#because that shit does not make sense with the timeline no matter how you slice it

[icedmochasi]

I’m a Belos made some of the Grimwalkers as adults but over time started making them younger and younger until he made Hunter as a young baby/child truther. He figured out that, the younger they are, the easier they are to manipulate and mold to his liking. 

[cafedanslanuit]

♡   —   pairing: kazutora x reader

♡   —   summary: after a long day at work, you want nothing but to spend a calm night with your boyfriend. however, you have no idea this is the night were all his demons finally get the best of him.

♡   —   tags/warnings: female reader, angst, breakups, hurt feelings everywhere, mention on mental illnesses and nightmares, based on ben platt’s song ‘carefully’, mention of tora’s job in one of the future timelines.

♡   —   a/n: i enjoyed writing kazutora so. damn. much. also, i’m quite proud of this one and the small details i added~ thank you @ofoceansandtombstones​​ for being my lovely beta <3

♡   —  masterlist

And all this time you've had a gentle way of holding me

So could you please release me that way too?

— “carefully” by Ben Platt

“It’s open, come in!”

The first thing Kazutora sees when he opens the door of your apartment is you, kneeling on the kitchen floor and picking up pieces of a broken baking dish. Red sauce has splattered everywhere and his mind betrays him for a second, imagining an accident far worse than what has truly happened. He blinks twice and starts to notice the small details that finally slow down the fast beating of his heart. There are pieces of chicken breasts next to the open oven door and what he thinks are sliced carrots next to your right knee.

You hiss when you pick up a piece of the shattered glass, the sharp end pinching your finger. Kazutora comes back to his senses, widening his eyes as he realizes he’s just been standing there.

“Hey, let me. You’ll cut yourself,” he warns, walking up to you. Grabbing both your hands, he eases you into your feet and then guides you to the living room. “I’ll take care of it,” he promises as he goes back to the kitchen and starts cleaning up the mess.

You let yourself fall on the sofa with a loud thud and let out an exasperated sigh.

“I just had the most awful day,” you whine, taking off your apron and leaving it on the arm of the sofa.  “Work was hell, I got scolded by something that I didn’t do— like always, only this time my boss was all like: ‘You gotta be more careful, we wouldn’t want to lose such a valuable employee’. Like he was going to fire me over someone else’s mistake?!”

Your voice is getting louder by the minute and you take advantage of the fact Kazutora is in another room to keep the volume. You have been waiting the entire day to see him and vent about what a trainwreck you day had been. Just as always, he listens intently, the only noise coming from the kitchen being a soft scraping sound as he picks up everything and throws it to the trash. 

“Then, I went to the store and of course they had run out of basil. Tell me, how does a store that big run out of basil?” you ask. There’s no answer from the kitchen so you continue. “I mean, yeah, I could have gone to another store but my feet were killing me. I’m just not meant to work in heels the entire day,” you sigh tiredly, swinging your feet.

You reposition yourself, now sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Putting your right hand on your left shoulder, you stretch your neck, feeling your sore muscles releasing a bit of tension with a small ‘pop’.

“I ended up preparing something entirely different than I had planned for dinner. I tried to let it go but just as I was going to put it in the oven, it slipped my hands and—”

“I think we should break up.”

Words die in your lips the moment you listen to your boyfriend speak. The silence becomes loud and abrasive as you struggle to understand what was happening. Why was Kazutora breaking up with you with such a small voice? What had triggered him to come to that conclusion? Why had he decided to bring it up now? You turn your head to the kitchen door and watch him slowly make his way towards you, doubtful steps as he takes a seat on the other side of the sofa, avoiding your eyes at all costs.

“What?” you ask, your voice hoarse. His lips form a tight line and you see him swallowing nervously.

“I’m not doing okay— haven’t been for a while. I— it’s been two years since I left prison and I still haven’t— I don’t— I don’t know what I’m doing,” he explains, looking down at his hands.

You nod slowly, trying to comprehend where he’s coming from. Turning your body towards him, you take a deep breath before speaking.

“It’s okay not to know,” you assure him in a soft voice. “Just… take it slow. One day at a time and then I’m sure you’ll—”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Kazutora confesses and you notice his voice wavering a little. “I— I keep having nightmares about— about that day and— and also about the motorcycle shop. Those two mix up and…” he takes one of his hands to the side of his head, his fingers grazing his temple. “And I’m hitting Baji in the head. And there’s so much blood— so, so much blood and—”

Leaning forward, you take his hands. They’re shaking and extremely cold and you rub your thumb over his knuckles, trying your best to soothe him.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now, Tora, you’re—”

Kazutora pulls his hands away hastily, leaving a tingling sensation on your palms.

“I can’t!” he says as he shakes his head. You spend a moment looking at your empty hands, never before having felt your boyfriend’s rejection. “I feel like I’m drowning and— You know what? I think relationships just aren’t for me,” he shrugs, his hands moving in exaggerated gestures. “That’s why I never cared for dating, never got myself involved in that kind of shit, not until—”

He finally looks at you and, fuck, you wish he didn’t. You’re not sure if you have the strength to deal with such hurtful discourse. You lick your lips and take yet another deep breath, deciding to ignore his hurtful remark.

“I’m… so sorry you’re feeling this way,” you say, slowing down your words, trying your best not to show how hurt you were. This isn’t him, you tell yourself. So no need for that tightness in your throat. “But you have to understand it’s not because of me. It’s because of everything that you’ve gone through and how hard it’s to deal with them. I don’t blame you, it is hard. But this… us,” you gesture to the both of you. “This is a good thing. Despite all the pain and hurt we’ve both been through, we—”

“Please, stop,” he says, raising his hand and pressing his eyelids together. “I can’t be with you anymore. That’s it, that’s all—”

“So you don’t love me anymore?” you counter. You scoff in disbelief, shaking your head. Kazutora’s eyes shoot open and you notice his pupils shaking in fear, like a deer caught in headlights.

“I love you,” he breathes out, and for a moment you see the boy you fell in love with in his amber eyes that are quickly filling with tears. “I do love you but it’s killing me. I feel like I’m dying,” he chokes out. He looks away from you once more and starts tugging at his fingers. “I’m rotting inside and I don’t know what to do to make it better. I just want it to stop. I want it to stop and— I don’t want you around when I’m like this. I want to figure out what the hell is happening and—”

“But if you love me and I love you then why—”

“I’m not happy with you!”

Kazutora widens his eyes, scared by his loud outburst. He parts his lips, silently muttering nonsense as he tries to come up with words that can make it better. You lower your head and he wants to punch himself over it. He doesn’t want to make you cry, not after everything you’ve done for him. Is he really going to be the person that hurt the one that made a home for him in her embrace? Is he going to hurt the only person that was brave enough to pick up the pieces of his shattered soul?

“I’m…” he babbles, in a soft voice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

You snort. “No, you really did mean it, Tora.”

He can sense the hurt and sadness in your voice, even if now you’re the one that won’t look at him. He watches helplessly as you stand up and walk towards the living room window in complete silence. The apron you took off is still on the couch and the vast memories of all the times he embraced you while you were wearing it quickly fill his mind.

He wishes there was a way he could keep you. But no matter how much he wants to, he knows there really is no other way. He’s thought about this countless times. He has gone to work without getting proper sleep, stared at his blank tv screen for hours on end, trying to come up with a plan where he could keep you. Was staying with the person he loved the most too much to ask?

No matter in how many shades of light or with how much care he handled the memory of you, the only way he could spare you the greatest amount of pain was to leave you— even if he knew he’d end up shattering your heart as well.

Kazutora notices the way your fingers tightly close around the edge of the window, your knuckles turning white. He had come to terms that he’d lose you today, yet he never expected for it to be this way. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. If hating him would mend your wounds faster, then he’d take it. Anything that would make the heartache he was causing you a little bit lighter. He knew you were the last person on Earth that deserved to go to bed carrying that much pain in her soul.

Looking out the window, you focus on a small girl walking her dog on the street. It’s a brown labrador and by the size of it, it’s barely a puppy. Rather than walk, it jumps on its four legs, his little head looking back at the girl every chance he has as he happily wags his tail. The pet shop Kazutora and Chifuyu work at immediately comes to mind. Would it be like this from now on? Small things eliciting memories of your days together without your consent and leaving a sour taste in your mouth?

You will need to find a new commute, you think, as you had been stopping by the pet shop on your way home for the past year. Is there another bus that you could take? As you try to remember the lines and their respective routes, you’re engulfed by the memory of the first time Kazutora dozed off with his head resting on your shoulder as you rode the bus together. You close your eyes and you can clearly see his peaceful expression and slightly parted lips as he slept, his fingers tightly intertwined with yours. His breathing is slow and his hands are cold and you wish you could go back, even for a minute and place a kiss on top of his head, since you wouldn’t be able to do so from now on.

Where exactly had you failed? You had just been complaining about your day when he dropped the bomb. Did you complain too much? Did you talk too much? Or was it you the one that was too much? You tried your best and supported him as much as you could but as it turns out, it hadn’t been enough. Good intentions were nothing but useless as you were now saying goodbye to the man you had loved the most.

You didn’t realize you were crying until you felt Kazutora’s cold knuckles against your cheek, wiping your tears. You gasp, startled by his touch and take a couple steps back until your back hits the wall. It takes a few seconds for him to bring his hand now, unsure on what to do next.

He looks so scared and small— it fills your heart with frustration. Your whole body is screaming to take a step forward and comfort him, cradle him in your arms like so many times before, assure him he’s safe with you and that he doesn’t have to worry anymore. That, if you can still go home to each other at the end of a bad day, you can take anything life throws at you.

But that’s the thing. You’re not each other’s home anymore. You don’t get to bury your face in his neck and hum happily when his perfume reaches your nose. You don’t get to have him take a nap on your lap as you watch a series or feel his lips ghost against yours seconds before colliding in a kiss.

You hate it. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, crossing his arms in front of his chest and looking down at his feet. “Please, don’t cry.”

“You know what, Kazutora?” you say, wiping your tears with the back of your hand. You taste venom in your words, yet that doesn’t stop you. “If you’re not happy with me, then what are you doing here?”

He flinches at your words. Biting his inner cheek, he nods, still incapable of holding your gaze.

“Yeah, okay,” he mutters. “I’ll go. I really am sorry.”

Kazutora turns on his heel, walking towards the door. Maybe it’s the way you know he’s not coming back this time that makes your desperation afloat. You don’t want him to go and you also know you can’t make him stay. And even if somehow you could find a way to keep him by your side, it would be worthless.

He’s just not happy with you.

“Are you happy somewhere else, though?” you ask, your words leaving your mouth before your head has time to process them. He stumbles on his feet and stops. “Because if you just can’t manage to be happy, then it’s not on me.”

Kazutora doesn’t have to turn for you to know he’s second guessing himself. The next seconds feel like years as he just stands there, mid-way to the front door, thoughts so messy and loud you can almost hear them.

“That doesn’t matter,” he finally says with his back to you. He closes his fists and you see his shoulders rising and falling as he takes a deep breath. “This way you don’t have to deal with... with the mess I am and—”

“Oh, please, I knew what I was getting into when I started dating an ex-convict.”

The weight of your words fall onto you the moment they leave your mouth. You squeeze your eyes shut, muttering a curse. It takes no time for you to walk towards Kazutora, standing between him and the door.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Tora, I didn’t— you know I didn’t mean it that way. Fuck, I’m so sorry,” you whimper, tears flowing free down your cheeks. Your wave your shaky hands, desperate to make your point across. “I just wanted to say I knew things would be difficult but I loved you— I love you and I—”

Kazutora shakes his head, a gentle yet sad smile on his face as he takes your hands in his. He holds them in front of his chest, squeezing them gently as they don’t stop trembling.

“Stop, it’s okay,” he assures you. “That’s what I am.”

“It’s not,” you protest. “I mean— yeah, but you’re more than that. You’re so much more than that. You’re caring, you’re noble— you’re so tender with the animals at your shop. You’re so sweet with me, always checking if I’ve eaten and offering to help me out if I have chores I need to do. You always come pick me up if I’m working late. You— you’re so fucking special to me.”

Kazutora’s lips form a tight line. “I wish I could see that,” he whispers.

“Then just— let me try. Let me try until you can look at yourself the way I do,” you almost beg. You let go of the hold he has on your hands to gently cradle his face. “I’ll do anything, but... don’t patronize me. I’m not a little girl. Whatever life throws at me, I’ve always been able to handle it. No— we’ll handle it. Together. Like it’s always been, you and me, I just— please, I don’t want you to go,” you cry. “We were going to be happy together, you were going to live with me and I’d give you half my drawers and half my closet and half… half everything. Please, don’t go. Don’t go, Tora.”

The sadness in his amber eyes only confirms what you’ve been fearing this whole time. You sob, your thumbs softly stroking his cheeks as you feel the world crumbling around you. This time, he doesn’t stop you, letting you cry as you hold his face, coming to terms with the fact he’s really leaving after all.

Your hands move to his hair, gently threading your fingers across his long, dark locks. Tracing the outline of his face, you push one of the dyed streaks away, only for it to fall back right where it was before. You can’t help the small smile that forms on your lips. He’s so pretty, you think, as the pads of your fingers gently caress his face. Your thumb grazes the space between his bottom lip and his chin and you dream of a world when he’s not saying goodbye, but rather falling asleep under your touch on your shared bed. You never knew loving someone as much as you loved him was possible-- yet the way your heart was crumbling in pieces was evidence of how much your soul was aching by being separated from the person it belonged to.

Sniffling, you rub your cheek against your shoulder to wipe your tears. You swallow before raising another question.

“Is this a… temporary thing? Or for good?” Your voice comes out in a whisper as you place down your hands on his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” he answers. He wants nothing more than to put his arms around your body like so many times before, but he’s aware that it will only make things more difficult. “But I don’t want to keep you waiting in vain. You should move on.”

Kazutora realizes how much he hates the idea as it leaves his lips. The idea of you starting over with someone else rots in his tongue. He doesn’t want you to hold anyone’s face the way you were just holding his. He wants to keep you all to himself, to go to endless visits to the grocery shop, to watch you fall asleep during movie night and then pretend you didn’t, to massage your hands as you tell him about his day.

But you don’t deserve the guck that’s forming inside his mind. He knows it’s only a matter of time before it comes out pouring and reaches you. And he’ll be damned if he lets himself ruin the one good thing he’s had in his life for many years. He promised to himself he wouldn’t let his ill state of mind touch his loved ones. Never again.

He watches you nod and feels his heart shattering, even if everything is going just the way he intended. You rub his shoulders and look into his eyes, a sad smile on the pretty lips he would never get to kiss again.

“Okay,” you sigh. “We’ll end this but… when you leave, never doubt how loved you were. No— how loved you are. I don’t know what is coming for either of us but… I do know a part of my heart will always belong to you, no matter who I hold hands with. I will always love you, Tora.”

Your words are enough to finally break him. Kazutora clutches your body tightly against him as he loudly sobs against your shoulder. You hold him, tears flowing free once again as you try and soothe the man you love, leaving small kisses on the side of his head and whispering soft reassurances that it’s okay. It’s not, you tell yourself. It’s never going to be okay. But it has to be.

Carefully, you move him back to the sofa, helping him sit down while he refuses to let go of his hold on your body. You lean on the back pillows, both your arms cradling him while he whimpers like a small child. Kazutora clutches the fabric of your sweater with desperation, wishing there was a way he could stay with you.

Why does he have to give up the person that had put a smile back on his face? He can’t quite remember a time when his stomach had hurt out of laughter before he ever met you. Or when he’d experienced such peace as the night he stayed at your apartment and got to see your sleeping face first thing in the morning. He’s never loved anyone as much as he loves you and, for all he knows, he may never love like this again. 

But he could never risk tainting you. He would never be able to forgive himself.

Kazutora softly pulls away from your embrace. His eyes are blotchy and red and you’re sure yours look the same or even worse. His nose is red, like it always does when he cries. It’s endearing, you think. Everything about him, from his hair, to his eyes, his hands— you’ve come to love every part of Kazutora. And that’s exactly why it’s so hard to let him go.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says in a whisper, resting the side of his head on the back pillows of the sofa.

“Like what?” you ask, gently pushing his hair away from his face and behind his ear.

“Like I matter to you. Like I’m making a huge mistake.”

You take a deep breath. Imitating him, you rest your head on the back pillows as well, so you’re both facing each other.

“I don’t— I don’t fully understand what you’re going through,” you admit, your eyes locked on his. “But if you need to… get away, then you should. You’ve been nothing but loving to me. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy, whether it’s with me or not. You deserve to fully experience all the beautiful things life has to offer.”

Silent tears fall from both your cheeks and his.

“I should be thankful I got to love you for this whole year. Because even if it ends this way… God, I loved you so much,” you sniffle, letting out a small laugh. “And I felt so loved. Isn’t that magical in itself? That we got to love each other at the same time?” you wonder with a sad smile.

Kazutora parts his lips, yet the doorbell interrupts him before he can even speak. You look at the front door, your eyebrows furrowing for a moment before you realize who’s probably there.

“Food’s here,” you say, wiping the tears from your face.

“Food?” Kazutora asks, confused.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Didn’t I tell you? The baking dish broke so I called that restaurant, the one with the burgers we like.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t really listening back then,” he admits with a pang of guilt. He sits up on the couch and turns his head at you. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

You sit up as well. “I ordered for the two of us. C’mon, stay for dinner. Let’s… remember us this way, okay? Without so many tears and sadness,” you offer, tilting your head towards him. “I even ordered your favourite one.”

Kazutora rubs his face with his sleeve, erasing the trail of the tears he just shed. Looking at you, he nods, drawing a small smile on his lips.

“Okay. I’ll get it.”

He only walks a few steps towards the door before he feels you tugging at the back of his shirt. Turning around, he notices you’re standing right behind him. Your eyes look up to him, biting your bottom lip and not even a ghost of the smile you previously offered him.

“Before that, uh— I want you to know I… I mean it,” you firmly say, taking in all his facial features, loving how they soften every time he looks at you. “I’ll always love you. No matter how many years go by or if I ever stop being in love with you— I’ll still love you.”

“I’ll always love you too,” he replies, taking your hand and squeezing it softly. “I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to.”

You finally let out a soft chuckle and squeeze his hand back. The doorbell rings again and you walk around Kazutora to get to it. This time, he’s the one that stops you, not letting go of the hold of your hand. Looking back at him, you notice the soft pout in his lips and how they softly tremble, looming more tears.

“It’s okay,” you assure him, and you know you’re saying it to yourself as well. “Who knows, we might get together again someday. Have our own Casablanca moment. We’ll always have the pet shop,” you joke, trying to fight back to tears that threaten to fill your eyes as well.

It’s Kazutora’s turn to chuckle, only this time he does it along with you. You let go of his hand only to hold his face tenderly, a soft smile as you look at the man you love. Standing on your tiptoes, you press your lips against the beauty mark under his right eye. You feel his hands setting on the small of your back and watch his smile widen when you fall back on your heels.

Locking your fingers with him once more, you open the door.

[tickle-bugs]

Rumor Has It

Summary: In the process of rediscovering her powers, Allison gets a tad carried away. Thankfully, her siblings are there to keep her in check.

Okay this is so self-indulgent but I’ve been wanting to write a fic about Allison’s powers for forever and I never got around to it. Don’t think too hard about the timeline on this one, I was going to end it with the dinner and then I realized I didn’t want to. Also, Lila is here because I love her. 

SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 AHEAD!!

Allison could confidently say she was the most patient of the Hargreeves siblings. With the boys, there was no contest—they were all volatile loose cannons with something to prove—and even Ben had fallen prey to the excess testosterone. Years of following Klaus around had brought back out Ben’s snarky side, which he had all-but-smothered in his younger years. A wise person would argue Vanya was patient, and their argument would have merit, but Vanya wasn’t so much patient as she was used to being forcibly subdued. She was kind and sweet, but she would never wait for anything again. She simply acted now. Allison could appreciate the sentiment, but that wasn’t how she operated—no matter how badly she wanted to. 

She was always the moderator—the only one who could reign in six other unruly supers without losing a limb. So, when Reginald invited the seven of them to dinner, she had to call upon every ounce of her patience to keep from strangling one or all of them. 

“I still say we kill him.” Diego stabbed a mango in the fruit bowl and pulled it towards himself. He started carefully peeling the skin, leaving the shavings in a little pile next to his plate. 

“That solves nothing.” Allison sighed.

“It saves the president. I’d call that solving something.” Diego didn’t look up at her, but the aggressive way he sliced a huge chunk of skin off of the mango almost felt personal. 

“I agree with Diego. I think it’d be fun.” Lila pulled Diego’s arm towards her so she could take a bite of the mango. He glared at her and she tweaked his nose, taking another large bite just to piss him off. 

“See?” Diego gestured at Lila.

“No one is killing Dad. Let’s hear what he has to say, then we can figure out a plan.” Allison folded her hands on the table, relieved when everyone else seemed to be in agreement.  Klaus handed her a tiki cup and she took a grateful sip. It’d been a while since she’d had a good piña colada.

“Why? This whole thing could be over so quickly!” 

“Yes, it could, but it won’t be.” She gave him one of her patented fake smiles, taking a pointed sip of her colada. 

“Why? Because you’re in charge? Because you’ve got this under control?” Diego scoffed. He offered Lila a piece of his mango before she could steal another bite. 

“Oh boy, here we go.” Luther muttered.

“Do you want a drink? No? Well, I do. I’m gonna go get a drink.” Klaus stood and stumbled over to the bar, taking his second margarita of the night with him. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” She crossed her arms.

“What authority do you really have, Allison?”

“I would say her powers are a pretty good authority. Plus, Allison’s a good leader.” Vanya piped up, smiling softly at her. Allison gave her hand a quick squeeze.

“Team Zero has no leaders. That’s the whole point.” 

“Kinda hard to be Team Zero when you still want to be number one.” Five took an apple from the fruit bowl and took an innocent bite. Diego pushed his chair out, knife in hand, twirling it between his fingers.

“Diego, sit down! Now.” Allison didn’t stand. She wouldn’t sink to his level. Or, rise, rather.

“Make me.” Diego fixed Allison with a withering stare, but it paled in comparison to the one she gave him. In fact, she relished in the way he shivered when he met her eyes. Good. He should remember his place.

“Diego-” Luther tried, but one glare shut him down.

“Shut up. Allison, you want me to sit and behave? Make me.”

“Come on. Don’t do this,” Vanya whispered, trying to grab Diego’s knife hand. He simply flicked the knife behind his back and into his other hand. For a moment, it looked like Vanya’s pleading eyes would work, but Five chuckled and sealed the deal.

“Dinner and a show! Predictable as always.” Five folded his hands beneath his chin and stole a generous sip of Vanya’s cocktail.

“Shut up, twerp!” Diego pointed at him with the knife.

“Or else what? You’ll stab me?” Five was grinning now, goading Diego on purpose. 

“Five!” Allison growled, and he rolled his eyes, falling quiet. At least he knew not to test her.

“Keep talking. Let’s find out.” Diego flipped the knife once, then twice, and each time it stayed in the air just a little too long. 

“I’ve got ten bucks on Diego,” Lila said, kicking her feet up on the table. She took the liberty of finishing his mango for him, peeling away little bits of skin with her messy nails.

“Guys, stop it!” Vanya latched onto Diego’s arm, trying to force him down into his seat. He pulled away and she ended up jabbing his side. He flinched and glared at her, but did not budge. Allison’s lips quirked into a momentary smile.

“Allison,” Vanya said quietly, gesturing at the brewing fight. Allison rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. 

“Okay! Just remember you asked for this!” Allison smirked, and the room suddenly felt a bit colder. She could feel everyone’s attention on her, but she had Diego’s eyes, and that was all she needed.

“I heard a rumor that you started tickling yourself.” Allison’s voice echoed through the room, the sound waves capturing her brother. Just before his eyes turned white, she could see the look of minute panic, that look of ‘oh shit’ that he always made before being put in his place. Allison smiled, curled her tongue against her teeth, and dropped the winning blow.

“Coochie coo, Diego.” She couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled out on the end of her sentence. Diego’s hands raised towards his body as if they didn’t belong to him, fingers wiggling in that way that had always ruined him as a kid—slow, methodical, and teasing. Both hands dug into his sides, just below his ribs, and he yelped, quickly consumed by his own high-pitched laughter. The sight was strange—90% of Diego was squirming up a storm trying to escape himself, but his arms and hands kept him pinned exactly where Allison wanted him.

“How does that work?” Lila laughed, unable to hide her snickers when Diego squealed. She fluttered her fingers over his neck and was delighted to find that he couldn’t fight back—what with his hands being so busy, and all.

“Her power shuts off the sense of self-awareness in the brain, I think. You can’t tickle yourself normally because the laughter is a panic response. Your brain knows it’s you, so you can’t make yourself laugh, unless you’re ridiculously ticklish, or something. Allison’s power is making Diego’s brain think his hands aren’t his, even though he knows they are. It’s really interesting, actually.” Vanya beamed, unable to resist poking him in the ribs a few times. He threw his head back in his chair and somehow found it in himself to giggle louder when his rumored hands found a home underneath his arms, drawing unbearable shapes and driving him up the wall. Everyone, excluding Diego, turned to stare at Vanya.

“What? I like science.” She shrugged.

“It is...creative, I’ll say.” Five crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, as if he didn’t trust his own hands.

“Yeah, I haven’t heard him laugh like that since we were kids. He still sounds like a kettle.” Klaus chuckled.

“Shut up, Klaus!” Diego squeaked out, tossing his head side to side. He puffed his cheeks out, trying to rein in his laughter, but it only lasted until his left hand hit that spot just above his top rib that made him fully cackle.

“Aww, this is cute.” Lila ruffled his hair, knowing full well she wouldn’t have gotten away with it had Diego not been testing the range of his vocal chords. Lila shot Allison a look she couldn’t quite read—something akin to a thoughtful expression, as if she was taking a mental note—and smiled. 

“Diego? I think your legs could use some attention.” Allison watched with delight as Diego’s hands dove for his thighs. One hand started squeezing while the other wiggled up and down, and the rate at which he plummeted into desperate belly laughter was almost alarming. He twisted off of the chair and onto the floor, eyes screwed shut.

“Allison, stohop!” Diego squealed, absolutely hysterical. Jesus Christ, no one had ever been this ruthless with him before. Her powers were hitting spots he didn’t even know he had, and each fresh discovery sent him into a wave of overwhelming, giggly panic. Every time he tried to take command of his hands, something blocked him, like the wires in his brain weren’t quite connected. 

“Nope! Not until you apologize for being an asshole. And agree to be nice.” 

“I can’t—noho!” He arched his back and drummed his heels on the floor. Watching his own hands wreak havoc on his worst spot set off all kinds of butterflies in his stomach. His hands kept digging in infuriating patterns, completely overwhelming his nervous system with tickly sparks. 

“Sure you can! It’s very easy.” Allison winked at him and he growled, but it dissolved very quickly into giggles.

“You’re all a bunch of children,” Five sighed.

“Five, why don’t you join him?” Allison asked sweetly, stirring her drink with the straw. Five’s look of confusion melted into a brief flicker of white eyes, and soon his cackles mingled with Diego’s rich laughter. He hit the floor much quicker than his brother, but that might’ve had something to do with his borrowed hands flying straight for his knees. Five squealed and kicked his legs, rolling around on the ground as he tried and failed to escape.

Watching Five and Diego writhe, so tangled in their laughter that they couldn’t threaten her if they wanted to, her heart skipped a few beats. Sure, the power was going to her head a bit, but it’s not like her brothers didn’t have it coming.  She was doing a public service. Speaking of public service, Diego was starting to turn an interesting color.

“If I let you go, are you going to be nice tonight? I will embarrass you in front of dad, I don’t even care.”

“Y-Yes! Lemme goho!” 

“Fine.” She waved a hand and Diego went limp. He lifted his hands to his face to muffle the last few giggles trickling from his lips. With some difficulty, he pulled himself to his feet, stumbling back into his chair with an arm wrapped around his torso. Sparing Diego brought a softness in Allison, and she smiled at Five.

“You can let your knees go. I always liked your giggles more anyway.” He disappeared in a flash of blue and reappeared behind her, arms outstretched and ready to strangle, but Allison sighed. He was so...predictable. A creature of unfortunate habit.

“I heard a rumor that you tickled your ribs silly.” 

“Noho!” He hit the ground in seconds, tripping over his own feet as he went. 

“Really?” She turned and arched a brow at him. 

“I hate yohou!”

“You’re lucky I didn’t mention your hands.” She scoffed, then flinched when Five shrieked. One of his hands started going to town on the other, scratching so gently that Allison almost couldn’t believe how loud he was. He squirmed so violently that she was sure he’d’ve punched her if she’d been close enough.

“Oopsie.” She grimaced, biting her lip. 

“Allison, hey.” Vanya smiled, obviously amused, but tilted her head towards the elevator. The up arrow was glowing red and, yeah, it was probably, regrettably, time to stop. 

“You can stop, Five,” She murmured, and he wheezed, scrubbing his palms against his jacket to erase sensation. The feeling of the fibers sliding against his palms sent him into another flurry of giggles as he clenched his fists.

Some cruel, playful itch at the back of Allison’s mind had been thoroughly scratched—so much so that when Diego still took a jab at her for not using her powers, she made him punch himself instead of embarrassing him.

She liked using her powers. The force with which they held her was sometimes scary, but for harmless instances like this? It was what she had been missing growing up. Everyone else got to mess around with their powers, but she was never really allowed to. Being the responsible and patient one meant being the buzzkill in her siblings’ eyes, and buzzkills didn’t often get roped into the intense, multi-floor, super-tickle-fights that had dominated what few happy memories that the Hargreeves had as children.

She started slow with reintroducing her powers, not wanting to overwhelm or scare anyone. She was still trying to get past the look on Patrick’s face when he’d caught her rumouring Claire. Allison knew her siblings would never look at her like that—in fact, they were the only people who ever wanted her to use her powers. She started with simple things: convincing Five to get some rest after refusing to sleep, ending an argument between Luther and Diego that was quickly spiraling out of control—even on Klaus, who would not stop fighting with Ben during the night. That last one wasn’t truly necessary, but the walls were thin and their rooms shared an unfortunate border.

“What color are you thinking?” Klaus dumped his armful of nail polish bottles onto her bed, just barely catching a few before they clattered to the floor. 

“Yellow?” She gingerly picked one from the pile. 

“I love it.” He beamed and took a seat in front of her, unscrewing the cap. The brightness and warmth of the polish made her smile. It was the color of her favorite dress from the decade they’d left behind—the dress that Raymond had always loved. Klaus took her foot and laid it on his leg, sticking his tongue out to concentrate.

Someone softly cleared their throat and the two of them looked up to see Vanya hovering in the doorway. Allison smiled and waved her in, and she plopped on the ground next to Klaus. Vanya leaned over to watch Klaus work.

“You like the color?” Allison asked. Things between them were still fragile. 

“It’s lovely. Sissy’s favorite, actually.” Vanya smiled softly, fiddling with her shirt sleeves a bit, and Allison knew things were okay, for the time being. 

Three pairs of stomping footsteps echoed down the hall and Allison looked up, catching her brothers lingering in the doorway, though seemingly not on purpose. Luther and Five had cornered a brooding Diego who looked like he was a few seconds away from impaling one or both of them. 

“Diego, quit being such a grouch.” Luther shoved his shoulder lightly.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Diego grumbled, arms crossed.

C’mon man, it’s been days. No one likes when you sulk around. Just lighten up a little.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Diego held a knife up to Luther’s throat.

“Five, a little help here?”

“Oh, I don’t care.” Five stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled.

“Diego. Dude.” Luther shook Diego’s shoulder again and he growled, grabbing Luther’s meaty hand and wrenching it backwards.

“I heard a rumor that Luther and Five tickled you until you admit defeat,” Allison piped up, giggling at the look of absolute betrayal on Diego’s face. Five cackled of his own volition, happy as a clam to have a reason to torment his brother.

“Allison, no!” He bolted, Five and Luther hot on his heels.

“Have fun!” She called after them.

“That was mean.” Klaus chided, wiggling his fingers over her sole. She squeaked and tried to pull away, but his grip was tight on her ankle.

“Klaus! I’m gonna mess up the polish!” She whined around a giggle, hiding her face in her hands.

“No you won’t. Just stay still.” Klaus chuckled, continuing to apply the polish with one hand. With the other, he kept scratching gently 

“Yeah, Allison, just stay still.” Vanya took hold of Allison’s ankle and fluttered along her arch, taking note of which spots made her curl in on herself and paying them extra attention. 

It was then that Allison decided they were no longer exempt from her wrath. Everyone was fair game now. Though, maybe she could show them a little mercy, since they definitely could be a lot meaner.

They only stopped once they made her squeal—Klaus scratched his nail repeatedly over her big toe until she nearly fell on the floor—and even after, they wouldn't stop teasing her about the noise she’d made. She filed away her large-scale revenge plan and settled for tickling them both once Klaus had finished her nails. 

There was a lesson in quitting while you’re ahead, but, pinned to the couch and screaming, Allison was starting to think it had gone over her head.

It had started with Lila throwing a movie night—her way of apologizing for, well, everything without having to say the words. Lila had set up a sort of nest situation with pillows and blankets, allowing the siblings to choose their seats freely. Allison and Vanya snuggled on one end of the couch while Luther claimed the other, and the rest of them piled on one another in front of the couch. Lila laid with her head in Diego’s lap, and Klaus and Five were cozy next to them. They hadn’t existed this way in years. It would’ve been nice, had the tension not been so thick.

All of them were almost afraid to relax, as if they’d all simultaneously remembered how long it’d been since they’d properly been together as a family. Five looked like he would explode if anyone touched him, Diego was far too occupied with his box of Thin Mints, and Klaus’s knee was shaking far too much not to be distracting to everyone present. 

A smile tugged at her lips. If any situation called for an intervention, it was this one. Possibly even more than her previous abuses of power. 

“They need to lighten up, don’t you think?” Allison murmured, stealing a pretzel from the bag Vanya was holding.

“They are a bit..tense.” Vanya chuckled. Allison took the pretzels and set them safely aside before gesturing for her to lean close.

“I heard a rumor that you started messing with Klaus,” Allison whispered, munching on another pretzel. Vanya fixed her with a ‘really?’ face and she shrugged in apology. Vanya started nudging Klaus with her foot, waiting just long enough between gentle shoves that it was annoying. After about the eighth time, Klaus whirled around and grabbed Vanya’s ankle, skittering his fingers up her leg.

“Vanya!” He gasped in mock offense, spidering his nails in random circles. Vanya simply slid down the couch cushion like a pile of jello, the fight already drained from her body. Allison had been hoping for a more explosive reaction, but this would do as a start. She leaned forward and put a hand on Diego’s shoulder. 

“I heard a rumor that you started a proper tickle fight.” She finished the command with a quick flutter at the back of his neck. Diego snatched her hand and yanked her forwards, using the change in momentum to grab her foot and go to town. She snorted and shoved at the back of his head, anything to get him to let go.

“Not with me! Nevermind, I heard a rumor you stole Five’s marshmallows.” She shoved him off of her and grinned when he immediately lunged for them. In that moment, Five was indistinguishable from a feral racoon as he dove for the treats. Lila managed to roll out of the way just before she was crushed.

“Give them back!” He screeched, reaching for the bag just out of his grip. Diego took advantage of his long arms and stretched as far away as possible.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Diego dropped a marshmallow into his mouth, making direct eye contact as he chewed and swallowed. Five trembled with rage.

“You’re dead.” He pounced onto Diego who yelped before dissolving into frantic giggles, arms flailing about as he tried to dislodge Five. He squirmed right into Klaus, who took hold of his legs and dug in wherever he could reach. Vanya made a game of poking Diego’s stomach as many times as possible while dodging his hands. She could see the moment where her rumor dissolved, the four of them effortlessly carrying on the playfulness without aid.

Allison snuck a glance at Luther. He was still crushed into his corner of the couch, looking unbelievably uncomfortable but at least amused at the struggle going on beneath him. He deserved to smile as much as them.

“I heard a rumor-”

“That you were wildly ticklish, all over,” Lila said from behind her, and holy shit, when did she get there? Lila poked her side and a bright giggle bubbled out from her lips before she could stop it. Dread and anticipation tangled in her stomach. She’d never been that sensitive there before.

Uh oh.

“Lila, we can talk about this.” Allison raised her hands in surrender as Lila vaulted over the couch, straddling her before she could escape.

“That’s the problem, Allison. You’re still talking, not laughing.” Lila kneaded her thumbs into the sides of Allison’s stomach and she squealed, trying her damndest to grab the offending hands. 

This was uncharted territory for her. She was used to teasy hands grabbing her neck or for roughhousing to turn into a mad grab for her feet. She knew exactly what it would feel like every time. This was technically the same, but radically different. Her body just didn’t know what to do. It was like being tickled for the first time ever, before her body knew what was going on. Every single part of her was sending up flares of tickly panic as she squirmed underneath Lila.

When someone—Klaus, judging by the cold shock of a few rings—grabbed hold of her feet, it dawned on her how what she’d put Diego through might’ve been a little mean.

“Lehet goho!” 

“Hey, Allison? I think your legs could use some attention,” Diego said in an annoying mockery of her voice, but she was far too indisposed to reprimand him for it.

“I-” She started to plead, but verbal communication flew out the window entirely when Vanya started tickling lightly under her chin and down the column of her throat. It was so gentle and clearly loving, but the contrast between Vanya and the fiends going to town on the rest of her body only doubled her desperation to get away.

Diego hooked his fingers behind Allison’s knee and she nearly launched Lila across the room with how hard she thrashed. Her nervous system whited out for a minute as she squealed louder, doing everything she could to wrench her feet from Klaus’s grasp so she could kick Diego in the face.

“No! Stohop!” Great, she was snorting now. 

“Uh-oh! Bad spot?” Klaus drawled, scribbling over her feet. Lila wormed her fingers into the crevices of Allison’s ribs, making sure to pinch and prod every so often, just to draw out little squeaks and hiccups. Diego found a spot on the side of her thigh where if he wiggled his fingers, Allison’s giggles would turn wheezy, and he was having far too much fun with it.

“Ihit tihickles!”

“Does it? Are you sure?” Lila vibrated a claw into Allison’s stomach and she threw her head back into the couch with a loud cackle. That was definitely new. Vanya giggled somewhere above her, dragging her fingers over the shells of her ears.

“Yes, oh my god-” She clamped her elbows to her sides when Lila tried to sneak her hands under her arms. Her brain sent out about fifty warning signals, essentially begging her not to let this happen, and while she had no clue where the knowledge had come from, she wasn’t about to question it.

“Alright, I’m sorry!” She tried to curl around Lila’s hands but that only made things worse.

“Damn straight.” Diego scoffed, (surprisingly) the first to let her go. After a few other quick pokes, the others released her, watching as she heaved in sweet oxygen. Every inch of her body was fizzling as she came down from her laughter. She covered her face, hiding her recovery, until two very mean hands darted into her exposed armpits. Allison bucked up hard, loud and bright laughter overcoming her as she thrashed on the couch. A few seconds felt like hours, and when Lila finally did stop, Allison wheezed before mustering the energy to glare.

“Lila!”

“Sorry! I just wanted to see what would happen.” She smiled, sheepish, but not at all apologetic.

“I hope I didn’t ruin movie night,” Allison murmured, looking up and around at her siblings. 

“Au contraire! I think you made movie night. Everyone, grab your snacks. I want to see this kid fuck up some robbers.” Klaus started the movie without waiting for the others, earning groans of annoyance and panicked scrambling as everyone tried to find their seats. Lila stayed on the couch, pulling Allison’s legs across her lap, while Vanya adjusted so Allison’s head would be more comfy. Klaus laid across Diego’s back and Five propped his legs on top of them, popping marshmallows in his mouth like popcorn. 

A success, if ever there was one.

[maybeimamuppet]

tale as old as time

Cady is sitting across from Janis at their lunch table on the last day before winter break, chattering excitedly about her plans for the holidays when Damian suddenly mopes his way over and plops his tray down next to her, sitting down with a quiet huff and picking at his pizza. Neither of the girls know quite what to do, Cady cutting off mid-word to look his way. Damian comes to lunch directly from his theater class, usually full of energy and excitement about whatever new thing he’d learned that day.

“What’s the matter, Dame?” Cady asks sadly, hugging him gently.

“They just announced the spring musical. They’re doing Beauty and the Beast.” He pouts.

“Are you still that hung up on Phillip?” Janis teases.

“Janis, don’t be mean! Damian’s sad,” Cady scolds, going full koala and trying to wrap her entire body around Damian’s torso. It doesn’t quite work due to their size difference, but she doesn’t let it stop her.

“Yeah Janis,” Damian responds jokingly, returning Cady’s embrace. “Damian’s sad.”

Janis and Damian stick their tongues out at each other, Janis moving to his other side to hug him as well. “Sorry Damie,” she says, genuine this time as she rests her head on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, I know you were joking. I’m just wondering if it’s worth it. I’ve already been in the show before, y’know? Do I really need to do it here?” He asks, resting his head against Janis’.

“Damian, you have to do it! It’s your last ever musical at North Shore,” Cady gasps, aghast at even the mere suggestion of him pulling out.

“Yeah, Dame, don’t you want that experience?” Janis asks, now more worried about him. She didn’t think it was still that big of a deal to him.

“I don’t know. I want to, but I just have so many, like, tainted memories of it now or whatever. I don’t know if I wanna put myself through that again.” He says morosely.

“What if I did it with you?” Cady asks, completely out of nowhere.

“What?” Janis asks, stunned.

“You would do that?” Damian questions, also quite shocked.

“Yeah! I’ve been wanting to try theater anyway, it sounds like fun. I probably won’t get a big part, but we can still hang out at rehearsals and stuff. We’ll make new memories!” She chirps excitedly.

“I’ll do something too, Dame. Mister Gordon already asked me to do set design, I’ll see if I can be stage manager too, maybe.” Janis adds. What the hell, she has nothing else going on.

“You guys are the best,” Damian says, patting both of their cheeks.

“We know,” Janis jokes, moving back to her side of the table. “Grab the audition stuff for Caddy and ask Gordon about managing for me.”

“Done. Wait, has Caddy even seen the movie yet?” He asks, suddenly serious.

“Nope!” Cady says, stealing one of his fries.

“How did we miss that one? It’s a classic. Both of you come over tonight, it’s movie night anyway. Bring your sleepover stuff.” Janis says definitively, pounding the table gently with a fist.

——-

All three art freaks sit nestled on the small couch in Janis’ basement, Cady in the middle practically shaking with excitement at the opening credits and no fewer than four bowls of popcorn and candy on the coffee table in front of them.

As the movie goes on, Janis is watching Cady more than she’s paying attention to the screen. She’s trying desperately not to think about how her crush is pressed so close against her, how she could easily just lean over and be cuddled up with her. For all the staring she’s doing, she doesn’t notice how tense Cady seems to be growing as the tale is told.

Damian says, “Adam!” exactly like the Vine when the prince finally reveals his face, making both Janis and Cady burst out laughing.

“He was hotter as a beast,” Janis mutters, watching the final few scenes.

“Jan, you’re gay.” Damian says.

“And? Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenges.

“Fair point. What did you think, Cads?” He asks, looking to her.

She seems frozen for a moment before she suddenly yells, “IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!” and jumps to her feet, starting to pace back and forth.

“What do you mean?” Janis asks, glancing  warily to Damian. They’ve never seen her this angry.

“The curse is either made permanent or has to be reversed by his twenty-first birthday, but in Be Our Guest Lumiere says they’ve been stuck like that for ten years, so the prince would’ve been what? Eleven when the enchantress showed up? He was a kid! He was absolutely right not to let some strange old hag into the castle! And why was he even answering the door in the first place? He’s the prince! They clearly had servants for that!”

“Okay, but-“

“And then why does he have a portrait and a bunch of stained glass of him as an adult if he was a kid when he was turned into the beast?! And also, he’s the prince! Where are the king and queen? Are they dead? Why does nobody talk about them?!”

“That’s fair-“

“AND when Gaston steals Belle’s book he asks how she can read it because there’s no pictures but when she was reading it by the fountain it showed that there clearly was a picture in it! And then- and then later Gaston just swallows a bunch of eggs! Whole! He doesn’t even crack them first, who does that?! And if he eats five dozen eggs every day, that’s twenty-one thousand, nine hundred eggs per year. The average chicken only lays three hundred eggs per year -don’t ask me how I know that- which means it would take a minimum of seventy-three chickens just to feed him!”

“Caddy-“

“And Maurice! He took a ‘shortcut’ to get to the fair, how is anything a shortcut if it goes in an entirely different direction?! That doesn’t work! The whole story could’ve been avoided if he just listened to the horse!”

Damian just silently passes a bowl of popcorn to Janis, as Cady shows no signs of stopping anytime soon and frankly her ranting is quite entertaining.

“And don’t even get me started on what goes on in the castle! Like when Cogsworth falls down and loses a bunch of gears, what were those supposed to be?! His kidneys? Did he break bones? What happens when Lumiere runs out of wax? Is he shorter when he turns human again? And can they feel what they do? Does Lumiere burn his hands a lot? Does Mrs. Potts feel like she’s drowning?”

She hasn’t noticed that they’re not even trying to interrupt her anymore.

“And then Chip! What’s his deal?! Where’s his dad? How old is he? He’s clearly younger than ten, so do they age while the curse is on? If not, then how does the timeline add up? And if they do, then how is he still a little kid? Also, who turns a little kid full of energy into fine china?! He’d break himself! How is the enchantress not the villain here?! And is Chip an only child? There’s clearly plenty of other teacups! Why is he the only one that matters? And then, for all her favoritism, Mrs. Potts doesn’t even realize when he runs away!”

Janis and Damian lock eyes, stunned.  How did they not notice this stuff?

“And way later, everyone in the town seems to just suddenly realize there’s a big castle in the middle of the forest! Did they forget about the whole royal family? And where did the cooks in the castle get food and stuff?! Also, they don’t ever mention to Belle that the Beast is the prince, or that he’ll be human again if she breaks the curse! So was she just, like, down to date this monster who, to her knowledge, could’ve eaten the real prince or something?! And also, if it’s a kingdom, what happened to their international relations?! What do the other countries think happened?”

“Are you done?” Janis mutters, amused.

“No! Somebody stop me, please,” Cady hollers. Janis goes to pull her into a hug, rubbing her tense back and hushing her gently.

“Deep breaths, Cads. You brought up some good points, we can look into it later. Let’s go have some hot chocolate, hm?” She murmurs as Cady finally relaxes, panting slightly as she nods into Janis’ shoulder.

“Then we can watch the live action one!” Damian says.

“Damian, no!”

———

All of them went out of state a few days later for Christmas to visit family. Unfortunately, they all went to different states; Cady went to Indiana, Janis to Ohio, and Damian to West Virginia. This meant that Damian and Cady didn’t get to start working on their auditions together until just before New Years.

So now, they’re curled up next to each other on his bed, listening to A Change In Me on repeat so Cady can learn it. The audition cut is just a few bars towards the end, but she would have to know the whole thing on the off chance she got a callback. The first few times, she would just listen and read along with her sheet music, but she eventually starts humming the tune and murmuring little phrases under her breath as she caught on.

Once Damian notices she’s muttering the whole song, he asks if she wants to try singing it with the piano recording for the first time. She nods after another quick glance at her music.

Damian brings up the recording the director had sent out, explaining what she needs to do and when to come in, then handing her the phone so she could start whenever she felt ready.

She takes one deep breath before hitting the play button, and starting to sing. The second the first few notes flow from her mouth, Damian feels his jaw drop slightly. The girl could sing. She wasn’t perfect by any means, but she had undeniable talent.

“Holy shit!” He bursts out when she finishes, clapping for her.

“That was good?” Cady asks, blushing slightly.

“Yes, that was incredible!” Damian praises. “Oh wait, I should send you the recording so you can practice on your own. Let me do that before I forget,” He says as he takes his phone back.

“I have to go to the bathroom, can I try again after?” She asks shyly, as if she hadn’t just completely blown his socks off with her very first attempt.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Little Slice,” he hums, already moving to text Janis.

sashafierce: Jan holy shit

sashafierce: Your girl can sing

gaylien: she’s not my girl

sashafierce: Yet

gaylien: shut the hell ur mouth

sashafierce: I Will Not

gaylien: anyway, caddy can sing ?

sashafierce: Yeah

sashafierce: Like ‘might get the lead even though she’s never set foot in a theater’ can sing

gaylien: damn

gaylien: proof

sashafierce: You just want to hear her voice you soft little dork

gaylien: shut the fuck

Cady comes back in at this point, so Damian puts his phone down. He asks if he can record her singing to help her get better, not mentioning he would secretly also be sending the recording to Janis. He feels a little guilty about keeping secrets, but this won’t hurt anyone. Janis won’t do anything with it.

Cady agrees, settling in again. Damian braces himself slightly before hitting record as Cady hits play again. She sings her cut, and then looks to Damian for feedback.

He stops the recording and fiddles with a few things to get it sent to Janis before asking if she’d like to hear it played back. Cady gives a shy nod and cuddles up to him again.

“See, you sound really good! We just need to work on your movement and expressions and stuff like that. If you can’t act nothing will happen, no matter how well you can sing. But really, that’s impressive, sweets.”

“Can we work on that later? I want to hear you sing too!” She pleads, gently nudging his arm.

“Oh, absolutely,” Damian says, bringing up

his own audition cut and striking a pose. Cady giggles at his antics, giving him a standing ovation when he finishes.

Their phones chime at the same time, Cady’s with a message from her mom telling her to come home, and Damian’s with a response from Janis. He hugs Cady goodbye before checking it, bursting out laughing when he sees what she’s sent.

gaylien: i just spat coffee all over my cat

gaylien: oh god

———

Auditions are held the day after they get back from break. Damian had been continuing to work with Cady over the break, in between movie nights and sleepovers with Janis.

Cady’s been shaking with excitement all day. She’d grown much more confident with all her practice, and she was also looking forward to seeing her friend truly in his element.

Damian leads her by the hand towards the theater classroom to get checked in, filling out their forms and grabbing their numbers. They have to wait a while before they get to go to the auditorium and get started, so they sit on the floor and look around. After a few minutes, Damian notices Cady start drumming her hand rapidly against her leg, her most common stim when she’s nervous.

“Do we need to get out of here for a minute?” He asks quietly, making sure nobody else can hear them. She nods quickly, taking his offered hand to stand up. Damian leads them into the hallway, where it’s less crowded and much quieter. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. There’s just... a lot of people in there. It’s really loud too,” She mutters, shifting her lips side to side, another anxious stim. “I’m nervous.”

“That’s normal. I’m a little nervous too, actually. We can just wait out here until it’s time to go start warm ups with everyone,” Damian comforts, pulling out his phone and earbuds so they can watch animal videos together. Cady takes the proffered earbud and puts it in as she cuddles into his side and focuses on the video.

Eventually Karen comes bouncing down the hall, lugging a slightly panicked Gretchen behind her. “Gretch, come on, you just have to sing part of a song once and then it’s all over! You can do it,” Karen comforts as her girlfriend freezes just outside the door. “Oh, hi Cady! Are you trying out too?”

Cady nods, feeling her confidence coming back with every passing second. “Yeah! I didn’t think you guys would be into this sort of thing,” she says. She had kept in touch with them throughout the year and they still hung out frequently, but Cady had distanced herself slightly from the former Plastics while the events from junior year were still raw in everyone’s minds.

“I’ve always wanted to try it, but Regina never let us. She said theater was for dorks. No offense, Damian,” Karen says sheepishly. She liked Damian, he was always nice to her even though she had to be so horrible to his best friend.

“None taken.”

“But yeah! I decided to go for it and got Gretch to do it too so I wouldn’t be alone!” She says, turning to look at her as Gretchen starts coaching herself through breathing exercises.

“Are you okay, Gretchen?” Cady asks gently.

“Mmhmm. I’m fine,” she responds, looking close to passing out where she stands.

“You guys should go get signed in and come wait with us out here,” Damian offers, much to Cady’s relief. She’s missed them, but didn’t want to invite them in case Damian didn’t want them around just yet.

“Sounds fetch! We’ll be back soon,” Karen cheers, dragging poor Gretchen by the hand into the classroom. They come out after a few minutes, noticing their numbers are just after Damian and Cady’s.

They chat happily for a few minutes, getting caught up on the events of the few weeks since they’ve last spoken. Eventually the theater teacher, Mr. Gordon, and the choir director, Mrs. Baker come down the hall, entering the room to let everyone know that group warm ups are starting.

They follow the crowd into the auditorium, everyone finding a place on the stage as Mrs. Baker takes a seat at a piano in the pit. Mr. Gordon explains the routine for those who were new, then passes it off to her to lead vocal warm ups.

They go by fairly quickly, and then everyone moves to their seats in the auditorium to watch individual auditions, clapping politely for each one. Damian goes just before Cady, rocking his cut before bowing sarcastically and returning to his seat.

Cady steps up, says her name, and then just tries to focus on everything Damian has taught her. She blinks and the song is done, so she moves on, giving Gretchen a sneaky thumbs up since she’s up next.

Gretchen can sing well, but it’s painfully obvious she’s panicking inside and she stumbles off the stage when she finishes. Surprisingly, Karen actually does quite well, she’s confident and it shows.

They listen to the rest of the auditions together and chat quietly on their way out of the building, splitting back into their duos as they reach the doors.

Janis is waiting for them by the main entrance, leaning casually against the wall. She stays after school to paint sometimes, so they don’t suspect anything, but she was actually hiding in the auditorium to watch their auditions today.

Cady squeals, “Janis!” as she rushes up to hug her, and Damian shoots Janis a look when they lock eyes. Janis just shakes her head and wraps her arms loosely around Cady.

“You guys wanna come over? Jules has a dance thing tonight so I have the house,” Janis says, letting Cady go. “Movie night?”

Damian has been trying desperately to get the two together since the school year began, any alone time they get together is a chance. “I can’t, my mom’s making my favorite dinner tonight,” he lies. Janis glares at him, she’s caught on to his plight. She’s also just known him long enough to know he doesn’t have a favorite dinner, his favorite food is just whatever he’s eating in the moment.

“I can go!” Cady pipes up happily, excited to have a little alone time with her crush. Janis hasn’t shown any signs of reciprocating her affections (that she’s noticed), but she tries to get as much alone time with her as possible regardless. She’s starting to realize it’s probably not healthy, but she doesn’t want to stop spending time with her abruptly in case Janis gets suspicious.

“Tits, what do you want to watch?” Janis asks, still glaring at Damian, which Cady somehow doesn’t notice.

“The Lion King?” Cady says sheepishly.

“Of course you do. You owe me a slasher, though.” Janis sighs, accepting her fate.

“I can live with that,” Cady giggles. “Just nothing too gory.”

“Fine,” Janis pouts. “Let’s go, Africa. We got movies to watch.”

Cady hugs Damian goodbye and rushes out into the parking lot, and he manages to call out, “Remember the callback list gets sent out at nine!” just before she’s out of earshot. She gives him a thumbs up and continues running to Janis’ truck, Janis jogging sluggishly after her.

“Later, Dame. Love you, loser.” She calls over her shoulder. “Have fun with your mom.”

“Love you too art freak, have fun with your date!”

“It’s not a date!”

———-

Pancakes makes a beeline for Cady as soon as she steps in the door, rubbing against her legs with a welcoming meow. She bends down to scritch behind his ears, cooing at him in a baby voice.

“Hello Pancakes, how is the best little cat in the whole wide world?” She says as she scoops him up for better snuggles.

Janis just glares at him, grumbling, “Oh sure, I had to spend months and have trainers to get you to like me but little Miss Kenya comes over a few times and she’s your new best friend,” under her breath.

“Aww, Jan, don’t be jealous. He still loves you,” Cady pouts.

“I’m not jealous. He’s a dummy anyway. He stuck his paw in my coffee this morning and then yelled at it for getting his foot wet,” Janis says, as if that somehow redeems her. She actually is a little jealous, but only that Pancakes is getting Cady’s cuddles instead of her.

Cady laughs at that. “Orange boy cats are always dumb, that’s why they’re great. Why did you name him Pancakes anyway?” She asks as Janis leads them to the basement, cat still laying contently in her arms.

“He was really fat as a baby and when he sat down the way he would squish out made him look like a stack of pancakes,” Janis says, digging through her DVD collection for a movie. “I dunno, I was thirteen, it fit at the time.” She mumbles as she finds The Shining and puts it in.

Cady plops down next to her on the little couch, pouting as Pancakes decides he’s had enough and leaves with his tail flicking arrogantly. Janis mutters, “Little bastard,” under her breath affectionately as he trips on his way up the stairs.

Cady inches closer to Janis as the movie starts, pretending to be slightly more scared than she actually is. She does genuinely jump and bury her head in Janis’ shoulder at the first jumpscare, deciding to stay there as Janis wraps an arm around her shoulders to keeps her close.

She peeks out eventually, only to see a man with an axe in his chest and hides again with a little squeak of fright.

“You said you watched a snake eat a whole cow, why are you so scared?” Janis teases gently, playing with her hair to comfort her.

“Because this is people? I never said I liked watching the snake eat the cow either,” Cady points out.

“Fair enough,” Janis giggles. “Should we just skip to The Lion King now so you can actually sleep tonight?”

“No, you can finish, I’ll just stay here,” Cady says, muffled by Janis’ shoulder. She’s secretly kind of glad she has a reason to be this close to her, content to just breathe in the comforting scents of vanilla lotion and paint that follow Janis as she’s held tightly.

Janis laughs again. “Suit yourself, Peanut,” she hums, resting her head against Cady’s.

Once the movie ends she stretches out, standing up to switch the tv off and holding a hand out to help Cady up. “Let’s watch the rest upstairs, this couch is too small,” she says.

Cady follows Janis to her room, jumping onto her bed and wrapping herself up in the pancake blanket so that only her face peeks out. Janis grabs her laptop to bring up the movie, laying down next to her but making sure to leave a little bit of space between them.

Cady decidedly ignores the gap and inchworms herself closer to rest her head on Janis’ belly, Janis freezing for a second before relaxing. Cady’s love language was obviously touch, and if she trusted you she would not hesitate to make that known. It had taken some getting used to for Janis, being made into a social pariah and then having that all collapse last year didn’t exactly lead to many pretty girls wanting to cuddle with her. Every once in a while it was still a shock, but she treasured every little hug and cuddle she got from her crush.

By the time Hakuna Matata is playing softly from the speakers, Cady rolls over and Janis notices she’s sound asleep. She turns the volume and brightness down on her laptop and switches to watching The Little Mermaidinstead. She only watches The Lion King with Cady now, and if she wasn’t watching anything she would just stare at her sleeping face the whole time. She just got people to stop thinking she’s some kind of creepy molester, she doesn’t need Cady waking up and noticing she’s been watching her sleep.

She only gets a few minutes into her movie before her phone chimes with Damian’s text tone. She stretches gently over to her nightstand to grab it, trying not to wake Cady up.

sashafierce: Is Caddy still with you?

sashafierce: She got a callback for Belle and she’s not answering my texts

gaylien: Sent a picture: she sleep

sashafierce: Aww

sashafierce: Gay

gaylien: no

sashafierce: Yes

gaylien: she’s just a cuddly person

sashafierce: Yeah, with you

gaylien: she cuddles with you all the time!

sashafierce: Only when you’re not around, you’re clearly her favorite

sashafierce: And she has never fallen asleep on my lap like a little kitten. Not once

gaylien: point made but i still say ur wrong

sashafierce: And I still say when y’all start dating you have to give me 20 bucks

sashafierce: Anyway I hate to disrupt that little burrito but you really should wake her up and tell her, she needs to make sure she knows the whole song by tomorrow

Janis tries to shake Cady awake, only getting a sleepy groan in reply. “Peanut, you gotta wake up really quick,” she murmurs, shaking her again.

“Wha’ happent? Why’d you wake me up?” Cady grumbles, cranky about being so rudely awakened.

“You got a callback for Belle, Damian wants to make sure you know the song for tomorrow,” Janis says, grinning as Cady rubs at her face like a cat.

“‘ll call’er back later. Lemme sleep,” Cady groans, smushing her face against Janis’ tummy. “Goodnight.” She says, muffled as she reaches up to pat Janis’ face before falling back asleep.

gaylien: she just said “i’ll call her back later” and went back to sleep

sashafierce: LMAO ok

sashafierce: I’ll talk to her about it in the morning I guess

sashafierce: Enjoy your little totally platonic sleepover, love you both

gaylien: she’s just a cuddly person!!!! she doesn’t like me back there’s no way

gaylien: i love u too but ur the worst sometimes

sashafierce: And you’re a whole idiot sometimes you oblivious sap

gaylien: damb i’ve been called tf out

gaylien: goodnight loser

sashafierce: goodnight dork

Janis texts her mom to ask if Cady can sleep over, since she definitely won’t be able to wake her up enough to get her home by this point. Her mom agrees, letting Cady’s parents know as well.

They both wore clothes they can sleep in, so Janis only has to wake Cady up to take her contacts out before they can both go to sleep. Janis boops Cady’s nose gently in an attempt to wake her, trying to contain her giggles as she scrunches it like a bunny and the corners of her mouth tick up in a grin.

Once Cady’s contacts are out, she flips down onto the bed and buries her face in Janis’ pillow. Janis reaches over to shut the light off before lying down next to her, making sure to leave a few inches of space between them.

“Goodnight, Caddy.”

———-

The next day is the dance call and callbacks. Everyone gets to meet the choreographer, Mr. Dunn, as he leads them through some basic stretches and a few pieces of basic choreography that would be in the show. He calls out certain people’s numbers after every section, making Cady nervous when hers is never called until she notices Damian’s was never called either. Maybe it’s a good thing.

She has a roughly ten minute break to cool down from the exercise and prepare herself for her callback audition, sucking down water from her small bottle and doing a few of the warm-ups Damian taught her. Belle callbacks go first, so she goes to stand with a crowd of about five other girls in line.

She’s more confident than she was yesterday, Damian’s new tips fresh in her mind since they had worked on it a little at lunch. She’s technically excused after she’s finished, but since Damian is her ride home she goes to take a seat in one of the cushy chairs and watches him do his.

Damian got a callback for both the Beast and Lumiere (again), but since the audition song was the same for both he was only required to stay for one. He shoots Cady a wink once he finishes, and she claps silently for him so she doesn’t disturb the other people preparing.

They meet in the cafeteria, Damian rushing to scoop her up and spin her around in congratulation. “You did so good, Cads! I seriously think you might get it.”

“You did good too, Dame. I hope you get whatever part you’re wanting,” She says as he sets her down again.

“We’ll find out later tonight, they’re sending the cast list out at eight. Janis wants to take you-us out to dinner, by the way. She says you get to pick,” He says, faking annoyance about not being allowed to pick where they go.

“Aww, that’s nice of her. We could go to that buffet place, they have everything. Then you can pick what you want too,” She says, trying to compromise even though he was joking.

“Sounds good, Little Slice. She’ll meet us there, let’s go,” He says, scooping her up again and carrying her towards the parking lot as she shrieks with laughter and wraps her arms around his neck.

———-

Once all three are absolutely stuffed, they meet back up at Damian’s house for a weekend sleepover. All of them immediately flop on the ground in the living room, Pippa coming over to sniff and lick at their faces before settling in on Cady’s chest for a nap.

“I’ve never been so full in my life,” Janis groans. “How did I even make it here, I shouldn’t have driven.”

“You drove me here,” Cady says, concerned.

“That’s on you for trusting me, dork,” Janis says as she somehow manages to peel herself off the carpet and trudge over to the couch. “What movie do y’all want to watch?”

“Let’s just nap,” Damian grumbles. “Come back, Jan.”

They form a cuddle puddle on the ground, Cady in the middle pressed against Janis, and Damian on her other side. Janis pulls her closer, squishing poor Pippa between them and resting her cheek against the top of her head.

When they wake up again, it’s dark outside and Damian’s mom is back from work. She put a blanket over the lot of them and gave them each a pillow, but Cady moved from hers in favor of laying her head on Janis’ chest.

“Morning, sleepy heads,” Mrs. Hubbard teases from the couch as they all sit up and rub their eyes.

“Hi, Ma. What time is it?” Damian asks blearily.

“Just after eight. I’m assuming you girls are spending the night?”

“Yeah. Cads, that means the cast list is out, come see,” Damian says, grabbing his phone as he stands up to stretch. He sees his mom sent him a photo of the three of them curled up on the ground, making it his lock screen quickly before moving to his email to bring up the document the director sent out.

Cady pokes her head around to look at the screen just as it loads, and they both gasp excitedly as they see the first name.

Belle: Cady Heron

Damian keeps scrolling, seeing he’s been cast as Lumiere once again. That makes him a little nervous, but he had a lot of fun in the role last time.

Karen was cast as Chip, and Gretchen was in the ensemble and would also be portraying the enchantress.

“Holy shit, Cads! You got the lead!” Janis cheers, stopping herself at the last second from kissing her and playing it off as a hug instead.

“That’s crazy, I thought they only gave big parts to people who’ve done it before,” Cady says dazedly, suddenly nervous as she returns Janis’ embrace. “But Damian is Lumiere, that means we get to be together a lot,” She adds as she pulls him in to make it a group hug.

“And I’m stage manager, we get more time together too,” Janis adds, rejoicing internally.

——-

Rehearsals begin on the first of February, Janis working on taping out the stage for blocking set pieces while Cady sits in the auditorium seats with the rest of the cast for their first read through of the script. Every time she hears her sweet, soft voice ring out Janis’ heart skips a beat.

Cady comes to find her when they get a break, while Janis is working on painting a piece that will eventually be the door to the house. “That looks really good, Jay,” She says, accidentally startling Janis as she comes up from behind.

“Thanks, Caddy. How’s practice going?” Janis says, plopping her brush into the water cup next to her and leaning back on her hands.

“It’s fun! Sonja keeps getting yelled at because she’s not supposed to swear but does anyway and Dawn doesn’t want to flirt with Damian, but I like it. Everyone’s really nice,” Cady answers as she sits next to her.

“That’s good, if they weren’t I’d show them my fists,” Janis says, brandishing her weapons. She had actually started working out lately, so that on the off chance she ever encountered a homophobe or bigot she’d be able to deck them with the most force possible. It’s a genuine threat.

“Your rings would hurt a lot,” Cady laughs, leaning closer to see how Janis reacts. She blinks at her for a second, but eventually also leans closer.

“I was listening to your run earlier, you sound good, by the way. You do her character really well.” Janis compliments.

“Thank you. It’s actually kind of easy. Belle’s a lot like me, I suppose. She’s from somewhere else and never quite fits in, loves to get lost in other worlds, she loves her family...” She falls for someone she never thought she would, Cady adds in her head as she trails off, looking meaningfully at the gorgeous girl sitting next to her. “I have to get back, I’ll see you later.” She stuns Janis with a peck on the cheek as she goes, leaving her blinking rapidly and gaping at the wall.

“Bye,” Janis replies, several minutes after Cady’s already left.

——-

They’re only more distracted by one another when they start dating two weeks into rehearsals. Janis nearly ruined one of the rose props because she was so distracted listening to Cady working on a scene, and Cady had lost count of the times she’d nearly fallen into the pit while looking to see where Janis was.

Cady also had a tendency to hyper-express her emotions; if she didn’t say out loud what she was thinking or feeling her face would let you know. It was quite useful when she was acting since she didn’t have to try very hard to get the mood across, but when she had other things on her mind it could be an issue.

She got several notes about it one day. She kept giggling during an emotional scene, remembering Janis trying to clean out the fog machine and having it puff out in her face. Then later, she looked too bored during Be Our Guest causing Damian to resort to increasingly ridiculous measures to get her back, but she was actually just disappointed that Janis wouldn’t be in her eyesight anymore now that she had switched to working up in the booth.

Janis was also struggling to keep on task, her mind occasionally elsewhere. She missed a cue she was supposed to call up to lightning because she was laughing so hard watching her (now literally) flaming homosexual best friend pretend to flirt with Dawn Schweitzer, who was Babette. A few days later, she was so distracted staring at Cady in costume for the first time that she absentmindedly started singing a song from High School Musical at one of Sonja Acquino’s (Mrs. Potts) lines under her breath.

It wasn’t until she heard “Sarkisian, your mic is still on,” buzzing into her headset that she realized she never hit the button after calling her last cue and scrambled over to the switchboard.

Eventually, the director has to pull them both aside before practice one day and ask them, politely, to get their shit together. They both nod, embarrassed, but he just ruffles their hair and says it’s cute, but they need to focus on the show during rehearsals.

———

As they get down to the wire, Mr. Dunn asks Cady if there’s any way she could work on the waltz scene on her own time for extra practice. She had terrible coordination with her feet, so she wasn’t too surprised she’d have trouble dancing.

“I just don’t know who to ask, I don’t know anyone who can dance,” She complains to Damian while they get their snack break, crunching frustratedly on her celery.

“Janis could help, she did ballet for almost ten years,” Damian says, putting a hand over his mouth as he does. “Don’t tell her I told you, she’ll kill me.”

Cady has to bite her lip to contain a squeal at the mental image of a young Janis in a leotard and tutu. “Don’t worry, Dame, I won’t tell her.” She says comfortingly once she’s recovered.

That night, Janis comes over for a movie night, sans Damian who was “busy”. Cady immediately pins her to the couch for cuddles, not that Janis is complaining. They lie there for a while, talking about their day and peppering kisses wherever they can reach. Eventually Cady pipes up again, saying, “I learned something interesting about you today.”

Janis tenses, that could quite literally mean anything. “Oh?”

“You never told me you were a ballerina,” Cady says, leaning on her elbows to hover over her and playing with the ends of her hair as Janis visibly relaxes beneath her.

“I haven’t told you a lot of things,” She teases. “Who told you?” It could only be Damian or Regina, they’re the only ones who know.

“Nobody.”

“Damian?”

“No.”

“I’m not gonna do anything to him, you can tell me,” Janis coaxes. “I’m not embarrassed about it or anything, I just have some bad memories associated with it. It’s how I met Regina, actually.  Plus it just doesn’t really fit my vibe now, either.”

“Okay, yes it was Damian. But he didn’t mean to, I just need more help learning the dance for Tale as Old as Time, and he thought you could do it,” Cady mumbles.

“I probably could, I’ve watched you guys working on it enough. I think I know the steps,” She says, reaching for her phone to bring up the song as she stands up.

They push the furniture out of the way so they have room, Janis guiding Cady to where they should begin. “Okay, so you put your hand here,” She says, taking it gently and resting it on her own shoulder. “And then mine goes here.” She places hers on Cady’s waist, pulling her slightly closer.

Cady grins up at her as the music begins, following Janis’ movements and trying very hard not to step on her toes. It’s obvious she has some kind of dance background, she can follow the rhythm easily and the passion she puts into the movements makes Cady want to kiss her senseless right where they stand.

“That was good, Butterfly. Just loosen up a little, you’re so tense,” Janis says once they finish, still lost in each other.

“You’re really pretty,” Cady blurts after a second, staring into Janis’ eyes.

Janis laughs. “Thank you. You’re pretty too. Beautiful, even. Ma belle fille,” She coos, pressing a kiss to the tip of Cady’s nose.

“You know French?” Cady asks as they return to their starting positions to go again.

“Oui. My dad was French. I was born there, actually. He got sick a few years after, and he wanted my mom to have her family to support her through everything so we moved back here. My mom kept teaching me what she knew after he died, and his side of the family kept helping when she couldn’t anymore,” Janis says, smiling fondly as memories of her family run through her mind.

“That’s sweet,” Cady says, trying to remember the footwork and have a conversation at the same time. It does feel better now that she’s released some tension. “Wait, then why are you only in French 4?” She asks as the realization hits.

“Because nobody’s supposed to know,” Janis teases. “I get things wrong on purpose so nobody suspects anything. I didn’t want to be bumped up to a class with people I don’t know.”

“You’re such a dork, oh my god. Only you would purposely lower your grade in a class,” Cady laughs.

“What about you? I thought you were fluent in French too,” Janis points out.

“I used to be, but I speak so many things that are similar to it and I wasn’t using it regularly when we moved. I wanted to pick it back up, so that’s what I scheduled, and I tested into this one.”

“That makes sense,” Janis answers, spinning Cady out into a twirl before pulling her back. “Remember you’re gonna  be in a big dress while this is happening, you’re not going to be able to be this close.”

Cady pouts. “But I like being close to you,” she whines.

How is she so cute? “You can be close for now, but you’re gonna have about five pounds of fabric between you and the Beast when the time comes,” Janis hums, kissing her soundly once the music ends again.

“I wish you could be my Beast. I like you much more than Jason,” Cady says lovingly. “Can you help me run lines while we eat?” She asks as her mom lets them know that dinner is ready from the other room.

“Thanks, baby. I like you more than Jason too,” Janis laughs. “Let’s go get food, I’m starving.”

———

Tech week hits and everyone is immediately exhausted. Other than in classes and watching each other on stage, the art freaks barely even get to speak. They still have homework and chores, so sleepovers and movie nights have taken a backseat and probably would until the show closes.

After the last hell week rehearsal, Janis is cleaning up backstage as everyone files out to head home. As she finishes, she notices Cady lying spread eagle in the middle of the stage, staring up at the ceiling. Slightly worried, Janis decides to investigate.

“You okay there, Butterfly?” She asks, nudging her with her foot gently.

“Yeah,” Cady says, patting the ground next to her. “Come lay with me?”

Janis does, settling next to her and resting her head against Cady’s shoulder. There is something relaxing about it, staring up at the scaffolding and set pieces hanging above them. It’s the first moment they’ve had alone all week, both of them soaking in the other’s presence as much as they can.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Janis asks quietly after a while.

“Yeah. I think I am,” Cady says softly.

“I’m so proud of you,” Janis says. “I can’t wait to see you in it for real.”

“I love you,” Cady whispers after another beat, rolling on top of her and leaning down to kiss her. Janis grips her hips tightly, pulling her closer and flicking her tongue against the seam of Cady’s lips.

They lie there for a while just kissing softly, lips meeting again and again as they’re illuminated by the stage lights. Cady pulls back after several minutes, drawing a frustrated whine from Janis. “Can you take me home? I forgot that’s why I stayed behind, I don’t have a ride,” Cady asks. “You can spend the night,” She adds seductively, rolling her hips slightly.

“Yes, I can, let’s go,” Janis says quickly, scrambling to her feet as Cady giggles. She shuts off the stage lights, and they escape the building guided by the soft glow of the ghost light, hand in hand.

——-

Janis is rushing around backstage frantically, headset around her neck as she nearly plows over several people. One of the bars broke on the dungeon set, and she has to find a last minute fix for Belle’s basket.

She’s dashing past the girls’ dressing room when Cady pokes her head out, barely hearing the “Janis?” called after her.

She spins around on her heel, heading back towards the room. “Yes, princess?” She asks breathlessly.

“Can you help me? I can’t get my bow in,” Cady pouts, holding out a blue ribbon. Janis takes it from her gently, spinning her around and tying it around her curly auburn ponytail.

“There. Vous êtes belle,” Janis hums, wrapping her arms around Cady’s shoulders and pressing a sweet kiss to her cheek. “You ready?”

“I’m nervous,” Cady mumbles, fiddling with the hem of her apron.

“You can do it. You’re my tough Kenya girl, this is just your next adventure. You’ll soar out there, my butterfly,” Janis comforts, squeezing her before letting go. “Break a leg, baby. Je t’aime.”

“Je t’aime aussi,” Cady giggles.

———

Cady is killing it. Janis can feel the energy of the audience, the way they’re totally engrossed in her performance. She is as well. She has to hold back tears as Cady weeps at being torn from Maurice, has to tamp down actual jealousy at her stage relationship with the Beast.

Damian’s a crowd favorite as always, getting laughs in all the right places and lots of applause when he finishes his number. Lumiere really is the perfect role for him. He does comedy better than anything, as Janis knows well. She’s been in the audience for every single show he’s done since they were freshmen, and she can tell he’s giving his all to the last one he’d do here.

Karen nearly gets more laughs than Damian, her comedic timing is on point, and Gretchen looks remarkably comfortable onstage surrounded by the rest of the ensemble. She had really come out of her shell during rehearsals, and Janis is oddly glad to see her looking anxiety-free for the first time in a long time.

She tries not to be too surprised when she spies none other than Regina George in the audience at intermission, two bouquets of flowers on the seat next to her and nibbling on some peanut M&Ms she’d bought at concessions. Regina has changed a lot over the past year. Janis doesn’t necessarily think they’ll ever be friends again, they don’t spend time together without Cady, but it’s still nice to see.

The whole show nearly goes off without a hitch, other than Jason getting stuck hanging from the ceiling during the Beast transformation scene and Cady nearly getting run over by a set piece during a scene transition. They’re both incredible actors and play both off in character near perfectly.

Before either of them are really aware of it, the show is over and the final number begins. Cady is looking directly at the booth as she sings the reprise of Tale as Old as Time, looking right at Janis. She’s unable to leave the box until the audience exits, but she cheers loudly for Damian during his bow with Mike Thurman, who played Cogsworth.

Cady’s bow is last, and she comes running out onto the stage in her poofy yellow dress with the biggest grin on her face. The audience (and Janis) claps loudest for her, giving her a standing ovation as she bows proudly and leads the acknowledgement of the pit and crew. She blows a kiss as she gestures to where Janis is in the booth, able to pass it off as going to the audience, but Janis knows it’s just for her.

——

Cady is standing amongst the crowd in the cafeteria with her parents, hugging them

both tightly and accepting the bouquet of roses they got her. People are constantly congratulating her, and she’s high off the adrenaline of the night.

She bids her parents goodbye and turns to go congratulate Gretchen and Karen, who are currently chatting with Regina. Aw, Regina got them flowers, she thinks, when suddenly a small form rockets into her leg and hugs her tightly. She looks down to see a little girl, no more than seven, wrapped tightly around her leg and smiling up at her with missing front teeth.

A woman, presumably her mother, comes rushing up, apologizing frantically and gently scolding her daughter. “I’m so sorry, she got away from me. Darling, I’ve told you not to leave my side.”

“Oh, it’s okay, she’s fine,” Cady says calmly. “Hello!” She chirps to the girl being pried from her skirt.

“Oh, she’s mute. Only speaks at home,” her mother sighs.

“Does she know sign language?” Cady asks.

“Yes, but we’re both still learning,” the woman answers, looking surprised as Cady crouches down to the girl’s eye level.

“Hello there, what’s your name?” Cady signs slowly.

“Hi, I’m Willow.” She signs back, fumbling over a few of the shapes.

The woman gasps, “You know sign?”

Cady nods. “I was mute too, I didn’t really speak until I was six,” she explains.

“I like your dress,” Willow signs once Cady looks back to her.

“Thank you! I like yours too,” Cady reaches out to tug gently on the hem of it, making Willow giggle. “Did you like the show?”

Willow nods rapidly. “Lumiere was so funny!”

Cady laughs as she stands up. “That’s my best friend, would you like to meet him?” She says out loud, holding out a hand. Willow takes it with an excited nod, placing her little hand in hers.

Cady leads them through the crowd to Damian’s tall form; made even taller by the candle hat he has on. He spins away from talking with Janis when she taps him on the shoulder, immediately pulling her into a tight hug.

“I’m so proud of you!” He exclaims, letting her go. “Who’s this?”

“This is Willow, she wanted to meet Lumiere,” Cady says, allowing the little girl to hide behind her skirt. Damian can be kind of intimidating if you don’t know how gentle he really is.

“Oh! Enchantée, petite,” He exclaims in character, turning his candle hands back on and kneeling down to her height. Willow seems to realize he’s not actually a threat, just very tall, and comes out from behind Cady’s ballgown signing excitedly to Damian.

“She says you were really funny, and you’re her favorite character in the show,” Cady translates, also bending down. “Oh, except for me.” She adds with a giggle.

“Ah, merci! I’m glad you liked it,” He laughs, adding, “Belle’s my favorite too,” in a whisper as if it’s some sort of terrible secret. Willow giggles again.

“Willow, we have to go now, darling. Say goodbye,” Her mother says from behind them. She frowns, but hugs Damian gently before throwing her arms around Cady again. Janis has to turn around to avoid cooing audibly at the adorableness.

Cady hugs her back just as tightly, saying, “Oh, adieu, little one. It was lovely to meet you,” as she passes her back to her mother.

Willow waves goodbye to them as she takes her mother’s hand, Cady and Damian both waving back. The mother thanks them both several times, nearly in tears as she leads her daughter out the doors, the little girl signing excitedly that Belle was just like her.

“That was sickeningly adorable, I hope you know that,” Janis says once they’ve gone. Cady is incredible with kids. Maybe they’d have a few mini-Cadys running around someday.

“I do indeed,” Cady giggles, finally getting to hug her girlfriend. “Now let’s go take some pictures, my mom wants some of all of us together before we get out of costume.”

——-

Damian drives them to Waffle House after they change into sweats, Cady still in full makeup and him with his gold-painted face.

Cady’s still off her face on adrenaline, chattering about how much fun she had that night so quickly that neither Janis or Damian can make a word out. She rushes inside the restaurant once they get there, bouncing excitedly at the promise of waffles. The waitstaff look a little frightened when they see she’s clearly in show makeup, but calm down once they notice it’s just the three of them.

They pick a booth, Janis pinning Cady to the inside so she can’t cause too much property damage with her excitement.

Once their food arrives, Cady wolfs down her meal and promptly falls asleep on Janis’ shoulder. Janis shifts to cradle her sleeping girlfriend like a baby, wiping some  stray whipped cream off her lip and grinning down at her.

She continues talking to Damian as they finish eating, glad they finally have a chance to catch up. They didn’t get as many chances to hang out just the two of them now that she was dating Cady, and it had only gotten worse once the show had started getting more intense. They would always be first in each other’s hearts, platonic soulmates, but she’s still missed him.

“You two are so soft,” Damian teases once he’s paid for their food. Cady has to wake up for a minute so Janis can actually stand up, practically falling asleep on her feet until Janis picks her up. Working out also came with the added benefit of being able to carry her girlfriend around, which they both loved. Especially since Cady had a tendency to fall asleep in inconvenient places.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Janis answers as Cady wraps her arms around her neck and legs around her waist loosely, burrowing into her shoulder and going back to sleep.

Damian just gestures broadly at the whole situation as he leads them back towards his car. Janis decides to sit in the back, laying her girlfriend down gently before sliding in after and placing Cady’s head on her lap.

As Damian peels out of the parking lot, Janis smiles down at her girl, running her fingers through her soft auburn curls gently and trying not to giggle too hard when Cady puffs happily in her sleep and nuzzles into her hand slightly.

“Je t’aime tellement, mon papillon,” she whispers softly in French so Damian won’t understand. “Merci de m’aimer aussi.”

And they lived happily ever after.

------

thanks for reading! as always any and all feedback is appreciated, but please be kind.

lots of love,

ezzy

[nomiliy]

I like seeing how different people view Darren Shan as a character. 

Darren’s a fun one because the only consistent trait we give him as a fandom is that he dumb as fuck. Which, like, hey! Not wrong there. But, well, I mean-come on- there’s more to him, right? 

Since I started writing fanfiction, my top priority was to make Darren feel real and like he could actually exist in our world. I know the character of Darren is essentially a self-insert for the author, so I took and modified things from his life so that Darren was both true to the source material but separate from the author as an entity. 

So, a few personal, lightweight head canons of mine:

- He was raised Roman Catholic, and still retains some of his faith. His father and mother are very religious, but Darren isn’t nearly as zealous. 

- He was born in Dublin in 1988, but his family moved to London when he was four. 

- He speaks a little bit of Gaelic, but only when he’s on the phone with his grandmother. 

- His father hates living in London, but Darren calls it home. He doesn’t have many memories of Dublin, aside from visiting his grandparents.

- He’s a huge fan of classic metal and rock bands like Black Sabbath, DIO, and Judas Priest. 

- Big horror movie fan! Not nearly as obsessed with them as Steve, but loves monster movies and sci-fi the most. The Fly and Kingdom of the Spiders are his favorite. 

- Loves comic books, and has a peculiar obsession with Spawn. 

- He is amazing at football, but couldn’t really get into other sports. Rugby didn’t excite him, he wasn’t a huge fan of boxing like Tommy and Steve, and baseball just seemed boring. Much like the books, I still see Darren as this stellar football player no matter what AU, timeline off-shoot, or reality he’s in. 

- He’s great at English, foreign languages, history, and geography. Very right-brained all the way around, so subjects like maths, chemistry, and physics were never his strong suit. 

- In addition to journaling, he writes short stories. He enjoys writing slice of life, fantasy, and modern realism. 

- He can speak French, English, Latin, and Gaelic. He learned French from Larten, but Paris taught him the bulk of Latin and Gaelic. Fun little bonus head canon: Paris can speak French, Spanish, Portuguese, Gaelic, Latin, Old English, and Greek.

- His favorite books are Lord of the Rings, The Hounds of Baskervilles, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

- Darren has a hand for sketching, and likes to draw diagrams of plants and spiders in their natural habitat. 

- The boy has very little common sense. He’s a bit too trusting, he has a shoddy filter, and just can’t stay quiet. Despite that, he really does try to think before he speaks. But some dumb shit still escapes out. 

What about y’alls head canons? Do you share any of these? Are your HCs popular or controversial? Do they completely contradict mine? Let me know! 

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

[chynandri]

A thought I’ve been having about Dirk (I mean, all my thoughts are of Dirk lately. I have Dirk Syndrome which means instead of brain there’s Dirk) is how we get the impression he’s a cool and capable action man. He’s in control. He gets the shit done. He knows what he wants.

I don’t think this is all false, but there’s some instances that go against this infallible impression of Dirk.

Being in control. He pretty much takes over the sburb session’s entry for the alpha kids. He’s badass, he does what the others can’t, he attempts to coach everyone’s character development.

Prior to Sburb, we have some idea of what Dirk was like. Spending years hiding his awake status from the Derse agents, watching over Roxy, and gathering intel - and only begins to wreck their shit in Derse when Calliope advises him to. He readily takes drawing commands from Caliborn. Waiting until he knows Jake and Jane seem willing to believe he’s from the future before telling them. And while he tries to multitask for Sburb, Hal criticizes how he’s not actually good at it since he zones tf out when going Dreamer mode (psh, yeah Dirk why can’t you control two consciousnesses at once like EVERYONE else? Jeez). In Pesterquest, Ult Dirk angrily crosses out Dirk as he’s having a chill bro moment with MSPAReader. Calling himself pathetic for just chilling out with a new friend, he had all this time to get ‘swole in body and mind and wastes it looking wistfully out at the sea.’*

* very appropriate how Ult Dirk references body and mind and not the soul. Prince of Heart/destroyer of soul attitude right there. And Moonsetter’s track art depicted exactly what Ult Dirk is accusing Dirk of doing. And what is Dirk looking wistfully at in the track art? The moon and 3 stars, of which are pale blue pink and green. He’s longing to meet his friends, as he confesses to MSPAReader. All checks out.

And though he tries to set the pace for the Friendship Jam, Dirk allows MSPAReader to choose their friendship activity, how to get to his house, to ask the soul revealing questions, to set more parameters for vulnerability, to zap him, to continue pulling out the stops.

Overall, prior to Sburb, Dirk has been actually... not taking action (those long ass showers? Zoning the FK out!!). And obliging. And while he’s pushy, he doesn’t *completely* take control or assert himself over others. Ult Dirk accuses MSPAReader of bossing him around (while he is ironically, bossing everything around).

Which is why the only true choice gameplay in his PQ route is DIRK’s choice and not MSPAReader’s. The prominent point in the ending where Dirk chooses to trust his friends, as MSPAReader outright says, is that the timeline will be DIRK’s and shaped by what DIRK wants. And Dirk has been expressing to us his big want to make human connections the whole time.

But, Dirk is led by his belief (and self loathing) that he Needs to take control of everyone and everything to get character development, and develop everyone else’s characters in the process. Living in the midst of the big literal and metaphorical barrier between him and history - the ocean - and being unable to change or do anything truly impactful in past and present history (unlike his Bro)... it’s taken a big toll on him. He makes a big deal about history, and things being set in motion before his time, to MSPAReader. Dirk looks at the grand scheme of things, supported by Calliope and Caliborn’s info, and believes he is Meant to embark on an epic story arc that carries the legacy of his Bro and that’s what will give his pathetic isolated life and existence meaning. He’s got to believe this, because - as Britney Spears put it - his loneliness is killing him (and he)/He must confess that he still believes (still believes) -

Further, Hal serves to remind of him of his flaws and what he thinks he needs to change about himself all the time. Stop zoning out. Multitask better. Actually get shit done (even Squarewave calls him out on this lol). Make his friends happy (Hal can give Roxy what she wants - his affection - while Dirk can’t). Have an assured, wholly aligned sense of self. Hal flaunts how he achieves all of this in Dirk’s face, literally. Basically... be perfect, have all the answers (Hal is the AUTO RESPONDER specializing in giving ANSWERS) - but not very human.

Watching too many animes, this kid. ‘Life needs to be painful to matter’ ‘people need to prove themselves to earn the right to exist, to be loved, and get the girl/boy’ - these are all the typical trajectories of a shonen anime. And Dirk’s route can end up being an antithesis of it, as MSPAReader helps him see that just existing is meaningful in itself. People can and do like him for him. It’s ok to not have all the answers. Take that shonen and make it a slice of life!

MSPAReader knows Ult Dirk doesn’t have all his shit together as much as he wants everyone to believe he does. Dirk doesn’t really have all his shit together either - and that’s ok. And those are my thoughts

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki Short Story: Saito-san’s Days of Practice

First translation posts of the month (1 of 2 for translations +1 update [that one will not be tagged with hakuoki]), so please support me if you can either on ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/V7V2W0HO) or through paypal (paypal.me/KumoriYami )…. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list since i don’t have the audio for those…..

In regards to this translation, I honestly don’t know where this short story came from, but I’ve assumed that it showed up in one of the Dengeki or B-log magazines as they, in the past, have had other various Hakuoki short stories in them....I think? If anyone has information in regards to this,  I’d appreciate it to put that down here....

Aside from Saito’s story, I’ve only been able to find Chinese translations for Souji and Heisuke for these (don’t have a timeline on those right now, cuz holy shit these feel extreeeemely long. seriously!).... and have no intention of looking for the others at the moment (i gave up after more than an hour). If anyone does happen to find the others in Chinese... feel free to send them my way since I will add those to my list of torturous translations (i don’t wanna update my lookout list rn + plus I don’t want to add these to that list without knowing where these come from). 

Anyway, this story is told from Chizuru’s point of view, also the image is not mine.

Enjoy~<3

Hakuoki Short Story - Saito-san’s Days of Practice

Translation by KumoriYami

The silence of the temple was disturbed by the sound of Saito-san slicing the air with a wooden sword. He repeated his movements smoothly, from top to bottom, [then] from left to right.

During this quiet morning, after hearing the sound of sword practice in the temple as I was heading to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, I couldn't help but stop.

"Ah......Saito-san?"

“Yukimura, today you woke up early? Are you going to prepare breakfast?”

"Yes, Saito-san, you are also up early."

Before my arrival, Saito-san had been practising for a while, [and] his cheeks were sweaty. I handed him the handkerchief I had with me to him, tilting my head as I asked:

“Why are you practising so early? What's the matter? [alt: Is there anything going on/something wrong?]”

“Yes, I was thinking about something.”

“Thinking about something?”

“A few days ago, vice-commander asked me to train some of the new recruits..... but I don't know what training arrangements should be made.

Saito-san frowned slightly and continued to speak.

From his words, it sounded as if the new warriors who joined [the Shinsengumi] had good swordsmanship.

“Sword skills can be ordinarily improved through normal training, but mental capabilities are different to improve, [and/but I] don't know of any good methods to improve them.”

"A good method...."

Early morning birds chirping echoed in my ears, I looked over the Nishi Honwanji temple courtyard together with Saito-san thinking of his concerns.

After thinking for a moment, I clasped my hands together and spoke:  "Ah, I have heard that the monks of Nishi Honwanji usually sit in meditation to improve their minds.

"Indeed, meditation can really improve/hone a person's mind. However, merely siting in meditation does not seem adequate,  and something else must be done."

------------

Regardless of if it's plants [says trees] or animals, all living things will hide themselves until spring as it was winter

The wind blowing off the river wasn't just cold, but painful.  Just breathing made my throat feel frozen.

——Even so, today Saito-san was only wearing a single strip of cloth [fundoshi... probably?], tightly holding his arm(s) [probably: tightly crossing his arms], quietly looking down towards the torrential waterfall before us.

"Sai-saito-san, you truly want to sit underneath  that waterfall?

Yes, since ancient times to the present, when it comes to mediation, it's best to use a waterfall.

"But, the weather is so cold, you might die accidentally...."

If there is no risk to one's life, then it will not be training.

Saito-san nodded seriously, then went towards the cold river. The moment his toe touched the water, Saito-san shook violently. I was absolutely not imagining it.

Saito-san continued his movements, obviously stiffly because of the cold.

I worriedly called out to him:

"Saito-san, d-don't do this....."

"It's okay, do not worry."

"But......"

"Do not worry."

Saito-san whispered to himself, then showed no hesitation as he put one foot into the water. 

He used his frozen legs to wade through the river and after, moved underneath the waterfall without hesitation.

"If, if only one's mind [thinks it] is cold, [then] even fire can be [thought of as] cold...... [the tl i saw had the word “cold” in place of where I put in “fire”, and the 2nd 'cold’ that I wrote as “fire/hot,” so I switched these around]

Saito-san endured waterfall falling down on his head, softly/gently [slowly] closing his eyes.

「……」

“No, no [don't do this] Saito-san! Now that you've meditated, hurry up and get out, or you really will catch a cold."

「……」

"......Saito-san?"

「……」

"Saito-san? Saito-san——" ------------

"Therefore/as a result/so, in order to improve one's willpower/mind, not only meditation, but also doing that beneath a waterfall [will help]?

"That....the last part is too dangerous..."

"It was only because the water was so cool and comfortable, that I almost fell asleep.”

Almost froze to death—— though that could not be said, I was once again made aware of the present.

"Now that it is no longer winter, it is now longer possible to ind a cold waterfall."

"Yes. other methods to practice need to be thought of."

What other ways were there? We fell into deep contemplation again.

The time, the first who thought [of something] was Saito-san.

"It would better to go into the mountains to live in seclusion, this is also [a] basic [form of] training."

------------ 

Through the roof made/built of tree leaves and branches, the familiar sunlight,  only the sound of birds from the quiet mountain roads/paths, shrouded [the area] with a tranquil/quiet atmosphere.

[Alt (since my ^ tl for this was more literal):  The sunlight passing through the roof made of tree leaves and branches and the sound of birds chirping on the mountain paths created a tranquil atmosphere.][also im guessing they built a shelter?]

[We have] Been living in seclusion in the mountains for [a few] days [now].

Saito-san and I were living(/surviving) in the mountains by picking wild vegetables, and fishing to eat.

"......[I] Really didn't think/expect that it would be so quiet."

"Yes..... Saito-san, is this also a form of practise/training?

"In a sense, there is no type of training stricter/more rigourous than this, than/with just the two of us living secluded in the mountains."

"Eh?"

I couldn't help but make a sound as I looked at Saito-san, however I didn't understand why he looked away.

Then while not looking at me, whispered.

"I mean, there is nothing here, I don't know if you're bored being together with me......"

"There is no such problem, I like being together with Saito-san."

"Is, is that so? That's good... Well, actually, me being together with you also...." [alt: being together with you, I also...]

Just now [he] said——

Saito-san's voice was muffled by another noise, [one] that suddenly [started] coming from the rustling of the nearby bushes.

The sounds coming from the bushes got louder and louder, until finally, it turned into the low roar of a wild beast.

I immediately assumed a defensive position, [and] at this moment, I saw a giant beast with sharp claws appear.

"Sai-saito-san, there's a bear! Quick, run away/get out of here!"

I hurriedly pulled at Saito-san's sleeves, trying to pull him so that we could escape together, but I don't know why he wanted to continue what he was saying to me, and did not move.

「……」

It absolutely wasn't because of fear that he refused to budge.  Because he was glaring straight at the bear with a terrible look.

"Yukimura, retreat."

"Are-are you going to fight it? You might not be a bear's opponent...."

"Encountering these type of circumstances should be avoided, [alt?: Coming across /having such an opportunity  is rare,/This situation was supposed to be a retreat/ I was supposed to be getting away from these types of situations,] but I am suddenly, no, I am very angry."

[^ if you can’t tell, i had looots of difficulties with the first half of this, lol. so I just put down all my interpretations... though I'd assume it's probably more  along the lines of: Having such an opportunity (with you) is rare, so I am suddenly...]

Saito-san looked straight at the bear with a sharp gaze and put his left hand on his katana's hilt, emitting killing intent/a murderous aura, as if the bear was a punching bag.

"Living in seclusion in the wilderness requires fighting a bear——Prepare to die, bear." [may say: To live  (in seclusion) in the mountain wilderness is to fight a bear/means fighting a bear]

------------ 

".....Well, we can discuss about how else to hone/improve one's mind/willpower. Will it/should it need to involve fighting bears?

Ordinary humans should not be able to defeat bears, but Saito-san is not without the possibility of winning. With these types of  thoughts, I lowered my head.

"Disregarding minor details, we cannot be away from headquarters for long, [and] living in seclusion in the mountains is not realistic.”

"Yes, to hone your mind/will, you shouldn't need to go living in seclusion in the mountains."

Once again, our thoughts were disrupted, [and] we sighed, together looking towards the sky again.

"[This is] Really difficult. Is there an effective training method that doesn't require [a lot of] time?"

Thinking about this general idea, I thought:

"Nn.....what about fasting? A few days ago, Heisuke-kun, Harada-san, [and] Nagakura-san didn't eat anything for the entire day, [and were] so hungry that they cried."

"Fasting? This sounds worthwhile, though I do not know its effectiveness."

After hearing this, I suddenly remembered,  this talk about eating——

"Ah, that's right! I need to go make breakfast!"

“Sorry, I have kept you for so long. What is for breakfast today?"

"Turnip soup, [and] Kyoto-styled cooked vegetables [lit: Kyoto cooked vegetables]. Although it's yesterday's leftovers, the taste is very rich and is very delicious." 

Ghrgh....

Saito-san responded to what I said with his stomach, which sounded like the stomach of a hungry animal.

"........It appears that my training is insufficient, [and that] I must correct what I said as fasting appears to be an effective form of practice/training."

Saito-san turned his head and blushed because of his stomach's gurgling.

I responded with a smile and looked away.

"Breakfast will be ready soon, please wait a moment."

"Today I'll help you cook, as thanks to you for speaking with me."

"Ah......okay, I'll be troubling you Saito-san!"

Saito-san spoke as he quickly walked forward, and I hurried to catch up.

the end

--------

The title of this might actually be Day of Practice instead of plural days... but I left it at days since I think it made more sense.... Unfortunately, identifying if something is either singular or plural in Chinese isn’t the easiest thing to do unless there’s more context.... and titles certainly lack that. Nouns without context... it’s like they’re all like the word ‘moose’ (only English comparison I can think of off the top of my head atm...). It’s both singular and plural and without further information, it’s impossible to figure out if one moose is being talked about or multiple moose.... 

^I only wrote this blurb cuz i spent a good 5 min pondering about what the title should be lol. Using day sounds better, and I’m kinda particular about how the way things both look and sound, but days did make more sense..... 

^^i’m kinda feeling random rn... and i’ve probably had too much sugar just now. tired too. also i don’t have a habit of writing translation notes like this nor do i really intend to do so notes like this again in the future... though perhaps again when im felt like i’ve had too much sugar? lol w/e...

>_<

nother post will be up shortly. tsukikage countdown.

[undergroundbandimagines]

7 Lessons from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” That Will Get You Through a Divorce

7 Lessons from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” to Get You Through a Divorce

Recovering from a marriage to a narcissist adds an added layer of complexity

By dmitry_islentev for Shutterstock

Recovering from a divorce after a 20-year marriage is never an easy feat. Therapist Susan Pease Gadua in Psychology Today likens the undoing of a marriage to, “Trying to disentangle two trees that have grown next to each other for years. The more intertwined the root systems are, the longer it will take for the trees to go their separate ways.”

Recovering from a marriage to a narcissist adds an added layer of complexity and a few extra hurdles to get over before you can feel whole again. And divorcing a narcissist is not for the faint of heart. Yes, this too (like a gallstone) shall pass, but first, it’s going to hurt. And you’re going to need to strategize.

If you’re like me, you may not have unpacked this emotional baggage until after the marriage, and you may not have a full understanding that you are, in fact, married/separating from a narcissist. All you know is you’ve been lied to, lied about, and he is accusing you of his actual behavior, which is maddening.

According to Dr. Ramani Durvasula, someone who is an expert in the field of narcissism, “narcissistic” is an adjective, it’s not a diagnosis. It’s a descriptive term that usually signifies a personality pattern. It is characterized by patterns like inconsistent or superficial empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, arrogance, superficiality, chronic validation-seeking, hypersensitivity, a propensity towards rage, especially when the person is frustrated or disappointed, and then incapacity to deal with frustration and disappointment.

The first thing to understand, according to Dr. Ramani Durvasula, is that narcissists love to win. “It motivates everything they do. They actually believe you can win in relationships, so it’s a big thing to them. They really love the idea that their partner will get destroyed after the relationship ends, which is why narcissistic divorces can be very expensive.”

Now, you may be a kind and gentle, loving soul. The kind of person who scoops up spiders to let them live, just not in your house. (OK, I am not that person). The point is, it’s time to grow a pair. You don’t have to sink to their level — instead, you must rise above it.

You might be wondering what a Chinese general, military strategist and reputed author born in 544 BC could know about egomaniacal showrunners, forensic accounting, and family court, but I find that Sun Tzu’s profound wisdom of outsmarting your enemy, plotting several moves ahead, and getting inside the head of your opponent are time-tested winning strategies.

Even if you have to stomach an expensive divorce, you will be better prepared going in with Sun Tzu’s knowledge. And hopefully, with fewer surprises, it will be a shorter ordeal.

The Art of War lesson #1

“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”

Translation: you cannot mediate. You may have a loving friend or relative advise you to mediate because it is the kinder and gentler route, the route that saves money. The problem with this is that successful mediation requires complete disclosure, laying everything on the table and there can be no power imbalance. If you are married to someone who lies and cheats, what makes you think you will have fairness and transparency in mediation?

This is a waste of everyone’s time and money. I still receive polite bills from Geraldine, the kind woman who did her level best for two years to try to end this marriage before she pulled me aside at our fifth mediation and said, “You cannot mediate with this person.”

File for divorce. It’s the only way.

Lesson #2

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.”

If he is sneaky, guess what? He will try things in court that are dirty and sneaky. He will hire sleazy lawyers that specialize in high-end bullshit. Remember, you are that closely-formed wood. Know yourself, and don’t be rattled by his bullshit tactics.

Case in point: One of my husband’s strategies was to convince the court I was a dreadful parent who drove the family to financial ruin. But, like the Peanuts characters listening to an adult, what the state of California hears is, “wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.” It still comes down to: what is your shit worth? How much does this guy make? I put my career on hold to raise our children and create a lovely home. Alimony, child support, bing, bang, boom.

In his arrogance, the ex and his lawyers announced that since I had driven the family to financial ruin he would be keeping the pension. The only problem with that is — the law! We didn’t really need to reinvent the wheel, yet here we were, reinventing the wheel, to the tune of a six-figure legal fee.

Lesson #3 (a two-parter)

“It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.”

“Foreknowledge cannot be gotten from ghosts and spirits, cannot be had by analogy, cannot be found out by calculation. It must be obtained from people, people who know the conditions of the enemy.”

Subpoena folks. Have your team seek records from reliable sources to get the actual factual documents you need. Subpoena people who have his documents and his contracts. Do a forensic accounting. Check out his girlfriend’s Instagram. It may be quite enlightening. Even better if she has a blog detailing the timeline with everything you need to know.

Lesson#4

“Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.”

If you’re feeling a little bamboozled and you’ve just gotten out of a marriage in which you were emotionally manipulated for years, you may not be used to standing your ground and remaining poker-faced.

What the narcissist desperately needs is attention and he/she needs to know that he matters in your life. When you resist those crazy calls, emails, and texts and simply don’t engage, it is maddening for them. Dr. Durvasula says, “You win when you don’t give them the fight because the fight is what they want.”

I say, not mattering is the biggest wound the narcissist can receive from the person who used to hold his hand in empathy and believe the crap he shoveled. It throws them off their center. It also enrages them, but your secret weapon is not giving a shit anymore. It helps unnerve them, and more importantly, it helps you lay the ground for getting back to yourself, remembering how strong you can be, and finding your way out so you can move on.

Lesson #5

“It is the unemotional, reserved, calm, detached warrior who wins, not the hothead seeking vengeance and not the ambitious seeker of fortune.”

You may want to seek revenge on your ex for any number of grievances, but consider whether going for the jugular in court is just something you could work out (much less expensively and without involving law enforcement) in therapy. Dragging things out will drain both of you, both emotionally and financially. It’s time to break free and leave emotion out of the proceedings.

Lesson #6

“Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.”

No, we won’t be having Thanksgiving together, thanks.

My ex-husband is mortally offended when he is not invited to Thanksgiving. At my apartment. With my family, who hates him. And yet he engages my younger daughter in this fantasy that, gee, it would be so nice if we could all do things as a family if only Mom wasn’t so bitter!

A huge part of separating from this person is becoming grounded, once again, in your own reality. You are entitled to your feelings, and the idea of sucking it up because it’s good for the kids is bullshit. What’s good for the kids is living in reality. What’s good for the kids is knowing their mother is true to her feelings. That she matters. We can now have lovely, separate, but equal holiday events. You don’t get to sit down and have a slice of my bitchin’ pecan pie at my table that would put Martha Stewart to shame. No. Not this year, not any year. Boundaries.

Right now you’re swimming with sharks, and this may well be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but you will get through it, one day at a time. You are fierce. Rely on your senses — no one can tell you that what you heard must have been a mistake, what you witnessed was distorted, and no one can deny your experience. Hold your center, no matter how much he tries to throw you off.

Lesson #7

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

When you are finally divorced, that is an accomplishment in itself. The going got tough, and you proved you could get going and get it done. You fought for yourself and you probably turned out to be much stronger than you realized.

The truth is, up is the only way to go now. Hold a vision of yourself in a happier place where you are in control of your life. It will be a lot to unpack — therapy is an excellent tool to help with this — but get through the fight and lean on your village for all the support you need.

It’s a beautiful thing to regain freedom, peace, and financial independence, and when you get there, it’s going to feel so good.

7 Lessons from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” That Will Get You Through a Divorce was originally published in P.S. I Love You on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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[voidwaren]

Whale Song Pt. 3

Okay, so, I don’t have the best of reasons for totally missing my own deadline on this one, except for the fact I was stubbornly unhappy with what I had at the time. I’m much more happy with it now, which is why I’m publishing, and, since I waited a little longer, it also has about 3,000 words more than it did Halloween night, which makes it my biggest Whale Song update yet. Hopefully you guys like it!

This update brings us about two-thirds through the Whale Song story, so we’re almost all done.

But I digress and present: Whale Song Part 3. Same warnings as always apply, enjoy.

Warren is Strange/Whale Song Masterpost

The first day that trails the vision is spent in apprehension, both for Warren and for Nathan, though they handle it vastly differently from one another. Fueled on by a lack of sleep and a large helping of bickering, Warren’s entire being is in knots. He tries his best to act normal, which is easy thanks to his lack of need to socialize given that it’s a weekend, but Nathan is a clear ball of nerves from the moment he leaves Warren’s side to return to his own room in the morning and continued into Warren seeing him again when he ventures out into the courtyard to hang with Max. Warren hasn’t seen him hunch his shoulders that high since a time before this loop even existed, a clear indicator (one of many, Warren now knows) that something wasn’t right with Nathan that day.

Nathan’s with his usual cronies near the fountain, sitting on the edge with his leg up in a way he probably thought made him look edgy and cool (and, okay, it kind of did) and Hayden calls Warren’s name and gives him a wave when Warren passes by their general line of sight. Warren hesitantly waves back, taken a little off-guard by the sudden friendly gesture from someone who previously probably didn’t even know Warren’s name, and Hayden grins at him. Warren doesn’t approach them, but Nathan makes sure to catch Warren’s eye and Warren gives him a shake of the head in what he hopes is reassurance nothing has manifested from his strange encounter with the phantom whales. At least, not in the short amount of time they’d been apart.

He’s not sure his message gets across, but Nathan could always text him if he really needed to. Warren wasn’t going to throw himself into the shark pool just to get some clarification established. For now, Warren just wants to see Max and forget about the day before, because, if the whales did mean anything, he didn’t expect the meaning to reveal itself right then and there. That would be an anomaly to everything else that had happened, and Warren wasn’t counting on anomalies. He only hoped that wouldn’t be his undoing.

Though he’d tried his best to push the whales from his mind, it occurs to him as he’s sitting with Max on a picnic table a little ways from the Academy, with a pizza between them, that Max’s journey with time had included unusual pieces that his had not—namely in the form of a phantom deer she had mentioned seeing a few loops back. He’d never thought before that maybe the deer wasn’t so much a ghost as it was a vision, like the whales had been for him, but now he wondered if it had been exactly that. He’s not sure Max would expect Warren to know about it, since he can’t remember if this version of her had told him (it was difficult keeping all the discrepancies apart, okay, even for someone like him), but he knows she’s spoken to the janitor at the academy about something or another, and maybe the two were connected in some way. Or, maybe, she’d just have some better insight on what the whales could mean.

As long as he kept the details to himself, Warren figures, asking couldn’t hurt, right?

Famous last words, something whispers in the back of his mind, and he has to blatantly ignore it as he goes to open his mouth.

“What do you know about whales?” Warren breaks in, leaning on the table between them.

“Whales?” Max repeats through the mouthful of pizza she had just bitten off. She chews it thoughtfully, then swallows. “They’re sea-dwelling mammals and they’re really big?” she tries.

“Well, duh,” Warren replies. “But what about, like, spiritually? What do they represent and stuff, that mystical shit.”

Max cocks an eyebrow at him. “What?” she laughs hesitantly. “What would I know about that kind of mumbo-jumbo?” There’s enough confusion in her statement that, for a brief moment, Warren thinks it must not have been this loop that she confided in him about the ghost deer she’d seen guiding her places during her journey. He pushes that away, though, because the ghost deer wasn’t important, and maybe she might not have even seen it this time. It didn’t matter. She had definitely spoken to what’s-his-name, though. He knew that much.

Warren shrugs. “You talk to that creepy janitor all the time, and everyone knows he’s got some weird boner for the Native American foundations of the land the school’s on. He talks about the squirrels and whatnot all the time. Thought maybe whales had come up,” he says in an attempt at nonchalance, then tries not to wince at himself, because ouch. Not the smoothest transition he’d ever executed, but Max doesn’t seem to notice. Warren decides not to let that wound his ego.

Well, not too much.

“Hey, Samuel’s actually a pretty nice guy,” Max protests, setting her half-eaten slice of pizza down. “Okay, yeah, he’s a little weird,” she amends when Warren just looks at her, “but he’s really interesting to talk to, and he has a lot of things to say that you probably haven’t thought about, Mr. I’m-a-man-of-science. Have you ever actually held a conversation with him before?”

“No,” Warren admits. “I’ve never had a reason to.”

“Well, now you do. You should ask him about the whales if you’re so keen to know.” Max frowns slightly, cocking her head. “Why do you want to know about whales?”

Warren hesitates. He had no proof his vision of the whales was anything more than his brain messing with him, and Nathan was already panicking enough over the incident for three people, so maybe Max’s involvement wasn’t needed just yet. Warren promised himself he’d involve her at some point if it was more than Warren was hoping it would be, because she’d kill him if he left her out. She still reminded him sometimes that he hadn’t told her anything in his past loops—something Warren regretted admitting in the first place, because she never would have known if he hadn’t told her.

“Symbolism might have played a larger part in everything that happened than I thought it did when it was happening,” Warren tells her instead, “and whales are important to the town, right? So, now that it’s all said and done, I want to know everything I didn’t before.”

Max gives him a mildly pitying look. Warren finds with surprise that it annoys him slightly—he didn’t want to be pitied, even by Max. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to let this all go?” Max reaches a hand out and puts it on Warren’s arm. “Dwelling on it might only make it worse for you, Warren, and everything’s already had too much time to crack a hammer on your skull.”

Warren could hear what she didn’t say: the incident had changed him. He’d known that fact long ago, that he’d never be the same Warren he was before this had all happened to him. That he was still Warren, but this Warren had demons the other never could have imagined existed. Not to him. Not for him. Warren had, for better or worse, changed. Grown.

For Warren himself, the change had been gradual, over a period of months that nearly completed half of a year. It wasn’t unnatural for someone as young as him to change in that span of time, he knew that much, but most people his age didn’t relive the same horrific month enough times for it to drastically change who they were. The change had been gradual, yes, but it was stark, the difference of who he’d become to whom he’d been.

For Max, though, the change had happened in a matter of days. Possibly even overnight, because he couldn’t quite remember how he’d acted that final first day he’d woken up beyond the breakdown he’d had in Nathan’s room. It must have been a shock to her, whatever it is she had witnessed in a timespan so much shorter than Warren’s own, and it spoke volumes to Warren that she hadn’t immediately called him out on it when it had happened.

Warren presses his lips together, pushing a breath out through his nose. “I can’t let it go,” he tells Max quietly. “That’s just who I am. When I need to know something, I have to know it. Now that there’s time to, I can’t let it go.”

A small smile quirks Max’s lips. “You’re such a nerd. This is why you’re so good at your sciences.”

Warren returns the smile for a beat, but falls back to frowning again. “This isn’t science, though. Not the science I’m used to. Core science? Real, solid chemistry and physics and weather phenomena with formulas and sense to back them up? I can do that. I can do that any day of the week. This?” Warren waves a hand through the air, resisting the urge to scrub it through his hair out of habit, because his fingers were still slick with pizza grease. “This crap? The crap that fueled my little journey through shitty timey-wimey bullshit? I don’t know how to do this beyond fumbled theory, and not even to the point where I could even comprehensively explain exactly what happened to me. This is Stephen Hawkins-level weird science. This is string theory and alternate dimensions and ‘a butterfly flaps its wings and shit we’re all dead’ level stuff that has formulas without examples behind it to render it solidly true, because, yes, it probably does exist, but how can I prove it? Hell, I can’t even prove it happened to me.”

And that was possibly the part that killed him the most. The farther he got into the timeline he was now firmly stuck in, the more he questioned if any of it had actually happened. He had no proof, nothing but his own word and the occasional fact he shouldn’t have known. No one would believe him if he tried to explain to someone who could help him, either. Not even if Max helped him with her side of the story. In fact, her time powers and assertion that they existed was a lot of what kept Warren from flat out starting to wonder if it might have all been in his head. It was all just too … unreal. Without Max, Warren doesn’t know what he’d think.

“I’m smart,” Warren asserts immediately, because he certainly was, “but I’m not Stephen Hawkins. I can’t just snap my fingers and decide it’s a done deal because it happened and there’s a little theory to it, and because people trust my word in the realm of science so it’s accepted by many. Max, I need to know.”

Max stares at him, seemingly shocked into silence at Warren’s ramble. Or, Warren thinks rationally, something he said, because he rambles all the time and it never affects her like this. Warren waves his hand in front of her face. “Max? Hello? You’re not in some food coma, are you? Because that’s not actually a thing, it’s really just—”

“A butterfly,” Max cuts in. Her tone is confused, even mystified. Warren drops his hand.

“Yeah? It’s just a saying to explain—”

“No, Warren. A butterfly, I saw— I have a picture—well, Chloe does,” Max scrambles through her words, wiping her hand on her jeans and then turning to dig around in her bag. Warren watches her, unsure of what she was trying to explain. She’d never mentioned a butterfly before. After a moment, she pulls out her phone and says, “I have a picture of it, but I gave it to Chloe.”

Warren’s brain clicks. “You think it was a sign?” he tries, because maybe it hadn’t been a deer this time. Or maybe there had just been more signs, ones even Warren hadn’t known about.

“I don’t know what it was,” Max admits once she’s finished tapping away at the screen. Almost immediately, her phone buzzes, and she taps the screen before flipping the phone around to face Warren. On the screen is a picture of a polaroid, and the polaroid is of a bright blue butterfly. Warren’s stomach drops. It must be clear on his face, because Max leans forward. “Bizzaro, right? I found it in the bathroom the same day I saw the storm in Jefferson’s classroom. I thought it was just escaped from the science lab or trapped in from outside or something, but now that you mention butterflies, do you think it was something more?”

Warren stares at the picture, his heart firmly nestled in his gut. “That’s a Blue Morpho,” he says quietly, gravely, then, like he’d forgotten to breathe, he gasps. Max frowns at him inquisitively. “Blue Morphos don’t— They’re not native to North America. Especially not Oregon. Especially not in the middle of October.” Warren sits back and covers his mouth with his hand for a second. “Have you seen one since?”

“Since my time powers stopped? No.”

Tension Warren doesn’t realize had built up in his chest eases at Max’s words. It wasn’t concrete, but maybe the whales had been nothing but a reminder of things he’d forgotten. Something subconsciously repressed in his mind resurfacing to make sure he didn’t forget what he’d been put through.

But I’d never seen the whales, Warren thinks, and a trickle of cold cuts through his relief. How did I see them then? How did I know what they looked like?

Movies, he tries to tell himself. He doesn’t try to think of where he might have seen beached whales before, because he’s afraid he hasn’t.

What else could it possibly be?

“Mind if Chloe stops by?” Max asks suddenly, pulling Warren back to the present.

“Oh, shit, actually,” he starts, abruptly reminded of what he’d resolved to do. He reaches out and wraps his fingers around Max’s wrist. Max doesn’t pull away, but her smile turns confused. “I want to tell Chloe about the time loops,” Warren explains quietly, like anyone would be able to hear them. Which is ridiculous, because no one else is there.

Max’s expression turns first to surprise, then to doubt, and then—surprisingly—to worry. “Are you sure about that, Warren?”

Warren hesitates. “Should I not be?”

“It’s your story. I trust Chloe with my life, but …” Max pauses. “You know Chloe. She’ll be upset she didn’t know when everyone else did, and she might not understand, but once she gets over herself, she’ll guard that secret with everything she’s got.”

Warren’s memory flashes back to the night they’d ambushed Jefferson, to the short conversation he’d had with Chloe in the car, and he shakes his head slowly. “I think she’ll understand,” he tells Max. Max’s eyes narrow momentarily, but then she shrugs and taps something out on her phone.

“We’d better finish this pizza before she gets here,” she announces, picking up her pizza slice again. “She’ll be here soon, and she’ll demolish whatever we leave out in the open.”

Warren snorts and takes a slice, but his mind is elsewhere, and, despite the fact he assured Max Chloe would understand, nerves still eat at him. Mixed with the apprehension from yesterday, it just makes him feel sick.

Thankfully, Max seems preoccupied with the idea of Chloe coming by, and she doesn’t notice a thing.

If Warren had aimed for elegance in his execution when it came to telling Chloe his story, he misses his mark by a mile.

“I got stuck in a time loop,” Warren blurts abruptly, the first words he’d said since Chloe had arrived. Chloe, laughing over a slice of pizza, cuts herself off and gives Warren one of those “Are you going insane?” looks he’s gotten so used to getting. She’d only arrived a few minutes ago, and, after greeting both Max and Warren, immediately helped herself to the remains of the pizza on the picnic table. A conversation hadn’t even really started, but, now, there’d be no chance for it to, and Warren wouldn’t have to worry about never managing to slip his confession in. He tells himself that’s pretty much what he’d been aiming for, if only so he can’t dwell on the way he couldn’t even start a conversation before diving into the deep end.

Max freezes where she sits when Warren’s words hit the air, her face completely draining of color in one go. Her eyes flick to Chloe, then back to Warren. She doesn’t say anything.

“What?” Chloe says, looking between him and Max. “Time loop? The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout, Graham?”

Warren licks his lips, readying himself to explain. “Remember how Max could control time in short bursts,” he starts, and Chloe nods to show she’s following, her lips curled to one side in a phantom smirk, “Well,” he continues, “she wasn’t the only one with weird time shit interfering with her life.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Chloe exclaims, sounding half-amused and half-annoyed, like she thinks he’s trying to pull the wool over her eyes in some sort of trick or prank. She reaches across the table and socks Warren in the arm. Warren winces, but when neither he nor Max laugh or ease up on their serious manner, Chloe stiffens, the humor visibly draining from her face to be replaced with something harder. “What? You were able to control time, too? What the hell, Warren? Why didn’t you take Max’s place when she and Prescott—”

“Chloe, not like that,” Max tells her, her hand on Chloe’s upper arm to stop her from continuing. Chloe frowns down at Max, then gives Warren a bewildered look.

Warren takes a deep breath. “I was stuck in a time loop.”

Silence falls between them for a bare moment, then Chloe’s eyes harden and bore into Warren as if they could scalp him alive. “Explain,” she demands, and there’s no room to argue.

Warren explains. When he first starts, he stumbles over himself, cutting off and backtracking, because the beginning was the hardest for him to put into words, even though it all had started with him simply thinking it had been an elaborate nightmare.

More than once, Chloe turns her confused gaze onto Max as if asking her if she believed what was coming out of Warren’s mouth, but Max only nods at her each time she does, and, eventually, Warren gets some semblance of the start of everything out into the air. Then, he starts on everything else, and he knows he can’t keep the strain out of his voice as he ventures deeper into his tale.

Despite knowing he was free from it all, talking about it, especially at length, still wasn’t easy for Warren to do. The same went for researching what possibly could have happened to him—as much as he wanted to do it and tried to, the fact it was all done and over with made the ordeal no easier to look into than it had been when he’d been in the midst of it all happening around him.

Though Chloe’s aggression from her misunderstanding remains on her face when Warren first starts, it steadily melts away into confusion, and then to disbelief. She doesn’t interrupt Warren as he struggles through his story, and from beside her Max’s attention switches from split between Chloe and Warren to solely on Warren as he touches on things he’d only told Nathan before. Their attention on him is rapt, and when Warren cuts himself off suddenly to grind his teeth together in the frustration he still felt over specific parts of the loops, they wait patiently for him to relax enough to continue.

“A time loop,” he finally repeats once he’s reached what he felt was enough of an end, because the rest of the story they already knew. “It was all a fucking time loop. It took me four—no, five tries, but I must have gotten it all right this time, because all of it stopped.”

Chloe looks at Warren silently, her mouth turned in a frown and her forehead wrinkled in an expression Warren can’t quite decipher. Max watches her, her eyes straying to Warren once, twice, as they wait for Chloe to speak, and then she does.

“Shit,” is all she says, but the single word is full of disbelief and acceptance, and Warren knows she understands why he’d kept it all from her until now.

Her hand snakes out and grasps his for a brief moment, her eyes on his, and they share a wordless moment, Max watching on. Warren pulls back with a short nod, then pushes himself from the picnic table and clutches the front of his shirt, unsure of how to explain he wanted to go. Thankfully, he doesn’t need to say anything, because Max stands up and walks around the table to pat him on the back.

“I’ll call you later, okay?” she tells him softly.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and his thanks are in his tone. Max pats him on the shoulder once, and then he’s free, and Warren turns and walks away.

He walks the path back to Blackwell silently, his thoughts racing around in his head, ghost whales completely forgotten in the wake of remembering his journey, and he stays within himself up until he makes it to the front of the dorms, where he nearly walks face-first into Trevor just as he’s leaving.

“Ack!” Trevor grunts, turning on his heel to avoid Warren. He just barely makes it—but he trips down the first step for his trouble. “Hey, Graham-man,” Trevor says immediately, as if he didn’t just pretty much nearly get steam-rolled by Warren not paying attention to where he was walking. Warren gives him a nod, but this isn’t enough for Trevor. “What’s up? You look like someone died.”

Warren, despite himself, winces, and Trevor’s half-joking expression falls immediately to alarm. “Shit, dude, I’m sorry,” he backtracks, holding his hands out and looking like he personally killed whomever he thought had died. “I was kidding, I didn’t mean any disrespect. Are you okay?”

“What? No, Trevor.” Warren waves his hands like it could dispel what was currently happening. “No. No one died, stop. I’m fine, I didn’t mean to run you off like that, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Trevor’s shoulders visibly relax. “Oh, shit. No worries there. You sure you’re all right though?”

Warren tries to keep his expression neutral, because he really just wants to get back into his room and chill. “Yeah, thinking too hard about weird science stuff.”

Trevor laughs. “You are the smart kid in this school. Hey, I’m heading out, but if you need me, hit me up, yeah?”

Trevor seems to think Warren will do just that, because he doesn’t wait for Warren to respond before he’s gone, and Warren is left at the front doors of the dorms with a rejection held on his tongue. Not because he didn’t want to talk to Trevor, but because he doesn’t have Trevor’s number.

Did Trevor have Warren’s number? How would he have gotten his hands on that?

Warren shakes his head in confusion, then absconds to his room for the night.

“The fuck are you supposed to be?” Nathan asks Warren a handful of days later, frowning and eyeing up Warren like he was an unwanted piece of meat placed before him.

“I’m The Doctor.” Warren holds his arms out and looks down at himself. Was it not obvious? “Wait, let me get my screwdriver out.”

Nathan only squints at him as he digs around in his pockets and procures his sonic screwdriver replica, which lights up when he pushes the button on the side. Nathan looks between the screwdriver and Warren himself uncomprehendingly. “Doctor of what?” he finally says.

Warren wilts. “No, you’re supposed to ask, ‘Doctor who?’”

“Oh,” Nathan says, nodding his head with realization, “you’re from that one show with the hot redhead.”

“Is that really all you remember about a show I’ve played at least three times with you in the same room?”

“Yup,” Nathan says, popping the end of the word with a look of boredom as his gaze wanders and surveys the room they’re standing in. It’s mostly bare; the boxes and coolers at his and Warren’s feet are filled with what will be decorating and supplying the party that night. His gaze centers on the doorway and Warren follows it, but no one is there. It’s only the two of them, which made Warren wonder not for the first time why he was even dragged out of his dorm room so early.

Warren huffs, causing Nathan’s eyes to flick back to him. “And what are you supposed to be?” he challenges, gesturing to Nathan’s outfit with his screwdriver. “A greaser? A blond Danny Zuko? Something along those lines?”

Nathan looks down at his leather-jacket-clad arm and shrugs. “Fucked if I know. I don’t do this shit anymore, this is all Vic’s idea. She figures the fancy shit out and I handle the other aspects of the party.”

“Is this you handling it?” Warren teases, shoving his screwdriver back into his pocket and bending down to open up one of the coolers.

Nathan stops him by putting his foot on the lid of the cooler before Warren manages to get it open. “Yes,” he says shortly, looking down his chest at Warren when he gives Nathan an annoyed look over being thwarted. “We’ve got two hours to get everything stocked and in the right place. Victoria will be here to start decorating soon, and once she’s going she’s not going to let anyone stop. She’s like a rabid Rottweiler with streamers and dry ice when she’s in her zone.”

Warren wrinkles his nose and stands back up. Nathan’s moved onto a cardboard box and is in the middle of prying the flap open. “Two hours? You’ll need me, like, an hour tops. I’m quick once I know what I’m doing, and the party doesn’t even start until eight.”

“So you’ll be here for it early, big fucking deal. Stop twisting my nads.”

Warren rolls his eyes. “I don’t need to be here for it early, I’m not going to the party.”

That stops Nathan in his tracks. He turns to Warren sharply, and for a flash of a second Warren can swear he sees a look of disappointment on Nathan’s face, but the expression is clearly one of annoyance once Warren gets a good look at it, and he decides he must have willfully imagined any disappointment.

“You’re not staying for the party?” Nathan asks. Despite his expression, there’s no aggression in his tone, just inquiry.

“No, going out with Max, Chloe, and Kate.”

“Kate?” Nathan scoffs. “I didn’t realize Jesus was big on begging for candy from strangers.”

“We’re not trick-or-treating,” Warren corrects, walking to Nathan’s side and bending to open the box Nathan had abandoned. Nathan doesn’t move to help, he only watches Warren wrench it open on his own. “We’re going to that haunted walk thing they’re holding in town.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nathan says quietly. “Forgot they did that.”

Warren looks up at Nathan with a frown, curious of the unusually quiet tone, but Nathan only cocks an eyebrow at him as if asking him to challenge it, so Warren decides to let it go. He wanted to have a nice Halloween, and an argument with Nathan over anything wasn’t the way to start that.

“If you really want me to,” Warren continues, pulling rolls of streamers and lights out of the box rapidly as a flash of black leather appears in the doorway, followed by the form of Victoria in attractively-tight leather pants, “I’ll stop by when we’re done and see how everything’s going.”

Warren doesn’t miss the snort Nathan gives him in return even under the commands Victoria starts barking at them to get everything out. “Do what the hell you want, Graham. No one gives a shit where you go.”

Warren scoffs and wants to call Nathan out on his pretty-blatant lie, but he never gets a chance to, because Victoria shuffles him off to one corner with a line of paper skulls and Nathan to another with a cooler of alcohol, and, in the whirlwind of everything, Warren doesn’t catch sight of Nathan again.

“Chloe!” Max screeches, shoving Chloe’s arm out of her face. A thick, white web of silly string falls from her flowy sleeve to the ground, and Chloe cackles with laughter at the reaction she got from Max. Max—dressed as a pirate along with Chloe in an inside joke Warren doesn’t quite understand—whips her pirate hat off to whack Chloe with it, and Chloe turns to sprint out of the way, shoving past a man in a zombie outfit as she goes, with Max hot on her heels. Warren watches them leave him, and they’re quickly lost to the crowd.

“They look like they’re having fun.” Warren turns his head to find Kate, dressed in a long traditional Mexican dress, looking into the crowd with a smile. “Am I late?” she asks, turning the smile on Warren. He returns it.

“Nah, we just got here. Chloe somehow already got her hands on a can of that glow-in-the-dark string stuff they make the webs out of. Max hates it.” As if to punctuate his statement, a very clear screech of “CHLOE!” follows his words, and both he and Kate glance at one another and share a laugh. “Love the skin paint,” Warren tells her once he’s regained control of his vocal cords, circling a finger around his own face to indicate, as if it weren’t obvious. “Dia de los Muertos?”

“La Catrina,” Kate confirms, pulling a fan from the pocket of her traditional dress and opening it with a snap of her wrist. She hides her face behind it, then gives him a wink. “I thought it would be nice to honor an important Mexican figure. I couldn’t get the hat she’s usually depicted wearing, but I tried to at least get the makeup and flowers down.”

Warren takes a moment to look at her. She does indeed have large fake flowers woven in a crown around her blonde head, and her hair is free from its usual bun in a half-up, half-down hairstyle Warren couldn’t name if he tried. It’s a shockingly good look on her, and the elaborate white, black, and red face paint that she wears only accentuates the fact she’s more attractive than Warren had ever bothered to notice.

“It looks great,” Warren tells her, trying to ignore the way his tongue is suddenly sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Did you know Catrina can even be traced back to the Aztecs? They had their own version of her, and she also shows up in other cultures around the world.”

Kate tilts her head in consideration, still smiling at him. The smile pulls something in Warren, and he suddenly realizes that this is the first time he’s really ever seen Kate smile. That this is the first time he’s ever really seen her so happy. “I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool, Warren,” she tells him, and he blinks back to the present, pushing the past away again. “You’re the Eleventh Doctor, right?”

Warren looks at her in surprise. “You watch Doctor Who?”

“A little. I haven’t seen all of it, but I know one doctor from another.”

Warren’s heart does the fluttery little dance it always does when he realizes he’s being given the opportunity to rant about something he loves, but he’s thwarted from his attempt at discussing the show with her by the reemergence of Max and Chloe. Chloe slaps Warren on the back, cackling, and Warren stumbles over his feet from the force of it. Max looks less than pleased at the strings of goop hanging from her costume, but there’s a small smile playing on her lips, so Warren knows she’s not really upset.

“Everyone ready for some bogus Halloween shenans?” Chloe questions them cheerfully, grinning wide enough to show a majority of her teeth. Kate claps her hands excitedly.

“Yes! What do you have planned, Captain?”

“Captain,” Chloe repeats, impressed, then elbows Warren with one arm and Max with the other. “I like her thought process. Captain! Nice ring to it.”

“Chloe,” Max groans, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, okay! Let’s round the gardens and nab some of the free refreshments, and then hit up the haunted house.”

Max tilts her head. “They have a haunted house here?”

“Hell yeah, they do!” Chloe sings.

“It’s usually the most popular event, they go all out,” Kate adds on. “Usually the makeup is so good it looks real.”

“It’s all that Prescott money,” Chloe mock-whispers from behind the back of her hand.

“At least it’s being used for something cool.”

“God forbid it be used to shape the town up!” Chloe presses a hand to her heart mockingly, her eyes turning in their sockets. Kate giggles from behind her hand, once again glowing with excitement and happiness Warren has never once seen her exhibit, and then Chloe is hooking an arm around both her and Max’s waists and directing them into the crowd, leaving Warren to trail along behind them.

The house is dark, creepy, and vaguely dangerous-looking, but Warren figures that’s the point of the whole aesthetic thing that came with the holiday. This is the first year he hasn’t spent the entirety of the Halloween night deep in a Halloween-special D&D campaign, usually penned and DM’d by himself, and one look at the house teeming with people both his age and older in costumes that look a little too professionally put-together to be simple drugstore purchases makes him think that maybe this was the wrong year to go and break that tradition.

He hasn’t spoken to most of his D&D friends since getting accepted into Blackwell, and he blames that mostly on himself, though the general distance that getting accepted into a senior-only school at the age of sixteen creates was also at fault for the lack of communication between them. Warren had anticipated the time it would consume to attend Blackwell, but he hadn’t anticipated the distance it would put between him and his former friends, despite how close they’d been when he’d been attending regular school. That had been a blow that he’d tried not to think about during the time he’d been at the academy (and at home, because they didn’t visit—they always were too busy, and he knows that there’s more to the excuse than just the word itself, but he doesn’t question it, because he’s been too busy for them and it wasn’t fair to do so when they didn’t to him), and then managed to completely forget in the wake of the loops when they were everything he knew. He occasionally thought about it now, but it wasn’t anything close to how much he’d thought about it before, when he’d been so lonely and wanting for a friend.

Warren might have had a massive crush on Max back when he’d first started school with her, but there had been more to his want to hang out with her than just the crush. He’d been lonely, and she’d been relatively accepting of him in a way that was different from the almost-encroaching attention Brooke gave him, and it gave Max a pull Warren couldn’t ignore.

Also, she was—is—really cute. That hadn’t hurt anything.

But he’d been lonely, and his friends had fallen to the wayside where they could no longer be reached. Now, he had friends in the form of Max, Chloe, Brooke (whom had surprisingly let up recently, though he didn’t know why, because it’s not as if he had ignored her each time she came to him with want for discussion), Kate, and, of course, Nathan, and he wouldn’t trade them for his old crew in any moment. Not even this one, even though they house they were about to enter looked a lot less like something he wanted to experience when he could be weaving a good, epic game of Halloween D&D.

Not that he was about to wimp out on Max, Chloe, and Kate, who were gathered around him and chattering excitedly about the house as they grew closer to it in the slow line. He could do this, it was only a house of lights, props, and actors. Not all that different from the movies he loved watching, actually.

The ghoul at the front takes their pre-paid tickets, and into the dry-ice-filled doorway they go.

This isn’t so bad, Warren thinks to himself when another bloody bride screams at him for leaving her at the altar. She writhes against a wall, her bouquet clasped firmly a hand that’s missing a few fingers, and Warren’s so busy watching her that he nearly runs into the guy in overalls that revs a blade-less chainsaw into the air above his head. Kate yelps from his side, latching onto his arm, and Warren momentarily wonders where the hell Chloe and Max have gotten diverted to when he and Kate are scare-ushered into the next room of the house by bloody-chainsaw-man.

“Oh no,” Warren hears Kate whisper, her grip tightening, as the room fills with a wave of dry ice and a myriad of neon lights filter through a sudden strobe that starts up. The light of the room is just bright enough that Warren can navigate around, but the smoke, flashing, and colors distort the way and cause him to need to stop ever few steps to right himself again.

The howling and cackling that the actors are doing doesn’t help anything, either.

“Where’s the exit?” Kate calls to Warren, still holding onto him.

“No fucking clue,” he answers, craning his neck to look around and becoming temporarily distorted when the strobe starts up faster. “Shit. Can’t a guy have a little seeing room?”

An actor screeches a laugh in response to his request, and Warren only sighs in annoyance. This was the point of the house, but they could make it a little easier to traverse, dammit.

“Oh!” Kate says suddenly. “I think I see the way out!”

“What?” Warren asks, looking over her head to see where she’s facing, but he doesn’t see anything. “Where?”

“There!” Kate pulls on Warren’s arm, guiding him, but a sudden dizziness hits just as he starts taking a step in the direction she’s trying to lead him. “Warren?” Kate asks in concern, just as blackness starts to ring his vision.

“Fuck,” Warren hisses. The strobe pulses against his eyes, keeping him from regaining coherence. “I’m fine, I just need a second,” he tells Kate when he feels her grip suddenly go slack, but when he glances down at her to give her some form of reassuring expression, he nearly starts to scream.

Lights flash against her empty sockets, and cracks spider web around the pale, washed-out structure of the skull that grins back at him. It’s not Kate looking back at him, it’s her skeleton. It’s her after she’d fallen, after she’d lost all hope, before anyone had figured out that in the end she could be saved from herself and from the darkness that enveloped her.

Warren stares through the rapid flashing that illuminates the shattered bones over and over again, his scream caught in his throat with his breath, all mental processing ceased completely. He can’t blink. He can’t breathe. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he knows he’d saved Kate this time. This wasn’t her he was looking at—that version of her was no more. This is not Kate.

Not Kate.

Not.

Kate’s broken skull shakes from side to side, as if it’s telling him no, and then, with another flash, it’s Kate again. His Kate; alive Kate, looking at him with such concern that Warren nearly falls to his knees in a combination of relief and breathlessness. He gulps down a breath he couldn’t take before, and tries his best to tell her it was the dry ice fucking him up. His voice cracks, tongue fumbling, and Kate’s eyes widen from beneath the white and black and red paint that surrounds them. The lie must get across to her, because the next thing he knows, she’s tugging on his arm again and pulling him into the next room. Luckily for him, it’s the one adjoined to the exit, and she pulls him out just as one of the actors stops howling long enough to ask if everything’s all right.

“Warren?” she calls to him while he blinks rapidly, eyes on his feet and brain a fuzzy scream of static. What the hell was that? It couldn’t have been a premonition, it couldn’t have been. Kate—right here, holding his arm and trying her best to check on his current well-being without forcing him Kate—was not who she had been when she’d been ready to throw herself to her death. Right? The Kate back then rarely smiled, rarely seemed excited about anything. This Kate had found something in her life, friends or help, or maybe both. She was better. Right?

Right?

Warren’s eyes stray to Kate’s worried face. Her eyebrows shoot up with relief, face leaning closer, and Warren shakes himself.

“Sorry,” he coughs out. “Too much dry ice.”

“You looked like you were having a panic attack,” Kate says. Her hands haven’t released Warren’s arm yet, and he doesn’t try to shake her off. He doesn’t really want to. “Has that happened before?”

“No.” Yes. “That was new.” That happened to him when he saw the whales on the beach. “I don’t know why it happened, but I’m okay.” You caused it. You caused it, Kate. You caused it when you killed yourself over and over and he had no idea he could save you.

Warren was not okay.

“Maybe we should get you back to your room.”

“Get who back to their room?” Max asks, emerging from the house with Chloe by her side. Chloe’s shaking slightly, but she has the remains of a grin on her face. “What’s going on?”

“Warren had some sort of attack,” Kate tells them before Warren can signal to her not to say anything. Both Max’s and Chloe’s expressions sober, and then all eyes are on Warren. Warren blanches.

“No, no. Dry ice, lights, I got dizzy and shit. Probably getting sick.”

Chloe’s face screams “bullshit detected”, but thankfully she doesn’t call him out on it. Warren knows there’s no way she could know about the vision of the whales, but he wonders if she’s made her own conclusions about things since he’d told her about his loops. He doubts it, but Chloe’s always been the more suspicious of the three of them—Nathan not included.

“We’ll walk you back,” Max offers, though it sounds like an order, and Warren holds up his hands and procures his best guilty face.

“No, come on, I can get to my room on my own easily. I want you guys to stay here and do more shit, it’s only …” Warren pauses with his phone in his hand, Nathan’s number on the screen and the timer beneath it telling him he’d been calling Nathan for the past forty-six seconds. “Shit,” Warren hisses, ending the call and hoping voicemail hadn’t picked anything up. “I’ll head back, it’s just a headache. You guys stay, I don’t want to be reason Halloween is a bust.”

Max worries her lip, and none of them make any move to protest. “All right,” Chloe finally amends, though she sounds like she doesn’t want to. “If that’s what you want, but you have to keep in contact with us for the rest of the night so we know you didn’t die.”

Warren huffs and rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to die, I’m just going to go back to my room and rest.”

Chloe snorts, her smile reemerging, and Warren agrees to keep them updated for as long as he’s awake. They accept this, and Warren leaves them to the rest of their Halloween activities in favor of retreating to his room.

Warren looks at his feet the entire trek back, even down the hallway to his room, thinking about the—vision?—the entire way, and he doesn’t notice he has a visitor until he very nearly runs into him.

“Oh, Nathan,” Warren says in mild surprise, blinking at the form of Nathan hunching over by the wall next to his door. Then, he frowns, the time of night registering as incompatible with Nathan’s presence. “Wait a second, what are you doing here? The party’s still going on.”

Nathan shrugs and scuffs the toe of his shoe on the carpet, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. “Making sure Price kept you in one piece. Heard you saying something about coming back here in your butt-dial.”

Oops. So Nathan had picked up when Warren had accidentally called him. Great.

“Aw Nathan,” Warren coos instead of apologizing, smirking and moving to unlock his door. “You do care.”

Nathan scoffs, not offering a response, and follows Warren into his room. He secures a spot on the bed before Warren’s really noticed, and Warren decides to start shedding some of his costume, the bulk of it feeling heavy in the warmer air of the dormitories.

“You planning on staying?” Warren asks Nathan when Nathan seems settled and comfortable where he’s chosen to sit.

Nathan’s face twitches, like the question annoys him. It probably does. “Guess so. You’re not coming to the party, and I don’t feel like shitting around VIP area with Vic and Hayden busy schooling Trevor’s ass.”

Warren cocks an eyebrow. “Shitting around?”

“Shut the hell up,” Nathan tells him, then throws a pillow at him when he starts snickering.

“Don’t give Trevor a hard time,” Warren says once he’s been pelted. “He’s been relatively nice to me lately, and I don’t want to see him getting frozen to death by that glare Victoria has.”

“Tell her that, I’m not her keeper.”

Warren wrinkles his nose. “And risk getting hit myself? Hell no. Trevor can handle himself, never mind.”

“That’s what I thought, pussy. What are you doing back, was the hay ride too scary for wittle Warren’s heart?”

Warren glares at Nathan, but doesn’t offer him an answer, and, somehow, Nathan manages to realize that means something had happened, and Warren was back in his dorm because of it. “Well? Spill it, Graham.”

Warren presses his lips together, debating on actually telling Nathan of the episode (he didn’t want to call them visions—they weren’t real; Kate was alive, and she was going to stay that way this time) instead of some bullshit excuse, but, before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “I tripped out over the strobe lights tonight.”

Nathan only blinks at him. “What?”

“I freaked out in one of rooms in the haunted house we went to. There was dry ice and strobe lights and laser lights and … I guess it all, I don’t know, triggered something. I started to see shit that wasn’t there.”

A wrinkle appears between Nathan’s eyebrows and he squints. “Shit that wasn’t there? What kind of shit?”

“Like.” Warren hesitates, struggling to find the words he needed to explain in a way that Nathan would be able to understand. “Like, Kate was dressed as La Catrina tonight—”

“La who the fuck?”

“She’s—ugh, you know. The skeleton lady, death, she’s an icon of the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos. A lot of people dress as her for Halloween, too, but she’s a massive part of the Mexican tradition.”

Nathan pauses for a second, thinking, then snaps his fingers. “The skull makeup? With the crazy colors and lacy designs and shit?”

“Yeah—well, no, that’s probably a sugar skull design they’re trying to mimic, but same basic concept. Same holiday. Yes.”

Nathan nods, satisfied with the confirmation, then waves his hand impatiently for Warren to continue.

“Right, well, she was dressed as La Catrina, so, like, you know, skull makeup. You could tell it was her and everything, and it wasn’t like it looked exactly like a real skull or whatever, but, the lights. They, like.” Warren scrubs a hand over his mouth, annoyed with his struggle over his words. “They can distort vision, you know, that’s what they’re usually used for, but instead of seeing Kate’s makeup distorted on her face, or with her face or whatever, I saw … just, a skull. A real skull. With her hair and everything, but bones instead of skin and flesh beneath it.” Warren closes his eyes. “They were broken.”

Nathan doesn’t say anything. Warren keeps his eyes closed through the silence, the image of Kate’s fractured skull pasted in the darkness of his eyelids, and he waits.

“She fell from the top of the dorms,” Nathan finally says quietly.

“Jumped,” Warren corrects, his tone clipped. She hadn’t fallen—that implied there had been some sort of accident. Kate had wanted to kill herself. Kate had jumped.

“Jumped,” Nathan parrots, softly, unexpectedly, and Warren opens his eyes again. Nathan’s looking at him from where he’s slouched over in Warren’s bed, elbows on his knees and hands loosely weaved together at the fingers, seemingly uncomfortable with what was happening between them, but somehow still obviously sympathetic. Warren didn’t understand it. “Did you ever see it? Her?”

Warren nods. “Every time it happened, yeah. Except the one where she was saved, obviously. And this time.”

Nathan winces—winces—and Warren suddenly, desperately wants to know what’s happening inside Nathan’s mind right in that moment.

“That’s fucked up,” he says, head turned to the side, and, Warren realizes with a start, he sounds guilty. Pained and guilty.

“Nathan,” Warren starts, but stops when Nathan’s eyes flick back to Warren’s, and the expression on his face is one of a challenge. Warren drops the want to reassure him, but then it surges back, and he counts his blessings before he allows himself to only say, “You saved her this time, and that’s the part that really matters.”

Nathan doesn’t respond, but his hard blue eyes bore into Warren. Then, he grunts, shakes his head, and falls back against the bed, his leg starting up a bounce Warren hadn’t realized was missing from the picture. Warren sighs, shedding the last of his costume so he was left in his undershirt and slacks, and then goes to fumble with his drawers.

“What are you looking for?” Nathan asks from behind him.

“Movie collection.” Warren turns, the located flash drive in his grip. “Wanna join?”

“That question is going to get really fucking old one of these days,” Nathan hisses, which means yes. Warren sets up a playlist of old spooks on his laptop and then goes to the bed, nudging Nathan over until there was room, and settling in. They watch quietly as Dracula stalks across the screen, and then Warren hears Nathan mutter quietly, “It was just in your head, you know.”

Warren glances at him out of the corner of his eye, unwilling to miss the movie despite having seen it a number of times before. “I know. It just shook me up some.”

“It can’t hurt you,” Nathan continues, his tone strangely firm. “It’s all in your head.”

Warren frowns, then fully looks at Nathan. Nathan’s looking back at him, his face a mask of steel beneath the furrowed brow he wore. “You don’t think it’s a sign everything’s going to happen again?”

“No,” Nathan says, without question or hesitation. “I think it’s all in your head. I think it’s all that vicious bullcrap catching up with you now that you know you’re really done.”

Warren feels his mouth twitch as he tries to reign in the crushed expression he knows his face wants to display. “You think I’m going insane?”

Nathan waits a beat, then shrugs. “I think you might just be as crazy as I am.”

And, despite the way the words might have sounded, Warren knew Nathan had meant it as a reassurance. And that, Warren realizes as he turns back to the movie again, was what he had really wanted to hear.

[isthatbloodonhisshirt]

Jinxed

Sterek A-Z Challenge: Jinxed

Derek hated it when they were human.

Not human human, but of the human variety.

It made it harder for the group to agree they should kill them. Because if someone could be classed as human, no matter how dangerous they were, there was always the ever-boring, “There must be another way!” speech from Scott.

Sure, shove a Beserker in his face and he was fine with killing it, but the second a Kanima showed up, even if it was his worst enemy, he wanted to save it.

True story. Derek still couldn’t believe Jackson hadn’t died.

To be fair, it was probably a good thing because it made it easier for Derek to not want to kill Stiles when he’d been possessed by the Nogitsune. It would’ve been weird if he’d admitted to everyone that of all the bad guys they could kill, a possessed Stiles wasn’t one of them.

For the most part though, Derek was very adamant that dangerous things needed to be put down. Unless they were Stiles. But only Stiles, everyone else was fair game.

But herein lay the problem: they were dealing with a human type of threat, and Scott was extremely unwilling to resort to murdering them.

Derek was more than okay murdering them, because the Mage had killed over twelve people already, the sheriff was losing his mind trying to cover up the supernatural aspect of the murders, and oh yeah, bad shit usually happened when they listened to Scott.

Like now. With Stiles and Lydia kidnapped. And probably dying.

If Derek were the type of person to use sarcasm, he would slow clap at Scott and talk about what a great job he’d done. But, he wasn’t the type of person to use sarcasm—it had been beaten out of him the day he’d met Stiles—so he instead settled for scowling and being angry the entire drive to the place Deaton had told them to go.

Apparently Mages emitted some weird nature magic that made them easy to track, so he and Scott had an easy time finding them. The others had been left behind to ensure if things went wrong the town wasn’t completely defenseless, but if Scott had just listened to him when he’d said to kill her two weeks ago, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Derek’s hands clenched the steering wheel more tightly, worry gnawing in the pit of his stomach. If anything had happened to Stiles…

Shit, he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think about something happening to Stiles. And he really couldn’t let Scott know how worried he was about Stiles.

He didn’t know they were dating yet. That was the advantage of always being together: they already smelled like one another, so really, there was nothing to discover. It wasn’t like he was going to get intimate with Stiles in the way his horny teenage body wanted—he was still sixteen, Derek was going to wait a few more years, he didn’t want the sheriff to shoot him—so Scott had nothing to smell.

And to be fair, it wasn’t that they were keeping it a secret, per se. It just… hadn’t come up.

“It’s up here,” Scott said, snapping Derek out of his thoughts. He looked at where the other Alpha was pointing and turned. They went down a deserted alley road that led around the back of a large factory. It had a neighbouring warehouse, which also had a neighbouring warehouse, so Derek was fairly certain they were in some kind of industrial district.

Scott was out of the car first, Derek trying not to tear his door off when he exited. Inhaling deeply, he felt both relieved and terrified when he smelled Stiles. It was an old scent, but fresh enough to have been recent. Two hours, at most. Given he’d been missing for almost three, it was the right timeline.

Sharing a look, he and Scott moved quickly and with practised ease, working together seamlessly. Scott broke the lock on the factory door and Derek went in first. He made it to the end of the corridor, making sure it was clear, and Scott passed him at the next corner, moving ahead quickly while Derek hung back.

They played this weird game of leap frog all the way to the heart of the factory they were in. It was when they turned another corner that Derek’s heart thudded in his chest. He could see Stiles and Lydia. They were both sitting in chairs, their wrists bound together behind their backs, ankles tied to the chairlegs. They were facing one another, so when he and Scott began moving forward slowly, Lydia looked up.

She saw them, but she didn’t react to their presence. She just stared at them with a frown on her face, as if recognizing them, but unable to place them.

Then, she leaned forward and whispered—well, loud-whispered, since it carried—to Stiles, “I think they lost at hide and seek.”

Stiles instantly whipped around in his chair, eyes wide and panicked, shaking his head urgently.

Derek and Scott didn’t even have time to share a look before something slammed into the wall beside Derek’s face, exploding into dust.

Wolfsbane.

Luckily Scott hadn’t been close enough to inhale any and Derek had been exhaling when it hit the wall. It made his eyes sting and he was momentarily blinded, but he stumbled away before any permanent damage could be done. He heard Scott roar and shook his head, blinking hard and trying to clear his vision.

By the time he could see again, Scott and the Mage were fighting across the open area Stiles and Lydia were in. He seemed to have things under control, but every time he dodged a spell, it risked hitting the other two.

Derek rushed forward, claws extended, and sliced through the ropes around Stiles’ wrists. He hastily shook them off while Derek freed his legs and then began working on Lydia.

“We have to go!” Stiles insisted, grabbing at Lydia’s arm once she was free. She still looked confused, but she was slowly startling to giggle. “We have to get you out!”

“You go. Take Lydia. We’ll be fine.”

“No, Der!” Derek was a little surprised at the nickname. Stiles never called him that. “She wants you! And Scott! We have to leave! Now!”

“What does she want from us?” Derek asked while shoving the other two towards safety when another spell narrowly missed them all. Once they were around a corner, he stopped, searching Stiles’ face. Lydia looked like she was drunk.

Stiles stared at him, face contorted and turning red, like he was straining to do something. Licking his lips, he exhaled sharply and spoke once more.

“She wants both of you. You’re…” Stiles trailed off for a second and then let out an angry sound.

“Because we’re what?” Derek asked, getting impatient. “Werewolves? Alphas?”

“Yes!” Stiles said, pointing at him with both hands. “Yes, that!”

“He’s really pretty,” Lydia said, and Derek shifted his gaze to look at her, confused, because she was leaning into him and touching his face, scratching at his stubble.

“No, Lyds, stop it.” Stiles grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. She instead shifted her weight into Stiles and giggled, resting her head on his shoulder but keeping her eyes on Derek.

Derek didn’t have time to worry about what was wrong with her. He just told them both to get out and turned to help Scott. Whatever this Mage wanted, he didn’t want her to get it, and Scott was by himself right now.

She had him in some kind of binding spell when Derek appeared. They quickly discovered that she couldn’t use magic on both of them at the same time, and whatever she needed from them, she obviously couldn’t damage them.

It was a much faster battle once they worked together. They overpowered her quickly, Scott found the crystal being used to control her magic, and once it was smashed, the Mage screamed so loudly that she would’ve made Lydia proud.

Then she passed out.

Derek and Scott argued over whether or not to bring her with them now that she was powerless and human once more. Derek wanted to leave her to find her own way home, but Scott insisted that they couldn’t do that.

The only reason he conceded defeat was because a few of the hospitalized patients from her attacks needed cures, and when they called Deaton, he said he needed the crystal shards as well as the Mage to determine what kind of magic she used so he could reverse it—if it was even possible to reverse it.

Derek let Scott carry her out, because he wasn’t going to considering he didn’t even want to bring her back. She didn’t deserve a ride back to town.

They exited the factory to find Stiles’ Jeep beside Derek’s car. Evidently the Mage had forced him to drive up there. Derek wanted to go back with him, but nobody was allowed to drive his car, so he just moved up to Stiles’ driver’s side window while Scott got the Mage into the Camaro.

“We’re going to the clinic. You lead. If anything happens, I want you ahead of us.”

Stiles said nothing, he just nodded, and forced Lydia’s hand away from the gear shift without even looking. Derek frowned at her.

“Is she okay?”

“No,” Stiles admitted.

Derek’s gaze shifted back to him. Now that Stiles was okay, that he was safe, he could relax enough to see that something was very wrong. The set of his jaw, the tenseness of his shoulders, the anger blazing in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

Stiles was silent for a moment, then he said, “No.”

Immediately, Derek’s senses went on overdrive. He tried to determine what was wrong by scent and sight alone. Lydia just smelled confused, and a little upset, like she felt that Stiles was being mean to her because he kept taking her by the wrist and pulling her hand away from things in the Jeep.

Stiles just smelled angry and miserable and frustrated. It was hard to pinpoint any one thing, and that made Derek extremely uncomfortable.

“Stiles—”

“Not now,” he insisted, hand tightening around the steering wheel. The other had moved to pull Lydia’s wrist once more when she turned on the windshield wipers. “When we get back.”

Derek wasn’t happy about it, but Stiles made it fairly clear he wasn’t going to discuss it now, because he rolled up his window and drove away. Derek had to speed a little bit to actually catch up to him once the Camaro was back on the road.

“Something’s wrong,” Derek said.

“I heard.” Scott had that weird look on his face that Derek could never decipher between constipated or worried. He was going to guess worried, in this case.

They said nothing for the drive back, following behind the Jeep the whole way. When it pulled into the parking lot of the clinic, Derek and Scott were out of the Camaro before Stiles had even finished unbuckling his seatbelt.

Scott was bringing the unconscious Mage into the building, Deaton holding the door open for him. Derek just watched Stiles help Lydia unbuckle her seatbelt and coax her out of the car. She took his hand when she hit the ground, looking around.

Derek’s frown deepened, but Stiles avoided his gaze and followed after Scott and Deaton. Derek took up the rear, the three of them meeting up with the other two in the back. The Mage had been put down on one of the metal examination tables, and the shards of the crystal were in a tray on Deaton’s desk. He and Scott were bent down over it.

Deaton probably knew what he was looking at. Scott likely didn’t, but he kept nodding as Deaton spoke. Derek ignored them, watching Stiles and Lydia.

The redhead kept trying to reach out for things, but Stiles would stop her and force her hand back to her side. Her other hand was still clutched tightly in his own.

“Well, that makes sense,” Deaton finally said, straightening. When Derek looked back over, the crystal had weird blue steam coming from it and was glowing yellow. Deaton was holding a little pouch in his hand. “She didn’t know what she was doing. She probably didn’t mean to kill anyone, she just wanted someone’s attention.”

Scott gave him a really annoying “told you so!” look, but Derek just crossed his arms and asked Deaton to explain. Apparently the crystal was being used to jinx people, and some of the jinxes inadvertently ended up being fatal. The Mage was new, according to Deaton, so she probably hadn’t realized that the deaths were her fault.

“Stiles said she wanted us,” Derek said, turning to Stiles, who was holding both of Lydia’s hands and hissing quietly at her. “Stiles.”

“What?” he turned to them, the word almost half snapped. He seemed to realize that and winced, but didn’t apologize. “I don’t know why.”

“Could be for the bite,” Scott mused, crossing his arms and shrugging. “She didn’t seem interested in hurting us. She just wanted us contained. Maybe her or someone she knows needs the bite and she was trying to get an Alpha for it.”

“Perhaps,” Deaton agreed. “We can ask her when she wakes up. I’ll need her help to reverse all the jinxes she put on people. I’m assuming she’ll be willing to help once she realizes what she’s done.” Deaton paused, then frowned. “You’ve been awfully quiet over there,” he said to Stiles.

Stiles’ mouth set in a hard line, an annoyed frown on his face.

“You’re jinxed, aren’t you? And so is Lydia.”

“Are they gonna be okay?” Scott asked urgently, overlapping with Derek’s furious, “What do you mean jinxed?!”

“It depends on the severity of what’s been done,” Deaton said, moving forward. Stiles was still holding Lydia’s hands, but she’d started whining and was stamping her feet impatiently, trying to free them from his grasp. “Lydia seems to be acting rather childish.”

“She took what we care for most,” Stiles muttered. “Her mind.”

“What did she take from you? You seem fine,” Scott said, then frowned. “Mostly.”

Something occurred to Derek then.

“Stiles, say my name.”

Stiles let out a huge sigh. “Der.”

“What am I?”

He got a glare for that. “A man.”

“What kind of man?”

“A man who is a wolf.”

“Say Werewolf.”

Stiles stared at him, and started going red in the face, like he was straining to say the word, but incapable of it.

“You’re unable to speak words that are more than one syllable,” Deaton said, evidently catching on to what Derek had been doing. “She took your vocabulary.”

“And I love that so much!” Stiles insisted, looking angry. “What’s the point of big words if I can’t use them?!”

“At least you can still talk. And act your age,” Scott said, eying Lydia, who was giggling and using one of her trapped hands to poke her finger against one of Stiles’ red cheeks.

“Help me,” Stiles whined. “Do you know how hard it is to speak like this? It’s not fun. Fix me. Stop that!” He said this last bit to Lydia, turning to her, annoyed.

“Well, the good news is you aren’t in any danger. The bad news is I won’t be able to fix you until she wakes up.” He motioned the Mage. Derek was glad he’d let Scott talk him into bringing her. “You may as well go home and get some sleep.”

Stiles very emphatically motioned Lydia.

“Ah.” That was all Deaton had to say.

They were all silent for a moment, then Scott sighed. “I’ll take her. Maybe Kira can come by and help me with her.” He glanced at Stiles. “You gonna be okay?”

He gave a sarcastic thumbs up. Scott pressed his lips together, then pulled out his phone to call Kira. Stiles led Lydia back out of the clinic, getting her into the Jeep and buckled in. When Scott climbed into the back to get a ride, Derek stopped Stiles before he disappeared inside as well.

“I’ll wait for you at your place.”

Stiles hesitated, then nodded and climbed into the Jeep.

Derek watched it drive off before heading back inside, walking in on Deaton sitting at his desk, going through a book comprised of weird symbols.

“Are they going to be okay?”

“I’m a little concerned about Lydia, if I’m being honest, but Stiles should be fine. As long as he doesn’t try too hard to say things he can’t, there shouldn’t be any lasting effects.”

Derek scowled, not liking that answer, but he’d take it. As long as Stiles didn’t die like the others. True, not all of them had died, but twelve was a large number.

He left without another word, climbing into the Camaro and driving to Stiles’ house. Parking down the street so people wouldn’t see his car in the driveway, he walked the half a block to Stiles’ house. He used the usual entrance—Stiles’ open window, he really needed to shut that—and then sat down in his chair in the dark.

He waited for almost twenty minutes before the sound of the Jeep approaching reached him. It was obvious it was the Jeep, because he heard what sounded like a broken piece of junk held together by duct tape, and that was essentially what the Jeep sounded like.

Stiles exited the Jeep once he’d parked and then unlocked the front door. Derek listened to him shuffle around downstairs for a few minutes before footsteps padded up the stairs. Stiles pushed open his door, turned on the light, and then started so badly Derek actually heard his heart stutter.

“Shit! Turn on the lights when you’re here!”

Derek stood in one fluid motion, moving up to Stiles. The other took a small step back, like he was worried for a second, but when the Werewolf closed the distance, he stood his ground. Derek reached out one hand, palming the side of Stiles’ face and pressing his forehead against the other’s.

“Are you okay?”

Stiles exhaled shakily and shook his head.

“What if he can’t fix me?”

“Deaton will definitely fix you,” Derek said, the words almost a snarl. “You’re gonna be fine, understand? Tomorrow, we’re gonna laugh about this, and you’re going to be back to your usual annoying self, talking a mile a minute.”

Stiles just nodded to that and let out another shaky breath, closing his eyes. Derek could tell how scared he was. It was strange, because they had been through far worse than this before. People had almost died, there had been injuries and kidnappings and all kinds of dangerous situations and while he’d been scared, he’d taken them all in stride. Sometimes he was even cocky about them.

But now? Stiles was scared, like he didn’t think this would ever be fixed. Like he thought he’d be stuck this way forever. And Derek hated that.

He sighed and pulled away, ignoring the way Stiles clung to the front of his shirt, as if not wanting him to leave.

“Come on, let’s get some sleep.” Derek moved to the bed, kicking off his shoes and lying down, still fully clothed.

“But… My dad…” Stiles didn’t seem to know what to say, but not because of his inability to speak.

“I’ll leave before he gets home.” Derek waited, but Stiles didn’t move. Eventually, he raised both eyebrows and looked down at the empty spot beside him.

Rubbing the back of his head, Stiles hesitated, then sighed and shut the bedroom door. He locked it for good measure, then turned off the light. Derek watched him move with ease in the darkness, which was amusing when he considered how clumsy Stiles usually was in the dark. He was used to his room, he supposed.

When he lay down beside him, Derek wrapped his arms around him and dragged him closer, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. Stiles was okay. He was safe.

Sure, he was jinxed, but he would be okay. Deaton would fix this and everything would be back to normal.

Derek stayed motionless like that until he heard Stiles’ breathing even out and his heart rate slow. Then, and only then, did he bend his head down to kiss his forehead.

This kid was going to be the death of him, and he honestly couldn’t find it in him to mind.

END.