#and then bea just drops this bomb

[conquerthenight]

TW: Incest mention

Uh…Beatrice, what the actual fuck? Why would you just…admit that? Especially to your own niece. I swear to god these bots say the weirdest shit.

[birgittesilverbae]

In babea au who took the “first step” in the bealil relationship? Or was it more like both of them taking tiny steps towards each other and suddenly it’s a thing?

Bea's fifteen and long and lanky with it, still not quite grown into the fresh gangliness of her limbs. She's sprawled on the chapel roof having finished a workout and waiting for Mary and Shannon to get back from the train station so they can head over to the apartment.

Shannon had explained something about it the night previous, about new recruits and training classes, but she'd done so in between making the sappiest faces at Mary and so Bea had diverted her attention to literally anything else instead.

The girls who pile out of the van into the courtyard below are younger than she'd expected, some of them probably closer in age to her than to Mary and Shannon. It makes sense, she supposes, seeing as both of them had still been in their teens when they'd taken Bea in. It's always a bit of a shock for her to remember that. They'd seemed so grown up at the time. It's only been lately that she's realized just how far out of their depth they must have been. Just how far out of their depth they probably still are.

Shannon slides from the driver's seat as the girls begin to unload bags from the back of the van, and her eyes find Bea in an instant. She jerks her head and Bea nods, raises a finger. Just a minute.

She plots her course across the rooftops, scouts the drainpipe she'd re-secured to the wall in the dead of night a few weeks back when Mary had been on assignment. Flows across the tiles, lands on soft feet as she launches herself from roof to wall to trellis to drainpipe, as she arrests her drop between two weapons sheds with hands and feet pressed flat against the walls.

Shannon's shaking her head when Bea arrives at her side. "I wish you'd stop doing that," she murmurs, but there's no real ire to it. She slings an arm around Bea's shoulders and Bea leans into her side.

"New recruits?"

Shannon nods. "Five of them. Most are just a few years older than you. Do you want me to introduce you?"

Now that Bea's on their level, they don't look quite as small as they had from above, don't look quite as young, faces hard as they take in their surroundings. One of them catches her eye and an already thin mouth presses tighter, pulls down into a scowl.

"Not today," she mutters, the wind taken out of her sails by that single look.

Shannon sighs, but nods all the same. "Okay, not today," she agrees. "But soon, Bea, alright? Who knows, you might make some really good friends."

//

Beatrice has the day marked on her calendar for months, counting down to it with all the relentlessness of a ticking time bomb. She reels off the countdown every do often at the dinner table, but it's never "forty days until I turn sixteen". It's always "forty days until I get to fight."

"Did we fuck this up?" Mary asks, face pressed to the centre of Shannon's back as they drift towards sleep. (One week, Bea had announced earlier over their Saturday night sushi, bruised fingers gesturing pointedly with her chopsticks.)

"Hmm?"

"Did we make her want it more by not allowing her to have it?"

Shannon rolls over, tugs Mary's arm back over her hip before raising her hand to cradle Mary's jaw. "I think the only way we went wrong was thinking this outcome wouldn't be inevitable," she murmurs, thumb drifting over the curve of Mary's cheekbone. "And we did the best we could with that, but she's been watching sixteen year old after sixteen year old be allowed to make the choice to join the OCS. If we tried to keep that choice from her, I don't know that she'd ever forgive us."

Mary grimaces. "I don't know that I'll ever forgive myself for not getting her as far away from here as possible when I still had the chance."

"You know that was never an option."

"I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it." She tips her head forward, presses her forehead to Shannon's. "Can you say something to Anna about it? Get her to talk to Bea? The cons of the decision might have more sway coming from the Halo Bearer than from us."

Shannon's jaw hardens and she shakes her head. "Anna and Suzanne and Vincent have all been almost more excited for Bea to join than Bea has. You have to have seen the way they look at her. They all but earmarked her for the Halo the moment we let her start hanging around the Cradle." She dips forward to kiss the bridge of Mary's nose. "If it's any consolation, I think Lilith has superseded her in the Bearer queue."

Mary cracks a tiny smile. "Yes, nepotism." Her hand tightens on Shannon's hip. "Wish she'd supersede you, too."

"Mary, you don't mean that."

"I really, really do. Better her than Beatrice. Better her than you."

Shannon's brows pinch together, and she shakes her head. "Mary," she says as gently as she can manage, "this is what I've been trained for. It's what I've worked towards for a decade. There's nothing that can stop it now."

"We could go. The three of us. We could go and run and not look back." There's a sharp edge of desperation to her voice.

Shannon shakes her head. "We can't. You know we can't."

"A girl can dream."

//

Bea's sixteenth birthday finds her bruised and bloodied and grinning through it all. She's been called to the mat again and again, thrown against Sister Warrior after Sister Warrior like a sword whose edge is being tested. Every move is practiced perfection, and she holds her own even against sisters who have a handful of inches and tens of kilos on her, doesn't buckle when faced with overwhelming force. Loses, yes, but there's no shame in it, and the hands that pull her to her feet, that give camaraderie-steeped slaps to her shoulders, buoy her up.

It's late in the afternoon when Lilith steps onto the mat, an arrogant ease to her walk. Beatrice readies herself, steadies her hands, but is caught out by the fierce glint in Lilith's eyes, the sharpness of her grin. She finds herself laid gently on her back within three moves, not entirely sure what had happened. Her heartbeat screams in her ears as Lilith smirks down at her, one hand still clasping her wrist as she leans in close enough that only Beatrice can catch the murmured "you really ought to work on that."

//

Bea's annoyed with it, the ease with which Lilith had unhanded her, had laid her flat. Her only thought to rectify it is to fight Lilith again and again and again until she figures out exactly why she'd been so easily undone. Every day after school she does her 5K up to the Cradle, and every day that Lilith's around she faces off against her.

There's no improvement. She gets past the smirk and gets hooked by the warmth of Lilith's skin on her wrists, by the ocean breeze scent of her pulse point, by the grounding weight of Lilith atop her after a particularly embarrassing flip.

Lilith takes to that particular disarmament, sits astride her hips and picks idly at her nails with a knife or pins Bea's hands above her head when she tries to free herself, or, in one memorable and horrific incident, pressing a hand over Bea's mouth to hold her down as she answered a call from Shannon. Lilith takes to that particular disarmament again and again, until the day her leg unintentionally slips between Bea's at the movement. Until the muscle of her quad presses up into the apex of Bea's thighs and Bea's hips jump at the contact. Until Bea's mouth makes the worst sound it's ever made against her will, a low needy keen that stains her face bright red when she realizes it had been produced by her own vocal cords.

Lilith snaps away from her in an instant and it's the first time Bea's ever seen her on the back foot. She stumbles back, gestures abruptly towards the chapel, mutters a series of aborted apologies before she all but turns tail and flees.

Bea drops her head back to the mat, drapes an arm across her eyes, and berates herself for her own blindness.

//

Lilith avoids her. Stops sitting with her and Shannon on those rare occasions that Mary's away and they take their meals in the refectory. Stops smirking at her in passing. Stops suggesting sparring matches. Bea bristles at it but doesn't push, says yes to the classmate who asks her out for ice cream after school.

Lilith goes on her first real mission, Shannon and Mary at her side, and Bea lapses into her waiting pattern, working herself to fatigue before hitting the showers. She's drying her hair when they return, when Lilith stumbles into the changing room looking vaguely haunted. Bea boosts herself up onto the sink counter and watches Lilith move, purposeless and adrift.

"How was it?"

Lilith must not have realized she was there, the way she jumps at her voice. She moves towards Bea as though drawn to her, shakes her head, can't find her words. She's still in her combat gear, and when she comes to a halt in front of Bea she hooks her fingers through the straps of Lilith's kevlar vest and tugs her closer.

Lilith makes a noise in the back of her throat that destroys every shred of Bea's self-restraint, haunted and scared and wanting, and Beatrice tugs her into the cradle of her thighs and dips her head to swallow the sounds whole.

[emilyjunk]

Pairing: Ava/Beatrice Rating: T for tiktok Summary:

“Okay, what do you need from me? What do we need to do?” “I need…” Ava starts, readying herself to drop the ultimate bomb and knowing Bea isn’t going to like it one bit. “To make a TikTok.” or Ava returns to Earth at last, but like all legendary heroes, she'll need the power of love and tiktok if she's going to defeat God for good.

[closetcasefabray]

hi i’d like to be financially dominated bc i need a laptop that doesn’t die randomly to write these bc i hate writing on my phone. here’s all the avatrice fic ideas i’ve practically laid out & written at @snowandwolves:

- and they were neighbors - this came from the idea of beatrice stress baking & she runs out of sugar, so she asks her neighbor… (prob set in NY bc idk how to NOT write about this city & its weirdness) — starts v cute. gets kinda devastating sorry in advance.

- the 100 au - somehow emotionally more aching but no one (important) dies - ava’s born with a disability & out of wedlock, which means she’s treated as a burden on the ark. her mom was floated when ava was a child. dr. salvius would adopt her if she didn’t have her son michael. but she treats her with ancient technology. beatrice has only known obligation to her people on the ground. loss is to be expected as commander. love is weakness. then, yknow, a girl with a halo falls from the stars & what other choice does beatrice have but to fall too?

- fallout 4 au - beatrice wakes up 200 years of cryo sleep when the bombs dropped. her parents who afforded the vault died. her secret romance with lucia makes her long for closure. she makes her way to diamond city looking for answers and meets a nosy reporter who enjoys causing problems for diamond city’s mayor. ava and her “brother” diego are doing their best to find the truth in the hellscape that is 2224. (also just imagine bea in power armor—“my knight in semi-rusted armor!” — ava prob)

- college au - i’ve written bits on here before (also set in NY bc idk what college town culture is like) - beatrice has everything planned out. ava is winging everything bc she was never supposed to get this far. (there’s a sequel to it that i’m plotting too & i’m sorry…)

- now & then au - it’s the 90s. basically i watched the scene where roberta plays baseball with boys. “girls can’t play ball. why don’t you go home and play with your dolls??” (“the only dolls ava has are GI Joes…” — camila) [ava punches him] beatrice pulls her off of him. “psycho bitch. too bad your mom’s dead and can’t teach you to act like a lady” [cue beatrice pushing ava back so she can kick his ass—gets a fat lip & black eye but NO ONE says that shit to ava.]

- airbnb au - (let’s pretend this isn’t messing up the housing market 😭 ) bea is financially independent of her parents & needs cash so she’s a superhost. where bea lives is quiet & peaceful. ava fucks that up. in an ava silva perfect kinda way. ava visits once a year over several years. they start falling in love but ava never stays.

less hashed out ideas:

- smallville/superman/supergirl au

- avatar/lok au

- this is how you lose the time war au (bc that book is my roman empire—all versions & threads of it)

if these exist already my b but i promise promise it’s coincidental—haven’t been reading much fics lately (other than seabiscuit’s western au).

anyway… back to work.

[gracekim03]

Week 13 - script

Bea: girl did you hear that?

Jace: what? no?

Bea: No seriously I heard something. It sounded huge!

Jace: bruh... it's the ghosts

Bea: NO! It must be our neighbor Jane Doe!

Jace: No it can't be... Jane Doe and her dog moved out weeks ago.

Bea: There must be a second Jane Doe then. I promise you it was LOUD.

Jace: Girl... If there was John Doe x2, it'd be equal to an atomic bomb

Bea: HAHAHA. okay but still we should check it out

Jace: fine... Do I get anything from this?

Bea: No... actually maybe the new Adidas shoes I got

Jace: girl no. you cannot catch me wearing Adidas shoes. I would rather be barefoot

Bea: Just come with me. I don't wanna get murdered.

Jace: Fine. This one time.

Bea and Jace go to the apartment next door but find the door slightly open.

Jace: Go in. This is your plan.

Bea: Fine.... OH MY GOD

Jace: uh yeah we're gonna need to full-on ammonia biohazard whatever cleanse the apartment.

Bea: yeah. Ill grab the pot and the ammonia from the cabinet. You... I don't know stay.

Jace: Uh ok...

Bea goes to the apartment and grabs the pot, but cannot find the ammonia. Bea grabs a bottle that says liquid zombie.

Bea: huh. I guess this is a new name for ammonia. I mean it does smell like what a zombie would smell like. Whatever, I better run back

Jace: HURRY UP

Bea: I have never ran that fast in my life. But why is the pot's handle broken?

Jace: because u dropped it when you were washing it.

Bea: Oh....

Jace: This is why you don't wash my stuff. but anyway, hurry up boil that ammonia.

Jace and Bea boil what they think is ammonia. They start to steam cleanse the apartment just in case.

Jace: ugh. This ammonia is burning my boogers!

Not even a second later both Jace and Bea pass out. About an hour later they awaken to something new.

Bea: dang. I guess that ammonia did the trick but now I'm ragingly hungry.

Jace: Me too. What you craving?

A man in a white jacket walks by

Jace & Bea: BRAINS!!

White jacket man: Whoa there. you've been contaminated. infected. A true zombie

Jace & Bea: WHAT!! WE"RE ZOMBIES?!?

Jace: okay... well im still hungry so come here

Bea: OMG you feastin tonight!

The man with a white jacket grabs the pot with the so call ammonia and knocks Jace unconscious.

Jace: ughh. man what happened.

Bea: girl you were knocked out

Jace: I know that but what happened.

Bea: YESSSS you were snoring and I was like DUCK YEAH

Jace: your making no sense. but when are you making sense. That's why I love you.

Bea stay livid queen!!!

[joytraveler]

41: Volcano!

There's a bit of deja vu at the very beginning: once again, the name on the title screen is different from the one on the menu. This game's 'real' title is apparently "Escape From Mount St. Kaboomius"!

It also appears to star the same character from Sewer Adventure / Water Way, the plumber with the Amish beard, but this time he's a miner.

"This is going to be a British animated TV special isn't it- Oh hey, it's Sewage Sam and he escaped the monster! Thanks to us, we pretty much saved the day back there."

Glockroach: Hey Bea if something jumps out at you this time watch with hte pottymouth, we've got sensitive ears here ButterflyDefect: Go fart your mother glock berd_snurglar: eat a.........dick sorry i tried

The controls are basically the same, very sharp and responsive just like Water Way, so this may indeed be the same character. Your equipment is different this time, though: now you can launch a small drill that burrows through rock in front of you, only stopping when it hits lava-- and there's a lot of lava. In fact, it's everywhere, and Sam(?) has to climb out of this room quick!

"You know what's a good incentive for anything? LAVA!" she has to bore out some footholds to keep climbing, but miss the shot and you could just release more lava! "Of course he'd already be dead normally but Sam hydrates real well, he knows his stuff.”

aroseahorseboy: I bet if you cut through those stackalacktotituses they'd make platforms in the lava damn, you beat me to it spent too long thinking of a funny way to spell stalactite

"No that was good seahawse, I'm going to start saying that now and pissing off a lot of cave fans"

SugaGlyda: and cavemen *cavepeople, rather DueyDecimal: Just use the correct word: speleothems!

The game progresses similarly to Sewer Adventure, but the rooms are much larger; less of a single screen puzzle game, more of a side scroller. Each room introduces new

toys to play with – icicles that freeze lava into rock when dropped, bombs left behind by miners that explode if touched by lava.

"Wait, can I.. Can.. Nope, nope. NOPE. Can't ride the drill after you shoot it, which, I understand but it still would have been cool"

ButterflyDefect: How the heck that even work? aroseahorseboy: maybe if you can pick up drill shoes that spin in the opposite direction... no, that's silly

"You just stand on the bit and run really really fast in the opposite direction. I don't know that drill surfing will ever be cool but at least we tried!" But she can surf on a loose hunk of rock she breaks free, riding it up to the next level!

HNV: Noice! Llord_Kuruku: Another puzzle platformer but this one goes up instead of down

"It's good to know that if I'm ever caught in a lava flow I can just do this!"

The next room up starts with a vertical tunnel that the lava fills almost immediately, allowing Sam to jump out the top onto a safe spot as it fills the room more slowly. There's a weird pattern in the big lava-filled tunnel he just escaped, though-- does it have eyes? Is it watching him as he hops around?

ButterflyDefect: IT HIM wait is it? the thing from the last one? Syrupentine: if he was lit on fire and became a horrible staring fire column...

"I don't know, let's stay far far FAR FAR away and not talk about it! Awww god that's horrifying"

Baconnaise: Give him a hug you monster, he needs it

This room doesn't give Bea much more trouble than the previous room, although there's a more complicated series of rock-floes to hop across and an icicle to drop to create more rock... but the higher the lava level rises, the sharper those eyes in the lava become. When the lava rises halfway, a mouth appears, grinning wickedly!

aroseahorseboy: WHY DOES THIS GAME INTIMIDATE ME

"Yyyyep this is fucking me right up. So I guess this is just Hell we're in then, great! About time."

ButterflyDefect: Bea can you like, hurry because I don't want to see what happens next Glockroach: Don't worry we'll fry to a crisp before heckface firefuck gets us

Three quarters of the way up, and now the face is laughing and sticking out its tongue(???) like a snake! But now Bea is free to escape to the next room up, and the lava face tenses up and gives an apoplectic SCREAM of rage-- or at least that's what the face is doing, the sound effect is not so scary.

HNV: ...was that a slowed-down dog barking? What was that?

"I don't know" Bea laughs nervously. "Just, make it go, it's ok now. You've done your job, we've got the idea." No doubt it awaits her on the next screen as well.

"I guess this must have been around Sam was like 'fuck this job, I'm moving to the sewer' "

"I mean, not moving to the sewer, getting a sewer job. Although maybe he likes to live close to work, who knows." aroseahorseboy: maybe he dug his way into this volcano at the bottom of the sewer? and he's making his way up to the top now??

Syrupentine: and he's going to end up in another wacky topsy turvy land where he has to dig back down to get home... poor Sam

"Well now I am hoping there's one more of these, I'd want to see where they'd go with it from here! I can imagine this in an arcade. When we had those, sigh.."

SugahGlyda: I've always been exceedingly bad at coin games :/ Glockroach: You're supposed to be. they eat your money they flash their pretty pictures and scream, COINSSSSS. like mario HNV: That's my favorite Mario catch phrase, when he just hisses "COINSSSSS" Klickitat_Street: I think someone was inspired by Spelunker to make both of these... specifically, inspired to make the opposite of a bad game like Spelunker

"I don't know that one. I've played Spelunky, that was good? I've plaaayed... there are no other games with "spelunk" in the name, huh"

aroseahorseboy: is that a verb or an onomatopoeia

"Spe-lunk...spe-lunk.. spelunk.. he's just saying that as he runs around, it's not even the real sound spelunking makes"

[mercysought]

❝ that was a close call, wasn’t it? ❞   [ to viv! ]

@valheri . our flag means death . selectively accepting 

Val's message registers briefly the message, flickering the ash from the lit cigarette. Doing reckon for the next job after havin' gotten the eddies from Regina for the last gig with Val. It was fuckin' crazy how she felt like every job was gettin' to the point where one thing went tits up and the consequences ended up being just so much worse. Vivian was more worried that she was losin' her edge, that this catastrophizing would just end up fulfilling this prophecy that no one had uttered or heard other than herself.

It scared her to shit.

  "Every call's been feelin' like that, to be honest."

They couldn't really be playing around like that, especially not after having bombed the heist like that. Truth be told Vivian was still feeling rattled from knowin' she had survived a bullet to the head. More, she was angry, angry that she couldn't punch Dex' ugly face with the sharp bit of her blades. And that was the problem, she was fucking angry and that was clouding her judgement. The thing was that meditating, doing any of the exercises, and practising, made her feel better. Any time she sat down in the quiet moments she started feelin' like she was listening to the same music that she had heard when first entering Johnny's memories. Apart from pushing it to the side - because she didn't really have the time to fully unpack that shit right now - she just knew she had to get right back to work.

And make sure that no other fixer or shithead ever got the fuckin' idea of tryin' that shit again. She'd make sure to paint this fucking city in red.

She didn't know what it had been, (apart from this stupid impatience). Truth be told she didn't even remember the name of the cop - only that she really wanted to punch him. After Val had cracked the video that he wanted to erase so much, she just felt angry that more of these shitheads were so ready to just wipe people clean without so much of a thought if it fuckin' meant they could get to their bottom lines.

Vivian had wanted to punch his teeth in. And then Johnny's for being such an absolute cunt.

She stops fidgeting, takes a deep breath and taking a deep breath and pull from the cigarette before flattening it against the wall and dropping the butt. She watches the Maelstrom continue moving their merch.

  "Guess that's what gets us, havin' more eyes on us, hm?" which, for a fuckin' thief, was not the best. But she made do - you always did when you were great at what you did. She held onto that belief, especially after five days without trainin' outside of the jobs, like a five-year-old held tightly into their safety blanket. "Definitely can't complain about the eddies. I bought a set of baby blue kicks yesterday? They are bea-uti-ful."

V. smiles, what's the worse that can happen? She'd already died once. And guess who was still kickin' while Saburo was six feet under? This bitch.

Worse than a cockroach, baby.

  "D'you know if there's been any new noise about?… y'know."

[agerefandom]

Regressor!Bea and Caregiver!Mae Headcanons

for anon 

Regressor!Bea 

mostly nonverbal, but will let you know if she’s bored, or hungry, or if you’re touching a toy she doesn’t want you to move 

simple words, like “food?” or “no!!!” 

likes complicated kiddo foods, like ants on a log or dirt in a cup or pancakes in fun shapes 

doesn’t outwardly show much enthusiasm so it’s hard to track her moods 

drops recipes and links to Mae when she’s big, quiet advice for what she prefers 

prefers not to dress down for regression, or have a distinct age 

doesn’t use pacis or teethers, but instead has a sweet tooth for gum or lollipops or even ring pops, which is unusual for her when she’s not regressed 

nothing makes her regress faster than a long hot bath (fun coloured bath bomb optional): she only takes quick showers when she’s big and busy, so a bath is the ultimate luxury 

Caregiver!Mae 

gets anxious and deflects with humor

just worried about getting everything right as a caregiver 

getting into a routine with lots of communication helps her get settled 

checks in on all of Bea’s stuffies by name 

often multitasking: cooking and chatting, watching tv and playing a phone game, watching Bea play while doodling in a journal 

very good at pretend games: Bea provides the initial idea or story, and Mae runs with it from there 

keeps caregiver equipment chaotically in bags and pockets: a lollipop here, a bandaid there, a bouncy ball lost in the bottom of their backpack 

does some excellent voices for puppet shows 

[thedreadvampy]

had a thought too while I was half asleep which might bea bit melodramatic but like idk. sometimes I feel like I'm walking around with a broken finger on a battlefield full of the dying and grievously wounded. other times I feel like I'm walking around holding my guts in with one hand but at least I can walk and at least my guts are whole even if they're spilling out. but either way I'm surrounded by people who are wounded much worse than me and have far fewer options. it would be shitty not to use my free hand to help.

it's never that I don't feel wounded or like my pain matters. but I've always been surrounded by people wounded worse. because my experience of the world is that it's a battlefield or a bomb site and everyone's wounded and in shock but those of us who can stand and move are the people who need to put their own pain aside and try and help others survive

it's just. we live in so much of an abusive and traumatic culture. and maybe I hang out with statistically unusually fucked people but like. the vast majority of people I know have been through so much horror like. so much childhood abuse so much sexual abuse so much IPV so much medical abuse so much poverty and strain from childhood onwards. it's hard to find the space to deal with your own pain in a way other than like. buttoning up your jacket to hold your guts in. when people are bleeding out and the bombs can drop any time. idk. like I'm safe enough now to start seeking treatment but other people aren't. and that doesn't feel fair either bc I was much less badly wounded. like much much less. I was never at risk of death. a lot of people are still bleeding out.

and it makes me angry like. I conceptualise it as a battlefield bc everyone on the ground is suffering. but there are people making this happen and people letting it continue to happen. and people who see images of it and shrug it off or make jokes about it or think oh no we should send more bombs. and everyone around me is holding themselves together with their hands and makeshift bandages to try and keep the strength to pull other people out of the rubble. and how are you meant to do otherwise?

[promisedneverwrite]

Until Dawn

A Vamp! Poppy x Werewolf Bea fic

A retelling of Queen B with added story plot

Tag list: @somewillwin @veenast @stanzoeywade @shows-simp-card @barnibumblr @tragic-tm @baexpoppy @noixngn @ashleyfenner @zeusasterion @captainpowerless @louvmin @maskedalienfreak @thescarycatishere @feliiix @depressedfrenchfry @spoonanarmadillo @amswanmills @frozelemonade  @waterinathermostat @rayvenz3 @wolfietheduckyou @chipo1804 @soft-round-bees @lazynightmareblaze @somin-yin

Masterlist

Previous Chapter

Chapter IX

Bea’s head still feels fuzzy, like she’s underwater. Everything hurt, and that was not normal, not to her knowledge. She tries to recount her memories from the night before, as she just lays there, bandages wrapped around her arms and she feels some along her ribs as well. Bea touches the gauze on her head, and winces in surprise. Her rapid healing should have already kicked and healed whatever scrapes and bruises she got. Bea winces as she moves her head looking at the window that reveals to be the early morning peaking through some of the glass skyscrapers. Bea lets out a hiss as her shoulder throbs and her hands reach up to feel a gauze on the junction of her neck. Bea’s eyes widen, as she shoots up and goes to look for a mirror in the room. The clattering of wires that Bea removes from her body makes Zoey’s eyes open in alarm as Bea runs around. 

“Bea! You should be in bed!” But Bea is too focused on finding any kind of reflective surface to calm down. She opens a door that leads to a bathroom and locks the door, the lights automatically turning on. Bea hurriedly rips the bandage off her neck and stares at the wound. Two crescents of pink look to be healing over on her shoulder. What the hell? What the hell! Bea looks at the other wounds on her and sees them only slightly healing over. There’s a knock on the door that brings Bea’s attention away from her growing unease.

“Bea you okay in there?” Bea takes a moment to calm herself, turning to the closed door.

“Yeah I’ll be out in a minute.” Bea’s voice is gruff and shaky. Bea takes another breath, then looks back to the mirror seeing her eyes still a bright yellow. Her stomach growls and a ravenous hunger overtakes her, her hands shake and she grits her teeth as she feels her body trying to change. Bea shakes her head furiously and glares at herself in the mirror, seeing her werewolf staring back at her snarling, wanting to be let out. 

“Not now.�� Bea growls out. The werewolf in the mirror paces before disappearing. Bea sighed as she felt the urge to change stopped, her hunger now being the only problem. 

Bea exits the bathroom after doing her business and is immediately confronted by Zoey. 

“Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re okay. What happened?” Bea opens her mouth only to click it shut. What is she gonna tell her? She couldn’t really drop a bomb like that on her. Would she even believe it? 

“I… got mugged.” Zoey’s eyes widened.

“Beatrice wh-” There was a knock on the door to the room. Zoey and Bea look at the door and Bea answers it. 

“Come in.” The door opened revealing a doctor, who came in smiling at the both of them. Her eyes linger on Bea, who shuffles a bit behind Zoey a bit tense. 

“Ms. Hughes, you’re awake, that’s wonderful. I’m sure you have questions for me I presume. I’ll answer everything to the best of my ability.” She smiles kindly at Bea, who relaxes a bit. Zoey takes her hands and squeezes it reassuringly. 

“How’d I get here?” the doctor smiles.

“Starting off strong aren’t we? You were brought in by an anonymous person, left soon after they dropped you off.” Bea frowns.

“You don’t have a description or anything.” The doctor hums.

“Well he left soon after. At most he was male, and well dressed, and on the older side of the spectrum.” Bea frowns further, she didn’t see any older man when she was in the forest last night, but maybe he was. She had gone feral after tearing into the leader of that group, but then more scents came and she blacked out. Her stomach wailing stopped her train of thought, and Zoey and her doctor looked at her stomach in surprise. Bea blushed in embarrassment.

“Sorry.” The doctor laughed good naturedly and clicked a button on the side of her hospital bed. 

“Nothing to be embarrassed about dear.” A knock sounded from the door to the room again before it opened and a chef came into the room rolling in a cart filled to the brim with plates of food. Bea and Zoey’s eyes widened and looked to the doctor.

“No need to be shy, as a VIP client, you are given the best this hospital has to offer. As well as a fully paid bill.”

“Who paid for this?” Zoey asked as Bea was ushered back onto the hospital bed, to sit as the chef set up her breakfast. The doctor smiled.

“Now that is also classified, our clientele’s identities are a well kept secret, but whoever paid for it is someone from higher up. She must be a lucky gal.” 

 The chef set up a table for Bea and set the food down, ranging from breakfast sausages, eggs, bacon, eggs benedicts, waffles, french toast, chowder, jam and buttered toast. Bea’s mouth watered as the smells hit ten times harder.

“Would you like Coffee, Orange Juice… ?” Bea looked to the chef and without hesitation.

“Do you guys have hot chocolate?” The chef nodded and poured her a heaping cup of hot chocolate, with a swirl of whipped cream on top and sprinkled with chocolate bits. Bea grinned.

“In any case we will have to do another check up after you have eaten, you can stay for however long you need to and can leave whenever you feel it is time to do so.” Bea was already digging in, shoveling eggs and bacon into her mouth and chasing it with toast. The chef watched in fascination and a bit of disgust as Bea devoured everything on sight. Zoey sighed, and the doctor smiled.

“At least she has an appetite, that's good. In any case, I’ll leave you to it, don’t hesitate to use the call button if you need anything else.” The doctor smiles at the two of them. Zoey smiles and shakes her hand.

“Thank you doctor.” Bea turns cheeks a bit full from food.

“Famf oo.” The doctor and chef leave Zoey and Bea alone. Zoey stays silent as she just watches Bea eat concern written all over her face. Bea hits her chest as she swallows the food and chugs her hot chocolate like someone finding water in the desert.

“Bea?” Bea stops eating at the small sound of Zoey calling her. Her voice never sounded so sad, Bea turned to her watching as Zoey came closer to inspect her face. No doubt her bruises were still on her face.

“What happened?” Zoey's voice was soft, and Bea fiddled with the fork in her hand. 

“It’s nothing.” Bea turns from her, unable to look her directly in the eye.

“Bea, I got a call around 11 at night saying you were in the hospital. I got here with you hooked up on monitors all bandaged, bruised, and unconscious. That is not nothing.” Bea feels her heart clench and guilt clawing at her. 

“I don’t want to talk about it right now Zoey.” The silence is thick, and Zoey sighs. Bea clenches the fork in her hand as she continues to look somewhere else. There’s movement and Bea continues to stare out the window as the sun rises higher.

“Okay… just rest up. I’ll be back with the doctor when you’re done here.” The sound of a door opens and then closes, signaling Zoey’s departure. The fork in Bea’s hand bends and she’s left alone with her thoughts. 

The drive home is awkward, the palpable silence in the taxi is uncomfortable, and Bea fidgets from how enclosed the space in the car is that she opens a window to try to calm herself. It relieves some of her anxiety as she turns to Zoey who looks out the window on her side of the car brow furrowed.

“I’m sorry.” Zoey slowly turns to her.

“What for?” Her voice is gentle, and Bea is grateful for it.

“I just… I want to tell you, but it's hard for me to even remember what happened.” Bea winces, while she did not remember some of it, lying to Zoey was the one thing the werewolf in her refused to do as it thrashed in her chest. Bea clenches her nails into her knees to ground herself.

“Hey it’s fine, you don’t have to tell me right away. I’m sorry too for pushing. I’m just glad you’re okay, well as okay as you can be.” Bea laughs shakily.

“Thanks Zo.” Zoey gives her a soft look rubbing her shoulder in comfort.

“But there is something you should feel extra sorry for.” Bea freezes.

“Uhh..?” Zoey smirks, her playful demeanor coming back.

“You didn’t even save me any of that fancy hospital food, girl. I could feel the french toast taunting me and you ate all of it! Where does it all go?” Bea barks a laugh. 

“How about I make it up to you, we can go anywhere you want for breakfast, I’ll pay.” Zoey smiles and scooches over to her, resting her head on Bea’s arm.

“Aww babe, you’re so sweet to me.”

“Nothing but the best for my Zoey.”

Things return to normal for the most part, Bea’s wounds disappear as the vampire bite on her shoulder fully heals leaving only two lightly colored scars, the food helping replenish her. Zoey comments on her remarkable recovery, but still steers clear of asking what happened. Bea is thankful the plan with the football team takes their attention away from what happened. But Bea still feels uneasy about the amount of vampires that came that night and why they were trying to get Poppy. She checked her socials, finding her fine and well, posting pictures and the like. 

 Bea shakes her head and looks in the mirror back at the guys in the dance studio. She agreed because Zoey coerced her with food, she was weak she knew. But Zoey would find out just how broke she was gonna be after it. She needed to focus on right now, those vampires wouldn’t be waiting in the daylight anyways, she would wait out and check again tonight. Bea sighed then plastered on a smile.

“You guys all got that last move? Lemme know if you wanna go over it again.” Carter waves off with a smile.

“Nah, my boys are good. I’ll admit, we weren't sure about it when you asked us to help out with your dance, but it’s turning out to be legit.” Erik, who she just met, smiled at her.

“I’ve literally never been able to floss before! Bea you’re a master dance teacher.” Luis comes over almost bowling over Erik with a smile.

“I don’t know if anyone’s ever gone up against Zeta on kickoff Day. You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.” Bea grins.

“I’m doing this for the school spirit! I figured you guys would have fun too.”

“Belvoire’s gonna be shook at how sexy smooth we are.” Bea and Ford bump elbows and it turns into some intricate handshake with them shooting finger guns at each other at the end with a wink. 

“My dude.” Ford claps her on the back as does Bea matching grins. 

“What we’re saying is, it’s really cool of you to take the time and include us in your performance, Bea.” Carter says for the team.

“You guys deserve the extra attention! This whole game is about you guys, so why wouldn’t you be the stars of the dance.” 

“Hey, can we practice the intro again? I wanna make sure I don’t drop you on your throne, Bea.” Ford does a few squats and Bea has to ask him later where he got those pants, they seemed comfortable.

“Oof yeah, that’d suck. Great idea bud, I still have to figure out my opening pose. Let’s get into it, bois!” The guys hoot in sync hyping up.

The newest Jaylen Riaz song echoes out of the room's speakers. Bea is raised up in her throne and Erik passes her a football, Bea catches it and kisses it. 

“Heads up thoroughbreds! This one’s for you!” Bea throws it into the pretend crowd and Cater looks impressed.

“Damn, look at that throwing arm! I think we found our new QB.” There’s enthusiastic clapping at the doorway and they all look to see Zoey as they set Bea down. 

“You guys are perfect! Like, there are literal tears in my eyes. Ugh, Bea you’re such a star.” Zoey fist bumps all the guys and hands Bea an iced Mochaccino with a kiss on the cheek that has Bea preening as she drinks. 

“You’re my favorite. And guess what, Erik's totally mastered flossing!” Bea motions to Erik like a proud mother and he grins.

“Couldn’t have done it without the sickest teacher.”

“You know, I’m not much of a team player, but you all are just too cute. We need to get a squad pic to commemorate this.” Zoey corrals all of them to the center moving them into position. “Erik, what are we five? Put those bunny ears down. More flex, Carter. Ford, I love you, but no one wants to see that. Everyone good?” Bea and Luis snicker to themselves as the others are berated. After the pictures are taken Bea and Luis end up in a wrestling match as they were posed arm over shoulder. Bea has him in choke hold, not tight enough to knock him out but tight enough he can’t escape. Ford cheers them on, as Luis tries to get out of the hold. The other guys cheer as well.

“Get him!” Zoey looks at them and sighs going back to posting the pictures on her Pictagram.

“You guys are so lucky you guys have me to do your PR. And we’re live. You can’t spell team without Zoey!” Zoey looks back to see that they ended up on the floor with Luis taping out and Bea grinning and letting him go. 

“Ha! I win!” Bea stands and brushes away the dust. Ford laughs and claps her back as do the rest of the dudes.

“You my dear, will never cease to amaze me with all your hidden talents.” Bea grins. The guys leave after a few minutes to go to practice leaving Zoey and Bea in the dance room. 

“Bea you make the most charming friends. I cannot wait to see the performance you’ve put together.” Bea grins. 

“And I cannot wait for the carnival food, did you see what they have! Double fried donuts with vanilla ice cream!” Zoey pushes her away laughing. But Bea holds her waist laughing with her as they rock from side to side.

“Beatrice! You literally just ate before we got here.” Bea grins. 

“Yeah, but all that dancing used up all my energy.” Zoey coos at Bea who pouts into her arms.

“You poor thing, come on.” Zoey gave her cheek a small pat before slinking out of her arms. “Spicy's is having some sort of nacho supreme special, and you’ve earned it. Lunch is my treat.” Bea looks at her like she’s about to tear up.

“Really?” Zoey paps her face and squishes it.

“You’re so cute, but no. My wallet is still recovering from our last grocery bill. Now let’s go!”

Next

[jovialyouthmusic]

Go Shorty!

(It's my birthday!)

In a kind of weird reverse universe, this is my gift to anyone who enjoys my Bastien Lykel fics, queued to be posted on my birthday. I've noted Fabricio's recent image change and it inspired the following - what would Bastien's family think if he shaved off his iconic goatee? Enjoy, its all fluff xx

Word Count 2035

Double Trouble

The last lecture of the week completed, Sophia was in her university office just putting her papers together when the faculty secretary put her head round the door.

‘Sophia, your home help has been in touch, she said it’s urgent’

‘Thanks Lizzy, I’ll be leaving soon anyway. It’s been a long week, I’m glad I’ve nothing on this afternoon.’ Sophia turned her mobile phone back on to see that Morag had left her a voice mail. She held the phone at arm’s length as she played back the sound of a harassed young woman and a squealing toddler in full meltdown.

‘Mrs Lykel, I’m sorry tae bother ye, but yer wee lassie’s upset, and her father cannae soothe her. Please call back when ye can. Or just come hame.’ Sophia frowned. It wasn’t like Bastien to fail to settle Beatrice. Little princess that she was, she was Daddy’s girl while Sophia was out at work through the week and welded to Sophia’s side at the weekend. She dialled the landline of their top floor regency apartment in the centre of Edinburgh that the University had allocated them. It was Bastien who answered, and all was quiet beyond his voice.

‘Sophia!’ he sounded flustered ‘Morag’s just got her to settle, did you get the message?’

‘It’s an odd time of day for a nap, is she running a temperature?’

‘Errm no, she’s hot, but she’s not ill. She’s just been crying...’

‘How do you know she’s not ill if she’s hot?’ Sophia demanded, making her way along the corridor to the car park to their SUV. Her mind span with possibilities.

‘I uh – you’ll understand when you get here, I can’t explain right now.’ Sophia decided not to stop off at the shops on the way, hoping Morag could go and get what was needed before she clocked off for the weekend. She wished she’d had the foresight to order a supermarket delivery, but she preferred to shop herself. With or without the children, she loved browsing the aisles of Waitrose when it wasn’t busy. Bastien was a surprisingly poor shopper and stuck religiously to the list, whereas she’d discover little treats and bargains that wouldn’t stretch her salary. Living in the city was expensive, although not nearly as much as if they’d moved to London, and having Morag to help was a slight strain on resources. Setting up Bastien’s security consultancy was taking longer than expected thanks to the complexity of looking after twins, and the retainer from King Liam in Cordonia was only just enough for small luxuries.

As soon as she opened the door to the apartment, Morag was there pulling her coat on and shouldering her bag.

‘Morag, I was hoping you’d be able to get some supp…’ Sophia started, but she was already pushing past her to the landing outside.

‘Ah’ll be back the Monday.’ she said shortly, and Sophia was left peering over the banister to the stairwell after her rapidly retreating figure, wondering what had happened. She turned back inside to meet Bastien holding Theo.

‘Mama.’ he crowed in jubilant greeting. Bastien stepped out of the shadowed hall, and all became clear.

‘Bas, you shaved!’ she gasped. She’d never seen her husband without facial hair in the few years she’d known him. He still had a neat ‘tache, but his trimmed goatee was gone, his chin and jawline bare. He looked sheepish, and she knew she shouldn’t have teased him about the streak of white in his beard. He handed over Theo, who pointed at Bastien.

‘Dada face.’ he proclaimed.

‘Yes, I thought perhaps…’ his voice trailed off ‘Well, that is, I mean...’

‘Beatrice didn’t like it, did she? Honestly Bas, you should have thought – why didn’t you say something?’ He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

‘I thought perhaps a younger image might drum up some more business.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, age means experience, people are more likely to trust a distinguished looking gent.’ she scoffed. He sighed in exasperation.

‘Well the damage is done. Beatrice took one look at me and bawled her eyes out. Morag tried to calm her down, but every time she saw me again she’d set off crying.’

‘Well no wonder, you look completely different. How about Theo?’ she asked.

‘You know him – a bomb would go off and he wouldn’t flinch.’ In response Theo wriggled to get down, bored at the adult conversation. He toddled off to the toybox in the lounge to rummage for his current favourite, a shape sorting puzzle.

‘Well, I’d better go and take a look at her.’ Sophia sighed. ‘If she’s been crying all morning she’ll probably not wake up for a while.’ She feared that the disruption to her sleep schedule meant they’d be in for a rocky night at the very least, if not a couple of days. She opened the door to their bedroom a crack but could see little, as the curtains were drawn tight. Normally they let a little light in for daytime naps so the children would know night from day. She crept in and let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Beatrice lay on her back in her day clothes, one arm flung back over her head and her other thumb in her mouth. That wasn’t a good sign – she’d not used that form of self soothing for a couple of months. Her hair was damp and face flushed, but her breathing was steady and peaceful.

Sophia carefully held her palm over her forehead, feeling the slight heat coming off it. Bastien joined her, gazing down at the toddler, but she motioned him out of the room and followed quietly.

‘Well, she’s okay for now. I’d better be here for when she wakes up, so you can go shopping for the weekend.’ Bastien’s face dropped.

‘On a Friday? The traffic’s mayhem – can’t we order in?’

‘I couldn’t stop on the way back, and there won’t be any free delivery slots until at least Monday, you know that.’ She sighed. ‘If you take Theo with you it’ll be easier for when Bea wakes up, and you can play the ‘Dad doing the chores’ role, that’ll get you to the front of the checkout queue. Give him a banana, that will keep him happy.’

‘Narners?’ Theo called from the lounge, and came toddling to find Sophia, clinging to her leg and pulling at her clothes.

‘Lunch first, Theo, then Daddy will take you shopping. Won’t that be lovely? All boys together.’

‘Sopping’ Theo cried happily, then looked over at Bastien. ‘Mummy sopping?’ he asked hopefully. He knew Sophia was more likely to treat him than his father, although he did like pointing out the things Daddy couldn’t find. Perhaps he’d treat him more without his sister there to steal the limelight.

‘No darling, Mummy has to look after Bea.’

‘Bee cwy. Dada face.’

‘Yes, silly Daddy took his beard off. He’s funny isn’t he?’

‘Dada silly!’ Theo cried triumphantly and pointed at him. Bastien scowled.

‘Yes well okay, let’s all laugh at Daddy.’ he grumbled as Sophia picked Theo up and balanced him on her hip.

‘Well it’s better than crying’ she said acidly. ‘Now, do you want to make lunch, or shall I?’

-------

Lunchtime was much simpler than normal with just Theo to feed. The couple could eat their own food while the toddler busied himself with cheese sandwiches made with wholemeal bread. He left the crusts, but Sophia had discovered it pointless cutting them off, as he left some bread around the edge just as if the crust were still there. She often saved them to feed the ducks at the park with the twins. Bastien had literally just closed the door to take Theo out to the supermarket when she heard Beatrice stirring. She went into her quickly, to find her standing at the bars to the cot, hair curling round her face and cheeks blotchy.

‘Mummy.’ Her voice was croaky and she looked miserable. ‘Dada face!’ she told her. She stretched her arms up and Sophia scooped her up as she rubbed her eyes sleepily. Perhaps she’d think it was a dream.

‘Well hello my little Bea, you’ve had a difficult morning. Are you hungry?’ She nodded sleepily.

‘Sippy sippy, Mummy.’ The little girl was obviously thirsty too.

‘Of course darling, you can have juice. Do you want sandwiches?’

‘Widges, Mummy.’ She looked across to Theo’s cot. ‘Where Feeo?’ Sophia sucked in her breath. It was very rare that the children were separated and she braced herself for trouble.

‘He’s gone out to the shops to get more narners, darling.’ The little girl clung on to her and rested her head on her chest, seemingly pleased to have Sophia to herself. She carried her through to the kitchen and filled her sippy cup with juice. Gratefully Bea grabbed at it and drank greedily, eyes rolling back in bliss.

‘All gone’ she shook it upside down, sprinkling the last dregs on the floor. Luckily the sandwiches were ready from earlier so Sophia put them on the tray of the high chair. Bea shook her head and clung on tight as she tried to put her down.

‘Okay darling, you can sit on my knee this time’ she said gently, and sat at the table, the little girl firmly nestled on her lap. She reached out to take a sandwich and squeezed it in her fist before stuffing half of it in her mouth, crumbs falling everywhere. She was hungry, and Sophia wondered if she’d had anything to eat before her father’s transformation. She waited until she’d slowed down.

‘Morag told me you were upset this morning.’ she said gently. The little girl took a shuddering breath.

‘Dada face bad.’ she said, putting her hand to her chin. Sophia stepped in before the cycle of crying could restart.

‘I know, Bea. He shaved his beard off. He looks funny now, doesn’t he? Theo was laughing at Daddy.’ Beatrice burrowed into her side again, hiding her face. ‘It’s okay darling, he just looks different. He still loves you – and me, and Theo. Silly Daddy, he’ll grow it back.’

‘Where Daddy?’ she asked, voice muffled.

‘He took Theo out to get more narners.’

‘Sopping?’ Beatrice relaxed and looked up at her enquiringly.

‘That’s right. Is there anything you want from the shops? I can call Daddy on his phone and tell him.’ The tot looked thoughtful.

‘Ice kweem?’

‘Okay, if Daddy brings you ice cream will you give him a kiss? His face is all smooth now, like Mummy’s.’ Beatrice giggled at the thought.

‘Like Mummy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Daddymummy!’

‘You can talk to him on the phone if you like, tell him what you want.’ Sophia got out her phone and texted Bastien.

Call when you can, Bea wants to ask you for ice cream

It was a few minutes before her phone rang, during which time she had changed the little girl’s nappy and was dressing her in clean clothes.

‘Oh that will be Daddy, just wait a minute darling.’ Beatrice opened and closed her hands, demanding it for herself, but Sophia put it on speakerphone.

‘Beatrice is here, Bas. She wants to ask you something.’

‘Daddymummy!’ Beatrice burbled. ‘Ice kweem, Daddy.’

‘Come on now, say please.’ Sophia prompted. Beatrice put on her cutest expression, unaware that her father couldn’t see it.

‘Pweese Daddy, stawby.’

‘Okay Bea, I’ll get strawberry ice cream. I love you, my little Bea. I’m sorry I scared you.’

‘Silly Daddy. Kisses!’ There was a short pause before Bastien obliged, blowing kisses to his daughter. Sophia tried not to laugh, wondering where he was and who could see him.

‘Okay now Bea, Daddy has to get the rest of the shopping. He’ll be back soon.’

‘Bye Daddy.’

‘Bye, my sweeting. Be good for Mummy.’ Beatrice slid off Sophia’s lap and went off to the toybox, obviously happy with life, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

‘If it’s any help, I told her your face is like Mummy’s now, so be prepared to be called Daddymummy until she’s forgotten. You’d better grow that beard back fast, mister.’ she said in a low tone. 'and be prepared for a rough bedtime, she'll be full of beans after that nap.'

@sirbeepsalot @katedrakeohd @fluffyfirewhiskey @bascmve01 @rainbowsinthestorm @nomadics-stuff @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30​ @stopforamoment

[dibberdipper]

Cheap frat party beer

Pairing: Poppy x MC (Bea Hughes)

Warnings: Drinking, suggestive themes, language

Word count: About 1,500

Summary: Pining was never Poppy’s style. No matter how much she’s going against her gut feeling, she just might not regret going to this boring party.

Author’s note: I tried to fix as many grammar mistakes as I could, I am so sorry if you found a few. Thank you so much for the comments of support on my last post, this is my first official fic on here so I really hope everyone enjoys! 

Her name was Poppy Min-Sinclair. She needed no introduction, she knew it was pure luck and privilege that led her to the top of the Belvoir food chain. She had everything, from the perfect grades, the perfect ranking, the perfect wardrobe, the perfect boyfriend, she could go on.

But for some reason ever since that new girl stepped foot in her life, she was left wanting something more. Bea Hughes came along and took over her entire life in an instant. It frustrated Poppy to no end. How could a girl rise the ranks so quickly in mere days? How did she already gain the attention of the whole school?

More importantly, the question she was the most startled by was why she was so infatuated. She had never felt this helpless over someone since private school. It felt like every encounter was a ticking time bomb until she finally gave in and forgot about who she was. She could be absolutely anybody she wanted, yet she wanted nothing more than to be the Belvoire’s newest fascinations girlfriend.

Instead of paying attention in class, or actually paying attention to the daily mindless gossip, she found herself reliving memories made days prior. The intrigue when she first met her, the pure rage and what almost felt like fun when Bea pretty much threw her in the jello pool, and the embarrassment that was her take down.

“What, are you obsessed with me?”

Just thinking about that moment sent her butterflies in her stomach fluttering, she’s never felt that familiar warm sensation on her cheeks at least since elementary school.

Before she could finish her daydreams, to her disappointment they just had to be interrupted.

“Poppy? Poppy!!”

She rolled her eyes.

“What am I, a dog your trying to train? Stop yelling in my damn ear.” She sneered at her friend.

Chloe huffed. “Poppy, you need to go to this weekend’s party. The last one was like, so embarrassing for you-“

Poppy sent her a warning glare, she gulped in response.

“My point is you need to show up and try to embarrass her back.”

Though deep down, she felt a rush of excitement for what could possibly go down, silently regretting her relationship status, but she could never let her thoughts be known.

She gave her right hand woman a sly smile. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll give them a show.”

Over the weekend

“Oh, um, babe I didn’t expect to see you here after the last one.” He scratched the back of his neck, waiting for her response.

Poppy’s attention wasn’t on her boyfriend, but on the girl at the other side of the room. Bea took a moment to notice her, and gave her a sly smirk when she did. Poppy gave her a cold look over her shoulder to keep her facade of disgust up. After a tense moment, Carter nudged her shoulder.

“Babe?”

Poppy finally came up with a response after not paying attention to him, her eyes still glued on Bea’s.

“Well, I had to show somebody I’m not willing to give up my spot so easily. I have to show everyone at this party that I’m Poppy Min-Sinclair and not just ‘Bitch that was yeeted into jello’-“ Before she finished her rant, she tore her eyes away from Bea for a moment to glance at Carter. It was evident Bea hadn’t caught only her attention.

Time seemed to freeze as she felt a plan spin in her head. She was no stranger to orchestrating these evil ideas, otherwise she wouldn’t be ranked number one. She took in her surroundings; Carter’s wandering eyes, the cooler behind them that was filled to the brim with cheap canned beer, and the inviting stare from the girl across the room. She took a deep breath, no matter how many times she’s concocted these ideas, they didn’t make her feel anymore secure.

“Fuck it.” She reached behind her, opened the cooler, and chugged the bitter taste as fast as she could.

Thinking she was only trying to prove herself ‘cool’ Carter chuckled.

“Baby, I don’t mind leaving for a bit to get you something you’ll actually like from-“

“No, you listen here!” She jabbed a finger to his chest.

“I’m not going to be humiliated and stand around while you’re eye-fucking another girl. You’re as disposable as anybody else in this damn school, and I’m not!”

She knew she was no lightweight but nobody else knew that, not even Chloe. She caught Veronica live-streaming her whole ‘meltdown’. If everything backfired, she knew she could easily hide behind the classic too much beer excuse.

She played off most of the eyes watching her, as she swayed her hips over to the only pair of eyes she cared were watching. Perhaps to everyone else it looked like a cat fight about to go down, or a thinly veiled threat. But only Bea Hughes and her partner in crime Zoey Wade knew what she really whispered.

“Go upstairs, turn left, and walk ahead until you see the last dorm on the right. Leave five minutes after me.”

Before she walked away, she was sure to send a glare to Zoey.

“Alone.”

Poppy impatiently tapped her fingers on her lap wondering if it was all a mistake. She bit her lip, questioning herself and whether everything backfire until the door slammed open.

“Poppy I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but-“

“Kiss me.” The words blurred out of her mouth without her even realizing it.

Bea’s mouth hung wide open in shock. “I… I’m sorry, excuse me, but what the fuck?”

“Do you want me to say please or what?”

Bea closed the door behind her, and took a few steps over. The room was almost completely dark, with the exception of the moonlight crawling in with the party lights. She felt Bea’s hands, that she noticed were bigger than hers, cup her face. She took in her deep dark eyes, the beautiful brown tone of her skin, and her inviting lips adorned in red lipstick. Bea drew back.

“Look your breath smells like alcohol, I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

She was turned her away, but Poppy grabbed her hands in protest.

“I may not look like it, but I swear I can handle plenty of drinks. Don’t walk away when I’m not even drunk.”

Bea met her eyes, and gave the woman in front of her with pure desperation in her eyes her signature sly smirk.

“Is Poppy Min-Sinclair, ranked number one in Belvoire, begging the small town girl to kiss her?”

Poppy swallowed any cocky remarks back, along with her pride. “She is. If you keep her waiting, she might just walk out.”

Poppy felt Bea’s warm hands on her face again, and her sultry whisper in her ear. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we…”

Bea nibbled her ear, making Poppy let out a soft moan. A sound neither of them knew she could make until that moment.

Their lips met after only a week of glaring, pettiness mixed met with almost immediate pining, and just all around sexual tension. Neither of them knew a sensation could be so intense with somebody they had only just known. They skipped the friends milestone, straight to enemies, to whatever they were now.

Bea’s hands wondered into her hair, Poppy’s hands roaming over Bea’s back. Her fingers trailing downwards, her heart beat’s pace quickened. She anticipated every moment next. Poppy felt Bea’s hands linger at the hem of her skirt, when they heard the knob turn. They pushed each other away, straightening her clothes. Poppy immediately dropped down and hid under the bed as the door opened.

“Hey, are you okay? You’ve been gone for a while and I wanted to be sure you didn’t need any backup.”

Bea sent a playful glance to Poppy, Poppy’s heart freezing. The rush of excitement overwhelming her, she didn’t know whether Bea would expose her right now or keep their secret act in the night a secret.

“Little miss Poppy Min-Sinclair never showed up. A shame really.”

Zoey laughed. “You really scared that girl into chickening out of talking to you.” Poppy glared at Bea, and Bea stifled a giggle.

“Anyways the guys downstairs want to play beer pong, you can go up a few ranks since Veronica’s live-streaming. You can’t miss it!”

Bea shot a sneaky look at Poppy, and looked back at Zoey.

“Ten minutes tops, ever since Poppy essentially ditched me here I’ve gotten a bit sleepy. When I’m done I’m going to sleep in here, I’m sure whoever this room belongs to won’t mind too much.”

“Sounds like a plan, ready to kick some ass Bea?”

They walked out of the eye sight for Poppy, and she heard them leave the room with one last piece of dialogue slipping out. Poppy’s heart sunk.

“Please don’t try to wake me up or anything, I have a feeling I’ll be in there for a few hours.”

Poppy slowly tiptoed to the door, closing it. She sighed and sat back on the bed. There was nothing for her to do for the next ten minutes but sit there and smell like cheap frat party beer.

Thank you for reading! Tagging: @lolimugly @origmansello @grapecaseschoices @mvalentine @greatestflirt-hero​ @otakufangirl-12 @sugarplumpnhoneybun @ognenniyvolk @somewillwin @coldbatfriendroad@that-one-choices-person @ariel-0318 @drethanramslay @queensayeed @kawaiibanditmoneytaco @rotten-teddy-bear @aguywiththreepairsofglasses @elijahmessenger @axiel90 @ritafarrr @erza-elcy-crimson @poshbiscuit @sarasansone98 @ghalind @that-one-choices-person @dervaux @generaldameronss @adrianadmirer @anonymous--anteater @everythingchoices

[strawberriestyles]

Chapter 8

(Banner made by sweet sunshine @harry-nofookingway-styles​)

Harry X OFC (AU)

Sequel to Brutality: In which Melody and Harry must relearn how to navigate one another among a flurry of changes.

Read previous parts here.

Author’s note: Here is a post containing links to a bunch of petitions. Please take some time out of your day to do some good. Also let me know what you think about the story if you have a chance. ;)

Bea was watching Harry trace the edges of the picture frame in his hand, his eyes unfocused, his jaw set. She leaned against the open door and sighed.

“So,” she said, “we gonna do this or what?”

“Or what.”

“Harry—full offense—you look like a toddler came at you with a pair of safety scissors.”

He set the photo off to the side. “Well, I don’ like my hair short.”

“Trust me, anything would be better than how it currently looks.”

Harry rubbed at his eyes, glanced out the window, where the sun was at its peak, and then finally gave in. “Fine. How d’yeh know what yeh’re doin’?”

“It’s hard to find stylists that can work with black hair. Outside of the city, at least. I’ve been cutting my mom’s since I was eight.”

Somehow, that dulled Harry’s nerves. He nodded. Bea took that as her cue to come and help him up. She stepped through the doorway and squatted down to slip an arm around his waist, supporting him as he attempted to shift onto his feet. They shuffled out into the dining room together and Bea sat him down in one of the chairs that she pulled out from the table.

“Let me just grab my shears.”

Harry was bitter as Bea slipped into her bedroom. Melody, he felt, was trying to push him. She had to be. She was coddling him and she’d stolen his job and she thought that he was going to be supportive of her desire to step into a ring. He remembered the bruise that had painted her cheek after her run-in with those cops last winter. He remembered how tender it had been and the way she had teared up whenever anything pressed against it. And he remembered the way her face had looked all swollen when she’d appeared at his first therapy session with Aiden. This was not a life for her. She was strong and confident and tenacious, but she was not a born fighter, and he would not pretend that he was proud of her for volunteering herself as a punching bag.

And now Melody had left him alone with Bea and a pair of scissors that looked sharp as carving knives when she reentered the room.

“We could do it really short, you know. Buzzcut style. Clean,” Bea suggested as she rounded Harry’s chair and set a tote bag of her things down on the table. “I have an electric razor. Or maybe I could—”

“Just as short as it needs to be, okay? Nothin’ fancy, Bea. Seriously.”

Bea thought that was the very first time he’d ever referred to her by name. Progress. She dug a large spray bottle out of her supplies and began soaking Harry’s hair. He stiffened as water collected along his neck and sat up straighter as she began to drag a brush through the locks. Her hand stilled as she approached the left side of his head.

“Does, uh— Can you feel where the bullet—”

“No,” Harry answered before she could finish. “’S fine.” His voice was gruff.

Bea heard him, but she still only skimmed his scalp as she untangled the shorter curls. Water dripped from the ends and darkened the collar of his t-shirt.

Harry watched as Bea traded the hairbrush for a fine-toothed comb, and when she picked up the scissors with her other hand, they seemed to glint in the sunlight that filtered through the living room window, ominous. An even more frightening snip sounded, and inches of Harry’s hair drifted down his shoulder, settling over his chest. He glanced at the loose strands and then lifted a hand to press his fingers over his eyelids.

Bea laughed. “You’re so dramatic.”

Harry only grunted. She sheared off the rest of the hair that reached his shoulders and then began to comb sections out from his head, sliding them between her fingers and snipping off the ends. Harry’s muscles looked stiff beneath his shirt.

“What are you and Melody arguing about?” she asked after a few minutes of silence, when his hair was falling to the ground in a wide circle around his chair. He looked better with every cut.

“Nothin’.”

“Oh, come on. I have a pair of scissors in my hand and your hair in the other. Tell me.”

It took a substantial amount of control for him not to jerk himself out of the chair. But he remained still. “She wants me to come to her match.”

“And you won’t?”

A few loose strands of hair stuck to the collar of Harry’s shirt and tickled uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “No, I fuckin’ won’.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s it’s very fair for you to just dismiss her without even checking out—”

“‘M not goin’ to her match,” Harry ground out. “Tonight or ever. ‘M not gonna just stand there and watch her take hits from the sideline."

Bea sighed. She dropped the chunk of hair that she’d been holding and began to comb backward from the front of his head, rougher than necessary, he was sure.

“Look, Harry,” Bea began, “it’s not ideal. You think I’m happy about it? I told her to turn and run as soon as I found out about you.” She paused to collect herself, to brace for impact, then snipped off some damaged ends when Harry didn’t react to her words. “Sorry. But she didn’t, and now here we are. She’s just trying to make things work the same way you were. And she’s damn good, too, by the way.”

Harry’s head was feeling lighter by the second, and he didn’t like that feeling one bit. “Just drop it, please.”

“No, I think that you should go and see her fight, even if it’s just one time—”

“I said, drop it,” he snapped.

Bea glared into the back of his head—he could feel it—and cut more viciously than before. That was even worse than the glaring. His shoulders tightened even further, but it was only another few moments before she tossed her scissors onto the dining table with a loud clatter.

“There, I’m done,” she announced.

“A mirror?” Harry asked. He felt jittery.

“In the tote.”

She stood beside him, her arms crossed, as he pulled the bag toward himself and dug out a dirty mirror. A reflection stared back at him, but he didn’t recognize it.

“Tha’s shorter than yeh had to fuckin’ cut it.”

“Yeah, I took some liberty,” Bea agreed. She sounded smug and he’d never felt so much anger toward a single woman. “But it looks better than it would’ve otherwise, I’m telling you. You would’ve ended up with a bowl cut, Harry. Now, you look handsome.”

It was like she’d defused a bomb. His anger dissipated, but he still stared at himself like he was trying to learn his own features. His hair hadn’t been this short since the fourth grade. The sides were tighter, straight and clean, but the top still held some curl. He felt like a boy, like the boy that his mother had pruned him to be before she’d fallen sick. And he sort of hated it, but there was also something cathartic about it. He lifted a hand to run his fingers through his hair; it scratched at his palm toward the back of his head, and his hand was left empty far too soon, and this was all too uncomfortable.

“So.” Bea slid into one of the other chairs and folded her hands together atop the table. “Is it really true that you don’t remember anything from your coma? Or were you just lying so Melody didn’t know you heard all the shit she talked about you?”

Harry narrowed his eyes and was about to open his mouth when Bea laughed. “I’m just kidding, obviously. She’s in love with you."

Harry swallowed back his unspoken words. “Did yeh know yeh talk too much?”

“I’ve been told.” She pulled on one of her tightly wound curls until it bounced back into place. “And I’m not offended, if that’s what you were trying to do.”

“’S not.”

“Good.”

Harry set the mirror down. He didn’t want to look at his strange reflection anymore. Bea stared at him and he shifted uncomfortably.

“You confuse me.”

“What?”

“Well, Melody loves you, and I can’t tell if you love her, which pisses me off. I thought at one point that you just loved yourself but that’s not true, either—”

“I do love myself—”

“No, you don’t.”

Melody chose that moment of relief to stomp up the stairs, when Harry was considering throwing himself onto the floor to escape Bea.

“Woah.”

Harry and Bea watched as Melody froze in the doorway. She had a single paper bag of groceries that seemed only to be about half full and she clutched it loosely against her hip as she stared, lips parted, at Harry. He wanted a hat. He had never wanted a hat so bad. A fucking sombrero, anything.

“You look…woah.”

“Thanks?”

Melody stumbled into the apartment and shut the door with her foot. She dropped her groceries on the countertop as she moved toward Harry, her eyes glued to his hair. Her hands slipped over the top of his head before he had a chance to prepare himself, and he tipped back with the force of her touch.

“You’re welcome,” Bea said. She gathered up her supplies from the table and retreated to her room. “Would you vacuum up that hair?” she called as she left.

“Yeh like it?” Harry felt her hands fall to the sides of his head, where his hair was shorter and rougher, where his scalp felt unfamiliarly cool. Her fingers burned.

“Yes.”

He grunted. “Well, don’ get used to it. ’S not your—”

“No, I miss the length,” she corrected him. “I do like this. It’s different. But it’s not you.”

“Hmm.” Harry let her run her fingers through his curls once more before she stepped away from him and began putting away the few things she'd bought.

“Uh, Josie’s gonna be here,” she said.

“What?”

“Bea’s coming to watch me and I don’t wanna just leave you alone—”

“I don’ need a babysitter, Melody.”

God, did she hate hearing her full name on his lips. It was like a weapon he wielded. She watched him reach to yank on the ends of his hair before realizing those ends were no longer there.

“I know you don’t, Harry. Just if you have to go to—”

“What about Sean? He—”

“Harry,” she pressed. “He’s my cornerman.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, fuck you too.”

Melody glared at Harry and he narrowed his eyes at her. After a moment, she folded up the empty paper bag and tucked it into the recycling. Then she hurried into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Harry was beginning to regret his attitude as he sat alone at the dining room table. But Melody reemerged only a few moments later with a sports bag slung over her shoulder and a beanie pulled low over her forehead. She started toward the door, fury evident on her face, but paused halfway through the kitchen.

“Harry,” she began, swiveling around just enough to see him from the corner of her eye, “I love you. Please be nice to Josie.” He didn’t say anything in response. “Bea, I’m leaving!” she called out. She gave Harry one more meaningful look and then left.

“You know,” Bea said, startling Harry, who was still listening to Melody stomp down the stairs to the door of the building, “if you’re not nice to her, I could always smother you with a pillow while you’re sleeping.”

“Josie? Or Melody?”

Bea propped herself against the doorframe and shrugged. “I meant Melody, but let’s say both.”

***

“Sometimes, I could just—” Melody made a vicious gesture with her hands and then smacked her wrapped knuckles together, hard. “He’s fucking infuriating.”

“Yeah, that’s his default,” agreed Sean.

Melody yelled unintelligibly, because the only other thing she could think to do was hit Sean, and Sean didn’t deserve that. Not without a couple layers of padded protection.

“I sympathize completely,” he said with a quick chuckle. “Let’s see that same anger in the ring, okay?”

She grunted.

“Focus, Melody. Harry’s not here right now, but there’s gonna be a girl ready to slip into your blind spots. Don’t let her. Focus.”

Melody closed her eyes. She pictured Stella Klatt, the boxer she’d be fighting, her thick arms and tough core and quick swings, but her slow balance. Sean slipped Melody’s gloves onto her hands as she planned steps and imagined slipping through Klatt’s defenses. Over the past few months, it had become easier and easier to think her way through an entire match, to predict her opponents’ moves. Sometimes, she even dreamed about a fight.

“Wrap it up fast, take as few hits as possible. Then you can show Harry that you know what you’re doing, okay?”

“I could knock her out with one hit and I don’t think he’d care, Sean.”

“Fine. Then fight to make me proud of you.”

Melody opened her eyes and fought to keep a smile at bay. Sean held her with a level gaze and nodded. “I have a lot of faith in you, Melody. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. And one of the most determined.”

“Tenacious,” she muttered.

“What?”

Melody shrugged and glanced down at her sneakers. “Nothing.”

Sean made an exasperated sound. “Listen. If Harry doesn’t see how much time and energy you’ve put into boxing, then he’s blind. He doesn’t wanna see it. You never said you were gonna do this for the rest of your life. It doesn’t meant to you what it does to him, but you still have a passion for it, and he needs to accept that.”

He didn’t wait for a reply before striding across the room and opening the door out into the hall, the one which led to the arena and the boxing ring, where Melody could already hear the buzz of spectators.

“In the meantime,” Sean continued, “don’t lose sleep over how he feels about it. Just keep doing what you’re doing, because it’s gotten you this far. Sound fair?”

“Do you hate it?”

“No. And it wouldn’ matter anyway, would it? Doesn’ matter.”

It really didn’t make sense to her, this total apathy Harry seemed to have toward her fighting. How could he be so shrewd when it came to her body and the hardness that had replaced her soft spots, when he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around her boxing? Why was he allowed to judge her for one but not the other? She couldn’t understand how he didn’t see the correlation.

Melody took a long breath and knocked her gloves together again. She gave Sean a tight nod as she passed him and stepped out of the room, beginning the short walk up the hall. “Fair,” she agreed.

Chapter 9

[joytraveler]

45. Kwisdo

KWISDO! The giant logo falls down against a desert background with a ton of broken machinery. Promising! Sort of!

When Bea presses start, she finds herself in control of a diminutive but wide muscleman, sort of like Alonzo but with the proportions of Willow! He can run, jump, and the weapon of the day is hammers-- showers of them, thrown in big arcs just like Super Mario Bros.

Kwisdo(?) is also possessed of an amazingly high jump, almost flealike in its movement, and can get different angles from your hammer throws depending on the speed of your movement! And this is very helpful against the many different enemies attacking-- mice, pumpkin snowmen, bouncing clowns, gun-toting soldiers, spinning robot heads, somersaulting Santa Clauses...?

"I love the characters in these, they're so weird" She has to make sure she's standing in the right spot, it takes some getting used to. "There's a certain charm to these games that just make anything at all into enemies.. take that St. Nick, suck a St. Dick! Sorry that one was really buggin' me"

The first boss is... well, no two ways about it, it's the Tin Man. He swings his ax and sends puffs of steam out of his funnel hat! He doesn't say anything, though-- in fact there's no explanation for anything that's happening yet!

"I was sure this was going to be a quiz game or a puzzle game and instead I'm just puzzled" The axe can knock away the hammers if you time it wrong, it's easier to throw them over it after he swings

Stage 2 begins immediately, and it's a jungle stage... but your first enemy is a pride of chomping hamburgers! Then witches soar overhead dropping bombs, and earthworms bounce in coiled up like springs...

HNV: Guys? am I crazy or does this game have no theme whatsoever?

"I dunno, is that even weird for a video game? Maybe these are cultural references we're not getting.” The next boss (or mini-boss) is a giant frying pan with a smiley face made of bacon and eggs. It throws hot grease. Well, that part makes sense.

"Haha, oh from that old saying, 'this is like having breakfast in the jungle!' hahahaeeehehee I think I'm losing it slightly"

Syrupentine: There's way more to see in this one than gobbleup, at least!

Level 3: inside a... A mall?? There's lots of weird stores going by in the background: Sock Face, Hot Horse, Big Wimp, Nose Fat... it's kind of distracting from the pushmi- pullyu lions attacking!

"S'getting just a little weird now" She pauses to read the name of each store out loud, laughing more each time! "Focus, focus, I can't dodge and giggle like a buffoon at the same time!" Halfway through the stage is a food court maze where she has to be careful not to wake the.. the.. they look like things you wouldn't want to wake up.

DueyDecimal: I've figured it out: Kwisdo is a game where you're stuck in the Infinite Improbability Drive.

Third stage boss appears, and it's a... okay, at first it's a small factory puffing smoke rings from its smokestacks, and then it gets frozen in a large ice cube, and raises up on mechanical arms and legs... and starts pole-dancing on a small Eiffel Tower.

Also, it's launching candy canes at you. Boomerang candy canes.

Syrupentine: Maybe this is like Parodius? For platformers??

"There you go. It's almost as weird as a Bonk game!"

THE_BOMBER: man what drugs were they on and were do I get soem

"Game designers just seem pretty weird sometimes, don't even need 'em. But this is really nonsensical even for what it is, usually there's at least one constant, like a recurring enemy"

Finally the factory is defeated, sitting atop the Eiffel Tower and blasting off! And now comes what may be the strangest part of the game-- the very abrupt ending. There is no stage 4, only a black screen that blinks a couple of times, which reads:

[MORE LATER. -RENK] The game quits and returns to the 'teacher' screen. "I' not even upset I'm just sad... That was so weird!! More later, how, Renk? If that is your real name." "I wanted to see how much weirder it was gonna get! This machine, it teases you! I love it"

aroseahorseboy: is renk the japanese name for link DueyDecimal: Yeah, Link made his own game! This is the kind of games they make in Hyrule

"This machine could be some magic power box for all I know... A key across time and space.. Something a really bright kid made in his garage. Send me your theories cause I've got nothin'. but if Renk says there'll be more later, I kind of trust them!"

aroseahorseboy: if I make my own plug and play system I'm calling it the Magic Powerbox

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

Winding Path Ahead || Bea and Kaden

TIMING: Sometime before Nell’s party LOCATION: Kaden’s car en route out of town PARTIES:  @beatrice-blaze and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Bea invites Kaden on a road trip and in the car, things get a little heavier than anticipated for a distracting day out. CONTENT WARNINGS: Ableism (specifically in relation to therapy and mental health), suicidal ideation If you are at all sensitive to these topics, please skip and message for a TLDR;

How long had it been since Bea saw Kaden? The last time they had really been around each other she had cried because of a gun and then he brought her a milkshake. It had been a random invitation, one she didn’t think he would take, but he surprised her and now they were going to be in a car together for at least six hours today. They were far from White Crest when she finally broke the small talk. “I killed the Hunter.” Maybe not the best thing to say when he was driving, but the words had been bubbling her throat for too long now. “I’m making his femur a knife.” 

Kaden was desperate for just about any distraction as of late. Spending that time with a friend? He practically jumped at the chance. Six hours in the car seemed like nothing. Sitting around and thinking about his crap, Regan’s training, Nadia’s situation, a minute thinking about it could feel like an hour. So he’d go help Bea with whatever she needed if it got him out of the house and out of his head. It had been too long since he spent time with her anyway. Surly she’d have plenty to say about the thoughts rolling around his mind recently. If he decided to share them. For now it had been easy conversation sprinkled with moments of peaceful silence, easy company. Until she dropped a bomb out of nowhere. “You what?” he said, startled out of his thoughts. It took him a second to process. The hunter? What hunter? He looked at her, saw the scar on her neck. Right. That hunter. His stomach churned remembering. It was easy to forget sometimes. Other times, the image of her head, severed and floating flashed in front of his eyes. It just happened. “That-- I’m sorry what?” His femur. A knife. His femur into a knife. “You kept his--” The fact that he’d nearly killed Bea unsettled him a lot more just then. That could have been him. In a way. Not that he’d-- He pinched his eyes shut just for a flash, trying to push the thought away, keep his focus on the road ahead. “Right. Good for you.” He didn’t really approve but he couldn’t really argue against the pain she’d faced, the pain Montgomery had caused. Didn’t seem like it was worth a fight or worth his disapproval. And didn’t he plan to take a fang from the werewolf who killed his parents whenever that day came? Who the fuck was he to criticize. “So it’s done, then.” 

That nervous laugh that Bea thought she had kicked flooded out of her. Maybe that was too much of an overshare, but she had barely been social in the last few months and at this point, she couldn’t remember how to do it. “I want to keep a piece of him as a trophy. Like he did to me.” The words tasted stale. She had been saying that for months now but wasn’t the truth of it that she just wanted to have proof it happened. She wanted to hold onto that knife and remember that it was real, that she did it. She wasn’t sure any monster she faced in the future would be so great, but if any came close, she could wield that knife and remember the strength she could produce. She could remember reclaiming herself, she could remember who she had been in the shade of that shed. “It’s done. He’s gone and no one will ever miss him.” It’s done. She knew it, felt it in her chest where it warmed her like her fire once had, but it didn’t always feel real. Just like she didn’t always feel real. She toed at her shoe, felt the rubber tip bounce back at her, wondering if Kaden would care if she kicked them off to tuck her feet under her butt. “Felix left for New York. I don’t know when he’ll be back…” Trailing off, she looked out the window, fingers pressed to the window watching her warmth bring fog to the edges. “So, how are you?”

You could be better than him, is what Kaden wanted to say. Instead he nodded and kept his eyes on the road, let her have her moment, as much as it made him want to squirm a little in his seat. She’d killed a hunter. Kept his bones as a trophy. Her words sounded hollow. Not with the same emptiness that Regan’s had sometimes, not with hopelessness. It was something else he heard there. Doubt? Maybe? It was hard to say for sure when he had to place some of his concentration on driving. He had to remind himself that if she were talking about a wolf, undead, or fae, he would hardly blink. And he’d seen that room. He knew how disgusting Montgomery was. It didn’t make him any less human, any less like him. Bile crept up his throat as he compared his own powers to his. As much as he wanted to deny it, it was there. They shared something. Hell, they’d worked together. He hated that, too. He gripped the wheel a little tighter, letting his knuckles turn white before letting up. He’d done it for Bea. And when all was said and done, the pricolici that they took down was a job well done. It wasn’t a hunt he regretted participating in for a second, company aside. “Good.” He didn’t love what it meant for her. But he did like knowing it was done. It was. It had to be. Maybe this could let her move forward. After everything, she deserved that.

Then his heart sank for her. “He left?” Kaden asked. Dumb question. He didn’t need her to repeat it but it was hard to process. Just left? Just like that? She deserved more than that, too. “I’m sorry. He--” The words hung in the air a while. As did her next question. How was he? Laughter crept up and started to spill out of him before he could even get the answer out. “Shit,” he said eventually through the stupid, depressing laughter. “I feel like shit.” The laughter kept coming. It wasn’t funny. But it was better to laugh than cry. Not to mention he didn’t even know where to start explaining. Or if he even wanted to.

As bloody the job had been, Bea hadn’t regretted it. It wasn’t something she had ever imagined herself doing, but it was deserved. It had softened something in her, her jaw didn’t always hurt from clenching her teeth, her shoulders weren’t constantly tensed. Perhaps it would never fully go away, but she would savor this for now. “His family needed him in New York,” She told him, playing with her hair as she contemplated their empty apartment. Moving back into the house had been odd, it had been a haven for her sisters after her death. It felt wrong originally to tell them she was coming back. She had to remind herself it was her house. “We’re still together, just long distance. We’re open and everything so it’s not like we’re depriving ourselves of anything.” Still, she missed him already. There was too much space in her bed now, but she knew he was only a train ride away. She watched her friend closely as he laughed, it was bad if he was laughing. “What’s been going on?” Sometimes all someone needed was to be listened to. She was sure that Kaden would need something more than that, but it couldn’t hurt to get it off his chest.

“Alright. But I’m still-- It sucks. To be... So I’m sorry.” Kaden’s thumbs brushed against the steering wheel as the silence settled in again, the echoes of his stupid laughter died down again. God, he wasn’t sure if he could explain all of this while driving. He had to hold himself together. He couldn’t fall apart. He couldn’t afford to. Not that he could afford to before. “I don’t even know where to start, Bea,” he said, voice small. “I-- Alain lost a leg. To a bugbear. And it was my fault. And I nearly got Abel killed. Fucking would have if I didn’t--” Once he began, the words kept falling out of his mouth. He couldn’t stop them, there was no control left, no holding back the floodgates now. “And Regan, she’s--” Fuck, where did he even begin there. “She’s doing intensive banshee training. Torture. She’s torturing herself trying to cut out her emo-- She quit her fucking job. Her. Regan. Quit her fucking job. Regan. The woman who-- I’ve seen her twice in the past month and a half. Just twice. And--” His chest grew tighter, clutching his words in its grips. “She’s not-- I think I’m losing her. Fuck, she’s losing hers--” The road ahead of him started to blur and he held tighter onto the wheel, willing the tears away, pushing his own emotions away. “Sorry. I-- I can’t. I--” He swallowed back the tightness with a deep inhale, centered himself. Focused on the lines on the road in front of him. “Guess it’s clear why I wanted the distraction now, huh? Not that I don’t enjoy your company.” The smile he offered her was half hearted but it was the best he could manage.  

The silence that stretched between them after Kaden finished was going to suffocate Bea. That was a lot and she didn’t know how to lightly tell him that he was taking on way too many people’s trauma. He needed to take a vacation and leave this town and all its craziness behind for a minute. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked him how he was when he was driving, this seemed unsafe. She tapped on her knee, struggling to find what he needed to hear. She decided to not tell him something that would make him feel better. “I think you need to see a therapist, Kaden,” She grimaced as she realized how harsh it sounded once it was out. “You’re holding all of that in and I don’t think just talking about it with a friend will help. You need real coping mechanisms that are cleared by a doctor.” God, she didn’t even really trust doctors, but he needed a professional and she certainly wasn’t one. She pressed her lips, “And before you say you can’t because you can’t explain the whole supernatural thing, just make something up that’s human enough to work. We’re in a weird town, they’re heard a lot of shit I’m sure.” Flexing and relaxing her fists a few times, she shrugged. “I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear, but I think you should consider it.”

Her words felt like a slap in the face. “You’re right. It’s not,” he told her. Kaden had considered keeping his thoughts to himself earlier and now he wished he had. “I don’t need a fucking therapist,” he spat back, eyes facing straight ahead at the road in front of them. Sure, he felt like he could fall apart at any moment but he wasn’t broken, some crazy person who needed help. Even if he did “need” to see a therapist, which he was fucking sure wasn’t true, he wasn’t going to go see one. “No shrink is going to tell me what to do or how to fucking cope.” Like they could even begin to understand. All his issues were with the supernatural, all because it fucking existed. And he was supposed to talk to someone but not about that? Bullshit. “Make up something human? Like fucking what? I’m pretty sure I’m not getting around the fact my girlfriend is torturing herself and that I’m sitting the fuck back and letting it happen. And that’s the easy one to explain. What the fuck would be the point if I have to censor myself? How is that going to help?” Silence hung in the air once more and his grip on the wheel tightened again. “I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I could risk my job or worse by seeming fucking mentally unfit, Bea. I’m not losing that, too.” And just like that the list of people he could open up to shrunk down once more. He’d have to hold everything a little closer to his chest, pull it all in tighter that’s all. Not like he wasn’t used to it. He did that for years. It was stupid to think things might have changed. “Sorry. I’ll just, I’ll keep my shit to myself from now on. What else did you want to talk about?”

This certainly wasn’t the first time Kaden had yelled at her or reacted negatively to something Bea had said, but it stung no less. Her lips pressed together and for a moment she wanted to snap back at him, wanted to make him hurt like he had just hurt her. She shook her head, looking ahead of them, breathing slowly through her nose as she focused on the horizon. “Quite frankly, if you don’t want to go that’s fine, but you don’t have to get angry at me for trying to help you. I’m trying to be a good friend and you are not reacting like a good one right now. Does yelling at me make you feel better?” She didn’t say it maliciously, but she certainly didn’t want him to think she was going to tolerate the behavior anymore. She huffed out of her nose, “That’s unfair and you know it.” She turned to look at him, “Why do you like talking to me about this? I'm really asking, that’s not a trick question.” Maybe she could make him see that he could talk to people about this who were qualified to help. She couldn’t give him advice right now, not when she was finding her own footing with coping. “Also, I’m pretty sure unless your therapist is hired by the department they can’t say anything.”

“I’m not yelling at you,” Kaden retorted, his voice still sharp, though not raised. “But fine, maybe I’m a shitty friend then. You asked me what was going on and I told you.” And then she called him crazy. He knew it was a lot. It was why he tried not to let on half the time. And here he was, kicking himself for letting any of it slip out. “So there it fucking is. That’s what’s going on.” Some of it at least. There was more he hadn’t even said. Lucky her. Not shocked that she couldn’t handle it. “I don’t like talking about any of it with anyone.” Not like he really got the option to either way. He ground his teeth back and forth against one another. He had a feeling he was a fucking burden to deal with, someone that people just put up with and dealt with, but it didn’t make the confirmation sting any less. “Well great. Doesn’t matter because I don’t have a therapist and I’m not getting one,” he reiterated. Maybe it was sheer stubbornness at this point but he fucking hated the implications either way. That he was damaged or crazy or some shit like that. He was fine. He could handle this. And he planned to continue doing so, even if that was by him-fucking-self. 

He was talking like her mom. Bea knew that sharp tone from the way her mother reacted when things didn’t go her way. For a moment she felt small, chastised, but she was not going to shrink back like she once would have. She wasn’t that girl anymore and her mother’s tone, Kaden’s tone wasn’t going to make her back down. Could she be friends with him right now? When she needed to heal so badly herself? He wasn’t a bad person, or even a bad friend most of the time, but she wasn’t sure they were healthy for one another anymore. Maybe one day they could be again, but this wasn’t healthy, this wasn’t fair to either one of them. All they seemed to do was break down in front of each other. When was the last time they had enjoyed each other’s presence, not because they needed emotional support but just to hang out? She couldn’t remember and she knew she was part of that problem. “I don’t appreciate the cussing, Kaden,” She told him, firmly. “You can say you aren’t angry, but you certainly aren’t happy with me and your tone is hurtful. I standby what I said, even though you seem to think the idea is so offensive.” She pulled out her phone, ready to use it to shut down the conversation, “I won’t bring it up again.” She set off to text Felix and ignore Kaden.

“Well of course not, you just called me crazy.” Kaden’s words left his mouth before he had a chance to think about them. But he wasn’t wrong, was he? That’s who got sent to therapy. People who talked about werewolves and vampires openly, who got caught and couldn’t write it off or explain what they saw. That’s what his parents always warned him about. She had to know that, right? Was White Crest really that different from everywhere else? He stole a glance over at her and noticed she was just on her phone, not engaging. Great. So he fucked something else up, too. Add it to the list. “I can just turn around if you want,” he said, his voice much smaller now. He kept his jaw clenched tight after, to hold any stupid emotions back that were threatening to escape. He just wanted a distraction, a decently normal day with his friend. Fuck, was she even his friend? He swallowed back the lump growing in his throat. Didn’t matter. He came to this town alone. He should have known that he was going to leave it like that, too.  “And since when do you hate cursing again?”

Bea’s mouth dried, the anger she had held slipped away, replaced with the never ending, bone numbing exhaustion that she had thought she had left behind. This happened often when she tried to help people, didn’t it? Her words were taken the wrong way and she ruined relationships. It had happened with her sisters. “I didn’t say you were crazy,” She whispered back. Her fingers were cold and she nearly shivered, she was still not used to being cold. She didn’t think she ever would be. Looking out the window, she wondered if the mood of this trip would be so great to affect the weather. It certainly felt strong enough to conjure a storm. “I’m so scared for you, Kaden.” The words slipped from her, brittle and unrefined. “You’re like Nell, where you take all of this trauma from other people and you store it in your chest. And you never, never talk about it until it’s like it’s cracking your ribs apart and forcing itself out.” Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. “One day, I feel like it’ll be too much for you and when it comes to fighting whatever is after you, you’ll be too tired to. You’ll close your eyes and tell yourself that this is better, this is easier. And it will feel easier, because life is so much harder than death.” She stared at the ceiling of the car, remembering the numbness she felt when she came back. She knew she hoped that no one would ever feel that way. “And I am still too broken to help you. I can’t help you pick up your pieces, not when I’m still so shattered that I’m cutting myself on the ragged edges of who I was. I know what it feels like to drown in the problems surrounding you. I know that every decision you face right now feels like it could ruin everything around you. And I don’t want you to feel the way I feel, Kaden. I want you to get help. I want some smarter and stronger than me to be able to help you. That’s why I said you should go to therapy. Not because you’re crazy, but because I think you can still heal from this.”

Kaden braced himself for more anger or indifference. He was ready for either. He wasn’t sure if he deserved either but some part of him knew it was warranted either way. What he got from her instead was… different. He didn’t know if it was worse, better, he couldn’t decide because it caught him off guard. Her voice was soft, but he heard every syllable. And he listened, rapt attention, finding it harder and harder to stay focused on the road. The words took a while to settle in, to mean something. She was scared for him. Scared that he’d… He couldn’t quite like that process, too afraid to acknowledge what she really meant in his own mind, like it might give the thoughts some traction to hold onto. His family always implied therapy was dangerous, something to avoid, something that would destroy you. It was hard to think of it as anything else. But he couldn’t deny what she was saying, the sentiment behind her words. Agree or disagree on what therapy was or what it meant, she cared. And wanted to help him. And he wasn’t quite sure how much of what she said was about him and not her. The road felt never ending ahead of him, like it could swallow him whole. He couldn’t think and drive right now, not about this. He felt like he’d sink. Or drive them off the road. He put on the turn signal and pulled over onto the shoulder. For a while he sat in silence, staring ahead as cars rushed past them, shaking the car as they did. “Okay,” he finally said after a long while. “I don’t know if-- I’m not sure if I want to go to-- I...” He could hardly get out the words. He felt broken. Not just for him, for her, too. “I’m sorry that I-- I’m sorry.” He finally turned to meet her eyes. “I didn’t mean to drop all of this and I don’t need you to solve anything I just…” He ground his teeth against themselves, forcing his lip to keep from quavering at all. “I’ll consider it. But only if--” He paused, almost afraid to suggest it. “Only if, uh, if you do, too.” Please. His eyes practically begged her to consider it, too. If she felt the same and she thought he needed this, why the hell should he be the only one going? And he couldn’t lose her. Not again. 

As he pulled off to the side, Bea felt the walls of the car get smaller and smaller. These conversations had only been something she had started to have in the past year. Mental health and her mother didn’t mix well, not when Nisa thought that everything could be cure with some magic and determination. She picked at the hem of her shirt sleeve, there was a few pieces of lint that could keep her hands busy. She didn’t want to go to therapy, she had tried it a few times and it had made her uncomfortable. Pouring her problems on to a stranger made her antsy and she had hated the way she was looked at, with practiced empathy and understanding. Still, she nodded. If it could get Kaden into therapy, she’d do it. She didn’t have to dive too deeply into these therapy sessions, she could just talk about surface-level issues. “I’m open to going again,” She said softly. “It’s important to go, I think.” And she thought it was, at least for Kaden, but she had tried it. She would do it again, for him and maybe to ease some anxiety her sisters had, but she wasn’t sure it would work for her. Not when therapists always looked at her like they understood everything when they couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened to her. She knew that Kaden might think the same, but she didn’t dare tell him why she had stopped, not when it could influence how he felt about it all in the end. “Hopefully, it helps.”

Every time he asked something from someone, Kaden was reminded why he had kept his life so closed up in the past, why he didn’t open the door to these sorts of moments. That uncertain feeling where rejection was just a breath away was something he fucking hated. Choosing to be alone and discarded hurt a hell of a lot less than even the possibility of someone else choosing it for him. Half of him was damn near convinced she’d still ask him to turn the car around and head home. “Again?” he asked quietly. Oh. So she had… Huh. It never occurred to him that she had-- He bit the inside of his mouth. Great. No wonder she was treating him like a fucking asshole. He was. Fucking great. “Okay. Hopefully it helps,” he repeated. He took a deep inhale in before he even thought about starting up the car again. “Ready for that nice, easy, distracting day we had planned to start now?”

“I went for a bit at the beginning of the year. I was trying to figure out how to deal with being controlling with my sisters,” Bea admitted. Not that it had helped with that, other things forced her to stop being controlling. Her dying was probably the reason that she had a good relationship with the girls again. She smiled a bit, “Yeah, today starts now. This all was yesterday. We should get coffee to start the day off.” 

[elizabeatrice]

Feeling Blue, Seeing Red (Chapter 69)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #5

Updated: 19/8/2020 (more thoughts)

Bea is back with the lame punny titles~

Warning: !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 69 !!! Duh.

Soooo I opened the raws this morning. Saw the spicy and went 'ohh shoot'. Then some of y'all say that some folks are hating Akane bc of this chap. I proceeded to panic, because fandom war is scary af. So I translated the chap for myself. And I just gotta say:

Aoi, Nene, your boyfriends are idiots. Y'all gonna be punching and headbutting the idiocy out of them for the rest of your lives and I'll be willing to pay for your karate classes.

The teen drama made me laugh so hard ahahahaha I guess this is what you get for hoping sensei will drop a bomb this month lmaoooo.

P.S. Teru you little shit

Man I don’t even know where to begin. This chapter is oozing doraaaaama and I can’t take it seriously no matter how much I try. I remember thinking, “Shoot, this is the ‘I hate you, I hate you too, proceed to make out’ trope in JSHK’s classic ‘oooh serious moment, eh? PSYCHE!’ style,” before bursting into laughter.

I swear I’m not making fun of it.

Because it’s already fun to begin with. Ahahahaha.

I do however, take seriously the long-awaited insight into Aoi’s mind. I hollered in joy, y’all. ‘Cause like ... finally!

(Also like ... ngl the development of Aoi and akaoi in this arc might come into play in my Shrek AU. Pls don’t ask. Yet. That’s not the official AU name I swear I just wanna confuse my readers ahahaha)

Back when chapter 64 came out I wrote something that was supposed to be the first of the Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga series but I ended up not posting it because I wasn’t sure about a bunch of things. Here’s an excerpt from that post, titled ‘Aoi and Her Blues’:

I mean, what did the minions do to her? ‘Remove unnecessary things’. Someone said they removed her inhibitions (I’m terribly sorry I forgot who said this because it’s been so long so I can’t put the link here, but if you know, feel free to send me the link).

But she has to be brainwashed, right?

She remembered enough about Nene. Enough to call her out on her feelings (that she still denies btw lol) and recognize Hanako from Nene’s wonderful description (or because Aoi could see him all this time and never said anything, who knows?).

Most importantly, she remembered Akane.

So apparently they weren’t unnecessary enough to be erased from her memory. Which I’d beg to differ if I were going to make this girl willingly sacrifice herself.

Would she let her best friend fall down into a pit full of giant insects, or let her childhood friend get impaled? I mean this is the same girl that cried when Akane and Yamabuki got together (by accident) and when Nene started talking to herself like a madwoman.

So yeah. Definitely brainwashed. Pretty sure now.

The one thing that bugged me is what she said though.

“I’ve always wanted to go somewhere far away.”

“Nothing will stop me from getting my wish.”

Btw these aren’t accurate word for word I’m just drawing from memory.

Is that a wish forced upon her by the brainwashing, or has Aoi been depressed all this time and ... y’know, therefore thought about ‘going far away’? I’m personally leaning more towards the first, but it still got me thinking.

Remember back in The Clock Keeper arc when she said there was something she wanted to tell Nene?

Can some creepy hands showing up in the gardening club’s album photos really warrant that kind of expression? Is it just me who got disappointed when the thing she wanted to tell Nene ended up being just that?

But if she did have such thoughts, why?

Maybe she was lonely? I mean Nene got so busy with supernatural shenanigans. Akane’s busy with student council stuff (and school wonder stuff). Though I don’t doubt for a second that he’d drop everything for Aoi, but Aoi’s not the kind of person to do that. And to be honest, I feel like so far Aoi hasn’t been shown having genuine interaction with anyone aside from Nene and Yamabuki without the other person being completely enamored by her. And even with Yamabuki that was just in that After School chapter.

So I guess my hunch wasn’t that far off. Still though. Still though. Is she or is she not brainwashed? Because as much as Aoi likes-but hates-but actually kinda likes Akane, I still don’t think she’s the type of person to stab her childhood friend until he’s got a hole through his fucking torso.

Throwing Nene into the bug pit I guess makes more sense if Aoi knew all along that the pit won’t lead anywhere too dangerous, and that Hanako wouldn’t leave Nene’s side. Nene’s perfectly safe with him. Sorta. She did get kidnapped and were about to be sacrificed after all. But heeey Hanako still showed up to save her in the end.

Stabbing Akane like that tho? Even if she knows he wouldn’t die in a boundary especially in his school wonder form? It just doesn’t feel like Aoi, man.

Then again she did say no one really knows her, and that anyone who does would end up being disappointed in her.

I’m really happy to know that she does not, in fact, appreciate all the attention given to her. Comedy framing aside, constantly having some random guy approach you to ask you out presumably every day is ... annoying at best. Kid deserves better.

So ya girl got some extreme trust issues. Strangers, even Akane and Nene, I could understand. But her dad tho? Is something going on in the Akane household? Bruh ....

How long has Aoi not been able to trust anyone enough to let them get close to her? Because if she’s been feeling like that about Nene all this time, Imma be super sad bruh. Nene is one of the most genuine kids ever (perhaps only second to Kou).

I understand that Aoi’s disappointed because Nene’s been keeping secrets, but honestly, who would believe you if you come up to them and say, “Hey so I summoned a toilet ghost and now I’m stuck as his assistant. The rumors about supernaturals are like, totally real, and can endanger everyone in this school for real, too. Also I turn into fish when I come in contact with water.”

Sensible best friends would either a) not believe you, or b) try to get you as far away from supernatural shit as possible ‘cause hello? Ya ain’t Miles Morales ya can’t just blast What’s Up Danger when monster of the week shows up.

Even if Aoi does let it continue, wouldn’t she wanna get involved? Would Nene let her get involved when Tsukasa’s still around? Ya girl got cursed, thrown off the top of a boundary, sent to literally nowhere and everywhere, almost got her body stolen by mirror monsters, kidnapped and taken into a fake world, and now trapped in literal Grim Reaper’s realm. Honestly, who would involve their best friend in this sort of shit?

It just makes me sad to think that all this time Akane and Nene have genuinely cared about her but she didn’t think they were. Aoi, my girl Nene literally threaded hell boundaries and high shallow water to save you!!!

Unrequited platonic love hurts just as much as romantic ones, y’all ....

Speaking of romantic love.

Hey, uh, Akane. For claiming to despise Hanako and calling him a slimy pervert, y’all kinda act the same way with your respective girlfriends when things get a bit heated up, huh? Even the teasing part.

Boy, you’re dumb af. You deserve that.

There it is y’all, it’s official. We got punches for akaoi and headbutts for hananene.

You deserve this too. But Teru’s face here is really annoying, I’ll give you that. Teru you little shit.

At least you’re finally gonna be useful. Let’s just see.

Hmm I guess I have to address the thing now.

Ahem. The thing. The pushing (pulling?) Aoi down, grabbing her neck thing.

Yeah I don’t get it either. Whether it was a creative choice taken in consideration to the actual character’s state or to just pander to the trope that seems to be marketable in Japan or both, I don’t really know.

I do however, have to remind you that none of these kids are in their right mind. One is possibly still recovering from the effects of brainwashing and dealing with not only extreme trust issues and insecurities, but also the sight of a gaping hole on her childhood friend and perhaps crush’s torso, not to mention having to deal with this in the middle of nowhere. The other one is the said person with a gaping hole on his torso, who almost lost his life-long crush, and even got stabbed by her in the first place.

They’re lost. They’re tired. They’re emotional. They’re frustrated. They’re two hormonal teens.

I think Akane thought Aoi wouldn’t listen to him unless he makes her. Which is why he went with exposing her by saying he hated her. Which is still a dumb move in my opinion. But Aoi rightfully got back at him. And honestly I didn’t think he really hurt her. I mean, it’s Akane after all. *shrugs*

The way I see it, the entire thing was a result from not only their current condition but also the uh ... not telling each other how they really feel all this time. Aoi with her issues, Akane with his secrets. They’re a ticking bomb. It’s horrible that they ended up hurting each other because of this (physically and emotionally), but I could see why it went like this. These two are flawed. Most importantly, they’re teenagers. They’re bound to fuck up in this equation.

Heck, I’ve fucked up worse in less endangering situations before.

But heeey once things get cleared between them they fall right back to each other. Sure things aren’t entirely resolved. But they’re gonna be okay. Teru’s there. Should be fine. Probably.

The thing is we as the audience who come into the story with a clear head can easily figure out the best, most sensible way to deal with the characters’ problems. But these problems affect the characters in (physical, physiological, psychological, emotional) ways most of us can’t immediately empathize with, which can make their bad decisions frustrating for us to see. We know it’s wrong. And when these characters have calmed down and healed, they’ll know that it’s wrong, too. If they’re not dicks, that is.

You know how it feels when you’re fighting with someone, and you know the best thing to do is to talk it out, but you just can’t bring yourself to? It makes things worse, right? And you’re frustrated, right? Unfortunately that’s just how humans are.

Even I let my emotions get the best of me when I judged the villagers’ actions back in chapter 68 hahaha (but I still think they’re awful).

It’s just my opinion tho.

And whooo everyone is officially here but Yamabuki (and Sakura and Tsukasa, but they’re bound to show up)! Catch up soon, my citrus child.

Lastly, I have the moral obligation to remind you that if akaoi’s confrontation ended up like this, imagine how hananene’s would be.

I’ll leave you to your deductions.

As always, feel free to discuss. Just ... don’t fight, onegaishimasu.