#i am sure i will come to my senses and realize you're correct once i have gotten enough rest

[dylanconrique]

oh my god you guys it is far too early where i am at and i have not slept so i of course can't form a single cohesive thought on the chenford timeline, but please stop berating me in my inbox about it, or just be a little nicer about it for the love of god?????

[tinytinyblogs]

Hii!!!

I saw that your requests are open and I wanted to request something with yandere skz?

I really love your Chan and Minho one's!!

Feel free to ignore this if you want!!

Tutoring Session

Your gentle tutor appears to be growing increasingly agitated, signaling that there's more to be taught.

(Yandere theme) 1,1k words

A narrative drawn from inspiration found on Pinterest

Stray kids masterlist

💬Hey there, apologies for the delay. I've been having an incredibly exhausting month, and it's not quite over yet. However, I wanted to express my gratitude for your request. It's been a while since I've written, and you've given me a reason to start again. I'm aware it's not perfect, especially considering my current mental state, but I'm doing my best. I hope it meets your expectations.

Your insights and reactions make these posts come alive. Love reblogs, comments, and all the good vibes welcome ✨

The pen hitting the table echoed in a tense silence, stirring unease without clear cause... or perhaps there was. The idea of you being admired by many, with one confession and one secret admirer, left him contemplating: how many more should he weed out? Glancing at his watch, he counted each passing second, eagerly awaiting your arrival for the tutoring session. Once he catches sight of you, once he senses your presence, he swears he wants to keep you all to himself. He admits he's a bit crazy, but if it means having you, he's willing to do whatever it takes. He's always doing that, and don't forget how he made that guy scream in pain when he tried to flirt with you. During the tutoring session, his mind isn't on the lessons; instead, he's consumed with thoughts of how to make sure you stay with him.

He doesn't even entertain the idea of letting you go home afterward. He's meticulously watching your every move, knowing that every tiny detail drives him even crazier. If he releases you now, he'd consider it a loss in this game, wouldn't he? On your end, you might be oblivious to his schemes or perhaps you're in denial due to his innocent façade. As you pause, setting your pen down and sliding the paper over, he eagerly takes it, pretending to make corrections when he's really not. With his gaze fixed on the paper, he noticed your phone lighting up with text notifications from another guy. Jealousy gnawed at him, an unpleasant feeling. As he set the paper down and glanced at your distracted attention on the phone, he observed you for a few moments until you finally noticed. "Finished? Am I doing it right?" you asked, and he simply nodded in response.

As you gather your things, starting to feel a slight panic over him, Felix blocks your attempt to reach for your phone. His hand intercepts it, sliding it out of your reach. "It's not over yet," he asserts in his deep voice. "We could have completed learning those topics from the book, but there's still another matter we must attend to." You gaze at him with an apprehensive expression, noticing a certain aura of danger emanating from him, though you can't quite put your finger on it. "The thing is," he begins, pausing before continuing, "you and those around you seem too close." His eyes now fixate on yours, his demeanor shifting from the sweet tutor you once knew. "And I detest the notion that others believe they can lay claim to you... They could never even fathom such a thing. Why? Because you belong to me, whether you realize it or not."

Slowly withdraw your hand from your phone, feeling a creeping sense of unease. His presence looms larger, his demeanor more intimidating as he leans in closer, causing you to instinctively retreat, your back pressing against the couch, a memory of feeling trapped flickering through your mind. In his deep, resonant voice, he declared, "I could lose everything, but never you." His words, once admired, now sent shivers down your spine. "Oh God, not you," he continued he raises his voice, unleashing all the emotions he feels, causing you to flinch., his gaze piercing into your soul. "I won't allow you to slip away from my life, never." As he drew closer, you couldn't shake the feeling of impending danger. Is it time to push away and flee? He seemed far more menacing than you had ever imagined. Your hand continues to push him away, trembling with fear as panic surges through you.

His grip tightens harshly around your hand, overpowering your feeble attempts to break free. His eyes blaze with anger, as if seeing nothing but red. The fear of losing you completely consumes him, evident in every tense muscle of his body. "Do you even realize the lengths I've gone to just to have you here, under my arm?" His intense gaze pierces into your soul, rendering you unable to look away, trapped by his commanding presence. His firm hand confines you to the couch, while his deep voice resonates throughout the room. "I've done everything, absolutely everything for you." His voice grows increasingly fervent. "I've removed obstacles, shadowed your every move, earned your trust until you relied on me for even the most trivial matters, all for a sliver of your attention." After a moment, he exhales sharply, his breath gradually returning to a more steady rhythm, a hint of calm seeping into his demeanor.

Yet, he remains rooted in place, unwilling to retreat. "If you believe you can simply walk away to another man, think again," he asserts, his voice carrying a weight of warning. Pausing briefly, his hand glides to your cheek, tenderly stroking it, offering a semblance of affection that, instead of melting you, sends shivers down your spine. "You belong to me, and me alone," he declares adamantly. He refuses to entertain any alternative, steadfast in his conviction that you are destined solely for him. It's a truth he's ingrained in his mind, and he implores you to understand and accept it as well. His smile, once so angelic, now fails to evoke the same warmth it once did. Instead, it sends a shiver down your spine, a stark reminder of the unsettling truth beneath the façade. His loving gaze, once cherished, now fills you with a sense of dread, a realization of his true, unsettling nature.

"Did I startle you, my love?" he inquires with a voice dripping with sweetness, a stark contrast to the darkness lurking within. "Forgive me, but perhaps it's for the best that you see me for who I truly am," he continues, planting a kiss gently upon your forehead. "Because this is the reality you'll be facing for the rest of your days – your devoted tutor, boyfriend, or whatever role you choose to assign me." From today until who knows when, you find yourself uncertain about how long you'll remain under his control, consumed by his obsession. "The tutoring session isn't over yet, my darling," he remarks, forcefully moving your phone out of your reach, almost as if discarding it. "There's still so much more for me to teach you." His gaze returns to you, his favored individual in this world. "I'm going to educate you further on what it means to belong to me. Pay close attention, because in my world, there's no room for forgetting. Not when it comes to me," he asserts, his words cutting deep into your heart. "I won't allow you to forget a single thing about me, your beloved." He wore a smirk.

[slutforsnow]

His Sunflower

Chapter 7

So how we feelin' about I.E.D Coryo 😃 I figured it makes sense :3

Small sidenote, Sunni is chubby in her face and tummy, but not really anywhere else. She's kinda... small but chubby (?)

When Sej was told that Sunni was awake, he almost teleported to her side, and hugged her tight, squeezing her as tight as he could.

"Hey, Sun," he greeted, mildly out of breath from running across the estate to come see her.

Sunni merely smiled in the embrace, leaning into his touch and snuggling into him. She was rather short, standing at a mere 5'2", so compared to Sejanus, she was rather tiny—even with her slightly bigger frame.

"Hi, Sej," She whispered, her throat sore from whatever the fuck happened after she had puked last night.

"How ya feelin'?" He asked her, holding her face in his hands.

"Terrible. Gross. Sticky. Like I need 20 showers to rid of the feeling of him on me," She replied, sitting up somewhat. "God... why didn't I believe you when you warned me... Sej, I'm sorry-"

"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay. I should've warned you when you texted me that you were coming to the Capitol. It's my fault for not remembering to," Sejanus interrupted, sitting next to her.

"You still warned me. I should've listened to you. You're normally right about these things and Festus... he had me wrapped around his finger..." Sunni sighed, looking at her hands, silently counting the freckles that decorated her arms. "Maybe I am too stupid to be here."

"Sunni, you're not stupid," Sejanus reassured. "Everyone makes mistakes."

"But I'm naive; I took your words with a grain of salt and look where that got me! Drugged, puked, and publicly humiliated. Festus created the game and I played right into his trap—he won," She countered, miserably.

"Actually, Festus lost. Especially when I beat the hell out of him," Coryo corrected, holding Sunni's breakfast tray as he stood in the threshold of the door. "Sejanus had to pull me off of him, but eh, he'll live."

The room filled with the scent of blueberry pancakes and syrup, followed by bacon, hashbrowns, honey tea, and scrambled eggs. Coryo walked I'm, setting the tray on the bed, over Sunnis lap, being careful not to graze anywhere he shouldn't. He then took his seat back in his chair.

Her stomach growled loudly, and Sunni immediately dug into her breakfast, as she hadn't realized how she was literally starving.

"What happened? After I puked?" She inquired between bites. Sej and Coryo shared a look, silently conversing about who would tell her what.

"Well, after you puked, Festus continued to degrade you. We were holding you, trying to get you to focus and make sure you could hear me. Then he said something about... your body weight, and well..." Sejanus trailed off, seeing Coryo get his phone out and open his gallery.

"I did that," the blonde finished, showing Sunni a photo of Festus being bloodied, bruised, and with a clear broken nose and broken fingers. Sunni didn't flinch, though, or look disgusted as she continued to eat.

"Damn, Cori- did you let him get up?? At all?" She asked with a hint of teasing in her tone.

"Nah. Sejanus had to pull me off him once he got you sitting by a wall where no one could see you unless they were searching for you." He waved off the topic dismissively as he closed his gallery, giving Sunni a glimpse of his wallpaper; a blonde woman who looked a tad older than him and an elderly woman.

Coryo put his phone away as Sejanus continued to speak, and Sunni noticed that Coryo's dark red hoodie wasn't anywhere near him, which was odd, considering he never went anywhere without it.

"Once we got you back here, we told the maids what happened as they took you to get cleaned up and put to bed. Coryo and I stayed here for when you woke up so we could explain what happened. Oh, your mom's on her way here to talk with Ma and dad," Sej added, earning a nod from Sunni.

Sunni put her fork down, feeling tears build up in her eyes again. They had stayed with her the whole time and even took care of her. She had no words to express her gratitude for what they did, so she ended up breaking down in tears, saying a bunch of jumbled out sentences, comprised of "I'm sorrys", "thank yous", and other words the boys couldn't make out.

They both embraced Sunni, telling her it was okay and that she didn't need to worry about them being mad.

God, what did she do to earn these two to be so loyal and understanding?

The next day, Monday, Sunni was getting ready for classes. Despite the massive headache she still had from Saturday, she wasn't going to let Festus, Arachne, or Clemensia think they got to her. Not even with her mother's very tempting offer to come back home to district 2 for a little bit to relax.

As she grabbed her uniform from the closet, she saw a dark hoodie next to it. Curiosity tickled her mind and when she grabbed it, she saw a note pinned to it.

" 'Hey, Sunshine. Figured you could wear this on Monday; it gets pretty cold after midterms, so I want you to wear it. Not to mention that red's a nice color on you. -Coriolanus Snow' " She read quietly. The tips of Sunni's ears burned; she didn't think Coryo would just give her his hoodie—especially not his favorite one.

She changed into her uniform, and once she slipped on his hoodie, she felt her blush grow. It was huge and came down to her knees, whereas on Coryo, it came down to his midthigh. She felt safe in his hoodie, loved even. The smell of Cori infiltrated her nostrils, and she hugged the hoodie.

Coryo was making her smile, even without his actual presence.

Tags: @etfrin @hearts4court @snows-wife @delusionalbunni @kiraflowersworld @victory-scream0462 @curled-hair-red-lips @morallygrayboys @phoward89 @xoxo-eyeballs @thereeallink @graciouslyc @acidaciruela @wanda-maximoff-enthusiast @firstworldproblemthings @nowitsmissing

[fromforeigntofamiliarity]

Working Bitch | The Seven

Summary: The reader is a member of 'The Seven', but for how long?Warning: None Request: None

Sitting at the table with the the rest of 'The Seven' you were as bored as ever waiting for Madilyn to show up for a 'important meeting'.

Passing a notepad back over to Noir as you two continued you games of tic-tac-toe, the door to the meeting room slide open revealing the older blonde woman. 

"Good afternoon everyone," She greeted with a cheery smile. "Sorry I'm late."

"Not sorry enough to not do it." Homelander replied with a strained smile. "Can we just get on with... whatever the fuck this is all about." 

"Of course, Homelander." She replied before turning to face you as Noir pushed the notepad back over to you. "Y/N, You are one of our most popular and hard working  supes, unfortunately Vought feels that your efforts would be better served exploring your own endeavors." 

The room was silent for a moment as everyone each took time to evaluate and process the carefully worded statement that had just come out of her mouth.  

"I'm sorry," You said standing from your seat. "Are you firing me?" You asked narrowing your eyes at the human woman. 

"Damn." A-Train commented looking between you Madilyn in anticipation.

"We feel that you have so much more growing to do and don't want to hold you back from doing that." She said once having the common sense  to at least look frightened.

"No your firing me." You corrected walking away from the table and over to the blonde. "I give years of my life to this company to this team and this is what I get." You said stalking closer and closer as you feel your powers begin to scratch at the surface almost begging you to kill the woman. "After everything you think I'm just gonna lay down and take-." Your sentence if cut off as she holds out a piece of paper to you, not just any piece of paper, a check.

"Your severance." She stated pushing the paper towards you more as indication you could take it, which you did.

"Take, take care of yourselves you guys." You finished your sentence turning to face the rest of 'The Seven' the anger that was present on your face now vanished into a bright smile. "I really am going to miss you guys, especially you Noir, our late night chats really got me through it." You said starting to make your way towards the exit. 

"Y/N" Madilyn called. 

"Hey Maddy who do I talk to about getting this tracking chip removed?" You asked cutting off whatever she was about to say. "Now you guys remember 'We're a team at the start, but a family in my heart' I'll miss you guys. Maeve, never change. A-Train, maybe change a little. Deep, Translucent, suck a dick and die you predatory assholes." 

"Who approved this?" Homelander asked standing from his chair now. "I'm not okay with this." 

"I am" You sung out shaking your check as the sliding door parted.  

"Y/N is not leaving 'The Seven'." Madilyn called out causing you to stop in your tracks.

"I'm not?" You asked holding your check to your chest protectively as though someone was going to take it. 

"No you're not, yet." She replied. "Not for another three months. Vought would like you to officially announce you voluntary departure from "The Seven' as well as your goal of making sure that your team is well taken care of after your departure by assisting in the hunt to find the next member."

"Passing the torch" you realized walking farther into the room.  

"Exactly." Madilyn nodded. "Of course along with public appearances, farewell tour, interviews all that come with their own paycheck." 

"So sit back down?" You asked shoulders sagging as you made your way back to your spot next to Noir. "What a relief, I was worried I wasn't going to have time to properly convey my well wishes to you guys."

"Are you kidding me!" Homelander groaned. "Y/N and Noir are the only two I can trust to do anything, you're putting Noir in a tuff place here taking up the work of four other people plus a newbie."

"I'm sure the others are plenty capable of doing their jobs." Madilyn replied with a slight eye roll. "Now on to other business..." She continued as you tuned out the conversation.

Noir passed the notepad over to you with a new game of tic-tac-toe started with an 'X' in the middle of the board with a note written at the bottom, 'How much?'

Placing a 'O' in the upper right corner you passed the note back along with the check and a note that said. 'Enough.'

Looking down at the check and back up to you Noir gave you a thumbs up.

[bellaxgiornata]

This may seem a little but out of left field on my part, but I don't have many writer friends who I can ask, and there's no obligation to reply or indulge me 💜

I've recently got back into writing (not marvel, unfortunately, but I really admire the way you write) and was wondering if you maybe had any tips? I struggle a bit with, well, dialog and lack confidence - and your works are always so stunningly spot-on and evocative that I kinda just had to ask. Again, no worries if you dont want/have time to answer!

(Also I hope you are well!)

That is so wonderful! I absolutely love hearing that someone has decided to return to writing or is trying it out! I've been passionate about writing since I was 5, so I will always encourage other writers! And I feel so honored that you would even ask and that you feel that way about my writing! ❤ Thank you!! 😭

I will start out by saying I am not going to claim that I am by any means a writing expert, but I will say I did study it (I have an M.A. in Literature, Rhetoric, & Composition) and I've been writing fanfic for a long time, which comes into play with my writing (obviously). But believe me, I am always learning new things and growing myself. Writing truly is a skill and you can absolutely improve it with practice--I've noticed a change in mine over the past year even. Also, what works for me isn't necessarily what might work for you or others, but I can share some things I do myself, or that I enjoy seeing in fanfics/books, or what I think tends to be beneficial. I will say I know my writing style tends to be sparse and dialogue driven/heavy, which isn't necessarily how you or anyone else reading this might write.

And since this will probably be long and not something everyone cares to read, I'll put it below the cut. But as a note, I'm also writing these tips not knowing what you already know or do, so please do not take offense if they're obvious to you and nothing new!

I think the first and most important thing is to know your characters well, especially when it comes to dialogue. So if you're writing fanfic, I'd say study the source material a bit, see how someone speaks, pick up on any mannerisms or particular phrases they might typically use and when they use it if you don't already feel like you have them down. As for any original characters, Readers, or side characters, I'd say make sure you know them, too. Obviously an anxious character for example isn't going to speak boldly--unless there's a reason for it. So you always want to make sure it seems realistic (at least to you and how you perceive your characters) that they would say whatever they're saying in the situation that they're saying it.

I also find it helps to read dialogue aloud once you've written it. Does it sound like something someone would say in real life? Generally people in conversation don't always respond in full or proper sentences, for example. And I personally do this when it comes to writing Michael Kinsella or Frank Castle sometimes (I feel like I've written for Matt long enough that I literally can hear him in my head just fine 😅). They all have a sort of rhythm to the way they speak and I tend to go back and edit dialogue if it sounds too wordy or unlike the cadence of their speech (but that's also me being super particular 😅). But sometimes reading it aloud might help you realize if it sounds awkward or long winded or too clipped. Or maybe even too heavy of a reaction to what was said before someone's response.

Don't forget to change up your dialogue tags!! You can easily search up a list of dialogue tags (sometimes I do because my brain can't remember the correct one I want), but just make sure you're not trying to use them to add 'flair' to your writing, they have to make sense. Good ol' 'said' is truly just fine sometimes, but sometimes a particular dialogue tag makes a HUGE difference.

Sort of going along with that, it really makes a difference if writers have interrupters in their dialogue when it feels right. Don't overdo it, but definitely don't forget about it if you're comfortable using it. So if your characters are having a conversation, sometimes they won't just be standing there speaking, right? They might be doing something--like making coffee or folding laundry--and adding that in as they're speaking really helps set a scene. It's also incredibly great to add in minute details about facial expressions, tone change, body language shifts in the middle of sentences or between them. Because maybe the character speaking is getting angry, or the one doing the listening is having some sort of reaction to what is being said.

Dialogue should also generally always serve a purpose, which should help give you an idea of what to write and when. Is someone confiding something in someone? Having an awkward first meet? Calling to set up a date? Someone says something and it sparks a fight? Two characters are just being silly? There should always be a reason characters are conversing (which is sometimes just helping readers understand a personality trait about someone or learning a key detail about something), even if you have to throw in pleasantries or other things first that make sense before you can get the conversation to that point. And sometimes that's actually a fun challenge to figure out how to get there 😆

Off the top of my head, that's what I can think of for tips on dialogue at the moment. Hopefully at least some were helpful and not just old news to you. Obviously I also recommend editing a fic and giving it a reread at least once before posting, too. I'm insanely particular so I might edit something like 5 times before it goes up (and then still miss things). I just think that's a good way to catch errors or repeat words or ideas that might throw a reader out of the story.

As for the confidence to share your writing (or so it seems you meant, correct me if I'm wrong), honestly you just have to put it out there if that's what you want to do. I mean, don't feel obligated because you can certainly just write for yourself, but I'm not really sure what other advice to give on that unfortunately. I think any writer just takes the plunge. Sometimes a story flops, sometimes it gets a good reaction. Just try your best to not let it get to you if it doesn't go the way you hope (though whoever says it doesn't is lying because it is still rough to put so much effort into something and feel like it fell flat). But know you're not alone on that because there isn't a fic writer I know who doesn't get that feeling. Famous published authors even feel that way. We can't please everyone, but just try to have fun with it and don't take it too seriously at the end of the day. Do your best to ignore the negative feedback because for every one rude reader there will be multiple others who enjoy what you're doing. Try to focus on that!

But obviously, just have fun. Tell the story you want to read ❤

[jo-harrington]

As Above, So Below - Chapter 2: Descendió a los Infiernos

Previous Chapter: Chapter 1 - Illumination

Summary: You arrive in Hawkins looking to offer assistance and come across some familiar faces; however, you're quick to realize that danger no longer lies dormant in the place you once called home.

Word Count: 13.7k

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!Original Character (Written in 2nd Person POV - You/Your - No Use of Names of Physical Descriptors)

Warnings/Themes: Van Helsing Inspired, Religious Themes, Criticism of Religion/Catholicism, Fate vs. Free Will, Death and Injury, Mentions of Major Character Deaths, Grief, Mourning, Discussion of the Upside Down, Supernatural Encounters, Angst, Violence, Action Sequences, Gore, Biblical and Other Literary/Media References

Note: I was gonna use this note to wax poetic about the Misa Criolla and I VERY MUCH WILL in its own post found here. But I need to take this opportunity to thank @chestylarouxx and @pastel-pillows for helping me clear some cobwebs when it came to the...well the literal webs I've woven with this chapter. Even me with my Pepe Silvia style board can get a little caught up in the details and need to talk it out or get another perspective to make sure things make sense. I appreciate you immensely.

This series will not be for the faint of heart, nor is it something that was written with a general audience in mind. Please check the above warnings and ask yourself if you are in the correct headspace to proceed. I am happy to answer any questions via PM or Ask.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

“The path to paradise begins in Hell.” - Dante Alighieri

October 9, 1987

It had taken much longer to reach the center of town than you had anticipated.

Like the earthquake relief efforts in Los Angeles, and what you recalled of the news segment from Hawkins' first earthquake the year prior, you knew your best attempt at offering assistance would need to be done at some community gathering spot. Since Hawkins was a small town that meant the town hall, the church, or the high school.

You knew the lay of the land in Hawkins—even now, 3 years after you had packed up and left—so you were confident about getting there. Actually making it to your destination was another story.

The roads cracked and buckled erratically; there were abandoned vehicles intermittently along the curb with large dents, shattered glass, and blown out tires.

"Looks like something out of Mad Max," Mary Victoria commented as you passed by one that had actually been turned on its side. “I don't think an earthquake could do that."

You realized as you got further into Hawkins that the fog that had suddenly popped up as you approached the city limits wasn't fog at all; it was smoke. It emanated from the fissures in the ground, slow and sluggish as it permeated and mixed with the air, and left a haze that blanketed everything and blotted out the rising sun.

"That's because it didn't," you muttered. "If, uh, if you still have a rosary on you, I think now would be the time to start praying Mare."

It was still early but people were already out and about, walking to some unknown destination. Smart, given how much you struggled to navigate your car between the uneven pavement and your cracked windshield. Some had hand carts and wagons with supplies, others had garbage bags and cleaning supplies. The handful with pitchforks and rakes and other makeshift weapons...they were the most alarming to see.

No matter what tools or tasks they had though, their eyes followed your car with distrust as you rolled by them.

At a certain point you reached a thick fissure that split the main road into town in two. The concrete burst, leaving a fluted edge that you knew your car wouldn't be able to make it over. So, oncoming traffic be damned, you followed along it on the wrong side of the road.

It didn’t help matters that the fissure pulsed ominously and you could sense it as you drove.

The further you went, the worse conditions got, and quickly the Hawkins of your memory—a cherished, happy place—was replaced with something sinister and desolate. And where Los Angeles had been filled with community, camaraderie, and hope in the recovery, you could only feel a weariness in your surroundings that was reminiscent of the aftermath of a great battle.

Especially when you reached the Town Center.

The marquee of the Hawk had fallen, city hall destroyed, the library was a strange half-collapsed shell, and Melvald's and a half dozen other shops along Main Street were simply scorched piles of rubble, including the shop you used to live above.

Even if the street was safe to traverse, downed traffic lights prevented you from driving any further, so you stopped the car and you and Mary Victoria continued onwards by foot.

"I know you said it wasn't an earthquake but this must be the epicenter," Mary Victoria observed as she shrugged her jacket on and took her first few steps. You shouldered your bag and caught up to her.

"Hey," you grabbed her arm and stopped her in her tracks. "Lesson 1. Take a minute. Even people who haven't unlocked any abilities can sense it sometimes. Focus."

There was a beat and she shivered.

She could feel it. Good.

"It's like a cold draft when you walk through a house where someone died. Or when you step into a graveyard, and you can feel there's something different there."

"Consecrated ground?" she asked.

It was a start.

You, though...you knew what it was. Could feel it penetrate your body and mind and shake you to your core. Whatever this town had seen—the very earth itself—had left a scar. Once. Twice. Many times. And it could tell you more than any recount that a living being could.

You could hear the echo of screams and cries and roars like a ringing in your ear, a jarring tinnitus with no remedy. Feel the phantom rumble of the earth beneath your feet like there was some great primordial worm burrowing below.

There was a thin barrier between this world and another...right here in Hawkins…right in this square...and whatever was on the other side was eagerly testing the strength of it.

"Not consecrated," you finally answered. "Desecrated."

You surveyed the square, ignoring the scathing, suspicious looks sent your way as you did.

You weren't here to make friends, you just needed to find someone in charge. Needed to get to work.

There was a group of people near city hall digging through the rubble; a young woman with curly hair pointed and gave some direction as they moved pieces of all shapes and sizes. You took a few steps, hoping she might be the authority figure you were looking for...and then there was a commotion. The group frantically moved several cinder blocks...and revealed an arm, a face, and cold unseeing eyes.

You expected to feel a wave of sorrow to move through them, but you could only sense their collective fatigue and it numbed you further.

Another one. At least there's an answer. Where are we gonna put this one?

Your steps faltered and your foot knocked into something on the ground that clattered—a broken plastic walkie talkie; the young woman's head immediately snapped towards you. Her eyes got wide as though she was startled, and then her expression morphed into something angry and hateful.

Hostile.

"Hey!" she shouted at you.

Great, that was just what you needed.

You pivoted back so you could warn Mary Victoria to keep calm even if the townspeople got violent, but she stood, frozen, watching another group as they picked through a pile of boxes stacked in the center of the square.

You followed her line of sight until you landed on one of the volunteers. A young man with fluffy brown hair, an easy smile that grew as he chatted with his group, and a stubble-covered square jaw.

You could almost see the gears grinding in Mary Victoria's head as she watched him; you wondered if everything was going in slow motion for her.

His hair ruffled as he threw his head back in a laugh, the shrug of his muscles beneath his polo as he picked up a box to haul it over his shoulder, and the little crinkle of his forehead as he concentrated on balancing his burden.

Then along you came. The moments ticking along as you leaned into her eyeline, face contorted in confusion, hand coming up to snap her out of her reverie.

"What are you doing?" you asked. You looked back and forth between her and the guy in confusion.

"I'm just enjoying the view," she shrugged and continued to look unabashedly.

"We're in the middle of a mission. The middle of a disaster zone," you reminded her.

"And I'm a nun," she retorted and nodded back over at the guy. "But I'm not blind. He's pretty cute. I can multitask."

You rolled your eyes.

Of course you got the horny nun.

"Hey!" the woman shouted again.

"Shit," you groaned. "Act natural."

"What does that mean?"

"Hey! Who are you? FEMA?"

"Uhhhh," Mary Victoria fumbled and looked to you. “I mean…”

"No we—" you started but you were cut off.

"Military? Department of Energy?" she continued. "Because you're a little too late."

"Hang on a second. Do we look like we're Military?" Mary Victoria laughed.

"Mare," you groaned in warning.

"What?"

"No. We're not the military," you turned back to the woman.

“How did you even get here? The roads have been—”

"Nance! What's going on?" The guy Mary Victoria had been ogling jogged over, a curly-haired teenage boy hot on his heels. "Who are they?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Nance replied.

The two of them chattered and a handful of other bystanders also jumped in. Mary Victoria tried to explain as best she could, and you would have put a stop to all of it if your eyes hadn't been glued to the teenage boy's shirt.

A familiar black and white raglan sleeve shirt that had seen better days; the white was faded and dingy, the screeching demonic face had a splatter of blood across it, actual blood, making it look even more nefarious. There was a jagged slash through the words with edges that curled and a bloody bandage beneath it, but you didn't need to guess what it said.

Hellfire Club.

Does that mean he knew—

"Hey," the boy exclaimed and pointed a finger right at your face. "It's you."

What?

"Me?" You put a hand on your chest; the crowd wend silent and focused their attention on you. Your eyes flit across them and then to Mary Victoria who held her hands up innocently.

"You know her?" Nance asked the boy.

"From the tunnels," he elaborated and then turned to his friend. "We were there...Steve you remember with Dart and then she..."

"You!" Steve shouted in recognition. "But you're...how are you alive?"

And then you realized.

The tunnels. That night. With Dart. The tunnels.

November 5, 1984

It was the end of your shift--the end of your "week" after trading shifts left and right so you could have the 30th and 31st to celebrate Halloween with the guys—and relief sunk deep into your bones.

You had no plans for the next two days but your bed and all of the junk food and trash television you could stomach.

"You going to Eddie's after you get outta here?" your coworker asked.

And Eddie, of course...but unlike the stack of Kraft Mac and Cheese that you were stocking up on for your hedonistic sloth-fest, you could never get sick of your boyfriend.

"Not tonight," you shook your head. "I'll probably sleep right up til his set at the Hideout tomorrow night."

"Awww, sweetie," she cooed, knowing how many hours you'd pulled. "He better dedicate a song to you, making time for his shows every week."

You grinned a secret little smile at her and nodded.

He dedicated them all to you. Even if he didn't say it into the microphone, he would prove his devotion after the fact. With his eyes and hands.

And his mouth.

You said farewell to your coworkers and headed out into the parking lot; you cursed as you fumbled with the brown paper bags against your body and the keys in your hand as you approached your car.

"Of course," you angrily muttered to yourself as you felt the keyring slip through your fingers and hit the pavement. "You never get a cart. No matter how much you buy, you never get a cart. ‘It's not that bad. I can carry it.’ Idiot. No you can't."

You groaned a little as you knelt down, and as you tried to find them by touch alone, you saw the movement in your peripherals.

Just a flash, a barely-there blur in the darkness beyond the parking lot.

But you saw it.

Then in a blink, he was there.

Gabriel held your key, inches from your face; your eyes moved up his form to meet his. Eyes you knew so well, better than your own. They had always stared at you, unblinking, with a still coldness that would have made anyone else uneasy.

If only they could see him.

Actually, you hadn't even seen him in a while. Not since you’d run; not since he appeared in your rear view mirror, getting smaller and smaller as you drove further away what felt like a lifetime ago. You always knew he could catch up at any time, but the satisfaction had been so great. You hadn't seen him...but you had felt his presence every so often. It's why you always turned tail and ran again...until Hawkins.

You’d thought it was over. That you were free.

You should have known better.

“Have you come to bring me home?” You asked bitterly, unwilling to trust him.

He flexed his hand and the keys jingled, a sign for you to take them. You reached out, but before you could even touch them they were in your grasp and your arms were empty. Across the lot he stood by your car—you could see the tops of the paper bags through the windows, secured in your backseat with a seatbelt—and he nodded his head in the direction of the trees.

He then began walking.

So...not home. Somewhere else.

The urge to follow him was strong and your body reacted to it. Your feet moved without your permission, an automatic process akin to breathing; it was a survival method, to prevent whatever demise would befall you if you didn’t choose to do so on your own. You stopped yourself for a second, to test the mettle of whatever consequence might await you.

He’d never led you astray before; never lied...but never told the truth either. He always...omitted the truth. When you were young and naive in your faith, he brought you great comfort. But ever since you had begun to ask why, he became less willing to cooperate. This time though...something about him made you feel sick. The swell of his unseen form was overwhelming, and as the human form got further away, the celestial presence encroached on your body...smothered you.

You considered, for the briefest second, turning on your heel to run just like you had done for the past two years. However, a screeching, whistling roar began to fill the stillness of the night, louder and louder. Not in your ears, but in the very depths of your soul itself. And you knew you couldn't escape whatever he was leading you towards even if you wanted to.

So you followed silently. For miles. For hours.

Cars passed by on the road every so often, blinding you, but you couldn't stop. Even when you needed to rest, he kept walking and the tether between you was tested. You'd wince and groan but it fell on deaf ears. Every so often something would snap or creak or groan in the darkness around you and you would startle; he didn't even give you the decency to tell you everything was ok.

Some guardian angel he was.

You were confused when Gabriel finally stopped and you stepped in place beside him.

Merrill's Pumpkin Patch; you and Eddie had tried to make a visit last week ahead of Halloween but had been turned away. The pumpkins had all been dead and in various stages of putrefaction then, and it was even worse now.

A car sat idle in the middle of the field; the doors and the trunk were still open.

"Abandoned?" you asked.

"No," he responded, suddenly appearing within the field itself, staring at the ground. You groaned and followed after him, careful not to step on any of the rotten pumpkins as you did, until you reached the car...and a hole in the ground. There was a rope tied to the front grill of the car that dropped into the depths of the hole.

"What the fuck?" you muttered.

"Keep steady your steps according to His promise," Gabriel recited. "And let no iniquity get dominion over you."

"I'm not..."you shook your head at him and looked down into the dark abyss below you. "I really haven't been keeping up with Bible study since I...yeah."

"This is your first step." His voice surrounded you, and when you looked up to question him, he was gone.

"Gabriel?" you called out. "What...Gabriel come back! You led me to...a hole in the ground! What is this? G-Gabriel!"

When he didn't return or answer you, you shook your head and rolled your eyes. This was the first step? A test of faith? Of trust? To follow him blindly across town and to a field...only to have to walk all the way back? What a load of—

A scream came from the hole, a shriek.

"Help, help, help," someone called distantly from below then shrieked again. A bloodcurdling thing that sent a chill down your spine and had your hair standing on end.

You didn't think twice; you simply jumped.

It was instinct. Second nature. Fate.

It annoyed you.

Because what the hell.

No normal human being in their right mind would jump into a hole like this after hearing a scream like that.

As you landed, you were sure you pulled or twisted something in your hip; the action heroes in the movies made everything look easier than it was and it seemed some...subconscious instinct thought you were a hero without realizing you were just a grocery store clerk a few years out of high school where you really loathed to partake in PE anyway.

And you were cursed.

"It would really be nice if you could show up right now and tell me this isn't the curse, this is my destiny, huh Gabe?" you called out, hoping your guardian would hear you.

No luck.

"Fucker."

Looking around, you realized that the thought of what was waiting at the bottom of the hole hadn't crossed your mind at all. But a tunnel...well what else could you expect? It was dark and dank, filled with roots and vines and muck. The air was stale and filled with floating particles.

Could they be seeds? Like dandelion fluff?

You reached out a hand and as one of the particles landed on your skin, you felt a shock run through you.

You never truly understood what your grandfather or father did during their trips, their missions. All of the stories, the warnings, the preparation could never hold up to the reality and the electricity that coursed through your veins.

There were flashes before your eyes: a desolate waste, a gaping mouth, bloodshot eyes, a thousand teeth, veins black with tar-like blood, a pulsing portal, and monsters. So many monsters.

Your gifts, though dormant from misuse and lack of practice, might have been from Heaven, but they were certainly rooted on Earth. Now that you were introduced to the darkness, the infernal, the atrocity firsthand, you could feel the way it carved into the ground. Infected these tunnels like a cancer. Mingled and stained and tainted what would otherwise be bright and healthy and alive.

There was another shriek down one of the tunnels and you sighed and went into action.

If fate wanted you to be a hero, what else could you do but be one?

"Fucking angel should be the one swooping in to save someone stuck in a hole," you grumbled and started jogging through the tunnel in the direction of the sound. "Not me."

It wasn't as bad as you made it out to be; though out of practice, your body was made for this—you were born for this—and you quickly sensed the direction you needed to go in when the tunnel forked. Instinctually skipping over rocks and roots as they appeared underfoot. The density of the infernal particles became thicker the further you went, and you covered your mouth with the collar of your jacket so you wouldn't breathe it in.

You turned a corner and almost tripped over a group of figures huddled in the opening of what could only be described as the core of the tunnel system. A cavernous hub where several paths converged.

The figure at the front of the group threw something into the Hub and the cavern erupted into flames. You hadn’t smelled the gasoline until it ignited and when the heat of the fireball hit you, errant bits of flame licked at the edges of your clothes and hair.

The group—an older teenage boy and several kids—all recoiled and patted the singed bits of themselves. They startled at the sight of you.

“Jesus Chr—”

“Who is that? Who are you?”

“What the hell?”

“What are you just standing there for?!”

You watched, enthralled, as the infernal growths in the center of the cavern and along the walls writhed and screeched from the flames. You could sense…emotions emanating from it. Anger, pain, danger, wrath. But hands were quickly placed on your shoulders and you were turned back in the direction you came.

“I don't know you the hell you are but we need to get out of here,” the older boy said frantically. “Who sees a hole in the ground and just...jumps in.”

“To be fair, you all are also down here,” you argued.

“She’s got a point,” one of the kids piped up.

There was a shuddering screech that echoed from beyond the cavern, from one of the connecting tunnels, and the guy pushed past you and ran.

“Run! Go, go, go!” He led the way, looking back every so often to make sure everyone followed him, including you.

You were shoulder to shoulder with one of the kids at the back of the group who just kept saying “shit” over and over. You quickly skipped over an exposed root on the ground but the kid tripped and hit the ground. Hard.

The others kept running for a second but you skidded to a stop to help him to his feet, only for a slithering vine-like tentacle to shoot out from its place along the wall and wrap around his ankle. You watched, horrified, as it yanked him back to the ground and began dragging him back in the other direction. He screamed and the others immediately rushed to his aid.

The tentacle was strong but not as fast as they were. The kids grabbed his arms, his shoulders, and tried to yank him away from the infernal limb.

“I’ve got you Mike. I’ve got you,” the older boy was obviously the strongest and wedged himself beneath Mike, arms wrapped around his torso as he dug his feet into the ground for leverage.

“Don’t just stand there,” one of the kids—a girl—screamed at you. “Help! Do something!”

Little did she know, it had been building inside of you since the heat of the fire had touched your skin. You tried to swallow it down, unsure if you'd be able to control it for so long. When you'd been younger, when you didn't know how to channel it, you had hurt people accidentally. Destroyed things.

That same feeling of untethered power was trapped inside of you now, aching to be released. You didn't want to hurt anyone, let alone these kids. But you thought of the flashes you had seen when you touched the particle; you needed to use that power to stop the darkness now.

They would die anyway if you didn't.

You dropped to your knees by Mike’s feet and held a hand over his ankle. You closed your eyes and channeled the churning heat, along all of your nerves, through your limbs to the very heart of you. Then directed it outwards to your fingertips.

“I shall defend against the wickedness and the snares of the devil,” you recited under your breath and placed your hand directly on the slimy, writhing tentacle.

It stilled beneath your touch and loosened on Mike’s ankle as the shrieks from the hub echoed around you. Then from the one tentacle you touched, a burning red glow grew and it quickly moved through all of the connecting parts that had penetrated the rock and earth around you. It burned red hot like lava, illuminating the tunnels, and then rapidly cooled and crumbled into ash.

You let out a huff of disbelieving laughter; you didn’t really expect that to work.

“What did you do?” Mike stared at you with wide eyes. “What was that?”

“Are you good?” You asked him. “Are you hurt?”

“No! But how did you—”

He didn’t get to finish his thought as a cold, chilling breath hit the side of your face and a roar deafened you. The shock knocked you to your rear and you stared deeply into a petal-like mouth lined with razor sharp teeth as it shrieked.

The mouth snapped at you once, twice, and you almost held your hand up to inflict your power at it like you had with the tentacle but one of the kids got to his feet and immediately set himself between you and the creature, arms held out to shield you.

“Dart, Dart!” The creature backed away, and the petals shrunk in on themselves to form a cone-shaped head that tilted back and forth. “You remember me don’t you?”

The kids hissed at their friend and told him to get back.

“Trust me,” he reassured them, and then turned back to the creature. He removed his goggles and bandana, tipped his baseball hat further back on his head. “Dart, you remember me. Don’t you? It’s me, your friend. Dustin. Alright?

“Will you let us pass?” He asked sweetly.

The creature roared again, spittle spraying onto you and Dustin both. Your hand shot out and grabbed the back of Dustin’s shirt as he tried to take a step forward, but he looked back at you and waved you away.

“I’m sorry for the storm cellar,” he laughed at the creature. “That was real douchey of me.” The creature made a chittering sound as though it agreed with him.

You didn’t understand. Was this…his pet? Did he try to keep an infernal creature from another world—from the depths of hell—as a pet? Your thoughts briefly turned to Eddie, who had befriended all manner of creatures around Forest Hills, and then suspended your disbelief.

“You hungry?” Dustin then asked and dug into the pocket of his jeans. “Yeah?”

“What are you—”

“Shhhhh.”

“He’s insane.”

“Shut. Up.”

“I’ve got your favorite,” Dustin ignored his friends and held out his hand as a peace offering. Palm flat, the way someone would if they were feeding a horse. “Nougat. You want it?”

Dart sniffed at it with a gurgling grunt and started tapping its feet impatiently as Dustin unwrapped the candy.

“Eat up buddy,” he said softly and waved at everyone to go on. “Delicious. There’s plenty more that that came from. Come on, there you go.” He helped you to your feet and then pushed you ahead.

You ran ahead to the head of the group to trail behind the older boy while the kids followed.

"You know where you're going?" you asked him, pointing to the makeshift map in his hand, drawn in crayon.

"Why? Do you?" he scoffed and shined his flashlight in your face. "Who are you anyway? You just show up and you...burned that thing! Are you another one like Eleven?"

"A thank you would be nice." You narrowed your eyes at him. "What do you mean another one? Who's Eleven?"

The tunnel suddenly shook violently and a collective roar came from behind you. The kids gasped in shock and pain as they fell and scraped elbows and knees on the tunnel walls.

"What was that?" the girl asked.

"They're coming!" Mike exclaimed. "Run! Run!"

"Let's go, let's go!" You were the one to lead the way this time, following your instinct once again. You pointed out the roots and bumps as you went. "Watch your step. Jump. Duck."

"There it is!" The older boy powered past you to get to the rope that they had dropped. He turned around and held his hands out. "Go go go, let's go!"

The girl was the first to step up and the older boy boosted her up and out of the hole. You helped with the next one. You were not as strong as you assumed the older boy was, but you could dig your heels into the ground and borrow a little bit of the earth's elemental fortitude for this.

"Lucas, grab on!" the girl reached out and grabbed the hands of the boy you were helping.

Mike was next. Between the older boy and the two kids above ground, he made it up safely.

But your time was up, and as the first of your pursuers rounded the corner and bounded for you, Dustin and the older boy grabbed a hold of one another to try and find comfort before their demise.

You, on the other hand, moved in front of them, shielded them as Dustin had to you; you had to protect them.

You clasped your hands together as though in prayer, and closed your eyes to focus. Time slowed down, and with every beat of your heart, another set of footsteps were added to the mix signifying another creature prepared to attack. You could imagine it. A wave of rocketing bodies and vicious teeth.

And you stood there, ready to cut through them, or be cut through yourself.

"I shall defend you in the hour of your conflict," you muttered and thought about a sword cutting through a foe, about hands parting the wild waves of the sea, about a wall of flames that could stop a foe dead in its tracks.

The heat built up once again, engulfed you and then exploded out from you. The kids above shouted in shock, followed by several pathetic whimpers. You opened your eyes as you felt a whip of air brush past you, and although you saw several charred bodies of the creatures at your feet, you turned and watched several more that had made it past your defenses continue down the tunnel.

"Where are they going?"

"They're going after El!"

"How did you do that?!"

"Nevermind that," you dismissed. "You need to get out of here. Get to safety."

You grabbed Dustin and helped the older boy boost him out of the tunnels.

"Let's go," the older boy held his hands out for you. "Up."

"No, you," you mirrored him. "I need to stop them."

"What?" he argued. "No, we need to get out of here."

"You!" you pointed up at Mike. "Where are those things going? You said they're going after El. Who's El?"

"She's our friend, she..." he shook his head. "The demodogs are going after her. To stop her. She's trying to close the gate."

"The...gate?" you narrowed your eyes at him.

"To the Upside Down," Lucas piped up. "It's another dimension."

It flashed in your mind's eye, the vision of the pulsing portal. And this time, standing in front of it was a small, lone figure.

Fuck.

"Are we just telling everyone now?" Dustin asked.

The kids all started bickering again and you rolled your eyes. If someone was in danger...regardless of whatever the gate was or whatever these things were or whoever El...Eleven was, you needed to stop it.

You were the only one here who could.

You slapped your hand on the older guy's shoulder and he stopped bickering with the kids to look at you.

"Listen," you started frankly. "I don't know what's going on. I really don't care to know either. Whatever you came down here for? It's dangerous. We all know that. Why you thought you and a gaggle of kids were a good...army? Candidates for heroes? I don't know.

"So let me do it. Let me help your friend, let me be the hero. I can handle it. Whatever all of you came down here for, it's only gonna get you killed if you keep at it."

His eyes darted back and forth between yours before he swallowed hard and nodded. He started climbing the rope to get up to the surface but stopped to look at you.

"We're gonna wait right here until you get back," he said with finality. "And if you need help...just yell."

You reluctantly nodded and waited until he got to the top before you turned and stared down the looming tunnel ahead of you.

You used the first few steps to reground yourself, to sense what was ahead. You could still feel the vibration of the retreating demodogs; they were either not as fast as they seemed or these tunnels were much more vast than you really acknowledged. You thought about the map that the kids had...the way that several tunnels switched back on themselves...

There had been the cavernous hub, sure...but another cavern...a room...

The Gate. A portal to another world. A doorway into hell.

The Order called them Atrocities. A wicked and unpleasant thing only meant to cause chaos and pain and sow destruction on the Earth.

How had you not sensed it this entire time living in Hawkins? When it was so obvious to you now? Maybe you had always known; you just ignored it. Maybe that's why Gabriel had led you here so obviously, so tediously. You hadn't wanted anything to do with the Order or the Atrocities or your fate. And it had snuck up on you, just like it always had.

A bitterness filled you; you didn't want this. You didn't want any of this. You wanted a normal life. You deserved a normal life.

You stopped in your tracks and sighed.

"What if I just turn back now?" you called out to no one. Or maybe to Gabriel or to God Himself. "What if I just choose to let the Darkness win? Huh? What then?

"Why do I need to do this? Why do I need to do this? It could be anyone else. It could be this...Eleven. It could be...I don't know it could be my Father? You could have brought him here. Why does it have to be me?"

There was a pulse through the earth then, another shaking rattling boom that nearly sent you to your knees. An ear splitting screech echoed through the tunnels and the vibration of the demodogs got faster, as though they were being urged into battle by their nefarious master.

And that was more than answer enough for you.

There was no one else. Even Eleven couldn't do it alone. It had to be you.

You conjured the image of the portal in your mind, the small figure that struggled against the immense power of Hell that laid behind the thin glowing barrier. You thought of the vastness of the tunnels and mapped them in the planes of your mind.

They were like veins and the portal was the heart.

One could stop the pulsing of the heart and the veins would stop too, or you could block the veins and starve the heart.

So while the figure—Eleven—struggled to stop the heart, you worked on the veins.

"By the Power of Heaven," you took a breath and steeled yourself in your anger, found strength in the smiting wrath of your lapsed faith. You'd been reciting the oath of the Order all night, and now would be no different. "I will thrust the wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls...back into the depths of Hell itself."

It took a beat to find it, to connect with the slow-moving tectonic plates of the Earth and the molten hot mantle below. You called it forward and it obeyed; burning, melting, molding until you felt your own body sink into the ground ever so slightly. Then you willed it outwards and the tunnel system rattled; the remnants of the organic, otherworldly matter shrieked in agony as they burned before they were crushed under the massive weight and pressure of churning earth.

You started at the hub—an easy target—and worked your way outwards. One by one the vibration of the demo dogs slowed and stopped as they succumbed to the assault. As the tunnels churned and burned and collapsed around them and the earth swallowed them whole.

What was the power of Heaven and Hell when the Earth could provide just as much wrath of its own?

You felt the distant feeling of betrayal as Dustin's Dart was consumed and put down, and then the rest. There was a collective cry to the master beyond the portal that they had failed, and then a shuddering wail as the connection to the other world was severed.

You opened your eyes briefly to celebrate your triumph, only to see the churning earth consume you as well.

It was an onslaught.

The burning soil, the turbulent motion, and then the stillness of it as you found yourself trapped in a peaty prison. You tried to take a breath, tried to scream, tried to see, but every time you moved, the dirt shifted around you.

You were surrounded. You couldn't move. You were buried. You still felt the vestiges of agony at the corners of your mind as your otherworldly adversaries' lives were taken from them and it spurned your own panic.

Before you had been overtaken, you had thrown your hands up to shield yourself; it provided you the tiniest little pocket of air. You shimmied slightly so you could gain access to it, so you could breath, and you took a hungry gulp of stale spare air. You tried to control your breathing; this was all you would have until you could get free.

If you could get free.

If you didn't die.

You felt an unfamiliar emotion try to overtake you; you had asked Father Jinette once what dying felt like. He said it would be peaceful; it was hell that you needed to worry about. But this...this didn't feel peaceful at all. It felt overwhelming.

If you died here, no one would ever find you. Those kids and their friend...would they tell anyone? Who would they tell? They didn't know who you were.

Your car. They would find your car in the parking lot at Bradley's though.

Your car.

"Gabriel!" you cried out in realization. You could barely hear yourself; there was dirt in your ears too. "Gabriel! Ga-gabriel please help me, please, please. I need you, I need you."

There was nothing. No sound, no shifting, you were still stuck in place with even less air than before.

You stifled your sobs, knowing they wouldn't help you.

You tried to call him silently again, in your head. You envisioned his stupid human form appearing in front of you or you appearing outside. Where was outside? Where were you? Even if you did manage to appear out there? Where would you be?

You didn't want this anymore, you didn't want this. You had never wanted this. Ever. But you’d told that boy that you would be a hero so he wouldn't have to be because you would survive and he wouldn't.

How wrong you were.

You were alone there. No one would come to save you. You would die.

You'd be buried here with the other bodies, with the demodogs and when someone noticed your car in the lot of Bradley's, they'd—

Your throat clenched.

Eddie.

They would call Eddie and say you disappeared and he would never know that you...that you loved him, that you were what you were, that you would die for him.

But could you live for him?

If you were gone unexpectedly, what would Eddie do? It would destroy him. It would kill him. And you couldn't do that.

So you had to live.

You had to crawl from this dank, dark pit. You had that little bit of space...you could wiggle and shuffle and get free.

You had power. You could control the earth, you could manipulate it. Draw the strength you needed from it to get free. You still had the shift of the core of the Earth on your side.

It was dark, unbelievably dark. You didn't know which way was up or down. Had the avalanche of soil knocked you backwards or were you still "standing" upright? Did you have to dig up? Or sideways? Was there another pocket of air somewhere you could get to before it was too late?

You considered all of the factors, all the reasons for living.

And the only one that really mattered as you began to dig...was Eddie.

You thought of your silly stupid boyfriend and all of the things that he did for you, all of the ways he made you happy, all the ways you loved him and needed him. The ways that he gave your life meaning.

"Hey sweetheart, I'm here," you could practically hear his voice. Not Gabriel's emotionless tone. The warmest, most loving voice you'd ever heard, full of encouragement and support. " You can't die on me now."

You pushed the dirt down and wedged your body upwards. Further and further and further.

"You're almost there," he encouraged you. "I believe in you. Only a little bit more to go. You can't give up. I need you."

You thought of all the ways he needed you, needed your company and support. Thought of the ways you held him as he was sad, and cheered with him when he was happy. He had Wayne and Rick...he had his friends...but your love...he couldn't survive without your love. He had told you in the throes of passionate worship.

"Just a little bit more, do you feel it?" he asked. "It feels a little bit lighter now. Hold your breath if you need to. Keep going for me."

What was he without you? What were you without him?

You had to live so he could.

Your hand burst through the last layer of dirt and you gasped for air greedily as you hoisted yourself up and out. You collapsed on your side and watched as the ground shifted with instability and filled in the hole you created back up, the remnants of your power still at play.

A light rain washed over you, caking the dirt to your hair and skin and clothes. Your fingertips ached, skin and nails broken from clawing your way out.

You wailed into the night.

You were broken.

And you were alone.

But you were alive.

"You made it out alive!" The boy, Dustin, grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you from your recollection. "We thought you were dead."

You briefly considered it; looking back now, that was the night everything started to change.

So yes, you had died in a way.

"Hop looked for you for days..." he continued. "Even El..."

"We saw the tunnel collapse," Steve added. "We just thought...obviously no one could survive that."

"B-but people come back from the dead...kind of all the time in Hawkins."

That gave you pause.

"What the hell does that mean?" You put your hands on your hips. "Come back from the dead?"

The two of them went back and forth, tripping over each other's words about how people seemed to be dead and then they were not, more times than they could count. Usually they were just hiding in the woods or in another country or...

Alright, that's a relief. No spontaneous resurrections. You could check that off the list.

The boys continued to chatter and Nance was clearly over it.

"Excuse me," Nance piped up. "Excuse me!"

Both boys went silent and she turned to you.

"Who are you again?" she asked suspiciously.

Mary Victoria took it upon herself to introduce you both by name and then when she didn't get an immediate response she added, "we're from the church."

You winced as a few of them laughed out loud Nance included.

"Is it always like this?" Mary Victoria asked you out of the side of her mouth.

"Pretty much," you sighed, and then turned your attention back to the crowd. "We're not from the church but we're not not from the church. It's complicated."

"What does that even mean?" someone shouted. "You're here to say prayers with us? Our own reverend did that and now he's dead."

"What church sends two girls in a beaten down shitbox of a car," another person laughed.

"Yeah, we need an army not a prayer circle!"

"We're just here to help," you explained tiredly, desperate for them to put their trust in you. "Wherever you need us. Supply runs, medical, recovery, anything."

"We don't need help," Nance spat. "And we don't trust strangers, so if you could kindly take your things and go back where you came from."

"Nancy!" Steve exclaimed. "I think they can help."

"She's been here before," Dustin tried to explain and pointed at you. "She helped us. She saved Mike."

"Fat load of good that did him, he's dead now too," Nancy lashed out and then froze and covered her mouth. The group went silent and she fidgeted under the weight of everyone's sympathetic gazes.

You saw it, for a split second as her shield went down and she desperately clawed to pick it back up. Someone young and innocent with all the hope in the world ahead of her…forced to grow up too fast and carry an immeasurable weight on her shoulders just for a little while with the promise of an ultimate prize if she could succeed…only for it to be ripped away against her will.

You saw yourself.

"I'm sorry," She said when she finally regained composure. "I...I'm sorry. That's...and we only have so many hours of daylight..."

"Hey! You're mourning," Mary Victoria piped up. You were glad she did, because you couldn’t. "You're tired. It's been a tough few days, weeks—"

"Years," Nancy sighed miserably.

"—you just need to sit for a second. Take a break. Let's...is there someplace with coffee or something? I'm not good at a lot of things, but I'm good for a shoulder to cry on and a shitty cup of coffee."

Nancy nodded and gestured a makeshift mess tent in the square where people were putting together food for the volunteers. You mouthed a quick 'thank you' to Mary Victoria as she ushered Nancy away.

You didn't miss the way she winked at you.

You didn't even need to give her a Lesson 2. She understood this was the best time to play detective.

"Alright." You looked at all the others and clapped your hands together. "How can I help then?"

They put you to work.

It was no different than anything you had done at the Mission in LA, but it felt much more purposeful. Not only because you got information in return for the help you offered, but because you would always think of Hawkins as your home.

The townspeople didn't trust you, understandably. Many of them don’t know you, and the few who recognized your face questioned why you had returned at all. They cast wary and judgmental gazes at you and when you tried to influence their thoughts of you with gentle waves of comfort, your attempts were thwarted.

They were hardened and suspicious, irreparably damaged by the nightmares they had seen, and no heavenly powers could change that.

You we’re lucky, though, that a few you did get paired with fed you enough information for you to piece together what happened over the last few years since you left, not just the past few weeks.

You packed boxes of clothes for families who had been displaced with Patty Fischer, one of your old coworkers from Bradley's. She vaguely recognized you—she'd been a cashier while you mostly stocked the floor—but she'd been glad for a friend.

Patty told you the widest array of information—loose lips and all—but the vaguest.

The StarCourt mall fire, the satanic massacres...about how a devil really had risen from the depths of the earth to destroy their town.

"All the stories were true," she sighed. "But the nightmare's almost over...we're just left with the aftermath."

You dug through rubble with Mr. Richardson. You left recovered bodies for another team to handle—to burn or bury, you didn't quite know—and took discarded weapons along to a stockpile in the square in an old wheelbarrow. You learned that his brother had been one of the victims of an accident at the Hawkins Laboratory and his niece died avenging him in the battle against Vecna.

"He had his armies, but so did we," he chuckled sadly, wiping tears from his eyes. "My niece...she gave them the fight of her life. And of course we had our hero, Jane Hopper. Shame about her and the chief. Those bats gave us a fight though."

Bats?

Mostly though, you worked with Dustin. He was eager to ask you questions—the real reason he wanted to work with you, you were sure—so you made a game of it: an answer for an answer. He started. With two questions actually:

How had you survived the tunnels and where had you gone?

And you answered him truthfully. You had crawled out...and then laid low for a while before leaving town altogether to help the next people in need.

"Who else needed help? Did you find gates to the upside down anywhere else?" he shot questions at you rapidly.

"Woah woah," you held your hands out. "Rules are rules. My turn."

"Fine," he conceded. You tilted your head and pointed at his shirt.

"Hellfire Club."

"That's...not a question," he curled in on himself defensively. "What about it?"

For both of your sakes, you knew you needed to start with...maybe a gesture of good faith...familiarity. The only thing Dustin knew about you was...well, that you could help, that he could rely on you, even if he couldn't trust you yet.

You needed to prove you were here for a reason, and not just to play some heroic game with the town's very real lives.

"I have one of those shirts." You gave him a soft smile.

"No shit!" He dropped the box in his hand and clapped his hands together. "You went to Hawkins High? You were literally under our nose this whole time?"

"No," you laughed at his enthusiasm. "Well...no. I dropped out of school before I came to Hawkins the first time around, but my boyfriend was the one who introduced me to DnD and I even played a game with them. Which is why I had a shirt."

"Who was your boyfriend? Gareth? You're his type, hero adventure girl."

"Oh my god, no. Robbing the cradle; Gareth was my little buddy. No...uh...don't know how old you are...or how taboo his name might be around here but...Eddie...Eddie Munson was my boyfriend."

It was like a record scratch; Dustin blanched and stared at you wide eyed. Like he had seen a ghost.

You suddenly felt bad.

"E-Eddie?" he repeated the name. "You were..."

"Hey, no, like I said, I'm sorry. I know he's dead...but I didn't know if people still thought..."

"No he was my friend too," he interrupted you. "He...people...I mean after...you don't understand. Nobody does, really. He...he sacrificed himself...saved a lot of people. He saved me. When...Vecna first attacked Hawkins...people blamed Eddie for killing those kids but he did whatever he could to stop Vecna from escaping the Upside Down. And the Gates still opened but...but he helped us stop Vecna."

The two of you went back and forth for a while, continuing questions and answers.

Dustin regaled you with some stories about Eddie but kept it heartfelt and funny instead of sad. You’d been surprised and a little guilty to hear that he had flunked senior year again after you left but you melted at the way Eddie never ragged on the kids for having long distance relationships when his own smoking hot girlfriend was in Chicago.

You heard about the Upside Down and Vecna, about the creatures from another dimension, Eddie's sacrifice, and the Gates that had yet to be closed.

He had the decency to avoid telling you how Eddie died, but considering everything else...you knew it wasn't peaceful. You were still grateful.

In return, you told him stories about your travels. More than you had really told Mary Victoria because he was a kid and could do with something fantastical in the midst of this tragedy. Not everything, but things you felt comfortable exposing him to.

The demon who had possessed a bride in New Orleans, the time someone had trapped a hearth deity in Cádiz and had used them to burn the homes of their enemies...

"And then someone tried to reanimate a bunch of bodies for their own..." You waved your hand to find the right words. "Underground boxing league. I don't know."

"Zombie boxing!" He was in awe, cherubic face alight with joy; it was easy to see why Eddie would have been fond of him. "That would be very cool; I would pay to see that."

"A lot of people did."

"I mean...imagine you knock someone's head off and they just keep fighting."

"In theory, ok...it sounds cool," you agreed. "But it's the means that someone uses to get there."

There was a holler from someone across the square about breaking for lunch. Perfect timing too as the smoky haze from the fissures—the Gate—began to meld together with the rolling cloud coverage of an impending storm.

Everyone around you sighed in relief and took off towards the tent. Lunch would provide a much-needed respite.

"Heard that we've got turkey sandwiches today."

"Ol' Tim's being real generous with the supplies."

"Let's just get our strength up before it's feeding time, you guys," someone piped up as they pushed past the crowd. "You don't gotta run fast...you just have to run faster than the other guy."

That seemed a little concerning though.

Your mind raced to connect the dots as you followed the others to the mess tent.

Feeding time...running...bats...the gates still open...the nightmare almost over...but not over yet...

"Dustin," you turned to your new friend as you were handed your lunch. "What...what are they talking about? Running..."

He avoided your eyes, and instead turned to look for a place to sit amongst the volunteers. You kept talking as you followed him to a small card table at the corner of the tent.

"I hit something with my car on the way into town. It was a demodog, I think. If the gates are still open, are creatures still crossing over and attacking people?"

"It's...complicated," he answered hesitantly and took a bite of his sandwich.

"Explain it to me then. Vecna's gone...do you just...have no way to close the Gates?" you asked. "Because I can—"

"No!" He shouted mid-mouthful, and your eyebrows shot up in surprise. "It's...it's not that. Vecna might be gone, but that's not the only danger that's in the Upside Down. You could try to close the Gates...but...but Kas would just open them back up again."

"Kas?"

You hadn't heard that name before today, you were certain, but for some reason, it seemed familiar. Scratched something in the depths of your memory that you couldn't quite place your finger on.

Your stomach churned with uneasiness.

It wasn't that you didn't like not knowing something. It was that you knew it and it evaded you. And every second you failed to remember, someone could be in danger.

"Yes," Dustin swallowed and gestured for you to eat as he wove the tale. "He was Vecna's right hand. You see, Vecna couldn't cross the Gate without his spell being complete, so he sent Kas as the general of his armies until he could. To cause as much destruction in Hawkins and try to go after our friend Max. She was the key to finishing the spell.

"Kas came from our world, just like Vecna, but the Upside Down changed him too. Vecna offered him power in exchange for his loyalty, and he let Kas control the army. When Kas crossed back into this world, he started...remembering his human life, feeling remorseful. And he betrayed Vecna."

"So he could get his life back?" you questioned.

"When the battle was over, he tried to get all of the creatures back into the Upside Down and found that...he couldn't cross back to our world himself. He's stuck there."

You really tried to understand; you had heard of transformations like this before...distantly. They mostly occurred after someone had died. If Vecna had been left to the Upside Down to die...and the Upside Down really was some living, breathing dimension, Vecna's anger was what fueled him as a vessel for this power.

But once he was gone, and Kas was left...if Kas had regained some form of his humanity...

Then why was he stuck?

"And that's all he wants?" You needed reassurance. "To get back."

"Yes."

"And he can control these creatures?"

"Yes."

"So why is he still sending them to attack Hawkins?"

Maybe Vecna's influence wasn't gone after all, maybe you were dealing with some kind of vengeful, undead spirit who didn't realize he was actually dead in the first place.

You considered ways to deal with the undead. Burning their bones, some kind of exorcism-adjacent rite, banishing them altogether...

You could do this. You could handle it and close the gates and then Hawkins would be safe again.

"Because he's hungry," Dustin finally answered, his words weighing down upon him so much that his shoulders sagged as he said them.

Your stomach dropped and your body went cold with dread.

"Excuse me?"

You didn't mean to sound as grave as you did but...hungry?

The two of you had just been talking about zombies and reanimated corpses and all manner of creatures. He didn't think to bring this up before?

"Ope, I think Steve's calling me!" He ignored you and started to stand from the table. You were hot on his heels and grabbed his wrist to stop him. Everyone left in the tent still eating stopped their chatter to watch the spectacle.

"Dustin, what do you mean hungry?" Your eyes darted back and forth between his, willing him to tell you the truth. "What is Kas?"

Someone screamed from outside the confines of the tent and you both jumped in surprise.

“Everybody inside! Go! Run!"

The other volunteers who had been resting immediately got to their feet and began to flee; tables and chairs were tipped over, plates and food discarded, abandoned, and squished underfoot.

"We need to go!" Dustin grabbed your wrist and pulled you out of the tent into the chaos that had erupted in the square.

It was a cacophony of noise; people running and screaming, hiding.

"Arm yourselves!"

"Hide the children."

"Run, run!"

You dismissed it at first, the looming grey storm cloud in your peripheral vision, as you were dragged and Dustin spoke a mile a minute about finding Steve and Nancy and getting people to safety.

Then the cloud got closer.

And you realized it wasn't a cloud at all, wasn't a storm.

It was a swarm.

You stopped in your tracks and watched, for the briefest of seconds, all while Dustin yelled at you. A hundred bats led by three massive anthropomorphic winged creatures with sallow skin and claws. Even from this distance you could see the way their jaws opened unnaturally wide and revealed mouthfuls of razor-sharp fangs.

"What the hell is she doing just standing there?" Steve's voice reached your ears. You glanced back to see that he held a baseball bat with nails pierced through the wood at the end, while he handed Dustin a makeshift spear.

They weren't planning to run, they were planning to fight.

Alright. You could fight.

"What's going on?" Mary Victoria skidded to a stop by your side, out of breath from wherever she had been. "People started running, no one told me what was going on...and what the fuck is that?"

Mary Victoria, however, could not. And you were not gonna get your new friend killed right off the bat.

"Demobats," Steven and Dustin said in tandem.

"Vampires," you corrected them. "At least the big three are."

"Vampi—are you kidding me?" she huffed a breath of disbelief. "I said! I said vampires when we were in the car. Does this mean I'm psychic then? Is that my power or—"

"Now might not be the time to debate about that, Mare," you argued. You pulled the car keys out of your jacket pocket and slapped them into the palm of her hand. "Go to the car. There's a knife in the glovebox; lock yourself in."

"But I can help," she protested. "I can get the knife and stab some bats. How hard could it be?"

"Trust me, these suckers are hard to kill," Steve told her. "Leave it to the experts."

"Experts? It looks like you made these things in your garage," Mary Victoria scoffed. "Come on! I can help!"

As you watched them bicker back and forth, you failed to sense the imminent arrival of the attackers. Your eyes didn't sweep over the square quick enough to see the first of the bats—the ones most eager to feed—divebomb and begin their assault.

A resonating BOOM sounded off behind you and you swiveled on your toes to find a very ticked-off looking Nancy with a sawed-off shotgun in hand, muzzle smoking; she quickly reloaded and took a few pot shots at bats as they flew past in search of prey.

She turned, aimed directly past you and shot one out of the air as it was about to take a swipe at Steve, who had the good sense to duck before he got his head blown off too.

"What are you doing just standing here?" she yelled and cocked the shotgun. "Run. Hide. Fight. Do something before you get yourselves killed!"

Dustin and Steve ran into action, as well as several other volunteers who decided to take the defensive approach. And as the vampires and the remaining swarm of bats descended on the square, you snapped at Mary Victoria and then pointed at your car in the distance.

"Go!"

"Fine!" she scoffed. "But where are you gonna go? You don't have a weapon!"

"I am a weapon!" you shouted as you bolted down the street.

This wasn't the first time you'd fought an onslaught like this. Maybe not exactly like this but...close enough. You were pretty handy at throwing a punch, and it had been useful once or twice in a pinch, but that didn't help unless something was already on top of you. Your first actual experience in a fight had been an infestation of disgusting infernal spider-like things that had decimated a small town in West Virginia. Like something out of Tolkien's wicked imagination. You had used your abilities to draw fire from the core of the earth to burn their nests.

You had wondered then if Eddie would have been proud of you; you hated spiders, he always had to kill them for you. You couldn’t even stand to listen to him read about them in the Hobbit.

This would be a little trickier. Your adversaries were aerial, and even if they got low enough for you to strike, there were too many innocents in the area for you to do anything useful.

The vampires themselves would be the worst to deal with though; there were only so many ways you could weaken them, let alone try to kill them. Which would be ideal.

How could they conveniently leave out the fact that vampires plagued the town?

Shy of spending the time to dig through your trunk for maybe your grandfather's revolver and maybe a wooden bullet or two, you were left to rely on something a little less conventional here. The wheelbarrow full of discarded weapons was still beside the recovery area and you immediately skidded to a stop beside it to search for something suitable.

There were handguns without bullets, a few makeshift weapons like a machete made of a broken, sharpened street sign, which probably wouldn't help unless you got close enough to decapitate one of the vampires.

Because the bats might be a nuisance, but the real goal here was to take out those vampires.

You snagged a pocket knife from the bottom of the wheelbarrow then—

"Bingo!"

—you came across a dingy old crossbow and a hip quiver full of wooden bolts.

Not a stake, but good enough in a pinch.

"How many times in a girl's life can she be grateful for a small town hunter and their cache of crazy weapons," you asked out loud as you loaded a bolt into place.

Surveying the square, it was easy to tell this was not the townspeople's first rodeo; there were several bats down already, Dustin and Steve were back to back, only separating when something swooped at them, an array of people with slingshots and even an older woman with firecrackers and a wicked throwing arm.

You were grateful to find that Mary Victoria had barricaded herself in your car, especially once you saw small clusters of bats feeding on the bodies of those who were either too slow, too sure of themselves, or simply didn't have luck on their side.

Nancy, however, tried to play savior.

She ran to the aid of one of the downed bodies and used the butt of her shotgun to dislodge a few bats before shooting a few others. She knelt at the person's side and tried to offer some kind of aid—find a pulse or staunch the bleeding—but you knew it was too late.

Her gallantry made her lose focus and awareness of her surroundings. You felt it though, the tremor in the air around you as powerful wings beat several times. Heard the lustful, hungry breaths and the clacking of teeth that begged to sink into flesh for a meal most decadent.

You trusted your instinct; you took a breath to center yourself, pivoted on one leg, and pulled the trigger. The bolt soared true and pierced through the wing of the vampire. The unholy screech that echoed from its mouth as the pointed tip ripped through fragile skin and blood vessels was ear-splitting, as was the resounding crash as it lost velocity and skidded upon impact with the ground, spraying everything in the vicinity with dirt and gravel and chunks of dead grass.

You knew it was beginner's luck, and somehow still not good enough; you also knew you weren't gonna get another chance quite like it again. Especially as the massive creature recovered and turned its sights on you.

There was a moment as your eyes met and the vampire stilled unsettlingly. You willed yourself to break eye contact with their pure-black sclera and roam over their form.

Cascading locks of burnished gold hair, a demonic face with distinctly feminine and otherwise sweet features. Its skin was sickly pale, and unnaturally elongated bones practically protruded from the stretched dermis, with clawed hands and talons for feet. Modesty protected by strange garments made of a leathery hide and...the tattered remains of a cheerleading uniform.

Fear rarely got a hold of you anymore. Not like it used to. You'd stared in the face of danger many times and lived to tell the tale. To say that you were immune to it was incorrect; you simply didn't have time to panic right now. You could break down later, when the realization of how close you came to your own demise hit you; you always did.

Still, a lump formed in your throat as you observed the vampire. As it extended its wings, its injured skin stitched itself back together unnaturally, and it gave a few experimental flaps to ensure it was healed enough to fly.

It licked its lips enticingly and shot you a feral smile with its massive, razor sharp fangs proudly on display, and then rocketed back into the sky.

"Fuck," you hissed.

That was the look of something that viewed you as a threat and accepted the challenge.

That was not good.

“I had it handled,” Nancy scowled at you as she got to her feet.

“That’s a funny way to say thank you,” you quickly recovered and told her matter-of-factly, which earned an even more scathing expression as she reloaded her shotgun. "You need to know when something's a lost cause. If they're already on the ground being fed upon, it's too late."

"It's never too late," Nancy scoffed. "If I took that approach, my friends would have been dead ten times over already. Even if it's futile, I still need to try."

You glanced past her and loaded another bolt into the crossbow as quickly as you could, before aiming past her to fire at an incoming bat. Although you were aiming for its wing, trying to achieve something similar to what you did to the vampire—because at least the bats stayed down when you injured them enough—the bolt pierced through the mouth of the bat and tore through the back of its head, killing it instantly.

God damn, ok you really weren't great at this.

"At least trust someone to watch your back," you told her in the interim.

She reluctantly nodded and the two of you attempted to work in tandem.

You covered each other as you reload your weapons, communicated constantly about what you saw and didn't see. It was a little clumsy, sure, but you still were able to keep yourselves and others safe as they ran for cover.

At first the swarm focused on the sparse group of people who were out in the open—the vampires created distractions so the bats had the opportunity to strike by ripping doors and shutters off their hinges, overturning parked cars with the strong grip of their talons—but the opportunity to feed became too sporadic. They'd already picked off the weaker few and lost a significant number to the defense efforts.

You thought that it would be the opportunity for them to turn their attention to the skeletal buildings and every other nook and cranny that their feast might have hid.

Instead, they seemed to vanish.

The square was suddenly silent, bats and vampires nowhere to be seen. The sky was still hazy and swirling with storm clouds and smoke alike, but not one adversary darting across the ominous grey canvas.

Not even a single screeching cry or flap of wings to alert you to their possible presence.

"Did they leave?" you asked Nancy. It wasn't over...you knew it wasn't over...but wishful thinking and all.

Maybe something nice could happen for once in your life.

"No..." she narrowed her eyes and did a quick strafe to check behind you. "No, they're too hungry. They haven't attacked in an entire day, which was why we thought it would be safe to come and do cleanup."

People started emerging from their hiding spots and Steve yelled at them to get back inside.

"The square is pretty defensible," she continued. "Especially after the battle with Vecna. But they have a hive mind. They can communicate with one another. Even if a swarm is slaughtered, the entire legion of beasts waiting in the Upside Down experiences it through the connection. They know our tactics, which means they get crafty when they're ready to feed again."

"If there's a legion in the Upside Down, maybe they're waiting for backup." It was an easy assumption for you to make.

"No, it would take too long. Their best bet is to regroup, lure us into a false sense of security, then attack again."

"So they're coming up with a plan," you muttered. "And I'm sure Kas is a master strategist."

Nancy's expression immediately morphed into one of confusion.

"Wh-what did you say?" Nancy stuttered. "Did...did you just say Kas?"

You started to answer when a sharp, burning pain tore through your shoulders. You dropped the crossbow at the unexpected jerk of your body as you became airborne.

You watched as the distance between you and the ground rapidly increased and the people in the square below were immediately besieged by bats and vampires alike. You turned your head upwards and saw the vampire you had injured just minutes ago carrying you up and up and up.

She looked down at you and laughed wickedly, tightening her talons painfully as she did so. She spat and hissed at you through her fangs.

"Don't you want to fly angel?" she cackled and flapped her wings harder.

Panic shot through you; there was nothing around, nothing to ground you, and the pain that ripped through you was distracting enough to prevent you from focusing on your power.

Then you remembered the pocket knife that you had stashed away, and you strained your arms to shove your hand into your jacket to grab it.

You cried out as you flipped it open and reached up to rapidly slash at your captors ankles. An otherworldly monster, sure, but an achilles tendon was still a weak point that hurt like a bitch when sliced clean.

One talon released its hold on you, then the other, and then you were in free fall.

You briefly thought that the cushion of air, the weightlessness of it, was nice.

Freeing.

But it wasn't a long fall and the earth caught up with you quickly, and when you did impact the ground, it wasn't the ground at all; it was the hood of your car.

The already-cracked windshield fully shattered and the jagged edges of glass cut through your clothes and into your flesh. Mary Victoria screamed as all the wind was knocked out of you and it took a second for you to get it back.

"Are you fucking with me right now?" She got out of the car and yelled at you. "Wait in the car Mare! It's safe in the car! Bull! Shit! Oh god, oh god, you're bleeding!"

"I'm fine," you groaned.

You were not. You were hurt and you were pissed off.

"Fucking vampires in fucking Hawkins and no one says anything and I let my guard down for two god damn minutes," you grumbled to yourself as you slid off the hood and got back on your feet.

"Do you have a first aid kit in the trunk or something with all of that other shit?" She immediately went to the back of the car to search for something.

You did a quick assessment of yourself as you stood there; something in your leg twinged and you felt...maybe a little sloshy inside. Ok you could deal with that. But you bit your tongue on impact, and that was...probably the most annoying thing.

The icing on the cake.

"Don't worry," you insisted. "As long as everything important is still inside of me, I'll heal."

"Heal?!" She peeked out from behind the propped trunk lid. "Excuse me, what do you mean?"

"Blah blah, heavenly light, blah. Were you not paying attention to anything I said during the drive?"

"Yeah but I thought you meant other people, not yourself. How long will it take because there's still vampires flying around if you didn't notice," she gestured outwards. "They kinda need you at your best here."

"Even my worst is better than nothing." You joined her at the trunk and grabbed one of the knives.

"Not a crucifix?"

"Not gonna work unless they look directly at it for an extended time," you explained. "Which is kinda hard with them flying around. So we either stake them through the heart, or we cut it out of them."

Mary Victoria nodded and held onto her own knife a little tighter with a quick "ok I can do that, I think."

"Stay close to me," you commanded. "I'll keep you safe but...I might need you to help me keep them down while I do the dirty work."

Mary Victoria bit her lip but agreed.

You rushed back to where you had been taken—Nancy was nowhere to be found and you momentarily applauded her for listening to you and recognizing that you were a lost cause. The crossbow, thankfully, wasn't broken, but your impact with the car did break some of the remaining bolts you had in the hip quiver.

That just meant you'd have to make the last few shots count.

If you were able to hit the vampires wings like you did with the first one, you would be able to strike...you just had to get them on the ground and then—

"Ok this is dangerous and all," Mary Victoria muttered beside you, as though speaking in any tone above a whisper would alert the swarm to your presence. As if you weren't standing in a wide open space. "But this is actually really cool."

"What?" You shot her an incredulous look.

"I mean don't get me wrong, I'm...quite possibly shitting myself right now, but—"

"You have the worst timing known to man," you told her earnestly.

"I get that a lot," she nodded. "Is it always like this?"

You noticed movement behind her and pushed her behind you so you could strike; one bolt took out two demo bats.

"Pretty much."

"Do you think that Steve guy thought I was cute?"

You turned to give her the most scathing look, the words shut up Mare right on the tip of your tongue. But when you turned, she was grabbed.

One of the vampires—one with dark curls piled high on its head—did a nosedive and tackled her to the ground. The two of them skidded on the pavement and Mary Victoria squirmed desperately to get out of its grasp.

A serpentine tongue slithered out of the vampire's mouth and swept down Mary Victoria's face and neck, and she let out a blood-curdling scream that echoed over the ruins around Hawkins Town Square.

The vampire, though, countered with a hiss-like laugh, and something deep inside of you burned. It wanted to play with its food, wanted to laugh? You would give it something to laugh about.

You quickly reloaded a bolt into the crossbow and fired—any shot good enough to draw attention away from your friend and onto you—and the arrow embedded itself deep in the flesh beneath the shoulder joint of its wing. The vampire jolted from the force and thick, black blood began oozing from the wound.

It rounded its attention on you then, Mary Victoria still pinned beneath its legs, and roared ferociously. Its fangs were disstended, dripping blood and spraying spittle, as the guttural sound burst from the gaping maw. It's jaw...wasn't even unhinged, the way it hung; it was practically detached, the weight of it pulled at the weak, stretched flesh of its cheeks.

As if it could scare you with sounds and sights alone.

Pathetic.

You should have paid closer attention.

Should have used the divine sense that was natural to you to feel the approaching danger.

Should have just been a little smarter than Kas—who no doubt was gunning for you now that he knew you'd be a thorn in his side—and recognize a trap when you were in one.

Claws grasped your still-wounded shoulders and sharp teeth sunk deep into your neck. One of the hands moved to your jaw and held it with an iron grip. It tilted your head in a way that would give it easy access to its meal as it pulled mouthful after mouthful of your life-force from you.

Your vision blurred—already affected by the previous injuries and blood loss—and you knew you didn't have long before you succumbed to the effects of being drained.

You breathed heavily and fumbled with the knife that had been tucked into the hip quiver along with the half-broken crossbow bolts. You stabbed at the hand gripping your chin; the blade broke through fragile metacarpals and tore through the other side, through its palm, and grazed your chin.

The vampire released its grip on you and its teeth retracted from your neck as it howled in pain. You took advantage of the release to spin and drive one of the splintered bolts deep into its chest, right into its heart.

You watched with sick, victorious fascination, at the way the mottled, paper-like skin gave way with the force of your strike. The muscle and sinew tore and as the wood pierced the most-vital organ, it burst in the most satisfying way. A gush of blood, both pitch black and vibrant red, sticky grey mucus, and sickly green bile.

You'd never heard of a vampire doing that before when it was staked.

As the vampire's body crumpled and folded in on itself and collapsed at your feet, the air began to ripple with cries. Infernal, unholy screeching reverberated around you as the vampires and bats alike felt the death of their brethren. The vampire that had attacked Mary Victoria practically howled.

The overwhelming beat of wings began to sound off and you watched as the swarm regrouped over the square. The residents of Hawkins—both the ones who had been defending against the swarm and the ones who had gone into hiding—began to filter back out into the open and your heart was in your throat.

Because if this was their opportunity for the creatures of the Upside Down to avenge their friend, it would be a massacre.

You mentally prepared yourself for the attack, body weak but still able to channel any available power into some kind of defensive wave that could burn through them all if necessary.

Instead they dove in a funnel formation, straight for the Gate.

You felt the pulse of otherworldly energy that was released into Hawkins as they ripped through the membrane that separated the two worlds, and you were blindsided by a sense of longing that surged through it.

Yearning...desire...hunger.

You were confused; it was so strong. Overwhelming, even.

Was that Kas?

Or the Upside Down itself?

As soon as the last bat crossed over and the membrane sealed, the feeling was gone, and the only thing you felt was a bone-deep weariness and the pain that coursed through you.

You finally succumbed to the effects of your injuries and sank to your knees weakly. You had no choice but to stare deeply into the blank eyes of the vampire.

Mary Victoria called your name and got louder and louder until she was at your side. Her hand grasped the bite on your neck and held it steady to stop the bleeding. Dustin appeared on your other side and asked if you were ok or if the bite would turn you into a vampire...

"You're the only one who's been bitten and lived."

Except...you truly wondered if this even was a vampire.

The body was both...bloated and emaciated all at once, limbs bulging and elongated with skin that pulled and stretched over fragile tissue and bones. Its ribcage practically protruded outwards, like it had been pried open at some point and then the skin knitted itself shut atop it.

The hair was the only vibrant—the most alive—thing about the creature. Short red curls that had been tousled in the wind.

Aside from the strength while it was still...alive, if you could call it that, and the thirst for blood...you didn't know for sure that you could call this thing a vampire. It wasn't like anything you'd read or heard about from the other Knights.

It wasn't quite like the other two vampires though either.

"What is it then?" you asked yourself out loud.

Mary Victoria shushed you and told you to keep your strength, but you could already feel yourself healing.

Other voices began to overlap hers though.

"She killed one!"

"He'll send them in droves now that one of his brides is dead."

"At least we stood a chance before."

"Enough!" Nancy shouted and the group went silent. "That's enough!"

"I don't understand, isn't killing one of them a good thing?" Mary Victoria questioned.

"Uh, you'd think so," Steve piped up. "But...no one's killed one of the Brides before."

"It's not one of the Brides," Nancy yelled at him and crouched in front of you, on the other side of the body. She looked at it with soft, sad, practically heartbroken eyes. "It's Barb."

“If you've been through hell on earth. You would understand that the people you see are more dangerous than the devil you haven't met.” - Ojingiri Hannah

Next Chapter: Crucible

[koridoru]

YOU COULD MAKE A FIC WHERE YN IS A VERY BEAUTIFUL AND INTELLIGENT PILLAR AND JOKER AND HAS AS ITS MISSION TO FIND DOUMA'S LAIR AND THEN THEY TRY TO ANNOY EACH OTHER.

For once I am doing a MALE reader because twinks are awesome

(Sorry if you wanted female reader I like mixing it up)

No one said being a hashira was easy. No one except you, however.

In the slayer corps, you were known for three things: Your intelligence, your sense of humor, and your pretty face. Despite being a guy, you were beautiful, even to the other men.

You got along with most of the other hashira, although you sort of had a frenemies relationship with Obanai.

Maybe he was jealous of your looks.

Or maybe it wasn't jealousy...

If it was something else, you weren't surprised.

A lot of people did find you quite attractive, if they didn't have a crush on you, they wpuld be your best friend.

People loved your sense of humor, you always knew how to lighten the mood.

Today your crow informed you of a mission assigned by Ubuyashiki while you were training with Sanemi.

"Ugh... damn crow...we'll have to wait to finish this."

You raise an eyebrow at him.

"Hey come on, what's up your ass this morning?"

Giyuu comes out of his quarters, walking up next to Sanemi from behind, rubbing his head. You smile mischievously.

"Well, I have my answer."

Sanemi realizes what you mean, and he gawks at you with a mixed expression of disgust and mortification.

"WHAT?!"

"Huh?"

You snort.

"Don't worry about it, Tomioka-san."

You read the letter the crow had delivered the news to you in, your snarky expression drops like an axed down tree.

"Upper moon two..."

You wander away from the others before they can ask what was going on, rushing to your own quarters.

Sure you were a hashira, but upper moon two? Alone?!

You had a mini panic attack, but after a while, you made a quick decision.

"Fuck it, we ball. Why not?"

You gathered your sword and blue haori, heading out on a very lethal misson.

It takes a few hours to walk there, much to the despair of your poor legs.

You reach a building that is reminiscent of a temple.

"Fancy...is this really it?"

You walk up the stairs, sliding open the door and entering.

No one is there, but the room is lit with lanterns all around.

It definitely looks like temple now that you're inside.

You hide in the corner, awaiting someone to enter.

It wasn't long before a tall, broad built man with shirotsurubami hair. (white shade of oak, very pale beige)

The man smiles a cheeky grin, he turns in your direction.

"Well, what do we have here?"

He cocks his head, his rainbow eyes meet yours.

You could see the kanji in his pupils, knowing very well who this was.

"You're upper moon two? Well...I wasn't expecting this..."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

You sort of snicker, raising an eyebrow as you size him up.

"You're rather humanoid, along with being very friendly looking."

"Oh, is that so? A little boy has come to admire me?"

He brings a hand to his mouth, chuckling.

"Little? No no no, babe,"

You snicker.

"You're big. Like really big. Like freakishly big. Why are you so tall? You must eat a lot of humans."

"Well you're correct. I just love to eat the ladies around me, females are far more nutritional for demons!"

"You only eat women? Are you some kind of creep?"

You smirk, his smile gets wider, he looks at you with wide eyes as he tilts his head, resting it on a golden fan.

"Creep? Oho no, you have it all wrong. I only eat my followers."

"So you're some kind of false idol, huh?"

"My dear human, I am more than just an idol. You know of my rank, don't you? So you know I'm more than what these people think I am."

He giggles, he looks at you with an unhinged smile, already thinking about killing you.

"Stop looking at me like that man...you look like you touch kids..."

His smile fades, before returning, this one looks more sinister.

"My! What an awful thing to insinuate!"

He lunges forward, waving his fan and ice is summoned, freezing its way over to you.

You grin and jump to the side.

When ice shards shoot from the ground, you quickly dodge them, catching one of them and throwing it back to Douma.

It hits him in the eye, piercing it.

He lets out a yelp that sounds very feminine, surprised you used his own move against him.

He pulls it out of his eye, grinning.

"Well that wasn't very nice, human."

You scoff, grinning at him.

"Bite me."

"Oh! Will do!"

You jump at him, slicing at him with your katana. He moves backward, using his arm to block your attacks, though it gets cut off.

He doesn't seem to mind, it just regenerates in seconds anyway.

You take him off guard and kick him in his gut, sending him through another sliding door.

He quickly recovers, snickering madly.

"What fun! Give me more, human! I'll enjoy our little battle before I feed on you! Maybe I'll absorb you...Oh the possibilities!"

You growl, pointing your sword at him.

"You meet your end here, demon!"

His eyes narrow, he grins maliciously.

You hear the string of a biwa play, a wall with a door forms in between you and Douma.

"What the hell?!"

You slide open the door to see that Douma has been joined by another demon knelt on the floor.

A female one, she has a biwa, along with pale skin and black hair covering most of her face.

"Oh Nakime, my savior! Be a dear and take us to the Lord, will you?"

Douma clasps his hands together, cheekily begging this new demon to do what he asks.

The door you had just opened slams shut in your face.

You huff and angrily open it again, but to your shock, the two demons had vanished.

You growl, looking around for them.

You went to different rooms, searching but to no avail.

"Shit...I lost them...how?!"

You lower your head, exiting the temple, dreading the moment you have to explain to Ubuyashiki that upper moon two had escaped from you.

[armpirate]

UNDER YOUR SKIN || JJK || Ch. 6

Pairings: tattoist!jk x fem!reader

Genre: smut, angst, friends to lovers, tattoo au, virgin reader.

Summary: You were awful on anything related to flirting, guys and sex. He was the perfect ladies man. You wanted to get rid of your virginity. And he was there to help you with everything you needed. You didn't have the best start, but that didn't mean you wouldn't have the best of the endings.

Previous || Next

MASTERLIST

I pack the last few things, just one more jumper and a jacket in case it gets cold there, which could easily be the case this time of the year. And while I'm waiting, sitting on the couch, eyes fixed on the turned off television, I keep making up excuses in my head so I can save myself from going. 

I'll be surrounded by people I don't know,  and with whom I'll just keep some small talk and superficial conversations. So, in that sense, I'll be relieved by Tammy's presence and controller energy. I'm low key sure she'll try to introduce me to everybody, and will be the one in charge of building my new friendships.

But Jungkook...

After what happened in the supermarket, we didn't talk much on our way back -more like we didn't speak at all. Not even when he offered to -genuinely- drive me back home. I didn't even use words, I simply nodded and muttered a low "Thank you" before I got off his car. And I'm ashamed. I acted all bitchy and still he offered to drive me back home.. 

Wait, I'm not feeling bad for him, am I?

Maybe it's because I knew he was right when he cornered me last week. Jungkook drives me nuts, but at the same time, I can't deny he has something that makes me lower my guard as soon as he's just centimeters away from me. Like my rational and mature side knows I should step back and keep some distance, while my needy side feels he's everything I've been waiting for. And what is this shit? A side effect of not living my teens the way I had wanted to? Is this a way to settle every phase of my life?

Seriously...

He's an asshole. And a little reminder for you, horny virgin, he has a girlfriend. Not only you should be thinking he's a dick, but he's also taken. And his girlfriend is someone you're trying to be friends with. Is that enough?

I've been so deep in my thoughts, I hadn't realized my phone was shaking in my pocket for a little while. Well, enough time to get three calls from Tammy. 

—We're waiting for you —she sings—. Are you coming now or should I go up and drag you outside?

Yeah, no. I don't need that. I get up and give one last look to my house, making sure everything is correct before I place the strap on my shoulder and close the door behind me. I'm surprised to see one of my neighbors getting out of the lift. Ever since I moved in here -and it's been a few years-, I've barely run into any of them. And mister Hallagan, who lives next door, is no exception.

I rush to get in the elevator before the doors close. I try to look at my reflection through the painted and scratched mirror, but it's impossible. I give up, turning around again to face the small entrance once the doors open again on the low level. A loud bell noise in my back, that gets lower to  sound loud back again before it suddenly stops, officially informing me the elevator reached the first floor.

I'll end up being thankful for being able to get away from this place, even if it's just for a day. 

But that happiness doesn't last long enough. Actually, the moment I cross the main door and see the black SUV that took me home last week, my expression fades. I feel tempted to turn around and get back to the elevator.

Could be it's Melanie's car.

I see Tammy leaning out the backseat window, waving at me while telling me to put my things in the car trunk. 

With heavy steps, I walk to the car and do as she says, making sure I close the door correctly before I join her in the backseat. Although my eyes first see Tammy with a big smile, and Jungsoo looking excited to see me here, my thoughts get totally blinded by that annoying lip ring reflecting and those doe eyes looking at me through the driving mirror. 

The longest four hours of my life.

Jungsoo and Tammy seem to rekindle the conversation they were having before I joined, and I really try to include myself in it. Trying hard to focus on their talk and avoid as much as possible the look he keeps on giving me.

Is this some type of revenge after what I did last week? Staring at me so deep until I get uncomfortable enough?

—Shall we stop somewhere and get something to eat? —Soo suddenly suggests.

—Yeah —Tammy lets out a sigh—. It'll also be okay to stretch out our legs.

—Imagine not eating anything until we get there —Soo jokes—. 5 pm, we safely arrived, but one of us is missing an arm.

While we're still on the road, and one of the moments we go absolutely silent, I pay attention to their gestures -or more like the lack of those. They aren't touchy, they don't playfully hold hands, don't look at each other. And Jungsoo didn't even talk to him. Maybe they're that kind of couple that rather show affection behind closed doors. And why the fuck am I even dissecting their relationship?

Two hours and a half later, the speed of the car decreases until it stops in a service area. We found it in the perfect moment, while we were close of going insane because of hunger. We kept saying to wait a bit more while we drove past some roadhouses. But as soon as we were hungry enough, that our guts were battling with one another about who's in more need of food, it seemed like all the bars and restaurants disappeared. 

—I'll go to the restroom fast —I say as soon as we get in—. If they want to take our command, I'll get whatever you do —I talk to Tammy.

While they take a seat at one of the several empty tables, I head to the white door that's on the left side of the counter. 

While I'm washing my hands, after finishing, I think Jungkook could pull a cliche and be waiting for me, bending on the wall in front of the restroom bathroom. I rub my hands harder, and as soon as my eyes reach my reflection on the mirror and see a flash of a smile, I know I'm in trouble. I suddenly stop smiling, and see my own expression being replaced by a disgusted face.

—What the fuck is wrong with you? —I scold myself.

I bend over, just so I can splash some water -and sense- on my face.

I sigh in relief when I open the door and the blank wall welcomes me back, along with the silence in the corridor and some choky noises from the kitchen.

I join them back shortly after, and my stomach roars as soon as I see they all have their drinks -which means the waitress took their orders already and food won't take too long. As I get closer, I realize Jungsoo and Tammy are sitting together in one of the benches. The only empty space is right next to Jungkook. I frown while I think about why they didn't sit together. And why do I even care?

If I thought things would get better the moment we started eating, I was wrong. The moment we get our burgers, he man spreads. His thigh and knee rubs against mine all the time, and I'm unable to think straight every single time it happens. Even the warmth coming from his body is giving me shiverings. I'm close to losing the appetite. I blame my lack of experience for this, but I refuse to believe he isn't bouncing his leg against mine accidentally. Although the way he keeps his head down, eating his burger makes me believe he might be doing it unconsciously.

And even if he was aware, most probably he'd apply the law of silence. The exact same one he's been practicing for a week. And that makes me wonder if he got offended at some point.

We don't spend much time there. We eat, rest for a bit and rush back to the car so we get to Seneca lake as soon as possible. Just two hours left. 

I think maybe a good choice would be trying to sleep on our way there. But my body reacts by itself before I can even decide if I want to sleep. The accumulated tiredness and the burger I've just eaten seem to take a toll on my body, because once my head is lodged against the window, my eyelids seal and I forget about everything.

✸ ✸ ✸

I don't feel embarrassed when I wake up and all eyes in the car are set on me, nor when I realize I slept so deep and good I ended up drooling and soaking my sleeve, nor after entering the cabin and feeling like an intruder and see there's more people than just the guys I met in the bar -although Soo already told me the day I decided to join them. 

Nope.

What makes me embarrassed is the fact that they already distributed the rooms, and everyone was pretty much aware of who'd be their roommate. Everyone but me, obviously. Oh, but it can get even funnier. Because my roommate is no one else but Jungkook. But it gets even worse when I decide to speak up. They all look at me confused, but burst out laughing the moment I say it's weird and it makes no sense making me sleep with him, when Jungsoo is the one dating him.

Would be great if they explained the joke.

I catch Jungkook laughing with the rest, probably a bit louder than them. It's the first time I've seen him like this ever since we started our trip, and that doesn't augur anything good.

—Jungkook, my boyfriend? —Soo asks after trying to put herself back together— Did you tell her that? —she asks Tammy.

My friend shakes her head fast, still laughing from my comment. And all I can think of is encouraging her to keep laughing, because once we're back in town, she'll remember this. Especially when we start planning the shifts.

—You talked about him the first night, you have matching tattoos —I point to my own wrist—. And, when I told him, he kinda confirmed it.

—I talked about my boyfriend, Mark, he was the one that met Tammy in the tattoo studio. Jungkook and him are partners —she explains—. He's my brother, the one I told you that was just starting to hang out with us.

Yeah, I remember that. 

—About the tattoos, well it's a siblings' thing. It's our initials. I have his, and he has mine. Why didn't you tell her we weren't together when she told you? —she confronts her brother. 

He's still laughing out loud, before he breathes out loudly to answer.

—She looked so convinced —now he looks at me—. How could I dare to contradict her? —his eyes challenge me.

I'll kill him. He better sleep with one eye open, because I'll kill him.

[sybaritick]

Writer asks! 😁 10, 12, 18? 👉👈

(for the weird questions for writers ask game!) thank you for sending 'em! 10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

There def pieces of writing that "haunt" me in the sense that they have stayed with me for being so darkly emotionally affecting: the lyrics of the climax of Joanna Newsom's Only Skin have been meaningful in my heart for over a decade at this point. same with Invictus, it's a cliche but I encountered it at a rough part of my life so it meant a lot to me. More recently it has been Salvage that keeps coming to mind: I feel grateful for it, for being so bluntly honest about a feeling that is so difficult to talk about.

My own writing? The one that I keep coming back to is HANDLED just because I think I did a good job explaining the "vibe" in a way that feels salient to me, though I'm not sure it's effective communication to anyone else!

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

hm, what counts as a writing wish. did you know someone once asked me a "three wishes" type question on my old tumblr like 6 years ago and i said i'd wish to be omnipotent

i wish that 1) i eventually finish my long-form original, PRMH, to my satisfaction and edit it into something nice that my friends can read, and 2) i write a bunch more lyrics in 2024, i like writing lyrics, and 3) i get better at writing more and weirder kinks in my erotica (both fandom and original) :D

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

Let's steal something from the dinner from Tephra Year ch1 since that's fresh in my mind!

"This is all delicious," he commented after a second helping. "I almost want to ask if the chef is of Waterdhavian background, because from what you've said, you're a Baldurian to the core." Enver shook his head, amused. "My tastes are varied, but I'll admit your suspicions are correct. I only wanted to ensure they'd get a bit of practice. I wouldn't want you to get homesick.” He gave Gale a soft, modest smile. “You should let me know of your favorites." "You're too kind," Gale said, before realizing what a tremendously comedic thing it was to say without further context. "I'm happy to hear it. If you aren't being kept in greater luxury than you were accustomed to in your seaside tower, I've failed as a host." It was after Gale had finished his third glass of wine and his second story about Tara that a servant brought out a dessert— a beautiful tart, heavy with ripe, glistening slices of pear. Gortash took a generous piece for himself, and Gale felt permitted to follow suit. 

so the general vibe here is, of course, that Gortash is trying to get on Gale's good side very hard and make this little business arrangement feel friendly and enjoyable so that Gale lets his guard down a bit and is more cooperative instead of feeling like he's being forced (he's not gonna be as effective if he's thinking about "I am doing a horrible thing for a horrible man" the whole time!)

interesting notes: There used to be a line in here that literally said that Gale hardly noticed he was only talking about himself, which I was on the fence about including-- wonderful beta reader (@slipintosomethingsoft hi) encouraged me that it wasn't necessary and I could keep the show-don't-tell approach and add a couple more details like having Gortash smile after his comment about homesickness to make it all the more obvious he's being weird right now. also I love describing food (and i have a little bit of a thing about gale eating for the 0 of my followers who aren't aware). I wanted to have Gale cautiously surprised by the aggressively-pandering menu-- yet enjoying it all anyway! supposed to be a sort of echo of his general vibe of "i know i should be watching out, but i'll watch out, and in the meantime i can enjoy myself, right? might as well". gale, essentially, sees what's happening and thinks he's more than clever enough to manage to snap up the bait without setting off the trap. :3

[leam1983]

System Shock (2023) - Impressions

My first serious game was Myst, and it demanded a very particular peripheral that used to be a mainstay of any serious gamer's arsenal: the double combo of a well-sharpened pencil and a generous Legal pad.

First came a story of Linking Books and filial betrayal. A little grisly in places, sure - thanks, Achenar - but mostly All-Ages stuff. I tore through two pads just to finish Myst because I had the insane idea of charting out the Selenetic Age's subway system organically. I was too dumb to realize the sounds were the same heard for the Mechanical Age's four cardinal points, too stubborn to bother, and armed with a summer's worth of game time and zero responsibilities. I charted out that damn subway for hours and screamed for joy when I lucked onto the exit.

Then came something a little harder on the nerves. A tale of corporate overreach, greed, megalomania pressed onto silicon wafers and a very Nineties vision of Cyberspace. Move over, Johnny Mnemonic, this hacker's even more hapless than you are...

Long story short, we open in a dystopian Cyberpunk future and are, in fact, a well-heeled chairjock. We've got the sick techwear to prove it, complete with glove-mounted ports for plugging portable data drives into your knuckles or socketing map-related proprioceptive enhancements to your wrist - like you do. The problem is, we've gotten a little long in the tooth and opted to steal a military enhancement that's probably omega cool, max nova or fraggin' awesome, depending on your other dystopian setting of choice. Said implant's owners and designers, the obscenely wealthy TriOptimum Corporation, sic their dogs on us. We're caught merely moments after stealing the schematics.

TriOp's Chairman of the Board, however, has some ideas. Ideas that work against the hardcoded ethical protocols of the AI system he both lords over and depends on, the Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network - or SHODAN. Space stations orbiting Saturn are complex hives of steel and flesh, you see, and designing a dispassionate and meticulous warden for it only made sense.

The problem is that thanks to your actions under duress, SHODAN is now anything but dispassionate and meticulous. She soon comes to see herself as a "living" goddess, and more or less rips a page out of AM-1's usual script. Kill the humans, experiment with their primitive flesh, turn their remains into obedient servants to her newfound magnificience - yadda yadda. On the plus side, SHODAN is once again voiced by Terri Brosius, former vocalist for the band Tribe - and she once again oozes cold and calculating menace. Glitchy cold and calculating menace, that is.

I mean - take five and go look at System Shock 2's now-famous opening CGI movie on YouTube. Look at you, hacker, said in its chilling tone of absolute contempt and utter surety of purpose, is now a bona fide classic Gamer Meme.

I might as well say that this is more or less The Game, as it were. as you spend most of your run trying to correct this very obvious SNAFU while also trying to figure out how you're going to leave a space station located halfway across the solar system when all the doors are locked and most relevant codes were either revoked or stashed away.

Oh, and the insane AI you're stuck with decided it was a good idea to start splicing tiger and gorilla DNA together into brand new cuddly murder machines. You know. For funsies.

Initially designed by Irrational Studios back in 1994 and now spruced up by Night Dive, this is a title that proudly foregoes several modern conveniences and that refuses to hold your hand even at the easiest difficulty settings you can configure. It isn't easily legible, its level design philisophy is intentionally outdated and if it could speak, it would spit in BioShock's direction and claim it was corrupted by the vainglorious promises of the Shooter Celebrity status.

And yes, I say that knowing BioShock is leagues removed from your average Call of Duty entry. Compared to System Shock, Bioshock is a Dudebro Machine designed to slam through brewskis while yelling about your KD ratio in a bad microphone. I'm also saying this as someone who loves Bioshock. System Shock the first in name is not friendly, it does not care for you or your concepts of builds or minmaxing, it almost sadistically throws a useless compass your way - and asks you to figure it out.

No handholding. No tutorials. No easing-into-things. Once you're on Citadel Station, you're on your own.

Honestly, just this is worth the price of admission. We've been coddled for decades, all because we're focused on making sure games recoup their massive budgets. System Shock sits at a lean and mean eight and a half gigabytes (yes! In 2023! It's shocking! Har har, easy puns!), it intentionally looks simple and chunky - and nothing is wasted here. Nothing whatsoever.

It's cramped, oppressive, dingy, menacing, cold, even possibly damp - and still a great showcase of any RTX-capable graphics card, with deep and believable shadows and so much Shader Porn that even the simple voxel textures that adorn the four sides of the playspace at all times feel properly anchored in the fiction. It's a beautiful game, if you're willing to understand that beauty as a concept can include pixels you can count with your naked peepers.

What it isn't, however, is forgiving towards younger gamers or anyone who skews towards more recent releases. The dual UI experience is instantly dated, the "inventory Tetris" concept stopped being fun long before Resident Evil 4 briefly revitalized it, and hitting Tab to click through audio logs and written notes for codes or clues when you can hear mutants wheezing and lumbering towards you is never really fun.

Y'can't pause, here - this is the Dark Souls of vintage PC horror games-

No, come on, that's a dated and cringey assertion, SHODAN's baby deserves better than that. What it is, though, is an encapsulation of a specific era in video game design and in what we once saw as constituting the best the Survival Horror genre could produce on our dated beige towers. The best outside of other classics in the genre, sure, but still one of the oft-cited references.

If you've got fifty or so bucks burning a hole in your pocket and the pressing need to have a skipping Text-to-Speech filter call you a pathetic insect, this is a must-have, quite simply.

[bit-b]

Been thinking a lot about stuff.

TL;DR: I've seen incidents in the past that made me tighten up my standards. And I think I've been unfair in the process.

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I do what I do. Just in general. Why do I make what I make? Why do I believe what I believe? Why do I operate in the way that I operate? And that's good. I think it's important to take a moment every once in a while to think about these kinds of things.

One subject that came to mind is my policy regarding anyone involved with NSFW/suggestive/explicit material or content. Lemme give you my original policy.

I am not interested in the NSFW scene, and have no intentions of involving myself with it in any way whatsoever. I care a lot about the people who watch me, who are very likely underage and can't be potentially exposed to content like that.

If I ever find out (or am made aware) that someone I know is currently engaged with explicit or NSFW content, (whether it be creating it or being heavily in the scene) I want to make sure I take steps to protect my own image and reputation.

--If it's light, I can be friends. But I can't work with them on a professional level. This includes commissioning art, including them in my content, etc. --If it's heavy, I should try to distance myself from them to avoid any potential association with said material.

I've always had this policy in varying degrees. But I strengthened it significantly around 4 years ago after a major incident involving someone I was once friends with. (By the way, this is an incident that people DON'T know about. There were no public callouts involved, and I handled it quietly. So if you have any guesses as to what incident it was, you're likely wrong.)

I don't want to go into detail on the nature of the NSFW content involved. All I'll say is that it involved something I find completely disgusting. And honestly, it spooked the hell out of me. It made me kick myself, thinking how stupid I was that I didn't see the warning signs. I wanted to make sure I never ran into a situation like that again.

However, I've taken a lot of time recently to rethink the boundaries that I've drawn for myself. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I ABSOLUTELY over-corrected.

Again, that no-tolerance policy made it so that if I found out you were associated with NSFW, you'd end up on my list of no-nos. But what that policy failed to do was factor in CONTEXT.

Not every case is the same. And I failed to acknowledge a lot of solid points that made a BIG difference. Points like:

-Is this person's NSFW content posted to a side account? -Do they take steps to properly separate their main account from their NSFW account? -Do they lock access to the NSFW account behind age verification? -What is the nature of the NSFW content? Does it contain safe, consensual themes? -Can they behave themselves in places where NSFW themes aren't allowed?

All these questions were ignored. I just took the shotgun approach and labeled it all as bad. I guess it comes down to my own inexperience with the scene, and not knowing the right questions to ask.

But now that I've been following more people with "spicier" senses of humor, I'm more understanding that people are NOT just the content they make and watch. There's a lot more nuance. If I keep looking at people with this strict perspective, all I'll be doing is cutting myself off from meeting some potentially great friends. I'm doing nothing but hurting myself by nitpicking people's interests.

And heck, I've also failed to acknowledge that it's hard work to make ANY kind of art. And even though I personally don't like looking at it, it's still quite a skill to create artwork like that. It's kinda belittling of me to just lump every single person out there that makes that kind of art "problematic".

The last bit of thought I had was my own personal responsibility. It'd be one thing to KNOWINGLY interact with a secret creep. But it's not really my fault if someone I was friends with turned out to be a creep. I mentioned earlier that I've disconnected privately with someone I'm disgusted with. So I'm not apprehensive about taking that kind of action.

And if someone gets publicly outed as a creep, the bulk of my responsibility is to publicly disconnect from this person and shame their actions. Again, I'm more than happy to do that if the need arises. I need to stop being afraid of the possibility of that happening one day.

TO BE CLEAR, I'm still not interested in NSFW and explicit stuff, and have no intentions of changing that anytime soon. You can rest assured of that. But I've come to realize that I've been extremely harsh to people that are genuinely good people. All because I wanted to save my own sorry ass. That's terrible of me. I should know better.

I know for a fact that I've hurt people in the past over my personal policies. You probably know who you are.

If any of you are reading this, I'm sorry. I was judgemental. I was dismissive of your expression and interests. I alienated you for little to no good reason. I hope that I learned from my mistakes, and that I will do better in the future.

To everyone out there, whatever creative outlet you have, I hope you continue to keep creating. Never lose your spark. 💖

[kit-the-dreamer]

°.• Secret Meeting •.°

:: The Vent Society : OH-013's story ::

Quick clarification: OH-013 is a Sackbot Oc of mine inspired on @thegoobiedoober 's idea of The Vent Society. I will probably start writing parts of her life experiences in random order to start telling the story she has to offer. It'll probably feel like a puzzle, idk xd

I hope you enjoy ♡

°.•.°.•.°.•🔆°.•.°.•.°.•

...

"Yeah... I remember you" said the voice from the other side of that thin wall.

"Excuse me?" she asked. Not in shock or surprise though, she genuily didn't understand what he meant.

"You're excused" was his response.

OH-013 heard devilish but genuine laugh from behind that vent. She didn't get what was so funny about that comment. She let out an unvoluntary confused robotic sound due to that odd situation. The laugh stopped a few seconds after.

"You have no sense of humor." he spitted, although with no harsh feelings.

"I was not built to detect jokes, my apologies for the missunderstanding." she answered in a monotonous but kind tone. That response clearly showed the limits her AI had. Or the limits that were intentionally put during her programming...

He hated that lack of respect towards his her species.

A few seconds passed when he ralized that the silence had made its presence clear again.

"What I was saying is that I remember you. From 'The Grand Battle'. " he broke the silence once more, refusing to accept nor mention that dumb apology of hers from some moments ago. Stupid Sackbot programming.

OH-013 felt a shiver run down her circuits at the sole mention of that day. She thought she had already forgotten it, but now, now it felt like it had been just yesterday she was fighting against the pawns of the... The Negativitron.

"Hey..."

That day was gloriously devastating. The Alliance won, that's for sure, but, at what cost? Her comrades, pals, friends, family... all recycled into the Imagisphere, transformed into abstract traces of creativity traveling through the Cosmos...

"Hey."

She realized that description sounded better than it really was.

"HEY!"

"Eeep!" OH-013 got startled. She covered her mouth half a second after she let out that weird sound. How embarrasing. However, the other didn't seem to care enough to make fun of her or even mention what he just heard.

"I was talking to you, if you haven't noticed, miss." he said. "So indeed, I am waiting for an answer, something that should be common when having a conversation."

Ok, rude.

Maybe this clarified how much he really hated silence, or probably the mere feeling of loneliness. Again, she doesn't know how long he has been stuck inside this vents by his own. Not even he remembers-

It was just then, after all this thoughts, that it finally struck her.

"Wait... did you said you... 'remember me'? "

"Uh... yeah? I said it twice already." he said a little bothered. "It was noticeable that you weren't a battle sackbot, so you kinda stood out. Your clumsy movements with the Positivitron thing were clear enough. You definitely weren't prepared for it all! Hahaha!" he lighted up his tone.

Even though he couldn't see her due to the wall between them both, OH-013 blinked in confusion. She didn't know what she should be feeling or doing at the moment.

She heard a sigh from the other side.

"But you were just following orders I guess. Am I right?"

Finally, something she could really answer.

"You are correct. I am indeed created to follow orders."

He was surprised for her taking the subject so lightly. With that response, she showed him she knew her place on this all. She knew she was a pawn, fighting for ''the bigger cause'' of her team, and was alright with it. Unlike him.

Maybe being on the Negativitron's side wasn't as different as 'The Alliance' after all.

"Did I say something wrong?" OH-013 asked as she became aware of her counterpart's silence.

''No, I was just... thinking about something." he replied.

"How come you remember me?" she clarified her question, since her doubts hadn't been cleared at all.

"Pffft, what the hell do you mean with that? I was reprogrammed by him to remember the enemies' face and characteristics." he said in a sour tone. He didn't like talking about the subject of 'programming'. He preferred thinking he was kind of free at this point, even if, ironically, he was being unvoluntary kept as a prisioner in those vents.

"Also..." he added in a softer tone, "your face isn't easy to forget."

OH-013 felt something weird after that statement. It was something that felt good nonetheless, but, why didn't she have the words to describe her current feelings?

Was she... geniuily smiling this time? Was that what happiness felt like? REAL happiness?

...

No.

It wasn't happiness.

She was still stuck in these vents. Logically, she couldn't be happy unless she gained her freedom back...

her 'freedom', anyway.

But she still kept her smile.

She had always been told that she was replaceable, not-unique, recyclable. She was ONLY an 'OH-' unit after all, nothing else. There were thousands of them out there. OH-090, OH-483, OH-103... and probably others stuck in the vents as well. Sackbots who no one went to look for. Not even her. Because they were replaceable.

But this little weird monster from the other side of the vent's wall, someone that wasn't even her enemy but declared as THE enemy, was showing her otherwise.

He remembered her.

He truly did.

And after all this days they've been stuck 'together', she haven't even bothered to ask his alphanumeric identifyig code name. He didn't seem amused by it though...

At all.

[butterflybam]

Exo reactions: their s/o gets along with their mom

Requested by anon (I hope you enjoy it! And thank you again for the request 💖💖) I am so sorry for the wait! Also I'm sorry that some are shorter than others, I definitely wanted to make them as different as possible.

Btw I won't be writing for Chen, I will only write platonic stuff for him.

Xiumin:

After a long day of practice, all Xiumin wanted was to collapse in bed with you. Once inside, he was taken back by the fact that his mom was there. She was sitting next to you with a cup of coffee in her hand. She was saying something that he didn't quite catch, but it caused you to laugh. Neither of you had noticed his presence yet. 

"Hey, mom." 

Giving him a warm smile, she motioned for him to come over to her. Walking over to her, he gave her a quick hug before leaning over to give you a quick kiss on the cheek. 

"If I had known you were coming over, I would have left early and made sure to make some dinner." He said as he took a seat on the opposite side of her. 

She waved it off. She explained, "It was more of a last minute decision." "I kept having to reschedule lunch dates with Y/N, and I felt bad. I also missed them. They're so lovely."

This definitely caught his attention. It was definitely news to him that you went out to lunch with his mom. However, it brought him comfort to know that you two got along. 

"How about I go make dinner and you two stay put?" He asked. Before either of you could refuse, he was up in record time and already heading to the kitchen.

At that moment, he was just so happy that two important people in his life were so close and getting along. 

Suho:

This holiday season, you weren't able to spend it with your family, but thankfully, your wonderful boyfriend invited you to spend it with him and his family. 

You had met everyone before and gotten along well, but this was different.

So many different possibilities swam through your head. What if you accidentally offended someone? What if you accidentally ruined a priceless antique? 

Suho tried to console you and brush off your worries. He constantly reminded you that everything was going to be fine and how much they adored you.

He was correct in this regard.

For the entire duration of the stay, you were stuck by his mom's side. She told you stories about Suho as a kid. She even taught you some of the family recipes.

Suho wanted to be upset that he didn't get alone time with you, but seeing you bond with his mom eased the annoyance. 

It especially made him realize that buying that engagement ring wasn't a mistake.

Lay:

Lay could sense that you were nervous about meeting his mom. He knew it from the moment you stepped off the plane. He wishes he could take your anxiety away. 

Once you had arrived, his mom warmly welcomed you into the home, as he knew she would. Small talk was made throughout the evening and you soon eased up. 

While Lay ran to the store for his mom, leaving you behind, she pulled you aside. 

"Thank you for making my son happy." He's told me so much about you that I already feel like I know you. " She squeezed your hand lightly. "And from what I'm seeing is that you're an incredible person." She smiled. 

Her words brought you so much comfort. Afterwards, she began telling you a bunch of embarrassing and cute stories about Lay from his childhood. Thankfully, you had some stories to share about your boyfriend as well. 

When he returned, he discovered you two in a fit of laughter. He wasn't sure what caused it, but seeing the two of you close made him happy. 

Baekhyun:

You and your boyfriend rarely had the same days off. You were both extremely busy most of the time, so when you did get together, you tried to spend as much time as possible together.

Baekhyun already had in mind what he had in store for you. A movie marathon, then a romantic dinner.

But when you came out of your shared bedroom all dressed up, he was caught off guard.

"Are you going somewhere?" He asked, making you look up from your phone.

Once you saw the living room set up for your movie marathon, you smacked your forehead. "I am so sorry," you said. You couldn't believe you forgot. 

"It's okay." He tried not to sound disappointed. "I just can't believe you got called into work." 

"I didn't get called in."

There was a brief hesitation from him, "Then why are you dressed up?" Unless you're going to see your friends? " He was trying to tread lightly and did not want to come off as him accusing you of anything. 

A smile formed on your face at this. "Actually, I'm going out to lunch with your mom." You explained it. 

"Oh, just out with my mom." But once he realized what was said, he stood up straight and a huge smile formed on his face. "You guys going out for lunch? Is this like a regular thing you two do? " 

Nodding your head yes, "we try to get together at least once a week." You shrugged.

You didn't know how much joy this brought him. He always wanted you two to get along, and to know you're close enough to do this made him so happy. To your surprise, he gave you a quick kiss before ushering you to the door.

"Don't keep my mom waiting. Have fun, you guys."

His reaction caused you to laugh, but you knew that he was just excited to know that you two were close. 

Chanyeol:

Chanyeol was sick. He didn't want to admit it, but he was. He hated being stuck in bed, but once you found out, he was not allowed to get up unless for emergencies.

He was bored and miserable.

What made it worse was that he was alone in bed. He couldn't even cuddle with you without the fear of getting you sick. 

All he could do was just lie there and mope. There was nothing he wanted to watch or read, so he was getting bored fast. Glancing at the clock, he realized you hadn't checked in on him in a couple of hours. He began to worry. As carefully as possible, he stood up from the bed. 

His body ached and he was tired, but he pushed that aside as he went to look for you.

Once he got to the kitchen, that's where he found you. Your back was facing him and you were doing something. 

He was about to say something, but he heard a familiar voice.

His mom

He was confused, but he saw you adjust your phone. That's when he realized that you were face timing his mom. It seemed like she was helping you cook something, and he remembered the soup his mom would make for him when he was a kid. She was teaching you how to make the soup to make him feel better. 

He felt a tug at his heart. Instead of interrupting the moment, he quietly made his way back to bed. 

D.O:

He simply desired a quiet and pleasant evening at home for his birthday. So when he came home and saw you and your mother in his kitchen, he was taken aback.

"Hi." He said, making you both stop what you were doing. 

His mom was the first one to reach him, and she pulled him into a hug. "Happy birthday, sweetheart." 

Once they pulled away, he gave you a quick kiss. "Happy Birthday." You smiled. You moved back into the kitchen to check on the food. 

"You guys shouldn't have done this." He said as he went to check what you two were doing. 

"Of course we did," his mom spoke up. Besides, I love cooking with Y/N. We've had so much fun. " She added

This broke off into small conversations about their days, and the two of you fell into a fit of laughter. 

There was some inside joke going on between the two of you, and he didn't dare to pry. D.o smiled at the sight of you two joking around and having fun. 

Kai:

Family was very important to Kai, so it meant a lot to him that you and his mom got along. You have met her countless times, so it has become normal to see her almost every day. 

She always made you feel included and always checked in on you. 

It made Kai feel at ease, especially since he was getting ready to go on tour. He was worried that you would get lonely, but his mom promised to check in on you. 

Even though he wouldn't be there personally for you, it made him feel better that his mom was going to be there. 

Once he left, to his surprise, you two literally spent every day together. When he called the other you, you two almost shared the same stories of what you had gotten up to. 

But this made him think about maybe proposing to you. He already had the thought in the back of his mind, but seeing how well you fit into his family definitely gave him the answer he needed.

Sehun:

Sehun knew from the moment you met his mom that you two were going to get along well. 

He was correct, of course, and he didn't let you forget it either. 

He loved seeing you come back from hanging out with her and having a bright smile on your face. You always told him all the jokes and stories she had told you. 

The only thing he couldn't get from you was what she would get him for his birthday or Christmas. That's when you were sworn to secrecy. 

He would always tease you, but your bond with his mom was definitely something he never teased about. It actually meant the world to him that you two were close.

[songmingisthighs]

Sans

introduction pt. i | pt. ii

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ch. lxxv - switch

seonghwa × reader, ?? × reader

A N N O U N C E M E N T

you believed that childhood friends can stick together through thick and thin. you believed that nothing could get between you and your childhood friend, seonghwa. at least you used to think that before things changed.

When Mingi got out of his car and into the apartment lobby, the last thing he expected was to see Seonghwa on the front desk where the security guard was stationed. His eyebrows immediately furrowed and he slammed his car's door harder than he intended. A few weeks prior, he might've been okay with seeing them around. Heck, Mingi even held his emotions in whenever he saw Hongjoong at the office.

But here ? Where you lived ?

No way.

The sound of the car door slamming loudly caught Hongjoong's attention as he immediately snapped his head towards the source. When he saw Mingi stomping in their direction, he immediately tapped Seonghwa on his arm, letting him know.

When Seonghwa turned his head around, Mingi was already glowering closely at the both of them. "What are you two doing here?" he hissed, completely disregarding the fact that they're both are older than him.

Sensing that they shouldn't make him more pissed, Seonghwa decided to answer, "We're just following up on something," he said. At the answer, Mingi scoffed, "Making sure you didn't leave any tracks here?" he sneered.

Taking a deep breath, Seonghwa crossed arms in front of his chest, sighing at Mingi, "Look, I'm just trying to help (y/n) alright? I'm sure you are too," he said, trying to reason with the taller male. Mingi furrowed his eyebrows at this, "You? Helping (y/n)? Look hyung, I don't know how stupid you think I am because you've manipulated me once, but I've learnt my lesson, alright? So please just get the fuck out of here before I toss you out myself."

The security guard soon emerged from the back room, holding a cd in his hand. "Here you go sonny, the CCTV from ye- Oh, Mingi boy, I didn't realize that you'd be coming home today! How's Ms. (y/n)?" the old man asked with a soft smile. Mingi wanted to flip out when he realized that the security guard had been giving CCTV recordings to Seonghwa and Hongjoong. But he chose against it. Instead, he just acknowledged the man. "Yeah, Mr. Oh, just getting a few things for (y/n) before going back to the hospital. And these two are leaving WITHOUT the CCTV recording," he growled.

Having had enough of Mingi's hostility, Hongjoong stepped up to Mingi and glared at him, "Seriously man, what's your problem? We're trying to help (y/n) here!" he said, defending himself and Seonghwa. "My problem? Hyung, which part of you both being banned from getting near (y/n) did you not understand?" Mingi asked, exasperated. In a low voice, Seonghwa answered him, "Technically, we're nowhere near (y/n) right now," which Mingi still heard due to their close proximity.

Instinctively, Mingi grabbed Seonghwa by the shirt, "Are you seriously being sarcastic with me right now? I can call the police right now and tell them that you're invading our privacy," he growled. Seonghwa pushed his arm away from him, clearly becoming annoyed, "You do that Mingi, you call them and hinder my efforts in finding who has been poisoning (y/n) so she can be treated fairly. You go waste your time convincing them that whatever hunch you have is correct without proof. Go ahead and ruin the efforts Joong and I have put into this," he spat.

Feeling that Seonghwa's answer was ridiculous, Mingi laughed sarcastically, "Am I supposed to just believe all that? Like as if that automatically made you the good guy?" he asked the older guy.

"Boys," a voice called out but it went unheard.

Hongjoong stepped up again, "Mingi, seriously, why is it so hard to believe that Seonghwa is trying to do the right thing now?" he asked him.

"Boys," the voice called again.

Mingi turned his head to Hongjoong, raising an eyebrow. Genuinely, he couldn't understand how Hongjoong could ask him that. "Because whatever it is that he meant to do, it always seemed to hurt (y/n). So I'm sorry that I'm sceptical, but this piece of dried up bubblegum has been the single tiny prick in everyone's a-"

"That's the person who's been sending Ms. (y/n) food!" The security guard exclaimed.

Everyone snapped their heads towards the direction he pointed at.

Nearing the front door, there stood a person with a cap and a baggy jacket that looked eerily similar to the person Seonghwa and Hongjoong has been seeing in the CCTV tapes. Their eyes widened and at that moment, they weren't sure what to do first. It was beyond either Seonghwa or Hongjoong's imagination to be able to meet the person at that moment. Moreover, Mingi, who had honestly just wanted to get some things for you.

Realizing the stares of four people, the person halted their steps and looked up. They were wearing a mask. But judging from how their eyes widened and the plastic bag in their hand dropped, spilling food on the driveway, it was obvious that they knew what was going on. But Seonghwa could've sworn that the person's eyes looked very familiar to him.

Before any of them could react, the person had made a sharp 180 and bolted as fast as they could.

Not wasting any more time, Seonghwa followed suit. The sound of Hongjoong and Mingi calling him fell deaf to his ears. At that moment, he really just wanted to catch the person responsible. And that person is within eyesight.

Never had Seonghwa felt focus such as this. He couldn't feel his legs as they moved at a speed he didn't know he had, but he was gaining to the person. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, Seonghwa took out and tightly gripped your keychain that he never got to return to you. He could've sworn that somehow, with the keychain in his hand, he moved quicker than before.

They ran and ran. There were unexpected twists and turns and somehow they had reached a busier street. That moment, Seonghwa realized that the person was trying to lose him in the crowd. But Seonghwa was sure that the intense desperation of wanting to catch this person won't fail him. And true, despite the advantage they had, Seonghwa was faster and he immediately caught up.

Seonghwa grabbed onto the back of the person's jacket. The movement caused the person to jolt back and collided with Seonghwa. The both of them fell down in the middle of the busy street, people immediately parting like the red sea due to not wanting to fall as well.

The fall wasn't much but it definitely broke some of Seonghwa's focus. He groaned but willed his own body to stand up quickly.

When he recovered, he realized that the person was still groaning on the street. The cap they wore had fallen a couple of feet over, completely revealing their face.

Recognizing the person, Seonghwa's eyes widened in disbelief. He had once thought this person was capable of evil and betrayal, but this was beyond his imagination.

"I can't believe this... J- J-, my god, what the actual fuck?"

taglist :

@paralumanniluna @mirror-juliet @eternalssanshine @simplyxlea @rdiamond2727 @hakuna-matata-ya @peachy-maia @dear-dreamie @nycol-ie @seongsanniehwa @wasteitonserendipity @diorwoo @linhyyboo12 @joti17 @dreamlesswonder86 @teti-menchon0604 @theaufanartist @gayliljoong @se-onghwa @baguette-atiny @atinystray @th84u @camillelafaye @kpopnightingale @rubberduckieyourtheone @hannahdinse8 @peachyho @nymeriaaa @honeyhwaaa @bluepoison1975 @pinkskiesdream @skkrtnawrskkrt @captainjoongiekissme @iknowyouknowlino @ikonic-loser @escapereality-- @seojonneh @marsophilia @petitchou-t @polaristhingz @blaaiissee @malewife-supremacy @fujicpp @atinypurplerose @utopia1117 @jo-hwaberry @maddiebabyxoxo @wtfjongseong @fashi0nablee @rosefvkk

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Day 159: Drarry

Harry still enjoyed walking around under his invisibility cloak as a professor. Not because he wanted to spy on anyone or get away with anything sneaky (most of the time) but because it allowed him to get from point a to point b with fewer obstacles.

Normally, he only casually listened to the students he was wandering past. His ears were tuned for 'red flags' but everything else was just sort of background noise.

Not so today.

He was almost back to his classroom, munching on an apple to tide him over until lunch, when he heard his name mentioned.

And Harry was good at ignoring a lot of things, but he was decidedly not good at ignoring things that were said about him by his students. He stepped to the side and listened.

"Right," Matilda said, "But come on. You have to admit that they make sense together."

"Sure," Reid replied, rolling his eyes, "In the way that matches and kerosine make sense together."

"Explosively hot," Gwen chimed in. "Yeah."

Reid rolled his eyes at her.

"What would their name even be?" Jack wondered aloud and Harry wondered if he'd misheard and they hadn't mentioned his name at all. "Potfoy?"

"Malter?" Ruby giggled.

"Maybe try their first names," Matilda postulated.

"Harco," Reid offered.

"Doesn't the order imply positions," Ruby asked.

Jack nodded, "So which do you think-"

"Drarry," Reid said. "Or-"

And quite suddenly Harry realized exactly what they were talking about and thought that he might be having a heart attack. His palms immediately started sweating, heart beating loudly in his ears.

He did the only thing that he could think to do. He took off at a sprint toward the dungeons, doing his best to avoid students as he raced away.

(Read more below the cut)

When he was just outside of the potions classroom, he looked about and then whipped off his cloak (Draco hated it when he came in wearing the cloak) before bursting into the room. "Dra-" he started before realizing the other man was in the middle of a lesson with the third years. "Malfoy," he corrected, clearing his throat. "Err. Professor Malfoy."

"Eloquent as ever, Professor Potter," he replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry," he said, nodding to the third years, "terribly sorry to interrupt your lesson. Could I speak to you for a moment? In the hallway?"

Draco looked at him like he'd lost his mind, "Continue working on your Confusing Concoction. I'll be right back." Harry turned and Draco followed, "And Miss. Merryweather if I hear so much as a peep from you to Mr. Coriander I'll be docking house points."

"Yes, professor," Alice mumbled.

Once they were outside, Harry closed the door and looked around the hallway. "They're shipping us!" he hissed.

"Pardon?"

"The kids!" he exclaimed. "I overheard them. They're smashing our names together!"

"Okay?" Draco said. "Sorry, I'm not seeing why you felt the need to interrupt my class to tell me that."

"Because they think we're seeing each other!"

"And?" he asked, frustration rising in his voice.

"And," he hissed, "We are seeing each other!"

Draco shook his head, "Potter, I fail to see what the problem here is."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, "We are seeing each other and people think that we're seeing each other."

"Merlin. I am sleeping with a complete idiot. It's like you're saying the earth revolves around the sun and people are saying that the earth revolves around the sun."

"Right," Harry said, "But we can't deny it without lying."

Draco blinked, "Right," he said, taking a step back from Harry. He shook his head and the cold, detached mask that Harry loathed fell into place over his face. "Well, I think it's safe to say that we can tell them they're wrong now."

"What?"

"This is me, dumping your arse."

"What?" he repeated incredulously. "Draco-"

"No, fuck you," he hissed. "I'm not your dirty little secret."

"I wasn't-" Harry tried to protest but Draco was already stalking away.

"Fuck off," he spat before throwing the door to his classroom open and slamming it behind him.

Harry stood in the hallway for a long moment in stunned silence. He'd definitely just made a mess.

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

In retrospect, he could understand why what he'd said to Draco could have been hurtful. He could see how Draco could have interpreted Harry's words the way he had, even if Harry hadn't meant them that way.

He just wanted to be able to control the narrative. Too much of his life had been spent with someone else reporting all of the details and filling in the gaps. He was sick of it.

Harry tried everything to get Draco to talk to him in the next few days but Draco had always been a stubborn git and there was no getting him away from people long enough to have a conversation. He'd even attempted sending letters to him but Draco took one look at the writing and incendio'd them without actually reading them.

Finally one morning, six days later, when Draco was over talking to Oliver about quidditch at breakfast, Harry couldn't take it anymore. He stormed over across the Great Hall to the end of the table the other man was sitting at, reached across, and grabbed him by the front of his robes.

Harry pulled him into a short (but passionate) kiss and when he pulled back he said, "I am in love with you, you miserable wanker. And I don't give a flying fuck who knows."

The silence that followed was completely deafening for a heartbeat before the entire Great Hall erupted into a flurry of noise and movement.

Draco stared at him, completely speechless, before he pulled him across the table for another kiss. "You are such a drama queen," he laughed against Harry's lips.

"I am?!" he protested, leaning back only far enough to be able to make eye contact. "You set my letters on fire! You've slammed your door in my face more times that I can count! You-"

"Shut up," Draco said, kissing him again.

A throat cleared behind them, "Gentlemen," Minerva said and they jumped apart like children caught doing something naughty. "Do you really think the Great Hall is the most appropriate venue?"

"No," they chorused.

"Apologies, Headmistress," Draco said.

"Forgiven," she said. "But don't make a habit of it."

And while they didn't make a habit of snogging in front of students, from then on they were never afraid to show affection for the other in front of students. They would often be found bickering but holding hands, leaning against one another as they graded papers, leaving little notes and treats in the other's classroom, and all other manner of small gestures. The things that showed just how proud and in love they were with each other.

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Day 158: Sunshine Take 1 and Take 2 | Day 160: Deja Vú (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

[kimetsunoyaibawritings]

Burn like the Sun

Rating: General

Relationship: Reader/Kyojuro

Summary: “Simply knowing you are safe is a plentiful reward in itself.”

As a survivor of the Infinity Train accident, the reader seeks out the man who had saved them to try and offer some sort of proper thanks. And while he is severely injured -- enough to have to lay down his duties as a Hashira -- Kyojuro is nonetheless happy to know that his actions had protected someone.

"Is this the home of Kyojuro Rengoku?"

The question pulls the attention of the young boy standing outside the front of the gate of the vast home behind him, who had been sweeping diligently before your approach.

His bright, firey-colored hair is striking, but it is dwarfed immediately by the sharp red of his eyes as they move up to look at you. The resemblance to your savior is striking -- so much that you are sure that this is the right home before he even opens his mouth to speak.

"I-It is, yes," he says, voice oddly timid. "May I ask uh, why you are looking for him?"

He can't be older than twelve or thirteen. You try to offer him a comforting smile and gesture with your chin down to the small, cloth-wrapped bundle in your arms.

"I was one of the people he saved from the train accident a few weeks ago. I heard he was badly injured because of it and I..." you let the words trail for a moment as the boy (his brother? his son?) stares at you with a look that is not at all accusatory, but sharp all the same.

You clear your throat and speak, tone renewed, "I wanted to show him my appreciation and wish him well for his recovery."

At first the boy doesn't say anything in response. In the growing silence, you almost feel foolish. It had been hard enough to learn the man's name in the first place after the accident, but something about his presence had left a moment of terror and hopelessness instead with such warmth and comfort that the simple prospect of gratitude seemed the least you could offer.

Lost among your own thoughts and worries, the sound of the boy's voice rings out and drags you back into the moment.

"Let me go ask him first, if that's alright."

You're barely able to offer but a syllable of a reply before he's already slipped past the front gate and out of sight into the grand house beyond. It is as large as you were told, though you can't recall any prominent businessman nor politician with the family name of Rengoku. Some of your contacts had called him a swordsman -- had his family once served as samurai?

The possibilities proffered more questions than offered answers, leaving you to simmer in your own curiosity for several minutes until the young fire-haired boy emerged from the house and hurried towards you.

"He says you can see him -- he's also happy to know you're okay."

The boy -- Senjuro, you later learn as his name -- quickly explains how to get to Kyojuro's room, though you're too lost in the warmth in your chest from the too-simple notion 'he's happy you're okay' to pay all that much attention past the first two turns. But you thank him all the same and shuffle towards the house, leaving Senjuro to continue sweeping up with only the slightest, softest curiosity in his eyes.

Once inside the house, you’re taken aback by how… empty it feels. You’d expect a home as large as this to be busy with people — whether family or workers tending to it. You find neither, greeted instead by silence and an unnerving amount of peace.

It doesn’t take long to start trying to recall the directions that the young Rengoku boy had given you. A turn down the left hallway, past the third door and then… ah?

You couldn’t quite recall after that. Left or right? Was there another hall, or was Kyojuro’s room along the outside? One question bumbled into another until your unsureness twisted itself up into a ball of knots. Despite the confusion, you didn’t want to seem even more foolish by moving back to Senjuro and asking for directions again when he had gone out of his way to describe them once already. So you stand there, frozen by your own indecision at the edge of a corner-

Until someone suddenly turns it, running straight into you with enough force to leave you stumbling backwards. You would have fallen on your ass if it wasn’t for the fact that the same offender reached out suddenly and grabbed your arms, which were otherwise holding with a vice grip on the wrapped bundle still against your chest.

“I’m so sorry!” a bright voice offers, soft but merrily. “I didn’t see you standing there. Are you alright?”

It takes a moment for your thoughts to straighten and your gaze to fix upon the person who had both run into you and kept you from toppling backwards.

Blonde hair with firey tips, eyes brighter than rubies and sharper than a fine point. Though his face is covered in bandages and there’s a patch over his left eye, the recognition feels like icewater dumped over your head.

“K-Kyojuro Rengoku?” you ask, embarrassed in the stutter of your own voice.

“Yes?” the man tilts his head. You’re not able to say anything further before he suddenly winces, pulling his arms back against his body and drawing your gaze down over the rest of his body — as well as his multitude of injuries. Broken bones and layers of bandages seemed to but scratch the surface for all that he is dealing with, which made you feel the heavy weight of gratitude twice, no, three times over in his saving your life.

“Shouldn’t you be laying down?”

Kyojuro merely laughs. Though the sound must pain him, it doesn’t muffle the blossoming warmth of the noise as it fills the air around your ears. It’s strange, in a way; does the sound of his voice often have this effect on people?

“I’m well enough to walk,” he finally says, pain and aches hidden so dutifully behind his eyes that you have to second-guess yourself whenever his lips press together in a brief, but tense line. A smile, however, quickly moves across his face. “I thought it would be easier if I met you halfway so you didn’t get lost! You are the one who came to visit me, correct?”

You nod.

“Y-yeah. I’m uh. One of the people you… saved. On the train, a few weeks ago. I wanted to thank you and… maybe get to know you a little bit.”

The man watches you silently as you explain yourself, but not for a moment does a sense of judgement press on your shoulders from his attention. He simply listens, politely waiting for you to finish before responding.

“It must have been hard to find me,” he comments almost idly, some mixture of amused and impressed. “How did you manage it?”

The question is filled with an odd sort of praise, so you lower your head down until your eyes are on the ground and your mind is a shambling mess trying to piece words together.

“I uh. I have some friends in high places, you could say.”

“Well!” he chuckles. “That almost sounds like a threat!”

“Oh no, no no no no-” flustered, you immediately raise your eyes up and begin waving one hand about frantically as if to dissuade the notion entirely. “I promise I didn’t mean that as a— I mean, my family—… I…”

Your broken explanation is cut short when Kyojuro reaches up a hand towards your face, index finger curling ever so gently beneath your chin that you barely feel the heat of his skin against yours.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, and for a moment you feel your heartbeat go still. “I promise I meant it only as a jest. You went to great lengths simply to see me, and you certainly didn’t need to.” His hand slowly lowers, but your gaze is held to his as if bound by unseen threads. “Simply knowing you are safe is a plentiful reward in itself.”

“I- I uh. It’s not-” the words fall broken and useless from your lips like shards of glass with no hope of coming together to make a cohesive sentence. Perhaps it’s for the best, since you’re not even sure what you can try to say in response to such an earnest notion of safety from someone who didn’t even know your first name.

And that is what finally pulls your thoughts into clarity.

You step back, providing just enough space between yourself and your savior so that your mind can clear and your heart can stop beating so damn quickly. Once you regain a sense of sensibility you all but glare at the man.

“My name is-” you say, brows knitted and stance firm as you all but aggressively introduce yourself to the man who had sacrificed so much of himself for your safety. For the safety of hundreds.

And Kyojuro watches, and listens, and then he smiles.

“That’s a nice name,” he says, then chuckles again, then bows his head for a moment. “Though you seem to know already, I am Kyojuro Rengoku. It’s quite the pleasure to meet you then! Properly meet you, at least. One less train involved.”

As the words settle humorously in the air, you watch Kyojuro turn and make a gesture to follow behind him. For a moment you’re confused, but he turns his face back to you and nods in the direction of the hall a few steps ahead.

“You wanted me to rest, yes? We can do so overlooking the back garden. I figure you’d like to sit and talk for a while-” and then he pauses, as if a moment of realization is just now moving across his thoughts. “…unless there is somewhere else you need to be?”

Bashful instinct presses at the root of your tongue to agree, perhaps even to make up some silly excuse for why you couldn’t stay for long. But then your eyes catch and hold onto a gaze that seems like brilliant rubies, and his voice echoes so warmly in your ears. And then you remember noting how empty the house felt when you stepped inside of it, devoid of anyone but what might be the last few members of the Rengoku family.

How lonely.

A shake of your head and motion of your legs happen before you can even think.

“O-oh no, I… have the day free. Though of course I didn’t assume you yourself had the time to entertain anyone, with you… healing up, and all.”

Kyojuro smiles for a moment before leading the way down the hall, his motions a bit stilted by injuries, but proud all the same. You held a deep respect for the man and his willpower despite knowing so little about him — and you certainly wanted to know more.

“I actually enjoy the company,” he says, just as you move in-step beside him. “And you are the first person from that accident to try and find me — perhaps the only one! So, if you’ll humor me for a bit of your time… I would like to learn more about you as well.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see him smiling. Despite the countless injuries that undoubtedly leave him in pain, some perhaps permanent, the man continues to smile as wide and as bright as the sun itself.

And you are glad to have met him.