#ash drools over another fictional boy

[feeblescholarmyass]

watching vnc and my boyfriend is getting a live reaction for free anyways Noé is my husband now he doesn't have a choice

get you a man who goes from this

to this

[dreamescapeswriting]

SlamDunk ~ MYG [Request]

↬↬↬Word Count: 1.3K

↬↬↬Genre: Fluffy, crack? SMALL angst

↬↬↬Pairing: Min Yoongi X Gender Neural Reader

↬↬↬A/N: Confession I haven’t watched slamdunk! I watched a couple of clips so I hope this is okay for you again when writing the basketball part for Yoongi I struggled as I only really watch football (soccer) and the only sport I ever played was field hockey and I was kicked from the team for smashing someone in the shin (I stand by the fact that she deserved it) , I’m sorry it’s so short!!!

You were on the edge of your seat watching Slamdunk, you'd only put it on to pass some time while you waited for Yoongi to come home from the studio but you'd really gotten into the anime. You yelled out in cheer as Rukawa took the ball and began dribbling down the court, all of his teammates screaming about how much they needed him to win this for him,

"Go Rukawa!" Yoongi frowned hearing you shout out an anime characters name right as he walked through the front door, you had been so engrossed in the episode you hadn't even heard Yoongi walk into the house and stand behind you as he watched the episode with you. The cheerleaders on the screen screamed along with you as Rukawa made the dunk during the match and you clapped your hands together as you continued watching.

"Rukawa-Kun!" You cheered along with them laughing as you watched everyone cheering, Yoongi cleared his throat making you fall onto the floor in front of you out of surprise.

"Yoongi! When did you get home!?" You reached for the remote on the sofa and paused the anime looking at him as you tried to straighten out your clothes, he was doing his best not to laugh at you.

"I just walked in, didn't expect to find you fangirling over Rukawa," He laughed pointing to the TV but you got up and smiled brightly.

"Slamdunk is so good Yoongi! Rukawa is the best! I know he's just a drawing but isn't he cute too?!" You cried out looking around for your phone to show him how you'd designed your new widget background in the style of the anime, Rukawa being the centre of the screen instead of Yoongi for a change. Yoongi knew it was wrong but he felt a pang of jealously rush through his body as he heard you talk about Rukawa as if he was a real person.

"Look!" You yelled excitedly putting your phone in his face, he faked some enthusiasm and sat down beside you on the sofa wanting to watch the rest of the episode with you instead of talking about how amazing the character was.

"He's just so good! The way he made that slamdunk just now and everyone was shocked!" He rolled his eyes as you clicked play and continued to get excited over it.

"So tall and Handsome," You hummed laying your head down on Yoongi's shoulder as you pressed play on the remote.

Yoongi's jealously for Rukawa grew stronger over the night as you continued to rave about him any chance you got, after a while, it began to get on Yoongi's nerves and he went for a shower to try and cool his mind off but it didn't work. He just sat there trying to think of ways he could impress you with his skills instead which was how he'd come up with this idea. He'd invited the boys to the local basketball court and told them to bring along an extra player so they invited Jin's brother who had been in town for the weekend.

"I thought we were going for food," You mumbled as Yoongi sat you on a row of seats in the basketball court,

"We will babe but I forgot we had a game planned, you loved slamdunk so just imagine it's another episode." He chuckled leaving a small kiss on your lips but you rolled your eyes watching him rush over to the boys and begin to talk about game strategies.

"YOONGI GO! GO! GO!" You screamed jumping up from the seat as he took the ball down the court, sneaking in and out of Jin and his brother before reaching the neat and lining up the shot, he threw it landing it in the net and making you cheer loudly, clapping your hands together for him.

"THAT'S MY BOYFRIEND!" You screamed out making him blush and look down as he walked over to Jimin who was also on his team,

"You ever going to tell them we faked this and they're letting us win?" He chuckled faking a smile in your direction but Yoongi laughed loudly and pulled Jimin close to him by the scruff of his shirt,

"No, and if you ever tell Y/n we faked this I will break your fingers." Everyone was having a two-minute break while you spoke to Namjoon about everything happening around you, you didn't understand all of the rules but you'd picked up enough to know who was winning.

"Why are you doing this anyway? You're trying to impress Y/n when you live together and are happy?" Jungkook questioned as he panted heavily, he'd been running up and down the court to work out a little since this was taking away his gym time.

"I caught them watching slam dunk and Y/n really like Rukawa so I decided I wanted to show off my skills-"

"Let me get this straight-" Jin panted - truly exhausted from the game they'd been playing.

"We're here because you're jealous of a 2D anime character?!" He said it a little loudly gaining your attention, you frowned looking at Yoongi who was now blushing a crimson colour and begging Jin to shut up as you walked over to them all.

"Who's jealous of who?" You questioned hugging Yoongi from behind not caring about his sweat, you'd been with him for so long you were used to him being covered in sweat from practice and the stage.

"Nothing!" Yoongi said quickly trying to make sure everyone followed along but they were all getting bored of pretending to be bad and Jungkook wanted to go and work out.

"Yoongi-Hyung was jealous of your love for Rukawa and wanted to impress you," Jimin admitted looking you in the eyes, you began laughing loudly before putting your hand over your mouth to stop you but it was too much. The boys all left the court except for you and Yoongi who was looking at the floor sadly as you laughed at him.

"Baby! Please, I can't breathe." You whimpered sitting down on the floor as you tried to catch your breath, the thought of him being jealous of an anime character had tickled you a lot.

"It's not funny-"

"Yoongi! It is! Y-You're jealous of Rukawa?" You wiped your eyes to stop the tears from falling and he folded his arms over his chest looking away from you as you tried to stifle your giggles.

"So what?! The way you were drooling over him...It- It got to me okay?!" You could see that he was really hurt by how much you were laughing at him and you stopped as soon as you realised it was serious, you got up from the floor and walked over to him.

"Yoongi look at me," You begged him turning his face towards you and he looked at you sadly,

"I'm sorry- I just, I thought it was quite funny but I can see it bothers you." He sighed wrapping his arms around you, he knew it was wrong to be jealous over someone who wasn't real but he couldn't help it.

"I just wanted to you show you I was just as good as him-"

"You were better," You lied, he was a fictional character who could do a lot better than Yoongi but he didn't need to hear that right now,

"Can we go and get food now though, I'm starving." You whined and he groaned wrapping his arm around your waist and walking towards the changing room of the courts.

"Fine," He whispered kissing your cheek as you walked,

"Quick question though," You said quickly as you turned to him,

"If I told you I had a crush on Ash from Pokemon, what would you do then?" He rolled his eyes at you dropping his arm from around your waist as he walked into the changing room without you leaving you to laugh in the courts.

Tagline: 

@writingdreamsnottragedies​ @snowy-meowl​ @jooniesdarlingdimples​ @lyoongx​ @fan-ati--c​ @mitzwinchester​ @callingmyangel​ @rjsmochii​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @taestannie​ @innersooya​ 

[calpalirwin]

Girls Talk Boys

Summary: You thought you had enough trouble crushing on your friends when they were guys.

A/N: In collaboration with the fantastic @lost-in-a-fictional-world​

Content: Gender swapping

Word Count: 3.8k

And away, and away we go!

__

I was scrolling through various social media while laying on my couch, waiting for one of the boys to text me back. Suddenly there was a frantic knock on my door. Getting up from my position, I furrowed my brows and bit my bottom lip. Wondering who could possibly be at the door.

I opened up the door to see a pale, platinum blonde haired girl. She had on baggy black clothes. Her green eyes wide with panic. Behind her stood three other girls. One had slightly wavy brown hair and honey colored eyes. The next had curly golden blonde hair and baby blue eyes. And finally a tan girl with very curly black hair and deep brown eyes. None of their clothes fit their bodies.

They all looked very familiar, but I couldn’t quite place them. I thickly swallowed before stuttering, “Can-can I help you?”

They quickly pushed their way, slamming the front door shut behind them. “Can I help you?!” I repeated with more force, the slight panic causing my voice to climb higher. I had so many questions. Who were these girls? Why the hell were they in my house? And why the fuck did they look so god damn familiar?!

“Y/N, you gotta help us!” the one with brown hair told me frantically.

“How the fuck do you know my name?! How did you get here?!”

“IT’S US!” she screeched at me. “Something happened and you gotta help us switch back!”

My own eyes went wide with realization. Oh fuck...

“Ashton?!” I almost screeched back. She simply nodded her head. 

“So that means you’re,” I pointed at the blonde with green eyes.

“Mike,” She finished.

I looked at the remaining two girls, “Luke? Calum?”

They both nodded their heads in response. 

“I need to go sit down,” I mumbled, my balance wavering slightly. The girls reached out to balance me and walked me back to my couch. As I sat there, trying to register what was going on, they all stood in front of me expectantly.

I started to get uncomfortable under their gaze. Fidgeting with my hands, I looked each one over before taking a deep breath. “What do you mean by ‘something happened?’ Curses don’t just happen.”

“Curses just don’t happen!” Ashton mocked in a high-pitched voice that was even more high-pitched now that he was a she.

I fought back a giggle. “Seriously, who did y’all piss off? Luke?”

Three heads swiveled to eye the blue-eyed blonde. “Oi! What makes you think it was me?!” she scoffed in offense.

“Weeeelllll…” Calum said, sucking air through her teeth. “Let’s face it, mate. You’re the one mostly likely to piss someone off.”

“I hate this band…” Luke muttered.

“Does it really matter how? All that matters is that we get switched back. You can do that, can’t you, Y/N?” Mike asked me with pleading eyes.

“What makes you think that I-” I started before stuttering to a stop. No. No, no, no! Oh FUCK! I really needed to be more careful with what I wished for…

I bit back the sigh as I took another look at them, this time really studying their features. I held back another sigh. When I had wondered if my attraction to my friends would disappear if they were girls, I didn’t think the gods would listen let alone manage to make them hotter! It was unfair. I could barely be hot as one gender and here they were absolutely killing both. Is that drool? Am I drooling? STOP IT!

I quickly covered my mouth with the back of my hand, letting out a fake cough as I wiped away some of the drool.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” I admitted to them.

They all let out loud groans, which sounded heavenly. I crossed my ankles, squeezing my thighs together. I silently cursed my period that started the day before for making me hornier than usual. Come on Y/N, snap out of it!

“Is this why you guys… er… girls were ignoring my texts earlier?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Well, it’s kinda hard to think of messaging back when you have to pee and realize that your dick is missing,” Ashton shot back.

I shot my hands up in faux surrender. “I’m just saying it’s not cool to ignore a girl.”

Luke sighed and walked away from us, heading further into the house.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, following after to find her rummaging through my cupboards. Something that Mike usually did.

“Do you have any chocolate?” Luke asked, peering inside the pantry. “I really want something that’s chocolate.”

I was about to point her in the direction of my hidden stash when a scream rang out from the bathroom. “Geez!” I flinched, covering my ears. “What?!”

“I’M PEEING BLOOD!” Calum continued to scream.

“You can pee blood?!” Ashton, Luke, and Mike asked in a mix of curiosity and fear.

“You’re not peeing it, you idiot…” I grumbled, moving from the kitchen to stand outside the bathroom door. “It’s just your period, relax. There are tampons under the sink.”

The door opened a crack for the pair of wild brown eyes to stare back at me. “Like I know how to use those!”

“It’s easy. You just stick it up your…” I whistled as a substitute for the word.

“I’m sorry, I stick it WHERE?!”

“Where the blood is coming from!”

“Stop yelling!” Calum’s voice cracked as tears started to spill down her cheeks.

“Uh, Y/N…” Mike asked from behind me, looking scared.

“What?” I asked, turning to him, exasperated. I had to deal with my own period, my guy friends who I had a crush on turning into girls which somehow made my crush on them worse, Luke stealing my chocolate, and coaching Calum through his first period. What more could go wrong right now?

“My stomach hurts. Like… not in an ‘I ate too much food’ way. In a ‘good gods what fresh hell is this’ kind of way.” As Mike spoke her face turned a shade that damn near matched her eyes. She doubled over in pain. “Oh, gods, I think I’m gonna be sick…”

Make that coaching two people through their firs- aw shit. Luke was eating chocolate. Three. Three grown ass men- women? Fuck if I knew��- getting their first period. Which only meant one thing. Ashton was next.

“You’re going to be okay, Mike,” I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It sounds like you’re on your period too. We’ll get each of you in the bathroom once Calum is done in there.”

Mike’s eyes went wide before yelling at Calum, “Hurry up in there! I don’t want to get blood on my clothes!”

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” she sobbed back.

“What is going on?!” Ashton yelled out over everyone else, coming toward the bathroom. Luke was close behind her.

“You’re all not only girls, but also on your periods,” I quickly explained.

“What do you mean? I feel fine!” the brunette gestured to her body.

“Luke’s craving chocolate, Mike is cramping, Calum is BLEEDING! Your bodies must’ve picked up on my cycle. So with four of us, yours is bound to start.”

“YOU CAN CATCH PERIODS?!” they all cried out.

“Oh for crying out loud! No! Women's cycles just sync up. Considering you’ve never had a period until now, your bodies just decided to go with mine,” I explained sheepishly.

“You did this to me!” Mike cried, still holding on to her stomach.

“I can’t control the fact that you decided to turn into girls while I was on my period!”

“Please stop yelling,” Calum said weakly. I turned to look at her through the crack in the door. Her face was stained with tears.

“I’m sorry, Cal,” I sighed. “Open the door, so I can show all of you how tampons work.”

She nodded her head and let the door swing open. Calum was holding her shirt down in an attempt to cover herself.

I opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out my box of tampons. Pulling one out, I unwrapped it and showed it to them.

“So you’re going to stick this fat end up there and push this stick part into the base of the fat part. That’ll push the actual tampon in, and you’ll pull this plastic back out of you.” I demonstrated to them how it worked. “I’ll leave you to it,” I told them, closing the bathroom door shut behind me.

“How long does this shit last?” one of them asked through the door.

“It depends. But since it seems like you guys are synced to me, it’ll be four days.”

“FOUR DAYS?!” they screeched.

“The cramps go away. You’ll be fine. Just stick the tampons in already and then we can make brownies and order a pizza.”

There was a mad scrambling from the other side of the door, followed by some grunts as they figured out what to do, before a whoop of victory.

The door opened and Ashton and Calum came out, grins of their faces. I peered around them at Luke and Mike who still looked frantic, an alarming number of discarded tampons peeking out of my small trash can. “You owe me a new box of tampons…” I grumbled, snatching the box off the counter and slamming the door shut again against Luke and Mike’s protests.

“Is this how it feels to have a dick in ya?” Calum wondered aloud.

I snickered into my hand. “Fuck me...” It was gonna be a long day. Or a long week if I couldn’t figure out how to change them back.

“Y/N!” Luke’s voice whined from the other side of the door.

“What?” I mimicked her voice.

She opened the door to poke her head out. “I can’t figure it out.”

“What do you mean you can’t figure it out? Ash and Cal got it just fine! You do know where the hole is right?”

Luke face turned pink as Mike’s voice called out, “Of course we do, we’ve had sex!”

“With each other?” I couldn’t help but tease his wording. Calum and Ashton high fived me as they snickered.

“You know what I meant!” Mike whined.

“Y/N, it’s really hard from this angle,” Luke spoke softly.

“What do you want me to do about it?” I threw my hands up. There was only so much I could do for them.

Suddenly the door opened the rest of the way. Mike came out, holding a tampon out towards me. “You do it!”

“I’m not putting it in for you!” I fiercely blushed.

“Please Y/N,” Luke begged. I could tell from the tears welling up in her eyes that she was getting desperate.

“What I meant, was you show us how to do it on yourself,” Mike blushed. “But that would work too.”

My cheeks were on fire. I don’t know how much more I could handle. “I’m not going to show you! Why don’t you just put it in each other?”

They both looked at each other before shaking their heads.

“Come on Y/N, it’s just a vagina!” Ashton quipped.

“You stay out of it,” I pointed at the brunette. 

“Ash has a point…” Calum added, scratching at the back of her neck.

“If it’s just a vagina, you help them then!”

Ashton and Calum balked.

“Oh please, like you guys haven’t seen each other naked before,” I scoffed

“But this is…” Ashton started.

“Different!” Calum finished.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a slow breath. In all the dreams and fantasies I’ve had about seeing the naked bottom half of these idiots, this was not how I imagined it happening. No. I wasn’t going to do it. “Nobody ever showed me how to do it and I figured it out just fine. You can too.”

“D-did it hurt?” Luke asked, blue eyes full of terror as she looked past me and at Ashton and Calum who stared back with confused expressions.

“Oh, for fucks sake!” I groaned. “I’m not exactly clear on all the gender swapping rules, but I’m pretty sure you don’t just become a virgin again. Now suck it up and stick it in!”

“Geez, you sure are grumpy,” Calum told me with an eye roll as Luke and Mike closed the bathroom door again.

“You were in tears not even five minutes ago, so you just zip it, alright?”

Calum’s eyes narrowed before she stalked off towards the kitchen, muttering about starting on the brownies.

“You said this lasts four days?” Ashton asked.

I nodded. “Probably.”

“So… how do you… um…” She cleared her throat as her cheeks turned pink. “Like do I just wait for it to be over? Or is there a trick?”

“Are you really asking me this?”

She chuckled in embarrassment. “I mean… I imagine you’re gonna try to change us back as soon as possible so we stop wasting your tampons and eating you out of chocolate. Which… sort of ruins the plans I had… or at least this one. I didn’t really have any other plans…”

“You know where the clit is, don’t you?” I checked.

She huffed in indignation. “Course I do!”

“There ya go.”

“Seriously?!”

“Seriously,” I nodded. “Honestly, you guys act like sticking your dick in us is the end-all, be-all of sex and it’s really not. Not for us anyway.”

“Are guys really that selfish?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t exactly know but… yeah?”

“You haven’t had sex with a guy before have you?” she asked, slightly amused.

“Course I have,” I lied. How did I tell one of my closest guy friends that all of my sexual experiences were with girls because I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping with a guy that wasn’t one of them? And now that they were girls themselves? Fuck, I was never going to be able to have sex again. Stupid crushes.

“No you haven’t,” she smirked.

“Shut up!” I growled.

“But you like dudes, right?”

“Course I like dudes!”

“Oh! You haven’t slept with a dude because you like some other dude, don’t you?!” Ashton asked, putting the pieces together. “Who do you like?!”

“I’m not telling you!”

Ashton’s hazel eyes lit up with excited cockiness. “Is it me?! It’s me, isn’t it? Aw!”

“Ew, you wish!” I half-lied.

The hazel eyes went wide and she dropped her voice. “Is it one of them?”

“I’m not telling you, Ash.”

“I’m gonna figure it out eventually, so you might as well just tell me now.”

I was saved by having to answer by Luke and Mike bursting out of the bathroom in victory.

“Now that that is done, I think I’m going to go lay down,” Michael panted, grabbing her stomach.

My abdomen suddenly tightened with a sharp pain. “I’m going to join you,” I groaned.

As Mike and I made our way to the couch in the living room, Ashton and Luke made their way to the kitchen to join Calum.

Michael laid down first, curled up in a ball, so I had room too. We laid with our feet towards the arm rests, and our heads on the middle cushion. We stayed silent, breathing through our cramps and wishing them away.

I knew her’s went away first as she started talking. “I didn’t know you were bisexual.”

“You heard that?” I grunted. I was too preoccupied with pain to be embarrassed. Not that I’m embarrassed about being bisexual, but rather the fact that means she heard the conversation between Ashton and I. Which means Luke did too… fuck…

“So which one of us is it?” she asked.

All of you. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t play dumb, Y/N. Ash is on to something. You like one of us,” she pressed.

“I-”

“Stop eating all the batter, Luke!” Ashton cried out from the kitchen.

“I want chocolate!” Luke yelled back.

“I better go check on them,” I got up from the couch. “I don’t want them to ruin my kitchen.”

I left Mike behind as I hurried off, thankful to be out of that conversation. When I got there, I was greeted to the sight of Ashton holding off Luke, as Calum was trying to hurry and pour the batter into a pan.

“Just a little bit more,” Luke pleaded.

“It’s not healthy for you, mate,” Calum said dismissively.

“Hey, Luke, do you want to order the pizza?” I spoke up, trying to distract the tall blonde.

She sighed heavily, and stopped fighting Ashton. “Yeah, I’ll order the damned pizza.”

Luke left the kitchen to go order, Ashton on her tail saying, “I need to make sure her cravings don’t ruin the pizza.”

I sighed heavily watching them leave. Calum put the brownies into the oven. “You know, I’m kinda glad I just got the emotional piece of having periods.”

“What do you mean?” I hummed looking at her.

“Luke has cravings, Mike has cramps, Ashton… I’m not sure what Ash got, but I’m the emotional one.”

“Ash is the horny one,” I wrinkled my nose thinking about how she wanted to mess around.

Calum threw her head back as she laughed. “And you’re-”

“All of the above,” I cut her off.

“You’re horny too? Is that because we’re girls?” she smirked.

“Gods, I’m not having this conversation with you too,” I groaned, leaving the kitchen, back towards the living room.

“What are we watching?” I asked as I laid back down on the couch. 

“Mike found a documentary on curses. Thought it might help,” Luke answered. 

I hummed in response, my eyes watching the television screen intently. I feared I knew my answer to solving this curse the second I became aware of what I had done. But I watched anyway, desperate for an answer that didn’t involve me giving away the only thing I had ever kept secret from my friends. 

At the same time Calum emerged from the kitchen with brownies, the pizza arrived. All of us ate and watched in silence, waiting for the answer to our predicament. 

“Well, oftentimes the way to break the curse is for the people involved to do what they’ve been dreading the most. Usually in relation to the curse itself,” the expert was explaining. 

“Pause! Pause it!” Luke screamed and Mike scrambled to hit pause while we all sat up at attention. 

“Okay, but in order for that to work, we need to know who cursed us,” Calum pointed out. 

“Well obviously it wasn’t any of us otherwise one of us would still be a dude,” Ashton figured.

“Well… one of us is still our gender…” Calum remarked and all four of their heads turned towards me.

I bit my lip.

“Y/N,” they prompted.

“Alright!” I threw up my hands. “I may or may not have cursed you guys…”

“WHAT?!” Calum shouted.

“YOU CURSED US?!” Mike raged.

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!” Luke cried. 

“It was an accident!” I defended myself.

“How the hell do you accidentally curse your four best friends, Y/N?” Ashton asked, voice tight with emotion but controlled. 

“I might have wished you were girls so I didn’t have a crush on you anymore…” I mumbled.

“All of us?” Ashton blinked. “You mean to tell me that the dude you like is all of us?”

I nodded, ducking my head down.

They all shared a collective shy chuckle. Then “Wait… how come were still girls?” Calum wondered. 

“Yeah if she admitted it, then shouldn’t we be back to normal?” Luke questioned. 

“I mean, she didn’t actually say it. She just nodded. Maybe you have to actually say it?” Ashton asked me. 

I sighed. “I like you. All of you. In a more than friend way. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?! I’m in love with you idiots!”

By all accounts, an unexplainable breeze should have blown through the room and they would turn back into boys. Unfortunately, no such breeze happened. “Fuck,“ we grumbled.

“Not that I’m an expert in curses, but don’t all the curses lift when the people kiss?” Mike pondered. “Happens in all the Disney movies. Worth a shot?”

I groaned into my hands. Great. My first kiss with the people I was hopelessly in love with was happening to break a curse I’d unintentionally caused. Today was definitely going down as the worst day of my life. “Fuck!”

“Aw, what? Don’t wanna kiss us now that you cursed us?” Calum teased. 

“I don’t want to kiss you, period.”

“Bullshit,” Ashton snickered.

“Oh, c’mere!” Mike rolled her eyes, grabbing my face and pressing her lips into mine. My eyes closed involuntarily. 

“Me next!” Luke declared before her lips were on mine. 

“My turn!” Calum followed suit. 

“Alright, I guess I’m last,” Ashton said before leaning in. 

My brain played catch up to each of their kisses- soft and sweet with a hint of desperation I prayed wasn’t curse related- while my lips were left tingling. 

When my eyes opened, they were all patting around their bodies, relief on their faces. “Yay, it worked,” I murmured sadly. They were back to being guys and I was back to having a stupid crush on them. Only now it was worse. Because now they knew and while I probably wouldn’t lose them as friends, my relationship with them was never going to be the way it was before I had cursed them. I wondered if I could pass the tears I felt rolling down my cheeks off as a reaction to my period.

They shared a look before they silently started cleaning up the food mess, leaving me alone with my thoughts. 

“Hey, we’re gonna head out. Just take some time to process what the fuck happened. But we’ll call you tomorrow alright?” they told me. 

I nodded mutely, waving my hand in the direction of the door. This is how goodbye started. I supposed the only good thing to come out of this was now I knew which one I actually had feelings for.

I turned on something mind-numbing, allowing my mind to go blank. I wasn’t going to cry. They had said they would call me. They had never not called me when they said they would. I was no longer in love with all four of them. Just one. But then again I supposed I really didn’t need a curse to have figured that one out. 

A knock at my door startled me out of my thoughts. I got up, yanking the door open. “What now?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest.

He smiled sheepishly at me, holding out a grocery bag. “I brought you a new box of tampons and your favorite chocolate,” he continued to smile at me.

My lower lip quivered. “You didn’t have to.”

“Course I did!” His free hand was scratching at the back of his neck nervously. “You erm… you felt it too, yeah? When we um…?”

I nodded, heat rushing to my cheeks.

He chuckled in relief.

“Is that why you’re back?” I questioned shyly.

“Would that be alright?” he replied just as shyly. 

I shook my head yes. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the worst day of my life after all. 

__

Tag List

@goeatsomelife @flameraine​ @cashtonasff5sos​ @here-for-the-uproars​ @cxddlyash​ @1-irwin-94​ @baldcalum​ @sparkling-calm​ @tea4sykes​ @youngblood199456​ @5-seconds-of-obsession​ @gosh-im-short​ @aquarius-hood1996​ @talkfastromance4​ @itjustkindahappenedreally​ @philthepegacorn​ @kikixfandoms​

[theliterateape]

Mystery Spot

The house was a simple, single-level shack rotting quietly a quarter mile outside of town. It wasn’t in the forest. No, the forest was further east. But it was surrounded by an out-of-control growth of trees, shrubs, and stubborn vegetation allowed to thrive wildly in the ninety years that the house and the land around it was abandoned.

Zeke was ten when he and his brother played explorer in that overgrown land. Victor was thirteen. They came to that house with less than an hour left on their curfew. Victor wanted to go inside. Zeke did not.

“You could fall through the floor,” Zeke argued. “The floor’s probably rotten as hell.”

Victor shrugged, unimpressed by his younger brother’s use of foul language. Victor was big for thirteen. Big and unafraid. He went into the house with a gleam of excitement in his eyes. Zeke hovered back, nearly pressed against the trunk of a young elm, ready to hear the inevitable crash of Victor’s hefty body falling through rotting floorboards and landing in the dirt cellar he imagined had to be beneath the house.

But Victor would never emerge from that house. And as the sun set, hours later, much later than Zeke had ever stayed passed curfew, his throat raw from shouting for his brother, Zeke returned to town.

Officer Wilcox discovered the boy crying, treading towards home with brambles stuck to his shoelaces. The man knew the ins and outs of their little town, and he’d never seen Zeke looking so miserable.

“Trouble, son?” he asked as he drove slowly along the boy’s path.

Zeke’s tearful story of is brother entering the house and not coming out again hit the papers the next day. His father, who dutifully went to work, spent that next afternoon following his young son to the house and shouting for Victor. Under Zeke’s watchful and terrified gaze, the father went into the house.

“Victor!” he called. Zeke could hear his father’s voice hitting the empty walls, leaking out of the broken windows.

That was the last anyone saw of Zeke’s father.

Search parties were sent. Over the span of a week, hoards of people went into the house to investigate. All of them returned safely.

The story became a supernatural sensation. Teenagers and conspiracy theorists began to journey to that middle-of-nowhere town just to visit that abandoned shack. The tourists came, took pictures, and the most daring went inside the house. Almost all of them returned again.

Sonya Lane, age sixteen. Landon Foxtrot, age twenty. Cecil Hanson, age forty-one. Emmett Stuart, age eighteen. They were the next four victims of the house. In a five year span, they had gone inside and never came out again.

The most interesting of those four missing tourists was the case of Cecil Hanson, who visited the house with a small squad of UFO spotters. He tied one end of a rope around the base of an elm tree, the same one Zeke had stood beside while his brother disappeared, and the other end around his waist. Cecil then went inside the home, tethered to the tree with barely enough length to walk into the shack and out of sight.

After about a minute, the rope went slack. His UFO spotter friends pulled the rope out of the house, only to find the other end was frayed and singed. In official reports, all stated that the rope smelled of sulfur.

Twice, the county board tried to demolish the house, but both times petitions were signed and protests were held. The town was thriving with the extra business of tourism, and most business owners used that claim to fame to enhance profits. The little once-unknown shack a quarter mile out of town was now a “mystery spot.”

What Unsolved Midwest podcast reporter Emil Short wanted to find out, sixty years after the initial disappearance of young Victor, was why did Zeke sign the petition to keep the house standing both times? Wouldn’t the man who lost both his brother and his father to the house want to get rid of the nightmare? As a form of payback or even just to rid himself of the constant reminder of the worst tragedy to strike his family.

Emil drove one-hundred and fifty miles from Chicago to ask Zeke.

The reporter found the seventy-year-old man in his trailer home, sweating in the summer heat in a stained white tank top and jeans that were weighed down by a heavy leather belt. The old man agreed to answer any and all questions about his experiences as long as Emil agreed to go with him to the house at the end of their interview.

As Emil had been planning to visit the house for a photo op for the podcast’s Facebook page, anyway, he graciously agreed.

Sitting at the thin, tipsy kitchen table with old Zeke across from him, Emil pressed record and began the interview with questions about Zeke’s father, brother, and what life was like growing up in a town like this.

Zeke raised a dark, weathered hand and stopped him.

“I could tell you about growing up in this small town, a boy in an interracial family in the sixties.” His voice was raspy, almost comically high for how tall the man was. “But you aren’t reporting for a historical paper on social economic status for your internet news channel.”

Emil gave a tight smile. Podcast. The concept wasn’t that difficult to understand.

“You came all this way to find out what happened the day my brother disappeared,” Zeke continued. His long fingers reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled box of cigarettes. He slid one out and tapped the filter on the table before putting it into his mouth. He spoke as he lit it. “You want to know if I saw anything. I had to answer those questions as a boy. First to the police, then to any tourist who came armed with my address and their determination to find out was it ghosts? Aliens? A serial killer?”

Zeke chuckled at the memory and pinched the cigarette between his fingers to lower it away from his lips. “A couple of times they even asked if I done it. Can you believe that? I was ten when my father and Victor went missing. A scrawny ten at that.”

Emil’s eyes quickly scanned the walls of the trailer, hoping to catch a glimpse of a family photo. The only decorations Zeke had ever deigned to mount on his wall was a large stuffed big mouth bass, a calendar, and a framed movie poster of Planet of the Apes.

“What happened that day is no mystery. I was honest from day one. Victor walked into that doorway and never walked out. The next day, my father did the same thing. There was no sound, no smell, no sensation that clued me as to what happened to them.”

Emil leaned forward. “But what did the police find? Blood? Hair? Footprints? The report don’t give any real information.”

Zeke’s eyes sparkled for just a moment, then he looked down and flicked his ashes into a plastic bowl. “The footprints in the dirt stopped just three feet into the entryway. One step, two step, three step, gone.”

Emil’s brow furrowed. That’s the first he’d heard of that factoid. Zeke began a coughing fit. He stood, lumbered two steps into the kitchen and removed a glass pitcher of brown liquid from the fridge.

“Tea?”

“Please.” Emil eyed the foggy, dingy cups as Zeke pulled them from the cabinet. One rule of interviews was to always accept food or beverage from the person being interviewed. It was an unspoken way of earning trust. Even if the dishes were dirty and the tea untrustworthy.

Emil accepted his glass and held it as he pondered aloud. “Three steps and then nothing. But was it clearly defined? Could wind or weather have possibly removed the dirt on the floor, making it impossible to see how far Victor and your father traveled? Were all the rooms checked? Closets, cupboards? Is there a lower level to the house?”

Zeke chuckled as he returned to his seat across from Emil. The old man sipped his tea and cleared his throat. Emil paused his slew of questions to test the tea on the tip of his tongue. Sweet tea. Southern style. He took an official drink and was glad he did so.

“Excellent tea.”

Zeke took a final drag from his cigarette and put it out in the makeshift ashtray. “Those who went into the house and made it back out again found nothing but an empty shack with holes in the roof and no glass in the windows. There wasn’t even a hair uncovered. It was like my brother and father vanished in a puff of smoke. But you know what, Mr. Short, there was something that never made it into the papers, the police reports, or any of that business.”

Emil almost began to drool. “There was? What?”

Zeke rose from his seat. “Come with me to that house and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

The drive took less than three minutes. Zeke insisted they drive separately. Emil followed the old man’s truck through the short blocks of town and down the gravel road through the overgrowth. They parked their cars in a patch of grass. A small, worn out wooden sign read Mystery Spot and a white arrow made with dripping paint pointed them in the right direction.

Emil began talking as soon as they exited their vehicles.

“I’ve always wondered,” Emil said. “Why did you never move away? Why did you stay so close to the location of your childhood trauma?”

The corner of Zeke’s mouth twitched up. “All will be revealed, Mr. Short.”

For some inexplicable reason, Emil felt a shiver run down his back. He smiled at himself. Never before had he bought into the mystery-soaked, nonsensical supernatural undertones of the stories his podcast churned out. It brought in listeners, but Emil knew it for what it was- fiction.

The old man led the way through the trees and brush. He moved nimbly for a man in his seventies. Emil stumbled and staggered, his feet accustomed to paved streets and pathways.

At last, the house appeared in an embrace of growing trees. The wooden siding, once white, was gouged and discolored from weather and vandalism.

Again, Emil felt that chill. Zeke lit another smoke, staring into the house. Emil watched the old man’s expression, trying to decipher it. He had expected something dramatic. Sorrow, fear, sick anticipation. Something. But Zeke looked upon that old house the way a farmer surveys his land. With a familiar but reverent warmth.

Emil made a mental note to himself to use that line in the podcast.

“I’ll tell you something no one else knows, Mr. Short,” Zeke said.

Emil frowned. Was the old man’s voice deeper? It was definitely less raspy.

“When Victor didn’t come out of that house, I went inside after him. I went in there, into that dark doorway. I was so scared, I was shivering. I went in there looking for him. And I found something. Can I show you what I found?”

Emil nodded fervently and followed Zeke as he began striding toward the doorway.

“Are we going inside?”

Zeke gave a nod. “It’s easier if I show you.”

Emil wracked his brain. Had he ever heard of any accounts describing Zeke going into the house? Ever? Either before or after he lost his family? Emil was sure that Zeke had never admitted to ever going into the house. And here they were, going into it now. Walking up to the door, into the darkness of the house.

The wood creaked as they stepped inside, swallowed by the dust-filled shadows. They took one step in. Two steps. Three steps. Then stopped.

Zeke’s voice boomed into the empty house. “When I went in after my brother, I met the thing that took him.”

“The thing?”

“It said it would spare me as long as I continued to fee it. As long as I protected it and lured others into this place.” Zeke coughed on a dust cloud. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to get anyone back here. This place isn’t as famous as it once was.”

Emil took a side step away from Zeke. Seventy years was a long time for a brain to live. Age could have brought on trauma-induced dementia.

“I can feel my health slipping away. My energy is draining. After I feed it,” he sighed, dark eyes staring into Emil’s. “After I feed the house, I get this boost. It lasts a few years. I can smoke, drink, eat what I want and I never get sick. Because I’m the bait.”

The floor in front of Emil groaned deeply. He froze.

“And you’re the food.”

As Emil felt the hand on his back, the floor broke open. Orange light and heat filled the shack. The crack in the floor opened wide, like a mouth flanked by jagged teeth of wood.

Zeke pushed Emil into the mouth and the reporter disappeared forever. The old man took a deep breath in, slowly, feeling the air cooling as the mouth closed and the light faded. His healing lungs expanded wide, and he caught his breath for the first time in years. No more emphysema.

No longer hungry, the house settled. More would come, now. Looking for Emil. Looking for answers.

Zeke returned home to wait.