#baffle suspended ceiling lighting

[dekmar-dekor]

https://www.dek-mar.com.tr/en/product/baffle-ceiling

[bafflemetaltavan]

https://www.dek-mar.com.tr/en/product/baffle-ceiling

[bomorenovations]

Ceiling Installation Services: Transforming Your Space with Professional Expertise

Ceilings are often an overlooked aspect of interior design, yet they play a crucial role in the aesthetics, acoustics, and overall functionality of any space. Whether you’re constructing a new home, renovating an office, or simply looking to refresh your living space, professional ceiling installation services are essential to achieving a high-quality finish. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of hiring expert ceiling installers, the types of ceilings available, and what to consider when choosing a ceiling installation service.

Why Hire Professional Ceiling Installation Services?

When it comes to ceiling installation, precision and expertise are key. Here’s why hiring professionals is the best choice:

Expertise and Precision: Professional installers bring a wealth of experience and technical know-how to the table. They understand the complexities involved in ceiling installation, from selecting the right materials to ensuring a level and secure fit. This level of precision is difficult to achieve with DIY efforts.

Quality Workmanship: A poorly installed ceiling can lead to a host of problems, including sagging, cracks, and water damage. Professionals use the correct techniques and tools to ensure a durable and flawless finish, giving you peace of mind and adding value to your property.

Time Efficiency: Ceiling installation can be a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Professionals can complete the job more quickly and efficiently, minimizing disruption to your daily life or business operations.

Safety: Ceiling installation often involves working at heights and handling heavy materials. Professionals are trained to adhere to safety protocols, reducing the risk of accidents and injuries during the installation process.

Customization and Design: Professional ceiling installers can offer customized solutions tailored to your specific needs and preferences. Whether you want to create a unique design, improve acoustics, or install specialized lighting, experts can bring your vision to life.

Types of Ceilings to Consider

When planning your ceiling installation, it’s important to choose the right type of ceiling that aligns with your space and design goals. Here are some popular options:

Drywall Ceilings: One of the most common types of ceilings, drywall (or gypsum board) is versatile, affordable, and easy to finish. It can be painted, textured, or adorned with decorative elements to match any interior style.

Suspended (Drop) Ceilings: Ideal for commercial spaces and basements, suspended ceilings consist of a metal grid that holds tiles in place. They’re great for hiding pipes, ducts, and wiring while providing easy access for maintenance.

Coffered Ceilings: This elegant option features recessed panels that create a grid-like pattern on the ceiling. Coffered ceilings add depth and visual interest to a room, making them a popular choice for formal living areas and dining rooms.

Tray Ceilings: Tray ceilings have a recessed center that creates a layered effect, adding dimension and a sense of height to a room. They’re often used in master bedrooms and dining rooms to create a luxurious feel.

Beam Ceilings: Exposed beams can give a room a rustic, traditional, or industrial look, depending on the material used. Beam ceilings are both structural and decorative, adding character and warmth to a space.

Acoustic Ceilings: Designed to improve sound quality by reducing noise and echo, acoustic ceilings are often used in theaters, offices, and other spaces where sound control is important. They can be installed using various materials, including tiles, panels, and baffles.

Wooden Ceilings: Wood ceilings add warmth, texture, and a natural element to any room. They can be crafted from different types of wood and finished in various styles, from rustic to contemporary.

What to Consider When Choosing Ceiling Installation Services

To ensure a successful ceiling installation, consider the following factors when selecting a service provider:

Experience and Reputation: Look for a company with extensive experience in ceiling installation and a solid reputation. Check online reviews, ask for references, and review their portfolio of completed projects to gauge the quality of their work.

Customization Options: Ensure that the service provider offers a range of customization options to meet your specific design and functional needs. Whether you want a unique ceiling design or need specific materials, the right company should be able to accommodate your preferences.

Licensing and Insurance: Verify that the ceiling installation service is licensed and insured. This protects you from potential liabilities in case of accidents or damages during the installation process.

Material Quality: The quality of materials used in ceiling installation has a significant impact on the durability and appearance of the finished product. Choose a service provider that uses high-quality materials and offers a variety of options to suit your budget and design goals.

Budget and Pricing: Get detailed quotes from multiple service providers to compare pricing. While it’s important to stay within your budget, avoid choosing a company based solely on the lowest price. Consider the overall value, including workmanship, materials, and service quality.

Project Timeline: Discuss the expected timeline for the project and ensure the service provider can complete the work within your desired timeframe. Efficient project management is crucial to avoiding delays and ensuring a smooth installation process.

Enhancing Your Space with Professional Ceiling Installation

A well-installed ceiling can transform the look and feel of any room, enhancing its aesthetic appeal and functionality. Whether you’re looking to create a sleek modern space with a drywall ceiling, add elegance with a coffered design, or improve acoustics in a commercial setting, professional ceiling installation services can bring your vision to life.

In addition to aesthetics, consider how your ceiling can improve the functionality of your space. For example, acoustic ceilings can create a quieter environment, while suspended ceilings can provide easy access to utilities. The right ceiling can also influence the lighting and atmosphere of a room, making it more inviting and comfortable.

Conclusion

Investing in professional ceiling installation services is a smart choice for anyone looking to enhance their home or business space. With expert craftsmanship, quality materials, and a range of design options, a professional installer can help you achieve the perfect ceiling that meets both your aesthetic and functional needs. Whether you’re renovating an existing space or starting from scratch, trust the experts to deliver a ceiling that not only looks great but also stands the test of time.

[acoustics072]

Ceiling Baffles and Acoustic Ceiling Panels: Elevating Sound Management in Modern Spaces

In the evolving landscape of architecture and design, the demand for effective sound management solutions has taken center stage. Among the key players in this arena are ceiling baffles and acoustic ceiling panels, two innovative elements that have redefined how we approach noise control in various environments. In this exploration, we will delve into the functionalities, benefits, and applications of ceiling baffles and acoustic ceiling panels, shedding light on their role in creating acoustically optimized spaces.

 Ceiling Baffles: Aesthetic and Functional Noise Control

Ceiling baffles are suspended acoustic elements designed to absorb sound and reduce reverberation in large, open spaces. These baffles, typically hung vertically from the ceiling, serve a dual purpose – they enhance the acoustic environment while contributing to the overall aesthetics of the space.

Key Features of Ceiling Baffles:

1. Sound Absorption: Ceiling baffles are crafted from sound-absorbing materials such as fiberglass or foam, effectively capturing and dampening sound waves.

2. Versatility in Design: Available in various shapes, sizes, and colors, ceiling baffles can be customized to complement the interior design scheme of any space.

3. Ease of Installation: Their suspended design allows for straightforward installation, making them a practical choice for retrofitting existing spaces.

Applications of Ceiling Baffles:

1. Open-Plan Offices: Ceiling baffles are ideal for mitigating noise in open-plan offices, creating defined acoustic zones and enhancing overall workplace comfort.

2. Educational Institutions: Auditoriums, lecture halls, and common areas benefit from ceiling baffles, improving speech intelligibility and reducing ambient noise.

3. Recreational Spaces: Gyms, recreational centers, and communal spaces can utilize ceiling baffles to manage noise, creating more enjoyable environments for users.

 Acoustic Ceiling Panels: Merging Form and Function

Acoustic ceiling panels represent a sophisticated approach to sound control, seamlessly integrating into the architecture of a space while significantly improving its acoustic properties. These panels are installed directly onto the ceiling surface, providing a sleek and unobtrusive solution to noise-related challenges.

Key Features of Acoustic Ceiling Panels:

1. High Sound Absorption: Engineered with advanced materials, acoustic ceiling panels excel in absorbing and diffusing sound, minimizing reverberation.

2. Customizable Designs: From simple, clean lines to intricate patterns, acoustic ceiling panels offer a wide range of design options, allowing for seamless integration with the overall aesthetic.

3. Fire Resistance: Many acoustic ceiling panels come with fire-resistant properties, ensuring safety standards are met in various environments.

Applications of Acoustic Ceiling Panels:

1. Commercial Spaces: Offices, conference rooms, and reception areas benefit from the enhanced acoustic environment created by acoustic ceiling panels, fostering productivity and concentration.

2. Healthcare Facilities: Clinics and hospitals utilize acoustic ceiling panels to maintain a quiet and calming atmosphere, contributing to patient comfort.

3. Hospitality Sector: Hotels and restaurants employ acoustic ceiling panels to create inviting and acoustically pleasant dining and lounge spaces.

 Choosing the Right Solution: Ceiling Baffles vs. Acoustic Ceiling Panels

Selecting between ceiling baffles and acoustic ceiling panels depends on the specific requirements of the space. Ceiling baffles offer a dynamic visual element and are particularly effective in large, open spaces. On the other hand, acoustic ceiling panels provide a seamless integration with the ceiling and are well-suited for areas where a more discreet solution is desired.

 Conclusion: Elevating Environments with Acoustic Excellence

Ceiling baffles and acoustic ceiling panels stand as testaments to the innovation and progress in the field of acoustics. Their ability to marry functionality with aesthetics makes them indispensable in creating modern spaces that prioritize both the visual and auditory experience.

As the demand for optimized sound environments continues to grow, the versatility and efficacy of ceiling baffles and acoustic ceiling panels position them as integral components in the design toolkit. Whether it's a bustling office, an educational institution, or a tranquil healthcare setting, these acoustic solutions contribute to a harmonious blend of form and function, shaping spaces that resonate with excellence.

[tranquilglobal]

Acoustic ceiling Baffles - Tranquil Global

1. Noise Reduction and Sound Control: Acoustic ceiling baffles are primarily employed to reduce noise and control sound within a room. By absorbing and dampening sound waves, they help minimize echoes, reverberations, and overall noise levels. This is especially useful in open-plan offices, educational institutions, and large industrial spaces where excessive noise can be disruptive.

2. Optimal Use of Ceiling Space: Baffles are suspended from the ceiling, allowing for effective sound management without taking up valuable floor space. This is particularly advantageous in environments with limited room for other acoustic treatments, making them suitable for spaces like conference rooms, gymnasiums, and retail areas.

3. Aesthetic Integration: Acoustic ceiling baffles come in various designs, colors, and materials, making them adaptable to the overall interior design of a space. They can be installed in a manner that enhances the visual appeal of a room while simultaneously addressing its acoustic needs. This makes them a versatile solution for applications where both aesthetics and acoustics are important.

4.Thermal and Light Control: In addition to sound management, acoustic ceiling baffles can offer thermal insulation and control over natural light diffusion. This dual functionality can contribute to a more comfortable and energy-efficient environment. Such features are valuable in spaces like classrooms, libraries, and commercial buildings where temperature and lighting are key considerations.

[bollardinterior]

Baffle False Ceiling Manufacturer in Gurugram

The Baffle False Ceiling Manufacturer in Gurugram offers premium quality false ceiling and room dividers to customers in Gurugram. These false ceilings are designed to look real and feel natural. It is designed to have a finish that looks like an actual ceiling and a soft feel that is not like the rough, plastic feeling of other false ceilings. Baffle False Ceiling Manufacturer in Gurugram is a leading name in the field of false ceiling industry. They are known for their highly-sought after quality, as well as their swift deliveries and ease of installation. Baffle False Ceiling Manufacturer in Gurugram has been in the industry for a long time, and has been able to maintain its status in the market due to its high-quality products.

The baffle ceiling in Gurugram is a contemporary design element that helps to increase the height of a ceiling without adding to the overall size of the room. This can be done by either removing a portion of the existing ceiling or by using a series of baffles that are suspended in the space. The smart homes of Gurugram are full of new age gadgets and appliances that have been on the market for a while. They have all the latest features that make life easy and comfortable. A smart home is a dream home for many people and there is no wonder why. There is so much to enjoy in a smart home. The baffle ceiling in Gurugram has a few amazing features that make it stand out from the rest.

The Aluminium Baffle Ceiling in gurugram is a unique product that is available in many different sizes and shapes. The ceiling is made of an aluminium alloy that is light in weight and therefore easy to install. It is also a flexible ceiling, meaning that it can be folded, cut, and bent to create a myriad of shapes. The ceiling is available in multiple colours and can also be coated with a paint. The aluminium baffle ceiling is designed to make your room more beautiful and your life more comfortable. The best part is that this ceiling is available in different colours, so you can select the one that suits your home décor. The main purpose of the aluminium baffle ceiling is to keep your house free from noise and dust. It also improves the insulation of the room, making it cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

If you are looking Fabric Wrapped Acoustic Panels in Gurugram visit here: http://bollard.co.in/

[bruhstories]

Choke Me

Summary: Reiner can’t comprehend why you won’t have sex with him. You help him understand Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader Warnings & Content: language, dom!Reader, sub!Reiner, oral sex (female receiving), whipping, unprotected sex, tied up Reiner Word Count: 1.7 k

A/N: You know what, I'm thriving off of sub!Reiner.

It absolutely baffled Reiner how someone like Annie was such good friends with someone like... you. He didn't mean it in a bad way, it was just too strange that the two of you were so close, yet complete opposites of each other. Annie was a tomboy, silent and calculating, you were dressed in pink from head to toe, loud and outgoing and just so adorable. And you completely ransacked his heart. Reiner was utterly in love with you, and you knew it. So, when he mustered up the courage to ask you out, it did not come as a surprise. In fact, you too crushed on him, and every time you were at their place, your eyes drifted to him, always, all the time. The two of you clicked instantly as a couple, and Reiner could only wonder how on Earth were you single until him, going so far as to asking Annie about your love life and with widened eyes, she hastily dismissed him. See, the thing was that you, despite your bubbly and juvenile personality, were a sick, sadistic dominatrix, and boys were terrified of that. While you usually donned clothing in pastels, flowy dresses and chiffon blouses, half of your closet was filled with garters, suspender belts, corsets, some in the deepest shades of red, others black, materials varying from lace to latex. Whenever you had a guy over and pulled out whips, riding crops or ball gags, they would disappear from the face of the Earth, never evercalling you back. Annie knew this about you but never judged. To each their own, she would say, not exactly caring about your kinks. But she wouldn't know how Reiner would react to that, and while intrigued to find out, she didn't want you two to break up either. Deep down she cared about all of her friends, despite the aloof attitude.

Three months into your relationship, you still politely declined Reiner's offers to have sex. He was incredibly sweet, treating you like a princess, and in return you were supportive and caring, but fearing that he, too, might run away after learning about your kinks, you kept finding excuses to deny him. At one point he even asked you if you have some sort of STD, genuinely concerned but promising to still be with you no matter what. You promised you were clean, but that only made him more curious as to why you wouldn't have him. 'You're not attracted to me?' or 'Am I doing something wrong?' were his usual questions and your heart broke in thousands of pieces each time you refused him. He seemed like the kind of man who dominated in bed, and while you were inclined to switch it out sometimes, you always, always had to have it your way the first time you fucked a guy.

Eventually Reiner couldn't take it anymore. He called you, begged you to explain yourself to him and you ceased to try and keep him away from the carnal pleasure you both desired. You invited him over, offering to cook dinner and disclose what you had managed to hide for so long. He popped at your door with a bouquet of daffodils, matching the honey-yellow apron tied around your waist, his eyes were needy and woeful, still believing it's his fault that you two haven't had sex yet. He kissed you on the lips, starving for more, but you pulled back, opting to discuss things first.

"So," you began, legs crossed under the table and anxiously swirling spaghetti with your fork, "I... shit, I don't even know how to say it."

"Y/N, whatever it is, I promise it won't change what I feel for you." Reiner caressed your cheek so gently that you felt sorry for dragging him into this.

"I think it's best if I show you." You got up, took hold of his hand and guided him into your bedroom. The chamber perfectly reflected your personality, with garlands and fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, doodles and drawings taped to the walls and stuffed toys bundled up on your baby blue bedsheets. "You better sit down for this, babe."

"Jesus, how bad can it be?"

With a sigh, you swung open the closet door, revealing the strangest of sex toys, erotic lingerie and high heeled footwear. Reiner erupted into laughter, throwing himself on your bed and holding his abdomen.

"Why exactly are you laughing?" Your voice was serious, dangerous almost, your body lacking a reaction.

"You're telling me you didn't wanna have sex because, what? You're into BDSM?"

"I don't think you get it, Reiner. I'm not just into it, I like dominating men." You frowned, taken aback by his attitude. He perked his ears up and sat up, suddenly attentive, his gaze locking with yours.

"Do you want to dominate me?" The blond asked, unsure of what it would feel like, but inquisitive to try.

"If you'll let me, yes." You bit your lip, fingers smoothing the apron.

"Fuck it, if it makes you happy, I'll let you do whatever you want to me." Reiner declared, palms on his knees. "Do I need a safe word?"

"Not tonight, I'll go easy on you." You beamed, eyes glistening with so much joy and he almost regretted his decision.

Almost.

Tied up, naked and helpless, Reiner could only watch how you strutted into the bedroom, latex corset around your waist, tits out, riding crop in hand.

"Shit, you look so-" crack.

The thin object met with his cheek and he groaned in pain, confusion written all over his face.

"You speak when I allow it, understood?" And he nodded desperately. "Good boy. Maybe if you behave, I'll reward you."

It was then when Reiner realised how easily his dick hardened when he submitted. It was then when he realised how much he loved you.

You dragged the crop across his body, goosebumps all over his skin, before you propped one foot on the bed, spreading your legs and exposing your wet cunt to him. You could've sworn you saw his pupils dilating when your fingers barely touched the slick slit.

"You want this, Reiner?"

"Yes!" The man almost cried out, licking his lips. Crack. Another hit, this time over his thigh and he whimpered — the sound was music to your ears.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, please!"

"That's better." You hummed, slightly spreading your folds, foot still on the bed. Your middle finger rubbed around your clit, a quiet moan escaping your lips. "Tell me how much you want it!"

Pulling at his restraints, Reiner sighed. Never has he felt so overpowered, but the pleasure he took from it was slowly seeping in his brain, clouding his judgment.

"I need you, Y/N. I need to feel you so bad, please!"

"You gotta earn it first." Voice aggressive yet seductive, you climbed on top of him, feet at the sides of his head. "Lick it good and I'll reward you. Do a bad job and I'll punish you." And before he could utter a word you were straddling his face. His tongue sloppily licked everything it could, in or around your cunt, and you forcefully grabbed the metallic bedframe with one hand, your other one fondling your soft tits. Your moans echoed in the room as you moved your hips for more friction, your breath hitching, his cock twitching. "Atta boy!" You groaned and slid off of him.

"Did I do well?" Reiner asked, hope glistening in his eyes.

"Very well." You snickered and pressed your lips onto his to taste yourself in a sinful kiss.

"Can I get my reward?" The man asked after you pulled away, a mixture of saliva and slickness at the corners of your mouth.

"Oh, I don't know..." You scrunched your nose.

"Please, Y/N! I've been good, I- I need you around my dick, please!" He begged, not even caring how desperate he sounded and that only made you feel like a goddess. You picked up the riding crop and dragged it up and down his shaft, terror in his eyes.

"I wonder how much it would hurt." You mused, head tilted and mischief in your voice.

"No, no, you said it was good! Please don't punish me-"

"Oh, don't be stupid." You rolled your eyes, climbing back on top of him. "I need that dick as much as you do." And with that, your hand helped push his cock in between your folds, painstakingly slowly taking it all in. "Fuck, you're big."

The sound of skin against skin tickled your brain, your hips moving up and down, your cunt clenching around his throbbing member.

"Please..." Reiner groaned.

"Please what?" You threw your head back, the pressure forming in your core making you moan louder.

"Please choke me!" He asked and you almost stopped moving, taken aback by his request.

"I'm beginning to think you like being dominated, love." You grinned, your fingers lightly squeezing his neck.

"God, you're so tight!" The man bucked his hips, the unexpected thrust earning a whimper out of you. "Harder, choke me harder!"

"Fuck, Reiner!" The grip around his neck tightened and your moves became frantic, animalistic. "You like that? You like the way I fuck you?"

"Mhm!" He eagerly nodded, unable to speak.

"Look at you, so small and pathetic." You panted, feeling your climax close and his cock pulsating. "Oh, are you gonna come? Go on, do it, come for me!" You cried out, legs violently quaking as the sticky hot liquid dripped out of your folds, down his shaft. For a moment neither of you moved. You looked at Reiner through strands of Y/H/C that draped over your face, beads of sweat glistening on your forehead. Your hands extended and you untied the ropes around his wrists, falling next to your boyfriend on the mattress, cum leaking out of your cunt.

"Do you still... love me?" You whispered, your voice shy, completely different to the woman you were five seconds ago.

"Babe, of course! And to be fair, it was so hot submitting to you." Reiner pulled you to his chest, fingers brushing your cheek. "Say, think we can switch it up next time?"

"Nope!" You smiled and rested your forehead on his shoulder.

"Eh, at least I tried." The man shrugged. "In all seriousness, though, don't hide things like these from me. If this is what you like then I respect that, Y/N."

Your heart fluttered in your chest. Most boys ran, but Reiner was a man, and he was clearly going to stay.

"Maaaaybe we can switch next time. But only if you behave!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

[ellohcee]

🌈

“Alright buddy boy, let’s get your drunk ass to bed,” Jasper teased, not so sober himself but at least he could walk. Barely, especially while carrying an entire roommate, scrawny as he was, but still. He was on his feet so he got the points this round.

“Thanks Jasp, you’re the best,” David sighed, curled comfortably in Jasper’s arms as he was carried to his room.

“Well you’re the best like most of the time, so I gotta have some moments,” Jasper replied, making David giggle cutely as they reached the ginger’s room. “Okay bucko-” he said, moving towards the bed.

“Wait wait wait, I have to tell you something,” David said, his voice suddenly going serious like it was an urgent matter. Before Jasper could ask or even stop walking, David picked his head up and kissed him full on the lips with absolutely no warning.

Jasper stumbled to a halt, nearly tilting forward and dropping David as he sunk into the kiss with a weak, surprised whine. David’s hand was on his face, warm, soft, making Jasper a little too hot but god it was amazing. He knew he shouldn’t be letting this happen- they were both drunk and David was so drunk, but he couldn’t help but kiss back, earning a pleased sound from David.

They kissed like this, a little sloppy from the alcohol, David suspended in Jasper’s arms, for what felt like a lifetime before David pulled back with a sigh.

Jasper’s head was spinning, and good god he had to set David down before he accidentally dropped the ginger on his ass. He moved the last few feet to David’s bed, setting him down and clearing his throat. “Okay uh- we’ll talk more about that tomorrow,” he said, his voice a little weak but who could blame him when David had just fucking kissed all the goddamn sense right out of him-

“Sure,” David hummed pleasantly, already drifting off without a care as he curled on his side and got comfortable. “Night Jas.”

Jasper watched him for a moment, his heart racing, baffled out of his mind. “Night Davey,” he replied, turning and walking out of room and turning off the light as he went.

Upon arriving at his own room, Jasper flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling in a shell-shocked daze. He was so warm, his heart still thundering, and he tangled fingers into his hair a little desperately. How the hell was he supposed to just sleep peacefully knowing his drunk as balls best friend had kissed him? So fucking casually! And it wasn’t just that, David had said he wanted to tell Jasper something right before. Did that mean David loved him??

God, what if it had been the alcohol? Would David remember this in the morning? What would he say if David didn’t remember? Did he bring it up? He didn’t have a choice, there was no way he would be able to act normal and David would think something was wrong, not that he would feel at all right keeping something like that from his best friend even if he could act normal-

“Fuuucck,” Jasper groaned softly, digging the heels of his palms against his clenched eyes. “Why me,” he whined. Despite how much he’d enjoyed the kiss, this could possibly open such a can of worms, one that he wasn’t strong or ready enough to deal with. “Balls,” he whispered into the dark of his room.

[moonflowerlesbians]

Prompt #69 for Dani and Jamie ☺️

Hello!! Very sorry this one took longer than the rest. I combined two prompts (yours and #36 from @inescapableair) and then the story kind of went off on its own and I ended up with over 2.2k words. I hope this is alright! I reimagined what happened the morning Dani brought Jamie coffee in the greenhouse.

You can also read this prompt-fill and the rest on AO3!

send me prompts pretty please?

~~~

The rising sun casts long shadows through the dusty greenhouse windows. Vines climb to the ceiling, weaving elegantly through support beams and creating a picturesque roof overhead. The sunrise sends dappled rays across the room like star clusters, catching the dust in the air.

“Show me again?”

Jamie wraps her hand around Dani’s slender forearm, enjoying the way the woman’s tendons flex beneath her fingers. She’s behind Dani, curly brown hair tangling with blonde as Jamie peers over her shoulder.

“It’s all in the wrist,” Jamie explains, moving Dani’s hand with her own. Her voice is still sleep-rough and impossibly low. “You’ve got to rotate it just so, and sort of curl your finger. Press against the center, and-- ah, ah, gentle, gentle. That’s it. That’s it.” She sighs, and Dani slouches against her.

They set the plant, now sans-pot, down on the workbench near the still-full mugs of coffee Dani had bought with her. The empty terracotta wobbles when Dani’s elbow bumps it, and she mumbles an apology.

Her cheeks are rosy with the morning chill, and not for the first time, Jamie wonders how someone can appear so soft, so open, in the dawn light. Dani is an enigma, that much Jamie is sure of. She's a mystery wrapped in a fuzzy purple coat with a horrendous faux-fur collar that only Dani can make utterly adorable, and it’s all so horribly cliché that Jamie almost wishes she’s alone with her plants and her thoughts and the time to sort out whatever is whirling about in her mind. Almost.  

Almost, because no one in their right mind would give up a single instant with the woman who could charm the britches off a soldier and lecture an unruly child in the same breath. Every moment with her is electrifying, as terrifying as it is enticing. The fear of the unknown mingles with the glow of possibility.

“Are you apologizin’ to me or the plant?” Jamie asks quizzically.

“Both?” Dani is sheepish. She tucks a flyaway hair back behind her ear. It’s just about the prettiest thing Jamie’s ever seen. God help her.

“Right,” Jamie adjusts her jumpsuit, “well, I appreciate you respectin’ my kids-”

“Your kids?” It’s Dani’s turn to sound skeptical, but when Jamie looks, her eyes hold nothing but fond amusement.

“Aye, you’ve got to look after your kids, and I’ve got to look after mine. I’ve got quite a few more, too, mind you.”

“True, but yours can’t lock you in closets.”

Dani grimaces as she says it, and Jamie flashes back to Hannah’s dismissal on the morning that followed.

“Strange behavior is to be expected.”

Yeah, Jamie had thought, but I had a pretty shite childhood, too, and you don’t see me going ‘round scaring pretty women.

“Nah, but they can still get up to all sorts of mischief if I don’t keep an eye on ‘em.”

“Like what?” Dani challenges.

“They start gettin’ too big for their pots, got no sense of personal space. I tell you, see that mint over there? I planted one seedling, that’s one singular batch, mind you, and how many do I have now?” Jamie gestures broadly. “I don’t know. Little buggers spread faster than the plague.”

Dani pinches a mint leaf and brings it to her mouth. “The plague’s never tasted so good.” The tip of her tongue darts out to capture the herb, and she savors the flavor.

Jamie coughs. “Ah, right, as I was sayin’, I ‘ppreciate you lookin’ out for my kids, but the plants haven’t really got feelings. Just like to pretend they do.”

“Why?”

Christ.

It is six o’clock on a fuckin’ Thursday morning, and Jamie was not prepared to have her morning solitude infringed upon by the wholly enchanting, godawful-coffee-bearing woman who’d rejected her four days prior, nor is Jamie prepared to explain her life’s philosophies in the very greenhouse where she had made a regrettable decision that she’d been analyzing in every waking moment.

How does one explain to the woman who occupies your mind so fully that she should really be paying rent that you anthropomorphize your charges because doing so makes you feel better about being utterly baffled by actual people? That, time and time again, you’ve put love and energy into the pursuit of human connection only to find your effort fruitless?

That, with plants, at least you see the physical indications if you harm them, and you can right your course before they’re damaged beyond repair. Conversely, you can watch plants blossom under the right care. They tell you what they need, what they want. A bit more sunlight, a little less water, rotate the pot, trim the dead stuff. Your effort is rewarded.

Or, maybe, with plants, when you fail them, they can’t tell you so, can’t hate you for what you’ve done. It’s easy enough to toss out a dead plant; much harder to explain to a screamin’ baby why his big sister’s crying, shushing him, clutching her left shoulder, while the constables’ sirens draw closer. That the neighbors called them because they haven’t seen your mother in days. That your big brother is yelling and throwing insults like stones. That maybe if you’d cared more, if you’d been more careful, if you weren’t a whore, a slut, a useless girl, that he’d still have a family. It’s your fault.

Plants can’t say they want you one moment then send you away the next. They can’t lie to you, mislead you, manipulate you. The complexity of the relationship is limited to a simple transaction. You give them exactly what they want, and, in exchange, they grow for you. They give you the satisfaction of feeling as though you’ve succeeded at something for once in your life.

They grow, and you’ve done something right, something good.  

“They keep me company,” Jamie says at last.

Dani grins. “You know, when I’m not with Miles and Flora, if you ever want company that can actually hold a conversation, let me know.”

Jamie tenses, beating back dangerous ideas of stolen kisses and whispered promises with a stick.

“Oi, quit flirting,” she says smugly. It’s a deflection, she knows, a way to pretend she isn’t thouroughly intimidated by the possibility of being known. She turns around and picks up the first thing she sees, a spade, hoping Dani misses the way her whole body vibrates.

Dani backpedals. “Oh, I didn’t mean to-”

“Kidding, Poppins.” Jamie turns back to her after having regained what she’s masquerading as a sense of composure, even as visions of impossible domesticity dance behind her eyes.

“Oh. Um, of course.” Dani fiddles with the cuff of her jacket, a blush spreading from below her collar.

“But, ah, if you… if you wanted to drop by every now and again… I’m sure the plants would love not havin’ to listen to me blather all the time. Probably detrimental to their growth at this point, really. You’d be doin’ them a favor.”

“That so?” Any residual embarrassment is gone from Dani’s voice. She’s bold, confident, now, striding slowly toward Jamie with a playful smirk that Jamie most definitely is not thinking about kissing right off her beautiful face. “I’d be doing the plants a favor?”

Jamie swallows thickly. “Mhm.”

“Because I’d hate to be a bother.”

As if that’s possible.

“What?”

Shit.

Dani has paused, an amused quirk to her lips.

Jamie clears her throat. “You’re never a bother.” Dani opens her mouth to reply. “Bit chatty at times, a little messy.” Dani looks affronted, but Jamie just points at the pile of dirt where they’d been working. “If I’m honest, you’ve got a bit of a knack for making me feel like I’m goin’ crazy, but, no, you’re never a bother.”

When Jamie meets her eyes again, they’re honey-sweet and soft as fleece. They glow in the cool dawn light.

“Why’d you really come all the way down here this morning?” Jamie asks quietly. “Because I’d wager it wasn’t to bring me the world’s worst cup of coffee and get your fingers all dirtied up when you could be warm in bed.”

Dani’s smile drops, and she studies Jamie as if gauging something only she can see.

“I missed you.”

The admission hangs suspended in the stillness, caught between them like dew in a spiderweb. It glistens and shines but bends heavy with the threat of the rising sun, ready to burn away this delicate thing if they hesitate.

“Was only gone a couple days.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” The question is guarded, but not impatient. Patience did not come naturally to Jamie, but she’s learned. Seeds don’t sprout overnight, after all. Roots need time to grow. But, for Dani, Jamie is certain she would spend years watering their leafling if only Dani would give her the sign to begin.

“I,” Dani struggles to get the word out, “I really like you. And I really don’t know how to do this; I just know that I want to,” she rushes. “I really, really want to.” She looks at Jamie with such hope enveloping every inch of her face. “And I’m kind of hoping you want to, too.”

Jamie says nothing, her heart hammering away in her ribcage, afraid that, if she speaks, she’ll crush this fragile blossom with misplaced words. She wants this, she does, but she’s not sure she can take it if Dani changes her mind again.

“I know, I know, I messed up the other night, and I’m so, so sorry, but I want to do this right.” She tugs at one of her buttons. “So, I was wondering if, maybe, you’d like to get a drink.”

A drink. One drink is safe.  One drink on a date with Dani Clayton is less so. Is it worth the risk?

“There’s a pub in Bly, right? We could go, get away from the house, have a drink. Maybe see where that takes us?”

She’s nervous, which tells Jamie she’s sincere, though Jamie wants her to be sincere so badly she suspects she would ignore a matador waving a half-dozen red flags.

“Sounds lovely.”

“Is that a yes?”

Jamie knows she should agree. Say yes, and pull the pink scrunchie from Dani’s ponytail and run her hands through silky blonde hair. Press their lips together the way she’s wanted to since she first got a taste of Dani during the bonfire. She’s scared, petrified, even, but bloody hell, this is the first time in years the reward has even begun to outweigh the risk. Jamie is willing to put aside a lifetime of hard-learned wisdom for a woman. No, not a woman. For Dani.

Dani, who appeared in the kitchen of Bly Manor one day and changed everything. Dani, who had upturned Jamie’s perfectly boring life as a gardener without even trying. And, the thing is, Jamie can’t even find it within herself to be mad.

Bloody hell.

She steps forward, and Dani regards her warily. Her eyes flick lightning-quick to Jamie’s lips, but Jamie catches the movement. She brings her hands to cup Dani’s jaw, her thumbs tracing high cheekbones. She looks for permission, which Dani grants with a miniscule nod. Jamie’s face splits into a wide grin, and she surges forward, pressing their lips together.

Dani tastes like mint and heaven and oh, oh, if Jamie could just have this one thing for the rest of her life, she could die happy.

But first, a drink.

When the need for oxygen at last overpowers their eagerness, they break apart, Dani’s hands coming to join Jamie’s on her face.

“I guess that’s a yes, then?” Dani’s giggle is high and breathless, her nose flushed pink.

“If you have to ask, I must’ve done something wrong.”

“Just making sure.”

They kiss again, and it feels like flying.

“I should, ah, probably get back to work,” Jamie whispers, minutes later.

“Fine,” Dani sighs, “just do what you have to do.” She leans against the worktable, perfectly content to watch Jamie in her element.

Reluctantly, Jamie attempts to straighten up her tools but doesn’t make it more than five paces away.

“Can you stop being so bloody cute so I can concentrate?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Haven’t you got those kids of yours to check on? What were their names? Flora and-”

“Alright, alright-”

“Milton? No, ah, Milson. Martin?”

Dani silences her with another kiss.

“You might have a point, though,” Dani admits, “I should probably get them up for the day.”

“Don’t know what the wee gremlins would do without you.”

“Oh, they’d be fine,” Dani dismisses.

“Mm, but I wouldn’t.”

“Charmer.” Dani’s brow furrows at something over Jamie’s shoulder.  “Flora?”

Jamie turns. Flora, still in last night’s pink pajamas, walks barefoot in the grass. Dani is there in a flash, checking the girl over for injury and talking a million miles a minute. Then Flora is unconscious, and Jamie is helping carry her back to the house and tucking her neatly into bed with a concerned Dani at her side.

She takes her leave of Dani in the hall outside Flora’s room with a peck on the cheek and murmured reassurances. Dani clings to her as she goes, and leaving feels like the hardest thing in the world. Jamie manages, though, and later, back in the greenhouse, alone with her plants and her pruning shears, she allows herself a moment of child-like giddiness that she swears Dani will never hear of.

That’s another reason to prefer plants, Jamie thinks.

Plants can’t spill your secrets to the woman you like.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter sixteen: gimme fever

Zelda sat next to Sam the whole entire time there on the curb outside of the front lobby. Testament had already left for the airport, but neither of them need not see them off. Eric did apologize to Sam however, but nothing could change the fact that she felt as though she had done something wrong. She had pushed him away all for nothing more than who she was. She came on too strong; she thought of that piece of rice paper in her bottom drawer and she wondered if it was even worth it.

She considered taking the next bus back up to the Bronx and throwing that rice paper in the trash, but the bus had already left the stop up the block. There was no way she could do it now.

Zelda had a few tears in her eyes herself, and Sam thought about what she had said about Alex, and his breaking in new shoes for their tour. But as she bowed her head a bit, Sam could tell that the whole deal with him left the both of them baffled. Eric crouched down next to him, and his smooth inky black hair swept down off of his head like a curtain, albeit one that protected them both from the hazy gray morning light.

“I'm still gonna be with the fan club,” Sam promised him, complete with a sniffle. “I can't do that to you guys.”

“I'll talk to him, don't you worry,” Eric vowed as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “He gets kind of worked up about some things—don't worry about it.” The last thing he did for her was put his arms about her: he did the same for Zelda as well.

“You guys have a safe flight,” she told him in a soft voice.

Chuck embraced the both of them as well before he left after him: the soft aroma of incense riddled about his smoothed out brown waves. He peered down at her, such that the light on the ceiling shone down on his head so it resembled to a full crown.

“There's a little art shop somewhere around the block here,” he told her, “can't remember where it is, but I did see it, though.” And yet she had no desire to do anything at that point. She hadn't really known Testament very well, but it felt as though she had been betrayed by a friend. She lay her head against his chest for a few more seconds, and he patted the upper part of her back a little bit before he let her go.

Sam stood there on the sidewalk with her arms folded over her chest as she watched Chuck and Eric climb into the van in unison; the latter showed her a little wave and she returned the favor to him as the tears stayed brimmed upon her eyes. She watched them drive off; even once they had disappeared behind the corner, she stayed there and she brushed away a tear with the back of her finger. She then sighed through her nose and doubled back to the front lobby where Zelda awaited her once again with an embrace.

But Sam bowed her head so no one would look at her. It came on so fast and so suddenly, that she swore she wouldn't look at anyone for the rest of the day. Zelda lingered right next to her, also with her head bowed.

Someone next to her patted a hand upon her shoulder.

She looked to her left and the sight of those long fingers upon her, and Zelda, who had backed off a little bit. She turned her head again and Frank stood right next to her with a soft look on his face. She sniffled again at the very sight of him.

“Things will be okay,” he promised her. She turned closer to him: even though summer was upon them, she knew he was warm enough to hold for the time being. She thought about that puffy sweater he had worn on that cold morning in which they rescued Joey from the snow. A warm late spring morning and yet everything was still cold as if a fresh blanket of snow had fallen around them.

“C'mere, Puff Daddy—” she begged to him with her arms outstretched for him.

“That's a nickname I haven't heard in like a million years,” he noted with a smirk on his face. Frank held her close to his body. Someone else joined them from the side: Sam moved her head and she recognized Charlie's curls upon his head. From the other side, Zelda joined in as well.

“Nice li'l group hug here,” Dan remarked from behind Frank.

“Group hugs and love,” Charlie added as he raised his head for him. “Good way to start off our day off.” Sam lifted her head from Frank's chest and she rubbed her eyes with one hand.

“C'mon, Sam I am—if it's open, we'll take ya all the way out to Coney Island,” Scott offered from behind them.

“That's kinda far, though,” Dan pointed out. “Be hell of a subway ride—take us all day just to get there.”

Sam looked over to Joey, who sat right there at the table on the other side of the room with a cup of coffee in one hand. They were in the City and the drive to upstate was a little too far. But she needed to be in a place where she could be alone, in a place like upstate New York.

“Well, we've gotta do something, though,” Zelda quipped. “Don't really wanna stick around here in the Big Apple with nothing to do, though.”

Joey then turned to her with his eyebrows raised; he took a sip from his coffee and then he stood to his feet and cleared his throat.

“I know what you can do,” he stated, and they all turned into his direction. He ran his fingers through his jet black curls and he gazed on at her with those large brown eyes.

“What's that?” she asked him with another sniffle. Joey picked up the cup once again, and he drank down the rest of the coffee. He ran his fingers through his curls again and then he gestured for them to follow him. Sam watched him walk towards the door right before them: he then turned around and gestured again for them to follow him outside.

“C'mon,” he insisted; his expression never changed from that of concern. Sam glanced back at them and Charlie nodded at her. She sniffled again and then she followed him outside to the sidewalk there. She peered over her shoulder at Zelda, Frank, and Charlie right behind her. Joey walked on towards the driveway when he stopped right at the edge there. He turned again and he gestured once more for Sam to follow him.

“I'm coming, I'm coming,” she promised him as he took out his mirrored sunglasses, despite the veil of marine layer clouds over the sun. He peered up the street to the small piece of traffic, and then he crossed the street first. His black curls waved behind him like a series of streamers there at the back; Sam caught up with him as he moved at a brisk pace to the other side. Meanwhile, Zelda, Frank, and Charlie waited there at the corner for the rest of the traffic to clear out a bit.

“Where are we going?” she asked him over the noise of the street; they reached the other sidewalk and he slowed up for her to catch up with him. “Joey, where are we going?”

“You'll see,” he replied. She thought about the art shop that Chuck had mentioned and she wondered if that was it. She also wondered what exactly was in there.

“We drove past this place yesterday,” he confessed to her. “Surprised you didn't even see it yesterday when we first got here—although I can't really blame ya because it's kinda tucked around the corner here. But I had my eye on it the whole entire time you and Marla were helping out the Cherry Suicides yesterday—Danny and I even went in here yesterday afternoon because I knew it would be right in your wheelhouse. Did not disappoint, either.”

“An art shop, right?” She grinned up at him.

“Not just any ol' art shop.” They reached the next block up and there it stood on the corner in front of them. A large bay window stretched around the corner of the building so they were able to have a look inside of there. Through the glass, Sam spotted a pure white wall in the back, past the rows and rows of silvery metal shelves.

The light turned green and they walked onward to the front doors there. Joey held the door for her and they strode inside there: once they were inside, Sam could see that the wall was not what she believed. She spotted the gears upon the highest corners of the wall: a giant roll of blank pure white canvas suspended against the wall. Indeed, beyond the shelves stood a stretch of floor for anyone to come in and paint whatever they wish.

“So you and Danny actually came in here yesterday?” she asked him as they made their way over to it.

“Yep. We went full on—what's that artist who does the splatter paint? You've taken art history—I think you know who I'm talking about.”

“Jackson Pollock?”

“Jackson Pollock, yeah. It's about eight feet wide so he and I were able to share it and paint all over it.” They halted before the canvas and she gazed up at the roll suspended near the ceiling. Eight feet wide and ten feet high: not very big on its own, but the sheer size of it shrunk her down to the size of a pinprick on a tack.

The front door swung open again, and Sam and Joey took a glimpse back at Zelda, Frank, and Charlie as they entered the room themselves in single file: Sam looked beyond them to Scott and Dan, both of whom crossed the street and strode towards the shop. Sam returned to the blank canvas. Not very large, but it seemed to stretch on forever for her by the way of the roll and also on either side of her. She then turned her head back in Joey's direction: he held his sunglasses close to his chest in both hands for a moment before he tucked them into his shirt collar.

“So what is it that you want me to do?” she asked him as Zelda, Frank, and Charlie congregated behind them.

Joey turned to the table next to them, the one with the jars of used paint brushes, large bottles of paint, and a couple of pencils, one with hard graphite, the other with softer graphite. She looked over her shoulder to Zelda, who frowned at everything that was going on before her, and Sam shrugged at her. Joey took a step over to the table there and with one hand on his black curls to keep it back, he kept his hand over the two pencils there.

“Joey, what can I do?” Sam asked him, and he picked out the hard pencil and he returned for her, and he handed it to her as if it was a weapon. She parted her lips at the sight of it, the sight of the hard graphite tip at the end. She gazed back up to the vast stretch of canvas up on the wall, and then she returned to him. The whole room was silent, except for the noise of the morning traffic outside.

“This,” he said, to which she shook her head.

“No—I don't feel like it,” she confessed as the tears returned to her again.

“It's your greatest passion,” he insisted.

“Joey—it's so big, though.”

He bowed his head a bit, so he hung close to her face: some of his black curls brushed against the sides of her face so they somewhat blocked out the five of them behind them. She flashed back on the memory of sitting next to Lars in that dark room; but she still shook her head. The encounter with Alex earlier still left her rattled to the core; Joey swallowed and then he spoke again.

“It is what gets you up in the morning,” he whispered, to which Sam shook her head once again.

“I can't,” she stubbornly said, and she bowed away from him. “I can't, Joey. I can't—”

“Sam, please,” he called after her. But she brushed past the five of them, back to the front door. The tears began to fall once more, but he caught her before she could open the door again. He turned her around so he could face her straight on; she tried to hide her face from him but he clutched both of her shoulders.

“Sam, please,” he begged her, “listen to me. You need to do it.”

“No,” she wept. “No! No!”

“Sam, do it,” he declared; and she could hear tears in his voice as well. “Do it! Do it!”

She kept on shaking her head at him. Joey set her free hand on her shoulder and he bowed his head so he looked right into her face.

“Sam, listen to me,” he persisted in a gentle voice, “you're all about protecting me from some horrible things. It only makes sense that I do the same for you. I need you to do what you love. I need you to go forth.” He showed her the pencil. “Do it. Please. For me.”

She looked up at him as a tear streamed down her face. Those brown eyes, cold and earthy like the venom he had injected her with before, now soft and riddled with tears himself.

“Please,” he begged her in a single breath. She closed her eyes: he never let go of her, even though she wished for him to do that and let her go out to the street. The tears were almost too much to bear for her, but then she opened her eyes again.

“Please,” he whispered to her. She sighed through her nose and she took the pencil from Joey's hand. He closed his eyes and sighed through his nose; he ducked past her to the group behind her. She gazed up at the white canvas up on the wall. She looked down at the pencil in her hand. There was one thing she could do with the pencil there on the canvas, but the canvas itself seemed so big and daunting before her.

She curled her fingers around the body of the pencil, and she lifted her gaze to a row of paint brushes. Up to that point, she had been a student. The student with two years under her belt, and yet there wasn't much to take from the whole entire time. She came to New York on a whim and a promise, and yet it felt as though she had learned hardly anything from those two years.

There had to be more. There had to be more within her.

She then tucked the pencil behind her ear, and she turned to the paints on the table. The bristles on the brushes were clean, albeit stained from a few colors, namely the Prussian blue, the cadmium red, and the veridian green. But she spotted a jar off to the side for a bit of a washing.

Just the pure paint, and the way in which she felt about everything up to that point.

She had made her friends and so much had happened in the past two years. Two years worth of everything, and it felt as though she had built up some kind of new armor all the while. Armor built up by living alone in the Bronx, and she knew it had toughened up a bit by the loss of Cliff and by being in class all this time. But then again, as she thought about the loss of Cliff, and the fact they were almost a year away from that accident, she wondered if it was even tough anymore.

The encounter with Alex earlier had opened a new notch in that armor, such that it felt as though it need not be in place anymore. Seeing Joey opened yet another notch for her. To see his brown eyes so soft and so watery brought on such a tight feeling inside of her chest. A tight feeling that only caused the hardest and most astute of armors to weaken in its wake. The very venom he injected her with had brought it all down to its most basic level.

Red paint first for a base. Like blood stains on the otherwise pure white canvas before her.

She thought about Joey and Dan in there the day before with the whole splatter method. She dipped the head of the thick brush into the mouth of the bottle and then she threw the paint onto the pure white canvas before her.

Blood on the canvas. Cliff's blood on the pavement, on that road in the heart of darkness, over in Sweden.

She did it again. Even more blood before her.

She reached for the black paint: that time she splattered some from the mouth of the bottle itself and she used the larger of the brushes for a smearing. The bristles split apart a bit at one point and she thought of Alex's hair. That jet black hair with the little sliver of gray over his forehead.

She moved it towards the red. Towards the proverbial blood, as if Alex had hit his head on the pavement alongside Cliff.

More black and red. That time around, she used the big brush and she employed shorter, much more shallow strokes. The brush resembled to a knife. She moved about more quickly and much harder over the canvas: if she could jump that high, she would cover the whole canvas with the violent feeling, the feeling of betrayal and wanting to inflict a knife onto him to teach him a lesson.

“Such emotion,” Charlie whispered out at one point.

Harder. Faster. Just like the Cherry Suicides the night before. Her heart hammered inside of her chest. She moved about as if she was lighter than air. Alex's angered expression burst into her mind right then.

He pushed her and she was pushing back against him. The knife right into that boy's face. What he gets for being so cold and callous, even in the face of Cliff's demise. There was no way she could take it from him. No way. Not ever.

It was all shedding away from her, like the old skin from a snake.

“Looks like a grindcore cover,” Scott remarked as she took one of the smaller brushes. A bit of yellow right smack in the middle of the canvas.

Hair first. Followed by the shape of his handsome face. Then the brim of his hat. That black hat he had given her. Right against the red and black, right against the blood and the pavement. She then painted a piece of rope from the base of his neck and she led the end of it to that first patch of red on the canvas.

Her boyfriend gone and all his band could do was replace him.

They replaced him. They replaced him! They replaced him before they could rise up through the clouds with him! Lars said it himself: he was their brother.

Their brother and yet they still replaced him.

Breathing heavy and with a bit of sweat that ran down her back, Sam finished the little thick rough portrait before her. She then backed off so as to catch her breath and to let her heart calm down from the feeling. She held her arms out on either side of her like a crucifix: the paint brush in one hand and the bottle of yellow paint in the other. She gazed on at the scene of violence before her, something that she had never done before, not even in her wildest dreams. All of the art she had done before then was so calm and serene, but this had no restraint whatsoever.

The walls had come down before her and she could finally shake off the remnants of that broken armor. All those dark thoughts before her on canvas. Those dark thoughts of which she swore she had buried had made their way out before her.

“Is that—” Frank swallowed; Sam looked back at him and the tears in his eyes.

“It is,” she told him in a light whisper. He lingered closer to her and they both looked on at that rough painting of Cliff together. She then felt a hand on her shoulder once again: she turned her head to find Joey right next to her. He hadn't tears in his eyes anymore, but he did have a soft reassuring look upon his face for her.

“C'mon. Let's take this with us and then we'll go back to the hotel for a li'l sump'n else.”

“Like what?” Sam asked him, and he turned to Zelda, who raised her eyebrows at that.

Neither of them answered Sam as the clerk in there helped them cut down that piece of canvas for themselves: once they were sure that the paint was dry, she and Joey rolled it up and then he tucked it underneath his arm before they each pitched in to pay for it. The bunch of them returned up the block to the hotel: Sam was about to take the canvas back upstairs to the Cherry Suicides' room, but Joey gestured for her to follow him.

“I'll take that,” Zelda promised her. “I'll take it and take good care of it—don't you worry 'bout a thing.” She flashed her a wink as Sam handed her the rolled up canvas; Joey led her past the front lobby towards a door on the far side of the room. He held it for her, and she was met with a cozy dark room lit up by a series of candles in red jars. A low bar stood before her and she turned back to Joey, who had a smirk on his face.

“No,” she told him off.

“It's okay—I promise you. Yesterday, Danny and I came in here and we had Shirley Temples.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief as he guided her towards the middle of the bar. He tugged on the stool to his left, and he gestured for her to have a seat next to him.

“Bottle of wine for me and my lady here, please,” he announced to the bartender, to which she gasped at him.

“Joey!”

“What? You’re obviously lookin’ better now—we gotta celebrate. Besides, Frankie told me that wine is healthy and easy to digest. It’s not like we’re drinking beer.”

But she still shook her head at that.

“Please don't,” she begged him.

“It's just a single glass, though,” he pointed out with his eyebrows knitted together in sober seriousness. “I promise you—it’ll just be a single glass. One for you, and one for me.”

“Yeah, but—a single glass turns into a whole bottle of wine.”

“It won't this time,” he promised. “Trust me.”

Sam nibbled on her bottom lip as the bartender handed them two crystal clear wine glasses. There was no way Joey could keep it one glass, especially once that lush red wine poured inside of those two basins, one right after the other.

“Cheers to us,” Joey proclaimed with a raise of his glass; Sam followed suit. A little sip of that red wine was all it took for her to know that it would give him a rush. She turned to the bottle, which the bartender left there on the bar for them. If Joey wanted more, then he would have to fight for it himself.

“Gimme that,” she pleaded under her breath. She swiped the bottle and poured herself more, and then she drank it down in a few large gulps. The alcohol was bitter, but the wine itself tasted rich and full with those dark grapes. As dark as Joey’s eyes.

And yet, when he downed his glass, she hesitated before him. He then reached for the bottle himself. Before, she would have tackled him or at least slapped his hand, but that was all within her mind.

“Eh, why the hell not,” he said.

“Hang on, I thought you promised to only drink one glass of wine,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but—it's so good, though.” He offered to pour her another one, and she took the offer.

“Isn't it?” She downed it right there.

“It is. Very much so.”

She was two drinks in already, but she felt as though he was onto something. A big fat painting on the wall and now they treated themselves to a whole bottle of red wine. On the other hand, she was glad that he had taken a glass of wine rather than a bottle of beer or vodka for that matter. The red wine filled the whole basin of Joey's glass; he set the bottle down between the two of them and then he brought it up to his dark lips once again: the rich blood red color was warming and welcoming, even from the outside looking in.

Warm and welcome, even with the alcohol within there.

Sam's eyelids drooped a bit from the feeling within her. Two big drinks in and she already had a blush upon her face. A bit of fever brought on by the paint, the pain, and now the wine. She held still there with her hand on the glass as Joey poured himself a third glass.

And then she forgot everything after that.

[heli0s-writes]

IV. I’m in the mood for love

Summary: Beyond the sass and the crass lies a tender moment Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes A/N: Maybe I wrote myself into a pickle? Idk but I teared up a little at the end. Also this is the most politics I’ll ever put in my work-- let’s keep it civil and chill if we disagree.

Foot in Mouth Syndrome Masterpost

 It’s a miracle that you had worked up the courage to trot downstairs to return the only covering that separated two bare-ass naked men from your eyes. And not to mention yourself, who was only covered in a towel, too.

You make Steve stand so far around the corner of the doorframe that all he can do is stick out his hand. Bucky rustles the shower curtain impatiently and makes a comment on how “non-hyperverbal” you’re being and you’re too nervous to even respond back. When Buckyeye starts looking at you and the swinging white hem at your shins, you shoo him up the stairs before he gets any other bright ideas.

“Didn’t know you were such a prude.” Bucky comments later as you fiddle around in the kitchen, “But I guess it makes sense-- you still have those stuffed animals on your bed.”

You bristle and glare at him, “Just because you didn’t have a childhood doesn’t mean I can’t.”

It’s a little too mean, and you hear the venom that shoots right into him as soon as it leaves your mouth. “Sorry.” You comment. Damn it. He grew up in the fuckin’ Great Depression where everything was dusty and shit.

“Not all of us can travel the world eating caviar at the ripe age of four.” Bucky snarls. Ugh. Why’d he have to do that?

“Oh, fuck you.” You retort the same time Steve sharply calls Bucky’s name to reel him back in. It doesn’t work, as Steve knows, because when you and Bucky get into it—you get into it.

“You wish, princess. Wait, you’re such a goddamn prude, anyway--”

All Steve can do is cross his fingers and bark, “Buck!”

It’s too late. You’re across the room before Steve can say much else and you’ve launched yourself over one empty couch and straight into Bucky sitting on the other. The force knocks it slightly and it teeters before flopping back with a muffled thud.

Buckeye begins to run around in circles, unsure of the kind of play this particular moment is.

You have no idea what you’re doing, and you doubt you even want to—or can-- hurt him in any way, but you are so finished with his bullshit. You death-grip his hair as you jab both knees into his abdomen. Bucky moves to rip you off, but you clamp your teeth over his wrist and he yelps.

“Fuck you!” You scream, “fuck you so much! I—ow! I fucking apologized, you—Ugh!”

Buckeye, ever the perfect audience member, begins to bark to the rhythm of your screeching and aggressively nudges Bucky’s foot with his snout.

Soldat’s metal hand pushes your face back until its tilted up to the ceiling and further beyond, precariously suspended. The only thing keeping you from cracking your skull on the coffee table is your clinging to his hair. Steve’s concerned expression is upside down and his arms are outstretched, trying to determine the right configuration to pry the two of you apart. “Get that fucking! Aluminum foil finger the fuck away fr---”

“Shut up!” Bucky’s palm smashes against your mouth as his legs wrap around your back until you’re a squished human pretzel inside of him. You’re too crushed even to make any sounds and behind you Steve is sputtering vowels and consonants but not stringing together any real words. Finally, he nearly shrieks,

“Bucky! Jesus! You’re gonna actually kill her!”

Yep. This is how you’re gonna go, you think. The Winter Fucking Soldier has officially had enough of your bullshit, too, and he is going to bear-hug you to death. Who would have thunk it? Your fingers disengage and fall uselessly over his arms.

When time begins to slow and your soul starts to yeet itself from your body, Bucky blessedly lets go. “You’re bluer than I was in cryo.” He sneers.

Steve gasps, scandalized by the comment. For whatever reason, he’s covered Buckeye’s ears, too. You would send him an incredulous look, but you can’t feel your face.

With a pathetic whistle of air, you flop backwards and hang upside down over the couch, thighs gripped tightly by Bucky, heaving deep breaths until your lungs feel like they might burst through your rib cage. No wonder you are not a superhero—fuck the hubris, you are physically not built for this shit.

“I think I’m gonna vomit.” You mutter when Steve’s face begins to spin alongside your dog who slobbers all over your nose. Bucky yanks you up by the front of your shirt and the cough that blasts from your mouth goes right into his face. His smug expression twists into one of disgust and you take the moment to waggle your eyebrows suggestively.

Your sour mood has fled and now that you’re absolutely sure you cannot kick his ass—you return to the one thing you do know you’re capable of:

“Hey, baby. Is that a glock in your pants or are you just really happy to see me?”

To drive your point home, you bounce on his lap with a wide grin, wiggling your butt in exaggerated motions.

“Okay! That’s enough!”

Steve scoops you up and plants you back on the other side of the coffee table. “That’s too smart! Too smart!” He scolds as you pat your bottom and then curtsy. Bucky only huffs and crosses his arms, refusing to meet your gaze. Ha-ha. Winter Soldier, meet your match—Ass Woman. No, that just sounds like a porno.

“Alright, fuckers.” You declare, stepping over to the built-in bookshelf around the flatscreen and retrieving a leather-bound copy of The Wizard of Oz. “Ready for chili?”

They watch you open the front and stick your hand inside the false pages and retrieve a roll of bills. “What?” You ask nonchalantly. “Oh—shut up, Barnes. Like you guys really need me to pay back the vet fees. Technically, my tax dollars pay you.”

Steve shakes his head no. So, you casually toss him the roll of cash and then pull out another one.

“Jesus! Will you put these back?”

“Look,” You say, “For every month I don’t come home my mother puts another wad in this box.” You show them the pile of rolled bills, each encased in varying sizes of rubber bands. “She thinks it’ll ensnare me, but joke’s on her, the more I’m away the more there is to spend. She’s not very smart—a consequence of never having to think for herself.”

“And you’re fine with spending it?” Bucky ponders. The relationship you have with your family grows more confusing the longer they spend in your parents’ house. The memorabilia littered in your childhood bedroom seems to suggest that you aren’t completely detached from your family or your childhood. The way you respond to being home is paradoxical, too—disgusted at the excess one minute, reveling in it the next.

“It’s just fucking money. They make so much of it. I couldn’t bankrupt them if I tried. My father has offshore accounts in the fucking Caymans. I literally could not.”

They both pause before Steve speaks up, “Are you an only child?”

You frown. “No.” Then you aggressively push him by the shoulder and toward the exit, motioning for Bucky to follow. “It’s fucking Skyline time.”

Suddenly, you pause at the door and turn around to put both your hands on your hips. Looking both of them up and down, you shake your head impatiently. Steve is wearing his civilian Captain America outfit again. And Bucky, honestly, Bucky looks like someone cosplaying Bucky.

“Who dressed you?” You demand, exasperated, “You guys like, do spy stuff? It’s baffling to me that you don’t get caught immediately. Steve—khakis?”

Upon being admonished, he scoffs and looks around, “What’s wrong with my khakis?”

“Will you please tell him something?” You ask Bucky, who only rolls his eyes as if to say, you’re fuckin’ telling me. When it’s obvious that Steve’s poor choices are solely the result of him being an old fuck with no fashion sense, you mumble. “At least switch shirts. I’m going to take Buckeye out… please… fix this.”

-

When you come back, the sight of Steve wearing black and Bucky wearing light blue is so discomforting you cover Buckeye’s eyes. “It’s okay, boy.” You whisper loudly. Bucky flips you off but fixes the hem of the shirt he’s sporting. Steve—for whatever inexplicable reason, has decided to tuck… You quickly yank his shirt from his waistband and shake your head. “Christ, why are you like this?”

--

Untucked and uncomfortable in black, Steve looks at the menu as if the letters on it were runes from an ancient past. He doesn’t understand at all what Skyline Chili is or why it is. They’re coneys—this he does understand. But the rest of it—nope. Why would anyone ever need that much cheese? Bucky mirrors his sentiment by shutting the menu and crossing his arms.

The small bowl of oyster crackers in the middle of the table is being torn apart as you shovel handful after handful into your mouth. There is an inordinate amount of hot sauce sprayed on the top of the crisps, and you wipe your hands haphazardly on a napkin when you’re finished.

“Okay. You feelin’ spag or nah?” You ask, not even looking up. “Spagbol.” You continue, “Spag-y. SPAGHETS!” Then, in a terrible and very offensive Italian rendition, you pinch your fingers together and enunciate, “Its-a-spha-ghetta!”

Bucky slumps down into the booth until you stop. Steve puts his hand over his eyes.

“Why would you put chili on spaghetti noodles?” Bucky hisses.

The waitress arrives right after his question and you reach over to take his hands into your own— still reeking of peppers and vinegar from the hot sauce. “Shh,” You say almost tenderly, “Adults are talking now.”

“I hope you rub your eyes with that hand later.” Bucky snarls.

“I’ll cup your balls with it, instead.” You respond.

The waitress whimpers at the conversation she’s just stumbled into.

--

Six coneys arrive and as well as two plates of spaghetti. You explain to the boys that the Skyline specialty is steamed buns, mustard, special secret spice chili, raw onions, and hella shredded cheese. The noodles come with the same, sans mustard, and if you’re feeling extra frisky— beans. One plate is extra frisky today. Then you unscrew the cap to the hot sauce and shake the shit out of it onto everything.

They are bewildered at the sheer excess of American consumption as you shove almost half a coney into your face. Cheese flops down onto your plate.

“I think I’m gonna vomit.” Steve whimpers.

“Big baby, wimpy, Stevie can’t eat the cheesy?” Between mouthfuls, you’re still a dick. “Just try it! What are you, six?”

He glares at you and then sends a puppy-dog look to Bucky who already is lifting a coney to his face. You take another bite and watch them do the same.

Immediately, Steve coughs. Bucky starts laughing so hard he drops the pile of shredded cheese all over the table. You tuck into the overflowing plate of spaghetti, hot noodles melting the cheddar on top into an amalgam of gooey yellow. “I can’t do it.” Steve groans, “This isn’t right. This isn’t what God wanted.”

“God is dead, bitch.” You reply, “There is only Skyline Chili.”

--

“So what’s your deal?” Bucky asks from the couch.

The three of you have returned back to the house, winding down for the night. It’s eight now, and you’ve driven them around the city just to show them the sights. The gentrified downtown with its bustling crowd of young, white party-people interspersed with streets of dilapidated buildings and homelessness. There’s a bitterness to your voice when you talk about the changing scenery—but a kind of sadness, too. You admit you don’t really know the solution. The business brings in money to the city, but all the people left behind are really getting left behind.

You show them the more relaxed areas, like Over the Rhine and point out its massive brewery. You promise to take them there soon. There’s also the famous Cincinatti Zoo, and King’s Island, where you swear is better than where Steve wanted to go- Coney Island #2. There’s no point in taking him there, you declare when he starts to sputter, because he only wants to go to shit all over it, and because King’s Island is way cooler.

“What do you mean?” You ask back, flipping through the stations with your feet propped up on the coffee table. Steve and Bucky are sitting side-by-side under a blanket. There is a bowl of chips and hummus shared in their laps since Steve refused to eat during dinner and is now very cranky.

“All of this. Excess. Money. And then... you.” he waves to the house, then to you, sprawled out carelessly on a leather couch in mismatched pajamas. Buckeye’s head is faithfully in your lap, big eyes peering up at you, as if he’s waiting for an explanation too.

“You hating on my penguin top and pumpkin bottoms or what?”

“C’mon...” Steve beckons, knowing that your deflection is just another cop-out.

So, you groan, because they’re teaming up on you and after almost three months it’s bound to happen. They’ve told you so much about themselves already. You’ve learned all about the personal lives of the Commandos, the war stories, serums and experimentations, the cryo, the trial after the Triskelion... the blood, and sweat, and all of Steve Rogers’ tears.

“Well... it’s not as exciting as you think it is.” You mutter, tugging on Buckeye’s ear, finding the texture comforting under their persistent gaze. “Just a dumb girl born into an obscene family.”

But you tell them, truthfully and genuinely. Your family has old money- oil, or steel, probably both. As a result, you grew up in the lap of luxury, private schools, language programs, singing classes, dance lessons, horseback riding, trips to Europe and Asia, enormous birthday parties and a line of suitors as soon as you started growing breasts. The worst part, you admit, is that you loved it.

The picture they picked up in your room was from junior prom, and the date was a boyfriend- family friend- you’d been with for about six months, and he already planned on proposing. That was just how it was. Rich people marrying other rich people continuing the line of one-percenters.

Really, you say, your family was maybe the 10 percenter-range. As rich as maybe low A-list movie stars, not quite Jeff Bezos. But you know him, too.

“What changed?” Steve wonders out loud for both him and Bucky.

“Living in New York.” You half-smile at the memory of Union. “After Ohio State, I went to Union for my graduate studies and it blew my shit wide open. But that’s what happens when you start opening yourself up to other realities.”

You tell them about the immense struggle the first year at Union, feeling ostracized and realizing that your life is nothing like most peoples’ lives, and then beginning to frame your understanding of the world in a different way. You tell them you got mugged once and you felt like you probably deserved it.

“Then the election happened.” You sigh, and they both groan at the reminder. “As you know... it’s just been downhill and fucked. We had a big falling out here over Thanksgiving holiday.”

You didn’t come home in almost two years. You took out loans, you worked two jobs, took a full course load and wrote a thesis, and then went on to your Doctoral program. Your parents reached out to you and you eventually came half-way back into the fold.

“And spending their money?”

Most of the money you get you give to the local shelters. “That’s just direct action, baby.” You laugh. “We go at it, all the time. But you know, I figure... If I have to live in this shit world, might as well be a bastard about it.”

That earns a hearty chuckle from both your guests. “Jesus, that explains a lot.” Bucky grins as you nuzzle Buckeye and plant a kiss on his wrinkly face.

It feels so much better now that you’ve aired all the dirty, 1000-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

Steve hops up from the couch and runs downstairs, “Be right back!” He yells. You and Bucky narrow your eyes at the trail he’s padded into the carpet. In the distance, you can hear his rummaging and then thumping footsteps back up into the living room. He’s perfectly in one piece, because he’s Captain Damn America and nearly flying up a flight of stairs ain’t shit.

“I figured this would happen.” He grins, holding up a metal flask. “It’s time to break out the Asgardian mead.”

--

The three of you are drunk on whiskey and space-juice, tumbling around the downstairs living room. You are banging on the piano keys, tapping out a stuttering and off-kilter rendition of The Magic School Bus theme song while they wrestle. Why is it that no matter how old boys get, they still love to wrestle? Around their legs is Buckeye, running around in circles and panting, like a racecar at the Indy—only making left turns, having the time of his life.

“Get a fuckin’ ROOM!” You scream, throwing another shot down.

“You mean your room?” Steve laughs back, head under Bucky’s arm, tapping uselessly on his ribs.

“Captain America, fuckin’ in my room. Carve that on my grave, baby.” You mutter, as the piano lid slams down and you take a bow, knocking the bench over with a crash. “Oops.”

“Thas direct action, baby.” Bucky parrots you, “You’re so fucking lame.”

Buckyeye leaps into the air and licks him on the face. “Fuck!”

“Yeah, defend my honor, Buck!” You whoop. “Not you!” You point to Bucky, who flicks you off with a cackling laugh. The sound of it flutters into your ears like a ghost- leaving cold trails down your back. Suddenly, you get an idea.

“Hey-- you guys on Twitter?”

--

They sit crosslegged on the floor flanking you as you scroll determinedly through what seems to be endless tweets. There are other tabs open, too, of compilations of these. Thirsttweets, you explain. The internet loves and wants to bone the hell out of Captain America. Some of them want the Soldier there too—just watching, apparently.

Steve is seventeen shades of red and a little bit of purple. Bucky keeps cursing under his breath and at one point, you think, is reciting Hail Mary. It’s a million times worse than your playlist.

Who’s Got the Biggest Dick in Baseball is nothing compared to captain america could spit into my mouth and id say thank you

“I would never!” Steve gasps. “Or that!”

The tweet in question says: ruin my life big dorito daddy

“What does that mean?” Bucky groans, a little ruffled by all the lewd attention Steve is getting.

“His back is shaped like a Dorito, duh. Don’t get jealous, big boy. You’re next.”

For whatever reason, Bucky’s tweets are way worse. Maybe it’s his persona—that redeemed baddie type of thing. People eat that shit up like chips and dip—and apparently want to eat him too.

As long as I have a face, Winter Soldier has a seat rearrange my guts, Sargeant Sexy When will James Buchanan Barnes put his fist in me? WHEN? I didn’t know I was into getting choked until I saw that metal arm.

You snort whiskey into your lungs in the middle of reading one out loud and spend the next five minutes with your insides on fire. Steve has his head in Bucky’s lap and there are tears coming out of his eyes both from Bucky’s clenched jaw and you, crumpled into a heap spewing amber.

--

A jazz tune belts out from the surround sound system. Steve has picked a Music Choice station from the seemingly endless list of cable possibilities and of course, being a nostalgic thing, chose Swingers — wait, Singers and Swing. Your brain is loopy with joy.

“Didn’t you say you took dance lessons?” Steve asks nonchalantly.

“Uh-huh,” you sigh on the floor, legs crossed over Buckeye as you pull him down on your tummy. Rolling side to side with you, your dog begins to groan and flop, aggravated at your antics.

“You know, Buck used to dance.”

“Uh-huh, you sure did, didn’t you, big baby?” You kiss Buckeye on the nose.

“Bucky. Bucky, not Buckeye.”

He returns from the restroom with his hair pulled away from his face, changed into a long sleeved soft shirt and sweats. “What?”

“You used to dance!” Steve urges with a flick of his wrist, “Get on out there!” He waves his finger to the carpeted living space where you are spread-eagled, trying your best to keep your dog next to you. Damn it, you want cuddles!

“You want me to lead her? Stevie, I couldn’t lead the girl to water if she were a horse.”

“I am not a whore!” You cry indignantly, shooting up from the carpet and knocking Buckeye over with a yelp.

“A horse! Jesus H. Christ, ya deaf!”

You probably are, you think, as the music slurs itself into one long whine. Bucky grabs you by the hand anyway, determined to prove some point to Steve. He turns you around until you face him and takes a second to start on the right beat.

It’s like a switch has flipped and he becomes all step and sway as he moves to the music, leading you, too. Some vestigial memory digs its way out of your muscles from all those damn dance lessons and your feet point and tap along with him, hips rocking when he spins you around and pulls you back. A grin slowly breaks across his face, big and lopsided, all teeth.

You feel like a little puppet in complete submission to him as he expertly uses the perfect amount of momentum to change your course.

Laughter bursts forth from your mouth as you whirl dizzily around Bucky, hands clamped tightly in both of his. The room is a blur of colors and the blue of Steve’s eyes, watching.

At one point, you stand hip-to-hip side-by-side and kick your feet together before he takes you by the waist and dips you low. You’re breathless as he laughs, mirroring your puffs of warm air from above, wild with motion— his hair slipping from behind his ear to hang over your forehead.

“Holy shit you got moves.” You proclaim as the song finishes and he tugs you up with a satisfied chuckle. A slower melody comes on and you move to return to the couch where Steve is sitting with Buckeye, but Bucky tugs you again, closer.

He places one hand behind your back, resting on the ridged thread-bare waistband of your pajama shorts, and the other one he holds up to his chest. You blink away the fuzzy spots from your eyes and peer at him, looking so far away even though he’s just inches apart. His expression has changed, dropping into something distant and removed and staring straight through you.

You see it now. He’s not Bucky anymore.

It hits you like a bag of bricks, that this is James Barnes, in all his glory as a beautiful Brooklyn boy. Out dancing with a girl. Laughing, just like this: bristled, square-jawed and cleft-chinned. Wide, pouty lips. Bright steel eyes. Before he was a soldier, he was just a boy.

Before he was The Soldier, he was just a boy.

His chest rises and falls slowly as he takes a deep breath. The crooning in the background is tender, melodic, with the singer’s sweet voice pining for her loved one accompanied by delicate plucks of a piano.

Once, too, he pined.

The tears in your eyes spill over when you press your mouth to his. Bucky lets go of your hands and you catch his face with them, instead, holding onto his head, fingers grazing his ears and neck and brushing away his hair. You kiss him as if he might be shipped out to war tomorrow. It hurts even more to know that he probably had a night just like this, in the arms of a girl he loved, right before his entire life changed.

And then, you tear away and look at the couch where Steve sits, chewing on his lip, red-eyed too. You sob uncontrollably when you rush around the table and into his arms. He wraps them around you, pushes his face down into your shoulder.

“I love you guys.” You whisper, curled up in Steve’s lap, because the story of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter was never explicit in the history books, but you know it too. “Oh God. I’m so sorry it’s like this. I’m so sorry.”

Steve forgets sometimes, that they were ripped out of time. He forgets the torment and tearing of Bucky’s entire being. They busy themselves in tomorrow and moving forward so much that they bury how the things that made them also broke them.

You are clinging onto his shirt, crying for him now, for both of them. Two handsome soldiers, living, dying, resurrected again. Having only each other to know and hold.

Sergeant Barnes of the 107th closes his eyes and presses his lips together. When he opens them, he is Bucky Barnes of the terrible, modern age once more. He crosses the room quietly, as he always does, as he was made to do. He sits down next to Steve as you look up at him with love and sympathy and so much sadness he can’t stand it. He links his hand in yours and smiles in a way that cracks your heart right open.

“Don’t get weird, kid.” Bucky whispers with moist lashes. Your laugh is strangled when it escapes your throat, all wet and whine as you squeeze his fingers tighter.

“I love you. You don’t understand.”

Steve breathes a sigh into your shoulder and rubs his damp cheeks on the penguin print of your sleeping shirt. From next to him, Buckeye looks up quizzically and gives his arm a long, slow lick.

“Yeah, yeah,” He mutters, swatting at your dog’s snout lovingly, lips pressed into your collarbone. Then, he kisses you too, tipsy and torn open. In the background, Julie London sweetly croons:

If there’s a cloud above and it must rain, we’ll let it.

But for tonight, forget it.

I’m in the mood for love.

Next Chapter

[everythingoesnk]

Pastime

summary; you wanna try something new -shaving him- and john is hesitant, fluffy

word count; 1 942

warnings; none. this scene has been sitting on the back of my brain for quite some time and i thought it was so so so cute. i enjoyed writing it sm so i hope it makes you smile. feedback is welcomed and requests are too !

********

What began as a monotonous night where all you did was snuggle up on the couch eating junk and laughing at inappropriate jokes spiced up because of you.

Leaning back in his seat John stood alone in the bathroom.

“Are you sure about this?”

You poked your head round the door.

“Again, John? We agreed to do it” you reminded him, crooking an eyebrow in his direction whilst entering the room.

He glanced across at you and watched you pull your hair back into a low bun.

“How did you come up with it?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged it off to accentuate how absurd it was that he was so worried.

Draping an arm around his shoulder, your faces so close you could feel each other’s hot breath, you met his alarmed gaze.

“I’m sure I won’t have to be hiding a body tonight” you guaranteed.

His eyes raking your features, John gently fixed a delicate heartwarming smirk on to his lips that moved your soul. You booped his nose with yours and flashed him a wide smile before advancing towards the hook where the towels were hanging over the outlets.

“Did you wash your face?”

“I did, miss”

“Good boy”

When you were done cleaning your hands and wiping them on the white and pink robe Pattie bought you for your last birthday, you unfolded a towel and tucked it a little inside John’s shirt collar like if he were a baby and the towel a bib.

He said nothing, just curiously observed your movements.

The next step was to get the brush and the foam.

“This is the easy part,” John remarked.

“Shut up”

Applying the foam to the skin was weirdly satisfying.

Since you were a perfectionist and didn’t have the pressure of being under a deadline, you took care of it in your stride. John was right, this was the easy part, but you enjoyed it and wouldn’t move on to the next part before you knew it was spread uniformly.

In fact, as the moment approached, you could feel yourself getting a bit nervous. But you wouldn’t let him know. You’d have him protesting and torturing you with harsh comments and complaints for weeks if something went wrong.

“You’re staring” you muttered some time later, concentrated on loading the brush with more foam.

For the last couple of minutes he’d been quiet, looking at you intensely the entire time. It didn’t bother you, but even though it wasn’t unpleasant you’d always found something to chat about.

Silence with him felt unfamiliar, that’s all.

“What made you fall for me?” he suddenly asked.

“Huh?” you scowled, and briefly stopped what you were doing.

Nothing was weird about the question itself, it just caught you by surprise.

John lifted his chin again for you to continue to lather his face, though his expression was showing he awaited a response. Yours turned warm.

“Your scent” you finally said.

“What?“ John wanted to laugh. But again, he didn’t capture an ounce of stutter in your voice. “Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah”

“By that logic you could’ve fallen for another man wearing the same cologne”

“But that’s the truth” you promised, face breaking in a pure side smile.

“Explain that to me” he chuckled, honestly baffled.

The mockery in his tone didn’t fool you. You were convinced by the sparkle in his eyes that his heart was definitely beating faster.

John and you met in the most boring and random way.

Your cousin worked as an engineer in Abbey Road Studios and one day he happened to forget his lunch at home, so he sneakily rang you to please go get it. Already leaving the building after dropping by to give it to him, you two passed each other by a whisker.

It was the delicious trail of his scent what made you look up to him.

Thanks to Paul, who stopped you just because he found your face familiar —you reminded him of your cousin, with whom he had a cordial relationship, so when you told him you were indeed related he was very happy to hear about it—, John was able to engage in a conversation with you to introduce himself before you had to go.

“It’s what made me turn my head to look at you”

“Oh, you mean when you nearly broke your neck desperate to check me out?”

“You’re dumb” you laughed, hitting him on the shoulder.

He felt the happiest man seeing you laugh because of him.

Every shared moment with you he treasured it. Tour, the number of insane hours he spent in the studio, all kinds of responsibilities of being in the most famous band on the planet took him away from you.

“Here we go”

John blinked at your words and paid attention again.

The sight of the safety razor within your power concerned him truly.

“Bird,”

You shook your head. “We’re doing it”

“Be careful. I lost count of how much my face is worth”

You rolled your eyes to the ceiling.

“Fans are too blinded by their obsession at this point to care if you have minor cuts for a while” you joked.

Warily, with the razor upon his face, you did the first swipe very cautiously.

Despite the light tremble of your hand you handled it pretty well, but the second you pulled the razor away, you unintentionally ended up nicking his flesh by doing it too quickly.

John hissed.

“You hurt me!”

“I’m so sorry” you hurried to say.

“Have some sense!” he cried as his face twisted.

Whatever confidence you had to carry such simple job disappeared.

“I’ve never done this before!” you defended yourself. The reddening on your cheeks due to the embarrassment never felt hotter. “Let me see”

Just how insignificant the scratch was made you want to scream. It wasn’t even bleeding.

You hit him again, it wasn’t an aggressive punch, but it was harder than the one you delivered earlier.

“You’re a bloody crybaby! You scared me for nothing” you huffed.

“Forgive me for feeling pain” he whined, giving quite the attitude.

“You sound like a five-year-old” you dropped the razor next to the hand soap and crossed your arms in annoyance. “Let me know when you’re done recovering”

John wrapped his skilled long fingers around your wrist.

“Come here”

Words weren’t needed most of the time for you two to communicate, so when he brought you closer you positioned yourself on his lap with your legs around his waist because you knew that was what he was seeking.

That and your chests coming together.

“I’m sorry, love, it was just unexpected”

Admiring your unmistakable daintiness, John couldn’t fight the desire of leaning in to kiss you.

It confused and disconcerted him when you tilted your head back with repulse. He couldn’t deny to himself he even felt hurt.

“What” his eyes scanned yours, trying to understand why you were denying him.

“The Santa beard has to go first”

He giggled and found himself sighing in relief afterwards.

“You love me, right?” John asked closing his eyes when you were ready to go for another stroke, once you were finished rinsing the razor.

Your hand remained suspended in mid-air.

It’d be hypocrite if you said you weren’t a sucker for attention, but John was exceptional; he didn’t love himself, his jokes about him being a genius were continuous although those who knew him well knew he thought so little of him, he suffered in the past and was still suffering because of the actions he carried out years ago that haunted him at night absorbing whatever good thoughts or feelings he could be experiencing, eating them up and leaving him in a darkened room without a single hole for the air to flow through.

John deserved to be happy.

“I do love you, Johnny. Why’d you ask that?” you questioned with your heart racing.

Didn’t you show it enough for him to know?

You were tense and he sensed it. Without opening his eyes, he smirked and squeezed your thighs for you to simmer down.

“I love hearing you say it, that’s all”

You stared at him adoringly.

“And I love you too,” he said, that smirk still there.

“I know you do”

Throughout the rest of the procedure you two remained mute, each immersed in your thoughts.

John kept catching himself smiling as he felt you tenderly patting moisturizer on the areas where you had previously shaved the hair.

“What’s so funny?”

That only made him laugh louder. He finally opened his eyes to stare directly into yours.

The stress they were under because of the band was impossible to measure, but he looked so carefree, cheerful and relaxed now. The almost childish expression on his face was contagious, and you were soon smiling like an idiot not knowing why.

“What?” you repeated, giggling.

“I’m just thinking of how excited you were about shaving me. From now on you won’t be as much because I’m definitely counting on you to do it for the rest of eternity”

You just shook your head, thick strands of hair that were no longer tied in the bun waving across your face with the action.

John looked down at you with ablaze eyes.

Matching the mischevious grin attached to his lips you put your arms around him and kissed him fervently. He held your face with both hands and calmly let one reach for your waist. As he pulled you even closer, you moved yours to stroke the back of his neck.

“You feel so soft” you murmured, your fingers complacently touching his cheek.

John returned the smile and rose from the chair with you still on his arms.

“Next time it’s me turn”

He grinned big, and that’s when you knew where he wanted to shave you.

“No fucking way. I won’t let you”

“Love, it’s not like I—”

“It’s off-limits”

“So you’re allowed to shave my face, that ironically people will get to see no matter what, whereas your—“

“Stop it there” you couldn’t believe he actually meant it. Right, if you’d have fucked it up the whole world would have known because it’s his face, but that’s not an argument strong enough for him to use and have the freedom to try because he’d be the only one to see it if he fucked up. “If I say no it means no”

“You’re using that now? When I told you earlier I didn’t want to at first you coaxed me into—“

You gave him a peck on the lips to stop him from talking, pausing to throw a towel in his face, and ran as far as possible because you were at the very losing end of the conversation.

John raised an eyebrow.

“Two can play at this game”

You bit your lip and purposedly let him catch you in the kitchen after playing hide and seek for five minutes.

Coming to a conclusion that it was pretty late, you walked to the bedroom together swinging arms and talking about whether to have breakfast the next day at home or visit a bar hidden in the suburb you used to frequent, where you knew you could have privacy.

You layed in bed entangling legs, facing each other, your head placed onto his chest.

John was the one to fall asleep first.

A huge smile was playing on your lips when you remembered you had John for yourself for four more days before he had to go back to being a Beatle.

You drifted off soon after, heart full.

[billyhargrovesbabe]

ocean eyes | billy hargrove

Soooooooo this is super angsty. But I needed a different kind of angst from the one the season finale left me with, and lo-and-behold this was born. I really enjoyed writing it, despite the obvious angst and feels. Feel free to let me know what you think!

Word Count: 2,738

Warnings: Character death, violence, season 3 spoilers, gore, blood, mentions of abuse, swearing

Most people didn’t believe it when they found out the Billy Hargrove—King of Hawkins, King of the Keg-Stand, and King of the Bad Boys— was dating a total brainiac. They’d scoff, or laugh, or (at least the girls) would shriek in dismay. But no one really believed it. Everybody knew Billy was too wild to be tamed, to settle down, to pick just one girl— everyone but you.

In all honesty, you weren’t completely sure why he picked you either. Maybe it was the quiet help you’d offer him when you two were assigned to be desk neighbors in English, then partners in a History project, then lab partners in Science. It was like the world or maybe just the teachers were determined for you two to work together. Maybe it was the calm, collected way you’d dissected that frog when he was clearly too squeamish to do it himself (not that macho-man Hargrove would ever admit it, and you didn’t even make fun of him for it). Maybe it was the silent help you’d offer when he’d wince from raising his arm too high (something you soon diagnosed as a dislocated shoulder), or when you subtly re-bandaged his bloody knuckles at the back of the classroom, or that time you quietly pressed your favorite concealer in his hand to try and help with a black eye. Maybe it was because you just happened to have an amazing rack (something you knew definitely didn’t hurt). Whatever the reason, few people believed it. But that was just fine by you; no one else needed to understand it. All you knew was that it worked.

Billy protected you, and you took care of him. That was the deal. You let each other pretend to be whole. You accepted his anger and his violence, and he accepted your perfectionism and anxiety. You two never pushed the other for more than they were willing to give or say, and you respected each other’s boundaries. Hell, you didn’t even find out he had a step sister until week three of dating him. But because of this mutual respect of boundaries, you two quickly became inseparable. Soon, you were sharing even the most intimate, awkward details without a second thought. Neither of you really knew what was in store when you two would leave in the fall for California (you to attend college and him to move home), but you both knew it’d be fine so long as you had each other.

So that summer when Billy abruptly withdrew, you knew something was wrong. Your boyfriend wasn’t without his flaws— after all, he had certainly earned his reputation as an asshole— but you knew there was good in him. You had seen the sweet, funny, mischievous, caring side he buried so deep down. You knew him like you knew your multiplication tables or your SAT vocabulary— you just did. You didn’t question it. You simply trusted yourself, trusted in your knowledge, and trusted him.

That seemingly nondescript summer evening when he didn’t call you to let you know he had survived another day under his dad’s roof, you got nervous. You tried to call him a few times, and you’d either get the machine or Max or Susan, and both would tell you he wasn’t home (one time you got Neil, but you hung up before speaking to the monster). After the umpteenth unanswered call, your nervous energy began to morph into worry. That worry persisted over the next few days until you ran into his kid step-sister and her odd little friend who spoke in somewhat broken sentences at the pool. When you cornered them about Billy and they shared their strange findings with you (after a lot of convincing), that worry blew up into panic. The last straw was when someone told you they saw him drive up to Heather Holloway’s house, dressed up for a fucking date. Even when he had made it his mission his first year in town to sleep with anything in a skirt at Hawkins, he hadn’t so much as considered Heather for a second. You knew something was very, very wrong with your boyfriend. And you were determined to get to the bottom of it. You agreed to help the kids lure him into the sauna. Whether it was the promise of another victim or the supposed “normalcy” of your relationship the Mind-Flayer was after, you hadn’t ben sure. You barely managed to get out of the way before he was shoved into the sauna, where you saw the heartbreaking truth. You saw the possession, then the shift to the poor whimpering mess he was. You could see the terror in his eyes. You saw it persist in his eyes even when the Mind-Flayer took back over and broke him out of the sauna. You knew you had to save him.

You really shouldn’t have even been there that night at Starcourt, but you refused to leave. You had never been a fighter—that had always been Billy’s job— and the Party didn’t want to bring in any more people than they already had, but you refused to take no for an answer. It was your job to take care of him, and you were going to do it dammit. When the teams split up, you immediately volunteered to go with whatever team had Eleven. The girl was the only one who didn’t look at you with fear, or concern, or trepidation. She understood. She had seen Billy’s mind, after all. She confided in you later that she had seen you there, in his happier memories. They had just been a few brief glimpses, and there was nothing as lasting or influential as his memory of his mom. But you didn’t expect there to be. You had only been dating a few months. And besides, what she had seen spoke volumes. She told you about the quick glances she had of you cleaning him up ever so gently when he came to your house after Neil really laid into him, and of you sitting on the roof of his car with him between your legs while the two of you shared a smoke on one spring evening. She even told you about a memory she caught of you two just lying on the floor of your room, staring up at the ceiling and listening to music as he quietly promised to take you to California so you could see the beautiful ocean he loved so much. She knew no one could bring him peace like you did.

So Eleven understood later that night when Billy seemed so jarred after pushing you aside to get to her. She saw the swift flicker across his face, his resolve cracked and the Mind-Flayer’s hold briefly damaged as he pushed you aside. The sickening crack as your head collided with the hard floor of the mall seemed to echo in the massive space. It was easy after that. She could see he was still in there, that there was still a fraction of his soul and his mind worth saving. El saw the pain, and the heartache, and the grief as her words sunk in and she reminded him what he had left to fight for and of his mother. And Eleven understood what happened next, although that didn’t make it any less tragic.

Your eyes opened to a dark world, lit only by the fluorescent lights of the stores around you. There was a suspiciously wet feeling where your head had collided with the floor, but you paid no mind to it. You frantically searched the scene around you, eyes darting around for your boyfriend and the girl you had promised to protect. You found them off to your right, his domineering figure crouched over hers, his hands around her throat, until... suddenly, his hands were by his side again. You blinked, mind and vision a little fuzzy (you knew you probably had a concussion). Your vision cleared, and you couldn’t believe the sight before your eyes.

There was Billy— your Billy, you were certain of it— fighting off this massive... monster. It was the only word for it. As he grappled with the freakish and terrifying tongue-like appendage, you saw what he didn’t. You saw the tentacles creeping through the cloud of light and debris, snaking their way towards him. You saw him struggle to keep the creature at bay, and you knew in that moment he had no idea what was coming for him. But you did. You saw the scene flash before your eyes as the tentacles slowly seemed to open at the ends, revealing horrific fangs. In your heart, you knew there was only one way this would end if you didn’t intervene. And you refused to watch it happen.

You knew a little something about physics. You had been fascinated with it ever since you broke Jamie Foster’s arm in elementary school. After apologizing to the poor boy profusely, you tried your best to understand what had happened. He had been braced against the wall, his arms in front of him to avoid running into it while playing a game of basketball with his friends. It just so happened at that exact moment, you tripped and feel forward into the direct line of his left arm. The arm that had previously been braced against the bleachers quickly gave way, snapping like a twig and creating a sickening s-shape. You were baffled by how something so strong, so firm as a child’s bone, could break just like that. You quickly came to learn that his weight and energy had all been braced forward, meaning there was little resistance to any energy or forces that would’ve caused a change in direction. It was a lesson you’d never forgotten, and one that had inspired you on the cold floor of the mall. thirst for knowledge and love of learning. AAs you rushed towards your boyfriend, you remembered the ease of crashing and breaking something that should’ve been immovable.

You slammed your body into Billy with your full body weight and the momentum of the short sprint behind it. The usually stable mass of muscle that was your boyfriend slammed into the floor, as all of his strength had been thrown forward into resisting the Mind-Flayer’s attack. He was helpless to your unexpected shove, just as he was helpless when the bites meant for him sunk into your abdomen and back.

You were breathless, suspended in time for just a moment, as you watched him hit the floor. You couldn’t quite believe it had actually worked. His beautiful, piercing blue eyes were focused on you in a way they hadn’t been for— was it days? Weeks? You’d lost track. All you knew was that you never wanted him to stop looking at you like that: like he’d never really looked at you before. You tried to send him a small, reassuring smile even as his eyes screamed at you. You could practically hear him berating you, calling your sacrifice stupid and wrong. You didn’t mind though. You had made your choice the second you opened your eyes.

You felt the pain as the first bite sunk into your stomach, still facing the boy you had knocked out of the way. It sunk deep into your stomach, following the fangs as they tore into your flesh. The stabbing sensation tore tears from your eyes and the breath from your chest. You felt it again as the second one latched onto your back, colliding with the middle of your spinal column. After that, the pain numbed. You weren’t sure if it was shock or paralysis, but you appreciated the reprieve. You felt a strange sort of calm wash over your body. You barely registered the rest of the bites and the attacks on your battered body, barely heard the screams of Billy and Max as they cried your name. You didn’t even realize the monster had been defeated until you were laying on the ground, gasping for air, finally feeling the burning pain of the bites and the blood soaking the floor around you as it seeped out of your body. You finally realized it when you saw him crouching over you, with what looked like tears in his eyes. But that couldn’t be right. Billy Hargrove didn’t cry.

He did feel betrayal though, and you saw it. You felt his heartbreak as he looked at your beaten body, covered in blood and bites that were too deep to even pretend could be fixed. You saw the betrayal as he realized you had broken your unspoken deal: you hadn’t let him protect you. Instead, you had taken it upon yourself to protect him and now there would be nobody left to take care of him when you were gone. There’d be nobody left to patch him up, nobody there to help him pass his classes, no one there to cuddle him on the hood of his Camaro in the evenings. Maybe someday, but it would never be you again. You could see him fighting the anger that would’ve been so much easier to deal with, simmering under the surface. You could tell he had to bite his tongue, wanting to yell and rage and scream but refusing to let that taint your final moments.

You felt the aching and the warmth slowly start to leave your body as your breaths started to become quick, shallow gasps. It was almost painful to feel your chest compressing with the futile effort. Having taken more than your fair share of health classes, you knew you didn’t have much time left. You felt the sleepy haze of blood loss start to settle over you, but there was still so much you had to say. You still had to tell him just how much you loved him, how much you believed in him, how you just knew there was still so much out there for him, how he had to go and live that life in California for the both of you. You had to tell him to learn to let his anger go, to try and repair his relationship with Max, to let himself be vulnerable and love someone else—someone who wasn’t you. You had to tell him to live his dreams, to find the man you already knew he was, and to shave his mustache that had always itched when he kissed you. You opened your mouth, desperate to say something—anything—but he quickly shushed you.

“Shhh, Y/N. Don’t say anything. The cops are coming, and after they patch you up I’m going to kick your ass for scaring me like this. Just stay with me, princess.” You don’t think you had ever heard his voice so tender. You appreciated his empty promises, knowing neither of you wanted to really confront what you both knew was inevitable. He sounded so broken, trying to be brave and strong for you. You tried to grin at him, but your world was starting to fade. You knew your last moments were here.

“Forgive yourself.” You rasped up at him as your body started to give up. You could feel your heart begin to skip, to stop working, as the cardiac arrest started setting in. “I love you.” And you tried to convey just how true that was, even with your dying breath. You tried desperately to send him all the love and hope and strength you could as your vision slowly started to fade, reassuring him that you knew exactly what choice you had made. You had seen the way things would have ended, how you would’ve had to watch him die instead and then continue to live on in a world where he was gone. Go to California by yourself, a stranger in your dead boyfriend’s world with no one there to guide you. Selfishly, you chose to force him to continue on instead. He’d be fine. The infamous Billy Hargrove always made it through. As he sat there holding you, those fabled tears finally spilling from his beautiful blue eyes as he cried ever-so-silently, you quietly marveled at how he had still managed to keep his promise and show you the beaches and water he so loved in your last moments—even if it was just in the tempestuous waters of the oceans in his blue eyes.

[tranquilglobal]

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[the-headbop-wraith]

3 _ Ghost

The fall didn’t rob life, the impact and the body breaking did.

Give it time, he would come out of it.  A nightmare like all the others, he would hit the bottom and wake up like all the times before.  It was not real, the sensation was an illusion and everything would be all right the moment he hit.  He would wake up safe and warm in bed, maybe crying a bit because dying was a terrifying concept for anyone that had so much to do in life.  So much to do and so precious little time to make conclusions.

This time he didn’t wake up when he hit.  His back struck cold blades and a terrible sense of dislocation came over his chest, as if everything had been moved aside.  He tries to take a breath and get his bearings, but the air is hot and bubbles in his throat.  He chokes, body trembling so hard it tears his ribs apart.  It’s then that he notices the green haze clogging the ceiling of the cave like some sort of plague, swirling around gnarled teeth far above his face.  At the edge of a dark mass he sees a familiar figure peering down, a jewel on the shape glitters among the shadows sweeping through his thoughts.

__

It hurts to wake up, to move from the dream into the icy fingers of the air around him.  Arthur jerks as he comes to, his metal arm scrapes at the gritty cobblestone floor as he slides the prosthetic under him and pushes himself up more onto his side.

“Vivi,” Arthur’s voice mumbles.  He coughs against the earthy air and presses his flesh hand to his stomach and ribs and makes certain his body is still in one piece.  How?  He coughs again, Arthur isn’t certain if it’s the dust in the dank place or residue trauma from the nightmare, probably both.  He forgets his tremors for now and turns his gaze to the darkness closing in around him.  There’s light from candlelight perched at the tops of stone pillars spaced out around the room, the hesitant flames chatter and hiss calmly in the cold air.  Magenta bathes the carved surface of the pillars, the stone work appears dulled from many years of waiting.

This place baffled his mind to ribbons but Arthur constantly reminded himself that the spirits wanted him to see, or envision what they felt was acceptable.  It felt real but it wasn’t, he was at the mercy of his captors.

Arthur had this on his thoughts as he looked across the tops of black steel fences bordering the stone walls of the chambers interior.  The candlelight didn’t extend far enough into the gloomy depths that he could accurately identify the shapes of containers, some larger than him and each cluster surrounded by the little fences.  Beyond the containers rises a jagged shape from the floor toward the dark above, a set of steps accented by the pink glow.  A way out, but there was no candlelight above to provide this answer.  It seemed unlikely he could get lost unless the candle flames diminished, but they were enchanted by a spiritual flame and so he could either rely on that reassurance or not, that the light would remain eternal.

A series of shorts steps extended up to the furthest side of the chamber, with dingy fuchsia carpet laid across each step toward tattered curtains draped across a sculpted stone archway.  On either side of the carpet stood a tall black basin perched upon lacy decorative metal stems, a pair on either side of the carpet and ending where the steps did beneath the rotten drapes.  Though the stone chamber appeared ancient, the black bowls shimmered under the magenta candlelight pristine and new. 

Arthur rose to his feet and moved carefully, until he was certain his muscles were only sore and not torn.  Try as he did, he could not recall what had happened at all.  He was falling, that was it.  He remembered holding Vivi’s hand, then… he let go.  Arthur thought he was dragging Vivi to the dark pit reserved for him and had let go.  She didn’t resist.  Good.  He felt bitter with the conclusion but he was glad she had to be elsewhere, somewhere better than where he had… fallen?  The spirits were strong, how strong he didn’t know but it was obvious that combined they were very powerful.  That made sense, he supposed.  Arthur hoped, he prayed, that Vivi was safe.

The legs of the basin rasped as he touched the rim.  They felt heavy, cold, solid, and real.  He stepped up onto the last step and took the magenta drape that concealed the archway beyond.  The cloth tore as he tried carefully to move it aside, wary should more of the spirits be hidden down here.  What he found behind the curtains made his blood run cold and his heart to beat harder in his chest.  He listened for a moment to the muffled thudding in his ears, and made himself accept that the sound was not coming from him.  It was coming from the large black box standing tall in front of him.

Oh god!  Arthur sprang back, the curtain caught between the gears in his metal knuckles.  He jerked his prosthetic until he thought he’d rip it out at the joint, the cloth tore to ribbons as he stumbled backwards down the steps.  A crypt!  I’m in a CRYPT!  Now Arthur scanned his surroundings over with dubious clarity and felt the candlelight blaze brighter for his numbed mind, as if to aid him on his perilous road to comprehension.  The boxes were not boxes, they were caskets, or something  close.  Sarcophagus’ left here to molder.  Who the fuck kept coffins in their basement?!

Illusion, Arthur told himself.  It’s not real, none of it was.  He had to be careful, had to find his way out and back to Vivi. 

Before Arthur could turn away, he took note that the steady rhythm was getting louder.  Illusions.  He told himself.  None of this is real.  He didn’t believe it.  Arthur knew damn well it wasn’t true.  He gazed at the embroidery accents on the coffins surface as the harsh design flares up then dims, into soft magenta.  The hinges of the box moaned softly as they were forced, Arthur didn’t want to believe what he was seeing but he knew this was no trick of the light.  Down here there were no spirits to taunt him here, it was just the coffin and him.  He backed away, eyes locked on the box.  He toppled backwards onto the cold floor when his heel caught on the thick carpet.  He scooted himself away on his butt as the dull tempo grew louder and a dark shape fumbled along the edge of the coffins door. 

What did him in, what paralyzed him was the voice.  He recognized the tone, the sort of electronic voice thread he could get on a recording, but never heard with his own ears in the moment.  It was there, this voice, yet it wasn’t.  Distant, hollow, empty, yet it rang in his ears and swept like fiery tendrils through his skin.  Worst of all it was familiar, too familiar.  No.

“Try and hear me then I’m done,” the voice warned.  It didn’t echo off the walls, the sound was contained as it lifted from the box.  It seeped into Arthur’s mind, invading and unwanted.  “Cause I might just say this once.”

It wasn’t like the spirits from the foyer.  This spook, this skeleton, retained human features, aside from a hollow skull perched above a vacant collar.  It wore a black suit from shoulder to boot, the collar was sharp and flared out reminiscent of a bat, and a magenta tie was coiled about where its neck should have been.

“Seen this played out in a dream,” it said.  A touch of remorse came to its voice as its expression softened, the skull rotated and seemed to examine its cloaked hand. Or, was it looking at....  On its chest, suspended above the sharp ribs, thudded a gilded heart. The glistening artifact quivered with the drumming rhythm plaguing Arthur’s thoughts. Tenderly, almost wistful, the spirit caressed this heirloom. Then, it redirected its scathing glower back onto him, it looked mad. Hella mad. “It doesn’t matter.  Time for giving up the ghost.”

Arthur kicked his legs out as the ghost drifted down the steps effortlessly and perched at his feet.  He stared up at it, his feet dragging over the cobblestone mindlessly.  “Fuck!” The spirit directed an accusing finger upon him.  “It’s you I hated the most.”

Terror stricken and filled with the spooks hot malice, Arthur couldn’t think to do anything more than to direct a finger to his face and try to speak, but the words stabbed his throat.  What did I do?  Arthur’s mind screamed.  WHO are YOU!!?  No answer could be rewarded while he was unable to utter a shred of coherent words.  Arthur continued to push himself away as the ghost seemed to have lost interest in him momentarily, but not long enough.  The way out, Arthur decided.  There’s a door out.  I fell in, I can get out.

“Arthur.”  That voice.  Too familiar.  From a crippled sleep.  A terrible nightmare Arthur wanted to run away from, bury it deep in his furthest memories.  They never had that chance, and he had thought it was best.  “There is no guarantee,” it went on, the suspended skull tilting until it nearly touched the collar of its suit.  “This time I might just disappear.  But… I am not letting you crawl away.  Not after what you’ve done..”  Vibrant flames had taken residence in the pit of its eye sockets, and bright fire swept up from the black basins.

“No,” Arthur uttered.  “No-no.”  Arthur’s eyes flooded with tears.  He pushed himself to his feet as the specter followed his movement with those magenta flames pulsing in the pit of its eye sockets, and the gold locket upon its breast thudded harder, mirroring Arthur’s own rapid heartbeat.  But its heart was a mere representation, long cold and left still in time.  Why?

Flames licked the bleached skull, settling in a style nearly lost in the back of Arthur’s mind.  The ghost cocked its head to Arthur’s sudden lockup.  “You remember me,” the voice rattled, here and substantial, yet not.  The sensation of it maddening.

Arthur took a sharp breath, tears streaming down his cheeks.  The name was at his tongue, he knew the name.  He never forgot, but he wanted too.  He tried but his conscience wouldn’t let go of his emotions, his heart.  Was that why… ?

“Lewis.” Arthur’s voice broke.  “No, Lewis.  How—” Arthur stumbled over his words, inching forward to reach out and touch the ghost, but stopped himself just in time.  In time for what, he wondered?  The only objective his mind could supply was the preservation of his well being.  Run.

Arthur didn’t know if it was the ghost or his own mind that gave the order, but he whipped around and dove off into the darkest pit of the crypt.  There was a door, he came down somehow, there was a way out.  He stumbled over shreds of carpet and cracked stone, he nearly fell to his knees twice as he shot toward the frail outline of the jagged steps rising into the black haze above.  Arthur paused only for a second to look up, uncertain if there was a path above or if the steps ended and he would fall as well to his death.  He didn’t want to die, Arthur couldn’t do that to Vivi.

The steps were solid and Arthur made it up the first ten before he could bear it no longer and turned his eyes towards the blazing magenta flames that signified the wraith’s fury.  To Arthur’s uttermost terror, the free moving ghost was gliding towards him, even at the distance between them he could make out the baleful glow in its skull.  Arthur didn’t stand a literal snowballs chance in hell if it could move that fast and caught up to him as it deemed appropriate, but Arthur refused to give up so easily either.

Despite the burn in his thighs, Arthur tore up the steps three and four at a time, heaving his breath with the pulse of his heart.  The steps leveled out in short time and he ran into the hard wood door that shut off the crypt from wherever it was that Arthur had fallen from.  Arthur fumbled with the door but the latch wouldn’t give, it held tight despite his convincing.  With no other option, Arthur clasped his hand around his metal wrist and brought his fist down.  The sensation ripped through the tender connectors in his arm, but the latch gave away and the door crept open a crack.  Arthur shoved his way through and flung the door shut on the fast approach of the magenta flames.

The crypt opened up into a stone basement, somewhere underground.  Arthur staggered through the dark chamber towards the soft fuchsia light spilling down the stone steps across from him.  He didn’t know what his legs were smashing against and he couldn’t care, he needed to get out of there and… and, Vivi!

A lone candle fixture flared against the wall where it was fixed, as Arthur tore up the steps to the floor above.  The steps ended at ragged magenta carpet, before a well-lit hallway that extended left and right a few steps away.  Arthur didn’t bother to pause and catch his breath, he had no idea where the ghost could appear from or if it would follow him to the upper floors.  Maybe it WAS contained to the crypt beneath the mansion.  Arthur didn’t kid himself, he chose his direction and zipped along the carpet halls.  He could conjure up the chilling voice in his thoughts, though it tore through his broken sense of self to recall its warning.

“I am not letting you crawl away.  Not after what you’ve done..”

Thank divine intervention that Vivi hadn’t fallen with him into the crypt.  Arthur didn’t have any idea how she would have taken the spook rising, she might not have thought anything of it but for a morbid scientific curiosity.  She was a treat at times.

But that was Lewis!  Arthur’s mind screamed.  He’d sooner be caught dead if he didn’t know Lewis.  The four of them, they’d been so close.  So close.  Tears worked at his eyes, clouding Arthur’s sight as he turned the corner in the hall.  Where the hell was she?

Just out around the corner Arthur glanced back over his shoulder to catch a last glimpse of the gloomy hall.  His heart skipped a beat when he saw the appropriation tearing a fuchsia blaze in the carpet under its feet, hot on his tail and murder in the pits of its eyes.  It cut the corner, clear as the magenta tinge that coated the walls, the spirit fazed through the edge of the wall in its pursuit of Arthur.

“He’s going to kill me,” Arthur realized with icy clarity.  “When he catches me, I don’t know how he plans to do it, but he will do it.”

The next corner Arthur swung around led him out into a long and wider hall, with portraits lining the walls with the same disapproving stares as the ones from the lower halls.  The wall ended on one side of the hall, opening up to a flight of steps.  The carpeted steps ascended around the banister while the floor opened up to the lower staircase.  Without a thought Arthur shot to the stairs and swung over the banister, he fell hard to the carpet steps below and tumbled when his feet gave out.  He refused to let himself stop there and kept rolling and falling over the hard corners hitting his knees and back, until his feet were back under him as he was dragging himself along into the next hall below his pursuer.

At any second, Arthur expected the specter to descend from the ceiling above.  Any moment, Arthur remained tense and in constant panic, fidgeting and fearful of every corner and every flicker of the candle lights that lined the walls.  Arthur didn’t believe he could elude the ghost for long.  He was in constant reminder that the mansion worked of its own ways and it was somehow controlled by the spirits, by Lewis.

The hall took a turn and Arthur followed it, into another long hall identical to the first.  Beside the corner was another suit of armor, immobile and boring, on the wall above its decorative feathers was a candle fixtures fixed to the wall.  Arthur gave the metal decoration plenty of distance as he jogged by it, the sight of it caused another tight pang to grip his chest.  He barely held back the sob as he rubbed his face on his shoulder.

They were in terrible danger and he had to get them, Vivi and Mystery, out of this place.  But WHERE could they be?  Did the powers that moved Arthur, transport Vivi someplace safe?  She could have been returned to the van of all places.  That felt too optimistic for Arthur.  And he wasn’t going to leave this place until he made certain his friends were safe.

Arthur slowed as he turned the next corner, until another hall with a suit of armor and candle at the very end appeared as before, identical to the first hall.  His blood was icy in his veins as he walked, suspicious to the activity present.  Arthur was making no progress, he was running in circles.  Or squares.

“Damn it,” Arthur muttered.  He turned around and tried to retrace his steps.  He couldn’t be trapped in an infinite loop.  He came down the steps and at the end of the hall there was the corner with the suit of armor.  He’s fucking around with me.  He was stuck in a trap and his time was running out.  Now that he understood the game, there was nothing left to do but wait for…  No.  This isn’t right.  It’s just not right!

The suit of armor and the candle awaited just the same at the halls end, as he had imagined they would.  Arthur tried to calculate in his mind how many times he turned the corner, and in his sense of direction he envisioned only the one corner repeating in his thoughts as he ran.  That made his situation seem less hopeless.

Arthur staggered to a stop when a swirl of magenta vapor slid away from the suit of armor, and in the bulbous top of the shape, a set of tawny eyes peered out at him.  He skipped backwards deftly as the spirit sniggered and swayed, its approach malicious.  Though, not as intimidating as the dark shape that solidified at the other end of the hall.  Arthur barely blinked before he whirled back around to shoot by the magenta spirit that had startled him.  Upon passing Arthur felt icy air bleed into his vest and his prosthetic arm, the spirit in turn winked out heart first.

Around the corner was the staircase Arthur had come down on.  He prayed this wasn’t a mistake and he wouldn’t get dumped into an infinite loop, his sanity couldn’t bear it.

The floor below was tiled in checker board style, black and white.  Arthur’s feet skid on the slick surface when he lunged off the stairs kicking his legs, fighting to get his momentum back.  He failed and fell to his knees, pain swelled up his side as he clawed at the floor with his hands; his metal knuckles clacked on the hard floor as he scratched for a hold.  Arthur didn’t stop to realize he was panicking.  There was no time to waste on concise thought or indecision, the ghost was near but he didn’t know where it would come from.  It could descend on top of his head at any given moment.  That was the worst thought of all.

Arthur had nearly gotten his footing back by the time the ghost had fallen through the ceiling above, the candle light on the walls either side of it flared at the close presence of their maker.  Arthur chocked on the cry in his throat as he jammed his feet into the floor and shot off, he looked back over his shoulder to see the distance he had on the dark figure.  It was fast.  He felt his heart jerk when his thoughts supplied that the spirit could chose when to gain on him at any time.

Words bombarded Arthur’s mind.  He didn’t focus on the walls or the furniture, or anything that whizzed by.  He chants in his mind, hunting for a loop hole in the terrible incident that had happened.  He wanted to fix it, make it all right again but there was no way to change the events set in time.  What his mind supplied was pleas.  “Not my fault.  Not my fault.  I didn’t want to..”  But he was not going to stop and try to reason with a vengeful spirit.

The hall ended to an open foyer not as large as the entrance hall, but it did offer selections of doors on the floor above and a few on the same level Arthur had entered upon.  Arthur chose to spring down the short steps to another door with candelabras fixed beside the frame.  He didn’t try the handle, he kept his momentum and slammed into polished wood with his metal elbow.  Pain tore through his shoulder but he managed to barrel through it, as he did the door that was now knocked off its latch.  It wouldn’t help to shut the door after him, he just raced through the small hall until it opened up into what he recognized as a kitchen.  A kitchen, here?  But maybe the mansion was just enchanted, and a kitchen needed attention.

One wall was lined with a long countertop and cabinets, broken and falling apart, decorated the wall above.  The candles were lit, pulsing with the same rapid flutter as his chest.  Standing before an open refrigerated was Vivi of all people, Mystery on the floor beside her feet as she examined the interior of the large silver box.  Arthur was reminded of the coffin he had found in the crypt, and knew he couldn’t stop to explain what had happened.

“Vivi!  Run!  MOVE IT!” Arthur yelped.  He snagged her sweater by the shoulder and jerked her after him.  “Hurry Mystery!  Hurry!  Move-move-move!”

“What is it?”  Vivi snapped.  She tried to look back as the dark shape zipped through the archway Arthur had darted from.  “Is that—”

 “Bad!  Bad ghost!” Arthur screamed, his voice cracking.  “It’s chasing me!  It’s hateful!”  He let go of Vivi as she ran ahead.  Vivi must have had time to rest, but he didn’t want to get left behind.  “Do you know where we’re going?”

“More or less,” she said.  Vivi would toss her eyes back trying to get a clear view of the ghost, but this was impossible with Arthur in the way and the corners they were forced to around.

“Arthur.  Arthur!” the voice of the specter screeched.  “I will get you!”

Vivi led Arthur and Mystery into a tight hall and past a few doors.  “It knows your name!” she snapped.  Vivi grabbed the handle of one door and snapped it back.  Mystery dove in followed by Arthur.  They were in a small study with desks, a bookshelf jutted across one half of the room, and a large table was in the furthest corner cluttered with books.  “Keep going!  There’s another door!”  She shoved Arthur ahead when he had turned his panicked eyes back to her.

Mystery had already reached the door and was waiting for the two to round the bookcase.  Arthur snapped the door open and followed Vivi with Mystery as they ducked out onto an upper stairwell.  “Where—” he began, before Vivi snagged the front of his shirt and hauled him along.  “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere!  We’re just trying to get distance on it,” Vivi gasped.  She let go of Arthur to hop down the stairwell a ways, then leapt over the banister to the floor below.  Arthur remained on the descending steps with Mystery, too winded to follow her example.  “If it doesn’t like you, we need to get you far away from it!”  The base of the stairs ended at a door across from the steps, and a short hall to the side that led to another door.  “Here.  This way!”

“Vi,” Arthur choked.  Mystery stayed by him gnawing on his pants leg, tugging him in the direction of Vivi.  “I don’t know if I can keep going!  I—” He stumbled forward when Vivi snatched his flesh wrist and tugged him through the hall.

“You are NOT doing this right here!” she said.  Vivi shoved the door open and followed Arthur through.  “You are not stopping until I say you can!”  She shoved him through a small room, a bedroom with two beds, and a bathroom at the furthest wall.  “I told you!  You’re never giving up on me again.”

The door was open so the three rushed through.  There was no sound of the ghost but Vivi wasn’t done dragging them through rooms yet.  They entered into another bedroom with one bed and a fallen bookcase, the door was in the furthest wall of the room.  The candles gleaming on the desk in the room was soft, which made navigating over the scattered books difficult for Arthur.  Vivi led them through the door into a larger hall with wood floors that rattled underfoot.  She took Arthur’s hand as she ran close to the wall, her eyes always checking over her shoulder to the walls and ceiling.  Vivi began to try doors along the way, until she found one that opened up into a sizable study.  A few desks had been abandoned inside and some large armchairs were shoved back into the corners, a door was in the furthest wall and another door was on the wall a few feet from.  No light was present within the disconsolate room but for the moonlight that seeped through the windows along the wall.  The slice of moon had crept across the sky and was nearly hidden behind the ragged trees that surrounded the estate.

Vivi shut the door behind Arthur once he stumbled through.  He looked ragged, his face white and his wrist had been clammy.  He stood in the center of the room gazing up at the windows and the sky outside as if in a trance.  “We should be safe here,” Vivi whispered.  She didn’t know if this was true, how devoted the ghost was to hounding Arthur or what it wanted from him.  “Art?  You gonna be okay?”  Vivi reached over and lightly touched the wrist of his prosthetic.  Arthur whipped away from her as if bitten.  She tried to reassure him, but Arthur just shook his head and backed away.

“My fault,” Arthur mumbled.  “Not my fault, I swear.”  He pressed his palms to his face and hunched forward.  Vivi was sure he was sobbing.  “I didn’t.  I’m telling you.”

Vivi stepped forward.  She shared a look with Mystery, who had sat himself on the other side of the room watching his two companions.  To Vivi’s gaze, Mystery tilts his head and turns back to Arthur.

“Arthur,” Vivi said, softer still.  “Why did that spirit want you?”

With a low sob Arthur gathered his breath.  “I didn’t.  I swear,” he said.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know.”

“You need to be honest with me.”  Vivi crept forward as Arthur dropped to the floor, he brought his knees up to his face and shuffled into the wall beside an armchair.  “Tell me, what did you do?”

“Nothing,” he hissed.  Arthur dropped his hands and looked Vivi in the face.  “I’m telling you.”  He took a small breath before he began coughing.  “Nothing.  I did nothing wrong.  Honest.  I’m being honest!”

Vivi crouched beside Arthur and placed her hand on his shoulders.  She could feel the rough skin under his sleeve where the prosthetic had been attached to his tendons.  “I will understand.” Vivi’s voice was solid but warm.  She held his gaze for several minutes as he held her eyes, tears streaking down his cheeks.  “I will help you Arthur.  I will be there for you.  Why?  Because you are my friend.”  Tears began slipping down her face, but Vivi wasn’t sure why.  “I nearly… I nearly lost you once.  I can’t do that again.  That’s the one thing I won’t do for you.  Understand?”

Mystery approached the two and leaned over to nuzzle Vivi’s face and then Arthur’s.  He sat down watching Arthur.  Mystery’s position in the moonlight that was cast through the windows caused the light to catch along the upper rim of his amber glasses.

“Arthur?”  Vivi asked.  She put her arms up when Arthur slumped in her lap and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist.  He began sobbing quietly, hard quivers tightening in his chest as he fought to keep low his anguish.  “It’ll be okay, Arthur.”  Vivi rubbed his back and gave Mystery a look of concern.  She didn’t mean to push him so hard.  “It’ll be all right.  You’re with friends.  We’ll get you through this.”

Mystery raised a paw and set it on Arthur’s shoulder, a low whine worked up from the dog’s chest.

Arthur tightened his grip on Vivi’s waist and pressed his forehead into his prosthetic arm.  “I woke up,” Arthur said, voice catching when he tried to speak.  “I woke up in a crypt.  He was waiting for me.”  He took a deep breath and felt more tears roll from his eyes.  “Waiting for me.  He’ll… he’ll never let us leave.  Not until he kills me.” At the admission, Arthur begins sobbing harder.  He had to die.  That’s what Lewis wanted.  It was the only way, the only right way to make amends.

“No.”  Vivi rubbed Arthur’s back.  “You don’t need to die to put that spirit to rest.  No one does.”

“You don’t understand,” Arthur moaned.  “It’s the only thing left I can do for him.”

“You don’t owe anyone anything.  Listen to me Arthur!”  Vivi pulled on his vest until Arthur leaned back and met her eyes.  “We brought some provisions when we came into this house just in case.”  Vivi wiped his face with her scarf, but the tears still fell.  “We’ve laid spirits to rest before, we can do it.”  She put her arms around Arthur’s chest and hugged him.  “That would be the right thing to do.”

Arthur glanced over to Mystery, who nodded once.  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Arthur said.  “I’m compromised, I—” He stopped when Vivi pushed him away and struck him across the face.  Arthur stared at her.  Vivi’s eyes glistened with tears and she held an expression of anger and determination.

“Just stop,” Vivi snapped.  “Stop it.  You will help Mystery and me or so help me, I’ll kill you myself!”  Vivi glared at Arthur, and Arthur reached his prosthetic arm to his cheek too sooth the ache with the cool metal. In the silence, the wind whistled outside over the eaves of the house and the slates of the walls.

Arthur choked on his gasp and melted out of his rigid stance.  A smile broke out on his face as he sniffled and giggled.  Vivi snickered with him, her own trepidation fading as she leaned forward and laid her arms around Arthur’s shoulders.  They said nothing, just held onto the other and chuckled and cried a bit more.

“You’re such a dork,” Vivi said, drying her face with the sleeve of her sweater.  She dabbed some of the tears away from Arthur’s face, before he began to rise.

“I’m your dork,” Arthur responded.  He used the armrest of the chair beside him to haul himself to his feet, and took Vivi’s arm and helped her stand with him.  “Are you ready to do this then?”

Vivi released his hand but hesitated as Arthur moved towards the door.  “Are you sure you’re ready?” she asked.  “We can wait here a little longer.”

Arthur shook his head and took the door handle.  “I have a feeling finding our way to the front room won’t be easy,” Arthur reasoned.  “Do you know—” He cut off when the door handle snapped out of his hand and hit the outside wall.  Arthur took a few steps back peering through the opening and the light that blazed through the open doorway.  In three steps Arthur was to Vivi, he took her shoulders and pressed her down behind the nearest armchair.  “Mystery, stay with Vivi.”

“Arthur!”  Vivi snared his vest before he could stand up.  “What’re you doing?” she snapped.

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur assured.  He took her hand and pulled it from his shirt.  “I’ll keep him busy while you get our equipment.  Don’t worry.”  Arthur smiled at Vivi as he patted her hand.  “I’m not giving up the ghost yet.” 

Vivi released his hand as he straightened up and turned away.  “Be careful,” Vivi whispered.  She wrapped her arms around Mystery when he climbed into her lap.  Vivi buried her face in his fur.  “He’ll be okay,” Vivi said, over and over.  “He’s okay.”

Arthur dashed to the door across the room and took the handle.  He turned back when that subtle thrumming entered the room fully, and suspended in the doorway was a shape that cast no shadow.  The thought caused his resolve to waver but he refused to glance aside.  He couldn’t give Vivi’s position away.  If Vivi failed, maybe the ghost would be satisfied with one death, one sacrifice to appease the soul. Arthur would make sure it was him and Vivi would be not be there to witness it.  Arthur shut his eyes and tightened his grip on the tarnished doorknob, its reflection warped the dark shapes of the room and its occupants.  Arthur forced himself to look up and meet the embers burning in the eye sockets of the skull, the expression on the dead thing sent cold needles through his skin.  The moonlight was satisfied to settle on the golden locket flashing on its chest as the specter glided through the room, past Vivi and Mystery without the slightest glimpse their way.

A small whimper bubbled from Arthur’s throat.  They were safe!  They had a chance.  Arthur gathered his breath and practically tore the handle out of the old wood as he jerked the door open, and froze.  He stood for a moment staring into darkness that greeted him, and listened to the dull throb of his beating heart.  Slowly, as if he were not moving at all, Arthur turned his head to look back at the ghost that had waited patiently for him to make his fatal error.

“Boo.”

[nobodyeverasked]

heathers; lee minho

(1731 words) - small

Summary: The shell of shyness can be melted by a warm hand.

Boisterous echoes of heavy, hip-hop music soaked the room, the bridges and verses etching themselves into Y/N’s head as he watched one of his friends, Lee Minho, practicing his freestyle dance. He moved with so much energy and accuracy, his breaths steady even through the blades of his sharp movements. All Y/N could do was sit in awe next to another friend of his, Jisung, while Minho’s body harmonized with the music.

As long as Y/N has been friends with the two boys in this room, he has never been able to fathom Minho’s dancing. Just how he was able to amalgamate with anything that boomed through the speakers, and how his fingers weaved in between the embers of his own grace so easily baffled him.

Sparks of admiration writhed wildly in Y/N’s eyes, his gaze falling over the sweat-soaked T-shirt that clung to Minho’s body. His breaths pulsed through the tepid air of the practice room as Jisung and Y/N stood up to get ready to go for their lunch.

Jisung kept his eyes on Y/N, how the flames of sheepishness singed his friend’s cheeks with the scarlet glow of shyness, and how his eyes darted across the pine floors. He has never noticed how the delicate cinders of bashfulness seemed to always coil around Y/N’s shaking breaths. It made the gears in his head turn with the inquisitive currents that soared through his mind.

“Imma get changed, I’ll be back soon…” Minho absentmindedly threaded a hand through Y/N’s hair, his tired smile catching Y/N’s gaze from off the floor in an instant.

“O-okay…” Y/N’s words tripped over themselves and tangled between his lips, his voice crushed by the shimmers of joy that always lingered in the older boy’s eyes. Minho nodded to them before exiting the room in a sweaty trudge, unknowing of the fires of joy and compassion that spread through his fingertips and intertwined with the younger’s hair. Even the way Minho’s cheeks glistened with a passionate glow, and how his voice was riddled with the arias of delight made Y/N melt, his icy breaths of self-assurance dissipating in Minho’s austral presence. 

“Oh. My. GOD!” Jisung’s widened with the sparks of realization, his voice rising with the arias of joy and hilarity. “You like him!” Y/N’s gaze snapped to his friend’s, the echoes of Jisung’s words pounding at the black door that Minho shuffled through just minutes ago. 

“Shut up!” Y/N slapped a hand over Jisung’s parted lips. His blush grew deeper, the scarlet fangs of embarrassment biting into his neck and sinking deeper into his skin. 

“Sorry…” Jisung’s voice died down to a hollow whisper, his fingers squeezing Y/N’s shoulder as he beamed with a radiant smile, his eyes littered with shimmers elation. He never thought of his two best friends being together, but with that possibility skipping through his mind, he has never been happier. “You like him?”

Y/N sat down quietly, his gaze suspended longingly to the ceiling. “Yeah…” He took a deep breath, his head collapsing in his shaking hands as he could feel the ashes of doubt scatter across his back and claw down his spine. “There’s no way, though…” 

“Yes, there is, just go for it!” Jisung sat down next to him, his arms draping over Y/N’s shoulders. “C’mon! He’s totally you’re type and I can see it!” His voice rang with the chimes of optimism. A smile still pulling at his lips. His embrace grew tighter, the flames of comfort spiraling around them and littering Y/N’s stare - wilted with self-doubt - with the sparks of hope. 

“Really…? Do you really think I have a chance?” Y/N leaned into the alleviating touch that grew heavier on his body, Jisung’s tranquil embrace scratching a small simper onto his worried frown. 

“Of course you do!” Jisung pulled down on Y/N’s chest, leading his head to his lap. His agile fingers - surging with the embers of confidence and blazing loyalty - twisting stray locks of the younger boy’s hair. He smiled as he could feel the tension relax in Y/N’s shoulders, a candle-light of confidence withstanding the rainstorms of his own mistrust.

“He’s just so talented, he’s such a good dancer and singer. He’s so beautiful and so so so perfect! I-I’m not…” Y/N let his gaze wander to the windows of the practice room, his eyes tracing the slivers of sunlight brushing against their floors and skipping stones of radiance across the scarlet walls.

“Shut the hell up! You’re sweet and inviting, and I can tell he likes your smile. You helped us compose 42, remember? Plus, even if you weren’t, Minho wouldn’t care.” Jisung tapped his palms on Y/N’s chest as he spoke, his eyes following the wisps of ivory clouds brushing against the afternoon sky. He felt a sigh breach the air, the embers of compassion convulsing to their breaths as Y/N raised his eyes to Jisung’s. “I’m being serious!” The older widened his eyes when their gazes locked together, his hands whipping up in surrender.

“Thanks, Sung, but I don’t wanna lose him… What if he says no?” Y/N sat up from Jisung’s lap, a hum escaping his lips as his fingers untangled from his hair. “Jisung-” The younger instantly started to panic, words of confession that linger on the tip of his tongue tasting sour. The thoughts of dancing with Minho in the practice room like they always did, and his friendly touches that scorched Y/N’s skin decaying in the windstorm of uncertainty.

“You need to go for it, tell him how you feel-” Jisung’s words were cut off by the sound of a closing door and a tired groan, the echoes of Minho’s steps rippling across the floors drowning out any thoughts that Y/N had of what he was going to say.

“Tell who what?” Minho scratched his head, a crisp, white sweater sheathing his hands as he stood in front of Jisung and Y/N, his eyes half-sheathed and a tired yawn bursting through his lips. His eyes annexed between the two boys when the currents of tension and awkwardness lumbered through the room, their gazes wandering across the room and running over everything except for Minho. “Oh~, does someone have a crush?” Minho cocked his head to the side, a cocky smirk weaving onto his mouth.

“Uh….” Y/N’s mind went absolutely blank, his mouth hung open by the weights of bewilderment, his thoughts running rampant to find something to say. “Yeah! No! I mean- ungh…” Y/N dragged his hand down his face, his eyes rolling at his own emotional ineptitude.

“I’ll leave you two alone for a bit.” Jisung heaved himself up from the ground, patting Y/N on his shrugged shoulder before slipping through the door with a playful wink, his smirk lighting Y/N’s cheeks ablaze with the scarlet hellfires of worry. All he could do was look ahead at Minho who blankly stared back at him, their gazes seized in a whirlwind of tension.

“Minho…?” Y/N let his worried stare drift back to the floor, his hands shifting stiffly behind his back.

“Yeah, sup?” Minho tried to hide his distaste for the haunting silence drifting between them, the harmonies of Y/N’s laughs and his casual conversations that tumbled amply through his lips being all the older boy could think about. He wanted the radiance of happiness that dwindled in Y/N’s heart to shine through the thunderclouds of his vivid dismay spiraling around them. Taking a step closer to his best friend, he could hear the shakiness in Y/N’s breaths and the deep thought that lurked in his wondrous eyes.

“I… I like you… A lot…” The younger shook his head as he just let the words out. “ It’s just the way you make me feel a little more special. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, I mean, you’re so talented and beautiful and amazing and-”

“Shhh~” Minho pressed his finger to Y/N’s trembling lips, making the parade of words that left his mouth instantly stop, and the shivers of worry that crawled down his spine dispel from his tense body. “I like you too, you’re so nice and inviting, and your smile is literally everything. You’re so handsome and I love hearing you talk.” With every aspect that Minho listed, he took a step closer, until their breaths entwined and their gazes were seized within one another’. All the younger could do was stare in surprise, the sparks of ardency that floated around in the older’s eyes kindling embers on his skin that felt so foreign.

“R-really…?” Y/N could not believe what he was hearing, the boy he has liked for so long, harbouring the same feelings for him?

He loved how Minho’s fingers felt against his lips and how his delicate hands stroked the side of his neck. He barely paid attention to the searing scarlet creeping onto his cheeks, Minho’s laugh overflowing the room with smooth tides of pleasure and joy.

“Yeah, Y/N, I like you too, a lot.” Minho’s hands nursed the skin of Y/N’s neck as he caresses trailed down to his forearm, and to his fingertips, sparks igniting between their gazes and their grazing touches. Cinders of admiration lit up and took flight around them, a blistering heat zealous ardor intertwining with their breaths and dancing in the sunlight glazing the room. “I know we’re going to lunch with the three of us right now, but how about we hang out a little later tonight? Just you and me? I heard there’s a cafe opening down the street and apparently, everybody’s talking about it.”

“That sounds amazing.” Y/N finally let a smile - shining with relief - burst through his fearful pout, the air growing heavy and thick with the tepid flames of passion whipping around them.

“Great.” Minho cupped Y/N’s cheek, interweaving their lips in a velvety knot of blooming amity, the heat rising between their pressed chests and crawling up their necks. “Now, let’s get going,” Minho let his thumb wander across the back of the younger’s hand as he clutched it softly, his lips - bursting with passionate sparks - gliding across Y/N’s knuckles. “Who knows how long Jisung’s been waiting.”