#because of the irrational fear that they’d go out of print soon. which is just nonsense and i know it….

[jeanmoreaux]

i want to die i am this 👌 close to ordering a physical print of a fanfiction it’s literally over for me someone kill me pls take me out i can’t live like this

[haikyuuhimbosandhypebeasts]

Heliotrope

Here’s my submission for the Forget Me Not collab for Anisylum! Please note the TW as it is VERY heavy. This piece is entirely SFW though!

Ship: Tsukishima Kei x GN! Reader Genre: Angst, but some fluff in some places. Word Count: 2.2k  Trigger/Content Warnings: near death experience, hospitalization, COVID-19, vomit mention, amnesia after hospitalization, a suicide attempt is briefly mentioned, swearing because this is by me Sexy Sexy Masterlist: here!

Sand clung to skin and the harsher rays of light that usually cascaded and burnt you had died away into a fading tangerine glow. You perched comfortably on the sand, taking note of the undulating waves- they were like you in the sense that while you could crash down hard on the opposition, you would shy away in a fragile manner when faced with gentle treatment. Perhaps it was that you felt you weren’t worth such luxuries that you found it hard to make friends through your first few years of high school. Perhaps it was trying to push people away because you were afraid yet alarmingly aware of your mortality. Perhaps it was something else entirely, something you weren’t quite ready to come to terms with. What you did know was that you weren’t alone in the violent struggle through high school to make friends while you had your walls up. Next to you was someone you never thought you’d share your favorite place with; in any terms you found this boy appalling with his behavior. So appalling, you saw yourself in the way he closed himself off and cut those close with tongue lashings. You knew this only through another friend who took issue with him as you went to another school in an entire other prefecture. Words mauled their way out from your throat, breaking the silence between you and Tsukishima Kei. “I won’t ask you why you tried to do what you did today. But I will ask if there’s anyone you can talk to in your life.” You didn’t understand yourself. Why would you say that…? You don’t remember anything like this at all… His response was equally incoherent and odd. “Okay, but I’ll kill you if you go back on it.” When you opened your mouth to reply to him, the ground around you suddenly reared up like a defensive serpent. A pillar of beach sand forced its way from the ground into your throat, suffocating and trapping your lungs in permanent fullness. You could only gag and cry, unable to even see Tsukishima past the torrent of sand breaking into your body with the intent to kill you slowly…

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

You woke up once more in that dull grey-blue and white room with the only sounds you could properly process being the beep of a heart monitor somewhere behind you. You had managed to halfway curl into somewhat resembling the fetal position, but something kept making you cough and gag as your throat was caught. You move your hand to whatever is catching and about to make you vomit- a tube. This tube, you followed, was in your nose good and solid, and you felt it deep enough in your sinuses you didn’t dare try to pull it out. Moving your hands felt foreign like you had forgotten how to process being human and natural motions like that. You testingly ran your right hand down the tube, taking care to not tug and cause discomfort. Your other hand came to rest on your face. It was slick from sweat, likely due to whatever the fuck you just had a dream about. At the corner of your lips was another tube and when you followed where it led it was taped to the side of your face. You lick your lips and manage to almost fall into a haze until you see movement for the first time in what feels like forever. To be fair, it is one of the most jarring appearances of a person you’ve seen in your whole life to what you can recall. A person in a full-body hazmat suit enters your room through a door you hadn’t even processed was there, then greets you as casually as they can through a plague-resistant suit. “Hey there.” You squint at them. Yeah, you have no fucking idea who this cosplayer in a hospital is, and while you should probably be polite, you feel like you got ran over not once but twice.  You try to speak to them, but you can’t. You don’t have the air for it, it’s like you have no control over your breathing. Clarity washes over you. You’re hospitalized. These are tubes because you were asleep and weren’t breathing or eating right. The realization must show on your face because your nurse speaks up again. “Don’t worry about me too much, we’re just gonna check your vitals and if you feel up to it, we can see how you do without the ventilators.” You try to manage out a “whoopee”, which unimpressively comes out as some form of odd wheeze, and your nurse begins by grabbing the blood pressure cuff covered in protective plastic while they wear a sympathetic expression.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Once you were off the ventilator, the nurse informed you about what had happened. Apparently, an ambulance was called when you were unresponsive and nearly blue in the face, sitting in front of your refrigerator with the door open. You were diagnosed with a severe case of COVID-19, something you had feared would wipe you out entirely and turn you past tense since its spread in your country. This fear wasn’t entirely irrational, either- you were immunocompromised and have been since you were a child. You grew up with being careful around others and hearing of a highly contagious new strain was something that filled you with so much paranoia you seriously considered quitting your current career and instead adopting a hermit lifestyle while completing college at home. Of course, such a thought was squashed by the slowly impending thought of rent, bills, due dates for assignments, and your bitch of a manager who lets people get close to you without a mask on. It’s not a big deal, (y/n), she once said to you. You wanted to shoehorn some tubes down her throat just to survive, see how that felt. It didn’t help that human resources wouldn’t listen to your complaint. They brushed it off since you were just a lowly sandwich maker at a chain sub place. If you had enough scraped together for lawyers right about now, they’d be totally fucked, you thought to yourself. Even more jarring is that it seemed you lost a handful of memories while in the hospital. You could remember basic outlines of people in your head- your very tall and incredibly testy roommate, your younger sister who wore glasses and was much smaller than you, and… a foggy memory of a man with messy black bedhead who had an arm wrapped around your shoulder. It hurt to think too hard. The doctor soon came by to give you test results, to check your vitals again, and to look over your records. He was a bit terse, but you can’t make the best judgments of people when they’re in plastic suits. “We’ll need to get you cleaned up by tomorrow and you should be able to head home,” he’d said, looking over your chart. You didn’t necessarily feel too ecstatic about your trip to your apartment. You remembered your roommate and how finicky he was, and you dreaded for him to belittle you over your condition. You dreaded it enough to even feel a knot of anxiety form in your stomach, wrenched in between your ribs without the intent of ever coming out. “We’ve already contacted uh…” The doctor squints at the screen, “Tsukishima… to come to pick you up tomorrow at noon. We’ll have care instructions printed out. You still have to quarantine for about a week more since your immune system isn’t at its most prime currently.” You agreed, it probably wasn’t a good recovery idea to make a couple of sammies for the public while you were recovering from a virus that had you intubated. He seemed grateful that you were lucid and cooperative, at least.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

You, predictably, didn’t sleep well after being in a medically induced haze for several days. Even more predictably, you found yourself awake from anxieties of the future. Tomorrow was only a few hours away, and then you’d be home. Home… what did that look like for you? The fog in your head was thick initially. You do remember coming home from classes at a different time than Tsukishima, how when you entered he’d often be reading over homework. You remembered how sometimes he would be in the shower and the scent of cheap green apple soap filled the living room connected to it. You remembered… You remembered holding his thin frame in your arms on a bridge, pulling him back from oncoming traffic. You remember how you both collapsed and how the cold autumn air stung your lungs. You remember wide golden eyes staring back at you, as tears slowly filled them, then his normally impartial voice breaking as he hiccuped a sob, “Why? Why did you have to be in Sendai right now?” You felt tears stinging your eyes and a lump form in your throat. You found yourself in distress of your new emotions. Maybe… maybe you can sleep this horrible feeling off. Maybe this fog in your head where you need to know how deep your relationship ran will lift once you get genuine sleep.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Finally, a knock on the door encouraged you to rouse from your sleeping state. And eloquently, you spoke your true feelings in your sleep-deprived state,  “No.” You hear the doorknob turn and the door open. There’s a lack of a greeting from your nurse nor a quick apology from your doctor for interrupting your sleep. Actually, if you’re gonna use logic, what nurse or doctor is gonna wake up their peacefully sleeping patient in recovery? Thought of it being your doctor or nurse practically evaporates once the intruder has a seat on your bed. They still haven’t spoken, so now you’re remembering what tricks of self-defense you learned online to give this person a proper ass-kicking for getting way too close. You crack your hazy eyes open to get a look at where they’re sitting and you stop dead in your thoughts as wary gold eyes peer down at you. Your eyes widen out of reflex and butterflies bloom from your stomach at seeing what you now remember is your roommate. “I knew you were awake,” He said, a wry smile on his face. His expression was betrayed by his concerned gaze, though, “Wow, you look like shit.” You don’t know entirely why past his comment feeling not as an insult, but almost as a compliment, but you smile a little, “I feel like it too.” His expression doesn’t change. He runs a large calloused hand through the tresses of your hair, though, as if to soothe you. The doctor walked in and apologized for interrupting the moment between the two of you, unsure if it was something serious. You told him it was nothing because that’s what it was to you.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

The car ride wasn’t filled with the snarky banter you had been expecting. Instead, there was plentiful comfortable silence as Tsukishima drove. You didn’t know whether to be grateful or not for the silence- you still felt quite feeble and needed way more bed rest before you could get ready to do anything for anyone. Despite the wholesome silence, you felt those round gold eyes focus on you occasionally. And even though it was comfortable, you felt a melancholy twinge in the atmosphere as he inspected you. “I know you’ll give me shit for this… but you look like you’ve lost weight. I uh…” He gripped the steering wheel harder. You glanced over at him. A shade of baby pink dusted itself across his cheekbones and nose as he focused on the road. “I’m worried about you.” Fuck, there go those butterflies again. Something in you pushed to help- to comfort- but the logical side of your brain brought you to a halt. You’d weighed it in your head a couple of times. You two act closer than just roommates, and it’s not entirely clear how or why you got up to this point… but you had a solid hunch you might be dating this guy. Maybe? You closed your eyes and rested your head on the car door as you thought. You remember how sand clung to your body and you could hear the roaring of the sea. How you watched Tsukishima focus on the waves to regulate his breathing. You vaguely remember your words breaking away from your throat and catching the salty sea air. “Why don’t we stay together?” His lanky body stiffened, then he looked at you with disbelief. “... you wouldn’t want that. I’m fucking annoying and mean.” Your eyes creased with familiarity at the line. “Yeah? So am I. We can butt heads until we balance each other out.” It looked like he wanted to cry, but his pride wouldn’t let him cry in front of you anymore today. “I won’t ask you why you tried to do what you did today. But I will ask if there’s anyone you can talk to in your life,” you reached a careful hand over to rub his back, “Kei, if there isn’t, let me be that person.” You felt how his breath shuddered. To save his pride, you looked to the ocean and watched its hypnotic movements. After a few deep, shaky inhales and exhales, he replied. “I don’t understand why you’re being nice to me. Why you didn’t let me die. I will probably come back to this point in my life several times and you’re trying to say you’ll put up with it?” There was some bite to his tone, he was trying so hard to put up walls when he had no will to do so at the moment. How long had he pushed others away from being close? If he was anything like you… it was since grade school. “Let me be your support for when you’re in pain,” You tried once more, “I’m stubborn as shit so I know I won’t give up on you.” “You’re not getting it, you fucking idiot. I’m always in pain, that’s just been life,” he snapped bitterly, glaring at you now.  “Then I guess I’ll be by your side forever.” You’d said it without thinking that day. It was like the ocean grew quieter with your words as if even Poseidon became interested in your proposition. You felt heat rise to your face at the implications of what you said. He stared at you with raised eyebrows and the slightest hint of a champagne pink hue on his face. He averted his eyes almost in a panic and watched the ocean again, suddenly very aware of his own expression. You carefully peered over at him again to see he’d only grown redder, now mirroring you. “You… don’t mean that,” He said as if it were a statement. “I do. You’re a good person inside, but you’re defensive and hurt. I’ve seen that from you in the past and I’ve learned more about you today. I want to be there for you as long as you’ll have me. Will you let me?”  He picked at the sand as if thinking it over for a moment. There was a brief pause as waves rolled over each other in front of both of you, the sound of their impact being the only thing to grace your ears. Finally, his cynical tone returned as he regained some form of his prior composure. “Okay, but I’ll kill you if you go back on it.”

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

“Hey. (Y/n), we’re home,” Tsukishima gently shook your shoulder to rouse you from your sleep. You opened your eyes slowly and groaned out a swear. Tsukishima felt a hesitant smile creep up his face as he opted to just try and maneuver you into your shared home himself. He remembered how waking up was hard for you. Once he opened the passenger door you nearly fell out onto the pavement, only saved by your seatbelt and the giant himself. Your face fell awkwardly into his hip, and you grumbled at the interruption to your sleep. “You sleep like the fucking dead, christ,” he mused out loud and sat you up so it was safe to unbuckle your seatbelt. He urged you to get up more- it wasn’t that you were heavy, he just really wasn’t in the place to lift you at the moment and didn’t even know how to go about it. Regardless, he held you up by a shoulder and crouched to make it easier for you both to walk to the apartment. In some part of your sleep, you began to speak, “Kei.” He kept his gaze trained forward at the front door and struggled to grab his keys from his pocket, “Yes?” “Are we married?” Kei dropped his keys, then shot you a look of concern, “... No…?” He had to hold himself back from saying not yet, unsure of what you were getting to. He reached down to grab his keys and he focused back on the door. “Why are you asking?” He unlocked the door and threw it open, getting you both inside finally. He set you on your couch and sat on the floor in front of you. You looked at him suspiciously, now roused from your sleep. The only thing on your mind was that dream- it had to be a memory! You refused to understand it as anything but that. You prodded, “On the beach, I told you I’d be by your side forever.” He seemed to weigh your thoughts heavily in his mind, “... did you forget about us?” You didn’t expect what felt like cold water to hit your back so hard and so suddenly at his suggestion. He didn’t seem hurt at the thought, instead, he found himself occupied with your reaction. His hand reached out to rub the side of your face as you looked at him with wide, guilty eyes. “Don’t worry about it. Your sister told me this kind of thing might happen…” His calloused thumb traced over your lip, and he offered a smile the best he could, “I’ll try to explain it.” Tsukishima explained that what you remembered happened about four years ago and you had been living together ever since. He motioned to photos on the walls of the two of you and people who you could just hardly remember. When you rested your index finger on an individual who was much scrawnier than most of the people there, sitting on the bench with you and watching you speak with admiration, Tsukki put his hand over yours. “That’s your sister. She took most of these pictures, but she usually sits next to you when you have a space available.” You nodded and closed your eyes. You began to remember summers you spent with her in childhood and her yelling at you to do your homework when you bothered her as you got older. You smiled a bit. Once your eyes opened again, your finger traveled to possibly the tallest person in the room. He was big, but you remembered something warm and comfortable about that man… “That’s Kuroo. You both went to the same high school and you were in his friend group.” You both went on like that for a while until you’d cleared everyone in that picture. Once you did, you sat down to think over the new cluster of names you’d picked up. “... when you promised you’d be here with me forever, did you remember what I promised to you?” Kei asked as he sat next to you. “No… I just remember what happened on the beach up until you threatened to kill me if I took back my promise.” “Oh, right. I was going through that phase,” He seemed displeased with the comment. You found it almost funny but refrained from laughing for his sake. He continued, in a quieter tone, “I promised that if something happened to you, that I would always be here for you, too. That I’d get you back into shape.” His larger hand gently entwined with yours, “... so if you remember that promise and you’ll have me, I’d love to marry you once you get your memories back. … If you want to. I-” You cut him off with a hug to his side, trembling a bit as your emotions got the better of you. You smiled up at him. “I can’t promise I’ll be better fast, and I still feel like several trucks ran through me at once… but I’m happy,” you managed out. You didn’t know what your face looked like right about now and you didn’t have the nerve to look up into Kei’s glasses to check your reflection. He wrapped his arms around you in return, pressing the side of his face against your head. “Please, don’t give me an answer yet. You’re not in the right mental state. I’ll wait for you until you’re ready.” You ran your hands up and down his back. You weren’t exactly afraid of remembering things, but you were quite anxious for what tomorrow might bring for both of you. Despite that, you felt safe recovering in his arms, and you were sure you’d feel that way for a long time.

Have a link to the sexy sexy masterlist down here as well. Unless you’re done reading, then have a good day. But if you’re not there’s some fire stuff in that bad boy.

[quillandink333]

Scarlet Carnations ~ Part I

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 2.9k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

A deafening blast jolted me out of my slumber. I snapped upright.

As a member of law enforcement, I was painfully familiar with the sound of a gunshot, and that was exactly what I’d just heard.

I strained my ears with bated breath, trying to hear over my own thundering heartbeat.

Loud, frantic footsteps raced down creaky, wooden stairs. Then a terrified scream filled the halls of my childhood home.

I tore away the sheets and rushed to where the scream seemed to have come from. When I reached the parlour was when I stumbled upon the scene. There, right at the foot of my mother’s memorial, was my godmother’s cold, lifeless corpse. Kneeling beside her was her granddaughter, Paya, weeping into her open palms in shock.

Only a minute or two had passed since I’d awoken at the sound of gunfire. “Wait here,” I ordered, then made a break for the front entrance, the nearest and most instinctual escape route.

But when I threw the doors open, there wasn’t a soul to be found.

I returned to the parlour with my tail between my legs. Then my toe hit something heavy and metallic that clacked underfoot. When I looked down and saw what it was, I froze. With caution, I ever so slowly stepped away from the weapon.

“Great...” I muttered, seeing as now it would have my toe prints on it. But the longer I looked at it, I realized I’d seen this revolver somewhere before.

Then it hit me. It hit me like a two-ton train car.

I quickly made sure Paya’s head was turned. Then with terribly trembling hands, I did what I had to do and carefully tucked it away in my nightgown.

I’d feared the precinct wouldn’t allow me to participate in the investigation seeing as I’d been on the scene at the time of the crime. However, it seemed they trusted me enough to even appoint me as the lead investigator. Granted, I had done a lot to earn their trust over the past three years, but this was unheard of.

Nevertheless, I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. The next morning, at seven o’clock sharp, I returned to the scene of the crime equipped with all the necessary tools of my trade.

I looked out the window of the cramped police buggy at our destination in utter astoundment. There were already droves of officers there, awaiting the arrival of me and my partner. The sight of the place I’d once called home being chained off and hidden from the public like this was jarring, to say the least. Of all the strange crime scenes I’d seen, this was the strangest. I never could’ve imagined I’d be returning here, not to eat Auntie Impa’s delicious pork buns or to hear Auntie Purah talk about her latest technological endeavours, but for work. How could I have?

“Zelda! Good—good morning!” greeted a rather skittish Paya when she opened the door for us.

“Good morning, Paya.”

She nearly lost her smile when she noticed Constable Fyori standing beside me. “Please, come in.” She stepped aside, and he and I entered into the low-ceilinged yet stately vestibule, removing our shoes and leaving them by the door. “Can I get either of you anything? Some tea, maybe?”

My assistant opened his mouth, but I raised a hand, silencing him. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. We have important business to take care of.”

“Oh, yes, of course! Silly me,” she chortled. “I’ll let you get to it, then.”

The first order of business was to examine the body. In most cases, a specialist would be needed to perform an autopsy, but unlike most inspectors, I had the forensic knowhow to take care of it myself. One might have said this was a side effect of my hobbies and my avid interest in all things related to science that I’d harboured since grade school. However, a full autopsy complete with the weighing of the body and the removal of the organs would come later. For now, it would suffice to determine two simple things: the time of death and the cause of death.

But before I could even get close to the body, I was stopped by my assistant, who grabbed me gently by the arm.

“You don’t have to do this,” he uttered in his typical, mousy tone. “I can call for someone else to come and take care of it for you.”

The look of real and profound concern seated deep in his aquamarine eyes pulled at my heartstrings. It had been a year, roughly, since he’d first begun working under me. He was always so worried for me, and I always felt terrible because of it. I unhooked his hand from my arm, putting on a warm smile. “I’ll be okay, Link.”

He looked at me as if to ask, “Are you sure?”

“Really, it’s fine. Don’t worry,” I insisted. “Thank you, though.” This finally got him to return my smile, albeit only briefly.

I already had a decent estimate of the time of death. The period we were looking at was between half ten at night, when the last person awake (which had just so happened to be me) had gone to bed, and three in the morning, when the gunshot had given me that rude awakening. Really I should have examined the body as soon as I’d discovered it. In most other cases I worked on, I even wished I’d been the first on the scene, before the stiff had yet to even go stiff. Of course, the one time I happened to be one of the first to discover a murder, it had to be like this.

And yet, until I knew who was responsible for this atrocity, grieving could wait.

Right off the bat, I could tell that this had been a homicide. This may have seemed obvious to someone like Paya, but as a detective, I’d had to forcefully train myself to assume nothing and question everything. Based on the characteristics of the hole running straight through her neck, however, I determined that the gun had been shot from too far a distance for it to have been suicidal. Auntie Impa’s arms simply weren’t long enough.

But for a death caused by hemorrhage from a severed jugular vein, there was a shockingly small amount of blood. The rush-woven mat beneath her was nearly spotless, and I knew from experience how difficult it was to get stains out of these mats. Even when I checked underneath the mat, there was still nothing. No blood, and no bullet.

With a final nod, I stood up and signalled the other officers to take the body away.

“Now, let’s see here...” I said to myself, scanning the area immediately surrounding the corpse before approaching my mother’s altar. But when I laid eyes on the damage it had sustained, I stumbled back.

Though she hadn’t been a follower of the same faith held by the Sheikahs, my mother’s memory had been enshrined here because, like myself, they’d been like a second family to her.

With all due caution, I picked up what remained of her photograph. The glass was shattered, and a bullet had completely erased her face.

If this wasn’t a sign of the Yiga organization, I didn’t have a clue what was. Who else would’ve borne such ill will toward Hilda Hyrule, the town’s beloved last mayor who’d been dead ever since the tragic “accident” at City Hall eighteen years prior? That massacre had been what had ushered in their age of power, and with no one left to stand in their way, they’d been terrorizing the city ever since.

Before I’d even had the chance to begin my analysis, I heard Paya’s timid footsteps shuffling up to me. “Zelda?” she whispered, obnoxiously tapping her finger on my shoulder. “Excuse me...”

I turned my head and forced a grin. “What is it?”

“Umh, I didn’t know he’d be accompanying you today.” I didn’t even have to follow her gaze to know who she was eyeing.

I suppressed a sigh. “Constable Fyori is my partner,” I reminded her politely. “I take him with me on all of my investigations.”

“Yes, I know, but...” Now her gaze was nervously flitting back and forth between me and Link. “I-I wasn’t prepared to see him again after so long. What if—what if he says something to me?”

“He won’t,” I huffed. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh my, I’m so sorry,” she fretted. “I’ll get out of your hair.” I gave her a nod of the head in thanks, and she kindly stepped back and out of my space. But even after that, I could still feel her intense stare from across the room. I let out the sigh I’d been holding in. Sure, Paya was irritating, and I was going on maybe four or five hours of sleep at most, but there was no excuse for me to be irrational, especially since it would get me nowhere in my line of thinking. What I wouldn’t have done for a nice, hot cup of chamomile at that moment.

Based on the extreme angle of the bullet’s trajectory, one could tell at a glance where the shooter had to have been positioned. They’d have been standing above the altar with very little space between the two—definitely not enough for an entire person. Therefore the bullet that had taken the victim’s life had to have been a different one. This was backed up by the absence of any blood around the hole or anywhere else on the shrine. So why had I only heard one gunshot that night? And where in the world was the bullet responsible for Auntie Impa’s death if not on the scene of the crime?

After photographing the hole and scribbling my thoughts and observations down in my notebook, I began the procedure of extracting the bullet from the altar. This was a delicate task, one that I admittedly had a hard time trusting anyone else in the force with. Once I’d succeeded in retrieving the bullet, I determined it was of the same calibre as the one that had passed through the victim’s throat, meaning it was likely that it had been fired from the same gun. Unfortunately, all these facts corresponded with the weapon I’d found on the scene mere hours ago, two chambers of which were empty. There may have been no prints left on the trigger, but even so, I simply didn’t have it in me to run a striation comparison.

Standing up straight and taking a quick, deep breath, I turned to my assistant, who seemed to be investigating the mantelpiece. “Right, then, Fyori.” He turned his head as I approached him. “Anything to report?”

“No, madam,” he replied solemnly, avoiding my gaze and peering straight ahead over the top of my head.

“Is that so...?” I tapped the end of my pen against my chin habitually. “We seem to have a dreadfully diligent killer on our hands.” I gave the room another once-over from where I stood beside him. “You’ve been thorough in your search as always, I presume?”

“Of course.”

“And you found nothing? Not even a fingerprint?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Then let’s move on,” I sighed, turning toward the doorway leading out into one of the building’s many corridors. He followed, just a few paces behind me. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to check since we got here.”

“That’s strange...” muttered Auntie Purah as she jumped through the footage captured by the front entrance’s security camera. “Symin, did I miss something?”

The Sheikah estate’s security supervisor shook his head. “Not that I could see.”

“Let me check it again.”

But even when she rewound and skipped through it a second time, the only person to appear was still myself on my initial search for the killer. Link gave me a furtive glance. I smiled at him in reassurance.

“Perhaps the other cameras caught something,” I suggested. “It would make sense that the culprit wouldn’t want to simply waltz right in through the front door.”

Auntie Purah looked to Symin. “Well, there are three other cameras, but two of them are so far removed from the scene that I doubt they’d be of much help.”

“And the third?” I asked, reaching for my notebook and something to write with.

“That would be the courtyard camera.”

“Ah, perfect!” The courtyard was located at the very centre of the property and served as an intersection between the four main hallways. “That one’s bound to have caught something. Let’s see.”

But this, too, would turn out fruitless. Throughout the night, there wasn’t even the shadow of a clue as to the killer’s movements.

“This...” I gaped. “This is impossible.” I knew for a fact that this particular model of camera was designed for the very purpose of protecting its footage from being altered or obstructed. Could the killer have made themselves invisible somehow?

“I don’t believe it.” Auntie Purah shook her head creakily. “Our company takes great pride in the reliability of our security cameras!”

Enraged, the tiny, old lady tried to stand up from her seat. Then a loud crack resounded throughout the cramped surveillance office. She screamed.

“Miss Purah, please calm down,” urged the kindly Symin, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she seethed, adjusting her glasses. “Thank you.” I didn’t know the man as well as I did the rest of the family as he had become a part of it a few years after I’d left the nest. However, it seemed like he would make a fine successor to Auntie Impa’s role of keeping her elder sister’s enduring impulsivity in check.

“There’s no reason to worry, Auntie. This is no fault of yours or your company’s,” I said, hoping to ease her pain a little. She’d suffered a terrible loss, and it was taking a great toll on her. It was difficult to watch such a brilliant mind come undone because of something like this. But after hearing my words, she looked up at me with a wrinkly smile. “My partner and I will just have to do an even more thorough inspection of the property tomorrow.”

The ride back to the precinct wasn’t a pleasant one. By the end of the day, my own mind had deteriorated into a swirling whirlpool of confusion, resentment, and woe. The investigation so far had borne so little results, it was hard to imagine that tomorrow’s search would be that much more successful. Of course there was still so much more that needed to be looked into, but right now, I just couldn’t see this turning out well. I still hadn’t solved the mystery behind my mother’s death in eighteen long years. Why, in this case, would I prove to be any less of a failure?

I curled my fists against my legs, trying my hardest to forget about the empty feeling in my stomach. Despite this, I knew I didn’t have the energy to do much more rational thinking today, if any at all.

Then my colleague broke the silence. “She was important to you, wasn’t she?” he asked, but such a personal question was strangely out of character for him.

“Yes.” I smiled sorrowfully into my lap. “I never really thought of her as a mother figure,” I admitted, “but she did put a lot of time and effort into raising me, in my actual mother’s stead.”

“She must’ve been a wonderful person.”

This made me laugh, to both his and my surprise. “Well, she would often scold me and Paya with the strictest attitude you can imagine, but I suppose she always had our best interests at heart.”

The longer I thought about Auntie Impa, the more I mulled over who could possibly have wanted her dead. She had already been getting on in age. Had the perpetrator’s need to kill her really been that dire? The only time people ever went that far was when their victim’s life would’ve put them in danger somehow if they’d have allowed them to go on living. But then again, there was the Yiga organization. They went around committing murders a couple times every week for seemingly no reason other than to flaunt their power. Perhaps Auntie Impa really had been just another one of their prey. Even so, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that there was more to it than that.

“Don’t you think it’s strange?”

The constable cocked his head, but kept his eyes on the road.

But then I stopped myself. There was still no proof of the Yiga’s involvement, so there was no point in bringing it up now. “Well, all of it is quite strange, frankly,” I amended. “The lack of blood, the missing bullet...”

“Could the killer have moved the body from somewhere else, perhaps?” he tentatively suggested.

“Very good, Link. That’s exactly what I’ve been theorizing.” The tips of his ears flushed, and he seemed to shrink back into his seat a little. “Oh, but then...wouldn’t that make it more likely for the cameras to have caught something?”

“That is true,” he concurred. “And there’s still been no sign of the murder weapon?”

I swallowed hard. “No...” My eyes flickered down toward my briefcase. “None.”

[firstofficers-log]

in the woods somewhere

newt scamander/werewolf! reader (gender neutral)

Being a werewolf in the 1920s isn't easy. You meet someone post-transformation who wants to help.

author’s notes: It’s been 2000 years since I’ve written anything new and for that I apologize 

I wrote this as a Self Insert so it’s technically a masc!reader but there’s no gendered pronouns so go nuts babey!!! 

----

He finds you in a forest.

You’d been coming here for a while. A safe place, away from people. You remember to come in the height of your fever, desperate not to hurt anyone. You’d realized, not soon after the transformations began, that you could hurt people. You didn’t want to. If you left, and there was no one around, you’d maybe hurt some wildlife -- a rabbit, a deer, but never a person.

You had a life. Family, friends. They loved you, they did, but they didn’t know you -- not for the last few years. They worried, yes, when they saw you getting ill so often, but no matter what they did, they couldn’t do much besides comfort you as the fever came like clockwork. Exactly like clockwork. You were surprised, in all this time, that no one had figured it out -- but, you supposed, people didn’t want to see what could hurt them. They’d rather stay blissfully unaware than see things as they were.

Your friends seemed a distant dream now, as you’re laying in the nook of a tree on the forest floor. Your clothes are in tatters, but you’re still wearing them, the fabric laying across your shaking form. Above you is a layer of green, the early morning sky barely visible through the trees. For a moment you watch the oranges and yellows of the sunrise, your shaking breath billowing in clouds in front of you.

The cold air is harsh on your skin, making you shiver, but you’re grateful. Feeling the cold means you’re still alive -- it means you’re human for the time being. Your form on the full moon runs so warm that it’s stifling, and you hardly feel the cold night air as your paws trample the soft earth in search of your next meal.

You shudder again, trying not to think of your escapades. This proves difficult, however, when you look at your hands: your nails are jagged, caked with dirt and blood. You stare at them for a moment, watching them shake -- in anger? Fear? Disgust? -- before curling your fingers into fists and shoving them under your arms, away from sight. You could feel your nails cutting into your already raw palms, but that didn’t matter. You had to feel something -- anything -- that proved you weren’t a monster.

“Hello,” you hear a soft voice from a few trees away. You jump -- you hadn’t heard anything, which was worrying, as the terrain was covered in leaves and twigs. You were so out of sorts that you’d forgotten to be aware of your surroundings. You’d left your wand at home, you always did when you knew you’d transform, but now you wished you hadn’t.

“Wh,” you croak, your voice broken, your vocal chords still settling into their change. You become distinctly aware of the tears that have been streaming down your face, leaving warm trails down your cheeks. You don’t know what to say. You’d never been confronted before, not like this, your hair a mess, your clothes destroyed, in the middle of the woods. You want to scream, to run, to make sure your one-person audience doesn’t hurt you or cry out, but instead what comes out is “ Please.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice says, and now that you’re able to pay attention, it sounds… soft. Masculine. Your eyes dart to the source; he’s half-way concealed himself behind a tree, his hands up, his eyes not quite meeting yours. His head is slightly bowed and it appears he’s trying to make himself seem smaller than he is, though with his tall frame it’s a little difficult.

You should be scared. Someone is watching you now, in your state, and while your friends and family might be blind to your condition, it would be kind of difficult to ignore all the signs when you’re like this. You should be worried for your life, trying to tell him it’s not what it seems, but instead you feel the overwhelming urge to trust this man.

“I want to help you,” the man says and slowly steps forward once he realizes you’re not going to lash out. You realize suddenly what he’s doing -- he’s trying to make himself seem like he isn’t a threat. Some part of you is incensed at this, because you’re not a predator, but another much stronger part of you finds it endearing.

“H… help? How?” You finally get out, and your teeth start to chatter. The cold starts to hit you now -- you’ve been out in the cold all night, and while you’ve mostly been in your animal state, your human form is not cut out for the harsh winter morning air.

The man pauses. It seems like he hadn’t thought he’d get this far. He ponders for a moment, his eyes flickering here and there, looking as though he was inspecting each leaf and pine needle on the ground below him. His eyes trail up to you, at last, and he seems to notice you’re shivering.

“You’re cold,” he says, and you bite back a retort. Yeah, you’re a genius. You hold it in, though, because you really don’t know what to do with yourself. You’re usually back in town before morning, darting home, careful to replace the frost where your footprints have been in your neighborhood, but at this time of day when the sun is almost out… anyone could see you.

The man in front of you is shedding his coat.

“No, please, it’s all right, I--” You stop yourself as he holds it out for you at arm’s length.

“It’s all right,” he says, “I’ve got another in my case.” For the first time, you notice a battered brown case a few feet away, near the tree he was behind when he first drew your attention to him.

He doesn’t move to hand it to you, leaving it at arm’s length, his other arm still up so you can see he’s unarmed and not trying to trick you. You’re grateful for this, you are, but you worry that you won’t be able to stand. It’s irrational, but you don’t want to seem weak in front of him. The cold really is starting to get the better of you, though, so you try your best to stand.

Your legs are shaky. You feel the tenderness of your muscles, sore from overuse and the harshness of the transformation. You don’t crumple, though, and you’re grateful for that. Your feet are bare, and you imagine you lost your shoes somewhere in the forest. You weren’t particularly attached to them, but you’d sure appreciate them now, as the frost crunches underneath your feet.

You grasp the jacket with a shaky hand, and he lets go as soon as you have a grip on it, lifting his hand once more and taking a step away. He’s taking every precaution to ensure you don’t think he’s dangerous, and it’s a little bit over the top, you think, but you’re grateful. You try to smile at him, feeling cracks on your lips, before you shrug the coat on.

It’s still warm. It very nearly touches the forest floor, though you’re sure on him it’s not quite as long. Its weight is comforting, its warmth spreading through your figure slowly.

“There’s some bread in the left inner pocket,” he says, his hands now lowering slowly, his fingers idly fiddling as he watches you. “It’s not much, but it’s -- it’s food.”

You open your eyes, grateful, and your hand runs along the lining of the jacket until you find the lip of a pocket. You slip your hand inside, expecting to be met with food, and instead you receive a small nip on one of your fingers.

“Ouch!” You say reflexively, quickly withdrawing your hand. No new blood, it seems, so it was just a warning.

“Oh!” the man exclaims. “Sorry. I meant the right.” He looks genuinely apologetic, and he murmurs something under his breath that sounds like “ Pickett.”  

You give him a hesitant smile and reach instead for the other pocket. There’s a small chunk of bread there, as he’d said, and it’s slightly stale, but he’s right -- it’s food. You’re caught up in eating for a moment before you realize -- people don’t just carry bread in their pockets. He must’ve known you were going to be out here. He seemed far too prepared for this to have been an accident.

“How did you--” you say through a mouthful before remembering your manners. You chew and swallow before continuing. “How did you know I’d be here?”

The man smiles awkwardly, looking again at spots around you, but not directly at you. “Um, you see-- well,” he starts, and again you find him endearing. “I-- I look after creatures, you see, and I’ve been noticing things.”

“Things?” You say, bristling. Creatures, he’d said. You had no reason to distrust this man, you knew, but the use of the word put you on edge.

“Yes,” he says, seemingly gaining confidence. “Things that don’t line up with the usual wildlife. You know, bigger paw prints. You can tell a lot just from prints. People just... don’t tend to look.”

There’s a lump in your throat now. What did he know? What was he going to do? Your… kind wasn’t generally well received by the rest of the community.

When he realizes you’re not going to respond, he continues. “Um-- Well, I’ve been seeing prints for a while now, and I was keeping tabs on them, you see, and… they’re not consistent. I mean, they’re only there once a month. It was sporadic. I didn’t understand at first, but then I realized.” He pauses for a moment, shifting from foot to foot as he tries to decide how to continue. “The moon,” he says finally. “The full moon.”

“What,” you start again, and your voice cracks. You clear your throat. “What… does that have to do with me?” It’s a hollow question, you know this, and your defeated delivery doesn’t really leave room for doubt. He knows what you are -- you know he knows what you are.

“You’re a werewolf,” he says bluntly. The word stings. You know what you are, how could you not know what you are, but you’d never heard anyone say it to you. The time has come, and you thought you’d have a little more fight in you. Someone’s discovered you! Your brain shouts. He knows what you are! Run! Do something! But instead you just stand, watching him, wearing his blue coat, the bitter cold stinging your face.

There’s a considerable silence between you. The only sounds are the birds chirping, squirrels foraging, the forest waking up. You’re shaking again, not because of the cold -- but because you’ve realized it’s likely your time is up. If he wanted to do something to you, though, why draw it out? Why act like he’s helping you?

“What are you going to do to me?” You manage, your voice small, your breath billowing out in front of you.

The man looks affronted. “Do?” He asks, finally looking directly at you, his eyebrows knitted together. His face is smattered with freckles. “What do you mean do? I told you, I want to help you.”

“You can’t,” you say, your voice cracking. You feel hot tears stream from your eyes again. “You can’t help me. You can’t want to help me. You know what I am.” Your legs give out now, and you’re kneeling on the ground, twigs poking your skin.

“Yes,” he says, “yes, I know what you are. And I know it’s not your fault.” He lowers himself to the ground, closer to you now, close enough that you know you could count his freckles if you tried.

“I want to help you,” he repeats, “in any way that I can. I want to understand. That’s all.”

You look up at him through teary eyes, and he looks at you directly. His eyes are a clear blue, and they’re beseeching you to say yes, to let him help, to trust him.

He seems to surprise himself when he wipes away some of your tears with his thumb. It comes away slightly dirty, and for the first time you imagine what a mess you must look. You flush as he pulls his hand away.

You look at him for a moment more, searching his eyes and face as he watches you. There’s something you see, something unplaceable, that makes you want to trust him. You nod minutely, and his face breaks out in a brilliant smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling as the tension leaves his shoulders. Oh, you think. He’s cute.

“I’m Newt,” he says softly, almost awkwardly as he realizes he hasn’t introduced himself. “Newt Scamander.”

You sniff and give him a watery smile in return, introducing yourself with a shaky laugh. He stands and offers you a hand. You know he can’t fix the transformations -- nothing can. They’re painful, and the fever is almost unbearable, but he makes you want to try. To believe that there is something that can be done.

You take his hand.

“Come on,” he says, helping you up. “I have a place where you can clean up.”

[nancywheelxr]

27, Zarlie

There are few things that surprise Zari anymore, especially regarding missions with the Legends. Once you had a pet dragon, she supposes, your bullshit-O-meter sort of gains new heights. So yes, when Sara tells her the string of murders in the suburbs of New Jersey needs investigating, Zari thinks nothing of it.

When Sara tells her she needs her and Charlie to go undercover, it’s not like she’s pleased, but she can see it makes sense. Zari has an amulet, she’s lived in a house in the ‘burbs before, she can pass as not-cuckoo-crazy better than half of the Legends. Charlie is a shapeshifter, she knows the supernatural, understands these creatures. 

It makes sense.

Constantine lays down all sorts of wards and spells on their newly bought house. Sara inspects it thoroughly with Ava, pointing out all the ways they were unsafe under that roof and fixing them the best they can. Mick is given a half-assed badge and a generic uniform and told to play night watchman. They set all kinds of contingency plans in place.

By all means, Zari and Charlie are as safe here as one can possibly be. 

Safe as houses. 

“Do you think,” Charlie says as they settle for the night. There’s only one bed, just in case anyone comes snooping, and Zari has claimed it, allowing Charlie to graciously take the large couch they had chosen on Gideon’s IKEA catalog. “This place is haunted?”

“No,” Zari immediately says. But then again, just last year, they’ve dealt with a possessed doll and a demon again. Maybe it’s time she, too, reevaluated her beliefs. “I mean, not this particular one, no. Why?”

“Nothing,” she shrugs, lounging on the velvety couch, and her sleeping shirt rides up, revealing too much skin for Zari’s sanity. Something hot and hungry growls deep in her belly. “It’s just all this empty space– it’s an awful big house for just the two of us, innit?”

It is. Now that Charlie mentions it, Zari feels it, too. All these empty rooms on the other side of the door. Just stale air and the creaking of the wood. The blinking lights of the microwave. The clock ticking in the living room. It’s an awful big house, yes. 

“Mick’s outside,” Zari says nonsensically, wondering who she’s trying to reassure here. Or why, anyway. There’s no reason to be scared at this point, they’ve barely gotten here. Today’s been a blur of moving in, making a spectacle of furnishing the place, putting on a show to assure the neighbors that yes, this is a perfectly normal household, nothing to see here. The most frightening thing so far has been the lingering sewer smell from the busted pipe a few houses away, but Zari’s been living in an enclosed space with both Mick and Constantine, she can stand some stupid unpleasant smells. “Anyway, great topic to discuss at midnight, thanks for that, by the way.”

Charlie smirks, slow and syrupy. “I aim to please, love.”

It’s not easy, falling asleep. Zari has to stop herself from tossing and turning, forces her body to stay very still, a light sheet over her body in the stifling warmth of a heatwave during summer. Even in her dreams, she feels too hot, burning up a fever that brings strange visions to the forefront of her mind– she dreams of walking down a road with thick woods at either side, alone under the moonlight, reflecting eyes watching her from the shadows; she hears the cars approaching, sees the headlights, and yet no one passes her by. Around the bend, there’s a sign but the writing is all wrong, foreign in an impossible way, and Zari keeps on walking with the determined certainty of a dreaming person that whatever she’s looking for is at the end of this road. The eyes follow her, unblinking, and the sour smell burns her lungs like sulfur. Ahead, the road stretches on, infinite.

At some point during the night, Zari jolts awake. Just like that, tugged from her dream between one blink and the next, and she’s staring right into the vanity’s mirror. It’s a rather startling thing to see right as you’re so jarringly regaining consciousness, something terrifyingly cold crawling down her spine. Her reflection stares back at her, just as distraught, and Zari averts her eyes to the window in the reflection, exhaling at the silver moon visible through the blinds. Although, she quickly glances down, lying back on the mattress, glad that Charlie is sound asleep on the couch, because there’s no excusing her irrational fear at how much that car’s headlight had looked like glowing eyes in the dark.

*

In the morning, with the sun shining once again scalding on her skin, Zari pauses as she’s opening the bedroom window. Something odd settles on her gut. She can’t see the bed reflected in the mirror from here. This spot should not have been in the reflection last night.

The room feels suddenly very small and very empty and Zari shivers, hurrying away even as she chalks it up to the remnants of a dream. She had never seen nor heard that car drive by either. Clearly, she must have been dreaming, Charlie wouldn’t have been that still anyway, they all know she’s a messy sleeper.

*

“Do you think,” Charlie asks over breakfast with a plate of steaming pancakes between them, “someone died in this house?”

Zari sets her mug down forcefully, glaring. “Why are you like this?”

“I’m just saying,” she defends herself, resuming her inhaling of the pancakes, “the Boss said a buncha people died ‘round here, right? This place was way too cheap, I’ve seen the papers. I’m just connecting the dots, love.”

“Well, don’t, then,” Zari watches the honey slowly drip down on her plate rather than the way the sunlight hits Charlie, softening all her edges. This early in the morning, she looks too touchable, beautiful in a way that doesn’t seem impossibly far. She’s warm and solid, a person instead of a concept. It makes the fluttering feelings caged between Zari’s ribs too real, too plausible. The waters become too dangerous to thread. “I don’t need any more weird dreams because of your weird theories.”

At this, Charlie perks up. “Oh, you had a weird dream, too? Mine was completely bonkers!” She grins, excited, but something is dulled behind her eyes like she’s trying to fix up the holes in her wall with malleable plaster instead of bricks. “I dreamt I was here, in this house, but it was different. None of our stuff was here, for one, and there was this hideous wallpaper. Very 70s. The lights were out and I had a candle like some bloody Victorian penny dreadful, but whatever, I had a candle and I was hiding from something, I think? I could hear it growling and pacing around the house sometimes, so I hid in a closet– which, by the way, is kind of funny, in an ironic sort of way? Bet the big guy would get a kick out of it– and I could see it coming to open the closet door, you know, I could see through the gaps, but I woke up before it did.”

“Wow,” is all Zari can say. There’s so much to unpack there, she doesn’t even know where to begin. Jesus. 

“I know,” she shrugs, deceivingly nonchalant, “how was yours?”

Uncertainty pools all over Zari, filling her to the brim. A dream is just a dream, but something about those eyes and the writing and the window in the mirror just feels off somehow. Like the sort of thing you shouldn’t say aloud. “Can’t remember,” she says instead, and then because the wind picks up and breezes into the kitchen, she scrunches up her nose, “shit, they really need to do something about this smell.”

A disgusted sound comes out of Charlie as she pushes her half-full plate away. “It smells like something bloody died in there. What the fuck was in those pipes?”

“Dunno,” Zari shrugs, standing up to dump their dishes into the sink, and glances at the street. A few houses away, the sewer is still cordoned off. “Maybe a possum fell in or something? I think I heard some raccoons last night too.”

“Coulda just been Mick, though,” Charlie snickers and leaves to contact the ship.

*

“Nothing’s coming to mind, mate,” Constantine’s voice is staticky and tiny coming from the communicator and it grates on Zari’s nerves even more than usual. She’s folded herself on the couch, throw pillow in her lap, while Charlie is sprawled on the carpet, communicator on her stomach. “Dreamwalkers wouldn’t make this mess.”

“Are you sure?” She presses, sighing frustratedly. It had been foolish of them to think they’d get a lead so soon in the mission. 

“Positive,” he agrees, words mumbled in that way which means he’s trying to sneak a cigarette without Sara noticing, “but I’ll look into it, just in case,” then, a pause where Zari can practically hear the smirk on his voice, “anywho, how’s married life treating you lot?”

“Piss off,” Charlie scowls, eyes still closed, basking in the patch of sunlight like a cat, “don’t be a bastard. We’ll be off playing nice with our dear ole neighbors today, so tell Sara not to call until later.”

“Will do, love,” Constantine is laughing, chuckling, really, considering he doesn’t laugh, still entirely too amused by their situation, but he grows serious before adding, “be careful, though. There’s something dark in here, something hungry.”

Zari thinks of eyes watching you in the dark. She shudders. “Thanks.”

“Ta-ta,” Charlie murmurs, turning off the thing. 

In the silence that follows, his words hang in the air, floating along Charlie’s it’s just all this empty space, and Zari grips the fabric tighter, resists the urge of pulling the quilt over herself. It stems from child logic, the naive certainty that if you don’t see it, it doesn’t see you, as if a flimsy blanket would be enough to build a safe space. 

“Think its time to go pay Ms.Flower-Prints a visit?” Charlie is sitting up now, studying her with guarded eyes, a tension to her shoulder that hadn’t been there before.

Pull yourself together, Zari tells herself. To Charlie, she only says, “don’t call her that.”

*

Myrtle Jones has lived in Cherry Street for her whole life, from childhood to now, and according to her file, she never married, never had children; a lonely life in a fairly lonely place. It makes Zari wonder why she had been so reluctant to invite Zari and Charlie to her home– no, actually, it doesn’t. There are dozens of possible reasons and none of them is a good omen to the kind of person Myrtle might be. Zari wants nothing more than turn right back on the quaint stone path leading to her front door, but Charlie’s got her hand on a vice grip as if anticipating her flighty attitude.

That, of course, is a hurdle on Zari’s whole plan on staying sane and dignified for the duration of the mission. She had banked on Charlie staying as disinterested in her as she is with following rules, not teasing her over breakfast, all soft-eyed, or holding her hand because she knows Zari is liable to turn tail. Zari needs Charlie to be as awful about this whole thing as possible, needs her to make it difficult not to focus on the mission. 

In all her plans, Zari had been very stupid not to consider Charlie, as unpredictable as ever.

“Christ, could you look less like I’m holding you hostage here?” Charlie hisses, ringing the doorbell. On the glass door, Zari tries not to commit the reflection to memory. “We’re going for happily wed, not a Criminal Minds episode.”

“I really don’t want to talk with our racist neighbor,” she whispers back, shuffling a little, “besides, this whole thing is a Criminal Minds episode. Wanna bet our murderer is probably passing as a middle-aged white man?”

“Point,” Charlie admits. Huffing, she rings the doorbell again. “But Sara told us to interview everyone, see what they know. And hey, we could make a game out of pissing her off?”

Zari snorts, relaxing instinctively, and glances around. The mailbox is empty, a sign Myrtle has got to be awake already to pick up her mail. “Weird. Do you think she went out?”

“How would I know?” Charlie shrugs, peering inside the dark foyer, “looks empty to me. Do old people go out? The fuck would she go?”

Feeling considerably better already, Zari can barely suppress her smile. “Well, what a pity, it looks like we’ll have to come back later.”

Unfortunately, once again, she had forgotten to consider Charlie’s overall Charlie-ness. “Forget that,” Charlie says with a smirk bordering on excited, “why don’t we try it my way, uh? Let’s pop in, snoop around a bit, see if the old lady has got something interesting in there.”

“Charlie,” Zari hisses, fuming, “that’s breaking and entering! That’s a felony!”

“That’s rich coming from Miss FBI’s-Most-Wanted,” she raises her eyebrow in challenge, “or are you too scared, Z?”

Hey now, that just won’t do. “Shut up,” she scowls, uncrossing her arms harshly, “I’ll pick the damn lock. At least the smell can’t be any worse inside,” she mumbles with a resentful look behind her shoulder at the offending open sewers behind her.

*

With the way this whole mission is going, it’s unsurprising that the smell is not, in fact, gone. If anything, it’s even stronger inside the house, with flies buzzing past them in a frenzy. “Damn, Myrtles,” she murmurs, slipping the door closed behind them, “you live like this?”

“Bloody hell,” Charlie breathes beside her and Zari follows her gaze, taking in the living room beyond the small foyer. Yellowed photographs in old-time frames line the walls, making up almost all the empty space in the shelves too, all those people undoubtedly dead by now, their eyes seeming to zero in on them and follow their movements, staring from every corner. Everything in this house seems to have stayed in the past, left stagnant in the 40s. The furniture, the decoration, the curtains– even the TV looks like it might not broadcast in color. It also must not work anymore if the static station it was left on is anything to go by. “Talk about creepy.”

“C’mon,” she tugs at Charlie, hand slipping oh-so-easily on hers, “let’s take a look upstairs first.”

The stairs creak with each step they take as if hell-bent on announcing their uninvited presence there to unseen witnesses and Zari feels Charlie squeezing her hand in wordless reassurance. Any other time, any other place, Zari would probably focus a little more on this. As it is, though, stepping into the bedroom without gagging is her main concern. Jesus, is there an open window right over the pipes in there or what?

“Well, this is dodgy,” Charlie says after getting one look inside the room. “Either the old lady is into some kinky shit or someone definitely got murdered in here.”

Blood stains the walls, the ceiling, the floorboards, in different stages of drying, while the whole place is trashed beyond recognition, almost as if a wild animal had torn it all apart in a fit of inhuman rage; a butcher’s place destroyed down to the red-stained structure. Deep scratches have gone through the floral wallpaper and revealed the wood, the plaster, all the way to the other room, and the smell is even worse in here, sticking to the back of her throat, to her tongue, to her lungs, makes her taste mothballs and rotten eggs. “What the hell,” Zari croaks, holding her breath before her stomach turns inside out on what’s clearly a crime scene.

“We should go,” Charlie coughs, eyes tearing up at the foul stench, her hands like claws on Zari’s wrists, “Z, come on, I’m not trying to be funny, we should go now.”

But they can’t, not yet, not when the closet is staring right there at Zari, door slightly ajar, and fuck, she knows what she’s going to find there, she’s seen their eyes on her dreams last night, but she has the same crystal clear certainty now– whatever it is she’s looking for is just up ahead, just around the bend. Just beyond that closet door.

“Oh, bollocks,” Charlie curses, kicking a nearby ottoman and checking the hallway outside as Zari slowly unfreezes herself to follow the bloody breadcrumbs, that terrible smell. “Please tell me you’re not going to– for fuck’s sake, Z, we need to go!”

Zari doesn’t answer her, simply reaching a hand to the cold metal handle, pointedly not taking a deep breath before carefully swinging it open. 

The contents inside all topple down at her feet but the first thing she registers is the smell. It burns in her nostrils and she gags, dry heaving in the blood-soaked carpet. Then, she notices a terrified Myrtle Jones staring right back at her with glazed unseeing eyes.

Her scream stays stuck in her throat, but Zari feels nausea lap at her stomach and the next thing she knows, Charlie is supporting her weight, an arm around her middle, and there are even more flies now, buzzing around them, covering what’s left of Myrtle with black polka dots that clash terribly with her floral patterns, with the blood staining her whole dress. Limbs and body parts too rotten to recognize litter in a pile over her body and Zari is going to be sick because they all look gnawed on, there are teeth marks on them, sharp fangs that scratched down to the bone and sucked out the marrow, and the maggots fester on the putrefied meat.

“Z,” Charlie whispers, arms tightening around her, drawing her back, away from the gore, “that looks–”

“That’s Myrtle,” she confirms, voice breaking and wavering, as she wobbles herself, “that’s– Charlie, that’s Myrtle!”

“That’s at least a week old, Z,” Charlie continues, eyes fixed on the bloody pile of what must be their murderer’s leftovers, “Myrtle’s been dead for a bloody week.”

Something cold crawls up her spine and Zari’s stomach bottoms out. If that’s– that can’t be right, it just. If Myrtle has been dead for a week – “then who the fuck did we talk to?”

Downstairs, the stairwell creaks.

[araliyaintheskywithdiamonds]

I Wasn’t Expecting That - A CrissColfer Fic

Prompt based on the song Wasn't Expecting That by Jamie Lawson, please?

I love this song to pieces. Here you go. 

Word Count: 1067 AO3

*All lyrics by Jamie Lawson

Listen to the song here. 

(Oh and isn't it strange

How a life can be changed)

Darren wakes up cold. The sheets, which had previously been tangled around his ankles, have fallen to the floor in a heap, and Chris sleeps naked next to him, pale skin glowing in the half-light. Goosebumps have erupted all over his skin, and Darren slowly reaches down to grab the duvet, quietly so as not to wake him.

He spreads it over the both of them, pressing a soft kiss beside Chris’ eye as he does so, but when Darren lies back to fall asleep, he finds that he can’t. It takes half an hour of frustratedly squeezing his eyes shut and willing sleep to come, but eventually he realises it won’t happen any time soon. He makes to get out of bed- maybe he can get some work done- but the book on the nightstand catches his eye.

It’s a photo album that he and Chris had been working on the night before, having gotten the multitudes of photos cluttering up his phone finally developed. Darren sets it in his lap, back against the headboard, and traces the stitching across the front- a celtic love knot.

The book has that new leather smell, and the pages are still stiff with disuse. Developed photos have been placed on each page, shiny and reflective. They range from posed shots to scenery to candids, all taken with his shaky, terribly unskilled hand.

There’s something that makes photographs so special to Darren. They’re flashes through a lifetime- the people and emotions in the picture immortalised. Darren’s got a fear- a rather irrational one according to Chris- that one day he’ll forget all of his memories. That he’ll have experienced and witnessed so much, but he’ll never be able to recollect them, all of it going to waste.

It’s why books and movies such as 50 First Dates freak Darren out so much. What if he develops some type of amnesia or Alzheimer’s or something, and forgets the music, his friends, his family, Chris? It’s what he’d explained to Chris the first time Darren had taken a photo of him, after Chris had tried to make him delete it.

(It was only a smile                                                                          

But my heart it went wild)

That photo’s there on the first page. Chris is sitting in his post-rehearsal ratty t-shirt and jeans, slumped in a deck chair, laughing at something someone’s said. His cheeks are reddened and still a little round, eyes dancing with humour. The shutter noise had given Darren away at the time and Chris had been mortified, complaining that he didn’t look good when he laughed.

Darren must’ve looked at that photo a hundred times that night, in the loneliness of his own apartment. He remembers wanting to tell Chris no, please don’t put yourself down- you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but he hadn’t.

He thinks now of what would’ve happened. Chris would’ve blushed, rosy and perfect, and batted Darren’s compliment away with another self-deprecating remark.

Should he tell Chris that now, the reaction would still be about the same, maybe coupled with a fond eye roll. Darren would tackle him to the ground, pepper him with wet kisses, and not let him up until Chris admitted that he loved him.

(Just a delicate kiss

Anyone could've missed)

A photo several pages along catches Darren’s attention. It’s from the tour, blurry in the dark lighting of the club they were in. It’s him and Chris curled up in a chaise, strobe lights dancing around them. He can’t remember who took it, only that Chris had felt so warm and real beside him.

They’d stared at the photo after they’d had gotten his phone back, and when Darren had looked up, he’d felt Chris’ lips on his, soft and gentle and fleeting. He remembers the room contracting down to just Chris, devoid of the inebriated bodies and pulsing music around them. He remembers stumbling out onto the balcony with him. He remembers kissing him again and again and again.

(But it came without fear

A month turned into a year)

Chris had been hesitant at first. He’d always made a point of never mixing his personal life with his work life and here he was doing just that. Darren had been prepared to wait. It’s this, he thinks, that led Chris to understand just how serious he was about them, even at the beginning.

There’s a picture from their first anniversary, a dozen pages along. It’s one of the few there are of just Darren, and no one else. He’s wearing a t-shirt with Paul McCartney and the words “Daddy” underneath (Chris’ first gift) and he holds a guitar, a ring on his right hand on display (Chris’ second gift).

Darren’s present to him had been a song, shakily strummed out until the words jammed in his throat. Chris had kissed him with searing heat, and they’d gone from crying to laughing to being tangled in a heap on the floor, sweaty and sated.

(If I ever get the nerve to ask

What did I get right to deserve somebody like you?)

Three photos among hundreds, all packed into one unsuspecting book. There are plenty more empty pages, ready to be filled with more, the already printed ones in a neat stack on their dining table.

Darren shuts the book, muffling the quiet thump by doing it exaggeratedly slowly. Apparently there’s no point, because when he turns to look at Chris, there’s already a pair of blue eyes staring back at him. Chris is on his side, face pillowed by his palm, smiling softly.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, reaching out to play with Darren’s fingers, still resting atop the album.

“Yeah,” Darren admits. He takes in Chris’ appearance, all soft around the edges like he gets when he’s truly comfortable. “Have I ever told you that I love you?”

“Not in the past couple of hours, no.”

“Well, I do.”

“I love you too, you idiot,” Chris teases, sitting up and stretching like a cat. The clock reads 06:29. “We’ve got a couple of hours before call time. Wanna go work on that some more?”

Darren grins and grabs Chris’ outstretched hand.

(If you'd not took a chance

On a little romance)

(I wasn't expecting that)

[magneticmaguk]

Fancy Dress is For Children, Stop Wearing it in Nightclubs

Funny, isn't it, how the fears and anxieties you develop in early childhood follow you until the day you die? Well, it's less funny than utterly, abjectly, life-ruiningly awful really, but you get the point.

The things that rationally or otherwise take you out of the blissful amniotic bubble of your first few years and thrust you unknowingly and unwittingly into the pain and horror of life after the age of about six or so don't just vanish or dissipate; they fester and rot and keep you awake night after night.

Now, I know, you're reading a dance music website rather than a peer-reviewed psychoanalytical journal, but bear with me, because I'm about to join the dots between psychosocial development and clubbing.

Ever since I can remember, and who knows what pre-remembrance memories have been repressed deep into recesses of my unconscious, I've found the concept of fancy dress parties terrifying. Part of that fear, I assume anyway, stems from a moment in time that arrives when I least expect it, broadcast in crystal clear Ultra HD. I am at a fifth birthday party, dressed as a pirate. The party is taking place at the house of a childhood friend who lived on a farm. On that farm in a barn. We are playing hide and seek and I'm hiding from the seeker in that barn. The air smells like grass and fire and broken engines and I am grasping my plastic cutlass, eyes tightly shut, heart pounding. No one has come to find me yet, and so I explore the barn, taking tentative steps into the darkness. Here in the dark, my hand rests on something. That something is, to all intents and purposes, a severed head. I am shuddering and screaming and I want to be found right this second because as soon as I am found I can ask to go home, to get out of this pirate outfit, to thrust my head under the warm water of the bath, and let this day end.

Of course it wasn't actually a body-less skull. The thing that had inspired such world-changing fear was, in fact, one of those heads that hairdressers train on. Nevertheless, over two decades on, the very thought of fancy dress sends me back to that primal encounter, an encounter which left an indelible mark on my person: I will always associate the act of dressing up with a supreme sense of terror.

Yet recently this irrational fear has mingled with the horrors of the real world. In an attempt to stand out in a market that's saturated beyond belief, promoters and venue owners have to think of innovative ways to sell their club nights. With actual innovation being quite difficult to come by, we've seen a resurgence across clubland of legitimized, actual fancy dress parties.

Now, obvious point here but dressing up is an inherent part of the clubbing experience. Even the uniform that we attach to the Oceanas of this world (the striped shirt, bootcut jeans, and school shoes look) is a means of using a wardrobe for the purpose of reinvention. Nightlife lets us pretend we really are more than our jobs, whether or not that's the case in reality, and that pretence is usually rooted in a sartorial basis. In a thousand different ways, most of us find ourselves dressing up to let our hair down, weekend after weekend.

There is, however, a massive difference between dressing up and dressing up. The italicized version is an abomination, a dullards way of disguising their own lack of, well, anything. The chances are that any party you attend after the age of say, eleven, where the majority of the room are in some form of costume, whether it's Super Mario or Mario from Big Brother 9, Jean-Claude Juncker or Jean-Claude Van Damme, will be terrible. There are a variety of reasons for that.

The first is that fancy dress is a perfect signifier is the epitome of forced fun. As soon as a nightclub has to tell you to have fun any chance of actually having fun evaporates into the air, atomising alongside the stilton-scented vape-smoke.

"YOU," these clubs and festivals scream through tannoys disguised as pineapples, buoys, or medical waste wheelie bins, "ARE GOING TO HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE."

How—you shout back over the deafening din of a Patrick Topping set and the yammer of a thousand blokes dressed as Borat howling "YEAH MATE JUST NEAR THE FRONT MATE," into their phones—how are you going to ensure that I get my money's worth from another dismal day party thrown in an unusual London location that just as usual happens to be in a convention centre with a decent sized smoking area.

"WELL," the disembodied voices yell back, "YOU'VE GOT TO LEAVE THE VENUE AND COME BACK DRESSED AS EITHER FREDDIE MERCURY, CARMEN MIRANDA, OR THE ALLEGED WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE CHEAT, MAJOR CHARLES INGRAM."

I don't want to dress up as Charles Ingram or Carmen Miranda or Freddie Mercury, and I cannot begin to imagine why anyone

would

. Surely, I reason from up here in my ivory tower, being at a festival or in a club is enough fun as it is, without needing to constantly be reminded of the FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN I'm missing out on from not donning a silly wig and a pair of cowboy boots and shooting myself in the face with tequila on Snapchat. And surely I'm right. This is fun designed by committee, fun for people who need perpetual pointers as to what fun actually is.

The rise of the fancy dress party hints at a broader sociological phenomenon that's threatening to see an entire generation obsessed with negating reality via a dismal return to an imagined childhood, a sea of people doomed to a life of shitting themselves in front of old episodes of Tracey Beaker as they run their furry tongues round the sites where their now-disintegrated teeth once where—a truly devastating descent into infantilism.

Believe it or not, there is a time where childish things need to be put away, and not just printed onto a onesie or whatever the fuck it is students wear these days. Fancy dress is one such thing. Think about it: what kind of self-respecting adult actually engages with fancy dress? It'll either be some red-faced systems analyst who likes to have his own tie stuffed down his gob by a matron at that creepy school dinners place just off Oxford Street, a bloke in a panda-suit giggling his way through Rochdale town centre en route to meet the region's five other fur-fanatics, or two lads in flares shaking a leg down the front at of Magic Door.

Each of those iterations says the same thing about the costume-wearer: I am pained by the idea of existing in the present and thus willing do anything and everything I can to return to the womb. A nightclub, with all its illusions about inclusion and warmth and communality is enough of a womb, thanks.

There is also a more serious point here, that of cultural appropriation. When elrow, for example, throw another Bollywood themed party, what do they actually want from it? Honestly, what is the intention? Is it, as I suspect they'd claim, nothing more than a harmless bit of fun, no worse than, say, wearing a string of onions and a beret or a matador's cape and a pair of castanets? A cheeky wink at the world and it's many cultural variances, all of which are allegedly ripe for repurposing as a costume for an unimaginative business studies student desperate for an excuse to do a few bumps of a Sunday afternoon in mid-summer.

Well, no, it isn't really, is it? It's rank cultural imperialism masquerading as banter, a modern update on an office joker donning an afro wig and doing his best Jim Davidson impression. The idea that having a good time, or creating a "fun loving vibe" or however else these parties sell themselves to potential media partners, is permission to run riot over cultural identities is a self-evident fallacy. How do we tally the sight of white dancers dressed "Bollywood" gear with the idea of inclusion that we so often come back to when we try and justify clubbing as anything more than an enjoyable diversion from work? We can't. There is no way to do so.

And that's the problem with fancy dress in general: in a perverse way it imbues going out with a sense of genuine importance. You might not think that as you slide into a Danny Zuko style leather jacket ahead of another day party, but it's true. You've made a financial and emotional investment that didn't need to be made. You've fallen into a trap set for you by wily promoters. You've lined their pockets yet again. Oh, and you look like a twat. Sorry.