#did he mirror dennis or did dennis mirror him

[thetrolltolls]

we've talked about dennis' sweater paws (thank u @malewifemanhunter) but has anyone talked about mac's sweater paws in s2e2

[glorious-spoon]

a miserable pile of secrets [9-1-1 | Eddie Diaz & Hen Wilson | 1/1]

1.8K words | friendship | emotional hurt/comfort | implied/referenced cheating

a miserable pile of secrets [on AO3]

She finds Eddie up on the rooftop, which makes sense, given that Buck is currently working out his feelings on the heavy bag after Bobby finally snapped at the two of them to get their acts together unless they wanted to be benched. Chim's down in the weight room with him, which means that Hen is up here in the warm night air to talk some sense into the other half of their codependent little unit, who is currently perched on one of the folding chairs that they usually leave up here. He's as still as a statue, tense like he's afraid of what his body might do if he lets it move.

"Hey," Hen says, and he gives a jerky little nod of acknowledgement. "Mind if I sit?"

"Go ahead."

"Thanks." She pulls out one of the other chairs and sits down. "So."

"Bobby sent you."

"I sent myself," she corrects mildly, and watches Eddie's shoulders hunch a little. "I don't think I've ever seen you and Buck fight like that."

Though the truth is, she really only caught the tail end of it. Buck's frustrated voice rising on, "Do you hear yourself? How did you think this was going to work out? Have you even thought about Chris? What, you were just going to introduce him to her like—"

"Chris? Since when is how I parent my son any of your business?"

"I don't know, Eddie, you kind of made it my business when you put me in your fucking will!"

"Yeah, well, maybe that was a mistake!"

There was ringing silence in the wake of that. Then Buck said something quieter, inaudible from where Hen and Chim were standing frozen outside the locker room door, and Eddie spat, "Go to hell. I'm done talking about this."

The door slammed open and he stormed out, only pausing for a moment when he saw the two of them standing there. It wasn't until he'd already stomped up the stairs to the loft that Buck emerged, scowling.

"I don't want to talk about it," he snapped, before either of them could speak.

That was six hours ago. Neither of them has said a single word to each other since outside of the bare minimum on calls. The tension in the back of the truck has been thick enough to cut with a knife, and none of Chim's increasingly desperate jokes has done a damn thing to lighten the mood.

Hen doesn't blame Bobby for being fed up with the pair of them. She's caught somewhere between that and worry, herself. This isn't like them. Either of them.

Eddie shrugs again, tense. "I don't really feel like talking about it."

"Mm." 

Hen kicks her legs out, relaxes into the chair and waits him out. It doesn't take long. Maybe two minutes before he lets out an angry little huff and says, "Marisol dumped me this morning."

"Oh," Hen says. That explains some of the mood, anyway. "Well, I'm sorry to—"

"I cheated on her. She found out."

She closes her mouth. For a moment she just looks at him: his tight jaw, his hands in fists on his thighs, so tense he looks like he's about to snap. Like looking through a warped mirror to a younger version of herself, and maybe that's why she manages some gentleness when she says, "That doesn't sound like you."

"Yeah. That's what Buck said. Shows what he knows."

"Why'd you do it?"

"It doesn't matter. It was stupid. I fucked up."

"If you're waiting on me to tell you otherwise, you'll be waiting a while." Eddie lets out a sharp, bitter little bark of laughter, and Hen adds. "I've been there, you know."

"Yeah. But it's not—Karen forgave you."

"Eventually, yeah. She didn't have to."

"Yeah," Eddie says, and then doesn't say anything else. 

"Is that what you and Buck were fighting about?"

He shrugs again. Like talking to a damn teenager, Hen thinks. Not Denny, with his easy sweetness, but like one of the other kids who come through their home sometimes on temporary placements: already on the defensive, claws out, ready to fight. 

"I guess," he mutters finally.

"You put him in your will?" Eddie scowls at her, and she shrugs. "Hey, if you want it to be a secret, maybe don't have your domestics at the top of your lungs in the locker room we all use."

He scoffs, clearly annoyed, but doesn't get up and storm off, so she's counting that as a win. Finally, he says, "Yeah. He's down as Chris's legal guardian if something happens to me. Since—uh, since I almost died in that well collapse a few years back."

Oh. Hen contemplates that for a moment, squares it up in her head with what she already knows about Eddie. It's not, she'll admit, completely out of left field. But still. "And you think maybe that was a mistake?"

Eddie groans, dropping his head back. "I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it."

"Maybe you should tell Buck that."

"He's pissed at me."

"Seems mutual."

"Yeah," Eddie says, wry and still kind of irritated. But then he sighs. "You ever do something where you know the whole time you're doing it that it's going to blow up in your face, and somehow that still doesn't stop you?"

"Yep," Hen says, remembering a dark little motel room and the sharp cut of Eva's smile. A whole damn pile of fuck-ups, that relationship was, and she dragged it along with her to almost ruin the best thing in her life.

"I keep thinking I see Shannon. It's like she's just around the corner, like if I turn around fast enough, she'll be there, and I'll be able to go back and make it right. But I can't."

"No. You can't."

"It's been five fucking years."

"No timeline on grief."

"I went on a date with a woman just because she looked like her." Hen raises her eyebrows at him. He slouches lower in his seat. "A couple of dates. It—didn't end well."

"Mm. You mean because she turned out to be a whole damn person who wasn't Shannon, or because your girlfriend found out?"

"Both," Eddie mutters. "Believe me, I already heard it from Buck."

"Oh, I believe it."

"But he's—" Eddie snaps his mouth shut.

"Kind of a hypocrite on this particular subject?" Hen offers.

"That's not what I was going to say. He's with Tommy now. So."

"So?"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

Hen would dearly love to interrogate that line of thinking, but she keeps her mouth shut. For a little while, they don't speak. It's a transient kind of peace; their next call could come at any minute. But for now, the city's as quiet as it ever is, lit up and beautiful in the distance.

Eventually, Eddie shifts in his chair, straightens up like he's bracing for something, then says, abruptly, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Hen raises her eyebrows. "Go ahead."

"Have you ever been with a guy?"

"Excuse me?"

"Forget it," he says quickly, hunching in on himself again. "I don't even know why I asked. You can tell me to go to hell."

She almost does tell him to go to hell. Has her mouth open and everything. But then she takes another good look at his face and lets the words dissipate. 

"No," she says finally. "Kissed a couple of boys in high school, but I pretty much always knew it wasn't for me."

"Oh." Eddie's mouth twists. He's still staring a hole in the concrete by his feet, and Hen wishes like hell that this was easier for him, that he could have stumbled into it with wide eyes and open arms without leaving a trail of wreckage in his wake. Buck managed it, but it's not like that for everyone. She knows that.

"Karen was engaged to a man, you know," she says, and she watches him still, watches him turn, finally, to look at her. 

"I didn't know that."

"It was a long time ago. College sweetheart. She called it off a week before the wedding. Broke his damn heart, from what I hear. Probably better in the long run, though, all things considered."

Eddie laughs at that, a raw, horrible little sound. "I was a bad husband to Shannon. I loved her so much, and I still could never—and I always thought that maybe, if we'd just had more time, maybe I could have gotten it right, and we could have been a family again, and it would have been okay."

"But she died."

"She asked me for a divorce."

"Oh." Hen takes a breath, lets it out. Careful, careful. "I didn't know that."

"Nobody knows that. I mean. Bobby does. But nobody else. Because she died two days later, so I never had to—to tell anyone. I never had to admit it. I could keep pretending. But it doesn't even matter, because I've also fucked up every relationship I've been in since. So it's kind of obvious where the problem is."

"Mm. You know what my mama used to say?"

Eddie cuts her a look. "What?"

"Get down from that cross, we need the wood."

When he laughs this time, it sounds a little more real. Hen nudges her knee against his, and for a minute they sit there together in silence.

"I fucked up," he says again, but it's calmer.

"Yep."

"What the hell do I say to Buck?"

Not Marisol, Hen notes. Though the truth is she's pretty sure that whole relationship was dead and gone long before whatever went down this morning. Maybe from the very beginning. Eddie's just got a bad habit of dragging those corpses around. "Sorry might be a good start."

"He's gonna ask why. I don't have a good answer. I can't—" He looks over at her, and all Hen can think is that he looks so damn young. "I can't."

"So tell him that. You know he's not gonna push it."

"Yeah, he will."

"He's worried about you."

Eddie scoffs. "Yeah."

That was, Hen surmises what the fight was about in the first place. Unstoppable force, immovable object. Sometimes she wishes she could just knock their stubborn heads together until they showed some sense.

"He loves you," she says, and Eddie flinches.

"I know that," he mutters.

Hen sighs. "Just talk to him. You don't have to tell him anything you're not ready to tell him, but just—talk to him. Okay? For all our sakes."

"Yeah, okay," Eddie says, sounding defeated. "Sorry about that."

"We'll survive," Hen says. She bumps her knee against his again, and they sit there together in silence, watching the city lights, until the bell starts going off below.

[babybratzmaraj]

Look At You

Duke Dennis as: Himself

You as: yourself

Summary: Duke shows you better that he can tell you that you're fucking beautiful

This fic contains: stronggg sexual content, breeding kink, daddy kink,lil bit of degrading, praise kink and das all my horny brain can think of

A/N: I have no words. again. i thought of some shit and was like WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

the thought in question: i was finna say i need a nigga to pull my hair and fuck thee every loving shit outta me while making me look in the mirror and he tells me how pretty i am and how my pussy feels amazing

anywho! like comment reblog for more, and as always folks, have a black ass day.

Taglist: @megamindsecretlair @thecapodomme @theebaddesttt

The sweat beading off your forehead mixed with his, he reached around the other side and kissed your cheek, the gaze he gave you through the mirror, made you clench around him, his length filling you, leaving you craving for an ounce of movement.

he raised himself into a push-up position, moaning at the little twitching his dick did. He gather as many curls as he could with one hand, which was basically your whole head, you’d be beating him senselessly about fucking up your hair, but at this moment you didn’t care, it’s not like he was hurting you.

“I want you to look at yourself in the mirror,” he carefully moved your head back to the center of the mirror, returning your gaze to meet his, “You take your eyes off, I’ll slow down. Got it?”

You nodded your head in agreement, “Give me words baby,” He yanked your head back, slowly gyrating his hips in a circle, making you follow his command. “Yessss Daddy,”

He pulled the corner of his mouth into a smirk, “That's my good girl, I love you.”

Before you could even get a chance to say it back, he gave you one powerful thrust, to prepare you for what was about to come.

He leans down to your ear, panting and cursing under his breath while he planted kisses on your shoulders leading up to your ear, “Breathe mamas,” his words were like God’s pure words, looking into your skull as the most beautiful sound of you filled the air, “That pretty ass voice, You like it when I fuck you like this? Hm?” He asked you with each thrust growing sharp.

“YesYesYesYesYes Fuck!” you whimpered, lowering your head which slowed his pace down, “Fuck,” he cursed under his breath, feeling you clenching around his dick made him desire you more.

He loved when you smiled, he loved it when you moaned, he loved it when you made sure the whole world knew his name and every curse word in the universe, he loved it when you submitted to him, you were always a hassle but you learned to submit to him, and he loved that shit.

“Fuck,” He leaned back, resting his hands on your hips, groaning at you slowly fuck him back, he guided you carefully up and down his dick, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was tryna trap your ass.

“This pussy feels amazing baby, She’s taking me soooo fuckin’ well. You like fuckin’ me like this? Fuck me back like the lil slut you are?” he questioned you knowing damn well you couldn’t comprehend what in the entire fuck he was talking about, you were too focused on how good he was fucking you, his slightly curved dick touching all the right spots and spots you didn’t know was even there before, its like he learned your body without you knowing and you loved it.

you whined as he slowly slid out of you, his dick fully coated with your essence. He flipped you to your side and to which he giggled at your face, your lips permanently stuck like the letter ‘O’.

“Come on baby, I know you got one more in you.”

“I done gave you threeeee,” you dragged your words into whines, you have been fucked outta your mind and so has he, but neither one of you wanted to be apart from each other.

He positioned himself along with your entrance, you clenched over nothing as your pussy was trying to welcome him back to his home.

He grips your throat enough to where you can breathe just a little, bringing your face close to his as he gives you a sultry meaningful kiss, one that leaves you feeling like the two of you’s souls are complete, merging you both into one.

Without breaking the kiss, he slowly teased you with his length, sliding it up and down your wet folds, smacking his tip right on your clit, giggling at the small twitch and hitches your breath made.

He let go of your throat as he slowly slid back into you, breaking the kiss to let out thee most dramatic gasp you could have ever gasped, got to give it to him, toxic dick is what’ll make a bitch sick.

He locks his arms from under your armpit, you threw your arms around him, keeping him close as he grips your shoulders, steadying himself before he begins to rock his hips.

The slow, sensual pace drove you mad, your moans turning into whimpers as he kept fuckin his love deeper into you.

“I’m gonna,” He moaned deeply in your ear, you kept him close, locking your legs behind him so he couldn’t go nowhere, at this point you were the one trapping this nigga.

“Please cum in me!” you whimpered loosely as your body did something all too familiar.

“What’s the magic word?”

“Pleaseeeeee?”

“I ca-can’t hearrrr you,” he growled primarily as he fucked your hungrily, his thrusts fogging your brain on actual words, all you could blurt was:

“Daddy please cum in my pussy? Fuck, fuck, Please Daddy?!”

his chuckles turned into moans as his dick twitched inside you, you felt him shoot his seed deep inside you, fucking it deeper in you as you scream in pleasure and unholiness, you black out for a few seconds.

When you came to, Duke was gripping your hips to keep you still, rutting into you a few more before halting to a complete stop.

The room was filled with heavy breathing and unwanted clatter from the TV, the both of you started laughing when you two came down from Cloud 9, Duke slid out and plopped beside you.

“I love you baby.” you breathed, climbing over to lay on his chest.

“I love you more mamas,” he rubbed your shoulders, running his lines over his fingermarks, “Sorry About That.”

“It ain't like nobody gone see it.” you laughed and he agreed in silence.

[luckieduckiie]

bad | d. dennis

duke isnt who everyone thinks he is & the only person that sees the real him is you and well lets just say its bad.

you couldnt stop the moans that erupted from your mouth as he gripped the front of your neck pulling it up to look at yourself in the mirror. eyes low, you couldnt help but gasp at the sight. you looked so used and almost unrecognizable from how you did just half an hour prior.

“ you see that slut,” he grunts in your ear and he continues to slam into your abused hole. “you see how you look for daddy.” you shudder at his words eyes clenching shut.

“open em” he almost growls hands clenching around your neck. your eyes snap open and you see him biting his lips as he looks at your body beneath his.

“daddy please.” you cry as he grabs a handful of your hair with his free hand, the other leaving your throat and traveling you your breast as they bounced with each thrust.

“what you want daddy to do? use your fucking words.” he says hips slamming harder into you as he pinches your nipple causing a loud cry to come from your lips.

“i wanna cum, please let me cum daddy.” you plead.

his assault halts and you feel his length slip out of you and you are then almost immediately turned lifted onto the cool counter. your back is now pressed againt the cool mirror and your legs spread as he drops his head and burrys it into your wetness.

“fuck.” you cry hands tangling themselves into his locks as you feel his tongue pressed flat onto your clit. he begins to lightly suck on it causing your toes to curl.

“yes daddy please.” you beg as his fingers come up and begin to tease your entrance before going in and massaging it.

“yes yes yes!” you encourage him feeling that familiar feeling in your stomach.

he continues to suck at your clit and you see his other hand go down to stroke himself. it all becomes too much when you pull his head away and a line of spit and your wetness is connecting your pussy and lips as one as he continues to twist his fingers within you.

you clench your eyes shut as you gush out on his fingers hand still gripping his hair.

“fuck” you hear he say as he stands your hand falling to the countertop beside you. another gasp leaves your lips as you feel him bury his dick back inside of you.

he pulls your body into his and buries his head into your neck as he strokes, breath heavy in your ear. you feel him jump inside of you and warmth floods your insides. he keeps in you through his release hands gripping your neck and waist hard enough to know that there will be bruises within the next few days.

when he finally stills and regains his breath his body leaves yours immediately and you wince at the sudden loss. you open your eyes hoping to find his but to no avail he is already slipping his boxers back on and reality sets in-you are just pussy to him.

you sigh and drop your head sadness, embarrassment and frustration all clouding your mind. he always did this, and you always let him.

“ ill send you some money for a plan b, but ima catch you later.” he says sliding his hoodie back on.

“k.” you mutter eye still averted from his and wordlessly he leaves just as he had came.

everyone saw duke as a loyal, kind, respectful gentleman, but they only saw that because you were the one who took all the anger, frustration, and punishment that he felt that everyone else deserved. he wasnt a bad man, just a shielded one and you wanted oh so badly to see the real him and now you had, but at what cost?

[where-dreamers-go]

“Subtle” DBH Connor x Human!Reader

(A/N: The Reader is an investigative assistant for the Detroit Police Department. Takes place after the peaceful android revolution. Warnings: Canon violence and strong language. Involves an android homicide investigation and sensitive terms regarding the incident. Mentions of thirium blood and weapons like a gun. Use of (Y/N), (Y/F/N) and (Y/L/N) for your names. Word Count: 1,771 words)

Late into the evening, darkness finished enveloping the city between every alley and road. People headed home, ordered takeout, or clocked in to their shift.

Being among a group of individuals called out to a house outside of downtown Detroit, you could be counted as working late. Then again, it could be any time when working for the Detroit Police Department.

Standing in a living room of the residence, you jotted down notes into your work tablet.

You were already at the scene along with other DPD personal. Each person with their own task in the small home. Yet, a team effort.

It had been an android homicide. Suspect was yet to be found and identity remained unknown.

You could do with some more assistance.

As if on cue, in walked Lieutenant Hank Anderson and Detective Connor Anderson through the front door.

Ah, my favorite people, you thought in genuine relief. Now we can really get somewhere.

“Hey, (Y/N), they called you out for a homicide?” Hank asked, taking a few glances around the living room. Furniture knocked over or splintered.

“Yeah. Hey, Hank. Hey, Connor.” You gave a small smile before gesturing with your tablet to the shut down android on the coffee table. “The house is trashed in the hall bathroom too. …Poor guy.”

“Signs of a struggle, but not at the front door,” said a tall officer. “The android—Dennis—called in about the attack. By the time a team came in, it was too late. Blue blood’s still visible.”

“Did the android…Dennis, provide the name of their attacker?” Connor asked as he knelt down beside the android’s body. His LED spinning yellow.

“Only a possible first name. Chris.” The officer answered.

“So….no forced entry. They could had known each other before today. But why murder?” Hank questioned out loud.

Standing, Connor took three steps away from the body.

“You mentioned the hall bathroom, Officer (Y/L/N)?” Connor asked, always professional on duty.

“Yeah, the mirror was smashed.” You motioned for him to follow you.

“Any ideas on the murder weapon?” Hank’s voice carried out into the hallway.

“There’s a broken chair, Lieutenant.” Another officer answered.

Leading Connor to the open bathroom, you paused at the doorway.

“There’s thirium blood on the walls.” Connor said as he passed into the bathroom.

“There’s some in the bedroom, but no other disturbances.” You stated. “It’ll probably absorb into the carpet.”

Why blue blood is in there, I don’t really want to know, but…

For about a minute or so, Connor scanned details in the bathroom before re-entering the hall.

“None of the neighbors reported seeing anyone fleeing the house nor suspicious activity within three blocks.” You skimmed over your notes. “But that doesn’t mean anyone was staring at the house at the time of the attack to be certain.”

“Right. Does the attacker’s name match anyone living nearby?”

“No.”

Connor frowned, “The attacker wouldn’t have had time to leave through the front door without being spotted. There weren’t any shoe prints leaving in the front either.”

You rose your eyebrows.

“Back door?” He walked back through the hall and headed towards the small kitchen.

Being mindful of your footing, you followed a light trail of smudged blue blood into the bedroom. It became difficult to spot the blue blood as it was drying into the carpet.

There’s still no sign of a weapon, you thought. The attacker must still have it. They beat the poor android until they shut down. Someone not okay with androids’ equality? You crouched down. And the windows are all shut.

“The back door is locked.” Connor’s voice traveled through the home.

“You’re not telling me the bastard who did this is still in here.” Hank said.

“The android is missing their thirium pump and anything that might have caused severe damage to his head isn’t here.”

“Shit.”

clink

Your gaze snapped to the bed.

Slowly, you stood up. Your heart rate increasing by the millisecond. You swallowed dryly.

“Is there an attic?” Hank asked.

As quietly as you could, you backed up into the hall. Turning your head, you tried gaining someone’s attention discreetly. Anyone. After two head motions, Hank saw you.

“What’s with you?”

You rose your eyebrows and nodded your head to the bedroom.

In there.

In less than two seconds Hank had grabbed his gun. Hank, then looking into the living room, said, “Call a team in here. Everybody else out.” He trained his sights forward. “Stay behind me.”

“Got it,” Connor followed close behind.

“(Y/F/N).” The lieutenant gestured for you to go to them.

With side steps, you steadily made your way to the detectives. Once you passed Hank, Connor pulled you behind him and allowed you to move through the hallway.

“Detroit Police—.”

Someone rushed out of the room, an arm hitting Hank.

“Argh—Dammit!”

Connor launched to the side, basically a blur of movement as he struggled with the suspect.

A biocomponent dropped to the floor.

Clicking to realization, you went to run, but the suspect and Connor twisted into your path. Fists being thrown and something that might had been a wrench being swung.

A hand yanked you back.

Hank then stood in front of you and gave a direction, “Bedroom.”

“Yup.” You ran into the safety of the bedroom where the suspect had been hiding.

One of the last things you wanted was to be in the way of catching a suspect. Especially a violent one.

“Fricken android! An android!”

“‘Ey, quiet.”

“Android! Androi—Fu—!”

“Hey.” Hank shouted. “That’s enough. You got ‘em?”

“I got him. Come on. On your feet.” Someone answered.

Not hearing any new scuffle, you peeked out from the doorway. Careful not to step in any blue blood of course.

That was pretty quick.

“Son of a bitch. Are you alright, Connor?” Hank walked up to his partner.

“I’m fine.”

“Guess we know what he used to beat the android.”

“Yes. A pipe wrench.” Connor’s gaze caught your own. “Officer (Y/L/N), the suspect has been detained.”

“You’re both okay?” You asked, stepping into the hall with your tablet in hand.

“Yeah.” Hank sighed. The biocomponent on the floor grabbed his attention. “They really hate androids.”

“Their loss,” you made your way to the men.

Hank smirked.

Say nothing, Hank.

“I should had checked the bedroom when you mentioned it.” Connor told you. “I’m sorry.”

“He was hiding under the bed. He could have hit you if you checked. You don’t need to apologize.”

“Or we would’ve had to drag his ass out from under the damn bed.” Hank huffed.

“Fun,” you said sarcastically.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s finish up here before we have to do the damn paperwork,” Hank waved you off. “You need a ride?”

“If you’re offering and don’t mind. Yeah.”

Connor smiled.

. . .

Night covered the city even as lights brightened whole buildings.

Back at the precinct, you sat on Connor’s desk. A little break after you sent him your section of the reports.

Twirling a pen between your fingers, you watched his LED switch between yellow and blue.

It’s cute when he’s obviously thinking intently, you thought. And that cute stinkin’ curl of hair trying to be out of place again. One day. One day I’ll—

“All finished.” Connor announced.

You perked up and out of the beginnings of a fantasy.

He tilted his head up to ask you, “Is there anything else you needed to do?”

“Uh, nope. Just sitting here giving you emotional support. Silently.”

“Thank you.” The corner of his lips curved up. “There’s no one else who can sit on my desk and give emotional support as you can.”

Before you could unpack that sentence, your thoughts were interrupted by the ever outspoken lieutenant.

“If you’re done,” Hank spoke up from behind his computer screen, “you two can go on and head out.”

“You’re sure?” Connor asked.

“Yeah. Sumo probably needs to go.”

“Right.”

You hopped down from the desk and gathered your belongings.

“And, Connor, don’t give Sumo any treats. It’s late.”

“I won’t.” Connor walked out from behind his desk.

“Later, Hank,” you waved. “I’ll give Sumo extra scratches.”

The older man huffed a laugh.

“See you later, Hank.” Connor said and went to catch up with you.

“Sure thing, son.”

. . .

Taking an automated taxi to Hank’s house opened up room for casual talk and saving your energy for Sumo’s walk to do his business. It wasn’t the first time you and Connor had joined forced for the activity. A little break to wind down from work.

Prior to leaving the Lieutenant’s house, you had left a note on a bottle of beer just in case Hank got home before the end of the walk.

“I don’t think the drawing of a paw-print was necessary, but it was…cute.” Connor said as the pair of you walked side by side, a dog leash in his grasp.

“Some cuteness is necessary, Connor. Right, Sumo?”

Sumo gave a slow, but very deep bark. 

“Exactly. See? He gets it.”

Connor frowned slightly. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”

“That’s fine.” You linked your arm with his and added, “Neither do I.” Spotting his smile, a familiar fluttering feeling filled your insides.

Completely normal friendship activities. You thought in an attempt to ease yourself from revealing any of your more-than-friendship feelings you had for Connor.

One had to subtle about those things. Some times.

“The odds of both of us having no reply is extremely low.”

“How could we?” You teasingly scoffed. “Nothing to say…”

I could say that he’s the one that’s cute. More cute than the note, you thought as you elected not to say what was on your mind. Again. A difficulty when Connor chuckled quietly beside you.

Ahead of both of you, Sumo sniffed a neighbor’s lawn contently and curiously. Ever the favorite dog who you two adored and kept far away from whatever hid in the grass at night. Sumo had bravery, but neither of you were taking chances with the big, sweet walking fur-ball.

Bravery, something everyone had some sort of experience with in their lives. In your line of work, the possibility of showing courage was greater. Not a necessity, but it could be accomplished in many ways.

Maybe, maybe one day I’ll have some courage or risk letting Connor know how I feel about him. Somehow, I guess. You thought as the three of you continued walking in the night.

At least Sumo was having a grand time regardless of the internal emotional rollercoasters of others.

~~~

(If you love my writings and want to support me, I have a Ko-Fi where you can buy me a coffee. I would be eternally grateful. coffee

Best wishes and happy reading.)

~~~~~

DreamerDragon Tags: @cubedtriangle

Detroit Become Human Tags: @shewhobreathesfire @

**Let me know if you would like to be tagged in insert readers, either through replies, ask, or message.**

[querenciasturniolo]

hello oml ! ive been so scared to ask for something but hey ! here we are ;) i absolutely adore your writing and was wondering if you could write one for chris where the reader, the triplets, and madi go for dinner (all as just friends) and the reader and chris confess they like each other afterwards since they were all really tired :) i think it'd be cute hehehe

late nights ⮕ c.s.

word count: 916

warnings: swearing, accidental confession

summary: the five of you go get food late at night, and your exhaustion has you admitting something you weren’t meaning to say

a/n: oh my god, don’t be scared to request anything ever !!! thank you so much, love !!! i hope i did your request justice 🤞🏻💓

everything written is completely fictional. the people i write for are written with characteristics and mannerisms that i made for them, this is in no way depicting what would actually happen in real life.

“So, where are we going?” You asked, leaning towards the front of the car.

Matt glanced up at you in the mirror just as Chris turned around to face you.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Chris asked. You blinked, fighting the smile growing on your face.

“Uh, yeah. That’s kind of why I asked.” You said, Nick scoffing next to you.

“Definitely not your finest moment, Chris.” Madi said, your eyes meeting hers as you laughed.

The five of you were going to dinner, but you were picked up last minute and had no idea what was going on. You were just sitting in your living room in your pajamas, scrolling on your phone when the text from Chris saying ‘come outside’ popped up on your screen. It took them five minutes to convince you to get into the car, and then you were off.

“You do realize if I don’t know where we’re going, this is considered kidnapping, right?” You said, Matt scoffing from the front seat.

“You’re not being kidnapped, you’re so dramatic.” He said, your eyebrows raising.

“Well, that didn’t make me feel better.” You mumbled, leaning back in your seat.

Matt pulled into a parking lot, and you scoffed when you saw the sign.

“You guys kidnapped me at midnight to go to Denny’s?” You asked incredulously. Chris turned and looked at you.

“Uh, yeah. Who doesn’t want breakfast at midnight?” He asked, mocking you from before. You rolled your eyes and stepped out of the car, lightly shoving him when he stepped out.

“Are you gonna branch out, or stick with the french toast slam?” You asked, Chris shaking his head and bumping your shoulder with his.

“Why change perfection?” You rolled your eyes and smiled.

“Jesus, you’re ridiculous.” You said, the five of you walking into Denny’s.

The dinner went by slowly, you growing increasingly more exhausted as time went on. You barely touched your food, going back and forth bickering with Chris for the entirety of the meal. You couldn’t help but tease him, it was your way of flirting. It was ridiculous, the fact that you couldn’t just say how you were feeling. You felt the need to pester, and poke, and bother the person, which was perfect in this situation.

Chris came back at you full force, and you thrived every time. The banter was such a huge part of your friendship and you were so grateful for it. Chris more than likely had absolutely no idea the reasoning for your teasing, which saddened you and relieved you at the same time. As much as you wanted to tell him your feelings, you also didn’t want to make things awkward in the very possible circumstance that he doesn’t feel the same way.

When the five of you got back to the car, Chris somehow ended up in the backseat with you and Madi. Nick was playing music in the front seat, his and Matt’s conversation barely being heard by you. Chris was wedged in the middle seat, leaning the majority of his body weight onto you.

“Chris, get off.” You said through a laugh, nudging him lightly. He whined and went limp, his head landing in your lap. “What are you doing?” You asked, looking over at Madi with amusement etched into your face. She snorted and shook her head.

“I’m tired.” He whined. Out of instinct, you started carding your fingers through his hair. He hummed and relaxed, almost pushing against your hand. “I like that.” He mumbled. You could feel how heavy your eyes were, your exhaustion making you delirious as you hummed.

“I like you.” You said, leaning your head back against the headrest. It took Chris lifting his head up from your lap and looking at you with fond eyes for you to realize what you’d just said. You meant it as one of those middle school-esque comebacks, but you’d definitely just admitted how you felt. Chris didn’t look upset, he looked…content more than anything. It could have been the exhaustion making your eyes bleary, but you could have sworn he was blushing.

“You mean it?” He asked, his voice quiet. You nodded, Chris smiling and lying in your lap again. “Glad we’re on the same page, then.”

You relaxed completely then, your hand resuming its movements through the loose curls.

“Well, that was sweet.”

You looked up, realizing that you were back at their place, Nick had already turned off the music, and the three of them were looking at you and Chris.

“Yeah.” Matt began, turning the car off before turning to face you two again. “It’s about fucking time.”

You scoffed and shook your head. “Has anyone ever told you your Mattitude is worse when you’re tired?” You asked, Chris sitting up so you could get out of the car.

“All the time, and I’m actually kind of glad I’m not getting the brunt of it for once.” Nick said, all five of you piling into the house and climbing the stairs. You didn’t say anything to anyone as you dropped yourself face down on the couch, pulling a blanket from the back of the couch and covering yourself.

You could barely hear the four of them mumbling sleepily to each other, the only things you could process were the lights being turned off and the soft kiss being pressed to your temple.

“Goodnight.” Chris’ voice pierced through the heavy cloud of exhaustion, sleep consuming you before you could respond.

[silentglassbreak]

Well guys, you let me write your delulu fan fantasies, and it was an absolute blast. I had the best time with it, and hope to open myself to doing that again someday. Thank you all for letting me bring some semblance of your fantasies to life. It means the world to me!

Now…I think it’s only fair that I write mine.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: None.

Breathe

The last three days had been a blur. They’d been exciting, exhilarating, and unbelievably fun…but they were so exhausting.

Flying all the way out to Grand Rapids…amid a cyber defect, no less…delayed flight, no one can take cards, two days at a rock music festival…I was beat.

Nicole and I had been planning this trip for months, and it felt like regardless of how many things we did right, we were fighting against some unseen force against us. Everything we tried to do was halted at each turn, and it had become rather annoying.

Despite all of the mishaps, we had persevered, determined to enjoy ourselves against any and all odds. We got to listen to great music, meet some bands, and ate the most disgusting food the festival had to offer.

It was a dream.

By the drive back to the hotel after day two of Upheaval, we were sitting in near-silence, the radio humming low in the vehicle.

"Babes?" I looked over to Nicole. "We need to eat."

I groaned in response, sinking further into my seat. "Sounds dumb. I want to sleep."

She chuckled. "Same, but if we don't eat, we're going to feel like shit tomorrow."

"Ugh," I rolled my eyes toward the pitch darkness outside the window of the rental. "you're right."

She smirked. "As always."

I sucked my teeth. "Can we at least shower first?"

Back at the hotel, we each took our time scrubbing the day off of us, erasing the sweat and makeup left from the weekend. I slipped into my heavy sweats and black crop-top, beads of water still falling from my long, dark hair. Nicole was rubbing moisturizer into her skin, standing in front of the bathroom mirror as I ran my fingers bluntly through my hair.

"I don't want to eat Taco Bell again." Her voice was pleading, and I snickered.

"Same, dude. But what else is open?"

She picked up her phone, opening Google Maps, and scrolling through.

"IHOP?"

I sighed. "It was so bad when we ate there on Thursday..."

She nodded, pursing her lips. "I know, dude. Let me keep looking." Her fingers swiped the screen. "That Denny's looked fucking scary."

I laughed, walking out of the bathroom and grabbed my wallet from my purse, stuffing it in my pocket.

"Oooh!" She stepped into the room, a smile on her face. "There's a TGIFridays open! Only for like, another hour? But if we eat fast, we can make it."

The restaurant was desolate, only one other large SUV in the parking lot. Before opening my door, I slipped my phone from my pocket and checked the screen.

No notifications.

"Have you heard from him?"

I just shook my head, re-locking the phone, and putting it in my pocket. Her look was sympathetic.

"He's an idiot. Don't even worry about it, babe." She put a hand on my arm. "That's a 'tomorrow you' problem."

I nodded, giving her a small smile. "I know. Thanks, Nic."

We walked into the restaurant, eyes glancing around and seeing only one table in the corner filled with no less than five men laughing and eating. Craning my neck around, I searched for the server.

"You think they'll even seat us this late?"

Nicole shrugged, eyes trained on the table with the patrons. "Don't know."

She was distracted, so I stepped forward toward the host stand, looking around toward the bar.

"October..." Her voice was small, just above a whisper.

I didn't look back at her, my empty stomach motivating me to keep checking for the employee. "Hmm?"

A hand gripped my wrist, which made my head snap back to her. "I need you to, discreetly, look over at the table of guys in the corner."

I furrowed my brows, looking her directly in the eyes. "What? Why?"

Her face was stern. "Just do it, but don't be obvious."

Exhaling a breath, I continued searching around the restaurant, letting my eyes fall on the table for only a split second longer than anywhere else.

I counted six men, all black t-shirts and hoodies. Three of them wearing black baseball caps. Half of them were sitting with their backs turned to me, but my eyes caught one of them facing our direction, hands air-drumming feverishly in front of him.

He looked so...familiar?

I stole another glance, and my eyes widened.

"Is that...?"

"Nick Folio." Her voice whispered to me.

I averted my eyes to the floor, hand rising to cover my mouth. "Oh my God."

"If he's here, that means it's them."

I couldn't process that.

Bad Omens was my favorite band. Nearly the entire reason I had flown sixteen hundred miles to a state I had never been. I ground my teeth together, shutting my eyes.

"No fucking way, dude. We just saw them at the festival." I let my eyes look up at her, and she smirked.

"Well, clearly, they're hungry."

"Mkay, well I'll be out in the car if you need me." My legs started for the door, but an arm hooked mine, swinging me back to my spot in front of her.

"Oh, no no no. You're not leaving."

My eyes blew wide at her. "I can't fucking be here while they are! They're my fucking heroes, Nic!"

She nodded. "Uh, fucking same! But when will we ever get an opportunity to be this close again?"

I rolled my eyes. "We're not at a zoo, Nicole. They're just guys."

I didn't even believe the words I was saying.

"Yeah?" She crossed her arms, and raised an eyebrow. "Then why leave?"

My face deadpanned, my lip pouting. "Cause I'm going to throw up."

She chuckled at this, eyes darting back to the guys, completely oblivious to our turmoil unfolding fifty feet away.

"We should talk to them."

My heart fell straight to my gut. "I beg your finest pardon?"

She shrugged, considering me. "Why not? What's the worst that could happen?"

"Uh, we interrupt their meal and I die of a stroke?"

This time, she rolled her eyes. "If you don't go say hello, I'm going to do it."

My brain short circuited. We couldn't have that. Who knew what Nicole's unhinged mouth would say to them...

"Can't I just eat and go? Pretend I didn't even see them?"

"And you'll never forgive yourself. You can't be this close to Noah Sebastian, and not tell him how much his music means to you."

I chewed on my lower lip.

"C'mon, babe. It'll be fine, and I'll be there with you!"

I steadied myself, wiping my hands on my pants. "Okay. Okay, I will."

I turned, looking directly at the table. The server had finally emerged, a tray full of plates in his hand. I waited as he set them all down, and he finally approached us.

"Sorry about that wait, guys. Just two?"

Nicole nodded, given I was nearly catatonic. The short, blonde man led us to a booth, only two away from the table I was dreading. He handed us menus, and took our drink orders.

"Before or after food?" Nicole asked as she scanned her menu.

"Can't you just do it?" I grimaced. "Without being a weirdo?"

She didn't even bother looking up at me. "Nope. Weird is built into my soul, sorry."

I sighed hard. "Before, then. If I eat, I will vomit all over them."

She folded her menu, and stood from the booth. "Let's go, then."

I closed my eyes, and took her outstretched hand, standing. Taking a quick second to right my hoodie - my Bad Omens hoodie - tied around my waist, I took in a hard breath.

"Alright." I squeaked out.

She led me carefully the few paces over to the table, moving behind me. I walked about four feet from them, likely looking pale as a ghost. I caught Folio's attention first, smiling awkwardly and giving a short wave.

"Hey! Can we help you guys?" His voice was upbeat and sweet as candy. Exactly how I expected.

"Hi." I cleared my throat, taking a careful step forward. My hands kneaded each other, and Nicole held a steady hand on my low back. "I'm s-so sorry to interrupt."

All heads had turned to me, and I didn't have the nerve to look to my left, where I knew Noah was sat.

"No worries!" Folio was smiling widely at me. "Are you guys fans?"

I nodded, looking down at my feet. "We are. We just saw you guys perform tonight, and I wanted to just-" My voice cut off abruptly, a catch in my throat. I swallowed hard. "We wanted to tell you how amazing you all were."

My eyes bounced to the other two men facing me. Nick Ruffilo and Matt Dierkes. They were both grinning.

"Thank you, that means a lot." Nick's voice was tired, but his smile was genuine.

Folio stood from his seat, pushing a hand out to me. "I'm Nick."

I took it with shaky fingers, feeling his grip mine tightly. "Folio, right."

He nodded. "And you are?"

Wow, I forgot my name. Smooth.

It took me a moment, but with a more certain voice, I was able to respond. "October." I let go of his hand to move to the side. "This is Nicole."

He shook her hand as well.

She smiled a toothy grin at him. "We flew from Las Vegas to see you guys."

Folio smiled wider. "Really? Wow! That's so fucking cool!"

Trying not to combust, I dared a glance slightly to the left, seeing Jolly and Bryan, who were both chewing food.

"I would introduce the rest of these guys, but I'm sure you already know who they are." Folio chuckled, and we both nodded.

"Yeah, we're familiar." I added.

"Well, that's great. Now, do you mind?"

The voice came directly from the left of me, where I had been avoiding. The tone made my blood run cold, and I felt all of my muscles tighten.

Finally, I looked over to meet his large, brown eyes. Noah looked anything but appreciative of us coming over to give our praise. In fact, he looked downright annoyed.

I couldn't process what he had said, and I stupidly asked, "Excuse me?"

He narrowed his eyes at me slightly, gesturing to the table. "Look, as much as we all appreciate it," His voice was dripping with disdain. "we're exhausted. We just want to eat so we can get out of here."

My heart had stopped beating. If I had anything in my stomach, it would have erupted out of me right then and there.

Maybe it was the jet-lag, or the fact that when I got home tomorrow, my life was actively in shambles, or maybe it was just being hungry...but I was enraged.

My hands balled into fists instinctively, trying to control my irritation, and I repainted my sweet smile.

"I'm sorry, we'll go. We just wanted to let you guys know you did great tonight. And you all are extremely talented."

He nodded, eyes now looking about as bored as they come.

"Great. Thanks." He snapped, turning his body back toward the table.

"Noah." Folio's voice was stern, and he turned back to me, an apologetic look on his face. "Don't mind him. He's cranky. You guys really aren't bothering us."

I heard the sound before I really registered what it was.

He sucked his teeth.

Oh, I see. He was a fucking child.

Now having lost all sense of nervousness, I could feel Nicole's hand tugging at my arm. "C'mon, babe."

I let myself be turned for a second, but my anger spun me back around, now facing directly toward him, which made him glance up at me like an inconvenience.

"You know," I started, sucking my own teeth in mockery. "you're not at all what I expected?"

He snickered, leaning back in his chair. "No?"

I shook my head slowly. "Nah. I expected someone with as much talent and success as you to be a decent person. Guess I was wrong."

Nicole's near silent gasp behind me was not lost, and I smirked.

"Well, sorry to disappoint, sweetheart." His voice was so nonchalant, it made my blood roar in my ears.

My hands twisted around the knot in my hoodie at my belt line, pulling it loose. I pulled it off with one hand, holding it out in front of me and let it go, leaving it to fall directly in his lap.

"Here." I caught him off guard, him looking up at me with wide eyes. "You probably want this back."

He picked it up, recognizing it was one of theirs. "Why would I want this?"

I smirked, a darkness in my eyes. "Well, you're pretty cold, Noah." I leaned down just to meet his eye level. "Might want something to warm you up before everyone realizes."

I heard a stifled snort come from the table, but I couldn't even begin to tell you who it was. Standing back up, I backed away from the table, and looked back at Folio.

"It was really nice to meet you guys. Have a safe night."

With that, I snatched Nicole's hand, and stalked away from the table, only pausing at the booth to grab my bag, before heading for the doors.

Once outside in the brisk night air, I took three large breaths, rounding the building and leaning down. My hands caught my knees, and Nicole stood in front of me.

"Holy shit!" She was nearly hysterical. "You just told off Noah Sebastian!"

Breathing hard, I fought the tears welling. It was too much all at once.

Was it that significant? No, not really. But after the year I'd been having, I couldn't handle that encounter at all.

"I want to leave. I want to go home."

"I know, babe. I'm sorry that went that way. I can't believe how much of a douche he was."

Shaking my head, I stood back up straight, wiping the moisture from my eyes. "Me either."

"Well," A voice came from behind us, and my eyes blew out, seeing him towering only a few feet away, hoodie in hand. "I don't know if I'd go as far to say douche."

My eyes squinted, jaw clicking. "I would."

He approached us slowly, holding the sweater out to me. "Take this. It's yours."

I held a hand up to him, shaking my head. "No, thanks."

He rolled his eyes. "You paid good money for this. And you made your point. Take it."

I considered him, counting my breaths. He was unmoving, so I reached out, gripping the fabric.

His foot kicked at the sidewalk, hands retreating into his sweater pockets. "Look, I'm sorry." I stood, shocked. "Folio's right. I'm just cranky. I haven't eaten all day, I'm tired. You just caught me on a bad moment."

My lips tightened, and I sighed hard. "So that makes it okay to be rude to someone who just wanted to tell you how great you were?"

His teeth chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I said I was sorry."

A hand touched my arm, and I looked back at Nicole, who gave me an amused smile. "Babe? I'm going to go back in. I'm also hungry."

I just nodded, letting her walk past the both of us.

He took two steps toward me slowly, eyes fixed on my face. "Nicole, right?" He asked, without taking his eyes off of me. She stopped short in her stride. "Pull a chair up to the table, dinner's on me tonight."

I caught the small smile on her lips before she continued her trek back into the restaurant.

"Well, you all enjoy that." And I turned, ready to get into the car, when I hand caught me by my purse. I stopped, looking back at him.

"Come eat."

Stitching my eyebrows together, I crossed my arms with my sweater between, considering him.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Cause I was a douche."

I sat relatively silent at the table, munching slowly on the personal flatbread pizza I had ordered. It was one of the cheapest items on the menu, and I would be damned if I didn't somehow manage to slip him cash for it before we left.

Noah had loosened up substantially once he started eating. He was leaned back in his chair, flicking fries at Nick across the table, and participating in the conversations swirling around. Nicole, as she always did, melted into the group comfortably, sat next to Folio, and telling story after story of our trip and the festival.

"You guys seriously had to drive to an ATM to pay at the IHOP?" Nick asked incredulously.

"Yep. We sure did. The guy couldn't take card, and we felt bad. We could've just not come back, but that wouldn't be good karma."

I smiled at Nicole, the memory of two nights ago flooding in. An arm bumped mine, and I looked to my left to see Noah, eyes searching my face.

"You still mad at me?"

His voice was entirely different, soft as butter and warm like a fire. I smirked, leaning my elbows on the table.

"Haven't decided yet."

He nodded, sitting up so he was sat closer to me. "Yeah? Well, you shouldn't be."

Resting my chin on my hand, I gazed at him. "Why not?"

He smiled brightly. "Cause you came all this way to see me."

This made me snort, rolling my eyes. "Uh, no. I came all this way to see Bad Omens. Which I did."

"Why fly to Michigan? We were just in Vegas in April."

I nodded. "At Sick New World. I was there." He quirked an eyebrow. "Also at the show in October."

He looked confused. "So why come to Michigan?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I smiled a small grin. "Favorite band."

"We are?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

He smiled, smug. "I mean, not really."

I laughed, leaning back from the table. I was wearing my hoodie now, having become chilly halfway through the meal.

"Bet I can guess your favorite song?"

My eyes darted to his face, amused. "Really?" He looked so sure of himself. "Go for it."

He pursed his lips and stroked his chin dramatically, like a Medium. I tried to hide my laughter.

"Just Pretend?"

Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. "You think I'm that basic?"

He chuckled. "Fair enough." He stared hard at me, trying to get a read. "Death of Peace of Mind?"

Nicole raised a hand. "That one's mine!"

Both of us glanced up at her, not realizing anyone else was listening. He turned back to me, still wracking his brain.

"Dethrone?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Nowhere To Go?"

"Nope, close third, though."

"Third?!"

I giggled, a blush flushing up my neck.

"Which album is it off of?"

"Nuh-uh, that's cheating."

He threw his hands up. "How is that cheating?"

I pursed my lips. "Second album."

"Limits?"

"Bingo."

He clapped his hands together in triumph. "Ha!" He pointed at me. "Knew I'd guess it."

Laughing, I pushed him with my arm. "Yeah, after you guessed half of your songs."

We both broke out in laughter, and it occurred to me that some of the other conversations had stopped. I caught Nick in the corner yawning hard, and my eyes met Nicole's. It was time.

"Well, Noah," I looked back at him. "thank you for the food. We should get going."

His lips downturned, but I was sure I was imagining it. "Oh," He looked back at the rest of the guys. "yeah, us too. Early morning."

I nodded, standing out of my chair, everyone else following suit.

As a group, we made our way out the door, pouring out onto the sidewalk. Nicole bid goodbye to the guys, and I did the same. We hugged them each separately, Noah being last.

I wasn't sure if hugging him was appropriate, given our encounter, so I just stood in front of him while everyone else headed for the cars.

"So," I let my lips turn up in a smile.

His face mimicked mine. "This was fun."

"It was. Despite how it started, it was really great meeting you, Noah."

"You too, October."

The bill in my hand was getting sweaty, so I stepped forward, pushing it toward him. His eyes looked down at my hand, and he put his hands up.

"Oh, no. Dinner was on me."

"Please take it, Noah."

He took a step back, as if what I was holding was poisonous. "Not a chance."

Scoffing, I stepped toward him, pulling my hand back. "I don't like people paying for me."

He pursed his lips. "I'm not taking money from you." I groaned, slipping the two twenties back in my pocket. "I will, however," He looked at me from under his lashes. "take your number, if that's okay?"

I froze, my mind stopping. "Oh, uh,"

He looked as though he may run in the opposite direction, eyes becoming panicked. "You don't have to. I totally get it."

"No, no. I can give it to you." His head snapped up to look at me. "I just, uh," My face fell to stare at the ground for a moment before I spoke. "I'm not really looking for..." I trailed off.

"Oh! No! I just had a lot of fun talking to you. Figured we could keep talking? Like, friends?" His smile was nervous, and it warmed me.

"Okay."

"He asked for your number?!" Nicole nearly screamed at the windshield as she drove us back to the hotel.

I cackled. "Yeah."

"And you gave it to him?!"

I didn't verbally respond, only dropped my head in my hands.

"Holy fuck!"

"He said he just wants to be friends."

"Oh, bullshit. He fucking liked you. I could tell he was into the attitude."

I gasped. "Not true!"

"So fucking true."

"No way, dude. He's Noah Sebastian. And I'm...me."

"You're fucking amazing, I don't know what you mean." Nicole looked nearly offended.

"I know. But he just wants to talk."

She smirked. "With his dick, maybe."

The shrieking laughter that exploded out of me was a mix of shock and hilarity at her comment.

"We'll know for sure if he texts you."

I sighed, leaning back in my seat. "We'll see."

As fried as my nerves were, nothing was stopping me from passing out the moment my head hit the pillow of the hotel room bed. I was absolutely cooked, ready to return back to my normal life.

I had received no messages before I knocked out, so I put it out of my head. It was a fun experience, and a sweet gesture of him to take my number, but I knew the likelihood of ever hearing from him again was so slim, it wasn’t worth hoping for.

He didn’t know me, and from what I knew about Noah Sebastian, he was an extremely private person. How did he know I wouldn’t give out his number or share our messages online? I would probably pause before I did anything if I were him.

When my eyes finally cracked open, the fog settled behind my eyes slowly evaporating, I saw Nicole sat up on her bed, looking down at her phone. I grunted, rolling onto my side and pulling the blankets up to my chin.

“What time is it?”

“Nine. We don’t have to leave for the airport for another hour.” She didn’t look up at me, but she smirked when she spoke.

I yawned, letting my eyes fall closed again. “I should go back to sleep, then.”

“You could.” She set her phone in her lap. “Or, you could check your phone.”

Snuggling deeper under the covers, I stretched my legs.

“He hasn’t texted me, dude.”

Nicole raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Your phone went off twice about half an hour ago.” She leaned back on her hands. “I already looked at the screen, and it wasn’t your Dad or…anyone else.” She spoke the last words carefully. I knew who she was referring to, and my chest squeezed at the idea.

My hand carefully reached onto the nightstand, gripping my phone. I pulled it in front of my face, tapping in the code, and letting it open. My messages icon showed two red notifications, which I opened hastily.

The messages came from an unknown number. When I opened the thread, my heart halted all its movements.

+17475558326: Hi.

+17475558326: It’s Noah.

My breathing picked back up, and I shot straight up in bed.

“Was it him?!” Nicole was bursting.

My eyes slipped over to look at her, my mouth fallen open. “It was.”

She squealed. “I can’t believe he texted you!”

My fingers shook while holding the phone, threatening to drop it in my lap. “What do I do?!”

“Fucking respond!”

I nodded, my thumbs hovering over the screen but freezing. “What do I say?!”

“Hi? I don’t fucking know?!” She looked amused. I was not.

Me: Good morning.

My finger hovered over the send button for a moment before I finally sent it. Instinctively, I tossed my phone on the bed, pulling my knees to my chest,

“Holy fuck, dude.”

She stood, walking over to my cell and checking the screen. “He’s already read it.”

“Give it.” I held my hand out, and she placed it in my palm.

His type bubble was already up. I took a second to save his name into my phone.

Noah: Sleep okay?

Was this real life?

Me: I did, how about you?

Noah must’ve had the chat open, because my message was read instantly and he started texting back quick.

Noah: Eh, yeah. Hotel beds aren’t my favorite.

Me: Me either. I was so tired, though.

I stood off the bed, stretching my arms over my head. Nicole had disappeared into the bathroom. I pulled my hoodie over my head, and looked at my messages again.

Noah: I’ll bet. You had a busy weekend. Excited to go home?

I thought about my response carefully.

Me: I am. I’m sure my kids are missing me almost as much as I miss them.

It shouldn’t be any big deal to admit that I’ve got kids casually, right? We’re just friends…

The thread indicated he read the messages, but it took him a full five minutes to start typing. My breath held what felt like the entire time, waiting for his text to come through.

Noah: How many kids?

My pulse raced, and I sat down on the edge of the bed.

Me: Two.

Noah: How old?

I raised an eyebrow.

Me: Why do you ask?

He responded slowly.

Noah: Just curious. Making conversation.

I sighed, now slightly concerned.

Me: 9 and 5.

Noah: Boys?

Me: Boy and a girl. My son is older.

Noah: Big brother, huh? Very cool. What’re their names?

I bit my lip, and Nicole was now stood next to the bed staring at me.

“What’s wrong?”

“I told him about my kids.”

She eyed me, confused. “And?”

“He’s asking about them.”

Quirking an eyebrow, she sat down next to me. “Are you not comfortable telling him? That’s a valid feeling, babe.” She put a hand on my knee. “You just met him.”

I nodded. “It’s just kind of…I don’t know, strange? Why would he care what my kid’s names are?”

She pursed her lips, staring down at my phone. “Maybe he’s trying to get to know you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I should just tell him?”

“It’s up to you, babe.”

I sent back a quick response.

Me: Michael and Willow

Noah: Nice.

I was brushing my teeth, so I didn’t immediately respond before his next text came in.

Noah: So, if you’ve got kids, does that mean you have a husband?

I scoffed, rolling my eyes.

Me: Don’t have to be married to have kids, Noah.

His text that came through almost made me spit my toothpaste all over the mirror.

Noah: Children out of wedlock?! Unacceptable!!

I cackled, and I knew Nicole was wondering, but she didn’t ask.

Me: What can I say? I’m a heathen.

I followed it up quickly.

Me: But, no. Not married. Their Dad is around, but we’re not together.

Noah: I see.

I sighed, not really sure where to go from here. Resolving to changing the subject, I was also packing up my things into my duffel to prepare for our journey to the airport.

Me: Anyway, enough about me. What’re you up to?

Noah: On the bus headed to Mansfield. We should be there in about an hour.

Me: Oh, that’s right. You play Inkcarceration tonight, right?

Noah: Yup. Surprised you won’t be there. 😜

I laughed out loud.

Me: Well, I can only stalk you so much. I have work tomorrow.

Noah: What do you do?

Me: I work for a law firm as a paralegal. It’s a mostly remote gig, so I work from home most days.

Nicole and I loaded our bags into the car, dropping our key cards off at the desk.

Noah: Oh that sounds fun.

Me: It’s not, but it pays the bills.

We made it to the rental car return, and I waited outside while Nicole dropped the keys in the box. We made our way into the airport, now having to pay full attention to the tasks at hand.

Check in, move through TSA, head to Starbucks, find gate.

Nicole had stopped at a gift shop that had an impressive bookstore inside, where I opted to go find seats at the gate. It wasn’t until I was settled in that I was able to check my phone again.

Noah: Well, what would you rather do for a living?

I chewed my bottom lip thinking about this.

Me: I don’t really know, honestly. Thats a tough question.

Me: I’d have to think on that.

Noah: Great, I expect a report back in 3-5 business days. 👍🏻

I cackled at the message, and Nicole sat next to me right as I did.

“Still texting the love of your life?”

I scoffed, locking my phone and looking at her. “Oh, stop. He’s just a guy.”

“Yeah, mhm, sure.” She opened her crispy new novel and began reading the first few pages, successfully ending the short conversation.

Noah: What time’s your flight?

Me: We board in about ten minutes.

Noah: Sweet. You’ll be home soon, you must be relieved.

Me: I am, but I hate flying…

Noah: Really? I’m the same way. It’s the worst.

Me: Any tips for me?

Noah: Depends. Is it the small spaces, or the fear of crashing?

Me: Crashing.

Noah: Oh, yeah…no. Can’t help you there. I have an insane irrational fear of being in a plane crash.

I audibly groaned, sinking into my seat.

Me: Awesome, thanks.

Noah: LOL you’ll be fine. It’ll be a smooth flight and you’ll be home to your kids in no time.

Noah: I usually blast music through the whole flight and just tune everything out.

Me: I’ll try that.

The call for our boarding came, so Nicole and I stood, headed for the line.

Me: We’re about to board. Talk later?

Noah: Yup. Fly safe. Text when you land.

Noah: If you want.

Smiling at my phone, I typed back swiftly.

Me: Will do.

Falling into my bed, I took a moment to stare up at the ceiling.

It was over. I was home. All that was left to do was gather myself, pick up my kids from their Dad, and return back to my regular life.

The thought consumed me. I only had an hour until I was due to pick them up, and as excited as I was to see my babies, I was absolutely floundering at the idea of seeing their Dad…

Things had not ended well between Sean and I. Earlier in the year, we had finally called it quits after nearly a decade. Although we tried hard to amicably end things, it just wasn’t in the cards for us. There was too much history and hurt to let it die peacefully.

I gave myself a few minutes to gather myself before I took my phone out, shooting him a quick text to let him know I’d be there at 5PM, as agreed.

Sean: K.

Sounds about right.

I then realized I had forgotten to text Noah, so I opened our thread.

Me: I got home okay. Did you make it to Ohio safely?

Heading for the backyard to let my dog, Steve, out to use the bathroom, I sat at the table, staring out at the grass.

My phone chimed.

Noah: Nope. Bus crashed. Fiery mess. Blood everywhere.

I smirked.

Me: Damn. RIP.

Noah: We’re at the festival, just hanging for now. We’ve got about an hour before they set up the stage.

Me: Same setlist from last night?

Noah: Probably. We haven’t taken the time to make a new one.

I sighed, making my way back into the house and moving around the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

Me: You should.

Noah: Yeah, how so?

Thinking for a moment, I leaned against the counter, and typed on the screen.

Me: Maybe add in something different? Something you haven’t played in a long time?

Noah: Such as…?

I snorted.

Me: Isn’t that your job to decide?

Noah: You can tell me, as a listener, what you’d want to hear.

Noah: What’s your favorite song off the first album?

Me: The Fountain, but that’s too slow.

Noah: I doubt I even know the words to that anymore, dude.

Me: Exit Wounds?

Noah: Meh.

Me: OMG…

Noah: What else?

Me: Worst In Me?

Noah: Hate that song.

Me: Jesus actual Christ.

Noah: Second album? Other than Limits?

Me: Burning Out?

Noah: …

Noah: That might not be a bad one…

Me: Oop?

Noah: I’ve got to talk to Nick. I don’t have a lot of time. I’ll text you later?

Me: Yup. Have a great show!

Noah: That you should be at…

I ignored his last message, sipping my coffee, and steadying myself. He was a little flirty, sure. It didn’t mean my heart didn’t jump each time he did it.

My knuckles tapped the door, and I was greeted by my son Michael, his smile huge.

“Mom!” He rushed me, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Hey baby!” I knelt down, pulling him into a tight squeeze.

Behind him, inside the house, my daughter came running as well. “Mama!”

I pulled an arm open for her, encapsulating them both. “Ugh, I missed you guys so hard.”

Letting them loose, I noticed they already had their backpacks on.

“Where’s your Dad?” I looked around inside the apartment, but Michael just waved a hand.

“In his room. He told me to tell you he’ll see you next week.” He was so nonchalant, and although I knew it was forced, I was thoroughly impressed at how strong my young man had been throughout this difficult process.

Silently, I thanked the universe that Sean and I didn’t have to come face to face, and we made our way out of the apartment and down the stairs.

“How was Mushygen?” Willow asked, and I laughed at her pronunciation.

“Michigan was good. Auntie and I had fun, but I’m so glad to be home with you both.” I buckled her in the back of my minivan while Michael climbed in his seat next to hers.

“Did you get to meet any cool bands?” He asked me.

This made me smile as I slid into my seat, starting the vehicle.

“I did. I actually got to meet my favorite band.”

“Bad Omens?!” His voice cracked, and I smiled bigger.

“Yes! We ran into them at a restaurant last night!”

“What were they like?” He was curious, being a bit of a fan himself.

“Super nice, really cool guys.” I skipped over mine and Noah’s introductory debacle.

“That’s so cool, Mom!” Willow chirped from her seat.

“How was your weekend at Dad’s?” I asked them.

They proceeded to give me the full rundown of their three days with their father. They went to the park, out to dinner, but mostly stayed in at the apartment, given how hot it was. They couldn’t wait to go back next weekend.

Sean was a lot of things, but I’d never lie and say he wasn’t a good father to his kids.

Once back at home, I began working on dinner. Spaghetti, per the children’s request. After dinner were baths/showers, two hours of hangout time, before they had to go to bed. It was summer, so bedtime was midnight.

About 8:30PM, while I was sat on my Chaise lounger curled up with Willow watching Inside Out, my phone buzzed next to me.

Noah: That was a good choice. Turns out, a lot of people know that song.

Me: I’m glad it went well! Did the rest of the set go smoothly?

Noah: Sure did. It was tiring, and I’m ready to go home. But festivals are fun.

Me: When do you head back home?

Noah: Tonight. We’ve got stuff coming up on Thursday, so we’ve got to get going ASAP. Takes three days to make it back to LA.

I felt Willow shift next to me, and I noticed she was snoozing comfortably. It was already after 9PM, so I decided it was time to carry her into her room.

Laying her small body in bed and tucking her pale pink blanket over her, I left her with a kiss on the forehead and turned on her nightlight.

When I made it back to my spot, I flipped to SVU, and responded to his text.

Me: That’s a long drive. I don’t envy you.

Noah: You’ve got work tomorrow, I don’t envy you.

Smiling, I leaned back in my seat and covered up with my throw blanket.

Me: Fair enough.

The days passed tediously. Two weeks had gone by since I came home from Michigan. Every day, like clockwork, Noah texted me. Not the entire day, but most of it. We talked about a lot. My job. His music. Our favorite movies. Favorite places. Our hobbies. Our tattoos.

I was working in-office today, smiling at my phone because of the messages we were exchanging.

Noah: How big is it?

Me: Hip to knee.

Noah: WOAH.

I smirked. I was referring to a tattoo of an octopus I have on my left thigh.

Noah: Pic?

Me: I don’t have any off hand.

The flirting had been mild at best, but once in a while, he would say something suggestive, and it made me smile. Still, I would typically change the subject.

Noah: Damn. I’ll just have to see it in person.

This made my stomach twirl. In person? Throughout these last couple weeks, at no point had we discussed meeting in person again. I mean, it was possible, I’m sure. But it hadn’t really registered as a possibility.

While talking to Noah over text only, it almost made the entire experience feel unreal.

Me: I don’t remember seeing any Vegas tour dates on your website, sir.

His text took a few to come through.

Noah: Sir…?

Whoops. Maybe that was a bad move.

Noah: Vegas isn’t far. And didn’t you say you’re going to be in LA in September?

Chewing the skin off of my lip, I clutched my phone.

Me: To see Falling in Reverse and Black Veil Brides.

Noah: Maybe I could go.

Me: I didn’t think you listened to them?

Noah: Not so much, but if you’re going to be there, I think it could be fun.

That made my insides twist. He wanted to see me?

Me: Well, guess I’ll see you there, then?

After work, I dropped the kids at Sean’s. He had requested we do contactless drop off now, to try and avoid any arguments…like my children were a fucking Uber delivery.

He would stand outside, I’d let them out of the car, and they’d walk up to the apartment. It was fucking childish, but I didn’t argue. I had no energy left for Sean anymore. He had taken it all.

At home, I began the process of decompressing for the week, still fuming over my ex’s immaturity. First order of business was to uncork my Rosé, and fill my tallest glass.

I stood at the counter, heels kicked off to the floor of the kitchen, and chugged a few gulps of the drink.

My phone began chiming in my bag, and I fished it out. Someone was FaceTiming me?

Noah…

Noah was FaceTiming me?

I swiped the call open, not bothering to check my appearance first, and his face looked back at me. He was sitting at a desk, bed behind him, wearing a t-shirt and his hair was messy.

“Hey.” I said, apprehensive.

“Hey, sorry, is this a bad time?”

I shook my head, taking another long pull from my glass. “Not at all. Just got home from dropping the kids off.” My tone contradicted my words, my agitation still leaking in.

“You sure? Lookin’ a little stressed there, October.”

I snorted, propping my phone against the stove, and refilling my glass.

“Long day. What’s up?”

He sat back in his chair, hands folded over his chest. “Just wanted to see you.”

My fingers gripped the counter. “You did?”

“Yeah, texting gets old.”

I nodded. “It does.”

“Want to talk about your day?”

I groaned, the alcohol already softening the edges of my brain slightly. “You don’t even want to know.”

He pursed his lips. “Try me?”

Waving a hand in front of me, I swallowed the last of my second glass. “It’s just my children’s father being a dick. Nothing new.”

Lifting a brow, he cocked his head to the side. “What’d he do?”

As messy as ever, I poured a third and final glass, emptying the bottle, and dropping it in the trash can. Lifting my hand to my hair, I pulled the clip loose, shaking my hair out.

“He asked for contactless delivery with the kids.” I said as I lifted the glass to my lips.

He looked taken back. “Like…a pizza?”

“That’s what I said!” I shook my head. “He’s a fucking coward. He can’t even fucking face me without being an asshole.”

“Then maybe it’s better you don’t see each other?”

Shrugging, I ran a hand through my hair. “Fuck, probably.”

Looking at him, I noticed he was walking now, phone in hand.

“Anyway, fuck that guy. How was your day?”

He set the phone back down, and he was clearly in his kitchen. “Uneventful. Played with some beats. Caught up on some of the shows I’d been missing.”

I walked to my room, pulling a t-shirt from the hanger. “I’m going to set you down a sec so I can change.”

He just nodded. “Should I make pasta or tacos for dinner?”

I shouted at the phone as I pulled my shirt over my head and slipped my pants off. “Pasta, always pasta.”

Satisfied, he began pulling items from the cabinet.

“Oh, Noah!” I stood, only in my shirt covering my underwear. He turned to look at me as I lifted the phone. “Did you want to see the tattoo now?”

He padded back to where his phone was at, and leaned down close to the screen. I set my phone on my dresser and stepped backward to get myself in the frame. Feeling sheepish, I carefully worked to only show my ink, and not my crotch.

“Hmm,” He mused. “Cant see it. Better take the shirt off too.”

My eyes rolled, and I grabbed the phone. “Perv.”

He snickered, smiling at me. “What? Beautiful tattoo on a beautiful woman? Can you blame me?”

My cheeks reddened, and I quickly slipped my sweats on. “Guess not.”

He placed a pot of water on the stove to boil, and stepped back, twirling a wooden spoon in his hand. His eyes considered me as I moved back into the kitchen to start working on my own meal.

“Can I ask you something, October?”

Distractedly, melting some butter, scallions, and garlic in a pan, I responded. “Sure.”

“When I asked you for your number, back in Michigan, you acted like you weren’t looking to date anyone.”

My eyes shot over to the phone, my hand stopping its stirring. “Mhm…”

“That’s true? You’re not looking to date?”

Trying to concentrate on my task, I added the cream to the roux I had made. “Not right now, why?”

He shrugged his shoulders, dropping his pasta in the boiling pot. “Curious.”

“Yeah? Cause that’s a super pointed question for just curiosity.”

He smiled to himself, not looking at the camera. “Alright, maybe I’m a little more than curious.”

I turned my full attention to him, adding Parmesan to my Alfredo base. “What’s ’a little more than curious’?”

He looked at me then, eyes piercing me. “Interested?”

Death. That’s what I felt right then. Heart rate explosive, mind racing, eye twitching. No words can describe the feeling when someone as unbelievable as Noah Sebastian tells you they’re interested…

“Y-You’re…interested?”

He nodded slowly, stirring his pot. “I am.”

Stuttering like a cat, I nearly dropped my spoon. “Why?” I managed to choke out.

His face was bewildered. “Why not?”

Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, I nearly let my sauce boil over.

“Uh,” I moved the pan from the burner and poured my pasta in the water. “I mean, it’s a valid question.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Noah…” I sighed hard, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Have you seen you?”

“A few times.” He laughed as he strained his noodles. “And?”

“I’m not,” I pointed toward him. “that.”

“A dude? Yeah, I didn’t think so but I didn’t exactly want to ask.”

I narrowed my eyes, smirking. “Smart ass.”

“I don’t see the confusion here.”

“You’re being willfully ignorant.” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“How so?” He answered as he threw butter and seasonings into the pot.

Sucking my teeth, I rolled my eyes. “Noah, you’re an actual rockstar.”

“Kay, and?”

“And I’m a normal person.”

“I’m sorry,” He held up the spoon that was scooping noodles into a bowl. “Am I not?”

“I have kids. A job. Baggage. We live in different states. You’re,” I gestured to him again. “far out of my league.”

He shook his head. “I disagree.”

He moved to his table, propping me up on something I couldn’t see.

“Well, you’re wrong.”

He shoveled food into his mouth, taking a moment to chew. I strained my own pasta.

“How do you figure? You’re funny, interesting, fiery, beautiful…”

My throat went dry.

“What’s the issue?”

Putting my pasta together and getting it onto a plate, I walked over to my own table. “You’re forgetting the baggage part.”

He waved a hand. “You’ve got kids. So what?”

I dropped my fork. “So what?”

He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean, what’s the big deal?”

“Uhh,” I drawled. “you don’t? And probably don’t need that in your life right now.” I sighed. “Or someone who has them. They’re always first priority.”

Nodding, he continued eating. “As they should be.”

Biting into my food, I stared at him, no words coming to mind.

“Look,” He set his fork down. “I’m not saying I want to marry you.” I choked at the word. “I just like you.”

My eyes widened, my jaw stopping mid-chew.

“I just want to take you on a date or something. See how it goes when I’m not super cranky.” He smirked.

Oh God. It was so enthralling, hearing the words come out of his mouth…

The temptation was strong.

But…

“I can’t, Noah.”

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “No?”

My head hung in frustration.

“I like you, too. A lot. But,” I pushed my plate away, suddenly losing all of my appetite. “I’m still dealing with a lot. I’m trying to get back to a sense of normalcy here. Sean just moved out three months ago. My kids are my entire life. I feel like I’m living in a storm at all times. I’ve got to get a handle on that for now.”

He was silent as I spoke, and I knew I had blown it.

“Are you mad?”

His tongue rolled around in his mouth before he spoke. “No. I won’t lie, I’m disappointed, but your reasoning is valid. I respect that.”

A man? Respecting me? Wild concept.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk anymore.”

He looked perplexed, taking a drink from his water bottle. “Why would I want that?”

I didn’t verbally respond, I just stared at him.

“I like you for more than a date, October. I like talking to you. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to keep doing that.”

My face warmed, and I couldn’t stop the smile spreading. “I’d like that, too.”

“Alright.” He slapped a hand on the table. “That settles that. We’ll stay friends.” He picked his fork back up and kept eating.

I almost didn’t catch the last words come out of his mouth.

“For now.”

[lover-of-mine]

Hi! So much has happened. Picking through different details to make sure this message is not repetitive because I know you have many many spies by now.

Firstly: the fake article. I cannot find who originally posted it. Only a screenshot from a BT mad about it. But apparently a Buddie made a fake post about a fake article about Lou quitting acting. They are very upset about it. It is ‘harassment’ apparently. People are offended that it cites mental health scare as the reason Lou would allegedly quit acting. As if BTs were not saying that Eddie should kill himself to mirror Ryan’s history of suicidality? Throwing stones from glass houses.

Here is the fake article screenshot. https://x.com/xfirepilot/status/1822790104525500839?s=46&t=i5gFcB_0q-6E5MZXiGtU_w

Secondly: Mark decided to lie about having ‘sources’ saying Lou is back on set this week. If he is not spotted… prepare for a full meltdown. They are CONVINCED this is the week. Especially because of the hangar. The longer they go without a sighting the more they lose it. They keep saying ‘quiet’ in hopes that it will make things happen (ie make Lou show up) which is kind of lame tbh. Taking all the fun out of the q word bit.

Thirdly: Happy birthday Peter! 9-1-1’s Instagram account posted a video of JLH + Oliver + Tracie + Ryan + Aisha + Kenny wishing him a happy birthday. Declan (Denny) also posted a photo of him and Peter. BTs are pretending that this is fine but are secretly losing it. Lou should be on set because of the hangar photo! Why is he not in that video! Why has he not posted about Peter’s birthday! But at the same time they are falling back once again on the ‘Lou is purposefully being hidden’ theory. Which is incompatible with their beliefs they will get a sighting this week.

Fourthly: one of them is saying a promo video will be released this week and promo photos the week after. I was not in the fandom in previous years but afaik this does not line up with past promo timelines? But correct me if I am wrong.

Fifthly: someone created a tumblr account called @killkinard and they are saying it is a death threat against Lou? Not Tommy? Very dramatic.

https://x.com/hofevanbuckley/status/1823057221053251994?s=46&t=i5gFcB_0q-6E5MZXiGtU_w

Sixthly: the subreddit drama… oh the subreddit drama. Okay. So. A BT shipper decided to make a new 9-1-1 subreddit because the main subreddit is way too Buddie focused. Complaining about anything to do with Tommy being downvoted on the main subreddit. So far the new subreddit has 35 members (as opposed to the 34170 members on the main reddit). So far half the posts on the new subreddit are transplanted from the main subreddit or the BT subreddit. Literally cross-posted. Makes sense that they do not like the main subreddit though. There was recently a post saying ‘why does Tommy get so much hate for being a bigot when half the main cast are cheaters’ uhhh because he is RACIST? And SEXIST? Honestly maybe it is a good thing they have that space now. Keep them contained away from the rest of us.

Seventhly and finally: someone said ‘I hope Lou posts a black and white picture Oliver takes of him on set’. They want Oliver and Lou to be Oliver and Ryan so bad oh my god. Not beating the Tommy/Eddie conflation allegations. Really all they ever do is steal from us. They have started calling Buddies ‘BDs’ now like we call them BTs. They are claiming Oliver’s new happy social media presence is a sign that he is filming with Lou. Everything we have or we say gets twisted and made about that man.

Anyways. I think it will be very funny if Lou does not show up this week. Especially because the hangar seems to be related to a Ryan and Kenny scene: https://x.com/buckleysbf/status/1823000264183271494?s=46&t=i5gFcB_0q-6E5MZXiGtU_w

Hi love 🩵

I don't even know what to say. I'm just staring at my phone. They really can't tell actors apart from characters huh? And this is a lot. I did the see part of the fake article drama but didn't fully get it. They definitely just want Tommy to be Eddie. I can't believe they dropped the BoB thing, come on guys, you don't have to copy everything we do. I do expect them to continue to detach themselves from reality more if Lou doesn't show up soon, even with the whole "they're hiding him" fantasy they have going.

[watsittoyah]

Along Came A Spider…2099

Warnings-Sexual content, and adult content. Some mentions of multiple dimensions. Oral sex, rough sex, fang play, claws kink, size kink, thigh fucking, breeding kink, and web bondage (shibari?), slight fear play…

(My Spanish isn’t great, so I did use google translate and Spanishdict to help…)

Chapter 10- Arachnophobia Behavior…

You woke up under Miguel’s heavy arm and when you try to move, he tightens his hold on you. “Baby, I need to get up and use the bathroom.” You whisper to him in his sleep. “Okay amor, okay.” He loosens his grip on you and you slide out of bed.

You keep the lights off in his bathroom as you use it. When you yawn you look out the window and you rub your eyes. You swear you saw something out of the window. “What was that?” You clean up and as you walk to the window, something green glows in the distance.

You blink and the glow was closer to the window. Almost like it was watching you. You take a step back feeling uneasy. The glow blinks out of existence and you shake your head. “Maybe I need to get back to sleep.” You turn and the glowing green eyes was right there, but they belonged to a green eyed ghoul. As you go to scream, the ghoul smiles and shoves a pumpkin down your throat..

You jerk up under Miguel and he stirs awake from your movement. “Está todo bien, amor?” He asks in a sleepy tone. “Everything’s okay. I just had a scary dream about…something.” Miguel sits up and you rub your throat.

“You know we can cancel the trip. Let your friends know you’re not feeling well.” You shake your head. “No, it’s okay. I want to go for Jerry. He’s kind of counting on us to come on this camping trip with him and his boyfriend.” You get out of bed and you hear Miguel behind you get out of bed as well.

“Was it about the Green Goblin?” Miguel asks as he walks over to you. You nod and chew on your thumb nail. “It was the same, I go to the bathroom, I see glowing green eyes and when I turn around...” Miguel holds your arms and rubs them, calming you down.

“Amor, you’re okay. It was just a nightmare.” Your tears seem to be close to the brim and you nod feeling scared. “It was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare and I’m okay.” You reassure yourself. Miguel nods and pulls you into his arms.

You’ve been having this green goblin nightmare for the past few weeks now. It always starts the same and it ends with the goblin just about stuffing you with a pumpkin. It sounds funny when you explain it but it was terrifying to see it happen to you.

All you know is that you didn’t want to have the nightmares anymore. You wanted to have a peaceful nights rest. So you hoped that the camping trip would help, somehow…

••••

For the camping trip, you were going to pretend that you had a normal sleeping pattern and focus on the people who matter the most around you.

So you were in the back seat with Miguel while Dennis and Erica were in the front. Dennis was driving and Erica was talking about how Jerry isn’t a nature person.

“Come on, E. Maybe Jerry changed his mind on the out doors.” You tell her. She look at you through the rear view mirror and you look away.

“Jerry Springdale? You know, the same Jerry that when we went camping for our junior year of high school, he had a panic attack because there wasn’t any toilets? The same Jerry who had a fit that there wasn’t any place to plug in his phone so it can charge? T be for real. Jerry is only into nature because his new boyfriend is into nature right now. Why couldn’t Jerry find a boyfriend that was into paying for a trip to California?” Erica says as she leans her head back in her seat. “I don’t know Erica, I think this could change Jerry. He seems happy.” Dennis says as he takes a left turn. Erica looks at her boyfriend and sighs.

“Babe, I know what you’re saying, but the second Jerry sees a lizard near his hiking boots he is going to lose his shit. I promise you that.”

As they talk about Jerry and his dislike for the out doors, you were looking out the window. You blink away the sleep and you feel Miguel’s hand rest on yours. “If you want to rest, amor you can. I’m here.” You shake your head and give him a small smile.

“I’ll be fine, baby. But how do you feel about finally getting to hang out with your little brother? That’s got to be exciting.” He rolls his eyes. “What?”

“Nothing amor. I love Gabriel, he’s my baby brother but it gets so tiresome when my mother talks about how he’s the perfect son. Gabriel is a detective, Gabriel comes to see me all the time. Gabriel would give his lung to me.” You give him a look and Miguel waves it off.

“It’s just my mother makes him seem like the perfect son but I have my own accomplishments. Some I can’t share for obvious reasons.” He looks away but you touch his cheek. “Hey, you know I’m proud of you right? For all that you do. I bet your brother is envious of you too about you being a scientist.” Miguel gets a small smile on his face.

“You know growing up, he would always tell everyone that I was his cool older brother. When I did experiments he would always want to be included.”

“From what I hear it seems like your brother loves his big brother. Cherish that, Miguel. I don’t have siblings. Yes I have my friends but I always wanted a sister or brother. I want to have the sibling arguments or just the thought that I can share stuff with my siblings. It seems fun.”

“Gabriel and I had some fun times…amor, puedo hacerte una pregunta?” You nod for him to ask. “Do you want kids?” He asks. “Now if you were my grandparents I’d say the same thing I’ll have them some day, not today or tomorrow. But really? I do, I want a big family. You know so the kids all are close and grow up with each other. I’m thinking two kids for now. Maybe more in the future. But I want a boy and a girl. But if it doesn't work out like that then, that's fine. I just want them to be happy and to have a great childhood.”

Miguel pulls you close to him and kisses your lips. “I can see that. I hope all of our kids, will have your curly hair and your beautiful eyes.”

You scoff. “Really? I always pictured them with your eyes and hair.”

“Alright, we’re here. It looks like Monica brought Josh along. So everyone is paired up thank goodness.” Erica says as she unbuckles her seatbelt.

As you four get out of the car, Miguel and Dennis both start unpacking the stuff. Monica walked over to the two of you and she gives a look.

“What’s wrong?” You ask. “Jerry, is out here acting like a whole Boy Scout. He’s about to make me start drinking now and you know that’s something if we just got here and I don’t want to be sober.”

“Come on it can’t be that ba-” A whistle sounds off causing everyone to wince. “Alright ladies and gentlemen! We have 0’hundred hours to get this place ready for the camping activities. Nick, honey, don’t put those logs there, someone might fall and break a knee.” You all look at each other. “Monica, where the liquor at?” Erica whispers. “In my bag, you want brown or white?”

“Guys, let’s just try to make the best of this. For Jerry and Nick.” You look at the camp site and your optimism slowly dissipates. “Are we camping or is this boot camp?”

“T, he was going to make us lock our phones in a box. I had to tell him that was a dumb idea. What if there’s a green goblin attack and we can’t call for help?” Monica says as she takes a drink off from her flask. You shiver at the thought and make sure your portable charger is in your bag.

“Nick, bless his heart. He’s just trying to make this fun for everyone but Jerry is just doing too much…T you talk to him.” Your two friends both look at you and you take a step back. “Why do I have to do it?” You whine.

“Because Jerry will listen to you. He looks up to you because you’re smart. Now get over there and save us from this camping trip from hell.” Erica pushes you along and you jerk yourself away from her.

You walk over to Jerry who was attempting to put his tent up but failing. “Hey Jerry, how’s it going?” You ask him as he goes to put the tent up again but it falls. “Fine, everything is fine. Why?”

You pull him over to the side and rub his arms like Miguel does to you after a bad dream. “Jerry.” Was all you had to do before he just let the tears go. “Tommie, I’m freaking out. This stupid tent won’t stay up, Nick forgot to grab the food, and I just I can’t stand the fucking outdoors! There are bugs out here, and no toilets. I just I want to go home, Tommie.” He cries to you.

“Hey, listen, listen. These are problems that we can solve. I’ll help you with your tent. You know I love building stuff. As far as food, we can send some of guys to grab some food, we aren’t that far from civilization. And we packed plenty of bug spray. Next time, make sure you tell Nick how you feel about camping.” You explain to him. He nods and he wipes his eyes.

“Thank you, T. I just…I want things to be perfect and-” You hug him and make sure he’s alright. “Come on, let’s get this camping trip all set.” Jerry gets everyone’s attention and he explains the new game plan.

“The hell did you tell Jerry?” Monica asks. “Just told him what needed to be told. Now I’m going to go and fix up some tents, you wanna help?”

“Yeah, Erica and Nick are getting wood and Josh and the others are getting food. And I don’t feel like getting back into that car.” You laugh and guide her to the first tent. “Alright, let’s get this started.”

••••

After you and your friends had gotten things in order, it was around lunch time and the boys with the exception of Jerry were cooking.

“Now if camping is like this? With the men cooking, I could get use to this.” Jerry said as he drank a wine cooler. “If that’s the case then you should be helping them then, Jerry.” Erica said as she took a sip from Monica’s flask.

“If I gotta help then so do you, those men need a big back strappin’ boy to go help them lug up that fire wood.” You almost spit up your drink hearing Jerry and Erica go back and forth.

Monica on the other hand was laughing and walking away. You take that cue and go check on the guys with the food.

“Hola chef Miguel. What’s on the menu?” You ask as you wrap your arms around him. “Well, amor. We have chicken skewers, with street corn, courtesy of me, some fire fried bread and try this.” He brings a spoon with brown liquid on it and when you taste it, you nod in approval.

“That? That is good, what is that?” You ask him as you look in the pot. “It’s a family recipe for fire wood gravy. It tastes good on pretty much anything. I’ll make it for you another time, amor.”

“I can’t wait. The menu looks delicious, do you need anything?” Miguel’s eyes flicker from hazel to red and back to hazel.

“Nada que pueda decir delante de la compañía, mi amor.” You lean in close to him and eye him up and down. “Then maybe we can sneak away from company and have a chat. I know you love my voice.” You flirt as you lean your breasts against him.

“I do, I do love your voice, princesa. And I love how your voice gets weak when I lick the right places. I might need some reminding.” He leans down to kiss you but Nick and Josh calls for Miguel attention, since Dennis is concerned over the chicken. “I’ll be right there fellas. As for you? Oh I’ll be very happy when we can have a ‘talk’ later.” Miguel winks at you and you watch him walk over to the guys.

One thing you loved, was how Miguel can be so serious one second and then the next he was all over you like carmel on a sundae.

You walk back over to Erica and Jerry and you see those two not speaking. “Tommie, tell Jerry that if he wants me to talk to him he needs to stop calling me a man.”

“First of all, I didn’t call you a man, I called you a big back boy-” You stop the both of them. “Both of you need to cut it out. Come on, while they finish up let’s go for a swim. I saw a lake when Monica and I were fixing up the tents.”

They agree, and you tell Monica the plans. The four of you grab your swimming stuff and head to the lake. Erica sees a tire tied to some rope and Jerry tests it out to make sure it’s safe.

Monica being the daredevil she is, does the first dive into the water and you sit on the side, soaking in the sun and feeling the water on your feet. “This is nice.” You look at your friends in the water and Erica comes up for air. “Come on in. The water feels great.”

“I’ll be in soon. I just want my skin to get some vitamin D.” Erica moves up and sits down next to you. “Isn’t Miguel about to give you that later?” You slap her thigh and she yelps. “Hey, it’s not like the rest of us isn’t gonna get some tonight. I mean look at us, I know tonight no one is going to be alone.”

“Yeah, I’m sure tonight will be packed with fun. But um, E can I talk to you about something?” Erica looks concerned for a moment. “Yeah what’s up?”

“It’s just, so after the green goblin incident, I’ve been having well nightmares. I know it’s all in my head and I was wondering if you could recommend a therapist to me? My old one retired. Plus I know when you got in that car accident last year and you had nightmares and you went to therapy.”

“I’ll give Janet a call, I’m sure she can squeeze you in.” You feel good about that and just for the fun of it, you push her back into the water and you dive in.

•••

It’s been several hours and the eight of you were around the camp fire eating food and talking about the old times.

“Monica, remember that time when T almost got expelled from school?” Erica says as she sits on her boyfriends lap. “We don’t need to bring that up.” You pretend the chicken on your plate the most delicious piece in the world as you hope Erica does explain.

“Amor, what did you do? I didn’t take you as a rebellious girl?” Miguel asks you keep looking at your chicken. “Alright so here’s how it went down, it was our freshman year of high school and there was this one teacher who had the fattest grudge against the girls in his class. I think he was a sexist but I could be wrong. Anyways he just kept down talking to all of us girls so Tommie was like, I bet I can get him respect us. So this little evil master mind rigs all of his doors, his windows. Erica what else did she rig?”

“She fucking rigged all the metal in the science room! I remember! She was like don’t touch anything he touches.”

“Exactly! So she does that and as soon as we all are settled in the class Tommie has this smirk on her face. And as soon as the teacher touches his metal desk that man went flying into his white board. We all thought he died because he had passed out.”

You look up at the sky as you feel everyone’s eyes on you. “I might have miscalculated the voltage. And the only reason I didn’t get expelled was one my grandparents had evidence on the teacher mistreating us and two…I got his heart up and running again.”

Everyone bursts out laughing and Miguel holds you close. “Eres peligrosa mi amor. But that’s part of your charm.” Miguel kisses your temple and you feel embarrassed.

“The funniest part of it is that she used a coil, three watch batteries and…uh?”

“A rustic potato.” You answer. “Okay Tommie remind me not to mess with you.” Josh says from across the fire.

“Alright, I don’t know about you guys but being out here reminds me of when I was little with my mom and that’s when we would tell ghost stories.” Nick says with excitement in his eyes.

As you watch your friends around the camp fire you feel a bit uneasy, because their faces looked haunting in the flickering fire light.

“Te gustaría descansar, amor?” Miguel asks you. “Yeah, just a little tired. Guys were calling it a night. See you all in the morning.” Your friends all say good night and Miguel leads you back to your tent to get ready for bed.

After you two had brushed your teeth and had gotten into your sleeping clothes, you sit up for a little bit looking at the moon.

Has it always looked a bit…green?

“Tommie?” You turn to Miguel and he closes the tent flap and turns on a light. “Are you alright?” You don’t know how to answer that. “Can I lie and say yes?”

“Amor, if you want to leave now we can.” You shake your head. “I want to stay. It’s just…I’m fine during the day time but when nightfall comes. I just get this feeling that something is watching me. Do you ever get that?”

“All the time, amor. But that’s because when I’m Spider-Man I tend to have a target on my back. But if you want I can check around the camp site. I’ll be quick and no one will even notice me.” You give a nod and draw your knees to your chin. “I’ll be back, princesa.” He rubs your shoulders and he then quickly leaves the tent.

As you listen to everything in the dark, you see a green hue against the tent. In that moment you had the awaited response of fight or flight.

You always figured if your dream had came true that you’d fight the ghoul who haunted your dreams. And so you gave a quick nod to yourself and you ran out ready to punch, hit, kick, and bite whatever awaited you.

Instead you see, fireflies. You felt stupid, seeing the yellow and green glowing bugs. You raised your hands and see three of fire flies land on your palms and fingers. “To think I was scared of you?” You chuckle to yourself.

You see a few more around you and when you turn you see a dark figure right there. You jerk back and throw a punch.

The dark figure catches your fist and that’s when you realize it was-

“Miguel? Baby don’t just stand there. I almost hit you.” He gives a chuckle and kisses your knuckles. “I’m sorry, mi corazón. I didn’t mean to scare you. But I checked, and everything is clear. But clearly you had to check for yourself by the way you swung at me.”

You felt your cheeks warm. “I’m sorry. I saw some green lights outside the tent, but it was these fire flies and when I turned and saw your figure I got scared.”

“No need to explain, I was watching you for the past five minutes.” You scowl at him. “Miguel put a bell on next time then.” You snatch your hand away from him and get back into the tent. As you get your sleeping bag ready, Miguel soon after enters the tent and zips it up behind himself.

“Estas molesta conmigo?” You hear Miguel ask as you pull your sleeping bag all the way to your neck. “What makes you say that?” You ask not looking at him. “Because you’re in bed and you don’t have your scarf on.” You turn towards your things, snatch your scarf out of your bag and put your curls up in a high ponytail and tie it up.

“Night.” You mutter to him as you face the tent and not him. “Oh no, no lo haces. You are not going to bed angry with me, pequeña mujer.” He pulls your sleeping bag over to him and you scoot down in your sleeping bag. “I’m not mad! Night!” You yell as you shut your eyes.

You hear Miguel give a sighing laugh and you feel his sleeping bag close to yours. Maybe if he hadn’t scared you, you wouldn’t be upset with him.

You somehow had managed to fall asleep an hour or so later. Oddly you didn’t have the nightmare or even a dream. The thing that made you wake up out of your sleep was how cold it had gotten in the tent.

You were only wearing a tank top and some dolphin shorts. Which you thought was good enough considering how it was in the high 90’s that day. But you didn’t think of the drop in nighttime temperatures.

You turn around in your sleeping bag and you see Miguel sleeping peacefully. You scoot over to him and you try to get back to sleep but it’s hard when your teeth are chattering.

You scoot a bit closer to him and he stirs in his sleep. “Mmm, amor? What’s wrong?” This man ain’t cold?

“I’m co..cold.” You chatter. “Come in with me then.” He opens his sleeping bag and you scoot in with him and sigh in relief, because he was as hot as a furnace.

You had your back facing his chest and you feel much warmer as he wrapped his arms around you. “I see someone isn’t being a brat anymore.” Miguel whispers against your neck.

You pout but you sigh. “You deserve my silent treatment as of now.” Miguel on the other hand had other plans to get you to talk. He runs his hands against your breasts and squeezes them gently. “Miguel, what are you doing?” You ask feeling his dick hardening against your lower back.

“Oh, I thought you were giving me the silent treatment. And since you’re so curious, I figured you were still cold. Solo te estoy calentando, dulce niña. Don’t you want to be warm?” He asks as he rubs your nipples through your tank top.

“Yo…you’re trying to be fu…funny, Miguel.” You say feeling yourself getting wet. “Me? Being funny? No amor. You know your well being is my…” Miguel then reaches under your shirt, tugging and rubbing your nipples. “…my top priority, amor.” He says as his flicks his tongue against your earlobe.

You let out a soft moan and you take one of his hands and guide it under your shorts. You part your legs as he parts your lips as he uses his middle finger to play with your clit. Your moan gets a bit louder but Miguel shushes you.

“Amor, you can’t go moaning too loud, your friends might hear you.” He says as he massages your breast and clit at the same time. “C…can’t help it.” You moan as you slowly grind your hips. “Sí puedes, amor. But bite that pretty lip of yours and let me keep you warm.” You feel him shimmy out of his bottoms and he slides his dick between your thighs.

He doesn’t enter you, he just presses your thighs together and he slowly thrusts. Fucking your thighs as he moans softly against your ear.

He rubs your clit faster and you bite down on your bottom lip as you feel the sweet tension building in your lower stomach. “Te sientes tan bien, princesa. So, so good.” Miguel’s fangs trails down your neck and you move your neck a bit, to give him permission.

“No, amor. I might hurt you. I’m feeling…very…. I might bite too hard.” You pout at his response and you feel him rub you faster which makes you jerk a bit as you feel yourself getting ready to come.

“Please.” You moan as you start to open your legs. But he squeezes them shut again and fucks your thighs faster. “You are such a brat tonight, Tommie.” He groans as he thrusts faster and he rubs your clit faster. You let your head fall against Miguel as you feel yourself coming against his fingers.

He grips your breast as he gives a silent grunt and you feel him coming between your thighs. Before you can even speak, Miguel sits up and he moves away from you. “That was a waste, because now I need my cum buried inside of you.” He motions for you to sit up and you by reflect do what he tells you.

“So all of this just to keep me warm, Miguel?” You ask looking at him as he stares at you. His demeanor would look haunting if you didn’t know him. His fangs were protruding past his lips. His claws were clenching his thighs.

He had leaned in close to you and without a word he slides your shorts off. “Mig-” He shakes his head so as if to tell you not to speak. You never seen him like this before.

Wait, yes you have. That night in the club bathroom. That face you saw in the mirror…

Miguel sniffs the air and you hear him inhale deeply. “Solo quiero mantenerte caliente, mi corazón. Is that wrong?” He asks as he leans in again. “N…no.” Your heart pounds a little and he sniffs the air again. “Am I scaring you? Don’t be scared, niña.”

“No you’re not.” You lie. You see Miguel study your face and he takes a singular claw out and pulls you by the front of your shirt. “I can smell two things. I can smell that you’re very aroused and que estas mintiendo. Don’t be scared, niña. I won’t do anything that you wouldn’t like.” He tugs a little and slices your shirt clean open, releasing your breasts. He stares at them and you watch as he touches himself which only makes you want to fuck him even more.

“Miguel do you want to taste these?” You ask motioning to your brown breast. You massage them and watch as he strokes himself faster. You pick up a pillow and you mount it. “Miguel, baby. Why aren’t you answering me?” You ask as you start to fuck the pillow in front of him. He just watches you like a hungry dog and you buck your hips while playing with your nipples.

“Someone is being greedy, with my late night snack.” Miguel grunts as he leans in. You throw your head back as you fuck the pillow and you feel his hand against your throat. “What’s the matter baby? You don’t like I’m having fun without you?” You tease to Miguel. He doesn’t answer, instead he yanks you over to him and kisses your lips. “Come.” He tells you as he grips your throat and rubs his thumb against your windpipe.

You knew Miguel would never hurt you but the dangerous thought that he could bruise your throat…oddly got you going. You grab at his hand and you suck his fingers, soaking not just them but the pillow under you. Once you climax, Miguel slides the pillow from under you and he inhales the wet spot. “Mine.”

He takes a hold of you and he flips you upside down, with your pussy to his mouth and your mouth to his pre covered dick. He didn’t even wait for you to taste him he was already licking your lips like a messy plate. He palms your ass apart and he licks you from your pussy up to your asshole, causing you to jerk from the sensitivity.

“Mmm is that too much?” Miguel asks as he pulls back the hood of your clit and licks it making you squirm. He slaps your ass as his nose gets buried in it. “Oh god.” You moan out. “Mmm amor, god isn’t here to help you. Now get that pretty mouth busy.” His dick presses against your lips and you take him in.

With the position you’re in, it was easier for him to slide in and out of your mouth. Miguel let’s out a whimper as he fucks your mouth and you fuck his.

You make a gagging noise with your throat and Miguel slurps up your juices. He lifts you up a bit and with his tongue he does circles around your clit. “M…m…m…baby I’m gonna come.” Without warning you squirt against Miguel’s mouth and you feel Miguel doing one solid thrust. Coming in your mouth and moaning. You suck and swallow, as he gives kisses on your inner thighs. Both of you were out of breath.

He sets you down gently and you lay back down feeling spent. “Te sientes cálida ahora?” He asks causing you to laugh. “Yes, Miguel I’m warm now. And I see you’re sweating.” You chuckle as you swipe a droplet of sweat off of his nose.

He captures your hand and you touch his face. “Let’s get back to sleep, amor.” He says as he cleans up the mess and brings you into his sleeping bag. “Sorry for being a brat earlier.” You tell him after a moment of silence. “I forgive you, Tommie. Now, close those beautiful eyes and get to sleep.” He says as he lays still. You yawn out and feel yourself drifting off dreaming about the goblin, only this time your personal spider-man swoops in and saves the day..

•••

The camping trip was soon over and you were happy to be home, where your shower and bed room was. Erica was just happy to be getting Milo from her mothers house and Monica said quote unquote, please don’t invite her black ass back out into the woods.

All in all everyone had a good time. You and had felt closer to your friends and to Miguel. He had learned more about your past childhood shenanigans, and you learned that Miguel was practically a young genius. Was that really surprising though? Nah.

The nightmares were slowing down, but they weren’t stopping. Instead of everyday you had the nightmare three out of seven days of the week.

This green goblin really messed you up. And what made things worse is you knew Miguel had to deal with that monster.

“Amor?” You were staring off into space as you and Miguel sat on the couch with Milo watching a new show on tv. “Amor?” You snap out of it as you heard Miguel calls for your attention. “Yes? Sorry just had work on my mind.” You lie.

“Work? Or nightmares?” He asks as he places a hand on your knee. “That obvious huh?” You sigh and scoot carefully so you don’t move Milo out of his sleep. “Solo un poco, amor. Do you-” You shake your head.

“Nope, I’m going to therapy soon and I’m paying them to listen. Now remember we’re going to the baby shower tomorrow.”

“I will remember. You don’t need to worry, amor.” You hum to him. “I’m not just reminding you, Miguel. I’m reminding Spider-Man. Because he seems to always make you late to the party.” Miguel rolls his eyes but smiles as he pulls you onto his lap, straddling him.

“I’ll relay the message to him. Though, I thought you were a fan of his. Considering his special talents.” Miguel takes a finger to your chin and you feel warm in the cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr O’Hara.”

“Oh you don’t like the…fangs?” Miguel flicks his fangs out at you and you feel your breathe flutter a little. “They are nice I will admit.” You confess to him. “What about the…claws?” You feel his claw stroke your bottom lip and you can’t help but shiver in excitement. “I…I plead the fifth.” You tell him causing him to chuckle.

“You plead the fifth? Oh well how about when I, do this?” He webs your arms behind your back causing your chest to poke out to him. “I’ll admit I…might like that…” Miguel smiles up at you and eyes your chest. “I know I like this a lot.” Miguel says as he looks back up at you. His claws were back to fingertips and he was reaching under your shirt.

“You know. I’d like to see you tied up one of these days.” You tell him as he cups your breasts. “Mmm maybe one day, amor. But for now you’re my prey, caught in my web.” He suckles your breasts and flicks his tongue between them.

You’re careful not to wake up Milo but you let your head fall back a bit as Miguel sucks your breasts and licks your nipples. “Miguel, baby…just like that.”

Me keeps sucking while looking up at you. “If I wanted to, I could take advantage of you. Just keep you like this and turn you into a begging mess. Te gustaría eso, amor?” You nod feeling yourself hump his bulge. “That’s right, princesa. Make yourself feel good. I want to watch you make a mess of yourself.” Miguel lets his fangs trace the veins on your breasts and you jump when you feel his fang graze your nipple. “Mi amor, no te haré daño. Prometo.” He breathes out as he pulls at one of your nipples.

You then hear the keys jingle at the front door and Miguel straightens your shirt while slicing the web off of you carefully and you sit beside him pretending you two were watching what was in tv.

Erica came in with Dennis, laughing about something. “Oh, hey guys. I thought you two were going to the movies?” She asks as she puts her keys down. Dennis had greeted the two of you and you just felt embarrassed from almost getting caught.

“We were but, all the seats were sold for the viewing we wanted so we came back here.” Miguel answered for you. “Well, I would say let’s stay up and chat but Dennis and I have something to talk about. Right babe?”

“We do?” Erica gave him a deadpan stare and the boy bless his heart finally understood. “Oh! Yeah yeah. We have a lot to talk about.” Erica rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. “Good night.” She said over her shoulder as the two of them went into her bedroom.

Miguel had sat up and looked over at you. “Are you okay, amor?” You look back at Miguel and lean in. “If you don’t hurry your prey is going to get away and get started without you.” You leap up from the couch running to your room, but it was already a lost fight. Because Miguel had webbed you from across the room.

“Pensaste que llegarías lejos?” He says as he walks over to you. Your hand was webbed to the door and you pout. “I thought I had a chance. But now that I’m caught in your web again. What are you going to do?” Miguel blinks and his eyes are ruby red. “I’m going to do what any predator does to their prey in the animal and insect kingdom. I’m going to eat.” Miguel cuts you free, and lifts out up over his shoulder. You smile like an idiot as he kicks your door closed….

Bonus! Some drawing I did when it wasn’t so hot 🥵😩 (please stay cool, if you can, get a cold cup of liquid!)

Previously, Next

[avastrasposts]

The Pilot and his Girl - ch. 34**

Again, sorry about chapter 33, I know if was a hard one! But as someone said, it bonded us and brought us together! And I cannot tell you how good it felt to finally post it and be able to talk about it even though I was really nervous people would be genuinely offended. But it's all good! No got angry (yet anyway...).

So we're past the worst of it and Frankie and his girl are about to leave the QZ so please enjoy their journey that led to me using Google Maps an extraordinary amount!

Series Master List

Chapter 35- Warnings have their own post - Word count: 8.8k

Getting out of Boston is scary, Frankie drives and dodges around the runners that are attracted to the noise of the car. You regret your decision to leave every minute of the drive but Frankie hasn’t met a vehicle he can’t safely push to its limits. When you dare to open your eyes again you’re speeding down an empty highway, the Boston suburbs disappearing behind you.

“That was fucking intense,” he huffs, glancing in the rear view mirror at the fading city skyline. “Let’s not do that again.”

“I’m sorry, Frankie, but I really haven’t thought about where we should go,” you say, looking over at him as he drives, “I had no plan apart from getting you away from the QZ.”

“It’s ok, cariño, we’ll figure it out,” he slides his hand over to your leg, squeezing it lightly, “I’ll just get us as far as possible today, out into the countryside, and then we’ll see where we wanna go.”

“How far do you think we’ll get in this car?” you ask, looking over the small sedan. It wasn’t the sturdiest car even when it was new, and it wasn’t new when the outbreak happened.

“As long as we find petrol and it doesn’t blow a tyre, it should be fine. I hope,” Frankie gives the dash a gentle pat as if willing the car to hold itself together.

You fall silent for a few minutes, looking out through the window and the passing trees. You’ve passed Worcester and the landscape is changing. You’d forgotten how green it could be, the QZ was devoid of almost all plant life, all trees taken down for firewood, any park dug up for crops. But out here, on a bright May day, everything is so green it almost hurts. In the past ten years nature has taken over and when you drive through a forest it’s like being inside a tunnel of green, tall grass and thick bushes caging in the road and slowly creeping over it. In a few more years even the asphalt will be broken up by roots and plants, you can already see it in places.

The miles pass and you see less and less civilization and no sign of infected. Frankie makes sure to drive around any towns or cities, staying well away from any places that used to be populated. You leave Massachusetts and keep making your way west, after a few hours you reach Pennsylvania and one of the big state forests. The green hillsides remind you of Denny’s cabin, of the drive up there. You haven’t thought about it in years but now it seems like a haven.

“Could we go back to Denny’s cabin?” you ask, looking over at Frankie again, “Maybe it’s still untouched.”

“After all these years, I doubt it,” he says, shaking his head, “I did lock it when we left but someone’s bound to have found it, raiders or looters. And even before it would’ve been a two day drive, now, who knows how long it would take?”

“But we need somewhere really remote, maybe up towards the Canadian border?”

“Yeah, but past the Great Lakes first, too many people on this side,” Frankie says, “And not too far north, the winters are too harsh.” He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and you hear him inhale a couple of times, you know he’s getting ready to say something so you wait while watching his profile, his eyebrows knit together and he tightens his jaw.

“I gave the last pills to Joel,” he says, finally, “And the key to the apartment, to give to Will.” He glances over to you, “But I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me about the pills, I know I’ve lied a lot lately.”

“Frankie…” you begin and he shakes his head.

“You don’t need to say anything, I’m just going to prove it to you, prove that you can trust me again,” he nods, more to himself than to you, “I’ll prove it to you, but,” he takes his eyes of the road again and looks at you, his eyebrows bunched up with nerves, “…the thing is, I’m already getting shaky, and I don’t know what shape I’ll be in once the withdrawals really kick in. I might need you to drive soon.”

“Of course, Frankie, whatever you need,” you put your hand on his leg and you can feel him trembling, “Pull over as soon as you find a good spot and I’ll take over.”

He nods and takes a deep breath, breathing out through his nose, “I don’t know how bad it’ll get, you remember last time, right?”

“I remember you being sick as a dog for a day, you couldn’t keep any food or water down,” you move your hand to his forehead, he’s starting to look pale and his skin is cold to the touch, “Frankie, we should find a safe spot as soon as possible so that you can relax while it works it’s way out of your system.”

He nods and you pull out the road map that you’d found in the car, scanning the land ahead of you. You guide him and he turns on to increasingly smaller roads, finally arriving at a dead end with a small cabin tucked away deep into the forest. He stops the car and you sit quietly in the yard in front for a while, listening to the sounds of birds and nothing else. Eventually he turns the car around, parking it for an easy get away and you both get out and make sure both the cabin and the area is clear. It reminds you of the early days of the outbreak, when it was just you and him and you fall into the routine of you covering his back while he goes in first.

The cabin looks untouched, the door still locked and you easily find the key hidden under some rocks near the door. The rocks are covered in moss and you have to clean the key before it slides into the lock, but it fits, and the door swings open on creaking hinges. The inside is empty and dusty, just one big room. It looks like an old hunting lodge that’s been emptied out long before the outbreak. The only remaining feature is a big fireplace on the back wall.

“Safe and dry,” Frankie says, closing the door behind you. The shutters are closed and you switch on your flashlight.

“We’ll be alright here for a few days I think, although you might not be too comfortable,” you sweep the light across the room, there’s nothing, not even firewood in the cabin.

“I’ve slept in much worse, trust me, cariño,” he gives you a weak smile, he’s pulling out the camping light and cranking it. It’s not bright but spreads enough light to illuminate the room. As you put your flashlight away Frankie puts his backpack down by the wall, when he stands up again he suddenly wobbles and puts his hand out to steady himself.

“Frankie,” you say, rushing over and wrapping your arm around his waist to hold him up, “are you alright?”

He nods but lets you lower him gently to the floor, “I just got dizzy, it’s starting…” he breathes deeply and even in the dim light you can see his pale complexion under a sheen of sweat.

“How do you feel about food? I think you should eat something before it gets worse,” you kneel down next to him and pull out the camping stove and a can.

“Just give me some of those dry crackers you made and some water,” he says, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes.

…

The night is bad for Frankie, his body shivers and you drape his sleeping bag over him but then sweat pours off him and his anxiety spikes. He’s got his head in your lap and you rake your fingers through his damp curls, soothing him in what little way you can as the opioids work their way out of his system. You refuse to let him keep watch, insisting that he gets what sleep he can, you sleep sitting up, a simple noise trap set up in front of the locked door. By morning Frankie is curled into a tight ball on the floor, sweating through his t-shirt and whimpering in his sleep. He’s thrown up during the night and you’ve forced him to drink water but now he’s fairly peaceful so you let him sleep for as long as his body will let him.

You only meant to stay overnight in the cabin but you end up bunkering down for three days. Frankie curses every decision he’s ever made that’s led him to lie shivering on the floor while he tries to at least keep liquids down. The forest around the cabin is quiet and you venture out in search of more water, leaving Frankie sleeping. When you come back a few minutes later he’s awake and anxious, irritated at you for leaving without him.

“You can’t go out on your own!” he snaps as you close the door behind you, wrinkling your nose at the stale air inside the cabin after three days. “What if something happens to you and I don’t hear anything?!” You put down the water container and he grabs your arms, pulling you close, “You’ve got to be more careful!”

“Frankie, honey….” you soothe him, “I was gone for a minute, there’s a stream just behind the cabin, “this is just your withdrawals messing with your brain.”

“You know I worry about you, you can’t just fucking disappear on me,” he growls, his temper getting the better of him as you try to calm him. The aggression has been simmering under the surface for the past twenty-four hours and you know he’s ready to peel his own skin off from sheer frustration. You carefully inhale a deep breath, letting him hold on to your arms as his jaw snaps shut around whatever angry words he wanted to spit out. This is not your Frankie, you have to keep reminding yourself, and you put your hands on his waist, his fingers still digging into your arms. Finding the small gap between his pants and shirt, you rub your thumbs over the soft skin, letting the warmth of your hands seep into him while you watch emotions work their way across his face; from anger to frustration to guilt and grief. When he lets go of your arms and wraps himself around you, pulling you tight, you know he’s snapped out of it for now.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m such a fucking mess right now.”

“I know, Frankie, but you’ll get past it, the worst is almost over,” you caress his messy curls, cupping the back of his head with your hand to keep him close. “I’m not leaving, I’m not going anywhere, just stay with me and I’ll take care of you, ok?”

He nods while you gently take his hand and pull him down onto the floor again. He sits against the wall, his fingers twitching as he tips his head back against the rough timber, closing his eyes.

“I’m actually a little bit hungry, maybe the worst is over.”

“That’s great, do you want something to eat? See if you can keep it down now?”

“Yeah, give me one of those crackers to start with,” he opens his eyes again and accepts the dry piece of thin bread from your backpack.

You watch him eat it and then a small helping of canned baked beans that you heat up on the camping stove. He’s still shaky and nauseous, but it stays down and he starts to feel better. You eat your own food and sit down next to him, pulling him into you with your arm over his shoulders.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, turning his head so that he can press a kiss to your cheek, “for putting up with me. Just for once I’d like to have a life where I don’t feel like I’m always trying to make up to you for my mistakes.”

“You know I’ll always think you’re worth it, Frankie,” you smile, running your fingers through his hair and scratching his scalp. He hums contentedly and sighs and you sit in silence for a while. His breathing is calmer than it has been in days, he’s not trembling anymore and he’s starting to feel warm again, like himself.

“I’m sorry I forced you to leave Will and Benny behind,” you say eventually, “but I couldn’t let them know, I didn’t want them to risk anything, this is just you and me.”

“I know,” he sighs, sitting up so that he can look at you properly, “I know you did what you had to do to get me away from it and I’m grateful. You sacrifice so much for me, cariño.”

“And Santi…” you begin to say but tears well up and you bite your bottom lip to stop yourself from falling apart. You see Frankie’s eyes fill up with tears too and he pulls you into his chest.

“It’s not your fault, Frankie,” you whisper between quiet sobs, “I know I said it but I know it wasn’t your fault, you got betrayed by someone.”

Frankie shakes his head, “I fucked up, I feel asleep, it would’ve been different,” he tightens his hold on you and you feel him tense up, “he was so disappointed in me for still using, he told me he was going to tell you when we got back and then kick my ass.”

“You talked to him before he got caught?” you ask, pulling back a little and wiping the back of your hand over your eyes, “you didn’t tell me about that.”

“Yeah, right before, I told him what had happened and he said we’d been betrayed, that it wasn't’ my fault, but…I-I don’t know…” Frankie sighs and you reach up and wipe away another tear from his cheek, “He wasn’t mad at me, just disappointed and told me I had to get over it, get clean, I’m just such a fucking mess, a disappointment to you all.”

“You’re doing it now, Frankie,” you say, letting the back of your hand caress his cheek, “you’re past the worst of the withdrawals and now you stay clean for Santi. And I’ll help you, all the way.”

Frankie sighs and gives you a weak smile, “He told me he wasn’t sure I could survive without you anymore, and he’s right, what the fuck would I do without you?”

“What the fuck would I do without you, Frankie?” you say, pressing your lips to the bare patch on his scruffy cheek, “And I don’t mean all the times you’ve actually saved my life. But how would I survive in this world if you didn’t love me? You’re the only reason I actually want to stay alive.”

“I don’t know how long I can keep us safe out here though,” Frankie says with a deep sigh, looking towards the door of the cabin as if he can see all the monsters, infected or not, waiting for you. “We’ll be in danger whenever we leave and even in a place like this, there’s always a risk of someone showing up.” He looks back at you, his eyebrows knitted and serious, “I don’t want to scare you, but there’s only us now and our odds aren’t good.”

“I don’t care, Frankie,” you let him wrap his arms around you so that he can tuck you in under his chin, “I just want my old Frankie back, without the drugs, and I’d rather have just a little time with you like that out here, then watch you succumb to your nightmares and addictions in the QZ.”

“Maybe I should’ve just left on my own…” he mumbles, “putting your through this isn’t fair.”

“Pfft…as if I’d let you,” you snort, “I would’ve come after you.”

“I know, and you coming after me then would’ve been much scarier than any infected or raider,” you can hear the smile in his voice and you give him a soft dig in between his ribs and he chuckles, pressing his lips to the top of your head while he runs his hand over your arm for a few minutes while you sit quietly.

“I never could’ve left you though, I’m too selfish,” Frankie says after a little while, “I need you, even when I’m my shittiest, lowest self. I never could’ve left you, even if you’d begged me to, Pope was right when he said I can’t survive without you.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone, I miss him,” you say, swallowing back the lump in your throat.

“Me too,” Frankie mumbles, “me too.”

…

On the morning of the fourth day Frankie feels stable enough to continue westward. The cabin you’re in is decent but still too close to civilization, so you refill your water canisters and load up the little car. You’re going to need to find gas soon though and when you hit the highway again Frankie sorts a siphon and fills up the tank. It’s slow going, stopping and getting more gas every hour but you make your way west, giving Chicago a wide berth. As soon as you start getting closer to towns or cities, you see infected. There are hordes of them, roaming around what used to be populated areas.

“Any town or city is off limits,” Frankie says as you watch yet another group of infected in the distance, “We’ll have to resupply by hunting or looting farmsteads. One or two infected we can handle, any more than that and we’re pushing our luck.”

You nod and agree, luckily you only see infected near towns or cities, you haven’t seen any in the farms you’ve explored. It seems people either left during the outbreak or the infected somehow naturally gravitate towards each other. In the years since the outbreak some attempts have been made to understand how the infection works and how it makes the infected behave. But apart from them seeming to group into larger hordes and moving with the seasons, no one really understands much about them.

You get past Illinois and enter Iowa, avoiding Des Moines and following the pin straight highway twenty through endless fields.

“Haven’t they heard of curves in this state?” you grumble as you stare at the road that stretches towards the flat horizon, “these roads are literally designed for people to fall asleep while driving.”

“You’ve never traveled by car across the Midwest before the outbreak?” Frankie asks, he looks relaxed, the road is almost empty, just a few cars along the sides, and he’s got his elbow out through the open window, the wind ruffling his curls under yet another trusty cap he picked up somewhere, this one says ‘Pennsylvania University’.

“No, I always flew when I went home from college and the only road trip I did was from Seattle to Portland.”

“I’ve driven coast to coast, the Midwest is the worst for straight roads,” Frankie says, waving his hand out the window, “we just need to get through Iowa and then Nebraska, then we’ll start seeing some mountains.”

“Is Nebraska where you wanna head?” you ask, following the highway on the map.

“Maybe, it gets pretty remote once you start getting in among the reservations, they were never very populated, but lots of open land. But I was thinking maybe Colorado too, but away from Aspen and Denver, somewhere remote up in the mountains but not so far up that the winters get too harsh.”

“Maybe down in the foothills of the Rockies?” you say, looking at the states that creep up to the big mountain range cutting you off from the coast, “Colorado, Wyoming, Montana?”

“Pick a state, cariño, and pick a farm,” he chuckles, “We’ve got a lot of land to choose from.”

…

At night you try to find shelter somewhere away from the road, out of sight. If you’re lucky you find an empty cabin or house, if not you try to hide in a forest, or at least a patch of trees. You sleep in watches, never trusting any place enough to both sleep at the same time. Frankie always makes you sleep first, and once he’s tired enough, in the middle of the night, he wakes you up and then he falls asleep easier and has less nightmares. They still plague him though, and there are new elements to them, he mumbles Pope’s name and you try to calm him before he gets to the point you know he revisits every night.

You still see him too, up on the scaffold every night in your dreams. Sometimes you can run towards it, other times you’re glued to the spot, unable to move, but the outcome is always the same; the trap door opens and he drops before you can get to him. Some nights are worse than others, then all four of them are up there, Frankie next to Pope, with Will and Benny there too. Those nights you wake up screaming as the trap door opens, and Frankie scrambles to pull you into his arms, to calm you down.

“You’re getting good at this,” you mumble, pressed into his soft flannel shirt as your breathing slows down. His hands are rubbing up and down your arms and back, grounding you under his touch.

“I have a lot of practice,” he whispers before he kisses the top of your ear, his warm lips tickling you and making your heart slow down a little bit more, “how many times haven’t you had to do this for me over the years?”

You hum into his chest, drifting off to sleep again even though it’s almost dawn, the dark night sky has a slight tinge at the eastern horizon as Frankie glances around the clearing you’re camped in tonight.

Suddenly he hears a high pitched cry, weak and in the distance, but distinct. You hear it too, even though you’re already half asleep, and you stir, sitting up.

“What was that?” you ask, turning towards the sound. As you listen you hear it again and this time you recognize it.

“It’s a baby,” you whisper, looking up at Frankie who’s straining his eyes to see through the darkness. It’s coming from across the road you’d been on before you took shelter in this copse, hidden from sight now by the trees.

“Yeah, an infant,” Frankie whispers back, getting up from the ground and continuing to look towards the sound.

“What do we do?” you look around the car, trying to hear or see anything else around your simple campsite.

“I’d like to say we leave, get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible,” Frankie says, looking down at you, “But I don’t think I can…”

“Me either,” you nod, “who the fuck are we if we leave a baby crying?”

Frankie gives a little shake of his head and you see him square up his shoulders as he looks towards the shrill, faint sound, “C’mon, we go quietly, we leave the car here, but grab your pack.”

You quickly pack up your things and pull out your gun, all traces of sleep are gone now as you follow behind Frankie. He leads the way across the highway and into the sparse forest on the other side. The baby goes silent sometimes but always starts crying again and suddenly Frankie puts his fist up, signaling you to stop. Through the forest you hear the soft sound of a woman shushing the child. Frankie motions for you to crouch down and slowly you move forward together, making as little noise as possible. The breeze masks your footsteps and as you step around a large oak tree you see the source of the sound; leaning against a boulder is a woman, a few years younger than yourself, with a baby cradled in her arms. Even in the faint light you can see her ghostly pale skin and gaunt look, her chest rising in short rapid breaths, like she’s gasping for air and something tells you she’s dying, her body is slumped over, like she doesn’t have any strength left. Frankie scans the area around her for a few seconds before he speaks.

“Don’t scream, we’re not going to hurt you,” he says, half visible behind the tree. The woman startles but doesn’t cry out, she just holds the child closer to her chest.

“We heard the baby crying, do you need help?”, you ask, still half hiding behind Frankie. He’s lowered his gun but you can tell he’s still on full alert. The woman is painfully emaciated and scared looking but she seems to relax a little when she sees you.

“Are you hurt?” Frankie asks, he can see that her ragged shirt is dark with what looks like blood, and she nods, her face suddenly crumples as she begins to cry.

“Please,” she begs, tears streaming down her face, “take him, get him away from them.” She struggles to lift the baby, he begins to wail again and she almost drops him as her arms give out.

“Keep watch,” Frankie says to you in a low voice, “I’m going to check on her.” He puts away his gun and puts his hands up.

“I’m going to come over, I don’t want to hurt you, so please don’t hurt me, ok?”

The woman nods, sobbing, and Frankie closes the short distance, crouching down next to her. You keep your gun raised, your eyes flitting between Frankie and the woman and the trees around you. The sky is rapidly getting lighter but the surrounding forest is quiet, whoever ‘them’ are, you can’t hear anything.

The woman’s eyes are big and fearful as Frankie crouches down but he smiles at her, you see his warm eyes give her that comforting look you’ve seen so many times, and she relaxes, trusting him instinctively.

“You’re hurt?” he asks in a soft voice and she nods, looking down at her abdomen.

“It’s bad, I’ve lost a lot of blood, I-I’m dying,” she whispers and as Frankie gently lifts her shirt you hear him inhale, her shirt is soaked with blood and there is a nasty looking gash deep into her side. She’s been holding her hand over it but as Frankie makes her move it out of the way you realize there’s no way you can help her. She needs a hospital, and even that might not be enough.

“I’m sorry,” Frankie says in a low voice, looking up at the woman’s pale face, “I can’t do anything, we only have a simple first aid kit. Who did this to you?”

The woman just shakes her head and tries to lift the baby again, “Take him, please, they’re hunting me, get him away from here.”

You scan the forest again, your finger on the trigger, straining your ears to hear anything above the chirping of the early morning birds that have started to sing.

“Who are they?” Frankie asks, gently dropping the woman’s shirt over her wound again.

“Slavers,” the woman shudders, “I escaped three days ago, I-I don’t have time, please,” she looks down at the baby in her arms and then back at Frankie, “Please, you’ve got to take him. His name is Jack, after my brother. He was heading to Wyoming with a group of people, please find him.”

Frankie looks over at you and you see the question in his eyes, should you take this baby? But the option is to leave him to die with his mother, or be found by the slavers, and then what? You nod to Frankie and look at the woman, “We’ll take him, but we might not find your brother, Wyoming is a big place.”

“Just get him away from here, please,” the woman’s voice breaks, she’s bending her head down over her son, gently tucking in the blanket that’s swaddled around him. She looks up at Frankie again, he’s still crouched next to her.

“Take him and…and k-kill me…” she pleads, “Don’t let them find me alive, they’ll hurt me.”

“How many are coming after you?” Frankie asks, holstering his gun and taking the infant boy from the woman.

“Ten, maybe fifteen,” she says, looking at her son, now safely tucked into the crook of Frankie’s arm. “There were twenty-two in the gang, I killed one as I escaped.”

“Too many for us to fight,” he replies, looking back at you. Much as you know he would like to help, he won’t risk your life or his own for this.

“Come here,” he says to you, motioning over, “take the baby.”

“Jack, his name is Jack Connolly, he-,” the woman says, her voice breaking into a moan as she grabs her side, “he’s six months old, his birthday is January twenty-third,” she looks at you as you carefully take Jack from Frankie, “Please take care of him,” she whispers, “tell him I love him.”

“I will, I promise,” you say, “We’ll keep him as safe as we can. Do you kno-”

Your head snaps up as you suddenly hear someone shout in the distance, Frankie is on his feet in a flash, gun raised.

“We need to go,” he says, “back to the car, quick.”

“Please,” the woman urgently whispers, “don’t leave me alive, you have to kill me,” she sobs, glancing over her shoulder towards where the shout came from. Frankie looks at her and then back at you before he kneels down by her again.

“Do you know where in Wyoming?” he asks, gently putting his hand on her shoulder. “And what is your name? So that we can tell your son when he grows up.” You turn away from the woman as you see Frankie reach for the hunting knife behind his back.

“Julia,” the woman says, her voice breaking around another painful moan, “They were heading for Wind River.”

“We’ll find him, we’ll bring Jack to him,” Frankie says and then you hear the breath knocked out of the woman in a gentle gasp. You can’t help but glance back, shielding the boy in your arms. Frankie’s hand is covering her mouth and his hunting knife is in her chest, angled just into her heart. As you watch, her wide eyes, locked on Frankie, go still and lifeless. He gently sweeps his hand over her eyelids, closing them as he pulls out his knife.

“C’mon, we need to move,” he says quietly, getting back to his feet, sheeting the knife and pulling out his gun again. A man with a gruff voice shouts again, closer this time, and as you spin around, Frankie grabs your arm and pulls you behind the large oak tree. He gives it a few seconds and then moves you forward with his hand still around your wrist.

“Back to the car, quietly,” he whispers, “if the baby cries, cover his mouth as much as you can.”

You only make it a short distance before you hear voices behind you again and Frankie pulls you both down behind some low shrubs, not enough to hide you if someone comes too close.

“I found her!” someone shouts from between the trees, “but the bitch is fucking dead!”

“And the baby?” another voice calls, you can hear the undergrowth crunching as someone hurries towards the woman’s body.

“I can’t see it,” the first voice says.

Frankie tugs on your wrist and you move through the forest, crouched low, back towards the road. You glance down at the baby, you’re trying to hold him steady in your left arm, holding your gun in your right. He looks back up at you with large blue eyes, mercifully silent for now.

You reach the road, there’s a strip of long grass between the edge of the forest and the asphalt and Frankie stops, sinking to his belly.

“Stay here,” he whispers, “I’m going to check if the coast is clear.”

You nod and he slowly crawls forward through the grass, lifting his head and glancing down the road. He can see a pick up truck further down the road but no people. Glancing behind him he waves you forward and he watches you begin to sneak forward through the grass but suddenly you freeze, looking at the other side of the road, and he turns. He curses under his breath when he sees two men appear from the trees and stop, looking up and down the road. Frankie hears you slowly back up, into the tree line again, out of sight. He risks a quick look over his shoulder, you’re concealed behind the trees again and he carefully crawls backwards through the grass.

“No sign of anyone, that car could’ve been there for years,” one of the men says, adjusting the rifle on his shoulder.

“I’m telling you, I came through here with Lowell a week ago and it wasn’t there then,” the second man replies.

“Yeah, but that was a week ago, whoever left it is long gone by now.”

“And maybe they’re not, I’m just saying it’s weird that the car is there just as that bitch cut Jake and ran.”

“So what? She’s dead now, and who cares about the kid? She’s been fucked by everyone of us, we ain’t gonna know who’s it is anyway.”

“Yeah, she’s dead and we’re down one worker, so we might as well try and grab whoever drove that car as compensation.”

You’ve heard more than enough, bile is rising in your throat as Frankie finally reaches you again and crouches next to you. He puts his mouth next to your ear and whispers. “Follow the treeline, stay out of sight, we’ll take their truck if we can get to it.”

You nod and he holds onto your wrist as he slowly moves through the forest, out of sight. There’s no one by the truck and Frankie quietly opens the driver's side door and feels around for the keys.

“Bingo,” he whispers as he grabs them, still hanging from the ignition, “Get in from this side, keep the baby quiet.”

You do as he says and slide down between the seat and the dash when he points you to it.

“Hold on tight, once I start it up they’ll be all over us, keep your head down,” he whispers, glancing around the truck. There’s an old hunting rifle in the back, not well maintained but when he picks it up and checks, he sees that it’s loaded.

He hands it over to you, “If I say so, leave the baby on the floor and shoot at anyone who’s coming after us, ok? They probably have at least one more car and they might have time to get to it once I start this.”

You nod and Frankie reaches for the keys, holding his breath, he turns it and the truck rumbles to life. He quickly throws it in drive and accelerates, through the open window you can hear shouts go up.

“Someone’s stealing the pickup! Get after ‘em! Quick!”

“Joey! Get the other fucking car!”

“Shoot the tyres, shoot for fucks’s sake!”

Gunshots ring out but Frankie is already swerving, zigzagging the truck down the road. A few bullets ping off the metal and Frankie glances behind him.

“Cariño, I’m gonna need you to take their car out, they’re coming after us,” he calls over the sound of the guns.

His eyes flit between you and the road as you climb up onto the seat and crouch down by the open back window. The rifle is heavier than what you’re used to but you manage to shoulder it and aim down the barrel.

“Yank back on the lever on the side to reload,” Frankie calls to you and you almost roll your eyes at him as you pull back on the bolt action. You can hear Benny’s voice in your head as you go through the motions and hold the rifle as steady as you can while the truck lurches, ‘Push it up first, then you slide it back, the bullet pops out and then you reverse it, easy!’

Your first shot goes wide, the sights on the gun wonky and old. You can feel Frankie glance at you in the rear view mirror as you reload. The second shot hits the side view mirror of the other truck, you wish you’d been aiming at it but it was pure luck. But it does have the benefit of making the driver jolt and swerve and one of the men in the back of the truck topples over and disappears from view.

A bullet slams into the back of the truck, making you jerk your head back, for a second you think you’ve been hit but nothing hurts and you take a deep breath, aiming out through the window again.

Your third bullet hits the grill, you’re getting the hang of the aim of the rifle.

“Keep the truck steady for a few seconds,” you yell back to Frankie, “I need to hit a tyre!”

He does as you say and you take careful aim as the other pickup gets closer. You squeeze the trigger gently but a bump in the road jolts your aim and the shot rings out, going wide and you curse loudly, quickly sliding back the bolt.

But Frankie whoops, “Fucking awesome shot, cariño!” and you look back at the truck, the driver is slumped over, the broken windshield splattered in blood. Behind it you see the other man try to take control of the wheel.

“Take him out!” Frankie yells, “You’ve got him!”

You aim at the tire again and this time your aim is on point, the tire blows up and the man loses control of the vehicle as it spins out of control. It careens into the ditch and Frankie floors the accelerator, putting distance between you and the slavers. You slump down in the passenger seat, letting out a long breath as Frankie gives your leg a quick squeeze.

“Best fucking shot I’ve ever seen, cariño, you’re fucking amazing!”

You give him a weak grin, and pick baby Jack up from the floor, cradling the little bundle into your arms. It suddenly hits you, now you’re responsible for this little one and the promise you made to his mother. You’re heading for Wyoming now and it feels like faith made a decision for you.

…

The truck has almost a full tank of gas and for that you’re grateful. Frankie doesn’t stop driving for hours, turning off the interstate and getting lost on smaller roads, skirting towns and villages, until you’re forced to stop and refuel.

Jack, the little baby boy, cries and sleeps throughout the day until you figure out that he can eat the spaghettios from a can and seems to like it.

“Thank god he eats solid food,” you say, carefully spooning another small bite into the boy’s mouth, “And thank god you’re a baby encyclopedia, Frankie.”

“Never thought I’d use all that knowledge again,” Frankie says, glancing down at baby Jack on your lap. “But you know this complicates things, we need to figure out how to feed him and keep him clean. We’re gonna have to wash those diapers pretty much every day.”

You wrinkle your nose at the thought, there’s already a dirty one wrapped up in the back, “Ok, that’s gonna be your job,” you say and Frankie chuckles.

“I already sacrificed a t-shirt for him, you can do the diaper washing.”

You look down at the little boy on your lap, he’s got your finger in a steady grip and as you watch him he yawns twice and closes his eyes. Soon he’s sleeping again and you cross both your legs, letting him rest in your lap with one of Frankie’s hoodies draped over him.

“How far is Wind River?” Frankie asks and you pull out the map again.

“It’s marked on the map as Wind River Reservation,” you say, tracing the outline of the reservation with your finger, “It looks like about five hundred miles away, so a day’s drive if we’re lucky. But then we have to find this group of people.” You sigh and look at the map of Wyoming, it’s a very big state, even Wind River looks huge.

“I don’t think we’ll find them,” Frankie says, “I say we stick to the original plan of getting to the foothills and finding somewhere safe to live. And even though it’s only June, we need to settle soon so that we can prepare for winter.” He looks over at you and down at the boy, “It’s not going to be easy, even for the two of us. With him…cariño, it’s going to be hard…he might not…” Frankie trails off and you nod, you know keeping a baby alive in this world is hard enough. Out here, on your own, it might prove impossible.

“We’ll figure it out, Frankie, somehow, we’ll be there in two or three days, and find somewhere to settle.”

…

‘Famous last words’, you think the next afternoon as you stand next to the car. The good news is that you’re well away from Nebraska and any pursuing slavers. The bad news is that you’re still a good fifty miles away from White River and even further from the foothills of the Rockies. And you’re out of gas. There hasn’t been a car in sight for two hours and the last one you saw had only water in the tank. The pickup spluttered to a halt after running on fumes for a good half an hour.

Frankie is going through the supplies the slavers had left in the truck, replacing some of the stuff in your packs before he shoulders the larger pack. Little baby Jack has been wrapped against your chest with a makeshift kangaroo pouch made from Frankie’s one clean hoodie. You carry the lighter pack on your back.

“That’s it,” Frankie says, “we’ll have to leave the rest but it’s mainly junk or too heavy.” He comes over to you after tossing the car keys on to the driver’s seat. “You ok, cariño?” His voice is soft as he looks down at you and the baby sleeping tucked against your chest, “It’s going to be a long walk but I know you can handle that, just let me know if he gets too heavy for you.”

“It’ll be fine, you’ve got the heavier pack anyway, Frankie,” you smile at him, trying to sound more alright than you actually are. The car represented some sort of safety out here, a way of running from danger. Now you feel exposed. You look around the empty prairie, nothing but grass until the hills appear on the horizon.

“I found you this in the truck,” Frankie holds out a weather worn John Deere ball cap, it’s grimy and sweat stained, “I’ll wash it when we pass some water but you’ll need it for the sun today.”

“Thanks, Frankie,” you say and stuff it in your back pocket for now and he takes your hand and starts walking, heading west along the highway, leaving the pickup behind.

…

Settlements are few and far behind in this part of Wyoming and it feels like you walk for hours without getting anywhere. The road looks the same, the landscape looks the same, just one big open sky above you and the sun beating down mercilessly. The only sign of time and distance passing is the sun slowly creeping down towards the mountains in the west. When it finally disappears it’s a relief, the evening air cooling your hot skin.

“There’s a river coming up in about two miles,” Frankie says, looking at the map and comparing it to a rusted road sign. “We should camp there for the night, get some fresh water and see if we can catch some fish.”

You nod, you feel dead on your feet and Frankie takes your hand, “Almost there cariño, then we can rest,” he says and gives you a kiss, “C’mon, not much further.”

You walk along the river for half a mile before you find a good sheltered spot. The night’s are still warm so there’s no need for a fire but Frankie pitches the small tent he got from the pickup. It gives baby Jack shelter from the wind while you change his diaper and feed him some of the spaghettios. Frankie comes back from the river with wet pants but a proud smile and a large trout hanging by the gills from his hand.

“Earned my nickname,” he grins, showing off his catch, “Jack might not be able to eat it but we’ll get a good meal tonight and tomorrow.

Sheltered behind a few rocks, Frankie risks a small fire, and quickly grills the trout, deboning it and serving you a large portion with a flourish that makes you laugh.

“Such a master chef, Frankie, this is the best fish I’ve had in years” you smile as he sits down next to you after kicking dirt over the fire to extinguish it.

“Not sure about ‘master chef’,” he chuckles, “hunger and fresh air probably has more to do with that taste.”

“Either way, I’m very impressed,” you lean into him and kiss his scruffy cheek. His whiskers are getting long again and they tickle your nose as you taste his soft skin. Frankie turns his head and catches your chin between his thumb and finger, pressing his warm lips against yours and you hum quietly under your breath. He feels so good and it’s been so long since you were in a place where you could relax enough to think about more than just a cuddle. Here isn’t safe either but the quiet of the open prairie around you lets you feel alone and secure. He takes your bottom lip between his teeth and gently nibbles on it, you can feel his smile as you let your fingers thread through the curls sticking out under his cap.

“I really wish we had a room with a sturdy locked door,” he mumbles, his lips still close to yours, “I want you so fucking bad right now.”

“How fast can you get your pants back on if someone shows up?” you ask, cupping his rapidly swelling cock through his jeans. He groans and you can’t help but giggle at his instant reaction, his hips involuntarily thrusting up against your palm.

“Not fast enough, cariño,” he mutters, “fuck, we shouldn’t risk it but I really wanna fuck you right now.” The last words come as a groan as you palm him with a little bit more pressure, running your fingers along the outline of his hard length.

“Is the baby sleeping?” he asks, glancing over at the tent.

“Yeah, he’s down for the night I think,” you reply, sitting up a bit straighter and straining your ears to hear anything from around you.

“Hang on, cariño, hold that thought,” Frankie says and gets up, not without trouble. You’re camped in a small dip in the land, the river bank on the other side sheltering you from both the wind and anything, or anyone, else. He climbs out of the dip and looks around, the prairie is wide and flat, it feels like you can see for miles except for the few low trees and bushes that dot the landscape.

“C’mere,” he says as he returns down into the dip, “sit on my lap, if someone comes, I’ll shoot them with my dick out,” he’s smiling but his eyes are dark with lust.

You quickly pull off your pants and straddle his hips, reaching down to unbutton him and slip your hand into his boxers. He inhales when your hand closes around his thick length and you pull him free.

“Fuck…that feels so good, carino,” he groans as he caresses your hips, one hand moving up between your thighs to find you slick and warm. His fingers are soon coated in your wetness and you take his hand and make him spread it over his cock while you run your thumb through the silky drops on the fat head. He’s heavy and hard in your hand as you slide down, moving his hand out of way.

“You can come inside me today, Frankie,” you mumble, lining him up against your opening and your words, together with the feeling of your heat starting to envelop his swollen tip, makes him moan, his fingers digging harder into your hips as you slide down onto him.

As he stretches you open, you drop your head down onto his shoulder, his hands gently pulling you down over him. He’s starting to buck his hips up, planting his feet on the ground as he grinds himself deeper. You gasp against his neck when he’s got you flush against his hip, the coarse hairs at the base grazing over your clit. Frankie is already close, you can hear his breaths go short, growling as he hooks his hand over your shoulder and pulls you down again and again.

“Hermosa…” he gasps, “I’m not going to last, you feel too fucking good, so tight, fuck…” he groans and cups the back of your head, pulling you up so that he can slide his tongue into your mouth. You moan into him as his fingers find your clit and circles it with practiced ease. He knows so well how to bring your climax to the surface fast. Heat builds rapidly in your body, Frankie’s tongue slipping over yours with a steady rhythm that matches his thrusts and as he increases the pressure of his fingers just a little bit, you topple over the edge. Gasping into his mouth you feel him pump himself up into your hard, groaning under you as he fills you up, you can feel the heat of his spend even through the last waves of your own orgasm.

Leaning your foreheads together you listen to the silence around you and your heavy breaths. Your heart is racing in your chest and you can feel Frankie’s pulse thrumming under your fingers where you’re holding on to his neck. Your knees are killing you and you wince as you carefully push yourself up, letting him slip out of you. The hard ground has been digging into them, but you hadn’t even noticed while Frankie was inside you. Now you groan and stand up, carefully brushing off your legs.

Frankie is looking up at your thighs, he can see his load drip out of you in the dim light and it makes his soft cock twitch again. He grabs your hips and sits up straighter, making your gasp when his tongue dips into your slit. You can hear him chuckle as his fingers dig into the meat of your thighs, pulling you closer. His nose is nudging against your sensitive clit while he tastes himself on you, sliding the tip gently through your folds.

“Frankie,” you giggle, he’s tickling your oversensitive nerves, and you grab his curls, pushing him away as he looks up at you. His dimple sits deep in his cheek and his eyes are mischievous as he licks his lips.

“Perfect dessert, cariño,” he grins, smacking his lips.

“Dirty boy,” you smile back at him and turn to put your pants back on while he chuckles. He tucks himself away and you sit down next to him, leaning against him as he hooks his arm around your shoulders.

“If it wasn’t for the whole outbreak thing and constant threat of raiders and infected,” you say, threading your fingers through his, “this would be a perfect ‘Frankie date’.”

Frankie chuckles low behind your head, “I used to serve you better food than just plain trout on those dates. And give you better sex.”

“That was plenty good sex, dirty boy,” you smile, turning your head so that you can reach his lips. You can still taste your combined releases on him and you kiss him again. He leans his head against yours and you hear him yawn and you should tell him to go to bed, to sleep while you take the first watch. But you remain sitting, wrapped up in his warmth and the feeling of having a more normal version of Frankie really close by for the first time in months.

Despite the dangers of the open country around you, you can’t regret your decision to leave the QZ. You meant what you said to him while the withdrawals were plaguing his body; you’d rather have a little time with him out here than watch him waste away in the QZ.

“I love you, Frankie,” you say, looking out into inky darkness around your campsite.

“I love you too, hermosa,” he mumbles behind you and you feel his arms tighten their hold.

Chapter 35

Taglist: @pimosworld @i-own-loki @casa-boiardi @littlenosoul @stormseyer @mxtokko @javicstories @nunya7394 @welcometothepedroverse @harriedandharassed @meveispunk @hiroikegawa @jwritesfanfics @vickie5446 @your-slutty-gf

[eddiediazismyhusband]

🩺🩺 Please and thank you ☺

🩺 - The Nurse!Eddie fic:

----------

“Dad!” Chris cried from the backseat. “I need help getting out, and I wanna see Buck!”

“I’m sure Denny will be happy to be replaced by Buck as your best friend,” Eddie chuckled, teasing his son as he unbuckled his own seatbelt.”

“Denny loves Buck too!” Chris argued. “He told me himself that he thinks Buck is really cool.”

Eddie was inclined to agree with both the boys on that. 

“You enjoy spending time with Buck?” Abuela asked, unbuckling her own seatbelt, looking at her great grandson in the rear-view mirror.

“Yeah!” Christopher said. “He’s like my stitch!”

“Your stitch?” Eddie asked, opening Chris’s door, his brow furrowed.

“Yeah! My stitch!” Chris exclaimed. “Like Lilo & Stitch!”

“Oh, your Stitch,” Eddie laughed, the meaning of what Chris had said hitting him a moment later… (and no, hearing Chris say he looked at Buck that way did not make Eddie lose his breath a little).

“I wonder what Buck would think if he knew he was being compared to a little blue alien,” Abuela chuckled from the front seat, where she waited for Eddie to help her out of the truck.

“He’d love it!” Chris assured her. “He loves Stitch. He does a really good im- im-press-on?”

“Impression,” Eddie corrected softly.

“Yeah, that!” Chris giggled.

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Abuela said, giving Eddie a pointed glance, a small smile on her face.

Eddie gave her his own unamused look at her cheekiness. He didn’t know why his abuela couldn’t accept that he and Buck were just friends. Of course, Eddie knew he had a crush on the man, but Buck didn’t like him that way. That meant that they were just friends. Nothing more. He needed to stop thinking about it before he had a panic attack in front of these people he had never met.

----------

[toraawa]

Why Serena Can't Hate Yuri (and What May Happen in Duel Links) Part 2

Link to part 1 here.

As I said before, Serena hating Yuri would be very hypocritical, and I hope the analysis part demonstrates that. It's OOC, and I also believe it's OOC for Serena to be cutthroat about forgiveness.

In Arc-V, Serena's first impression of Sora is really bad. She sees him defeat Shun and make him roll down a whole flight of stairs, and she's horrified by it. Sora is one of the worst offenders of Academia's cruelty, right below Yuri himself—his glee in defeating Shun and the hunting game in Xyz mirrors Yuri's own glee for victory and carding others. Sora portrayed exactly what Serena found disgusting about Academia's soldiers.

But in Duel Links, Serena has no problem with him whatsoever, because she understands that he was heavily conditioned like she was and broke out of it... and is also happy to hear that Academia is changing!

I think these two examples are very poignant. Serena despises Academia, but she's not dismissive about the fact that they're trying to be better. It even makes her smile. Yes, Serena, who swore to fight against Academia with everything she had. This shows that Serena isn't against forgiveness at all, as long as you're trying to change for the better. Both Sora and Academia are trying to do that, and she gives due recognition for it. Past actions aren't going to make Serena hate someone forever.

And it's precisely because so many others have extended the same grace to her. She's been given a second chance herself, and understands how valuable it is. It would probably crush Serena to be seen as only evil because of what she did in the past, no matter how much she regrets it and tries to amend her mistakes.

Although, I think Leo is the one person Serena isn't ready to extend much understanding to, just because of how much damage he caused.

Another interesting aspect is how Serena reacts to Sora vs. how she reacts to Yuri in the anime.

When Serena sees Sora again after she's hit by the nerve gas, her immediate reaction is distrust and disdain. She tries to tell him to get away from her. But she doesn't outright deny Sora's claim that he hasn't come to take her back; Serena just questions him further with a lot of skepticism, and when Sora outright says that he's on their side, Serena is surprised (and seems to accept it somewhat). This is another example that Serena doesn't let her judgements remain set in stone. She allows someone who she thought was terrible, like Sora, to explain himself and prove that he's an ally. Serena has broken out of refusing to listen to others like she did in Season 1 with Dennis.

This also implies that Serena doesn't hate Academia's soldiers; rather, she just holds a very intense disdain for them and what they do.

And remember, Sora is pretty much the closest to Yuri in terms of being a reprehensible person. But to refuse hearing Sora out and forgive him (and explicitly be on good terms with him in Duel Links) would be extremely hypocritical of Serena, because so many people have done the same for her. People like Shun, who have every right to hate Serena forever for who she used to be despite her conditioning, but is now on very good terms with her in Duel Links.

And then there is how she reacts to Yuri.

I'll admit, I was always a bit puzzled by this scene, because I expected a lot more hostility from Serena—some demands for Yuri to not mess with her, or to shut up, or something like she did with Sora. Yuri's in control of the Obelisk Force, for crying out loud. He's very obviously a special enforcer who reports directly to Leo, yet all Serena can muster is repeating his words and giving a scowl here and there. Anyone explicitly tied to Academia immediately garners her hostility, yet with Yuri, Serena just seems confused. And surprised at his dragon. I still can't find a good explanation for her behavior here that isn't simply a headcanon.

The most I can think of that isn't just her feeling a connection to him a la Bracelet Girl and Yu-boy magic is that she recognizes him from when they were kids in Yuri's flashback sequence. (Either is technically possible, but I'm trying to not let my bias for this ship affect this analysis LOL.)

I bring this scene up because Serena has a strange lower level of hostility towards Yuri, and because there is a sprite of nerve gas Serena in Duel Links's internal files, which suggests that this scene may be expounded upon when Yuri finally gets added and can talk to her.

This reaction from Serena also ties into when she finally mentions Yuri in Duel Links. And come on, Serena smiles when talking about Yuri. She's aware of his faults, and was targeted by him to be brought back to Academia, but her reaction towards Yuya mentioning him is nowhere near as hostile as when Sora asks about Leo.

In the Japanese version, Serena's line is a bit different; she says Yuri is someone she doesn't know well, but well, he'll come eventually when he feels like it. Either way, she's not fussed about him like she is with Leo. She doesn't express any dislike towards him coming at all.

We can go into all the characterization reasons for why Serena can't hate Yuri, but if this isn't a blatant confirmation of it, then I don't know what is.

At this point, I realize that it sounds like Serena can't hate Yuri but that her forgiveness towards him will be swift. And I want to assure that I definitely do not think that will be the case.

I think Serena's handling of Sora is good insight into how Serena will treat Yuri. In short, Yuri must show regret for his actions and strive to do better. If he does, then I think Serena will outstretch an understanding/friendly hand towards him. She has a very intimate understanding of the conditioning he went through by Leo's hand, after all. But if Yuri doesn't show remorse, I think Serena will be disapproving of him, while also keeping her understanding that this is how both Leo and Zarc made him in her head.

Between the two, I think the first option is a lot more likely.

I could cite the ending of Arc-V, where Yuri has a strange off-screen redemption and shares a smile with Serena in the last episode, but I hesitate to because Duel Links is actively rectifying many of the fans' complaints about the ending. I honestly don't know if they're going to keep that smile or not. I do believe that Yuri's redemption is an integral part of his character arc, however, and that Duel Links will focus a lot on it. Yugo's dialogue with Sora sort of implies this:

In the Japanese version, Yugo says that he doesn't want revenge because they were one until very recently, though it still has the implication that he got to know Yuri in that state.

I also think that with this knowledge that Yugo got to know Yuri, we're going to have additional insight on what pushed Yuri to embrace Zarc completely. Yuri's character depth is very shown and not told, but it's implied that he was desperate to become with his counterparts because he was so tired of being alone. Everything Yuri went through in Academia was enough to sway his #1 hater, in any case. It's likely that these deeper aspects of Yuri may be revealed with Serena as well, as she may be wanting to push for details of his life, but that's speculation.

Yuri's redemption in Duel Links seems eminent, and if he shows the resolve to change for the better and acknowledge his wrongdoings, I'm fairly certain that Serena will view him positively.

Redemption, forgiveness, and acceptance is a central theme in all the Fusion characters' arcs, after all.

[xcaptain-winterx]

Vincent ven Google

dad!Lloyd Hansen x reader

summary: who would have thought that you can see a sunshine during the night

warnings: consuming drugs, weed, alcohol, fluff, slight smut, Lloyd being an asshole

a/n: English is not my first language, meaning you will probably find a lot of misspelling etc.. This is when they both were in Harvard, so way before having LJ

Main Masterlist Daddy Sociopath Masterlist

The music is heard over the whole campus, it would be no surprise if someone will later come to tell them to shut the music off, but no one would give a single fuck about that. There are people drinking and playing beer pong, it’s always entertaining to see the newbie’s trying alcohol for the first time. Others are chilling in the couch, smoking a ton of weed and looking like they just opened their third eye. Then we have the students who are dancing to the music, and we can’t forget the girls who are rubbing their ass against the jocks crotch. Now, there are also the frat guys who are fucking blond cheerleaders who wear tight skirts with no panties and a top that is showing too much cleavage.

Lloyd is one of those frat guys.

He’s currently fucking the new cheerleaders pussy from behind in the upstairs hallway, not caring that someone could catch them.

“Ohhhh, daddy, yes”, the cheerleader moans as Lloyd goes faster

“You like when daddy fucks that tight pussy” he wraps his hand around her throat “you should be grateful that I’m giving you the whole length”.

Lloyd is THE playboy of Harvard, he has a girl for each day of the week and doesn’t hide it. The girls at Harvard know who he is and how he is, which leads to them trying to get his attention. The most successful are the cheerleaders. Who else. Lloyd takes advantage of all of them and no one cares. Normally he makes them suck his dick, for example in the locker room, under the bleachers, even in the back during a lecture. If Lloyd likes the girl in a ‘she’s popular, has nice cherries and a juicy ass’ way, he will give them the D.

“Lloyd”, Denny says, standing on purpose on the stairs, so he doesn’t have to see Lloyds ass, “the boys are going to play beer pong now, so hurry up!”

“Is Suzanne downstairs?” Lloyd slaps the girls ass as she whines because of the missing attention.

Denny sighs “yes”

“I think our newbie here can take a round two, can’t you” a smirk crosses his face as he tightens his grab around her neck “you can join us if you want” Lloyd laughs, knowing exactly that Denny is counting to ten to calm down.

“Just hurry up” he says before walking back downstairs, trying to ignore the sound of their skins slapping together. Denny isn’t really a frat boy, he doesn’t sleep around each day or wants to fuck every girl he sees. That doesn’t mean, though, that he doesn’t use some girls too. He’s not completely like Lloyd.

“Ahhhhhh”, the cheerleader manages to get out as she cums, creaming his dick. She sacks together completely blissed out from the orgasms, Lloyd is not done, though, he continues to fuck her, using her like a rag doll.

He cums with a deep growl, “fuck, that’s a good pussy” he slaps her sensitive pussy, making her let out a painful yelp. Lloyd lets her go, and she sinks to the floor, cum covering her thighs and mascara running down her cheeks. “might want to cover up unless you want everyone to see that baby cunt of yours”

He puts his dick back in his pants before walking over to the hallway mirror to fix some messed up hair strands. It takes him about 5 minutes for about 3 strands and once he is finished he looks down at the panting cheerleader, “you better grab a pregnancy test tomorrow, can’t have you getting fat.”

She looks up at him with a confused expression, “huh?”.

“The last newbie was getting fat, and just so your little dumb brain understands, that means pregnant. So get a fucking test tomorrow, can’t have a burden constantly following me. Stress makes you age faster, did you know that? I can’t walk around looking like a raisin” he gives her one last look before walking downstairs, leaving the trembling girl alone.

The smell of weed immediately hits his nostrils, he doesn’t know who brought the stuff, but he knows it’s the good stuff.

“Look who’s finally here!”, he hears one of his teammates scream, “so, the newbie, huh”, clapping on his shoulder.

Lloyd laughs, “did Denny told you that or were we too loud” he gives Denny who is standing on the other side of the kitchen counter a wink.

“We saw her rubbing her thighs together when she saw you and then you both went missing. Just had to put two and two together”, pulling out a notebook he goes “there is only one thing that matters right now”

Denny gives an evil smile as Lloyd pulls out a Polaroid photo. The picture is showing the new cheerleader, sucking Lloyds dick, perfectly capturing her tear-stained face. “Gentlemen, we found the Harvard slut of the week!”

The guys start cheering at that, laughing as Lloyd puts the picture on a new side, “girl really thought she would be tough enough for the whole packet. Tight pussy and no brain, she won’t survive the year”, he writes all of it down on the side before closing it and giving it to Denny, “she’s still upstairs, could use a bit of help, boys”

“Now that your finished I can have a taste” Danny says walking away “you better be right about this pussy, don’t want another Pacifica around my dick”

Lloyd smirks, grabbing a beer and looking around the room, scowling when he can’t see the other law student “where’s Andrew? Cheating on his girlfriend two with hookup six or girlfriend five?”, drinking the beer “boy is a real player”

“As if you aren’t, man. I think he’s looking for our junior drug lord, Andy wants something stronger”

“HA” Lloyd goes, “something happened to our good boy?” they know that Lloyd doesn’t give a single shit, but he still likes to hear what Andrew is so sad about that he needs something strong from Junior.

“A birdie told me that girlfriend two is pregnant”.

Lloyd faces him, “fuck, bitch really got a bun in the oven” he finishes his before letting out a laugh “Barber will be the first of us to carry baby seats and all of that shit. Let me guess, she’s keeping it”. The reaction the other frat gives him confirms it.

“Whore”

Lloyd and the others frat talk a bit more and look who would be another good fuck for this night. Looking around the room the choices are not bad. We have the cheerleaders who are already looking at them, hoping they will get their attention and their dick. The mean girls who are always in a group and making nasty remarks about everyone who walks by, and on the couch we have the girls who are already so fucking high that they would pass out the second they got a dick in them.

Lloyd looks around the room for another second before deciding to get some fresh air. He pushes through the people, not giving a single shit about anyone. Once he reached the door, he opens it and steps on the porch.

The chilly air greets him, making him shutter for a split second, that’s probably the reason no one’s outside. As much as Lloyd wants to deny it sometimes he loves some alone time where it’s just him and no one else. He’s to lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice the person, sitting on the porch some feet away from him.

“You good?” a soft voice asks.

Lloyd almost jumps at the sudden noise, “Jesus fucking crist!” Lloyd says, turning to look at the source of the voice, finding a girl sitting on the floor.

“I think that’s a no” you say, giving him a smile.

He looks at you and takes in your attire. Some flared jeans with what looks like paint on them, a pastel purple shirt, a matching pastel purple cardigan and some Nikes who also seemed to have paint on them. “You know, you are not suppose to talk to stranger, little girl”

You give him another smile, “well we both go to Harvard, so we technically know each other”

“I don’t think that’s how it works. We only know each other if you had some playtime with Lloyd junior and I don’t think that’s the case” Lloyd says, pulling out a joint.

You give him a pout before clearing your throat, “ok, I’m y/n”, not getting any reaction from him as he searches for a lighter. “Here”, you say throwing your lighter at him.

Catching it before it lands in his face, “fuck, watch out. I don’t want to lose a fucking eye”

“I had trouble focusing for a second”

Lloyd looks at you confused, stepping a bit closer he can make out your dilated pupils. That explains why you are smiling at him almost the entire time he’s been talking to you. “You are high as fuck, aren’t you?”

“Jup” you before, giggling.

A smirk forms on his face. He lights up his joint, while still looking at you, “how much did you have?”, he ask, wondering if you are a newbie.

“This is my first”, you say holding up your hand, showing Lloyd the joint.

A laugh escapes his mouth. You are definitely a newbie. “You are this high from just half a joint. You shouldn’t act like a big girl” he mocks you, finding the situation amusing.

Your smile turns into a smirk, “I don’t act, I am one”

Lloyd walks closer to you and crouches beside you, making you feel his breath on your face “let me guess, you are new. I mean you have to be.” he touches your cardigan “you are wearing this thing, meaning that you haven’t been bullied, yet, otherwise you would have thrown it in the trash. Also, I haven’t seen you before and let me tell you, I know who goes to Harvard because I decide who gets bullied or not”, he says the last sentence with a dark tone. “And you don’t seem to have any friend because if you had some you would be with them and not out here alone with this sketchbook or whatever that thing is”, Lloyd says pointing at the one in your lab, giving you a dark smile.

You look at him for a second, biting the inside of your cheek, as your eyes start to water. Lloyd sees that and gets excited for the tears that are about to run down your cheeks. Shocking Lloyd, though, you begin laughing. You laugh so hard that tears come out of your eyes.

“What’s so fucking funny!”, he’s frustrated, that wasn’t his plan.

You wipe your tears and try to calm down, which is hard because the angry face he’s making is hilarious. Calming a bit down, you go, “I’m not new, I’ve been here for about 3 years now”. Lloyd studies your face, not seeing anything that shows that you are lying. “And just so you know” you continue, “I’m outside, alone because I didn’t plan on sharing”

“What, your nasty old joint?” he snarled.

You can’t hide your giggle.

The porch creaks when you move to sit straight, showing the ‘brownies’ on a little plate next to you, “Nope, no nasty old joints”

Lloyd raises his eyebrows, that definitely makes more sense than being that high from one joint, “that are a lot of brownies for one person”

“that is a lot of cologne for one person”

Lloyd lets out a laugh, “that mouth is going to get you in trouble at some point”

“I can take care of myself”, you say with confidence.

You truly seem to always be optimistic about everything.

It’s silent for a minute, no one makes a single sound. The only sound coming from the loud music inside. Lloyd is the first to break the silence.

“Give me a Brownie”, Lloyd sees the teasing grin you give him, knowing that you will say no, but he doesn’t care, he wants one, “now”

You scratch your chin, acting like you need to think about it, “hmm, I don’t know. I mean, I can’t give stranger’s something sweet, that would not look good”

“What if I show you my dick” he gives you a cocky smile. “Show you the big boy and if you’re a good girl you even get to touch it. If you give me the whole plate, I will let you even have some fun with him in-“

“I’m not into shorties”

Lloyd looks at you like you grew another head. Did you really talk bad about Lloyd junior? About his dick?

He growls and grabs your face, turning you towards him, his rich cologne now directly hitting your nostrils. If you weren’t so high, you would’ve been maybe a bit intimidated, but those brownies are fucking magic.

“Don’t say that ever again or I’m goi-“ he gets cut off again when you shove a brownie in his mouth and then hold your hand over his mouth, so he can’t curse you out. He mumbles something under your hand with the brownie still in his mouth. You shush him until he just gives you a defeated growl.

Once you’re sure he swallowed, you pull your hand away, “happy?, you ask, wiping your hand against your pants to get rid of some of Lloyds spit.

He looks at you like if you just told him he’s in timeout. It’s actually really cute.

The face Lloyd gives you is indescribable, it’s something between wanting to slap you or fuck you. But he would never fuck someone like you.

He surprises himself, “thanks”. The last time he said thanks was probably when he was 7 and got forced by his parents to say it when someone gave him a free pair of Christmas socks.

You looked at him, confused as to why you didn’t hear sarcasm or something similar.

“Giv-..Can I have another one..please” Lloyd asks and not demands.

You give him a kind smile, waiting for a second to see if he is planning something before putting the plate in front of Lloyd. “want to share?” you ask

Now it’s Lloyds turn to hesitate to see if you’re planning something. He looks in your eyes before deciding, “fuck it, ok”.

Somehow he feels happy when you give him the biggest smile, like a sudden warmness spreads through his chest. He goes to sit down next to you before quickly standing back up. “I’m not sitting there” and points at the wood.

Confusion crosses your face. “why?”

Have you seen how dirty that shit is?! I rather take the risk of falling down the railing than the risk of getting a splinter into my ass. Oh, and also the fact that my pants are going to be fucking dirty!”

What a baby

“Ok, calm down” you pull off your cardigan and carefully put it next to you, pulling it so Lloyds ass fits on it. “now sit”.

Lloyd looks at you and the cardigan until he finally sits down on it without protesting about how cheap it is if you can put it on the dirty ass wood. He thinks about thanking you, but decides against it and instead grabs a brownie.

About 30 minutes later and 4 brownies less on the plate, you are both laying on the floor next to each other, not caring about getting the clothes dirty.

“The stars are sooooo bright, I think I will go blind” Lloyd says as he continues to look up, completely in trance.

“There is a roof above us” you say laughing,

Lloyd just turns to you with a shocked expression, “since when?” he says in a confused whisper.

You stare at him, “I don’t know, it was just there”

“Probably magic”

Lloyd definitely didn’t expect to spend the night with someone who had apparently been unnoticed by him for three years and who is completely high. The more he thinks, the more scared he gets because he doesn’t understand how and why he is spending time with you and not with some hot bitch in some random guys bedroom.

“So” Lloyd begins, trying to act not high “what are you here for” cringing at how dumb that sounds.

“I want to have a major in art history, well, I will have a major in Art history” you say, with such confidence like you know you will leave Harvard with one.

“What about you?” you say, looking back up to the roof.

“Criminal justice, I’m going to be a lawyer after Harvard”

Silence

“Bitch, what the fuck”, you say, turning your head to him, “You, a lawyer?”

Lloyd begins to laugh like a maniac. He throws his head hard against the floor, “I will be one when I grow up”. It’s hilarious if he thinks about it actually, him a lawyer. Maybe he’s going to change his thoughts about what he’s going to be eventually. Something around sport perhaps or just being able to hit something. He plays football after all and he definitely doesn’t hold back on the field.

Now it’s your turn to start laughing like crazy, just the thought of Lloyd in a suit and a briefcase in hand. God, he would also have to get rid of his asshole expression. This guy looks like he would bully you for being his client. Though, maybe he would be a good one, he already is more likable than 30 minutes ago.

You stop laughing when you feel him getting on top of you, caging you in and looking deep into your eyes. Your noses are almost touching, his breath hitting your lips and you feel yourself getting lost in his piercing sapphire eyes, but before you can say anything, he reaches for your sketchbook on the opposite side.

He quickly gets off of you once he has it and puts on his asshole expression again.

“What are you doing?” you ask as he opens the book.

“What does it fucking look like? I want to look at the pictures”

“You mean sketch-“

“That’s what I said!” Lloyd stops when he takes a look at them. They are beautiful. Even though he can’t focus 100% it still looks so detailed, each pencil stroke precisely. The book is filled with sketches of landscapes, building and people. He stops when he comes across a sketch of someone.

“Is that Carmichael?”, Lloyd asks. Do you know him? Are you two friends? Why did you draw him? Lloyd suddenly feels jealous and angry, but why?

You look at the page, “yes, I saw him in the library”

“And you just drew him?”, normally Lloyd would’ve made a comment about how he can’t believe that Denny would actually be in a library, but right now he only cares about why he’s in this book. The way you must have concentrated while drawing him and how you examined every detail of his face before putting it on paper.

“Yes”, you say, reaching for another Brownie, “I really wanted to sketch him when I saw him”

Lloyds jaw begins to clench“Why?”

You get a bit closer to him, so that your arms are touching and then whispers“I thought he looked pretty, but don’t tell him that”

That’s it

“I’m pretty too!” he barks, not believing how you could find Denny attractive.

“Stop that, I’ve never seen you before back then”

“That is no excuse for not sketching this masterpiece”, Lloyd replies, and points at himself.

You put the half eaten brownie back on the plate and snatch your sketchbook from him. “ok”, holding the book above your face, you grab the attached pencil and start drawing thin lines.

“What are you doing?”Lloyd sits up, but immediately gets pulled down again by your hand grabbing the collar of his cream-colored sweatshirt.

“Don’t move, please”

Lloyd listens and lays back. He watches you concentrating on the sketch, and how you frown when you get to the details. He for the first time really looks at you too, from your beautiful lashes, the tiny beauty marks, your soft skin to your plump lips, especially your lips. “You better not ruin my face”, he says.

Quickly looking at him before turning back to your sketch, “I’ll promise I get your good side”, giving him a small smile.

He scoffs, “pff, I don’t have a bad one, this man next to you is pure art”, raising an eyebrow at you when you turn to look “I’m a masterpiece”

You throw your head back and a laugh escapes you. How can this boy be so ‘cute’ and arrogant at the same time? “well definitely not a Van Gogh, though”

“Ven gOogle?” Lloyd questions the consuming of the brownies showing.

“Noooo”, you answer, “Van Gogh, Vincent van Gogh was a famous painter. He was a Dutch painter who used art to escape the reality. He painted the world how no one has ever done before. Van Gogh used the pain of his life to create magnificent art, though no one else liked it. People weren’t a fan of it, but that didn’t stop him from continuing” even, though, your high you can still talk about art as if you’re wide awake, and because you’re talking, you don’t realize how Lloyd actually listens to what you are saying. He’s actually listening and not just there, thinking that he rather wants to drink, fuck or just roll his eyes.

“Done”, you sit up and show him the sketch.

Lloyd has seen a lot of things in his life that made his ego boost, starting from the acceptance to Harvard, winning against Yale for the first time, getting a blowjob during class, making a girl pass out from just fingering her. This is different, though, very different, but he doesn’t know why. Maybe because someone admired his face that long or that his beauty is now on paper, or that his drawing is better than the one from Carmichael. Definitely not because you drew him though.

No.

Not because of that.

It doesn’t matter that you drew him.

He gets pulled out of his thoughts when you ask, “do you like it”. Oh boy, how much he wants to say yes and tell you that it’s amazing. No one ever did something like that for him as far as he knows, and even if, Lloyd knows that this would be his favorite one. The drawing showing him laying with his head turned to you and a smile on his face, that he didn’t know he had. Lloyd is sure that there’s nothing more beautiful in this world, and he’s not only talking about the drawing.

Lloyd looks at you and thinks about what he’s going to say. Should he be honest and tell you he’s fascinated by it?

“My lips are not that crusty”, he decides against honesty.

“They are”, you say.

“They are not! Why do you think everyone wants to kiss those plump cushions? You can see for yourself if you want”, Lloyd says, looking at your lips now. Quickly moving his gaze when he realizes what he’s doing.

You give him a look, “those dick sucking lips are definitely a bit crusty”

Lloyd is not happy, “I’m not a fucking crop top wearing gay asshole, you-“, once again he gets cut off by your hand over his mouth.

“I’m just kidding”, you say, giggling at his reaction.

He takes your hand away and huffs, “that’s not funny”. He doesn’t like men, he likes girls, pretty girls, hot girls, juicy ass girls, big breast girls, skinny girls, and an artist-NO.

You roll your eyes, men always get so grumpy when someone makes a joke. “You could use some chapsticks, they will definitely make your lips look even more kissable”, you say without thinking it through. More kissable?

You put your sketchbook away, hoping that this might give you a few seconds to calm down. Maybe he didn’t even notice the last part.

He did, and his cocky smirk is back. Not only that, though, also a small blush too, “that’s for girls and not for men”, Lloyd tries to hide the fact that you made him blush.

You lay back, looking at the ceiling, not being brave enough to look at him again, “it’s good for your lips, that doesn’t mean that you have to buy one with color”

“I think about it”, Lloyd smiles, turning to look at the ceiling too, “you are quite nice, you know?”

There is the blush again, “I just want to treat people like how I would want to be treated”

“What if they are mean even though you were nice?”

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t want to treat people in a bad way. They don’t deserve that. It’s not important if they don’t like me”

You feel a hand softly grabbing your chin, pulling your head to the left. Those beautiful sapphire eyes staring directly into yours again.

“You are a true sunshine”, Lloyd hates the thought of anyone being mean to you. Why would someone?

“What?”

Still touching your face he goes, “you are being nice to me even, though, I threatened you and now you are telling me how I could take better care of my lips.”, he cringes when he realizes what cheesy stuff he’s saying, “you better stop being like that, the world is to bad for that and no one gives a shit about a ‘nice’ person, nothing will change. You really think you could change people to be nicer because that’s bullshit”

A sad smile crosses your face, “I think that one can bring out the best of someone. Not ten or twenty, just one. They will have a connection like no other.” the music completely drowned out, it’s only you two in that moment “maybe they will be best friends, family”

“or lovers?”, Lloyd asks.

“Yes, or lovers, soulmates”

“whatever you say”, Lloyd gets closer, moving his hand to touch your cheek and the other on your waist, “sunshine”.

Lloyd doesn’t care that the devil on his shoulder is telling him to get the fuck away from you. He stares at your lips, and slowly leans in-

“OH FUCK”

Lloyd immediately sits up, a flash of panic in his eyes that someone saw what he was about to do. The devil on his shoulder laughing at what Lloyd is thinking.

There laying at the end of the stairs is Andy, completely intoxicated and hurt by missing the stairs. An annoyed growl leaves Lloyd. Andy almost gave him a heart attack.

Lloyd looks at you and your soft expression, he feels anger arise in him. He’s mad that he almost turned soft and made the mistake of kissing you, and not because he didn’t kiss you because of Andy.

Right?

[strangerstilinski]

SELENOPHILES OF BEACON HILLS | Teen Wolf Rewrite

Stiles Stilinksi/Original Female Character

chapter six

fic summary; after an already traumatic evening involving the unfortunate discovery of a gruesome scene, amber is convinced to hike through the woods with her two best friends in search of the other half of a dead body. but it's not as if she could ever say no.. not when stiles looked at her like that.

chapter word count; 15,008

chapter notes; the alpha throws a dangerous wrench in amber's plans for a girl's movie night, and lydia is left mildly traumatized by the events. scott goes awol. amber gets her first glimpse of kate argent. parent teacher conferences get a little crazy thanks to a *ahem* mountain lion.

masterlist

c h a p t e r   s i x

the tell

In the backseat of Mrs. Martin's Volkswagen, Amber was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at the vacant passenger seat that she'd thought she would be sitting in. Lydia had borrowed her mother's vehicle for the evening and Amber let her eyes travel over to where the strawberry blonde sat behind the wheel of the car.

"Hey, what did you do with all those balloons, anyway?" Amber questioned suddenly, leaning forward in her seat and tucking a lock of her ashy brown hair behind her ear. She'd nearly forgotten about the favor she'd done for Lydia that afternoon.

"I hid them in Allison's locker for her birthday." Lydia smiled, turning onto the next street. "Thank you for picking them up, I couldn't get the car until my mom got home."

"Oh!" Amber said in surprise at the new information, "Yeah, it was no problem." She smiled as she recalled how Stiles had slapped at the balloons in annoyance as they floated around the inside of the Jeep. He'd agreed to drive her back to the school that afternoon so she could hand them off to Lydia, and he had been very vocal about his regrets.

Amber's smile was wiped away and replaced with a frown when they turned to park in Jackson's driveway. The girls waited for him to come out to the car so that he could join in on what Amber had thought was supposed to be a girl's movie night.

"I still cannot believe you invited Jackson to our movie night," Amber hissed as Jackson opened the front door and stepped out onto the stoop.

"Oh, come on, babe-" Lydia sang, glancing at her friend in the rearview mirror, "It's one movie night. And besides, Jackson's been acting really strange since last week.. I couldn't say no."

Amber thought back to the look of sickening fear on Jackson's face after Derek had shoved him against the lockers a week before. She sighed, settling back into her seat as Jackson pulled the passenger door open.

"Hey," Jackson said to his girlfriend, dropping into the seat and leaning across the center console to peck Lydia on the lips. "Amber." He greeted her with a grimace before turning to buckle his seatbelt.

"Hi, Jackson." Amber said as politely as she could manage as Lydia pulled out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the video rental store. She absently picked at a loose thread on her jeans for a few minutes before breaching the silence, "So, what movie are we gonna get?"

"Here me out," Jackson started, turning to face Lydia with his hands up in a placating gesture, "I have a movie that I think all three of us will enjoy-"

"What kind of movie?" Amber asked, leaning forward in her seat in interest.

Jackson sighed at the question, "Okay, so it's a Drama.." He hedged slowly.

"And?" Lydia prompted, raising an eyebrow.

"And also a sports movie-"

"No."

"Lydia, c'mon!" Jackson pleaded, "It's really good!"

"No." Lydia repeated as she slowly turned into the parking lot, "We are not watching some stupid movie about football or whatever."

"No," Jackson argued, "Hoosiers is not only the best basketball movie ever- It is the best sports movie ever made."

"No." Lydia blinked, unimpressed as she put the car in park.

"It's got Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper." Jackson defended.

"Who?" Amber asked from the backseat. Jackson quickly turned to shoot daggers at her with his eyes and she frowned in apology, leaning back in her seat.

"No." The redhead said again, continuing to stare out the windshield.

"Lydia, I swear to god you guys are gonna like it-"

"No."

"I am not watching The Notebook again!" Jackson said angrily. Lydia turned her head toward her boyfriend slowly and said nothing but she gave him a sinister smile.

Jackson took a deep frustrated breath and huffed loudly through his nose, getting out of the car and slamming the door closed behind him. He made his way into the video store and Amber unbuckled her seatbelt, moving to go in with him.

"I'll just.. Go and make sure he grabs something decent."

Amber trailed in a few seconds behind Jackson, and looked around the large room at all of the shelves holding different genres of movies. A phone was trilling loudly at the empty front desk and Amber sighed in annoyance as it just kept ringing, never going through to any sort of machine.

"Can somebody help me find The Notebook?" Jackson called out loudly and Amber snorted in amusement.

"I'm sure we can find something else." She laughed at him, squatting down to peer at the movie cases on the bottom shelf in the aisle labeled 'Romantic Comedies'.

"Hello?" Jackson called out again, walking past the aisle that had caught Amber's attention and moving further into the store, "Is anybody working here?" He sighed and the lights in the store flickered, drawing Amber's attention toward the ceiling. "You gotta be kidding me." Jackson mumbled.

Amber rose to stand and her eyes caught on the ladder that stood a few rows away. It was propped up beneath the flickering fluorescent light. She moved around Jackson and walked to stand underneath the hole in the ceiling, frowning in confusion. Someone had left the long light tube dangling down to rest on top of the ladder as if they'd stopped what they were doing mid-installation.

"Amber.." Jackson's voice was quiet as he took slow, measured steps toward her.

"What?"

The girl spun to face him and found his eyes were glued to the floor at the end of the aisle across from her. She turned her head to follow his eyeline and a scream slipped past her lips when she saw the full picture of what had caught Jackson's eye.

Jackson could see the feet that stuck out past the end of the shelf, but what was hidden inside the aisle was so much worse. There was a young man leaning against the shelf with his throat ripped out, the skin of his throat slashed from four long mangled cuts, blood dripped down to seep into his video store uniform shirt and leaving it stained a dark red. Worst of all, his eyes were open wide in unseeing fear behind his glasses.

Stumbling back in fright, Amber bumped into Jackson's chest just as he was coming to stand behind her. He reached up in an attempt to steady her with his hands on her arms but it was too late and the two of them fell backwards, tumbling into the ladder behind them. It crashed to the ground loudly, ripping the dangling light from the ceiling in the process and plunging the store into darkness.

"This can't be happening." Amber whined as Jackson pulled her up and steadied her on her feet again. Heavy, fear-filled breaths came from the boy beside her and the sound was only amplified by the way the lights flickered weakly in an attempt to come back on, the store remaining eerily dark.

There was a low growl from the darkest end of the store and Amber's head snapped up to look over Jackson's shoulder, a pair of glowing red eyes meeting her own from the darkest corner of the room.

"Jackson. Run." Amber whispered hurriedly, giving him a hard shove in the direction of the front door.

As soon as he had regained his footing, Jackson was turning back to grab her wrist, dragging her to squat down with him as he hid behind one of the shelves. They were both breathing too loudly, shaky exhales leaving their lips in quick bursts. Amber held a hand against her own mouth to muffle the sound as she peered out around the corner of the shelf slowly.

She looked back in the direction she'd seen the creature that she knew had to be the Alpha, something dark darting between the rows in a blur and rushing to the other side of the store with another low growl. A gasp escaped her at the sight of it and she retreated quickly back into the aisle, taking a few deep breaths.

The shelf the two were hiding behind shook against their backs and a handful of DVD cases rained down onto the ground around them. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and then another, and then another, and Amber belatedly realized it was the sound of the shelves knocking against one another as they toppled over like dominos down the row toward them.

"Shit-" Amber exclaimed, moving out of the aisle and pulling Jackson behind her. She slipped out of the way just as the shelf collapsed but the boy beside her was pinned underneath it from the waist down. "Oh my god! Jackson."

Amber tried in vain to lift the shelf off of the boy's legs but he was pinned not only by the weight of one, but the weight of all four of the shelves layered on top of one another. She groaned and lifted with all of her strength once again but the shelf only moved a couple of inches before she was forced to drop it back down again.

"Amber, just go-" Jackson pleaded.

Her stomach dropped at his words, "But-"

"Go." He hissed at her while attempting to pull himself free.

Amber whined miserably but rose to her feet. She looked up from the floor and her eyes widened at the sight of the beast now looming over Jackson's back. Its red eyes still glowed bright in the dark store as it reached down with a clawed, paw-like hand to pull at the collar of Jackson's jacket, leaning down to sniff at a newly exposed scab on the back of Jackson's neck.

She wasn't sure what it was smelling, but after a few seconds of huffing breaths over the boy's back, the Alpha rose to its full height again, towering over Amber by more than a foot. It was inhumanly tall, and black. Covered in thin, mangy fur. It had a horrifying, wolf-like face, its mouth pulled back to display dangerously sharp teeth as it snarled at her.

The Alpha took a menacing step forward and Amber countered it with one step back, her wide eyes glued to the creature in fear. Her hands shook as she slowly matched its steps in an attempt to keep the beast at a distance.

On her fifth step toward the back of the store, Amber stumbled over the ladder yet again where it had fallen to the ground and she tripped as her foot caught on the metal. She fell to the ground, catching herself on her elbows and gasping when the thin shards of glass from the broken light cut through the skin of her bare arms.

The Alpha leapt forward several feet until it loomed over her, leaning down to sniff at her in the same way it had done to Jackson just a few moments before. It sniffed at her hair first, huffing a hot, sneeze-like breath over the top of her head before it moved to sniff lower, breathing in and out at the collar of her tshirt. Amber whimpered quietly when its nose brushed against the skin of her throat but It moved to sniff lower again, stopping at a spot on the fabric that covered the center of her chest. It huffed another hot breath accompanied by a quiet growl before taking one step away from her.

Suddenly, the Alpha turned and took off in the direction of the front of the store, jumping straight through the large glass window with a loud crash and running into the dark of the night.

Amber remained on the floor for a moment and took a few slow, trembling breaths before her mind cleared and she frantically moved to untangle her legs from the ladder, more small shards of glass driven into the skin of her forearms as she struggled to get up.

"Jackson!" She called out as she got to her feet. She rushed back to the front of the store on shaky legs, "Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Would you just call someone strong enough to get me out from under here!" The boy snapped at her.

"I- Jeez, okay," Amber relented quietly, pulling out her cell phone to call 911, "I thought near-death experiences were supposed to bring people closer together, not turn them into bigger assholes." She muttered under her breath as she dialed the phone and exited the store.

As soon as she stepped foot outside, she caught sight of Lydia staring out the windshield with wide, fear-filled eyes and Amber hesitated as the operator picked up on the other end of the phone, aching to comfort her friend. She shook her head with a trembling breath, moving to the other end of the parking lot as she spoke to the woman on the phone and reported the dead worker. If she were far enough away, Amber hoped her friend wouldn't be able to overhear anything, so she paced at the edge of the pavement as she spoke, not wanting to scare Lydia any further.

When Amber hung up the phone with shaking fingers a few minutes later, she rushed back toward Lydia, finding her still in the same position that Amber had left her in, with fear-filled eyes glued to the empty space in front of her. Amber wrenched the car door open and knelt down onto the pavement to take Lydia's hands in hers.

"Lyds, babe-" Amber said softly, her voice only slightly shaky, "Are you okay?"

The redhead didn't speak, continuing to stare ahead of her still with wide, unblinking eyes and Amber sighed, taking a shallow breath and rubbing Lydia's cold hands softly between her own. She gently toyed with her friend's fingers while whispering quiet soothing words, hoping to pull her friend out of her state. Amber continued for several long minutes, time dragging in a haze before she spotted an ambulance pulling into the parking lot with flashing lights.

"I'll be right back, okay?" Amber told Lydia softly, still not getting a response.

Leaving the car door ajar, Amber made her way over to the ambulance just as three EMTs were exiting the vehicle, all rushing toward her with rapidfire questions until Amber pointed them all in the direction of the store.

"There's a worker dead inside," She told them past a lump in her throat, "And-And my friend Jackson, he's stuck under some shelves but- I wasn't strong enough to lift them."

They nodded and rushed inside, one of them heading to the back of the store where Amber knew the dead worker was still lying while the other two moved to free Jackson as quickly as possible.

Amber made her way back to the Volkswagen and enveloped one of Lydia's hands in her own again, standing just outside the driver's side door.

When two police cruisers pulled into the lot a few minutes later, the group of officers split off and spread out to cover the scene. One of the officers cautiously approached where the girls were waiting at the car and patiently began to ask Amber a long list of questions, collecting as much information from the frightened girl as he could.

"The animal, did you get a good look at it?" The officer questioned eventually.

"I, yeah, uh.. It got pretty close." Amber told him nervously.

"Do you think it could've been a mountain lion?" He asked her.

"A mountain lion." Lydia repeated quietly from inside the car.

"Uh, yeah, a mountain lion sounds right." Amber corroborated, squeezing Lydia's hand.

As soon as the shelves were lifted enough for him to slip out, Jackson rushed outside, shoving past the two paramedics in the store when they tried to check him for injuries. He made a beeline for Amber and Lydia just as a police officer a few yards away was lifting a hand in signal, the officer who had questioned them darting over to assist with something. Jackson shoved Amber out of the way when he got to the vehicle, his focus on where Lydia was still sitting inside the car. He leaned in to pull her from the vehicle, speaking to her softly.

Amber took a reluctant step back from the couple, turning to watch through the broken window as two of the EMTs and a coroner moved over toward the dead body while the third paramedic made his way back outside to check on the teens. The paramedic led Lydia and Jackson over to the back of the ambulance and waved for Amber to follow when he caught her gaze.

She joined them just as Lydia was being guided to sit at the end of the ambulance between the open doors and Amber rushed to her friend's side, squeezing in to stand beside Jackson.

The paramedic glanced back at Lydia for a moment before he spoke to Jackson and Amber quietly, "She's not responding due to shock.. That should wear off soon. But she's got some blood on her hands and clothes-"

"She's not bleeding." Amber assured him. Her eyes fell to the blood on the backs of Lydia's hands and shirt and Amber frowned in confusion.

"Miss.. Are you alright?" He asked her, finally taking a moment to look the brunette up and down in scrutiny.

"I'm fine." She told him impatiently, "Could you please just get her a blanket or someth-"

"You're bleeding." Jackson muttered into her ear.

"What?" Amber looked down at herself and her eyes caught on the large smudges of blood that trailed down the skin on the backs of her arms. Now that she was looking at the red stains, the glass embedded in her flesh suddenly stung painfully, "I-I forgot." She admitted quietly.

"It's because of the adrenaline. That happens a lot." The EMT assured her. He gently guided her to sit down beside Lydia, climbing into the back of the ambulance and moving around behind them in the space. He re-emerged a few moments later with tweezers, a small metal bowl, gauze, cotton balls, and rubbing alcohol.

Amber pressed her knee into Lydia's thigh and sat silently as the paramedic raised Amber's trembling right hand above her shoulder and began to pull tiny shards of glass from the back of her forearm. She winced with each piece that was tugged gently from her skin before being dropped into the metal dish beside her.

Jackson moved off to the side after a moment, mumbling something under his breath about calling both Lydia's parents and his own.

Amber watched through the colorful lights flashing in the parking lot while the police officers worked quickly to block off the building with yellow tape. They moved around methodically, speaking with one another and frequently speaking into the radios that were clipped onto their shoulders.

By the time Jackson returned, the paramedic had finished removing the glass in Amber's right arm and had moved on to clean the cuts with alcohol while she bit down her lip painfully at the sting it caused, trying not to pull away.

"I'm going to head out." Jackson announced, standing several feet away.

The EMT didn't look up from where he was tending to Amber's arm, "I'd still like someone to take a look at your head before you go-" He insisted for what must not have been the first time.

"No, I'm fine," Jackson snapped, "I'm not one of the people here who are dead or bleeding."

Amber looked up to give the boy a look of astonishment, "Jesus, Jackson. Way to be sensitive-"

A Sheriff's Department cruiser pulled into the parking lot just as Jackson was turning to face Amber with a dark look, "Oh, shut up, Callisto. You're the one who left me trapped in there-"

"I- You told me to!" Amber defended herself, wincing when the paramedic began to pull tiny shards of glass from her left arm.

"This is ridiculous! I'm not even injured," Jackson's voice rose as he argued with the paramedic who was still focussed pulling glass from Amber's skin, "Why the hell can't I just go home? I'm fine." His voice trailed off into something quieter as he finished speaking.

"I hear ya, but the EMT says you hit your head pretty hard," Sheriff Stilinski's voice cut in as he approached the group. His gaze caught on the brunette sitting at the back of the ambulance and he paused, frowning at her with worry for a moment before he re-focussed his attention on Jackson, "They just wanna make sure don't have a concussion."

"My god. Jackson, just let them look at your head. It'll take five minutes." Amber finally said, yelping when a particularly long piece of glass was pulled from the underside of her arm above her elbow.

"What part of 'I'm fine' are you people having a problem grasping?" Jackson asked, raising his voice again, "Okay? I wanna go home."

"And I understand that-" The Sheriff started gently.

"No, you don't understand! Which kind of blows my mind, since it should be a basic concept to grasp for a minimum wage rent-a-cop like you! Okay, Now I wanna go home!" Jackson yelled in the Sheriff's face.

Amber had heard enough. She pulled her arm out of the paramedics grasp with an angry snarl and closed the small distance between herself and Jackson with purpose, her fists clenched in rage, nails digging into the palms of her hands. She was only a second away from hitting the boy when Sheriff Stilinski stepped between them and gently pushed her back with his hands on her shoulders.

"Oh, woah! Is that a dead body!?" She heard Stiles' voice cut through the tension.

Her fury dissolved immediately and her head snapped around to see the boy standing at the passenger side of his dad's cruiser, his arms draped over the open door with an arm pointing in the direction of the store behind them.

The Sheriff gave his son a disappointed look and Stiles began to shrink back before his eyes landed on where his dad was releasing Amber's shoulders from his grip.

"Amber?" Stiles called out worriedly, slamming the car door shut as he stumbled over his own feet and jogged toward the back of the ambulance.

"Stiles," She sighed in relief at seeing her best friend, flinching in surprise when she felt the paramedic place a hand on her shoulder and guide her to sit still again, this time off to the side so that the other EMTs could wheel the dead body into the back. "Sorry," She apologized to the man quietly as he wordlessly lifted her arm and resumed with the tweezers.

"What happened?" Stiles asked in concern, looking her over and narrowing his eyes when another tiny piece of glass was plucked from her arm.

"I tripped?" She settled on in explanation for now. Her eyes flicked nervously over the large crowd of people that had filled the parking lot.

The paramedic began to wipe her cuts clean with alcohol again without warning and she winced, reaching out automatically to grip Stiles' hand in her free one.

Stiles looked at her worriedly while the paramedic wrapped gauze around her forearms before the man left the two teens alone. Stiles pulled gently on Amber's hand in his and tugged her away from the crowd to stand behind his father's car, leaning close to speak to her quietly, "Okay. So, what actually happened?"

She swallowed, tightening her grip on his hand, "The Alpha killed the video store clerk," She explained in a choked voice, "He chased me and Jackson but didn't hurt us at all. I-I don't know why-"

"Your arms?" He interrupted, eyes flicking down to her bandage injuries before meeting her own again.

"I tripped and fell in a little bit of glass from a broken light, it's fine," She assured him before continuing, "But the Alpha, it just- Smelled us both and then ran away."

He took a deep breath and she watched as he licked his lips in thought before his gaze dropped and paused on her chest, "Where did you get that shirt?" He asked.

She glanced down at the dark gray tshirt she was wearing. She'd tied the oversized shirt in a knot at the bottom, cropping it above the waistband of her jeans to reveal a strip of skin on her stomach.

"I don't know-?" She said honestly, "I was running late when Lydia picked me up and I just threw it on. It was in my room. I figure it's either yours or Scott's."

Stiles reached out to tug at the neckline, pulling it out to look at the tag sewed into the collar, "It's not mine," He confirmed, leaning back to look at the front of the shirt again, "Scott?"

"I don't- You don't think the reason the Alpha didn't kill me is because I smelled like Scott?" She asked nervously, heart rate picking up.

"Maybe," He replied, "But then, why didn't it kill Jackson?"

"I'm not sure." She furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at the boy in front of her.

The flickering red and blue lights from the emergency vehicles filtered over his face in a haunting way, the blinking glow bringing the ever-present queasy feeling from the knots in her stomach into a sudden focus.

Her eyes drifted back to the video store. The broken glass on the pavement in front of the large front window reflected the shining colors of the lights. The yellow crime scene tape flapped back and forth in places where officers were ducking underneath it to move in and out of the building. The tshirt she was wearing suddenly felt too heavy against her skin as she remembered the way the Alpha had sniffed it deeply before growling and exhaling a hot menacing breath over her.

"Amber?" Stiles called out quietly, his voice sounding oddly distant to her ears.

She belatedly realized that she wasn't entirely sure when she'd last taken a breath and she attempted to inhale deeply but her lungs barely managed to pull anything in before she was forced to exhale again with a sharp gasp. She tried again and found herself choking on the air as she sucked it in, looking up at Stiles with wide panicked eyes as she felt her chest tighten with anxiety at the lack of oxygen.

"Hey, you need to breathe." Stiles said gently, reaching up to rest his hands on her shoulders and rubbing his thumbs softly back and forth.

"I-" She started before gasping around another too-small inhale, "Stiles- I can't."

He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her tightly, cradling the back of her head and guiding her face into the crook of his neck in a practiced motion.

"Hey, listen to me," He said softly into her ear, "You're okay. I know you're scared, but I'm not gonna let anything happen to you ever again, y'hear me? You're okay-"

She gasped in a lungful of air and her whole body trembled when she exhaled against the warm skin of his neck.

He carded his fingers through her hair as he continued to murmur in her ear, "You're safe now. And I'm gonna keep it that way because- Because I'm the Batman of the group, yeah? You said so yourself. So, I'm gonna keep you safe." He promised quietly.

As he spoke, she finally managed to lift her hands from where they'd been hanging limply at her sides and she thrust them into the warmth beneath the fabric of Stiles' jacket and gripped desperately at his waist over the thin cotton of his shirt.

Every inhale filled her nose with the scent of him. The strongest thing she could smell was the lingering traces of his body wash, beneath that there was the laundry detergent from the collar of his shirt, and then a barely-there hint of sweat. She pushed her face further into his skin and breathed in the calming, familiar scents gratefully.

It took a few minutes, but her head slowly cleared, breathing evening out as more oxygen was pulled into her body. She continued to puff out warm breaths from her mouth, parted lips pressed into the soft skin of Stiles' neck. She focused on the sound of his voice, the gentle rhythm of his long fingers combing through her hair, his chest against hers.

"Yeah, y're okay," Stiles said softly, his mouth pressed close to her ear. He waited for her to take in a couple more deep, even breaths before his grip loosened around her shoulders, "Y'okay?"

"Yeah, I-" She let out an embarrassed laugh, speaking quietly, "I'm sorry."

"No, hey. Don't apologize, alright?" He combed his hand gently through her hair, pushing it back from her face.

"I don't know what happened, I just- I was thinking about the way it looked. The way it moved. The way it was so close that it could've ripped my throat out-"

"But it didn't, right? For whatever reason, it didn't. You're safe now." He assured her.

She took a deep breath and nodded just before Stiles' dad came to stand beside the pair. He squinted at her in scrutiny, "You doin' alright, Amber?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay now." She stepped out of Stiles' embrace but grabbed his hand in the process and interlaced their fingers.

"Alright. Well, I talked to the paramedic and he says you're all set to go home." The Sheriff told her.

"Good, cool." She nodded distractedly. Her mind raced with what she was going to say to her brother when she saw him, "Can we hold off on telling Jason about this until he's off shift?" Amber pleaded.

"No can do. I already called him-" The Sheriff told her. At her outraged squeak, he continued, "I'm sorry, kiddo, but it was out of my hands. You're a minor and you were injured at the scene of what we still have to consider a possible homicide."

"Oh, god." She whined, looking around the parking lot frantically as if Jason were about to appear out of thin air to yell at her.

"Not to mention this is the third time you've stumbled across a dead body in the last month-" The Sheriff frowned at her with a disappointed look that she was sure would rival the one she'd be getting from her brother at any minute. "I don't know what is going on with you kids, but this has gotta stop happening when you all are around. Y'hear me?"

Amber and Stiles both nodded.

"You're coming back to my place, right?" Stiles asked quietly into her ear when his dad was distracted by something happening behind them.

She nodded, whispering back, "Yeah, we need to talk to Scott ASAP and figure out what the hell-" She started before a faded red pickup truck caught her eye coming down the dark street.

When Jason's truck turned into the parking lot, it did so in a rush, coming to a stop just behind the Sheriff's cruiser without bothering to pull into a parking space. He flew out of the vehicle, rushing toward them, and his hands went to cup Amber's shoulder and the side of her head as soon as he was close enough to grab her.

She watched her brother huff out a relieved breath as he verified that she was mostly unharmed and she released her grip on Stiles' hand to stepped forward and pull Jason into a hug.

"I'm fine, I'm okay." She attempted to reassure him.

When she stepped back from the embrace, Sheriff Stilinski had pulled Stiles away, leaving the siblings to talk in privacy.

"What happened?" Jason asked her firmly.

"Um, they think a mountain lion might've gotten inside the store somehow before we got here.. It attacked the worker. Then it knocked some shelves over on top of Jackson, and I tripped trying to get away but- It, um, it just ran off."

"You're damn lucky it did," He told her, smoothing the hair at the side of her head down flat. His own hazel eyes went to the scene around them and he took a deep breath before letting it out slowly, "How are you feeling though? Really. Must be shaken up?"

"I- Yeah. I-I am. Shaken." She admitted quietly.

"I'd be worried if you weren't," He said with a small smile, squeezing her shoulder firmly in reassurance, "You ready to get out of here?"

"Can I- Would it be okay if I slept at Stiles' house tonight?" She asked nervously.

"Do I need to remind you what happened the last time I let you go to a friend's house right after something like this?" Her brother questioned. The cool and calm attitude he'd displayed since he arrived at the scene seemed to fade into something more panicked and Amber shrunk back under his gaze but she didn't speak, so he carried on, "You went out in the woods to look for the other half of a dead body. And I didn't find out until Noah Stilinski called to tell me about it almost two weeks later," He paused to take a breath, "And that was before we knew it was just an animal attack! For Christ's sake, Amber. You're killing me here."

She figured it would be in her best interest to let him get it all out at once, so still, the girl deigned not to speak. She chewed her lower lip and glued her eyes to a small stain on the collar of her brother's tshirt until he filled the silence again.

"You keep finding dead bodies, and you're trespassing on private property to get my old classmates arrested for suspected murder, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do to keep you out of trouble," Jason sighed, "Would things be different- If I didn't work so much? I'll leave the station if you want me to- I will. I can find a regular nine to five and-"

"No!" She interrupted quickly, "Jay, c'mon you love being a fireman." The girl reached up to rest her fingers over the hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry about digging up the Hale property and getting Derek arrested — I really am." She promised him.

He sighed after a moment and held a hand out, gesturing toward his parked truck, "Home tonight. Okay?"

"Okay." She agreed, following him toward the vehicle. She cast a final look back toward where Stiles was standing a couple yards away, waving to him sadly as she went.

The boy gave her a small reassuring smile in understanding and waved back just as she was climbing up into the truck. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she dropped her head back against the headrest with a sigh.

The next morning, after a fitful night's sleep, Amber was dropped off at school unreasonably early before Jason had to be back at the station. Her brother had insisted on giving her a ride, and after seeing the pleading look on his face, Amber couldn't help but agree.

The first bell wouldn't ring for another hour, so Amber wandered into the library to work on an English paper that wasn't due for another week. She managed to nail down her outline and wrote a few hundred words before she noticed a handful of students milling around the library, returning and checking out books, and she suddenly realized that there were only ten minutes left until the first bell.

Collecting her things in a rush, Amber made her way through the halls, pausing when she saw Allison just a few steps away from her locker. Amber smiled in giddy excitement and plastered herself to a locker beside the girl, leaning against it casually.

Allison gave her a sweet smile, "Hey, Amber." The girl seemed to pause in thought before her face set in determination, "Can I ask you about something that's been bothering me?"

"Yeah, of course." Amber agreed immediately.

"Why was Derek at the school last week?" Allison asked, her eyes downcast.

"Um," Amber started, struck dumb by the question, "He was- Looking for me."

"Mm, how come?" Allison questioned, fingering at the edge of her leather jacket.

"He- He wasn't feeling well, so-" Amber struggled to come up with a believable lie on the spot, "Stiles and I ended up giving him a ride to the doctor's office."

"Okay-" Allison responded slowly after a few seconds passed, "And you and Derek aren't still- Y'know?"

"No, no, we're not." Amber said quickly, "Just- Friends? Sort of."

Allison nodded, pursing her lips. She looked like she was about to ask another question so Amber deflected quickly.

"So.. Birthday girl," Amber started, grinning when Allison's eyes went wide and glanced around them to see if anyone had overheard, "How does it feel to be sixteen?"

"I- Uh, I'm actually turning-" Allison looked around them worriedly again before whispering, "Seventeen." Amber went to speak but Allison held up a finger to the girl's lips before speaking again, "Please don't tell anyone. It's always a huge thing when people find out-"

Amber laughed, pulling Allison's finger away from her lips, "Why is being seventeen such a big deal?" She asked, "Stiles turns seventeen in two months."

Allison seemed surprised at this, "Really?"

"Yeah," Amber said, "I mean, he was held back in elementary sc-"

Allison sighed loudly, "That's exactly what I'm worried about people thinking."

"Who cares?" Amber asked her, "People get held back. It happens. Being held back doesn't mean you're stupid or something." Amber said defensively.

"No, no, you're right." Allison said with a shake of her head, "I'm sorry."

Amber relaxed slightly, "It's okay."

Allison turned back toward her locker and moved to begin working the combination on the little purple padlock. When she got it undone, she pulled the door open and a cluster of colorful balloons tried to break free from the confined space. The girl frantically fought to push the balloons back inside and looked around with wide eyes while Amber laughed at her.

Pulling a small card from where it was magnetized to the inside of the door, Allison flipped it open and read the note inside.

"You and Lydia-" Allison began to whisper quietly before Scott approached them from the other side.

"Is it your birthday?" Scott asked innocently, pointing to where a balloon was about to drift free from Allison's locker yet again.

"No, no!" Allison said immediately, fighting with the balloons, "Uh, no. I mean, yes. Please don't tell anybody. I don't even know how Lydia and Amber found out."

Scott looked up at Amber with a wide eyed look of betrayal and she raised her hands in surrender, "I didn't know. Lydia asked me to bring her balloons after school yesterday and I did. She didn't tell me what they were for until last night."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Scott asked softly, his attention focussed on Allison.

"Because I don't want people to know." Allison said quickly before pausing, "Because- I'm seventeen."

"You're seventeen?" Scott asked in surprise, blind to the way Amber was waving her hands frantically for him to shut up.

"That's the reaction I'm trying to avoid." Allison said with an annoyed look.

"Why?" Scott tried to recover, grimacing when he caught Amber's eye, "I mean, I-I totally get it. Uh, you had to repeat a year because of all the moving around, right?"

Allison looked at him in surprise before closing her locker door. She turned her back to Amber and leaned into Scott's space to give him a slow kiss.

"What was that for?" Scott asked with a smile.

"For literally being the first person ever to make the correct assumption. Everybody always assumes I got knocked up or held back." Allison told him, taking a step back to lean against her locker and glance at Amber again.

"-Which, y'know, if either of those were true that would be okay too." Amber reminded her futilely.

"But, that's what you hear on your birthday?" Scott asked, ignoring his best friend.

"Oh, yeah." Allison told them, "All day long."

"Then- What if you and I get out of here?" Scott asked her with a tender look.

Allison looked at him closely, "Skip class?" She asked.

"Yeah, the whole day." Scott smiled, reaching up to pull gently at one of Allison's curls.

"Scott, are you sure that's a good idea-" Amber started, cutting herself off at the sharp look he gave her. She pursed her lips, rolling up onto the balls of her feet before dropping back down, "And, I am going to leave you two lovebirds to make your own questionable choices." She announced, stepping back from the pair slowly. 'Happy Birthday' she mouthed at Allison with a grin before turning and heading in the direction of her own locker with a shake of her head.

In third period Chemistry class, Amber took the open seat across from Stiles with a smile, rubbing her hand back and forth along the softness of his short hair as she passed him and fell into her seat.

They were having a quiet class period wherein they were all supposed to work on the problems from the current chapter in their textbook — so that they could ask questions if they had trouble with anything. Hardly anyone ever did ask for help, given that Mr. Harris was a condescending nightmare on a good day, but if they talked quietly enough, it was easy to work with the people at your table.

Amber pulled out her things as class started and she began copying down the questions into her notebook. Twenty minutes passed and she was only just beginning to work on question number three, the pencil in her hand having spent more time hovering over the page in her notebook than it had pressed against the paper. Her concentration was hard to keep focused when her eyes kept drifting up to the boy in front of her.

Stiles had shifted his stool to the corner of the table to be closer to her and he was rapidly highlighting important information in his textbook for when the two of them would make flashcards later on. He had the cap of the marker held between his teeth and she watched Stiles gnaw on it, his jaw working distractedly as he traced over the words.

Her attention was suddenly torn from the way that Stiles' lips wrapped around the tiny piece of plastic as Mr. Harris began to speak from the back of the room.

"Just a friendly reminder.. Parent/Teacher Conferences are tonight," He said as he began walking down the aisle between tables slowly, "Students below a 'C' average are required to attend. I won't name you.. Because the shame and self-disgust should be more than enough punishment." As if the statement had triggered something in his brain, Mr. Harris paused at the end of Stiles and Amber's workbench, his eyes narrowing at the empty stool at their table. "Has anybody seen Scott McCall?"

Stiles looked up at where Mr. Harris was standing beside him but Amber bit her lip and looked down at her notebook in avoidance. She was saved from having to come up with a lie about her friend's whereabouts when Jackson walked into the room late, drawing their teacher's attention.

"Hey, Jackson," Mr. Harris spoke quietly, approaching the boy as he found his seat, "If you need to leave early for any reason, you let me know."

Jackson nodded and Amber scoffed at their teacher's kind comment. She'd been told nothing of the sort when she had entered the room at the start of class, despite her also having been attacked by a psychotic werewolf the night before.

Mr. Harris stepped back and moved to the chalkboard at the far end of the room, "Everyone, start reading the next chapter." He announced, pausing mid-step before speaking again, "Mr. Stilinski-"

Stiles' attention snapped up from his textbook again and he looked to the front of the room with wide eyes, surprised at having been called out.

"Try putting the highlighter down between paragraphs," Mr. Harris told him loudly in front of the class, "It's Chemistry. Not a coloring book." He finished patronizingly.

Amber's eyes narrowed at their teacher's back before her eyes were drawn to the boy in front of her again. She watched as Stiles threw his head back, exposing his long neck and sharp jawline, her eyes following his eyes movement. He blew the marker cap from his mouth and up into the air over his head, snatching it effortlessly in his outstretched hand as it fell back through the air.

Amber leaned forward across the table on her elbows and nodded her head to beckon Stiles closer. His eyes seemed to trail down to the low cut of her shirt for a second before he leaned in on the edge of his stool, closing the distance until only a small gap separated them.

"Don't listen to him," Amber told her friend quietly, reaching out with the hand not holding her own writing utensil and grabbing the capped highlighter from him. She innocently fingered the cap, chewing her lower lip for a second as she thought about the place it had been between his teeth a only few moments before. She shook her head and blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear her thoughts, "It's a studying method that works for you-" She tapped the highlighter lightly on the tabletop, "..And he's a dickhead." She whispered as an afterthought.

She unthinkingly raised the highlighter cap to her own teeth to pull it off single-handed before holding the bright yellow marker back out to Stiles. He took it from her outstretched hand with a dazed look, eyes never leaving her face.

She grinned at him and the action reminded her that she still had the cap held between her lips. When she reached up to grab it, the piece of plastic slipped from between her fingers and dropped beneath the neckline of her shirt, stopping to settle at her belly button where her shirt had been tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She cursed quietly, leaning back on her stool and peering down her shirt to look for it. She reached past the lace of her bra to fish it out, the material of her shirt stretched slightly around her arm, and just as her fingers closed around the cap, there was a loud crash.

Amber flinched, looking up to see Stiles' stool toppled over at the end of the table and the boy on the floor with it.

"Stiles!" She said in quiet alarm, "Are you okay?"

Stiles' cheeks were flushed pink as he climbed to his feet again and righted his stool, nodding and wordlessly taking the marker cap from her fingers before sitting back down in his seat. He didn't look up at her as he slowly began highlighting the page of his textbook again and Amber blinked in confusion.

She glanced around the room and caught the eye of Danny Mahealani, who was sitting directly behind Stiles. He was already watching her and Stiles with an amused grin and when she gave him a questioning look, he shook his head and turned back around to face his own table again.

Weird.

At the end of the school day, Stiles rushed up to Amber and slammed his body into the open door of her locker. He gripped the metal before it could smash into the girl and moved to stand beside it.

"Scott is being painfully unhelpful and we need to figure out what exactly Lydia saw." He said quickly as she shuffled her books around, "Where is she, anyway?"

Amber shrugged, "She was really shaken up last night. I think she stayed home for the day, but she hasn't been responding to any of my texts." She explained, zipping up her backpack and pulling it over her shoulders.

"Well, we should go to her house and talk to her, then." Stiles said simply.

"I- Yeah, I mean- I was going to-" She paused when she caught his eye, deciding against telling Stiles her plans for the afternoon.

Stiles raised his eyebrows at her sudden silence and she sighed quietly, closing her locker, "No, we should definitely go see Lydia." She agreed.

When the two arrived at the Martin house, Lydia's mom answered the door with a smile, "Amber, sweetheart." The woman pulled her into a hug, "It'll be so good for Lydia to see you. She's been holed up in her room all day."

"Yeah," Amber agreed, pulling back from the embrace, "We just wanted to check on her."

As if she hadn't noticed him until that moment, the woman's eyes caught on the boy standing beside Amber, "Oh!" She said, "And who's this?"

"Uh, I'm Stiles." He said with an awkward wave.

"Well," Mrs. Martin said simply after a moment, "Let's get you two inside then."

The three climbed the stairs to Lydia's bedroom and Mrs. Martin knocked softly on the closed door, pushing it open and poking her head in as she spoke, "Honey, Amber and Stiles are here to see you."

Lydia was laying across the bed on her stomach in a beautiful but revealing blue nightgown, examining her fingernails distractedly. Her strawberry blonde hair was long and loose, falling messily around her, and when she looked up, her eyes looked drunkenly distant.

Amber pulled Stiles through the doorway by his hand as Lydia blinked, "What the hell is a styles?" She asked in sleepy confusion.

Mrs. Martin laughed awkwardly behind them, clasping her hands together, "She, uh, took a little something for her nerves," She told them as she began to pull the door closed behind her, "I'll just, I'll leave you three-"

"Thanks." Stiles told her as Amber pulled him over to the bed.

"What are you doing here?" Lydia asked, turning onto her side and exposing her chest as she focussed her attention on Amber.

"We wanted to make sure you were okay." Amber told her softly, moving to sit beside the girl and combing her friend's red hair back from her face with her fingers.

"Really?" Lydia asked, glancing at where Stiles was still standing beside the bed, "Both of you?"

"Yes, both of us," Amber told her, tugging Stiles down to sit beside her harshly and causing him to land very nearly in her lap, "We were both worried about you today."

"How're you feeling?" Stiles asked, looking at the redhead on the other side of Amber.

Lydia propped herself up on her elbow, leaning into Amber's hand in her hair for a moment like a cat who was enjoying being petted. The redhead then came closer until her forehead rested in the center of Amber's chest, Lydia's face pressed against the place where the fabric of Amber's low cut shirt revealed her cleavage.

Lydia spoke softly into Amber's skin, "I feel.. Fantastic." She slurred as Stiles watched them with wide eyes and huffed an awkward laugh.

Amber looked down at the girl in surprise and Lydia leaned back from her place between the brunette's breasts to settle a hand on her thigh instead. Amber looked over at Stiles with wide eyes of her own and saw the matching look of shock on his face.

Stiles suddenly reached around both girls to grab a little orange prescription bottle from the bedside table before examining the label. Amber leaned close, peering down at the plastic in Stiles' hands and reading the dosage of Lorazepam the doctor had prescribed.

"Lydia, your dose is only half a tablet to start, how much did you take?" Amber asked, pulling the bottle out of Stiles' fingers.

"Mm, I took two." Lydia said dreamily.

Amber shook her head in concern for her friend. Lydia was so hopped up on her medication, she was almost completely out of it.

Stiles looked at the redhead for a moment before a small smile pulled at his lips, "I bet you can't say 'I saw Suzy sitting in a shoeshine shop' ten times fast."

Amber laughed quietly, placing the bottle back on the table, "Stiles, I couldn't say that ten times fast."

Lydia leaned forward with a determined look on her face, "I saw Shuzy-" She started.

"Ah-" Stiles interrupted quietly with a grin.

Lydia sighed, eyes moving to Amber as she started again, "I shaw-" She said, her smile slowly fading until she flopped back down onto the bed heavily, "I saw."

"What?" Stiles asked.

Amber leaned closer, resting her hand on Lydia's arm, "Lydia, babe. What did you see?" She asked gently.

"Something." Lydia said distractedly.

"Something like-" Stiles prompted, resting a hand on Amber's thigh as he leaned closer, "A mountain lion?" He asked.

"A mountain lion." Lydia agreed with a small nod.

"Are you sure you saw a mountain lion?" Stiles asked.

"-Or are you just saying that because that's what the police and I said." Amber finished.

Lydia continued to stare at the wall at the side of the bed, "A mountain lion." She repeated.

Stiles reached around the two girls to grab a small stuffed giraffe from the bedside table, holding it out in front of his chest, "What's this?" He asked her.

Lydia turned to face the both of them again and looked at the stuffed toy in Stiles' hands, blowing a clump of hair out of her face before answering, "A mountain lion."

"..Okay," Stiles said slowly, putting the animal back where he found it and flopping down to sit beside Amber again, "She is so drunk."

Just as quickly as the words left his mouth, Lydia dropped her head into Amber's lap and nuzzled her face into the girl's stomach.

"Um.." Amber laughed quietly at their current position as the redhead reached an arm past Amber to place a hand at the top of Stiles' thigh.

Stiles gasped out a surprised breath and when Amber looked over to see what was wrong, her eyes caught on the spot where Lydia's fingers were resting on Stiles' upper thigh, just along the inner seam of his jeans.

Amber took pity on him and reached out to move the offending hand, but when her fingers settled over the top of Lydia's, Stiles made another choked noise, his mouth dropped open and he leaned back, clenching his eyes shut tight. At his shaky breath, Amber quickly removed their hands from where they'd both  been clearly violating him.

"Sorry." She told him quietly, "..Are you ready to leav-"

"I gotta pee." Stiles said urgently, standing from the bed and turning his back to the two girls. He stumbled and tripped over his own feet as he headed in the direction of the door.

"I- The bathroom is across the hall-" Amber told him as he rushed from the room, "Well. You, he finds attractive," She told her unconscious friend quietly with a frown, "But then, don't we all?" Amber combed her fingers through Lydia's hair for another moment before sighing, "Alright, Lyds. We should really get going." She lifted Lydia's head from her lap and the girl pouted sleepily.

"Stay." She told her, sitting up straighter and reaching out to touch Amber's cheek, "Stay-" Lydia leaned closer and her green eyes traced slowly over her friend's face before cupping Amber's other cheek and holding her face softly between her hands. Lydia's thumb trailed down to brush over Amber's lip and she pulled it from where the brunette had it nervously pinched between her teeth, "Please?"

"Lyds, I-" Amber started nervously.

Lydia tilted her head forward and brought their mouths closer until their lips brushed together softly. Amber froze found her heart beating loudly in her ears at the barely there touch of lips.

"Oh for the love of-" Stiles' voice cut in loudly in distress.

Amber flinched and jumped back from the bed like she'd been burned. She watched as Lydia flopped down onto the mattress as if nothing had happened and snuggled into the pillows sleepily.

A moment of silence passed.

"Not. A word." Amber said quietly, lifting an accusing finger at the boy whose mouth had already been opening to say something.

Stiles raised his arms in surrender and Amber shook her head, her eyes caught on where Lydia's cell phone was sitting on the bedside table. She remembered how the redhead hadn't returned any of Amber's messages and wondered if it needed to be charged.

She took a step closer and picked up the phone, surprised when it immediately unlocked to display Lydia's camera roll. A video began to play automatically and Amber squinted at the dark grainy footage, her stomach dropping when she realized it was the moment that the Alpha had jumped through the front window of the video store. She paused it just as the creature broke through on the screen and gulped as she looked at the close-up of the Alpha's wolf-like mouth open in a snarl.

"I- Stiles?" She said in a quiet voice, waving him over.

He moved to stand beside her immediately, "What? What is it?" He asked.

She tilted the phone toward him and showed the frozen image of red eyes that glowed on the dark screen.

"What-? She got a picture of it?" Stiles asked frantically, pulling the phone from her hands.

"A video." Amber corrected quietly.

She took the phone back and texted the video to both Stiles and herself before deleting the file and the evidence of the outgoing messages, gently putting the phone back on the tabletop.

She turned, grabbing Stiles' hand and pulling him along behind her, "Let's go."

Despite the situation with the Alpha and her need to go speak with Derek growing more dire with every passing second — More than anything else, it was the guilt churning away in her gut that affected her the most.

Amber couldn't believe that she'd practically let a drug-delirious Lydia kiss her.

An hour later, Amber stepped off of her bike at the top of the gravel driveway in the preserve and made her way toward what was left of the large covered porch surrounding the Hale house. After a moment's hesitation, she wheeled her bicycle over to the side of the charred house instead of simply abandoning it out front. Once she had stowed her bike in the overgrown weeds and bushes, she climbed the porch and knocked on the chipped, soot-covered red paint of the front door.

The door was pulled open a few seconds later to reveal Derek standing in the entryway, shirtless and covered in a light sheen of sweat. In juxtaposition from the last time Amber had seen his muscled body shining with sweat, the sickly paleness from the week before had been replaced with a healthy looking glow.

"Why are you here?" He asked simply, raising his eyebrows with an unimpressed look.

"Why are you all sweaty?" Amber countered, stepping past him to enter the house. She looked around with barely concealed curiosity, eyes flicking over the room around them.

Unlike the caved-in shell that she knew stood at the back of the house, the front rooms seemed slightly less damaged. Standing in the entryway, she could almost imagine what the house might've looked like before it burned but regardless, Amber didn't much like the idea of Derek holed up in the ruins of the home where his whole family had burned alive.

Derek didn't respond to her evasive question, but he closed the front door and came to stand by the staircase in front of her, leaning back against the banister and crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for an answer to his own initial question.

"I wanted to check and make sure you were doing okay after last week-" She started. When Derek only proceeded in raising his eyebrows as if he didn't quite believe her, she carried on with a small sigh, "..And also I wanted to know if you figured anything else out about the Alpha. Scott's information distribution skills are crap at best and that thing could've killed me last night, but it didn't.. I want to know why, and also how we're planning to get rid of it for good."

Derek sighed, "First off, you are not going to be doing anything, even if I do come up with a plan. You are going to try to stay out of all this, like I told you before. Just because it left you and your friends alive last night, doesn't mean you'll be so lucky next time."

Amber took a step forward and opened her mouth to speak but he continued on.

"You can't keep coming around, alright? The hunters don't know about Scott yet, but they do know about me. If someone sees you hanging around, you're going to have more than just the Alpha to watch out for. I don't need you to be worrying about me."

Amber tore her eyes away from him to focus on the dust that covered the dark hardwood floors, "Someone should." She muttered under her breath.

"I don't need anybody to worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"But that's just it, Derek. I don't think you should have to go through all of this on your own. I want to help-"

"I don't need your help," He said simply, "I need you to not get yourself killed."

Amber's face scrunched in frustration and she sighed loudly, "Well, I don't want you to-"

Derek suddenly stepped forward and pressed the palm of his hand to her lips, his other hand coming up to cup the back of her head to ensure she didn't move away. His eyes were squinted in concentration as he looked toward the front door and Amber recalled the way he'd done something similar when he'd been listening to Argent's vehicles approaching at the gas station.

Amber made a small, questioning noise and his eyes snapped back down to her. His green eyes met her hazel ones and before she could take a breath, he had wrapped an arm around her waist and had begun to drag her down the hallway, her feet barely touching the floor as they moved. When they reached a small closet beneath the staircase, he pulled open the door and shoved her to crouch inside.

"Listen. I mean it- Do not say a word, d'you understand? I don't care what you hear or see, you stay put and you stay quiet."

"Der-" She squeaked nervously.

"Not a sound." He told her, quickly shutting the slatted closet door and moving back a few steps further into the house.

The small storage closet wasn't much of a hiding space. There was a ten inch hole in the wall to her left that gave her a decent view through to the living room and the door was shutters instead of solid wood.

Amber leaned as far away from the hole as she could in an attempt to hide herself from view, peering through the slats to see what Derek was doing only to find that he seemed to have disappeared.

Amber had only just placed one of her hands on the wall to maintain balance in her crouched position when the front door to the house burst open with a crash. She flinched hard at the loud sound of the shattering wood but managed to hold back any noise of her own as two men and a woman entered the house. One of the men held a large black gun in both hands, turning with it slowly as if ready to open fire at any moment.

"No one home?" The man with the gun asked, shuffling around as he looked around the house.

"Oh, he's here," The woman grinned playfully, "He's just not feeling particularly hospitable."

"Maybe he's out," The second man started. Amber thought he looked more like a nineties boyband reject when compared to the dangerous aura the other two held, "Burying a bone in the backyard."

"Really?" The woman asked him in disappointment, "A dog joke? We're going there and that's the best you've got?" The three moved a bit deeper inside the house as she continued, "If you wanna provoke him, say something like, 'Too bad your sister bit it before she had her first litter,'" She smiled and raised her voice, "'Too bad she howled like a bitch when we cut her in half!'"

Amber raised a hand to covered her mouth and muffle a gasp. She heard Derek growl loudly from the other side of the house, followed by a scream that had to have come from the boybander who'd been outside of her field of vision. Derek must've thrown the man to the front of the house because his body landed in the front hall with a loud thump.

She watched as Derek jumped up and swung from the doorway, hitting the man with the gun in the chest with a hard kick that sent him flying to the back of the living room. Derek rose to his feet and snarled at the woman standing in the center of the room. He charged at her and the woman pulled a baton from her back pocket, whipping it out and extending its length with an electrified zapping noise. She thrust it into Derek's naked side as soon as he was close enough and Amber watched in horror as he dropped to the floor in pain.

Derek writhed on the ground, rolling onto his side and releasing small noises of discomfort. Amber bit her lip to the point of pain, her jaw trembling as she was forced to watch Derek's body tense and twitch from the shock of electricity.

"Wow," The woman stated, stepping closer and circling Derek on the floor as she examined him, "This one grew up in all the right places." The woman watched with a smile as Derek recouperated slightly and got his hands underneath him, "I don't know whether to kill it, or lick it."

Amber's heart clenched in both fury at the women's words, and pity as Derek weakly dragged himself along the dusty floor in an attempt to put distance between himself and the woman standing above him. The electric baton zapped threateningly at his back a couple of times as the woman followed behind him with a smile.

Derek tried to pull himself up with the help of the sofa in the corner of the room and the woman shocked him again with a jab to the stomach. Derek flew back several feet from the jolt and his body twitched, muscles tightening with the after effects.

Amber pressed her hand tighter to her mouth to stifle a sound and her eyes welled up with tears as the woman laughed joyfully at Derek.

"Ah, nine hundred thousand volts," The woman grinned, examining the baton in her hand, "You never were good with electricity, were you? Or fire." She laughed again.

Amber took a quiet trembling breath and she watched through the blur of her tears as Derek slowly pulled himself away again, his legs dragging behind him limply.

"-Which is why I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. And, well, maybe we can help each other out." The woman sat on the end of the sofa and looked down at Derek as he took a shaky breath and continued to crawl across the floor, "Yes, your sister was severed into pieces and used as bait to try and catch you.. Unpleasant." She tutted, "And, frankly, a little too Texas Chainsaw Massacre for my taste, but quite true." She laughed again, "Now, here's the part that might really kick you in your balls — We didn't kill her."

Derek finally pulled himself up into a seated position at the end of the room and leaned against the wall. He glared up at the woman as the muscles in his body continued to tremble.

"You think I'm lying?" The woman asked, her eyes wide in faux surprise.

"Wouldn't be the first time." Derek choked out as his body shook.

"Sweetie," The woman said the word mockingly, coming to stand at the end of the room and crouching down in front of him, "Well, why don't you just listen to my heart and tell me if I am, okay?" She leaned into his space until she could speak directly into his ear, "We. Didn't. Kill. Your. Sister.. D'you hear that? No little blips or upticks. Just the steady beat of the cold hard truth."

Amber took another large shaky breath in through her nose, the exhale puffing out over the backs of her fingers where they covered her mouth. Her calves and thighs were beginning to ache from crouching in the cramped broom closet for so long and the resigned look on Derek's face made her chest feel tight.

The woman's lips spread into an eerie grin as she rose to stand above Derek, "They found bite marks on your sister's body, Derek. What d'you think did that? A mountain lion?" She laughed, "Why aren't we helping each other out? You might as well admit what you've been guessing all along which is; The Alpha killed your sister." She stated unsympathetically with a tilt of her head, "All you have to do is tell me who he is and we'll take care of it for you. Problem solved. Everybody goes home happy."

The woman paused with a smile, as if waiting for a response. Derek took slow even breaths but didn't respond to her, his eyes cast down to the dusty floor.

"Unless.." The woman said with a look of surprise, "You don't know who he is either." She chuckled in astonishment, shaking her head, "Wow. Guess who just became totally useless?"

As quickly as the question left her mouth, the woman pulled out a large gun that Amber hadn't even realized she'd been holding. Derek rolled to the side and dashed out of the way just as the woman pulled the trigger, releasing a rapid-fire stream of bullets.

Amber muffled a frightened noise with the hand over her mouth and Derek ran through the front door and out of the house, avoiding the area near the hall closet to protect the girl from getting caught in the line of fire.

The moment that Derek was gone, the woman sighed woefully and dropped the gun to her side. She made her way over to the men she'd brought with her, giving each of them a swift kick and ordered them to get up. Both men groaned in pain but did as she instructed, pulling themselves to their feet slowly.

"Well, that was a bust." The woman said in disappointment.

"What if Chris finds out we disobeyed him and came here?" One of the men asked, brushing himself off as the group slowly made their way to the front door.

"He won't." The woman told them, "And besides, we didn't kill him. Just.. Played with him a little."

Amber leaned toward the hole in the wall to watch them leave and waited, taking slow shaky breaths. She counted to three hundred before easing open the closet door and cautiously stepping out. Her hands trembled as she took careful steps toward the front door and when she reached the open doorway, she looked around the property warily, checking to be sure they were truly gone.

Both hearing and seeing nothing, she let out an anxious breath she'd been holding.

It was entirely possible that Derek had been on to something when he told her it was dangerous for her to keep coming around.

It didn't mean that she planned to listen to him — Just, it was possible that he wasn't totally incorrect.

"Hey, it's me again-" Amber said into her phone after going straight to Stiles' voicemail for the third time, "Look, I don't know if you're ignoring me because you're mad that I ditched you earlier or if you're on another call or what. Just-" Amber sighed, flopping down onto her bed, "I don't know if Scott's talked to you but I still can't get a hold of him. So, anyway, I'm going to go to the parent-teacher thing with Jason. Gonna see if I can talk to him there." She told Stiles through the tiny speaker, "Right. Just, call me or text me when you get this. Bye."

There was a sudden loud knocking and Amber flinched in surprise as her bedroom door was pushed open, sitting up in bed to find her brother standing in the doorway.

"Hey, you about ready to head out?" He asked her.

"Yeah, let me just grab a sweatshirt." She told him, walking over to the closet and pulling out a large gray hoodie that had almost definitely belonged to Stiles at some point.

"You know you don't even have to go to this thing, right? Your grades are really good." Jason pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

Amber pulled the zip-up sweatshirt on over her tank top and brushed past him to head downstairs, "I know. But Scott has to go. I wanna talk to him about something and he's not answering his phone."

"Alright," Jason conceded as they reached the front door, "But I guess if you're coming with, I might as well show you now-"

"Show me what?" Amber asked in confusion, following him outside.

Instead of heading toward the old pickup truck that was parked on the side of the driveway, he led her to the closed garage door. Amber's heart thumped nervously in anticipation as she watched her brother pull open the large rolling door. When the garage door went up and out of the way, it revealed an absolutely hideous AMC Pacer — nearly identical to the one their dad had purchased in the seventies and had still owned when the two of them were kids. It was a ridiculous sunshine yellow and the metal was lightly rusted at the bottom and it looked so much like the one that their dad had driven them around in for the first several years of her life.

"Oh, my god." Amber finally choked out.

Her eyes welled with tears at the memories that cropped up of their dad picking them up from school. The memories of their mom complaining loudly about how much she hated the ugly car and the way things were always falling out of the backseat because, for some reason, the passenger door was built different from the one on the driver's side. The memories of Jason sitting in the back beside her and reading a comic book, flipping it around as he finished each page to show his sister his favorite parts.

Amber took a shaky breath, "It looks just like dad's."

"It is dad's," Jason revealed, stepping up behind her and putting a hand on the back of her head, "Or, it was. He sold it to that older couple over on Beacon Lake, remember?" When she nodded weakly he continued, "Well, turns out they're both eighty now and the husband finally lost his license. He sold it back to me for almost nothing."

"You bought dad's car back?" Amber finally pulled her eyes away from the vehicle and turned to face her brother.

"Yeah, bud. It's yours, if you want it."

"I want it," She said quickly, her head snapped back and forth between Jason and the car, "I want it. Oh my god."

Her brother laughed, pulling a small keychain out of his pocket and handing it to her, "It's yours."

She took the keys with wide eyes, her hands shaking as she gripped them tight.

"It's manual, though. So, you're gonna need to practice driving stick shift." He warned her.

"Stiles tried to teach me in the Jeep once," She told him, "I did okay, I think."

"Alright, well, why don't you drive us to the school and we'll see how good of a teacher your friend Stiles is." Jason grinned, walking to the driver's side door and holding it open for her.

Amber bit down on her lip and made a small excited noise, ducking into the car and onto the stained tan seat, sliding behind the wheel. Her fingertips traced over everything she could see; the ancient radio knobs, the cigarette lighter, the gear shift behind the steering wheel, the speedometer that only reached ninety miles an hour.

She was going to drive her car to the parent-teacher conferences, track down Scott, and figure everything out.

When Amber finally located Ms. McCall outside of the school, the woman was standing by herself, watching the parking lot like a hawk, and Amber deflated slightly as she approached.

"No Scott yet?" Amber asked.

"Have you talked to him?" Ms. McCall asked immediately, checking the phone in her hand as if it might've gone off without her noticing, "I should be in there already but I can't get a hold of him."

Amber attempted a reassuring smile, "I'm sure he'll be here any minute. I'll wait for him out here and I'll send him in the second I see him." She promised.

Scott's mom looked like she wanted to argue, but then she watched the last of the other parents trickle into the school and sighed, "Okay. But, send him straight in. I mean it, Amber."

"I'll send him straight in," Amber promised, "I'll even give him a kick in the ass for being late."

Ms. McCall cracked a smile before agreeing and heading inside as the doors were closing behind the final group of adults.

Amber sat down on the stairs outside the building, bouncing her knee impatiently as she waited for Scott to show up. She sat restlessly, fiddling with the strings on her hoodie and shaking her leg in anticipation. She waited for over an hour, eventually turning sideways to lean back against the cement that held the guard rail.

As more time passed, she began to lose hope. Her stomach dropped sadly when she heard the school doors creak open again after nearly two hours. Parents filed back out of the building and at the front of the pack, she spotted Mr. Argent and a woman she figured had to be Allison's mom.

"Allison. Answering your cell phone will make discussing the terms of your grounding much easier." Amber heard Allison's dad say angrily into his phone, "Well, call me back before your punishment reaches Biblical proportions."

"Kate hasn't heard from her either," Mrs. Argent told him worriedly as they descended the stairs.

Amber scrambled to her feet as the couple reached where she was and winced at the chill in her backside from sitting on the cold ground for so long, sighing at the realization that Scott was still with Allison.

Ms. McCall put a hand on Amber's shoulder as she passed and the woman went to stand in front of the Argents at the bottom of the staircase, "Excuse me, you're not Allison's parents, are you?" She asked, "I'm Scott's mom, and I hate to say it, but he's not answering his phone either."

"You're his mother?" Chris Argent said judgmentally.

Amber took a defensive step forward to stand beside Ms. McCall but the woman responded before she could cut in, "Funny, how you say that like it's an accusation."

"Well, I wouldn't claim it as a source of pride since he basically kidnapped my daughter today." He said gruffly.

"Hey-" Amber said in anger, quieting when Mrs. McCall put a hand on her shoulder.

"How do we know skipping school wasn't your daughter's idea?" She asked defensively.

Mr. Argent glared, "My daughter-" He started loudly, cutting off as he caught sight of something behind them and sighing, "-Is right there."

Ms. McCall immediately turned and rushed toward the parking lot. Amber caught sight of her brother exiting the school and she held up a hand in signal for him to give her a minute, when he nodded and pulled out his phone, she turned to follow behind Scott's mom with wide eyes.

"Where exactly have you been?" Amber heard Ms. McCall yell as the girl approached the group.

"Nowhere, mom." Scott responded quietly.

"Nowhere meaning, 'not at school,'" His mom clarified angrily.

"I- Kinda." He told her.

"It's not his fault," Allison defended, "It's my birthday and we were-"

The girl was cut off when her dad reached them and pointed sternly to the back of the parking lot, "Allison. In the car."

Suddenly, there was a shrill scream from the other side of the parking lot and Amber's stomach dropped, immediately looking at Scott with wide eyes. He met her gaze with a matching expression of uneasiness.

People quickly began yelling and rushing around the parking lot, proceeding to get more frantic as the seconds passed. No one was sure what was happening, but fear spurred them on and people rushed to their cars, some tearing out of the parking lot quickly to get away from an unseen threat.

Scott began to wander away from the group and Amber followed behind him with a hand gripping his jacket, "Is the Alpha here?" She asked quietly.

"I don't know." He told her, tilting his head as he listened through the chaos around them.

Another scream sounded out loudly above the murmuring shouts and Amber flinched, releasing Scott from her hold. When she heard her name being called, she spotted Jason standing at their yellow car on the other side of the lot and he waved to her urgently but she held up her hand again, pleading with him to give her another minute.

There was a growl in the distance and Amber flinched again at the sound, though it didn't resemble the one she remembered from the night before. In the mayhem, she realized that she'd lost Scott, her friend no longer beside her, and she wandered forward, eyes alert as she searched for him.

"Allison!" Amber heard him yell from several yards away.

Amber rose onto her toes to watch as Scott pulled Allison out of the way of a car that was barreling through the parking lot, managing to save her only a second before she would have been hit.

Amber's heart thumped painfully beneath her ribs with adrenaline and the yelling around her only seemed to get louder with each second that passed.

There was another animalistic growl, louder this time, closer, and Amber gasped and spun around as she heard whatever it was dash past where she was standing between two parked cars. When she looked up, she spotted Sheriff Stilinski standing just to the other side of the vehicle beside her.

"Move!" He yelled at the group that was forming around the parked cars as he went to head in the direction the animal had gone.

Amber ran forward in time with her friend's father. As they reached the back of the car, she noticed the tail lights come on and her eyes went wide, reaching out toward Stiles' dad and giving him a small shove just as the car tore out of the spot in reverse and backed into her. She was slammed back several feet and down onto the pavement but the car managed to come to a stop before it could run her over entirely.

"Amber!" Mr. Stilinski yelled worriedly, "What were you thinking, kid? You okay?"

There was another loud growl in the distance and Amber's heart beat loudly in her ears while Stiles' dad grabbed her with one hand in hers and another on her waist as he pulled her to her feet.

Her elbow hurt from the fall and her left hip throbbed painfully where the car had rammed into her, but she didn't feel any serious injuries, "I-I'm fine." She told him breathlessly.

The man's eyes flicked back and forth between her hazel ones before he nodded and stepped back, looking around them at the ever growing chaos. Amber watched him reach down toward his shoe and pull a small gun from a holster he had hidden beneath his jeans at his ankle.

Just as quickly as he'd pulled out his weapon, there were two loud echoing gunshots from the other side of the parking lot. Mr. Stilinski covered Amber's head with his hand and pushed her down for cover as the girl let out a quiet yelp in fear.

A few moments later, Jason sprinted up to them and pulled Amber toward him. When his hand pushed on her hip she cried out at the tender spot and his eyes widened further, "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I-"

"She got hit by a car." Mr. Stilinski told him over her head.

"What!" Jason asked frantically, "We should go to the hospital-"

"We don't need to go to the hospital. They just bumped me, I'm fine." She assured both men, looking between them, "I'm probably getting a bruise already, but I'm fine." She focussed on Jason, "But the gunshots- What-"

"The mountain lion," Jason told her, "It was wandering around the parking lot and someone shot it."

"I- A mountain lion?" She asked in surprise.

"Yeah," He said, "Probably the same one that killed that guy and scared you last night."

Amber looked between the men, seeing the relief on her brother but a look of confused disbelief on Mr. Stilinski that she was sure matched her own. Before she could say anything else, Jason thanked Stiles' dad for his help and pulled her under the safety of his arm, guiding her back toward the car.

"I feel like this should go without saying, but I don't think you should drive the car for a couple days," Her brother told her as they reached the yellow vehicle, directing her toward the passenger side with a gentle push.

Amber sighed but nodded, wincing when she bumped her sore elbow as she climbed into the car.

As her brother drove them home, she couldn't help but think how unlikely a coincidence it was for a mountain lion to wander into town and get killed while the Alpha remained conveniently out of sight.

Amber clicked Stiles' contact to call him the second she closed her bedroom door. She propped the phone in the crook between her shoulder and her ear as she attempted to peel off her tight jeans painfully. She was pulling on a tiny pair of shorts that had a loose waistband as he picked up.

"Amber, hey!" Stiles said casually, "Sorry I didn't get your calls earlier, I was trying to get a hold of Scott."

He sounded normal, which meant his father most likely hadn't gotten home to talk to him yet. Amber sighed as she sat at her desk and pulled out the Algebra II homework she'd yet to start.

"Don't worry about it." She paused, gnawing on her lower lip.

"So, did you talk to Scott at the parent-teacher thingy?" Stiles asked her after a moment.

"Uh, yeah, kind of," She said, "We, uh, didn't really get much of a chance to talk before all hell broke loose though."

"Hell? What hell?" Stiles asked, "What happened?"

"Mountain lion." She told him, "An actual mountain lion this time. It just showed up in the parking lot and everyone was screaming and panicking and it was... Insane."

Stiles seemed to have too much he wanted to say, releasing a series of small aborted noises on the other line before he spoke, "Wh- Well, what happened?"

"Well, everyone was running around terrified. It was just stalking between cars and growling and then your dad almost got hit by a car-" Stiles released a horrified noise and she continued quickly, "He didn't get hit." She reassured him before adding in a quiet voice, "I did."

"What! Amber I sw-"

"I'm fine!" She said for what felt like the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours, "Apparently Chris Argent shot the mountain lion, and after that everyone kind of calmed down and we all went home."

"Okay, we can circle back to the mountain lion- You got run over by a car?" Stiles asked her frantically.

"I was not 'run over' by a car," She said with an eye roll, "I was clipped. Tapped. Grazed, if you will."

"You were grazed by a car?" Stiles repeated disbelievingly.

"Yes. I was." Amber confirmed.

"And where the hell was Scott when you were being grazed by said car?" Stiles asked in annoyance.

"He was on the other side of the parking lot. He barely pulled Allison out of the path of another car- I told you, everyone was panicking." Amber explained before sighing, "Anyway, I have a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning so I might miss the beginning of English- I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping it won't take long."

Stiles groaned, "A doctor's appointment? I thought you were only tapped?"

"I was tapped!" She defended, "I couldn't talk Jason out of it though. It was like, his one stipulation for allowing me to go to school tomorrow at all."

She heard Stiles sigh as she mindlessly solved a problem to find the vertical asymptotes of the function in her textbook. When she finished solving the equation and Stiles still hadn't responded, she set down her pencil.

"Look, as much as I appreciate your concern for my well-being, I have like twelve more problems to finish before my Algebra Two homework is done." She told him, "I'm gonna shut my phone off for the night, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"I- Yeah, alright." He agreed reluctantly, "Talk to you tomorrow."

"G'night." She smiled down the phone.

"Night."

The call ended and she powered her phone down with a sigh, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes for a moment. There was a quiet noise behind her and she spun in her chair and jerked, nearly falling out of her seat.

"Jesus- Derek!" She exclaimed as she caught herself on the edge of her desk, "What are you doing here?"

Derek was in her bedroom, casually resting against her windowsill like it was a bench. He had put on clothes since she'd seen him that afternoon and he now wore a dark tshirt beneath his leather jacket.

"Well, I came to make sure you were alright after this afternoon. But from what I just heard, Kate wasn't the only one I needed to worry about almost killing you today." He said, raising his eyebrows at the red splotchy skin that poked out from the places where her tank top had ridden up and beneath her tiny shorts.

"It was an accident." She told him defensively, pulling her shirt down over her hip.

"I heard you tell Stiles you were hit by a car at the school." Derek reminded her.

"Grazed," Amber repeated, "I was grazed by a car. And I'm fine."

Derek shook his head at her and seemed to reluctantly drop the subject. He stood from the windowsill and stepped over to her desk, studying the bulletin board hanging above it and eyeing the many photographs of Scott, Stiles, and herself. He looked at them in silence for a minute before he pursed his lips.

"I also wanted to let you know I'm going to try to train Scott." Derek said before turning to face her.

"Really?" She asked excitedly, "Finally! That's great-"

"Try." Derek repeated, "I'm going to try. I don't know if I even can train a bitten werewolf."

Amber nodded, "As long as you both give each other a chance."

Derek nodded, turning toward the window and making to leave again.

"Wait-" Amber called quietly. Derek had one leg out the window and he turned to face her, "Are you okay?" She asked him, "After earlier. That woman-"

"Kate." Derek told her, "Kate Argent. She's Allison's aunt."

"Kate," Amber repeated, "She- She electrocuted you or tased you or something. And the things she said-"

"I'm fine, Amber." Derek said, "I already told you- I don't need you to worry about me."

"That's not going to stop me from doing it." She murmured softly, "I'm pretty sure I'm going to worry about you, regardless."

Derek seemed slightly stunned, still hovering half inside the window. It took him a moment, but he seemed to recover with a small shake of his head, "Just.. Be safe." He told her.

He ducked his head around the open window to leave and jumped to the ground, landing silently in the grass beneath Amber's window.

"You too." She mumbled to the empty windowsill after a few seconds.

[randofics]

🎶 David Kushner- Skin and Bones

🎶 David Kushner- Dead Man

🎶 The Neighborhood- Sweater Weather

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

You let out a breath, watching as it fogged in the cold November air and held your arms around you to keep warm as you waited for Sideswipe. Your back muscles were killing you after hunching over to grab boxes off the floor at work. All you wanted to do was lay in bed for the rest of the night.

Bright white headlights made you shield your eyes as he came to a stop in the empty lane of parking spaces. The gullwing passenger door opened for you, and sorely, you sat in the seat.

"Thanks for picking me up, Sides. I owe you one."

"Hey, I didn't have anything better to do. How was work?"

"Ugh, don't get me started."

"That bad, huh?" He watches you through his rearview mirror as you struggle to get comfortable. "Something wrong with my seat?"

"No, my back is practically screaming at me. I just need to lay in bed and relax. A massage would probably help, too, but I can't afford an appointment at the moment."

"My hood is still warm from the sun earlier. Maybe laying across it would help. I've heard that heat can help relax muscles."

"You hear that on TV?"

"I happened to catch it on one of the channels." A small smile twitches at your lips.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt."

-------

After pulling into the junkyard, you hop out attempting futility to pop your sore back as you massage your muscles. "Where is everyone?"

"Oh, Strong-arm is on patrol with Bumblebee, and Denny took Russel, Fixit, and Grimlock out to watch the city parade from the hilltop."

"I forgot that was happening tonight. I'm glad Russel gets to see it. He seemed so excited about it this morning."

"How about we go back to my quarters and watch some TV?"

"Sure. You said I could use your hood, remember?"

"You think I forgot? How dare you!" His faux offense made you laugh as you trailed behind him. He bowed as he held the makeshift door open for you, and you shook your head at his antics. Taking the remote, you turned on the TV quickly, flipping through the channels to one that never failed to interest you. Animal world was on, and a re-run of the leopard episode was playing.

"Alright, transform so I can warm up my back. It's freaking chilly." He chuckles, rolling his optics as he transforms. You lay back on his hood, being careful not to scratch his paint. Almost immediately, the warmth of his metal seeps through the fabric to your skin. Your body relaxing as the warmth soakes down to your bones.

You stay like that for a little while, but the heat slowly fades, and your muscles are left sore. Rolling over onto your stomach, you let out an annoyed groan.

Sides' chuckle catches your attention. "That leopard has the same idea as you." Glancing back at the screen, you see a leopard sunning itself on a dark rock. The big cat looks content, all sprawled out like that. A small smile comes to your face before you stand, letting out a pained hiss as your muscles take on your weight again.

"Still sore?"

You nod, twisting your back in another futile attempt at popping it. He transforms, crouching down behind you. "Can you lift me under my arms so I can pop my back?"

His servos wrap around you under your arms, lifting you a foot off the ground as you let your body go limp. Your spine crackles as the vertebrae decompress, releasing some of your tension. After he sets you down, you test out your spine. The pain of your muscles is still present, but any spinal pain is pretty much gone.

"You want me to give you a massage?"

You're a bit surprised at his question. Did he really just ask you that? Did he even know what that insinuated or even how to properly do it? Your mouth moved faster than your brain.

"That would be great!"

Why'd you have to say that!? Now you had to go through with it! You kicked yourself as you made your way back to your camper. He transformed again, parking just outside the door as you walked in. His holoform followed you to the "bedroom" of the small mobile space. There were only two lights, one for the living/kitchen and another for the tiny bathroom, leaving the bed dimly illuminated.

You removed your hoodie, tossing it to the side as you sat on the edge of the mattress. "So, how are we doing this?"

"Lie down on your stomach, and I'll sit beside you."

Once you're in position, he sits cross-legged next to you. "Do you mind if I lift your shirt?" Shaking your head as best you can against the pillow in your arms, you take a calming breath. The cool air hits your skin as he lifts the hem of your shirt. When his holoform didgets touch your skin, a chill runs up your spine. Goosebumps form all along your body as he maps out your back.

Soon, he starts adding pressure to his touch. It's light at first like he's afraid he'll hurt you, but slowly, he gets heavier with his hands. Your sore muscles slowly feel much better as your pleasure senses take over. Heat spreads through your body.

-------

When a small sound escapes your throat, he pauses. "Not hurting you, am I?" Your voice is small as you answer.

"No, I'm fine."

He continues, pressing into the muscles of your lower back, eliciting another sound. This time, he keeps moving, listening for the little sounds you let out.

When he places his fingers over your love handles and presses in the backsides with his thumbs a much louder sound escapes you.

You attempt in vain to smother the sounds with the pillow. Muscles quiver under his fingers, and curiosity gets the better of him. Gently, he grazes his fingers across the front of your abdomen and love handles, making you squirm a little.

With a bright blush on your face, you turn to look at him. "What are you doing, Sides?"

"Um... sorry, I got distracted. What's up with that reaction?"

"It's... my abdomen is sensitive, ok I can't help it when you touch me like that."

"Right here?" He tilts his head like a confused puppy as he grips your hip again, letting his thumb graze under the hem of your jeans.

"Yes! So don't do that." A mischievous glint in his eye makes your heart skip a beat. "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but you probably shouldn't go through with it."

"What? I'm not thinking anything." You feel his thumb again as you grip his wrist, his other hand cupping your side squeezing gently. Suddenly, he lifts your shirt to your lower ribs and pulls the hem of your jeans down an inch. Your eyes widen as a gasp escapes your throat. His lips make contact with the v of your abdomen.

Blood rushes to your face as you bite down lightly on your knuckle. Your other hand tangles in his dyed red hair. While the feeling itself isn't overly pleasurable, the act is extremely erotic. His eyes connect with your half lidded ones as his teeth nip your skin. He places another kiss there before moving up slowly over your stomach, giving you light pecks and nips all the way to just under your sternum.

When he pauses, you look down at him quizzically. In one swift motion, he pulls you up into his lap, making you yelp. Instantly, his lips are on your neck. You melt into him, wrapping your arms around him and tangling your fingers in his hair.

-------

He can feel your breathing quicken with the rapid beating of your heart. His spark pulses faster with his own excitement. Your scent, taste, and fingers in his hair overwhelm his holoform senses. Your skin, though littered with natural bumps for the most part, is silky soft. And your plush flesh feels amazing in his hands.

Your small gasps float into his audials through the holoform, and they sound heavenly.

-------

You feel his hands on your back, one massaging your muscles while the other glides over your skin, slipping under the back of your bra. Without warning, his lips connect with yours. He's surprisingly good at it, considering it was probably his first time. You didn't even know if cybertronians kissed at all. Your head was swimming with his intensity, not that you minded much.

Lightly, you scratched at his upper back, legs locked tight around his waist. As far as you were concerned, you could do this till your heart gave out, but fate wouldn't even let it come close to that.

There was a knock on your camper door, making Sideswipe turn his head to look. Russell's voice broke through the silence. "Hey, Y/N, Sideswipe! You guys in there? Come watch the parade you're about to miss the best part!"

In a poof of pixelated glowing particles, the warm body you were wrapped around was gone, and you fell back on your mattress. You lay there for a second, arms splayed above your head as you let out an annoyed groan. You loved Russel, but he had the absolute worst timing sometimes.

Sitting up, you could still feel his hands on you, and the feeling of his lips lingered as you walked to your door.

Outside, Bumblebee stood with his usual cross arm stance. Sideswipe was still in his alt mode in the same spot as before. There was a barely noticeable quake in your steps as Bee eyed you. Your hair was ruffled, and red marks were starting to form on your neck and jaw. Your face was still red from the blood rush, and you were acting a tad nervous.

When you lightly kicked Sideswipes tire, annoyance evident on your face he put two and two together.

-------

"Hey, what was that for!?"

"You know darn well what that was for!"

"It's not like I had any other options!"

"Yeah, you did! You could've faced it like a man instead of turnin' tail and running!"

Russel looked confused at the whole exchange but took your hand, dragging you behind him to the hilltop. When you got there, Denny handed you a blanket, which you gladly wrapped around you. Fireworks cracked in the air as the end of the parade was driving down the street below.

The nose of Sideswipes alt pressed into your rear, making another blush come to your face. You glanced around, making sure no one had seen that before turning your head to look at him. With a small hop, you sat on his hood, crossing your dangling feet.

When the parade ended and everyone was going back to the junkyard, you and Sideswipe stayed put. Hopping off his hood, you stood with your arms crossed.

"What?" Moving closer with an expression he wasn't familiar with, slight intimidation makes him roll backward. "Wh-what are you doing!?"

"Continuing what you started." Your hips sway as you follow him, backing him all the way almost into a tree. "Holoform, please."

Under your expectant gaze, he produces his holoform. He looks as nervous as you'd expected.

Pushing him into his driver's side door, you press your body against him. He sucks in a breath, his eyes flickering from your eyes, lips, and chest pressing into his. "Like what you see, darlin?"

You hear him gulp as he forces his eyes closed. He makes the mistake of tilting his head up, giving you the perfect opening to ghost your lips across his synthetic skin and whisper in his ear. "Not so cocky now, are ya?"

When he looks back down at you in surprise, you press your lips against his. His hands shakily grab your hips as he bends down for you. As you continue to kiss, the two of you are none the wiser to a pair of optics watching you.

Bee, with a knowing smile on his faceplate, chuckles, shaking his head. He walks back into the junkyard, leaving the two of you be.

[dmsr-art]

trans dude crown (crown HIM with many crowns) on that good old boe testosterone and all the sweaty horny clit growing problems it gives you. fucks his sister about it. thoughts??

my pussy just quivered. i don't even know how ianthe would react... yeah they're gonna have to fuck this one out. on the bed, on the couch, bent over the kitchen counter, against the walI, in the shower, on the floor, in the basement, against the window, in front of a mirror, missionary, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, doggy, backwards, sideways.

im imagining that scene from iasip when dennis fucks maureen ponderosa at the wedding and afterwards he says "Oh god Maureen. That was terrible. Who did those tits? The nipple placement is crazy" except ianthe's saying that about his top surgery lmfao