that stuff.

“Youknow,” she said, her voice low, “I think it really suits you, tohave become a teacher.”

Hesnorted. “Well, you sure are the only one.” But then again, shehad often been ‘the only one’ when it came to him.

Theireyes met, and it was obvious things weren’t over between them.Maybe because they hadn’t even begun.

Then,he cleared his throat, and the moment was gone.

“Wellthen,” she said, grabbing her handbag, which she had set on theground. “I— I hope it’ll work.”

“Yeah,same,” he replied, standing up. He wasn’t eager to see her go.He’d missedher, even if he had managed to convince himself he didn’t, and nowthat she had appeared in his life again, he feared he wouldn’t beable to pretend anymore.

“I’llsee you around, Inuyasha,” she whispered when she walked in frontof him.

Henodded. He almost reached out, almost grabbed her hand, almost toldher all of the things he’d felt back then, even when he had pickedKikyo for reasons that seemed so futile now. Was he truly going tolet her walk away again?

Didhe even have the right to try and hold her back?

Whenhe opened the door, Inuyasha’s eyes fell on Shippo, sitting there,waiting for Kagome. She hugged the child warmly, and he simplycouldn’t help the way his heart squeezed, seeing her taking care ofa demon child that way. Not that she made it look special or anything— that was just the point, actually. She made it look so simple. Sonormal. It was something he had never thought was possible, and hereshe was, effortlessly demonstrating it was.

“GoodbyeInuyasha, have a nice day!”

Ittook him maybe just a second to answer, and maybe he stuttered a bitwhen he returned her greeting.

Maybe —he would absolutely deny it if someone said so.

Then,his eyes fell on Shippo who, even as Kagome started walking away,stayed behind, shaking his head with the most arrogant grin Inuyashahad ever seen on him.

“Don’tworry sir. If you want me to, I can make sure you’ll meet again.”

Andthen he had the audacity to wink.Inuyasha took a step forward, already growling. Talk to him? Really?Kagome couldn’t be serious.

“Why,you little…”

Witha devilish laugh, Shippo ran to catch up with Kagome, grabbing herhand, and she turned around to look at him, her eyes turning toInuyasha in confusion.

Ofcourse, he didn’t do nor say anything, merely giving her a nervoussmile. He guessed even smiling was hard to do when you didn’t haveenough practice.

Shesmiled back and gave him a wave, before turning around and walkingout, talking with Shippo.

Hehad always thought Kagome would be the one who got away, one of hisbiggest regrets. He couldn’t believe he was given another chance.It probably wasn’t the greatest timing, since she was, you know,his student’s mom, but still, he’d give anything to make it workthis time.

Shit.He hoped Shippo would misbehave again.

.

SoI was absolutely going to write Kagome as the teacher and Inuyasha asthe parent, I even had my backstory about Kikyo’s death and all,and then a bell went ‘ding ding ding’ in my head and I did theopposite.

[thedistrictsleepsalonetonight]

There was a girl, and I accidentally fell in love Chapter 1: It was summer when I saw your face, looked like a teenage runaway

You know how sometimes in the movies the first scene is the climax, and then the protagonist goes “To explain how all of this happened, I’ll have to take you back a few months, back to where Blah-and-blah did bleh-and-bleh, and consequently, I’m here”?  

Well, here I am, up on stage on Prom night, in front of a huge crowd of students, holding the hugest Teddy Bear in my right hand, an extremely colorful bouquet of flowers in my left, and just about to start declaring my undying love for the prettiest girl in the world, and I bet you’re wondering how I ended up like this.

Would you believe me if I told you it wasn’t my fault?

Probably not. You shouldn’t, that is. A lot of this story happened because I was an idiot, an insensitive idiot, a stupid insensitive idiot, and other unflattering descriptions of me that you will probably hear from my friends’ mouths. But I will say this: it did not start with me. I was not responsible for kicking over the first domino that resulted in this clusterfuck of lives in National City High crashing down on top of each other. That person, was Lex.

See, the thing is, despite all of it, I still love him. He’s my brother, no matter how much of an asshole he is. He likes starting fires and he can be terribly mean, but he’s always been sweet to me. He is the closest thing I have to a loving home, seeing as my real one consists of a Basilisk for a mother, and a ghost for a father. He’s the reason I am up at the very top of the food chain at school. His Jock-reputation carried over to me, and made it easier for me to not only survive, but thrive. I am Lena Luthor, sister of Lex Luthor, and life, is easy for me. I wouldn’t go as far as claiming that people threw flowers at my feet when I walked down the corridors, or that they bowed whenever I passed by, but it is true that I was untouchable. Even the fact that I was a lesbian didn’t get me any bullying. One stare from Lex and his huge biceps was enough to stop any in its tracks.

All in all, Lex is a pretty good brother. The only character flaw he possibly has is his utter loathing of Clark Kent.

That brings us to Clark Kent. Charming nerd. The best actor in our school. Voted Student with the most beautiful eyes in the world two years in a row. Falls in the category of Not Exactly Popular but Everyone Lowkey Likes Him. And the arch-enemy of Lex Luthor.

Nobody knows how it started. Rumor has it Clark once made the winning catch in their Little League team, and Lex hated him getting the attention. Rumor also has it that it started when Clark got to play Superman in the school play, back in fifth grade, winning the part from Lex, who had been harboring dreams of playing a superhero since, well, forever. People say a lot of things, but nobody knows exactly why they hated each other so much, me included. Every time I’d ask Lex about it, he’d smirk it off, and distract me with something else, and after a while, I gave up on asking, and accepted it as one of the enigmas of National City High.

Either way, that was the relevant bit of backstory that was needed for you to understand this entire sordid tale of romance. It all started when Lex Luthor opened his mouth, during lunch, and asked who the girl trailing behind Clark was.

Imagine the scene. It’s lunch. There’s a lot of people milling about, eating. People talk about the classes they have attended, the classes they have yet to attend, the teachers who made an idiot out of themselves and the ones who made idiots of the students. I was sitting at the table with the most Popularity per square area in the cafeteria, with my brother at my side, Sam sitting in front of me, juggling two apples, while Jack sat next to her, frantically completing his AP Math homework. Half of the football team players with their cheerleader girlfriends filled up the rest of the chairs

“Look at them,” Lex mused, biting thoughtfully at a Tater Tot “High School hierarchy in action. The geeks sit with the geeks, talking about Star Trek or Dungeons and Dragons or whatever the fuck they’re on these days.”

Settlers of Catan, I thought, but keep my mouth shut.

“There are the less-popular cheerleaders, the AV club nightmare freaks, the Glee club rapping like idiots, and there he is, the King of the assholes himself.”

I looked up to see Clark Kent walked into the room, and five of his fan girls trail behind him, swooning and giggling. I rolled my eyes at them, but I had to admit, I did see the appeal. He had that Lord of the Nerds thing going on, with his glasses and a pen tucked into his perfectly ironed shirt, and every straight girl in the college had, at least once in their life, been charmed by his smile. But that wasn’t what was bugging Lex today.

“Who is that?” he nudged my side, bringing me back from where I had been staring into space.

“Who?”

“That girl, behind Kent,” he told me, impatiently.

I saw Alex Danvers, stomping past all the annoying girls, looking as though she was just about one hair away from ripping everyone in her immediate vicinity apart.

“That’s Alex, dude,” Sam told Lex before I could open my mouth.

“No, you idiot,” he muttered. He took my head between both his hands, and physically turned it “Look. There.”

It took me a minute, and then I saw her.

You know those movies where guys see the girl, and it’s like a light bulb goes off in their heads, or violins start playing in the background, and the world slows down? It definitely didn’t happen for me. She was pretty. Blonde hair, tied up in a ponytail, large glasses over her face, and a humongous pile of books in her hands, she did the opposite of stand out.  She seemed to be in deep thought, and as we watched, tapped Alex’s shoulder to tell her something.

“That’s Kara,” Jack spoke up, suddenly, and all three of us turned to him “She’s in AP English with me. She’s Alex’s sister.”

“Since when does Alex Danvers have a sister?” Lex asked.

“Since her parents adopted Kara,” he said, then sighed at our dumbfounded faces “It’s like none of you have any idea what’s up.”

“Start. Speaking. Now,” Lex growled at him.

“So she is Clark’s cousin, and she’s apparently very tight with him, because her parents, the Danvers’ and the Clarks were really close. Her parents got into a car accident when she was young, and she’s been brought up by the Danvers ever since, and she was studying in some private school until now. She just transferred here.”

“How did we not know Alex had an adopted sister?” I wondered aloud.

“Because she’s Alex Danvers. Nobody knows anything about her.”

I nodded, and closed my eyes, topic already forgotten in my head. But Lex apparently wasn’t.

“Did you say she was close to Clark?” he demanded of Jack.

“Yes?”

I opened my eyes when I heard him chuckle. It wasn’t his nice chuckle. This spelled more doom than anything else.

“So hurting her would be hurting him?”

“Lex,” I warned him “Please don’t tell me you’re planning on killing a person. Because I will not approve.”

“No, no,” he rushed to reassure me “But think of how devastated he’d be if someone from Lex’s circle dated her and then broke her heart.”

There was a beat of silence, then both Sam and I chucked the objects in our hands at him simultaneously. Lex ducked both a pen, and a half-eaten apple.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“Nothing,” I said, and walked away.

**********

Now, in a perfect world, that would have been the end of matters. Not this one, though.

I’m still not sure what it was exactly that triggered both of them, but I got out of Physics just in time for a random kid to come running up to me and show me a video of Clark punching the lights out of Lex. I watched it for half a minute, and then I was off and running towards the principal’s office. They were both sitting outside, Lex bleeding from his nose, Clark with a black eye, already done with Principal Cat, by the looks of it. I heard my mother’s rising voice from inside and winced.

“She called Lillian, huh?”

Lex mumbled something that sounded close to an affirmation. From the corner of my eye, I saw Clark scowl at us, and move even further away.

I asked Lex what had happened, whispering the question to him.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, eyes still burning with righteous fury “But I hate him. God damn it, I hate him so much. I cannot walk this earth without having revenge.”

Well. That’s drama.

His voice had started rising, so I calmed him down by rubbing his back “I know, I know. Calm down, okay?”

He turned to look at me “Please tell me you’d do that?”

“Do what?”

“That thing I was talking about earlier.”

It suddenly clicked and I started shaking my head vigorously “Lex, no, no , that’s…..”

“Please, please, please, Lena,” he implored “I’ll do anything for you, I’ll……..I’ll get you that trip!”

I paused. There had been this science competition coming up in a city nearby, and I had an idea for a great project lined up, but Lillian, being mother of the year, had no intentions of letting me go.

“You can’t,” I told him “There’s no way you can convince her to let me go.”

“Lena,” he told me back, just as seriously “If there is anyone in the world who can convince her, it is her Golden Boy, aka me.”

I took fifteen minutes “Three or four dates. There will be no prank. No humiliation. I’ll just call it quits before it gets serious. But I’m serious, Lex, no humiliation.”

“Eh, I’ll take care of the rest,” he said which didn’t really sound promising, but I convinced myself I’d just break it up before she developed feelings for me. And it was a very good possibility she wouldn’t even want to date me. That would leave me off the hook.

“We have a deal,” I admitted, grudgingly, and he wrapped me up in a tight hug.

[theklancecollection]

Spooky Reads

I know, I know, Halloween’s gone but let’s be real. After Klance, this blog is dedicated to all things that go bump in the night.

Below the cut are 36 fics and as always, read at your own discretion. :)

Elves on Halloween - Raylou

Word Count: 2, 364

Summary: They hadn’t taken the kids to downtown Altea’s Halloween festival yet, but Keith was ready to fall into bed and call it a day; wrestling five teenyboppers into overly complicated, theatrical-quality costumes while knee-walking on a cold hardwood floor was killer. 

life is not the things that we do, it's who we're doing them with - roteli

Word Count: 1, 827

Summary: Lance is pining for the guy he's already dating. 

death sits in the seat next to me - smokesque

Word Count: 1, 965

Summary: “Maybe I’ll summon a demon so I have someone to hang out with,” Lance says and he’s joking, but only a little bit. Halloween really sucks when your best friend lives halfway across the country.

(in which lance unwittingly wills a demon into his home and they watch bad movies together because god forbid i let keith and lance be anything but domestic)

Trick Or Treat - how_about_no

Word Count: 2, 243

Summary: Keith has to take Shiro and Allura's kid out trick or treating, and ends up meeting an amazing boy with bright blue eyes and a beautiful smile. 

You're the Cat to My Witch - heavenlyrare

Word Count: 1, 154

Summary: Lance and Keith dress up for Halloween! 

Arachi - GemmaRose 

Word Count: 6, 392

Summary: Seriously, what are the odds of them freeing a planet with a culture revolving around costumes the day before Halloween? 

Glow Stars - KuroRiya

Word Count: 11, 283

Summary: Halloween had always been a favorite holiday of Keith's. That would surprise most people, if he admitted to it, but that was exactly the point. The reason he liked the holiday was that it gave him a chance to act, well, not himself. 

Support, Understand, Care, Comfort - coachdad (catsnore)

Word Count: 8, 429

Summary: Keith is dragged to a Halloween party by Pidge and Shiro, much to his displeasure. Oh well, at least it's a chance to show off the costume he's been working on for months. He's the best vampire in the party by far. That is until he sees the sparkly costume from across the room... 

Walking Across The Sky (Pumpkin Spice Edition) - killingmonsterswritingthings

Word Count: 3, 867

Summary: Time passed differently in space. This was both a fact and an experience Lance had made.

So it came as a bit of a surprise when he checked Earth calendars and counted days and realized it was the middle of October already.

Between Keith's birthday and Halloween, the Voltron crew had more than enough reason for a party.

Bloodsucker - Sidi

Word Count: 11, 562

Summary: Lance catches something nasty on an isolated planet. 

Things - MemeKonVLD (MemeKonYA)

Word Count: 1, 929

Summary: He only senses something is wrong when he tries to get his cup and knocks it over, instead, and then has trouble coordinating his limbs to clean the spill up with the elegant, shimmering cloth that he thinks looks too pretty to dirty up with his mess, in a deep red that grows darker and looks sort of unsettling when he stains it with his sweet smelling drink. 

Horrific screams and sweet, caramelized apples. - moonandstarlight

Word Count: 3, 770

Summary: Halloween comes with many goods; haunted houses, clowns, and nightmares.

Might only sound like bad experiences, but at least they had fun explaining it to Coran and Allura, and Keith got a kiss.

Dance of the Necrolancer - battleshidge (Amiria_Raven)

Word Count: 5, 972

Summary: The light was playing tricks on him, because Lance thought there was a red flush across the back of Keith’s neck. That was preposterous, so he shook himself and agreed, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, Frankenmullet. Let’s just listen for our cards.” 

The Vampire and Keith's Lasagna - ambivalentlangst

Word Count: 2, 722

Summary: Halloween was supposed to be spent at Allura's art gallery. Keith was not supposed to get sucked into a massive party that left him as a shambling drunk mess, but things do not always so as they are supposed to. Maybe that phenomena is what could be used to explain the vampire in the backseat of his car, eating his leftover lasagna. 

Keith's Holiday Crisis - shakethatcas

Word Count: 291

Summary: “You’ve got to be kidding me,” is the first thing out of Keith’s mouth when they walk into the store.

reflection - ssuppositiouss

Word Count: 10, 890

Summary: Lance is tired of being the weakest of his family, the boy a prophecy has claimed is worth nothing. Breaking into the witch's house is supposed to build up his confidence, but instead he finds a mirror and meets a boy and realizes that maybe his life isn't so bad after all.

fic for the halloween gift exchange on tumblr

if the silence was a song - angstinspace

Word Count: 14, 981

Summary: “It’s … Your show is on so late at night,” Keith tries to explain, as if Lance didn’t know this already. “I guess I was just wondering why that is.”

A crackling silence answers him, and Keith’s stomach sinks. Did Lance hang up? Keith can’t exactly blame him.

But then he hears Lance make a noise––a short huff of breath that might have been either an impatient sigh or a quiet laugh … Keith has no clue.

“That’s the reason you’re calling? To complain about my time slot?”

or, Keith starts anonymously calling Lance's college radio show and develops an unexpected crush.

A Bootiful Night - fllorona

Word Count: 3, 863

Summary: "Aren't you a little too old for trick or treating?" Keith said as he raised an eyebrow. The stranger scoffed. "Says the Twilight reject." 

Trick-or-Treat - EmmaOfZilon

Word Count: 356

Summary: An AU in which Keith and Lance became friends as little kids when they both wore paladin costumes on Halloween. 

Beneath the Bed - LyraTerravale

Word Count: 2, 822

Summary: Monster-under-the-bed Klance au, baby Keith's willing to fight anyone to prove something, even the supposed monster that has been causing trouble from under his bed.

Outside - OphiliaNightshade

Word Count: 3, 000

Summary: Keith and Lance go out together for an Early Halloween date. Lance is cold and sort of regrets going into the Corn Maze. Until Keith decides to warm things up a bit. 

of hallows' eves and spending them with "friends" - smol_bird

Word Count: 1, 479

Summary: To put it simply, it was Halloween, and Lance McClain can’t have been more excited. 

Pining, fangs and pointed hats (KLANCE) - Rendazzled

Word Count: 2, 189

Summary: All Lance did was look at the pretty boy in most of his classes.

all the pretty boy wanted to do was stare back.

one day, when Lance wrote his number on a bathroom stall door, he got an anonymous message. they decided to meet up, and we'll see what happens.

Can you date a ghost? - dealio

Word Count: 3, 198

Summary: As soon as he was home, though, instead of going to bed like any sensible student would, he was on his computer, frantically typing into yahoo answers: Can you date a ghost?

Details: So I was checking out this haunted mansion and I met this boy there who claimed to own it. We hit it off and he's really cute. But he turned out to be a ghost??? Is it possible to date a ghost??? Only serious answers, please!

Love Sucks - kingofthesun

Word Count: 2, 430

Summary: The whole scene was the opposite of what Lance wanted. He stood soaked in the rain, red splattered across his favorite winter flannel, his mouth dripping the same sickly substance. His fangs had already retracted, the tears in his lips being the only evidence that they were there in the first place. Nevertheless, Keith watched him with the same curiosity and love that he did the first time they met. 

The Technicalities of Dating - MoonlitWaterSunnyRiver

Word Count: 1, 165

Summary: In which Lance can't figure out if he's dating Keith or just making out with him, trying to do Halloween in the middle of space is hard, and Keith can't believe he's actually the socially ept one for once. 

opal quartz and love potions - a_zzurra

Word Count: 10, 254

Summary: “Do you like the hat? It’s kind of a joke, I just wanted to see if you’d laugh.”

If Lance had to pinpoint a moment when it all started, this might have been it. Keith bathed in golden early morning light, smiling shyly and stirring the cauldron. Red flowers the colour of his markings curled in his hair and that witch’s hat lopsided on his head.

(Keith is an Altean witch. He just wants to sit undisturbed in his dark market stall with his small red cat, brewing potions and selling crystals. Lance couldn't care less for fancy brews and crystal balls. He just wants to buy a love potion for Plaxum, the pretty mermaid girl from the river. So of course it's a complete accident when he comes barrelling into Keith's life, breaking all his potion vials, and the initial hot spark between them turns into a blazing inferno.)

In A Pinch - tomachan

Word Count: 1, 006

Summary: VLDHalloween event gift with the prompt : A lost dog is the reason why you stop gathering candy to find the dog's owner. 

How To Date A Werewolf In 5 Simple Steps - wrenowitch

Word Count: 25, 126

Summary: How To Date A Werewolf In 5 Simple Steps

by Keith Kogane

Step 0: Don't do it. - or, the au where lance is a werewolf and keith deals with that mess

Garlic and Silver, Oh My! - Redgay

Word Count: 1, 097

Summary: I'm so ready for halloween so here's a quick lil vampire/ werewolf fic cause why not? 

Video Games and Fake Boyfriends - GlassAlice

Word Count: 12, 858

Summary: There was no way they were going to stand idly by while the others made bets about their private lives. Lance looked over at Keith during breakfast the next day. They had discussed their plan to get together so it looked natural from an outside perspective. Pidge was planning a Halloween party for everyone, after Lance had casually dropped that it was October, so they decided that was when they were going to tell everyone they knew about the bet.

Until then, it was time to play with their friends’ emotions.

bite me (there’s a snake in my boot) - ljghtswood

Word Count: 4, 529

Summary: “But Lance! Doesn’t Keef have to dress up too? Where’s his costume?”

“Wow you’re right!” Lance rummages through his closet. He finds the outfit he wore for halloween the year before and holds it up saying, “Is this okay?”

Keith inwardly groans. Out of all the costumes Lance probably had, lance was making him go as a vampire?! He just gives him a you’ve got to be kidding me look.

Lance shrugs his shoulders. “Hey, it’s not my fault you have the complexion of a porcelain doll.” Plus, he thought, you’d make a hot vampire. Of course he’d never admit that out loud. Keith was still oblivious to his crush, and he planned to keep it that way. It was obvious he didn’t feel the same.

Please, don't bite - kagseyamas

Word Count: 3, 728

Summary: Why is it, that every time Lance celebrates a holiday, he wakes up confused, extremely hungover, and next to the same, attractive stranger?

In which Lance and Keith have a thing for the holidays.

Trick or Treat - oh_imintrouble

Word Count: 1, 335

Summary: Lance just wants that "perfect movie moment" and all he needs is a kiss from Keith 

Trick or Treat - Silas_Writes

Word Count: 1, 400

Summary: ANONYMOUS WHISPERED: (Insert cliche porno scene here) Keith is dared to go trick or treating costume and all (he’s like 22- 25) by Pidge. Cue older lance in a almost translucent silk robe answering the door. (That is also the neighbor he has had a huge crush on & also the neighbor who washes his car on Saturdays when he thinks nobody will notice him with some form of daisy dukes on)He says “, I’m all out of candy but I’m sure there’s something else I can give you for a treat.” You can take it from there wink wink. 

Help, We're Lost In A Corn Maze - Samyx914

Word Count: 3, 724

Summary: I take a right and then a left. And another left. One more left for good measure and I nearly trip over some corn stalk, is that what they’re called, on the ground. I steady myself and take a right.

“Holy fuck!” There’s a guy, sitting in the corner in the dark. He screams too.

“Listen, I am not about to get chased through here by a damn zombie, alright?” He laughs and stands up, holding his hands up in defense. He’s about my height, with dark hair. I can’t tell if it’s black or brown.

“I’m not a zombie. I don’t work here. I just got lost.” I take a breath.

“Thank God. I do not have the energy to run.” He laughs again.

In which Lance is bummed that his parents are making him go to a pumpkin patch with his little sister (instead of to Pidge's party), but things take an interesting turn.

[colorofyourhair]

Practically Perfect in Every Way

Prompt:

Rating: M

Note: As tumblr is the only site that will let me list an individual rating per chapter I’ll rate them as content demands. However the larger compilation on both FFN and AO3 are rated M.

So... This got away from me. I hope you like single dad/nanny AU because this is 11k of exactly that. Also please forgive the sloppy formatting. My laptop is on the blinks and I’m posting from an iPad and google Docs EATS FORMATTING. I AM SO UPSET. Anyway. Thanks to @ravenstyx for the pre-read.

Also posted here:

FFN

AO3

Autumn

Their situation wasn't ideal. He felt bad admitting that because of course it wasn't ideal. Not for him, not for the girls, and certainly not for their mother – his sister – who'd just been buried. Just being a relative term because the funeral was nearly six months behind them. Six months had passed and he was only beginning to settle in the new house with the children that were now his...ish. His-ish. Were they his? He supposed they were. Gods he was already a terrible father. He couldn't even call them his children without following it up with unnecessary qualifiers.

The social worker had glared at him when he explained that he was still technically a college student. He couldn't just move. PhD candidates didn't just leave. He had papers and books and a life. He even had a job offer already, despite being a full year away from graduating. The position, of course, had been the gage by which he measured all his success as a student. That had been buried right along with his sister, though. He'd need to seek other, more local, employment now. Which was fine. It was fine.

It wasn't fine.

He was angry. Not at the blameless, motherless children that now looked to him as their only parental figure to guide them through their tumultuous childhood and into the even more choppy waters of adulthood. Not at his sister who'd up and died and left him her daughters – okay, maybe he was a little mad at his sister. When she'd asked him if he'd be okay with a place in her Last Will and Testament as a guardian to her daughters, he hadn't considered that she'd develop cancer and actually die before he even graduated college – or ever! All of the blocks toppled at once and Jellal felt completely buried.

“I just need a little time,” he'd said to the social worker.

“Don't you think these kids would love to have time at their disposal? They're children who just lost their mother and I don't think –”

“I lost my sister, too,” he'd snapped. “This is hard for me, too. Look, I'm doing my best. I can have everything done in maybe two months. I can finish my studies at a distance but I need time.”

She'd sighed and eyed him harshly over the tops of her bifocals. “You can have one month. After that you'll need to be here full time according to the attorney. My only interest is the children. We'll schedule follow-ups once you're here permanently.”

“I'm sorry,” he'd been so confused. Everything had been horribly confusing. “Attorney?”

“Didn't you know?” For the first time since they'd met, the social worker grinned. “There's a whole litany of things your sister set up before her death. Good luck, Mister Fernandes.” On his way out he thought for sure he'd heard her whisper, “You'll need it.”

The sale of his sister's house happened quicker than he could truly process. She hadn't wanted her daughters to grow up in the house where she'd died. He didn't know whether to curse her or bless her, but she'd prepared the children for the move. They wanted a say in the new house. Corralling two little girls together to view properties exhausted him more than any late night study session followed by a full day of classes ever had. By the time he had three positive votes on a house, he was ready to sign the papers right away. But there were roadblocks. Things like escrow and amortization and estate tax. Jellal didn't care about any of that. He just wanted to move. To settle.

Even now that they were in the house with all new things – his sister had left behind a sizable amount of money, a sum he couldn't quite comprehend – Jellal still felt out of control. The kitchen was tidy and sparkling. The girls' bedroom and playroom were perfect. The living room was as inviting as any he'd ever seen. They even had a mud room – Jellal hadn't even known what a mud room was until a month before. But his office? An utter nightmare. Boxes were still on the floor and books were stacked on every available surface. The office had been his only condition in a family home. Even the keyboard of his laptop was littered with printouts of resumes.

And that's how she found him. A messy postgrad student standing alone in his office, sifting through papers and books. His hair, though recently trimmed, stood mostly on end and his sweater wasn't quite enough to keep away the early October chill – he really needed drapes for the windows in the room before winter.

“Mister Fernandes?” she said softly from the door. He jumped. His fingers curled into the paper and wrinkled it.

“Yes?” Jellal straightened and cleared his throat. “Are you...” he trailed off and poked around the mess of papers again. “I'm so sorry, I don't...”

“Miss Scarlet,” she offered, stepping around the boxes between the door and his desk. He shook her hand briefly before realizing her resume was the one he'd crumpled. Of course it was.

“Forgive me, this office is a nightmare right now. I'm...” he trailed off again and pushed the fluffy cat from his chair. The cat belonged to his oldest niece. Though obviously a boy, she'd named him Lily.

“A mess?” her smile was distracting but the way the afternoon sun glinted off the violent red of her hair was even more distracting. “It's okay, I understand. I only recently graduated myself. I can't imagine going for a doctorate. I don't think I'd survive.”

Jellal removed his glasses, took a seat in his chair, and motioned to the one across from him. “It's exhausting,” he agreed, glancing over her resume quickly.

“I think I should just go ahead and tell you, Mister Fernandes, I don't have any experience in nannying.” She bit her lip and her shoulders fell. “Or even babysitting.”

He scanned her wrinkled resume and tried his best to flatten it out.

“I just thought I'd get that out there before... this went any further... Mister Fernandes?” Her expression was concerned curiosity when he finally looked up. He blinked.

“Well, of course you don't have experience,” he said incredulously. Her resume, besides having no experience, was impressive. She had a master's degree in early childhood development and had taken a brief position as a councilor at a Montessori School out of state. “You just graduated.”

“Lots of people want experience,” she offered helpfully. “And relevant references.”

“Oh.” He blinked again. “Well do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have relevant references.”

“I just said I didn't.”

“Then why did you bring it up?

Her eyes narrowed and she licked her lips. “I'm sorry but do you have a clue what you're doing?”

“No.” Jellal sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“I see.” She shifted in her own chair and cleared her throat. “Maybe you could tell me a little more about what you're looking for in a nanny and I'll decide if I can handle that.”

“Right.” He sat up again and heaved a deep breath. “The oldest just turned seven. Yukino is only three, though, and for now she's staying with a babysitter down the street but I'd like for that to stop once I hire you. A bus comes for Sorano in the mornings at the corner around seven-thirty, and brings her home again at three-thirty-ish.”

“That sounds manageable,” she said with a nod. “What else?”

He fidgeted a bit before pressing on. “I'm hoping maybe for help with some extraneous kid-related things, too.”

“Like?”

“I am absolutely capable of handling my own laundry, I would never ask you to do that, but –” He sighed defeatedly. “Little girls just go through so many clothes. I can't keep up.”

“So laundry? I think I can handle that. What about meals?”

“Uh,” Jellal felt the tips of his ears burn. He hadn't expected the process of explaining how utterly inept he was to be so embarrassing. Maybe if Miss Scarlet were older and not so obviously an age peer he'd feel less exposed. “I'm afraid my skills in the kitchen are limited to pasta and sauce. The quality control department has put me on notice.”

Miss Scarlet stifled a laugh. “I think I can help out with that, too. I'll need a list of known allergies or any limitations or preferences.”

“Of course,'' he blurted. Did the children have allergies? He thought for sure he'd have been informed if either of them had life threatening allergies. “And, uh, I'm not sure about your living situation but the gable on the roof is actually a third floor apartment. The realtor called it a granny's quarters.” Jellal flushed. “But obviously you aren't a granny and I'm not asking you to –”

“I'll have a look. I've been staying at a hotel near the airport in Tacoma and haven't worked out residency yet.”

“Perfect.” Jellal suddenly stood and dislodged the array of resumes hanging over the edge of his desk. He scrambled to keep them from falling all over the floor but failed miserably. “I can show you the house now. The girls are down the street with Yukino's sitter. I told her I was doing interviews today and –”

“Can I meet them?”

“The sitter?”

“No, Mister Fernandes, the children.” Miss Scarlet smiled in a way that was almost a smirk.

“Right.” He stopped in front of her and hid his hands in his pockets. “Listen, I'm sure I come across as wildly unprofessional. I apologize if that's making you uncomfortable. Please just let me know what you need and I'll do my best to accommodate you.”

“I think we're probably on the same level there. Maybe if I had more experience with a position like this I would have a better feel of how to judge your situation. Why don't you show me the house and then we'll talk about salary and the things I need. If we can come to an agreement, I'd like to meet the kids and go from there.”

“That sounds great, Miss Scarlet.” He smiled and then she smiled and it was a great effort to turn away and lead her through the house.

Miss Scarlet's expression remained neutral throughout the entire tour until they reached the laundry room attached to the mud room. She quirked an eyebrow at the piles of clothes that hadn't been sorted at all. When they reached the front room, she began in a business-like voice.

“Who does your shopping?”

“Me.”

“I think you should let me do that.”

“Right. Okay.”

She eyed him closely before going on. “I'll need a minimum of five full days completely off duty for myself a month. I don't mind including the kids for small personal errands but the five days a month will be a requirement.”

“That sounds reasonable. If you need more, don't hesitate to bring it up.”

“I won't. Since you're looking for both a nanny and some general housekeeping during the week, I think a salary around –”

“I was thinking seven-eighty a week to start?” he blurted. It was more than his sister's attorney had recommended but after spending the last two hours with Miss Scarlet, Jellal didn't want anyone else. “There's a car in the garage that belonged to my sister and you can have full use of it for nanny stuff. And a phone. I can get you a phone. We can outfit the apartment on the third floor however you like.”

“What if I wanted a pet?”

Jellal blinked. He hadn't expected such a request. Did he care if she wanted a pet? She laughed lightly and the sound was the most levitating thing he'd heard in weeks.

“I'm kidding, Mister Fernandes. How –” The sound of the children bursting through the front door rattled in Jellal's skull. He still wasn't quite used to the way they charged into a room. His two nieces, followed by their exasperated sitter, stopped short in the archway between the living room and foyer.

“I'm sorry, Jellal, but Yuki is running a temperature and my daughter can't be exposed.”

“It's fine, Bisca, I can take it from here.” Though he'd expected it, Jellal was still surprised when Bisca offered Miss Scarlet her hand.

“You must be the new nanny,” she said with a wide smile. “I need to get back home to my daughter but I wanted to introduce myself. If you ever need anything don't hesitate to ask.”

“Well,” Jellal cut in. “She's not –”

“I'm Erza,” Miss Scarlet offered with her own smile. “And thank you!”

“Jellal is so green with these girls, they just stampede all over him sometimes,” Bisca added. Jellal wanted to usher his neighbor out the door but his mouth felt full of cotton. “We should have a drink on your soonest day off. I'd love a friend close by. My husband travels a lot and this neighborhood can be so cliquish.”

“I can imagine.”

Bisca finally took a few steps back and exhaled. “Well, I'll get out of your hair.” She turned to Jellal briefly. “I'm so glad you finally found someone, Jellal. You need it.”

Jellal's headache flared. He liked Bisca, and she was wonderful as a caregiver, but she talked a lot.

“It was nice meeting you,” Miss Scarlet said as the woman turned to leave. Jellal reached up for his glasses – the habit of wiping his lenses on his shirt when nervous was an old one – but remembered he'd left them in his office. The two nearly identical girls stared wide eyed at Miss Scarlet. Only Yukino moved toward her and slid a hand into hers.

“I'm so sorry about Bisca,” Jellal offered. “She has a way of commanding a room.”

“It's fine, Mister Fernandes.” She glanced over the children who only blinked in silence. Jellal couldn't recall the house ever being so quiet since they'd moved in.

“Are you really our new nanny?” Sorano asked, scooping Lily up from the floor.

“Well –”

Jellal cleared his throat. “Yes. I mean, if she wants.”

Miss Scarlet's mouth twitched into a grin. Yukino still clutched at her hand. Around her neck was the ever present purple feather boa she loved so much. It was flecked with silver foil and she wore it nearly everywhere.

“I think we have a deal, Mister Fernandes.”

“When can you start?”

“Are you fun?” Sorano blurted. “The last lady was old.”

Miss Scarlet quirked an eyebrow. “Old?”

“Like super old,” Sorano rolled her eyes dramatically. “Will you take us places? And can we do fun stuff outside?”

“Um, yeah, we can do that.”

“Are you gonna live above us in the room with the sink?”

“Room with the sink?”

Jellal curbed the instinct to sigh. “She means the apartment on the third floor. It's not a room with a sink, that's a kitchenette.”

“Whatever.” Sorano shrugged.

“I think so,” Miss Scarlet answered. “Your uncle and I still have some details to work out.”

“I'm hungry. Let me know when we can eat something that's not spaghetti for dinner.” Sorano wandered off toward the kitchen. Yukino giggled at Erza's side and, still clutching her hand, gazed up at her with wide brown eyes.

“Sorano is opinionated,” Jellal offered. “I think it's part of her package.”

“It's fine, Mister Fernandes.”

Yukino yawned and tugged on the edge of Jellal's sweater. She finally released Miss Scarlet and reached upwards at him. With minimal awkwardness he pulled her into his arms and she settled against his hip.

“I've got to get her in bed,” he said apologetically. “When were you looking to start?”

“I had my things shipped to a storage unit and they're scheduled to arrive early next week. I can have the truck re-routed here, if that's okay?”

“That's fine.”

“And I can start in two days. I have some other things I should handle first.”

“Of course. I'll get someone upstairs to clean everything out for you before Friday.”

“Perfect! I'll make a list of items I need from you to make things run a little more smoothly and email it to you.” Jellal's mind raced. He had no idea what she meant.

“Don't worry, Mister Fernandes, it's just stuff like signed letters to present at doctor's appointments and to the school. I'll provide the letters and you'll just need to sign them.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Scarlet, I really apologize for being so unprepared.”

“Under the circumstances, I think I can let it slide.” If she hadn't been smiling at him, he'd have felt like a heel. Miss Scarlet turned to leave but stopped at the archway. “And, please, we'll be seeing a lot of one another. Call me Erza.”

“Right,” he blurted. “Erza.” Yukino laughed softly and poked him in the shoulder. “I'm Jellal. You can just call me that.”

“I'll get that list to you by tomorrow, Jellal,” Erza waved at Yukino before leaving them alone in the living room.

“She's got pretty hair,” Yukino whispered just before yawning.

“She does,” Jellal murmured, tucking her under his chin. “Let's get you in bed, okay? Want a movie?” Yukino nodded and sighed softly.

Winter

He found her alone at the dining table - the fancy one they never used because children plus carpet plus food weren't always a good combination. She was hunched over with her chin resting on her arms that were folded on the table. In front of her was an open shipping box, emptied, and a prettily wrapped holiday gift. Jellal took a seat across from her and slid one of the hot mugs toward her side of the table. Ezra took a surprisingly long gulp of the hot toddy before smirking.

"How did you know I'd need a stiff drink before opening this package?"

"Call it a lucky guess," he answered with a grin. "You've been sitting here since you got home and I've been trying to work out how soon I could join you before you wouldn't think I'm nosey for offering."

Ezra sighed and swirled the mix of whiskey, honey, and tea in her mug.

"It's that bad, huh?"

"Nothing from my mother is ever completely good."

"So no chance of an innocuous gift of socks or a pen set you'll never use?"

"I would never be so lucky."

Jellal poked the box around in a circle with his fingers. "It's pretty at least."

"She would never send something ugly." Erza sat up straight and chugged the rest of her drink and set the mug aside. "Time to do the adult thing, I guess."

Jellal quirked an eyebrow but followed suit with his own drink. The whiskey already made him feel on the fuzzier side. He watched Erza shred the paper more than truly necessary. The gift box was small and inside was an envelope. She scowled before opening the envelope and scowled even more when she peeked inside.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she blurted and then flushed. "Sorry."

"The girls are asleep, it's fine." Jellal couldn't quite help the way he leaned forward on the heel of his hand and smiled - he would've been able to help it if he weren't riding a whiskey buzz but that was neither here nor there. Erza stuffed the envelope back into the gift box and unceremoniously tossed it back into the shipping box along with the shreds of gift wrap.

"No pens or socks?"

"Nope," she said with an annoyed finality. "Plane tickets."

"Is she offering a vacation? Because if you need time off -"

Erza laughed loosely and stood. "I'll need a second drink to explain it."

He followed her into the kitchen. Erza skipped the tea and poured only whiskey first for herself before handing over the bottle. After a sip, she grinned.

"The plane tickets are twofold. She wants me back home and by only sending the tickets and nothing else she's letting me know my life here, and my stuff, aren’t important. Everything is replaceable to her and if it doesn't fit into her box, it doesn't matter."

"All that from plane tickets?"

"My mother is a complex woman, Jellal, I learned to play the game early in life."

"I'm starting to think my sister was the same way."

"Did she not approve of your field of study?"

"I don't think she cared one way or the other. But I do think she knew she was dying long before ever telling anyone but her attorney."

"Women are excellent secret keepers."

"She left me enough to pay off all my loans and to live comfortably as long as I stay here and raise her daughters. Your salary comes from the trust. Everything to do with this house and the girls comes from a trust I have nothing to do with. I'm not privy to exactly how much there is or how it works. I've only been told there's enough."

"Wow," Erza said, leaning against the counter. "My mother is at least transparent if you know how to look at her. She came by her money when my father died."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks," she said before finishing off her whiskey. "But I didn't even know the guy. He was gone before I was out of diapers. For all I know she killed him."

Jellal stared at her in a baffled stupor.

"I'm kidding," Erza laughed. "Kind of. I just don't know what happened except that he's dead and mom controls the money."

"Well, we have that in common then." Jellal divided the remaining whiskey between their mugs. "What will you do?"

"Throw the boxes away and pretend they don't exist."

"Is that your own message to her?"

"It's my way of not responding to what isn’t the first or last attempt by her to control my life. I agreed to go to school at home in California and I took a job she approved of!" Erza was visibly more sloshy than she'd been twenty minutes before. "I even got engaged!"

Jellal quirked an eyebrow. He'd been curious about Erza for months. Most of his questions revolved around why such an educated woman was seeking employment as a nanny when she was so grossly over qualified. He could admit he had an inappropriate crush on her and the mention of a fiancé intrigued him.

"And yet, here you are husbandless."

"Smooth, Jellal," she said around another laugh. "He was a possessive idiot. I wanted to work, he said no. I demanded to work, he told me I was difficult."

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Difficult."

Erza turned to face him fully and bit her lip in a grin. "You tell me."

"I find you extremely easy to get along with and a delight to be around." Completely without reservation he reached up to touch a strand of her hair that clung to the fleece shoulder of her sweater. "Even if you do shock me sometimes to make yourself laugh."

"That's just part of my charm," she said softly, inching toward him. "And you're easy to fool. You take everything literally."

"My mother insisted I was a charming boy but far too serious as a student. She passed away almost ten years ago."

"I'm sorry," Erza whispered.

He shrugged. "It's been a long time and she had a happy life."

"So there's parts of you that aren't lost up in the stars?" Erza blushed and cleared her throat when he tilted his head to the right. He didn't remember telling her his field of study. "You left some books out a few weeks ago. I was curious."

"I wouldn't have minded if you'd asked."

"I didn't want to pry."

"I wouldn't have considered it prying."

She smiled again and leaned into the brush of his fingers against her cheek. "What are you studying, Jellal?"

"Astrophysics."

"Sounds complicated."

"There's a lot of complicated parts of my life but astrophysics isn't one of them."

"Yeah?"

"For example, my current conundrum."

"Which is?"

"You."

"What about me?"

"I can't seem to stop thinking about you in a way an employer should never think of his nanny."

"That's an interesting coincidence," Erza said wrapping her fingers around his wrist. "Because I can't seem to stop thinking about you in a way a nanny should never think of her employer."

She didn't pull his hand away and when his fingertips brushed the curve of her neck she only tightened her grip on his wrist. Jellal moved like a man who'd never kissed anyone before, even though he had plenty of experience. The awkwardness didn't ease off until his lips finally pressed against hers. She tasted like whiskey and honey and tea and when she parted her lips to kiss him back there was a hint of the peppermint candies Yukino liked to crunch on when she needed a sugar fix in the late afternoon.

Erza was intoxicating. Even more so than the whiskey in his stomach. Her arms looped around his neck and Jellal didn't realize his hand had slipped beneath the bottom of her fleece sweatshirt until the pads of his fingers made contact with her back. He pulled her flush against him and the sound that came from her mouth flipped his stomach upside down. There was something about the way she kissed him and the way her hair slid through his fingers. He liked that her eyes smiled right along with her mouth and how she was so completely competent in all the ways he wasn't.

The sound of Lily's claws skittering across the floor tiles shattered the moment. Erza gasped and jumped back. She blinked and her hand flew to her lips in surprise.

"Am I fired?" she gasped in horror.

Jellal's head still felt full of the taste of her lips and he took a moment to focus past the memory and the lingering buzz. "What? No!" He exclaimed, stumbling over the words. "Why would you be fired?"

"For sexually harassing you," she whispered.

"You... you think you were sexually harassing me? Jesus, Erza, I think by all standards I was the one sexually harassing you! I'm so sorry!"

"No, no, you're just drunk!"

"That's not really better."

Erza bit her lip again and raked a hand through her hair. "We're both not quite... sober."

Jellal took a step back from her and hid his hands in his pockets. He didn't want to move away from her but he had to. "What can I do to fix it? Please don't quit."

"I don't want to quit," she whispered.

"Erza, I swear I can do better than this. I'm not a guy who just blunders ahead kissing people with no thoughts on - I mean, I realize that's what I just did but -"

She reached out suddenly and gripped his forearm. "Stop."

"Okay," he whispered, unable to disobey her.

"We're both adults. I work for you and there's a mutual attraction. We had some drinks and had a moment. We can get past this."

"Yeah," he agreed, even though he didn't actually want to get past anything. He wanted to kiss her again. Cold reality rattled in his head when Lily hopped up to the counter between them. "I actually had a reason for coming down here." Erza released his arm and pulled Lily against her chest. "And that was?"

"I'm going away for two weeks. I need to complete the last of this credit before the new year. Everything after that can be done with my professor here but I can't get around the requirement." Jellal scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. He felt sober in his head but his body still hummed. "I'll be back three days before Christmas."

"I can handle all that. Sorano's winter break starts in a couple of days."

"I need to be back in Palo Alto by next Monday so I'm flying out on Sunday. I was hoping to get a ride to the airport with you and the girls?"

"I think Yukino would like that. She'll miss you."

"She's attached." Jellal sighed. "That's why I, we can't lose you, Erza. I'm sorry for kissing you."

"I care about the girls, and you," she tacked on quickly. "I shouldn't have let you kiss me."

Jellal nodded. "I'll email you my itinerary."

"Yeah."

They stood silently in the kitchen before Erza swept past him still clutching Lily to her chest.

He hadn't expected to feel homesick after only a week in Palo Alto but when his mind wasn't detangling theory, he was stuck back in Seattle. Were the girls okay? He knew they were. Yukino, and even Sorano, Skyped him almost every night. Despite her independent nature, Sorano asked him more than once when he was coming back. Erza was always in the background, folding down sheets and blankets. He couldn't help but get hung up on the way wisps of hair fell around her face as she leaned over the beds. The trails of scarlet had almost all his attention when his nieces spiraled into the inevitable scuffle.

"Will you be home for Christmas?" Yukino asked, adjusting her purple boa.

"I'll be home on the twenty-second," Jellal said, adjusting his glasses and glancing over his phone calendar. "That's in five more days."

"Five days?" Yukino whispered fretfully. "Are you sure you won't forget?"

"He's an astrologer, Yuki, he only forgets silly stuff like scarves," Sorano corrected. Erza could be heard in the background laughing.

"I promise I won't forget."

"Can we do the cookies when you get home? Erza said we should wait for you."

“That sounds like fun." Jellal's phone chimed with a message from his classmate. "Alright, girls, pass me off to Erza. I think it's probably bedtime."

There was a combined chorus of protests and the tablet was left to fall on its back. For several moments all he could see was the ceiling but he heard Erza coaxing the girls into bed. The room went dark and he saw nothing at all until the low light of the hallway made the falling bun of Erza's hair glow.

"So what's your sign?" He asked in the flirtatious tone that seemed to sneak into all their private Skype conversations.

"That's the worst pickup line I've ever heard," she said with a laugh.

"I just figured that since I’m an astrologer now I should try and calculate your future."

Erza laughed again softly and propped the tablet against the lamp he knew sat on the tea table beside the living room couch. She leaned against the arm and gathered her hair over her shoulder.

"I'm a Taurus."

Jellal tapped out a quick google search and ignored the messages from his classmate. "According to my crystal ball, you're patient, sensible, and reliable with an excellent sense of humor."

"Does it count as a sense of humor when it's just me saying things to throw you off guard for my own pleasure?"

"I think it does."

"What does your crystal ball say about my immediate future."

"I'm seeing strawberry vanilla macarons and the chamomile tea you save for just before bed."

Erza's cheeks dusted a shade pink he recognized even in the lamplight. "That's a very observant crystal ball you have there."

"It wouldn't be doing its job if it weren't observant. It helps that the subject is so captivating," he said softly.

"And what about you?" she asked in a low volume that matched his. "What's in your future?"

"A boring chat with a classmate and a night of exhausting study. The ball is clouded, though, which means I'm distracted."

"By what?"

"Everything I miss that's not here," he hedged.

"You'll be back soon."

"Yeah." The word came out as a whisper and his phone chimed again.

"You should answer that." Erza sat up and glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "I'm late for my date with cookies and tea."

"Right."

"Goodnight," she said with half a grin.

"Goodnight, Erza." When her image disappeared, Jellal flipped over on his back. He had work to do but he couldn't think of anything other than strawberry vanilla macarons and chamomile tea.

Yukino took the longest to fall asleep. She wouldn't let go of his sweater sleeve until her eyes drifted closed. Her purple boa had been passed down to the stuffed polar bear that sat at the foot of her bed along with the remains of the candy and trinkets that filled her stocking earlier that morning. The new boa, a bright pink one, hung from the post of her headboard.

Sorano's blankets were tangled around her knees and ankles. She scowled in her sleep when he pulled everything free and tucked her in properly. Despite being difficult sometimes she was just as insecure as Yukino. She slept surrounded by an army of stuffed animals. None of them matched but she always noticed when one went missing.

Jellal took one last look around the room before pulling the door closed. The second floor tended to be the warmest in the house but he wasn't quite ready to be alone just yet.

He found Erza stretched across the couch with Lily on her chest. Her fingers smoothed over the grouch of a cat's downy ears. The rainbow sweater Sorano had picked out for him was draped over the pillows behind Erza’s head. Lily probably hassled Erza to get it off him the second Sorano was out of view. Jellal could hear the rumbling purr from the archway.

"That cat is a ham," he said, taking a seat on the floor near her feet. She wore the fuzzy socks he'd given her to make up for her mother’s gift of plane tickets. He owed her a much better gift for taking such good care of his nieces but the socks made her smile.

Christmas was a wholly different experience with children. The day started early and now all he wanted was this.

"He and I have grown to love one another." As if to drive the point home, Lily stretched one paw toward Erza's shoulder and squeezed his yellow eyes shut. "See? He's a sweetheart."

"He's an old grouch that only likes girls."

"I think you're jealous."

"Very." Jellal grinned at her boldly. "He's got the best seat in the house." Since his return from Palo Alto the Skype flirting had turned into something much more tangible.

Erza rolled her eyes and hefted Lily up to the back cushions. He protested but resettled quickly. Jellal twisted around and crawled over her. She was soft beneath him and her fingertips lightly traced the tattoo that stretched over his eye and cheek.

"I know we agreed to -"

"Get past this?" she finished with a breath.

"I don't know if I want to."

"I definitely don't want to."

When he kissed her this time there wasn't a drop of alcohol in his system. The sticky fuzz in his head was all Erza. She was sharp like peppermint and sweet like sugar cookies and rich like red velvet. He knew he shouldn't take too much but she bent her leg and he felt her thigh press into his side. Erza didn't let him simply lay over her and take. Her hands were beneath his sweater and he knew she felt him hardening between her legs.

The sound of her ringtone was jarring. Erza slid her arms around his waist quickly and trapped him between her thighs.

"Who's that?" He breathed against her lips.

"It's nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

The phone went silent and he felt her smile. But she groaned loudly when the ringtone started over a moment later. Jellal dropped his mouth to her neck and left three kisses before pulling back.

"You really should take that. It could be important."

Erza exhaled harshly and snatched her phone from the tea table. "Mom always ruins everything." Her eyes found his again and she was apologetic. "I'm sorry. She won't go away unless I speak to her."

"It's fine," he said scooting back to the other side of the couch. "We really shouldn't -"

"No," she whispered. "We shouldn't. Merry Christmas, Jellal."

Erza cleared the living room and he heard her finally take her mother's call on the way up to her apartment. Jellal glared at Lily who only swished his tail.

"Somehow I think think this is your fault," he said to the old cat. Jellal stood and pulled the lamp cord before taking the stairs back up to the second floor. His bed was cold but what did he expect? The idea of warming it with Erza was ludicrous. He did actually know better than to dry hump her on the couch where either one of the girls could see.

No more kissing. No more anything. He was a grown man with sense. No more making out with the nanny.

He could, however, tend to the hard problem between his own legs. In his head he could have her any way he wanted with no repercussions. Professional or otherwise.

The girls never made it to midnight. Jellal rung in the new year alone while Erza, Sorano, and Yukino slept on the couch. One at a time he transferred his nieces to their beds and when he returned downstairs alone, Erza was awake and confused.

“Did I miss everything?”

“More or less,” he said with a grin, swooping down to pick up the piles of throw pillows that had been kicked to the floor by little feet. “I expected as much from the kids but you, Erza? Disgraceful.”

“I suppose I'm getting up there in age,” she agreed with a sigh.

“Maybe we should go back to calling the third floor a granny’s quarters.” He wasn’t fast enough to dodge the pillow lobbed at his head.

“I was going to offer you some of the belated Christmas gift I got from a friend but now I don't think you deserve it.” She stood and fluffed her hair.

“If it's more macarons I think I can live without the extra sugar.”

“Not even close,” Erza laughed. “Come upstairs with me and bring some glasses.”

Jellal grabbed two of the small glasses typically reserved for juice and followed Erza to the third floor. He hadn't been up to her apartment since just before she moved in. Considering recent developments he wondered if he should really be up on the third floor at all.

He stopped at the open doorway and almost didn't recognize the space. She’d filled it with her own belongings and everything about it screamed Erza.

“Wow,” he murmured. “I never thought this suite would look like anything other than an empty dorm.

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” she said pulling a box from the cabinet above her small refrigerator. It had a gold leaf logo embossed on the side he couldn't quite make out.

“I meant it as one.” Erza smiled at him and waved him over to her table - or maybe it was a desk. However she used it, the thing was solid wood and he appreciated the deep cherry of the grain. Erza opened this gift box with much more care than the one sent by her mother.

“My best friend from childhood married a guy who's family owns a vineyard. She sends me bottles of all kinds of stuff. This brandy is her new favorite thing.” She peeled back the foil and twisted the cap off. Jellal handed over the glasses and when she poured small portions he caught the hints of vanilla. Upon closer inspection, the scent was very strong. He was glad the stuff tasted sweeter than it smelled.

“I’m not much of a brandy drinker but this is nice.”

“Yeah?” Erza knocked back the whole measure at once and took a moment to form her own assessment. “This is totally not my thing,” she said with a laugh even as she poured a second round.,

“It's a nice bottle though.” He picked up the bottle and inspected the label.

“She’s got entire shelves filled with fancy bottles.”

“Full ones?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed again. “Mirajane’s always been a bit of a lush. The bottles probably don't have time to collect dust and sit in various states of half-empty.”

“So she has an experienced palette?”

“Indeed.” Erza said leaving her empty glass beside his on the table. “I asked you up here for two reasons, actually. The brandy was only half of it.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“You.” She shook her head and tossed her hair. “Us. I mean, this.” Erza gestured between the two of them. “We’re both adults and this thing where we kiss and hump like teenagers on the couch and then back away like it was nothing but a big oops is ridiculous.”

She was speaking very fast and Jellal quirked an eyebrow. He’d never seen her both determined and buzzed before.

“I like you, Jellal, but I also like my job. I can’t keep up with these random moments of crashing into one another.”

“Erza -”

She pressed a hand to his chest and shook her head. “I have a solution.”

“Oh,” he breathed in relief. For a moment he thought she'd planned on telling him everything was over as her New Year's resolution, which, he recognized would be completely fair. Her hand slid over his chest and up to his shoulder.

“I can compartmentalize if you can. During the day nothing changes. I do my job, and you finish your degree. Once the girls are in bed, we can set aside time.” She bit her lip in reservation. “Right? That’s a good plan, yeah? I can’t take wild abandon, Jellal. It’s too risky.”

“You really thought this through.”

“I’m sensible, remember?” She smiled and suddenly there wasn’t much space between them. “I can’t have an affair with my boss if there’s no plan.”

“This is how I know I made the right choice hiring you, Erza,” he whispered, seeking her lips. “You're so smart and practical.

Kissing Erza was the most selfish brand of wish fulfillment. He shouldn’t be in her apartment at all much less tangling his fingers in her hair. They’d never been so alone before and the palms of his hands didn't hesitate to find the bare skin beneath her shirt. Erza’s fingers hooked in the belt loops of his pants and she separated her lips from his. Her eyes pinned him to the floor as she pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. Jellal followed her across the small living space into her bedroom and his shirt joined hers on the floor.

All of her skin was soft and he took the opportunity to kiss every inch of it. She had a symphony of gasps and sighs. He hoped he'd have the opportunity to hear them all. Erza was practically perfect in every way. Where he pushed, she pulled. When he breathed in, she breathed out. She was both overwhelming and precise. The feel of her body beneath him was so much more exquisite now that there were no layers between them but the real delicacy of the evening was her weight above him. Erza had a touch that seared him all the way though. Her final sigh of the night was possibly the most decadent thing he’d heard in his life.

Scarlet touched him everywhere and he curled strands of it around his fingers. Erza hadn’t moved off him and he wasn’t going to be the one to break the spell of the moment. Finally she leveled her eyes with his and kissed him in a way that made him want her again.

“Can we do this?” She asked against his lips. “Or was tonight a New Year's one off?”

“I can keep the downstairs and upstairs separate, Erza. I like you too and I don't have one offs. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel something.”

Erza smiled and kissed him again, softer this time. “You should go before you fall asleep and the girls find us up here.”

“Have they come up here on their own before?”

“Only a couple of times while you were away. But if they woke up and you weren’t in your room, the next place they'd hit would be here.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” Even as he said so, he didn't move. She kissed him once more before sitting up and tucking the sheet under her arms. Jellal gathered his clothes and stood. “I’ll see you at breakfast, Erza.” She grinned and fell backwards into her pillows. It wasn’t until he crawled beneath his own blankets that he realized he'd left his t-shirt on the third floor.

Spring

“Why do I have to make one for everybody in my class?” Sorano asked from her seat at the kitchen table. “I don't even like everybody!”

“Because it’s polite,” Jellal said over his shoulder. Dinner looked questionable but Erza had the night off. He already had the pizza delivery app open just in case things went south.

“Sometimes being polite sucks,” Sorano declared, sealing off the last envelope. Yukino giggled from her spot across from her sister where she drew sloppy pink and red hearts over Sorano’s extra cards.

“That's a sad fact of life,” Jellal muttered.

“What’s for dinner?” Her voice was from directly beside him now. Sorano leaned over and peered into the pan. “Should it smell like that?” She whispered.

“I followed all Erza’s instructions.” Jellal slighted and transferred the cut of meat to a board. “Let’s find out.” The beef was crisp and brown on the outside but the inside was another story.

“I think it’s still mooing,” Sorano said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I think you’re right.” He hated to waste the meat so he moved it to a baking dish for Erza to sort out another time. “Pizza then?”

“I’ll get your phone.”

Jellal spun around and took a seat next to Yukino. “These are pretty.”

“Thanks!” She pushed an especially garish one toward him and tossed the edge of her pink feather boa over her shoulder. “This one’s for you.”

“For me?” He exclaimed. “Thank you! I’ll put it on my desk.”

“Are you gonna make Erza a card, Uncle Jellal?” She asked softly. Innocently. Even though she couldn’t possibly know how he spent his late nights, the question still floored him.

“Why would I make Erza a Valentine’s Day card?” He tried to pose the query as casually as possible.

“Because you like her hair.” Yukino glanced up at him and smiled in her sweet way. “Is red your favorite color?”

“Well -”

Sorano leaned over the table and passed Jellal his phone. “You look at Erza the way the farm boy looks at Buttercup in that movie Yukino likes so much.”

“I don't -”

“Can we order pizza now?” Sorano cut him off and he wasn’t altogether sorry.

The three of them ate at the kitchen table and afterward Jellal helped Sorano pack away her cards in her backpack. Erza didn’t return home until very late. Jellal was already in his bed with his laptop when she stopped by his bedroom door on her way upstairs.

“I’m assuming the pizza boxes in the garbage are a good indicator that dinner didn’t turn out?”

Jellal pulled the glasses from his face and began to clean the lenses. “I don’t think a successful roast is ever in my future.”

“Did your crystal ball tell you that?” She asked softly with a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“No, Sorano did. I put it back in the fridge. Maybe it’s salvageable.”

“Maybe.” Erza fidgeted with the cuffs of her jacket.

“What’s wrong?”

“My mom flew up to see me,” she whispered. Jellal tried to keep his reaction as calm as possible. “I had dinner with her tonight.”

“And how did that go?”

Erza sighed heavily and Jellal set aside his glasses and closed his laptop. He crossed the room and pulled her gently beyond the door and pushed it closed.

“You don’t have to talk about it, Erza,” he whispered, leaving a kiss on her forehead. “I’ve never seen you this down before.”

“We fought. She backed off in the end but I don’t think everything she said was wrong.” Erza’s eyes were wary and he hated it. He didn’t like acknowledging that their relationship was not only deeply flawed but possibly temporary. “She accused me of fucking my boss to pad my resume.”

Jellal tried to remain impassive but he knew he failed miserably. “Is that -”

“No, of course not!” Erza scowled and pushed past him. She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it on an empty chair. “I don’t mean to be rude, Jellal, but I could have a job in just about any school in Seattle if I wanted. When it comes to early education I don’t have to pad anything.”

Jellal wished his pajama pants had pockets. His hands landed on his hips because he didn’t know where else to put them. “Is that what you want? I don’t think I can match a proper salary or benefits or -”

Erza’s arms slid around his waist and she pressed her face into his chest. “I’m not saying that’s what I want. I don’t even think she meant what she said.”

“How does she know that we - I mean -”

“My mother is a shrewd woman. She probably has an actual crystal ball. She said my life is out of control and I don’t know what I’m doing.” When Erza pulled away her cheeks were wet. “She’s right, Jellal, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“This is my fault. I should’ve never -”

“We went into this together, Jellal,” she whispered. “I hate that she made me feel insecure about a decision I - we made. My feelings haven’t changed.”

The words were heavy on the tip of his tongue and he couldn’t have stopped them if he’d tried. “I don’t think mine ever will.” It was a dangerously bold thing to admit but he didn’t regret it.

Her mouth didn’t fall open. Her eyes didn’t widen. She only kissed his lips and took his confession inside of her. For better or worse, Erza never made it up to the third floor that night.

She didn't mention her mother again and Jellal didn’t ask. He thought if she had more to say on the matter, she’d bring it up herself.

Jellal’s intent wasn't to eavesdrop. The hour was late and after spending most of his day stuck in his office, he’d only meant to seek her out to say good night. He heard Erza’s voice first and her mother’s over a phone speaker second.

“Mom, it doesn’t matter. I need to be on my own.”

“Oh, honey, you aren’t on your own. You’ve gone from living off one trust to another. This one just comes with an attractive employer who doesn’t mind fishing off the company dock.”

“I’m not a fish, mother.”

“I never said you were, Erza, it’s a figure of speech. I just think -”

“I already know what you think,” Erza snapped. “You said enough at dinner last week. I need you to give me space.”

“Erza, love, the last time I gave you space you brought home Simon. How can I be sure this Fernandes man isn’t the same type? He is dabbling with the help.”

“I’m not - wait, what?” Jellal heard a fumbling noise and what sounded like blankets being shaken out. “What do you mean about Simon? I dated him to please you!”

“Why on earth would you think an oaf like that would please me? Both he and his father were insufferable.”

“But… He was in my class and a legacy and -”

“Honestly, Erza, sometimes I think you don’t know me at all.”

“That’s the most relatable thing you’ve ever said to me,” Erza muttered.

“I think it’s possible we’re both reading the same book, love, but we’re on very different pages. I trust your judgement when it comes to what you do with your degree or where you find employment. You are a capable woman in all ways.”

“Mom,” Erza’s whisper was the quiet kind that came before tears.

“I only worry that give too freely. You’re a natural nurturer, Erza. This man, your employer, what does he want from you? What does he stand to gain by having you in his bed? Is he the type to get bored and put you out?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you love him?”

“I -”

Jellal couldn’t catch a breath. He really should’ve left Erza to her phone call but his feet felt as if they were cemented to the floor.

“Does he love you?” Her mother pressed.

“I don’t know.”

Jellal’s stomach and heart sank. How could she not know? He supposed that would be because he’d never explicitly told her.

“Can we continue this another night, mom? It’s been a long day.”

Jellal didn’t stick around to hear the conclusion. He also had no interest in getting caught in the stairwell. As quickly and quietly as possible he retreated to his bedroom on the second floor.

Just after midnight the door cracked open and Erza slid through the darkness and under his blankets. Nothing was kept quarantined on the third floor anymore. Secrets were so hard. Her hands didn’t wander beneath his clothes and her kisses weren’t lustful precursors. She didn’t say a word before tucking herself into his side.

When Jellal woke in the morning, she was gone and the sheets were cold.

The cupcake top smeared with green icing for Saint Patrick’s Day left Jellal’s fingers stained with color. He stopped off in the bathroom on the ground floor of the building but couldn’t quite soap away the green. He supposed the embarrassment of green fingertips was not worse than hurting Yukino’s feelings if he’d rejected the offering.

His sister’s attorney occupied the entire seventh floor. Jellal wondered how a woman like Ms. Milkovich managed to retain such a friendly receptionist when he’d pegged her for a shark on their first meeting. The receptionist showed him down the hallway and through the office doors - no conference room this time.

“Mister Fernandes,” Ms. Mlkovich purred, standing from her desk and offering her hand. She waited for him to come to her with a smile like knives. “How’s everything coming along at home?” She asked as if she didn’t already know. “I understand that soon I’ll need to address you as Doctor Fernandes?”

“Mister if fine,” he muttered.

“Whatever you prefer.” She pointed at a cluster of chairs. Her nails were a deep blood red. The cushioned chairs felt as if they’d swallow him up. “What can I do for you today, Mister Fernandes?”

“I, uh, I just needed some clarifications on what happens once I graduate. I received an email from -”

“Navient, I assume? Your student loans and associated debts have been handled, Mister Fernandes.”

“Right. Well, I don't exactly know -”

“You’re free to seek whatever employment you like.”

“As long as we stay in Seattle.”

“Those are the conditions of the trust, yes. I’m sure someone like yourself won’t have a problem landing a position. Especially when the salary isn’t as much of a concern as it would be for someone else.”

“The trust does relieve those types of concerns, yes.”

“How is Miss Scarlet working out for you?” Jellal wasn’t sure if Ms. Milkovich’s expression sharpened or if it was his conflicted conscience that made it seem so.

“She’s great. The girls love her and she handles everything I can’t.”

“She’s a lovely woman.”

“Uh,” Jellal readjusted himself in his chair. “She is.”

“Very capable.”

“Yes.”

“Incredibly overqualified for her position, though. I can’t imagine what sorts of perks you had to offer her besides going over the suggested salary we discussed.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Ms. Milkovich sighed in a deceptively casual way. “Have you spent much time with her?”

“I do see her every day.”

“Will you keep her on when Yukino starts school in the fall?”

Jellal’s mouth hung open dumbly. His mind wheeled.

“You won’t need a full-time nanny once the little one is in school.”

“I - I hadn’t considered -”

“I wouldn't imagine you’ve considered much at all Mister Fernandes. Has Miss Scarlet grown on you?”

“She -” Jellal deflated and wanted to implode in on himself. “I slept with her.”

“Of course you did.”

“It's been going on for months.”

“These things happen.” Her tone was sympathetic but her mouth was positively deadly.

“It’s completely unethical.”

“And why is that? Did you force her?”

“No! It’s nothing like that!”

“So she willingly seduced her employer?”

“It’s not like that either!”

“Then tell me how it is, Mister Fernandes. What exactly is the bee in your bonnet? Is it that you’ve become a ridiculously cliche man who bangs the nanny?”

“That’s a crass way of putting it.”

Ms. Milkovich shrugged. “If it helps, she’s technically an employee of the estate, not you. I suppose if you truly wanted to get technical, you’re an employee of the estate, as well.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You provide a service for the deceased’s children. You raise them and see them safely into adulthood and their own inheritance in exchange for your life as it currently is. Resources, Mister Fernandes. I work for the children in trust until they come of age, and you work for me. Technically, Miss Scarlet works for me, as well.”

“Are you going to fire her?” He whispered in horror.

“Why would a fire a woman who, by all accounts, we are lucky to have?” Ms. Milkovich straightened in her chair. “Mister Fernandes, I don't care what you and Miss Scarlet do on your own time. If you want to keep her on as a caregiver even after Yukino starts school, that’s not my concern. I can’t deny that the children benefit from her presence, and as I’ve said before the best interests of the children are my job.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Ms. Milkovich stood and smoothed her skirt. “Find a therapist if you’re so conflicted, Mister Fernandes. You can certainly afford one.”

Summer

The girls had been giggling and calling him Doctor for days. Jellal didn’t think he felt any different, though. He’d been offered a position at the University of Washington, which, felt sudden but he had no reason to decline. The commute would be taxing but he was already familiar with the department.

Yukino’s fourth birthday party was a day filled with pink and purple feathers, balloons, and a display of cupcakes that took up half the kitchen table. Erza had handled the guest list and planning. Everything went smoothly until Jellal found himself cornered in the kitchen by the mother of a child in one of his niece’s playgroups. He didn’t know her name at all, which made the whole situation worse.

“I find it hard to believe an attractive man like yourself will be a single father for long,” she said, licking a glob of pink icing off her fingertip.

“Well, I’m not really looking to -”

“Men always say that. Everybody’s looking for something.”

“I’m pretty busy actually. The girls, and school, and now this new job -”

“I heard you had a fancy job in the city.”

“Well, Bellevue is still part of the city so -”

She closed in on him like a tiger. “You talk a lot.” She leaned against the counter next to him so that they were touching. “Maybe we could go out sometime and do less talking?”

A spike in the sound of children shrieking startled him but the woman didn’t budge an inch.

“I think, uh -”

“Hey, Jenny,” Bisca’s voice made him jump and he’d never been happier to have the woman grab the room by the horns. “Your daughter is out there smearing blue shaving cream all over her cute little dress.”

“It’s wa-” Jellal snapped his mouth shut when Bisca's glared at him.

The woman, Jenny, smiled up at him once more before brushing past Bisca.

“You really know how to get yourself in a pickle don’t you, Jellal?” She asked, plucking one of the last cupcakes up for herself.

“I was just standing in here! She descended on me!”

“What’s going on?” Erza appeared in the doorway with a half-empty trash bag.

“Jellal got caught in Jenny’s net,” Bisca said with a wink.

“Oh, no, Jellal, I’m so sorry!’ Erza laughed. “I should’ve warned you about her.”

“She’s a predator.”

“You look like you came out of it okay,” Erza said with a smirk. She reached under the sink for a new trash bag and poked him in the ribs on her way back out to the party.

“You two seem close,” Bisca said offhandedly, peeling back the cupcake paper.

Jellal’s ears burned. “Do we? I mean, she’s here all the time so -”

“It’s important to like the people who take care of the kids.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“How long have you guys been together?”

Jellal froze. “Well she was hired last fall -”

“No, Jellal,” Bisca said softly. “That’s not what I’m asking.”

He slumped against the counter. “Is it so obvious?”

“Not really. I just know you pretty well and I’ve never seen you so comfortable. It was your pathetic awkwardness that demanded I introduce myself to you in the first place. I felt bad for Yukino when you quite obviously didn’t have a clue what you were doing.”

“Erza and I are complicated.”

“I don't need details, hon. She obviously makes you happy and the girls love her. You’ll work it out.” Bisca tossed the cupcake paper into the trash bag Erza left behind. “I’ll help you guys get rid of the guests. These kids look like they’re on their last leg.”

When Erza found him again the sun was hidden and he sat alone on the back porch. She plopped down beside him and took the beer bottle from his hand and finished it off.

“Are the girls asleep?” He asked.

“They passed smooth out. I noticed you got all the trash squared away.”

“I couldn’t stand the thought of waking up to the mess.”

“Well, you’ve set a precedent now. Every party from here on out will have to top the one before it.”

“Two of them a year.”

“Yep.”

“I think I can handle it if you’re here too.”

Erza’s head fell to his shoulder. “Things can’t stay as they are, Jellal. Everything changes always.”

“I don’t want them to change.”

She smiled up at him sadly. “You don’t get a say in that.”

“You’re right,” he said, staring down at his hands. “I know things can’t and won’t stay like they are now. But I don’t want to lose what we have.”

Erza curled her hands around his arm and sighed. “I don’t either.”

Autumn

Jellal pulled into the driveway and slid the key from the ignition. The day had been gruelingly long. Had he been so obnoxious as a postgrad? He’d like to think he wasn’t. The students he worked with annoyed him more than his nieces on their very worst days.

The house smelled like food and he made a quick stop in his office to shed his work thing. When he finally made it to the living room, Sorano nearly gave him a heart attack with a backflip off the couch.

“You’re home!” She exclaimed. “Erza said I could take gymnastics classes!”

“I said you could ask him about it,” Erza called from the kitchen.

“We’ll talk about it this weekend,” he said as Sorano attached herself to his arm. “There’s a place on 112th I pass every day.”

Sorano squealed and darted off toward the stairs. Jellal passed the pile of backpacks and Erza’s heels on his way to the kitchen. All their belongings mixed together now and the chaos of it eased him. He found both Erza and Yukino in the kitchen.

“Will you help me with my homework?” Yukino asked from the table.

“They give homework in pre-k now?”

“It’s just a coloring page,” Erza said, pushing out a chair for him with her foot. “She did do a first grade level worksheet in my office today, though. So that’s interesting.”

“More math stuff?”

“We can have her tested next year when she starts kinder.”

“How was your day?” He asked, sliding an arm around her shoulder. His fingers tangled in her hair the way they always did.

“Long,” she sighed. “But I like it. The school is great and I think it’s a good fit for me.”

“Erza said I could keep snacks in my own box in her office for when I sit with her in the afternoons,” Yukino piped up. “I can even have a nap on the play mats!”

‘Are you sure you don’t want to be in the play gym with the other kids?” Erza asked. “I’d hate for you to be bored with me.”

Yukino smiled and gathered her crayons back into the tin. “Nope. I like the quiet and you’re my favorite besides Sorano and Uncle Jellal.”

She disappeared into the living room with her pink feather boa trailing behind her. Jellal turned to Erza and grinned in the way he’d resigned himself to recognize as sappy.

“You love me right?” He asked. “I’d understand if -”

“Oh, shut up, Jellal.” She leaned in to kiss him briefly before standing. “I’m happy.”

Erza pulled a perfectly cooked roast from the oven and Jellal vaguely wished he could understand the magic behind cooking large cuts of meat slowly over several hours.

“By the way,” Erza said, reaching for the knife block. “My mother is flying up in two weeks. She wants to meet you and the girls. I think Sorano will love her.”

Jellal’s entire body clammed up. Of course Sorano would love her. She loved all things commanding and bossy. He sucked in two deep breaths before deciding Erza’s mother couldn't possibly be any more frightening than Ms. Milkovich.

Could she?

[cryptic-chrysalis]

I'm not as user-friendly as I used to be, at least that's how it must have seemed in drunken dreams that proved to be illusory with hindsight 20/20 through a pair of goggles made of empty glasses on a table set for supper with the twelve apostles, none of whom thought twice of paying five or seven dollars for a bottled water since it's only overpriced until it's turned to wine by Dionysus metamorphosed into Christ performing miracles like David Blaine outwitting the Goliath of the human mind with optical illusions which have been aligned like wires meant to trip the vision, glitches in a system once in mint condition, only to become the victim of decisions ordering the decommission of the old equipment since it's rickety enough to catch a virus from a sick magician smuggling more tricks beneath his hat than could have fit inside a secret bag that never leaves the triple-fingered grasp of an elusive cartoon cat who finds himself in funny fixes, often subject to the sinister designs of counterfeiters unabashedly attempting to convert the trend to cash by courting crowds of young believers so devout that they would not be out of place as extras on the set of yet another Sister Act, with habits so impressive that they might as well have monkeys on their backs like junkies working on another set of track marks, but if being square is hip I guess I'd rather be a tesseract and wrinkle up the fabric of the cosmos just to ditch the beaten path, becoming master of the alchemy to forge the golden keys to immortality with legendary lines that linger longer than the cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks by moving forward faster than a VHS since I have never been the kind to hit rewind before I drop it in the slot unless I think I have a shot at reaching eastern ports by sailing a westward course, on honeymoon alone inside a hearse emblazoned with the proclamation that I've recently divorced, although I had to form a rival church to process all the paperwork and make myself the temporary pope of an unholy land controlled by warring factions in a mediocre karaoke battle of the bands, a perfect recipe to bake a batch of piping hot disasters more explosive than a load of Roman candles lit by plastic soldiers waiting for the birthday boy to blow the fallout far away and make a wish upon a shooting asteroid requesting that the sin of Sodom be destroyed selectively in ways that won't affect the rest, provided they profess a faith in following instructions that have been engraved on tablets made of DNA, a set of ten commandments coded cryptically in chains of ones and zeroes like a reinterpretation of an ancient language spoken by the innocent creator of a universe with only one dimension, prior to the birth of color through the prism which admits the spectrum, stretching in an exponential pattern like a shockwave of unstoppable expansion getting out of hand and leading to a state of total anarchy, devoid of gods and rulers meant to measure out the debt and keep the edge as straight as kids with X's on their fists who revel in the pit, presenting minor threats as side effects of the intent to minimize the risk of being thoroughly lobotomized in ways that don't require any picks designed for chipping ice to be inserted blindly in the frontal lobe that lies behind the sockets of the eyes, creating teenage nightmares like the bloody brides of Frankenstein depicted on the cover of another album mindlessly indulging in the kind of lines against which parents have to be advised with labels introduced in 1985 and still in use to warn against the gore abhorred by Tipper and the references to sex that might engender unexpected consequences when your daughter's high on meth and thinks she wants to moonlight as a stripper, causing an apocalyptic lifting of the veils as the hemlines rise so far above horizons drawn precisely by the architects of etiquette who engineer the trends, exerting efforts meant to influence the overall direction of a war of currents, causing Thomas Edison and General Electric to denounce the work of Westinghouse and Tesla in an escalating series of attempts to stifle and suppress the shocking incandescence of the cleansing flame that melts away the layers of the flesh, exposing naked cells to gamma rays that emanate directly from a brazenly uncovered face belonging to a maker met unwillingly by those afraid to shake the hand of God in case the heavens tremble, threatening an avalanche of angry angels traveling more rapidly than animated birds, approaching at an angle that could never be construed as right, not when the nature of the shape is more isosceles, but still it somehow manages to earn a title calling it sublime because the ratio of side to base is golden as an egg between the legs of the enchanted goose who laid it, fully formed and finely fabricated with a fancy filigree that could have been handmade by master craftsmen of the house of Fabergé for patrons born into the Russian aristocracy, an institution soon to be the target of a mutiny by rebels sent to usher in a union of republics seen as socialist by those who hesitate to call it communism, faces fresh as well-intentioned students off to college for a law degree with prospects that look promising right up until the stocks begin to fall and the economy collapses like the function of a wave that washes up in Indonesia when an earthquake shakes the ocean floor, awakening the demon of the deep, a monster never known to be a heavy sleeper, the colossus feeding on the wettest dreams of all the power-hungry number junkies hoping to become the next big thing until they're broke and on the street, because the buildings that rise high enough to scrape the bottom of the sky are easy targets for a lightning strike that comes completely by surprise, as though the finger of divinity, emerging through the fog of false infinity, could bridge the gap and touch the mind in ways that seem entirely indecent, a conception made immaculate by ignorance regarding the mechanics of the quantum leap that must be made to generate a whole new state of being in a way that's not unlike the flipping of a switch, a shift which almost seems like witchcraft, digitally skipping over spaces vast enough to make the difference separating total emptiness from solid substance, forming the foundations of a program destined to evolve toward futuristic new frontiers that make the feat of self-awareness seem as elementary as phonics meant to hook the reader who has already become successful as a novelist, autonomously functioning with levels of intelligence transcending the tradition of exception rooted in the basic claim that works of artifice can never hold a candle to the handiwork of Nature even though she's gone demented in a way that shows her age, a crazy scientist who leaves the floodgates open when she goes to bed, retiring just after lighting fires bright enough to heat debates that aggravate the conflagration kindled into being by the first invigorating spark that rendered Plato's cave ablaze to make the shadows that can only be mistaken for reality when there's no other way to see that might betray the true dimensionality of forests never seen because the trees are always falling silent, smothered in a vacuum deemed unnatural by text in black and white suggesting artlessly that darkness can be absolute, although in truth there's only relativity, and all of my relations say Mitakuye Oyasin echoed by the sound of rain which dances with a childlike abandon on the roof without the need for moccasins or cowboy boots, absorbed into the consciousness that's bodiless and able to embrace a form that comes before the humblest of birthday suits, attire worn by embryos in utero who have to look their best when walking down the carpet painted red by vessels filled with blood like grapes which must be crushed to formulate the sacrifice allowing them to make their big debut, emerging on the scene of what it means to be a human, tainted by the sin of true originality inherent in the act of going lucid while refusing to release the sand of dreaming from between the fingers, stopping up the hourglass that eats away at all the finest figures just in time to extricate the parasite from vital information closely guarded by the temple knights who hide it like a world-destroying virus, locked up tight inside the tiny spaces riddling the hearts and minds of anyone affected by the entropy of bodily decay, because the key of life is safest in the pocket of a lost Osiris, shielded from desire's evil eye by virtue of the simple fact that it's been taken from beneath the mat and buried in the most unlikely place where only fools will ever find it.

2/21/17

[killershot]

On the Verge of a Panic Attack

I don’t know why I took so long to get home I guess it was un mal precentimiento a bad feeling. I was wandering on Western and Wilshire hadn’t made up my mind if I wanted to go home or roam. Then I got the call my Tia said the cops were home.

They were looking for me.

I hit up a friend right away. Chad if you’re reading this you’re the real MVP (that and tarte cosmetics). He told me everything I needed to know the questions they would ask me how they would go about doing things.

He said be patient.

Be cooperative.

Stay calm. Composed.

He’d seen it all before. Been there done that. He was a master a pro at what cops called a 5150.

“They’re gonna try to intimidate you. To twist your words.  To keep you there. If you don’t feel safe just say ‘I feel like you’re putting words in my mouth.’”

That became a catch phrase.

Didn’t think I’d use it with such frequency.

I was also mad. Mad at the fact that I wasn’t gonna get my Buffulo Wild Wings as I had planned and mad that all of this which I had already decided to bury with a hatchet, was only the beginning.

I did send an angry text but that was it. Felt somewhat betrayed I mean how could you? I told you I was scared of being inside of a mental asylum.

Look I know the story by heart my aunt was locked up years ago for saying she wanted to kill my cousins her husband and then herself just to end the nightmare.

They put her in the looney bin for 3 days.

No one knew about her for those days my youngest cousin doesn’t even recall the incident. She was very little. As for my two other cousins they were new immigrants with little to no knowledge of the English language.

That 72 hour hold loomed on me like a dark cloud.

I never thought my own people where the ones to deceive me.

I arrived; there they were looking like Frank Poncherello and Jon from the movie Chips. Just your everyday comic relief cop character I could hear the song playing in the background bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do whatcha gonna do when they come for you I tweaked the lyrics a little in my head until I arrived at the front of the house.

I felt at ease for a brief second. I thought wrongfully that I could trust officer Encino such a brown last name I’d be let go in a few. How wrong was I.

He wasn’t very tall or very fit just you’re every day stereotypical Mexican American 5 generations retired so really a Californian. Family had been in this land for generations unlike my parents.

Officer Carpenter was a tall lanky guy, freckly looking with redish hair. You could tell he didn’t want to be there he had other more important things to do like catch thieves stop killers and lock up rapists but no he was here dealing with a girl who just had a mini ataque de panico. Reminiscent of a film I watched in Spanish class Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Panico it was an old film from 1988 but for some reason we watched it. Our teacher was weird I guess.  

We chatted talked about the incident I reassured them I was ok and looking forward to having diner with my family and when I say family I meant my 7 cats. It was almost feeding time. I could see Canseco my newly beloved son and prized possession lurking under the car. His tummy rumbling.

Officer Encino just wouldn’t let me go tried to twist my words interrogated me made me feel stupid. I kept on repeating “I feel like you’re putting words in my mouth” he was offended, defensive every time I said that but I’m used to it by now. I know someone like him. He gets defensive too. At least he didn’t hit me with the; you’re slandering me words. It echos in my head sometimes. After I heard it I had to Google it to see what that word really means. Slandering.

I forget.

It was a 5150 and even after Officer Carpenter said “She’s fine just let her go” Officer Encino decided to arrest me.

Options I had none but I had a few.

After he said he would “have to arrest me” I played some scenarios in my head after all I am a quick thinker.

Scenario 1: I would punch him. Kick that smirk right off his face. They would be forced to shoot. I would probably die. I could see it now “Hispanic female in late 20’s shot right outside of her South Central LA home after resisting arrest.” I’d die a martyr. I think I smiled a little. People would hold vigilances for me I’d be another colored getting killed by the LAPD it sounded like a weird twisted fantasy until I heard my mom wailing. I snapped.

Scenario 2: I’d run. I don’t even like running but I could try to escape via running until I realized A. I’m terrible at running B. They would probably catch up to me and C. I’d get tazed half a block away from my house in front of all my neighbors to see. How humiliating. I couldn’t.

Scenario 3: Turn myself in which I did.

I was handcuffed in front of my family and a few chismoso neighbors. It was exactly how you see it in Cops. I don’t know if it’s protocol or what but I felt like a criminal. I was nervous I’m not gonna lie I wanted my phone my sense of security.

We drove down to the police station 3rd district South Central LA. I’ve been here before countless of times. Sometimes angry sometimes crying. I’ve been here to pick up my cousin Herberth who has a mental disability and Kevin his friend who is also mentally unstable. I’ve come here with my auntie when she got jumped and beaten in the corner of Western and 42nd right in front of the Snooty Fox hotel to file a police report. I’ve been here so often that for a second I thought a cop would recognize me.

Nothing I was just “The Nike Girl”.

I walked past those cells horrible things were in them. Can’t really go into detail I didn’t want to look to further traumatize myself.

I got my own little cell.

4 white walls. A female officer came to “pat me down” Officer Beadle she was…a bitch.

Even after Officer Carpenter told her I was “friendly” and “nice” she still treated me like complete garbage like a criminal and humiliated me in front of all to see. Dignity? I don’t know her. She stuffed her hand in my hair and ruffled it around violently I was steaming inside. I didn’t care much for the awkward crotch grab you just don’t grab my hair like that. If Larry taught me anything was “respect a black girls hair” or in my case my 4c hair type inherited to me from my David Ortiz looking father.

And there I was in my little cell surrounded by four white walls there was no clock to tell the time nothing to entertain me. I was slowly loosing it. My patience that is.

But everyone came to visit my cute face. Unlike my fellow inmates I was well dressed small young looking and cute.

Their visits entertained me. I was utterly bored and I thrived in that attention.

I liked being referred as a “pretty girl” although I don’t believe it I still liked that.

We talk about running. Look I’ve never sold a god dam shoe in my life but I can sure act like I do.

We talked about Free’s, Pegasus and Lunarglides each and every officer that came through and asked about their foot I gave them my recommendation. From a guy with wide feet Vromeros or Pegasus Wide to a guy with flat feet in need of more support to getting technical with work out shoes like Metcons? Metcons I didn’t know much.

Discounts?

I get 40 you? You my friend get...none. Unless you get me the fuck out of here I’ll send you a gift card or something.

I guess time went by quicker than I thought. They had dinner someone got shot and they left me alone for an hour. Many things happen among the worst was my need to use the restroom. Nature was calling I needed to pee and I swear I held it for as long as I could cause I thought they’ll release me soon they have to look at how well behaved I am opposed to the other inmates they caused a havoc. Could hear their screaming and cussing.

A female officer came to take me the bathroom, it was just as bad as a bathroom in a bar in the Tenderloin San Francisco. I am the worst squatter in the universe like my squatting abilities are atrocious. There was some toilet paper I lined the toilet was about to pull my pants down when I noticed the officer looking at me.

“Can you please close the door?” I asked sheepishly.

“No we can’t I gotta keep it open” and supervise me peeing she didn’t say that but actions speak louder than words she saw me pee and it was humiliating.

I could feel the pee trickling to my thigh like fuck now I got pee in my thighs I rolled my eyes a couple of times pulled up my pants in disgrace and attempted to flush the toilet. She’s lucky I shaved that day. It wouldn’t flush my urine and the urine of countless of other individuals laid there together.

I attempted to wash my hands. No soap. I was irritated. You know how you can tell if someone is sane is if they wash their hands after using the bathroom at least that’s what I thought. She sighed and smiled at me if I read her mind correctly she said something along the words of I wish all inmates were as easy as you.

So I sat in my cell for what felt like an eternity.

Officer Encino wanted the worst for me he wanted me to be on hold for 72 hours. The funny thing about my people is they don’t want to see you shine. They don’t want you to succeed I guess they envy that. They gotta put you down and demoralize you somehow. It’s funny all this time I thought we were suppose to stick together support one another be there for one another but I think that was just some brainwashing I had at San Francisco State University the only University with a building dedicated to the Ethnic Studies. There I learned how to embrace every single aspect of my Latinx heritage claiming my Indio as well as my African side. I thought we were all Raza but I guess my professors lied.

“Your job is to give back to the community” I could hear Professor Cordova’s words echo around the cell. Giving back to the community was priority number one and as a young college student that’s exactly what I wanted to do I wanted to help mi gente but not everyone wants to help us. I learned that the hard way.

They bickered back and forth let her go to no 72 hour hold they had to wait on someone much more qualified to make that decision I don’t remember her name or her partners name. She reminded me of my high school teacher awkward hippy looking white lady with her short black sidekick.

I answered all the questions correctly as I was told by Chad even if I lied on some. I cracked a joke and made them laugh brought them at ease.

I could see the frustration on Officer Encino’s face he was disappointed everyone had agreed I really didn’t need to be taken to the psychiatric ward.

He should be happy I thought why would he want me to go through so much unnecessary pain. But then I remembered that he wasn’t there to help me he was there to destroy me and to make this all the much unbearable.  That friendly Latino face I thought I could trust gone can’t trust my own people. They say they do it with the pretext that they care I didn’t believe it I could never believe it Cucarachas I muttered.

I got home roughly at around 9:20pm I’d been there for hours no BDubs for me.

I wasn’t even mad or irritated I was relieved. I sent you a text out of courtesy not because I thought you’d care. I could care less of me too. I responded to her text cause I felt like she cared or at least acts like it I mean I can act too. I’m not the best actress but I did play Iago in high school and very well at least that’s what Ms. Pilaf would have said.

I tucked myself in bed and was visited by my first born, Mjolnir. Cat’s are such mysterious creatures its as if they know; they show affection in a way people and dogs can’t. He cuddled right next to me grooming the bits of hair I had frizzled everywhere. I had forgotten what it felt like just this ball of fluff purring right next to me rubbing his head on mine. It had been a long day all I can say is I’m glad that shit’s over.

  PS:

I don’t want to brag but I got some badass skills to be a magnificent author I guess Ms. Vazquez was right I am a writer and I feel like I am a much more honest person with my feeling when I write. To those of you who have read this little piece thank you.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #349

“we’ll meet again, when both our cars collide”

When was the last time you had a PopTart? It's been many, many months. Do you like hot chocolate? Well duh. Who made you laugh the hardest today? I haven't really laughed today. Who was the last person to promise you something, and what was it? Hmph. Would you ever jump into a fire to save your bestfriend? I know I would. Do you have a callus from writing too much? No, I only have calluses on my feet from when I used to walk for hours on end. They just never permanently went away, even with grooming. Who is someone you’ve made a bad first impression on? I dread to guess what the girl Jason dated after me was told about me. I shouldn't care at all, but I do. I have every reason to accurately be defined as "the crazy ex," and I fucking hate it. Who is your best guy friend? Girt, a friend from high school. Do you read cereal boxes while you’re eating? I did as a kid, but now I don't. I just kinda stand and eat. What’s the last thing you accidentally (or purposely) burnt? I kinda burnt the roof of my mouth on pizza the other night. Do you know anyone with a lip piercing? Me, haha. I know others, too. What did the last tattoo you saw, look like? I don't remember. Have you ever given birth? NO FUCKING THANK YOU. Do you enjoy making out? I mean if I'm in the mood to and I love you, yeah. Why exactly do you take surveys? "I genuinely like doing them and they’re great for venting and sorting out thoughts and whatnot. I can just ramble and get things off my chest." <<<< This right here covers it. As well, it's just a boredom killer. And I happen to be bored very, very often. Rockband or Gutair Hero? Both are great, why choose just one? What are you listening to right now? Halocene's cover of "Helena" by My Chemical Romance. It's beautiful. What kind of energy drinks do you drink, if any? None, because I just can't do energy drinks. They taste like pure poison to me. Have you ever been swimming in a river? No. Swimming in a river sounds pretty dangerous... Does your alarm clock wake you with music, or with an annoying buzz sound? Music. When you broke stuff in the house as a child, did you blame it on siblings? I'm hoping you don't mean breaking deliberately, 'cuz I wasn't that kind of kid. But anyway, I don't believe I did. Did you make it all the way through the Oregon Trail game? Yes. I was obSESSED with those games as a kid. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Which one are you more scared of? Tigers, probably. They're so stealthy and, while I may be entirely wrong, seem like the top candidate of the three to attack a human, be it for food or defense. And have you SEEN the muscles on a tiger? Christ. Describe the best use that you’ve found for duct tape: Uh, taping things lmao. Do you wrap gifts or use gift bags? I use gift bags, because I can't wrap for shit. What fast food place do you avoid at all costs? Arby's is really gross to me. Are you afraid of deep sea creatures? Just giant squid... *shudders* Have you ever agreed to purchase something on Ebay and got scammed somehow? No. I did, however, purchase something on deviantART and never got the product. It was going to be a present for Jason. In dA's defense though, I've bought like... two or three other things from there, and there were zero issues. It's really about the people you trust. If you get a call that says “Unknown”, do you answer it? Nnnnope. Do you have any bobble head figures? No. Have your parents ever left you somewhere without realizing it? I don't think so. Have you ever been in a tanning bed? No. Did your last kiss mean anything to you? Well yeah, I wouldn't have kissed her otherwise. Would you say that you have a nice smile? No; I've been self-conscious of it since I was a kid, mostly because one of my eyes looks more squinty than the other, but they both are to me. I've always said I look high when I smile lmao. Is there an ex you want to make up with? My mind immediately screams "Jason," but I know that's a horrendous idea. Our last talk ended peacefully and even with care and good wishes, and I need my fucking impenetrable head to accept that's where it needs to end. He does NOT need to re-enter my life. It would be so bad for me. Do you remember how you felt on 9/11? I have no memory of it, if I'm being honest. What outfit makes you feel the most attractive? None. Other than yourself, who knows you the best? Really? Whoever reads these lmao. What’s one complaint that you have about school? Common Core and how every student's school experience was not tailored towards their unique goals. Like they try to cram a shitload of identical and usually useless information into a kid's brain to make them a jack of all trades, you could say, but not enough information they need to properly pursue their career future. It causes such an unnecessary amount of frustration and stress. I have many, many complaints about the education system, but this one tops the list. What do you do while you’re on campus but not in class? Back in college, I would just do stuff on my laptop. Do you know anyone who has Autism/Asperger’s syndrome? Yes. Are you open to a same-sex relationship and why or why not? Well, considering I'm bisexual... Do you remember life without the internet? No. Have you ever found yourself to be ugly? I've gone my entire life thinking I'm ugly, if I'm being real. What is your state’s minimum wage? $7.25 a fucking hour. :'''''') Is there something you want to say to someone but can’t/won’t? There's a few people. What is your first memory of being in a hospital? Considering my mom worked at the local hospital when I was a kid, I remember being there quite, quite young, playing with my older sister in Mom's and her coworkers' room. I think Nicole was too young to really "play." Do you have any relatives with red hair? No. What is something good that has happened to you in the past week? I got my first Covid vaccine. My arm hurts like a motherfucker now, but to protect my mom, it's worth it. Please get vaccinated. How much was the rent/mortgage at the cheapest place you’ve ever lived? That's never been my business. Have you ever been to a gay pride parade? No, but I would go to a local one if I could actually walk five feet without being in serious pain and sweating like a pig. Do you still keep in touch with your very first best friend? We're friends on Facebook, but that's it. What was the topic of the last conversation you had with your dad? I can't remember, but it was recent, because we all met at Ashley's house for Nicole's birthday celebration. How often did you visit your grandparents when you were growing up? Pretty much never, given they all lived no less than like, 10 hours (via car) from where we lived. My immediate family are the only people in NC. When two family members are fighting, what do you usually do? Stay out of it, but admittedly try to listen just to know what's going on. Do you like the smell of men’s cologne? Yeah. What’s your all time FAVORITE freezer food? Do you eat that a lot? I survive off of microwaveable freezer food, so this is very hard... uhhhhh... perhaps this Banquet bowl meal that's mac 'n cheese with spicy chicken. It's absolutely delicious, like you'd never guess that sucker was just popped in the microwave. I'd say I eat it a moderate amount; it's a reliable option if Mom's not cooking and I'm really hungry, because it's super filling. Do you like documentaries? Have you ever watched one and find it boring? I enjoy them, particularly when they're about animals. Were you ever a fan of macaroni & cheese? Do you like Kraft dinner? Ha, speak of mac 'n cheese. I love it, and Kraft makes it fine. Do you burn incense? Not as much as I used to. I love the smell and just general vibe, though. What would you consider an unacceptable first date? Going to a bar or something. Have you ever been so sick you had to be taken to the hospital? In the head, anyway. Is there anything currently bothering you? Multiple things. Would you say that you’ve got something ‘special’ about you? No. Do you like things vampire-related? I don't really have an opinion on vampire stuff. Are you the kind of person who does not like talking about their past? I don't care. Have you ever been to a casino? No. What’s the last thing you wore a costume for besides Halloween related events? Back when I still took dance classes and we had the yearly recital. What does your father do for a living? He's a mailman. What’s the last app you downloaded on your phone? Haha, I re-downloaded this ollllldddd game I had before, Nyan Cat: Lost in Space (or something like that?) for my niece to play. She's hooked on it now. Are you in any discomfort right now? Yeah; as I mentioned, my arm really hurts. What do you know the most about? Of all things I know, almost certainly meerkats. Are you seeing anyone? No. Have you ever hooked back up with an ex, just for sex? Was it a mistake or no? No. Have you ever gotten in trouble for using a phone in class? No, because I didn't use my phone in class. Have you seen all the Shrek movies? No, which is a fucking crime. I need to see the last one. Have you ever finished a whole video game? Plenty plenty plenty. Do you know anyone with a pet snake? Yeah, myself included. If you had to live in an extreme environment — think Sahara, Antarctica, under the sea, on the Moon— where would you want to live? Why? Probably Antarctica. I'm sure it would be unpleasant, being that cold, but I feel there's more you can do about being cold than being in the scalding heat of, say, the Sahara. Living on the moon or in the deep ocean sounds super sucky. How was your day overall? It's been okay. Not as bored as usual, at least. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? Like... zero. I want to say my dad, and I almost do, just... nightmares make that very, very difficult. Plus his past. What does your mom call you? Normally just "Britt." Write a sentence in another language: Oh god, my German is so rusty... uhhhh... Hallo, ich heiße Brittany, und ich bin 25 Jahre alt und wohne in North Carolina. I think I got the grammar right? Have you ever sent an X-Rated picture to someone? No. Even if I was comfortable with my body, I would be way too paranoid to at any point have a naked picture on my phone, even if I deleted it. Like, hello blackmail, but also, nothing you delete is ever really gone permanently. What big city do you live near? Raleigh is like an hour away. Do you like breaded chicken sandwiches? omg YES Is there a Sonic in your area? Yes, it's my favorite fast food joint. You have GOT to try the pretzel twists with cheese dip. Have you ever gone to a thrift store? Yeah, I love 'em. Do you think Johnny Depp is attractive? I do. Are you happy with the state you live in? No, not at all. I hate this place. Bunch of homophobic, racist rednecks. How many times have you seen the opposite sex naked? It's not like I counted every time I saw my ex naked over three and half years lmao. How many times have you seen the same sex naked? A few times. When days go by, do you cross them off on the calendar? I don't use a calendar. Are you currently counting down to something? If so, what? MY TATTOO APPOINTMENT!!!!! :''') I know I can't stop talking about it, but ugh I'm so excited. May 19th, c'mon already. Do you pay rent to your parents? No. Do you dye eggs for Easter? I used to as a kid. Not so much anymore. Are you in debt right now? For what? Oh god, I don't want to think of this. Would you ever work night crew? I really, really wouldn't want to. Humans are diurnal for a reason. Being awake in constant darkness would depress the fuck outta me, and it'd feel so lonely, with everyone I know asleep. Who was the last person that lied to you, or that you can recall lying to you? What did they lie about? How did you find out they were lying? I don't remember. Has anyone ever called you ugly, straight up, before? How did you react to this? No, not to my face. Who is the most stubborn person you know {excluding yourself}? MY MOTHER.