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sparrellow · 4 years

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Break A Leg, But Not Literally

Len was happy working from the shadows. Rin was a natural performer. Kaito loved being in the spotlight.

Another year, another school musical—and yet, just when all seemed to be going as usual, the universe had other plans.

rating: T genre: romance/friendship/humour/fluff ships: rin/len, miku/kaito if you squint words: 10,164

Len had always been a shy kid, avoiding anything that would draw unnecessary attention to him.

Every semester, his high school’s theatre club would hold a musical. It wasn’t his idea to join the theatre club (honestly, he’d rather be part of the go-home club), but he had no choice after being dragged by his bold best friend, Kaito, to the sign-up booth during first year.

Kaito was the polar opposite of Len. He loved the spotlight. He’d been acting ever since he was five. He was always first to volunteer in middle school for plays and the like. The guy was just, well, overwhelmingly eager to have hundreds of eyes staring him down.

Of course, Len never dared set foot on the stage—grudgingly obliging to work on props and lighting, and act as a stagehand. That was fine. He liked working from the shadows.

However, it was soon their last semester in which they could participate in a musical before graduation, and naturally, Kaito was trying to nag him into actually doing something.

“C’mon, you could be like, a tree, or a swan, or something,” he hissed to him.

They were sitting at the back of the auditorium, watching the auditions for the female lead roles. The male lead role auditions were scheduled next, and hence, Kaito was waiting for his time to shine.

This semester’s musical was Swan Lake , interestingly enough. (Although, by the sounds of it, they were opting for a less tragic ending, much to Len's disappointment.)

Len rolled his eyes, although his friend couldn’t see his expression in the dark. “I’d rather be stung by a thousand wasps,” he said. “Really, Kai. I’m just happy to watch from the sidelines like always.”

“You’ll regret it,” Kaito said. “And I mean, like, you did a pretty good Odette impression when we were practicing yesterday.”

Len snorted. “Hilarious.”

“It’s true! And when you—”

He shushed his friend as the next auditioner walked onto the stage. Small, feeble, yet very cute; there stood a nervous-looking Rin Kagamine.

Kaito wolf-whistled and waved at her, earning a slap on the leg from Len. Rin glanced up at them and smiled sheepishly, before beginning her audition.

Rin was… well, she was one of the best performers in the theatre group. She’d been doing ballet since she could walk, and taking singing lessons since she could talk. She was humble and sweet and eager to please, always wearing a smile, always being soft-spoken.

There was just a lot to be said about her, but Len could never find all the right words.

One could say it was a crush, and maybe it was—he just really, really admired her.

Kaito and Rin were good friends, having played major roles in past musicals together many times. Len could barely get out a sentence around her, though. Nevertheless, she was Rin— painfully polite and always treating others kindly.

Len watched as she acted out the scene where Odette sees Siegfried and Odile dancing together in the castle. The emotion she poured into her acting and singing—even though it was just an audition—made it seem as if the pain she was feeling was real. The performance pulled at his heartstrings.

When Rin finished her audition and toddled off the stage looking like she’d walked straight into a storm, Kaito turned to Len and said, “Oh, she’s definitely getting the lead role.”

“Yeah?”

“Too bad you won’t be her Siegfried,” he teased with a wink.

Len sighed. “What, you want to audition for Rothbart instead?”

Kaito stroked his chin in thought. “Well, auditioning as a villain is definitely a first, but I’m not opposed…”

They watched the rest of the auditions in silence. Perhaps Len was just biased, but it really did seem likely Rin would get the female lead. Of course, the other students were good, but Rin… she just stood out something special on stage.

Next were the male leads, and Kaito jumped up, ready to go wait in line to be called down by the front.

“Good luck,” he hissed to his friend.

Kaito blew him a kiss and ran off.

Unsurprisingly, he blew his audition out of the water. Of course, Len already knew that—having been his Odette while he practiced for the audition of Siegfried for the past week or so. He was definitely talented.

A few weeks after the auditions, all roles for the musical were announced. As expected, both Kaito and Rin got the leads. Rin seemed genuinely surprised, being too humble for her own good, but Kaito just looked smug.

“It’s a pity you can’t be my Odette,” he joked, as Len checked the lists for what job he’d be appointed. Ew, yet again painting and moving the props.

“I’m quite happy for Rin to be up there instead of me,” Len said, frowning at the paper as he read the names of other students who were helping out. Ugh, and that bossy girl Meiko is in charge of it? What a nightmare.

“Really? Doesn’t seem like that to me,” Kaito observed. Then he leaned over to read the list Len was looking at, snickering at something. “Oh, look! Your best friend Meiko is going to be working with you.”

The last time Meiko and Len were on the same team for the musical, she made him repaint an entire set because she didn’t like the shade of green he used. God, were art students such a pain in the butt.

Len shrugged his shoulders, considering asking to be moved to lighting or audio. “Hopefully I’ll get the paint colour right this time.”

Rin came skipping over to the boys with a smile that lit up the whole room, drawing their attention away from the list. She congratulated Kaito on landing his role. “I look forward to working with you!” she exclaimed, bowing politely.

Kaito nudged Len, winked, then gave her a thumbs up. “Right back at you, Rinnie,” he said.

She glanced over at Len questioningly, who was standing off to the side looking like a cardboard cut-out. “Are you working on props again, Len?”

Len looked down, his ears burning. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Len, here—if only he would audition too,” Kaito said, throwing a thumb in his direction. “He didn’t make a bad Odette when I was practicing.”

Rin raised her eyebrows, surprised. “Really? I wouldn’t think of Len as one to do acting.”

“I don’t,” Len mumbled.

Kaito chortled, slapping a hand down on Len's shoulder, who grunted at the impact. “Oh yeah, but he’s always been a great practice partner! He’s pretty much half the reason I remember my lines.”

“That’s nice of him!” Rin said, beaming. “Maybe I need to practice with him too. I always take forever to learn mine…”

“Well, next time him and I are practicing, I’ll call you over,” Kaito said with a grin. Len wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not, but he was praying that he wasn’t.

A group of some theatre girls walked past, calling Rin over, and she cast an apologetic look at the boys. “Sorry, gotta go,” she said, before waving goodbye and running off.

Kaito turned to Len, the grin still on his face. “So, what do you think? Wanna help Rin remember her lines?”

Len scowled at him. “Kai, I can barely get a sentence out around her. Do you think I’d be much help?”

His friend slung an arm around his shoulders. “Oh Len, we just have to get that talkative side to come out first.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Fat chance , Len mused with a pout.

The weeks rolled by, with work on the musical starting off slow. Len spent most of his afternoons painting props and avoiding Meiko’s wrath, and listening to the other theatre kids gossip.

One day, one of his classmates—and fellow theatre club members—approached him.

“Hey Len,” she said.

She was playing the role of Odile, and helping with other things on the side—Miku, he recalled her name. They’d barely talked in all their years together, so this was a first.

She crouched on the ground beside him as he was finishing off the flowers on a bush, and looked at him with a serious expression while twisting a pigtail in one hand. “Are, you know, Kaito and Rin, like, dating? ”

Len paused mid-stroke, going, “Uhh.”

“Because, like, they seem to be really close, right, and they’re always getting the main roles,” she babbled, and he sat there in silence, wondering for a moment. “And like, I’m just curious, ‘cus they haven’t really said anything, but like, it just wouldn’t surprise me, you know?”

Eventually, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dunno. None of my business.” He didn’t think they were dating, but, hell, who knew. Maybe that had changed within the past day or so.

Miku looked at him weirdly. “Aren’t you, like, his best friend?”

“Yeah, and I dunno,” Len answered, returning the same expression. “What’s it to you?”

She flushed. “W-well, you know, I just thought…”

“Why not ask Kaito or something?” he said, looking back down at the prop he was working on. “The guy doesn’t keep any secrets.”

Miku huffed, frustrated with his answers. “Well, I—um, it’s just—that would be sort of rude, okay?”

Len raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

Then she threw her head back, groaning. “Wow, you are so weird. Never mind.”

Miku got up and ran off, not bothering him again. But that got Len thinking…

What if they were dating? Sure, they were friendly with each other, but that was just—he assumed—because they’d worked together on so many musicals before. Besides, Kaito was always sort of gently nudging Len to make a move on Rin, so it didn’t make much sense if they did happen to be dating. (Unless they were like, polyamorous or something.)

Even so, Len couldn’t blame people for assuming it. They were a good-looking couple when together. And the few practices he’d sat through, he couldn’t help but be mesmerised by their acting with one another. Their voices harmonised well, their height difference was sort of amusing, and even their personalities seemed to contrast nicely.

He frowned down at the ugly flower he was painting. It was impossible to see himself with Rin, when she was just so bright and cheery, and him akin to the dark side of the moon.

“Len!” Meiko snapped, disturbing him from his thoughts. She was standing over him, her hands on her hips and her face pulled into a snarl. “Can you pick up the pace? We still have thirteen more of these bush sets to paint!”

Len grumbled an apology, and got back to work, thoughts of Rin and Kaito reeling through his mind.

“Huh, so something weird happened today,” Kaito said, while peeling open an ice-cream he got from the cafeteria vending machine. They were on lunch break, and it was a pleasant, mid-autumn afternoon, so they were sitting out in the courtyard, enjoying the sun.

“What happened?” Len asked, picking at the hard-boiled egg in his lunchbox.

“You know that girl Miku,” he continued, “she’s Odile, right? Anyway, she came up to me all flustered or something and was like, ‘Oh my God, are you and Rin dating?’” He mocked her voice and everything.

Len popped his egg into his mouth and chewed slowly. “She actually asked?” he said.

Kaito then looked at him, surprised. “What, did you know about this?”

“She came up to me the other day, asking if you two were dating,” Len said, before taking a sip of his banana-flavoured milk.

“She asked you? What did you say?”

“I said, ‘I dunno.’”

Kaito raised an eyebrow. “You just told her, ‘I dunno’?”

Len shrugged. “Yeah. She wasn’t happy with that answer, though, so I said if she wanted to know, to just ask you. I didn’t actually think she would, though.”

Kaito scoffed. “She did, and she looked like she was in pain.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Seemed happy to know we weren’t— ” Kaito then narrowed his eyes at Len, “—dating, though.”

“Look, it’s not my business to know if you two have something going on,” Len defended himself, pretty pathetically at that. “And, well, you’re spending a lot of time together now so maybe something could change. I don’t know.”

Kaito sighed, throwing an arm over his friend's shoulders and roughing up his hair. “God, you’re a loser. But Len, you know, Rin isn’t my type. Not saying she isn’t cute, but…” He released him and gave him a serious look. “Anyway, I’m not that much of a self-centred dick to date her behind your back, am I?”

Len shook his head, reaching up to fix his fringe. “No, but, like, I don’t own her or anything. I can’t even look her in the eye.”

“Hmm,” Kaito said. “Len, you’re too complacent and nice for your own good. You should be more fighty if you want to catch Rin’s attention.”

“I don’t like conflict.”

“Man, you’re strange.” Kaito gave him a grin, taking a bite of his ice-cream. “But I guess that’s what makes you Len.”

Len gave a dry laugh, which died down pretty soon thereafter, because he spotted the tell-tale wobble of a certain girl’s white ribbon. Rin was approaching them from the other side of the courtyard, a sense of urgency in her step.

“Hey Kaito,” she called, waving. She nodded at Len as a greeting. “We’re having a quick emergency measure-up to double check our measurements for costumes before they get finalised. Can I borrow you for a sec?”

“Aw man,” Kaito groaned. “It’s lunch time! Can’t they let a guy rest?”

Her lips twitched. “Sorry, Kai.” As Kaito gathered his things, she turned to Len. “Hi Len. How are all the props going?”

“I’ve painted seven bushes,” Len said to his knees. “And my hand really hurts.”

“Len’s an art prodigy, you see,” Kaito commented, slapping him on the back, earning a disgruntled oof . “Meiko loves his work.”

Rin raised an eyebrow. This time, she couldn’t contain her smirk. “Really?” she said, sounding skeptical. “To be honest, that girl terrifies me. Well, good luck, Len!”

Then she and Kaito were off, leaving Len to sit in the courtyard by himself and sigh down at his half-eaten lunch.

Well, at least he said more than three words to her, this time.

Winter vacation came and went, and soon began the countdown. Of course, the musical was still at least two months away, but theatre kids liked to feel the pressure of impending doom for some odd reason.

Len’s team had finished with painting the bushes and were tasked to work on the castle shell with another team. Apart from a few students who were picky about design and colour, most days spent painting were uneventful.

The good thing was that the theatre club shared the auditorium for both prop preparation and rehearsal, so he got to see Kaito and Rin’s progress, too. Of course, on the odd occasion, Len was forced into helping Kaito practice his role on the weekends, but he preferred seeing it from the perspective of the audience.

One afternoon, while painting and listening to everyone’s rehearsal, there seemed to be some drama up on the stage. The theatre club’s president—Luka—was in a bad mood that day, and after Rin had stuffed up her lines for the fifth time in a row, she snapped .

Len had stopped whatever he was doing to watch as Luka pulled Rin aside to talk to her off-stage. A few minutes later, Rin went running out of the auditorium in tears.

No one else seemed to notice; rehearsal had moved on to another scene without her, and the art, audio and lighting kids were too busy focusing on their work to pay attention. Len looked around, hoping someone would follow after her, but no one did.

His stomach twisted, and he felt guilty having witnessed it, but not doing anything about it.

Len sat for a moment, waiting for her to come back, or something , before taking a deep breath and deciding to be the one to take the initiative. He excused himself for the bathroom and went out the same door Rin ran through minutes earlier, wandering down the hall in search of the girl.

Eventually he found her tucked underneath the staircase after following the sound of her sniffling. She looked surprised on seeing him, and hurried to wipe away her tears.

He stood there, staring at her forehead, before eventually clearing his throat and going, “Uh… um… are you… okay?”

It was the most ridiculous question to ask, given Rin was literally crying right in front of him, and he punched himself in the mouth mentally for not being at least an ounce more socially adept.

She didn’t seem to mind the foolish question, though. She sniffled, wiping at her nose with her sleeve. “Ah… Len. I’m sorry. I’m okay, just… a little stressed is all.” She gave him a watery smile in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Len glanced off to the side, fiddling with his sleeve. “I saw Luka getting mad up on stage.”

Rin winced, screwing up her face. “Yeah… she’s stressed, too.” She sighed. “I mean, it’s my fault for not remembering my lines, so…” Her voice wobbled a bit at that, and she sniffled again, tears gathering.

Oh boy. He didn’t want to make her cry more. “It’s okay,” he blurted out, as if those words alone would make the situation any better. “It’s not your fault. It can’t be helped. We’re only human.”

She smiled a bit. “Yeah. You’re right,” she said. “It’s just… a lot of pressure, you know? Being the main character. I can’t help but feel I’m not right for the role. Like Miku… well, she’s so much better at this than I am.”

“That’s not true,” Len blurted. Rin looked surprised, and so did he. He scratched at his neck. “Well, um, I dunno, when I watched your audition, I couldn’t stop thinking about how well you suited Odette. Like, Miku’s was good, but there was something yours had that… hers didn’t.”

Rin tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking down. Although she still seemed upset, she had calmed down a bit.

He continued, trying to fill in the awkward silence, “I think you can do it.”

She sniffled again, letting out a shaky laugh. “Thank you, Len,” she said. She hesitated a bit, before looking up at him. “And thank you for coming out to check on me. That’s… really kind of you.”

Len managed a smile, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes.

Rin wiped at her face again and fixed her hair, taking a breath. “Okay. Let’s go back.”

They walked back to the auditorium together in silence. Before they split off their separate ways, Len stopped her, fingers barely grazing the sleeve of her shirt.

“Um,” he fumbled, when she turned to look at him. “Good luck up there.”

The corners of her lips turned, and she held up her fists. “I’ll do my best.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Rin shone brilliantly on the stage, and Meiko threw a newspaper at Len’s head for getting distracted by her.

“Oh Len. You sly, sly dog,” Kaito said, having heard from Rin what happened the following day.

Len gave him a look. “Well, none of you were running out to check on her.”

His friend grinned, leaning against his desk and folding his arms over his chest. “That’s true, but honestly, she and I were both equally surprised you were the one to go after her. Rin was all, Oh, that Len! He’s nice once he gets over his shyness, isn’t he? ” Kaito tried his best Rin-voice impression.

Len groaned, leaning back in his chair. “Please never do that again.”

“What?” Kaito said, grinning. “ Talking like Rin? ”

“Stop!” Len threw a hand in his direction, and he caught it, using it as a weapon to whack Len in the face.

“Anyway, so, Rin wants to practice her lines with you and me so she can get Luka off her case. I think she likes you, hey.” Kaito winked.

Len snatched his hand back. “How am I supposed to help? I’m not even acting a part.”

“Yeah, but you always do a great job playing the other roles when we’re practicing. And you always drop good hints about my next lines when I forget, ‘cus you always have the lines to read off.”

Len propped his elbow on his desk and leaned his head against his hand, disinterested. “You could, uh, also do that with each other, though.”

“C’mon Len! If you refuse to practice, she’ll think you don’t like her and get sad. She’ll be all, Oh, how disappointing, Len doesn’t want to practice with me …” Kaito faked wiping a tear.

Len rolled his eyes. “If I agree to it, will you stop doing bad impressions of Rin?”

Kaito grinned. “Maybe.”

Len narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, yes. I will stop doing bad impressions of Rin to harass you.”

He sighed, his shoulders sagging in defeat. “Fine. I’ll practice with you two. Just this once, though.”

Kaito high-fived himself. “Hell yeah! I’m gonna go tell Rin.” Then he disappeared.

Len dropped his head on his desk with a loud thunk . He didn’t know how on earth he was going to do any sort of ‘effective’ practice with Rin around.

“Len, you’re supposed to be the evil Rothbart, not a mute teenager,” Kaito said.

They were at a park somewhat central to all their houses on a chilly Sunday morning. Kaito was stretched out on a bench, drinking juice, and Rin stood in front of Len, waiting for him to start taking his role as the villain somewhat seriously.

But… Len couldn’t. Not with Rin dressed in cute casual clothes like this. He’d never seen her without a uniform on, in all these years of attending the same high school… and, well, it was a lot to process.

“Let’s try again,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips. “You don’t have to be convincing. Just… enough is alright, Len.”

He scanned the lines on the page in front of him again and took a breath, giving a nod. He dropped the sheet to his side and cleared his throat. Then, in the best voice he could muster, he began—

“Oh dear Odette! That prince of yours will never love you back—for he has sworn his love to my daughter Odile!”

Kaito burst into laughter from the side, but Rin ignored him and went on to deliver her line. “No! That can’t be true!” she wailed, bringing her hands up to her face in shock.

Len quickly glanced at his lines, before raising his arms like he was, uh, conjuring some magical image, or something like that. “No, Odette… it is …”

Rin stared at the empty space between his arms, her eyebrows furrowing. “It can’t be…” she said, her hands dropping to her sides. “He doesn’t love me…”

It was at this moment, Len was supposed to laugh maniacally and say something else, but he became distracted by how convincing Rin’s acting was. He didn’t realise he was gawking at her until she waved her hand in front of his face.

He snapped back to reality. “S-sorry!” he blurted, scrambling for the next line. God, this was going to kill him. “Um—uh… n-now, you shall be my pretty swan forever…”

Rin then stifled a laugh, breaking character. “Kaito, I think Len has had enough of being Rothbart for now.”

Kaito snickered into his juice bottle, waving his hand. “Oh, he’s fine. I think you were pulling on his heartstrings a little, that’s all.”

Len’s face burned. He tossed his photocopy of the musical’s script at Kaito and took a seat next to him. “Whatever, can I take a break? You two have plenty of scenes to practice with each other.”

His friend rolled his eyes, getting up from the bench with a groan. “Yeah, yeah. Alright, Rin. Let’s start from Act 4 line 46, then. Len, can you help us with our lines?”

Len begrudgingly took the papers back from Kaito and shuffled through to find Act 4.

Oh.

Oh .

It was the act with the kissing scene.

Well.

Fuck you, Kaito.

They began with Rin dying by the lake, and Kaito running in after killing Rothbart. (Len was pretty sure in the original they were both supposed to die, but the school council was all, Noooo, we want a happy ending! )

He frowned as he watched Kaito embrace her and act dramatic, confessing his love to her—what he was guessing—dead body. Rin then rose from the dead and reached out to cup his face.

“Oh, my prince!” she said. “You came back for me… and the curse has been broken!”

Kaito then turned and looked at Len, mouthing the word line .

Len sighed, muttering his next lines. “Odette, I thought I lost you.”

Kaito repeated down to Rin, “Odette, I thought I lost you.”

Silence.

Len continued, “It was all my fault, mistaking you for that vile Odile.”

Kaito acted out the lines, then looked at him again.

Was he just doing this on purpose? He was doing it on purpose. This guy knew those lines, because Len had run over them with him at least a hundred times before. He wasn’t even looking at the script for reference anymore, because even he knew them.

“I could never love anyone else but you, Odette.”

The hint of a smirk tugged on Kaito’s lips as he repeated those lines down to Rin.

She stared up at him, as if he were a delicious slice of chocolate cake. “My prince…” she gasped.

Then it was the kiss scene.

Len averted his gaze as they leaned in for the kiss, signalling the end of the musical. He wanted to kick Kaito for this later.

A moment passed, and the pair stood up as if nothing ever happened, brushing the grass off their clothes.

“So, what do you think, Len?” Kaito asked with a shit-eating grin.

“You need to learn your lines,” Len deadpanned.

“You wanna practice with me? Kissy-kissy.” Kaito pursed his lips and leaned in. Len swatted him away, disgusted.

“It’s not a real kiss, of course,” Rin said, smiling. “Just a theatrical one.”

Len raised an eyebrow. “A theatrical one?”

She ushered Kaito over to demonstrate. “You know, this hand faces the audience. It hides our mouths. And this hand… well, I use my fingers as a blockade for our mouths.” She placed one hand flat on the side of his face, then the other on the opposite side, and pressed one thumb over Kaito’s mouth.

“Romantic, huh?” Kaito said through her thumb.

“Ew.” Rin dropped her hands to wipe them on her shorts. “I mean, as if they’d let people kiss on stage at school.”

“Huh,” was all Len said.

Kaito wiggled his eyebrows at him. “You wanna try?”

“With you? No thanks.”

“I mean, Rin might want to—”

“Also no thanks.”

“Ouch.”

Rin just laughed. “It’s alright,” she said. She tucked her hair back behind her ears. “Can we run over another scene? There’s this one in Act 2 I really need to work on… and Len, can you help out too?” She turned to Len and gave him a pleading look.

And, well, he really couldn’t say no.

“Okay…”

“Great! Well, I need you to pretend to be the other swan maidens in the lake…”

Len thought to himself, Oh boy.

The weeks continued to fly by. Soon, the musical was barely a month away.

Both Rin and Kaito seemed drained from countless practices. Len was going just fine, on the other hand; props were almost finished, and now they were finessing details (as Meiko liked to call it). A few times, they did some ‘unofficial’ full run-throughs as stagehands, but there was still a bit of work that had to be done.

When Len sat down next to Kaito for lunch, his friend turned to him and said with a straight face, “Miku and I made out yesterday.”

Len almost dumped his lunchbox’s contents on his lap. “You what? ”

“Yeah,” Kaito said, looking a tad dead inside. “It was weird.”

“Why?” Len asked, although that was a strange question to ask about kissing someone .

Kaito shrugged. “We were alone, and she was stressed, and we just started making out.”

Len found such a statement hard to imagine. We just started making out . Like, how the hell do you just start making out with someone? “So…?”

“I don’t even like Miku,” his friend moaned, dropping his head. “She’s too… I dunno, noisy? Not my type at all.”

Len couldn’t help but ask, “What is your type?”

Kaito tapped his chin in thought. “Hmm. Bossy. Cold. Could crush my head with her thighs.”

“So, like Meiko?”

Kaito tilted his head, squinting at the wall beside Len. “Eh, yeah. I guess so.”\

Len didn’t know what to do with this newfound information. He shovelled a dim sum into his mouth and chewed. “What are you going to do about Miku?” he asked.

Kaito groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t like turning people down and… I mean, I totally made out with her yesterday, so.”

Len went for the salad, saying, “I don’t make out with random girls on the regular, so I don’t have any advice to give you, sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Kaito said, putting his head in his hands. “I’ll figure it out.”

Len frowned at his friend, couldn’t help but feel concerned for him. The musical-induced exhaustion definitely was clouding his judgement (or he had some sort of attraction to Miku he was in denial about, but who knew).

He saw Rin in the hallway later that day, and she almost completely snubbed him, until realising at the last minute he’d walked past. She swung around and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him over by the wall.

It caught him off-guard, and he stuttered something of a hello.

She sighed, folding her arms over her chest. “Rehearsals have been taking it out of me. How are you doing, though?”

Len fidgeted with the collar of his shirt. “Prop work is far from as bad as your case is.”

“That’s good to hear.” Rin smiled. “How’s Kaito? He was a bit of a zombie yesterday.”

“Oh.” He recalled the conversation earlier, and the crisis Kaito seemed to be having. “Not so great,” he decided as the best answer.

She frowned, folding her arms over her chest. “He needs to take it easy. I was going to ask if you wanted to practice this weekend, but maybe we should let him rest…”

Len didn’t mind not practicing, because he’d been humiliated at least a million times during the past four practices they’d done. Of course it meant more time with Rin, but at what cost?

“Yeah, might be a good idea,” he agreed. Kaito would probably spend the weekend having a crisis about girls, anyway.

Rin dropped her arms to her sides. “Well, we’re almost there. Only four weeks to go!” She then waved goodbye and disappeared off down the hallway, into the mass of migrating students.

Len exhaled. Only four weeks to go .

Two weeks to go—that was when the accident happened.

Rehearsals had been slotted into lunchtimes to add extra practice, but Len usually didn’t have to go, so he spent a lot of his lunches by himself. He was enjoying his peace and quiet in the classroom, reading a manga and eating a sandwich, when the door clattered open and both Rin and Miku came running in looking like they’d run a marathon.

Rin stumbled over to his desk, breathless, and blurted, “Kaito’s going to hospital.”

Len dog-eared his book and looked up at her, not sure if he’d heard her right. “He’s going where?”

Miku appeared from behind, repeating, “The hospital. He’s going to the hospital.”

“He fell off the stage during rehearsal,” Rin continued, her eyes wide.

“His leg, like, snapped like uncooked spaghetti,” Miku added, the detail a little unnecessary.

Len finished his sandwich. “Is he alright?”

The girls exchanged looks with each other. “We don’t know, but the paramedics said he might’ve broken his leg. He just… landed on it in the wrong way, and it was awful,” Rin said. “Luka’s freaking out.”

What he wanted to know was, how the hell did Kaito fall off the stage? The guy wasn’t even clumsy, and yet, here he was, probably breaking his leg two weeks before the musical. What a clown.

“Oh,” Len said, unsure how to take the news. “Well, thanks for telling me.”

Miku was already distracted, telling another student about the incident, which signalled that whatever went down during practice would spread around the school like wildfire by the end of the day.

“No problem.” Rin’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’m just really worried. We’ll probably have an emergency meeting for it tomorrow, and for now this afternoon’s rehearsal has been called off, but…” She trailed off, chewing her lip with uncertainty.

“How did he fall off the stage?” Len asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

She shrugged her shoulders, the corners of her lips turning down. “I don’t really know. I guess he was really tired and just lost his balance… I wasn’t on stage at the time. I just heard him fall. It wasn’t good.”

“I wonder if he’ll be alright to do the musical,” he mused aloud.

Rin hung her head. “I hope he will,” she said. “But I have a feeling he won’t.”

That feeling was right. Kaito messaged Len that night to tell him, rather joyfully, that he had broken his ankle.

I’ll be at school nice and drugged up tomorrow! he added.

The next day, the emergency meeting for the theatre club was called after school. Although Len didn’t really have to attend it, being simply a stagehand, Kaito had dragged him along, asking for ‘moral support’.

“Do you really need moral support?” Len said, watching as his friend hobbled beside him on crutches.

“ Yes. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to this role, you know. I’m going to need you to wipe away my tears.”

“Can’t you ask Miku to do that for you?”

“Len. Die ,” was Kaito’s harsh response.

They were the last ones to arrive at the auditorium, where most of the cast had gathered in a circle. Rin was chewing on her nails—something she tended to do when she was stressed—and Luka was pacing back and forth across the room, a frown etched into her lips.

Upon seeing that Kaito had arrived, Luka stopped and clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention to her.

“So, as you may know, Kaito has broken his ankle and has had to step down from his role from Siegfried,” she began. A shocked chatter rumbled through the group, and she cleared her throat, signalling for silence. “We had an understudy—Yuuma—but conveniently, he got the flu and won’t be able to take on the position.”

“Oh boy,” Kaito said, apparently having only just heard wind of this.

Luka pushed back her hair, exhaling. “So, now we don’t have anyone to play the role of Siegfried—and I’m trying to decide what to do next,” she said. “First, any questions, ideas, or concerns about this?”

Miku put up her hand. “Is the musical going to be cancelled?”

“No,” Luka answered. “But we may have to change things, if we can’t find someone to fill Kaito’s spot.”

People began to murmur, sharing their doubt for such a possibility.

“We only have two weeks,” someone said. “I don’t think we can find anyone else to play the role of Siegfried.”

Luka frowned. “Well, first, does anyone know someone who might be able to do Siegfried? Or does anyone think they can step up to the position?”

The room went silent. Everyone looked around at each other.

Then Kaito cleared his throat. “I know someone.”

Luka turned to him. “Who?”

He gestured to Len standing beside him. “This guy has essentially all my lines memorised.”

Len’s face went red as everyone’s eyes fell on him. Oh no. Oh no no no no no . “Kaito,” he hissed, panicking.

Luka seemed unconvinced, folding her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow.

Kaito kept talking. “Len’s been practicing with Rin and me, helping us with our lines. I think he could pull it off. I forced him to make a band with me once in middle school, so I know he can sing.”

It was then Len wished for a hole to appear in the ground and swallow him up. What the hell was Kaito thinking? He did not want this at all.

Rin spoke up, much to his displeasure. “I think Len can do it too,” she said. “Like Kaito said, he already knows most—if not all—of Siegfried’s lines. So if anything, he would just have to learn the songs and his actions.”

Luka was slowly coming around, tapping her chin. “Hmm. Well. Anyone have another suggestion?” She scanned the group, waiting for another name to be called, but crickets chirped in response. “Okay. Let’s have a show of hands then. Who’s okay with Len taking the role of Siegfried?”

Kaito and Rin’s hands shot up. Then, slowly, one-by-one, other students began raising their hands, too. It was a good 80% of students voting in favour of him.

“It looks like Len’s our best bet, then,” Luka decided, after counting the number. She looked at Len, who was beside himself. “Well, Len. Is it alright if you take the role of Siegfried in place of Kaito?”

Len swallowed, a nervous sweat breaking out across his body. His eyes darted from Kaito, who was giving him a serious look, to Rin, who was basically pleading him with her eyes.

Oh God. Oh God. He hated disappointing people.

He found himself muttering, “Sure. Okay. Yes.”

Just like that, a sigh of relief seemed to wash across the theatre club.

Just like that, Len was going to be Siegfried.

Ah. Fuck.

Kaito tried his very best to convince Len he was capable of getting on stage and performing. Rin had even joined in, much to his surprise.

Len stared at the space above their heads, feeling as if he might puke.

“You’ll be fine, Len,” Kaito reassured. “Just think everyone in the audience is a potato.”

Rin nodded in agreement, her white bow bobbing up and down. “If you can get up and take on a role in front of me without even knowing the lines, you can get up in front of everyone else and be Siegfried.”

“But what happens if I forget my lines, or go off-key?” Len protested, looking pale.

“You just improvise, man,” Kaito said, as if it was the easiest answer ever. “You just keep going.”

“And Len,” Rin added, reaching out to grab his hands. She looked him in the eyes and his stomach did a somersault. “I’ll be up there with you, so don’t worry. If something happens, I’ll help you out if I can.”

His chest went warm and fuzzy. God, why did she have so much influence over him?

Len’s eyebrows furrowed. “I just… I don’t know if I can do it.”

Both Rin and Kaito yelled in his face, “You can!”

“You just have to believe in yourself,” Kaito said, hitting his own chest with a fist.

Rin nodded. “We’re all nervous going up there. But think of it as a fun challenge! You’re not being Len on stage. You’re being Siegfried.”

“Anyway, we should get on with practicing,” Kaito said, holding up his script. “We only have a week and a bit to go. Luka’s going to lose her mind if you show up next week with no clue what to do.”

Len whined as a complaint, but nevertheless, obliged.

Of course, Rin and Kaito were nice enough to spend essentially their entire weekend at the park helping him catch up, even going as far to teach him the dance moves and lyrics, and explain stage cues. Len was just absolutely terrified of getting up in front of hundreds of people to sing a solo song. Even doing such a thing in front of Rin now seemed like child’s play.

While Kaito hobbled off to the bathroom later in the day, they took a drink break.

Rin turned to Len and admitted, “You know what? I’m really glad you were chosen to fill in for Kaito.”

Len’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? Why?”

She smiled down at her bottle of green tea she bought from the vending machine. “Well, Yuuma’s cool and all, but I feel more at ease when acting with you and Kaito. I’m glad it wasn’t someone else. You know, since it’s such an intimate role.”

Ah. Right. “Oh,” Len said. He was happy to hear that, and a smile inched its way onto his lips. Hearing that she felt comfortable around him was… somewhat relieving to his anxiety over what she thought of him. “Thank you.”

Rin looked up at him, beaming. Her face glowed under the afternoon light, and her blue eyes glittered like stars. He couldn’t help but stare.

Kaito returned, appearing from behind them. “Oh, you two look nice and comfortable. Guess we’re ready for Act 4, huh?” he joked.

Len grabbed one of his crutches, threatening to take it from his grasp. “Don’t test me, disabled man.”

Kaito pulled a face.

“We still need to do Act 3, first,” Rin said, not quite catching the joke—or perhaps just ignoring it. “It’s the longest one, so Len needs lots of practice.”

“Alright, alright.” Kaito waved his hand. “Let’s keep going, then.”

The following week went by in the blink of an eye. Len was exhausted and busy every day, rehearsing and doing costume try-ons and so on and so forth. By the end of the week, he almost didn’t care anymore, he was so tired.

Most of Len’s costumes consisted of safety pins, considering Kaito was both taller and larger than him in size. It was always a struggle getting in and out of the costumes, which made costume changes much more dire in between scenes.

Luka seemed somewhat satisfied with what he could do, though, which was a relief to both him and Kaito. (Although, his dancing left much to be desired.) “It’s not perfect,” she said in regards to his performance, “but it’s better than nothing at all.”

He tried to take it as a compliment.

Soon, they were doing their last dress rehearsal, two days before the show.

Kaito came up to him after the rehearsal, having sat and watched part of it. “How do you feel, Siegfried?” he asked, swinging an arm over his shoulders.

“Like I might have explosive diarrhea on the day,” Len answered.

“Oh yeah,” Kaito said with a nod. “It be like that sometimes.” He gave him a rough pat on the back. “You’ll be fine though. Do it for the theatrical kiss with Rin.”

Len could only roll his eyes.

Finally, the day of the performance came. According to Rin, who was chewing on her nails backstage, the auditorium was packed full. Len’s knees turned weak, and he sunk down on the ground beside her.

Rin put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll do great, my prince,” she said, giving a wink, before getting dragged off by one of the stagehands.

His insides melted like butter. A part of him still couldn’t get it around his head that this was happening.

Kaito appeared with his crutches, hopping over to give him a last minute pep talk. Mostly, he just rattled off with bullshit.

“Just don’t look at the audience’s faces. That’s what always throws me off,” he told him.

“Will try not to,” Len said through grit teeth.

“ Or you can try finding my face, in which I’ll blow you kisses.”

“That’s great to hear, Kai.”

Kaito grinned, checking the time on his watch. “Well, I should go now. But hey. Break a leg, alright?” He gave him a thumbs up. “Just not literally, otherwise you’ll end up like me.”

Len frowned at him. “You better not have jinxed me.”

Kaito ignored him and left, leaving Len to try his best not to throw up.

Soon, the music for the opening began to play.

three…

two…

one

It’s showtime!

The adrenaline rush kept Len going, somehow, through the entire musical. He made mistakes, sure, but the show went on. The lights were bright and blinding, and at times he was just lost up on the wide, empty stage. Yet, he did it all. He managed to make it to the end.

He realised this as he was leaning over Rin, her chest rising and falling, her eyelids fluttering.

“Odette…” he whispered, a cue for Rin to ‘awaken’.

She stirred, sitting up, meeting his eyes. She looked different with makeup on, under the heavy stage lights. It wasn’t bad; it made her look older, sharper, more adult than a girl. She smiled at him, and he wasn’t sure if it was her acting, or actually genuine.

Rin reached out to cup his face, hands warm and clammy. He didn’t mind. “Oh, my prince!” she said. “You came back for me… and the curse has been broken.”

Len’s heart was beating so hard against his rib cage, like it might leap out of his chest. He wondered if she could hear it. “I thought I lost you,” he breathed. “It was all my fault, mistaking you for that vile Odile.”

She shook her head, the feathers in her hair dancing in the air around her head.

He took a breath. “I could never love anyone else but you…” Her name danced on the tip of his tongue, and he swallowed it back. “…Odette.”

Rin gazed up at him. Her eyes were dark underneath all the makeup. He didn’t know what was going through her mind at that moment. “My prince…” she whispered.

She leaned in for the ‘kiss’ and he followed, expecting for it to go as it did in their practice. But for some reason, she didn’t place her thumb over his lips. She just went straight in , and their lips mashed together, and his eyes almost flew open in shock at the contact.

Of course, Len managed to keep his composure—just barely—reminding himself to push through until the curtains dropped in front of them, and the audience burst into applause.

Once they were no longer in view, Rin jumped away from him like he was on fire, her skin bright red down to her neck. “Oh my god,” she whispered, covering her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry. I totally forgot to move my thumb.”

Len’s mouth was still warm from hers. The stage around them was spinning a little. “It’s… fine,” he managed to get out.

The stagehands began ushering them off-stage before they could talk more, preparing them for the curtain call.

He didn’t have any time after that to speak with Rin about the kiss. Once they were finished with the curtain call, she was whisked away by a crowd of underclassmen congratulating her and giving her flowers for her last show. It was only now that he realised how popular she was.

Kaito found him amongst the crowd, holding his hand up for a high-five. “You did it!” he said. “My little Lenny has grown up.”

“Please never call me that again,” Len said with a groan.

Kaito ignored him. “What’s that on your mouth?”

“Huh?” Len wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It was red lipstick. From Rin’s lips. “Oh.”

Kaito raised his eyebrows. “Speaking of which, that kiss with Rin on stage seemed awfully… realistic. ”

Len laughed nervously at that. “Yeah… well…”

His friend leaned in, his eyes going wide. “Wait, it was real?”

“It was an accident,” Len said. His face was hot.

Kaito’s jaw went slack. “Oh my god. You…”

Len shushed him. “It’s not that big of a deal. It was an accident . Rin forgot to put her thumb in the way so we just… you know…”

“She forgot to put her thumb in the way, huh,” Kaito said, narrowing his eyes and stroking his chin. “She never forgot with me.”

Len shrugged. “Maybe she was nervous, or something, I don’t know. I didn’t get to talk to her about it much.”

Kaito hummed in thought. There was a mischievous glint in his eye. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to talk to her about it at dinner tonight.”

“There's dinner?” Len echoed.

“Uh, yeah, we always do dinner. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“No…”

“Oh, well. We’re having dinner at a yakiniku restaurant. Wanna come?”

“I guess?”

Kaito winked. “More time with Rin, too.”

Len blushed, then elbowed his friend in the stomach. “I wish you’d shut up sometimes,” he muttered, before walking off to get out of costume.

As they were taking the train to the yakiniku restaurant Luka had booked, Miku wriggled her way in between Len and Kaito.

“Len actually did pretty well up there!” she said. “I was surprised.”

“That’s a bit rude,” Kaito said down to her with a frown.

“What?” Miku batted her eyelashes innocently. “It’s his first time performing! I was sort of expecting something to go terribly wrong.”

Kaito rolled his eyes. “Well, of course Len did great. He’s like a closet superstar.”

Len snorted. “I’m anything but that, Kai.”

Miku pouted. “I’m not trying to be mean! You don’t think I’m being rude, do you, Len?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“See? He agrees with me!”

“He didn’t even give you a verbal answer, Miku,” Kaito said.

She folded her arms over her chest, puffing out her cheeks.

Rin turned, having overheard their conversation. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“We were just discussing Len’s total owning of the stage,” Kaito answered. “And Miku’s being a bitch.”

“I’m not!” Miku cried, indignant.

Rin giggled. “Len did really well, despite the circumstances,” she said. She kept her eyes on Miku and Kaito, avoiding meeting Len’s gaze “Who knew the quiet boy could brew such a storm?”

“He was just saving it up. Huh, Len?” Kaito looked at him.

Len mustered a smile. “I hope I never have to do that again,” was all he could respond with.

Everyone aww-ed in disappointment, and Kaito poked him with one of his crutches. “Nah. You loved it. It was the best experience you’ve ever had.”

“It was the most distressing experience I’ve had,” Len corrected.

Their train pulled up at their stop, and they filed out of the carriage, following Luka’s lead. The walk to the restaurant was around ten minutes, and everyone had moved on to another conversation with each other. Kaito was bickering with Miku, who seemed awfully touchy-feely with him.

Hmm , Len thought.

He didn’t mind the moment of quiet, though, as he tagged behind the group. It was weighing down on him—now that the adrenalin rush had finished—how goddamn exhausted he was. He couldn’t wait to have a bath and crawl into bed.

At the restaurant, Len took a seat between Kaito and another girl—Gumi—who played as one of the swan princesses. He hadn’t talked to her much before, but she seemed friendly. Across from him was Gakupo—who played Rothbart, Miki—who played another swan princess, and Piko—who was Seigfried’s best friend. He’d managed to get to know Gakupo and Piko through his role a little bit—they were okay.

Alas, Rin was at a separate table, along with Luka, Meiko and Miku (which was, perhaps, not entirely a bad thing).

So much for having the chance to talk to her about what happened on stage, though.

Although it was hard to organise a group of like, thirteen rowdy teenagers, eventually they sorted their orders for drinks and food. Everyone was busy chatting, and Len was just sitting there, staring at the empty table in front of him. Sometimes Kaito would try to drag him into his conversation with Miku, mainly asking for him to give his two cents in their argument, but eventually he would just… fade out of existence again.

When their drinks came, they made a toast.

Luka did the honours, being the club president. “Well, despite one of our leads breaking an ankle two weeks before our show, I guess we did pretty well,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Kaito, who wore a proud expression. “Thanks to Len being able to pull through and play the role in Kaito’s place. Thanks to everyone else, too, for all your hard work and cooperation for the past semester. It’s been an honour being your club president.” It was now she looked a bit teary.

(Len didn’t realise the theatre club was such a big thing to her… but, well.)

“So, a toast to our theatre club! Well done everyone, and good luck with finals next semester!”

Everyone held up their glasses.

“Cheers!”

After that was done, came the wait for food. Len took that as a chance to escape and get a breath of fresh air (he was getting a little claustrophobic, sandwiched between Kaito and Gumi). He excused himself to the bathroom, then slipped outside, unnoticed.

Len glanced at the time, making sure he didn’t spend too long outside that people came looking. He crouched down on the curb, breathing in the freezing, late-winter air.

There were footsteps behind him not long after he’d been outside, and he turned, expecting Kaito to have followed him out. But much to his surprise (and pleasure), it was Rin.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Mind if I join?” she asked.

Len nodded, the words getting caught in his throat.

Rin sat down beside him with a sigh. Her shoulder bumped against his, and his heart fluttered. “Are you feeling alright?” she asked, glancing at him. She’d wiped most of her makeup off, returning that familiar softness to her features.

“Yeah,” he croaked, before clearing his throat. “Just needed some air. It was a bit crowded, is all.”

“Yeah,” she agreed in an exhale. “The exhaustion sort of hits you around now.”

Len hummed in response. “I don’t know if I can get up off the ground, to be honest. My legs are killing me.”

Rin chuckled. “It’s all that dancing.”

“I didn’t know I had to use so many muscles for that.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Comes easy to me, having done ballet and all.”

Rin then leaned against him, her head lowering to his shoulder. He stiffened at first, then relaxed—although, all the skin she was touching was on fire.

“Still exhausted, though,” she mumbled.

“You did amazing,” he said.

Rin’s hand fluttered down to his thigh. It was hot through the fabric of his jeans. His heartbeat picked up, hammering against his chest as his mind went reeling. He didn’t know what was going on.

“You did amazing, too,” she said back, a smile in her voice.

Len wanted to disagree with that statement, but instead, decided to shut up for once. He settled for a quiet, “Thank you.”

He wondered if she could hear his heart, beating so loud. God, she could definitely hear his heart.

She then said, “I’m sorry about the kiss at the end, though.”

“Oh, um,” he fumbled. “It’s fine, I… it took me by surprise, but…” It was good. I wanted you to kiss me more.

“It took me by surprise, too,” Rin said with a laugh. “I almost broke character there on stage.”

Len laughed with her. “I was confused for a moment, thought your thumb was oddly soft,” he admitted.

“Oh, you’re telling me my thumb doesn’t feel like a kiss?” she jested. “Rude.”

They chuckled together, before a beat of silence passed. Then Rin said, “You caught me off-guard up there, Len.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I did?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Your acting was… really good.”

Len stared straight ahead at the vending machine across the road, illuminating the darkness. He knew Rin could hear his heart. Her hand was still on his thigh, and her head still resting on his shoulder. The gentle smiles and the fact that she was sitting here, out in the cold with him, and not inside with the others.

He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, and yet…

Something inside just told him to go for it. Maybe he was reaching a state of over-exhaustion and his brain wasn’t functioning properly, but to heck with it.

“It wasn’t acting,” he whispered, the words difficult to get out.

Rin lifted her head to look at him, going, “Hmm?”

Len swallowed, mustering up the courage to try again. “It wasn’t acting,” he repeated. Once they were out, it was like a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

She gazed at him, confusion first crossing her face, then consideration, then realisation. Her eyes went wide, her lips parting.

For a split second, he wondered, with terror, if he’d gotten it wrong. If he’d mistaken all her gestures for something they weren’t. If she was about to break his heart, then and there, in the most awkward situation ever.

But then Rin’s lips curled up into a smile. She leaned in close, her forehead touching his.

“Do you want to… try again?” she whispered. “But this time, not just an accident.”

Len didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned in, lips brushing against hers. She reciprocated, pressing back hard against his mouth. A hand reached up to grab the collar of his shirt, curling into a fist. The other still rested on his thigh, fingers pressing down into his skin.

He reached for her shoulders, then up to her neck, the sides of her face. He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her closer, drawing on her warmth.

Someone coughed from behind. Startled, they both jumped away from each other and turned to see Meiko.

She folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, in a tone that wasn’t very apologetic, “but everyone’s wondering where you two went, so unless you want to have to explain to them in detail what you were just doing, you should probably come inside.”

Rin cleared her throat, flustered. “S-sorry Meiko,” she stuttered.

Meiko just shook her head at them, before walking back into the restaurant.

Rin looked at Len. She exhaled and shrugged her shoulders. “We should probably go back.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, breathless.

She leaned in again to peck him on the lips once more before standing up, dusting off her clothes. She held out a hand for him, and he grabbed it, pulling him up.

Together, with faces red like stop signs, they walked back into the restaurant and took their seats, acting as if nothing ever happened.

When they were saying goodbye later that evening and going their separate ways, Rin kissed him again, right in front of Kaito.

Kaito gasped. “Excuse me,” he said, holding up a hand. They pulled away to look at him. “When did this happen?”

Rin looked at Len, smiling, and Len shrugged. “Like, two hours ago,” he said.

Kaito put a hand to his chest. “And you didn’t tell me, your best friend? I’m offended.”

“Well, you know now,” Len said.

Kaito sniffled, pretending to wipe away a tear, before he dropped his hand and grinned. “It’s about time!”

Len rolled his eyes, but Rin laughed, leaning into his shoulder. “Can you let us kiss in peace, please?”

“What, you didn’t get enough time on stage?”

“Kai! Away!” Len shooed him, and the boy left, cackling to himself.

Rin shook her head. “I think those painkillers are ramping him up a little, or maybe it’s just because I’m tired.”

“Definitely the painkillers,” Len said.

She reached down for his hand and squeezed it. Her fingers were cold, like ice. Her expression turned serious as she looked up at him from under her lashes. “So… does this mean we’re dating?”

He gazed at her face a moment, surprised she'd even bothered asking the question. “Well, I hope so,” he said.

A grin started to fight its way onto her lips, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Me too.”

Len reached up to brush some hair out of her eyes. “You wanna do something fun during spring vacation? Like see a movie, or go bowling or something.”

“Yeah,” Rin said, beaming. “I’d like to do something.”

“It’s a date, then,” he said.

Then they leaned in for another kiss.

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bronzeflower · 5 years

Text

The Opposite of a Fake Relationship

Also on ao3

Chapter 1: The “Introduction”

-----

“The Flying Pigs commissioned me for a few major renovations to their headquarters. Looks like I’m gonna be seeing a lot more of you at work,” Victor informed. “Which means you’re gonna be all serious and authority-like.”

“I have a reputation to keep,” Arlo insisted, and Victor giggled and squished Arlo’s cheeks.

“Yeah, but the moment you look at me, you go all soft and adorable,” Victor’s point was proven immediately by Arlo looking at him with utter adoration. “Everyone’s gonna know we’re married the moment they see us together in any capacity.”

“They have more important things to worry about than my marital status.”

“Sure they do.” Victor gave Arlo a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later today if everything goes well. Make sure the kids get to school safe and on time.”

“Like they’d allow for us to be late by even a minute,” Arlo joked. “Remi has started to a big stickler about what time they actually arrive at school. She said, and I quote, ‘They have to be there at 7:40 at the latest otherwise they’ll die.’”

“She’s always been dramatic.”

“Dad! We’re going to be late!” Remi yelled. “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

“I’m coming!” Arlo responded. “Bye, darling.”

“Bye, bye,” Victor kissed Arlo again, and he smiled as he heard Sam complain about how school started at 8:00, so there was no way they were going to be late, with Remi reminding him that death would imminent if they were, so it was always best to be early to avoid even the possibility.

Victor didn’t know where Remi got the idea that she and her brother would die if they were even a minute late to school, but it got them out of bed in the morning, so he supposed it was an improvement on Remi and Sam refusing to even acknowledge the world when it was early.

After waving off his husband and kids, it was time for Victor to get to work. This was a big commission, and there were a lot of materials to gather.

Of course, the Flying Pigs would never dumb down on defense, so Victor ended up feeling like he was gathering materials for making reinforcements rather than an entire expansion to the building.

It took about a week for Victor to gather and craft all the materials he needed, even with the materials he already had, but he had finally done it, and, for that, he was glad.

Now, all that was left was bringing the materials over to the Flying Pigs to get started on the expansion.

Victor was giddy, excited to build and excited to see his husband at his workplace.

But, of course, Victor had to get through security first, which was stringent for good reason. Regardless, Victor managed to get in, and someone showed up to bring him to where he was building the expansion.

His name was Barin, and he was weirdly nervous, but he was generally friendly and pointed out things and people they came across.

“Th-that over there is Arlo,” Barin pointed towards where Arlo was training with other Flying Pigs members. “You’ve probably he-heard of him. He’s one of the strongest folks over, over here.”

“So are you going to introduce me?” Victor asked kind of as a joke, but Barin frantically nodded and awkwardly tried to get Arlo’s attention.

“Arlo, e-excuse me,” Barin had his arms out slightly, as if warding off anything that would try and hurt him.

A girl with long black hair that was set in a ponytail looked up from her stretches to glare towards Barin before turning her head towards Arlo.

“Arlo!” She barked. “There’s some new kid in here!”

Arlo looked over, and Victor grinned at him, waving hello.

“Y-yes, this is the builder who’s g-going to be working on the new expansion,” Barin explained. “So-sorry, I forgot your name. What was it again?”

“Victor! Victor of the Victory Workshop. It’s good to meet you,” Victor threw Arlo a wink, and he didn’t miss the way Arlo’s mouth turned up slightly.

“Arlo, member of the Flying Pigs.”

Victor and Arlo shook hands, and Victor gave Arlo a challenging grin.

“Barin over here was telling me how you were one of the strongest folks in this joint. Care to demonstrate?”

Barin looked absolutely mortified while the girl with the long ponytail let out a loud laugh.

“I like this kid! Name’s Aureall. Good to meet you.”

“I’ve got a least a decade on you, Aureall,” Victor pointed out, but Aureall didn’t really seem to care, so he focused his attention back on Arlo. “So, what do you say? How’s a sparring match between men?”

“Don’t you have an expansion to build?” Arlo said in what probably sounded like his usual serious voice to others, but Victor could detect the hint of amusement in there.

“Just one sparring match. One minute. No weapons,” Victor laid out their typical sparring rules. “I’ve got the time.”

“Are you sure? I don’t hold back, and I wouldn’t want to leave you incapable of doing your job,” Arlo teased, and Victor found himself laughing.

“Lucky for you, I don’t hold back either,” Victor got into a subtle fighting stance. “I’d be offended if you did.”

“A-Arlo! Pl-please don’t spar him!” Barin begged. “He’s just a builder-I-I doubt he can go up against you without getting hurt!”

“If you’re worried, I can spar you first,” Victor suggested. “I think you’re a lot stronger than you let on.”

“No sparring!” Barin demanded, and Aureall protested.

“I wanna see Arlo kick some nobody’s butt.”

“Don’t assume someone’s strength before you fight them,” Arlo advised. “That’s a good way to lose.”

“Does that mean you’ll accept?”

“Don’t hold back,” Arlo got into a fighting stance, and Victor’s grin turned manic.

“Like I’d ever.”

Victor was very familiar with Arlo’s moveset, and he wondered if it was obvious from watching them spar that he knew exactly when to move to avoid getting hit and where exactly to aim for to do the most damage.

Of course, the same could be said for Arlo, and it was a hard battle full of blocking and dodging and landing hits. Victor was pretty sure Arlo was trying even harder than usual in an attempt to look good in front of his coworkers.

However, in the end, Victor was merciless and managed to be victorious.

“Thanks for the sparring match!” Victor declared. “Maybe we could do a rematch sometime, but I’ve got work to do now. Hey, Barin, show me the rest of the way.”

Victor left, and Arlo couldn’t help but watch him as he left the area. It felt a little weird to say goodbye without exchanging at least one kiss, if not more, but, then again, this place wasn’t exactly the most appropriate area for PDA.

“Wow, in love already?” Aureall teased. “Didn’t strike you as a man who believed in love at first sight.”

“I don’t,” Arlo shook his head.

“That was an impressive battle,” Helene spoke up. “I kind of want to spar him myself now…”

“Me too!” Aureall agreed. “Next time he rears his head around here, I’m gonna beat him up so hard!”

“You sound like a school bully,” Helene said. “And besides, what makes you think that you can beat him? Even Arlo lost against him.”

“He only sparred Arlo!” Aureall claimed. “And weren’t you considering sparring him too? Why get into a fight that you’re so sure you’ll lose?”

“He had an interesting fighting style. I want to see it up close.”

“Why don’t you stop talking about him and get back to training?” Arlo interrupted, back to being serious.

“What, jealous?” Aureall joked, but she and Helene got back to work after a glare from Arlo.

Arlo and Victor talked about what happened that day when Arlo got back from work.

“We should probably tell them that we’re married,” Arlo suggested.

“But, consider this, it’s hilarious to make them think we’ve never met before,” Victor countered with a grin. “And it’s not like it’s interfering with anything.”

“I won’t deny that it’s amusing, but it is a little on the unethical side.”

“We can always just say that we wanted to stay professional in the workplace,” Victor pointed out. “You know, for when people do find out. But I wanna see how long it takes people to do so in the first place.”

“I guess it would be a good lesson in observation,” Arlo reasoned. “Alright. So what’s the plan?”

“We interact with each other relatively normally, with the exception that we will be keeping everything workplace appropriate.”

“Sparring me wasn’t exactly workplace appropriate.”

“Of course it is! It’s the Flying Pigs!”

“Aureall and Helene really want to spar you now,” Arlo mentioned, and Victor smiled.

“Tell them I’ll spar with them next time I see them. It’ll be on sight.”

“You should give them more warning than that.”

“Maybe, especially if we wanna keep up the idea that we don’t know each other outside of work.”

“Aureall already thinks that it was love at first sight.”

“Oh my god, that’s so funny,” Victor laughed. “But not that too far off. We pretty much got married as soon as we had the downtime. And now we’ve been married for, what? Almost ten years?”

“I think I lost count after the fifth year.”

“Honestly, me too,” Victor nodded. “But I don’t think I’ll ever forget how I fell for you.”

“Yeah, and how did you fall for me?” Arlo asked even though he almost certainly knew.

“When you asked me to join you in training for the Flying Pigs and had me run all around Portia for a week,” Victor started. “And you told me about your dream of joining the Flying Pigs, and that’s when I fell for you.”

“Liar,” Arlo poked Victor, and he laughed.

“You’re right, I fell for you when we were eating at the Round Table, and I made you laugh so hard that milk came out of your nose.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing we’re keeping our relationship from the Flying Pigs. You have to avoid telling that story to everyone you meet.”

“Oh my god, you’re right. Now I can’t decide what’s better - fooling everyone into thinking we’ve never met before or embarrassing the hell out of you with terrible stories. Whatever shall I do?”

“You can wait until people figure out we’re married.”

“You’re a genius, and I love you.”

“Love you too, darling.”

“Dad! I’m hungry!” Sam came clamoring in just as Arlo was leaning down for a kiss. “Ew. You’re being gross.”

Sam stuck his tongue out, and Victor let out a soft laugh as he pulled away from Arlo.

“Well, my dear and beloved child, what would you like for dinner?” Victor asked. “We’ve got the ingredients for seafood noodles or for bamboo papaya and seafood with rice.”

“Hmm,” Sam thought very seriously. “Noodles. Oh! And can we have some stewed mushrooms?”

“Of course!” Victor responded. “Would you like to help me prepare our meal? And ask your sister if she’d like to help as well.”

Sam nodded and left to go inform Remi of how it was time to start making dinner.

“Alright, babe, the children demand sacrifice, so I’ve got to go.”

“When are you gonna stop calling dinner sacrifice?”

“Never.”

Victor swept at Arlo’s leg to knock him slightly off balance and kissed him once Arlo was low enough.

“I regret you becoming friends with Sam and Remington,” Arlo stated when the kiss was over.

“They’re your friends too,” Victor responded. “But, anyway, the children are hungry, and they’ve got to eat, and so do we.”

“I’ll join you in cooking this time,” Arlo offered, and Victor smiled.

“Sure, we’ll have the whole family cooking together. Make sure Remi uses the knife safely. I’m gonna put Sam on stewing duty.”

Cooking dinner was generally chaotic, with Sam getting impatient often with waiting for the food to cook, Remi generally not have a great idea of knife safety, and Arlo simply not being all that great of a cook, but, in the end, they made something delicious, and they had a lovely dinner together.

#mtap #my time at portia #mtap arlo #mtap builder #builder victor #ocs #original character #the flying pigs #mtap flying pigs

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 5 years

Note

Spiderio? o.o

oh, as in spider-man/mysterio? ok, here goes:

DISCLAIMER: both peter and Quentin beck are adults in this au, from the first time they meet. they have a complicated relationship here, but nothing that is romantic/sexual. while this mysterio is definitely the one from the mcu, this fic's peter takes inspiration from his ps4 incarnation.

quentin beck doesn’t really notice the frazzled, bespectacled intern working on his Intuitive Projection Device (working title) team for a long time. for one thing, there are a lot of frazzled, bespectacled college students running around in his lab looking to snazz up their resumes and hopefully a job at stark industries, and for another, peter parker never really stands out. oh, sure, he’s smart–you didn’t study bio-engineering on a scholarship in empire state and land a spot on beck’s team without having some level of intelligence–but for the most part, he does what he’s told to without fuss and doesn’t really speak up much during team meetings. which, whatever. beck’s looking for people with ideas and bombast and, well, presence, so when parker’s internship ends, he’s off on his merry way. end of story.

except–

on the eve of his project’s big launch, tony stark takes over. says he’s going to do the honours. which–all right. beck was hoping to be a little more present while his life’s work was unveiled, but he knew what he was getting into by agreeing to work under someone like tony stark. he hands everything he has over to his boss.

tony renames his blood, sweat and tears Binary Augmented Retro-Framing device, or BARF, to an audience full of (ignorant, fucking ignorant!) laughing college students. uses it as a gimmicky side-show while unveiling some other completely different initiative, while beck stands backstage, staring, slack-jawed. there is not a single mention of the years it took to put together even a prototype of the thing, what it means to have a technology so intuitive that it’s the new cutting edge in biotech, the endless legal and ethical loopholes that beck had to circumvent to test the thing, the endless possibilities that it opens–

stark’s taken it all away. the project that consumed the last ten years of his life–gone. signed away to a fucking megalomaniac in a metal suit.

beck goes back to his empty apartment that night, numb, opens his liquor cabinet and goes to town. the next morning, drunk and blind with fury, he storms up to tony stark’s office to give him a piece of his mind. of course, he doesn’t actually make it anywhere near tony’s office; he’s thrown out on his ass by security before he can make it past the lobby. he’s fired by email later that day; told that they will press charges if he tries anything like he did that day again.

beck doesn’t explode, contrary to stark’s claims of ‘instability’. he’s not giving tony the satisfaction of flaming out and fading away into obscurity. after all, he was the brains of the operation, and stark can’t take that away from him. he can focus on clowning around in that suit of his all he wants; beck’s going to come up with stuff that’ll blow his company fucking out of the water. all he needs is patience, and time, and–

a team.

he sends emails to everyone from his old team. only a few reply–and even they are reluctant to risk their jobs at stark industries to work with him. only one person replies positively and agrees to meet him.

the next day, quentin is sitting across from a nervous peter parker at a mcdonalds and he thinks: this is where it all begins.

peter parker is… weird.

when he’s actually present, oh, he’s a fucking revelation: the kid has a knack for making something out of virtually nothing; he’s worked wonders on the few pieces of old tech that beck was able to wrangle by calling in favours with old acquaintances. he rambles and makes silly jokes, but there’s always something fresh and insightful to what he says. it’s like his mind is not just a few steps ahead of everybody else, but fucking doing somersaults on the ceiling. more than anything else, he believes: in the potential of beck’s work, the ways it could revolutionise any number of fields, how it could help people. he’s all beck could ever ask for in an assistant, in a partner, and he can scarcely believe this is the same man as that unassuming intern who worked for him so many years ago.

the kicker, though, is that peter parker isn’t often… present. he often comes in late or cancels altogether, citing one emergency or the other. there are several mornings when he stumbles in, utterly exhausted, hands closed around a jumbo-sized coffee like it’s his lifeline. for a long while, beck is willing to let it go: after all, peter’s pursuing his phd, working in another lab that actually pays him, and looking after his aunt. besides, he’s a twenty-something young man in new york city who’s handsome in a charming, dorkish sort of way–of course he’s going to have a social life.

still… it’s worrying. he’s not sure he wants to sit peter down and talk about it (that would be mortifying for both of them, beck thinks); he settles for working even harder to put a couple of projects together so that he can apply for funding and actually pay the kid like he deserves. in the meantime, he makes sure to buy peter a meal whenever he can, and if his insides wobble a little whenever peter beams at offers of a pizza night, beck will have you know that it means nothing, okay?

when beck discovers that peter’s spider-man, it’s an accident.

he goes to the lab in the middle of the night to pick up his phone that he’d forgotten; peter cancelled on him again that day, and beck’s long, long rope is starting to fray. when he turns to leave, he hears a muffled thump. across the dark, cavernous room, spider-man–spider-man!–climbs through an open window and collapses in an ungraceful heap on the floor. beck stands stock-still as the hero groans and tugs at his mask–to reveal peter parker’s face, stark and pale in the moonlight spilling through the window.

for a long, seemingly interminable moment, beck holds his breath.

in that moment, a lot of things start making sense.

spider-man–peter parker!–reaches one hand out, makes some sort of gesture, and a web shoots out of his wrist, snags a water bottle and brings it to his hand. peter tips his head back and chugs. he’s still not gotten up from the floor; there are rips in his suit, and beck thinks he can see blood–

no. no. he doesn’t want to see anymore. it feels weirdly intimate, and beck isn’t sure if he ever knew the first thing about peter parker after all. he closes his eyes, turns, and slips away quietly.

quentin beck doesn’t go back to his lab for two days, doesn’t answer calls or emails. peter is particularly persistent, even offering to visit his apartment, but beck puts that off with a terse, ‘no. i’m fine. call you later.’ he spends most of those two days staggering with the sheer magnitude of the secret that he’s just discovered–no wonder the asshole was always late! he was too busy swinging from buildings and taking down costumed supervillains!–and the betrayal, which overcomes him in waves. all the while beck was looking fondly on peter, even considering him a protege, he was doing something that beck had repeatedly spoken of with profound contempt. and peter even agreed with him several times! with a straight face! he’s nothing but a two-timing, manipulative sociopath, just like stark–

–oh dear god.

oh no no no no no.

he’s seen spider-man help out stark and the avengers a few times, hasn’t he? he’s never been announced as an official avenger, but these costumed freaks all flock together often, yeah? was peter parker assigned to spy on beck? did stark put him up to it? he must’ve; stark probably didn’t like that beck was smarter, better, capable of so much more–and that he was all of this without having been handed an entire multi-million dollar company on a silver platter.

and yet–

all of peter’s wide-eyed sincerity, his belief, his passion–beck can’t have imagined all of that, right? there has to be at least a part of him that beck can–can still love–

god-fucking-dammit.

fine. if he can’t ever get away from these costumed weirdos, then he’s just going to do what he’s always done: work with what he’s got.

the next time beck sees peter, it’s three weeks later and he says, “i know you’re spider-man.”

to peter’s credit, he looks surprised only for a fraction of a second; if beck wasn’t looking for it (if beck didn’t know peter as well as he did) he would’ve never noticed.

peter laughs. “fine,” he says. “sure, and you’re iron man.”

beck hasn’t the time for games. “i saw you in costume, peter. i won’t lie and tell you that i wasn’t hurt that you’d hide that from me, but rest assured that i will keep your secret.”

peter’s face freezes in a half-smile, mouth slightly open, as if he’s just lined up his next joke to dismiss what beck said. suddenly, his smile disappears and he… deflates. “sorry,” he says, his gaze shifting to the ground. “i didn’t mean–it’s just–i try so hard to keep my day job and my… other job separate, you know? and i don’t want to put the people i love in even more danger than they already face by just living in a world where there’s an alien invasion every other week, so, i just. you know.”

beck firmly dismisses the way his heart flutters at people i love and says, “i know. and honestly? given what the world’s like these days? it’s great you’re out there doing what you do.”

peter gives him a tentative smile. “dr. beck, you know, i’m so glad you’re taking this so well–i came so close to telling you so many times because i felt so bad making up excuses for missing out on such exciting work, and–”

“but peter, you’re fired.”

“–if i’d known that–wait.” peter blinks once, deliberately. it’s almost comical. “what?”

“i said you’re fired, peter,” beck tells him pleasantly. “i appreciate everything you’ve done tremendously–and rest assured that you will get credit where credit is due–but going forward… this just won’t work out, pete.”

“what? no, no, no, wait.” peter leans forward. “i’ve–we’ve made it work so far, right? i’ll find time–i’ll cut back on… other things. dr. beck,” and now he has the audacity to grab beck’s hands, and beck thinks he’s going to rip apart at the seams from all the emotion that’s coursing through him right now, “what you’re doing is inspiring. it’s going to help so many people. please let me be a part of it.”

“you’re already helping people.” you’ve helped enough.

“dr. beck, ple–”

“come on now, peter, spider-man doesn’t beg!” beck looks away from peter’s pleading, desperate eyes. he needs to remember that these superhero types always love to put on a show. whether that’s stark, or pe–spider-man. “this doesn’t mean the end of our friendship, peter. i’ll see you around.”

he walks away before peter can say another word.

beck collects more of stark industries’ rejects and malcontents for his team, but this time his pitch is different: if the world has moved on, if the only way to be important and beloved and heard is to fly around with a cape and lasers shooting out of your hands, then that is exactly what he’s fucking going to do. he focusses more on illusion technology, fashioning spectacles that will only ever be limited by his own imagination. it’s slow, arduous work, but–ironically–peter has already done most of the ground work, and it’s a matter of building from there.

peter tries calling him for the first few weeks after their last meeting; beck never answers. it takes longer than beck thought it would for him to stop trying. kid was always tenacious as hell.

then ultron happens. the u.n. blows up. then the sokovia accords.

the avengers split up, going for each other’s throats: iron man on one side, captain america on the other. beck’s a little relieved to see that spider-man isn’t on either side.

the whole thing ends up going to hell, and a complete PR disaster for stark and co. there’s far less superhero activity after that, and stark’s operations shrink considerably–which honestly just means beck has more disgruntled, brilliant ex-employees to recruit to his cause. even spider-man goes completely underground.

(peter parker, though, is teaching at empire state. so beck is not too worried. yet.)

it’s the perfect time to debut mysterio.

it always ends on a bridge, in the eye of a firestorm.

peter’s grip is inhumanly strong; beck can feel the bones in his wrist grind and pop. he drops the gun he was pointing at peter’s head and tries to twist away.

“we could’ve accomplished so much together.” peter looks angry, but he sounds… mournful.

beck tastes blood at the back of his throat. “we still can,” he gasps. “it’s not too late.”

peter doesn’t say no, and he clings to that even as darkness consumes him and he falls.

( send me an au and i will give you 5+ headcanons about it! )

#mcu #spiderman #my fic #far from home spoilers #peter parker #quentin beck #mysterio #spn-samifer #i don't know how this turned into a 2k+ fic #but i just couldn't stop

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lovlieziam · 5 years

Note

For the writing prompts, can I be greedy? If so, I will throw out Ziam and #22 and #82 :D

I don’t mind you being greedy at all if you don’t mind me being lazy and combining them :) It got long fast, oops. At some point this became really self indulgent so I apologize for that…

22.I am not telling you how I lost my virginity, nope.

82. I was kind of wondering if maybe…could we…you want to go to the movies with me?

Zayn didn’t like Liam Payne. Not one fucking bit. He knew thewhole school was in love with him—something about everyone falling for thetoken bad boy. But this wasn’t a fucking rom com and Liam Payne was an asshole.He was cocky and pompous. He thought mouthing off was an effective way to get attentionand smoking cigarettes was cool—it wasn’t, Zayn would know, since he also smokedbut wasn’t worshiped by the entirestudent body.

Zayn just didn’t understand the appeal. He was pretty sureLiam hadn’t taken anything seriously in his life, never mind be expected tohold a decent conversation. He thought kid like Liam stopped being cool in highschool—at least there they were only popular because they were ‘interesting,’but Liam wasn’t. He was a dime adozen at Zayn’s high school, a type he had hoped he could get away with once hegot to college. He had done so well in the beginning, so one could only imaginehis disappointment when he got trapped in a fucking elevator with the dude. An elevator.What the fuck.

And the icing on the cake? Zayn thought he had done a prettygood job of keeping on the down low in his college career, but apparently hewas wrong because Liam Payne? Yeah, he knew who the fuck Zayn was. He made thatabundantly clear when he started up a conversation after the elevator shut downand addressed Zayn by name and started talking about his interests. Never mindthe fact that they were trapped in a death shute, Liam wanted to know if Zaynhad ‘seen the new Marvel movie yet’ because it looked ‘sick.’ Again, what thefuck?

“’M not really in the mood for a chat about Marvel rightnow, Liam,” he snapped. They were trapped in an elevator, didn’t Liam realizethat? The thing had come to a complete stop. It was no longer going up anddown. They could not get out and had no way of being able to get out withouthelp and they had already done that and had gotten a curt ‘We’re sending someonenow. The elevator should be running again in roughly half an hour. Pleaseremain calm’ like Zayn could keep his cool when trapped in a metal death boxwith the one man he hated. Did Liam notrealize that?

“Then what do you want to talk about?”

Zayn spun to face Liam, his expression no doubt displayinghis pure disbelief because what? Didn’tLiam realize he didn’t want to talk about anything besides how to get out ofhere?

“I don’t want to talk about anything! I want the elevator tostart moving again.”

Liam sighed next to him, leaning against the wall and crossinghis arms over his stupidly big chest. That was another issue Zayn had withLiam. What the fuck even were his muscles? The were big and dumb and delicious. Zayn hated them, even thoughhe kind of wanted to lick Liam from head to toe. It was awful.

“The elevator doesn’t run on silence, Zayn. If we play thequiet game it won’t decide it’s bored and magically start working again.”

Zayn turned his head to glare at Liam. “Sarcasm and shittyjokes are the last thing I want to deal with right now, Liam. How ‘bout youjust keep your comments to yourself.”

Liam rolled his eyes. Zayn thought he did that a lot. “Thelast thing I want to deal with is your bad attitude and sense of entitlement,but I guess we don’t always get what we want.”

Zayn let his crossed arms drop to his side, indignationtaking over. “I am not entitled!”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? So you don’t go around ignoringanyone who isn’t one of your little friends because you’re better than them? Orsneer at people who don’t perform well in class? God forbid the rest of usstruggle a little bit in school.”

Okay, what the fuck? Zayn didn’t think any of those things. Never once had he looked down on anyonebecause they struggled in school, and he definitely didn’t think he was better than anyone. What the fuck?

“Fuck you, I don’t think any of that. Maybe if you pulledyour head out of your ass and paid attention to anyone but yourself you’drealize that. If maybe for once you gave a shit in general.”

Liam pushed himself away from the wall, advancing towardZayn. “No, fuck you. I do give a shit,but I’m not a fucking genius like you, Zayn. Just because I don’t get highmarks doesn’t mean I don’t fucking care. Did you ever think about that? Thatmaybe I’m just fucking drowning in work I don’t understand? That I wasn’t bornwith a natural ability to just understandstuff like you can?” Liam had practically boxed Zayn in at this point, hislarge frame seeming to dwarf Zayn and he should be scared, maybe even offended,but mostly he was angry and weirdly turned on. Seriously, fuck Liam Payne.

“Please Liam, I’ve seen you. You walk around with your superfanstrailing you, getting by on your looks and reputation. I’ve seen you in action.”

Liam’s eyes were still filled with fire, an anger Zayn hadnever seen this close, but there was something else lingering in their depth—somethingZayn didn’t know Liam well enough to place. As soon as Zayn noticed it, Liamwas backing away from him just as quickly as he’d advanced.

“Okay, Zayn,” Liam said, but his voice trembled. He justsounded tired. “Whatever you say.” Liam walked back to the opposite wall, fallingheavily against it before scrubbing a hand down his face and thunking his headagainst the wall behind him. Guilt slowly started curling it’s way around Zayn’sstomach and he couldn’t place why. He was speaking the truth. It wasn’t like hewas accusing Liam of those things based purely on observation; he had heardcountless stories about Liam from so many people. They couldn’t all be lying,right? Then again, Liam had said some pretty interesting things about Zayn. Wasthat just Liam’s opinion, or had he been hearing the same kinds of stories Zaynhad. Regardless, he was terribly confused.

“Liam?” The other man looked up at his name, connecting hisgaze with Zayn’s. “I’m sorry. For, um, presuming, I guess?”

Liam cracked a smile, a little warmth shining through hisotherwise rough exterior. “Yeah, uh, me, too. I should’ve known better.” Zayncouldn’t help but smile back.

“So…what do you wanna talk about?” Zayn asked.

Liam let out a guffaw, his eyes crinkling up in a way Zaynabsolutely adored. When he finally settled down, Zayn noticed the slight mischieflined in his face.

“You could tell me an embarrassing story. Ooooh, I know.Tell me how you lost your virginity, Zayn.” He followed this with suggestiveeyebrow waggles, and Zayn was back to square one because a. his eyebrows andtheir movements should not be thatattractive and b. how dare Liam cheapen this moment with a joke. They weremaking progress.

Zayn stared at him for a moment, waiting for Liam to say ‘justkidding!’ When Liam just continued to stare at him, Zayn let out a very inelegantsnort.

“I am not telling you how I lost my virginity, nope. That isthe last thing that is happening.”When Zayn looked back up, Liam was sticking his bottom lip out in an exaggerated—andhot, fuck you very much Liam Payne—pout that Zayn wanted to punch off hisstupid face.

“Awww, boo. You’re boring.” A devilish grin replaced thepout as a wicked gleam started to shine in Liam’s eyes. “I’ll tell you how Ilost mine if you tell me how you lost yours. C’mon, Z, I bet you’re curious.”

“We are not talking about our sex lives, Liam. What’s wrongwith you? Are you mental?” Zayn decidedly ignored the thrill that went throughhim at Liam calling him ‘Z’. Liam was messing him up so bad.

Liam let out a loud laugh and Zayn fell a little in lovewith it—again, fuck you Liam Payne. Liam definitely didn’t laugh enough, andZayn ached to fix that.

What the fuck,Zayn thought. Being trapped in an enclosed space was really starting to affecthim.

Almost as soon as he had the thought, though, the elevatordinged, the numbers glowing back to life and the telltale whirring of the boxechoing through the space. When he looked back up at Liam ready to celebratetheir freedom, Liam was already looking back with an incredibly soft look onhis face. It momentarily threw Zayn off kilter—why was Liam looking at him likethat? More importantly, when had almost half an hour passed?

With a start, Zayn realized it was in part because of Liam.If the man hadn’t been keeping up a constant stream of conversation andridiculous questions, Zayn would probably be a mess of nerves right now.

When the elevator doors finally opened up, Zayn practically flung himself through them, ready toforget the whole thing ever happened. Well, kinda. He would definitely be rememberingthe way Liam looked towering over him later. Liam, however, had other ideas.

“Hey, um, Zayn? I was, um…I was kind of wondering ifmaybe…could we…,” Liam trailed off, shifting nervously in front of Zayn. Zaynheard a muttered fuck before Liam lookedback up, the most nervous Zayn had ever seen him. The man normally oozedconfidence, but now he was standing in front of Zayn looking as if he was readyto run for the hills. It only made Zayn more curious as to just what Liam waswondering. “You want to go to the movies with me?”

And okay, Zayn definitely wasn’t thinking that. Did Liamjust ask him to the movies? Because ifhe had it sounded and awful lot like he was asking Zayn on a date. The more Zaynthought about it, the more that made perfect sense. Liam knew who he was. Liamstarted a conversation with him as soon as the elevator stopped—and wasn’t thatsuspicious, almost like Liam knew itwas going to stop—and his first question was whether Zayn had seen the newMarvel movie. Liam was nervous, for Christ’s sake. He was asking Zayn on a date.

“Liam Payne, are you asking me out on a date?” Zayn watchedas a blush rose high on Liam’s cheeks, and he couldn’t help the pure giddiness that rushed through him. LiamPayne, resident bad ass, was fumbling and blushinghis was through asking Zayn, of all people, on a date. It was incredible.

“Um, I…yes?”

Zayn fought back a laugh, overcome with a sudden urge topush Liam up against the nearest surface and kiss the fuck out of him. Okay, somaybe Zayn didn’t hate Liam quite asmuch as he might have led everyone to believe.

“I’ll go out with you,” Zayn began. A smile startedspreading across Liam’s lips, hope filling his eyes. Zayn held up a hand betweenthem, halting anything Liam might say. “On one condition.”

Liam’s smile dimmed a little, but he nodded for Zayn tocontinue.

“You have to tell me how you lost your virginity, Liam ‘badass’ Payne.” He emphasized badass with fingerquotes and all. Liam giggled in front of him, fucking giggled, and Zayn knew he was so, so fucked.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed. As soon as the words left Liam’smouth, Zayn launched himself at the man, pinning him up against the wall nextto the elevator and kissing the mouth that had been driving him mad.

And when Liam eventually confesses he paid one of the facility managers to stop the elevator so he couldask him out, Zayn teased the fuck outof Liam. He absolutely did not letthat go. In fact, he told everyone.

But for now, now the only thought Zayn had—aside from how fucking good of a kisser Liam Payne was—was howmaybe life did turn out like a romcom sometimes.

#whew this was fun to write #I'm not kidding when I said self indulgent #honestly though i never would have thought to combine these two #so i'm really really glad you sent them in lol #ziam #drabble #ask prompt #prettyinsoulpunk #enjoy :)#my writing

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chasholidays · 6 years

Note

Good job on not killing yourself with prompts this year, Chash. We appreciate your continued existence! I would like a modern AU where Bellamy bonds with Clarke’s foster daughter Madi by playing video games with her. Bellamy and Clarke have been friends for a long time but recently started dating, and everything’s gonna work out just fine but you know, they’re nervous.

Overall, Bellamy thinks the timing on two of the best developments of his life could have gone better.

The first best development is that he and Clarke are finally both single at the same time and manage to have a conversation about feelings that ends in the two of them agreeing to give the dating thing a try, which is honestly a miracle in and of itself. They’re going slow, trying not to screw anything up, and it’s going really well when the next best development hits, which is Madi.

Clarke had been on the wait-list for a foster kid for a while, and their entire friend group had been anxious for the assignment to finally come through. Most of them are only children who long to be cool aunts or uncles, so Clarke getting a kid is basically the perfect scenario for them. Bellamy had been excited too, of course, despite having an actual sister who had an actual child, but the combination of “new relationship” and “new child” makes things awkward.

“I just don’t really know how to introduce her to you,” Clarke says. “Like–I don’t know, it feels more serious than her meeting Raven or Wells. And I don’t want her to get invested in us as a couple or us as her parents if it’s not going to last.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” He kisses her hair, settles in a little closer. They spent the whole day setting up the apartment for Madi, cleaning and moving furniture, and he’s sad he won’t be around to help her settle in, but he can’t actually object. “My mom introduced me to a lot of boyfriends, she might have a history with that too. We should take it slow.”

“We were already taking it slow,” she says, sounding mostly amused. “You know I’m really excited about dating you, right? It’s not–”

He laughs. “I know, don’t worry. If you wanted to break up with me, you’d break up with me.”

“I would. I just wish we had a little more time to settle into this before Madi came along.”

“When it rains it pours. I don’t mind taking a back seat for a while.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be long. She’s ten, I’m hoping that’s old enough where we can have a decent discussion about who you are and how you fit in. And even if we break up, I assume you’re still going to be a part of her life.”

“Of course,” he says. Half the point of being as careful as they’re being with the progression of their relationship as they are is to try to make sure the friendship survives. There’s no guarantee, but–he can’t imagine his life without Clarke in it. They’ll make it work. “If I’m not the cool father figure, I want to at least be a cool uncle.”

“You’re not that cool,” she teases, all warmth. “Sorry. You’re going to have to settle for dorky guy who talks too much about Latin and history.”

“I can definitely get a better vibe than that going,” he says, and she just smiles and kisses him and clearly does not believe him at all.

Which he can’t blame her for, really. Her knowledge of him as a parental figure comes from Octavia, whom he did name after a historical figure from Rome. There’s precedent at work, but he doesn’t have to be like that. He could, in theory, come up with a different gimmick, some other way to relate to Madi. It doesn’t have to be all fun facts about word origins and Roman emperors.

The nice thing about being the last one to meet Madi is that he gets to hear about her from everyone else first, like he’s prepping for a very weird kind of test.

“She’s cute,” Murphy says, with a shrug. “I don’t know, she’s a kid, what do you want from me? Clarke says I can’t tell her to start fires, which seems like a weirdly specific thing to worry about, so maybe she has a history.”

“She thinks you have a history of being a dumbass,” says Raven, which seems like the right reading of that interaction. “Madi’s cool. Smart, and she wants me to teach her about computers and stuff, so I like her.”

“Nate and I just brought Smash Brothers over, she liked that but she was getting frustrated.”

Bellamy perks up, turns his attention to Monty. “Yeah? That sounds promising.”

“You want to beat a kid at video games to make her like you?” Murphy asks. “You’d be better off telling her to start fires.”

“I’m not going to tell her to start fires. Or beat her at video games.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure Bellamy can beat an incompetent fifth grader at Smash Brothers,” Miller says. “Fighting games aren’t exactly his forte.”

“So that means Madi and I can work on it together,” he says. “I’ve already got a Switch, I can pick up Smash Brothers, Mario Kart–we can do video games together. That can be our thing. You guys are too good at it.”

“If you play video games, what are we supposed to do with her?” Miller grumbles. “Then we don’t have a thing.”

“Yeah, but Bellamy needs a thing way more than we do. We can just buy her stuff.”

“And once she’s good at video games, she can start playing with you guys. She practices on me until she’s ready to get her revenge.”

“Wouldn’t that work better if you were good at video games?” Raven asks. “So you could teach her?”

“Or she’ll be happy that we’re both shitty. And I’m good at some video games.” He finishes his drink. “This could work. Once I actually meet her.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Monty says. “She’s a good kid!”

“And everyone knows you and Clarke are you and Clarke,” says Raven.

“Nice–” He makes a face. “I was going to say tautology, but that’s not even a tautology, it’s just the exact same thing.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Just saying, I get why you guys are taking it slow with everything, especially with Madi, but you’re going to be fine.”

As one of the involved parties, he can’t have quite the faith in himself and Clarke that Raven does–he doesn’t want to get cocky and fuck it up–but he does think it’s largely true. His awkwardness around Madi is a consequence of timing, and in a year or two, he’s pretty sure they’re just going to be a functional family unit.

Which doesn’t mean he can’t screw it up in the meantime, so he’s still going to be careful.

Clarke’s had Madi for a month and a half when she says, “Should we start off with family dinner?”

“How did you start with everyone else?”

“Not with family dinner,” she admits. “They just came over to meet her. But she knows you’re different.”

“Maybe I could cook for you guys,” he muses. “Dinner and a movie, but at your place.”

She laughs. “It’s a little creepy that you’re adapting date ideas into stuff to do with Madi.”

“I’m good at cooking, it makes people like me. If she’s eating your food–”

“I’m doing fine!” Clarke protests. “But yeah, that would probably be good. Cook something kid-friendly, hang out. No sleepover.”

“I know.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I know it’s complicated right now. I wish we could spend more time together, but I get it. And it’s not going to be like this forever.”

“No.” She leans in and kisses him, soft and sweet. “Okay, I have to go get her. Saturday, maybe? Come over in the afternoon?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Figure out what Madi wants to eat and text me. I’ll go to the store and pick stuff up. Is there a dessert I can bribe her with?”

“You don’t need to bribe her, she’s going to love you.” She pauses. “But it couldn’t hurt. I’ll see what she wants.”

“You’re the best. Let me know when you get home?”

“Will do.”

He doesn’t spend the next few days stressing about things, but he does spend the next few days planning. He buys Smash Brothers and plays it just long enough to confirm he’s bad at it, buys a bunch of cupcake toppings and experiments with frosting to make sure he’ll be good at it as a group activity, and then he calls his sister so she can tell him he’s trying too hard.

“Definitely. This isn’t an audition, Bell. And it’s not your only chance. If you come on too strong, you’ll probably just freak her out.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She hums, thoughtful. “My advice? Skip the cupcakes this time. Do a baking thing, like, next week. You’ve already got a ton of activities for this one, don’t overload her.”

“When did you get so good at this?”

“Ash’s second birthday,” she says, prompt. “I got over-competitive with some asshole mom from Mommy and Me because I wanted to throw the best party ever and I planned, like, fifteen more things than those kids could ever do. Or wanted to do. They burned out so hard. And it’s not like you want to set expectations that high. You want to just be a normal part of her life, right? Not the magical guy who shows up once a week with a Mary Poppins bag full of shit.”

“That’s true, I should keep her expectations low.”

“Just stop stressing, okay? Clarke loves you, her kid will put up with you no matter what, it’s going to be fine.”

“I want it to be good.”

“It’ll probably be good too. Seriously, just give it time.”

“This is still the most mature advice you’ve ever given me.”

“I’m actually a pretty kickass mom. And you were a pretty good big brother with too much responsibility, and Clarke’s going to be a good foster parent. Just let it happen.”

So Bellamy leaves his cupcake-decorating kit at home, goes to the store to pick up a pretty normal–albeit Madi-approved–dinner, and brings that and his switch over to Clarke’s house on Saturday afternoon around three.

Clarke answers the door, leaning up to give him a kiss. “Hi. You look normal.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“I meant you’re not obviously dying of stress.”

“Should I be?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, so–what does she know?”

“You’re my boyfriend, but we were friends for a long time before we started dating. It’s new but pretty serious, but I don’t want her to feel pressured to take on too much family all at once. You’re a dork who tries to hard, but it’s because you care.”

“That all sounds about right. I brought video games for us to play.”

“Am I included in that us?”

“It’s on Switch, so you can be if you want to be, yeah. Depends on how much of a family activity you’re looking for.”

“I’ll supervise for now.” She kisses him again. “She’s going to love you, don’t worry.”

Madi is in the living room already, her attention fixed on a book in a way that makes Bellamy think she’s not actually reading so much as avoiding looking at anything else. Not that he blames her, really; if he was Madi, he’d be trying and failing to play it cool too. That’s the ten-year-old experience in a nutshell.

“Madi, this is my boyfriend, Bellamy.”

“Hey,” says Bellamy, offering her a smile. She puts her book aside and stands, offering her hand, formal and a little stiff. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“You too.”

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, it’s just for school.”

“Bellamy teaches high-school history,” Clarke says. “So he always likes hearing about school stuff.”

“And pretty much all books. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s actually pretty good. Especially for a school book.”

“Cool. Well, if you want to keep reading, don’t let me stop you. I can read too, I’ve got stuff on my phone.”

“What did you want to do?” she asks, sounding a little wary.

“You met Nate and Monty, right? And played some video games?” She nods. “They beat me every time we play, so I’m trying to get better. Seriously,” he adds, before she can say anything. “I like role-playing games and stuff, I’m good at those, but I never got the hang of fighting games. I just button-mash. So if you want to practice on someone on your level, that would be fun.”

“He really does suck,” Clarke puts in. “Even I beat him sometimes.”

“And I really don’t get Smash Brothers.”

Madi’s still frowning. “So, you want to learn how to be better at video games with me?”

He shrugs. “And get to know you, but–video games would be a fun way to do that, right?”

“Depends on how fun it is to play video games with you,” she says, and that makes him smile.

“Yeah, fair enough. You want to find out?”

They start with Smash Brothers, which is a franchise he only vaguely understands. It’s fun enough and he’s played various versions with Miller over the years he’s known him, but he also knows there’s a lot of history he doesn’t get.

“I don’t even recognize half the characters,” he admits to Madi. “Like, Marth. Where did Marth come from? What is it?”

“Fire Emblem,” says Madi, to his surprise.

“What’s Fire Emblem?”

“It’s a tactical RPG series.” She worries her lip. “I really like video games? So I watch videos on YouTube and stuff, Let’s Plays or whatever? But I’ve never had a game system of my own to play on, and it turns out I suck.”

“You don’t suck,” says Clarke, sitting down on Madi’s other side. “Miller and Monty are sharks. I think they have fans online who watch them play. Just because you didn’t win playing against them your first time playing doesn’t mean anything.”

“We can definitely get better,” Bellamy says. “Especially you. But is this what you want to get better at?”

Madi shoots him a look. If nothing else, she seems fairly comfortable talking to him. That’s not nothing. “What do you mean?”

“Are there games you want to play more than Smash Brothers? Would you rather be doing Fire Emblem?”

“Smash Brothers is fine.”

“I’ve got other stuff. Breath of the Wild is pretty cool. I’m worse at Mario Kart than I am at Smash Brothers but it’s fun to play with Clarke, she’s so bad.”

“Shut up,” says Clarke, without heat.

“Breath of the Wild looked cool, but I like Smash too. I want to unlock more characters.”

He lets it go at that, and they spend an enjoyable afternoon playing together. Clarke gets in on it sometimes, but she also wanders off to do other things, leaving the two of them alone to get to know each other. Bellamy already knows the bones of Madi’s life from Clarke–parents died when she was young, sent to her grandmother and then into foster care when her grandmother couldn’t take care of her anymore–but it’s different hearing it from her, and sharing his own past with her in return.

It feels like it’s going well.

Over dinner, he asks, “So, what are your favorite games that you watch online? Or as Let’s Plays?”

She mulls it over. “I like watching people play Overwatch, but I don’t think I want to play it? Skyrim’s cool, and Fallout. I don’t know if I have a favorite.”

“Any you wish you could play? Or the ones you wish you could play most.”

Another pause. “Kingdom Hearts,” she decides.

“Is that the Disney one?” he asks.

Clarke holds up her hand. “The what?”

“It’s the Disney one, yeah. Square Enix,” she says, turning her attention to Clarke. “That’s a big gaming company. They decided to make a game with Disney, and it’s really fun. They have new characters too but they’re going between different Disney worlds. So you get to play in a bunch of movies.

"Have you played that one?” Clarke asks him.

“No, but I’ve heard of it. It’s on Playstation, right?”

“Yeah, and it’s kind of like Smash Brothers too because it’s got characters from other games too. The third game in the main series is supposed to be coming out soon after, like–a really long time. I think the second one came out before I was born? But there are a lot of spin-offs too, so it’s not like there’s been nothing.”

“I’ve got a PS4 too,” Bellamy muses. “I could probably get Kingdom Hearts, right?”

“You don’t have to,” Madi says quickly. “I didn’t mean–”

“I’ll see how much it is. It sounds fun, and I’ve always been kind of curious about it. You could play and I could watch and try to help you figure out what to do.”

He can see her struggling with what to say, the urge to minimize her own wants at war with how much she does want it. Bellamy’s not rich or anything, but he’s more than financially stable enough to buy a video game, especially one his girlfriend’s foster kid will like. He’s impulse-bought games for way worse reasons.

“If you want to,” she finally says, and he smiles.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Clarke washes the dishes while he and Madi play a couple more rounds of Smash, and then they watch a movie. Madi makes it to the end, but just barely, and Clarke sends her to bed after that.

“It went okay, right?” he murmurs into her hair. He’ll have to go home sooner or later, but he’s opting for as much later as he can manage. “I didn’t push too hard or anything.”

“I don’t think so. Are you getting the game?”

“Yeah. I might ask Monty and Miller if they have any old game systems she can have too. If you’re good with that.”

“Yeah, that would be great. I wish I’d thought of it.”

“Did she know she liked games so much before?”

She shakes her head, smiling a little. “No, that was new. She must really like you,” she teases.

He kisses her hair, settles in closer. “I hope so.”

He spends the next morning lost in the incredibly confusing tangle of Kingdom Hearts wikipedia pages and comes to the conclusion that if he can get Madi a PS3, she should at least be able to experience Kingdom Hearts I and II, if not all of the confusingly named and numbered side games.

“Probably,” says Miller. “Honestly, Kingdom Hearts is so weird, I assume there’s a spin-off you can only play on the back of Japanese cereal boxes.”

Based on his morning reading, Bellamy would believe that. “So do you have an old PS3 you’re not using?”

“You know can get them on PS4 too,” he points out. “You don’t need to get an older system to experience them as they were meant to be experienced.”

“Not for me, for Madi. Apparently that’s the number-one game she wants to play, and if I go out and buy her a PS4, that’s definitely trying too hard.”

“Yeah, definitely. Does it have to be a PS3?”

“Not if you have something else that can play it instead, I guess. Don’t tell me you guys have an extra PS4.”

“No,but I think we have some old PS2s. I think Monty might even have Kingdom Hearts around. We can take a look, make sure everything’s working, but as long as it is, Madi’s welcome to it.” He pauses. “Do you get credit for being the cool boyfriend if we’re the ones doing all the work?”

“I’m coordinating,” he says. “And I’m going to help her.”

“With what? You’ve never played Kingdom Hearts.”

“It’s an RPG, I’m good at RPGs.” He pauses. “And I was going to buy it and play it on my own so if she has questions I can answer them.”

Miller eyes him. “You probably don’t need to work this hard, you know? She’s a good kid, you’re a good guy, you’re going to be fine.”

“I know.” He shrugs. “I’m not an expert or anything, but I remember after my mom died, I always felt like an after-thought to people. Especially adults. So I want Madi to feel like she’s our top priority. Put in the effort for her. In a non-creepy, not trying too hard way,” he adds. “So asking my friend if he’s got an old game system she can use seems fine.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty normal. Downloading the game so you can be her guru is–” He pauses. “Actually, yeah, that’s cute. You’re going to be a great dad. Or whatever else you and Clarke end up calling it.”

“That’s the plan,” he says. “Thanks for helping out.”

He shrugs. “What can I say? You need to work a lot harder to be cool than I do.”

According to Monty, the Playstation 2 is fully functional and the Kingdom Hearts games work as well on it as they ever have. Then he gives Bellamy a long list of tips and a rant about the game’s lore, so he definitely has a resource of his own to go to if he can’t figure it out without Madi.

But Clarke doesn’t see it that way. “I really don’t think you should play on your own.”

“No?”

“I get the impulse, and it’s cute, but the internet exists and is right there. If she can’t figure something out, you guys can work on it together and google it if you have to. But if you’re playing on your own, there’s no reason for you to play with her, right? If you’ve never played, you’re discovering it together.”

He smiles. “That does sound good. Do you think I’m working too hard at this?”

“No. I think you care about it, so you want to do it right. That’s good.”

“Here’s hoping Madi thinks so too.”

“I think she will, yeah. She’s still kind of–it’s a lot for her, I think? Having so many people who are working really hard to make her like them. She’s not used to people caring about her opinion so much.”

“Local thirty-somethings very invested in ten-year-old’s opinion,” he says, making her laugh.

“Pretty much. But we had a talk about how long I’ve been waiting for a foster kid and how much I want one, and how supportive all you guys are, and I think she gets that she’s a big deal for us. Even if that’s weird.”

“Does she know I want to be a part of the family some day?” he asks, which is, admittedly, something of a roundabout way of asking if Clarke gets that, too. In case he hasn’t made it clear enough.

“Honestly, I think she doesn’t get why you’re not a part of the family already. I said you’d probably be coming by once a week and she was like, that doesn’t seem like a lot.”

“It really doesn’t.”

Clarke bites the corner of her mouth. “What happened to slow and careful?”

“Maybe we can focus on careful, but not slow. If I want to play Kingdom Hearts with her, it would kind of suck if I was just around once a week, right?”

“It would.” She leans up to kiss him. “I could see you more.”

“Yeah, I thought maybe you could.”

While Clarke goes to pick Madi up from her social worker’s appointment, Bellamy gets the old Playstation set up and makes sure the game is working as promised, fools around with it just long enough to make sure everything’s in working order before making himself stop and focus on anything else.

It’s a nice surprise and she’s going to like it. He did good here.

“Hey, Bellamy,” she says, when she gets in. It’s their fourth time meeting, and he’s looking forward to the day when that’s something he stops being able to count on one hand. “Are you not coming on Saturday anymore?”

“Clarke and I thought I could start coming more than once a week,” he says. “If you’re good with that. Plus, I’ve got something for you.”

She looks surprised, but pleased. “What?”

“I told you Monty and Miller have a ton of games, right? I thought they might have some old ones they didn’t want, too. And when I asked about Kingdom Hearts, they said they had a Playstation 2 and an old copy of the game you can have. So–” He falters, voice melting away and leaving only what feels like a very sheepish smile. “It sounded pretty fun when you talked about it, so I thought maybe you could show me.”

Her own smile blossoms like springtime, warm and bright. “Really?”

“Yeah. I got it hooked up and checked to make sure it worked, so you should be all set.”

“Thank you,” she says, voice soft and genuine. “This is–I’m really excited.”

“Me too,” he says. “Let’s boot it up.”

She finishes the first game and is a week into the second when she says, “You have a PS4, right?”

“At home, gathering dust, yeah. I figured I’d bring it over soon. Why?”

“Because once I’m done with this one, I’m going to want to play Kingdom Hearts III, and that’s on PS4. So it would be a lot easier if you were just already here already. You and the PS4. Like–all the time.”

“Are you asking me to move in for Clarke?” he asks, unable to keep a grin off his face.

“Well, she’s not doing it, so someone has to.”

“I guess when you put it like that,” he says. “And I wouldn’t want to miss out on Kingdom Hearts III.”

She settles against his side, smiling like she won some great victory instead of asking him to do exactly what he’s been wanting to do basically since the second he and Clarke started dating. “I thought not. It’s going to be really fun.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I bet it is.”

#nfinitegladness

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freedom-shamrock · 7 years

Text

A Little Secret - Chapter 9

Also on AO3

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Unsure What to do With all Ten Fingers

Adrien wondered how Marinette always managed to seem so calm when Chat Noir stopped by out of the blue. It wasn't like his visits were scheduled. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her parents were aware of his stops and had encouraged the friendship. Actually. That probably had a lot to do with it. He could drop in to visit any of them, as Adrien or Chat, and they welcomed him as family. There was no pressure and no obvious stress.

The same definitely could not be said for Ladybug's visits to Adrien's house. Despite the fact that no one ever came into his room unannounced, there were plenty of places to hide, and the mansion was essentially empty, he was constantly paranoid that someone would come in and find him sharing a bowl of popcorn while watching Cardcaptor Sakura with the superhero.

"Relax kid," Plagg said, hovering over the hastily assembled blanket fort that shielded the couch and wall mounted television. "The only people in the house are you and your bodyguard. The chef left half an hour ago. Your boss and minder aren't due back for a week." Over the summer, the tiny black cat had given Adrien's father and Nathalie nicknames consistent with how they treated his charge. Adrien had quickly given up on trying to get him to use their names. After all, Plagg had an excellent understanding of the relationships involved.

"I know," Adrien said, flopping onto his bed. "The logic is all on your side, which I've gotta say is a weirdly swapped situation. But I just… can't help it."

Plagg nuzzled Adrien's neck. "It'll get easier with practice. I promise."

Adrien sighed. "It's been two and a half months, Plagg." Ladybug had been visiting once a week, on pre-scheduled evenings, ever since Adrien had been confunded by an angry Harry Potter fan. "I don't think it's gotten any easier." He looked around his room. "But it's probably because I'm inviting her into this place." He waved his hand at his room, large enough to contain most of Marinette's family apartment. "Marinette welcomes me to her home . It's just… different."

"You're not wrong," Plagg agreed. "If it helps any, I'll hang out in the hallway, and I'll disrupt the electricity, briefly this time, if someone's coming."

Adrien rubbed the kwami behind the ears. "Thanks Plagg. I'll have extra cheese for you later."

For once, Plagg's timing was perfect. The moment he phased through the bedroom wall, there was a tap at the window.

Adrien scurried over and let in his guest and best friend. "Hi!" He waved up to her, then held out a hand to help her down. "I'm glad you were able to make it."

She smiled, and suddenly his room didn't feel nearly so cold and empty. "I would have texted if something came up."

He nodded. "I know," he said quickly, wanting to correct her misperception before it could take hold. "It's just… it sometimes doesn't feel real that we do this. Not until you're here. And I just realized that makes me sound like I have problems with the difference between reality and fantasy, and ohmygod I'm going to shut up." He covered his mouth with one hand.

Her giggle made him so happy. He loved that sound. "Are you okay with me being here?"

"Yes," he said quickly, worried she'd leave, and no irrational fear was worth that.

"You seem kind of… nervous. Is everything all right?"

He nodded and gestured to the blanket fort. "Yeah. Peachy. It was just a long day. Intense photo shoot. Minor diva moments. Interns breaking down in tears. The usual."

"That sounds exhausting," she said, cringing before ducking into the tent. "Oooh. Nice place you have here." She flopped happily onto the pillows.

"I thought it would be more cozy," he said, shrugging as he settled in with her. He already felt better and he wondered how much of that was just being around her. Plagg had mentioned something about past Ladybugs and their ability to soothe and calm others.

"Now back to your ghastly day with all the drama," she suggested.

"We don't have to," he started, but she was shaking her head.

"This is what friends do," she reminded him. "Vent a bit. Decompress. Then we can set it aside to fully enjoy the movie."

She knew him so well; it was really nice. "Not all fashion houses are like this," he said. "But my father's… it tends to run pretty high strung. A lot like my father, actually." He took a seat beside her. "I would never recommend a friend of mine seek an internship at Gabriel."

Ladybug stared intently at him for a moment. "Really?"

He nodded. "Interns are treated as disposable commodities." It was something he'd recognized as problematic even when he was homeschooled and friendless. "But because there are so many people who think that completing an internship at Gabriel will give them a leg up, there are always others to take their place. It's completely fucked up." He'd tried to get his father to see what that could do to the company's reputation, since that was pretty much the only thing he cared about. "My father is warped enough that he thinks it makes the company seem more attractive. It's not just the standards of beauty that are unattainable, it's everything about the company and its designs."

"Wow." Ladybug sighed. "That's disgusting."

"Yeah." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "I've got this friend named Marinette who's an amazing designer even though she's entirely self-taught. She's thinking about internships, and I know she's always wanted to study with my father, but… interns don't get to do that at Gabriel. Even the really good ones. And so many of them leave the industry completely after their time with us." He snorted. His father considered it weeding out the chaff, those who didn't have what it took.

"Yikes. It must be pretty horrible if it makes people give up their artistic dreams." She looked horrified.

"I would never want one of my friends to work there in any capacity." Marinette had what it took to land a spot, and she had the talent and skill to make it in the business, but he couldn't stand the idea of her enduring Gabriel's standard abuse, of her getting jaded and bitter.

"Even if it meant you got to see them at work?" she asked.

Adrien shook his head. "I absolutely don't want anyone I know picking up a job at Gabriel because of me." He shrugged. "I'm planning on bailing at my earliest opportunity." Plagg was the only one who knew about that plan, and he'd encouraged it.

Ladybug stared at him in wide-eyed shock. "You… you're leaving modeling?" her words came out in a raspy whisper.

"Can't imagine me as anything other than a model?" he teased.

"Oh. No, that's not it at all," she assured him, one hand reaching out to land lightly on his shoulder. "You're brilliant. I can imagine you doing all sorts of things."

He felt his sly Chat grin on his face. "Really?" He drew the word out and leaned forward, suggestively arching his eyebrows.

"Not those kinds of things!" she squeaked.

He chuckled, thinking and hoping the pink in her cheeks told a different story. "Seriously, though," he went on before he could dig himself into too deep a hole. "I'm not leaving modeling entirely, at least not at first. It's not like I hate it. It makes good money, and I'm decent at it."

"Decent?!" she demanded. "That's like saying Chat and I are okay at defeating akuma."

He grinned, but continued his train of thought. "But modeling isn't a realistic life career, so I need to work out a plan for when I no longer have the look companies are aiming for." He shrugged. "I don't want to model for Gabriel anymore, and I want control over my schedule."

Ladybug nodded. "That all sounds fair, and probably past time." He'd shown her his crazy schedule when they first started trying to arrange times for her to stop by. "Have you decided what that plan will include?"

"Decided, not really, but I've obsessed over the possibilities," he admitted. His dream of freedom was relatively near, and he'd spent many of his free hours and breaks between activities thinking about his options and identifying what he really wanted in his life. A lot of his dreams were long range hopes for a warm family environment. Some were vague and nebulous because he'd had so little opportunity to explore his own interests. The few that were specific and detailed were too personal to share just yet, even with Plagg.

"If you need anything, you know you can ask your friends, right?" she asked.

He nodded. "My friends are amazing, and I hope I'm half as good to them as they are to me."

"You are," she insisted.

He unfolded the paper he'd pulled out earlier. "I'm making a list for Marinette." He flattened it on the table. "These are fashion houses that have good reputations for how they treat their interns, staff, and models."

Ladybug glanced down at the paper and froze, her mouth dropped open into an adorable O of surprise. A red fingertip hovered over an e-mail address. "Are these…" Her voice was reverent.

"Those are my contacts, most work in talent acquisition, and they've offered to look at her portfolio." It wasn't a tiny list, and he was very much aware that the details were not publicly available. He'd used his well-honed schmoozing skills in talking up the staff he ran into during various fashion events.

"How long have you been working on this?" she asked, wonder clear in her voice.

"Oh… a while, I guess." He shrugged. "Probably since April. That's when I realized I needed to get Mari some options other than Gabriel, while I was still in favor."

"You think that'll change?" she asked. "That people won't want you when you… um… go rogue?"

He grinned. It was such perfect phrasing. "Hard to say. Some won't care, even if my father makes a scene and throws bad publicity my way." He rolled his eyes. "Some would probably prefer it if things get really ugly, so they can claim to have poached me from their rival."

"You've transposed your numbers," Chat said gently, tapping the scratch paper where Ladybug was working through a physics problem on refraction.

"Hmmm… oh… yeah," she said groggily, striking out the mistake and rewriting the problem.

"Why are you so tired tonight, Bug?" he asked, catching the edge of the blanket that tried to slip off her shoulder. Snuggle studies had somehow ended up being part of their post- workout routine, so they were huddled together under a blanket on the floor of the dojo they'd been using all winter. Late February saw some warmer temperatures, but it wasn't nearly enough for his partner.

"Designing," she muttered. Then, as if realizing this version of her wasn't supposed to be telling this version of him about her personal life, she scrambled to cover. "Uh… you know, planning how I want my gap year to go. Figuring out what I need to do, to be where I need to, at the end."

"I can completely relate," he admitted, hoping to ease her mind. He'd been doing a lot of planning and researching as well. "I'm hoping to make a lot of changes during my gap year, and… they're taking more time to work out than I expected."

She leaned into him, her face pressing into his ribs, and hummed.

"But, you know you don't have to do it all now, right?" he asked. "That's part of what the gap year is for. Figuring things out." He pushed her paper out of the way before straightening up and scooping her into the nest made by his folded legs.

"Yeah," she agreed. "But I'm a planner, you know that. I feel better if I have some idea or road map, even if it's going to change."

He adjusted the blanket to make sure she was fully covered. "I know." It was part of what made her such a great hero and them such a perfect team. She planned in advance, while he did it on the fly, and she was flexible enough to modify as needed. "But maybe you should just put down the basics for your plan now, and figure out the details after Final Bac." It was surprisingly sound advice from Plagg when he'd been stressing out over it. Though to be fair, his kwami had been much more helpful to his personal plights in the last eight months.

She snorted. "Tikki told me something a lot like that too."

"I get that you have big plans, L.B." He tightened his hold on her for a moment. "I really do. And yeah, there are things you'll need to do to get there, but you can't do it all at once. You'll burn yourself out. And where would that leave me?"

She let out a little laugh. "Fine. I'll try to balance things better."

"That's all I can ask, Bug," he said. "But it will cut down on my worrying." He looked at her homework. She still had a few problems to go, but she had time tomorrow. "How about we call it a night, and you go straight to bed. You've said you have afternoon science, so you can hit those problems during your break."

"Okay," she agreed, making no move to get up.

"You want me to take you home?" He felt oddly breathless. Knowing who she was, without confirmation, was one thing. A full-on reveal was something else.

She shook her head against his side, instantly snuffing out the brushfire in his brain. "Can't tell you who I am; you know that."

"It's not safe," he said, unsure if it really mattered at this point.

She nodded. "But I want to." It was the first time she'd frankly admitted that to him.

"You… you do?" he asked, warmth of happiness suffusing him.

"Course I do," she insisted, hugging him tightly. "You are my most favorite person, ever."

"You're mine, too," he said softly.

"And as soon as it's safe, we're doing a whole reveal hand hanging out, and everything," she promised. "Sound okay?"

He let out a sigh. "Sounds purrfect."

"Great. Now, two minute power snuggle before I have to go out in the cold." She tugged the blanket over her head before wrapping her arms around him in her cocoon.

He chuckled and pulled out his baton to set an alarm. He wasn't as tired, but falling asleep seemed very possible given his current comfort level and the happy buzz filtering through his head.

Chapter Title - "Not knowing how to do anything with all ten of your fingers" is a French idiom for being or feeling completely useless.

Huge thanks to @soundofez and my betas: Karnival and @chatbug-jk

#Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Big Bang #fanfic #my writing #soundofez #A Little Secret

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secretlystephaniebrown · 7 years

Text

Come On Home: 4/5

After the war, Locus ends up spending his days on Hawaii, where he meets Kai and Grif. Nothing will ever be the same.

Thanks as always to the phenomenal @a-taller-tale for the beta! And special thanks to every single person who has given feedback bc you guys are the freaking best.

Grimmons arrives! Chorus arrives! We're almost at the end!

Also on Ao3

This planet is the fucking worst. Simmons leaves and joins Blue Team again, then Donut tells the rescue ship to leave, Caboose is constantly upset because Church ran off again, and on top of that Wash and Tucker won’t fucking shut up. Grif doesn’t know if they’re flirting or just haven’t slept enough lately, but he also doesn’t really care because they’re getting on his nerves. Blue Team problems. He knows better than to tamper with them.

So when an asshole in orange armor shows up, Grif is almost ready to write the whole thing off as yet another Blue Team misadventure about to start when the guy opens his mouth and Grif is suddenly a kid again.

“Run!” the man yells, and Grif stares. He’s wearing orange, bright orange, orange and charcoal, the same orange as sunglasses on a smug face—

“Excellent work soldiers.”

Grif’s been punched a lot since joining the army. He’s intimately familiar with the feeling of being punched in the chest, of the way the pain lingers, of struggling to breathe.

This is worse. This is so, so many times worse. Because a figure with cloaking like Tex, like the Meta, comes into sight, in a weird shade of green armor, with a helmet that has a familiar marking across the visor, and it’s unmistakable. No one else has a voice like that.

Grif would recognize his asshole big brother anywhere, even in armor, even more than ten years later.

He can’t speak, can’t breathe. He just stares, and then looks at Felix. There’s blood on his leg, where Sam shot him, and he can’t help but feel kind of… proud, or something… that Sam finally got around to ditching that guy, even if he ditched them first.

There’s some fucking posturing, some weird and ominous statements, but Grif can’t really hear them. His blood is pounding in his ears, and every single thing he’s wanted to say, every name he’s ever wanted to call Sam or Felix are trying to spill out over each other, and the result feels like choking.

And then…

Sam is gone, and they’re left with fucking Felix. Felix, who’s injured and just saved Wash… because Sam had just tried to put a bullet through Wash’s head?

His stomach feels gross and wrong, and his head aches just trying to put these pieces together.

He listens to the speech, like the rest of them. Felix calls them the “galaxy’s greatest soldiers”, and Grif has to bite his tongue to stop himself from calling bullshit.

He remembers Felix. He remembers a guy who was willing to feud with a twelve year old girl, who scared his sister so badly that when Grif came home from work, she’d been sitting on the couch holding a knife. Felix is trouble, and Grif doesn’t believe one inch of his story.

“Yeah,” he finally says, after the pitch. “I don’t buy it.”

Felix flinches suddenly, turning to stare at him. Grif doesn’t say anything else, just lets the others reject his offer. And when he tries to slip off to make a call or something, Grif follows him.

“What the fuck are you pulling?” Grif demands.

Felix turns. “So… it is you,” he says, but he’s tense. Ha, guess he hadn’t expected to find Grif here. Good. The guy deserves to be off balance.

“Man, you really pissed Sam off. He wouldn’t let us even kick you out of the house, and now he wants to kill you?”

Felix lets out a nervous laugh. “Uh, Grif, right? Locus he’s—he’s not the guy you knew, okay? He’s gone totally off the deep end.”

“Like I’d believe anything you say about him, you slimy fucker,” Grif says. “What. Happened?”

Suddenly, Felix’s body language shifts. “I’m not telling you shit,” Felix says, and there’s the familiar cocky asshole. The one who not only has all the cards, he’s stacked the deck, so he knows what cards you have. “You’re just some brat he got a soft spot for years ago. You’re not important.” They’re wearing helmets, so Grif can’t see his smile, but he can remember it. “He ran away from you and all of your fucking problems with his tail between his legs, remember? Couldn’t be fucked to stick around.”

So what if Felix is right? That doesn’t mean that he gets to win the conversation. He’s practically bragging. Sam chose him instead of them. But…

“At least he didn’t try to put a bullet in my head when he ran,” Grif says.

Felix laughs. “Yeah, well. Give him time. He doesn’t like reminders that he’s human.”

He leaves, and Grif lets him for now.

“Grif!” Simmons yells, back from the campsite. “Stop napping and come help us!”

Grif takes his eyes off Felix, and heads back towards Simmons, unable to shake the feeling that he’s being watched.

The others are preparing for battle, and Grif’s in the corner screwing with his future cubes when he hears the heavy footsteps behind him. He grabs his gun and swings around, even though a part of him knows exactly what he’s going to see.

“Dexter Grif,” the voice, that old, familiar voice, is almost too quiet to hear.

“The fuck are you doing, Sam?” Grif’s mouth is totally dry, and he grips his gun tightly, even if he’s not pointing it at Sam.

He’s… he’s never seen Sam in armor before. Somehow, in his head, wherever Sam had ended up, he’d be wearing the same goofy print tourist shirts and denim shorts that Kai always bought him and he’d worn without comment or complaint. Or maybe in the cargo pants and white tank top he’d worn the first time they’d met, which he’d put on again whenever he’d leave with Felix.

But in armor, it’s almost like he’s an entirely different person. Grif can’t see his face, can’t see where he’s looking, can’t see the twitches of his mouth and eyebrows that were always so expressive, that Grif had learned to read like a book. In armor, he’s even taller, even wider. For the first time, Grif thinks he can see why Mom had been scared of this guy. Sam looks… dangerous. Dangerous and alien.

Felix’s words echo in his head about Sam not liking reminders that he’s human, and he wonders if this is what he’d meant.

“Locus,” Sam corrects, and his voice was somehow even deeper than normal.

“No,” Grif says. “Fuck. You.” He takes a deep breath. But he’s had a bit more time now, a bit of time to rehearse this, to figure out the exact order of his questions. He’d never thought he’d get this chance, never thought he’d actually be able to say any of these things, but here he is. He’s got a chance to get answers. “What the fuck are you doing here, and why are you trying to kill Felix? And us?”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam says, and there’s that weirdly earnest undertone that Grif remembers. He’s gone for fucking years without hearing that voice, without seeing him, but for a second, it’s like no time has passed at all. Sam looks away, and slings the fucking sniper rifle he’s been carrying back over his shoulder, his head tilting downwards. “My orders are to escort your friends to safety.”

“And Felix?” Grif demands. “Dude, I thought he was your friend.”

Sam isn’t looking at him. “I—he—we had a—disagreement.”

“You said he should be glad you missed his head. Like holy shit Sam. You really took that friends-turned-mortal-enemies thing all the way.” But then Grif remembers that Sam abandoned them, and gets mad again. “Great. So you’re on the planet for a job. Let me guess, it’s super important, and so that’s why you never came home?”

Sam isn’t looking at him, Grif can tell. All that does is make him even more angry. There’s still a box of Sam’s things in the bottom of his closet back home, a box with a razor and those fucking books. The picture of the three of them is back in Blood Gulch. He’d left it with Kai for safe keepings, because he’d still have Simmons at least, unlike her.

“It was for the best.” Sam sounds like he really believes it too, and that just makes Grif even angrier.

“The best?” Grif can’t fucking believe him. “Oh, fuck you. Kai fucking cried for—”

“Why are you here?” Sam interrupts him. Shame radiates from him and his shoulders are hunched. Good to know Kai crying is still an effective weapon, even now. “I know the deposits have been going through.”

Grif wants to laugh. Of course that’s what he’s focusing on. The money had just kept coming in. Sometimes small amounts, sometimes large. Never any notes or messages attached, just dollar signs. The only clue they’d had that Sam was even alive, out there wherever he was. But it hadn’t mattered. It just meant they didn’t starve, that there was more new clothes, that the house stopped looking like it was going to fall apart around them. “Didn’t go back to school. Got drafted.” Which he hadn’t even realized that Sam had been trying to prevent until he’d gotten the letter. And suddenly everything had fallen into place; his weird focus on school, his few vague mentions of college.

And after… everything, when Grif had started to get nightmares, he thought he might actually understand Sam for the first time in years.

“I… see.”

No, he didn’t. He didn’t get that Grif had kept skipping school even though he didn’t need to out of spite, hoping that Sam would come home just to make him go back. He didn’t see that Kai had followed him into the army, that Kai had fucking volunteered, even though she didn’t have to, because she was all alone and she missed him, and if that wasn’t a statement about how apparently no one in their family had any brains, that was.

“Dex,” Sam says, and there’s something twisted with the way that he says it, as if he can’t quite believe it. He straightens his shoulders suddenly, his posture changing completely and his voice becoming stronger. “You need to convince your friends to come with me. Felix is dangerous. The New Republic—”

“Spare me the fucking speech,” Grif says. “Don’t you guys fucking get it? We don’t care. Call off your guys in the fight, and then Felix will go away too. Just help us get a ship and I’ll be out of your hair and you can do your badass loner thing again.”

Sam seems to be about to respond when suddenly, loud, armored footsteps start to move towards them. “Oh Griiiiiiif,” Felix sings. “Got a present for you! One I’ve been saving for your kid sister, but I bet you’ll do just fine.”

Sam grabs him and starts pushing him back. For a second, Grif thinks he hears fear in his voice. “Run!”

“What, and leave Simmons with him?” Grif tries to twist out of Sam’s grip, but if he’d been strong before, he’s even stronger in armor. “I’m not going anywhere, dumbass, let me go—”

“Then I’m sorry,” Sam says. “This is for your own safety.” He lets Grif go, and for a second Grif thinks that’s the end of it, but then Sam moves. He draws his sniper rifle off his back, and before Grif can move away, the butt of it comes crashing down on his helmet, knocking him out cold.

Grif wakes up, lying on a medical cot. He knows it’s medical because of the smell; it’s like shit straight out of his nightmares. He only ever wakes up in med bays after… after shit goes really far up the creek.

It all comes back at once, and his eyes fly open.

Sam.

Felix.

Simmons.

He sits upright. Just like he thought, he’s in a medical bay, with nobody in sight except Sam, who’s sitting nearby, awkward in his full armor, perched in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs that all hospitals seem to have.

“You’re awake.”

“What the fuck, asshole?” Suddenly, he realizes they’re far away from their crash site. “Where are my friends?”

“I… I managed to recover some of them.” Sam looks at his hands instead of Grif, and that’s… that’s not good.

“Some?” He has to bite down on the steady stream of “where’sSimmonswhere’sSimmons” that threatens to burst out. “Who?”

“Your Sergeant,” Sam says. “And Agent Washington.”

“Who else?” Grif says, feeling panic bubbling in his chest.

“I… we also recovered the robot. He was badly damaged, but it would be possible to repair—”

“Simmons. Did you rescue Simmons?”

“… no.”

Grif swears, clambering to his feet. He’s in full armor, not even tucked it. Sam must have just dumped him on top of it like a dumbass jerk.

“Dex—” Sam gets to his feet, as if planning on making him sit back down.

“I’m not leaving Simmons out there with him. Or Caboose. Or Tucker. Or Donut. Or even Doc!”

“The Federal Army is currently unaware of the location of the Rebel Base,” Sam says, his hands on Grif’s shoulders.

Grif stares at him, the smooth visor with the familiar X, but larger and green than the scar on his face. “Bullshit.”

“It is unlikely we would have allowed them to remain if we did,” Sam sounds testy, almost like Grif is insulting him. “The location of their base is secret.”

“Bullshit! Take off that fucking helmet and look me in the eye and say it to my face.”

Sam hesitates for a moment. But then he takes a step closer, and draws the privacy curtain that surrounds the hospital bed.

He reaches up and removes the helmet slowly, as if scared at what’s going to happen next.

Sam looks old. That’s the first thing that Grif notices. There’s silver in his hair, which is held back in that familiar ponytail style. Instinctively, Grif looks for signs of Kai’s handiwork; braids or twists or flowers, but of course, there’s nothing there. It looks longer than it had been, and there’s traces of a beard on his face.

He looks tired too; there are wrinkles on his forehead and dark circles around hisi eyes. He doesn’t remove the rest of the armor, standing stiffly, almost alien in the bulk of it. His helmet stays in his hands, and he looks ready to put it back on, should someone approach or a loud noise occur.

Grif takes off his own helmet. Sam’s eyes go wide for a moment, surprised, probably, by the patches of Simmons on his face.

Simmons.

Who’s alone with Felix. Okay, maybe not alone, but there without Grif. Anxiety and fear churn his stomach.

“What happened?” Grif demands.

Sam looks away. “I needed to get you out. You were my priority. Felix…” he trails off, and Grif stops himself from shivering at the memory of Felix’s voice in the jungle. “He would have hurt you.”

Grif thinks of Felix and he knows the parts of him that are Simmons’ pale have gone green. “What about my friends?”

Sam can’t meet his eyes. “He has no reason to hurt them. He needs them. But you—”

“What?” Grif feels something bitter building in his chest. He’s relieved, sure, relieved because Sam is probably right, Felix needs the others, because the New Republic needs them. But Grif is exempt from that for some reason? The bitter feeling keeps rising, building. It’s not quite a laugh, not quite a sob, but almost both at the same time. He wants to puke. He wants to hug his brother. “He thinks he can, what? Hurt you with me? C’mon.”

Sam frowns, and Grif gives himself a moment to enjoy how it’s the exact same frown that he used to have whenever he’d find Kai doing some stupid shit. “Yes.”

Grif snorts. “Well. Guess we both know he’s wrong there.”

There’s a twitch, as if Sam wants to reach out, but if it happens, it’s aborted so quickly that Grif thinks he might have imagined it. But he looks like Grif slapped him.

“No,” Sam finally says. “He’s not.”

Grif feels the world grind to a halt.

Sam had left. This has been a fact of his life for years. He’d left, just like everyone else, because he hadn’t cared. Grif hasn’t ever doubted this; it’s a fact of his existence, like that Kai will do dumb shit the second his back is turned, or that Simmons is a fucking nerd, or that the sky is blue. Sure, Sam had sent money, but that was... guilt or something else. Maybe he had cared, but not enough to stay, and what else mattered? Kai had cried when he left. Left, and hadn’t even had the decency to tell them. He’d just… not come home.

But if Felix could... if Sam cares enough to…

When the world starts to move again, Sam is gone. There isn’t even a shimmer in the air.

The curtain parts suddenly, and a woman in white and purple armor bounces in. “Why hello Private Grif! Agent Washington just got out of surgery; I think Locus had to throw your Sergeant in the brig because he kept trying to stab me, but really I think he was just being silly!”

“What?” Grif says, staring at her blankly. “Who are you even? Where’s—” He stops himself from saying Sam’s name. She probably wouldn’t even know who he was talking about.

“I’m Doctor Grey, silly!” She spreads her hands out widely. “Welcome to the Federal Army of Chorus!”

Life with the Feds is fucking awful.

They’re at this weird, snow-covered base in the mountains, and the food is fucking shitty.

Grif is going out of his fucking mind with worry. The Feds have so many fucking rumors about Felix, and Grif can’t help but believe most of them are true. Things are fucking terrible; it’s all a mess, and even if the guys are on Felix’s side…

It’s hard not to imagine.

The Feds also have rumors about Sam though, and it’s just as weird.

Because this is Sam. The guy worked for a greengrocer and let Kai put flowers in his hair. He thought the beach was stupid and refused to sleep in Mom’s room and liked his curry so hot it made his eyes water. Sam, who walked Kai home from school every day, even after Mom kicked him out and who stayed up late with Grif looking through bills. The giant nerd who watched bad movies with him and had nightmares.

But the Feds have rumors, and so that’s how Grif knows there’s also Locus, who’s more machine than man, who breathes like Darth Vader, who’s scarred a thousand times over by the war until his face is ugly beyond human belief. He can teleport and fly and turn invisible. He’s unstable and dangerous, and his paycheck is the only reason he hasn’t murdered the entire Federal Army in their sleep, and his presence is the only thing that stops the Rebels from slaughtering them all.

By unspoken agreement, they don’t talk in front of the others. But calling Sam “Locus” feels wrong. It reminds him of that day, in the kitchen, listening to the way Sam seemed smaller, after Felix left. He’d bounced back, but… just for a little while, he’d seemed more worn down, more fragile, more… broken. Grif doesn’t like that name. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to his brother.

He writes to Kai every day, even though they can’t go through. Tells her all the stupid shit that Sam has done, as well as the other stuff that’s been happening all over the base. Like Sarge blowing up Warthogs or Wash getting Doyle to faint three times in a row.

Grif has his own quarters, for whatever reason, so sometimes Sam stops by, when he’s not on missions. He brings food, whatever he can scrape up. It’s usually better than whatever Grif’s eaten that day, so he never complains.

Sam never stays long, always hovering at the edge of Grif’s room, as if thinking that Grif is about to throw him out. And sometimes, Grif is. The guy left them. He left them alone with Mom, for the whole extra three weeks she’d stayed after Sam had left, and when she’d left, Kai had cried again, but Grif still isn’t sure if she’d been happy or sad to see Mom go.

They’d gone out to the airfield to watch for Sam every day for a week after Mom had left, hoping beyond hopes that maybe now he’d come back. But he never had.

One day, as Sam is preparing to leave after dropping off what appears to be a still-warm container of curry, Grif stops him.

“Take off your helmet and join me, asshole. You brought enough for two.”

Sam hesitates, but he does. Maybe it’s a sign that he missed Grif almost as much as Grif missed him, because apparently Sam never takes his helmet off elsewhere.

Maybe it’s because seeing the faces he makes would totally ruin his air of mystery though, because Sam still has the worst fucking poker face that Grif has ever seen. And just to prove it, Grif trounces him in Poker, Chorus Poker, Blood Gulch Poker, and Go-Fish.

Sam takes his defeats without complaining, but he always looks thoughtful.

It starts to become routine, eating food and playing games, sitting there in silence. Kai was always the talker of the three of them. There had never been a need for them to speak that much, not with her to fill the silence.

It’s not that Grif doesn’t miss her constantly, but right now, with Sam here, it feels even more obvious. Like he’s missing a limb, as well as Simmons and his other friends.

Sam, surprisingly, is the one who starts talking.

“How did you meet Agent Washington?” He asks one day, staring down at the full house that Grif had just smugly revealed. They’re playing for shiny rocks that Grif has been collecting, because he’s eaten all the candy Sam had discovered for them to play for.

“We ruined his plan to kill the Meta,” Grif says automatically, before stopping to stare. “Wait… why do you care?”

“Agent Washington is… peculiar. I do not understand him. I wish to correct this.”

Grif falls over onto his side, laughing.

Well, at least Sam’s taste in men isn’t always as awful as Felix.

In public, they don’t interact much. There’s no reason to; Grif mostly just dicks around, helping Grey in medical or Sarge in the armory or Wash with training. Locus is always off doing his weird dramatic missions or occasionally trying to have conversations with Wash that only ever seem to result in Wash wanting to punch someone.

But apparently people have managed to notice that Locus spends time near Grif’s room, even if they don’t knon the full story.

Ah, the power of military gossip.

“Be careful around him, Grif,” Wash says one day over lunch. “I don’t like how interested he is in you.”

“Dude, you’re the one he follows around,” Grif shoots back. “Think he’s got a boner for the Freelancer.”

Wash glares at him. “Take this seriously Grif, this guy is dangerous.”

“I think his crush on you is absolutely serious.”

The look Wash gives him is completely and utterly offended, which just makes it all the better. If Grif was a nicer brother, he’d probably either try to convince Wash that Sam wasn’t all that bad, or tell Sam that Wash getting flustered is just his normal state of mind, not necessarily a sign of interest.

But Grif isn’t a nice brother, and besides, Sam fucked off to go have a life of mercenary adventure with Felix. Grif is not about to throw Sam as much as a string, let alone a lifeline here.

Occasionally, Sam brings back snippets of information. Rumors of rebel activity, a few sightings of General Kimball or Felix. He sees Tucker, right before Tucker fucking blows up an entire building with people inside.

Jeez, those terrorists work fast on the brainwashing.

But Sam hasn’t seen Simmons.

“I’m certain he’s fine,” Sam says.

“You don’t know,” Grif points out. “You don’t know Simmons, okay? He’s going to be fucking falling apart without Sarge there. And Wash is like, his backup Sarge! He’s not going to have any leader to listen to, and that means he’ll try to be a leader, and the last time he got promoted, he buried Sarge alive!”

Sam tilts his head to one side. “Will… will your absence not cause any difference?”

“Oh, he’s probably fine with that,” Grif says dismissively, pretending he doesn’t care. “He’s probably just glad I’m not there to steal his socks.”

“I… see.”

Grif doesn’t want to explain to Sam that Simmons leaves too. Joining Blue Team (twice), and always wanting to be as far away from Grif as possible. He doesn’t want to explain that if Simmons had been here instead of him, Sarge and Simmons probably would have been perfectly happy.

Sam doesn’t say anything else, just looks at him for a long, long time.

“Do you want me to braid your hair?” Grif says suddenly, because it’s falling into his face again, the way it always does when he needs it trimmed, and the only way to handle that is to braid it or get the scissors.

Sam startles, staring at him like he’s grown a second head or something. Which is dumb, because Sam watched Grif braid Kai’s hair for over a year. Sure, he’s never done it for Sam, but that’s because Kai liked to do it.

“… that would be… nice,” Sam finally says.

Grif isn’t as good at the fancy braids as Kai is, but he gets Sam’s hair into a respectable single braid pretty easily. It’s… nice. Sam seems to relax for the first time since they’ve found each other again, letting Grif slowly work on his hair. And Grif can pretend, just for a little while, that Sam never left. That Kai was just a few rooms away, napping or studying or texting her friends. That they were still home, and things were fine.

When he’s done, Sam gives him one of those rare, real smiles. Grif rolls his eyes. “You’re such a sap,” he says, even though Sam hasn’t said anything.

“You are the only one who would say so,” Sam says. Then he puts his helmet on, and leaves.

A few days pass. Sarge hooks up with Doctor Grey, and the entire base is put off their food when they’re caught making out in the hallway. Wash manages to get into an argument with Lopez, even though he doesn’t speaks Spanish. Sam is gone for those days, off on one of his longer missions, the ones where he always comes back from stressed but with better food.

When he sees Sam again, it’s early in the morning. He’s just back, and Grif is just awake.

“What is it?” Grif says. There’s something wrong with the way Sam is standing just outside of his room. His shoulders are hunched forwards, trying to curl in on themselves, like they always get after a nightmare. He looks… scared. He looks around, but they’re alone. “Sam?”

“Your friends are on their way,” Sam says, but there’s something distant in his voice.

“What?” Grif says. “That’s—holy shit you found them? Are they okay?”

“They’re fine.” He sounds almost automatic, like he’s rehearsed this. “For now.”

Grif stops. “What do you mean?”

Sam bows his head. He’s wearing his helmet, and it’s a weird sight. Locus, the terror of both armies, looking small and scared and reluctant.

He slowly straightens up, inch by inch, until he’s standing at his full height. Somewhere in the back of Grif’s mind, he thinks he should be scared, but he’s not sure he is. When Sam speaks again, his voice is perfectly steady.

“My orders are to kill the Reds and Blues, should they reunite.”

And that’s the last thing Grif hears before the world goes black.

He wakes up on the comfiest fucking bed he’s been on in years. It’s all super soft and downy. He can’t remember the last time he was on a bed like this. It’s the kind of bed that makes him want to sleep forever and ever, and never get up again.

It’s great, until he realizes he has no idea where he is.

The room is small, but there’s a fridge full of food, a comfy chair, and a note taped to the locked door.

This is for your own safety.

I’m sorry.

-S

The line with Control goes dead, and the room fills with a dangerous silence.

“So where is he?” Felix asks. There’s danger, boiling under the surface. Locus understands that now, perhaps better than ever. There had been a quiet glee to Felix when they’d received the orders to dispose of the Reds and Blues.

Locus had protected Dex by taking him to the Federal Army. Felix wants him dead. He knows too much, Felix insisted. He knows their faces, he knows Sam’s name, he might even know more than that. It’s impossible to tell what Dex has pulled together

Once, he had brought Felix into the Grif household. Now, Locus knows the depths of what he and Felix are capable of. He knows better than to allow Felix near anything good, anything kind, and especially anything that Locus cares for that Felix does not. Felix will either want it or want to destroy it, and he’s long since discarded any notion of possessing the Grifs. Dex knows too much. For that alone, Felix would want to kill him. But Locus has been protecting Dex from him, and Felix can’t forgive that.

“Where is he?” Felix says, louder this time. “C’mon, don’t think I didn’t notice he wasn’t there!”

Because Locus had moved him the moment the order had come to kill them.

“He has been taken care of.” Safe, and out of Felix’s reach. Dex may never forgive him for this, but he’s safe, and that’s what matters.

Felix looks at him. He knows, or at least suspects. Locus had hoped the evasion would have worked, but Felix knows him better than anyone.

“We’ve got orders, Locus.”

“I am aware.” Dex will never forgive him. “Simmons, is Simmons okay?”

Locus didn’t hold a gun on Richard Simmons when they’d been standing below him and his men, preparing to execute them. His gun had been on Agent Washington, the greatest threat.

But one of his men had been. And it wasn’t like Dex will care if it’s Locus or his men who kill Simmons. Who Simmons is to Dex, Locus isn’t sure. He can’t get a straight answer out of Dex, and his observations of Simmons have revealed no further answers. He doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t know how to handle it.

Locus can keep Dex safe. He can manage this much. He can protect him from this, from himself and from Felix.

Afterwards…

Locus doesn’t know what will happen next. Chorus will be dead, and with it, Dex’s friends. He will never forgive Locus for this.

And perhaps he’ll be right in that.

Locus has known for a long time now that he does not deserve Dex or Kai’s affection. He’s not meant for that. He is a soldier. His purpose is to follow orders. Nothing more, nothing less. He left them, telling himself it was for the best, and they both fell into the army anyway. Grif has scars he won’t explain; entire skin grafts that don’t even match. His files don’t have the answers, but they do tell Locus about a massacre, on a colony. A massacre of which Grif was the sole survivor.

At least Kai is safe, tucked away in Blood Gulch, a soldier, but one still untried by battle, unscarred by the horrors of war. After this, perhaps Locus can take Dex there. So at least they can be together, even if he’s not welcome.

Perhaps it would have been for the best had he never entered their lives. If not for him, maybe things would have been better.

“You’re hiding him,” Felix says. “You’re fucking hiding him.”

Locus says nothing. Let Felix think what he will.

“You’ve gone soft,” Felix marvels. “Holy shit, you’re…”

“Is there a point to this?”

“What happened to the perfect soldier?” Felix demands. “We’ve got orders, are you seriously going to throw it all away for one snot-nosed brat all grown up?”

Locus turns his back on Felix and goes to fetch his weapons. “We need to get going.”

“I’m going to find him,” Felix says, and there’s something almost unsteady to the way he’s speaking. “Our orders are to kill all of them, remember? I’m going to find him and then I’m going to do what you’re too weak to do—”

Locus moves without thinking, without blinking, without hesitating. He slams Felix up against the wall, hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing tightly.

“I said,” Locus growls, “the situation is handled.” Felix scrabbles at his hand, trying to break his grip. With his other hand, Locus grabs one of his wrists and pins it to the wall, out of reach of his knives. The other hand might be able to do something, but Locus’ reach is long, so he doubts Felix can reach anything fatal. Just in case, he drags Felix off the ground, and he kicks and struggles harder, breathing raggedly.

“What are you doing?” Felix gasps out, thrashing in his grip. “Let go of me, you—”

Locus lets go, and Felix drops to the ground, gasping. “So that’s how it is? Partner?” Felix spits.

“We have other targets to deal with,” Locus says. He feels cold and impassive, staring at Felix on the ground. The last time… it had been that night. The night he’d decided to not come back. Something about this is different. He can’t figure out what, exactly, it is, but things are different.

Felix is glaring at him through the helmet.

For a moment, Locus wonders if Felix is about to attack. But instead he laughs, getting to his feet. “Just remember, I’ve got dibs on Lavernius Tucker.”

“Very well. Get ready to leave.”

Dex will hate him for this, Locus thinks, picking up his sniper rifle as they prepare to move out. But he will be alive, and that is what matters. Locus will protect him.

#Come On Home AU #Steph Writes #Dexter Grif #Locus #Grimmons #Red vs Blue

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cooperjones2020 · 7 years

Text

Nobodies Nobody Knows, chp. 4

Summary: She is the lamp in Hero’s tower, the scissors in Delilah’s hand, the blood in Guinevere’s bed. She is a million and one metaphors and all of them are his undoing. (Some of the scenes from Second City but from Jughead’s perspective. More a character exercise than a story.)

ao3–>http://archiveofourown.org/works/11434950/chapters/25935420

Nobodies Nobody Knows one / two / three

Second City one / two / three / four / five (ao3)

“Okay, let’s get back to Sweetwater Subtext for a second. As we’ve said, The Final Fissure had an obvious ending point with the reveal of the murderer. I know you can’t give me any spoilers, but what’s next for these characters? Will there be a third entry in this series?”

“Unclear.” She looks at him then, confused, he thinks. Fair enough, so is he. He has no idea what he’s projecting, what signals she is receiving that he may or may not intend.

“Oh. Um, okay. Any idea what does come next then?”

“Well, The Final Fissure is gonna be a TV show. We’re still working out if I’m going to be involved, though right now I’m leaning no.”

She moves to put up her hair and—he can’t be sure, but—he thinks he sees the lightest of tan lines on her left ring finger. His stomach bottoms out. It insists this is the Worst. Thing. Then his liver quips back, no it’s the Best. Thing. At that point his brain comes back online and shuts the conversation between his bodily organs down by reminding them that it’s actually a completely irrelevant thing cause this is a job anyway, not Betty back in his life. Also, it’s probably just the dim light in the bar. His stomach growls.

“Would you mind if we took a break? I could use some food.”

“Oh of course, I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, I was just on a roll earlier and skipped dinner.”

“Jughead Jones voluntarily skipped a meal?”

“I wouldn’t call it voluntary. Sometimes the muse is actually a slave driver.”

When he has recovered, in no small part thanks to some fried pickles and mozzarella sticks, he says, “I didn’t mean it like that earlier. It’s just, I don’t know, I think it would be kind of weird if me and Archie talked about you. That whole same-ex-girlfriend thing.”

“You know, sometimes I even forget we dated. It was such a weird, hazy time in my life. I fought so hard for so long to be my own person, not Polly’s sister or Alice’s daughter. By the time senior year came around, I was tired of fighting everyone’s expectations. Veronica was back in New York, you were on the south side. We were the only two left, of the core four, and it just made sense, you know? So we went to the back to school dance together, and then homecoming, and then winter formal. And before you know it was prom and we’d been dating for eight months.”

“I always thought you two would get married and have the 2.5 kids and white picket fence thing. You know, even when we were dating, I think I thought that in the back of my mind.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I know. It wasn’t in the back of your mind. I seem to recall a certain speech in a certain red-headed person’s garage at a certain other person’s birthday party.”

“God, I’m never going to live that one down. Once I managed to go an entire eleven months without thinking about it, and then the memory just crept back in. Here, Jughead, you think you’re making progress on your social skills, well remember this?” He feels his sympathetic nervous system begin to stir just at the memory.

“Well that was never in the cards for me and Archie, and I didn’t want it to be. Dating him was just…comforting you know? Comfortable. And I could really use that then.”

“Do me a favor and promise me that you will never tell Archie that. You guys may be best friends and he may be ass over elbows for Veronica now, but no guy wants to know that sex with him was just comfortable.” That sounds light, teasing. Not like hypotheticals about her and Archie tortured him for years. Right?

Betty holds up a pinkie and waits for him to take it. “I promise.”

“I was surprised, when I walked into Mary’s and found you.”

“I had gathered that. Though you were probably no more surprised than I was.”

“What made you decide to move?” He’s wanted to ask her since that night. Has almost asked Mary a dozen times, but has chickened out each and every one.

“I was just so sick of New York, sick of my job. I was running on a cycle of adrenaline—benzodiazepines—caffeine—melatonin that was unsustainable. I got home from a stakeout one morning at 5 am and I realized I was doing important things for other people, breaking big stories, but as a result I missed out on doing important things for myself. I was making decisions I otherwise wouldn’t have made.

“Then I got a call from Cynthia—my editor—offering me the job here. It was a deus ex machina, just what I needed at just the right time dropped out of the sky. It felt like a good time to pull the rug out from under myself. To look for a new dream.” God preserve him from a girl who drops literary devices into everyday conversation.

“And that’s okay, you know? I feel like the hardest part is telling other people, people who knew me then. Like I’m afraid they’re going to think I’ve compromised, but I’m happy. Dreams change. Well, at least for most of us.” She bumps her elbow into his arm.

Weirdly, now he wants to hug her. Well, he’s wanted to hug her, to touch her, since she came in, as much as he’s also been terrified to. But he wants to tell her he’s proud of her. Which is dumb. She doesn’t need his pride. She doesn’t need anyone.

“I think you probably filled your quota of breaking big stories before you even left high school. I’m glad you realized you weren’t happy and did something about it.” He pauses and takes a big breath. “And I’m glad you’re here. Glad we could do this.”

She smiles his favorite smile at him, the one where the corners of her lips curve down. “Me too.”

“Polly said Jellybean works at Pop’s now.”

“Yeah, for about a year.”

“Does that mean you get free burgers?”

“No.” He wishes. “Only half-price. But yeah, she mentioned last week that Polly and your mom come in sometimes with the twins.”

“Yeah. Her and my mom have gotten a lot closer the past couple years. Since my dad died.”

“Oh, Betts, I’m sorry.” It’s not as hard to be sincere as he would have expected.

“It’s alright. He’d been sick for a while. We…made our peace with it. With each other. But you know what’s sick? My mom’s been happier since. Like thirty fucking years and I’m pretty sure they were both miserable almost the whole time. How do you get to the point where it’s not even worth trying to go after happiness?”

“Sometimes you fall into a pattern that isn’t worth the effort it would take to break. Not everyone is as brave as you. I’m certainly not. And they had other things they were living for. Polly. You. I think that’s something I’ve learned since FP got out. My mom died, too, before— well, before. I think that’s that one thing that really fucked my dad up. That he didn’t get a chance to make it right with her. I’m sure it’s why he’s been a model citizen ever since.”

“No, Juggie. He was always so proud of you. I’m sure it’s for you. For what you’ve done for him, and for Jellybean.”

His anecdote about Archie and the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes makes her laugh, and this reinsertion of Archie into the conversation seems to find the balance, to negate his earlier slip-up. Archie’s antics sound like childhood and friendship and fun, and the air around them now is thinner. He breathes easier. He thinks he manages to achieve that lightness, that ease that he fought so hard for earlier in the night.

She’s playing with her water glass, twisting it back and forth in her hand, when he remembers. There are no red marks or indentations, but he at least expects to see the silvery threads of her half-moon scars cutting across the palm of her hand. Maybe it’s the bad lighting again? Or his eyes. Honestly, probably his eyes at this point. She catches him staring.

“I don’t do that anymore. I…haven’t since college.”

“Can I ask what made you stop?” He resists the urge to cup and kiss her hands, like he did in a booth at Pop’s, all those years ago.

“I had to de-escalate. It didn’t work at first. I just switched to picking at my skin—my nails or acne or scabs. I still have pretty bad scars on my shoulders. But when I got to college, I was able to see a therapist who my mom couldn’t interrogate so that helped. She told me to hold an ice cube when I have the urge to do something destructive.”

He wants to confess something to her in return, wants her to know how much he appreciates her sharing these pieces of herself with him, of all people. But he’s afraid he’ll open a door he won’t be able to close again. So he just urges her to go on. “An ice cube?”

“Yeah, to cup it in the palm of my hand. Anyway, I’m a work in progress.” Her eyes jump from her hand to his face. “Wait. How did this turn into you interviewing me?”

“Well technically we’re still on our dinner break.”

“Okay, whatever.” She asks him a few more questions, but his mind is still on her hands and her battle scars and the memory of them in the booth at Pop’s.

“I should probably go home soon.” He doesn’t process her words until she stands and begins to pack up her bag.

When the check comes, she grabs it before he can. “Nope.” She elongates the word, lips popping on the p. “My interview, my expense report.”

He can’t convince her to get back on his motorcycle, so he makes her promise to let him know she’s gotten home safe. He swipes her phone, inputs his number, and closes the uber door behind her before she has a chance to protest.

He’s already home, laying on top of his bed with his clothes still on, when she texts: “home and locked in where the bad guys can’t get me.”

He shoots back: “don’t forget to check under the bed. sleep tight, betts.”

He grins at the darkened ceiling like an idiot and waits a long time for sleep to come.

#bughead fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #bughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #riverdale #mine #second city

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adiseaselikeyouspreads · 8 years

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A small warning before this chapter: this is by far the most emotionally intense and upsetting chapter in the story. Even if you haven’t been reading the /cw page prior to this, we would highly recommend doing it before beginning this chapter.

“Damn, dude,” Dmitri says, examining Jason’s cheek critically. They were together in film class, not actually doing any work - this was far more interesting. “That’s fucked up.”

Jason just nods as Dmitri gently turns Jason’s face to look at the stitches better, clicking his tongue irritably when he pulls back. “What an asshole. I wish the Plague Doctor had hurt him even worse.”

“Don’t say that,” Jason mumbles, poking gently at the skin around the wound and flinching when it hurts. “I mean...No one deserves to have prolonged suffering before they die, not even people like that.”

Dmitri narrows his eyes.

“Some people do,” he replies. Then he glances at the front of the classroom, where Beltrami sat at his desk. Turning back to Jason, he drops his voice to a whisper and says, “Like Mr. Bellpepper over there!”

“What did he ever do?” Jason asks, giving Dmitri a quizzical look.

“Well, obviously! He hasn’t given you any extensions even though you’re drowning in makeup work and he’s a total dick to me!” Dmitri folds his arms with a huff and flips his hair.

“That...is definitely not even slightly good reason to kill someone.”

“Huh! Whatever,” Dmitri says, leaning back in his chair, arms still folded. “You going to Film Club today?”

Jason thinks about it. On the one hand, it’d be nice to get away in a space where he knows no one is going to try and murder him. But on the other, Mr. Beltrami has been...unforgiving, lately. Dmitri was right about that much. Jason almost feels like he’s done something wrong, but on the other hand, he’d been pretty annoyed by Beltrami recently. He wouldn’t stop bringing up sensitive topics and then being weirdly insensitive about them whenever the two were alone. Like Sidney, or the many, many attempts on his life.

As if he needed any more reminder. His cheek still hurt like all hell any time he thought he deserved to smile.

“I don’t know,” Jason manages eventually, looking back at his screen. “I...I probably should. I’ve been skipping it too much...At this rate, Mr. Beltrami won’t ever let me be president.”

“You want to be president?”

“I want to pick some better movies.”

Dmitri giggles, putting his hand on Jason’s shoulder and making Jason’s heart race again. No matter how comfortable he thinks he is around Dmitri, he’s never used to how it feels when Dmitri touches him, even a little.

“I know you would only pick the best! You have wayyyy more discerning taste than like, anyone I know! Hey, maybe if you were, I’d even go!” Dmitri squeezes Jason’s shoulder, and he tries not to go red.

“Uhhh,” Jason says, smartly. “Well, I...Uh, yeah, obviously, I would...would love if you came. To the club. With me. I mean, you don’t have to. At all. I, uh. Nevermind.”

Dmitri is making the catlike face again. Jason refuses to look, but he can tell.

“Mr. Morozova,” Mr. Beltrami cuts in, making Dmitri’s hand slip from Jason’s shoulder. “Have you done any work today? I mean, really. Any at all. I don’t want to have to punish you, but I’m going to need some proof you haven’t just spent the entire class hour so far touching Mr. Joon-ho’s face.”

“Yeah, I’ve done work,” Dmitri says, an edge of annoyance creeping into his voice. “Sure have. Wanna see it? I wrote a script about a teacher who doesn’t stop harassing one of his students because the student doesn’t fit his oddly high standards. It ends when the student kills the teacher after school. Is that dark enough for you, Mr. Boondocks?”

Jason turns to see Mr. Beltrami giving Dmitri a glare that is almost a little scary with the amount of genuine malice behind it.

“Dmitri. Principal’s office. Now.”

Dmitri makes a disgusted noise and gathers up his stuff, rolling his eyes at Jason before he starts to leave.

He stops in front of Mr. Beltrami’s desk before going out the door, though.

“What is it, Mr. Morozova?”

“You have to write me a pass, Mr. Gelkarma.”

Beltrami doesn’t look amused. He writes the pass anyway, seemingly if only to get Dmitri out of the room. Dmitri skips out, looking as happy as possible as he does so. Jason knows it’s only to piss Mr. Beltrami off, but he ends up snickering at it anyway.

“Is something funny, Mr. Joon-ho?”

Oh, shit.

“Uh, no,” Jason replies, turning back to his computer quickly. “Sorry. I...I just…”

For once, Mr. Beltrami doesn’t press him for his reasoning, just making a quick annoyed grunt before leaving Jason alone for the rest of the period.

Well, that was more stressful than it had any right to be.

At lunch, Dmitri complains.

“Mr. Pastrami is so far up his own ass,” he tells Jason. He stabs his spork into his mashed potatoes. “Can’t even take a joke!”

“It was a pretty… irreverent one.” Jason understands Dmitri’s anger, but he feels bad. Mr. Beltrami has been his favorite teacher since freshman year. He feels like maybe he is doing something wrong. Letting him down, somehow.

“Irreverent!” Dmitri stuffs food in his mouth, but talks anyways. “I’m not going to revere him. He needs to get off his high horse.” Another stab. “Besides-!” He flails his spork as he talks and the potatoes go sailing, splatting on the floor. Dmitri stares for a few seconds, and then pretends like he didn’t notice at all. He jabs the spork in Jason’s direction. “Why’d he become a high school teacher if he was going to hold vendettas against kids?”

“He’s a real jerk,” Regan agrees, speaking up from his seat, where he’s been worrying at some rice.

“You think so, too, Regan?” Jason asks, surprised.

Regan glances at Dmitri, then back to Jason. “I was in his creative writing class last year,” he responds with a shrug. “He basically told me not to quit my day job.”

Well, Jason can agree that that’s pretty rude. Still, he wants to maybe try to patch things up. Get back in the swing of going to club and working on projects. He’s really far behind, but just maybe…

He thinks on it for the rest of the day. Going to club feels like a risk, like some daredevil feat. The final bell rings and he steels himself.

Alright, he’s going.

When he walks in, he’s greeted with, “Mr. Joon-ho. It’s nice of you to join us.” Mr. Beltrami doesn’t even look up as he speaks.

The whole club feels tense. There are fewer kids, like people have been dropping out of the club. He’s heard about some people moving schools. Has he been messing things up for so many people? Is this why Mr. Beltrami is so mad?

They watch a fairly morose film that leaves Jason feeling hollow in the middle. Of course this would happen in his first day back.

When the club meeting winds down, the kids start to file out in a gaggle, like it’s safer to travel in a pack.

“Jason,” Mr. Beltrami says, when Jason reaches the door. “We need to talk.”

Well, that makes Jason nervous. He hesitates, but turns back around and comes to the desk. Mr. Beltrami stands up.

“I heard about your most recent rescue,” he states, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms.

“Yeah. I…” He doesn’t want to talk about it. He never wants to think about the Cannibal again.

“He got your face,” Beltrami comments, sounding a bit sad. Jason covers his scar.

“I really would rather... we didn’t…”

“This is going to keep happening,” he says. Jason feels his heart jump into his throat. “You’re a wonderful kid, Jason. But people are going to keep hurting you. And you’ll keep falling farther behind.” He’s leaning into Jason’s space, subtly. “You can’t take care of yourself.”

Jason clears his throat and shifts backwards a step. Mr. Beltrami closes that distance in a second. Jason’s whole body is suddenly on high alert.

“This is going to ruin you. You’re too talented to let that happen.” He leans in. “You need someone to protect you.” His hand is suddenly on Jason’s waist and Jason doesn’t even think, just turns and bolts.

He feels a hand try to grab the strap of his backpack, but he’s fast enough that he manages to get into the hall.

“Jason!” Mr. Beltrami calls after him. He doesn’t even consider turning around. He doesn’t even stop until he’s outside the front door of the school, chest heaving, lungs burning.

Fuck. What the fuck was that? He’s been targeted by killers six times and that’s still one of the scariest things he’s ever experienced. He’s shaking all over. He feels nauseous. He feels like he’s half a second away from upchucking all his organs. He feels tears welling up in his eyes and has to push up his glasses to rub at his face with his sleeve.

When his mom pulls up, he slings himself into the car and clutches at his backpack, hugging it.

“Bad day?” She asks, glancing at him. He wants to tell her, but he doesn’t even know what he would say. My teacher put his hand on my side. No, it’s weirder than it sounds, I promise. Jason just nods. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Hopefully things will calm down soon.”

Somehow he doubts it more than ever. Things won’t just go back to normal.

The next day proves him right. It feels wrong from the second he gets out of bed. His body feels off, like he doesn’t want to be inside it, like he would rather crawl out and sulk, ephemeral, in the corner. He sleeps through first period and drools on his notebook and hates himself for it.

He dreads third period. For the first time in his life, he considers cutting. Genuinely cutting. Not staying-home-faking-sick, but real, leaving the school grounds, going off to hide somewhere cutting. Instead he reluctantly shuffles into class and keeps his head down, avoids looking at Mr. Beltrami. He can feel his eyes on him anyways and he scrunches down in his seat.

“Woah-ho, you look like hell,” Dmitri comments as he plops down next to him.

“I didn’t sleep so well last night,” he lies. Some part of him really wants to tell Dmitri. Maybe at lunch. But not here, not right now.

“Happens to the best of us, Voorhees.” He pats Jason’s shoulder.

“I hope you two aren’t planning to spend the whole class talking again,” Mr. Beltrami’s voice comes harsh from the front of the classroom. Jason can almost feel the physical bite of it.

“Come on, Bellpepper. Class just started. Besides, it’s not good for my creative process to have to stifle myself.” He throws one arm over the chair casually and doesn’t seem to hesitate in locking eyes with Mr. Beltrami. Jason wishes he wasn’t brave, for once.

“Your work is still unsatisfactory, Dmitri. You need to focus.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m almost done.”

Jason breathes a sigh of relief when the conversation lapses.

He tries to concentrate, for a while, but it doesn’t really work. His brain is too scattered, keeps drifting to unpleasant places. He reaches into his bag and pulls out his phone. Putting in his earbuds, he goes to search put on some music when the phone is yanked out of his hands by Mr. Beltrami, headphones going with.

“I think you’re a little too behind to be playing on your phone, Mr. Joon-ho,” he says, coldly. Just as quickly, Dmitri is leaning across him to grab Mr. Beltrami’s wrist. Jason can tell it’s a mistake as soon as it happens.

“What the hell is your problem, man?” Dmitri asks, glaring up at Mr. Beltrami. “Lay off of him.”

“Mr. Morozova. Principal’s office.” There’s no debate in his voice. It’s an order.

“No!” Dmitri protests anyways. “It was funny when it was just you being a dick to me because you’re petty, but what has Jason ever done to you? He’s going through enough, so just leave him alone.”

Mr. Beltrami yanks his hand back. “Dmitri Morozova. Principal’s office. I’ll be seeing to it that your parents are contacted to discuss your repeated outbursts.” He starts to wind up the headphones. “Jason. You can pick this up in my classroom after school. In detention.”

“Detention?” Dmitri snaps. “All he did was-”

“Enough!” Mr. Beltrami snaps right back. Jason feels cold pour through his veins. The whole room stills.

Dmitri sets his jaw, and stares him down for a minute. Then pushes his chair out. Dmitri doesn’t say a word, but he glares at Beltrami the whole way out of the room. He doesn’t bother Beltrami for a pass this time. Jason has his doubts that he’ll even go to the office.

But he can’t worry about Dmitri right now. He’s too busy thinking about his own looming fate.

When lunch rolls around, he sits with Sidney and Regan. Dmitri must’ve gone to the principal like he was told, because he’s nowhere to be found. Regan seems troubled by it, snapping his breakfast bar in half and then not touching it again. He keeps looking around like he expects Dmitri to join them, but it never happens.

“Why did he get sent to the office, again?” Regan asks for the third time that lunch, still not touching his meager portion.

“Regan, asking again isn’t going to change it,” Sidney sighs, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Why did he give you detention?” Regan insists. “I don’t get it. He always talked so highly about you every time he mentioned the film students.”

Jason’s stomach does a little flip at the thought that Mr. Beltrami was punishing him for running away. Part of him wants to tell Regan and Sidney, but a larger part of him thinks it’ll just cause more trouble than it’s worth. His mouth twitches down, and he shakes his head.

“I don’t know. He’s...He’s been harsh, lately. Maybe he’s stressed by something else?” The lie sounds strained even to his ears. Regan gives him a scrutinizing look, but doesn’t press. Jason is thanking any God that might exist for that fact.

“He’s a teacher. He shouldn’t be taking his stress out on students anyways,” Sidney comments, sounding at least a little miffed.

“Yeah, but...Teachers aren’t perfect.” He picks at his sandwich. No appetite again. Ever since this had all started, he’d been eating less. Even though he was hungry, just because he hadn’t eaten anything since...whatever had happened the afternoon before happened.

“Well, he still shouldn’t get pissed at you and Dmitri for just...Dmitri was defending you! You hadn’t even done anything.” Regan snaps his meager lunch into thirds, making a face. “God, I hope he’s okay.”

“You really think Dmitri will take anything they say into account?” Sidney asks.

“He’s...He fronts like nothing anyone says bothers him, but if word gets to his parents, he’ll…” The breakfast bar is in quarters, now. Jason is surprised he hasn’t just crushed it yet. Regan brushes his hands off on his jacket and then pulls out his cellphone. “He hasn’t been answering my texts, either.” His leg bounces. “I think I might skip. I need to go check on him.”

He stands up, already dialing a number, scooping the fractured bits of his lunch into his hand.

“Tell him I’m sorry I got him in trouble,” Jason says.

“I doubt he’ll be upset at you,” Regan reassures. “I’ll text you when I figure out how he is.” Then he turns and tosses the bar into the trash, holding his phone to his ear. As he walks away, Jason can hear him say, “Hey, tina, I’m not feeling good…”

“So are you going to go?” Sidney asks Jason, brows furrowed in concern.

“I don’t think skipping will be a good idea. It’ll just cause more problems.” Even if he would really rather not go, he’d prefer even less to have more problems with Mr. Beltrami in the future.

The lunch period ends and Sidney wishes him good luck. For the rest of the day, he imagines what Mr. Beltrami will say to him- imagines them patching things up, just to keep his nerve. Maybe it was all just a terrible misunderstanding, and he’d just caught Beltrami in a bad mood today. He almost had himself thinking everything was going to be fine, until the bell for the end of school rang. When he made it to outside Beltrami’s door, he felt a wave of what could only be described as terror wash over him.

He really, really didn’t want to go inside.

He takes a deep breath and reassures himself that the fear is unfounded.

It’s all a misunderstanding. Mr. Beltrami will explain what’s going on. It’ll be fine.

He repeats that to himself, a mantra, it’ll be fine, until he manages to open the door.

Beltrami doesn’t look up when Jason enters. Instead, he gestures at the desk directly in front of his own, one of the ones away from the computer work spaces lining the walls. Jason looks at the desk, unsure, before sitting in it obediently. He drops his backpack to the floor with a thud. Beltrami still hasn’t moved. Not even a twitch.

“Do you know,” he finally says, drawling the words out, care taken for every syllable, “why you’re here?”

Jason stares at Beltrami, who is still focusing on whatever is on his desk. He searches for some sign of what the right answer is. There’s none.

“You… I was using my phone.” Jason grips his desk, curls his legs up as much as he can manage. His sneakers squeak as he does, cutting the silence.

After some pause, Beltrami pushes himself up and walks to stand in front of Jason’s desk. He puts his hands on the sides of the desk top, leaning into Jason’s space. Jason tries to lean away, but where can he go? Beltrami blocks him on all sides - left, right, and centre.

“Sure,” Beltrami agrees, smooth. “But it was more than that. You were insolent.”

“I...I don’t unders-”

“You let Morozova talk over you. You laughed at his disobedience. You fucking let him defy me!” Beltrami slams his hand on the desk and Jason jumps. His entire body is shaking. He needs to leave. He can't do anything but stare forward.

If he tries anything, Beltrami is going to hurt him. How much, he doesn’t know. That's what scares him. The uncertainty. The why, how, most of all, the how much.

“Why are you afraid of me, Jason?” Beltrami cuts into his thoughts, still too much in his space. Choking him through proximity. “Huh? What did I do, that made you so scared? I thought we were friends.”

He reaches out to stroke Jason’s cheek, and Jason flinches away, scared noise escaping before he can stop himself. Beltrami’s faux-sweet smile turns into a scowl.

“If it's going to be that way, I can see I’ll have to change tactics.”

Jason’s head is slammed into the desk before he can react, his entire world spinning and going blurry. Was the snapping sound he heard his glasses or his nose? Impossible to tell. He’s held down for a few seconds, blood pooling in his nose, before he’s jerked up just as suddenly.

“Oh, wow, you're still awake!” Beltrami sounds genuinely impressed. Jason makes a crackly groan, and Beltrami laughs. “I can see how you survived all those other attempts. You know, I think the scar is starting to grow on me. It’s going to be a pretty picture, you covered in hundreds more just like it. I usually don't keep them more than a week, but for my favourite student?”

Beltrami leans close to Jason’s face, now. Jason can smell his breath, feel its heat. He wants to pull away, but his head is still reeling.

“I think I can make an exception.”

His ears register a harsh squick sound as his battered face is brought down a second time. Just like that, he’s knocked out.

If he had a nickel for every time he’s passed out and then woken up in a torture hut…

Jason doesn’t complete the thought as he comes around, head pounding. Even without feeling, he can tell that there’s a solid welt on his forehead. The room’s too bright. Opening his eyes hurts.

There’s a crick in his neck. That’s because his head is slumped forward, but the rest of his body can’t follow. There’s straps around his shoulders, keeping his posture upright. His legs are bound to the legs of a chair, and his arms to the arms. The arm straps bite into his flesh, too tight. He’s not wearing his hoodie. He feels strangely naked without it.

Lifting his head slightly, he forces his eyes open. There’s a studio light trained right on him. He has to squint, turn his head away from it until he adjusts.

“Jason, you’re awake,” Beltrami says, sounding pleased. Jason can hardly see him; he’s standing at a weird angle behind the light. “I’m glad. I was just wondering if I should get started before you came to.”

“Wh...what?” Jason’s throat is dry, making his voice croak. He can tell that there’s still dried blood caked on his face.

“That might’ve brought you around anyways,” Beltrami hums like it’s an idle thought. He moves to the camera and peers through, adjusting it.

“What are you talking about?” Jason rasps, struggling against his bonds. He can’t get much leverage in any direction.

“Don’t move around too much.” Beltrami chides as he steps around the camera and walks towards him. “I’ve got you positioned perfectly.”

“Let me go!” Jason insists, trying to scoot the chair. He can’t get the force he needs with his upper body restrained. He can’t. The best he can do is lift his hips a little. He glares at Beltrami as he approaches. Beltrami pulls a perplexed face.

“What happened to us, Jason? You used to hang off me like I was your only hope. I pretty much was, really. Your girlfriend couldn’t give you what you wanted - what you needed. I always hated the little bitch anyway. Her art was almost as trite as she was.”

Beltrami sighs deeply, pacing. “But then something changed. When you started talking to Morozova.” He spits the name out with disgust, stopping and turning to face Jason, scowling.

“What did he offer to you, I wonder? Was it camaraderie? Knowing you both were naturally feminine, trying to pretend to be something you definitely aren't?” Jason’s face screws up in anger, hurt. “I don't know. I didn't understand it. I thought what I had with you was special, but I guess teenagers will be teenagers.” He shrugs.

“No need to dwell on it. We’re here now, alone. And I can finally show you all the film techniques I’ve been working on. Too bad you can't be behind the camera with me.” He turns on his heel, crossing the room. When he comes to a little metal cabinet, out of frame, he stops. “But that ship sailed when you decided to snub me… Or maybe when you didn't turn in your make up work.” He looks over his shoulder, smirking just a bit as he opens the door. “I’ll let you decide.”

Inside the cabinet is an array of… tools, for lack of a better word. It’s a random assortment, really. A window scraper- the kind with an exposed blade, a hammer, a fire poker, to name a few. Beltrami settles on a hunting knife, and then- is that a fucking cattle prod? A short, red one, not like the movies, but the prongs are unmistakeable.

“Don’t touch me, don’t you dare-” Jason squawks as Beltrami starts his short journey back towards him, testing the weight of the prod in his hand.

“You know, there’s probably interesting commentary to be made, on what we’re willing to do to animals, but find morally repulsive to do to humans,” he states.

“You have me tied to a chair!” Jason counters.

“We’re all bones and meat, after all,” he continues, without acknowledging Jason.

“Is that all I am? A piece of meat?” Jason asks, rage and distress bleeding into his voice in equal measures.

“Oh, no, you’re so much more than that,” Beltrami replies with a fanatic spark that makes Jason physically recoil. “You’re a muse.”

“You’re disgusting.” Jason glares at Beltrami. Beltrami sets his jaw.

“I liked you much better when you were a bookish Freshman. So compliant, so eager to please.” He steps into his space, one hand on the side of the armrest, now, thumb barely brushing Jason’s arm. “Am I a bad teacher, Jason? So bad that I took that out of you?” Then, before he can reply, “That’s okay. I can put it back in.”

A jolt travels up Jason’s right arm, makes his whole body seize and then shake. An explosion of static forms at the site and radiates out. His whole body is jell-o. He knows if he’d been standing, he would’ve collapsed. As it stands, his joints ache, shout in protest at being locked in position.

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds that Beltrami held the prod to his arm, but it feels like hours later that the jittering stops. Jason is breathing heavy, ragged. His arm feels numb, the sensation coming back in slow waves. His skin feels clammy, sweat cooling on his brow.

“There we go,” Beltrami coos. “Oh, that was definitely a good shot. I can already tell. How are you feeling? Not so rebellious anymore?”

Jason does what any nonsensical teenage horror protagonist would do, and spits on Beltrami to the best of his ability. It hits his jacket collar, but that’s close enough.

“Fuck you,” Jason sobs. “Fuck you.”

A number of emotions flicker across Beltrami’s face in the span of a few seconds, none of them comforting.

“You really hate me,” he says, as if that should come as a surprise. He brings the knife to Jason’s upper arm and slices, not deep, just enough to draw a trickle of blood. He stands up straight, wipes the blood off of his knife with his gloved fingertips.“We could’ve been beautiful, Jason. We could’ve made something beautiful here, together.” He drops his arm, seeming passive for a second before he snaps, “Then you had to go and fuck it up!”

He kicks the bottom of Jason’s chair, not hard enough to knock him over, but hard enough to rattle him, make his back teeth clack together, make the pinpoint pain shoot up into his jaw.

Beltrami runs his hands through his hair and chuckles, quick and stressed, like he’s trying to calm down from a little snap.

“You should be grateful,” he whispers, suddenly, like it’s the honest-to-god, objective truth. “You think you’re ever going to be anything? Everyone knows you. Your name, your face. Colleges and employers. They’ll know you as the liability. The target. The weakling who can’t defend himself. You think anyone will want you?” His volume increases, as he talks.

“No one will. Not as much as I did. I appreciated your uniqueness, but you were a freak from the get-go. Trying to play at being masculine, blend in where you didn’t belong. I was willing to lift you up anyways. And now look at you.” His grip shifts on the knife. Jason feels tears leaking out of his eyes, despite his best efforts. “At least if you die, you’ll be more loved; loved as a tragic story. You get to be the star. Ungrateful little brat.”

Jason turns his head away, shoulders shaking, hiccupy little breaths coming out.

Beltrami sighs.

“Let’s see if I can make you useful at all. I’ll pull a few good screams from you. That ought to do it.”

Before he can decide where to bury the knife, there’s a crash from awfully close. Just behind Jason, really. Beltrami takes a surprised step back. There’s some clambering, some more glass crunching, and then sunlight streams in, brightening up the room, as if a heavy curtain was just torn down. Jason knows who’s there before he even sees them.

The tall shadow of the Plague Doctor sweeps past his periphery and towards Beltrami. They grab him. He pushes them backwards. There’s a scuffle.

Jason realizes that this is the first time he’s seen the Plague Doctor have to fight to succeed.

The sound of crackling glass from behind him isn’t gone, yet. He hears a mechanical grunt, then unsteady footsteps.

“You really keep us busy,” comes the voice of, presumably, the shorter Plague Doctor. The straps binding his shoulders loosen and breathing is suddenly much easier. The strap comes off his right arm.

He hears an electric crackle. Him and the second Plague Doctor look up from the binds just in time to see the first Plague Doctor staggering, the cattle prod as close to their neck as Beltrami could get it.

One leg gives out and then they’re on a knee.

The next instant, their stomach sprouts a knife. Beltrami’s stabbed the Plague Doctor.

“You motherfucker!” The shorter one shouts, with a degree of anger Jason hasn’t heard from either of them ever before, and charges Beltrami.

Jason starts to undo his second arm strap.

The short Doctor tackles Beltrami and their knife sinks into him.

Left leg strap.

The knife goes in again. Beltrami is pushing on their mask, trying to shove them off.

Right leg. Jason stands.

A third time.

The one on the ground wheezes, “Dimka.”

The shorter one sits up, breathing hard, and then pushes off of Beltrami, scrambling towards the other. Their hands hover around them, like they’re afraid to touch.

Beltrami starts to stand up, hand searching for his knife, other hand pressing into the wall.

Jason runs to the supply cabinet, grabs the fire poker, and wheels around.

“Just stay down, Mr. Beltrami,” he says, trying to find a comfortable grip. He wants this to be over. Anger is filling up his chest, threatening to spill out. He can feel the tears bordering on blurring his vision. He doesn’t want to be pushed. Jason moves forward. It’s his turn to protect the Plague Doctors.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Beltrami spits, leaning against the wall, hand pressed against his gut. “This is my movie.”

“And this is the part where the credits roll,” Jason responds, hesitating when he gets closer, shifting forwards, then backwards.

Beltrami lashes out. Not even with the knife, at first. He reaches forward with a bloody palm and balls his fist into Jason’s shirt, tries to pull him in. Jason takes several swift steps backwards, lifting the poker and solidly whacking Beltrami’s forearm with the side of it.

Beltrami releases him, but that doesn’t stop his advance. Jason keeps backing up. He only wants to defend himself, he only wants to defend himself.

“I should’ve taken you when you were younger.” He swings the knife. Jason jumps back, further. “You don’t know how often I thought about this.” Beltrami won’t stop pressing the advance. “Thought about molding you.”

God, the flames are being stoked, building higher in Jason’s chest, licking at the back of his throat, on his tongue- he wants to spit everything at Beltrami but there’s too much rattling around in his head.

His shoulder bumps against the wall. He’s backed himself into a corner. Beltrami holds the knife out to his side, like he’s ready. Jason’s chest is heaving.

“You were supposed to be mine.”

Clarity strikes. Jason grits his teeth and swings. The fire poker knocks Beltrami upside the head. Beltrami stumbles back, shocked.

“I was never supposed to be anything to you,” Jason says, stepping forward, swinging again. Beltrami ducks back. Jason is the one pressing, now. “You used me. Everyone before this, all the people who tried to kill me, I thought they were just results of their environment. Misguided.” Another swing. The iron head hits Beltrami in the ribs. “That if we were in another world, they could’ve learned better. But you. You trick people into trusting you and then you hurt them.” Beltrami half stumbles, fumbles with his knife. Jason continues,

“I had you as my teacher for years and the whole time, you were thinking about ending up here, in this room. It would've been the same in any world. You think I needed you? Need you?” It’s Beltrami’s turn to press against the wall. “The only thing I need is to make sure you never get the chance to hurt anyone else.”

“Jason, you don’t have to do this-” He replies, in a strained diplomat’s voice.

“I don’t. But you deserve it.” Throwing all his weight forward, he sinks the fire poker into Beltrami’s chest. The poker stalls, for a second, on the small prong, before Beltrami’s flesh gives. It makes a sick, wet sound. Beltrami coughs, spraying Jason with blood. Jason feels his stomach flip. When he steps back, Beltrami falls, pushing it through further, like in a cheesy horror film.

Jason takes a moment to breathe, hands shaking, head rushing. The adrenaline that was rushing through his veins feels like a curse, making him shudder all over. When his heart no longer feels like it’s in his throat, he turns to look at the Plague Doctors.

The injured one is sitting up, now, if only slightly. The shorter is tending to the wound to the best of their ability, silent now.

“You killed him,” the taller one says. If it weren’t for the voice changer, Jason would be sure he’d heard a hint of concern.

“He wouldn’t have stopped,” Jason breathes.

“Welcome to the grey area,” the smaller one states, quietly.

“Are you okay?” Jason asks.

“I think I’m doing alright.” They answer.

“Can you see if there’s any bandages around? Thread and needle?” The short one asks.

Jason nods and goes to search on shaky legs. He can hear them whispering as he searches.

“Nothing,” he responds, apologetic.

“Shit,” they respond as they press down on the wound, again, earning a groan from their companion. “Sorry,” they whisper.

“I’ll go see if there’s another room,” Jason offers, walking towards the exit door.

“Jason, wait.” He stops, looking at the two of them.

The shorter one fumbles with the back of their hood a bit and Jason’s heart speeds up. What?

“Babe, don’t,” the taller one tries to protest.

But the mask comes off. Jason’s heart stalls entirely.

Dmitri Morozova, leading man in every play since their freshman year, brilliant actor, vigilante serial killer.

He looks genuinely scared.

There’s a sigh, and the remaining masked Plague Doctor does a bit of work to get theirs off, too.

Regan. Star of the wrestling team, hottest girlfriend in the school, always Dmitri’s partner in crime.

“What the fuck?” Jason asks, voice tight.

“We were going to tell you,” Regan says, softly.

“No, you - you should’ve told me straight away, you should’ve -” Jason makes a strangled noise, backs up again. “Is that - is that why you became friends with me? Of course. I should’ve known, no one has ever wanted to talk to me since this started unless - fuck!”

“You’re wrong -” Dmitri begins, but Jason cuts him off with bitter laughter.

“Am I? Okay, then why’d you come talk to me? You never took pity on me before then, that’s for fucking sure. I didn’t exist to you. I wish I still didn’t!”

Regan cringes. “Jason...We kept talking to you because we liked you, because…”

“Because ‘to be frank, I’m a murder magnet’! Isn’t that it? You said so yourself!” Jason pulls at his hair as hard as he can. Gritting his teeth hurts his scar, but he does it anyway.

Dmitri looks between Jason and Regan, surprised.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Regan says, shaking his head. “I was getting frustrated-”

“Frustrated? You? You shot Christian in my fucking kitchen! My mom had to mop up the blood!”

“We were trying to help you, Voorhees,” Dmitri says, voice wavering a bit. “We were just trying to fix things, for everyone, and then you turned out to be cool, we didn’t-”

“Save it.” Jason glares.

Dmitri quiets so quickly it’s disconcerting. Regan grips his hand and runs his thumb over the back of it.

“So are you guys going to call 911? How are you going to avoid taking the heat this time?” His voice is cold.

Dmitri and Regan look at each other, like they’re silently communicating. Then Regan looks back to Jason.

“How about a head start?”

“What? You don’t plan on going to the hospital?”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve had to handle a stab wound. We just need to get back to my car.” Dmitri starts to help him up. He doesn’t look in good shape. Dmitri picks up their masks and puts his back on. Then he walks the short distance to the camera and destroys it, wordlessly, tossing it onto the ground and then stomping on it.

Dmitri grabs Regan’s hand again once that’s done and helps him out of the room. Jason doesn’t follow them down the hall. He just waits in the doorway until he thinks they’ve had as long as they deserve, and then calls the police.

#a disease like you spreads #adlys #chapter 7 #gif /#glitch /

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thiefking · 3 years

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the kurosawas are probably the most detached from the rest of the Oc Web because they already have the hayashis to hang out with and kouki & nora are not the best at socializing (kouki wishes he could be. nora does not give a shit) the only other oc that i own that is definitely pre-established friend of theirs is mia...

okay this post got like really long hold on. oc relationship web (the self-insular version where it’s all My Own ocs except for a brief mention of katsuya/nate’s not-husband and the above mention of the hayashis) under the cut

haruka and zagreus (i literallydreamed the character concept and name up before i even knew a single thing about that one game. i dreamed i was a motorcyclist named zagreus and i went that’s fun i’ll make that real. let me live.) are bffs and also very friendly and easygoing people so they pretty much tie every other oc together in one big friendship web, but even more importantly there’s already an established connection to pull in my OTHER social recluse, because zagreus’s royal advisor/older sister figure is ophelia, who is the Biological older sister of nate, and as soon as ophelia and nate are reunited and zagreus finds out about it he’s obviously going to adopt nate as basically his brother and then through zagreus nate also meets ein and haruka and through haruka he meets the babbages. this is the giant web here

i also know that eventually nate and the kurosawas will be friends and i think haruka and nora would make good pals because haruka is like perfectly built to handle nora’s standoffishness... really my biggest trouble is connecting mia to the oc friendship web because she’s very picky about her company and she’s too aloof to maintain actual connections with most people. the only ones i can think of are loose “she’d be chill with zagreus” and “she would assume her being very vulgar and irreverent would piss nate off so she does that on purpose near him but he seems more than okay with it and in fact may even have a chuckle so she’d decide he’s also fine” and “she would be okay with rin (babbage) and ein thinking she’s cool because they Would think she’s cool as hell and mia agrees. but she’d be like errrmmm... no... if any attempt was made to get her to babysit. even though she’d do a decent job of it and isn’t actually as bad with kids as she thinks she is”

also i think thOH RIGHT and ophelia and nora and zagreus obviously have to become friends because they all like jojo. okay anyway i think zagreus and mia would be the most tickled with the fact that nate is this very serious-looking regal prettyboy whose wardrobe makes him look like he’s constantly cosplaying a vampire and/or miles edgeworth and speaks in a generally calm and verbose manner is:

Incredibly Clueless about like... generally accepted concepts like theme parks, roller coasters, anime conventions, video games/pokemon, and if you introduce him to any of these he approaches them with the same straightfaced curiosity and if you ask him questions you get to find out how many things he’s getting wrong. for example he thinks that “voltorb” is what the trainer he’s fighting named their little round pet. like he’d think it was Mr. Voltorb and Ms. Oddish and not realize that it’s a species name. and also he thinks that people getting stopped for pictures at disneyland is just something that happens there and the people all dressed up in their princess/prince outfits are just dressed like that casually because he also showed up dressed similarly and ALSO keeps getting stopped for photos. so he’s like “i see, so it’s a social norm in this town (he thinks disneyland is a town) to expect photographs. understood”

not only is he Not scandalized by hearing the word fuck he himself will occasionally say it. furthermore so long as he actually understands it he will laugh at dirty jokes. more esoteric ones/ones that you can only understand through internet exposure he won’t understand but if you teach him he’ll laugh

related to the above he’s never given up teasing ophelia for accidentally referring to zagreus’s mom as a milf and will very quickly inform people that she did that within the first half hour of reuniting with him after a full decade of neither of them seeing each other and ophelia is tormented by it (and the fact that because she refused to tell him what milf meant, he then asked his not-husband katsuya to define it, said not-husband being someone ophelia had JUST met for the FIRST TIME EVER the same day, who now knew two things about her: she’s nate’s sister and she has the hots for her boss’s mom)

he is willing to attempt to try referencing memes. he does not do it correctly 99% of the time and is strangely verbose about it or just says it with entirely the wrong cadence

has a very easily capitalized-upon curiosity just in general and will not question most requests to do something and will just be like Okay.

this is also all stuff that the rest of the crew would find fairly funny/endearing about him (save for kouki maybe because he and nate are basically on the same wavelength and get along more based on similar personalities and haruka just kinda likes Everyone) but mia and zagreus actively.... i guess exploit? these traits for comedic purposes the most

weirdly i feel like nora wouldn’t exploit it much but maybe it’s because again nate is similar to kouki and nora doesn’t tend to “exploit” any of kouki’s traits, kouki is usually in on whatever nora is trying to do (or at least they have a mutual understanding that they can use each other’s traits to their own advantages and even if they don’t know the plan necessarily they’re aware of what they might need to play up or even just Continue Doing)

nate is like... he’s fine with being handed things and told Do Something With This and given no further instruction. and if he’s laughed at when he says/does something that he didn’t intend to be funny he’s not embarrassed he’s just like “? is that wrong?” and doesn’t take it to heart. but he and mia/zagreus wouldn’t be on the same wavelength of what’s going on (or at least have wildly different perspectives on it?) the way kouki and nora are, mia/zagreus are getting some (friendly, good-spirited) comedy out of nate being the strange little man that he is and nate is usually getting a genuine learning experience that just happens to be very comedic for everyone around him

that also i think is an important difference between the two, nate is much more resistant to being embarrassed than kouki is in most situations. nate is capable of being very casually intimate/physically affectionate with katsuya (though he also doesn’t realize how blatantly romantic it is. once he’s like oh my god i am in gay love with him THAT is when he’s SLIGHTLY flustered about it but it very quickly goes back to not being embarrassing at all for him) and while nate can have his moments of “aw fuck a social blunder” he’s usually more... deeply saddened in an instant than embarrassed. kouki will get embarrassed more by much less and will ALSO be sad about it afterwards, he’s also like Genuinely Shy on top of being lonely and bad at speaking, as opposed to nate who is exceedingly lonely but not necessarily Afraid of talking to/approaching people. he’s just bad at being casual which makes it hard to make friends. kouki and nate are also on complete opposite ends of the verboseness spectrum and yet both ends have the same result of “friend-making very hard”

the plus side though is nate and kouki would be friends super easily because kouki wouldn’t find nate intimidating (actually he’d probably be scoping out whether nate Deserves To Get Robbed or if the hammer of justice need not be swung this time) and both of them are so Autism-Having that the other one’s social awkwardness does not affect them at all. actually itmakes it even better for both of them because nate can ask kouki 5 million questions and kouki can just answer with “*nods head* mm.” or “*shakes head* mm.” and nate’s like “excellent he’s answering my questions and doesn’t look scared this conversation is going great” and kouki islike “wow i can’t believe he’s still talking to me even though i’m barely saying anything this conversation is going great” and nate can infodump all he likes and kouki doesn’t have to stress out about trying to speak “better” because nate doesn’t expect/need him to

i also think it works well because kouki says So Very Little sometimes that it gets insanely vague (ironically enough he tries to only say the important words so that it ISN’T vague because he thinks the more words he says the more likely he is to be misunderstood. like more words = more opportunities to be misconstrued) but nate has no issue with basically rephrasing what kouki said with more words filled in to confirm what he meant and kouki can just be like Yeah or No It’s More Like _ and nate will be like ah i see and it just goes on as normal. which is i think a rarity for kouki because usually nora would be the one to translate kouki-isms and if nora isn’t there kouki would have to sit there thinking really hard about making sure the sentence is as clear as possible and get kind of nervous about being wrong about how clear it is, but nate is not easily offended and doesn’t look Visibly Confused by kouki-isms so kouki is in turn more comfortable and confident

likewise nora would be initially as distrustful of nate as he is with everyone but as soon as he realizes how similar to kouki he is AND that nate and kouki get along nora’ll be really chill with him. even moreso when he makes similar discoveries as mia irt “oh he actually is nowhere near as stuffy as he looks i guess he just dresses fancy”. also i think nora would still do something Adjacent to the mia/zagreus hijinks of giving nate something to do just to see how he reacts, nate and nora have a clearer understanding that if nora asks nate to do something they both know that it’s just for Funny Purposes and nate doesn’t get like... nutritional value out of it it’s just like nora asks him to read something (like just Read it with his eyes or read it aloud) and nate is like ah i’m going to be exposed to very strange words again aren’t i. mia and zagreus would do that sort of thing too it’s all part of the “funny ways to use nate’s strange little traits” umbrella it’s just that nora doesn’t partake in most of the other ways (at least not most of the time anyway. i think he would also be the type to lie to nate about what words/internet terms mean though)

#txt #oc talk #a LOT of oc talk #not a lot about haruka sorry buddy......#i think you're fine with that though because 1. you love your friends and you would be very :-) about them getting along with each other #and 2. if i talk too much about you in the context of friendships #we both know we gotta talk about Times When Haruka Needs Help With Things and you don't think those exist ever

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chelsealivesclothing · 6 years

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Dear Diary,

My name is Chelsea, I am 16 years old right now. I live with my mother and older brother named Francis. My father and my extended family are in Africa where we are from. My mother came to the U.S. in 2000 and brought my brother and I 5 years later in 2005. So it’s only the three of us as far as family goes here in the U.S. My dad was never brought along because my parents separated shortly after my mother left Africa. I was too young to understand the entire reason why but I think it had to do with him cheating.

Sometimes I wish I were back home with my dad, my mother is a difficult person to live with. I am almost sure she is bipolar, or has at least some sort of mental disorder. She is always angry and bitter at my brother and I. She yells and screams half the time, and calls us terrible names. Her favorite things to say are “I wish I never had you” or I wish I had an abortion”. I never experienced this kind of hatred when I live with my dad. In fact I think I would rather be back in Africa sharing a bed with 3 people and using an outdoor shower with no hot water than to be enduring this emotional abuse from my mother.

I mean, she isn’t always so bad. I call her bipolar because she also has good days where she can be really nice, lovely, and understanding. Those days she feels like a real mother and life seems normal which gets very confusing for me because I can never decide whether I love or hate her and whether I’m miserable in my life or not.

My brother Francis is 18 and he sleeps on the couch in our 2 bedroom apartment. We moved out of a 3 bedroom last year because after he turned 18 my mother decided he would sleep on the couch until he got a job and moved out. But my brother is a strange creature, as miserable as my mother makes out home life sometimes I am surprised he hasn’t packed his bags and gotten as far away from here as he can. I think his laziness gets the best of him. The only thing he likes to do is sit around home playing video games. Him and I are polar opposites. I am a restless one. I already have it planned out, as soon as I turn 18 I am getting a job and getting out of here.

Dear Diary

My name is Chelsea and I am a kleptomaniac. I have a serious issue with stealing and I can’t really help it, I wouldn’t be able to get anything otherwise unless I steal it. My mother says she can’t afford to get us new things and even though she always goes shopping for herself the only money she wants to spend on me is on used clothes. I am in high school so used clothes just don’t cut it. For me stealing is almost like a survival thing, high school is like a jungle and if you don’t look a certain way you will be eaten alive.

Anyway I got caught stealing at Walmart today. I have stolen there dozens of times before and never had an issue but I guess they were beginning to catch on to me because this time after I filled my bag up with a bunch of makeup products I found the theft prevention guy waiting for me at the door. They had the police come and take me to the juvenile center. My mother was horrified.

She has not spoken a single word to me and for her that means something terrible because she is not the kind of person to go silent, in fact she is usually the opposite. Yelling and making a scene are her thing. So her silence has spoken a great deal to me, I know this is serious.

When we got home from the juvenile center she ripped my tv out of my room, took my iPod, and worse yet, packed up all my makeup items and took them to her room. I can deal with no Tv or iPod but how in the actual phuck am I supposed to walk around school with no makeup? I have been freaking out about this for the last hour. I don’t want to steal again but I think I may have to because I simply can not be seen at school with no makeup.

Regardless of what I just said though, I truly have learned my lesson about stealing for the last time. I had the worst knot in my stomach when they took me to the center and this is actually not the first time. I got arrested one time before when I was 13 years old for stealing a pair of earrings. I felt just as horrible then as I do now and I vowed then to stop stealing and stuck to it… for a while.

Stealing is an addiction, especially when it is your only option for obtaining things. I went a long time without ever wanting to be bad again but when the thoughts to take things start creeping back into your head it is difficult to stop them and to stop yourself.

Dear Diary

My mother has really gone out of her mind this time. I knew her silence meant something evil was brewing inside of her but I could have never guessed this. She wants me to spend the summer with a friend of hers in Omaha Nebraska that neither she or I has ever met. I mean who does that? Who hands their kid off to someone they have never even met? My mother says she talks to them on the phone all the time but that hardly qualifies as knowing someone. She explained that she wants me to go live there for the summer because the friend has a daughter named Belita who is my age but a better version of myself with her being a straight A student. My mother hopes that I will pick up some good habits from her. I think it’s absolute nonsense and this is my mother’s sick excuse to get rid of me for one reason or another. I can’t fathom how terrible it is that I have to spend 2 months with complete strangers and worst of all, lose out on my summer break.

The other more horrifying thing is she has been telling them embarrassing things about me, things that I’m even embarrassed to tell you diary. But I guess since the whole world knows now I guess you ought to know as well.

When I lived in Africa the only bathroom we had was an outdoor one. So to avoid making bathroom trips in the middle of the night back and forth outside my grandmother would keep a piss bucket inside the house in case any of us woke up with a weak bladder.

From that I now have a bad habit of pissing in a small bucket in my room when I wake up in the middle of the night. This is something I am humiliated by and managed to keep a secret until my mother let herself into my room a few months ago and found my DIY toilet.

This is the story she is telling everyone. How am I supposed to spend a summer or make friends with anyone who knows something like this about me?

Dear diary,

I thought my mother may have been bluffing about the whole Nebraska thing and that she would eventually change her mind but she certainly was not kidding because she already bought me a plane ticket there.

On the other hand school is coming to its end and I am pretty excited. I don’t have much of a life here so I won’t miss it so much. The only thing I have going for me so far is I have a best friend named Elise. She is not really my type, or rather the type of person who will do anything good for my reputation but we get along very well. I like Elise but the thing is in high school you are judged not only for you and what you look like, but also for the company you keep. And I’m not saying Elise is a loser but she’s not exactly the picture of popularity. She is tall, like, really tall. Probably about 6ft. She is on the heavier side, she doesn’t wear makeup, and she doesn’t dress very well.

I am not quite popular myself but I have potential. Potential which I think is being held back by my hanging out with someone who is kind of on the opposite spectrum of being “cool”. I love my best friend though and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. I think the only way to balance out having an uncool friend is to have more cool ones (pardon me, I hate using the word “cool” it sounds so pretentious, but I’m not sure what other ones I can use to help you understand my point).

I kinda have a plan to counteract my current dilemma. There is this boy in school who has been giving me a hard stare for the last couple of weeks. It’s a kind of lusty stare that says “I want you” in just one look. He wants me. He is not exactly the kind of guy I pictured myself with but I have been thinking about it lately and he’s definitely kinda perfect for me. I’ve done a little research on him around the school and on social media and his name is Cj Mgcgill, he is cute, closer to my age (one grade up), he’s on the basketball team and I just think we would look really nice together. Best part of is all of his friends are popular so I think he can provide a good way for me to finally get where I want in high school Hierarchy.

Dear Diary, 6/12/12 8:13am

Today is the day. I am currently on the place to O-town. My mother just dropped me off at the airport and our car ride here was pretty tense. Right now I am sitting in the terminal nervous out of my mind. I have no idea what to expect from this summer in Omaha. I have never met these people at all and I’m really not sure how it will go. I’ve been establishing rapport with Belita the last couple weeks and she actually seems kinda cool from the conversations we have had over the phone as well as our interactions on Twitter. She hasn’t ever mentioned the pee thing or treated me weirdly because of it so that has kinda helped me put my guard down in that sense.

6:17pm

I have been here in Omaha a few hours now and I am quite pleasantly surprised by the results. I met the Family earlier and it consists of the Mother, Maude, whom I am to refer to as Aunt Maude, her daughter Belita who I found out today is just one year younger than I am but in the same grade, then last her youngest son Akim who is 12. Aunt Maude is actually very nice, down to earth and fun. I feel at home already!

I was not expecting to feel comfortable so quickly. But the real surprise lies with Belita. Based on my mother’s description I was expecting some goody-two shoes book worm school girl and to her credit she is a straight A student but socially I think she is worse than I am!

She told me earlier about how she sneaks out of her mom’s apartment at night to go to parties and that she has older friends that supply her with alcohol and give car rides when she needs. As far as alcohol goes, my only experience with it has been when I sneak glasses of wine from my mom’s supply but never more. She told me as a welcome surprise she has planned for us to sneak out later tonight to go hang out with two of her older guy friends, DJ Wol and Cuckoo who are roommates. I am not sure exactly how old they are but I know they are both over 21 with their own apartments and cars. I am very excited for a little kiss of freedom because I have never been out on my own past a certain hour before, let alone drinking, and to make it worse with older guys! I just hope they are cute!

This is poetic justice in its truest form. My mother undermined how good of a child I am and thought she would ruin my summer by bringing me here but did not realize she was putting me in the hands of everything she feared I was but was not! This summer I am going to make it a point to enjoy how well karma truly works!

Dear diary, 6/13/12 10:00am

I just woke up and am currently experiencing a hell of a hangover. Last night turned out to be a horror show. Thinking about it makes me cringe and writing about it might be even worse but I have to tell you.

Belita and I snuck out around 11pm after ensuring that her mother was good and well passed out. The boys were waiting for us outside. They were not as attractive as I had hoped, or attractive at all actually but that was not really a big concern for me. I was in it for the drinks and that was all that really mattered.

We got to their place and the first thing I did was take a shot of Hennessy. . Within a few minutes I started to feel a nice buzz and the feeling was mutual among the group so we decided to retreat to the basement to play some games.

At first everything was fun and everyone was being pleasant. I was enjoying myself and my mental state. We started off by playing pool, I didn’t understand the game so Dj Wol took it upon himself to explain the basics of it to me. After a few games we decided I was hopeless and decided to move on. Someone suggested we play beer pong which I did not quite understand the rules of either. Dj Wol took me under his wing as a teacher again and I began to notice how the dynamic in the room was molding itself. Since there were two guys and two girls each guy had gravitated towards the girl of his choice and I realized I was Dj Wol’s… only he wasn’t mine. I had taken a liking to him but only as a friend. Belita on the other hand seemed to be enjoying her match in Cuco.

Even though I started off the rookie at beer pong I turned out to be the best one at it and while everyone else was taking down shots after shots from losing, I was able to keep a firm grasp on my slight buzz. The more the 3 of them drank, the more chaotic everything became. I decided to take myself upstairs to see if I could find something to snack on. As I climbed up the stairs I heard the stair creaking behind me and upon turning around found that DJ Wol was following me out of the basement.

An uneasy feeling washed over me, he had been hounding me the entire night since we started drinking and with his current mental state the last thing I wanted to do was be alone with him. I told myself I was being too paranoid and brushed my concerns off.

He followed me into the kitchen and we made small talk as he showed me where they kept their snacks. I grabbed a granola bar and started to head off downstairs before he stopped me and asked if I wanted to see his motorcycle. I had no interest in spending another second alone with him but he insisted and I did not want to be rude so I obliged.

He took me through a backdoor into a small garage where his motor cycle was parked. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” He asked, and I did my best to brush off my uneasiness and give an optimistic reply. “It’s beautiful”, I replied.

Suddenly he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me from the back, “Do you want to hop on it?” He asked. The gesture made me extremely uncomfortable so I asked him politely to get his hands off of me so I could go back downstairs. He let me go but as I turned to leave he grabbed my hand and pulled me into his arms again. The act gave me a feeling that he did not care whether I wanted him or not and that he was planning to have me either way.

I went into panic mode. Everything within his facial expressions and actions told me that he was going to rape me and take my virginity right then and right there. I tried to do my best to stay calm and not allow the situation to escalate so I looked him in the eyes and asked him to let me go so I could go downstairs. I even threw in a smile to make it seem as though I had not acknowledged the situation. He let me go soon after and I quickly made my way downstairs.

I had had enough and wanted to leave so I went to grab Belita to tell her that we had to go. Belita was so drunk and so wrapped up in Cuco that she barely acknowledged my presence let alone paid attention to my pleas for us to go. I was extremely disappointed in Belita and my first night in Omaha that all I could do was sit in the chair across from the her and Cuco and regret spending my summer here.

Belita sensed my frustration with her as we left the boys’ house so the two of us have not been on good terms since last night. I made a subtweet towards her last night that read something along the lines of “I hate being around thirsty drunk bitches“ which I strongly regret now. I know she read it because she subtweeted something ugly back at me which I have no care to mention.

She left for work earlier and I am not sure how we are going to go along after this with this new tension between us. I helped myself understand that I am here for the summer and have to do my absolute best to keep things positive between the two of us because if things turn sour there will be nowhere to run away to. So I have to disolve all my feelings of hurt and betrayal and put on. A happy face so we can move forward in a positive manner when she gets back from work later today.

Dear diary, 6/13/12 12:23am

I’ve been so hungover I haven’t been able to eat. I was talking to aunt Maude earlier and she told me about how her church does a fast annually where they only eat one meal a day after sunset for 40 days or something like that. On a normal occasion I could never imagine myself being able to do that because I have such a large appetite but after finding that my hunger goes AWOL after a night of Hennessy I have decided that if I drink at least every night this summer I should have no problem losing weight. I’m gonna do that one meal a day fast that aunt Maude was talking about. It is a really easy thing to think about at this moment because as sick as I feel right now the very thought of food actually just makes me want to throw up. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with it the entire summer because I would Ideally like to drop to 105 pounds before summer ends. Last summer I did the Master Cleanse which is basically a diet where you down eat anything for 10 days. I lost 17 pounds within the time but ended up gaining it all right back afterwards because I went right back to over eating. This time I will keep up with my weight loss for sure.

Dear Diary, 6/13/12 4:16pm

Belita just got home and things are even more awkward between us than I imagined they would be. The awkwardness is mostly due to the lack of effort on her part. She is not fond of me right now and she does not care if I know it. I’m really not sure how we are gonna be able to heal and move forward from last night but I can only do my best but my best won’t be enough if she is not putting forth any effort either.

Other than that I have been pretty much watching TV all day. I was watching one of those talent shows earlier and it had Carmen. Electra as a guest host. I had never really paid so much attention to her before but I was really impressed by her flirtatiousness and ease with men. I myself have a lot of trouble having enough confidence to hold even the simplest conversations with guys I find attractive but she just breezes with her charm like it’s nothing to her. I found myself wishing that I had the same ability to be so comfortable and confident with the opposite sex. I promised myself that I am going to try to learn to be even a quarter as charming as she is by the end of summer. I think if I practice with semi-attractive boys it should ready me to talk with the guys I’m really interested in.

Dear Diary, 6/17/12 3:43pm

Things have surprisingly turned around pretty quickly between Belita and I. We have been getting along very well and its almost as if the chaos from the other night never actually happened. I’m beginning to grow very fond of her, in the little time we have spent together she is starting to feel like the sister I never had. She has a slightly rude and sarcastic attitude about her but I am learning to not be offended by it.

Her mother took me, her, and her little brother Akim for fro-yo this afternoon and I got a feeling of unity among the four of us. This summer is starting to not look so bad after all. I’ve been doing pretty well on my one meal a day diet, In fact I don’t even need to be hungover to do it because my body seems to have quickly adapted to my new meal plan. I am so excited to see how slim I get by the end of this summer.

On top of that Belita has arranged for us to go out again tonight with another one of her 20-something boy toys. We bought a bottle of Hennessy from one of her friends the other day so we will be getting high from our own supply- so to speak.

Dear diary, 6/18/12 10:58am

Last night was INSANE. Belita and I took shots from our liquor bottle as preparation to go out. I had never had complete freedom to drink a bottle of liquor as my own before and neither had she so we were completely lost on how many shots one needs to take to attain a proper buzz. Between the two of us we took about 7 shots each which proved to be an outrageously high amount because by the time the boys arrived to pick us up we were already drunk out of our minds. I was more drunk than she was but I think that is due to her being heavier, taller, and more athletically built than myself.

We went driving all over Omaha and I was acting a complete fool the whole time but the amazing thing is I did not give a single phuck. The alcohol was allowing me to express myself in a way I never thought I could, and in even more ways than I even knew I had the desire to. Somewhere along the night I found myself hitting on Belita! Can you imagine! I’m not gay or anything but I have had a couple of instances where she and I were laying in bed together and I felt a strong urge to rollover and become sexual with her. I think what it means is just that I am a very horny person and not necessarily that I feel any romantic attraction to her or any other members of my same sex.

Belita refused my sexual advances towards her but the look on her face when she did so said she was just doing so out of decency and not because she didn’t want it also.

I was surprised by how much confidence and how uninhibited drinking made me feel. I really wish I can be this way when I am just my sober self but I think if I drink enough I will learn to be.

Anyway we kept ignorantly downing the shots throughout the night and by the end of it I had become so deliriously drunk that I started bowling my eyes out about something totally nonsensical before burying my head in the toilet to projectile vomit every little thing I had put into myself over the previous 12 hours. The good thing about me involuntarily throwing up was that by the time we had to go back home I had sobered up so there was no worry of my clumsy drunken self making a ruckus and waking top aunt Maude to have her discover that we had snuck out during the night.

Dear Diary6/19/12

We snuck out again last night but not for anything fun this time. We didn’t even get drunk, we just went and hung out with a girl friend of hers named Nyajal. There were a few boys at Nyajal’s house but none of them were even halfway attractive which made me frustrated as I came to the realization that Belita doesn’t really hang out with any particularly attractive people and therefore my summer is going to be a complete tank if I don’t experience even a minor summer romance.

Other than that its the end of my first week here but it feels like I’ve already been here forever. Belita and I are like two peas in a pod. We have our moments every once and again were we butt heads but for the most part we get along like we have known each other forever. Aunt Maude is really fun and I really enjoy her. She is not as controlling or strict as my mother is so the environment in this household is very relaxed and I feel like I can just let my guard down and enjoy myself.

Dear Diary, 6/20/12

I’ve been looking for a job. That is one of the important things I have to do this summer. I want to buy my own laptop by the time school starts again and I also want to be able to buy my own back to school clothes. My mom doesn’t really care to spend any considerable amounts of money on our back to school wear so if she won’t do it I am going to have to do it myself. Now that I have sworn to stop stealing having a job is going to have to be the one way by which I can stock up my closet. I went to apply at Wendy’s down the street the other day and they have already called me back for an interview. I am so excited, I’ve already picked out the outfit I’ll wear for it and everything. If I get this job it will mean independence from having to wait on my mother to do everything for me all the time.

Otherwise there hasn’t really been anything exciting to talk about lately. We still have some liquor leftover from out personal bottle so Belita and I have been pretty much spending our afternoons buzzed at the pool.

In other news, Belita told me that an 18 year old family friend of hers named Julia is gonna come stay with us for a little while in a few days. She also told me that Julia is said to have HIV. This is only a rumor and not something that Julia has ever confirmed to Belita but Belita says it is true because her mother heard so From Julia’s mother.

To be honest diary I’m kind of scared to be so intimately in company of someone with that infection. I have nothing against anyone with the disease but I fear that something small such as me sitting on the toilet after her or using a utensil after her could lead to me contracting it too. I know I’m probably being silly and ignorant but I just can’t help but feel concerned about it.

Dear Diary, 6/22/12

Things have taken a very ugly turn. My iPod went missing earlier today and I spent nearly all this afternoon retracing my steps and searching for it. At one point I went to take a break from the search and found an iPod on the couch. Belita has an iPod as well so I thought it may have been hers since I had checked the couch already and not seen mine. I took the iPod for inspection anyway just to be sure. The screensaver was different from mine but when I was prompted to put in a passcode, I typed mine in and it worked. I realized that although the screensaver had been changed, the iPod was mine. The only person who could have changed the screensaver was the only person I had trusted enough to give my passcode and that person is Belita. I realized at that moment that she had been attempting to steal my iPod by changing the screensaver to disguise it to look like her own. She probably planned on giving my iPod to her little brother for him to use as his own.

I have never felt so betrayed and heartbroken as I do at this very moment after realizing the girl I had grown so close with and thought of as a long lost sister would really attempt to dupe me in this way. I can’t imagine what would have happened with my iPod had I sat on that couch a minute too late. They probably would have changed everything on my iPod and made out like it was Akeem’s and I would never have been able to enjoy my iPod again.

I feel so hurt about this situation that I don’t know how to move forward from this. How can I go on smiling and laughing in the face of a backstabbing thief?

I can’t.

But I have to if I hope to have a somewhat OK summer. I have never disliked my mother as much as I do right now for sending me here. She has stooped low many times in the past but I think this is the absolute lowest. How can you send your child to live with people that you have never even met? This whole thing is absurd to me. I think if I put all my focus into work this summer should be able to go by pretty quickly.

Dear diary 6/23/12

Things have been very awkward since the iPod incidence and and it seems that roles have been switched. Belita is now the one giving her best effort to make us get along and I am finding it very hard to care abut being buddy-buddy with her. I wish I cared, I really do, but the hurt I am feeling within is making it impossible to do so.

Julia will be here in two days so I am pretty excited to have someone else to interact with beside the one person I dislike the most in the world right now.

In other news, my Interview with Wendy’s was today and after sitting down with the manager for about 30 minutes, she hired me on the spot. I am so excited! No I can have a reason to get out of this house and not constantly have to see the face of my number 1 enemy right now. I’m gonna celebrate by taking some shots from our personal liquor stash later tonight. I won’t be going anywhere but I just like the feeling of being buzzed whether its indoors or not.

Dear Diary, 6/24/12

I woke up with a hangover this afternoon to Belita knocking on the door for me to come outside. I was feeling lousy from the night before and was in no mood to talk or interact but I decided to put a dress on and follow her anyway. Waiting for us outside by a truck were Nyajal and 3 guys. I recognized one of the guys from the other night Belita and I snuck off to Nyajal’s house but the other two were unfamiliar to me. Belita and I went to join the four of them on the side of the truck where I hugged Nyajal hello then shook hands with the the rest of them to introduce myself.

Out of the 3 guys, the two unfamiliar ones to me were most attractive. They weren’t full-on attractive but compared to the boys I have been seeing lately I would say they are the cream of the crop. One was tall with long dreads in a ponytail and braces. The other was just a little shorter with a handsome chiseled face and an incredible and memorable smile. The taller one introduced himself as Chuol and the one with the beautiful smile said his was bong. Although Bong was more handsome I found myself immediately drawn to Chuol. He had this Vibrant personality and confidence about himself that was very appealing to me.

Belita, Nyajal, and the 3rd guy excused themselves and got into the car to smoke a joint. They asked if I wanted to join them but I declined and stayed outside with Chuol and Bong.

Chuol turned his attention towards me and started to make small talk. I was regrettably very quite and shy which I think he mistook as stand-offishness but in reality I had just woken up and was suffering a hangover so my social skills were suffering also. Bong tried to engage me as well but I just couldn’t bring myself to be as vibrant as they were. I felt like my personality was being suppressed by my tiredness. I was behaving to embarrassingly awkwardly in conversation with the boys that I couldn’t help but think how much better our interaction would be going had I taken a couple shots before hand.

Belita came out from car smoke session just before things got too awkward and we all made plans to hang out tomorrow. I’m nervous to see them again after making such a fool of myself but I am excited at the same time. We are all going to be drinking together so shyness will most certainly not be a factor the next time we meet. Like I said, they are not super attractive by any means nor are they the type of guys I would go for on a regular basis, but for a summer fling in Nebraska, they will do just fine!

Dear Diary 6/25/12 10:53am

Julia is here! Yay! I had no idea how relived I would be from her presence, she has such a calm and pleasant personality which is polar opposite of what I have been dealing with from Belita. Don’t get me wrong, Belita is fun and easy to get along with but she has this sarcastic and mean spirited thing about herself that makes her a little difficult to spend every day with. Julia makes me feel like home, she is easy to talk to and she has created a much needed break from all the tension between Belita and I. I’ve been trying to be positive and keep spirits up with Belita but after the whole iPod thing I honestly just feel too drained to put in more than a little effort.

Although I like Julia I still am a little freaked out about the whole HIV thing. At first I thought Belita may have been kidding about her having it but now I realize it’s definitely true. She said she wants us to accompany her to an HIV show later which kinda put the nail in the coffin for me because who goes to an HIV show unless they have HIV right? The other thing is although she is a very beautiful girl, she does not look to be in understandable health for her age. I mean, she is 18 years old but her teeth are rotting, she has sores all up and down her face and body, etc. If I was not already scared of HIV before I am even more so now after seeing what it has done to such a beautiful young woman.

I really wish I could ask her where she got it, or how she got in, and a million other questions pertaining to the disease but since she is not open about it I guess I am just left wondering.

Dear Diary, 6/25/12 9:15pm

We just came back from the HIV thing with Julia and are now preparing for our night out with Chuol and Bong. We didn’t count on having a third girl so I’m not sure how the boys are gonna be split between us but Belita asked Chuol if he could bring a 3rd boy for Julia.

The HIV event we went to was surprisingly fun and informative. One thing I didn’t expect was to see so many HIV infected people look so normal and healthy. Growing up I was always told that people with HIV were supposed to look like they were near death but most people at the event looked to be in optimum health. One of the speakers said that as long as you take your medicine as you’re supposed to you could live out your entire life in perfect health. I guess I had a lot of misconceptions about the disease.

If you can believe it I am actually more afraid of the disease now than I was before going to the event. Seeing how normal people with HIV look has scared me because now I will never know who has it. It doesn’t have a look to itself so if or when I ever decide to sleep with anyone there will be no telling what I am getting myself into. I understand you can still live your life fully with the disease but it doesn’t decrease how scary it is for me to imagine having to take pills every single day and not know whether the disease may run rampant and destroy you at any second. What the event did for me was scare me away from any future promiscuity or carelessness and I think thats a good thing.

Dear Diary, 6/26/12 1:23pm

Last night was the most amazing night of my life thus far! I think I may have partly lost my virginity, I’m not sure!

The 3 of us, Belita, Julia, and I snuck out last night just after aunt Maude had fallen asleep. Chuol came to pick us up with Bong in his dad’s minivan. They couldn’t find a 3rd boy to bring for Julia unfortunately so we had an uneven ratio of girls to boys. Initially we didn’t know who would go with who and I would have been fine with either one but I was more so interested in Chuol and I could tell he was more interested in me as well.

We headed to hang out by a bridge and the entire way there I stayed pretty quite because like I mentioned before I get pretty awkward around boys I find attractive. I didn’t think it would be such a challenge to bring my personality out around them considering they are not what I consider to be optimally attractive but I guess even a small attraction causes my nerves to go haywire and shuts down any personality output.

Anyway we got to the bridge and when we walked out of the car Chuol followed me. He wanted me. I wanted him to but I was having trouble expressing that without a drink in my system so the only way I could manage to act was stand-offish. He came to put his arms around me which surprised me so I pushed him off. At that moment I think I offended him so he completely stopped trying with me and went off to pursue Belita. Belita was very well into Chuol herself so I could tell she was glad things had not worked out between him and I. The two of them took a bottle off Hennessy and went off talking arm in arm.

I deeply regretted how my social awkwardness made me lose out on the boy I wanted but there was still Bong. And a worthwhile contender Bong was. He had a bottle of Hennessy in his hands so I asked to take a few shots. Julia drank a little from it too and the 3 of us went on a stroll down the bridge. It was pretty obvious that Bong was more into me than Julia from the beginning so as our buzzes kicked in the two of us kinda gravitated towards each other.

As I felt myself go under the influence so did inhibitions shyness disappear with my new-found state of mind. I one to grab Bong by the waist to claim him as mine in case Julia had an ideas. Bong was pleasantly surprised to see me be so aggressive and forthcoming, he rewarded me with a kiss. My very first one diary. It was the most beautiful and wonderful thing I had ever experienced up to that point. His lips were soft, wet,and succulent. My attaction to him went from like a 4 to a 10 in that moment and I felt like I was in love. I know it sounds silly but the feeling was so intense there is no other way to describe it. He held me in his arms and we kept kissing on and off as we walked the bridge.

Eventually we found a large rock by the base of the bridge, large enough to fit the 3 of us and we went to settle by it. Bong sat down first and I there myself on his laps and pulled his face towards me to kiss it some more and we did so for about 10 minutes before pulled back and whispered in my ear “Get up I want to show you something”. I got up and before I knew it he had unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick! I had never actually seen one in person before and was fascinated by the whole look of it. I kneeled down to examine it and spent a good five minutes studiying it before I heard a laugh from the other side of the rock. It was Julia. I had been so entangled in Bong and his penis that I completely forgot she was even there. “That is not what he wants you to do with it” she told me in a cackle.

I then looked at Bong and said, “Well I’m not sure what you’re expecting but I am a virgin and I don’t plan on changing that.” Bong gave me an understanding grin and asked me to lay down. He pulled my stress up over my hips and my panties to the side, exposing my vagina. His hands started for the opening of my vagina right before I grabbed him and asked “What are you doing?”. He told me to relax and assured me he just wanted to play with me. With my permission he put a finger inside me and started rocking it back and forth. I had never had any foreign parts inside of me that was and was not prepared for the intensity of it. It felt fucking amazing. The feeling was so powerful that I couldn’t help but let out some big breaths that quickly turned to moans.

When I used to watch porn I thought that the whole moaning thing was a gimmick for women to make themselves appear sexier. I never imagined that it was an involuntary action caused by such intense pleasure.

Bong whispered to me “you’re so wet”, which only made me even more so, before sticking another finger in me. His thrust turned faster and more intense which in turn made my screams of pleasure even louder. I was so enthralled by the magic of what was taking place between Bong and I that I had no care whatsoever that Julia was sitting right next to us, observing every second of my first sexual awakening.

However, the night was ended abruptly by ms. party pooper Belita. She came running towards us screaming that we had to leave. Julia and I tried to ask what was wrong but were only met with aggression. When we got in Chuol’s car to head back home she was kicking the back of Chuol’s seat and screaming expletives at him. I wondered what may have transpired between the two of them to cause her to be so angry with him.

This morning Belita is still very upset. After Julia and I asked her about a thousand times what happened she finally admitted that she lost her virginity. I not sure why that would be something to be so angry about unless maybe Chuol attempted to rape her or something, I’m not sure. I called him and asked earlier but he says it was consensual and he is not sure what happened to set her off either. I wish I could care more, I really do, but after she left me high and dry that first night with DJ Wol, it’s really difficult to do so.

Besides, the only thing I can think about this morning is Bong and what he did to me last night. My pussy is still throbbing in remnant of his wonderfully skilled hands. I went to sleep with the same clothes I had on last night and when I went to shower this morning I discovered blood on my panties. I guess this means my hymen may have been broken because its certainly not my period which I am not expecting anytime soon.

I really wish Belita can get over her whole Chuol situation already because without him I have no access to Bong. Chuol is the one who drives between the two of them so if he can’t bring Bong here, I won’t see him the rest of the summer.

Dear Diary 6/26/12 6:04pm

I have been busy all day trying to manipulate things between Chuol and Belita so that I will be able to see Bong again. So far I have been successful. I could tell that Belita still liked Chuol regardless of what may have occurred between them and that all she most likely wanted was an apology so I called Chuol earlier and was acting as the middle man between the two of them. Chuol apologized numerous times through me to Belita and by like the fifth time she gave in and agreed to speak with him. The two of them have been on the phone together since and that was like two hours ago. So it looks like I will most likely be seeing Bong again.

I have not been able to stop thinking about that boy which is really funny considering how little I cared for him just yesterday. I am not sure if it was the alcohol or the sexuality between us that changed my mind so quickly but you can good and well say that I have caught feelings for him regardless of my level of attraction to him.

All this chaos in addition to Julia being here has actually aided in mending things between belita and I. We can actually genuinely smile and laugh with each other now instead of all the faking we had to do since the iPod incidence. I’m growing to like her again and I hope we can head down the same path of closeness we were on my first few days here.

Dear Diary 6/26/12 7:13

Belita just got off the phone with Chuol and after expressing how much she was into him, I shared with her how happy I was that the two of us had found our summer flings in Bong and Chuol. Then she hit me with some crushing news, she said that Bong was actually Nyajal’s boyfriend. Nyajal the girl they had come to see us with the other day. I did not observe them behaving like they were a couple, in fact, Bong was outside flirting with me while his so called girlfriend was getting high in the car. I am so annoyed and frustrated by these revelations. How come I have to be the one to get the short end of the stick with a taken man? I asked Bong last night if he was in a relationship before he kissed me and he told me no so I am not sure if he was lying about that. I am upset that my little summer romance has been cut short so fast but maybe it is for best. I will confront Bong about this next time I see him just to be sure.

Dear Diary 6/27/12

I start work in a few days. Nervous and excited at the same time. This will be my first real job so I am not sure what to make of it.

My diet has been going well, I have gained a lot of self control within it and managed to stick to my one meal a day plan. My face shows that I am losing weight, it is becoming more chiseled with every pound lost. I am nervous about being able to stick to my diet since I will be surrounded by food at my new job Wendy’s.

6/28/12

Chuol came by and took us out last night. Sadly he didn’t bring Bong although I asked him to numerous times. I don’t have Bong’s number and I am not sure he even has a cell phone so I have no way to contact him. I know Bong is supposedly taken but that doesn’t stop me from watching badly to see him even if its just to yell at him for lying about having a girl.

I was pretty much playing third wheel with the two renowned love birds last night and it was the most god awful position I have been in in my life. To watch two people who like each other do what I want and wish I could be doing with the boy that I myself am so infatuated with. Julia had gone to her Aunt’s earlier so even she wasn’t there to keep me company but now I understand how Bong and I might have made her feel the other night when he was fingering me and she was left to watch.

I woke up this morning with a strange feeling of complete misery about not being able to connect with Bong. I don’t know why I feel so strongly about him when we really only spent one night together. Feeling are a very weird thing diary, and although I have tried time and again to brush them off, they will not go away! In fact they seem to go stronger with each second that passes without me seeing or talking to Bong. It’s not so much that I care to be his girlfriend or anything, it’s more so just a need to have someone to kiss, touch, and explore bodies with.

I’ve had this incessant thought in the back of my head ever since Belita told me about losing her virginity to Chuol that I would like to lose mine to Bong too. I know that is silly because he has a girlfriend but in case that doesn’t turn out to be true imagine how perfect it would be if I lost it to him. I could fuck him and never have to see him again after the summer. He lives halfway across the world from me which is perfect because he would only need to serve the purpose of introducing me to my sexuality and readying me for future interactions with my real future boyfriend.

I would rather lose my virginity to a guy I will never see again than to the one I will get into a relationship with because then I can avoid the awkwardness of first time sex with the person I want to be with.

6/29/12

Belita, Julia, and I went to a little house party last night. It was my first house party and I was surprised by how boring and uneventful it was. The only interesting thing that occurred at the party was Julia’s promiscuity. I guess her punani has been going wild watching the rest of us getting action and she decided the party was the best place to get the cat out of the bag. The boys there were not even slightly attractive, per usual, but she didn’t seem to care. She was all over whoever would allow her to be. Usually I don’t care about how slutty other people get when they are drunk because as we both know I get very slutty myself, but I just thought it was wierd that someone with her HIV status could move so carelessly. Now I am even more frightened about my future sexual encounters because if Julia is not careful with her infection I can only imagine how many other infected people are just as careless.

In other news, my mother called me this morning and told me that the police stopped by our apartment looking for me with a warrant for arrest. Apparently if you don’t show up to court they send those out. I came to Nebraska shortly after my whole shoplifting order so I never went to court, I guess that’s what they want to arrest me for. Had I heard this news about two weeks ago I would have been terrified, horrified, and embarrassed. But my carefree attitude from drinking has begun to rub-off on my sober self. I don’t care as much anymore and it feels incredible. I also start my first day of work tomorrow so the excitement of that could be the other thing making it difficult to care about anything else.

7/3/12

Sorry I haven’t written in a while but things have been pretty boring lately. I have been working which was manageable at first but has become increasingly trying to my diet. I do my best to keep away from snacking on the food but it is so difficult to resist snacking on it when surrounded by it! The other thing that has been making work a little difficult is that my body has been behaving abnormally. I have been experiencing random mini-seizures. Sometimes when I am standing my vision will go dark than my legs start to shake until I buckle at my feet. I am not 100% what the cause of this may be but I suspect it’s happening because of my very restrictive diet. I wish I could say that I am going back to 3 meals right away but honestly I have come too far to quit and I am so in love with what I have been seeing I the mirror that I just don’t watch to give it up so easily.

At home things have been so well that it’s boring. Belita and Chuol are nor boyfriend and girlfriend and they hang out a sickeningly significant amount. I wouldn’t be so annoyed about them being together so often if I got to be with Bong the same amount but I haven’t seen him since that first night. I keep asking Chuol to bring him when he comes but he never does. Due to not seeing him my infatuation with Bong is now slowly beginning to depart and surprisingly moving to Chuol. I know this is really strange probably very wrong considering Belita is I’ve been growing to consider as my best friend but I honestly just can’t help it. He is the only halfway attractive guy within a 10 mile radius of where we are located. Watching him be with Belita makes me want him all the more. I can’t help but dream of him doing to me what he does to her. Whenever Belita leaves a room or turns away he flirts and makes advances towards me which makes my attraction to him even worse. I feel so bad for watching her man but without one of my own to tame my desires I can’t help it.

7/7/12

Chuol called and said he is coming to pick us up and this time he is finally bringing Bong! It’s Julia’s lat night here so he is bringing a boy for her as well. Oh I’m so excited, finally I get to play with Bong! The whole notion of him having a girlfriend has become such a small obstacle because my horniness has taken over and all concern about Bong’s personal life has gone out the window. Whether it is true or not I still want to get down and dirty with him. The only problem is that I can’t. It must be divine intervention or something because the first time in forever I get to hang out with Bong is the day I have my period. So my whole idea of losing my virginity to him is caput.

7/8/12 10:32am

My time with Bong last night was just as magical as the last. Even though my period got in the way of him touching me where I wanted I still enjoyed kissing and playing with him.

The three of us went to hang out at a park. We were all so excited to send the time with the persona we were partnered with that as soon as we got out of the car we all grabbed our person and scurried off to out corn part of the park. Bong and I settled at a picnic table. The first question I asked him was about Nyajal. I told him that Belita had informed me that the two of them were boyfriend and girlfriend. He denied the rumor and assured me he was single and that him and Nyajal were only just “talking”. I guess the same kind of talking he was doing with me lol.

Anyway that was enough to ease my mind. I have no care to be with him past our sexual escapades so it did not matter to me who else he is fucking. He went to tug on my pants expecting a repeat of the last time were were together but I let him down with the news of my period. His face showed slight disappointment so I decided to cheer him up by letting him know that I would be happy to play with him anyway. He smiled right away and whipped his dick out. I gave him a very novice hand job which he acted like he enjoyed. We spent a little more time together talking and kissing before going back to going the rest of the group.

When we got back home I felt a confusing mix of joy and disappointment that I didn’t lose my virginity. Although part of me wanted to do it badly, another part knew that I wasn’t ready to do so. This morning I woke up with clarity that this is not something I need to rush into so soon.

7/14/12

Things have becoming so boring! I have not seen Bong since that night and I am beginning to suspect that he is avoiding me. Either that or Chuol is not inviting him to come when he comes. Earlier today Belita had stepped outside of the room and I tried asking Chuol why Bong never comes with him anymore and he immediately changed the subject to hit on me. Every time I ask Chuol about Bong he has a disappointed look on his face and I’m not sure if I am imagining this but a part of me tells me that Chuol may be sabotaging me being with Bong because of his own attraction to me. Just a theory. Either way if Bong really is avoiding me it would be really shocking a such a bruise to my ego because I bet you anything I am the prettiest girl he has been with. Nyajal is a great girl but honestly she doesn’t even compare. So if he is dodging me to go fuck her it must be because she gives him pussy because I otherwise don’t understand why he would choose her over me if that is what he is doing.

Thanks to my diet I am getting better looking with each passing day. They only negative thing is my seizures and vitiligo are getting worse. I was at work the other day when I had another black out episode while preparing burgers. My head started to feel faint and my eyes started to go dark. Luckily it never fully came on but imagine if I fainted in a kitchen with stoves and fryers on every corner. I think this diet is getting kind of dangerous but I just have to hold on just one more month and return to normal when I am back home.

7/17/18

Bong finally came and I am disappointed to report that things between us did not go as well as I wished. I hadn’t seen him in so long that it seemed like I had completely forgot how to act with him. The chemistry was just not as strong anymore. On top of that there was no alcohol to make things better. The only vise the boys provided us with was weed. I had only smoked weed a few times before and the last time I smoked it it stripped me of all my social skill and gave me anxiety. I must have forgotten about that because I smoked it anyway only to experience those same awful symptoms. I became so socially inept that I could barely start or hold a conversation with Bong. In fact I was behaving so painfully awkwardly that I am having a hard time keeping myself from cringing while relaying this story.

Anyway I ended the night by sucking his dick with a condom. Another first for me, yay. I’m being sarcastic if you can’t tell. I wanted to keep him from touching me or doing anything that would lead to the loss of my virginity so I came up with the idea to suck him off as a divergent to doing anything else with him. Isn’t that lovely. The whole act of if was terrible, and I can’t imagine it was good for him in the least bit. I have watched too much porn not to know what to do with a dick but I found that the act was tougher to navigate when face to face with it. The main issue was I didn’t know what to do with my lips or my teeth so it was really awkward trying to figure that out.

I could tell by the end of the night that he had lost interest in me. I had lost interest myself at the beginning but him losing interest at the end turned on some wierd switch inside of me that causes obsession over rejection. Just because he doesn’t like me so much anymore, I actually like him more now than I ever had before! How sick is that? It’s like I know that our time has burned out and its due time for me to get over him but some subconscious need inside of myself to be wanted has made it impossible to stop thinking about him all day.

On the other hand Belita and Chuol have been fucking like rabbits and she told me earlier her period hasn’t come yet so she’s scared he got her pregnant. I honestly am still trying to understand why she wasn’t using protection in the first place. As if going to the HIV event with Julia wasn’t enough to scare her, shouldn’t the idea of having a baby at 16 done so? Anyway the two of us are going to planned parenthood tomorrow so she can get a pregnancy test. I think this would be a good opportunity for me to got and get tested as well. I know Bong and I played pretty safely but that doesn’t stop me from being haunted with paranoia about whether or not he may have given me something. I keep thinking about the first night he fingered me, he had been touching his dick before he did so so a part of me is worried I could have caught something that way. Anyway I guess we will find out tomorrow, if they allow us to get tests without our parents that is.

7/20/12

Belita and I ended up walking an hour to planned parenthood the other day only to find out we needed parent permission to get tested. It’s alright for her anyway because her period ended up coming a day later.

Belita showed me a photo the other day of Bong and Nyajal on Facebook posing like a couple. I felt sick to my stomach upon realization that Bong actually is in a relationship with Nyajal and may have just been lying to get into my pants. But even with that revelation I can not stop thinking about him. The thoughts are involuntary, on the surface I really don’t care to be with him or spend anymore time with him but it’s like my subconscious is torturing me by keeping memories of the two of us together alive inside of my brain.

Truth be told though, I am actually happy with how things played out. I would rather be the one who ended up with a dead beat and is now suffering singleness than be going through what Belita is going through with not knowing if she’s gonna be pregnant or not or what kind of diseases she may catch from rushing into things with this boy she barely knew.

Now that Bong is completely out of the picture, my interest has shifted full on to Chuol. I really can’t help it. I just want him so bad, and I know he wants me, he is always looking at me with lust in his eyes and sneaking any moment he can to say nasty things to me. I don’t think I would be quite so into him if Belita wasn’t always talking about how good he is in bed or how big his dick is and so on and so forth. If she kept their private affairs to herself she wouldn’t lead me to fantasize about her man in this way.

Belita and I have grown very close in the last couple weeks, she almost feels like a sister to me now. I guess that is something that is bound to happen when you spend 24/7 with one person. I’ve almost completely forgotten about the iPod thing but not completely so. I am using her attempt to steal from me as an excuse to fantasize about her boyfriend. I would never actually pursue him, its just fun to think about doing so.

Dear Diary, 7/22/12

There is a party tomorrow night that Belita and I are sneaking off to. I’m excited because this will be my first real party without counting that shit show of a house party we went to a few weeks ago. My mom never lets me out of the house when it is dark so I’ve never had any opportunity to attend any parties till now. I’m also excited because apparently Bong is gonna be there. My excitement is not for wanting to see him or be with him. I’m past that. My excitement is for him to see me and realize what he has missed out on. I am very upset with him and his lies about the whole Nyajal thing so interaction between us is totally out of the window. I’ve lost a couple more pounds since we were last together and I plan on overdoing it with the makeup and dress up to really set him off. Apparently Nyajal will be there too so it is gonna be really interesting to see how that dynamic plays out. Like I said before, Nyajal is a wonderful girl but she does not hold a stick to me. With her and I in the same room I am gonna be the one to stand out the most for sure.

Dear Diary, 7/26/12

OHHH MY GOODNESS! You will not believe what went down since I last wrote! Belita and I went to that party and it was dissapointingly underwhelming. I saw Bong there and we didn’t speak a word to one another. I thought he might not be able to resist me considering how much work I put into my looks but I guess my awkwardness in the car completely turned him off to me. Which in turn just makes me all the more crazier for him. How fucked up is that? Why does my mind have to work this way? Ughh why can’t I just let him go? I was never so attracted to him in the first place, why do I now find myself head over heels for him? None of this makes any sense, my feelings for him feel so involuntary, I have not been able to stop thinking about him.

Anyway as f-ed up as that is, its still not the story! The real story took place AFTER the party. Belita and I hitched a ride home around 3 in the morning and were going through our usual routine of sneaking back into the apartment. She went to carefully open the door as she usually does, and usually the door opens right up because we always leave it unlocked when we sneak but this time the door was LOCKED! My stomach dropped immediately upon the realization that if the door was locked it meant aunt Maude must have been up and therefore discovered that we had snuck out.

Belita and I decided to sit outside for a while as we attempted to come up with a story as to why we had left home. We considered several scenarios before settling on just admitting that we had snuck away for a party. It was the only story that would make sense anyway considering how we were dressed.

We finally braced ourselves for what was about to come and got ourselves up to go into the apartment with Belita’s key. We got the door unlocked but when we attempted to push it in something was blocking it. We joined forced to try to push the door in until we realized that it wasn’t something blocking the door, it was someone. Aunt Maude had been standing guard by the door to ensure we wouldn’t be let in. I guess she wanted us to stay outside and suffer our decisions.

Well we suffered alright, the mental agony of what would happen to us once we got in was more terrifying than anything that actually would happen when we got inside. She eventually let us in but not pleasantly. We were welcomed home with a slur of hate speech and ridicule about our decision. Then she went and got a belt to beat the both of us which was pretty nervy considering I’m not even her child. The beating with the belt wasn’t the worst part though, it was her taking our phones and technology away that really threw me over the edge.

It is for the reason of my phone being confiscated that I have not been able to update you diary. I thought about writing down my thoughts in an old fashioned paper diary but I realized it wouldn’t do much to keep my entries consistent and anyway those things are easily trespassed.

She told my mom what happened and usually I would be freaking out about any trouble with my mom and I’m not sure if it is the alcohol or the fact that she cared so little for me to send me to live with strangers for the summer but lately I’ve just lost respect for her. In fact I was quite glad to have her find out that we are behaving like scoundrels up here because if she thought I was a bad kid before , she has no idea what she has turned me into by putting me in company with the likes of Belita.

Before I came up here the only bad thing I ever did was steal. And I don’t mean to make it sound like its not a big deal but compared to other children my age I was pretty much an angel. I had never kissed a boy or even considered becoming sexual with one so soon. I snuck a few drinks of wine and liquor every once in a while but I was never the rogue slutty alcoholic that I have apparently turned into now.

Honestly I feel like I have been awakened and now that I have discovered this other side of life there is no way I am going back. So if she thought she was going to send me here and I was going to come back an angel she better think again because what she did was send an angel up here and now what she will have coming back is the devil. Lol.

Anyway my mom wasn’t so angry about the whole sneak out situation. I think the moment aunt Maude told her about it she realized she had fucked up with sending me up here and how much better off I might have been just staying home. She has been nicer to me since then than she ever has my entire life. She even promised to take me out when I come back home which I take as her trying to preserve what little she thinks I might have of the old me still in me but its all gone. It’s not coming back either. The feeling of being under the influence and/or intimate with a man is not one that I am willing to let go of so easily. In fact I plan exploring it all some more once I get home where there are a larger number of boys I consider to be worthwhile contenders. I’m already trying to figure out ways for me to continue this lifestyle once I get back home. I have been making plans about how I will sneak out, who I will find to buy me liquor, etc.

So to finish the story, Aunt Maude ended up getting over it with us today and gave us our phones back. Initially she was just going to give mine back so I could communicate with my mom but she figured its only fair to give Belita hers back to.

So you’re probably wondering, have we learned our lesson? Absolutely not. Will we sneak out again? Can’t stop won’t stop.

7/29/12

Working at a fast food place has been such a challenge for my diet! I was doing sooo well but I ended up getting tempted and binging on 3 burgers in a row. I felt so guilty afterwards that I went to the and forced myself to throw them up. I feel like I didn’t get it all out so I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since. I think that maybe it is time to stop my diet, it was easy at first because of the hangovers but now it just feels like torture. I am hungry all the time.

On the other hand without Bong around my love life has been frustratingly stale. What makes it worse is watching Belita be so in love with Chuol and wishing it was me instead of her. I can’t help but regret with each day that night I pushed him away at the bridge. Had I hooked up with Chuol instead of her he would be mine right now. Every time I see him my heart flatters and I feel so bad because he is not even mine.

We got bad news the other day, Chuol is going 3 hours away to an all boys college in a just a few days. The two of them have been inseparably on the phone the last month or so anyway so it shouldn’t be difficult for them to keep their relationship flourishing. Belita has been pretty depressive about the news since finding out because the two of them have grown really close since meeting. I’ve tried to be a good friend and be by her side through her pain but the truth is I am feeling it too. How weird is this? My best friend’s boyfriend is moving away for school and I’m depressed? I don’t know what to say, I think I was living vicariously through Belita and kinda sorta might have fallen for him too and am now in sorrow over not being able to see him anymore.

I know its all strange and I don’t know whether to blame it on hormones, loneliness, or brain function but I just can’t stand to think about not being able to see him for the rest of the summer.

Dear Diary, 8-1-12

Chuol is leaving tomorrow but he hasn’t come to see us the last several days because his car is in the shop. I’ve been acting as though I care about Belita so much that I want her to see her man off but you and I both know the truth and the truth is that I need to see him too. Belita hasn’t been able to find any friends of hers who are able to take us to Chuol’s tonight nor does Chuol have any of his own that can pick us up and drop us off to him. There is a party tonight in Chuol’s neighborhood so it will be easy to find a ride back but the ride to we have to figure out ourselves.

I am not only desperate to see Chuol before he leaves but I am also anxious to get out of the house for one last hoo-rah. Belita and I have been laying low since getting caught last time so we haven’t really indulged in any nighttime activities since then. This party will be an opportunity to enjoy ourselves, if only for the last time before this summer is completely over. So I devised a plan. Belita is the one who usually plans these things out but I have met a few people of my own since moving to Omaha.

There is a guy at work named Marcus who has a thing for me. He is over 21 which makes it really creepy that he even lives me considering I am about 5 years his junior. He is always asking me to hang out after work and usually I turn him down but I saw today as the perfect opportunity to oblige him.

The plan is that we are gonna say we want to hang out at our uncle’s house who is out of town, Marcus will drive us down there, but when we get there we will come out and say our uncle is home so he can not come in. Our supposed uncle’s house will actually be Chuol’s house so the plan is simply that we get Marcus to drop us off then ditch him after.

Belita is going along with it because she is excited to see Chuol before he goes. I am kind of nervous about whether it will work or not but I am going to keep my fingers crossed and update you tomorrow!

Dear diary, 8/2/12 5:16pm

Last night was both a hit and a miss! The plan with Marcus worked out without a hitch. What I didn’t expect was to feel so bad after conning him the way we did. The look on his face after he realized we had scammed him was one I will never forget.

I forgot about the scam pretty quickly though when Chuol opened his door to let us in without a shirt on. Belita threw herself into his arms immediately and it took everything I had in me not to do the same. I had never lusted for him more than at that very moment when I realized it may have been the last time I would ever see him. The two of them excused themselves to Chuol’s room -for one last fuck I presumed- and I was left in the adjoining room regretting every second I put into devising the plans to get them together. I hadn’t realized how struck with longing and jealousy I would be to see the two of them together.

Their visit with one another was pretty short lived, about 45 minutes if put a guess to it. Belita came out of his room crying, I guess the realization of his early depart had struck a nerve with her. Chuol said he had to sleep early to get to his school on time the next day so Belita and I gathered our things then she called for a friend of hers at the nearby party to come pick us up.

When we arrived at the party moods had shifted, I had gotten over my sadness from my fantasy guy’s departure pretty quickly and apparently so had Belita. Or at least the thought of drinking and partying for the rest of the night made it easier to cope with.

When we got out of the car Belita and I went separate ways. She gravitated towards her school friends and I ran towards a group of boys whose member had a bottle of hennesy in his hands. I had met some of them at a previous party and did not need Belita to introduce us. I did not have the care to socialize that Belita did, my aim was to get myself under the influence as quickly and efficiently as possible. Besides, the best way to socialize is after a drink or two.

After I felt a good buzz kicking in I was ready to show myself around the party. I started off making conversation with the group of boys I had joined myself into but quickly became bored as none were interesting or attractive to me. I looked around and realized there weren’t any male contenders at the party… at least none that peaked my interest. So I decided to shift my interest to the females.

I’m not a lesbian or anything but theres something about being under the influence of alcohol that makes me want to fuck anything, regardless of what is in-between its legs. Anyway after jumping from circle to circle in search of my night’s fling I eventually found a breathtakingly gorgeous girl sitting atop a car talking to another girl. I instantly gravitated towards her. After introducing myself she told me her name was Rhoda (if I remember correctly) and she had the most stunning light brown eyes I had ever seen with a cute pecker of a noise and a pair of perfectly shaped and sized lips to match.

She had such striking and unique features that I couldn’t help but want to press my lips all over her face, and body if she let me. I decided to flirt with her to see if she was down for the get down but she rejected my advances every step of the way. I think had we been alone she would have succumbed to my alcohol fueled charms but she seemed to be behaving shyly because of her friends being around.

I eventually gave up on not only Rhoda but the whole notion of me getting laid that night and decided to retreat to a sidewalk where Belita was sitting with a few friends. As I sat down I noticed that njayal was one of the girls surrounding Belita and thought to myself that I ought to address the whole situation with Bong and let her know, woman-to-woman that he was the one that came on to me and lied about ever having been in a relationship and that I didn’t find out about their union until after I had been intimate with him.

I interrupted the group conversation by asking that Nyajal come with me to the side for some girl talk. She happily agreed to do so, in fact she had a smile on her face as we walked off together which surprised me because it was not the kind of reaction I expected to receive as her boyfriend’s mistress. The two of us headed to sit by a secluded side walk where our conversation wouldn’t be bothered by any wondering drunk attendees of the party.

As we sat down I looked her in the eye and started off pleadingly with “Belita told me about you and Bong and I am so sorry, but I just wanted to let you know that I hooked up with him a few times. I asked him at the time if he was single and he lied to me. I would have never done anything had I know the two of you were together.” She cut me off from going any further by inserting “Wait wait wait, Bong and I aren’t together!”. The revelation sent me into a whirlwind of confusion “But, Belita showed me a photos of you and him on Facebook and you looked like a couple to me.” I argued. “No Bong and I just fuck around”, she explained, “He even told me about you and him.”

So as it turned out Bong had been telling the truth the entire time about him and Nyajal just being fuck buddies. The one who had been lying, for a reason I still don’t understand, is Belita. I guess she felt so much animosity towards me for one reason or another that she felt the need to sabotage my thing with Bong. Well whatever she was aiming to do was counterproductive because the only thing she succeeded in doing was to cause me to channel my sexual frustrations into fantasies about being with her boyfriend.

Nyajal and I ended up buddying up for the rest of the night and I found myself enjoying her company more than I thought I would. The more I hung around her the more I realized why Bong may have been so attracted to her. It wasn’t about her looks or lack thereof, it was her positive spirit and engaging personality that drew you in.

I was enjoying my new friend so much that when it came time for our ride to take us back home I didn’t want to leave yet so I begged and pleaded with Belita for us to stay for just another hour. Before we knew it though, a few more than 1 hour had passed by and the sun was beginning to come up. Belita and I realized we were fucked and needed to rush home and be in our beds before her mother woke up.

We were in a rush against time so we pleaded with the guy who drove us to the party to take us home immediately. The guy understood the direness of the situation so he agreed to brace through traffic to get us home as soon as possible. When we got home we realized we had been too late after seeing our bedroom door open upon reentrance to the apartment. Aunt Maude had already left for work but had checked out bedroom for us to find us gone before she did so. She never called or sent either one of us any calls or texts so Belita and I were scared shitless by the deadly silence and what may have been brewing behind it.

I took to laying in my bed as a means of coping with the situation and Belita chose to scream at and blame me as her own way of dealing with it. According to her it was my fault we got caught because I too busy being a lesbian and flirting with girls rather than listening to her when she said we had to leave. I’m sure that whole lesbian accusation was meant to be a blow but I know I’m not one so it doesn’t bother me. I’m just a horny girl and thats all there is to that. Besides, I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it if I was. I was just shocked at her lack of ability to take responsibility for her part within the situation. I ignored her and closed my eyes in hope of getting some sleep before I had to face the Wrath of aunt Maude when she got back from work.

Anyway that was earlier. I am awake now and surprisingly not as terrified about what will take place when aunt Maude isn’t back. Belita isn’t afraid either, in fact the both of us seem to have slept off our cares because right now we are just laughing at our own doom. Honestly I just can’t wait for it to happen and be over with already so I am no longer plagued with this anxiousness of waiting and not knowing what will happen.

8/3/12 3:32

Things have gotten serious! Aunt Maude was so enraged about us sneaking out again last night she not only beat us but she made us take her to where we had been the previous night. Obviously Belita and I couldn’t bring her to where the house party was actually held so we just lied and said we had been studying with a school friend of hers then took her to some random apartment downtown. She wanted to speak to the parents of said friend so she went to knock on the door to no avail. Belita and I were afraid of what might happen if someone actually opened it but no one ever did, thank goodness.

After facing her defeat Aunt Maude decided to bring us back home. When we got there she announced that Belita and I needed to be separated and that she had talked with my mom earlier and the two of them arranged a next day flight for me to go back home. I thought this was a little pointless considering my actual roundtrip ticket back home was set for a few days from now anyway but I didn’t argue, I just packed my bags in preparation for my return to florida.

I surprised myself with how sorrowful I felt about being separated from Belita sooner than planned. True she can be a little difficult to get along with at times, and she is hardly someone I can trust more than I can throw but regardless of the negatives we did have a lot of fun time together this summer and she is someone I was beginning to regard as a sister. I’m sad that I have to go but as they say, tis better to have loved and lost than never to have felt love at all.

Dear Diary 8/3/12 4:17

This morning I had come to terms with my early departure, I had packed my bags, said my goodbyes, and even called to quit my job. Then my mom called me a few minutes ago and told me that she and aunt Maude decided that I may as well stay until the day I was originally supposed to leave anyway which is the 7th. I feel annoyed that they had me quit my job before finalizing their decisions because I could have made another $100 to put towards my wardrobe before leaving but in the same breath I’m kinda glad that I have a few more days to spend with Belita. With all the drama and news of separation we received since last night, I almost don’t even care about the news of her trying to sabotage me and Bong anymore.

Now that I know the truth through, a part of me wants to see him again and let him go all the way with me before I leave. I’ve gotta find a way to contact him and have him hitch a ride to me so we can get this whole virginity thing gotten rid off. Will let you know if there is success.

Dear Diary, 8/4/12

Belita and I vowed last night to spend our last few days in Omaha getting crunk, drunk, and absolutely wild. We can’t do much at night of course because we have taken sneaking out out of our agenda but we are certainly not going to let that stop us, we are going to be doing much of our partying during the way. By partying I mean we are mostly just going to be getting buzzed by the pool. But as long as alcohol is involved, it’s always a party for me.

I messaged Bong on Facebook last night to see if there was still any interest there. He gave me his number and asked me to call him. I called him when I was drunk at the pool earlier and told him I had missed him. He said that he has missed me too and was sad he didn’t get to see more of me this summer. That is when I realized that things were not as bad as I thought between the two of us. I think the reason why I had grown so insecure thinking he wanted nothing to do with me was because of Belita constantly telling me that he was using me and had a girlfriend in Nyajal, which turned out to be false. I feel... Bamboozled in a way. I wish I had more time to be with Bong but unfortunately I have to leave soon and I would really prefer to not take my virginity with me. I asked Bong to hang out with me before I left but he said he’s on house arrest for a reason he’s not disclosed. Apparently the only way I can see him is if I go to him which is going to be kind of tough now that I have burned bridges with Marcus and Belita has run out of friends we can ask for rides. We will see if I find my way to him before I have to leave, I am crossing my fingers that I will.

Dear Diary, 8/6/12

Looks like the summer turned out much better than I ever expected or anticipated. I was really nervous coming here but now I think it is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I have made a new best friend in Belita and I have explored parts of life and myself I only dreamt of. I put some pants earlier that had been tight on me when I first arrived but are now nearly sagging off my butt. In addition to the weight loss I picked up my check earlier and after cashing it I stopped by the Pawn Shop to buy my laptop. I found a lovely pink one on sale for $250, when the cashier went to ring it up for me he must have incorrectly calculated because instead of charging me $250 I ended up only paying $150. I rushed to get out of the store before he realized the mistake he made. So now I have an extra $100 in addition to the money I was saving for clothes. How amazing is that! What an end to a summer!

The only negative thing about this day is that it looks like I won’t be losing my virginity after all. My attempts to connect with Bong have been a failure. If I am being optimistic though, maybe it is for the best. I mean, maybe losing my virginity to someone I’ll never see again might not be such a good idea.

Dear Diary, 8/7/12 10:22am

It’s my last day in Omaha! Very bittersweet. I’m sad to be leaving Belita and the nightlife she created for me but at the same time I am excited to go home and create my own. I am currently sitting at the airport by myself plotting and planning how I will continue this lifestyle by myself at home. It shouldn’t be so difficult though, a young woman who has what I have between my legs can never have trouble getting a man to do what she wants. So I don’t anticipate that it should be so difficult to find a guy to buy me liquor. As far as finding someone to play with or even take my virginity, I live right by a college campus back home with a wide variety of college age boys to choose from, so I don’t think I will have nay issues in that department either. I can’t wait.

The part I am slightly nervous about is facing my mother after all the nonsense I’ve been involved in this summer. We’ve been talking on the phone the last few days and she had been surprisingly pleasant to me so hopefully that continues. She even followed up on her promise to take me out once I got back by ordering the two of us some tickets to Busch gardens. I think she is being so kind because she feels guilty about sending me to Nebraska this summer and she thinks it is probably her fault that I turned into a maniac. I wouldn’t disagree with that because it is her fault. I was a very good child before she brought me here and now she just has to brace herself for the party hungry person I have become.

Dear Diary, 8/7/12 4:38pm

Well, I am back home now. Everything is pretty much the same here with exception to a few things, one being my mom’s attitude towards me; she is so much nicer towards me and not like the rude, condescending, and critical bitch she was to me before I left. I guess this whole sending me to Nebraska thing has taught her a good lesson. My brother is still slumping around the living room playing video games. My mother moved us out of our old 3 bedroom into this two bedroom apartment last year after he turned 18 in hopes that he would soon find a job and get his own place. No luck with that yet. He has a job but he doesn’t seem to have any motivation to leave which frustrates me when I think about how difficult it will be to sneak out of here at night with him being in the living room all the time. Either way I don’t understand why he would cares to spend another second here anyway. My mom can be so controlling and harsh sometimes that if it were me in his shoes I would have sooner succumbed to the streets than spend another second in her presence.

I weighed myself earlier and am now at 110 pounds. When I left I was around 120 so looks like I’ve lost 10 pounds this summer. I suspect that I must have lost more than that but towards the end there I had given in to my temptations and was overindulging in my fast food employee freebees.

I’m not complaining, I look good either way and I think this new weight fits me perfectly. I would rather be at 105 to be honest but 110 is still better than 120.

Dear Diary, 8/10/12

My last few days trying to set up my new lifestyle down here have been a complete flop! I never realized how difficult it would be to find a boy to pluck around with. The last few days I’ve gone to the college apartments next door and sat around the pool waiting for some college age hotties to flock to me but it’s not as easy as I imagined. It’s not that I am unattractive or anything because I can tell you right now I am very attractive. It is just that they are not out and about as much as I imagined they would be. The few that do hang around outside don’t seem to have the balls to approach me and neither do I have any balls to approach them so I am always just stuck in a standstill.

Even worse than not being able to find a boy toy for sexual exploration are my failed liquor aquisition attempts. I ran out of money from my Wendy’s checks after splurging on a new wardrobe and hairstyle so I had to ask my mother for money. My mother is not the type to just hand out money to my brother and I for no reason so I had to forge a lie that the use of it would be for new books for school. It wasn’t a complete lie however, I did plan on spending the money on school supplies, I just left out the part that I needed half of it for liquor.

Anyway my mother gave me $20 which is barely enough for school supplies as it is but I figured if I buy a $10 liquor bottle then use the other $10 to buy cheap supplies at the dollar store it would be just enough to get me by.

So long story short, before I could go through with my purchase plan I needed to find a buyer first which is not a difficult thing to do in my low class neighborhood where there are tons of horny men walking about outside. I figured out a while ago that horny men are the perfect ally for young pretty women such as myself. The moment they look at you their dicks take over their better judgment and they are puppeted by thoughts of fucking you into doing whatever you want them to. All one has to know how to do is flirt a little and I am pretty good at that when I am not attracted to the man.

Anyway this was my mission’s plan, to find a horny old man and ask him to buy me liquor but my plan was soiled when I ran into a goofy college age guy. I should have known from the start he was not one to trust but my thirst for alcohol got the best of me. He came to join me when I making my way to the liquor store and introduced himself. I tried to indulge his small talk but in the end there was only one question on my mind “Are you 21 or up?” I asked him. “Yeah, why” he replied with suspicion in his voice. Right then I knew he knew what I wanted him to do for me. He got the words out before I did “You need someone to buy beers for you?” “No, liquor.” I corrected. Then I pointed at the liqour store ahead of us as I gave a description of the bottle I wanted, the price of it, and where he could find it. After he agreed I slapped my $20 bill in his had and told him I would be waiting for him out front. He ran towards the liquor store but when he got near it I could not tell if he had gone in or not. I figured I had better just wait it out but after sitting outside for nearly 30 minutes I finally accepted that I had been dumped in my own dupe. The guy had run off with my money.

So I guess you could say things haven’t been panning out the way I wanted to expect but that will not stop me from trying. My mom is taking me to Busch Gardens tomorrow and I am counting that as a start for better times to come.

Dear diary, 8/12/12

I fear I may have hit a new low! After that whole thing with the guy stealing my liquor money the other day I got desperate because I really wanted to use it to get me where I need to be to make the most of these last few days before school. So I got desperate diary, and I am a little embarrassed to tell you this but I put up an ad on craigslist for a sugar daddy. I watched an episode on Tyra once where a woman gave details about her relationship with a sugar daddy. She said the way it worked is that in exchange for sexual favors the sugar daddy would give the girl a monthly allowance. I thought this would be perfect for me, if I found the right man all I would do is either give him a handjob or blow and in return he would give me enough to buy my alcohol, school supplies, clothes, etc. It isn’t my search for a sugar daddy that I am so embarrassed about though diary, it’s what came after.

I got several replies to that ad but only one came through. I have a hard time telling you this because of how badly it makes me cringe to think about that encounter but I’m pushing through. I told the guy to meet me by my apartments so he came and picked me up earlier. I didn’t want to stay in the apartments in case my mother or brother walked by so I had him drive us to some nearby apartments. initially I had been to nervous to study his appearance but when we finally settled in a securely private spot I allowed myself to take him in. He was old, very old, I can’t say exactly how old because I am not around enough old people to know how old is how old but I’ll tell you this; he was dick-doesn’t-stand-up-anymore-old.

After we made some small talk he took it upon himself to pull his pants down and show me his wiener. I’m not sure I can even call it a penis because the thing just looked like a blob of shriveled up skin with goo coming out of it. I tried as best as I could to keep my thoughts off my face but I could not help by curl my lips downward in a natural reaction of pure disgust. He saw how unconfortable I had become but he did not seem to give a single phuck. “Touch it” he urged. I was hesitant to do so because of the mucusy substance exiting his penis so I decided to ask him about it to get some clearance “What’s that?” I asked pointing at it. He laughed and said “It’s just precum sweetie, touch me.” At that point I was too far in to quit and my alcohol craving pretty much driving my actions at that point so I just forced my hand out to play with the mucusy blob of skin.

That marked the most excruciatingly disgustingly spent 25 or so minutes of my life. I still can not get the texture, feeling, or site of those folds of skin excreting so much mucus out of my head. I looked up precum on google when I got home and I just don’t think what that guy had was a normal amount.

Anyway so I guess that makes for my first time prostituting. Picture that, a virgin prostitute.

The sad thing is the amount of money I received for that act afterwards. I was expecting him to give me maybe fifty bucks or something like that but when he left he handed me a twenty dollar bill. In all fairness we had never discussed how much we was to pay me and also maybe I wasn’t the greatest provider with the way I was grimacing my face while touching him. Either way $20 is a lot to me and just enough for me so I am not sad about it one bit. To tell you the truth diary, I would endure all of that all over again because the feeling of being handed money after such an easy act made it more than worth it for me.

Part of me feels ashamed. But another part is thinking of doing it again… Only with a different, maybe younger man this time.

Dear diary 8/13/12

Yesterday after I came to the discovery that I can make money for minor sex exchanges I couldn’t help but think what a man might pay for my virginity. So I went on Craigslist again this morning! I know this sounds silly and possibly dangerous but I read somewhere that some girl posted her virginity for sale online and made thousands of dollars from one buyer. I had an idea that maybe that it could work out the same way for me so I posted an ad to sell my virginity on Craigslist.

Sad to results have been disappointing, most of the guys that texted me about the ad were broke creeps who were more interested in trolling me than actually paying for the punani. But I have not given up on that idea yet, we will see how it goes.

Dear Diary, 8/15/12

I had to turn myself into Juvenile Jail yesterday for the warrant they had out for my arrest after missing court for my theft. I was pretty terrified to spend the night there at first but after I arrived I quickly discovered that juvenile is not bad at all! In fact, I made a few friends and they served better food than what we get at school. The only bad I encountered there was when I had to go to court in the morning and the judge sentenced me to community service. As if school isn’t going to steal enough of my time, not I have to add cleaning parks on the weekends to my schedule.

Dear diary, 8/19/12

My mom is slowly but surely switching to bitch mode again. I knew the whole nice act would never last. She is a hairstylist and she usually does my hair every year before school starts. I’ve been asking her the last few days about when she plans on doing it but she kept putting it off. Yesterday she reached her breaking point about me asking then screamed at me to pretty much fuck off. I’m really disappointed and at a loss for what I will do before school starts in just two days.

Alcohol is the only thing helping me cope with the stresses of this. When I drink it its like my every care just melts away and all the stress goes with it. I was initially planning on stopping cold turkey after school starts but now I realize that I will not be able to do that. Its the one thing in my life that does not make me feel shitty so I am definitely going to need it along the way. I am not saying that I will be drinking everyday or anything but I think it’s important to have it around for every once in a while when things get especially stressful.

Dear diary, 8/20/12

My mission to find a boy to take my virginity has not been canceled, but I have decided to for-go the sell my virginity on Craigslist plan. I realized it was a bad idea because nearly all the replies I received were from creeps who were not actually serious about spending money on the pussy but rather seemed to be on a mission troll me.

My mother finally agreed to do my hair and she did so earlier but she made such a mess of it that I am regretting ever having depended on her for anything. I had spent over $80 on extensions that I asked her to put in for me but she messed it up purposefully, I guess she was being spiteful and found that as the only way to shut me up. I ended up having to undo the mess she made by removing the extentions and now with $80 down the drain I am just trying to stay positive by embracing wearing my natural hair in its natural length.

I really have to find a sugar daddy soon because asking her for anything makes me sick. My mother is part of a leave of mothers who do not take personal responsibility for the children they brought into the world and therefore do not find it their job to properly clothe, feed, or take care of said children. The reason I had been a kleptomaniac in the first place was because of her neglect in these areas. I mean don’t get me wrong she buys us food and we have never gone hungry but sometimes she goes off and buys herself plates of Chinese or some other fancy cultural food and never bothers to buy us some or even share her plate. In fact she actually gets angry if we ever go and try to sneak some of her takeout food.

One time I got myself in big trouble with her by eating half of her Chinese dinner. Its not something I purposefully did to piss her off, but we hadn’t gone grocery shopping in a while and there just wasn’t much to eat in the house but oatmeal which I had had enough of after having it for breakfast lunch and dinner 2 days in a roll. When she went into the fridge and discovered that half her meal was gone she became so angry that she grabbed a pot and beat me across the head with it until it became bent. Imagine that, how hard the hit had to be for my skull to break metal.

I became really depressed that day and started to experience suicidal thoughts after realizing the hopelessness of the life I am imprisoned in until I turn 18. The only way I was able to console myself was with fantasies of how much better my life will be once I am 18 and can leave this hell. To this day that is still my best coping mechanism… Well that and now alcohol too.

Dear Diary, 8/21/12 8:09pm

The first day of school today was more than disappointing. I had this big plan that I would befriend only the popular kids in my class but my plan was soiled by the fact that there are absolutely no popular kids in my classes. I also thought I might at least get to eat lunch with my best friend Elise but woe is me, she is in a different lunch period than I am. So far I have only made two friends from my science class but they are both sophomores so there isn’t any hope with that. I am not sure how my climb the social ladder plan will survive with absolutely no connection to grab on to but I guess I’ll just have to put forth whatever effort is necessary.

On a good note, I ran into my crush Cj Mcdill between classes and he continued with that lustful stare he was giving me before the break. I guess things have not budged between us. Hopefully sooner than later he will come introduce himself to me so we can just be together already!

Dear diary 8/22/12

School has been an absolute torture of a bore! The only drama in my life, is coming for 3000 miles away caused by Ms. Belita herself. Apparently Chuol told her that I attempted to get with him. What that means, I have no clue. Diary, you and I both know I had a sexual desire for that boy but I never have nor would I ever try to pursue him outside of my fantasies while he is dating my best friend. In fact, Chuol is the one who was making outward attempts to get with me. Every time Belita would walk out of the room he would whisper nasty things to me like “Did Belita tell you how big my dick is?”. Maybe I didn’t play the proper role of a best friend and shun his behavior but I never encouraged it nor participated in it.

My guess is that Chuol may have gotten in trouble for liking or mentioning me to Belita and his best move was to shift the blame to me.

I guess the only fault I had in all of this was privately fantasizing about her boyfriend but what was the harm in that if I never planned to pursue it? Besides I never made it my duty to be the perfect friend to Belita anyway because she had it clear she hadn’t made it hers when she attempted to steal my iPod.

Anyway no matter how many times I have denied it and tried to get her to understand that she has been lied to Belita still believes whatever she was told. She doesn’t want to speak with me anymore. I wish I could say I cared more but honestly I just don’t. Being back home with my Norman friends made me realize how terrible a friend she was and how much I let her get away with because we were pretty much stuck together.

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