#i forgot to set a queue for this week oops

[kotaki]

"Nyapu Nyapu~! ♪"

[homosociallyyours]

I forgot to set up my Thursday hersday queue last week AND this week! OOPS!!

I'm setting it up now (for this week and next) and going for an extra hour today :)

[what-type-of-troll-are-they]

I did it again oops

Uh

This one will also only last 24 hours cus I forgot to set it to a week

Even though I swear I double checked everything in the queue

[violettaoutofcontext]

el director

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Bone and Bond

Fantasy Masks AU: Chapter Forteen

A JSE Fanfic

Almost forgot to queue this, oops. Been busy with class recently. But in between all my classwork I found time to write another chapter! This one is about Marvin and Jameson. They’re ready to leave Wyvernlair, but run into someone along the way that makes them hurry and run back. It seems the camp might be in danger...or maybe not. Who knows? Not me, lol. You’ll have to read to find out ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had taken a full two weeks, but finally, Marvin’s new magical focus was complete.

His old one had been made of emerald, silver, and gold. It had been a family heirloom for generations, one that he’d stolen from the family vault partially out of spite, partially because it was genuinely one of the best-made focuses he’d ever seen. But, of course, that had been lost when he was captured. Marvin had no doubt it had been returned to the family. 

This new one was...different. Though it was still an amulet, and was about the same size and shape, the materials were new, working with what was available in the mountains. Its base was now made of rowan wood, reinforced around the edge with a line of smooth black obsidian carved with runes. Set into the wood was a perfectly circular bit of dragon bone. The whole thing could fit comfortably in the palm of his hand, and had a small metal loop at the top for a string or chain to fit through.

Marvin wasn’t happy about the long delay, but he had to admit it would have been a much longer wait if he tried to do it all by himself. He had to ask several of the Phantoms for help, mainly in finding and carving the raw materials—though Marvin himself did the runes and fit the whole thing together.

And now that he had a new focus...he didn’t need to stay here any longer.

He felt somewhat ashamed of thinking that. But it was true. If he was going to take down the King once and for all, he couldn’t do it by waiting in a forest on the edge of Glasúil. Regardless of what Jackie or Henrik or any of the other Phantoms thought, he still believed they needed a more dramatic approach if they wanted to depose the King permanently. The King and his warriors were relentless, their allies unwavering in their loyalty; subterfuge could only get them so far.

Perhaps the shame came from knowing that the grand majority of the Phantoms here meant him no harm. Indeed, he enjoyed being around people again. Even if he hardly interacted with them. Interaction wasn’t his strong suit, he mostly just liked being in their presence, listening to people talk, and knowing they’ll be there. He really appreciated their help in making his new focus. And he knew that a lot of them would be disheartened to know their third leader was once again leaving the group.

But...the others were the problem. His...friends. (Former friends?) Especially Jackie. He and Henrik had been able to get somewhat close again, but he and Jackie had barely spoken in the two weeks he’d been in Wyvernlair. He just...didn’t want another fight. So, he ended up not approaching him. And Jackie hadn’t approached him, either. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk.

Marvin couldn’t stay here if this matter was going to persist. So, the day his focus was complete, he started preparing to leave.

And part of those preparations...included talking to Jameson.

Jameson continued to spend most of his time in their shared tent, so after Marvin made sure his new focus  was working correctly—it was—he headed straight back to the tent to find Jameson awake, practicing speaking in hands. Today, he was concentrating on memorizing some lesser-used words. But when Marvin came in, he stopped.

“Hi,” Marvin said, sitting down on the tent floor.

Hello, Jameson said.

“I’m...going to leave camp today. Around noon.” Marvin took a deep breath. “I was wondering...do you want...to leave with me?”

Jameson said nothing. He didn’t look directly at Marvin. Do the others know you’re leaving?

“I told Henrik. Jackie was there, too. And Chase. And they’ve probably told the whole camp by now.” He tried for a laugh. “I know, because I saw everyone staring and pointing at me. So they know somehow.”

Jameson didn’t laugh. He seemed to have shrunk a little.

Marvin’s voice softened. “Are you...afraid the King will find you?”

Do I really need to answer that? Jameson asked slowly.

“Well, I’m not all that good with...um, hidden meanings,” Marvin said carefully. 

Jameson looked upwards, staring at nothing. Morning sun leaked through the tent fabric. He always said he would find me, he said, gestures small. The first two years, I kept trying to escape, and he always knew where I would be. Even when I didn’t fully know where I was going. I gave up, eventually. It wasn’t worth it. He paused. I keep thinking...that he’ll show up here. And he’ll not only find me again, but find you, and all these lovely, brave people. But I don’t want to leave. Despite those thoughts, this place feels...safe.

“It is pretty safe,” Marvin admitted, speaking slowly so as to not give away the tight coil of fear in his stomach that was about to spring loose. He reminded himself that Jameson didn’t have to come with him. It was his own choice. “You don’t...have to come with me,” he said out loud. “If you don’t want to.”

A long pause. It’s not that I don’t want to, Jameson said. It’s that...I feel...terrible.

“Huh?”

Because he’s going to come for me. Jameson’s expression was strangely unreadable. He’s going to figure out where I went, and everyone here is going to be—to be hurt because of that. Because I’m here. And if I left with you, then you’re going to be hurt. Because I’m with you. And the King will find me, and you—or everyone here, depending where I end up—will be...He trailed off.

“Jair,” Marvin said simply. He inched closer to him until they were sitting side by side. “Nothing is going to happen to me—or anyone here—because of you.”

When the King figures out where I—

“He might not. But...let’s say he does. That’s not your fault, you know. The Phantoms here, they want you to be safe, and they’re...they’re choosing to take the risk that might come with having you stay, as long as you’re safe.” Marvin paused. “I...I feel the same way. If you’re...alright, then I’ll take the possibility. A-and I don’t mean just safe, I mean, if you’re doing what you...what you want to do. You should be able to do what you want to do.”

Jameson didn’t move for a bit. Then, he reached up and wiped his eyes. He looked at Marvin and smiled. I think I would like to come with you, to wherever you’re going.

Marvin’s heart leapt. He grinned wide. “Really?”

Yes. If you’re...if you’re okay with everything that might happen.

“I promise I am. I can handle myself, surprisingly. And, if worst comes to worse...” Marvin bumps his shoulder against Jameson’s. “I’ll protect you. I promise.”

The two of them set off around noon, armed with packs of supplies—food, bedrolls, lanterns for the nights, some money, and more. Draco came with them, of course, since Marvin was loathe to leave his familiar behind. 

They only said goodbye to a few people. Chase and Henrik...and Jackie. Well, Jackie was also there, at the very least. He started to say something at one point. “Marvin, I...” But then he trailed off, and finished with, “Don’t die or get captured again.” Marvin nodded, but said nothing back.

Other Phantoms watched them leave. Soon, they disappeared from the clearing with the dragon skeleton and vanished into the woods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Normally around this time of year, the air would begin to warm up again, but it was as cold as ever walking through the forest. Marvin wrapped his cloak tighter around himself, looking back over his shoulder at Jameson doing the same. Jameson caught his glance and gave him a quick reassuring smile. Nodding, Marvin returned the grin.

The branches of the trees above were coated in a thin layer of frost, looking more like gilded silver than ice. A similar frost layer laid on the ground and undergrowth. As the group passed through, they left two sets of boot prints, and one set of paw prints as Draco weaved between the humans’ legs.

Night fell, early in the evening but still later than expected. They’d reached an area of the forest composed of pine trees that quickly obscured the remaining light. Quickly, the shadows surrounded them, and they stopped. “We should probably camp for the night,” Marvin said.

Jameson nodded. He looked a bit out of breath.

“Are you alright?” Marvin asked.

Nodding again, Jameson said, I’m just not used to carrying supplies around. It’s fine.

“Oh, don’t worry, I get it. Walking is all good, but then you have to factor in the weight and suddenly it’s a thousand times more difficult.” Marvin laughed to lighten the mood. “Well, like I said, we should camp anyway. This area is fine. Help me look for a good spot to set up.”

Help you look? It’s pitch black around! Jameson pointed out.

“True. I can barely see you speaking. But I have something that can help.”

Jameson looked confused for a second, then gasped. Of course! You’re going to conjure a light with your magic!

Marvin laughed, much more genuinely this time. “I could. But I don’t know if I want to use that energy just yet. Not when I brought this along.” He took the pack off his shoulders, reaching around to the side to grab a cloth bag that had been hanging there. Inside was a collection of candles, a pair of flint stones, and a small brass lantern. In what little light there was coming from in between the trees, Marvin fumbled about until he managed to get a spark from the flint and light a candle, which he put into the lantern’s compartment.

Oh. So that’s what was in there, Jameson said, looking fairly embarrassed. Why’s it in a bag, anyway? Couldn’t you just attach the lantern itself to the pack?

“I...I’ve never thought of that, actually.” Marvin paused, then shrugged. “It’s probably like that for a reason. Maybe so you know where the spare candles are.” Draco, staring wide-eyed at the new light source, reached out and tried to bat at the flame. Marvin quickly grabbed the lantern and lifted it up before the cat could knock it over. “You’re lucky there’s glass there, Draco. Don’t want to burn your paw.”

Now with a small circle of yellow light surrounding them, the pair found a relatively flat patch of ground to spread out their bedrolls. Marvin hung the lantern from a low-hanging branch nearby, and they sat down underneath it.

Jameson glanced around at the darkness, eyes darting. Is it just me, or was it less...creepy...when we first traveled through the woods to get to your base?

“It’s because there were more people with us before,” Marvin said, currently looking through their packs for their food supplies. “More people, more possible reasons for weird noises and movements.”

Clearly, that did not reassure Jameson. Did you know Fair Folk are more likely to attack travelers in small groups?

Marvin barely caught that, glancing up just in time to see Jameson’s gestures. “Fair Folk? Don’t you know? The Fair Folk aren’t around anymore. They went the same way as the dragons.” He reached up and touched his dragon-bone focus under his shirt. 

That’s...kind of sad, Jameson said thoughtfully.

“You just said they would attack us.”

Well, that doesn’t mean it’s better if they’re not around, Jameson mused. Less dangerous, certainly. But...He shook his head. Like I said, it seems sad.

“Hmm.” Marvin nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He returned to looking for their food. “Well, I don’t think they’re entirely gone. Not like dragons. The Fair Folk have their own world, they probably just...stopped coming to ours. But I hear they still roam the Wyldlands.” He chuckled. “If we head west into the Wyldwood, maybe we'll see some.”

No thank you, Jameson said, vigorously shaking his head.

Marvin grinned. “Alright, alright. We’ll continue east, then.”

They couldn’t find any dry wood for a fire, so they ate bread and dried meat for dinner while huddled in their cloaks and bedrolls. Though it wasn’t that late, the dark night sky was making Marvin tired. He rolled over and closed his eyes just for a minute...

And suddenly woke up to Jameson shaking his shoulder. “Hrmmm wha...?” Marvin blinked, clearing his head of the fuzziness that comes with being asleep, but not yet dreaming. It was darker than it was when he lied down. Evidently, their lantern had gone out. “Whassit?”

Jameson made a shushing sound, and pointed into the darkness. Marvin sat up, and at that moment, noticed said darkness was not as dark as it once was. There was an orange glow in the distance, almost hidden behind the trees. The sound of voices drifted through the cold air, too far away to make out any words. They—and the light—were getting closer.

Marvin looked at Jameson. It was odd for people to be this far into the Dragon’s Greatwoods, especially in winter. “Did you put the lantern out?” Marvin whispered.

Jameson nodded, his eyes wide.

The orange light approached quickly. It wasn’t coming straight for them, but soon, Marvin and Jameson saw a group pass by, only separated from them by a couple trees. Six people, three mounted on horses, all carrying lanterns. They all wore dark colors...and in the center of their tunics was a green circle on a blue-and-black shield. The royal crest. The moment Jameson saw that, he froze.

Luckily, the two of them were hidden from the group in the darkness. Neither of them moved until the orange light was well in the distance. Marvin sat up slowly. “Jair...are you alright?” he said in a hushed voice.

Jameson was stiff, muscles clenched. For a moment, Marvin wondered if this was another one of those oracle visions. But no, it looked different. Jameson was breathing heavily, quickly, his eyes locked on the distant orange light. He reached out and grabbed Marvin’s arm.

“Jair? Jair, it’s fine,” Marvin said softly.

In response, Jameson squeezed tighter. He shook his head, then suddenly buried his face in Marvin’s shirt. 

“Jair!” Marvin gasped. He could feel his heartbeat, as fast as a galloping horse. “It’s fine, I promise.” His own head dropped, resting on top of Jameson’s. “I said I was going to protect you. I promised I would, and I will. Nothing’s going to happen to either of us.”

A few moments passed before Jameson raised his head. He said nothing, merely looked at Marvin. His eyes were red.

“I promise,” Marvin repeated.

Slowly, Jameson nodded. He was still breathing fast, but was trying to get control of it.

“I’m going to find out what they’re doing here,” Marvin said quietly. “Oh, uh, don’t worry, I’m not going over there. I have a better idea.” He scanned their small campsite. “Draco?”

Draco had curled up on his legs at some point, but jumped off when he sat up. Now, the cat came slinking back into view, walking right up next to him. 

Marvin reached up and took his focus out from under his shirt, running a finger around the edge of it. White light curled around the obsidian edge,, then traveled up along his finger to twist around his hand. Marvin set his now-glowing hand down on Draco’s head, petting his fur. The shining magic rubbed off on Draco as he did, and the cat’s eyes glowed faintly white for a moment. “Be my eyes and ears,” Marvin whispered.

Without any of the usual cat mannerisms, Draco turned around and immediately trotted towards the orange light. Jameson squeezed Marvin’s arm, worried, but Marvin said, “Don’t worry, they won’t see him. I’m going to close my eyes for a second. Shake me if something happens.” Jameson nodded, and Marvin shut his eyes.

When he opened them again, his vision had changed. The dark forest was now much clearer. The shadows hadn’t lightened, but his surroundings were now just as detailed as if they had. The undergrowth, usually only coming up halfway to his knees, was now almost eye level. He could hear the faint rustling of a slight breeze, and the slight sounds of those few insects who survived the long winter. No matter how many times he cast this spell, he was always surprised at the difference between a cat’s senses and a human’s.

Draco approached the orange light on silent padded feet, causing barely any movement in the undergrowth. Soon, the six-membered group came into view, along with their three horses—gigantic when this close to the ground. They were walking along slowly. Draco sped up a little, getting closer. They were talking, having a conversation.

“—hate these trees,” grumbled a man on a horse. “I keep banging my face, and it’s not even that much faster!”

“We told you, didn’t we?” said a woman on foot, glancing at the three horse riders. “No horses this far in the Dragon’s Teeth, the terrain isn’t good for them.”

“Yes, well, how was I supposed to know?” The man said, swatting away a branch that was coming close to his face. “I’ve never been here before.”

“You could’ve taken us on our word,” said a man on foot.

“Alright, we get it, we’re sorry,” replied another person on a horse. “You three were right and we were wrong.”

“Thank you,” said the first walking woman, looking smug.

The walking man rolled his eyes. “If your horses slow us down, or somehow keep us from finding this rebel base, the King will be so upset.”

All six made various sounds of dismay.

The horseback person looked unsure. “Do we even know it’s here?” they asked. “I mean, the King won’t tell us how he knows about this place. Maybe it’s just a wild stoat chase?”

“No, the King is always right,” said a woman on horseback.

“The King is always right,” repeated four voices in unison.

“Of course the King is always right,” the horseback person said. “I just wish he would tell us how he knew.”

“He doesn’t need to do that,” said a second man on foot. “He’s the King. Don’t you trust him?” The other five muttered, giving the horseback person uneasy glances.

“I do! I do!” the horseback person protested. “I would never distrust him!”

“Well, that’s why we’re out here, anyway,” the walking woman said. “We’re just the scouts, after all. We’re here to confirm the King’s suspicions to everyone. Right, Nema?”

The horseback person nodded, and went silent.

That was enough information. Marvin whispered, “Come back,” and Draco turned around, darting through the forest plants and returning to their small camp. Marvin saw, through the cat’s eyes, his own body, and Jameson sitting next to him and holding his arm. Then Marvin opened his eyes, and looked down at Draco’s furry face. “Good boy,” he said, petting him. “Very good.”

Jameson finally let go of Marvin’s arm, freeing both hands to ask, What was that? Did you find anything out?

Marvin nodded. His stomach was twisting into knots. “They’re a scout party sent by the King. They...they’re looking for Wyvernlair.” He shook his head. “They—they know about it—the King knows about it! H-how did he find out?! We’ve been careful, so careful, i-it’s just not possible, it’s just not—!”

Marvin, Jameson said, waving his hands in front of Marvin’s face to draw his attention. Take deep breaths. Calm down. This isn’t the time to worry about how.

Nodding, Marvin took a couple deep breaths. “You’re right. We can figure out how they know later. Right now, we have to head back and warn them.”

We’ll have to move quickly. I’ll start packing things up. If we run—

“Run? We don’t need to run.” Marvin grasped his focus. “I know a shortcut.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Moments later, a doorway traced in light appeared on the side of the dragon’s skull in Wyvernlair. The inner part of the skull, to be exact. The part that served as a wall to the room inside. A couple seconds later, Jameson, Marvin, and Draco ran through the doorway, appearing from seemingly nowhere. Behind them, the doorway showed a dark forest for a brief moment before the light faded and it disappeared.

The skull was mostly empty. Only two Phantoms were inside, sitting at desks and writing. They both stopped and stared in shock at the sudden appearance of the door. And that shock only increased when two men and a cat walked through it.

Henrik was there as well, standing at the central table and looking over some maps. Unlike the other Phantoms, he knew exactly what that doorway was. But he was equally shocked that it—and Marvin and Jameson—showed up. “Was in aller—what are you two doing here?!” he gasped.

“No time to be surprised,” Marvin said, running right over to him with Jameson close behind. “Henrik, there’s a royal scout party in the forest, looking for this place. They’ll be here by midnight if they head straight here.”

“Ah.” Henrik took one second to get over his confusion and jump straight into high alert. “Kerrie! Killian!” He spun to look at the pair of Phantoms at the desks. “One of you go get Jackie and the other branch leaders, the other start spreading the word! Hurry!” The two immediately dropped what they were doing and ran out of the skull.

Only a few moments later, Jackie burst into the room, followed quickly by Lukas, Holly, Nemhet, Tripp, and Anna. He was also dragging Chase in by his arm, in the middle of audibly protesting at this. “—really not all that important, especially not for this,” he was saying. “I’m not anywhere near a leader, I’m just another member.”

“You’re my moral support,” Jackie said bluntly, and Chase instantly shut his mouth and turned bright red.

“What’s this about a scouting party?” Holly asked, getting straight to business.

“How did they find us?” Nemet fretted.

“Do we need to go take care of them?” Lukas was already armed with his sizable longbow.

“You will have to ask them,” Henrik said, gesturing to Marvin and Jameson.

Now that everyone was gathered around the central table, Marvin quickly explained how they saw the scouting party and overheard them discussing a rebel base. Luckily, it didn’t take too long.

“So we have a few hours,” Tripp muttered. “What do we do when they get here? Defend ourselves?” He flexed his fingers, causing a slight spur of wind. 

“Don’t you think it will be suspicious if a scouting party of six suddenly disappeared while looking for a rebel base?” Nemet asked. “If I were the King, I would assume they found it, and send a warrior band next.”

“What if we spread rumors that they were spirited away?” Lukas asked. “I’m sure there are some local magical creatures we can attribute that to. Right, Brodyson?”

“Huh? Oh.” Chase, surprised at being asked, took a moment to consider this. “I guess you could. There are already said to be banshees and kelpies about, and sometimes people claim the Wild Hunt passes overhead, going west. But, um...I don’t think the King would believe that if he already knows about Wyvernlair being in the forest.”

Jameson looked back and forth between all the others, head on a swivel. Surely you have a plan for this happening? You have to have considered this! His expression held more than a hint of desperation.

“We’ve thought about what to do if a scouting party happened to get close,” Jackie said. “But that plan depends on distracting them and getting them away from here. I doubt it’ll work if they’re actively looking for us.”

“Well, we have to try it, don’t we?” Anna pointed out. “We don’t exactly have anything better up our sleeves.”

“No, hold on,” Henrik protested. “We still have time before they will be getting close. We can come up with something.”

Marvin, mostly silent up to this point, took a deep breath. There was an idea brewing in his mind, but if it worked, it would still have a cost. He hesitated for a moment. Then said, “Actually, I think I could help.”

All eyes turned to him. Jackie’s especially, wide in surprise.

“There’s a...a spell. That can be cast across a large area.” Marvin reached up and began toying with his focus. “Not only will it render everyone in its boundaries invisible, but it’ll divert any outside attention away from the area. Meaning the scouting party will walk right past without realizing we’re here.”

Henrik nodded, slowly at first before getting faster. “That could work. Can you cast it?”

“Normally, over an area this big? No,” Marvin admitted. “But the camp is surrounded by dragon bones, which we all know are very magical.” He held up his amulet. “And my focus is created from a portion of that same bone. Like calls to like in magic. It’ll help enhance the spell.”

A moment passed. “Is there a catch?” Lukas asked, catching on that there was more.

“Well...even with the dragon bone, it’ll drain all my magic to cast over something this size,” Marvin said. “A-and I won’t be able to hold the spell for that long. Maybe half an hour at most. We would need to time it perfectly.” And afterwards, he would be stuck here while he recovered, delaying his departure.

Various mutters spread through the group. Jackie kept staring at Marvin, who tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. Then Chase asked, “Jameson, are you okay?”

Jameson glanced over at him. Why do you ask?

“You suddenly, um...jumped,” Chase said. “Like a rabbit who just realized a wolf was watching and bolted.”

Lovely comparison, Jameson drawled.

Marvin looked at him. “Is everything alright?”

Jameson nodded slowly. Marvin, I...I think you have to do it. You...need to change the course of the future.

Silence fell, heavy on their shoulders. While the other leaders looked a bit confused at the way he phrased that, the four who knew Jameson’s magic felt the weight of that statement. If an oracle tells you to change the future, it would be unwise to not listen. “Alright. I will, then,” Marvin stated, plainly and without embellishment. “I’ll just need to know when.”

Jackie started to say something about the guards around Wyvernlair being on lookout, but Jameson interrupted him. The moon will be close to its zenith when they pass right by the bones.

“Um, sorry if I’m missing something, but what does that mean?” Nemet asked.

“Yea,” Holly added, nodding. “How d’you know that?”

Jameson froze. Marvin immediately turned on the rest of the group and said, “He just does, alright? It doesn’t matter how, we just need to listen. The guards can be out anyway, if you don’t believe him, they’ll back that claim up.”

“Alright, alright.” Holly raised her hands in surrender. “Whatever you say.”

They talked more about preparations and timing. Every Phantom would need to be hidden within the area covered by the dragon skeleton if they wanted to be invisible to the scouting party. And they had to be incredibly silent—the spell would fall apart if the scouts had a reason to give the area real scrutiny.

They had a few hours to get everything ready.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The half moon was nearing the peak of its nightly cycle. For the past while, people had been running around camp, either hiding all signs of life or gathering weapons in case the plan failed. But now all that activity has ceased. A hush fell over Wyvernlair. About half the Phantoms had gathered in the middle of the camp, right in the center of the circle created by the skeleton. The other half were stationed near the edges and holding their weapons at the ready.

Marvin sat on the ground outside the skull, feeling the cold seep through his pants and into his legs. He had one hand placed against the dragon’s jawbone. Henrik, Jackie, the other leaders, Chase, and Jameson were all gathered around him. Which was not helping the nerves jumping around his ribcage. “Can you all leave?!” he snapped.

“Ah. Sorry.” Henrik backed up, waving for the others to do the same. Which they did, all muttering similar apologies as they did so. “We are just nervous about this.”

“You aren’t the ones doing it,” Marvin pointed out.

“Fair, fair.” Henrik nodded and turned to Jackie. “We should go be on lookout.”

“Right.” Jackie nodded as well. “Everyone, out.” He clapped his hands and the group slowly dispersed.

As they all left, Marvin noticed one of them lingering. “You can stay, Jair,” he said quietly.

Jameson let out an audible sigh of relief. He knelt down on the ground next to Marvin.

“Can I ask you something?” Marvin said quietly.

You just did, Jameson said with a small smile. But yes.

“You said...something about changing the future,” Marvin recalled. “You gave us the position of the moon. Jair...did you...have a vision about this?”

Jameson hesitated. Then nodded, slowly. It was a while ago, the day after they rescued you. I woke up, and I saw...well. I don’t think I should tell you.

“Why not?”

It might worry you. And you need all your focus for this. He paused. But...at the time, I didn’t recognize this place. When we approached the camp and I saw the skeleton, I realized what it was, and I...I knew this wouldn’t last forever.

“Don’t be absurd, of course it will,” Marvin said, gritting his teeth. “I’ll make it last.” He looked up towards the sky. “Do you think this is a good time to start?”

Jameson looked up as well. He saw the moon, nodded, and said nothing more.

“Great. Magnificent.” Marvin took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”

He’d only done this once before, years ago. Back when he, Jackie, and Henrik were first starting this whole resistance thing, they had a close call with warriors almost finding their hideout. But back then, it was just a single house. This was much different.

Marvin grabbed his focus, rubbing the dragon bone in the center. Slowly, it started to glow. At first the light was tinted green, but as the magic moved from his amulet, sunk into his chest, and crawled along his torso over to his arm, the color shifted. Now, it was a silvery white—somehow both ethereal and metallic. The light ran down his arm to his hand, and from there it spread to the solid dragon bone. And continued to spread. Like wine spilling from a goblet and staining a tablecloth. 

The magic covered the bone, following its curves perfectly. Marvin felt his focus get warm. And then hot, as the silver magic coated the entire dragon skull and headed down to cover the rest of the bones as well. Then Marvin realized it wasn’t just the focus that was hot. There was a ball of heat in the center of his chest, feeling like it was coming from inside him. He tried to ignore it and concentrate on the spell.

The magic continued its course. Now the dragon’s ribs were silver. Now the wings, spread out to the side, were glowing that same shade. Now it traveled down the spine, to the legs, then to the very, very tip of the tail. Marvin could faintly hear gasping from nearby Phantoms. Faintly. Because for some reason, it felt like his ears were stuffed full of cotton. Or perhaps it was his entire head.

The heat had spread from his chest to his entire body. If someone reached out, they would feel warmth emanating from his skin. They would notice how he was panting as if struggling for air. They would see the somewhat glazed look in his eyes.

And someone did. Jameson, still right next to Marvin, pressed his hand to Marvin’s forehead. Marvin pulled away, but not before Jameon noticed. You’re burning, he said, surprised. Is that...normal for magic-wielders? 

“Big spell,” Marvin muttered. “An’ for a while.” It had been about ten minutes since he started casting. His palm, pressed against the dragon bone, was starting to itch. “So...yea.”

Jameson stared at him, forehead creased in worry. Are you going to be alright?

“O’ course,” Marvin said. “Jus’...jus’ tell me when th’ scouts’re...gone.” He blinked dully. Concentrate. Concentrate. If he lost it for even a moment, the spell would fail.

Concentrate.

The ground was cold.

Concentrate.

His hand was starting to sweat where he held his amulet.

Concentrate.

Where was Draco?

Concentrate. Concentrate. Spell. Spell. Spell.

Jameson put a hand on his shoulder. Marvin jumped a bit, and almost turned to look at him before realizing he’d almost forgotten. Luckily, his mind returned to the matter at hand before the spell could even flicker. But there was still a moment where the bones’ silver covering shimmered like ripples in a pond. “Don’ touch me,” he mumbled.

Instantly, Jameson drew away. Sorry, he said. It’s been fifteen minutes since you started. I think it’s fine.

Unfortunately, Marvin didn’t have the space in his mind to translate speaking in hands, so he just stared blankly at Jameson’s gesturing. Spell. Spell. Concentrate.

It felt like ages passed, time moving at the speed of snails. Jameson had unconsciously moved closer to Marvin, but he didn’t reach out again. He almost did, but stopped just before. Pulling back, he looked up to the moon. Marvin, he said, using a special gesture just for Marvin’s name. It’s past time now. You can stop. Nothing happened.

Concentrate. Concentrate. Spell. Spell.

Footsteps. Marvin didn’t look away, his eyes fixed on the point where his hand was placed against the bone. The silvery light was in his eyes when he blinked. “We just saw them go past,” a voice said. It took a moment for him to recognize Jackie’s voice. “I don’t know what you did, but thank the elders it worked.” He laughed.

Hear that, Marvin? You can stop now, Jameson said. When Marvin didn’t respond, he hesitated, then slowly raised his arm and grabbed Marvin’s wrist. Once again, there was no response. So Jameson pulled, moving Marvin’s hand away from the dragon bone. His fingertips lingered against its surface for a moment more before finally leaving ivory surface. The moment contact was broken, the silvery magic rippled, and then disappeared.

Marvin gasped. He let go of his amulet, and all the magic coursing through his body disappeared. He should have felt cold in the absence of its heat, but instead, the heat lingered. Without any warning, he fell to the side. Jameson hurried to catch him.

“Wait, what?!” Jackie gasped. “What happened.”

Jameson shook his head, at a loss for words.

Marvin blinked, and looked up at the two of them. “‘m goin’ t’sleep now,” he mumbled, words running into each other. “Tired.”

“Marvin, are you okay?!” Jackie asked, kneeling on the ground next to him. “You’re—Elders and Sisters, you’re hot!”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it.” Marvin started to close his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it?! Marvin!” Jackie reached out and shook him until he opened his eyes again. “What happened?!”

“Mmmhm. Lots magic...tired.” Marvin gave a small smile. “I’ll be fine when I...wake up. Might be...a day ‘r two.”

Jameson shook his head, stunned. You knew this would happen? Why did you do it, then? he asked, awkwardly gesturing while still holding Marvin. We could have found another way.

“Coul’n’t...jus’ let it happen,” Marvin said. “No other way f’r sure. Had t’do somet’in’. For ev��ryone here.” He looked at Jameson. “An’ I promised.”

With that, his voice faded away. He closed his eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.

[empire-of-wildfire]

12 Days of Christmas - Day Four

Based on the prompt: “I moved in next door a few months ago and had no idea how enthusiastic you are about Christmas, but I mentioned I hadn’t decorated, so now you’re knocking on my door with a box full of decorations and are begging me to let you decorate”

a/n: so apparently I forgot to queue this one up and just realized it when I got off work lol oops here you go also this is my first time writing elriel so I hope you like it!

The True Meaning of Christmas

Azriel was ready to come home and just relax. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were always crazy at his job, filled with people trying to catch up from taking time off for Thanksgiving and people trying to get ahead in order to take time off for Christmas to spend time with their families. Azriel had no real need to take time off for either holiday so he kept going as usual, but the constant flurry of activity in and out of his office was exhausting.

It was Friday night, and he was beyond ready for the weekend. He’d already ordered a bunch of Chinese food as he left the office - at least enough for 3 or 4 people even though it was just him in his apartment - and he had plenty of beer in the fridge. It was looking like he was all set for a perfect weekend of doing absolutely nothing.

He’d just gotten settled in on his couch with a beer in his hand when a knock sounded at his door. He stood, puzzled. It was too soon for it to be the Chinese delivery person, and his brothers were busy this weekend, so he had no idea who was at his door.

He opened it hesitantly to find his neighbor Elain standing in front of him with a huge box in her arms.

Elain lived in the apartment immediately next to him, and she was the only one of his neighbors he’d met in the three months since he moved into the building. She’d come by and introduced himself a few days after he’d moved in and had offered to show him the best coffee place in the city, and overall he really liked her. He didn’t know a lot about her, but he knew she was kind, and sweet, and generous. She was like sunshine personified and he basked in her warmth every chance he got.

“Hey Elain, what’s up with the box?”

Elain shifted the box slightly so she could see him better, and when she did he saw the slightly embarrassed smile she had on her face. “Okay I know you said you don’t decorate for Christmas but I love Christmas and I can’t stand the idea of you being here by yourself and having no Christmas decorations.” She set the box down as she spoke, obviously unsure of what his response would be. “Pleaseeeee let me decorate? It won’t be over the top or tacky I swear. I’ll make sure nothing is in the way too, I just want you to have at least some holiday decorations in your apartment. Nobody should have an undecorated apartment at Christmas.”

Azriel was torn. On the one hand, he didn’t really care that much about Christmas. It wasn’t something he particularly hated, but he didn’t really enjoy it either. On the other hand, it was almost impossible to deny Elain anything when she looked at him like that. She was just too adorable with her big brown eyes and pleading, innocent face.

Azriel huffed a laugh, opening the door wider and grabbing the box from the floor. “Alright, fine. You win.”

Yay! Thank you Azriel!” She bounced past him and kissed his cheek as she went.

Azriel stood frozen for a moment, watching the bubbly woman flit around his apartment and wondered if he was going to regret this.

He then spent the next 3 hours watching his apartment slowly transform into one where it was possible the person living in it liked Christmas. As promised, none of it was tacky, but between a small tree on an end table, a wreath on his door, mistletoe in the doorway to his kitchen, and a few other minor additions, he was surprised to say that he actually didn’t mind the decorations, and almost was starting to like it. But that could also be because of the woman who’d put them there.

Elain was a force of nature when she planned. Most of the time Azriel just watched her work, too scared of messing her up to try and assist. They talked easily as she worked, sharing little pieces of themselves, and laughed over the Chinese food they shared when it arrived about half an hour after Elain did.

Long after Elain left, Azriel sat on his couch looking at his newly decorated apartment, thinking about her. The more he thought about her, the more he realized that he could learn to love Christmas after all.

-

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[dontgotothenetherworld]

ap psychology

anonymous asked:  Can I request readers putting all her studying off till the week before AP exams and she starts studying an unhealthy amount, like sometimes forgetting to eat all day because of it and even made herself sick from stress over it but reader refuses to complain because she did it to herself and Lydia's just there helping her review and making sure she takes time to care for herself ect? Bonus if Reader thinks she did bad and Lydia assuring her she did fine and has an 'i told you don't moment? 

anonymous asked: Totally didn't request that bc that's my situation-

for some reason when i tried to queue this w/ the original ask, tumblr wanted to put the cut in the ask and i couldn’t delete it

this is out of date now, but i was uninspired to write for a hella long time sorry. also! i’m going to draw from my experiences w/ ap this year, and the only ap exam i had to take was psych, so that’s also going to be the case for reader :)

also, i feel like my lydia is a bit out of character? idk it’ll probably take a while to get back to the way i used to write her.

1303 words

cw: femreader. food

you cursed under your breath. months ago, months! you told yourself you would start studying for your ap exam. you only had the one exam to study for, so you told yourself that if you just did a little bit everyday, you would be fine.

but here you were, about three days until your ap psychology exam, and you hadn’t studied any of it. you had hardly even watched the videos your teacher had posted as the digital learning content. but to be fair, the stuff he was talking about in them were the last unit or two of psych, and you wouldn’t have to worry about them, because you weren’t going to be tested on them.

you groaned and dragged your feet downstairs, to where you hid your backpack. the friday weeks ago, when your school told everyone that classes would go digital for a few weeks because of the coronavirus, your teacher had come prepared. he gave everyone that showed up to class, which, granted, wasn’t that many but still- a huge packet covering everything that you had studied this year. it was some forty pages long.

okay, it was, like, thirty five because you crossed out the pages about personality and disorders. which was a shame, because those are the units that everyone takes psychology to learn about. no one goes, “oh boy, i can’t wait to learn about how to test if a baby has depth perception!” or “i can’t wait to learn about all the different types of visual illusions!” but whatever.

you flipped to page thirty five, to see how many questions you were in for. just over 250, except that’s counting all the charts as individual questions. yeah, that makes sense. one and a half pages of listing what researchers discovered what is equivalent to answering which cortex of the brain processes visual stimuli.

wait a minute. lydia was also taking psych. studying sucks, but if you could do it with your girlfriend, that’d be so much less painful.

you texted her, “hey lyds, have u finished the psych packet yet?”

”yea i finished it yesterday, why?” she texted back almost immediately.

shit. looks like you’ll have to suffer through this alone. “nvm”

you looked at the time, 1:46. damn, already? it felt like you had only just woken up. you made yourself a coffee, and set up shop on the desk you have never used in your bedroom, with laptop open beside you. you planned on googling everything, rather than going through your notes, mostly because you forgot where you put them, but this would still take ages.

an hour passed, and you felt like you were dying on the inside. if you had to answer one more question about behavioral psych, you were going to scream. behavioral psych is by far the worst part of psychology! watson and skinner be damned! people are people not some computer code! people have feelings! you can’t just ignore them! and the feeling you were feeling right now was not a good one!

you wanted to stop, but you weren’t sure if you stopped now if you’d be able to finish the packet. so you kept on going.

you went another five hours, taking five minute tik tok breaks every hour to keep you sane. you looked at the clock, and realized you hadn’t eaten anything today. you grabbed a box of cheez-its and made your way back upstairs, and went back to work. this time, you ate a cheez-it every time you finished a question, or you filled out a row in a chart.

you didn’t know when you fell asleep, but you woke up in the morning with about half the packet filled out. considering the exam was in one day, and four-ish hours, you thought that was good.

as you made your morning coffee, you checked the messages lydia had sent you. “are you doing okay? normally we talk a lot but…” ���wait, are you working on the study guide?” “y/n! please take breaks! remember! you need food!” “and water!”

you sent back, “if i eat my cheez-its, and i drink my coffee while i study, then i don’t have to take breaks.”

you went back to your desk, and plugged your phone in across the room so you wouldn’t be distracted. but also because you forgot to charge it before you passed out, so it was at three percent, because apparently you had kept it open to tik tok all night, and the video just kept looping. oops.

for a while, the studying seemed easier. you felt like you had less to do, and you didn’t need to worry about getting it done in time, because you had more than enough of it. but because you didn’t need to rush, you became more productive.

you finished the second half of the packet by six that evening. you do admit, you got a bit lazy in the last few pages, but it was done!

shit. studying isn’t just writing stuff down, you have to read it over, right? you don’t really study that much.

but you decided to take an hour or two’s break for… breakfast? dinner? maybe even lunch? whatever, leftover pizza, because you had just only now just realized the intense rumbling in your stomach.

you checked your phone for the first time in hours. you were actually kind of proud of yourself. you usually were on your phone every waking hour, which was probably a problem, but you had shown enormous restraint… by spending every waking hour staring at your laptop. it’s all about choosing your battles.

you quickly dismissed some twitter notifications before tapping on a new message from lydia. “babe, i’m getting really worried about you, please call me when you see this.” you furrowed your brows. worried? about you? why?

you called lydia, and she picked up nearly immediately.

”y/n!” she gasped with relief, “don’t do that to me again!”

you felt stupid for wondering what she was talking about, but you kind of needed to know, “what do you mean?”

”you’ve been offline for hours, and i couldn’t get to you! and then when i heard what you were eating, that got me worried. have you eaten today?”

”three slices of pizza right now.” you swallowed a bite.

”is that your first meal today?”

”unless you count coffee, yeah. i’ll do better tomorrow, i promise. speaking of tomorrow, we’ve got the psych exam, and i need to keep studying. i’ll call after the exam, so like three?”

”y/n.”

”yeah?”

”you do realize this exam is online, right? and at home?”

”uh, yeah.” you swallowed.

”and you have both a laptop and a phone?”

”lydia, what are you saying?” cheating. she was definitely talking about cheating.

”i’m saying, that you don’t really need to know the definitions, because our dear old pal google can be there to help you out with those. and you’re smart, so i assume you know the concepts.”

”you think very highly, of me, my dear.” you took another bite of pizza. “so, what you’re saying is, i wasted two days studying?”

”yes, that is exactly what i’m saying.”

”shit. wait, why were you studying?”

”ugh, because i am nowhere near as good as you at being able to understand things.”

”you know, definitions explain the concept too.”

”what are you saying?” asked lydia.

”i think we’ve both wasted a lot of time studying when we didn’t need to.”

”fuck.” lydia breathed.

”yeah, we’re both idiots. do you wanna watch something on netflix? you haven’t finished parks and rec yet, right?”

”no, i just finished an episode before you called me.”

”which one?”

”season four, episode seven.”

”wait, is the next episode smallest park? we need to watch that, like, now.”

@meangirlsx @meangirlmurphy @eliza-is-confused @boredomimi @book--butterfly

[prorevenge]

Revenge is best served cold

This is my first post here ever, so please go easy on me. Now on to the revenge:

I am enrolled in an university for an international study about city planning. This means we get students from all over the continent to come to our university to come and study with us. Generally these people are the nicest people I have met in my life except for two (lets call them Mark and Jeff, not their real names but the first that came up in my mind). Mark and Jeff are the stereotype of rich kids that always got everything they asked for without question and think that everyone else should do their work for them. They aren't nice to be around, often being very late (sessions and classes usually start at 9, they come in around 12) whilst living 10 minutes away, show up drunk/high from time to time and are extremely arrogant. Mark and Jeff also have a history of plagiarism, not the accidental type but the kind of plagiarism you try to hide by making everything the same font, removing links, etc. (this plays a role in the revenge).

For the last trimester we had a large SPSS assignment for quantitative statistics that we had to do in groups. For anyone who took statistics classes has an idea of how much work that is. Against my better judgement I decided to ask Mark to work together since he could occasionally deliver decent work. He agreed, we exchanged contact info and divided the work amongst us and we set off to start working. About 2 weeks before we had to had in the report for the assignment I had my part of the work done and grabbed my phone to let Mark know about it in our group. Apparently, Mark forgot what communication was and added Jeff to the group, which I was pissed about since I knew the lecturer would apply stricter grading for bigger groups and Jeff being Jeff. I decided to keep quiet and went on with what I wanted to do: I made a shared folder, gave them access, uploaded my work and let them know what needed to be done and when it needed to be done. Somewhat tense I called it a day and forgot about it.

Skip forward to the weekend before the hand in date, I was going to a family reunion with my family from Australia, they come over once a year so I would be insane to ignore that. I let my group know what was going on and that I wouldn't be looking on my phone so any messages they send I wouldn't see until the late evening. After a day of a lot of fun and getting to talk a lot to my cousins from down under I went home around 21:00 when I looked at my phone to see what was going on, apparently Mark and Jeff tried calling me and messaged me a couple times asking if I could help them. Slightly ticked off I asked what they needed help with:

Everything.

In 2 weeks of time they didn't do anything and the night before the hand in they decided to take a look for 5 minutes, shrugged and wanted me to "help" (aka do it myself). I was furious at that point and made very clear that this wasn't supposed to have happened. They said they will try again later and hand in the report at the resit which I agreed on after considering only 1/3 of the report was done, not enough to hand in and get valuable feedback on.

This time I made sure to check up on them regularly and often I would go up to them and ask how things were going, I was repeatedly told everything was fine and that I shouldn't worry. Surprise surprise, nothing happened until the final week before the resit when they came up to me and wanted me to help them. I decided to send them off to a few classmates who knew more about that part of the assignment and didn't really think of it until the day of the resit.

After a lot of work trying to fit their part into the report and a lot of spelling and grammar errors were fixed I finally got to print out the report, put it in my bag and went on to study with a small group. Jeff and Mike went home in the hours we had between class and the resit whilst I explicitly asked them to stay so we could add the final touches, getting high was more important for them. Whilst we are studying we talk a bit about our report when a classmate mentioned someone took pictures of their work without their consent, just a bit after I previously send Jeff and Mike to class to ask for help. We compare the reports and it was bold as brass that they copied parts of their report, which made me explode in pure anger. Anger however was quickly followed up with a plan that gave me the biggest grin on my face since a long time. Queue the revenge:

First off, we documented everything that they plagiarised from the other group and compiled it. Second, I got screengrabs of all our communication and added those to the document. I proceeded to act like nothing was happening and the day went on as planned, did my resit and handed in the report. The next day I arrive early at the university and head straight for the lecturer from who we made the report, explained to her what was going on, showed her everything, showed how Mark and Jeff behaved in the group. We came to an agreement that the marks would reflect the work put in and the attitude of the groupmembers.

Now this might seem like a minor thing, but the events that it set in motion were not. I knew that Jeff and Mark already were missing out on 6 study points from last trimesters project and the statistics class counted for 3, making 9 points they would miss for those 2 subjects. This is already enough for someone to fail the entire year and having to redo the year or drop out of the study entirely. To add on top of that, Mark and Jeff received an insufficient for process and effort last trimester and were warned that if something like this happened again they would be in deep shit. I might have also gone through all of the old reports and marked the plagiarism so send those to the lecturers. We also had an AutoCAD assignment for which I knew that they had outsourced their work to get a higher grade, would be a shame if the lecturer found out about it.... oops.

Knowing them, they will find out once we are at the end of this year when they can't do anything about it with them most likely being expelled for this and a lot of similar offenses. Plus they will also have a note attached to them for the rest of their lives about their plagiarism (and tell me about any government of private company who would hire someone like them).

You tried screwing me over to get high, party and do nothing. I screwed you for life

(source) story by (/u/ARandomLugia)

[heoneyology]

ATEEZ “The Expedition Tour” Hi-Touch in LA

okay so by now I’m sure everyone has heard of the mess that was the concert itself, so I won’t go into too much detail on that. mmt really screwed over a lot of fans though between introducing a vvip package a week before the concert, not offering vip perks to those with vip tickets but to those with the limited vvip package that had no announcement, among the mess that was the queue numbers, and them and the globe not knowing how to direct people or putting in minimal effort to help people. I don’t even want to go into details on the fact that they overbooked the venue so bad that the pit was full to the point where, when hongjoong and staff asked us to back up, people were hitting the back wall and being forced into the lobby area to stand? I also heard those that fainted or left from overheating were denied re-entrance “for their safety.” so there goes $135 down the drain for some... I felt super guilty towards the boys, you could tell they had no clue what to do and were so concerned. not only that but the globe was a terrible venue? the stage was at eye level, so you literally couldn’t see a thing. it didn’t help that there wasn’t a policy against no recording, so with the limited view you really could see absolutely nothing when everyone’s phones went up. I’m not sure if it was a booking availability thing but if kq wanted to go with a small venue, they should’ve chosen the novo (same occupancy size but the stage placement is much better) like they had zico perform at. it was the first stop of the tour so I’m not surprised it was a mess? I expected the pushing, etc, especially as a veteran kpop fan and knowing a lot of the people there were at least 5 years younger than me and for many it was their first concert. slightly disappointed, of course, but it’s not ateez’s fault. it’s solely on mmt and the globe. I urge atiny going to the other stops though, don’t push and be kind to each other. work together, because mmt is just in it for the money. but anyway! they’ll be back! hopefully at a better venue and with a better tour management team so I can try again in the future. below the cut is my hi-touch experience, which made up for a bunch of this mess c:

okay so sonia (@atiteez) and I have a bit of a discrepancy on the middle of the line, as it was an entire blur. I thought it went by age order??? but maybe I’m wrong adklfjsd sonia said woosan was next to each other but I literally thought I saw wooyoung and then jongho but akdjf;lkjsdf I don’t know anymore... I do not know... I’ll just do this by age order. we descended the stairs and immediately sonia went, “oh, he’s first,” and stepped behind me and so, guess who lost their nerve for the rest of the line? because hongjoong was right there? that’s right, this girl! me! lmfao ugh him being first set me up for disaster for the rest of the line. I want to preface this by saying that they are all so humble and kind? each one of them said thank you before I could even speak. each member I stepped up to said thank you to me as I did so. all of their hands/skin were very soft, too, not even kidding. HONGJOONG: in the short amount of space between the stairs and the table line up that had to be crossed I turned back to sonia and was like “why am I going first?” because I told her, if he was first, she had to go first!! (cough traitor) anyway I didn’t have much time to freak out because the line had to keep moving and by that time, hongjoong had finished with the fan in front of me and had looked over at me and I was like well this is it, this is how I go- but honestly hongjoong screams Soft Boy Vibes!! he emanates gentleness, and kindness, and softness. he said thank you immediately as I stepped forward to high five his hand, and I really quickly told him, “no thank you so much,” then I just kind of blanked out and stared at him for a brief moment and left my hand there so he wrapped his fingers around mine and bye if I was trying to say anything at that point, it really was gone. but I managed to get my brain to function enough to lightly squeeze his hand back. his voice sounds exactly the same in person! he really is a kind soul though. his entire demeanor was just soft and kind, his gaze was kind and he had the sweetest smile on his face. he’s tanner in person than in pictures, his mullet looked great, his jawline and nose are really pronounced, and he has the prettiest eyes. and he made eye contact so. brain malfunction from rainah! his hands are about the same size as mine so, not actually a smol boy but we’ll just keep calling him that lol. his fingers are slender though and he had a very gentle touch. SEONGHWA: so seonghwa this precious bub was linking fingers with atiny that went by but you typically aren’t supposed to do that at hi-touches typically? and so I got really nervous and only partially linked fingers with him and he did the same and kind of gave my hand a soft little shake back and forth and said thank you. his voice was pretty deep!! with him too I forgot what I was going to say, mostly because he tripped me up by linking fingers like that? I kind of stared at our hands then stared at him in surprise because I really didn’t want anyone to get in trouble? but he had the sweetest most understanding expression on his face? so I think he kind of knew that I was nervous or that atiny would be nervous. his entire demeanor screams kindness, though!!! even when I stared at him in surprise he had that gentle look on his face. and he had a really gorgeous smile. he’s also much tanner in person than some of the pictures show him to be, and holy cow pictures don’t actually do him justice. he’s really handsome up close. his hands are much larger than I was expecting? they’re masculine, kind of broad but his fingers are long. his touch was really light and gentle. YUNHO: this is the only member... I said the thing I wanted to say to... and I probably shouldn’t have with him because he’s one of the least fluent in english and I think I completely surprised him?? LOL oops I’m so sorry yunho akdlfj;sd. he said hi and thank you and his voice sounds exactly the same in person, too. yunho is like a tall gentle giant I definitely looked up at him. his hands were large but his fingers were long and slender. we kind of did a weird half high-five half lightly held hands thing as I went by. he’s one of the members that it looks like someone cut him out of the pictures and placed in right in front of me... just... the epitome of perfection. he has very strong Soft Boy vibes and very strong Boyfriend vibes. I was really nervous when I made eye contact with him because his eyes were so round and large and pretty and just akdljf;ds it melted my heart he looks like a giant soft puppy! and so I randomly blurted out, “I really like your dancing!” at the last second when he smiled and when I was almost completely passed and he looked back at me and his eyes widened and he went, “oh? thank you!” and smiled but he looked so confused lmao. YEOSANG: tbh yeosang’s interaction was a blur to me because I was still thinking of how I possible made yunho malfunction with Too Much English akd;fjlksdjf but he was a whole entire cutie? he is GORGEOUS in person and his eyes are so pretty!! and he had the brightest smile on his face that just lit up his entire expression. he really looked so happy to be interacting with atiny. as I stepped up he said thank you and bowed slightly. I don’t know what was happening to my brain at this point but I kind of was Gone because I lightly high fived him and quickly moved on and he was one of the members I really wanted to talk to because that boy is so precious and has so many worries!! cries... his hands were larger than I was expecting? but they weren’t that big because they were kind of slender. his high five was very dainty and cute just like him! SAN: okay this is where the line starts to become a blur and sonia said woosan was next to each other but, I interacted with san so quickly that?? I couldn’t honestly tell you what portion of the line he was in anyway. I’m going to be honest I don’t remember much of san. he seemed so tired after the events of the night and just kind of seemed out of it. we thanked each other as I stepped up but all we did was lightly high five. he bowed very slightly and he did smile enough that his cheeks dimpled, which were super cute!!! but the smile didn’t really quite seem to reach his eyes so I just :((( moved on... poor baby boy was just... akdjlf;jsfd I wanted to hug him he looked so out of it. MINGI: HE SCREAMS BIG GIANT BABY!!! OH MY GOD??? mingi in real life is literally mingi in the vlives we watch lmao. he has so much energy and he’s just very LOUD even when he isn’t doing anything? he had the biggest smile on his face and it just took over his entire demeanor and his entire face, his eyes were squinting he was smiling so huge!! his hand was.... huge... like yunho is the taller of the two tall boys but mingi’s hands were broader and larger. he’s the softest boy and I am by no means intimidated by him but I was intimidated by the sheer size of his hand? and he was linking fingers with atiny too as they went by, but I didn’t realize it until later because oh my god I was so surprised by the size of his hand!!! he had his palm out and ready to go, though, fingers spread wide (to be linked with which I didn’t know LOL) and me, intimidated by the size of his hand, just quickly high fived him and said thank you and skittered along!!! he sounded really happy when he said hello and thank you to me and was so excited and his voice is as deep in person as it is in the videos. I remember thinking his nose was really handsome up close but features wise I don’t remember much besides the fact that he has the ability to smile with his entire body. WOOYOUNG: I thought wooyoung was after mingi but?? like I said it was all a blur, either way my hand was hovering in the air already when I got to wooyoung and this boy just... absolutely and literally leaned forward to high five my hand and then take hold of it as I passed by??????? if I was going to say anything to him at all it completely left my brain at that point part of me was in shock he just, did that, and the other part of me was scared of getting in trouble?? I was just like “oh that’s a thing that happened?” he did bow as he took my hand and as he did so he kind of looked up at me when he said his thank you and wow his eyes... are so gorgeous? they’re kind of sparkly?? I’m not wooyoung biased but I swooned! either way I did mange to hold his hand back and he gently shook it back and forth a bit. he said thank you as he had high fived my hand originally and his voice is very light and airy. up close he’s very handsome!!! like, insanely so!! his pictures don’t do him justice because all his features are much more defined in person but also it’s like someone cut him out of a picture and put him in front of me he’s absolutely perfect. his nose? is beautiful? he had a lot of excitement pent up in him and you could tell he was really enjoying everything, you could just see how excited he was from his demeanor. he’s actually around the same height as hongjoong, so shorter than I was expecting, maybe an inch or two difference but I didn’t notice small details like that. his hands though were very masculine and broad, his fingers thicker than seonghwa’s but not as long? his touch was very gentle though, despite like... grabbing my hand... JONGHO: he is a soft precious baby boy whom we must protect at all costs!!! he said thank you as I stepped up and he makes the most intense eye contact with you? I thought the way he looked at atinys at fansigns would be just a fansign thing but he makes sure you know you feel loved like that boy just akdjf;sldjfsd. he’s so handsome in person? tan and broad shouldered and?? the most sparkly and prettiest eyes???? he’s literally. so handsome. pictures don’t do him justice in any way shape or form. I was hoping by the time I got to jongho I could at least tell him something but that boy has some insane Visuals and my brain noped the fuck out. he was really respectful, too!! as he was giving high fives he had his free hand held across his abdomen (which is an etiquette thing in korea) and he gave a small little bow. he said hello and thank you and when he high fived my hand he also took hold of it briefly and kind of gave it a little tiny shake. his voice is... I don’t know how to describe his voice in person but it’s as attractive as he is.

[asterinjapan]

The day before the last

Forgot to update again despite staying up way too late, ahem. I didn't want to go to sleep yet, and then they did an interesting item on tv, and then there was a rerun of one of my favourite shows, and uh, then it got to 2 am, oops.

Let me still tell you about yesterday! I don't have a lot of pictures, but I'll upload some from my phone later.

From there, we walked to nearby Ueno park like I had earlier this week. Our destination today was also a museum: the National Museum of Western Art, which is right near the entrance of the park, haha. They have a special exhibition going on right now about the Hapsburgs, one of the most influential royal houses in Europe.

As it turns out, they go way further back than I thought, down to the early 16th century, and the collection contained both portraits of the royals and art from their personal collection, the earlier halls also containing artefacts such as armour, so that made for a very varied exhibition. It also turns out I know embarrassingly little about European history until the 19th century or so, since I could barely answer my friend's questions about context, oops... it got a little better in the later halls where I also started to recognize people, like Marie Antoinette and the only ones I knew were Hapsburg beforehand: Franz Joseph I and Elizabeth (yeah mum, I saw one of the Elizabeth paintings in real life, haha). These are paintings I only knew from pictures, so that was cool to see, and the Marie Antoinette portrait was HUGE, wow.

Once we made it out, it was time for lunch, so we queued up for the museum restaurant. We both got a lunch set with salad, pasta and a mini dessert. I was not expecting this much pasta for the price, so I couldn't finish it all, but my friend taught me the word for someone who can't eat much, so at least I can apologize with the proper vocabulary now, oops. (It's shoushoku, by the way - literally 'small eater'.)

We talked so much that it was soon time for my friend to leave, so I accompanied him to Shinjuku station, where he accompanied me to the start of the walk to the metropolitan government building, because I always get lost at Shinjuku station, pff. Then it was time for us to part ways for this trip. Thank you so much, I had a great time together!

My goal for the afternoon was to get to the top of the building for the free observatory, but I'd uh, forgotten it was a Saturday afternoon, so about a few thousand people had the same idea. Probably not THAT many, but the queue was still so long that I just gave up for today. I was starting to grow sad over my trip ending, so i didn't want to spend my afternoon feeling sad in a busy queue.

I went back to Ikebukuro instead, where I dumped my backpack in the hotel and went into the city to check out sunshine city and surrounding shops and game halls. I had a good time even if I still don't have souvenirs for everyone, and in the end had to leave cause I was getting tired, not because I wanted to go, haha.

I stayed up a bit late as I mentioned, and I'm currently rather anxious as I can't check in for my flight. I tried contacting the airline, but well, it's barely Sunday morning in Holland... fingers crossed they'll get back to me soon. It's fine if I have to check in at the airport, but I wonder now if my extra luggage got through, since I arranged that through the app. Fingers crossed again!

I'm obviously not going to sit around and wait, so I think I'll head out soon for maybe some karaoke and last minute souvenirs. It's really a shame about the JR pass, but I don't think heading far out of Tokyo is a very good idea right now, fresh after the huge amounts of rain with more to come.

Off I go then, for the last time this trip. Pictures and today's report to follow!

[thewanderingcotabus]

I just realised I forgot to set up the queue this week (oops!)

And maybe this might send the bots packing...

[ashenworth]

oops i fell asleep so early last night i forgot to set up a queue lmao ill do that later tonight

for now, while i take a break from working and such, im gonna dump some simon story stuff here bc i feel like it :) this will just be rambling and not like actual good writing or anything lmao im just copying from my discord so (aa5 spoilers ahead!)

okay so ~Simon~ right

when Ashen meets him for the first time, bc of Ashen’s Very Cool Attorney Gimmick, they’re able to figure out very quickly that through his rough and intimidating exterior, he’s actually very caring and that he’s hiding something big from the world. in turn, they become fairly interested in him and his story (although its not like they would be able to approach him and talk to him or anything bc you know. he’s in prison for murder so they kinda just watch from the sidelines)

and theeeeeeeeen finally, the UR-1 case is solved and the Phantom is caught. Simon has been released after 7 years in prison. he’s finally free

he and Athena are absolutely roommates and nothing will change that in my mind. like, Athena was already living in a place big enough for the two of them from the beginning bc that was her plan

Simon takes a week or so to just live. he narrowly missed his execution date and he’s relishing in being able to sleep in a normal bed and just be alive, even if that means spending a whole day on the couch watching shitty movies or whatever

in the meantime, Athena is scouring the internet and local travel brochures, building up an itinerary for the two of them to explore the city and for Simon to learn about all the things he’s missed during his time in prison

one day, at the WAA, Athena is working on exactly that, her desk becoming a complete mess of notebooks and magazines, when Ashen comes over to talk to her and asks her what she’s doing

when Athena explains her plans, Ashen’s eyes light up, and they ask Athena if she had maybe thought about this store that isnt too far from the office, or that coffee shop that seems to be the only one who knows how to properly make espresso. they ramble for a while about their favourite places to go in the city and Athena jumps to her feet. she decides that Ashen should come with them, because they seem to know the area much better than Athena does (considering she was in Europe for some time). Ashen declines at first, not wanting to intrude on their time together (after all its been seven fucking YEARS)

Athena insists, stating it will be good for Simon to talk to someone outside of work who isnt a felon or Athena herself. Ashen gives in, although reluctant bc there’s no guarantee that Simon will even want to talk to them in a friendly way

the day comes and BOY does it start out awkward. Simon doesnt really talk much, and when he does, it’s addressed to Athena or its a one off comment during whatever conversation is taking place. slowly but surely, though, he starts to come out of his shell and enjoy himself, even going so far as to tell Ashen embarrassing stories about Athena from when they were younger, much to her dismay.

the sun is starting to set and they’ve visited the last place that was on Athena’s list. they’ve gone to all sorts of different places. restaurants, bookstores, arcades, etc. you name it and they spent at least five minutes there. Ashen has one more place in mind, and it’s not too far from their current position

they arrive, and Ashen swears they saw a twinkle in Simon’s eyes. or at least, as much as one could with his bangs in the way. they take that as a victory and start walking ahead and into the grass.

they explain to the two dumbfounded siblings that although this may be just a park, it also happens to be the best place for bird watching in the entire city. just one glance can confirm that, as even without a set of binoculars, you can see birds everywhere of all different shapes and sizes. nestled in the tree branches and hopping around in the grass.

Ashen approaches Simon and explains that they weren’t quite sure if he liked a specific type of bird or not, but since this happens to be a place they frequent often, it might be a good idea to show it to him. Simon stutters for a moment, before managing to get out that no, he likes all birds, and he thanks them for bringing him here, saying that he thinks the place is beautiful, and theres no doubt he will be back in the future

the three of them place themselves on a bench and just watch the various birds go about their lives. every once in a while, Simon will point one out and tell Athena and Ashen about it in detail. Athena can hear the pure excitement in his voice that ends up masked by his somewhat gruff demeanour and makes a mental note to thank Ashen in private later.

Ashen listens intently to every word he says. they ask him various questions about each bird and absorb as much information as they can from his vast knowledge of the animal. although, they end up getting a little distracted by how cute he sounds as he speaks

when the sun goes down, they call it a day. Ashen goes back to their apartment with a full heart and, if they’re being honest, some feelings to work through

little do they know, Simon does as well.

[routinely-unamoosed-blog]

13x04 ~ The Notorious Few

Someone teach me how to set up a queue I’m so sorry.

HERE IT IS GOOD GOD! This was supposed to post a fuckin month ago but I can’t set up queues for the life of me. I’m always apologizing jfc. Here’s chapter four for all to see, I guess.

Characters: Maddie Rayner, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester,

Word Count: 25,481 oops

Warning(s): mentions of torture; violence; possibly some typos idk; dean being the antagonist, I guess =/

One | Two | Three

A groan left her lips as her eyes opened to their own accord. She expected to see the single pillar of light that cascaded onto her for five weeks, but sunlight warmed and greeted her face. It was alarming to feel embracing swath of heat on her face when just seconds ago she was being carved into like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Was it seconds? She couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t remember what happened after Dean had knocked her out. Had she come to during a small window of time and forgotten about it, or had she really been unconscious for what felt like eons? Her mind was so wrapped up in the fact that she was confused as to where she was that she didn’t notice her surroundings.

Her arms were free, too. She was covered in bedsheets; she could tell by how they slipped down a bit when she cradled her burned wrists. Boys did their research, she thought with a throb of pain in her shoulder. She glanced down to look at the damage done by Dean.

White bandages prevented her from seeing how bad her shoulder really was. She rotated her arm and immediately felt the waves of pain in the muscle and bones, with something grinding against itself internally as well. She winced, exhaling sharply through gritted teeth, to keep away from the cloud of dizziness that hovered above her with rumbling thunder.

She sat up and almost screamed when she saw Sam sitting on the plush sofa next to the bed. His red and black flannel was discarded on the bed next to her, leaving him in a tight V-neck shirt, jeans and work boots. She crossed her legs when her core was clearly impressed at the sight of Sam so naked.

Maddie glanced down at herself on instinct, thankful the youngest brother hadn’t been invasive and taken her clothes off while she was unconscious.

“I did what I could without taking your clothes off. Didn’t wanna . . . y’know,” Sam said with a sigh and a nervous smirk, standing from the living room and tossing his phone on the bags piled next to him. She inhaled to ask how she got here, but he answered before the question even reached her throat. “You passed out. You’ve been out for at least a day.”

So it had been eons. A day for her felt like five minutes. Time seemed to flow rapidly in this damned line of work. Cases flew by like the morning breeze, with people falling victim to yet another monster the next day. She was shocked no Hunter had bothered to telephone her in need of assistance.

Her jaw clenched (and throbbed) as she stared at him. Her eyes lowered to his lips unconsciously, an eyebrow arching in satisfaction. They look kissable, she thought with a soft smile. She was happy that she was away from Dean, but she was more than happy to know that Sam was the one who risked everything he had with his brother to save her. She felt sympathy for the man, but a large part of her twinged with uneasiness.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” she asked and eyed Sam’s bag, which she could tell was filled with weapons and tools from how the smell of metal filled the room. She knew Sam’s . . . humanness couldn’t detect it, but her enhanced senses could pick it up a mile away.

Sam, sighing with a shrug, waved her over. Maddie was hesitant in her strides, fists clenching at her sides as she slowly picked up her legs and forced herself to take those steps. Her mind was screaming—and swimming in dizziness from being unconscious—at her to stop, to make her body halt in the center of the room and make a run for it. Her legs could be taking her to her death; Sam could pull a gun or a knife and end her right here. Who knows how long Sam rented this place for? Her body wouldn’t be found for possibly weeks.

She could die here. She could die without anyone knowing; her body could be here for weeks or months or even years. Sure, someone would smell her decomposing body, but she wondered if anyone would care. She understood her reputation in this world: Everyone was scared of her, everyone she’s ever met—Hunter or human—grew to fear her.

But her death could mean something. If Sam decides to kill her instead of having her face the consequences from his brother, he would live with the burden. Sam Winchester would live with the burden of killing the most notorious Hunter in the nation. His reputation and his mark on this sad, doomed little world would all be replaced by the one who killed Maddie Rayner, the last of its deadly and poisonous bloodline.

The youngest Winchester’s eyebrows lifted a bit in confusion. Maddie blinked, her mind returning to the present. She had stopped walking and now stood in the center of the motel room, inches away from Sam’s outstretched hand. His fingers held a new roll of bandages, a roll that looked minuscule in his rather large hands.

Maddie took note of his stature as she swiped the bandages from his hand. Now that she wasn’t in peril or danger, she could truly eye how short she felt in the Hunter’s presence. He was a towering man, at that, standing at least six-four or six-five. She eyed his muscle mass, too, and was astonished at what she saw. His biceps seemed to dominate his t-shirt with beautifully toned skin covering the perfectly sculpted muscle from decades of hunting.

His lips moved, but she was too damn focused on his muscles to notice. She looked up at him, finally, and raised her eyebrows. “What?”

Sam smiled. Dimples creased in the corners of his mouth as he looked away from her for a moment; his cheeks reddened a bit to her surprise. His smile, making his face brighter now, seemed to take over her mind. That smile, with pearly white teeth and no imperfections, seemed to make her forget about her torture. It made her think that everything was right in the world; no monsters, no demons on her ass, nothing. She forgot about the bounty hunt that Dean was possibly on.

“You’re gonna have to trust me on this,” he repeated.

Her head inclined a bit. She wouldn’t call it an act of authority. If anything, she felt the authority in Sam right down to the dominating stance he stood in. She stood there for a moment and crossed her arms over her chest with an arch of her eyebrow. She blinked once, looked up at him and said, “Okay.”

The answer must’ve caught him off guard a bit. His head leaned forward slightly, a look of confusion on his adorable face. Three or four wrinkles folded up in his forehead, and it was then that her heart actually fluttered.

“O-okay?” Sam repeated.

Maddie shrugged. “You saved my life. You don’t owe me anything, but . . . it’s been a long while since I’ve actually trusted somebody. And you, Sam, seem like an okay guy to trust. But, please, don’t forget that I will not hesitate to put a blade inside your head.” Her tone dipped from calm to filled with venom.

The man smirked nervously again as she shrugged her jacket off. Her Skynyrd tank top was soaked with dried blood, with most of her right shoulder covered in blood, dirt, and bruises from her torture. She felt Sam’s lingering gaze on her shoulders and biceps; she smiled as she tossed the jacket on the bed. Her shoulder twinged with pain.

It was when she turned to have her back face Sam did he let out a breath low enough for only her ears to hear. She bent over to take off her boots, straightening quickly when the floor creaked underneath the older Hunter’s feet.

She flicked her head back to look at him sidelong. He had taken a step closer to her. She scoffed softly, performing the most daring thing she could do in the same room with a Hunter and slipped off her shirt. She stood there in her athletic bra and—

“Do you w-want me to . . .” Sam seemed to be at a loss for words as he took in her muscle-bound back. She felt his eyes on her back as she allowed her uninjured shoulder to rotate, thus moving her shoulder blade beneath the equally toned skin.

I could have some fun with this, she thought as she turned to face him. She lifted a brow and put a bit more weight on her leg, bringing a hand to cup her hip in her attempt to be sexy. It clearly worked by how Sam averted his gaze and busied himself with finding a fishhook and what looked like a fishing line in his bag.

The finishing strides that took her to the other side of the room made her stomach turn slightly despite her confidence. She knew Sam wouldn’t want to hurt her unless he had to for self-defense.

Sam’s voice made her jump slightly. “Why don’t I, uh, help you stitch your shoulder?” he asked and sat on the bed. Maddie looked at him for a moment, a twinge of fear jolting her spine. She pushed it down, though. He was trying to help her, after all. It’d be hard to clean her wounds without another set of hands, anyway.

Her head inclined again and she sat on the floor with her back facing the bed. She lifted her knees to her chest and leaned forward until she knew Sam got a clear look at her back, where the two masses of skin just between her shoulder blades would give birth to her wings.

She felt Sam’s eyes roaming the tanned skin shrouded in rough flesh and dark ink. Her entire body was covered in tattoos, which seemed to catch Sam off guard when they had first met. His eyes had given her a poring once-over that made her feel somewhat violated, but she managed to grow used to it in what would be the five weeks she’d be with him.

The rolling muscle in her back toned with athleticism and altered genetics made Sam splay his hands on her slits. His hands were warm on her skin, save for the spasm of pins and needles that exploded in her back. She shuddered beneath him; his hands were pulled back.

“You good?” Sam asked, his fingers pulling back her hair and tossing it over her shoulder. Maddie felt a jolt of electricity rush through her. It was satisfying, yes, and her body begged for me. She glanced at him over her shoulder through her lashes and nodded.

Her shoulder lifted in half of a shrug. “They’re just sensitive. How close is the, uh, puncture wound?”

She watched him peer back at her shoulder, head turning to measure the distance. The wound in her shoulder still hurt like a bitch, and it took more courage for her to accept the fact that Sam’s hands on her were his way of helping her. Every faint touch of his hands on her made her jump and shrink into his legs more. Every brush of his fingers made her forget the throbbing pain the hook made as he sewed the puncture wound together.

“About an inch, give or take,” he guessed. He quickly picked himself up and went to the fridge. The appliance looked like as tinier as ever as he bent down to get a bottle of whiskey from the door. He shut the door with his foot, shuffling back over and handing her the alcohol. “Helps, trust me.”

One rather violent throb of pain made her snarl and whip her head around, her hand grabbing his hands and bending them back. One jerk down would break his entire arm or his wrist if she eased up on her strength. Her wing erupted from her right side, the muscle surrounding the mountain of rugged skin rippling with power. Sam leaned back a bit, his eyes widen a fraction. She didn’t see fear in his eyes, no.

She saw sorrow.

Her mood changed immediately. Her anger washed away as he stared at her, with her wing extending toward the farthest wall of the room, her eyes scanning the limb for any minor wounds. The feathers, where the wound from the machete would be, were soaked with blood. She gave her wing a twitch to test for pain. Nothing came, and it was Sam’s breathed awe that made her glare back at him.

Maddie tucked her wing in before Sam could say anything, pushing his hands back toward him. A blush warmed her cheeks when his forehead folded again. She flicked her hair out of her face and waited for Sam to resume unrolling the bandages. She took a rather long drink of the burning whiskey to drown the rumbling and thundering pain.

He had her kneel on the bed due to her height so he could wrap the bandage around her shoulder and part of her underarm. It took him at least three layers to finally contain the slight bleeding that oozed through the first layer. He had asked if she was a hemophiliac, to which she denied.

She got off the bed and lifted her wrists. They ached from the burns caused by the chains. Sam eyed them, too, and went to the bathroom. She watched him run a rag beneath the stream of warm water and wring it out. His muscles tensed in his T-shirt, making his biceps thicken. She clenched her jaw and stared longer than necessary, in her opinion, but the small smile on his lips made her glad as he pressed the rag to her skin.

A sharp wince left her clenched teeth when the warmth stung her wrist. Her hand took the rag from Sam’s.

Maddie watched the Hunter step away from her and go towards the bed. “What do you wanna do? I couldn’t find a case nearby, so I guess we have the day off,” he asked, spinning on his heel and plopping on his back on the bed.

She stared at him for a moment. He looked relaxed being in the same room with her, which meant that he would let his guard down around her. It wasn’t that she wanted to kill him. She wanted to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t steal any time for himself to possibly talk to his brother.

She didn’t trust this act for a second. Although the man had saved her life, she had lied to him so she could trust him. Lies were what kept people safe, in her opinion, but what lies were mounting on top of the other in this act? Sam seemed to be convinced she trusted him. Sure, a tiny part of her felt a strange version of trust towards the Hunter, and yes, maybe she enjoyed being in the presence of him . . . but she didn’t like being alone. She’s already spent at least fourteen years all by her lonesome when her family was murdered.

Being alone meant she had nobody. She understood hunting alone was a death sentence in itself, but she flew through cases like they were child’s play. Some of the more difficult cases were finished after at least three days, including the Wendigo case. She never found out if the boys had killed the beast when she was unconscious, but she didn’t want to know now.

She wanted to know why Dean has a vendetta against her.

Her head cocked when she thought about it. She realized she was still staring at Sam, but he was staring right back at her. Her cheeks warmed and she averted her gaze, fixing it on the duffle bag filled with fresh clothing. She longed for her old clothes covered in the smells of stale beer and cigarette butts.

She looked at the door and back at Sam. Her eyes roamed his athletic figure with pleasure, her tongue sticking out and wetting her lips in what she thought was sexy. His biceps looked magnificent in the lighting, both from the midday sun and the light streaming out from the bathroom.

She crossed her ankles as she scrunched her lips to the side. A question crossed her mind when she considered her own athleticism, a question that she was afraid that Sam would take offense to. Alas, her life was shortened the second she met him. Her mind shrugged, made up with its decision, and her mouth opened. It closed when Sam spoke.

“I tried to talk him out of it. I tried to . . . he wouldn’t listen, Maddie, for that I am so very sorry.” Emotion clung to his voice as she searched his face for any of that grinning Hunter she saw moments before. Her throat closed up on her when she tried to crack a stupid joke to lighten the mood. Her mind found nothing.

She pushed from the bed and in front of his, her hand grabbing his shirt and yanking him to his feet, his massive figure towering over her as she hugged his narrow waist. He seemed to be confused by how his arms just hovered above her, but his long arms eventually wrapped around her upper back.

Heat radiated from him. Despite wearing one layer of clothing, he was pretty squishy when she tightened her hands and buried her face in his chest. She smelled his cologne and a mixture of what smelled like alcohol, blood and books enveloped themselves around her, her body relishing in the calming aromas.

“It’s okay. It isn’t your fault.”

Her gut twisted when those words came out. Her brain cringed at that sorrowful sentence that nobody, not even her, would think of leaving her mouth. Her reputation was all snark and no kindness. Someone makes a stupid mistake? Call them out on it and patronize them. Somebody gets tragically killed? Say they deserved it and, again, call out their mistakes during the case that got them killed.

Two days later, Sam decided it was safe to go out in the open. Maddie, of course, took it upon herself to force the Hunter to take her shopping for new clothes. He was hesitant at first, his mind seemed like it was determined to keep a low profile until he was sure Dean was over Maddie’s escape.

That didn’t seem to be the case, she found out when pounding on their motel door startled both of the Hunters.

“Open up, Sammy!” a deep voice snarled, “just wanna talk.”

Dean.

Maddie sat up on her bed. Cold air drifted across her almost bare skin, her pajamas consisting of a camisole and new, somewhat scanty underwear from Victoria’s Secret. Her pulse quickened the second Dean’s fist slammed on the chipping white door. She fought dizziness as she threw the covers off her and leaped from the bed.

Sam seemed to remain calm. He must’ve planned this out in the three days they were rooming here, for his immediate reaction was to shove her into the bathroom and lock it from the inside. He instructed her to climb out of the window and run if things went south. The thought of that made her sprew hushed protests at the man, Maddie’s hands grabbing onto his shirt and begging him to come with her.

“Maddie, you know my brother’s pissed. He’s gonna kill you if he sees you . . . I can stall him,” he said, turning her and lifting her into the bathtub. The ceramic tub was cold against her shoulders as Sam left and shut the door, turning the knob a few times to confirm it was locked.

She found herself praying for him. Praying was extremely rare, considering her reputation for killing angels, but it was in occasional circumstances did she pray for the safety of herself and others. It wasn’t until then did she realize that she expected an answer. It was weird. To her, expecting an answer back would be like Satan crawling back to Heaven and apologizing; it’d never happen no matter how much she asked.

She wasn’t necessarily concerned for herself. She could be eleven-thousand feet in the air in a matter of seconds. It was Sam that she worried about. Sure, his brother was pissed that she escaped. But if Dean found out that it was Sam—his own brother—that got her out, who knows what he could do? He wouldn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re implying, Maddie, her mind muttered.

Right. Dean wouldn’t kill his own brother. Last time a brother killed a brother was with Cain and Abel. Then again, the boys are direct descendants of Cain and Abel. What’s the worst that could happen, right? Her mind tried to think of something else. Kissing Sam came immediately, but it faded when Sam and Dean’s voices filtered through the hideously green walls.

“I know you’re pissed . . .”

“Damn right, I’m pissed!”

“Dean, calm down.”

“‘Calm down’? Sam, Maddie is extremely dangerous. She’s us but ten times worse with great boobs!”

She sunk lower into the tub. Despite the humorous remark, she had to admit that Dean was right: her position in the hunting community was a terrifying one, at best, and nobody would trust her with their life. She couldn’t count how many Hunters or victims have been killed due to her temper and misjudgment.

Muffled crashes made her heart quicken even more. If she didn’t calm down, her heart might explode. She lifted her knees to her chest, pressing her ear to the wall behind her.

It got quiet.

Her eyes widened when she heard the doorknob shift and a displeased chuckle. “Did you have to lock the door, Sammy?”

She slowly crawled out of the tub and positioned herself beneath the window. Being tiny compared to the lumberjacks the Winchesters were, the window was higher than she expected. A curse left her lips that were pressed into a line, her teeth grinding against each other as she waited for the door to open.

Another crash came from the other room with adrenaline running through her veins. She felt the color fade from her face, although dizziness never came over her. The exhilaration that rushed through her made her throat close. This could be where she dies. She could die in a bathroom while one of the Winchesters was trying to protect her.

Come on, come on, she thought. A simple jump up could have her running down the hill in seconds. That, or if Dean managed to grab her feet, a powerful kick to the nose would kill him. Her nails dug into her palms.

“Come on out, Maddie,” Sam said, his words coming out quickly. Maddie could tell he was catching his breath, and when she slowly emerged from the bathroom, she saw the reason why. He had his gun aimed at his brother’s head, with Dean’s entire body being shoved against the wall. Sam’s chest was heaving.

She was hesitant on whether she should run to the door to freedom or help Sam kick his brother’s ass. Maddie found herself leaning towards the latter more than the former, but she decided to wait until Sam gave her further directions as to what he had planned. It wasn’t often that she took orders from others, but she decided to go down the safest route if it meant she’d live through this.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Dean purred, which got a frustrated groan from his brother. “Glad I got to see the show.” Dean’s eyes roamed her nearly bare figure. He licked his lips to her displeasure, but she had to admit that the subtle action was a bit of a turn-on. She inclined her head in authority and dodged Sam’s glare.

Sam, glancing at her, grunted when Dean whirled around and slammed his elbow across the younger Hunter’s face. Maddie went to grab the gun that slipped from Sam’s hands, but Dean had grabbed her in a backward hug.

Her arms were pinned to her sides in the tall man’s grasp, which felt unbelievably strong despite his being human. She snarled through clenched teeth as she whipped around in Dean’s grip, but to no avail did he weaken. Anger flooded through her as she saw Sam holding his nose as he gathered himself to his feet, legs wobbling the slightest. He seemed to be focused on something else, for the glare he sent to nobody consumed his attention.

Maddie slammed her head into Dean’s face. She felt the sickening crunch of his nose, and when the Hunter’s hands flew to collect the river of blood dripping from his nose, the Rayner struck Dean’s face again with her elbow, landing a final punch to his cheek that she knew was a one-way ticket to unconsciousness.

She took the time to grab Sam’s hand and haul ass, her fingers reaching and grabbing the duffle bags settled on the couch right next to the doorless frame. The door was somewhere near the bed, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting the hell out of that damned room.

Sam seemed to fail at trying to keep up. He yanked his hand out of hers and ran to the driver’s door of his 2008 Dodge SRT8. It was a charcoal color, one that seemed to suit the younger Hunter, and Maddie thought it looked nice despite the pitch black night.

Her eyes adjusted immediately to the darkness. She risked a glance back at the doorway, where she expected a slightly-injured Dean to aim a gun at her and pull the trigger. But nothing was there. Her heart rose in her chest at the time bomb that was her temporary freedom. She tossed the bags into the backseat as she dove into the passenger’s seat feet first.

The car roared to life as Sam jammed the keys in the ignition. A Ladyheart song played rather loudly into the car as the Dodge backed into the road and screeched off. The tail careened to the left a bit, which brought back glorious memories of how defunct her street racing career is.

The back window shattered when bullets slammed into the glass.

A groan flew from her lips. She covered her head and glanced back toward the motel, where the outline of Dean Winchester stood on the road with his arm outstretched. Her teeth clenched, and once the car turned with the curve of the road, she looked back out of the windshield.

“Your brother’s a psychopath, Sam, I hope you know that,” she spat loudly, rolling down the window and letting the August air blow her ratty hair about her face.

A soft chuckle from Sam made her bubbly inside. “Yeah, I know. You didn’t have to do that, y’know. I could’ve handled him myself.” He took his eyes off the road for a second to look at her. She glanced at him, taking note of the bags beneath his eyes.

After about twenty minutes of driving to no particular place, Maddie asked him to pull over. He protested, of course, saying that he was fine and insisting on driving some more. She decided to get forceful, throwing out a seemingly harmless threat or pickup line that seemed to make him more uncomfortable or flustered than ever.

Sam and Maddie traded seats in the car. He looked tall in the seat next to hers, which made her feel even punier compared to the Winchester.

It wasn’t until she pulled off the road did Sam speak. His voice cracked a bit, with exhaustion creeping into his words. “You’re not gonna go fast, are you? We already have Dean on our asses, so it’s best not to piss off the authorities.”

This time it was her turn to chuckle. She let one hand fall from the wheel and into her lap, while the other shifted to be at the top of the wheel. She pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. She glanced at him with a smirk and said, “You’re gonna have to trust me on this.”

[slightlystalesushirolls]

OOPS I FORGOT TO MAKE A POST BUUUT anyways i’m going on vacation for ~2 weeks which means i won’t have a reliable internet connection–i’m currently posting this from the toronto airport! My queue is filled and is set to post 10 posts a day during the time i’m gone!

[arossi]

i forgot to set up a queue for the next week.. oops? oh well. i’ll be on holiday, so please excuse the absence. i’ll probably check in when i’m at the hotel but during the day i’ll annoy my fave scot and just... enjoy being in my favorite country.

[itwasmagic]

oops I just realised I've had my queue set really low and forgot to fix it, sorry for not posting much this week!!