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missinghan · 3 years

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your heart & your headache, too ⤖ lee minho

❖ genre : stray god (?) au; fluff; humor; angst; action

❖ word count : 9,6k.

❖ warning : swearing, mentions of violence, blood, injuries, stitches

❖ summary : a self-proclaimed god shows up at your door in the middle of the night for a place to stay. you let him and hope the unconventional encounter doesn’t become a regular thing. of course, it becomes a regular thing.

❖ sequel blurb : read it here!

❖ dedicated to @poutylino : happy birthday robi! i hope you’ll like this mess of a fic ♡

There is a stranger in your living room.

There is—holy shit...you need to call the cops.

“Out of the way,” the stranger spats calmly.

“Show me your face.”

He is unfortunately very good-looking; the kind of face that all beings envy for God only has one favorite and that’s him, the kind of face that makes the most expensive diamond look dull in comparison, the kind that screams ‘tougher in body and nobler in heart than any creature in the world’ like any novel’s protagonist. Oh yeah, did you mention that he has a really nice physique too?

“I said, move.” He stumbles forward, heavy and inconsistent breaths.

In any case, he’s someone you’ve never met before in your life. Therefore, your brain is overworking itself to figure out what the fuck is going on (as if it’s not overworked on a daily basis already). One moment you were minding your own business on the couch and stressing over your homework. The next, there’s an explosion of light and there he was. Meaning, this absolutely skeptical, worthy-of-being-reported man can’t just expect you to simply move.

“Last time I checked, this is my living room, which you’re not supposed to be in,” you tilt your head curiously at his silhouette being cast on the white wall. “You should move.”

Your gaze rolls upward again to meet his eyes. You think lack of sleep is really getting into your head because there are two golden orbs staring right back at you. He leans forward to pick up the butter knife on your coffee table, easily twirling the shiny piece of cutlery between his fingers.

“Hey—!” An alarm finally goes off inside your head, high on sheer anxiety and panic. If you decided to do something rash, he might slice your throat in half.

“I’m just going to make it clear that I’m not responsible for what’s about to happen to your face,” he mumbles under his breath, staggering with difficult steps. His limbs are nearly immobile but are being forced to drag a heavy body across your tiled floor. Two trails of crimson become more visible as he walks out of the shadow. Another alarm shakes your senses, telling you that the man can collapse any second now.

Just then, a linear light emerges into your view, metal flies past your head and pierces the bookcase behind your back. A shaky breath. With ineffable terror, you behold an ominous creature in which shadows cling to its hellish movements. The horror struggles and emits an unholy screech against the butter knife, gleaming its bat-like teeth at you before disintegrating into thin air.

You drop to your knees, mouth gape open, “I’m going insane. I’m going insane. I’m going insa—”

A loud thud startles your train of thought. “Holy shit!”

Your head whips around upon the sound only to witness the stranger’s reclined figure on your floor. His brows are knitted tightly together as his palm hugs the side of his shoulder. You give the air a faint sniff once you shuffle close enough and realize how much he’s bleeding. Who…hurt him?

Maybe getting murdered is easier than having to deal with this, whatever the fuck that just happened.

Surprisingly, it takes him thirty minutes to wake up and two minutes to say his name as you’re walking back and forth in your living room like a madwoman, desperate for a solution and a conviction that everything was not a fucked up nightmare. You are, at some point, this close to taking him to a hospital but looking at him up close helps you understand that the exhaustion his body is bearing clearly goes beyond humans’ physical abilities. Minho looks tired of the world for having to carry around baggage that’s too heavy for himself. Somehow, you feel like you’re part of the baggage itself.

However, your empathy quickly evaporates when you walk out of your bathroom and see the fool roaming your house without a shred of care for the universe. Yes, he’s still bleeding. And yes, he doesn’t look concerned. You’re in serious need of moral support right now but your friends all have questionable morale.

Minho pauses at the blinking laptop on your table with a cup of hot tea in his hands, “Hmm? So you’re teaching at a university this young? Impressive. You must be pretty smart.”

“I’m an underpaid, overworked, minimum-wage TA,” you toss him your best passive-aggressive glare and settle on your couch with a first aid kit, “Come here. Sit.”

Which is how you end up in your conveniently bloodied living room at half-past twelve with a man who can easily bleed out to his demise. To your dismay, he follows your ushering without protest, watching you with the attentiveness of a worn-out hawk. You look at him once his legs are crossed obediently, taking in the scattered cuts on his face and the dirty white shirt over his black tank top. Curiosity traces your features at the bandages around his neck and wrists, and he looks back.

“I can’t believe you’re ordering a god around. I’m not a dog.” Minho notices where your gaze lingers and clears his throat.

You furrow your brows, reasonably unimpressed, “Really? You almost killed me and now you’re telling me this? Do you hear yourself? How is this going to make my life any easier?” How are you supposed to comfort people when they break into your house again? You stitch them up while trying to avoid looking them in the eye? Maybe making them a hot drink? And letting them stay the night, too?

You’re not necessarily a ‘people person’. Thinking about it gives you hives.

“Sarcasm? That’s all you’ve got?”

“Get used to it,” you open your mouth when the alcohol spray hits his wound, prompting a small hiss of discomfort. “You’re telling me that you’re a god yet you used my freaking butter knife to kill...”

“A curse,” Minho says between gritted teeth as you clean up his cut. “And I grabbed your knife because one, it was the only sharp object in reach, and two, I lost my sword.”

A sword, huh. Why would people own a sword these days? You hope his sword isn’t a real one because dying by a sword seems so unnecessarily dramatic. It’d feel like your life is a fantasy novel and you’ve stupidly offended someone’s honor. Is he a cosplayer of some sort? So you’re patching up a cosplayer at one in the morning. A cosplayer that apparently materializes out of thin air. How the fuck are cosplayers so advanced these days?

“...A curse?”

“Curses are born from humans’ negative emotions. It is my job to exorcise them before they can grow into full-fledged demons,” Minho explains briefly while glancing around your apartment like a cautious cat.

You have a feeling that you’re slowly comprehending the situation even though his claims make no feasible sense. “Okay, and how did you get hurt?”

“I got hit by a truck while trying to save a puppy on the streets.” And he just brings you back to square one. Even so, someone who’s willing to get hit by a truck for a puppy can’t be a psychotic serial killer.

You open your mouth and close it. The process repeats about five times before you realize how much you’re acting like an absolute fool. For the first time in your life, you’d rather cry over midterms instead of whatever this is. Because the thing is you’re confident in your ability to read in between the lines, seeing through people’s deception and hidden secrets. Even so, you cannot decipher the truth that he’s carrying.

“...You’re a god yet you let a truck run you over?”

There’s a scowl on his face now. “I lost my sword.”

You breathe. And you breathe again. “You’d better connect the dots for me before I lose my mind and set someone’s house on fire.”

The scowl deepens, “Yes, gods don’t usually get hit by vehicles. But for me, I can’t deliberately walk through physical materials unless I have my sword.”

“Seems legit. I wish the police were still open at this hour,” you shrug and smile fakely, holding up a syringe in front of his nose.

Minho looks mortified, which is rich coming from a self-proclaimed god that just exorcised a curse out of your dirt-broke apartment. “Wait! Wait! What do you think you’re doing?!” His body shuffles away in sheer fright like a toddler getting vaccinated for the first time. You think you might feel bad for laughing.

“I’m going to give you an injection. Give me your arm.”

“Yeah, your spidey senses are tingling perfectly, Peter Parker,” he sneers like a possessed cat, an accusing finger pointing at the clear substance. Wow, allegedly a god can make pop culture references, too. “What the fuck is that?”

You raise an eyebrow at his untrusting eyes, “Anesthesia so you don’t cry like a little bitch when I stitch you up.”

Minho looks more concerned than you are right now which is extremely unfair, by the way. “Stitches? You know how to do that?”

“No, but I have a YouTube tutorial from a real doctor if that makes you feel better.”

His lips twitch after a long beat of silence. “....Can I have something stronger than tea? Vodka, maybe?”

It’s truly unfortunate for him. You don’t own a single bottle of liquor.

Three days after your unconventional encounter with a god, there comes another one. This one, however, does not occur at your place.

“Thank you for looking after Hyunjin on such short notice, Y/N.” Mrs.Hwang gives you a small smile with her purse over her shoulder and her husband ushers her to get into the car from the front gate. “He is upset because our puppy has gone missing for a few days now but I’m sure he’ll behave. His bedtime is at nine and we’ll be back at twelve-ish or so.”

“It’s no trouble. Mrs. Lee is out of town tonight so she said I could bring Felix over,” you smile back tiredly when the freckled kid hides behind your leg since Hyunjin is too busy staring daggers at him. “You guys go have fun.”

“No sweets before bed, okay!”

Hyunjin’s parents quickly pull out of the driveway when you lock the door and lead the two children into the backyard. A wave of exhaustion washes over your full mind. You have a class to teach tomorrow with a review quiz and now you have to babysit another kid?

“He’s so short,” Hyunjin speaks up shamelessly, sitting cross-legged on the wooden porch as Felix clings to your arm. The kid’s eyes are wide and dark in curiosity as he scans the foreign surroundings. This makes you acknowledge how his parents are always busy and often leave him at daycare overtime.

“He’s like five years old, Hyunjin. You’re already nine,” you pat Felix’s head as a consent signal for him to play around in the backyard. “And can you stop glaring at him like he’s eaten all of your cheesecakes, please?”

A pout forms on his lips. “I lost Kkami,” he looks down at his feet sullenly. “Mom said she already put out flyers and online posts but...what if he’s not coming back?”

You blink once, twice, and thrice. Oh goodness, why did you agree to be a babysitter when you’re bad at comforting people?

“I’m sure someone will find Kkami and bring him back,” you try to reassure him with a hand on his shoulder; being a hypocrite isn’t your thing but there’s nothing else you can give him right now other than false hope. “For the time being, why don’t you hang out with Felix?”

At this point, Hyunjin is already too seasoned to take the bait. He side-eyes Felix to examine his chubby face, weirdly focused. It’s like you thought—he has never been around anyone else his age because he’s homeschooled, much less someone this much younger than him.

“How?” Hyunjin tilts his head at you, eyes sparkling. It’s kinda sad but fucking adorable. You get why people are soft for the little brats now. They’re cute, just lack the ability to shut up at the right time.

“You kids can play whatever as long as I can see you. Just don’t make him dizzy, he’ll barf.”

Felix seems to have eavesdropped on your conversation and is now staring up at you from the lower ground. “Uhm, can we play hide and seek?”

“Superb idea, Felix,” Hyunjin cracks a wide grin at that. Surprise surprise, the kid actually has some range.

“What’s ‘superb’?” The freckled boy scratches his cheek in confusion.

Hyunjin tries to reply with expressive hands, “It’s uh, it's great!”

“What’s great?”

“Superb…”

“What’s ‘superb’?”

…This is going to take a while, isn’t it?

All things concluded, it takes Felix ten minutes to stop asking what ‘superb’ means and another hour for you to tuck both of them into bed. Those brats really had the audacity to fall asleep next to each other in the utility closet in the middle of the game. After that, a much-needed silence goes on for about twenty minutes until a man kicks his way in through the living room.

“There is such a thing as doors,” you tell him, barely glancing up from the book that you’re reading.

“But that’s boring.” It’s not the voice that you have been expecting. Well, you shouldn’t be so surprised anymore.

“You’re paying to fix the window or I’m calling the cops.”

You finally decide to look up at the owner of the voice and to your dismay, it isn’t the self-proclaimed god you’re familiar with. He’s also very good-looking but his energy seems more careless and free-spirited than Minho. There’s a red pair of headphones around his neck, a flannel over a loose shirt with some jeans.

Totally normal. He can even pass as a harmless high school student. Unfortunately, your perception of people’s clothing has changed since the day Minho broke into your apartment.

“My name is Han Jisung,” he introduces himself and snaps his fingers as the shattered shards of glass easily piece themselves back together. He’s lucky that the kids are heavy sleepers. “And I’m assuming you’re the girl that Minho talked about.. So where is he?”

Your eyebrow twitches in disbelief. “How would I know?”

“He told me to meet up here though,” Jisung rubs the back of his neck sheepishly as if he’s slowly taking in the fact that you don’t know him and he doesn’t know you either. So what, is he here to exorcise another curse? If that’s the case, you’d better put Mrs. Hwang’s number on standby in case her house collapses or something.

The brunet boy grumbles, as he should, “What’s taking that fucking idiot so long?”

On cue, there’s another explosion of light, the same one that nearly blinded you three days ago. And there stands Minho in all his glory of...dirt and grass and...why is there a puppy in his arms?

“Jisung, I think I already taught you how to knock and greet people properly.”

You scowl at him, “Oh, look who’s talking. I don’t think light counts as a proper way to greet people.”

“She has a point,” Jisung shrugs.

Minho has an expression that screams betrayal and you feel bad for almost laughing. “You’re supposed to be on your father’s side.”

You swear, Jisung looks like he’s about to throw up. “You’re not my father!”

“I created you! You exist because of me! You literally came from my spine, you stupid bird!”

“I reject your influence.”

“That would mean suicide.”

“This is no way to treat your son.”

“Do not use that tone with me! The amount of disrespect—do you think I would ever talk to my father that way?! I don’t think so!”

“Why you always gotta harsh my mellow, old man?”

Lost in incoherent thoughts, you can barely comprehend their conversation. But the realization hits you that 1) Hyunjin’s parents are almost home, 2) the kids are still asleep upstairs, 3) there are two morons spatting nonsense at each other in the Hwangs’ living room.

“Shut the fuck up! Both of you! Just shut up! Are you here just to uppercut each other’s ego or are you going to give me an exorcism? What the absolute fuck?!” Your patience snaps and the two of them pause, simultaneously turning their heads to stare at you like you’re batshit crazy. Guess whose fault is that? “Thank you. Important question, by the way, whose dog is that? I’ll smack you if it dirties the carpet.”

Minho frowns down at the puppy wrapped in his white shirt like a burrito. His hair is entangled in leaves and short branches while the little demon is very intent on licking his bruised cheek. For some reason, you grin like a sadist at the discomfort on his face.

“It’s the kid’s puppy. I think his name was Kkami or something. I saw flyers all over Gangnam,” he replies flatly as if his brain is recalling the horrendous moments of chasing the dog in the middle of a cramped highway. “Did you know that he’s been staying up every night crying about this mop of furry ball, I could hardly sleep. How old is he? Five?”

You hold back a small smirk. “He’s nine, actually.”

“Great, I still don’t know anything about kids.”

“You know what, kindly leave the dog and get out.”

You’re really lucky that Hyunjin’s parents came back before twelve because the last thing you need right now is having an earful of a toddler’s unholy, overjoyed screeches when his lost puppy is back home in one piece. Not to mention, they told you to go home early and let them look after Felix until his mom comes back tomorrow. Mrs. Hwang and her are best friends either way.

Wait, back it up a little. Did you just say that you’re lucky?

No, you take that back. Because Minho is currently trailing after you under the faint downpour, his white shirt pathetically draped over his mop of hair as the rain gradually wets the fabric. Meanwhile, Jisung walks behind him with two hands propped on his nape like he’s in his element. He’s even humming a tune of some sort. You’re about to get lost in the melody because his voice is really nice until you realize that it’s clearly not okay for outsiders to witness....whatever this is.

“Why the hell are you following me?”

Minho answers honestly, “I need the job.”

“What job?”

He suppresses a groan, “You know—!”

“Pfff, hold on.” You pull your steps to a halt when a light bulb goes off. “Really? You’re telling me that you want to babysit Hyunjin?”

A shrug leaves his shoulders like it’s no big deal. “Yeah, I need the money.”

“Why? Aren’t you a god?” You make a face at him as you turn around, leaning your umbrella forward enough to cover his head. The rain is getting heavier, you should get to the bus stop soon because you’re not sure when the latest ride is.

Jisung declares from the back like that one nosy kid in class in which nobody ever asks for his opinions, “He’s broke and needs to eat food or else he’ll die.”

“What about you? Don’t you need to eat?” The brunet boy shakes his head. Jisung can easily pass as the boy-next-door type the more you look at him. “And he called himself your father—I’m sorry I’m just confused with this relationship. What are you? His sidekick slash adoptive child?”

Although Minho hates the fact that Jisung takes his daily torment as a form of entertainment, no one gets to talk shit about him. Come on, he does have some kind of parental dignity as a god. “He’s my sacred sword.”

“Nothing shocks me at this point,” you blink only once this time because you’re adapting to his shit way too quickly. “Yeah, I don’t get it. How does that work?”

“Jisung is a descendant of the vermilion bird. Their fire is known to possess an extremely strong anti-evil property. So I hatched him from an egg and extracted his soul into a blade.”

“You’re leaving out the fun part,” Jisung strides up to Minho’s side and clears his throat like he’s about to announce something important. “Before I became a blade, they planted my soul in his spine, and—”

Instantly, Minho slaps a hand over his mouth, hard enough to make him stagger backward and yelp aloud like a child throwing their usual tantrum. Remember what you said ten seconds ago? About the whole ‘nothing can shock you anymore’ statement? Yeah, you take that back too.

“Okay, okay,” you hold out a hand, “It’s too early for that, too early.”

“Listen, I’d be as shocked as you are if I weren’t eight hundred years old,” Minho presses a palm to his wrinkled forehead, “But I just need the job. Can’t you just tell the kid’s parents that I’m the one who found Kkami? It’d be easier to convince them if it’s coming from the both of us.”

“And why should I help you? I can’t just hand over a toddler to someone who looks like he’s been homeless for months.”

“It’s technically been a year,” Jisung tacks on unhelpfully.

Minho roughly pulls the white shirt off his head and runs a hand through his hair. His eyes screw close for a moment as he exhales through his nose. He can swear he catches you giggling soundlessly but by the time his eyes open again your face is as blank as a white sheet of paper. “Hey, I think we’re backtracking a little here. Hello? Do you want me to starve to death so you can have an easy way out?”

“It’s not the worst way out. I can take it,” Jisung snickers and you think Minho is about to choose violence.

Instead, he turns to you. His cold hands grab yours like a man lost at sea who just finds his only lighthouse. “Y/N, come on. I exorcised a curse from your home the other day. Can’t you at least do me this favor?” His voice is so delicate that you’re afraid you might break him if you let go, as thin as a blade of grass and with as much emotion as human bodies have water. It pulls at a string in your rib cage and melts you at the same time.

But you’re also a sadist. “Well, I patched you up the same exact night.”

Minho can see the corner of your lips curling up. Great, now there’s another being who gets some sort of sick, twisted amusement out of tormenting him, he just knows it.

“Do me another favor and I’ll repay you. I’m the type of person who can’t stand owing anyone a single thing.”

He huffs in disbelief, “What? Seriously? All I want is to provide that lonely kid some company. Isn’t he an only child? And he’s homeschooled, too, right? I am shocked and appalled that you’re not letting a god do any good deeds.”

“Really? You care that much, huh?” Your expression morphs into something unreadable. “What’s his name, then?”

There’s a fine line between being boldly stupid and stupidly bold. You don’t think a god would ever be desperate to the point of landing right on that thread. “I’m sorry, what?”

Yeah, no. You’re not playing his game. “The kid that you’re just dying to look after. I’m asking you to tell me his name. What-is-it?”

The internal turmoil of confusion going off in his eyes is so fucking clear that you nearly wheeze. “Well, uh, you know. It’s uh, it starts—starts with an ‘A’,” he raises his index finger expectantly.

You crack a smile while shrugging off your jacket, “H.”

“Right, ‘H’! That’s close. I mean, they’re basically neighbors. You can at least understand my mistake!”

“Of course,” you roll your eyes to the moon. “It’s Hyunjin.”

Finally, Minho gives up and throws his hands into the air, “Okay, fine! I’m in it for the money! And spare me, Wonder Woman, you’re not babysitting those little demons for free either.”

You purse your lips before dropping your jacket over his head. “Hey, at least I pretend to be nice to people.”

“Yeah, whatever, uh—Wait, pretend?”

“Minho!” Jisung shouts, eyes alarmed.

A pitch-black spike tears through air in a linear movement. Minho’s body immediately twitches into motion like second nature. Faster than a lightning bolt, a hand covers your head while the other around the small of your back. Your head buzzes with discomfort at the faint whiplash and your senses settle in when droplets gradually wet your skin.

“Stay back! It’s not a curse!” Minho snaps in a firm tone and shoves you away, leaving you flabbergasted as Jisung catches you by the shoulders.

Once again, you behold a hellish being with the black abomination of head and limbs that are not those of any creatures wrought by God. This horror seems to have a brighter mind of its own compared to the one in your apartment. It slowly rises to the height of a tall man, shadows moving and swaying with the manners of a great serpent. The round black head, with no visible ears or hair, leans to the side with eyes glowing hotly as coals.

Another spike shoots this way with twice the speed and accuracy from before. Minho manages to lean to the side but pauses halfway, reaching out to catch it bare-handed. The sharp object sizzles against his skin, forcing him to bite down on his lips to hold back a wince. I really shouldn’t be touching these things directly, he curses inwardly and drops it to the ground, completely unaware that the bandages on his neck are torn.

Minho blinks and suddenly the creature is baring its bat-like teeth right before his nose, looming over him as if threatening to swallow him whole. His pupils dilate in a slight panic. Half a second and he’s over the shadow in the air to throw out a precise ax kick. It simply bursts at the contact, letting his foot slam violently into concrete, leaving evident cracks. Physical attacks don’t work on this kind, he figures as much.

“Han! Come here!”

Jisung lets go of your arms as his body disintegrates into a streak of light and materializes into another form once he touches Minho’s fingers. A black blade gleams dangerously under the dim moonlight and the demon visibly shrinks at the sudden presence.

Somehow, it opens its mouth to speak in a gibberish manner, “This is already the third time you’ve been banished from Heaven. The cursed shackles on your body speak for themselves. What’s the point in executing curses and demons anymore?”

Minho exhales calmly and turns around to wield his sword. The blade effortlessly cuts through the neck of another demon behind his back. His eyes are devoid of emotion when its head drops to the ground, immobile and unmoving. His breaths are growing heavier, his muscles trembling in pure adrenaline. “That isn’t for you to decide.”

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” The demon from earlier doesn’t back down and continues to taunt, “Of how many innocent lives had died by your hands? You slaughtered your own believers.”

“It doesn’t concern me.”

“You’re too easy. Fighting instead of worrying about that mortal.”

Minho’s vision begins to grow smudged and blurred from the adrenaline but his stubbornness manages to keep his eyes wide enough.

The moment wind whistles past his ear, an invisible strike cuts through thin air in your direction. Minho turns half an inch, reaches out to the transparent stake and it digs deep into the flesh of his finger before erupting in vermilion flames.

His foot stomps on concrete so harshly to the point that he can feel the ground shatter. His body moves at an inhuman speech, directly padding up against the creature of darkness. The blade in his hand switches between precise slashes and violent stabs with dexterity, drawing out countless streaks of light. His white shirt flutters in the wind and in the guise of his cold rage.

You widen your eyes, not realizing that your knees are trembling. There’s a split second where his eyes meet yours. A deeply layered pain flashes in his eyes and a chill runs down your spine. With contradicting feelings, your soul shudders.

The demon eventually gives out due to the horrendous amount of damages, tripping over itself onto the ground. Minho points his blazing sword directly at its worn-out neck and his voice twists gruesomely, “Who the fuck are you calling easy?” It doesn’t sound like a question, more like a threat.

“Admit it. You aren’t meant to be a god,” the demon laughs, ugly and broken. “You can’t be one of them if you detest them.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s gods, humans, or demons. I detest them all equally.”

“Yet you’re still handicapping yourself to protect all these mortals.”

“I think you’re wasting your breath.” Minho’s brows are crumpled, his shoulders tense and his throat jumps as he swallows, “I’ll be sending you to join your friend soon.”

Minho’s fist curls up and comes in contact with the brick wall roughly. It does nothing to release his inner turmoil. He squeezes the hilt of his sword and ignores Jisung’s shouts at the back of his mind.

His features morph into a scowl as his temple aches with every word of the demon that he can recall. Allegedly, moving on in this state was a grave mistake. Trying to put his middle finger up against Heaven’s regulations wasn’t something someone as smart as him shouldn’t have screwed around with.

“It’s not like I can die either. What the fuck,” Minho murmurs to himself, leaning back against bricks and cement. His eyelids are heavy, his breath frozen, shoulders weighed down by an invisible force.

His dark lashes flutter up to stare at the falling snow, feeling their little frostbites against his chilling skin, and his eyes momentarily close for some sort of relief.

Minho simply needs to do his job properly, they say. All beings are equal, they say.

So who is he, when he doesn’t do his job?

And who is he, to experience the excruciating throb like it’s a recurring lucid dream that he can never escape from?

Pain is always temporary. Minho knows exactly how it looks like, how it tastes, and how it pulses through his hollow bones. He can grit his teeth to endure. He used to do it all the time. But it’s the dull-phantom agony of a hundred swords piercing his chest and the neglect he’s grown numb to that still haunt him every night.

Just because he is immortal, they rammed their merciless blades through his body and drove their unsparing words into his skull. Over and over again. He couldn’t fight back, that would mean going against the rules.

They broke him.

Hurt him.

Again. And again. And again.

He let them.

Until the infinite sky is painted the same shade of crimson as his two hands. Until the cursed shackles trace the lines of his wrists and neck like an unwanted scar. The chains imprinted on his skin have bound his physical abilities to those of a mere earthling for centuries now and almost every night he wants to cry out to someone.

He wants to be smaller—lesser, perhaps. Maybe if there’s less of him in this life, there might be less of a problem.

“Minho.”

One glance into his eyes and an entire lifetime flashes before your eyes.

“I will do as I please, use whichever methods I choose. It doesn’t matter to me what they want. I will save you all without fail!”

There’s love and admiration. There’s trust and responsibilities. There’s arrogance and naïveté.

“Someone…save me. Please, come and save me!”

But then there’s heartache and betrayal. There’s helplessness, bloodlust, and eternal darkness.

You see a dream of bringing salvation to the common people. You see a righteous halo that thousands used to look upon, forcibly placed their belief onto that light until it shattered under the impossible burden. What’s left behind is an everlasting silence, a fallen god without his believers, a heart beating with despair, and an immortal soul that yearns for death.

His courage. His anguish. His compassion. His resentment and hatred. His intuition and ignorance.

You want to understand them all.

“Did you get hurt?”

The world used to be a black void. Somehow, it becomes bright and smiles at him. Minho fights for every little detail in the smile, pushes his blurry consciousness to give it the right voice, and composes a small ray of light from his broken memories.

“Take a rest, Minho.”

Minho lets a forgotten tear slide down his cheek when a soft piece of wool drapes itself around his exposed neck. His fingers tug at the material, slow and clumsy. He leans forward without a second thought, into the warm presence of safety. You sigh, hugging him closer so he can calm his breaths. Your embrace feels like washing the blood from his hands and waking up from a nightmare to the warm morning sun.

Here is a person who cares for him.

Here is a person who he can reach out to when he thinks such a thing as affection might not be fitting for his tainted soul.

Here is a person who makes him hope again even when his heart was too worn out to look for any validation. Your hug is tight, so very tight as if you’re willing to open your ribs and tuck the mess that is him inside, to keep him close and safe. The mess that is precious because a part of you is afraid that you might make him shatter if your touch is too desperate.

Minho still can’t believe it because you don’t let go and only hold him impossibly tighter. “Are you…is this-is this real…?”

Your brow twitches in irritation. This fool… what the absolute fuck…

In a moment of candid boldness, you push him away and smack him across the face in hopes of bringing him back to clarity. The haziness in his head eventually fades away, leaving him flabbergasted. Palm against a cheek, his skin and flesh flush hot and swollen. When was the last time someone got upset at him like this? When was the last time someone cared enough to put him back into his place? Frankly, Minho can’t quite remember.

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.” His breath leaves him in a soft rush.

“Then I am real. All of this is real. Isn’t that great?”

“Yes.” Naturally, the tears keep coming.

“If you dare to wander around death’s door again for my sake, I’ll hit you twice. Got it?”

He doesn’t respond. Only a small smile greets you under the beaming moonlight. A cold wind blows. You hold his teary gaze until your heart can’t take it anymore and your hand reaches out to ruffle his hair.

The first step toward warmth takes him a lifetime of eight hundred years.

But it’s worth it because he is no longer alone.

Not to your surprise, Hyunjin is a lonely kid and immediately whines to his parents about setting up another playdate with Felix. You always know the brat would get attached quickly.

“You got it?”

Minho shoves his hands into his pockets as he runs over things he shouldn’t say in front of the kids for the last time. “Yeah, you’ve asked me for the fifth time already.”

“I can’t trust an eight hundred-year-old man,” you smile and lean against the front door.

For some reason, he looks offended. “I have good memories. I can summarize the entire battle of Hwangsanbeol in five seconds. Try me.”

“Isn’t that like common knowledge?” Your brows furrow. “People don’t need to have a first-class certificate in Korean History to know that Baekje won.”

His commiserating sigh reeks of disappointment. “Y/N, sweetie. Kim Gwanchang sacrificed himself, helped Silla regain their morale, and made Kim Yushin victorious.” Whatever, you never liked the subject anyway.

The door is wide open for him now. Your lips curl up into a soft smile when your gazes collide, “...you know what, why don’t you opt to be Hyunjin’s history tutor instead of a babysitter?” It’s hard to break eye contact as he secretly thinks about how pretty your eyes are.

“Don’t be a creep, Minho.”

Minho nearly trips and falls on his face when Jisung’s voice echoes inside his head. “You’re already talking too much.”

“You could have left me at home or something. No offense but your spine isn’t the most ideal place to kick back.”

His lips wordlessly twitch in exasperation but he tries not to make a sound. He can’t afford to let you witness the unhinged banter as if he hasn’t freaked you out enough already. “Hilarious.”

“Wait until I tell an actual joke,” Jisung is glaring at him, he can feel it. “Ooh, my bad. That’s you.”

“What a shame, Han. I guess you’re not hanging out with the kids today.” Minho raises his index finger and drags out a simple charm in thin air. Jisung instantly shuts up.

An exhale of relief and his gaze begins to roll around the Lee’s household. He almost gawks, literally. This isn’t a house, it’s a fucking mansion. It gives him a hunch that this Felix brat must have steaks for breakfast on a daily basis. The kid’s family is definitely loaded.

The moment he sets foot into the living room, he gets assaulted. Well, that’s mildly exaggerated. His leg gets assaulted. The culprit is no other than a familiar ball of fluff. It is barking at him with the level of energy that can easily surpass a toddler going through a sugar rush.

“Well, looks like Kkami didn’t forget you,” you fail to suppress your laughter.

The said dog, Kkami, circles around him until they both get slightly dizzy, his tail wagging so hard Minho fears it might as well fall off. Reluctantly, he kneels down to pet his head because Kkami is practically ruining his new pair of jeans.

“Hyunjin, this is Minho. He found Kkami and brought him home the other day for you,” you attempt to call Hyunjin over because Felix is already taking peeks at the new guest from behind your legs.

Minho gives him a finger-gun, “Sup.”

Hyunjin pulls in a deep breath, shuffling from his position on the couch. Then he hops off the cushions, drags his feet on the tiled floor, and stares at the odd scenario while tugging at your finger. He’s clearly unhappy that some random guy just walked into his life and took his puppy’s attention away from him.

“Hey kid,” Minho flaps a hand. “Can Kkami do any cool tricks?”

Hyunjin scowls, “No.”

A mischievous brow flickers. “Do you want me to teach him for you?”

“No. What do you want?”

Never mind, kids aren’t easy to deal with these days. Minho deliberately lets out a desperate sigh before pushing himself up, “What I’m trying to say is I want to be your babysitter slash tutor slash puppy trainer if the last one is a real job that is.”

“You can’t do that many jobs at once,” Hyunjin replies snottily, very unconvinced.

“I can.”

There’s a split second where Minho looks somewhat ticked off, however, he recalls your words from earlier and replaces the frown with a forced smile. He walks up to Hyunjin, leans down to match his eye level, and tilts his head almost threateningly.

“If you don’t agree, I can just kidnap your dog.”

You instinctively smack him on the back of his head. He wouldn’t dare.

The usual shrug of carefreeness leaves his shoulders when you start staring daggers at him. The fact that he knows how to exorcise curses and demons but still lets you touch his weak point should really be enough of a hint about his liking for you. The cursed shackles are already there so he’s got nothing to lose anymore.

“You won’t do that,” Hyunjin, to your surprise, retorts confidently. “Because then you won’t get paid.”

Touché. The kid is smart, that’s good. His brain is already full of stupidity thanks to Jisung.

“It’s your loss if you don’t take me in.” Minho pulls away casually, he can’t help but notice the longing gaze on the toddler’s face. Kids are kids, they do get attached quickly. “I’m a full package,” he rightfully asserts. It’s not unbelievable. A person can do a lot for a lifetime of eight hundred years. You won’t be surprised if he randomly becomes a flamethrower tomorrow and simultaneously starts his second career as a bartender during nightfall.

“You’re just in it for the money.” Of course, Minho shamelessly nods at that. “You’re kind of a little shit.”

Wait, pause.

“Hyunjin, sweetheart,” you blink rigidly. “Where did you learn that from?” The little rat turns away without a word while still grabbing at your shirt tightly. Silence really speaks more than words.

Felix raises his hand in a timid manner, “He heard it when you stubbed your toe the other day.” And you’re already wondering where the nearest cliff is. Study reveals: you can’t suffer if you’re dead.

The flat expression on Minho’s face is having a hard time maintaining itself. It makes you want to throw him into a tank full of sharks. “I’d say that is reasonable. What are you supposed to say when you get hurt? A freaking prayer?”

“So what? Are we going to allow them to curse when they get hurt now?” you heave at him incredulously, “What if Felix curses at daycare and all the toddlers on the playground start slapping themselves in the face in order to use vulgar language?”

His brain gears pause for a moment. “What the fu...how do you know that?”

“I have many secrets.”

“Yeah, remind me not to mess with you?”

“Ready to surprise Felix at daycare?”

Hyunjin jumps slightly in his seat in excitement, “Yep!”

Right, did you mention that Mr. and Mrs. Lee have a thing for going on business trips unannounced? Naturally, Mrs. Hwang has no reason to not let Felix stay at their place until his parents come back. Poor kid, no wonder Hyunjin’s got such a soft spot for him.

So as soon as the bell rings, you decide to come and pick Hyunjin up for a short car ride. After all, he’s too smart to live under a rock all the time. You deeply despise unfulfilled potentials.

On a similar note, Minho still didn’t get Hyunjin’s approval, which is reasonable.

However, because he is technically your new roommate and is jobless, he unconditionally follows you whenever you’re outside of classes. Truth be told, it feels like you’ve brought home an attention-starved cat but hey, who are you to complain?

“Also…” you drawl, side-eyeing the passenger seat. “What’s with the cold shoulder?”

Minho doesn’t even bother to glance at you, the audacity. “What cold shoulder?”

“The one you’re giving me right now as we speak.”

You like to reassure yourself that he’s too focused on admiring how clean your car is to respond. And truthfully, your car is clean and he does like it. It’s the only metal box that he’s willing to sit in rather than teleporting himself.

Your car is pristine yet it doesn’t have that awful smell of new cars. You always shove the old notepad full of mildly comprehensive grocery lists into the door’s storage compartment and end up forgetting everything. If he glances back, there’s the fluffy blanket you start keeping in the backseat in case he complains about the air conditioning. And then, the tiny, red sparrow keychain hung upon the rear-view mirror reminds you of Jisung which reminds you of him.

Minho would like to correct you that Jisung is a descendant of the vermillion bird, not a sparrow but he thinks it doesn't matter either way if you bought it because of him.

“I’d like to think that I’m hot, not cold.”

You chuckle, amused, “Did I accidentally offend you somehow? Hey, stop turning your back on people when they’re talking to you!”

His face unknowingly flushes because he knows damn well his reasons might be too shallow. “Would you please just get off my back and shoulders?”

“Minho, it was a harmless date,” Jisung supplies unhelpfully.

“But she only got back in the middle of the night! I even made us dinner!”

“Seriously? I went missing for almost a week and you didn’t even bother to look for me. What kind of a parental figure are you? I’m feeling the need to report you for child abandonment.”

“Saying ‘I fucking hate you’ would have sufficed, Han.”

“By the way, thanks for the food last night,” you scratch your cheek once you remind yourself of the hefty meal and a completely passed-out Minho on the couch. “It was much better than the place we went to.”

You’re not upset with the date. You just thought it would be rude if you never gave the guy the chance when he didn’t have any ill intentions. It was an average experience, you’d say. And was it worth a total of a two-hour drive? No, of course not.

“Yeah?” Minho keeps gazing out the window. “If that’s the case, you should just stick to your type and not some random moron from uni.”

You pout. You know that he’s right. “I’m sure it’s not possible to find someone who’s good-looking, can cook, nice, and doesn’t have the personality of a piece of white bread all at the same time.”

Jisung instantly loses his absolute shit while Minho’s complexion goes impossibly paler like you’ve stuck four screwdrivers through his skull without mercy. The worst part? Only he has to go through the hysterical experience because the stupid bird is practically inhabiting his spine.

“Are you going to date a god?” Hyunjin perks up from the back seat.

And this time, you nearly crash the car.

Minho’s shoulders are clearly shaking from laughing too hard. Jisung should be enjoying this, too. You can feel it.

Shakily, you take a moment to breathe while clutching the steering wheel. “No, why’d you say that?”

“Then you should lower your expectations.”

Why the hell are you being lectured by a nine-year-old? You want a fucking refund.

“Oh look, there he is!” Hyunjin grabs your hand and drags you ahead.

“Hey wait for me—ugh!“ Minho tried to trail after as quickly as he can but someone just slams into him with their entire body weight. “What the hell??”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” The young man shoots him a dimpled smile, offering him a hand and picking up the mess on the ground right after.

Minho only stares back at him from head to toe. Dark under circles, tired shoulders, a name tag that reads ‘Bang Chan’, and a box full of colorful books. It is most likely that he works at this daycare place. “Yeah, I’m good. Just be careful next time,” he replies dryly, eyes already darting elsewhere to look for you.

“You too!” Chan flashes one last smile before running off. If Minho is being honest, it’s kinda hard to get mad at him because he looks like any amount of his sanity has already been thrown out the window about three years ago.

His gaze spontaneously stops dead on the concrete before him and there lies a small storybook. “So what? Do I have to return this, too?”

“Uh-huh. Try and act decently for once, it’s not that hard,” Jisung suggests.

And obviously, Minho has no excuse to reject it. He just needs to find you first. You’re better at socializing than he is after all.

But when Minho pushes his way through the glass door, the first thing he sees is Felix and another kid being surrounded by three different grownups—one of which he recognizes is Chan.

The daycare is relatively empty because it’s already past the working hour. Felix and the other kid have tears trailing down their cheeks, though Felix’s eyes are somewhat bright knowing that he has nothing to be afraid of.

Hyunjin himself is heaving like he’s absolutely enraged. If it weren’t for you holding him tightly to your side, things would have escalated very quickly.

“My brother’s storybook is gone! And who was helping you two clean up after playing hour today?” The furious girl your age glares at Chan and his colleague.

Felix lifts his head and faces her glare head-on. “I-I did.”

“So where is Senju’s storybook?”

“I already put it inside the box! I promise-“

“But it’s not there, is it?” She crosses her arms and glances at her brother who’s bawling his eyes out every now and time before scoffing. “You know what, this isn’t even worth it. Apologize to Senju and I’ll let this go.”

Felix lowers his head this time, trying his best to hold back his tears. “But I did nothing wrong!”

With a deep breath, Minho walks toward your side and places a warm hand on your shoulder. You peer at him sideways at the contact, your eyes clearly burning with cold rage. This only adds to his panic. Great. Now what?

“Minho.”

“Yes?” He jumps a little at your voice.

You push Hyunjin toward his side and curl your fists. “Stay here with Hyunjin. This shouldn’t take too long.”

For a second there, Minho has absolutely no idea what to do. Kids are crying. The grownups are mad. The daycare employees are incredulously useless. And he knows better than to let you go near that woman because the minute you approach her, he’s sure that you’re out for blood. Not literally but still.

“Set one priority only. Felix.” Jisung helps him knock on wood before you can walk away.

Those words snap him back to clarity instantly. “No, you stay here,” Minho says firmly and grabs your wrist. “It’s fine, Y/N. You don’t have to do anything.”

To his dismay, you stare back at him dead in the eye. “Well if what that girl is doing to Felix is fine, then I guess second-degree murder is also fine.”

“What are you gonna do? Kill her with a stuffed toy?”

“I can try.”

“No—!“

“I’m just going to talk to her, I swear.”

“You were literally planning her murder.”

“No, I am just going to unalive her.”

“You what—“

“Excuse me, you’re not letting me talk. I was the one who carried the boxes.” Chan rubs a stiff finger on his temple before exhaling. “And it is actually Senju’s turn today to be on cleaning duty. Felix was never obligated to help us in the first place.”

The girl gasps aloud, “Oh? So now you’re putting the blame on my brother?”

The brunet named Seungmin finally speaks up, pushing Felix behind his legs, “We deeply apologize for what happened. However—“

“I don’t need your apology. It’s him who needs to apologize,” she cuts him off and points a finger at Felix in accusation. Surprisingly, you have not heard one audible sob from the kid, though the quiver of his shoulders tells you that he’s at his limit.

Felix may have done nothing wrong but he’s still just a kid. An adult on the verge of exploding will make any toddler go stiff. However, even if Felix did accidentally drop the storybook somewhere, she has no right to talk him down like that. He wasn’t even on duty today.

Did you mention that you wanted to unalive her?

You take a breath. “Hey, you fucking waste of oxy—“

Minho panics and clasps a hand over your mouth. You then shoot him a warning look that lets him know if he doesn’t let you go in the next three seconds, you’re going to make him.

He shakes his head gently, giving you a long and silent stare. Your anger melts at the tenderness, your tense shoulders slowly loosen up. “Fine. Go.”

With a deep inhale, Minho walks over to the commotion, his expression unwavering as every eye in the room pins him into place. Other kids’ in daycare hushed whispers can be heard and it’s clearly affecting Felix more than it should. He needs to end this quickly.

“And you,” Seungmin exhales tiredly as if another disaster has struck. “What do you want?”

Minho’s eyes stop dead in their tracks at the name tag. “Kim Seungmin.”

Before the latter can get any say in this abrupt conversation, Minho swiftly grabs him by the collar, sucks in a sharp breath, and slams his head against the poor guy’s skull with an impact strong enough for a mild concussion.

You almost choke on blood. “What-What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

The pale look on the girl’s face is priceless. You could have laughed if you weren’t so shocked yourself.

“Oh my god, Seungmin! Are you okay?!” Chan freaks out and holds his stumbling colleague by the shoulders. He whips his head up to meet eyes with the culprit pointedly. “Just so you know..violence is absolutely unacceptable. What possessed you into doing such a-“

“Is this the storybook that you’re looking for?” Minho holds up the book in front of his face.

Seungmin regains his awareness and squints at the vibrant hardcover with slightly disoriented vision. Accepting the book with one hand while the other on his head, he lifts a brow. “Yeah, that’s the one… Wait, why do you have it?”

The flat expression remains on Minho’s face, his head motioning toward a very confused Chan. “He bumped into me and dropped it.”

Naturally, awkward apologies are exchanged. Minho instantly wants to bury himself but decides to stay so Felix can hold his hand through the process. He isn’t appalled at all when Senju’s older sister chooses not to say a single word. So his rationality tells him to do what he does best.

“Felix, listen.” Minho kneels down to meet his eye level. “Next time a bad grownup accuses you of doing things that you didn’t do, you tell them to kindly shut the fuck up and walk away because you don’t owe them shit. Okay?”

Felix sniffles one last time and breaks into a big smile. “Okay!”

Minho’s face falls crooked at Hyunjin’s intense stare in the rearview mirror. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“You were making a total fool of yourself,” the kid stabs a finger his way and averts his gaze completely, embarrassment flushing his cheeks.

“What was that?” Minho grins back like the sly bastard he is.

You shrug from the driver’s seat. “He said you were looking kinda cool.”

“Wait, so if you had the book the entire time, why did you have to headbutt the poor guy?” Jisung pops up in realization.

Minho only purses his lips. “His face pisses me off.”

“I never said anything like that!” Hyunjin finally stops whining in his seat after a long beat of silence. “Fine! I’ll ask my parents to let you babysit me.”

The crystalline joy in his eyes is so obvious that you almost wheeze at his effort of trying to hide it. Minho exchanges a small look with you, internally screaming with all his might that he’s finally, finally not jobless anymore. At least for the next few months. Working while being able to be with you is more than enough.

“Under one condition.” Hyunjin holds up a finger.

And never mind. Minho almost forgets this kid is constantly opposed to anything remotely related to him for no apparent reason at all.

“You said you’re really smart right? Whenever I have a question, I want you to answer it honestly. And you don’t get to call my questions stupid.”

Oh, that’d be easy then.

A wave of lighthearted chuckles bursts from his lips. “Okay done. There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”

“Can you answer my questions, too?” Felix raises his hand expectantly.

“Sure. No problem.”

Hyunjin doesn’t have to hesitate anymore. “Okay, I have a question. Do you believe in gods?”

You and Minho simultaneously tense up. Concern begins rooting inside your rib cage because this is a relatively sensitive topic to him. Having the kids talk about it too much might be equivalent to playing with fire.

“Why do you ask?” Minho tries to keep his voice from snapping.

To his surprise, Hyunjin’s eyes glow with awe, bright and pure. “Because when I was praying for Kkami to come home at night, someone really brought him back to me the next day. I wasn’t praying to anyone in particular but I felt like someone was listening to my prayer. I believe someone was watching over me all night. The only person who could go through all that work for me without any complaints must be a god, right?”

It melts and breaks Minho’s heart altogether.

His gaze meets yours again. The oncoming tears are making it hard to see what kind of expression you’re making. He is absolutely stricken but letting one droplet fall will make him blanch with shame. When his brain tries to come up with something cutting and clever as a response, his tongue clams up. Speechless.

“The kid does have some range. Good to know.” Jisung lets out a discreet exhale, not knowing whether this warmth in his chest is coming from himself or Minho.

“Gods do exist, Hyunjin,” you speak up after the prolonged stillness. “They might not be able to do everything but they are always trying their best no matter what.”

Minho eventually lets out a laugh; his chest feels so light and content. “She’s right. Gods do exist.”

“I have a question, too!” Felix wags his fists in excitement.

“What is it?”

“Are you in love?”

You don’t intend to crash the car but being able to operate the vehicle normally is going to be a complicated task.

Hyunjin gives the younger kid a weird look.

Jisung is, well, losing his shit all over again.

And Minho stays quiet for a very very long time.

“…”

“...”

“Stupid question.”

#skzwritersclub #inkidz #stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #lee minho imagines #lee minho scenarios #lee know #lee know imagines #lee know scenarios #stray kids fluff #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #lee know x reader #stray kids oneshot #lee know oneshot

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muuapologist-archive · 2 years

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youtube

goes insane goes insane goes insane goes insane goes insane goes insa

#girl help #I'm #too many feelings #AAAAAAAAAAAAA #I can't do this girl help #Sakurai Haruka #Haruka Sakurai #All-Knowing And All-Agony #Second Trial #Milgram #ミルグラム #Angel talks

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toxapexremade · 3 years

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literally cannot believe that nearly every scene between ocelot and naked snake in mgs3 is an intricate courting ritual . i cant believe that fistfight scene is literally basically them just playing around with each other. ic ant believe they play russian roulette and even if you pick up the right gun you CANT shoot him because naked snake wont shoot because he doesnt know its a blank. and how ocelot shoots knowing its a blank and then in the most genuinely happy you ever see him laughs and throws his head back and goes "its a blank! oh, that was fun." and NAKED SNAKES... ON THE SAME PAGE... THE FACT THE BLANK IS LITERALLY FROM THEIR FIRST MEETING WHEN OCELOT MUCKED UP A TRICK AND NAKED SNAKE GAVE HIM FUCKING TIPS BECAUSE HE LIKES HIM AND ITS SO IMPORTANT TO HIM HE KEPT IT ON A NECKLACE AND TRIED TO DO THE ITS A BLANK TO HIM AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE THIS SCENE. THEYRE JUST PLAYING. THEYRE HAVING FUN. I CANT BELIEVE THEYR E REAL CHARACTERS. THE FACT EVA TRIES TO SHOOT HIM AND NAKED SNAKE WONT LET HER. OCELOT TRIES TO KILL HIM HONESTLY MULTIPLE TIMES AND NAKED SNAKES LIKE HEHE I LIKE HIM. THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE ADAM EVE AND THE SNAKE IMAGERY CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE GARDEN OF EDEN ALEGORIES PELADR PLEASE PLEASE I FEEL INSANE I FEEL INSA

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #I DIDNT EVEN TOUCH ON EVERYTHING IM NOT EVEN DONE THERES SO MUCH MORE I COULD TALK ABOUT #JUDES TED TALK

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spoonielivingfree · 6 years

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Me watching the Pre-Broadway version of legally blonde

The Harvard variations is literally an accurate depiction of the people you’ll meet at law school

I want to play Callahan just to sing Blood in the water

What the fuck is love and war like what is that song? I’m so glad they replaced that with Positive

Warner stop being so horrible to Elle, she is incredible, she is a capable law student, see her for the wonder she really is!

Viv stop being horrible to Elle, she is amazing, “one day we’ll be nominating supreme court justices and you’ll be tanning.” No Viv NO one day Elle will be a supreme court justice.

Atleast the reason I went to law school wasn’t to win back my jerk boyfriend.

Elle honey, just do your reading, get out those books there’s power in doing your reading.

Malam Prohibidem and Malam insae is all the law I know.

Wow, the lines in Chip on your Shoulder are so different.

This is gonna be me next year in Children in the law, not really because I don't want to start an argument.

Wonder if reckless abandonment is actual law.

Emmett at the end of chip on my shoulder!!

See Elle is a nice lawyer, she helps people.

10 years! I know the answer and it’s not even real law, I’ve just watched this musical too much.

YAS ELLE YOU SLAY!

Yas gal, that was law, that is the point of law, you’ve got it yas girl!

Warner fuck off, your not even charming.

YES ELLE! THAT IS YOUR NAME! I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU! YES YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT.

YAS GIRL! Your doing a great job at rubbing this in Warners face.

Fuck those heels, how the hell does anyone dance in those.

That end note is like running a marathon. How?

Can I have Brookes body plz?

OMG she just messed up with her skipping rope!

Fucking love Callahan.

Why are they allowed skipping rope in prison?

OMG THAT CREAM OF THE CROP AND WHIP UP YOUR LEGAL DEFENCE LINE!

Yet another demonstration of now Elle Woods is a nice Lawyer and I love her and if I could be a criminal Barrister I would be the Elle Woods of my Chambers. She cares about her client more than anything else and I fucking love that about her.

Callahan you dick Emmet and Elle are incredible, they are better Lawyers than you could ever be, they have Morals, you could learn from that.

Take it like a man is such a good scene!

LBB’S VOCALS ARE ACTUALLY ORGASMIC

Kyle is actually such great comedy and eye candy and just sex OMG WHY DID THEY REMOVE THAT LINE THAT’S IN FRENCH?

Literally Paulette!

BENNND AND SNAP!

The amount of energy that goes into this show is insane!

Elle needs to learn her court ettiquete, how dare her phone go off in the court room, that would make the Judge furious in real life.

The bend and snap saves the day!

ENID IS SO GAY! She’s Arizona level gay.

Fuck off Warner.

YASS! TIME FOR THE BEST SCENE EVER!

Gay or European, so many shades of grey!

He’s gay! Yas Emmett well done!

Such a tragic joke Warner.

YAS ELLE, now they believe in you gal.

GET OFF OF HER CALLAHAN! GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY BABY!

Tears welling at the first sounds of “legally blonde”

Me when I’ve finished second year with a 2:2.

Having an emotional performance of a ballad to myself.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT INTERLUDE?

Elle baby, actually me when I mess up and feel like a failure. Just let me be legally blonde!!!!! (Or brunette as the case may be)

Elle honey. My darling.

YAS VIV! YAS, MY FUCKING MOTIVATIONAL QUEEN COMES IN TO SAVE THE DAY. YAS VIV GO ON, YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I CAN BE GOOD LAW STUDENT!

Actually want to play Viv

YAS VIV YAS!

YAS ELLE! YOU DO YOU! NOW GO SMASH THIS LIKE WE ALL KNOW YOU CAN.

That American flag

What the hell, glad they changed that part of the song.

It’s so different!

Never have I seen someone throw a box like Paulette!

The Irish dancing segment is actual gold.

I swear the scene changes 10 times in this one song.

YAS EMMETT! YAS!

Actually adore fictional black judges.

And then she had a shower.

No I would like us all to go to the bathroom together!

Scene of the criimme! Scene of the criime! Scene of the criiiime!

YAS ELLE YOU SLAY! YAS GAL! YOU’VE DONE IT GIRL!

OH MY GOD OMIGOD OMIGOD YOU GUYS!!

The oh my god reprise is such a bop

Warner, she can do better than you. That’s now how life works.

Elle woods is an actual goddess.

Yes girly “even if i crash and burn ten times day” is the exact quote that keeps me going.

She’s so gracious, I actually love her.

Emmett forest please make the the happiest woman I know....

YAS! She’s found her love.

Can i just spend my life writing Elle x Emmet fanfics?

“We’re setting you free now go home and be legally blonde” is so motivational. Like yas, lets hit the books and read some law in the summer break even though I don't 100% know I’ve got my chosen modules.

#Legally blonde #legally blonde the musical #pre broadway #Laura bell bundy #warner huntington iii #paulette #Bruiser #Professor Callahan #Orfeh

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sovaharbor · 2 years

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if there is one thing to know abt me as a writer it's that i usually start writing with only a beginning and an end in mind and the rest usually kinda falls into place. tht being said. i suddenly had big brain galaxy moment for my iceangel fic and im

#bobby walking in on warren trying to strap his harness on and failing miserably. them finally having The Talk[tm] while bobby straps him in #me: *goes insane* *goes insane* *goes insane* *goes insane* *goes insa #summer's text tag #IT'S ABOUT THE CYCLES. U KNOW. WARREN HIDING PART OF HIMSELF TOO AND BOBBY KNOWING. UNDERSTANDING.#AND WARREN IS UPSET THAT BOBBY WANTS TO HIDE IT FROM THE REST OF THE O5 BECAUSE THEY DONT *HAVE* TO HIDE FROM THEM #but warren gets it too. of course he does. aaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHH #Today is such a brainrot day im sorry to be like this.

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highqualitydolans · 7 years

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Cannibal {04}

Part Four

Read Part Three

Word Count: 6,600+ Warnings: Mature content and language (14+). Graphic content.

“I still don’t trust them,” Andrew says as he continues to pace in front of me.

Emmett and I are sitting on the porch steps on their cabin. To our left, the kids’ quarters is a ruckus, children running around and shouting as they play tag and duck-duck-goose, all completely naive to the fact that we have three total strangers in the perimeter who were once part of a group that liked to prey on us.

“Everyone else seems to. Alexis especially, and we all know she doesn’t warm up to just anyone,” I tell him, leaning my chin on my palm. “I’m just not happy about my living situation.”

“You don’t have to live there you know?”

“I am not giving up my cabin.” It took a lot of convincing from Gabbie and Alexis, but I’m a sucker for my girls and they managed to get me to agree to let Ethan stay there.

“Do you think they have a special skin regimen?” Emmett asks, completely off topic as usual. Andrew just glowers at him. “What? Grayson’s face is, like, baby butt smooth.”

Andrew and I ignore him, also as usual.

“I don’t want to trust them either, but he seemed serious about his concerns and apologies,” I say with a shrug. As much as I hate to admit it, I know I saw sincerity in Ethan’s eyes when he was talking about saving Alexis and also the Traitors. Even more scary, I saw the actual worry in his features when I mentioned we needed to go back to the sanctuary.”

“So you do trust him?” Andrew asks, halting his restless feet. He doesn’t sound accusatory, just defeated.

“Not necessarily. But I do believe everything he’s said.”

“I wonder if they use a special soap-”

“Emmett! Seriously,” Andrew yells at his roommate. With a sigh, he rolls his eyes and sits on the other side of me. After a long silence, he finally speaks again. “What do we do?”

I don’t tell him that I don’t know, but it’s all I’m thinking. Of course, I don’t want to trust Ethan and his entourage, but they are the best assets we have right now. I roll my eyes in utter annoyance.

“Why is everyone looking to me to make the decisions. Who died to make me queen?” I say in frustration, standing up. Luckily, the sound of laughing children and hollering parents are all but drowning out this conversation.

“You’re just the best leader here. You know that.” Andrew stands up and saunters towards me. I see his hand reach out to touch my arm, but he must think better of it, because it drops to his side before he makes contact. “Y/N. You’re a really strong person. You stood up to Ethan when he held us captive. Do you think any of us would have done that? Hell, David didn’t even do it, and it was his girlfriend that was about to take the axe. The reason we look to you for the next step is because we know you won’t hold anything back. We trust your judgement, even if it’s a little reckless sometimes, because we know that, even if something goes wrong, more things will go right.”

Although flattered by his small speech, I can’t help but feel a tinge of bitterness. He’s right, there is almost always something that goes wrong. Like how we were captured in the sanctuary. And how Alexis was held hostage.

But he was also right about my bravery, even if that sounds narcissistic. I did stand up to Ethan. He didn’t scare me like he did the others. I don’t know why, but he hadn’t felt as threatening as he was trying to come across when they had us captive.

“We look to you because you’re a natural born leader. So I’m going to ask you again. What do we do now?” Andrew asks, looking at me expectantly. Where he sees bravery in my eyes, I see determination in his.

Thinking for only a few seconds, I nod my head.

“Okay. I know what we need to do.”

“You are absolutely insane.”

Andrew, Emmett and I were the only three who decided to skip dinner tonight. Ethan, Grayson and Aaron technically couldn’t go either, but Liza was compliant at bringing them all food to the cabins so they wouldn’t starve. She’s told me I should probably just take Ethan’s myself since he’s staying in my cabin, but… Yeah.

“You’re the one who said you trust my judgement,” I remind Andrew as we quickly make our way to Bre’s office. Grayson had insisted on coming with us, but it was too risky, even more than what we are about to do.

“Yes, but this is on another level. What I’m trusting is that you know what you’re doing. And that’s a lot of scary trust to be putting into you right now,” he whispers.

Ignoring him, I round the corner of the last cabin at the front of the camp that leads directly to the infirmary.

“I’m all about being rebellious, but don’t you need to have some sort of licence to use sedatives on a patient?” Emmett asks as we approach the building.

“Usually, yes. But considering we’re in the middle of a cannibalistic apocalypse right now and the laws of the land are pretty much moot at the moment, I’m not too worried about it,” I tell him.

We make it to the infirmary a few seconds later, and to my dismay, Bre’s out to dinner sign is nowhere to be found. As quiet as I can, I tiptoe to the door and hold my head against it, listening for any type of movement. Sure enough, there is a small voice muttering to itself and papers rustling around. Bre was either back already from dinner, or she hadn’t left yet.

“Okay, plan B.”

“I thought this was plan B,” Emmett whispered.

“Emmett, distract Bre. Just keep her in her office.” I hop off the porch and grab Andrew’s arm, walking him toward the side of the building.

“But how do I-”

Ignoring him, Andrew and I round the side of the infirmary, where I know there’s a window leading to her supply room. Standing under it, I glance at Andrew.

“Hoist me up,” I say, crouching, ready to jump if I have to.

“Y/N.”

“This isn’t going to work if you don’t help me. Bre will never give any of us clearance to use her supplies, especially the drugs. We need that sedative.”

“Plan C: I take him out with my fist,” he suggests, crossing his arms.

“Andrew.” My voice is stern now.

We hold a small staring contest for a few seconds, both of us look lethal. After the silence becomes to much for him, he rolls his eyes and twines his fingers together, creating a step for me.

“I swear this is insane.”

Seven times he’s said that since I suggested this plan. Aaron thought it was genius. I like that kid.

I prop my foot into his hands and use my other foot to give myself enough momentum to jump to the window sill, which is at least three heads above me. My hands almost fail me as they brush the wooden sill, but I catch myself. Under me, Andrew curses.

I gently push the window upwards, testing its give. It opens with ease.

“Okay, a little higher,” I whisper-yell down to him. He complies, pushing my foot up until his hands are at his own stomach. I’m high enough now that I can fold myself over into the supply room and push myself in using the wall. I feel my foot leave his hand as I gently tumble into the room, rolling myself over to lessen the blow. The hard floor smacks loud as my butt hits it. That will leave a bruise.

With a silent breath, I hurdle myself to the other side of the room, bracing myself on the wall next to the door. If anyone were to open it, I would be hidden.

“-was that?” I hear Bre’s voice say from her office. There are steps making their way to me, but Emmett begins coughing - no, hacking. He sounds like he’s choking.

I refrain from rolling my eyes as I listen for the steps retreating to Emmett. Bre voice is rushed and worried, wondering if he was okay. This is my chance.

Quickly, I move from the wall to the cabinet on the right side of the room. I know this is where she keeps all the drugs for IV drips and shots, so the anesthetic I’m looking for should be in here. The matter of finding it is the problem. I can barely remember the name of what Aaron told me to grab. There was thio-something-or-another and metho-what’s-it-called.

I should really start writing stuff down when it comes to diabolical plans - if this is even considered ‘diabolical’.

The cabinet is filled with numerous vials with hand-made labels on them. I look for anything starting with ‘thio’- and ‘metho-’. It doesn’t seem to help though, because there are at least seven different vials starting with each, and they are all different. When I see ‘methohexital’ on one of them, the name rings a bell and I grab it, shoving it into my pocket. Then, considering the drug has the word ‘meth’ in it, and that kind of scares me a little, I grab three of the vials containing ‘thio-’ drugs and toss them into my pocket as well. I have no idea if any of them are the right one, but whatever.

Emmett is still hacking as I make my way back to the window. Not the type of distraction I was hoping for, but it’s working, so I can��t complain.

Andrew is peering up at me as I look out. Without having to be told, he holds his arms out in front of him and bend his knees slightly, ready to catch me if need be. Hurrying, but still trying to be quiet, I throw one leg over the window sill, then the other so I’m sitting on it. Being afraid of heights isn’t really helping me in this situation, but I can hear Bre’s rushed voice coming toward the door, so I clench my eyes shut and drop from the sill, bending my knees slightly. Andrew manages to catch me by my hips, but my butt still lands rather hard on the ground. That’s really not going to feel good in the morning.

“C’mon,” he whispers quickly as he hauls me to my feet. Bre’s voice is loud and clear above us, having entered the supply room right after my fall.

On light feet, we sprint behind the infirmary, out of the line of sight from the window. We press our backs against the thick logs of the building, silently panting from the adrenaline. Bre’s voice is boisterous and carries all the way to us.

“-this window. I could have sworn I closed it. It’s not good to let in the air in case-”

The now closed windows cuts off her voice.

Andrew rolls his eyes as he pants, looking over at me. “You’re insane.” That’s number eight.

I just smile back at him.

“Jesus, how many vials did you grab?” Aaron asks. He’s sitting at the desk in Gabbie’s cabin - or, his and Grayson’s cabin now. His eyes dart over all of the drugs on his desk, inspecting each name. I can tell there’s a couple that he’s worried about, because he carefully sets them aside. I have a small pang of sympathy as he struggles with his left arm in its sling and a bandage wrapped completely around his head. I’m still amazed at how quickly he’s healing though.

“I don’t speak gibberish, alright. They all looked the same and there were so many. I forgot the names,” I tell him, remembering his orders before we left. He gave me two names - two words that didn’t sound English to me at the time. “At least I remembered one when I saw it.”

“Methohexital. This should do it,” he says, holding up the vial, the only name that didn’t make him shudder at the thought of inserting it into Ethan’s IV drip. “You might find a time to return these other drugs. I’m not sure we will need to use them… Hopefully ever.”

“We will discuss that when we get to it. Let’s focus on the Scab,” Andrew says, crossing his arms. I can see Grayson rolls his eyes from the corner of the room, matching Andrew’s stance as he squares his shoulders and crosses his arms.

“You’re talking to two of them, you know?” Emmett reminds him, leaning back on the only sofa in the room. His feet are propped up on the opposite end and his hands are folded behind his head. It’s ironic how he’s so calm in front of Grayson, who not twenty four hours before had almost broken his nose in his sanctuary.

“We have names,” Grayson growls, sneering at Emmett who holds his hand up in defense.

“Hey, we’re on the same team now, no need to injure me again,” he replies.

“Then maybe we should focus on the task at hand.”

“I’m perfectly focused. You’re the one off track here.” Emmett’s smiling now, almost teasing.

“The only track I’m about to be on is my fist towards your face if you don’t-”

“HEY!”

Aaron’s usually small voice carries through the room, taking everyone off guard. For such a small person, he’s fierce.

“Nothing is going to work if we can’t get along for two seconds! Emmett, stop acting childish.” Grayson smirks while Emmett gasps, but Aaron isn’t quite finished. “And Gray, get your head out of your ass. We have a lot at stake here and we need to be civil.” Now Grayson scowls. “And you,” Aaron continues, turning to Andrew. “I get that we didn’t get off on the right foot, but we’re here now, and as much as you don’t like it, we’re all on the same side. Now, I’m just as hesitant as you are, but I trust Ethan with my life and he thinks it’s in our best interest to be here. You don’t have to like us or trust us for that matter, but that won’t change anything.”

Everyone but Grayson gapes at him, surprised by his sudden sternness.

“The Traitors are a threat to us. All of us. They defied their sanctuary and they killed one of your men.” He looks at me, a quiet apology laced in his eyes. “They knew about my lab, but they didn’t know about my progress, and if they do, they can use it against us. We have to go back and see what we can find before they do.”

“This research,” Andrew starts, all the malice from his voice vanished. “What exactly is it? You said you were looking for a cure?”

“That was the idea when I started my research, yes. I’ve been looking for a way to reverse the disease after the host has already expired.”

“You mean once they’re no longer human?” I ask.

“Unfortunately, yes. That was as far as my research made it. I would take spare cannibal parts before they were killed and test for any possible way to… undo the disease, to put it simply.”

“What about this revelation you had?” Andrew asks. He seems more curious now and less annoyed.

“Well, on my last trial, one of our men had been bitten. We knew he didn’t have long before…” He trials off, but everyone knows what he’s thinking. “He told me to use him for the research.”

“Same tests, but on a live victim?” Emmett asks, eyes widened.

Aaron nods. “I was able to work fast enough with a couple of his fingers and his opposite hand.”

I flinch. This man - or boy, however old he was - gave his body up for research. They probably had to amputate him while he was still alive and awake. Any type of drug in his system probably would have affected the results.

“Then you guys showed up right before I had the chance to see if it worked. That’s why I need you guys to go back, to check if there is anything left in my lab. Even if the body parts are gone, you can get all the paperwork you find, if any. I had all my findings and recipes in there. Grayson knows where to find it all.”

“Recipes?” Andrew asks.

“The formulas and blueprints,” Aaron confirms. “Basically a prescription. That’s why there were so many vials. I kept altering the formula as needed to see what worked and what didn’t. Obviously, up until Stephen was bitten, I hadn’t found a recipe that worked yet.”

I almost grimace at the mention of the unknown Scab that lost his life for the help of research. I keep forgetting that everyone had a life before all this. Ben was a friend of ours, and he died. Stephen was a friend of the Scabs, and he died too. Both went in painful ways, and both were still just people, trying to survive, like everyone else.

“So the recipes that didn’t work. You think that they were unsuccessful because the person - the host was already dead?” I ask, the words like bile in my mouth.

“I think so. The formula was acting differently on live flesh.” Even Aaron flinches at the thought of his old friend, who he probably had to amputate himself.

“What if those vials are gone?” Andrew asks.

“Then we start over. It will be easier to do if I have the recipes though.”

I blink. “That means…”

Aaron nods, his eyes drooped. He looks sad, but hopeful. “If we want to find a cure on a live victim, we need to have a live victim willing to help.”

“But they have to be infected?” Emmett chimes in.

“Yes. They have to have been scratched or bitten. The virus needs to be inside them in order for correct readings. And they will still have to be alive when we...” He stops, probably not wanting to add ‘cut off their body parts’.

Andrew runs a hand down his face. “So you’re saying that someone is going to have to sacrifice themselves in order to run your tests, and then if your ‘recipe’ is unsuccessful, they’re just going to die anyway?”

“No one has to sacrifice themselves. Hell, if Stephen’s vials are still there, we won’t even have to wait for something bad to happen.”

“That’s our other option? Just wait for someone to get bitten or scratched?” Andrew’s voice is rising, but I don’t think he notices.

“It’s the only way to continue the research.”

“Why is this research so important? Yes, it can possibly create a cure, but it won’t help the people we’re most likely to lose in the process.”

“You don’t understand-”

“No, I guess I don’t,” Andrew spits. “I don’t understand why it’s okay to kill your friends for the sake of something that may or may not work. I don’t understand why people have to die in order for others to live.”

“Have you never heard of war before?”

“Emmett, seriously. Shut up.” Andrew clenches his eyes shut for a few seconds before he opens them again, focusing on Aaron. “Why can’t we just come to terms with the inevitable? People become cannibals. It’s just how it is now. Why do we need to fight it when it’s impossible to?”

Aaron seems to consider the question for a moment. But he shakes his head and looks dead into Andrew’s eyes. “If those blueprint get into the wrong hands, we could be looking at a more dangerous situation.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Jack is smart. He’s not a genius by any means, but I’m willing to bet that if he gets to those recipes before we do, he will figure out how to alter them to do something even more dangerous.”

“Like what?” Andrew asks, suddenly curious again.

“Before he betrayed us, Jack liked to talk about creating mutants out of the cannibals. He always asked if there was a way to spread the disease faster, and without having to be bitten or scratched. I always thought he sounded crazy and I ignored his suggestions for the most part. He said we could use it to our advantage, that the world around the sanctuary would be infected while we weren’t. One day while I was conducting an experiment, he came in and asked if he could watch. Not thinking anything of it, I agreed and at one point, he spilled a vile of one of the steroids I’d been using into one of my test jars. I obviously made him leave, but then I noticed the change in the finger inside that jar. It turned black in the matter of minutes. I think he purposely spilled the steroid in there to conduct his own experiment. He knows how to spread the disease quickly, and I have no doubt that if he continues to do his own research, he’ll find a way to create an even bigger problem out of the cannibals. And we will be his first targets.”

Silence plagues the room. No one wants to be the first to speak, weighing our options. If the blueprints - recipes, whatever - are still there, we can bring them back here and Aaron can continue his research. If they’re gone, this Jack guy has them and we have who knows how much time before he creates his own recipe in order to create mutants out of the cannibals. Maybe Aaron can find or create some type of antidote in case that were to happen, but we would have to relocate in order to preserve our safety. Jack would come straight for us.

“Let’s not think too far ahead yet,” Grayson finally speaks. His gruff voice almost knocks me off my feet, I’d forgotten he was even here in the first place. He’s looking at me now. “You can get the sedative in Ethan’s IV drip?”

I nod.

“Then let’s get this show on the road.”

The vial is hot in my pocket, and it feels as if it’s burning a hole in my shorts. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I’ve been eager to shut Ethan up since he moved into my cabin, but suddenly guilt is soaring through my body as I approach my safe haven, the cabin I’ve come to call home.

I walk up the steps, pausing at the door for a moment before taking a deep breath and entering. Ethan in lying on his bed, looking bored as he reads Alexis’s novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. When he hears the door open, he looks up, a smirk approaching his features.

“Couldn’t stay away much longer, could you?”

I swallow a gag and roll my eyes. “Did you eat dinner?” I ask, keeping my composure. The giant first aid kit that Bre had given me for everything I would need to take care of Ethan is sitting on the chest of drawers at the end on my bed. I make my way over to it, making sure to turn my back to Ethan as I reach into my pocket to grab the sedative. Aaron said to ask if Ethan had eaten yet, saying food in his system might alter how long he’d be out for.

“Nah, not yet. But I’m starving. Mind making a run for me?” Ethan asks. I can feel his eyes on my backside as I unzip the kit and pretend to rustle around in it.

“After I fix your drip. Bre said it’s better change it out after you’ve fasted.” I’m making this up as I go, but I gotta say, I’m pretty convincing.

Ethan groans, and I don’t have to look at him to know he’s rolling his eyes. Finally, I turn back to him, holding up the vial with the sedative, pretending I just retrieved it from the kit.

“I will bring you food after. I promise,” I tell him with a smile. He rolls his eyes again, but he also smiles.

I make my way to his bed, checking the drip before carefully uncapping the vial. My hand are surprisingly steady as I fidget with the IV bag.

“Have you eaten?” he asks suddenly. It catches me off guard, and I almost spill the sedative. I finally look at him, and he’s staring up at me with those hazel eyes, surprisingly warm and laced with sincerity.

“Uh, no, not yet,” I answer honestly. I could tell him I have, so he wouldn’t be looking at me with this weird worry, but something compels me to tell him the truth. “I’ve been at the infirmary with Emmett today. He was having a hacking fit and we just wanted to make sure he was alright.”

I hurry to screw the vial into the drip, letting it drain into the bag before my hands finally decide to fail me.

“Maybe we could eat together then?”

He’s looking at me again, a different look in his eyes this time. They’re glinting with what looks like curiosity and - I swear to god - hope.

“I’d rather die from whatever Emmett has,” I reply with a wink, only half joking. Ethan takes it as a joke and laughs. The sound strangely squeezes at my insides, making my stomach drop a bit.

Weird.

“Just make sure you eat something,” he says suddenly, yawning immediately after. “Even if it’s not with me.” He curls his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout and yawns again. This sedative is working faster than I thought it would.

“Big bad Scab concerned about measly old me?” I ask teasingly, watching as Ethan’s eyes start to droop.

“Measly old you,” he whispers with a tired smile before his lashes flutter closed completely.

I watch for a second, listening to his breathing as it slows down a bit and fills the room. It’s so quiet, I can even hear my own heart beating, a bit rapidly.

Shaking my head, I recap the vial and make my way back over to the kit, placing it inside. I head over to my closet, which now also holds a few of David's old clothes for Ethan. My heart shutters at the sight of Ethan’s old, dirty clothes on the floor of the closet, blood-stained and ripped. I look back at him for a moment, studying his sleeping figure, the bandage wrapped around his left bicep, a small, fabric brace around his right ankle with his leg propped up, uncovered. I sigh before grabbing a bag and closing the closet, making my way back to his bed.

I have no idea what compels me to do this, but I carefully lift his leg from the end of the bed, placing an extra pillow underneath it to see that it rests comfortably. Then I take an extra blanket from my bed and wrap it around the exposed flesh of his leg.

Stepping back to examine my work, I give myself a single nod before making my way out the door, not daring to look back.

Grayson is driving while I’m squeezed in between him and Andrew. David, Alexis, and Emmett are crammed in the backseat, each with an empty bag in their laps. The trunk has our guns in it.

The ride is silent as we make our way to the sanctuary. It’s dark out now, and Liza and Trevor agreed to stay back, making sure to keep Blaine in the perimeter and warn us of any activity. Gabbie will be watching the front gate.

I can see Andrew’s knuckles turning white as he grips the talkie. I’ve seen him nervous before, but this was another level. I can’t help but wonder what he’s nervous about. Is it the danger of our coming to the Scab sanctuary? Is it the idea of Aaron’s recipes falling into the wrong hands?

But when Andrew leans into me slightly, I realize with a pang that it’s of my own safety that he’s worried about.

I try to ignore it as we round the corner of the long drive toward the deserted sanctuary.

Grayson parks the car a ways away from the entrance, just in case.

“Let’s go,” he says quietly, prompting us all to get out of the car. Each of us grab a gun from the trunk, checking ammunition. Alexis and Emmett decide to stick to knives. Grayson and I take the lead, followed by Alexis and Emmett while Andrew and David trail at the back, guarding our rear defense. We all have our empty bags hoisted on our shoulders, ready to be filled with anything and everything we can find.

Grayson grabs a flashlight from his pocket, shining on the ground in front of us. It takes us about a minute to reach the entrance of the sanctuary. Right away, we can tell it’s pretty much in ruins. Only a couple cabins are still standing, one of them being Aaron’s lab. The front gate is completely useless now, the wired fence bent at odd angles. We each have to maneuver our way through it, climbing over and under the prickly metal, being careful not to get cut. Once we’re all in, Grayson turns to us.

“Okay. Y/N, Andrew and I will go to the lab. I know where all of Aaron’s stuff is at that we’ll need if it’s still here. Emmett, David, and Alexis, you guys go to the other standing cabin. If it’s still stocked, it will be food in there. If Jack’s already made his rounds though, it might be depleted. Just grab what you can find,” he tells us all with a nod.

The other three make their way to the cabin without question, readying their weapons and securing their bags on their shoulders.

“Follow me,” Grayson tells Andrew and I.

We walk towards the lab building, and my heart manages to catch in my throat. It feels weird being back here, walking into this cabin as I had before, only last time, I was held at gunpoint by the unconscious boy back at my own safe place.

Grayson leads us up the steps and points his gun at the door, nudging his head towards Andrew. I also hold my own gun up, taking place beside Grayson as Andrew steps to the door, nodding his head in countdown before throwing it open. Grayson quietly but quickly steps into the entrance, training his gun at every corner of the room. Andrew quickly follows his lead, and I bring up the rear.

Once we’re sure the room is cleared, Grayson tries the light switch. It surprisingly turns on.

The room looks ransacked. Every vial that had been there before is shattered on the ground, however a few are missing, I can tell. I think Grayson can too, because he mutters a curse under his breath before heading to another door, holding his gun up and entering.

“They beat us to it,” Andrew says quietly, bending down and using his gun to nudge aside some broken glass.

I’m suddenly hit with a strange sense of deja vu, remembering the moments I had been in this room before, the sickly blue tint of the lights, the vials and vials of unattached body parts. Then I remember that there had been some papers on the opposite counter. But I don’t even need to look to know they’re gone.

Then I get the same feeling I had right before Ethan had announced his presence - the feeling of being watched.

My arms erupt in goosebumps as I turn around, half expecting to see someone other than Andrew standing there, but it’s just him, flicking his gaze over the mess in the room.

Grayson.

My heart lurches in my chest as I hurry to the door he went through moments ago, but stop in my tracks when I see him, standing ever so still with eyes as wide as saucers. When he sees me, they widen more and I can see the most subtle shake of his head, as if he’s afraid to move at all, and suddenly I know why.

I pause my entire body, almost daring to hold my breath as the cannibal looks up from the scraps on the floor, towards me. I keep my focus on Grayson, who looks incredibly weary. He must recognize the cannibal. It was probably one of his friends once upon a time.

The cannibal scratches its ear, sure it heard something. Slowly, it stands up from its place on the floor, where it had been feasting on a dead animal of some sort. It inches its way towards me, listing its head to each side, trying to detect movement.

Behind it, Grayson is raising his gun up ever so slowly, but his finger doesn’t find the trigger. The cannibal is right is his line of fire, but if he shoots it, he’ll shoot me too.

I’m still holding my breath as the cannibal inches closer, looking all around me. No doubt it sees the light in the room behind me, and I can only silently pray the Andrew doesn’t come crashing in here.

One move, that’s all it takes.

One move, and it will attack.

Now I’m holding my breath as the cannibal is inches away from my face. It’s dead eyes are practically boring into mine and I feel as though he can sense my presence despite my completely still body. Its bloody mouth drips to the ground and I can smell the dead animal flesh on it as it inches so close, its nose is almost on mine.

A gunshot fires.

The cannibal gives off a loud wail before falling to the ground, its head obliterated. I finally breathe out, panting as I look to my right, where Andrew’s gun is smoking.

Grayson sighs a breath of relief before making his way back over to me, placing his hand on my arm.

“Are you alright?” he asks, inspecting my features.

I frantically nod my head, catching my breath.

“You sure?” Andrew asks, also looking at every angle of my face.

“Y-yeah,” I stutter. I wipe a palm down my face, letting my nerves cool off for a moment before looking back to Grayson. “Let’s just get what we need.”

He nods, an apologetic look on his face as he turns back into the room, taking a quick glance at the dead cannibal, someone who was probably once his friend, before making his way to the pad-locked filing cabinets at the back of the room.

“Y/N,” Andrew breathes, placing his hand on my shoulder to turn me to face him. “You’re sure you’re fine?” His eyes bear into mine and his knuckles are white again as they grip the handle of his gun.

“Yes,” I tell him, shrugging off his hand and walking out the door.

Even though the vials were all destroyed or missing, Aaron’s recipes were all salvaged. Well, almost all of them.

The ones that held the formula from his most recent experiment were charred and unreadable, but at least we know Jack doesn’t have them.

Grayson managed to grab every paper he could from the cabinets that Aaron had stored them all. Alexis, Emmett, and David managed to find a good amount of canned food in the other cabin. They had been hidden in another padlocked safe by Grayson himself.

“I didn’t trust Jack from the start,” he’d said. “So I kept my own safe with my own supplies. No one knew the passcode but Ethan. There should be some food and a couple weapons in there.”

So as we all sit in the car on the drive back to the camp, every one of our bags are full of papers and food and weapons and pretty much everything we were able to salvage that wasn’t destroyed.

The ride is silent, everyone pretty shaken up. Alexis had panicked when she’d heard the gunshot. Emmett had found a dead body, not yet a cannibal that he had no choice but to kill - or, re-kill - in order to assure our safety, so he’s still a little scarred from that.

But Andrew seems the most affected. It’s not new to him to shoot and kill a cannibal, but my sudden rejection of him beck there is probably what’s making him act this way.

He’s pouting as he looks out the window, leaning against it. His body is pressed completely up against the door, as if he’s afraid to touch me.

I don’t really remember what brought me to act to rudely to him when he’d asked if I was okay, but I know that when he did, an image of Grayson, carrying Aaron into our camp and a limping Ethan, covered in blood and his hazel eyes and his weak and desperate gaze flashed into my mind.

I was alright, Andrew had saved me from something terrible happening.

But those weren’t. They aren’t.

They had friends and a sanctuary before they needed us. They had people that trusted them and loved them, and they were all gone. Grayson had known the cannibal. He’d recognized him.

So when Andrew had continued to ask if I was okay, I felt defensive for the three Scabs in our camp. They were the ones who need to be asked if they’re okay. Because they probably aren’t.

“You knew him didn’t you?” I suddenly ask as we pull up to the camp. Grayson catches my gaze for a moment before nodding, but he doesn't say anything. “Are you okay?” I ask. I can feel Andrew tense up beside me.

Grayson breathes for a few beats before putting the car in park and shutting down the ignition. Alexis, Emmett and David climb out of the backseat in a hurry, almost seeming like they shouldn’t be a part of this conversation. Andrew sighs once beside me before opening his own door and climbing out, slamming it shut behind him. Grayson is staring at the wheel, waiting for them all to be at the gate before he turns to me.

“I will be.”

I see a faint smile on his lips before he grabs the bag in my lap and hoists it over his shoulder. Then he climbs out of the car, holding the door for me to climb out behind him.

At the top of the tower, Liza looks down and gives a nod to someone below her. The gate opens and we all walk inside. Trevor smiles in greeting before closing the gate behind us.

While everyone else heads towards Grayson and Aaron’s cabin, I make my way towards chow hall, my promise to Ethan in mind.

I shove my way through the door and waste no time heading to the pantry at the back. Scavenging the pantry, I find a half-full box of cereal. Then I grab two bowls, two spoons and a couple napkins before heading back out, taking the long way back to my cabin. I don’t think about Aaron or Grayson of Andrew as I walk up the steps to my home, opening the door and placing the two bowls across from each other at the only table in the cabin.

Then I get ready for bed, eager to wake up to eat breakfast with Ethan tomorrow morning.

Writing Masterlist Cannibal Masterlist

#cannibal by ashley #ethan dolan #ethan dolan au #ethan dolan fanfic #grayson dolan #grayson dolan fanfic #grayson dolan au #dolan twins fanfiction #dolan twins au #ethan dolan x reader #ethan dolan x you #dolan twins imagine #grayson dolan imagine #ethan dolan imagine #dolan twins fanfic #dolan twins #the dolan twins #dolan twins x reader

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silent-mumblr · 6 years

Text

The Session

by Mike Stone

A short story taken from my third sci-fi novel, “Whirlpool.”

The old man shuffled down the long white hallway in his pale blue paper slippers. Underneath his thin blue institutional bathrobe, he wore the brown striped pajamas that were his hospital uniform. Had he tried to escape by shuffling out of the hospital, they would certainly have caught him because they moved so quickly and he shuffled so slowly. He reached the door of his room and fumbled with the knob. The door seemed to open by itself. By accident. He shuffled over to his bed and sat down. He leaned forward reaching for his notebook and pencil. He opened the notebook to a blank page and started to write. It was like one of those sketches of a hand making a sketch of itself.

Do you know who you are? Yes. Do you know where you are? Yes, in a hospital … in a mental … in a ward for the in- … ins- … insa-a-a-a … Insane? Were you trying to say insane? No, I was trying to go insane. I meant to say insidious. Very clever of you, ha ha! Do you know why you are here? I suppose it is because I keep attempting to kill myself. Very perceptive. Why do you suppose you keep trying to kill yourself? First, my wife. Your wife? My wife … she left me. But our records show that you never married. Your records are mistaken. Our records are mistaken? Your records are mistaken. We’ve been through this before. Have we? Yes, we have. I don’t know what is worse, for my wife to have left me or for her to have never been. You always say that. So why do you keep asking me the same questions over and over and over … Please stop repeating. I don’t think I can … Please stop. Ok. Then, my dog. I couldn’t bear the tremendous weight of my continued existence after that. And then … Yes? And then … Yes? And then …

Yes? The stories came. I couldn’t stop them. Why would you want to stop them? I don’t know. All I know is that I couldn’t stop them. Like now, I can’t stop this damn dialogue, this double-damned dialectical spiritualism. You mean dialectical materialism, don’t you? No, dialectical spiritualism. You know … thesis, antithesis, synthesis. I think it’s called dialectical materialism. You exacerbate me. I don’t think it’s used that way. What’s used what way? Exacerbate. Whatever. I was talking about the story. You were talking about the story. It was the characters. What about the characters?

They were real to me. As real as you are. As real as I am? As real as you are. Do you think I am one of your characters? I know you’re one of my characters. You really believe that. Yes, I do. You’re playing with me. Why should I want to do that? To have fun. To pass the time. I’d much rather get on with writing my story than talk to you. But if we stop talking, you might attempt to kill yourself again. It’s the price I pay for the freedom to write, to suffer and to write. But I can’t let you kill yourself. Try and stop me. And your dog. Was he a character? She. Was she a character? No. What was she then and what happened to her? Let’s leave her out of this. She was totally innocent.

I think you have a philosophical disease. What is it? Solipsism. Solipsism? Yes, solipsism. You think you’re the only being who exists. Everyone else is a figment of your imagination. Can we stop right here? I’m overcome with weariness. Yes, you may go back to your room to rest, as long as you behave yourself properly.

He stood up slowly, carefully, slightly stooped, and shuffled through the doorway to the next room. He walked slowly past the filing cabinet. He stopped a moment to look at it, as though expecting one of the drawers to open and reach out for him. He felt his mouth open and a wetness in the corner of it. He was not sure whether the wetness was inside his mouth or outside. He reached up to touch the corner of his mouth with his desiccated finger. He closed his mouth, lowered his hand, and shuffled toward the outer door. He tried to remember which direction down the hallway was the way to his room. This was his ritual. It never varied. He shuffled down the hall to his room, fumbled with the door, and opened it. He shuffled over to his bed and sat down. He leaned forward reaching for his notebook and pencil. Good, he said to himself as though sitting down to a succulent feast prepared only for him and set on a table covered with three white tablecloths on a beach in front of the ocean at sunset. Now I can work on my story.

There was a soft knock on the door. Instead of being exasperated at the interruption he looked up expectantly at the door and said brightly come in. The door opened tentatively and Ellen stuck her beautiful face into the gloomy room. Hi handsome! Got any room for me at that table of yours? She did not wait for an answer. She walked quickly over to the old man, skirts swishing lusciously, long legs slicing the air, and black patent high heels clicking on the checkered linoleum floor, the whole atmosphere of the room ionized by her presence. She bent down and kissed him on his lips longer than was required by social grace. I hope you haven’t promised the seat next to you to someone else! Once again she didn’t wait for him to answer and sat right down next to him on the bed, so close to him that he could feel the heat of her leg through his bathrobe and pajama pants. You know that I can’t concentrate on my writing when you sit so close to me. She smiled demurely. I know you can’t even write when I’m ten feet away in the same room as you. Do you want me to leave? Good God, no!

You look well rested this morning. Thank you. Did you sleep well last night? No, I didn’t sleep a wink. What kept you awake? My story and the concerns of my characters. I see. Did you actually write anything this time? No.

She is rather pretty, isn’t she? Who? I noticed your glance straying in the direction of the nurse bending down to pull out a folder from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in the next room. Oh, yes … her. Would you like to move your chair to a more advantageous position where you can have a better view of her? No, I don’t want to be too obvious. She is pretty though. How do you feel about pretty girls like her? That’s rather private. I don’t want to discuss that with you, to let you analyze it to the point where the stirring in my loins goes away. May we discuss it in the abstract? How do you feel about pretty girls in general? Pretty girls make me homesick. Don’t you mean heartsick? No, homesick. How so? It’s as though I was born in a land of beauty and then expelled without a passport or any means of returning to that land. Tell me some more about your wife. Was she one of your characters? Don’t be absurd. Tell me how she left you. There’s not much to say about it. One night I went to bed with the woman I married. When I awoke in the morning, the woman sleeping next to me was someone else. That’s not unusual. People change. Not like that. I’m sure you must have changed too. That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying I went to sleep one night and woke up another person in the morning. You don’t think you’ve changed at all? Not at all. I’m still me. Always have been. Always will. Can we talk about your thoughts for a moment? I’m so tired. Can I go back to my room? I’d like to go to sleep. But we just began our session. Don’t you know what time it is? It’s not fifty minutes yet? You know I have all the time in the world for you. That’s the problem. What’s the problem? You contribute to my disorientation. How so? I need boundaries. You have boundaries. What boundaries do I have? Your room for one. Nobody enters your room without knocking on the door first and asking permission to enter. I can’t hear anyone talking to me from the other side of the door so they enter anyway without my permission. In any case, spatial boundaries don’t concern me one iota. I was just pointing out the fallacy of your logic. What concerns me more are temporal boundaries. Oh, I see. No, I don’t think you do see. Temporal boundaries are fundamental building blocks of events. Without them, nothing ever happens. Now I see. Back to your thoughts. I’d like to explore with you where they come from. Some of them come from the future and some of them from the past. Don’t any of your thoughts come from the present? Let me think about that a moment.

Well? You are persistent, aren’t you? I suppose I am. Well? I suppose a thought from the future might run head-on into a thought from the past or vice-versa, and the collision might result in a thought from the present but it could only last for a very short moment. Interesting. Not really. That’s just the way it is. What about stories? What about stories? Where do your stories come from? They don’t come from anywhere. They always were. Always will be. Like Plato’s triangles.

Are you Ellen one, two, or three? What do you think? I have no idea. Look into my persona. I can’t. I’m not a mind reader, you know, especially not a reader of female minds. You really have no clue what I’m thinking? No. That’s strange, given that you created me. So what? I created my daughter and I have no idea what she thinks about. You don’t have a daughter. Yes, you’re right. I forgot I didn’t. Still, I might have had a daughter and then I still wouldn’t have known what she was thinking in that pretty little head of hers. Just because I created you doesn’t mean I control or read your thoughts. You have your own life, quite independent of me. Not quite. If you were to die, I’d die with you. You’re being melodramatic. No, I’m being practical. My existence is dependent on you. I suppose so, but in the same way, my life is dependent on this world. If it were to cease to exist, I’d die with it but the world doesn’t control or read my thoughts. How do you know that? Well, I suppose you have a point there. My eyelids are so heavy but I don’t want you to leave just yet. Do you want me to sit beside you while you close your eyes? Yes.

She slid the loose robe off his thin shoulders. His chest was pale white and almost hairless. He lay down next to her. She leaned across him and untied the loose knotted belt. She eased the robe from under him. He listened to her breathing and the silence.

I don’t care which Ellen you are, I love you all, the whole trajectory of you.

She shushed him into silence.

There was a faint warbling somewhere in his pajama bottoms.

You seem well rested this morning. What makes you say that? You don’t seem as world-weary to me as you did last evening. I had a visitor. You had a visitor? Yes, I had a visitor. Do you find it so hard to believe? We have no record of anyone signing in to visit you. We would know if there were someone who wanted to visit you. Nobody could enter the building without our knowing about it. Well, you must have been breached. You had better look for a jimmied lock or a hole in the wall because I had a visitor and she was the Schroedinger’s meow. Oh, I get it. Schroedinger’s cat, cat’s meow, a good looker… Maybe you had and didn’t have a visitor. Maybe you would see the visitor and maybe I would not. What was your visitor’s name? Ellen, Ellen Morningstar. Was she one of your characters? Yes, I suppose so. I really should read one of your books. I don’t want you to read my books. You don’t want me to read your books? No. Why in the world not? Because you are too analytical and you have an agenda. Don’t we all have agendas? Yes, but yours conflicts with mine. What’s your agenda? No. No, what? Do you really think that what you can’t obtain by analysis you can get by subterfuge or by wearing me down? I guess you’re just too smart for me. Not really. Intelligence really has nothing to do with it.

Let’s go back to what we were talking about last evening when you were too tired to continue our conversation. What were we talking about? We were talking about where your stories came from and you mentioned something about Plato’s triangles. Plato talked about the ideal triangle as opposed to a material triangle. You can draw a material triangle but, no matter how hard you try, how true your ruler is, how sharp your pencil is, the material triangle will never have three perfectly equal sides like the ideal triangle has. The ideal forms of Plato are universal. They always existed and they always will whether or not we exist. We did not invent them. We discovered them for ourselves as other beings throughout the Universe either discovered them or didn’t discover them. It’s the same with my stories. I don’t follow you. My stories are ideal forms. They are universal. Nobody can invent them, not even me. They’re just floating around out there waiting for someone to pass through them, like a cloud of points, lines, or triangles. Some people pass right through them without a second thought, but others become so entangled in the story that they adapt their whole lives around it. Then it becomes a material story. Most of us live some story or other. I see. Do you live your story? Well, yes. I suppose I do. What is your story? Ah, yes. You almost had me there.

Am I boring you? No. Why do you ask? I noticed you staring out the window. It’s just that I have no window in my room and the world outside is so strange to me. What is so strange about it? It’s the world into which you were born and the world in which you have lived every day of your life, until you came to stay with us. Really? I don’t remember it being this way before, certainly not yesterday when I looked out your window. Really? What is it that you find so strange about the world outside my window? Well, for one thing, those people are walking down that sidewalk perpendicular to it, as they should be, but the sidewalk is 70 degrees off the plane of the floor in your office. It’s as though I were looking through your window at another dimension, offset at a strange angle from our dimensions. Well, I’m no expert in hyper-dimensional geometries, but shouldn’t higher dimensions be perpendicular to our own four dimensions? I don’t know. Maybe our dimensions are spherical, rather than cubical, and the perpendicularity can expand at any angle. In any case, that has always been the view from my window and always will be. I rather like it. Kind of quaint, don’t you think? No, I don’t think it’s quaint and it definitely was not like that yesterday. And another thing. The sequences are getting shorter. What do you mean by the sequences? Sequences. You know. I look at something or I think about something. It is. A moment later, it still is, and a moment later it still is. Then, at some point along the way, it’s not like that anymore, or it’s not at all. Those are sequences. They’re getting shorter. We’ll be talking, like we’re talking now, or I’ll be looking out the window and suddenly I’m in my room writing in my notebook. Then I’ll get a call from Vitruvius on my STU. What’s an STU? A Secure Telecommunications Unit. Is it like a telephone? Yes, somewhat. But you don’t have a telephone in your room. You know we don’t allow them. Of course I do. You just can’t recognize it. Anyway, I get this call and I’m in a cabin on a mountain overlooking a violet sea when I hear a knock at the door. It’s like the whole universe, my sense of reality if you will, is going along in a straight line and then it turns inward, going on some other tangent, and then turns inward again, and so on. My whole sense of reality is spiraling inward like a vast whirlpool.

I noticed you looking up at the ceiling. Huh? Yes. Do you see the crack there? What crack? You don’t see the crack there in the ceiling? No, I don’t see any crack in the ceiling. There’s light shining through it. Sunlight. I don’t see any sunlight. Besides, it can’t be sunlight because it’s night time. Look out the window. Oh, you’re right. Maybe there’s some other light source shining through. You don’t see the line it draws on the floor? No. You know, I feel a slight compulsion to walk over that line on the floor. You know you are beginning to worry me a bit? It reminds me. Did you know that the floor in my room is covered with spots of every shade of brown and yellow? You know we don’t have a budget for having someone clean your room. After all, you are here on the mercy of the government. I know that. I’m not complaining, really. I just wanted to mention something that occurred to me that might be of interest to you. What is that? I don’t know whether or not it is connected to the line I see on your floor, but I see images in the stain spots on the floor in my room, beautiful and complicated images. What kind of images? Naked women, feeble old men, boulders and gnarled windswept trees on a sandy beach under a cliff. You want to see them? How can I see them? They are obviously from your imagination. Ah, it’s simple. I’ve traced the images with my pen. They’re quite impressive. Ellen said so. Well, maybe sometime after I finish my rounds I could stop by your room to take a look at your images. Please don’t have anyone come into my room to clean the floor. I would be distraught. As I said, we really can’t afford it. We’re on a really tight budget. That’s why we could only afford the shot. What shot? You know, the LSP shot. LSP? You know, Lysergic Acid Penthylamide. It’s a kind of directed anti-hallucinatory hallucinatory drug. How does it work? It seeks out and identifies your hallucinations and creates opposing healthy hallucinations to counteract your pathological hallucinations, canceling them out until you are free of all of your hallucinations, healthy as well as pathological. Fascinating. Give me an example of a healthy hallucination. Well, like me for example. Our sessions are hallucinations, but they are therapeutic hallucinations. How are they therapeutic? The hallucinations are directed so that they follow a protocol. What kind of a protocol? It’s based on the standard clinical talking therapy, but it’s more adapted to your pathology. You can’t hide from or evade the questions. Your answers are drawn straight from your subconscious, if you will, without the possibility of any interference from your conscious mind. Who hears my answers? Only you do, your conscious mind, that is. Many patients prefer it that way. It protects your privacy and most flesh-and-blood psychiatrists and psychologists wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on inside you nearly as well as you. You certainly can’t lie to yourself. Interesting, but aren’t you breaking protocol by telling me that you are just a hallucination? Not really. The protocol adapts itself to your hallucination so that you have the sensation of having a hallucination within a hallucination. It’s all part of the curative process, waves out of phase canceling waves.

But tell me, please, what would happen if you were to administer LSP to a person who had no hallucinations? Uh, I don’t know the answer to that one. I don’t think we have a protocol for that question. We’ll have to research it and get back to you. You’ll have to get back to me pretty soon because I think something has gone terribly wrong.

The long hallway between the psychiatrist’s office and his room began to undulate and twist as though he were in the middle of a massive earthquake. He held on to the walls and doors as he shuffled over the spot stained linoleum floor tiles to stabilize himself. A jagged line of bright light appeared suddenly from behind him and ran ahead of him to the end of the hall. He looked up at the ceiling above him and saw the crack through which the light shone spreading toward the end of the hall. Beads of sweat collected on his forehead and chest. The bright jagged line snaked between him and his room down the hall. He knew he would have to cross over that line in order to enter his room. He felt a mixture of dread and excitement. Somehow he reached the point in the hallway directly across from his room. He shuffled toward the bright line between himself and his door, as toward an infinitely wide chasm, with all the courage and fortitude he could muster. The bright light sliced across his scalp as his left foot moved over the line, and he lurched toward the handle of his door.

The phone was ringing as he opened the door. He rushed over to the STU lying on the desk by the window. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue rippled through the heavy air. He stopped to gaze out the window at the distant cliffs and quiet sea beyond them. He picked up the STU, pressed to answer, and put it to his ear. The fugue stopped in the middle, as he said

Hello? Hello? Who is it? … It’s me, Lem. Lem? Lem? Is that really you? Yes, it really is me. How … why are you calling me? I think I’m losing my mind. You called me. Don’t you remember? I called you? How could I do that? I don’t even have a phone in my room. So what are you using to speak? A … a … an STU … but I don’t know where it came from … and this is not my room. I … really don’t think I can hold it together anymore. Relax. You are looking over the edge of your rationality. It gives you a sensation of vertigo. Take a step back from the edge and inhale deeply. You wanted very much to talk with me, so I called you. You’re not very good at projecting your thoughts more than two centimeters beyond your skull, so I sent you an STU through the q-foam. I almost sent it to the wrong coordinates when you crossed over the line between dimensions. You’re probably a bit disoriented from changing universes. Try to relax a little and get used to your surroundings. In the future, you might want to be a little more careful about crossing over dimensional boundaries. Not every universe contains an Earth-like planet or runs according to the laws of physics you’re used to. Just be a bit more careful. That’s all I’m saying. Now, what is it you wanted to talk to me about? You mean you’re talking to me from another universe? Well, yes. But how is that possible? According to current multiverse theory, each universe is an independent set of causes and effects. An event in one universe can’t cause an effect in another universe. So? The signal propagation between two STUs is a propagation of causes and effects. So? So, how can causes jump from one universe to affect another universe? Through the q-foam. It’s common to all the universes. Anyway, what did you want to talk about?

I wanted to talk to somebody intelligent, somebody who knows more than me, not that idiot psychiatrist that was injected into my brain. But I’m a creation of your mind just as much as that psychiatrist is. Yes, I know, but I created you to be intelligent and rational, far beyond the borders of what I’m capable of. I created problems only you could solve, but I had no idea how to solve them, and now you have your own life, as dependent on the physics of my brain as my own mind is. Well, I suppose you might put it that way. Of course, the physics doesn’t really work the way you describe it, but the overall effect is accurately described. Psychokinesis. Psychokinesis? Psychokinesis. What about psychokinesis? I’ve come to the conclusion that it really exists. Of course it exists. What do you think generates your motor responses? What else besides your mind configures the quantum potential relayed through the axons and leaping across the synapses all the way to your extremities? And neurobiogenic thought? Sure, the same thing in reverse. The electrical potential relayed up from your extremities through your axons and over the synapses collapses the quantum state across the tubules affecting your thought. Does that mean we don’t have free will? That our minds are merely relays between stimulus and response? No, of course not. Only a very small percentage of our thoughts are affected by a source outside our bodies. Most of our thoughts are affected by other thoughts through the biology of our own brains. Our mind configures the quantum potential relayed through axons and synapses to collapse the quantum states in tubules of thoughts in other parts of our brain. So there’s free will? Some. Some? Not enough, or maybe too much. What do you mean by that? Well, we are usually responsible for our actions, unless we are overcome by forces stronger than ourselves, of which there are many in the universe but, forgive me for saying so, you humans ignore too much of what is really going on around you, at your own peril. What do you mean? I mean you treat a walk through the universe as you would a walk through the park, and it is not. What should I do, Lem? I don’t think there’s anything you can do. But what should I do? Tell me anyway.

Evolve.

#shortstory sciencefiction whirlpool

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