#i have no clue if these are eye strain i’m stupid but i’m gonna tag it just in case

[wellcrapineedaname]

[ID: the first picture is of a mermaid version of sundrop from five nights at freddy’s, he has 9 rays that are striped with a warm pinkish orange and light warm yellow. his eyes are full white and his cheeks have the same light yellow in circles. he has spines on his back hips and in a fan-like structure on his tail, the spines have a translucent webbing between them and are striped in a similar fashion to his rays. his body also has swirly stripes where his shell is usually a darker orange and he has white swirls on his body. he is sitting in a cliche mermaid on the rocks fashion but instead of being on rocks he is on the seabed of a coral reef the coral is pink, red, yellow, and indigo and the sea above turns a teal color at the top and a cool blue color at the bottom. he has a smug expression.

the second picture is of a mermaid version of Moondrop. the background is black with strokes of very dark blue in it. Moon is in the center of the image with his hands clasped in front of him. his tail is bent to his left. he has a round ‘hat’ on his head that looks like a quarter circle, puffy sleeves and a puffy skirt. the sleeves skirt and tail are all a cool blue and have jellyfish tentacles on them as well as star patterns. moons black markings on his chest are wavy rather than straight and the cheeks on his face are missing. the white half of his face is a slightly blue white and his eyes are red with white pupils. he is looking to the side and his mouth is open in an O shape. his ‘hat’, tentacles, skirt, sleeves, tail and eyes are all glowing.

the last image is of two mermaids made to resemble the viewer or their oc. the one on the top is light grey with pink blush shoulders and finger-tips, their tail is black and appears to be slimy and has a frill on top of it. they have and hourglass figure and are quite scrawny. they have two hair tufts on their right side and the back on their hair is short and fluffy. their mouth is open in a sideways D with the flat side facing up. instead of eyes and a nose they have Y/N. they are also wearing a crop top and earrings that look like a line. their left hand is bent with and open palm almost like they are waving and they are using their right hand to point to themself, they are almost lying down with their tail on their left. the second mermaid has the same Y/N on their face but their lips are drawn they have a dark grey as opposed to the light grey of the other and have a pear shaped body. they have an afro and their tail is white on the underside with some black parts and a black spot.they are wearing a strapless crop top, a choker and have hoop earrings. they have stretch marks on their arms and stomach and a black dorsal fin on their back. they are laying the opposite way of the top mermaid and are on their back. they are smiling and have one hand in a thumbs up while the other is resting on their side. in the top right corner there is a height comparison that shows that the top mermaid is 5.4ft and the bottom one is 9.6ft. there is text next to the top mermaid that is written in bullet points that reads: “Violently protective, Chaotic, Can’t spell/Crappy handwriting,An eel,They bite” there are also bullet points next to the bottom mermaid that says: “Usually chill, An orca, The only voice of reason, Very big, Might put googly eyes on your stuff.” next to the ‘very big’ bullet point there is a face with its eyes closed and a smile, the face is holding a red heart. the background of the last image is a medium grey]

help bestie i can’t draw coral O-O

anyways Moon as a Moon jellyfish and Sun as a lionfish for mermay. also yes i know moon jellyfish don’t have star patterns and yes i know lionfish aren’t really orange and yes i know that i forgot moons cheeks but i had already merged the layers when i noticed the cheeks and i do what i want with my art.

also i made two Y/Ns cause i can. they’re both meant to be gender neutral but the orca Y/N ended up looking more fem and i don’t wanna change it cause they’re hot. also if i had a Nickel for every fatphobic article i saw when trying to find reference photos for the orca Y/N i could buy my partner a house.

(let me know if i need to edit the ID i don’t know much about making Image descriptions)

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Just Swimmingly ch.4 (BAON)

Summary:  Jeff doesn't know where they are or where they're going, but he knows one thing. It's probably not good.

Tags:  Spicyhoney, Established Relationships,  Hurt/Comfort, Additional Tags To Come

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

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By the time the van came to a stop, Stretch still hadn’t woken up. Not that it mattered very much, there wasn’t a thing Jeff could have done to change their situation. At the moment, they were very much outnumbered, overpowered, and even if he’d had a clue where they were, it wouldn’t have done them any good. Before they dragged him out of the van, one of the thugs yanked a bag over his head. Blinded, he struggled to stumble along as two guys pulled him out, trying not to cry out as they led him barefoot across crumbling asphalt into a building with rough carpet.

He kept as quiet as he could, trying to not only listen in case they said anything useful, but also for Stretch, praying to a God he hadn’t spoken to since he was fifteen and his father threw him out that they didn't hurt Stretch. Jeff could survive a few bumps and bruises, but he didn't know how much Stretch could withstand. Intent was key when it came to Monsters, he knew that much, and these guys seemed to have plenty.

At first, he tried to keep track of where he was being led. An impossible effort when the twists and turns of being dragged along left him too disoriented to know his way up or down. They seemed to walk forever until his captors suddenly stopped and Jeff was shoved down into a chair. Rough hands grabbed at him, rope suddenly binding his wrists and ankles. He didn’t struggle as he was tied, only tried to tense his muscles as much as possible, some shitty internet meme he vaguely remembered reading said that it could help slip free later.

Turned out memes weren’t the best source for escape plans. When they were done, Jeff subtly tried to move and the best he could manage was a painful rope burn. The ropes felt like they were wound through the slats in the chair and unless Houdini decided to make good on his possible return from the other side, Jeff was going nowhere fast.

He could hear their captors moving around, muttering too low to be understood and the other sounds might have been more rope. Tying up Stretch, maybe, he hoped that’s what it was; at least if they were together, that was something, hell, that was everything right now.

The bag suddenly getting ripped off his head made him gasp, flinching from the glaring light pointed directly into his face. Squinting, he could barely see the shadowy figures standing behind it, but he was sure he could see a cell phone pointed in his direction.

“Say your name,” a rough voice demanded.

“Andy—” he began automatically. “No, Jeff, I’m sorry, Jeff! My name is Jeff!” There was nothing else and Jeff shifted, grimacing as the ropes dug in. It was on the tip of his tongue to go on, to blurt that he worked in public relations, that he was nobody important and not worth ransoming. He bit the inside of his lip to keep those rambles from pouring out. Partly because it was probably stupid to tell kidnappers your value or lack thereof, and partly because of Edge. He’d always told them to never offer more information than was necessary and yeah, he’d been talking about board games at the time, but Jeff doubted that Clue was where Edge learned that particular rule. If these assholes wanted more info, they could damn well ask.

Either his name was all they wanted or they already had whatever other info they needed. Jeff didn’t even have a chance to try squinting through the too-bright light when one of them came towards him and yanked the bag back over his head. He sat there, sweat beading on his face and his own breath threatening to smother him as he listened to their captors moving around next to him.

“He can’t talk,” one of them said disgustedly. “He’s still wasted.”

Stretch. That meant he was right next to him, thank fucking god.

The rough sound of a slap made Jeff tense, protests bitten off when the same voice cursed and there came the sound of someone rubbing their head, “What the fuck, man!”

“That’s exactly how we want him, dumbass! He doesn’t need to talk, all they need is a good look at him. Come on, they’re waiting.”

Footsteps and then the sound of a door closing. Jeff strained to hear if anyone was still in there with them around his own breathing loud in his ears, his pulse thundering. There was nothing, no shuffle of feet against the floor or the creak of a chair. Jeff waited a little longer, curling his chilly toes against the rough carpet.

Nothing. Jeff took a long, slow breathing, trying to calm his racing pulse. He needed to be cool right now so he could try to think of something. Even if the Embassy was willing to give these assholes whatever they wanted, they sure as hell couldn’t count on that saving their lives. He was no strategist, his degree was in sociology, for fuck’s sake, but. Stretch always called him Handy Andy and it made him feel like someone different, someone braver who could stand up to a violent asshole on a bus and help Stretch with crazy experiments involving swinging bottles of Diet Coke rigged with automatic mentos dispensers. Jeff might not be the best for this situation, but Andy was sure as hell gonna try.

“Stretch,” Jeff said softly. He waited for someone to shout or a slap followed by a demand that he shut up. When none came, he went on, soft and urgent, “I know you can't hear me, but, just in case you can. It's gonna be okay. I know you're big on promises and I'm promising you right now we're getting out of this. I promise you." If he could glean anything of what Jeff was saying, he hoped he could hear that much. At least maybe he wouldn't be afraid.

"i sure hope so, i didn't get this far in life to get dusted by a low rent group of third rate scooby doo level villains. seriously, they tied us up with rope, were they out of packing tape at ‘kidnappers ‘r’ us’ or were they just eager to try the knots they learned in boy scouts before they got kicked out."

Okay, that wasn’t quite the last thing he’d expected, but it was close.

"Stretch?" Jeff gasped out. He couldn’t see a damn thing through the bag, but he could hear a muted popping sound. Suddenly, the bag was gone, far gentler than before and then he was blinking up into Stretch’s smirking face.

Jeff looked around a little wildly and next to him was another chair, the still-tied ropes hanging from the rungs in loose coils.

“yeah, sorry. i woke up back in the van, didn’t want to tip them off. wherever they buy their roofies must not have given them a dosage chart.” Stretch settled his hands on Jeff’s shoulders. “hold still, this is a lot easier than fighting with knots.”

It was the gentlest and shortest teleport he’d ever felt. Only a brief disorientation and when his vision cleared, he was sitting on top of the ropes that had just been binding him.

Jeff scrambled to his feet, swiping his sleeve across his sweaty forehead. Holy shit, maybe he should take up praying again more regularly, this was the fastest service he’d ever gotten. “Can you get us outside?”

His heart sank as Stretch shook his head. “that's gonna be a no. with the bags on our heads, i couldn't see where we are. shortcutting is tricky, it's dangerous to teleport blind. that's how you end up stuck in walls or halfway inside a table or some shit.” Stretch waved a slender hand at the chairs. “dangerous, not impossible. a few inches above where i was sitting was a pretty safe bet to get out of the ropes, but anything else is more likely to get us dead than on the street.” He frowned, glancing around the room thoughtfully. “plus, i'm not going anywhere without a little intel. they’re fucking idiots, but they knew enough to drug me and how to do it. that's not information you can just look up on a wiki-how.”

“Okay,” Jeff took a deep, steadying breath. "So, what do we do, then?” He glanced at the door. “Can you pick locks?"

"sure,” Stretch said absently. He was looking around the room. It was a storage room of some sort, there was more dusty furniture aside from the chairs, including a rickety desk, and metal cabinets lined the walls. “but i can't do much about the door being barred. i heard something get braced against it when they went out.

"Oh. Right."

“yeah,” Stretch agreed, “at least one of them has a brain cell or two rolling around up top, enough to get them this far. but the road trip is over and it’s time to pay the tolls.” Stretch shook his head disgustedly. "first rule of kidnapping is never leave the kidnappees alone. seriously, i'm getting my cues from netflix and even i know that.”

His eye lights paused in their survey of the room, brightening. Jeff followed his gaze and saw in one corner there was an honest to god old-fashioned rotary telephone pushed into the far corner of the desk, nearly buried under the clutter.

"can't be that easy, can it?” Stretch marveled. He picked it up the handset and held to his skull, then sighed unhappily. “nope. no dial tone, no surprise there, no one has a landline anymore. don’t you worry though, little phone.” Stretch gave it a soft pat. “you’re gonna be real useful in just a minute. seriously, this is just embarrassing. my first kidnapping attempt and they locked us in a room with an entire arsenal.”

“I must be missing the vendor in the corner willing to hand over gear if we do a mission for them,” Jeff joked weakly.

“everything is an arsenal if you’ve got the skills.” Stretch rummaged through the desk and came up triumphantly with…a paperclip? He set it on the desk, adding a pencil, some scotch tape, and what looked to Jeff like an old tube of superglue. “kidnapped by the ebott equivalent of the america’s dumbest criminals, fuck me. edge is going to be up my ass for a month.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.” It was easier to be calm in the face of Stretch’s ease. “I think six months is the bare minimum.”

“i really wish you weren’t right.” Stretch glanced around the room again, this time directing his gaze upward. “hm, that’ll work.” Tall as he was, the ceiling was still out of reach even for him. Stretch pulled one of the chairs over, ropes trailing behind it like tentacles, and stood on it, reaching for the smoke detector. Jeff could only blink in confusion as he yanked it right off the ceiling.

"You're going to burn down the building?” Jeff asked. Not that he didn’t trust Stretch, but, uh, that seemed extreme for a first escape attempt. “That’d get us out, but I don't think we'll be any more alive."

"nah, just need some parts,” Stretch jerked his head towards the door. “keep an ear on the hallway, will ya, in case they remember that leaving us alone is probably stupid."

“Got it.” Jeff went to the door but before he could press his ear to it, Stretch called his name.

"hey, kiddo, i'm gonna get us out of this." Stretch offered him a familiar, lopsided smile. "i know i don't look like much, but i've been known to keep my head in a bad situation."

"You already saved me once,” Jeff said honestly, "why wouldn't I believe you now?"

Stretch’s pale eye lights flickered with memory, his expression briefly tightening. How did he remember that horrible night in that parking lot, Jeff wondered, what nightmares haunted Stretch’s sleep? He knew something happened after the ambulance took him away, but he’d never heard the entire story. After he’d been released from the hospital, he’d been wrapped up in healing enough to start his new job at the Embassy and as time passed, he hated to ask, didn’t want to dredge it all up again, not when everyone was slowly getting past it. Besides, the others had their own shit to deal with, what with the attack in California and everything happening in Ebott. His trauma was his to handle and that was the end of it.

At the desk, Stretch got to work, humming the ‘mission impossible’ theme under his breath as he dissected the phone and smoke detector with a makeshift screwdriver made from a bent paperclip taped to a pencil. His hands were as deft and easy as any demonstration he’d done for the local kids and Jeff could only marvel at his ease.

“How can you be so calm?” Jeff blurted, wincing even as the words escaped. He hadn’t meant to say it, didn’t want to distract him. Stretch only flicked a glance his way, both browbones raised.

“me?” Stretch snorted, “i am not calm. beneath this gorgeous cookie crust exterior is a honey pie of a person who would start shitting themselves if i could grow the prerequisite equipment. but we're gonna be okay.”

“How do you know?” Jeff hated the faint pleading in his own voice, he shouldn’t be distracting; Stretch was as stuck here as he was and with his HP, it was even worse. He was supposed to be the one helping Stretch, he’d promised, and the best he could do was lookout.

“you seriously think red isn't already on it?” Stretch asked and as terrifying as Red could be, thinking about him right now eased some of the aching fear that was settled in Jeff’s stomach. “all he needs is a clue and we’re gonna get him one. i only hope he can keep edge from razing the city and salting the earth beneath it until then. people might be a little tetchy about that and i’m not even sure you can come up with a press release that’d cover ‘sorry about starting city-wide armageddon, my bad.’”

Before Jeff could think of a reply to that, either an agreement, or a protest that a little chaos could be excused considering the circumstances, he heard footsteps coming from down the hallway. Panicked, he hissed out, “They're coming!”

“fuck, okay, okay.” Stretch scrambled over and set some kind of contraption on the floor near the door that was all waggling wires and circuit boards. He grabbed Jeff by the wrist and dragged him along. “over here, come on, this a harder trick, but you can do it. i need you to hold as still as you can. if you move, they might see you, you get me?"

Jeff managed a hasty nod as Stretch shoved him into a corner, cramming them both in tight, out of the way. "don't move, don't talk,” Stretch reminded him, a low murmur close to his ear. The slim, bony arms around him were comforting and even knowing that Stretch couldn’t physically protect him, having him towering overhead as he caged Jeff against the wall felt oddly safe.

Then something happened. He didn’t know how to describe it. It felt like a heavy curtain fell over the world, everything going distant and muffled, even his vision greying like he was about to faint, only he’d never felt so awake. There was a sudden popping explosion as the door swung open and collided with Stretch’s contraption, but it sounded miles away, the kidnappers’ curses as muffled as if they were speaking from another world.

He didn’t move, held perfectly still even as that curtain slowly grew claustrophobic, nausea starting to churn. Jeff closed his eyes, swallowing convulsively and just went he thought he couldn’t stand it a moment longer, that he either needed to move or he’d start screaming, it was suddenly gone and Stretch was stepping back.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Stretch was pale, sweat showing visibly on his skull. "are you okay?" Stretch asked.

“Me?” Jeff blurted. He caught hold of Stretch’s arms to brace him as he wobbled on his feet. “I’m fine, what about you!”

"i’ll be okay.” Stretch wiped his face on the sleeve of the crummy shirt he’d been forced into with a grimace. “i pulled us halfway into the void. it works, but it burns a lot of juice. the assholes booked it out of here, but more importantly, they left the door open."

The door was opened, they could leave, and yet, Jeff found himself blurting out, “They’ll get away!”

“no,” Stretch said grimly. “they’ll look for us first, thinking we couldn’t have gotten too far. these guys aren’t gonna ditch and run that fast, they know too much. think about it. drugs work on monsters but how do they know what kind and how much? lucky for me, skeleton monsters are different. our systems are finicky, we’re hard to drug. whoever tipped them off about how to roofie me didn’t know that.”

His sockets narrowed suddenly, Stretch turning away to look in the rusty cabinet next to them. “oh, honey,” he said gleefully, “jackpot.”

Jeff joined him, peering into the cabinet as Stretch cautiously wrenched it open. “What did you find?”

He held up a bottle of bleach and said, smugly, “just some nice, normal household chemicals. they can be lots of fun if you know how to mix 'em up and i'm a one hell of a bartender. but first.”

On the desk was another little contraption that was mostly wires and tape. Stretch picked it up and walked over to squat next to a wall outlet. Carefully, he pushed it into the socket. There was a sputtering spark and a tiny red light blinked to life.

“there we go.” Stretch stood, dusting off his hands. “i don’t even want to think about how pants-shittingly angry edge probably is right now, but we can’t let them get the ransom that asgore is probably going to pay and we sure as hell can’t let them get away.”

He grinned then, wickedly sharp for all that his teeth were blunt. “so, how’s about we have some fun, yeah?”

Jeff nodded determinedly. Fuck, yes. If he was going to add to his repertoire of nightmares, he was damn well going to make sure someone else paid for it, in spades.

tbc

[coltwinslow]

CHRISTMAS DAY. 2021.

tw affair mention, death mention, hunting

who: colt & wayne (his father)

The blind was quiet. There was little blessings in life, and Colt figured this was one of them. It was a little relief. Time with his father, but the silence here was purposeful and not intentional to make Colt uncomfortable. The silence elsewhere was purely to make Colt uncomfortable - Wayne’s way of punishing him. Colt wasn’t entirely sure of what for. 

As their limit was getting close, his father spoke to him. “Wesson would’ve enjoyed this.” Colt didn’t stiffen. He just exhaled. Wesson would have made this a lot less unbearable.

“He woulda shot all of our limits before we even had a chance,” Colt laughed lightly. His chest turned to stone, this awful and familiar tightness within it. It was hard to put into words how much Colt missed his brother. There wasn’t a day that Colt didn’t pick up his phone and try to call his brother - and tell him something. 

Colt had been to Virginia, stepping into Wes’s house only twice. The first to get his will, the laptop and a bunch of other paperwork. The second he had Midnight. He watched the dog run to every room, whining and look for his brother. His heart broke and he dissolved to tears when the dog came back and looked at Colt with the realization that Wesson wasn’t there. He had gotten Wesson’s hunting gear and gave it to Vann.

“I gave his hunting gear to Vann.” Colt fumbled with the sight on his rifle. Wesson’s truck was sitting in Colt’s renthouse driveway. Another relic he didn’t have a fucking clue of what to do with it. Colt couldn’t touch anything. Every time he sat in it, he felt his brother. His brother stupid American flag hat was on the passenger side. Colt couldn’t touch it. 

There was a stoic silence coming from beside Colt. He glanced, and he saw his father’s jaw set in a line of anger. “You had no right to give anything of Wesson’s to Vann. The fuck does Vann know about Wes? The right does he have to his stuff? Jesus Christ, Colt. What were you thinking?”

Colt felt like he was slapped. He reared back his teeth baring, he was tired of this fucking fight. 

“What was I thinking? I was thinking, the fuck was Wes gonna do with it? Want me to go dig up his coffin and throw it in there? Like he’s some pharaoh - give me a break.”

“You had no right, Colt. That wasn’t yours to give away.” Wayne persisted. He clicked his tongue. “Can’t do anything right.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should be making what you want done known - like everything else I do - because you’ve been really fucking silent about it. You want a say? Then help me. Otherwise, you don’t get a say. Because last I checked, I organized his wake, I got his body buried, I am taking care of him. Just like I always have.”

“Excuse me?” Wayne raised a fist at him. His voice was deathly strained. 

“You heard me,” Colt said and stood. “But let me guess, we won’t talk about that.”

Wayne’s eyes narrowed. Colt started to pack. 

“I’m done here, Dad. I’m getting you home, and I am gonna go make sure the animals are looked after. Not having this fight with you.” Because Colt knew he’s say something he didn’t really want to.

--

They drove on in silence. The sun had set by the time they got back. Colt worked with the tags on the game, slamming the cooler shut. He wanted to hit something. He looked up the stars that were peaking out and he swore lightly. He missed Wesson so violently in this moment. They always cleaned the game together. 

He walked back into the house and looked at his father. Wayne stared back at him for a long moment, and Colt knew he wasn’t done. If he had any sense, he would have walked away. Instead, Colt moved to wash a dish. 

He felt his father behind him. “I heard you and Aly fighting. You didn’t tell me you had an affair.”

Colt closed his eyes and his hands stilled. 

“You had an affair on her, while she was grieving your daughter? When she called me and was crying? I didn’t raise you like that. I raised you to be a man. You protect women, you honor your commitments. You don’t leave them.”

Like you left me? Colt scrubbed the dish a little harder. 

“You have no idea how disappointing it is that you are the only son that I have left.” 

Colt’s hands stilled in the water. He turned off the water and picked up the plate. Looking his head right in the eyes, he turned and slammed the dish into the trash, shattering it. “Well, Dad, good news is that you won’t have to live with that disappointment for much longer. Merry Christmas.”

[shnuggletea]

Alright Lovelies, here's something a little dark and spooky for your Halloween cravings! As part of the Darker Oneshots: Halloween Challenge 2020 (hosted by Seiay's Kiss and NekoPantera!), I wrote this fic! Inspired by the 3 am Game: 11 Miles, I took my rules from 6 Paranormal Games That Could Ruin Your Entire Life If You Dare To Play by Jessica Calder. 

Click here for the playlist!!!!

This is the fic I accidentally wrote in first (when the rules said no first person) so I have two fics. They're the same in content, just different POVs! So, you get to choose! This one is for the event! The other is for my personal enjoyment lol. You can find the first person through my Tumblr page!

This fic was lovingly and painstakingly BOOTAED (get it?) by the fabulous @fawneyedgirl, @lavendertwilight89, @eringobroke, and @egosolivagant! And the cover art by the super talented @sapphirestarxx!

This is a long one (that’s what she said) guys so you probably wanna head over to one of the sites below. The full fic is on this post but... it’s a lot! And I can’t promise I caught all the formatting Tumblr lost when I pasted it here. You have been warned!!!

For the Third Person version!

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For the First person!

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Eleven Miles (First Person)

Is there something you desire more than anything else in the world? To obtain it, you don’t have to travel across the globe but you will have to go farther than you may be prepared. Although the distance might not be great, it is a place not all can venture, as not all can meet the requirements. If your desire is great enough, perhaps you will succeed… if you dare.

At the moment, I was calm and quiet. Even with the girl in my arms that was shaking harder than a leaf in a storm. The others in the car couldn’t smell it; I was the only demon if just half. But I was sure: the air was thick with it. 

And you never forget the smell of death once you’ve experienced it. 

“Alright, someone wanna tell me what the fuck is going on??!!”

Six hours earlier

Walking into the tea shop, I quickly caught sight of Miroku’s black locks even amongst the many others. He stood out in his own way, ratty ponytail down the back of his finely pressed school blazer. It matched mine, save for the pressed part but I didn’t have any fucking butlers to do my laundry. 

Miroku held up a hand to wave me down as if I didn’t see him. My ears pressed down to my skull on instinct, the loud and crowded store quickly pushing me to my ‘friendly’ limit. Sango sat right next to Miroku, trying and failing to keep his hand off her thigh. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was; everyone knew the two were fucking. 

I liked Sango. She was one of the few in the school who didn’t act like they shit rainbows cause their daddy had money. Miroku was another tolerable person there which was why we were friends. My ‘Daddy’ had money and was why I was in the stupid, preppy, bullshit school. As much as I hated it, I had to be thankful. Otherwise, I never would have met the people in my life I considered dear. 

Plopping to my seat to show annoyance, I wondered if any of them bought it? Sure, the place was loud and crowded but I wanted to be here. Needed to be. And my reason would be showing up any moment now…

“Hello, all.” She fell gracefully to the seat across from mine and let her eyes wander. I watched her, waiting for more as there always was. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

We all groaned, me the loudest, which got her attention. “What the fuck are you gonna force us into this time, Kikyo?”

She pursed her pouty red lips at me and my eyes lingered a little longer than I liked. “I never forced you to do anything, Inuyasha.”

Flicking black locks over her shoulder sent a small, but powerful, wave of perfume in my direction. I nearly gagged on it and she caught on, smirking. She couldn’t wear that shit when we dated for this reason alone so now that we were broken up, she was flaunting. 

Springing to her feet, I held my breath. 

“Going to the loo.” Kikyo ‘shared’ and I released my breath in a groan once she was out of earshot. 

“Hey, you dated her.” Sango quibbled. 

“Yeah, and it’s been almost a fucking year since she dumped me. So why the hell is she still hangin’ out with us?”

Another body fell to a seat, setting down a tray of drinks before us. “Okay, I got thirty minutes.”

Opening her mouth, Sango held up a sandwich that I had no clue where it came from. But Kagome took a huge bite and moaned, making me laugh. Taking the rest of her dinner from her friend, Kagome sat back and continued to pig out. Not that we blamed her, she had very little time to spare. Ever. 

The rest of us grabbed the free drinks she had brought us, one of the few benefits afforded her working here, while Sango narrowed her eyes at the overworked tea girl. “Your cousin will be back any second now.”

Kagome just nodded, her mouth still too full to speak. 

“She wants us to do something with her tonight,” Miroku added, his tone clear; he didn’t want to go. 

Kagome swallowed and I swear I hadn’t taken my eyes off her since she sat down. “She won’t invite me so I have no worries!”

God, I was jealous. The way Kagome could just turn anything into a positive? Although, not being invited to one of Kikyo’s ‘outings’ could definitely be seen as a good thing in my book. 

Leaning on my elbows, I moved a little closer to Kagome. Careful not to be too obvious, I breathed in her scent. She always smelled like tea leaves. The light kind like white tea and peaches. I found it intoxicating, even now, after years of knowing her. 

She looked over at me and just when I thought I’d been caught, she smiled so brightly I needed sunglasses. “I’m sure it’ll be a good time though, right?”

Optimistic as always, it irked me, but only because Kagome didn’t deserve any of the shit she went through. 

“That’s my seat.”

I glanced, Kikyo returned and looming over Kagome. She only had a quarter left of her sandwich, which she shoved into her mouth whole and stood. Without a word, mostly due to her full mouth, Kagome gave us a quick wave and disappeared. But she didn’t go far, getting behind the register just in my sight. 

“If you want free drinks, then you can just ask me.”

At some point, Kikyo had sat down in Kagome’s seat. I had been staring, watching the practiced ease Kagome had making tea. It was fascinating, the gentle way she held the glass and strained the tea leaves? Flicking her wrist to get the last of the floating herbs and sometimes adding in chilled milk. I liked watching her make milk teas the most. 

But now I had steely gray eyes glaring at me. “I ain’t here for the free tea.”

A leg over her knee, Kikyo stared at her nails instead. “So tonight? You guys coming?”

“You haven’t even told us what we are coming to?” 

Miroku didn’t hide his annoyance, another thing I liked about the guy. Most were scared to death of Kikyo and her prowess within the school. Maybe that was why she hung around us so much? Either she liked that we didn’t shine her ass or she wanted us to start? 

“Onigumo is taking us for a ride.”

I huffed, “why the fuck would we want to go ride around with you and your boy toy?”

Her lips slid to the side and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came out of her mouth next. “Because he just got a brand new Escalade.”

Kikyo didn’t know a damn thing about cars and I didn’t give a shit about them. It was about status and (a big expensive car like the one her new boyfriend had) spoke volumes. Like I needed another hint, she dumped me for someone richer. She didn’t care who, and Onigumo was right there with his big wallet in his pants. Cause no way in hell was that supposed to be his dick bulging in the front of his jeans. 

“I couldn’t care less,” Sango said with a sigh. 

Kikyo was losing us fast and for once, she looked nervous about it. “There’ll be booze?” Miroku and Sango hesitated. “And we’re going to play Eleven Miles.”

“What the hell is that?”

Kikyo rolled her eyes at me, “look it up?!”

She knew I wouldn’t. Instead, I glanced back at the register for Kagome. Who was wiping down the counter with no one in line waiting. “We’ll go… if your cousin comes too.”

Her mouth dropped but she quickly picked it back up. “She’s working tonight…”

“And with one call, you can fix that.”

Sango and Miroku both smirked, knowing I had won. Because either Kikyo failed and we got out of what sounded like the worst night of my life, or she came through and at least I’d have a good time with Kagome there. 

Rolling her eyes, she pulled out her phone and I got to my feet, shuffling up to the counter. Pretty brown eyes landed on me and she smiled brightly yet again. “Can I get you something, Inuyasha?”

Smirking, I didn’t take the bait. It would be too easy to tell her ‘yeah, give me you’. Watching her blush would have been fun but I had a purpose. I pushed my palms into the counter before me and leaned into my shoulders while she watched me intently. “You’re coming out with us tonight.”

Her smile faded a little into a sad one. “I can’t, I’m working…”

“No, you’re not. I got mom to let you off.” 

Kikyo appeared behind me, talking way too loud at the girl before me. With as much sass as humanly possible, Kikyo turned on her heel and swayed so her pleated uniform skirt swished with her hips. That used to drive me wild; now it just gave me a headache. 

I was brought back to the present when a gentle hand landed and squeezed my clawed one. Whipping my head back, Kagome had her sweet smile on. The one that made my palms sweat. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Get me invited. I don’t like going out with Kikyo at all.”

“Neither do I.”

She squeezed my hand again before pulling away. I liked that. How she would touch me without fear or hesitation. Even with my claws accidentally cutting a few times in the past. Kagome mostly, since she touched me the most. Yet she still held my hand when I needed it or she did because she was a good friend and person. A god damn angel surrounded by demons. 

“You could always say ‘no’ to her. It wouldn’t kill you?”

Her back to me, I listened to her heart and breathing to figure out her real meaning. Not that it was hard, given what I knew about her and her family already. “I could. But I didn’t. Not this time.” When she still didn’t look at me, I sighed loudly to get her attention. “You’re not going out with her, you’re going out with me, alright? You never get a night off and this was my in so I took it and I regret nothing.”

When I looked back up, staring at the different bags of kettle popped popcorn instead of her while I ranted, she had a caramel color to her eyes as she grinned. “Okay. I guess I don’t regret it either then.”

A few hours later

Miroku was grinning while we waited, standing off to the side of my building to lean on the half wall around the playground behind us. With my hands shoved in my pockets, I kept myself from punching him in the face but when he started to chuckle, I couldn’t stop myself from shoving him hard with my shoulder. It didn’t stop him from laughing and it didn’t make me feel any better, stuck waiting for my ex to show up with her new bf in a monster truck to take us all out to drink. 

But I told Kagome I didn’t regret it and I didn’t want to lie to her. 

The large monstrosity pulled up, rumbling as the driver revved the engine while leaving the doors locked. Gaining as much attention as possible and rubbing it in my face. It was a good thing I didn’t give a shit; otherwise, it might have worked and pissed me off. As it were, it just annoyed. 

The tinted windows hid the inside but I knew what I’d find when the door finally opened. This was why I wasn’t shocked nor did I hesitate, heading straight for the tiny back seat Kagome was undoubtedly shoved into by her cousin. With Kikyo in the front seat, this was where I wanted to be regardless, as far back as I could get.

Miroku took the middle seats. He and Sango would occupy them once we picked her up. It’s not like I was gonna share the fucking middle with those two anyway. I’d probably get a high heel in my face while they made out viciously. A few drinks and it was inevitable with those two. 

So why Kikyo was giving me the stink eye in her little mirror, I didn’t pretend to know or care. I had invited Kagome in the first place; of course, I would spend time with her. 

Taking my attention off others, I gave all of it to Kagome, who smiled softly to me in the dark back seat. She rocked a long sweater with tights and a pair of small sneakers. Another thing I liked about Kagome, she never tried hard but still managed to look adorable every time. Even in her uniform that was a hand-me-down and a size too small. A long braid over and down her shoulder and she was easy on the heart and eyes. 

“You made it.”

I grinned wide. “So did you.”

“Auntie about had a heart attack, Kikyo vouching for me and tugging me out the door with her.” 

She giggled and my heart thumped hard, happily. It felt fucking amazing making Kagome happy. “That made it worth it, didn’t it?”

Kagome shrugged and blushed heavily, making me wish I could read minds. 

“Kagome is going to be the DD if we get too wasted,” Kikyo called loud and clear from her throne. 

Glaring back at her, Kikyo smirked before slowly turning back to her boyfriend. The heavy linebacker and team captain of the football team didn’t intimidate me in the least. But Kikyo wanted me to be and I was sure I would never understand why. 

Kagome was staring, silently, out the window when I returned to ‘us’. No matter how many times I saw it, it still made my blood boil. And everyone knew about it; Kikyo had no shame in showing her disdain for her own blood. 

At first, it was all smiles and words under the breath. The girl with no family and no money showing up at our school? Kagome was the talk of the ‘first years’. And Kikyo enjoyed it until it got out they were related. That was when the cruelty started. Or, at least, the public cruelty. 

Sango never let Kagome’s background bother her, befriending her quickly just as she had me, another weirdo. At least I had my rich daddy to fall back on as well as a strong last name everyone knew. 

Kagome had nothing. 

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the guilt of shunning Kagome because her cousin told me to and I was a fucking lap puppy for Kikyo. The guilt or embarrassment. And it was all too easy for Kagome to forgive and forget, never letting anything get her down. Or stop her from caring about a person. I didn’t deserve her friendship but I still took it greedily. 

“I never got to tell you…” my attention was already on her and my ears perked up, finding her eyes in the reflection of the window, “I’m sorry.”

Confused, I shook my head a little to clear it. “What are you sorry for?”

Now she faced me but had her eyes on her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry for… showing up? That day, you were supposed to meet with Kikyo…”

I laughed and it caused her to jump up and look at me. “You mean the day she dumped me?” Kagome nodded slowly as if scared. “The day she dumped me and stood me up? When you came so I wasn’t alone? Are fucking shitting me? Why are you apologizing?!”

“I think…” her eyes flicked to the front but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of her, “I think she might have… gotten back with you if I hadn’t gone… but I didn’t want you to be alone, I didn’t… it wasn’t fair to you how she treated you and you deserve better…”

My hand on hers in her lap got her to stop. “You’re right, I do deserve better. And if she had offered to take me back, I might have been stupid enough to accept. So I’m glad you came.”

The softness of her face and eyes, it was palpable. “You’re sure?”

Oh god, was I. Kikyo dumping me was the best thing that ever happened to me. It woke me up, taking a long-ass nap in bitch land. I think it was sex. She was my first and I’ll never forget that. But it had me clinging to her because of some kind of made up attachment. 

Kikyo felt nothing for me. 

It was my last name that had attracted her. And I was attracted to her for her looks. The prettiest girl in school. Until freshman year started that is. 

But none of that mattered anymore; Kagome relaxing and giggling happily. My palms were sweating again at the sound. Add in the twinkle in her eyes and my heart was fucking doing laps. Maybe sitting in the back with her bitch of a cousin at the front was a bad idea?

We came to a stop and Sango bounced in. “The party’s here!”

“Where’s the booze you promised?” Miroku asked. 

Onigumo glanced at us in his rearview. “We have it all set up a few miles out of town.”

Miles outside of town? Where the fuck were we going tonight?

“Did Kikyo tell you? She says we’re playing something called Eleven Miles. Know what it is?”

I forgot about that and Kagome was already looking nervous. “No clue but I’m sure it’s fucking stupid.”

Kagome didn’t have a smartphone, so to reassure her, I got mine out and started searching. But then decided not to say anything after I got a look at what Kikyo had planned. 

“Yeah. It’s stupid.”

Kagome had short nerves. Something we all learned during the senior prank last year. They thought it would be funny to turn the school into a haunted house. I thought Kagome was going to pass out. Sango got her out of there unscathed but I was close to killing Hojo with his ghost costume, chasing Kagome around for a thrill. 

So no way in hell I was telling her what Eleven Miles was. Nothing was going to happen anyway; it would only freak her out to know. I still shot a glare Kikyo’s way. And she felt it, finding it and looking surprised. 

Instead, I scooted a little closer to Kagome and she passed me a smile before returning to watch the world outside her window. Miroku was already squeezing Sango tight to him but he spared a moment to look back and then throw me a wink. I spared a moment to punch the shit out of his shoulder. Little brat wined all the way to the ‘set up’. 

It was dark; the late fall sun setting an hour before we arrived. There was a table with drinks and a few lanterns burning. It looked like a cult ritual waiting to happen. We piled out of the car, I let Kagome go first for… my reasons and stood around awkwardly. All of this felt like it was a setup. Like there was more to this night than our ‘hosts’ were telling us. 

Sango looked about as at ease as me so she didn’t shy away from the booze. Miroku either. Kagome and I hung back; neither of us were ever drinkers. The few times I did, it was by force thanks to Kikyo. Kagome never got to go out so I assumed she would drink if given the chance. This wasn’t it though, Kikyo watching her cousin like a hawk, daring her to try for a drink. 

Kikyo and her boyfriend drank heavily and showed their bodies ’ resistance. Anyone else that drank as much as they did, in the short period we all stood there, would have at least struggled to walk. Kikyo had a small slur to her words but was otherwise fine. Onigumo acted like it was water.

Sneaking glances at Kagome beside me, I only gave a portion of my attention to the shit show before us. Sango started to get sloppy and Miroku got even more handsy. “You gonna drink?”

Wide and confused, Kagome’s beautiful browns crashed to me quickly. Then a flush spread on her cheeks as they wandered over my face. “I don’t think so. You?”

I had been slowly inching closer so now, taking my last inch, my shoulder touched hers. “Nah. So you’re safe if you want to.”

“Safe?”

Shrugging rubbed our shoulders together. I liked it cause she didn’t pull away. “Yeah, I’ll keep watch, keep you safe from… others.”

“And who will keep you safe?”

Her eyes were full of honesty, genuinely worried. But her pink lips twisted to the side as if implying something. This time, I took the bait. “You gonna jump me, Kagome? Cause I think I’d like that.”

Watching the blood spread across her face? Priceless. There was something truly beautiful about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I loved it. Even if it caused her to point her face towards her shoes. 

A red cup, almost matching the color of Kagome’s cheeks, appeared before our faces. Kikyo had a wry look on her face. It was the one she made when she was faking a smile. “Drink up. Both of you.”

“I thought you said…”

Kikyo cut Kagome off by shoving the drink into her hand. “Oni would never let you drive his car, get your head out of your ass, Kagome.”

“Hey!” I shouted before I could think, but I would have said it anyway. “Kagome is my date so cut the shit!”

The corners of Kikyo’s mouth went down while Kagome’s went up. They were both fighting it but were failing. “I just gave her a drink, asshole…”

Gently taking Kagome’s arm, I led us away from the bitch and closer to Sango. Miroku was hanging on her so they were a packaged deal. The glare Sango was shooting Kikyo told me she heard what was said and was ready to pounce. “What is all this anyway? Why are we in the middle of nowhere drinking in the dark?!”

“We thought it would set the mood.” Onigumo sneered. 

“For what?” 

I caught the rolling Kikyo’s eyes did as she looked Miroku’s way. Damn bitch. “For the game.”

“About that, I don’t want any part of some stupid witch-hunting game,” Sango warned. 

“It’s not a witch hunt! It’s just a drive…”

“And you get your wish granted at the end.”

Onigumo and Kikyo looked like a couple of twelve-year-old boys getting promised to see tits for the first time. They weren’t seriously dumb enough to think this shit was real, did they? 

I groaned but said nothing more. If there was one thing I knew about Kikyo, it was that once her mind was set, there was no changing it. The worst part was that we were stuck in the middle of it, so to speak. It was getting harder and harder not to regret this. One glance at Kagome, a chill from her nerves going up her spine and making her dance for a second, and I was calming back down. 

Her fear was permeating the air and even though I was pissed she was dragged into this, by me and Kikyo, I was more worried about her losing it. 

The only good thing about it all was having an excuse for wrapping my arm around her. A hand on her hip and she was giving me a flushed and confused look. I squeezed her and chuckled at the little skip her heart did. This was far better than her fear and I felt no shame in doing it to her. 

“God. Can we just get this over with then? I’d rather be in bed than doing this stupid game.” Miroku bitched. 

I was inclined to agree. Except for the part where Sango was in bed with me as that was implied by Miroku’s hand on her ass as he pushed them back towards the car. I pulled Kagome as well, keeping an arm around her. Kikyo sneered at all of us as we passed. Why the hell did she want us around? She didn’t care what we wanted and didn’t seem to enjoy our company at all. 

None of this felt right but with us, already out in the middle of nowhere it was keep going… or a long walk home, even for a demon, in the dark. 

Mile One…

Don’t use a large car or an open one like a motorcycle. The cover of night is important, sticking out too much would be very bad….

Kagome was in the back with me again, watching out the window. I assumed it was her nerves. Either being so close to me or the weird-ass game we were about to play. Or possibly a combination of the two. I knew she was at least attracted to me but I wasn’t sure if she was into me as I was into her. My demon senses didn’t tell me the difference. I had always told myself I could work with attraction. But after months of flirting this was the first time we had gone on anything close to a date. How much of that was Kagome’s choice and how much of it was her Cousin and Aunt keeping her busy, I didn’t know. With her now close to me and still putting distance, it was hard to believe she felt anything more for me than friendly attraction. 

Turning my attention to the road before us, I caught Kikyo watching us. Her eyes flicked away as soon as I caught her, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Whatever thoughts I had on that were interrupted by Sango reaching across her seat and grabbing Kagome’s shoulder. 

“You alright?”

I didn’t hide my interest, watching as Kagome worked out her response. Her eyes darted between me and Sango but she offered a weak smile. “I’m a little freaked out but I’ll be alright.”

She wasn’t lying. Embarrassed but still telling the truth. And her eyes lingered on me longer and longer after her admission. The back and forth of Sango’s eyes were seen in my peripheral. Maybe she saw something? It would explain the grin that grew on her face but she did that every time Kagome and I had a moment that she was there to witness. 

“You don’t need to worry. Inuyasha will protect you.”

Sango winked at me before turning back to her seat with Miroku. I turned from the two of them when Miroku took Sango back greedily, whispering things I wished I didn’t hear. Thank you demon hearing for that one.

Kagome wasn’t returning to her window, smiling sweetly at me so my palms began to sweat. “Is that true, Inuyasha? Will you protect me?”

Jesus. When she said shit like that. I knew she was just kidding around but damn it was bad for my heart. “Feh. Of course. Not that there’s anything to protect you from.”

Her smile faded, looking back out the window and I thought I had lost her again until she started whispering. “There’s something not right about this road.”

“What do you mean?”

I leaned over, looking out with her. My eyes were far better than hers, what with her a pure human. As expected, she didn’t squirm or push me away. There was no discomfort. There was also nothing but trees outside as we sped down the street. Well, not sped, Onigumo had us at a solid thirty-five MPH for some ungodly reason. This night was already going to last long enough.

A hard shiver ran through Kagome and I didn’t kid myself that it was because of me. “Cold?” She nodded and I growled at the front seats. “Hey Onigumo, what kind of piece of shit car is this? You can’t even keep the back seats warm?!”

He caught my glare in his rearview and I caught his sneer just before he leaned over and turned up the heat. Kagome’s hand found mine and she was like ice. “Thank you, Yasha.”

Oh shit, I loved it when she called me that. “Anytime, Ka-go-me.”

She smirked and I hoped it was due to the reminder. The first time we met I consistently said her name wrong. In a brazen show, she told me, “It’s KAH-GO-MAY you asshat!” I couldn’t control my attachment to her after that, having absolutely no fear or revulsion of me in the slightest. Most people took whatever I gave them and were thankful I didn’t do worse. And that had nothing to do with me and my track record, they all assumed I would do more than name call because I was a half breed. 

“Alright everyone, this is it! This is the road!”

Sango shifted, sitting closer to Onigumo’s seat. “What do you mean this is the road? I thought we just drove for eleven miles or something?”

“It has to be a particular road and mileage,” Kikyo answered mockingly. 

Miroku huffed, “then how the hell do you know this is it?!”

“Just a… feeling.”

She answered softly but Kikyo’s eyes flicked back and not at me. I glanced at Kagome who was stiff and trembling slightly. I took my jacket off and wrapped it around her without hesitation. Kagome smiled but it wasn’t as strong as her usual one. Whatever was going on, it was affecting Kagome somehow. 

And Kikyo was exploiting whatever that was to the fullest. 

Mile Two

To find the road you need to go at night when it will be the least populated. And you must do this alone. It won’t be on the map. It must be surrounded by woods and if you look for it, it will appear, as there will be hints….

“Can’t we go any faster?!!”

Now that we were ‘on the road’ Onigumo has slowed to a crawl. We were going about twenty miles per hour now. Kagome had stopped shivering but refused to look out the window now. Her arms crossed over her chest, she stared at the seat in front of us while I rubbed her knee. The fact that she didn’t blush like crazy showed me that she was too upset or messed up to care. And I was taking advantage but I didn’t care either. 

“You should all be looking. That’s the point. If we don’t see anything then it didn’t work.” Onigumo yelled. 

“This is bullshit.” Miroku sighed. “Just go faster so we can be done with this.”

Mile Three

Don’t use your phone….

“Does anyone else have any service?” Sango suddenly asked. 

I pulled out my phone and had a few bars but not much. “Here.”

She took my phone without question but then didn’t make a call. I couldn’t tell what she was doing but she didn’t put it up to her ear or anything. “Ug, fucking data is being so god damn slow!!!”

“What the hell are you doing?”

I move to sit up and lean over but Kagome’s hand flew to mine.  Still on top of her knee, she squeezed it so hard, if I were human, it would have hurt. 

My mouth parted to speak but one look at her had me shutting my mouth tight. Her eyes were wide and still staring at the seat before us. And she was breathing hard, shuddering breaths that sounded painful, like her whole body was so tense it hurt to breathe. 

“Kagome? What’s wrong?”

She said nothing. She didn’t move. Kagome was thoroughly freaked out. 

Removing my hand from her clutch was no easy task. For a human, she was surprisingly strong when scared but I did it and her breathing only quickened until I wrapped an arm around her to pull her into me. Practically in my lap, I glared at the two asshats in the front seats. They were busy looking out the windows. Onigumo too and the car slowed even more from it. 

At the moment, I was calm and quiet. Even with the girl in my arms that was shaking harder than a leaf in a storm. The others in the car couldn’t smell it; I was the only demon if just half. But I was sure, the air was thick with it. 

And you never forget the smell of death once you’ve experienced it. 

There was movement outside. I don’t know how Kagome knew it because they were hard even for me to see. But she must have seen them or something and it was the cause of her petrified state.

And with the grins on Kikyo and Onigumo’s faces, glancing back at Kagome as some kind confirmation, I knew they were holding back on some important information. “Alright, someone wanna tell me what the fuck is going on??!!”

“SHHHHH!!” My glare went to Sango but then I saw the blood drain from her face. “Do you hear that?”

Everyone was silent. I flicked my ears around, trying to hear but I heard nothing. But Kagome. She began to claw at my shirt and dig into my arms. Now hiding, I covered her as much as possible with my arms and body. If hiding helped her then that’s what I would do. 

“Oh my god…”

I’d been focused on Kagome. Her heart at a dangerous speed. With Kikyo’s exclamation, all I wanted to do was throw my shoe at the back of her head. Because screaming out like that didn’t help at all. But pulling my focus caused me to notice what was around us. And what was around us, didn’t make sense. 

Because the woods were completely gone. 

Mile Five

Don’t turn open the windows or leave your car….

It was like we had missed the road and driven into the middle of a field, no trees around at all. Not even behind us. 

I was struggling to take a good look around while holding onto Kagome. She didn’t look; she was barely breathing. And then they stopped the goddamn car. 

“What the hell? Why are we stopping???!”

Onigumo already had his door open. “Gotta piss.”

The growl I released was ignored. But of course, Onigumo and Kikyo didn’t give a shit about how freaked Kagome was. Sango turned to help me with her while Miroku scooted to the door. “I gotta go too.”

Sango called after him but he ignored all her warnings. The call of nature was stronger than his fear. 

The three of us were quiet. So much, I forgot all about Kikyo until she spoke, remembering there were four in the car. “She’s just being overly dramatic as usual.”

The venom in Kikyo’s voice was more than enough to push me and Sango over the edge. And Sango beat me to a response. “The only one here that is overly anything is you, Kikyo, and you know it.”

It was so quiet, I could hear the roll of Kikyo’s eyes. Sango huffed but turned back to us, Kagome still in my hold. Her hot and slow breaths were fogging up my chest but I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. At least she was starting to calm, her heart at a much safer speed than before. 

Like a little bunny, Kagome slowly came out of hiding and stared out the window past Sango. “Kagome?”

The driver’s door opened and slammed shut, rocking the car. “Wooo it’s cold out there!”

At some point, Kikyo had turned on the radio, soft notes playing all around us. I wasn’t in the mood in the slightest. 

“Where’s Miroku?”

Sango turned and looked to Onigumo, who shrugged. “No clue. We didn’t cross streams!”

I looked out, searching. There were no trees. Not a fucking one. And the lake looked more like a mirror, reflecting the full moon and stars above. With plenty of light and nothing obscuring our sight, it should have been easy to spot anyone. Demon or not. 

But there was no one near or around the car at all.

I wasn’t paying attention to the radio but suddenly, it cut out and turned to static. Then increased in volume until deafening. The white noise was making my brain hurt, pressing my ears to my skull as hard as I could. When that didn’t work, I covered them, allowing myself to let go of Kagome to try and lessen the pain.

She held on tight to my shirt but didn’t seem to mind the overpowering sound. It had nothing to do with being a demon because everyone in the car was buckled over from the noise. But Kagome? She sat up straight and still… and listened.

“TURN IT OFF!!!”

I was too busy curling into a ball but Sango’s scream made it over the noise and Onigumo slapped his hand to the audio power button. The ringing in my ears was slow to diminish but once it did, I released my head and wrapped my arms around Kagome again. Her cheeks were red and chapped with tears and she was sobbing softly. It was hard to miss, the salt covering any other scent for me, even the smell of death that had yet to go away. 

Dragging her into me, I gave her a small shake to wake her out of the shocked mentality she was stuck in. “Kagome, what’s wrong?!”

A few pounding heartbeats and sobs later, her eyes finally met mine. I could see the fear within them, it was screaming back at me. “They took him…”

Sango was listening now, turning back to us again. “Who took who?!”

“They...they took Miroku.”

“Who the fuck is they?!” Sango screamed. She didn’t wait for an answer; her hand on the handle before I could clear my head of just what Kagome was saying. “Fuck this, I’m going to look for him.”

The sound of the locks clicking into place was deafening and we all looked to the front. Kikyo still had her hand on the control when she slowly turned to us. “No one is going anywhere. We need to finish this.”

“What? You want us to keep driving are you fucking mad??”

She turned her glare to me, looking at me like I was fucking stupid. “Miroku is fine. Once we finish, we’ll go back for him.”

It wasn’t up for debate as Onigumo began to pull away. Sango’s screams were ignored and with me in the back seat, there was little I could do as we got back up to speed. Other than keeping Kagome as close as possible to me. 

Her forehead touched my neck, skin on skin, and I would have been a fucking teenage virgin about it if she wasn’t ice cold. “Shit, Kagome, you’re freezing!!”

Wrapped up tight, my coat wasn’t doing a damn thing for her. My hot demon blood kept me toasty 24/7 but even pressed against my heat, she was still shivering. Sango leaned back over her seat to us, checking and feeling Kagome. It was a needed distraction; tears still rolling down her cheeks from losing Miroku. “This can’t be good for her. It’s the damn prank night all over again.”

“This is fucking worse than that!”

Sango looked over her shoulder to the front again. “We need to get Kagome to a hospital.”

“No, we need her to stay right here. She is our beacon.” Onigumo said in the creepiest voice I had ever heard come out of him.

“Your.. beacon? To what?”

Sango asked but none of us wanted the answer. We needed to know how deep this shit went but we didn’t want to know. Kikyo slapped Onigumo’s shoulder in reprimand but answered our question anyway. “Beacon to.. this! All of it! We would have had no clue what road to take if it wasn’t for her.”

“What the hell does that mean!!!” I growled. 

But then the light cut away casting us into complete darkness.

Mile Six

Don’t touch the radio….

The trees had returned but it took the moon and starlight with it. As soon as we entered it, I could feel it. My demon was draining away. 

We had entered a moonless night somehow and I was becoming human.  

Sango’s eyes were wide at the sight of it. I had told them all about my human nights but I had never told Kikyo or Onigumo. Kikyo’s gray eyes looked at me fiercely and a smile grew on her face, making my skin crawl. 

This night was darker than usual. No moon and no stars, it made it impossible to see around us with my weak human eyes. Onigumo had headlights but seeing past them was difficult at best. 

The goddamn radio turned back on and no one touched it this time. Kagome rocked against me until I rocked with her. With it at a lower level, I could focus on the sounds instead of the skull piercing noise.

“Give… sss…. tooo… her….” out of nowhere, the static cut out, and it was clear, “INUYASHA, GIVE HER TO US!!!!”

Kagome pushed against me hard, her palms against my ribs. If I hadn’t been holding her so tight, she might have actually gotten free. “What the fuck?!”

“This isn’t funny, guys. Cut it out!”

Onigumo and Kikyo ignored me and Sango, continuing slowly down the road. Kagome was still pushing against my hold but I refused to let her go. “Kagome stop, I’m not letting you go.”

“You need to stay away from me, Inuyasha.”

There was nothing but sadness in her tone and I really didn’t get it. She was sad and afraid; why would she want to push any friend away? Was it because I was a demon? Kagome had never said or done anything to make me think she felt that way, like so many others, did about me. 

Was it whatever was out there, messing with us? Did she think I had something to do with it? It was my name coming out of the radio, a trick that was easy to do with a Bluetooth connection and a recorder on your phone. I don’t know how they got the smell of death to fill the car but I guess they could have put a dead animal under the hood of the car. If Onigumo would allow it. With him flaunting his money all the time he probably just considered buying a new car after this trick. Especially if Kikyo talked him into all of this. 

And it wouldn’t be the first time she had talked me into something either, convincing me to be cruel to Kagome when we first met. 

I wasn’t sure I could blame her, thinking I was somehow involved. I did ask her here and Kikyo folded so easily. So I yanked her back the tiny distance she had gotten away from me while I considered her wishes. Her eyes went wide, a little bit of green in her honey irises that made my heart skip a beat. “Shut the fuck up. I’m exactly where I want to be. Where I need to be.”

Some of her color came back to her face for a moment, a few errant tears sliding slowly down her cheeks. “Yasha…. it’s… it’s not what you think. It’s not safe…”

I couldn’t stand it; she was terrified and yet speaking about my safety? Kissing the tip of her nose got her to shut up and a warm fever to take over my skin from it. 

Damn weak human emotions. 

This was all some stupid prank anyway and I was going to beat the shit out of those responsible once we got the hell out of this car. 

We were still rolling on, surrounded by black woods. I couldn’t explain the lack of moon and stars. That was the only thing I couldn’t understand, how the hell they pulled it off?! How the hell did they make me human??

I was still trying to look out and see something in the darkness and felt a small tugging on my hair. Searching out the source, I found Kagome, playing with a few of my black strands. She had never seen me like this. No one had. Then she pushed back my hair until she found my ear, now on the side of my head and human. Gripping it, she checked to see if it was real I guess, before looking up at me with a small smile. 

“I’m sorry, Yasha. I know you hate being like this.”

Like it was her fault? I pulled her into my side, wrapping an arm around her tight and turning us so we looked ahead. Because if she kept looking at me and speaking to me like that, I was liable to take advantage. Something told me, she wouldn’t push me away if I offered her comfort in the form of my tongue in her mouth. Even if she wasn’t that into me. 

Mile Seven

Ignore the figures you see outside your car….

It hadn’t been long, Kagome and I calm in the backseat together when it all went to hell. 

First, Kagome stiffened in my hold, her shoulders becoming ridged. I took my attention away from the road for a moment to calm her down and Sango screamed. Making us both jump. 

“Stop! Stop the car!!”

I didn’t let go of Kagome in the slightest but I still sat up and tried to pull Sango back down to her seat. “Are you crazy?! We need to get this over with!!”

“I saw him!” She cried. “I saw Miroku; stop the car!!”

Turning, I looked behind us, keeping my arm around Kagome so I was turned into her. No longer a demon, I couldn’t hear her heart. But with my face inches from hers, I could easily feel the shallow breaths she was taking. “Kagome?”

She shook her whole body but mostly her head, at me. “That’s not Miroku.” She whispered. 

A glance and I couldn’t see anything anyway. Cupping her cheek, I gently pulled Kagome’s face towards mine. “Who is it, Kagome?”

Her eyes danced around my face. The breaths that puffed across my cheeks were cold; it made my fear spike for the girl in my arms. “I don’t know. But it’s not Miroku.”

Something crawled up my back to my neck and whispered. “Let go…”

My neck popped I turned so hard and fast. But there was nothing. Kagome’s hand grabbed mine on her face and I turned back to her, already feeling her tears on my fingers. She said nothing though, silently crying. 

Sango was still fighting with Onigumo, trying to get him to stop. At least he wasn’t a complete idiot. Or so I thought, feeling the car being to slow. 

“What are you doing?! Don’t stop the car you fuckers!!”

Sango whipped around to glare at me and only softened a little at the sight of Kagome so broken. “We need to get Miroku…”

“That ain’t Miroku!!!!”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re stopping, like it or not.” Kikyo declared. 

I was ready to wail in both of them but Onigumo turned off the car. “It’s dead. The car is dead; we have no choice but to stop.”

Mile Eight

If the car stalls, just be patient and try again in a few minutes. Don’t leave the car and whatever you do, don’t listen to the voices you hear….

“This is bullshit. Start the damn car you assholes!”

Onigumo passed me a look, then showed me his hand as he tried to crank the car. It didn’t even turn over; not making a single sound as he twisted the key in the ignition. 

Sango went for her door again but Onigumo still had it locked. “Let me out; I’m going back for Miroku.”

I was shaking my head at her but soon heard the click of the locks. Kagome got up too, as soon as Sango opened her door. “We should go with her.”

My breath was caught somewhere between my chest and my throat. Kagome was a ball of anxiety but still wanted to face it all for the sake of her friends. I wanted to go look for Miroku too. And get out of this car as it slowly made its way to hell. 

Taking her hand firmly in mine, we crawled over the seat and out the door. I spared Kikyo a glance. Her lips set in a hard line, she was stoic and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing considering. 

Sango had a head start on us and we had lost her to the darkness. Kagome’s hand was in the death grip of mine and that brought me some comfort. While my palm was sweating, hers was ice cold. Made worse by the strange fridge temperature outside the damn car. It was late, checking my watch to see we were in the early hours of the morning now. That wasn’t the cause of the lack of stars or moon; sunrise was still hours away. 

The white puffs of hot air as they expelled from our mouths nearly glowed even without light reflecting on it. It made me wonder if the moon and stars were still there but, for some reason, we couldn’t see them? 

Kagome shook so hard, my arm was going numb from her shiver crawling up my shoulder. She still stepped up beside me and called out as if not terrified and freezing. “Miroku!!”

“We’re gonna have to walk a ways back for him to be in earshot, I think.”

I knew we had traveled a distance down the road but I had no clue just how far we had left Miroku behind. It was at least a mile. 

“Miroku!!!” Kagome still yelled.

Sango was probably doing the same thing. Wait…. “Where’s Sango?” 

Sure it was dark but she would be screaming her lungs off, looking for Miroku right now. No way in hell we wouldn’t hear her; the forest was dark and silent like a grave. 

Just as I pulled Kagome into my side, a loud pop came from behind. I spun us both, putting Kagome behind me simultaneously in a manner I could only explain as instinct. My body was screaming to protect Kagome and get her the hell out of here. 

Without my claws, I was left with my fists, holding them up at the ready and in defense. Crawling out of the darkness, Kikyo peered at the two of us and frowned. “You need to get back to the car. Now.”

“The car is a piece of shit! And we want to find Miroku. You know? Our friend that you and Onigumo left behind!!”

She waved a hand at me as if to wipe my words from the air. “Miroku is fine…”

“You don’t know that,” Kagome whispered.

As much as I liked her standing up to her cousin, I didn’t like the darkness in her tone. Because it wasn’t about Kikyo; it was about Miroku and whatever the hell happened to him. It had me grabbing Kagome and pulling her with me. “Fine, we’ll go back to the car.”

Kikyo stopped us, putting a hand on my chest as I tried to pass. “Not Kagome. Just you.”

“Excuse me?” I glared down at Kikyo but she kept her eyes locked on Kagome. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“She is! I want her gone!”

Shoving Kagome behind me again, I squared up to the bitch. “She has done nothing to you. You need to stop this, Kikyo. It’s just pathetic now.”

Now she tore her gaze from Kagome, tears covering her cheeks as she grimaced up at me. “Everything is her fault. She’s the one going to college and using my funds to do it!”

“What are you talking about?” Kagome whispered.

“I didn’t get in. Anywhere. So now Mom is going to take my college fund and add it to yours. All so you can go to your damn fancy as fuck university. And I’ll stay here to rot.”

This was what it had always been about. Jealousy. So I gently grabbed Kagome again and pulled her away. “That’s your own fault. Too busy parties and being a bitch when you should have been studying your ass off like Kagome. Nothing was handed to her and you know it so shut your fucking mouth and get out of our way.”

Pushing her ahead of me, I just wanted to get Kagome far away from her fucked up family. But Kikyo grabbed me and I couldn’t let Kagome walk in this dark and fucked up forest alone. “I want you back, Inuyasha.”

Ripping from her claws, I snarled at her. “You just want me because I want someone else!”

“HER??!! Why her?!! She’s nothing! A piece of shit orphan with nothing better to do than leech off me and my family. Even my boyfriend!”

“Ex! Ex-boyfriend. You dumped me, remember?”

“Because of the way you looked at HER!” My eyes went from Kikyo to Kagome and then to the leaf-covered ground. “You can’t even deny it. You’ve been into her ever since you met her. Even while you were fucking me…”

“Shut up!” I couldn’t take any more of this and I really didn’t want Kagome hearing anymore. “You don’t know shit about me and you never did.”

Kikyo sneered, her eyes dancing from me to the one behind me, Kagome tugging on my hold to get away. But I refused to let her go. “Inuyasha… we should go…”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Spinning, I pushed Kagome along and held her elbow tight to keep her off the ground when she tripped. I couldn’t see shit but she was a walking shit storm when it came to NOT tripping on things. Kikyo released a strangled cry like she was shocked we were leaving and I had to force Kagome to keep moving forward. 

“Yash…”

Shit, I hated it when Kikyo called me that. It made me so pissed, I didn’t think, I just glared back. But something was wrong, the angled position of Kikyo’s head? It was as if she was being pulled back by her chin. Looking down, I saw her feet were barely touching the ground, on her tiptoes with the tips of her shoes grazing the leaves. 

Her eyes were wide and on me, her mouth struggling to open. “Give them… her… now.”

My brain spun, glancing back at Kagome to find her horrified and shaking. And then she took a step.

A hand on her chest, I didn’t give a shit about the proximity to her breasts. She wasn’t going anywhere near Kikyo no matter what the hell was going on. “Fuck off!”

“Give them… Kagome… please!!!” Kikyo whined.

I had to hold Kagome back again, this time wrapping her up in my arms as she fought against me. “Stop it! This is stupid!!”

It wasn’t a scream, it was a gurgle, looking back to Kikyo as a red line appeared. It drew across her neck just below her apple. And then it grew, blood spilling from it while Kikyo sputtered. 

Her body fell to the ground and she didn’t move. Kagome wanted to move, but I wouldn’t allow it. Either this was a fucked up prank or something else. Either way, Kagome didn’t need to be anywhere near it.

This time, I picked her up, lifting her into my arms kicking and screaming. At first, she screamed to go back then she just wept. God damn Kikyo was going to scar Kagome for life with this bull shit.

No one was in the car and I prayed the keys were in the ignition. With Onigumo gone, no sign of Sango, and Miroku still missing, I had to assume they were all in on it. I had Kagome tossed into the back seat when a body flew into my back. Fucking human senses, not only did I not hear Sango walk up behind but I actually jumped when she touched me. 

“Goddammit, Sango!!”

She was shaking, hard, and her hands were covered in blood. “I’m sorry, I… I… I saw… that is I found… Kikyo, it was Kikyo…”

I grabbed her. In part cause, she was about to pass out but also to shut her up before she freaked Kagome out even more. “We know, we saw.” Sango tried to climb in the car but I stopped her, pushing her back. “Tell me you had nothing to do with this?!”

Her mouth cracked in a sob. “How.. how could you think that?!”

Shoving on my hold, I felt more guilt than usual. Fucking human emotions! “Miroku is conveniently missing and Kikyo is off playing fucking ghosts. I don’t even know what the fuck Onigumo is doing right now and I don’t care.” Now the tears, Sango was pissed and crying. I sighed heavily and released my hold on her. “Just tell me you have nothing to do with this and I’ll believe you.”

She released a shuddering breath right into my face. “I have nothing to do with this.” I released her and she shuddered, “how could I be. Look at yourself? How could someone make you human?!”

I shrugged, “to be honest, there’s a lot about being a half-demon that even I don’t understand yet. And maybe tonight is a new moon and I forgot…”

“We already had a new moon. Two weeks ago…”

“I remember but maybe it’s like a blue moon or something?! I don’t know! All I know is Kikyo and Onigumo are fucking around and I’m pissed!”

Sango rolled her eyes at me but then hopped in the car, going straight to Kagome. I watched for a moment as Sango wrapped herself around Kagome. I wasn’t sure if she did it to comfort herself, Kagome, or both, but Kagome looked like she wanted nothing to do with it. That was odd in itself; Kagome was always open to affection from her friends. Even from me. 

Something to figure out later; Going to the driver seat so we could get the fuck out of here. “What are you doing?”

I glanced at Sango in the rearview, her eyes wild with fear. “Getting out of here.”

“We can’t leave Miroku and Onigumo.”

I could tell, even without my demon senses, Sango felt more worried about Miroku than Onigumo. And I had to agree, I really didn’t want to leave Miroku either. “Fine. Then let’s go back and look for Miroku.” My hand went to the ignition and found it empty. “Shit, fucking, asshole!!!”

“What?!!”

Now both Kagome and Sango were staring back at me in the reflection of the mirror, eyes impossibly wide with fear. “Nothing… the keys are missing.”

“Dammit, Onigumo must have them that prick.”

I started searching the darkness, looking for signs of the bastard. He was out there, I could see things moving. Looks like he brought some friends with him. Although who would be crazy enough to stand out in the cold dark woods for hours just to fuck with us, I didn’t know. Onigumo must have hired people or something. He was dumb enough to spend his money on something like that. 

Whoever it was, it was more than just Onigumo. He couldn’t move that fast or be in two places at once. And I was sure I was seeing more than one person as three figures moved simultaneously in different spots. 

Now, more than ever, I was sure this was a damn prank.

Which meant Miroku was being held by them somewhere. Against his will probably; Mirkou was stupid, but not crazy. He knew better than to mess with Kagome like this and he hated the woods at night. 

Something slammed into my door and the girls screamed. I jumped as well (fucking human body) and turned to find hands and a face pressed against the glass, covered in blood. 

“LET ME IN!!!”

It took me a second to clear my head and unlock the doors. Onigumo climbed in the back seat, panting and groaning. “What the hell man?!”

Sango was weeping and Kagome pushed her back, climbing over the seat to sit near Onigumo. She was propping him up, trying to get a look at whatever wounds he had. While Onigumo looked around wildly. “We need to go.”

“Go?! We can’t just leave… what about Kikyo? Miroku?!” Sango screamed.

“She’s dead. Miroku is probably dead too.”

Turning I glared back at him, “that’s not fucking funny.”

“I’m not kidding!!” He shoved the keys into my face, “just fucking drive asshole!!”

Onigumo was still playing the game hard. If I wanted to get all of us out of this stupid night, I would have to drive. Miroku and Kikyo would be waiting at the end of this so the sooner I got us there, the better.

The car started without issue and I caught Sango’s stare in the rearview mirror again. Some of her fear depleted, starting to see the con that was going on. Kagome was still shaking. But then again, she was currently getting her hands covered in blood. 

“Just forget about him, Kagome.” I put the car in drive and hit the gas hard. “This is all bullshit anyway.”

Mile Ten

Don’t drive too fast, or you’ll miss all the fun...

I wasn’t sure but we had to be getting to the end of this soon. It was only supposed to be eleven miles! I was going fifty but we were still in the endless night of the forest. No stars, no moon, and no end.

“What the fuck, is this a loop or something?!”

We had been in a straight line the entire time, no turns at all, but it felt like we were going in circles. Kagome was still messing with Onigumo, pulling carefully at his coat and then going for his shirt, trying to find his wounds. 

“I told you not to worry about the fucker, Kagome.”

The jealousy I had was unjustified but as a human, I had little to no control over it. I was pretty sure it was clear on my face and tone but Kagome ignored it. “There’s… there’s a lot of… blood. We need to… stop it and get to a… hospital.”

Even terrified to the point of witless, Kagome thought of others first. It made my heart swell and hurt a lot. 

But also it had me not watching the road.

“INUYASHA WATCH OUT!!!!”

Sango was screaming from the back and I looked to the front; a person standing in the middle of the road. Braking was pointless but I tried, slamming hard into the body of the bystander. The sickening thud of them hitting the hood and then the roof as their body went over us made us all pale. It felt like a lifetime passed before the car finally stopped, not thinking about anything else as I ripped open the door and ran around the car. 

But I didn’t understand, staring at the now dirt road, and trying to get my mind wrapped around what it was seeing. Sango managed to join me while I tumbled my brain around. She gasped and looked really hard too.

The road was empty, no body or blood.

There was no doubt, we had hit someone. I felt the car jerk from the hit. But there was no body! Running around, I went to the front of the car. Sure enough, there was a dent in the front that was easily body size. Something moved to my left, hidden by darkness and trees. I was tired of all this shit so I went after it. “Alright assholes. Come out here and face me!”

The pussies remained hidden and silent but I knew they were there. 

“I know Onigumo put you up to this. If you come out now and cut the shit, I’ll go easy on you.”

Nothing.

That is until some screams came from behind. They were coming from where I left the car. “Kagome.”

I breathed out her name out of fear. Now I had it in spades. I had left her alone and I had promised to protect her in all of this. It might be a prank but these fuckers didn’t know when to quit. They were going to scar Kagome for life and mess her up good. 

God damn Onigumo and Kikyo. I was going to tear them both to PIECES for this!!!

The car was empty when I got back to it. I’d been gone maybe five minutes; they couldn’t have gotten far. But I had no clue which way to go!

There was movement on the ground, something in the tall grass of the abandoned road. The early morning dew was freezing, seeping through my jeans. But I still rushed to the movement, finding Sango rolling and coiling in pain. She let me help her to her feet, staggering and struggling on her feet while her face began to swell. I knew what happened without a word from her, standing her up as straight as I could to look her in the eyes.

“Which way did he take her?”

She pointed then sobbed. “She was checking him over and couldn’t find a wound. Then he said, it wasn’t his blood. Who’s blood is it, Inuyasha??!!”

I knew what she was thinking and I was thinking about it too. That it was Miroku’s and that he wasn’t with us because Onigumo and Kikyo had done something very bad to him. “It’s fake, Sango. None of this is real…”

“But you’re a human?!”

I didn’t have time for this; I had to get Kagome away from these freaks. “Get in the car and don’t move. Sango? Don’t fucking leave the car for anything, understand?”

“But…”

“Nothing! I will be back with Kagome and we’ll get out of here. Try calling the cops or something.”

She pulled out her phone as she ran. I did the same and had no signal. So instead, I used the flashlight and ran towards the blackness. It was where Kagome was so I had no choice.

Mile Eleven

Don’t leave your car!!!!

I was out of breath; my lungs screaming at me. If I wasn’t a fucking human… but I couldn’t stop, I still hadn’t caught so much as a glance of Kagome yet. The flashlight of my phone wasn’t helping either. I was far too used to my demon sight; this flashlight was bull shit.

But I had nothing else so I kept using it like a dick and searching the woods. They were endless. We had to be close to a house or a town. This place wasn’t that big or remote!!! 

Nearly tripping on a root, I growled and cursed as loudly as possible, “Onigumo, where are you, you fucker?! I’m going to rip you in half!!!”

“Inuy….”

I heard her. She was cut off and that made my blood boil but Kagome and called out to me. The amount of panic in her voice pained my heart. Kagome had been scared when we went through the Senior prank. Her face was ashen and she was close to tears. 

This was nothing like that.

It no longer mattered that I was tired or blind, I ran, pushing my legs so hard into the dirt, it flew up behind me. I could hear it falling back to the leaf-covered ground like ice from a tree, crashing over the sound of my hard breaths. Nothing was going to keep me from Kagome, not the endless night or the cramp in my side. 

I saw it just in time to know what it was, a fist aimed for my nose and hitting right on the mark. It had been a while since I’d been hit like this while human. It still stung when I was a demon but at least it didn’t break my fucking nose. 

I pinched my bridge and glared up at Onigumo, Kagome weeping in his hold. “Let her go, fuck face.”

“We need her.”

No longer caring about the blood dripping down my face, I dropped my hand and stepped closer to the hostage situation. “Wrong. I need her. And I will be leaving with her now.”

“Inuyasha…”

Kagome was trying to speak but the mother fucker cut her off, squeezing her neck a little tighter with the arm around his neck. “Let her go dammit! This isn’t funny!!”

“We were supposed… we were supposed to do this together,” Onigumo muttered.

“What the fuck are you talking about?! I never wanted to do shit with you!”

“Not you!” He roared, swinging Kagome around and making my knuckles pop with how hard I clenched them. “Kikyo. We were supposed to take Kagome out here together… but she’s dead.”

“Cut the shit!!”

“I’m not lying! She’s dead Inuyasha!!”

“Then you killed her! We didn’t do anything to any of you assholes!”

Onigumo’s face slowly went slack as the truth bled through his thick skull. “You’re right… I killed her… it’s my fault.”

His hold loosened on Kagome so I lurched for her, wrenching her free and shoving him back hard. He fell on his ass and did not attempt to get up. “Kikyo said, it would work if we brought her.”

“What the hell?!” I spat, rolling Kagome up in my hold. 

She grabbed onto me hard, shaking, and sobbing. I was trying to decide if I could manage to set her aside for a moment to stomp the shit out of Onigumo but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. Kagome was far too freaked. 

“Kagome… we needed her for this to work. Kikyo promised me it would work…”

Onigumo got to his feet and Kagome pushed on my hold. Hard. “Inuyasha, run.”

She was still pushing like she wanted me to let go and run without her. “What?!”

“Leave me and go. Now!!”

Kagome had stopped pushing and started hitting, going for my shoulders, arms, hands, sides, and then my face, smacking my nose gently but with the hit it took moments ago, she might as well have punched me. “FUCK!”

She choked on a sob and I managed to keep one hand on her. Even with her clawing at it. “Let go!!”

“Fuck that!!”

Suddenly, I was very aware of Onigumo, standing on his own two feet but just not quite right. “Please...please…”

We were silent, Onigumo begging us when we weren’t anywhere near him. “Dude.. what’s your problem?”

Kagome gripped my wrist with her nails and tried again to get free. I was too invested in Onigumo now, watching his every move. A tear fell down his cheek and my stomach dropped to my toes. I couldn’t smell, taste, or hear it but I knew there was someone else here. Something else. 

Stiffening, Onigumo got unnaturally straight, like he was trying not to be touched. “I gave you Miroku! And you took Kikyo!!”

“What the hell does that mean?” I growled. “You gave them Miroku?!”

He ignored me and continued to whimper to the air. “She’s… she’s right there, just take her.”

“Please, don’t hurt anyone else! I’ll go with you!!” Kagome shouted and tried to step closer to Onigumo.

I shut it down, yanking her kicking and screaming back into my arms. “Stop it!”

Focused on Kagome and lifting her to carry her away, I was confused by the whimper that came from Onigumo. I ignored it until I heard a strange gurgle come from him. It was stupid, blame the human half, but I turned back to look only slap a hand over Kagome’s eyes far too late. 

Just like Kikyo, a long red line was being drawn on Onigumo, starting at his belly button. I had Kagome’s sight covered tight but not my own; I was only able to sew my eyes shut just as Onigumo’s intestines hit the ground. 

I forced my eyes back open, needing to know just what the fuck we were up against, only to find Onigumo still standing with his guts on the dirt. Steam rose gently from them and blood dripped out of Onigumo’s lips but he remained standing like it was any other day. 

It had to be some kind of trick? Something I was less sure of when Onigumo bent over and started shoveling his inners back inside himself. His bones cracked and his muscles shook when he moved, looking forced. He got himself back together and closed up his jacket. 

Then smiled.

At some point, I had dropped the ball, no longer covering Kagome’s eyes. And now those eyes were staring straight into mine, blocking all of the world out with honey-colored irises. “Inuyasha… they want me, not you.”

“Wha… what are you talking about?”

“If you go now and leave me behind, they’ll let you live.”

Anger swelled in me so fast, it made my head spin. I grabbed her hard, harder than I should have but I was losing control. “Leave you behind? For who and what, Kagome?!”

A sad smile was on her face, a tear slipping silently down her cheek. “Demons. They’ve been after me for a while now. Ever since they killed my family. I ran then but I’m not going to run this time. It’s… it’s my fate, Inuyasha.”

Pulling from her magnet eyes, I glanced at the man formerly known as Onigumo. He was a suit now; something else wearing him and smiling back at us. Then I looked back at Kagome, who was calm and resigned. She was a girl I knew, one I liked. A lot. I liked Kagome a lot and the main reason for that was shit like this. She was sacrificing herself for me and Sango. Her friends, people she cared about. We were nothing, just two kids, the same age as Kagome, and yet here she was acting beyond her years.

Accepting death.

It was what she wanted. Kagome wanted me to leave and let her face her demons alone. That was the smart thing to do. The right thing in her mind. So I would do the right thing for her. “No.” She looked surprised and I tried not to be offended by that, “I’m not fucking going anywhere. Not without you.”

We were probably going to die so what difference would it make, grabbing her face and crushing her mouth to mine. It felt right, especially when she grabbed my elbow tight and didn’t push me away. If I was a demon, I could have kissed her for a lot longer. Forever maybe. But I needed air so I pulled back, resting my forehead against hers while we caught our breath. It was the clapping that had me returning to reality, spinning Kagome so she was behind me. 

The Onigumo suit was giving us a slow clap, his arms jerking apart only to slap his hands back together in a sickening show. “We are surprised by you, Inuyasha.”

“We?”

The thought that I was talking to a corpse flashed in my brain but seemed pointless to worry about now. “Yeeeessss, WE.” I was looking around and pulling Kagome closer, looking for the ‘we’ it was speaking of when it laughed. “We are right here, Inuyasha.”

The suit gestured to itself and I just had to ask. “Who the hell are you?!”

“We are many… we took this form just for her…” it pointed and Kagome whimpered, “we have many names as there are so many of us… but you may call us… Naraku.”

“Naraku? What the fuck kind of name is that?!” 

I was pissed. Pissed that I was still fucking human and that Kagome was seconds from giving herself over to this creature. She kept pulling on me and trying to go around me but I wasn’t having it. 

Naraku laughed, “It is just our name; take it or leave it. But you will be leaving Kagome with us.”

“Fuck off.”

“Onigumo and Kikyo thought they could control us, the fools,” it smirked and Kagome shivered hard, “even tainted, we ate them anyway just like Kagome’s mother, father, and little brother…”

“You’re a monster!” Kagome screamed.

Now I had her in my arms again, this time to keep her from… I’m not sure what she was going to do, run at the monster or fall to pieces. I never heard what happened to Kagome’s family, only that Kikyo and her mom took her in after they were gone. Shit, I didn’t even know she had a brother!

Naraku now looked pissed, Kagome in my arms instead of theirs. It only made me hold her tighter. “You can’t have her. She’s mine.”

Its head went back in a laugh, howling at the moonless sky above. “What can you do, Hanyou? You are nothing compared to us!!”

Roaring, Naraku rushed us. I spun, curling around Kagome to protect her. I felt the claws in my skin, digging in deep, and fuck did it hurt. This was by far the most damage my human body had ever received and I wasn’t used to the pain from it. I was close to passing out which wasn’t good, not at all. 

Blood was trickling down my sides and pain radiated all over to the point, I wasn’t sure if my back or my ribs were what was cut. Either way, life was draining from me and I struggled to breathe.

Kagome was sobbing, clutching my face in her hands. I had my eyes clenched shut against the pain but I could hear and feel her, shaking under me. She pulled me, pressing her forehead to mine like we had moments ago and whispered. “Please… don’t die for me. Inuyasha I couldn’t take losing you too.”

I was dying. The girl beneath would die right after me. And there was a demon fucking laughing behind us while we cowered in our mortality. 

Fucking pissed me the hell off.

I could feel it and I couldn’t stop it. It was for the best anyway. No part of me liked Kagome seeing this side of me but it was either this or death.

Grabbing her close, I yanked her off the ground and stood tall. I could feel my wounds slowly knitting together as my demon blood took over completely. My fangs grew, pushing against my lips and hanging out of my mouth and the tips of my fingers ached from the fast growth of my claws. 

“About time you showed up,” I told the damn demon.

“Of course, like I’d let us die.” He barked back in my head.

“Listen, we need to save Kagome. So no stupid shit, alright?”

He scoffed, “I’m not going to do anything but save both your asses.”

It was weird, the demon agreeing with me, but I would take what I could get. He must like Kagome too.

“Yes, I like her too, idiot. We’re one and the same; no matter how much you refuse to believe it.”

That was a topic for another day. A day I had been pushing off for years but it wasn’t important now. Trying to relax, I let the demon take over my body completely. He would save Kagome. There was still no moon that I could see so it was a trick of some kind created by this demon. I had never heard of that being possible but it wasn’t like I knew much about demons in general.

It laughed again, dark and sinister like the piece of shit it was. “You would hurt this body? Hurt your friend?”

Now I laughed cause all of me, demon, human, and hanyou, found that funny. Kagome clawed at me in fear and I didn’t know if it was the situation in general or she didn’t want me to hurt the sack of skin that was once Onigumo. “Even if Onigumo was ever my friend, you killed him already. I’m not a fucking idiot.”

“Could have fooled us. You brought her here like a gift and yet, you won’t even share?”

“He doesn’t know anything about you. He’s not a part of this at all.” Kagome screamed, pushing on my hold yet again.

Not only was I fighting a gaggle of demons, but I was also fighting Kagome as well. I couldn’t do both so one had to be stopped. And one was easy enough, grabbing Kagome by her shoulders and holding her off the ground so we were face to face. “Get this straight, Kagome, I’m not giving you up so this is my fight. I’m the demon and you’re the human. My human. So shut up and let me handle this!”

I kissed her again, not giving a shit because I wanted her and only her. My longer fangs pressed against her lips and I didn’t dare deepen it in this form. I agreed with the Hanyou, I really liked Kagome too, and I didn’t want to hurt her. Being gentle with her as I pulled her from my mouth and set her back on the ground. 

I didn’t grab her or wrap her up in my hold again. I didn’t need to; she came to me, willingly. That fight was over and so I faced the real one right before us. Naraku wasn’t happy and that made me crow, pissing him off. 

“We will give you one last chance, Hanyou. We don’t want to harm another of our kind…”

“Funny didn’t stop you a minute ago…”

Naraku grimaced, “GIVE HER TO US!”

“Go to hell!”

The suit rushed us again but this time I was ready, grabbing Kagome by the waist and jumping over the bag of bones. Or a bag of demons. 

I twisted in the air and ran my claws down the back of the body. It was already ripped open in the front and now I ripped open the back of what was once Onigumo’s body. Once on the ground, I shoved Kagome behind me and she grabbed tight to my shirt, ripping it more while it was already shredded and covered in blood. I ignored the small tugs to my hair she did as well, grabbing and pulling in her worry. But she no longer had anything to fear.

The body shifted, shaking and quaking in a sickening manner as the demons shed their skin. The real battle was about to begin. But there was nothing; Onigumo falling to the ground, empty, and nothing to show for it. They were still there, their stink permeating the forest air. I could smell it as they got closer, circling Kagome and me to taunt. 

“We have always had her, you know.” The voice echoed around us, all of them speaking as one as they surrounded us. “Even as a child. Even before this life, she has had now.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I screamed, feeling stupid talking to air.

The air chuckled and the trees shook with a breeze. Kagome grabbed onto my shoulders as if she could hold onto me tighter. “This life. Any life. We find her and we take her. This is the first time she has had another demon stand between us. It is annoying and only delaying the inevitable.”

I glanced back at Kagome and her eyes were wide with shock and terror. She had no clue what the bastards were talking about. “She is just smarter than before.”

Her eyes darted to mine and I turned away, focusing on the task at hand instead of what Naraku was hinting at. It didn’t matter if Kagome was using me. Not right now it didn’t. I wasn’t sure I cared at all, she could use me as much as she wanted and I would use her right back. 

“The fuck you will!” The Hanyou roared in my head. 

I shook him out and ignored anything and everything else. Naraku was what was important right now. Sight was useless, so I relied on my other senses. Like smell. The scent of rot was strongest behind us, edging closer to Kagome. I didn’t like that, not at all. 

Spinning us around, I kept Kagome behind me and faced the demon head-on. The air shifted in front of me, the shadows bending ever so slightly as the demon moved to stand right in front of me. Either Naraku was dumb, cocky, or didn’t think I could see it but I didn’t hesitate to slash him with my claws. 

Naraku reared back, squealing, but I was sure I hadn’t really hurt him. He was playing me, trying to get me to lower my guard. But Kagome’s grip still slipped from my shoulders and she whimpered loudly.

It was all just a distraction.

She was already in the air, flailing her legs while trying to rip an invisible hand from her mouth. I caught a foot and yanked on her. It probably hurt but it was the only choice I had; getting a hold of her calf after that. It released her mouth then to grab onto her shoulders instead. It didn’t have a good hold and I was far stronger than it. 

Claws ripped through my coat and to Kagome’s skin, deep scratches to her shoulders, but I got her free and back in my arms. Cradling her to my chest, I let my heart settle. That had been way too close. 

Fear had my chest in a vice. Because I wasn’t sure how to get us out of this. They were dead set on taking Kagome and not fighting me. It made it all so much harder than if they would just fight me for her. Then I could rip them to shreds and keep their hands off her. 

As it was now, she was just a distraction for me. 

I couldn’t tell her to run; they would follow and catch her. So as much as it pained me, I did the only thing I could, keeping Kagome in my arms and taking off back out of the woods. 

“GET BACK HERE!!!” The monster growled. 

Kagome folded her face into my chest as I ran far beyond human speed. It was hard on a human, going this fast, but I had no choice. Naraku was on our heels and the car was still a good distance away. Which wasn’t right; we hadn’t walked that far from it. Onigumo and I were both human when we left it behind. Even running, a demon could make up the distance in no time. And yet, the car still sat in the ever stretching distance.

It was a trap.

When I stopped, Naraku’s laughter filled the air again, bouncing off the tall dark trees that loomed like skinny giants. It sounded like a hundred demons all laughing at once. It made Kagome shiver in my arms, despair, horror, pain, and cold making her body dance. I could smell all of it off her skin even with the rot surrounding us and nearly choking me with it. 

Naraku was shifting around us in a circle and I was livid. “ENOUGH! Face me now, Naraku. Fight me like a demon instead of a scared little pup. Fight me and whoever wins gets Kagome!”

I set Kagome down but she grabbed onto me tight, pulling my attention from the swirling mass that surrounded us. “Don’t do this, Inuyasha. I’m not worth it.”

A grin pulled at the corner of my mouth and I carefully brushed her tears away with my claw. “Yes, you are.”

This time, she tipped up on her toes, grabbing my forelocks to pull me down and her up as she kissed me. A growl rumbled in my chest and I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her into me hard. The Hanyou wanted me to be gentle but when she kissed me instead of me kissed her? Yeah, fuck gentle, I squeezed her to me and pressed my tongue to her lips so she would open them. And she did, letting my tongue flick across hers a few times then she ran her tongue along my fangs. I was ready to throw her to the ground with that. But it would have to wait; pulling back to handle Naraku first. Then I would handle Kagome. 

The Hanyou was silent with that, telling me he agreed with me again.

My mouth still touched hers and I knew Naraku would hear me, but I didn’t have a choice. “As soon as he’s distracted, run.”

“I won’t…”

“You’re a problem for me here. With you gone, I’ll do better. So just run. I’ll be right behind you.”

I was cursing my claws, wanting to wrap my fingers in her hair. But I didn’t want to cut so I settled for cupping her cheek, the pads on my fingers dancing on her ear. I mean it, that I would be right behind her, but Kagome’s sobs told me she didn’t believe me. “He has taken… everyone I had ever cared about… I don’t want him to take you too.”

Pushing her back a small distance, I sneered down at her. “Have a little faith in me, would ya?!”

She choked on her laugh, sounding painful as it mixed with her tears. But she still smiled softly up at me. She trusted me and that was worth more than anything else in this world to me. Naraku was growling around us like a caged tiger but I felt no fear of him towards me. Just towards Kagome. Once she left, everything would be easier. 

“Your cousin was tasty. She had a little of you in her blood but not enough.”

Kagome tensed and I pushed her the rest of the way behind me. “What is it you want from Kagome anyway?”

That’s right, start monologuing. Then I can rip your throat out while you talk about yourself. 

“She is a rarity. Every time she is reborn, we search her out. We found her once already as a child but she got away. Her family didn’t; her mother sacrificing herself for Kagome.” Kagome cried loudly. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. “But then her Cousin wanted something and came to us.”

I slowly moved towards the smell, gently leaving Kagome behind, but stopped at that. “Kikyo came to you? She’s not a demon worshipper!”

“No, she isn’t. Which made tricking her so much easier. So gullible. She even brought along others for us to snack on.” Miroku’s face flashed in my mind but pushed it back; the Hanyou wanted to ask but I knew better. “All she wanted was Kagome gone, to take her place in life. Kikyo wanted to become Kagome. Envy is such a nasty sin.”

“That’s not true! Kikyo would never want to be me!”

Kagome was a short distance from me now but I still didn’t like it. She was drawing attention away from me and I could get closer but I never wanted to use her as bait. 

“She did! Oh did she ever. With you going off to college and the Hanyou falling in love with you, she wanted to be you so bad she risked her soul for it, dragging you all out here to play a game.” Naraku laughed, “so many people fall for that stupid ritual. None of you followed the rules though, not even Kikyo. If she had, maybe she would still be alive. But she was far too eager and naïve.”

This was going to scar Kagome for life, I needed to hurry up and cut this bastard off. I was close, I could smell it, close to vomiting from the stench. The last foot, I jumped and glowing red eyes flashed to me, telling me instantly that I was right. And that I had the upper hand, the eyes wide with agitation and I overtook them. I wasted no time slashing what was otherwise air to most. It was the host, the main demon, and the one that the others were attached to. If I killed it, the others would die or return to hell with it. 

It looked like a shadow as if the tiny bits of light from an unknown source bent around the space out of coincidence. But my claws still caught on something, pulling against it as I dragged them down. It was a deep cut multiplied by four. If it was human, it would be dead in seconds. As a demon, I needed to do more. 

So I windmilled my other paw around, catching what I had to guess was Naraku’s shoulder. A matching mark to the two it put on Kagome. She would already struggle to forget this night without the physical scars she was going to have. 

This son of a bitch was going to fucking pay.

Naraku jumped back and I followed him, getting my claws around his neck and squeezing. “How..dare.. you...Mutt!”

I chuckled darkly in his ‘face’, imagining it turning red with anger then purple from my squeezing. “Breeding doesn’t matter in life or death. I will kill you for harming a hair on Kagome’s head.”

Just barely, I could make out his grin and craned my neck to look behind. Kagome had her hands out as if holding back someone, keeping them from getting close. She could see these fuckers better than I could somehow and, based on her body language, they had her surrounded. 

“Kagome?!” She took a step back, not looking at me, and spun, keeping her hands out and the invisible force at a distance. I glared back at the bastard in my hold. “This is between you and me, asshole.”

I could feel his throat jump under my palm as he laughed. “It never had anything to do with you.”

Kagome screamed and I dropped the demon I held, racing back to Kagome. Her arms collapsed as her hands met my chest, pulling her into my arms and swiping blindly at the air around us. “Back off!! You can’t have her!!!!”

“She belongs to us!!!” One of them hissed.

I swiped in the direction of the voice but came up empty. “The FUCK she does!!!”

“Is this what you want, Kagome? Trading one demon for another?” Another one spat and I swiped again.

“He’s not a demon! Not like you!! You’re a monster!!!” Kagome screamed.

“Inuyasha’s the monster. Half breed and disgusting monster.” The one I slashed seethed, struggling to speak from his wounds.

Kagome shook her head against my chest, still hiding. “You’re wrong!” I didn’t understand what was going on but clearly, Kagome was now fighting for me. There was no need, my ego was fine. But she persisted, pulling away to yell at them some more. “Inuyasha may only be half but that makes him a hundred times more than you’ll ever be!!!”

She was pissing them all off, getting closer until I could feel their touch stinging my skin. It was a horde of demons and something was off about them. Because their touch hurt. I had been touched by other demons before and it didn’t feel anything like this. Even my half brother, who was a dick, didn’t hurt when he just touched me. 

These guys were more than demons, they were cursed.

I contained my pain as much as possible, bending over Kagome to spare her from it and groaning when it became too much. Kagome wrapped her arms around me, her hands pressing into the back of my ribs. I pressed my face into her neck to fight the overwhelming agony that was filling my body. The pain went away suddenly so I pulled away from Kagome’s skin only to be blinded by light. Kagome’s eyes were scrunched shut in concentration but as the light dissipated, she dared to look flustered. The heat of her skin was on her cheeks and in my nose, smelling her embarrassment without really knowing why.

Something for later, looking around us now and sniffing the air. Only one remained, his stench the strongest because he was the one I slashed. Naraku had survived whatever the hell Kagome had done. The light had moved but hadn’t left, circling the edge of the trees and lighting up the middle where we stood. So now, Naraku stood out greatly in the now lit woods.

He was an ugly bastard; his body riddled with decay. It was why he hadn’t healed from the hits I gave him moments ago. Mine healed instantly with my demon form. He was weak and now it showed. This bastard, giving me shit about being weaker as a hanyou when he could barely keep his lungs inside his body.

“What have you done?!”

“Evened the odds.”

I was never more attracted to a person than I was Kagome right now. Her fear still scented the air, sweeter than the nasty demon before us, but she stood tall. Pushing away from me, she gave me silent permission to finish the fight. Smirking at Naraku caused him to shiver, a chuckled rumbling from my throat at his fear. 

But then he stepped back and glared right at Kagome. “This isn’t over.”

He was gone but Kagome still ran, trying to catch him. “NO!!!” She fell to the ground and dug with her hands like she could pull Naraku back up from hell. Her hands were muddy and bloody when I pulled her away, cradling her again in my arms. “It will never be over.” She whimpered.

I held her tight and walked us back to the car. Kagome had seen enough demons tonight so I released mine, returning to my usual form of half and half, hoping that was enough. Not once did Kagome pull away from me tonight in fear of me. For me, sure. But she had also kissed me in my full demon form. 

I would never forget that but now was not the time.

As it was, I didn’t know if there would ever be a time, Kagome wasn’t shaking and sobbing in my hold. I was in awe when she didn’t take the entire length it took to get to the car to calm down. I expected it to take months but she soon pulled her face from her hands and leaned against my chest. Where her head sat, I was sure she was listening to my heart. Whatever she was doing it helped, listening to her heart, as well, as it calmed down, finally.

“The first time I saw him… he was my grandfather.” It was slow but Kagome was going to tell me all and I needed to be patient. “None of us were prepared or understood when Grandpa slit my father’s throat in front of us. We were in shock and that’s how he got my baby brother Souta.” She stopped to sob a little at the memory and I held her a little tighter. “Mother grabbed me and we ran deeper into the house. She shoved me under a bed and told me to stay there no matter what. And I did until the cops pulled me out from under it. They told me my grandpa had lost his mind and killed everyone, himself last. No one believed me when I told them he wasn’t my Gramps.”

“Why would they? You were a scared kid and they had nothing more than a body for proof.”

“You believe me? Don’t you?”

She was watching me, looking up at me begging. “Of course I do. I just met the bastard myself!”

“Not just that,” she said, shaking her head, “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t call a demon looking for something…”

“No, that was your damn cousin.”

Kagome whimpered, “poor Kikyo.” I huffed but she didn’t say more. “Inuyasha… are you in love with me?”

I almost dropped her. Out of everything that happened tonight not only did she catch that but she wanted to talk about it so soon. “Um… yeah, I think I am.” The nod she gave me was far from satisfying. And I was ashamed. Not only was I outed by a damn demon, Kikyo had seen it as well. “This is… tonight was my fault.”

“Stop it.”

“If I hadn’t made you come…”

“You didn’t make me do anything!”

“Or if I wasn’t so fucking obvious…”

“It wasn’t obvious to me!”

“All this proves that you being with me is bad. It would only bring you pain.”

Kagome was silent with that because she knew I was right. It would never work with us. 

The car was now in her sight, close enough for human eyes to see. There was no scent of rot or death anymore and she was no longer shaking so I set her down on her feet to walk the rest of the way on her own. Setting boundaries right away was what I needed with the memory of her kissing me playing over and over in my head thanks to the demon jackass. 

Sango flung open the door and ran to us. She was searching us for wounds, Kagome’s shoulders still bleeding. But she was also searching us for answers, reminding me of the news we had to deliver. “Where’s Miroku? Is he not with you??”

Clearly, he wasn’t but her freaked out brain still needed answers. Kagome grabbed her tight and the words failed me. Sango sobbed and fell completely into Kagome’s hold. I broke the window to the trunk with my fist.

We were all shattered.

I had to hope we could get a signal now. What with the moon and stars back out from wherever they were hiding. It had a little, quickly putting in my address to get us the fuck out of there. The girls sat just behind me. Sango was still sobbing, laying in Kagome’s lap who looked back at me in the reflection. I offered her the best smile I could manage right now and started the car. 

Breathing a sigh of relief when it rumbled with life, I had just put it into drive and began to move when something hit the side hard. “Goddammit!!”

Kagome and Sango squealed in the back as blood was smeared across the window. I was fucking done with this night. Demons, dumbasses, and pranksters. I didn’t care which one was currently outside the car, cause I was going to tear them apart regardless. 

Slamming the car into park, I wrenched open the door, only to have my breath catch in my throat. “Miroku?!”

He had his hand cradled against his chest and was favoring his left side, but it was definitely Miroku, back from the dead. Sango nearly knocked him over, leaping on him and wrapping herself around him. Then she helped into the car, laying him out across the seat. Kagome had jumped up to the front to sit next to me. They barely had their door shut when I took off. I wanted no more surprises tonight. 

“What happened??” Sango wailed, still half in shock. 

Miroku moaned like a dying man from her lap. The smell of his blood was strong; he very well could be dying. “Onigumo. When we went to piss, he came up from behind, stabbed my right side below my ribs, and pinned my hand to a tree with the same fucking knife. He went on and on about a sacrifice, I figured he’d lost his damn mind!”

“He did,” I stated and everyone was quiet.

Kagome took my hand, the one I rested on the shifter. It was the same as any other day and she showed no fear of me as usual. It didn’t matter what I showed her, my inner demon, or my secret feelings. She didn’t fear me when she really should.

One Week Later...

We got our story straight before Miroku got all his stitches. Nothing important was hit but he would have limited feeling and use of his hand for a long time. Maybe forever. 

The story was, we went for a drive, Kikyo and Onigumo left for some alone time, and never came back. A week later and the cops still hadn’t found their bodies. I was pretty sure that was because we were never on the road we told them we were on. The one we traveled didn’t exist. Not in this dimension. 

The rumors were running wild around the school. Some said Kikyo ran away with Onigumo while others said they were murdered by a serial killer. A few said I killed Onigumo and Kikyo out of jealousy and a small handful thought Kagome did it. But they were small and quiet about it because it was the craziest of all the damn theories. 

Kagome would never hurt a fly.

Finally, it was fucking Friday. I was tired. Tired of all the bullshit and school. Mostly I was tired from avoiding Kagome all week long. Miroku was blowing up my phone, trying to get me to go out with him when my doorbell rang. I wouldn’t put it past Miroku to just show up and force me to hang out. He’d done it before. 

When I ignored the bell, they knocked. Miroku wasn’t going away. I made sure to stomp loud enough for him to hear as I went to the door and flung it open. “I’m not doing shit tonight…”

“If I’m being honest, I’m not in the mood to do anything either.”

It was Kagome, standing at my door like it was any other day. Still in her school uniform, she had a duffle in one arm and her backpack in the other. Without a thought, I grabbed them both from her. Manners aside, she hadn’t had a thing on her shoulders all week thanks to the gashes she received on them. “What are you doing here?”

She walked past me, no hesitation, entering my home. Kagome had never been to my place before, slowly taking it all in. I lived alone, wasn’t sure she knew that and had minimal furniture. A couch with a tv before it, a decently stocked kitchen, a tiny bathroom, and a bed that was all one large room. I didn’t even have a divider between my couch and my bed. So I could watch tv from it if I wanted to.

“You live alone?” I nodded. “What about your mother?”

Kagome knew about my father and that we were… estranged. I hadn’t told her about my mother and if others had, she still wanted to hear it from me. “Cancer. Five years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Somehow, Kagome managed to say it without it sounding like pity. Maybe that was in my head, knowing about her family as well? Knowing she could truly empathize and understand my pain as she had felt it herself. But she hadn’t answered my question and I had hers like a puppy. “Kagome, what are you doing here? And what’s with the bag??”

“I’m sorry, I would have called first but you wouldn’t have answered anyway….”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about….”

“You’ve been avoiding me all week.”

With no place better to sit, I flopped to the edge of my bed and grimaced back at her. “So? I have no reason to spend time with you. I thought I made that clear last week? Remember?! Demon summoned to take you all because of my feelings for you?!”

Hands on her lovely hips, she popped one out and smirked at me from my living room, “well aren’t we full of ourselves?!”

“Kikyo was jealous of you because I’m in love with you.”

Goddammit, I didn’t mean to just admit it like that. Or ever. But Kagome already knew. She still looked aghast, like I hadn’t said it to her before. I told her that night, that fucked up night that I was in love with her, why did she look so shocked?!

Shaking her head, my demon growled at me to make her submit. I let him out one time and he thought he owned the place. “No, because she kissed us.”

“Shut up,” I screamed in my head.

“I thought… I didn’t think you would just come out with it like that. Not now.” She responded, reading my mind.

“It’s not like you didn’t already know.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know, it’s different this time.”

We got quiet and it got awkward. I watched as she looked at her fingers that she twisted at her belly. This was getting us nowhere and things were only getting worse between us. “I’m sorry I avoided you. It wasn’t… I’m not mad or anything. I just think it’s for the best.”

“Why?”

“I told you… I’m no good for you. Even as a friend. Bad things happened to you because of me….”

“Bad things happened to me regardless. They have nothing to do with you,” she spat, getting angry.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“Safe than sorry?!” She shook her head at the floor but I could still smell the salt of her tears from my perch. “I am sorry for putting you out with my near-death experience!”

“That’s not what I…”

Wrapping her arms around herself as best she could, I watched her fidget all the more, wincing a little from her sore shoulders. “If you don’t want to be with me then just say so, Inuyasha. I wouldn’t blame you, it’s not like my life is anything great! It’s a mess, a dangerous, mess.”

I could feel the heat on my cheeks but I still couldn’t look away from her. “I do want to be with you….”

“But don’t spin some bullshit lie about it being better for me! I would have been dead if it wasn’t for you!” Her frustrated words brought her closer to me, pacing over to me on the bed. 

I shook my head but kept my eyes on her. “You also wouldn’t have been in the situation if it wasn’t for me….”

“I was in that situation because a crazy demon has a hard-on for me,” she countered.

I chuckled. “I’m a demon with a hard-on for you. What’s the difference?”

It was like she was in a trance, reaching over and picking up one of my hands. I wasn’t even sure she was aware she was doing it, playing with my fingers dangerously close to my claws and watching her work. “The difference is, I want you to have a hard-on for me.”

I was tugging her, using the hand she held to pull her closer until she stood between my knees. “I’m not the brightest guy, Kagome. You’re going to have to tell me what you mean by that.”

She was looking at me through her bangs, either trying to hide or be sneaky about it. “It means… the feelings are mutual. How could it not be?” When I cocked a brow up at her, she released a shuddering breath while her face began to glow. “I’m in love with you, Inuyasha.” She refused to look at me while I refused to look anywhere other than right at her. “What are we going to do about this?”

Her finger danced between us, showing me her ‘this’ was our relationship. “Nothing, right? We do nothing about it.”

The smile she wore was fake but she finally looked up at me to nod. “Nothing.”

She was still between my knees and yet, she was getting closer and I wasn’t sure if I was pulling or if she was leaning. “Yeah, nothing. Knowing how we feel... it’s enough, isn’t it?”

Slowly, she nodded her nose inches from mine. “Yeah, it’s enough.”

I tilted my head to the side just in time, Kagome barely missing my nose and forehead when her mouth met mine. Hard. A heartbeat later and she was on my lap, straddling me. My hands were on her bare thighs, moving upward across the soft, warm skin. It wasn’t long before I had her ass in my hands, kneading the flesh. She was still in her uniform but I wasn’t, opting for my usual ‘need to do laundry’ attire of ratty sweat pants and a stained t-shirt. I looked rough but it had her panties against my thin pants. Fuck, I didn’t even have on briefs, free-balling so I didn’t have to do laundry today.

She removed my shirt, getting her fingers around the hem at my back and pulling up hard. I didn’t stop her. I encouraged her, raising my hands towards the ceiling like a child that needed help. 

Shirt gone, she fell back to my mouth and we nipped and sucked at each other like there was no tomorrow. Her fingers threaded my hair and my fingers worked on her buttons, stopping halfway to run my hands across the flat plane of her belly. It caused her to giggle against my lips and I slipped my tongue inside her mouth. 

She helped me take her shirt off the rest of the way after I unbuttoned, all while keeping our mouths planted to one another. Just like when I was full demon, she ran her tongue along my fangs, daring to press it against the sharp tip of one of them. I didn’t move, afraid I’d pierce her tongue. As hot as that sounded, doing it now would definitely kill the mood and I was pretty sure Kagome didn’t want a tongue ring. 

But then again, there was still so much we didn’t know about each other.

With her tongue safe and playing with mine again, I left her mouth and trailed down her chin to her neck. The hand I had on her back, holding her steady on my lap, went to the clasp of her bra. It fell on our crotches, the two of them pressed together, as soon as I flicked it open. With her shoulder wounds, she was wearing something strapless. I found myself kissing along the bandages, wishing I could heal her like I could myself. 

Now I had her nipples before my eyes. No wonder she had to wear strapless; the weight of these puppies had to hurt on her sore shoulders. I had my hands wrapped around her shoulder blades, running a gentle thumb over her bandages, reminding myself to be gentle while my demon was screaming for me to take her hard and fast.

“Yeah like those delicious titties against our fangs.”

“Shut the fuck UP!” I yelled in my head.

Letting my demon out once had him all in a tizzy to get out again, but I was used to it and knew how to control him… mostly. Having Kagome naked on my lap so soon after releasing him probably wasn’t a good idea. But none of me wanted to turn back, touching my tongue to the bottom of her nipple and licking upwards. She moaned softly and I decided then and there that it wasn’t enough. I needed her to moan much louder until it hurt my sensitive hearing.

So I sucked her nipple in, shoving half of her heavy breast into my mouth and pressed my fangs gently into her flesh. 

“AH!!”

The lift of her moan made it sound as if she was confused or surprised. She didn’t understand the pull she had on me or the desire she had for me in return. And no one had made her feel like this before. 

And no one had made me feel like she did, little fingers stroking my ears while her hips twitched on mine. I was going to come in my pants at this rate, flicking her nipple inside my mouth with my tongue. She whined when I took her out of my mouth, but it was only so I could do the same to the other breast. That she appreciated greatly, rubbing my ears harder and fully thrusting on my lap.

We still had bottoms on when I flipped us, tossing us behind to the bed and placing Kagome under me. Her dark, beautiful browns eyes stared up at me with wide fascination. But not fear. Never fear. And we took a moment to appreciate the gravity of the situation. I was letting her catch her breath and her senses, allowing her a chance to tell me no or to stop. She was brushing her fingers through my hair, watching her fingers as they disappeared in the white.

Time was up and nothing was said. When I sat back and pulled down my sweats, she sat up and unzipped her skirt. Moving quickly, I stopped her from doing the rest. I wanted to be the one to remove her panties.

Her scent was all over them, smelling of hot spices from the tea on her skin and a sweetness that had been coming from her pussy since she straddled me. I had never smelled anyone like her; it was intoxicating, making me drunk as I licked up the inside of her thigh to the scent. Kagome made the cutest sound when I split her thighs and kept licking. Like a gasp mixed with a moan coming out like a hiccup. I looked up at her through my fringe while I lapped up her flavor, rolling my tongue around in her folds first. Her eyes were wide on me for a moment but when I found her clit, they closed and her mouth opened. She fell back to the bed when I stuck my tongue inside her, twisting it against her walls to taste her fully.

She tasted just as sweet as she smelled and fuck it tasted good. I did feel drunk, sucking and lapping at her without reserve until she came. Even then I didn’t stop, more of her sweet scent and flavor flowing out with her orgasm. Now she was being very loud and even though my ears pressed back from the sound, I loved it.

Releasing her from my tongue, I slowly crawled over her. Resting on top of her, in between her legs, I watched her return from her high. She was so fucking beautiful on a regular basis but when she was flush and panting from me making her feel good? It made her glow in a manner I wasn’t prepared for, my heart going fucking nuts in my chest. It had my ‘drunk’ ass saying things I probably should have kept to myself.

“Goddammit, I’m so in love with you.”

This time, she wasn’t shocked, her eyes and mouth didn’t widen. Instead, she fucking purred. “I love you too.”

I hoped she was ready because she was looking more beautiful than ever with the smile she wore, her eyes warm and deep. There was no stopping me now, I was going to make love to her. With my tip pressed to her entrance, she knew what was going to happen too and she showed no hesitation, leaning into me with her hips. 

Her arms went around my neck and I sunk into her. It was all I could do to not think about her hot sweetness coating my cock because if I did, I was sure to come right away. Kagome was panting beneath me and I could smell a little blood. I was hurting her. 

I tried to pull away but she held me tight, wrapping her legs around me to join her arms. “Please… don’t stop…”

It was all the encouragement I needed, sinking back in the rest of the way only to slowly pull out of her again. A few pulses at a quarter of my speed and Kagome had her arms wrapped around my back, her nails digging into my ass cheeks. 

“Faster…” She moaned and I obliged.

Up on my arms, I hovered over her and watched her bounce from my thrusts. As a much-needed distraction, I sniffed the air and concentrated. Because half of me expected Naraku to show up when I took Kagome’s virginity. I was hoping that was all he wanted her for, a pure and powerful girl? But as my tip pressed to her womb hard the room filled with her scent alone, I knew it was more than that, more than this. 

Kagome was something else, something more. But I already knew that.

When her walls began to quiver, pulsing around me, I fell back to her. My face in the crook of her neck, I smelled her, breathing her and her spicy scent in deeply. Her mouth was right next to my ears, her head pressed back into my pillows. She was loud and I didn’t care; Kagome was crying as she came again. I was busy enjoying the pooling of her sweetness around my shaft, throbbing and warming me down to my bones until I came so hard my head spun.

I rested, feeling more winded than when I was chasing after her and Onigumo. It had felt like my own life was at stake while she was in his clutches and I never wanted to feel like that again, feel that fear for her life. 

Pressing my lips hard and deep into the side of her neck, I pulled out of her and her sticky sweetness clung to me tightly. It felt so damn good, almost as good as mid-coital. Almost.

There wasn’t a thought in my head to wash her off of me; rolling onto my back, happily sticky from sweat too. Kagome didn’t mind, rolling into me and resting her head on my chest. I pulled the rest of her body flush to my side and kissed the top of her head, breathing in her hair as I rested. 

My hand found its way to her shoulder and grazed the bandage again, brushing it over and over in a circle of want. Because I wanted to make it go away. 

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Kagome whispered. 

But I had seen her strain from time to time with stiffness. “Doctor said it would scar.”

“My penance for all the people that lost their lives because of me.”

The injuries to her shoulders were more than that; they were a mark from another demon and as much as it pissed me off, it was far from being Kagome’s fault. “None of that was ever your fault and I will spend the rest of our lives reminding you of that if I have to.”

I could feel a smile on her lips as they pressed against my skin. “The rest of our lives?”

It was stupid of me, talking about forever when we hadn’t even gotten out of high school yet. But together or not, I would protect her and I would love her. 

“You don’t have to be with me, you know? You don’t have to feel obligated to protect me and stay by my side forever,” she said to my chest. 

I dug under her chin to push her head back; brown eyes that swirled with honey looked up at me. “Are you stupid?”

She was still frowning, tears at the edge of her eyes. “I’m not using you. Not for protection or comfort.”

“Oh, so I’m the one that’s stupid?”

“Are you going to twist everything I say?”

“Only when you say something stupid!”

She giggled at that and fell deeper into me. Holding her close, I listened to the gentle beating of her heart. “He’ll come back for me. Someday.”

“And I’ll stop him then too.” I’d been wanting to talk to her about something but didn’t know where to begin. Especially with avoiding her. “That thing you did in the woods?” She tensed at that. “It was… pretty amazing.”

“You’re not scared of me?”

I was a demon; so I probably should be. “No. Not even a little bit.”

“Good. I’m not scared of you either.”

“How often have you done that?”

I wasn’t sure what she had done but I was pretty sure, what with him a no-show and Kagome good and fucked by me now, that it was why Naraku wanted her so badly. “That was… a first. I’ve never… done something… that big before.”

“But you did it in the past? Against your Gramps?”

Her heart picked up at that and I knew I had hit the mark with that one. My mother had wasted away in front of my eyes. I had to tell them to pull the plug. Thirteen and as the only family she had that gave a shit, it was up to me. I still didn’t think that measured up to Kagome having to kill her possessed grandfather. Not even close.

She let me hold her tight for a few moments, then pushed off me and the bed, finding and digging into the duffle she had brought until she had a long nightshirt over her naked body. I propped myself up on an elbow and watched her. “Oh you were so cocky, you brought a change of clothes?”

“No. I was on my way to Sango’s.”

I looked closer at the bag, the size of it catching my attention now. “You staying the whole weekend or something? That’s more than any girl needs for one night.”

Kagome froze for a second, then turned away to mess with her bag again. “My aunt kicked me out.”

“What?!” I was off the bed and pulling my sweats back on. It didn’t feel right to be naked for this conversation. “She can’t do that!!”

“Why not? I’m eighteen and she never wanted me anyway.”

“She wanted you,” I spat without thinking as I paced, “wanted you as a slave.”

“That reminds me, I’m out of a job too.”

“This is bullshit!” I roared.

Kagome sat on the floor before her bag, as if beaten and I didn’t like it one bit. “When… I came home and Kikyo didn’t… Auntie never believed me either when I told her it was a demon that killed my family. I didn’t think Kikyo believed me either until we were in those woods. She took me because she thought she could make a deal with Naraku. And with Auntie promising me Kikyo’s college money…”

“You still have that, you still have college!”

I thought that would make her come around but it only made her droop more. “I have some money saved thanks to Sango getting me a bank account my aunt knew nothing about. And I have the money my family left me that she didn’t have access to. But… Auntie never intended to give me that money. She just said that to try and motivate Kikyo. Guess it worked in a way.”

I flopped to the floor next to her, looking at her face while she stared at her bag. “It’s not right, Kagome. You deserve more. You always have.”

She shrugged; “I’m the girl whose family died because of her. I don’t think I deserve anything less. And now I have Kikyo’s and Onigumo’s death on my track record…”

“That wasn’t you!! They gave themselves to Naraku!”

“Auntie blames me and is now using all of her money to find Kikyo. So even if she had planned to pay for my college, she isn’t now for sure. And she should look for Kikyo. I wish I could tell her the truth…”

I shook my head hard and it got her eyes to mine. “No. I don’t want anyone else looking at you like that, thinking you’re responsible in any way. Naraku isn’t your fault and they went into those woods on their own. Dragging us along under false pretenses. I looked up that stupid game, they didn’t even follow any of the rules! They were never going to get what they wanted, they just wanted to kill people!”

After a few heartbeats, Kagome nodded. “You’re right. If anyone believed us, it would only make the two of them look bad. I’ve caused Auntie enough pain.”

At that, I scooped her off the floor and back into my lap. Only this time, I was cradling her to me. It wasn’t sexual in the least. It was comforting. “Stay with me.”

She nodded again against my chest. “For tonight, sure…”

“No. Move in with me. Stay with me. I’ll take care of you..”

She pushed back, already a rebuttal on her lips. “I can’t do that…”

“Yes, you can!”

“We just started… whatever! I can’t move in with you!”

I pulled her back to me, kissing her as hard and as deep as I could for the short seconds she allowed me to. “I want you here. It’ll bring me peace, knowing you’re safe. And it’ll make it easier when we bang.”

She smiled through her blush and I kissed her again. Kagome pushed me back gently before I could get my tongue in her mouth but I was sure I was weakening her resolve. “Aren’t you worried? Scared that I might use you for protection? Or for a home in general?”

I was already scoffing at her hard before she finished. “You would never do that to anyone. And you sure as shit wouldn’t do it to me.”

“I feel like…” she tapered off and I thought for a moment, that she wouldn’t finish, “like you know me. Better than anyone. Is that possible?”

It had to be because I felt the same way. That I knew her and she knew me. “Yeah. But maybe it’s the sex talking.”

She slapped me playfully on the chest. “Would you stop that?!”

“Not until you agree to live with me!”

I had her, the flush of her cheeks and the smile on her face told me so. She was fighting it hard, her smile and giving me what I wanted, but I was going to win. “Oh...okay. BUT if Naraku shows up again I’m not getting you involved. You will stay out of it!”

She was dead serious and there was no way I was agreeing to that. If Naraku ever showed his ugly fucking face again I was going to rip his spine out. If he had one. 

Kagome was waiting for my answer. She would split out my door if I didn’t agree, that much was clear. So I would lie to her just this once. “Alright. I’ll stay out of it.”

With that, I lifted her and took us to the bed where we celebrated our new living arrangement and relationship late into the evening.

You have reached the end. Now think of your desire, the thing you want most in this world. See it in your mind. Taste it on your tongue. Now turn back and you will find your life changed. The love of your life has appeared or even your bank account is now flush with cash. What is the price? Is your car now haunted? No, you proved your worth. The Eleven Mile, however, will stay in your mind in the form of nightmares or pleasant dreams. But this is nothing to what you’ve gained, right?

[kumeko]

A/N: Written for the @dragonkirizine. I wanted to do an adventure story, though it’s been ages since I wrote one of those so this was a little challenging.

Summary: Eijiro and Mina stared at the hieroglyphics on the wall, not certain if those were clues to some ancient treasure or just some dead dude’s homework. Maybe they should have asked Izuku to tag along after all.

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“I don’t get it.” Eijiro raised his torch higher, squinting at the hieroglyphics on the wall in front of him. At least, he was pretty sure they were hieroglyphics. Carved figures on crumbling walls inside an ancient ruin? Really faded paintings that didn’t make sense? They had to be hieroglyphics.

 Or maybe it was some ancient dude’s homework. Eijiro chuckled at the idea. “Hey, Mina?”

 Standing on the opposite of the ruin, his partner looked over her shoulder. As usual, she was dressed for adventure: canvas shorts with plenty of pockets, a sporty t-shirt, and a backpack full of tools. It made him feel a little less prepared, but then again, Eijiro was dragon-kin.

 He was always prepared.

 A lollipop hung loosely on her lips and Mina cocked her head. “Yeah?”

“What if everyone’s wrong about this place? Like, if this was actually just some guy’s outhouse?” Eijiro’s shoulders shook as he laughed, his tail swaying slowly behind him.

 Her lollipop almost fell out of her mouth as she considered it. Almost immediately, she recoiled closer to the wall, disgust on her face as she quickly scanned the ground. “Ewwww.”

 “I’m not…” Wait, now that he thought about it, that was pretty disgusting. Quickly, he stepped back, taking a deep breath as he tried to catch a whiff of…actually, he didn’t want to smell it. Luckily, there was nothing in the air but scent of old. Which was definitely a scent, no matter how many times Mina stared at him incredulously. It was a mix of dust, mold, and something Eijiro couldn’t quite describe.

 It was just old.

 “I don’t see anything,” Mina whispered as she peered into the ruin. She moved the torch from side to side, the light revealing and hiding broken tablets and patches of grass. Gingerly, she stepped forward once, twice, before looking up at him. “I think we’re safe.”

 “Yeah, I don’t smell anything either.” Relaxing, his shoulders slumped and he snorted. “I mean, who’d make something this big just to shit in?”

 “Yeah, that was stupid.” Mina giggled, stretching an arm above her. “Man, though, if you were right and this was just someone’s toilet or barn or whatever, could you imagine Deku’s face?”

 Eijiro burst into laughter, already picturing their bookworm friend and the exact shade of red he’d turn. “And Iida? He’d faint.”

 “He’d die!” Mina crowed and it was too much. All it took was a single glance at each other and they were both in tears, their laughter the only sound in this abandoned ruin. It echoed in the cavernous chamber, bouncing off the walls and through the broken ceiling.

 Wiping his tears with a clawed hand, Eijiro sighed. “I wish he was here.”

 “Yeah.” Mina pouted, crossing her arms and leaning against a stone pillar. “I can’t make heads or tails of this place.” She frowned, a thought coming to her. “You don’t think we’re in the wrong business?”

 “Maybbeee?” Eijiro rubbed his neck awkwardly. They weren’t exactly the brainiest of their friends. The most enthusiastic, sure. The most adventurous, definitely. But searching ruins needed some level of smarts and they’d both failed every history class they’d ever been in. Still, this was what they wanted to do. This was what they did. There was no time to doubt it now. Slapping his cheeks, he declared, “It’s not manly to look back!”

 Mina stared at him for a long moment. His cheeks reddened, slightly embarrassed, until she nodded eagerly and stepped forward. “Yeah! We’re going to find treasure!”

 “And we’re gonna—” As Eijiro took a step forward himself, he tripped over a rock and sprawled face first on the floor. Luckily, even in his half-human form, his skin was as hard as dragon scales and all he had was an aching nose. “Ouch.”

 “Are you okay?” Mina hurried toward him but froze as they heard a slow grinding noise. Turning toward it, she gasped in surprise as a wall slide open, revealing a secret passageway. She blinked once, twice, and then pumped her fist in the air. “We’re totally great treasure hunters!”

 -x-

 “Do you think this goes on forever?” Mina whispered, holding her torch in front of her to light the way. As usual, she was leading. Despite her fears, she always did that. There was something comforting about the shape of her back, in how the flickering light gave her hair a reddish hue.

 Brave was what he had called her.

 She had always laughed it off, declaring herself more foolish than anything else.

 It was the only thing they really fought over, the only time their disagreements had any bite. Well, that and the fact that he wanted to lead more often. It just made sense—he was almost injury-proof and she was decidedly not. Saving the argument for later, he peered out into the near-darkness. It was easier for him to see than her, to make out the shapes in the dark.

 Unfortunately, this was a tunnel and the shapes were just more wall, more of the path sloping downward and away. The walls weren’t even interesting, just smoothened dirt. “It has to lead somewhere.”

 “I don’t want to be a skeleton when we get there,” Mina hissed, her voice low. Their shadows danced on the wall.

 “Why are you whispering?” Eijiro asked, raising his voice an octave when he realized he was doing the same.

 “It just…” Mina cleared her throat and continued, her voice now at normal speaking levels. “It just felt like I should whisper.”

 That he could understand. Their footsteps were muffled in the tunnel, which was kinda impressive considering Eijiro couldn’t walk quietly to save his life. “I just hope we get somewhere more open soon—my wings are cramping.”

 “They look uncomfortable, folded like that.” Mina nodded sympathetically. Her torch blew out and he watched as she jumped. “Whaaat was that?” she squeaked, trying not to scream.

 Eijiro blinked in the absolute darkness. Without any light, he was now as blind as Mina and a shiver ran up his spine. Actually, now that he thought about it, he could feel a slight breeze, the real cause for his shiver. Might even be the reason the fire went out. Too bad he couldn’t breath fire as a human, or this wouldn’t have been a problem. “Think we’re near the end of the tunnel.”

 He took a step forward, his tail dragging behind him as he did. A soft click echoed through the tunnel.

 “Click?” Mina repeated slowly, dragging the word out.

 Before he could say anything, he heard a heavy thud behind him, followed by a rolling sound. Something was coming. Something big. And it was picking up speed. Groping blindly in front of him, his hand managed to brush Mina’s back. “Hold on!” he shouted, sweeping her off her feet before sprinting forward.

 “What are you do—” Hearing the sound too, Mina shut up quickly and wrapped her arms around his neck as she clung for dear life. “It’s getting closer!”

 “Fuck!” Eijiro powered on, pushing his legs harder than he’d down before. Breathing heavily, he sprinted through the dark tunnel. His sides bumped into the tunnel walls. Mina squeezed her arms tighter around him. He took a deep breath and picked up the pace.

 There, just ahead of him, he could make out a faint light. “There’s a light!”

 “Maybe it’s a cavern!” Mina shouted, a vein of nervousness in her voice. “I think it’s almost caught up!”

 “We’re almost there!” Eijiro grunted as he forced his legs to move faster, further. If only he could have used his wings. The light ahead grew brighter and bigger, taking up the entire exit. Squinting, he could barely make out crystal walls and a pool of water. Speeding through the exit, he relaxed his shoulders slightly as he entered the large cavern. “We can—”

 His feet weren’t on the ground anymore. Eijiro blinked, barely registering the fact before gravity kicked in and they plummeted to the ground. “WHAT THE FUCK?”

 The air stole his words. Above, he could hear a crashing sound as their chaser appeared above: a giant boulder, which shot over the gap and crashed onto the ground on the opposite side. The crevasse they were in was starting to narrow and he wondered what would come first: they’d get squished or they’d splatter on the ground.

 Clinging tightly, Mina screamed, “YOUR WINGS!”

 “WHAT?” The words ran through his head twice before he understood. Right. He had wings. He could fly. Unfurling them, he furiously flapped them, trying to gain enough lift that they wouldn’t splat on the ground. His shoulders strained as he managed both of their weights.

 Mina whispered something, her voice too soft for him to hear. He could only feel her hot breath on his neck, her lips brushing his pulse once. Like a bolt of lightning, energy shot through him and suddenly everything felt light. He soared up through the narrow crevasse, shooting up until he finally reached the ledge they’d fallen off. Landing safely on the other side, he almost collapsed as the energy left him.

 “That…was close,” he panted, crouching.

 “Way too close.” Mina slipped out of his arms, but her hands stayed on his shoulders. “You okay?”

 “Yeah.” Taking a deep breath, he calmed his breathing and stood up straight. He frowned as he wiped his brow. “Did you give me your energy?”

 Mina nodded. Before he could say anything, she defended herself, “Hey, it was an emergency. Either I pony up or we become pancakes.”

 “But…” Eijiro puffed his cheeks, not liking this at all. Which was worse, that she was right or that he needed the help in the first place? “How’re you feeling?”

 “Not bad.” As though to prove it, Mina pumped a fist in the air. However, her energetic response did little to hide the weariness in her eyes. “I got plenty of juice to spare. If you need it.”

 “Mina,” Eijiro growled, grabbing her arm. “Don’t lie.”

 “I’m not.” Mina frowned, glaring back at him. “What about you?” She gestured at his shoulder with her free hand. “Don’t think I can’t feel it! You hurt yourself!”

 He blanched and looked away. This was maybe the worst part about their connection; he could never hide an injury from her. “That’s different.”

 “How?” Mina yanked her hand free and crossed her arms. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”

 “…sorry.” Eijiro sighed, folding his wings. It ached slightly as he did so and he winced. “I might have pulled a muscle. Or two.”

 “It was a huge fall.” Content now, she walked behind him and pressed her hands against his shoulder blades, at the connection between wing and flesh. Her fingers prodded and smoothened his muscles and she gently chided him. “You know you can’t lie about this. My shoulder hurts too.”

 “Thanks.” He closed his eyes, relaxing into her touch. “But you can’t lie either.”

 Her hands stilled for a moment, and she sighed. “Okay, okay. I’m a little tired,” she admitted. She pinched her fingers together, waving it in front of his face. “Just a little, okay?”

 A little meant a lot. They’d been partners long enough that he could see the signs, read between the lines. Eijiro glanced around. The cavern they were in was a huge one, as big as forest almost. The walls were lined with crystals, faintly glowing in the dark, and a stream bubbled out of one side of the area. It criss-crossed merrily through the room before exiting on the other side. Just ahead, he could see where the boulder had crashed.

 There were no signs of any animals, any visitors, anything. They might have been the first people to visit here in centuries.

 All of which made it a safe spot to rest. “Let’s take a break.”

 “It’s not that bad,” Mina insisted, proudly. She took a wobbly step forward and he rushed to her side to keep her steady. “Uh…okay.” She tried to take another step, but her body was starting to shut down fast. “Maybe…maybe I do need a nap.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, leaning on him for support. “Sorry.”

 “It’s not your fault.” Scooping her up, Eijiro grinned brightly. “We’re partners, right? You can rely on me.”

 “Yeah.” She nodded, her eyes slowly fluttering shut. “Thanks.”

 -x-

 Eijiro.

 Lying on the ground, stunned, Eijiro couldn’t place the familiar voice. All he could feel was pain, his entire body burning like every inch of his skin was on fire. His chest felt wet as he stared up at the sky. Raising a hand, his eyes widened as he realized it was blood.

 His blood.

 He was hurt.

 Eijiro!

 The voice again. Painfully, he turned his head slightly. Mina raced toward him, worry etched on her face. Her left arm dangled awkwardly as she moved and he realized with a start it was broken. How? He had been in his dragon form and she’d been on his back and…

 And he wasn’t in his dragon form now, he realized. He had skin instead of scales. Whatever had hurt him had shocked him back into his human form. They must have plummeted from the sky, Mina falling off him as they spiraled through the ground.

 Sorry, he croaked, his voice a wet rasp. He could taste metal in his mouth, blood dribbling down his lips. Fuck he hurt. Around him, he could make out the signs of battle, hear Bakugou’s angry roar and Kaminari’s lightning strikes.

 They were in a fight. For something. For someone. His head ached, making it hard for him to focus. Sorry.

 Stop apologizing! Mina snapped, suddenly by his side. Her hands cradled his head, her eyes full of tears. Shit. Shit. Shit.

 He must have looked as bad as he felt. Eijiro winced as he breathed, his broken ribs constricting as he tried to breath in. I…

 Don’t talk, just… Mina trailed off, not sure what to say. What to do. You…you’ll make it. I know you will. She cradled her head. There’s gotta be something. Think. Think.

 He was dying. Oh god, he was dying. Eijiro wanted to move, to run from it all, but he could barely feel his arms, let alone his legs. A droplet of water landed on his face, then another, and he could only stare as tears streamed down Mina’s face. Forcing his hand to move, he clumsily wiped her cheek, leaving a bloody streak. It’s okay.

 It’s not. Mina bit her lip before gasping. A pact. We have to make a pact.

 A pac—no. Realizing what she meant, he shook his head. Or at least tried to. You can’t—Mina, that’d mean—

 That’d mean you live, Mina stated firmly, pulling out a knife from her pouch. Taking a deep breath, she braced herself before cutting her palm.

 Don’t, he repeated weakly. It was harder to see now, the edges of his sight filled with black.

 It’ll be okay, she reassured, pressing her hand against his wound. It’ll be like an adventure.

 Ignoring his protests, she started to chant.

 -x-

 Eijiro woke up with a start, a ‘Don’t’ still on his lips. He’d passed out after she’d recited the spell, the blood loss too much. By the time he’d woken up, it’d been too late.

 Mina had created a blood pact with him, connecting her life with his.

 Calming his breathing, Eijiro glanced down at his partner, still asleep in his arms. It was hard to tell the time in here, this underground cavern didn’t have any convenient holes to check the sun. They could have slept for an hour or entire day for all he knew. Either way, Mina had lied earlier—he’d taken too much of her energy.

 As usual. Keeping an arm still wrapped around her shoulders, Eijiro brushed her pink bangs out of her face. His fingers hovered over her horns, the most visible sign of their bond. Her hair had always been pink, but there was more of a reddish-hue to it these days. Maybe it was a sign of his energy flowing back into her. He hoped it was the case. He’d heard enough stories of bonded partners dying young, of reckless dragons taking too much energy and sucking their lovers dry.

 Treasure hunting was supposed to be safe. Away from Bakugou’s endless wars, from Deku’s constant crusades. It was supposed to be safe and yet here they were again. It wasn’t manly to keep regretting something, to keep lingering on the past, but somehow he couldn’t move forward from that one action.

 If only he’d been more careful. If only he’d been less brash. If only, if only.

 Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead gently. “I’m sorry.”

 -x-

 “Eijiro?” Blearily, Mina opened her eyes with a yawn. She curled up into his chest, pressing a sleepy kiss against his skin. “You okay?”

 “Of course.” Eijiro forced a chuckle, pulling back to better see her face. Good. Her complexion was much better now. “You?”

 “Yeah.” Stretching, she slowly rolled out of his arms with a shudder and landed on the hard ground. “Yeowch.” She stared up at the ceiling. “We’re not home.”

 “Nope,” Eijiro confirmed, resting his cheek on his hand. He watched her worriedly, but she didn’t show any signs of sluggishness either.

 “Where—oh! The treasure.” Immediately, Mina sat up, her eyes bright and awake. She shook her head once, twice, and then bounced to her feet. “We’re out of the tunnel now.”

 “Yeah but I’m not sure where to go next.” Standing up, he gestured around them. They had an unobstructed view of the whole cavern. Crystals lined the walls, giving him just enough light to make out the general shape of the area. Borrowing his abilities, Mina would be able to see just what he did: unbroken walls, not a single tunnel leading out. It was effectively a dead end. “Maybe there isn’t any treasure here.”

 Mina looked around thoughtfully before shaking her head. “No, there is. My gut says so. And we also did not spend all that time for nothing!” She grabbed his hand, leading the way. “Come on, we have to start searching.”

 -x-

 “Are you still sure?” Eijiro frowned as he patted the wall for the 100th time. No, maybe the 1000th time. All he found was more rocks, more crystals, more nothing. He was a fairly optimistic man, but even he had his limits.

 “Not so much…” Mina sighed, tapping a pink gem. “Though, you know.” She smiled sweetly. “This is kinda romantic.”

 Eijiro stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

 “Kinda like a candlight dinner, those kinda vibes.” She bumped shoulders with him. “You know, mood lighting. And it’s just you, and me here.” Mina batted her eyes, her lips curved into a sexy smile. Lowering her lids, she added, “No one to see us.”

 His face burned red. “I—”

 “Oh!” Mina dashed forward, forgetting him entirely as she squinted at a part of the wall. “I think I found it.”

 He was never sure if she was teasing or serious. Both. Probably both. Biting back his frustration, Eijiro rushed to her side. Next to a row of crystals, almost hidden in the shadow they made, was a smaller tunnel than the one they’d entered before. It was more a crevice than anything else, barely big enough to fit one person at a time. “You sure?”

 “Yeah, squint a little. Deeper in, don’t you see a bit of light?” Mina moved over slightly, offering him a better view.

 Poking his head in reluctantly, Eijiro squinted. There was darkness, more darkness, and—well, maybe if he turned his head slightly and opened his eyes a crack, he saw a tiny speck of light. Though that could just be his eyes playing tricks on him. “Kinda.”

 “Let’s find out what it is!”

 Before Mina could march inside, Eijiro quickly stepped in front of her. “I’ll go first.”

 “Whaaaat?” Mina puffed her cheeks grumpily, giving him a baleful glare. “Come on, it’s my discovery!”

 “It’s still yours! But I can fight off traps.” He shot her confident grin as he persuaded her. “Come on, you gotta let me do my part. That’s what I’m here for, right?”

 “…just remember to lift your tail this time,” she grumbled, letting him go.

 He made it a point to lift his tail, waving it directly in her face until she batted it away with a laugh. Fortunately, this tunnel was much shorter than the other one, the speck of light growing bigger and bigger until it revealed another, smaller cavern. This one looked almost man made, the crystals brighter in here. In the center of the room, on a pedestal, was a glowing orb.

 A bright, green, floating orb.

 “Is that magic?” Eijiro muttered, transfixed.

 Before he could take a step forward, Mina wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight. “Wait!” she hissed, freezing him in place. She poked her head around his body, her eyes darting around the room. “There’s probably a trap here. Something deadly, I bet.”

 Remembering the giant ball earlier and spiky pit, Eijiro swallowed. Right. Dangerous place full of dangerous traps. He scanned the walls, squinting at the crystals and cracks that laced the walls, damaging the carvings on them. The whole room felt abandoned, forgotten from time. “See anything?”

 “Not really.” She bit her cheek, frowning as she examined the floor. “It’s really old.”

 “Yeah. I feel like we’re gonna fall through the floor anytime.” Eijiro shuddered as he stared at the small crevasses on the floor. Just how stable was this whole thing in the first place? It felt like they were one hard jump away from everything breaking underneath their feet.

 “Just don’t turn into a dragon, okay?” Mina requested shakily, gulping audibly at the thought. “You’ll wreck the whole place.”

 “A cave-in…” Rocks on his back, dirt weighing him down, unable to escape, unable to breathe. Eijiro swallowed. He wasn’t entirely claustrophobic, but he much preferred the wide, open spaces of the sky. To die like that, to die underground—nope, he wasn’t going to let that happen. “Definitely not.”

 “Oh!” Mina exclaimed, clapping her hands excitedly. She tugged on his sleeve, pointing at the ceiling. “There’re tiny holes up there!”

 Eijiro stared at the rock ceiling. The solid rock ceiling. “Huh?”

 “Squint, you dummy. It’s really tiny holes.” She pinched two fingers together. “Like, this tiny.”

 He narrowed his eyes, eyes straining as he tried to make out the tiny holes. Or at least, discern what was a tiny hole and what was just a small dip in the ceiling or a natural crevasse or—“Oh.” Now that he’d spotted one, he could see them all, tiny holes littering the ceiling. The holes continued down the side of the wall. “Arrows?”

 “Probably. Don’t know what else is that small.” Mina picked up a pebble off the ground and threw it through the air. It landed on the ground with a soft thud.

 Nothing happened.

 “Maybe it’s not heavy enough?” Eijiro suggested, picking up a bigger rock. Throwing it, he repeated the experiment.

 Again, nothing happened.

 “That’s so weird.” Mina fumed, stamping her foot indignantly. “Why aren’t they triggering?”

 “Maybe we have to grab the orb?” Eijiro wondered if he could withstand an array of arrows. Maybe? If they weren’t metal-tipped, at least. “Like, I can sprint in, grab it, and then cover myself with my wings?”

 “You’ll just hurt yourself some more. Your skin’s tough, but not that tough.” Mina shook her head, vetoing the whole thing. “Maybe…” She frowned, biting her lip. “Maybe…” Her eyes widened as inspiration struck and without another word, she whirled around and dashed back to the bigger cavern.

 “Mina?” Eijiro stood stock still, not sure if he should follow or wait.

 As quickly as she left, she returned, dashing right up to the threshold to the small room. In her hand was a small, glowing crystal, and she wound up her arm and hurled it forward before Eijiro could utter a word. The rock flew through the air, a straight line that hurtled straight toward the glowing orb and knocked it off the pedestal. As it fell to the ground, a loud click echoed through the air and dozens of arrows flew out of the walls and ceiling, embedding on the ground.

 It looked like a porcupine sneezed. Eijiro stared in disbelief. That would have hurt. That would have hurt badly. “Holy shit.”

 “How did they even get that many arrows?” Mina gaped, her jaw slack. Amazed, she stared at the holes the arrows came out of. “Like, that’s gotta be a hundred. That’s must have been tiring to set up.”

 “What if it’s like dominos and you accidentally trigger it?” he mused aloud, still processing what he’d witnessed. It felt so impossible. A chilling thought ran up his spine. “Are there more?”

 “I hope not.” Mina tossed a rock in. Nothing happened.

 “Looks safe?” Eijiro tossed another rock in. Still, nothing happened. Then again, nothing had happened the first two times they’d tossed rocks in either. He studied the room once more, not sure what else to expect. Blades jutting out of the walls, a pit of tigers, who knows what ancient trap could be here.

 “Might as well go.” Before he could stop her, Mina darted in the room, quickly picking up the orb and dashing back out before any other traps considered springing. Wiping the sweat off her brow, she sighed. “That was close.”

 Eijiro dragged her further away from the trap door, before a stray arrow could hit her. He turned to her in a panic. “What if there were more traps?”

 “Then you’d rescue me,” Mina stated, squeezing his hand.

 He turned red but didn’t drop the argument. “That’s not the point, the point is—” Before he could reply, they heard a rumble. The earth started to shake. “What is that?”

 “…Eijiro, is it just me or is the floor collapsing?” Mina stared at the room behind them. Following her gaze, his eyes widened as he saw bits and pieces of the floor disappear, revealing a yawning black void. Turning back to the path they came from, he realized the same was happening in front of him.

 The whole place was going to collapse.

 “Shit. Grab on to me!” Without waiting for a reply, he carried her in his arms once more, his wings spreading behind him. Mina whooped excitedly as she wrapped one arm around him, the other holding onto the orb tightly.

 He shot forward, dodging pieces of the ceiling as it started to collapse. Tilting left and right, he weaved through the cavern toward the tunnel they came in from. All around him, he could hear rocks crashing, crystals cracking from the force. Luckily the tunnel was a straight line and he folded his wings in as he landed at the entrance. Without even pausing to catch his breath, he kept the momentum up and hit the ground running. It felt like the ground would collapse beneath his feet. Maybe it would. Mina shrieked as they sped through the pitch-black shaft, her head pressed against his shoulder.

 “You can do it!” she yelled. Probably. He couldn’t hear her very well, the wind stealing her words as they raced through the passageway.

 Up ahead, he could see a light. The other end of the tunnel. He picked up the pace, a burst of energy running through his veins. As they burst through the exit, he extended his wings and flew up through the cracks in the temple ceiling.

 Suddenly, above them was a bright blue sky and Eijiro stared at it for a long second, processing what had happened. “We did it.”

 “Yeah,” Mina repeated, dumbfounded. “We did it.”

 She pulled back and they stared at each other before breaking into identical grins. “We did it!” they shouted together.

 As relief coursed through his veins, the adrenaline receded and Eijiro wearily drifted to the ground. He stumbled as he landed on the ground, unable to support himself, and Mina tumbled out of his arms. She sprung to her feet quickly, catching him before he fell. “You ok?”

 “Yeah,” he grunted. He tried to grunt. His mouth wasn’t moving like he wanted it to, his tongue too heavy, and he slumped into her arms. “S’ok.”

 “You did great!” Mina cheered him, her voice at half its usual strength. Wrapping her arms around him, she slowly guided him to the ground until they were both sitting on the grass. “You were amazing.” As she praised him, she pulled his head to her lap. “Take a break, I’ll keep watch.”

 “I…” Eijiro tried to protest, but already his vision was fading. His body refused to move and he couldn’t roll off her lap.

 “Just rest a little. We’re partners, right?” she added, using his words against him. Before he completely blacked out, he felt lips press against his cheek. Her hand tousled his hair gently. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

 With the last of his strength, he forced his arms around her waist, holding Mina secure.

 I’ll be here when you wake up.

 That sounded good. He smiled as he drifted off.

[kirishima-eijibrou]

Pool Party

A/N: goodness gracious this is my first bnha thing i’ve ever written pls tell me how to be better if u want, i feel like it’s not as climactic as it could be

You throw a pool party for the class, but after getting injured in the pool, you get to spend some quality time with a certain spiky boy (and some wavy chips).

Kirishima x gn!Reader

Tags: cursing but mostly just fluff!

Word Count: 3.1k

You gotta say, you kinda rock.

The pool party you threw for your class is going great. In the pool, half the class splashes around or sits in the corners and talks. Inside, the rest of people hang out, some eating snacks, some gathering around the TV and playing the Switch. The house and backyard are all filled with conversation and a light, joyous atmosphere. You almost can’t believe you put together such a good party.

In the pool, you lounge near the deep end with Jirou, Momo, Ochaco, Toru, and Tsu. Jirou, Momo, Ochaco, and Toru sit on the edge of the pool, their feet kicking lightly in the water, and you and Tsu share a pool float, you sitting with your whole body splayed across it and Tsu with her arms resting on it, kicking her feet under her in the pool. The air smells like sunscreen and chlorine, and your skin feels nice, like it always does after it dries under the warm sun. Listening to the girls’ conversation and hearing all the other noises around you makes you feel so content.

“I GOT IT!” You hear, and without enough time to register where the voice even came from, something heavy lands on top of you, something hard hitting you on your head, and your whole body is shoved under the water. Tsuyu pulls you up, and you cough pool water out through your mouth and your nose, super painfully at that. “Are you okay?” It seems all the girls ask you in unison, but you still really have no clue what just happened, and your head swivels around you to try and figure it out. That’s when, assumingly because of how badly your neck took a beating when you got hit downward on the head, you have a horrible spasm of the upper back, crying out in pain and letting Momo awkwardly drag you up onto the pool deck. The stone scrapes up your back as she pulls you but you barely notice it because of the intense, though slowly subsiding, pain in the back of your neck.

“C’mon, dude, say sorry!” You hear Kaminari call, and when you weakly turn your neck to look, Bakugou’s looking away from you even though he’s facing you, holding an inflatable pool ball. “No, they were the one in my way!”

Finally you realize it was Bakugou who basically drowned you, presumably to catch that stupid ball, and though you want to be angry at him, you can’t really focus on anything except willing the pain to go away, and you figure it’d be easier just to let it go. He’s not going to feel bad about it anyway, so you look back up at Momo above you, because she’s been calling your name since you looked over at the boys in the first place.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, and you want her to calm down, but it’s hard to say words without your voice making it sound like it’s a lot worse than it already is, hoarse from hacking up the chemicals in the water and strained from the pain. “Just my neck, just my neck,” you say, but that seems to make everyone else more upset, probably because neck injuries are dangerous (you shoulda thought that one through), and Iida is yelling at everyone, and you wish everyone would just shut up. “Stop! Stop!” You say, and that seems to help a little, and the pain is finally subsiding enough that you can talk in understandable sentences. “It’s just a spasm, stop yelling, guys, for fuck’s sake!”

---

You stand now by the window, watching everyone still having fun in the pool without you. Everyone had practically kicked you out, not wanting you to pull your neck again and worrying for your safety. It was stupid really – as long as Bakugou didn’t jump on you again you’d probably be fine – but it was a unanimous decision among everyone in the pool that you should chill inside a while. So here you were, stuffing yourself with fruit punch and wavy chips, watching everyone laugh and splash around and be happy. Why are wavy chips so much better during pool parties? You eat five more at once.

Now that you’ve been watching the pool for a couple minutes, it’s like a TV show. You watch the girls gossip, stealing glances at whoever they’re talking about in between covering their mouths to whisper. You watch also, in slow motion, as Mina chucks a volleyball at Bakugou, obviously expecting him to hit it back at her, but from your angle, you see that he’s not paying attention. You watch in horror as it collides with his head with a thump and shoots up into the air, landing on the pool deck beside Momo and rolling away. Before Bakugou can even look to see who threw it, you guess in a bout of confidence, Kaminari laughs out loud. Sero gives him a look of complete terror.

“You don’t catch balls as good when they’re not hurdling toward some hot girl, Baku!”

The entire pool area gets quiet for a moment, and you see Kaminari’s face change the second he regrets his actions. Bakugou turns toward him slowly, and his hands – which he hasn’t had under the water since he landed on top of you – start to pop. Kaminari screams and lifts himself out of the pool faster than you’ve ever seen him do anything, but Bakugou grabs him by the trunks and pulls him back down, showing everyone his ass for just a moment before he’s pulled under the water.

Chaos ensues, and you are suddenly very happy they kicked you out of the pool.

“Why are they fighting?”

You jump a foot in the air, turning over to see Kirishima next to you, hair down and arm in a cast. He’s got on a gray shirt that says Crimson Riot in red, and he’s wearing his stupid swim trunks with fire going up the sides, but it doesn’t really look like he’ll be swimming today.

“Kirishima--! When did you get here? What’s wrong with your arm?!”

He chuckles, and looks back out the window at the two again, people already starting to push the two away from each other, or rather, Bakugou away from Kaminari.

“Prob’ly an hour ago. I rang the doorbell but your mom made fun of me for it because it’s a party and people just walk in.”

You see his face is a little red and you smile a little.

“She was just joking,” you say, and he looks back at you, worried, waving his hand that’s not in a bent cast around. “I know, I know! I know your mom’s not mean!! I-I just thought you’d think it was funny--!”

“I did,” you say, and he stops stuttering, and looks back out the window. You’re quite surprised – usually you’re the stuttery one around him. You hope, for a moment, that it means he likes you, but you can never know for sure unless you…

You shake your head. “So, what about your arm?”

He looks down at it, almost like he forgot it was broken. “I guess hardening doesn’t always get the job done.”

“Oh, Kiri, what happened?” You hope the nickname isn’t too buddy-buddy.

He doesn’t seem to notice, or else he does a good job hiding it, because he turns to you worried and stuttery again, waving his hand about a second time. “It was nothing, no big deal! Just some villain around town! But his quirk made him super fast, and I couldn’t harden in time!”

“So you can’t swim. What a pool party, am I right?” You try to say it nonchalantly, putting a hand on his shoulder for maximum coolness, but the second your hand touches the fabric of his shirt you realize that you never are cool, and that your personality doesn’t really fit with the body language, so it’s just awkward, and you’re focusing so much on your own hot cheeks and ears that you don’t notice Kirishima’s own.

“I-uh. Why aren’t you in the pool?” Him asking you a question gives you a perfect opportunity to – as casually as you can – take your hand off his shoulder. You realize, when it hits the air, how sweaty your hand had become, and you hope to God Kirishima doesn’t feel it on his shoulder.

“Bakugou broke my neck.” You joke, and Kirishima laughs. Finally, you feel a little less awkward.

“Sounds like him.” He says. “Did he apologize?”

“Of course not,” you say with a smile. “Kaminari even told him to. ‘They were in my way,’ he said.” You mock Bakugou in a silly deep voice.

“I woulda made him apologize!” Kirishima says excitedly, and you notice how freaking cute he is, puffing his chest out and pushing his thumb against it, his hair resting on his ears, forehead, and neck. He looks so cute with his hair down.

“Why didn’t you put your hair up today?”

“You don’t like it?”

He asked it to be funny, you can tell from his stupid smile, but of course you phrased it in the worst way possible.

“Th-that’s not what I meant! I-I…I was just wondering--!”

“I know what you meant.” He’s got a small smile, and you’ve never had such an overwhelming urge to give someone a huge hug. You just want to touch his shoulders and squeeze them, or grab onto his sides and never let go.

“It’s ‘cause I’m stupid. I didn’t think about the fact that I couldn’t swim until I got here,” he avoids eye contact and scratches the back of his neck, and he’s so cute. That’s why he’s wearing his stupid trunks, too.

“You’re not stupid, it looks cute!” You blurt out before you think, but then your eyes get wide and so do his, and you feel the giddiness and shakiness in your limbs again as your whole head heats up. “Th-…thank you.” He says it quietly before looking back out the window at the pool.

It’s quiet for a moment, and you’re thinking so hard about how much you just fucked up, overthinking and spiraling, wondering if he’ll ever talk to you again—

“I’m really glad I came, even though I can’t swim.” You finally look over at him and he’s not looking at you but it’s very obvious his face is bright red. “I thought it would suck, because Bakugou is definitely gonna be outside, and I had to hang out inside and I can’t even play on the Switch with the others because of my arm, but I’m glad I came because I’m having fun.”

You absolutely, positively can’t believe he just said all that. You feel so light, like you’re about to float because of the balloon that’s blowing up in your chest, rubbing against everything inside you and causing you to feel an intense tickle that just won’t go away, one that makes you think sideways, one that makes it so you have to use every ounce of your being not to reach out and touch him.

“I’m glad you came, too. I love talking to you.” You’re surprised by your own honesty. “I can’t imagine being out there right now, I much prefer talking to you to anyone out there. Especially Kaminari, or Bakugou…”

Suddenly, the moment ends. “Let go of me, Dunce Face!” You hear right outside the window, and turn to see Kaminari dragging Bakugou to the sliding glass doors across the room from you. “C’mon, please, Jirou threatened me! We have to apologize to Y/N!”

Kirishima smiles at you. “Well, speak of the devil—” but you duck down behind the window, hoping neither of them saw you.

Kirishima is looking down at you with a close-mouthed grin. “What, you don’t want them to apologize? I bet it’d feel real good to hear those words come out of Bakugou’s mouth…”

You whisper-yell back at him. “I don’t care about Bakugou falling on me! I told you, I really don’t want to talk to them! They do this shit all the time, Bakugou being a dumbass and Kaminari saying some stupid inappropriate comment. Last time they ‘apologized’ to Ochaco, Bakugou attacked Kaminari and she got electrocuted!”

Kirishima covers his mouth and stifles a laugh before crouching down next to you. “It looks like you have to hide pretty quick then!”

“No, we have to hide pretty quick!”

“What?” He laughs such a cute little laugh. “Why me? What’d I do?”

“You had the misfortune of keeping me company up until now! You have to come with me! Be my bodyguard!”

He’s obviously having a great time right now, a much greater time than you are, a huge grin on his face and his eyes lit up like stars.

You two quickly sneak over to the hallway, and the knob on your sister’s door starts to turn, and for some reason that really freaks you out, because without thinking you grab Kirishima tightly by the hand and run into the closest room to your right, closing the door and turning back around to him.

Of course, in your irrational panic, you hadn’t thought about the fact that this is your bathroom and that you’d be alone with him in it, and when you look at his face, you see through his redness that he’s realizing the same thing you are. You start to open your mouth, whether to explain yourself or make things worse you don’t know, before you hear footsteps in the hallway approaching the bathroom. Your eyes meet in terror and instead of reaching over and locking the damn door, both of you dumbasses decide to run to the bathtub and hide behind the curtain.

You’re sitting at the back end of the tub, Kirishima sitting in front of you and leaning back into your lap, both of you facing forward, when the doorknob turns. You both stop adjusting and hold your breath.

Whoever opens the door takes one step in the room and barely closes the door behind them before Kirishima breaks.

“Don’t get naked! I’m in here!”

“Kirishima, is that you?” You hear Mina ask. “Why are you in here? Why would I get naked?”

His head pops out from behind the curtain on the front side of the bathtub, and you can imagine how funny it looks from Mina’s perspective. “I was just hanging out,” He says, so casually despite sitting in an empty bathtub fully clothed at a pool party.

“Are you okay?” Mina asks with real worry, and you feel so guilty for letting her think that he’s crazy.

“I’m in here too,” you say, popping your head out from behind the curtain on the back side of the bathtub, and, although you can’t see it from where you are, Kirishima visibly cringes.

“Aha!” Mina exclaims, pointing at you, “You two were--!”

You and Kirishima both have a meltdown before she can finish. Mixtures of ‘no no’s and ‘it wasn’t like that’s fill the room, before, without saying a word but with the biggest stupid smirk on her face, she turns and walks to the door. “Mina, stop! Please, I was just escaping from stupid freaking Lightning Boy! He was dragging along Bakugou, they wanted to apologize, and you know how that always goes! C’mon, Mina, you know it’s not like how you said.”

“Okay,” she says in the most sarcastic tone you’ve ever heard, showing you that she doesn’t believe a word you said. “Don’t worry guys, I won’t tell anyone.”

And with that, she opens, locks, and then shuts the door.

You look back at Kirishima, who’s leaning forward, free hand grasping the side of the tub.

“I’m sorry,” you say quietly, but then, unexpectedly, he laughs.

“Why are you sorry? Mina’s the one who doesn’t know how to knock!” You’re so confused as to why he’s laughing, especially because there’s no way he can’t be as embarrassed as you are right now, but he keeps laughing even harder. “She’s walked in on me peeing four times before! She just doesn’t learn her lesson!”

Awkwardly, he turns around to you, shifting his legs about so that they don’t hit you, only using his working hand to maneuver himself. His face is as red as yours but his smile is just as genuine as his laugh is. You’re taken aback by how beautiful he looks.

His laughing subsides and he wipes the small tears forming at the corners of his eyes before focusing back on you.

He’s staring at you now, and you’re staring back, and it’s so intense you feel like you’re going to explode. The feeling comes back, the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch him more than anything, the only thought circling through your head being his lips, his face. In a small loss of self-control, your hands rise from your lap, but instantly you decide that’s not a good idea and play it off by resting your hands on his thick shoulders as leverage to stand up. You mumble something about betting that Kaminari gave up looking, but before you’ve even risen from squatting, Kirishima grabs you just below your upper arm and pulls you down to him.

Never in a million years had you imagined he’d kiss you, never in a million years had you imagined something could be so amazing. Nonetheless, your lips meet in a soft kiss, and the balloon in your chest explodes and butterflies release from it and fly all around your ribcage, and his hand that pulled you down moves up to your cheek to touch it so lightly you can barely even feel it. You can’t believe this is happening but you kiss back anyway, softly and slowly, and you move your hands from his shoulders to the sides of his neck. He sighs a content sigh, and you realize you had been holding your breath too, and when you two pull away, trying to finally pull yourselves together, his face is red and so is yours but his eyes are so red and so sure and so beautiful that you lean back in for another.

Finally, you two pull away for real, staring at each other like neither of you were expecting what just happened to happen. You wonder if he had felt the same way you did, using all his self-control not to reach out and touch you.

Both of you are quiet, so you say the first thing that comes to your head.

“I’m so glad Bakugou broke my neck.”

[franniebanana]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Uraraka Ochako, Midoriya Izuku/Uraraka Ochako Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Uraraka Ochako Additional Tags: Angst, fake date, Kacchako Week 2019, Sad Ending Series: Part 3 of Kacchaco Week 2019 Summary:

It was a stupid idea to begin with: go on a date with Uraraka just to make Deku jealous. And it was even more stupid to think that it would turn out okay.

Written for @kacchakoweek - Day 3 - Fake Dating

             “It’s just for one night! Please, Bakugo—it’ll be the easiest thing you’ve ever done. Just show up, have dinner with me, and then you can go home. You won’t even have to talk!” Uraraka was standing in front of him, her hands clasped at her breast, big brown eyes glassy as they looked up at him pleadingly.

              “Let me get this straight,” he said, slamming his foot against the chain link fence. “You’re so desperate to make Deku jealous, that you’re coming to me to pretend to go out with you?”

             She brushed her hair over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t go that far. I just want him to pay attention to me.” She frowned. “It feels like he thinks I’m only his girlfriend when he needs one, and the rest of the time, it’s like I don’t exist.”

             “So, you’re doing this to hurt him?” he said flatly.

            She furrowed her brow and began, “Well, not exactly.” His face showed he was losing interest, so she quickly went on, “I mean, yes! Of course, that’s what I’m trying to do: hurt Deku.”

             He would have felt better if she really meant it. In truth, she was just using him to make her distracted boyfriend jealous enough to pay attention to her. He knew that idiot Deku didn’t have a clue what she was feeling, and it wasn’t that he didn’t care. That was Deku’s problem—he cared too much—about everyone. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

             “You…you will?”

            “You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he drawled. “It’s not like you were gonna let me leave without me agreeing to it.”

             She put a finger to her cheek. “True, but I didn’t expect it to take so little convincing.”

            “Don’t put too much thought into it,” he said with a glance over his shoulder. “I’d do anything to make Deku miserable.”

             “Okay, then, I’ll see you later…?” she called after him.

             “See you.”

            An hour before the appointed time, Bakugo found himself standing in front of the mirror. He had changed out of his uniform and put on a dress shirt and slacks. He supposed he should try and look nice—make it believable…for her. He wasn’t about to admit it, even to himself on most days, but he wanted Uraraka to be happy. And he wasn’t exactly boyfriend material anyway, so it was better to help her patch her relationship with Deku. Regardless, it was an idiotic scheme. Deku was clueless and all she needed to do was just talk to him. Then why didn’t I tell her that? He frowned as he moved away from the mirror. Probably because this was a shot at spending time with her that he didn’t want to give up.

            She was waiting outside the noodle shop when he got there. He nodded his greeting, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “You look…really nice,” he said uncomfortably.

             She blushed a little, but said dismissively, “You don’t need to do that yet. He’s not even here.” After a pause, she said, “You look nice too. You didn’t have to get all dolled up, you know.”

             “Well, I did.” He looked around. “How long are we going to stand out here? Isn’t the whole point for him to see us together?”

             “You’re right,” she said, shaking her head. She seemed a little flustered. “Let’s go in.” They were led to their table and they sat down.

           He leaned back in the chair, pushing it so the front two legs were lifted off the floor. "How do you even know he's coming?" he asked after a while.

           "I overheard him talking to Momo," she said, straining to see if anyone she recognized was coming through the front doors. "He's coming, okay?" Suddenly her phone started buzzing, and she dug through her purse to pull it out. "It's Deku!" She looked at him, panic in her eyes.

           "Answer the damn phone," he said, rolling eyes eyes. He watched her, listening to the conversation. They exchanged pleasantries, she lied about where she was, she lied about who she was with. Then there was a long pause, where she blinked a lot while her mouth slowly opened.

           "No, I haven't eaten yet. I'm at the noodle shop in town if you want to meet me?" She grinned. "Really? Okay! Yeah, I'll--I'll see you soon. Bye." She set her phone down and looked across the table. She opened and closed her mouth, but nothing came out.

           "You don't need to explain." He stood up unceremoniously.

           "Bakugo, thanks for helping. I didn't know this would happen," she said quickly--apologetically.

          "It's fine," he said roughly. It wasn't fine. "Enjoy your date." He started off, but stopped after a few steps. "And don't ask me to do this again. You caught me in a weak moment, but it won't happen again." And with that, he left, eager to get out before that idiot Deku showed up. Some timing he had--they could have at least eaten dinner, he thought, as his stomach growled. He sighed, annoyed with himself. Who was he kidding, anyway? Nothing was going to happen with Uraraka while Deku was in the picture. And besides, this feeling, whatever it was that he'd pushed deep inside himself, was just a weakness. It wouldn't do anything but hurt him. Like right now. Right now, it just really hurt.

[felix-loves-albert-and-ralb-blog]

Losing My Mind (Part Three)

it’s finally here! this chapter took me forever and it’s super long but i hope you like it

previous chapters are tagged under losing my mind

pairings: ralbert, jackcrutchie, specs/romeo, blush, newsbians

friendships: crutchie and albert, specs and albert and crutchie, albert and les, specs and crutchie

warnings: violence, blood, abuse, swearing, burns, panic attacks, everything from before, uh albert low-key hates himself

albert’s pov

this chapter might be kinda confusing because albert’s brain is kinda confusing

Specs is the first one to react when Snyder leaves with Race in tow. He dashes over to where Crutchie is on the floor, unconscious but still breathing.

“Al, help me lift Crutchie.” Specs says, putting Crutchie’s head in his hands.

“Specs, let go of me you ass.” Crutchie says, his eyes snapping open and his voice unusually cold.

I guess he’s not unconscious.

“Crutchie, you-” I start so say, joining Specs next to him on the floor.

“Al, I don’t need your help.” Crutchie snaps.

This isn’t good.

This isn’t good at all.

You can probably guess why.

“I was gonna tell ya that ya had somethin’ on ya face.” I finish plainly.

“No shit.” Crutchie deadpans, but I can tell he’s holding back a smile.

“It’s kinda reddish, is it ketchup, maybe?”

This is easy.

I can focus on the playful banter between me and Crutchie, not the fact that the person I love most in the world is no doubt being subject to some sick torture right now.

“Nah, not ketchup I don’t think.” A smile does manage to lighten Crutchie’s face a bit, and it’s just so naturally contagious that I can’t help but giggle.

“Then what could it be, huh? In a place as wonderful as this?” I wave my arms around, gesturing to the bunk room at large.

“Surely not blood!” Specs gasps in fake shock.

“Oh no, how could I even get blood on my face here?” Crutchie asks, using Specs’s shoulder to pull himself into a sitting position.

I see him grimace a little when his bad leg twists in the wrong direction.

“Is he not unconscious then?” Davey asks, walking up.

“Sometimes fakin’ it just turns out better, Dave. If you’se unconscious, he usually stops beatin’ on ya.” Crutchie shrugs.

“Usually.” I mumble under my breath.

“You’ll learn the rules soon enough, Davey.” Specs says, and I note the hint of sadness in his voice. “Ya kinda have to.”

“C’mon, Crutch, let’s get ya cleaned up a bit. I don’t want none of that gettin’ infected.” Specs says, and instead of trying to lift Crutchie he holds out his arm for Crutchie to pull himself up with.

Using Specs as a temporary crutch, Crutchie makes it to an empty bunk and sits down on it.

“Haven’t had a relatively proper bed in days.” He sighs, leaning back against the bunk post.

“Where did he keep ya?” I ask.

“Basement.”

“I swear, I’ll-”

“Calm down Specs, it ain’t nothin’ I can’t handle.”

“How long?” Specs demands.

“Like I said, a few days. It ain’t nothin’ though.”

“It is somethin’!”

I know Specs and Crutchie can argue for hours, and I know I won’t be very helpful with cleaning up Crutchie’s injuries, so I go to the back of the room, where I know I can think on my own for a bit.

I sit down in a small corner, drawing my knees up to my chest and letting my thoughts wander.

It’s hard to think though, because I can hear something.

It’s quiet at first, and I have to strain my ears to hear it better.

A single scream echoes up through the floor, long and wavering.

A scream I’ve heard too many times before.

A scream that breaks my heart.

A scream that is unmistakably Race’s, no doubt coming from the basement.

I hunch my shoulders and close my eyes, not sleeping, but letting the world move around me.

*****

I wake up to a shirt being laid on top of me.

It’s Ike’s, I can tell from the faded baby blue color and the length of the sleeves, and it is clearly meant as a sign of compassion, so I wrap it around my shoulders.

I can tell from the sun streaming in through the window that I actually slept through the night.

It’s been a day since Crutchie was brought back, a day since Race was taken away.

Which means that Race has to come back soon. He has to. Snyder never keeps anyone in the basement for too long, and Race has already been there for a day. But Race was always the one capable of pissing off Snyder more than anyone else could, so he always was in the basement for longer periods of time. He was down there for over a week once, I wouldn’t be surprised if Snyder keeps him there for a while. But the screams. If Race was already screaming, that means Snyder would give him a break soon. In theory. Race can handle a lot, I know that, but there is a point where he can’t handle it anymore. That’s usually when the screams come in. And if he’s already screaming... “Davey?” I flinch out of instinct, but relax my shoulders when I see it’s just Sarah at the window. “Sarah!” That’s Les, running over to the window.

I see Davey follow him, and the three siblings talk for a while, but a lot of it I can’t understand because eventually they slip into rapid Yiddish.

Specs is running over now, what’s he doing that for? I thought he was hanging out with Crutchie? “Snyder’s coming back!” Specs hisses.

Oh, that’s why.

Not good.

I jump up from my position on the floor, knowing it’s a weak spot if Snyder comes back this way. I can’t believe I didn’t hear the pounding footsteps from the hallway. Sarah quickly ducks away from the window, Les vaults himself into the nearest bunk, and Davey, Specs, and I sprint back to our bunks at the front of the room. The door slams open, but Snyder doesn’t even enter. All he does is shove Race through the doorway and leave. Once we recover from the shock of the sudden and brief visit, a chorus of whispers rises up in the room. I run over to where Race is lying face down on the hard floor and lift his face gently. His lip is split and he has a black eye forming. And then I notice that he’s shirtless. Which can’t be good. My eyes move to his bare back, and I gasp a little when I see red burns, clearly fresh, scattered haphazardly over the scars from years before. “Al?” Race is barely conscious, and his eyes are foggy. “Yeah. It’s me, Racer.” “Am I dead?” “No.” “It hurts. “I know.” “Kiss me?” I oblige, leaning towards him and locking our lips together. I slowly lift Race into a sitting position, still keeping our lips pressed together, but he pulls away and hisses in pain. “What did he-” Race shakes his head and stands all the way up. I try to steady him with an offered arm, but he pushes past me to go sit down on our bunk. Understandable. He’s been through a lot in the past 24 hours, he doesn’t need more trouble from his idiot boyfriend. Or from anyone else, apparently. He also pushes away Specs and Davey, opting to take a nap instead. “Is he okay?” Les asks quietly, coming up to me and clinging to my pant leg. “He’s gonna be fine, Shortstop.” I assure him. “He’s all alone. Doesn’t he want to be with you?” A fair question, I guess. “He wants to be alone right now.” I explain. “Why?” How do I explain to someone so innocent what happens in the Refuge? How am I supposed to look into Les’s eyes and tell him that Snyder can do things to you that make you sensitive to every touch, wary of even your closest friends, and unable to even look at the people you love most? “He’s tired.” I say dumbly. “Don’t lie to me! I’m not just some little kid! Davey!” Les huffs, clearly frustrated at my answer. “Les? Are you okay?” Davey is over in a second, examining Les for injuries. “Albert won’t tell me why Race is sleeping all alone and sad!” “Oh.” That’s all Davey can say. “Tell me! I’m not too young!” Les demands. “Les, any age is too young. Jack was 8. Race was 7. Finch was 11. I was 13. Specs was 9. And that’s not even saying what we went through before the Refuge.” I say. “Just-count yourself lucky that you don’t understand yet.” I go to the very back of the room to the window. I sit on the ledge and stare out at the grey landscape before me, wishing I could make the bars disappear. I suddenly understand the appeal of Santa Fe, a place where everything is green and there are no prison bars to keep you trapped. “Hey, Al.” I turn my gaze away from the window and see Race. “I thought you were napping.” I say morosely. “Aw, don’t be such a sadsack! I only needed fifteen minutes. I feel a hell of a lot better now, trust me.” “Race, I’ve known you for years. I can tell when your smile is fake.” “I ain’t fakin’, Albo! I’m fit as a fiddle!” “Yeah, and I’m not scared out of my wits to be in this hellhole again.” “Al, listen.” Race says, his voice quieter now. “Me, you, Crutchie, Specs, Mush, an’ Davey, we’se all they have right now. You know that. Jack’s down in a closet in Snyder’s office, the boys need us. If they see us bein’ all sad an’ hopeless, they’ll start bein’ all sad an’ hopeless too.” “I know, I know!” I say. “It’s jus’- it’s hard, y’know? Seein’ Les an’ the few boys that haven’t been here, knowin’ that they have no clue what’s comin’. What happens ta ya.” “I know.” We sit on the windowsill together, not needing to talk, just being next to each other is enough. “I was really scared, Racer.” Race doesn’t say anything in response. “I know ya can handle yourself, but-” “I’m gonna go ask Specs for his shirt.” Race says abruptly, standing up and stretching his arms. I open my mouth to say something more, but stop myself. What would I say? Don’t do anything stupid? Be safe? Neither of those are very achievable. In order to keep everyone else safe, Race must both do something stupid and risk his own safety.

Besides, Race walked away for a reason.

He doesn’t want to talk to me.

My problems are so small compared to his, he was the one being beaten to a pulp.

I made him uncomfortable by complaining about my small issues.

What right do I have to complain when he’s going through so much more?

I need a nap. I stand up from the sill and plop down on a bunk. “Hey!” “Agh, sorry, Crutch!” I get up immediately, discovering I just sat on Crutchie’s arm. “Whatcha doin’ goin’ an’ sittin’ on people’s arms like that?” He’s joking, but I still apologize again. “Can I talk ta ya?” I ask. “Sure thing.” Crutchie pats an empty space of bed next to him, and I sit down again. “I’se guessin’ this is about Race?” I open my mouth to say something, but bury my head in Crutchie’s arms instead. He wraps me in a tight hug, drawing circles on my back with his finger.

I don’t cry.

I don’t let out a sob or shed any tears, I know what everyone would start thinking if I started to cry, but I simply let myself be in Crutchie’s warm embrace.

It’s so wonderful having a best friend.

“He’s gonna be okay, Al.” Crutchie whispers softly.

“It’s so hard. I’se so scared for ‘im. Snyder already has it out for ‘im, an’ he’s only gonna keep talkin’ back-” My voice is quiet and strained.

“Al, calm down. It’s okay.”

“It’s not-” My breath hitches, and I suddenly can’t breathe at all.

I can’t feel Crutchie’s arms around me anymore.

I can barely see anything, everything looks like a blur.

I can’t hear, although I don’t know if there even is anything to hear.

I’m trying to breathe, but I can’t.

My lungs are full of cement.

I know I’m dying, I can just tell.

“Breathe, Al!” The command is muffled, but I can hear it.

I can also hear the counting, it’s probably Specs, and I try to level my breathing with it.

The little bit of air that manages to fill my lungs helps a bit.

I’m starting to hear more now, muffled sounds coming through in fragments.

“Albie!”

“Okay?”

“My fault!”

“Talk!”

“Space!”

“Breathe!”

I can feel again!

Yay!

Not yay.

Not fucking yay at all.

Because when I can feel again I can feel tears streaming down my face.

Which is very, very bad.

“Racer.”

“Snyder!”

I can see again!

Yay!

Not yay.

Not fucking yay at all.

Because when my vision clears I’m lying on the floor alone, my friends are all huddled in corners on their bunks, and Snyder is looming over me, smirking vengefully.

Which is very, very bad.

thanks for reading! feel free to talk to me about my writing if you want too!

TAG LIST:

@booksbroadwayandbagels @somekindaspacecadet @tea-and-theater @be-more-chill-evan-hansen @auspicioustarantula @dancingpenss @suddenly-im-respectable @have-we-got-news-for-you

[zoadgo]

Kinktober Day Fourteen | Asphyxiation | i think you think i’m intimidated; contemplating taking stabs at your back but i don’t need to | McCreary x Clarke | The 100

Words: 2949

Tags: Breath play, Manipulation, Blowjob, Face fucking, Deepthroating, No discussion of limits, Dubcon, Violence, Sadism, Canon verse

Note that this is a kinktober prompt fill. It will be explicit smut, and quite likely, kinky. Mind the tags.

ao3

Clarke knows that Madi and her need more protection than what they currently have. War is looming, and she’s certain she’s on the winning side, but she needs to be certain they won’t turn on her once there’s no longer a greater threat. After a few hours agonizing over how to make herself more useful to a group of thugs, Clarke’s first, stupid idea still reigns as best.

She knows there’s no time to delay and come up with something better, which is why Clarke finds herself leaving in the dead of night, making her way to the home McCreary had claimed for himself. There are guards outside, but they let her pass with nothing more than a few suggestive looks. Of course, because why else would she be going to him in the middle of the night? Clarke can think of a million reasons, but the simple minded criminals aren’t exactly wrong in this case.

McCreary is still awake when she walks into the main room, sitting on the edge of his bed and flipping through the notebook that never leaves his side. He looks up at the scuff of her boot, brow curving in silent question.

“Clarke to what do I owe the pleasure?” McCreary speaks with an easy laziness that shows exactly how little of a threat he views her as. Normally that would irk Clarke somewhat, but right now, it works in her favour.

“All alone?” Clarke looks around the room significantly, stating the obvious. McCreary, for his part, simply gestures to the emptiness as way of answer. Clarke hums thoughtfully and walks over to one of the walls, making show of inspecting the knicknacks there. “You’re the leader, and there’s plenty of attractive enough women out there that you could choose from. Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on Diyoza.”

“Hardly. In fact, if that bitch weren’t carrying my baby, she’d be long dead by now,” McCreary spits. Clarke has no reason to doubt him, and there’s a certain sort of lust in his voice when he talks about killing Diyoza. She can imagine hardly anything would make him happier; pain and death is his bread and butter, after all.

“Really? Then why not find someone to replace her?” Clarke inquires, keeping her voice carefully neutral, never looking directly at him. She can’t be too direct with this, otherwise he’ll guess the intent behind her actions. Even so, he probably will, but she can’t risk being seen as desperate.

“Too many…” McCreary trails off with a frown that Clarke sees from the corner of her eye, “Complications. Too much at stake to have some woman getting the wrong ideas. Not now.”

“There wouldn’t be complications with all of them,” Clarke suggests, still as calm and cool as if talking about farming reports or the weather.

“Why the sudden interest in my sex life, Clarke? What, are you… volunteering?” McCreary narrows his eyes at her, obviously suspicious. Clarke stops her idle wanderings about the room, finally turning to look at him directly with her arms crossed over her chest.

“And if I were?” She challenges him with her gaze and her words, hoping he’ll rise to the bait.

He does so beautifully, standing and crossing the room to stand a step closer to her than he needs to. Clarke tilts her head back to keep her eyes locked on his, and she has to admit, even though this is purely political, he’s not physically repulsive. Perhaps a bit on the rougher side than her past partners, but Clarke’s intrigued by the dark and gritty more and more these days.

“Then you’re dumber than I thought. You know I don’t care about you or your little kid, and you’ve seen how I treat things I don’t give a shit about. You really want to open yourself up to more of that?” McCreary warns her, eyes searching her face for… what? Regret? Fear? He won’t find anything like that. Clarke knows what she’s doing.

You might not care, but you might need. Or want. Whatever I can get.

“I’m not scared of you, McCreary.” Clarke’s voice is even, unshaken by his paltry attempts at intimidation.

“So you are stupid.” McCreary sneers, and in a flash, his hand is around Clarke’s throat.

He squeezes, not enough to cut off airflow, but enough to be somewhat concerning. Clarke’s heart races, and she swallows against his grip. Okay, maybe she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into, but she’ll be damned if she backs down now. Clarke holds his gaze, defiant, and after a moment McCreary releases her with a scoff, crossing back over to his bed and sitting on the edge of it with his legs spread.

“What are you waiting for?” McCreary gestures at his crotch, brusque and vulgar, “My dick isn’t gonna suck itself.”

Clarke hesitates, brow furrowing. She had been offering sex, but the sudden change from warning her away and choking her, to demanding she gets on her knees is a bit much for her to keep up with. McCreary cocks a brow, leaning back.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got cold feet now. And after all that talk about not being scared.” McCreary tuts, shaking his head.

Clarke feels a flush creep onto her cheeks, much as she might try to will it away. She takes a deep, grounding breath as she crosses the room, sinking to her knees fluidly between McCreary’s thighs. She looks up at him, wondering if he’s going to give her any direction or rules or anything, but he simply looks at her expectantly. Not like he’s waiting for to start, though; like he’s waiting for her to back down.

Clarke’s competitive side rears its head in a flash. Seriously, backing down from a simple blowjob, just because the guy she’s sucking off is a mass murdering sadist? He doesn’t even rank in her top ten things to be afraid of. Wasting no more time, Clarke runs her hands up the inside of McCreary’s thighs, palming him through his pants when she reaches his crotch. Not gentle or teasing, a firm declaration of intent. She doesn’t imagine he’s much of one to enjoy the finer things in life, anyway.

Clarke massages him a few times until she can feel a certain stiffness growing behind the heavy canvas. McCreary huffs a breath out through his nose, and he looks incredibly self satisfied when she glances up at him. She’s certain that no matter what, he wins in this situation. If she runs away, like he likely expects, then he’s proven he’s a terrifying monster. If she doesn’t, he gets off. Win win for McCreary, which Clarke imagines contributes to his erection as much as the pressure and friction she provides does.

Clarke smiles a little to herself at that thought as she undoes his pants, opening the front and being confronted immediately by the sight of his half hard cock. No underwear, then. Well, that works in Clarke’s favour, given that McCreary makes it exceedingly obvious he’s not going to do a damn thing to help her. It’s one less thing to deal with, as Clarke maneuvers the clothing enough to properly free him.

Clarke gives his dick a few dry pumps, feeling blood rush there in response. Without further delay, she leans in, dragging her tongue up the underside of it. He doesn’t taste as bad as she would have expected from the greasy state of his hair, simply sweat and skin. He stiffens against her tongue, and Clarke is struck for the first time by the fact that McCreary is well endowed. Like, bigger than anyone she’s had before. Perhaps not by much, but still, Clarke finds a sort of thrill running through her as she works him to full hardness.

Clarke wraps her lips around the head of him when his cock is hard under her touch, flicking her tongue over the slit there to swipe away the precum. Tangy and salty, but not bad at all. Clarke’s always sort of enjoyed it, if she’s being honest, and her body responds despite the circumstances. If this were anyone else, she might even moan a little, at the size and heady taste of him in her mouth. But Clarke doesn’t let herself get caught up in the act; she can’t, it’s too risky.

McCreary huffs another breath when Clarke sink down a little, testing the strain he’ll be on her jaw, and how far she can comfortably take him. She can tell almost immediately that if she doesn’t get him off fast, her jaw is going to get sore quite quickly. But she’s confident enough in her abilities, and if McCreary hasn’t been with anyone since before cryo sleep, hopefully that will give her some mercy.

Clarke shifts her tongue on the underside of his cock as she pulls back, dragging it along a different part of the sensitive skin with each bob of her head. McCreary grunts when she swirls it around the head, one of his hands making its way into her hair. He holds the back of her skull, rather than twisting his grip in the hair itself, and Clarke sort of hates how good it feels. It’s been too long since she felt this, being desired by someone else so much to the point that they can’t keep their hands off of you.

When Clarke’s sinks down again, McCreary forces her a bit further, so his cock sits against the back of her throat. Clarke is thankful she doesn’t have much of a gag reflex, but it still doesn’t feel the most pleasant. She’s not keyed up enough for that peculiar pressure to feel good. Not yet, anyway.

McCreary holds her there for a moment, and Clarke lets him, breathing through her nose. He only lets her back off for a few inches before he stills her head, and then he presses her back down with hardly a break. He pushes her further, testing Clarke’s limits. Clarke takes him as well as she can, but McCreary keeps pushing even when he hits resistance. Just a little bit more, a quarter of an inch, but it’s still enough to makes Clarke’s throat burn and her eyes water.

She heaves breaths in through her nose when he allows her to back off a few inches once more, and she clues into the game plan here. McCreary is in control, and he’s going to remind her of that. Clarke should feel angry about being used like some kind of a sex toy, but as he presses her down once more, even further, she feels that emotion only as a distant echo. She tries desperately not to get caught up in everything, but twisted pleasure courses through her all the same as her throat quivers around him.

It’s overwhelming, his firm grip on her head, fingers digging into her scalp, cock filling and stretching her throat beyond reason. Clarke feels like she’s simply along for the ride, only able to try not to choke or suffocate. The struggle to take his entire length sends little sparks racing through her, settling in the heat building in her core. She can’t say exactly why it feels good, but it really does, in a way. It’s uncomfortable as hell, but it’s also incredible.

While Clarke is focusing on breathing with McCreary’s dick still lodged in her mouth, his free hand makes its way to her throat. She doesn’t even realize its presence until he squeezes, fingers digging cruelly into tender flesh. Her brain struggles to comprehend the input for a moment, and by the time she understands what he’s doing, he’s pressing her back down again.

A primal part of Clarke struggles, then, as he chokes her inside and out. He holds her in place with iron strength despite her vague jerking, his laughter hollow against the pulsing of her own blood in her ears. Her face feels hot, blood trapped there with nowhere to go, and her lungs burn. She squeezes her eyes tight, unable to do anything, feeling tears leak out of the corners.

And then, just as true panic begins to set in, McCreary releases her, entirely, not just a few inches this time. Clarke flies off of him, gasping for air and coughing. She should be furious, or disgusted, or anything other than what she actually feels. As oxygen rushes back into her, it feels incredible, like a successful hunt, almost like a climax in and of itself. She can feels wetness flood between her thighs, and a part of Clarke hates it, but another delights in it. It’s awful, terrifying, and yet she craves more of it.

Clarke coughs once more, her breathing barely under control, and wipes her mouth with the back of one hand. She looks up at McCreary and sees him smiling wide. He likes hurting her, like seeing her suffer and struggle. Well, unfortunately for him, pain and suffering are old friends of Clarke’s. He won’t be the first to break her, no matter what he does.

Clarke returns her mouth to his cock unprompted, and she’s unsurprised when his hands resume their previous marks. The one on her throat constricts immediately, like he can barely resist the urge to choke the life out of her. It should be awful, yet Clarke angles her head to give him better access to her neck. The bruising pain of his grip mixes with the hot pleasure inside of her, flowing deep and dark through her veins.

McCreary barely has to force her head when Clarke sinks down again, simply holding her in place. This time, she’s ready for it when he cuts off her airflow. She counts through it, listening to the beating of her heart. Around the count of twenty, he lets her go once more, and Clarke heaves breaths, but doesn’t pull all the way off of him.

“Looks like you might have something to offer after all,” McCreary laughs above her, and impotent anger flashes through her for a moment. She has plenty more to offer than this, but that doesn’t matter to him, she supposes.

A few more times, they repeat the cycle; Clarke sinks down to the base of his cock, nose nestled in his pubes, and McCreary fakes at killing her. Each time he lets her live is a rush, and Clarke finds herself craving it. She almost lets a moan slip out, once, as her lungs receive the life affirming air they’ve been denied. She almost forgets the purpose of this, caught up in the slide of his cock down her throat, the controlling touch of his hands on her.

McCreary begins to make more noises above her; not moans, but heavy breaths and sharp grunts. He’s not loud or talkative, but perhaps that’s a side effect of being a prisoner. Lord knows if anyone got up to anything in the Skybox, they would have had to have been exceptionally quiet about it.

Clarke sinks down to his base once more, and McCreary clamps down on her throat. But instead of holding her head in place, he fists his hand in her hair. With a sharp tug that makes her scalp tingle with a sensation that probably would have been pain at any other time, McCreary pulls her head back. Just a few inches, then he force it down again. He repeats the action rapidly, still clamping down on everything vital in her neck.

The sudden changes - the frantic thrusting of his cock in and out of her throat - is hard to adjust to, especially as the world begins to fade to the heavy pulse of her heart and a deep burning throughout her body. Clarke’s throat tries to reject him, and she fists her hands on his thighs, trying desperately to hold on. Keeping her jaw open, throat relaxed, all as her vision goes a little gray around the edges.

With one last grunt, McCreary releases his stranglehold on her neck and slams her head all the way down. It feels like fire as he cums down her abused throat, and Clarke desperately tries to balance swallowing and breathing. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and Clarke is moderately impressed she doesn’t somehow die in the process. After the last drop of cum leaves McCreary’s cock, he releases her, pulling her off of his dick. Clarke practically collapses to the ground, slumping and coughing violently. Tears sting her eyes, but she manages to get herself back in order fast enough.

When Clarke can breathe rather than gasp, she straightens her hair and clothes. She decides to tuck McCreary’s cock back into his pants, since he seems more than content to leave it exposed, watching her with an amused expression.

“Well, aren’t you just the noble volunteer, hm? Have fun explaining those bruises to your kid,” McCreary chuckles, and Clarke’s hand flies to her throat, fingertips hovering over where she knows there will be marks. Although, knowing how angry Madi is at her, she probably won’t even ask. It would be for the best.

Clarke pushes herself to her feet without another word. As she leaves the room, she just hopes it’s enough, that McCreary enjoyed himself enough he might keep her around for this, if nothing else. The thought weighs heavy on her mind, but her obsession is interrupted just as she’s about to leave.

“Come back tomorrow night.”

It’s a gruff command, but it soothes Clarke’s worries somewhat. As long as he keeps wanting her the next night, they’re safe. And, as Clarke strokes the damaged skin on her neck, she has to admit it really wasn’t all that awful.

[looptheloup]

Whumptober!

Day 17: Drugged

Link to AO3

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale

Warnings: Sickness, Vomiting, Drugged, Needles, Hospitals, 

Other tags: A/B/O heats

Summary: Stiles goes into a sudden, painful heat at work and Derek, his superior, steps in to help get Stiles home.

[A/N: And lo, a sudden long fic appeared! I wrote this one before whumptober began so its longer than the recent ones and probably better quality too aha. To give slight context, after what's happened in the US recently, it felt really important to me that Derek believed Stiles immediately and unconditionally when he said his heat was unnatural. i know its just a A/B/O fanfic but i did find it cathartic in a way and i hope somebody else gets something out of it too, amongst all the angst. Hope you enjoy it :)]

*

Drugged

Stiles sipped tiredly at his half-cold coffee with his face resting on his hand.

Blah blah blah blah, he thought, looking through all the absolute drivel he’d written. Another inane article about some footballer who contributed nothing to society. Fucking journalism. Stiles scrubbed a hand over his face and wondered why he felt so hot. He shucked out of his jacket, stiffening when he heard quiet laughter behind him, his neck prickling like someone was looking at him. He glanced behind him, confused, but the two guys turned their backs on him, still laughing.

Just like being back in high school, Stiles thought sourly, fighting the hurt that was squirming in his belly. He caught a couple of his co-workers looking at him from the break station but they scuttled off whilst he stared after them. He glanced down at the coffee in his hand, wondering whether the caffeine was making him paranoid or whether he was the butt of some joke.

Someone a couple of seats down was staring at him and, frustrated, Stiles came to his feet and headed for the bathroom. Was something on his face? On his back? God, it was so warm in the building all of a sudden.

Stiles got to the bathroom and braced his hands against the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. He looked flushed, but that was just the embarrassment of it. He felt unsettled. He thought he’d been bonding with these guys, even though he was an omega and journalism was a pretty damn alpha and beta-dominated industry. Stiles’ had a thick skin; he was used to shitty jokes and being ignored for no reason, but he was, like, seventy-percent certain that there was some trick being played on him here and he didn’t have a fucking clue what it was.

After twisting around to check his back and ass for notes stuck on him (there were none), Stiles exhaled heavily and washed his hands under the cold water, realising that he was sweating. He towelled off his hands and reluctantly headed out again.

He knew he wasn’t imagining it when he walked back to his desk and several people looked up to stare at him, tracking his progress. What the hell?

“Why’re staring at me?” Stiles finally confronted someone; a guy he’d collaborated with on an article a couple of weeks back.

The guy, Jack, avoided his eyes, looking acutely uncomfortable, and turned away. “Don’t know what you mean,” he muttered.

Irritation bubbled to the surface. “Everyone’s looking at me,” Stiles snapped, before forcing himself to lower his voice, aware of the eyes on him. “I don’t get why. What’s going on? I don’t get the joke.”

“Just- just go home Stiles,” Jack said, still refusing to meet his gaze.

Stiles stared at him. “What? Why?” His hands twitched to roll up his sleeves. It was so hot in here.

Jack was refusing to talk to him anymore and Stiles reluctantly stumbled back towards his desk. He felt nauseous and he couldn’t tell if it was from anxiety or something else.

“Stiles,” someone said and Stiles turned around, freezing when he saw who it was.

Derek. Six-foot of muscled alpha and currently looking low-key pissed.

“Yeah?” Stiles said somewhat nervously. He really wasn’t feeling well; he didn’t want to be yelled at right now.

“Step over here with me,” Derek said, voice low and steady, and Stiles couldn’t have refused if he’d tried. Derek led him a short distance away, presumably so that the whole office couldn’t eavesdrop. Stiles was feeling dizzyingly fuzzy-headed, like he did just before- “You’re going into heat, Stiles,” Derek said, once they were a few steps away.

Stiles laughed awkwardly. “I can’t be,” he said weakly. 

He knew he was experiencing the symptoms of a heat, but this wasn’t how it usually felt. It never came on this fast, and he wasn’t due, and he felt incredibly sick, which he’d never had before.

“You are,” Derek said flatly, his expression looking a little strained and he was keeping a foot or so between them, like he didn’t want to stand too close to Stiles. Stiles could smell the alpha’s woodsy scent more than usual and he tried to ignore how good it was. Derek continued, “Do you have someone you can call?”

Stiles cringed, clenched his jaw, and then shook his head. He fisted his hands by his side before reaching up to drag a hand through his short hair.  

“It’s fine,” he said faintly. “I’ll call a taxi.”

Derek frowned at him and Stiles looked away, his shoulders curling up. The disapproval of an alpha always hit him particularly hard in the couple of days before a heat. But this heat hadn’t given him any warning, and it wasn’t scheduled; it didn’t make any sense.

“Alright,” Derek said. Stiles saw Derek glance over his shoulder and Stiles didn’t look, because he was pretty sure all he’d see was everyone staring at him. Shame made him want to curl up.

“Come and wait in my office,” Derek said and Stiles eyed him warily. Derek was…a big guy and Stiles didn’t know him much at all, and if Derek was right about this, then Stiles was going into heat. It wasn’t a good time for him to be around a strange alpha.

Derek saw his hesitation and looked down at him, “I’m not gonna hurt you, Stiles,” he said, his tone softening and Stiles swallowed and nodded, letting Derek take his shoulder and guide him over to the alpha’s office, Derek’s scent reminding him of pine trees. He didn’t really have a choice.

Derek gestured to a chair against the wall and Stiles sat slowly down, trying to ignore the churning of his stomach. Fuck. He pressed a hand to his face and tried to take deep breaths, but he was panicking. He could feel slick beginning to gather beneath him and he was shaking at the humiliation of all this.

“Hey, hey, Stiles, easy.” Derek came over to him and Stiles flinched back a little but Derek just crouched down in front of him, though the alpha clearly tensed at the proximity, and took Stiles’ hand gently. “Breath, ‘kay? Gonna be okay. Take deep breaths, alright?” Stiles was trying and Derek squeezed his hand lightly, “That’s it, good,” he said and Stiles released a shuddering breath at the praise. Fuck. Of all the people to be falling apart in front of it had to Derek fucking Hale, who had a reputation for being incredibly level-headed for an alpha but also being ruthless as hell. But Derek’s even breathing and general calm was somewhat grounding and Stiles found himself focusing on Derek’s scent and he let it settle his omega. He wondered whether Derek was mated; maybe that was why he was so calm. Stiles ignored the jab of disappointment from his omega at the thought.

“Sorry,” Stiles managed, when he could breathe again.

Derek let go of his hand and eased back a little, giving him space, for which Stiles was grateful, even as his omega wished Derek would stay close, touch him again. Stiles shoved that part of him down.

“Don’t worry,” Derek said. “Just sit there. I’ll call a cab.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said, before he put his elbows on his knees and tried to breathe through the nausea and the arousal that was gathering in his gut. “I’m not always this pathetic and sweaty,” he said weakly. “You should talk to me when I don’t feel sick. I’m the life of the party.”

“Do you think you’re going to be sick?” Derek said.

Stiles was shivering as the sweat dried on his skin, even as he was too hot. He laughed bitterly. “Yeah, maybe,” he said, keeping his head down. “As if this isn’t shitty enough as it.”

A wastepaper basket appeared in front of him and there was a glancing touch on his shoulder before Derek walked away again and Stiles blearily heard him talking on the phone.

“They’re on the way,” Derek said and Stiles nodded tiredly. “I’m just going to speak to my boss, okay? Just let them know what’s going on. Stay here for me?” Stiles nodded miserably and Derek left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Stupid omega, making life difficult for everyone else. He’d been so happy to get this job, impatient to prove himself and take on the stigma against omegas. But here he was anyway, making a mess of his trousers and, in a minute, probably Derek’s chair too. He resisted the urge to roll his hips against the chair because he was at work, goddammit, and he wasn’t some omega slut. Fuck.

Derek returned after a few minutes and Stiles found himself relaxing just a little at the presence of the alpha, at the warm smell of him, even though he tried not to let himself think like that. Derek was just helping him out, he wouldn’t want some stupid omega rubbing up against him like a goddamn cat.

“This makes no sense,” Stiles said, trying to drag his head back into the realm of rational thought. “I’m not due. My heats don’t come on this fast, and I’ve never felt this sick before.”

Derek didn’t immediately reply and Stiles closed his eyes to wait for the taxi. Derek probably thought he was just some idiot who couldn’t control himself. What alpha wanted to hear about omega heat cycles anyway-

“Stiles, I think you should get some blood taken,” Derek said after a moment and Stiles struggled to comprehend him.

“What?” he said intelligently. His stomach hurt, and his cock throbbed distractingly as this heat settled in to stay.

Derek was silent for a second, “It sounds like you could have been slipped something,” he said, perfectly even, though Stiles saw his fingers twitching.

“I hate hospitals,” Stiles mumbled while he was trying to process Derek’s words. Could he really have been given some heat-inducing drugs? Why? Did someone really hate him that much? “Sure, yeah, okay,” he found himself agreeing weakly. His omega didn’t want to disagree with the alpha, but he also thought that Derek might be right. There was a small, warm bubble of relief inside him that Derek hadn’t just brushed his words off entirely, that Derek believed him. “I’ll go after.”

“If there is something to be found, it’s best you get bloods done as soon as possible,” Derek said. “Otherwise it could leave your system.”

Stiles couldn’t form a coherent answer. The sickness had resided a little but the more classic symptoms of heat were setting in to stay, arousal making him twitch. His ass felt unpleasantly damp and he wished he could just sink into the floor, this was so embarrassing.

“Okay,” he managed finally.

“Taxi’s here,” Derek said and Stiles startled. He heard Derek sigh and found himself tilting his head to bare his neck submissively, trying to appease the alpha. Jeez, this wasn’t like him at all.

“It’s alright, I’m not mad,” Derek said gently. “Come on, let’s get you up.” He took hold of Stiles’ arm and Stiles allowed himself to be helped to his feet. Derek’s scent was strong and steady around him but Stiles cringed at the feeling of the slick against his ass, briefly hating his gender with a passion.

“I’m sorry,” he said, curled in on himself. If half the office had been able to smell him, betas included, then Derek had to be able to smell him too and Stiles shuddered with the shame of it. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled again.

“Shh,” Derek said, a warm rumble as he was guiding Stiles out the door and taking him down the corridor at a quick walk, Stiles stumbling uncoordinatedly behind him. Derek stayed between Stiles and everyone else, shielding him with his broad shoulders and Stiles was unspeakably grateful.

“Excuse me, thank you,” he heard Derek speaking and then they were in a lift alone and Stiles couldn’t keep his legs under him and he touched the wall of the lift and then slid to the floor. He winced at the pinch of his cock, trapped inside his pants. “Oh- dammit, no, Stiles, come on.” Stiles flinched away from the sharp words but Derek’s hands under his arms were nothing but careful as they pulled him back to his feet. “We’ll be on the ground floor in a second,” Derek said, “no time for sitting down. You’ll be home soon.”

“Okay,” Stiles breathed, leaning into Derek’s solidity. He heard Derek inhale sharply and, remembering himself, Stiles pulled himself up and away from Derek. He’s a fucking alpha, he reminded himself as he curled his arms around his ribs. “Sorry,” he said quickly, unable to look at the man. Fucking cock-tease omegas, the harsh voice in his head said, but Derek only kept a steady hand on his shoulder.

“Stiles, it’s fine,” he said, “it’s just biology, you’re okay.”

“Are you mated or something?” Stiles found himself asking. “You’re so calm it’s weird.”

Derek huffed. “I was in fire when I was young,” he said, smoothly. “It damaged my sense of smell. But alphas being unable to control themselves is a genderist myth, anyway.”

The lift doors pinged open and Stiles trailed behind Derek, staying close to him as Derek took him outside, the cool breeze feeling damn good against his heated skin.

Derek headed over to the taxi and Stiles let himself be herded by Derek’s careful hands. He caught a couple of disgusted looks sent his way by passers-by and he ducked his head in shame.

“S’okay,” Derek said, putting a hand on his back. He pulled the taxi door open and Stiles went to climb in, only for the taxi driver to start yelling at him. He reeled backwards, seeking safety and finding it with Derek.

He heard Derek talking with the driver, arguing with him, and Stiles curled his shoulders up further, trying to hide himself from the conflict. Derek’s hand started rubbing circles on his back and a little of the tension seeped out of him.

“Come on, Stiles,” Derek said as the taxi took off and Stiles stared uncomprehendingly after it. “I’ll drive you instead.”

“But- what about-” Stiles started weakly, but he let himself be led away towards the company car park. “I just want to go home,” he said, aware of how pathetic he sounded and yet the words fell out of his mouth anyway.

“I know, I’ll get you there, but the driver wouldn’t take you.” Stiles saw Derek glance behind him before wrapping an arm around Stiles’ shoulders, “Let’s get you off the street,” he muttered and Stiles nodded reluctantly, even as the parts of him still capable of rational thought were telling him that it was a terrible idea to get in a car with a strange alpha when he was in heat.

“You better not murder me,” he muttered as Derek was unlocking a gorgeous, sleek black car. “Nice car, though,” he said.

Derek laughed, “Thanks, I think,” he said, opening the passenger seat door for Stiles to climb inside.

Stiles hesitated again, looking nervously between Derek and the car. Derek frowned slightly at him. “Do you want to call a friend?” he offered after a moment. “Let them know who’s driving you?”

“I- yeah. Good idea,” Stiles said, his brain seeming to be moving twice as slow as usual. He fished out his phone and sent a text off to Scott, who he knew was at work, but he’d read it eventually.

Stiles cringed as he sat down and he wished he still had his jacket to put under his ass.

“I’m gonna ruin your car,” he said awkwardly as Derek got into the driver’s seat. “I swear I’ll pay for the cleaning.”

“Don’t worry about it. What’s your address?”

Stiles dragged it up from the depths of his memory and watched as Derek typed it into the satnav on the dashboard, before setting off. Stiles felt sweaty and disgusting all over and he knew from the way Derek’s hands twitched on the steering wheel, and then opened the windows, that he stank enough of heat pheromones for even Derek to pick up with his damaged sense of smell. Stiles’ cock was twitching in his pants and he twisted himself towards the door, away from Derek, face hot with shame, even as Derek was handling this whole mess with the grace of a fucking saint. He wanted to apologise again, but what help would it be?

Derek turned on the radio at some point and Stiles had enough thoughts left in his head to wonder if Derek liked the classical station he’d put on, or if he’d just chosen something calming for Stiles’ benefit.

“I don’t really want to take you to the hospital like this,” Derek was saying and Stiles tried to focus. “But if you want to go, I will.”

Stiles just wanted to go home, and his omega wanted to heed to Derek, and he was about to agree, before he stilled. “I won’t be believed if I say I was drugged if there’s no evidence,” he said slowly, feeling exhausted already even though he wasn’t even part way through this thing. “I’m gonna lose this job anyway. Could at least take-” he broke off as a rush of heat flooded through him and he groaned softly before clamping his hand over his mouth in horror. “Sorry,” he whispered.

“Alright,” Derek said, muscles twitching in his forearm even as his voice stayed perfectly level. “Hospital then. Hopefully they’ll have a vacant heat-chamber.”

Stiles was surprised that Derek even knew about those; most alphas were woefully ignorant of anything to do with omegas that didn’t directly affect them.

But it didn’t matter, “They get booked weeks in advance,” Stiles said. He curled his legs a little closer to his stomach in an attempt to hide the way his cock was pressed uncomfortably up against the inside of his work trousers. “You don’t have to stay,” he said, even as the thought of Derek leaving made him want to curl up into a ball. “I’ll- work something out.”

“It’s fine,” Derek said. “We’re almost there, just hang on.”

Stiles laughed weakly. He couldn’t really do anything else. He hadn’t had a heat this strong since his very first one, which an asshole alpha triggered when he was fifteen, but Stiles tried not to think about that. Derek wasn’t going to touch him like that, or, at least, he had yet to do anything to make Stiles wary.

Stiles closed his eyes briefly, unable to stay focused, and then opened them again when the car slowed. Derek was heading into the hospital car park and Stiles tried to rouse himself a little as Derek turned off the engine.

Derek got out and Stiles fumblingly unclipped his seatbelt and went to reach for the door, only for Derek to open it for him and hold out a hand.

Stiles shook his head and pulled himself up to get out, “I’m okay,” he murmured, his fragile pride needing to at least pretend to be okay. He ignored the slick he could feel beginning to seep down his leg.

“I know,” Derek said, stepping back to let Stiles get himself up on his own. Stiles blinked a few times once he was on his feet and then forced himself to set off towards the hospital entrance, even as he felt painfully sick again and his skin felt like it was burning.

“Stiles,” Derek said, “do you want my jacket? It might hide your scent a little.”

Stiles nodded reluctantly and let Derek drape his suit jacket over his shoulders, “Thank you,” he said quietly, looking up to catch Derek’s eye. The man had done so much more than Stiles could ever have hoped for considering this whole shitty situation, and especially from an alpha.

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Derek said.

Inside the big, white building, Stiles let Derek steer him to the front desk and tried not to meet anyone’s eyes.

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski,” Stiles mumbled, when they were asking for his name. He glanced at Derek, who had his eyebrows raised but couldn’t work up the energy to say anything.

He was directed away and Stiles stuck shamefully close to Derek’s side, fearful of being abandoned amongst all these strangers. Derek touched his back lightly as they walked.

“I’m right here,” Derek said, seeming to pick up on his nervousness and Stiles couldn’t summon a reply but was grateful all the same.

Stiles was taken into a room and gratefully sat down, even as he had to subtly shift to adjust his cock in his trousers, and Derek hovered close by as a nurse came over.

“Hello sweetheart. I’m here to take a blood sample, is that right?” Stiles managed a nod. “Okay, let’s get some scent-blocker on you first, okay?” he said and Stiles blinked at him, before flinching when the tall beta went to take his wrist, rubbing something cold and liquid on his skin. “Can you do your neck yourself?” the beta said and Stiles nodded quickly. He didn’t want anyone except- no, he just didn’t want anyone touching his neck. The nurse handed him the bottle and he rubbed the scent-blocker on his neck, focusing on the spots under his ears, where his neck glands were.

“Great job, let’s get these bloods taken next, and then you two can head home-”

“We’re not-” Derek said, just as Stiles opened his mouth to deny it too, and they turned to look at each other before Stiles looked awkwardly away again. “We’re just colleagues,” Derek said after a pause and the nurse hummed in acknowledgement.

“Well you’ve both done a great job getting here,” he said soothingly. Stiles’ sleeve was already rolled up so the nurse just had to swab the area before he was unwrapping the needle and Stiles swallowed and looked away. Derek took his hand gently and Stiles looked down at those long, tanned fingers as the nurse took the blood sample. He blamed the rush of longing he felt on his heat.

“There we are, all done,” the nurse said. “We’ll get those analysed and send the results to you as soon as possible. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks.”

“Thank you,” Stiles said. He wanted to shrug Derek’s jacket off because the material felt far too warm and abrasive against his overly sensitive skin, but he knew it was covering his scent a little, and he admitted, if only to himself, that he liked being able to smell Derek on him, around him. He could almost pretend that Derek cared for him.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” the nurse said. “We haven’t got any heat chambers free, I’m sorry. Are you okay to get yourself home or do you want a heat minder to take you?” Heat minders were nurses that specialised in omega heats, especially omegas that got particularly extreme or long heats.

“I don’t know-” Stiles started, glancing over at Derek. The alpha probably wanted to be done with the sweaty, heat-crazy omega that had been foisted on him, but something in Derek’s expression, and the presence of his pleasant scent, made him pause.

“I’m happy to take him home,” Derek said. “But if you’d feel more comfortable with a heat-minder, Stiles-”

“No, I mean, if you’re happy to- then I’d like that,” Stiles managed and Derek smiled.

“Okay then,” he said and Stiles smiled back shyly. He didn’t know why Derek hadn’t run for the hills by now, but Stiles would take what was offered. He shuddered as another wave of heat made him feel like he was burning up and more slick gathered beneath him. He swallowed thickly and tried to shove the arousal down. He’d never had a heat this intense.

“Great,” the nurse said, before producing some paperwork. “Now if you can both just fill these out for me.”

There was a form asking about Stiles’ contact details so they could contact him about the blood test results, and another that confirmed that he was aware and willing to go home with someone who wasn’t family nor a certified heat-minder. Stiles signed them, his hand shaking a little, and clammy with sweat. Derek had had opportunity enough to hurt him already and he hadn’t so much as lost his temper or gotten handsy. Stiles was willing to take the risk.

The time between leaving the hospital and getting back into Derek’s car was kind of a blur, and Stiles felt himself dropping into a doze once they were in the car and the radio was back on. Derek’s scent was stronger in the car and Stiles settled into it, allowing it to soothe him a little.

“We’re close, Stiles,” Derek said and Stiles startled at the touch on his arm. “You’re going to have to help me out here.”

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbled and pushed himself up to try and get his bearings, except, oh fuck- he felt sick. He hit Derek urgently on the arm, pressing a hand over his mouth and the car swerved as Derek immediately pulled over.

“Fuck, you okay?” Derek said as Stiles shoved the door open and vomited onto the grass verge. Stiles managed to nod, just trying to breathe and Derek didn’t say anything else.

When Stiles finally felt like he wasn’t going to throw up again, he pulled himself back up to drag a hand over his too-warm face and laughed weakly, “Bet you wish you’d ditched me when you had the chance,” he said.

Derek exhaled in a quiet laugh and Stiles was relieved to hear it. “You didn’t get any in my car,” he said lightly. “So we’re good.”

“Oh, so I’d be out on my ass-” Stiles started, and then had to pause to gather himself to say the rest, “if I’d gotten it in the car?” Stiles turned to give Derek a watery smile. “Noted.”

Derek laughed properly then, even as his eyes on Stiles’ face seemed worried. “Guess you’ll never know now,” he said.

“Dunno about that,” Stiles said. He still felt like he might retch again. His cock twitched insistently in his pants and Stiles had to force himself not to react to it. Fucking hell this was a mess. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to look Derek in the eye again, if he even saw Derek again after this. Stiles was pretty sure that work would find a way to fire him.

Derek made a soft noise of acknowledgment, “Let’s get you home. Which block is yours?”

Stiles peered out the window, “Eh- just follow this street for a bit longer, then there’s a car park on the- the right. I’m on the third floor.” Just that amount of talking and thinking exhausted him and he sagged backwards.

Derek got them parked up while Stiles focused on not vomiting. Even as his pride hated it, he let Derek help him into the apartment building and they got into the lift together. Derek was silent, appearing composed and Stiles felt like a complete mess. How was Derek so fucking calm? Even with what Derek had said, Stiles knew that Derek could smell him; weren’t alphas meant to not be able to control themselves? Wasn’t that what had been drilled into him? Sure, he had some scent blocker on him now from the hospital but he knew it wasn’t covering his scent entirely and Derek had been pretty much this collected the whole time.

“Is this not affecting you at all?” Stiles said finally, just as the lift was arriving. “How are you- how are you-” Stiles broke off, curling over his stomach at a stab of pain in his abdomen, barely managing to stop the whine that wanted to escape him.

“Stiles!” Derek said, alarmed. He took Stiles’ shoulders, “Are you going to be sick again?”

“Just- hurts,” Stiles ground out as he felt more slick slide down his thighs. It had to be showing through his trousers now. He forced himself back upright with a hand wrapped around his stomach. He’d never felt like this and it was scaring him. Home, he thought, just got to get home. He looked down the thankfully empty corridor and nodded towards his door. “Apartment- there,” he said.

“Alright,” Derek said. Stiles tried to move but ended up sinking down against the wall. “Fuck,” Derek said softly, before he crouched down.

“Sorry,” Stiles said breathlessly. He felt sick again.

“Can I carry you?” Derek said. Stiles managed to nod, kind of beyond caring at this point. His omega crooned happily at the feel of Derek’s strong arms wrapping around him but Stiles told it sharply to shut the fuck up. Derek was a colleague. The best, nicest, kindest colleague ever, sure, but Derek was going to be glad to be done with him and Stiles needed to remember that.

“Keys?” Derek said tightly, sounding like he was trying not to breathe, and Stiles had a brief panic that they’d come all this way only for him to have left his keys at the office but, no, they were-

“In my pocket,” he said. He couldn’t reach them with the way Derek was holding him, bridal style. Stiles clutched at Derek’s neck when Derek shifted his weight to reach into Stiles’ pocket and fish out his keys.

“S’okay, I’ve got you,” Derek muttered and then the door was open and Stiles, exhausted, lay his head against Derek’s collarbone, trying to subtly inhale as much of Derek’s woodsy scent as he could.

“Bathroom,” Stiles pleaded quietly, pointing the way. He felt sick again and he didn’t want to do it all over the floor, or worse, over Derek.

“Sure,” Derek said, kicking the door shut behind them before heading quickly in the direction Stiles had indicated.

Stiles was set carefully down on the bathmat and he shuffled wearily over to the toilet bowl as his stomach churned, but he didn’t throw up again yet.

“I’m gonna fucking kill whoever did this,” Derek muttered, barely audible.

“Mm,” Stiles said weakly, as his omega preened at Derek’s protective tone. “I get to kill ‘em first,” he said.

Derek laughed lowly, “Yeah, deal,” he said.

Stiles’ brief amusement turned into his shoulders shaking and he shifted to grip the toilet to be violently sick again and then, to his horror, he started crying.

“Hey, hey,” Derek breathed and Stiles heard him come over, before there was toilet paper wiping his mouth and careful hands on his shoulder, “You’re okay, this’ll pass.”

“I- I’ve never felt this bad,” Stiles choked, unable to look at the alpha. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t- have to be here.” Stiles felt too hot and pain was stabbing into his stomach, making him wince.

Derek put a hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up,” he frowned. He ran one of Stiles’ face cloths under the cold tap, “Just hold that for me,” he said, gently pressing the cold cloth to Stiles’ forehead. “I’ll get you some water, okay?”

“Thanks,” Stiles said weakly, holding the blissfully cold cloth to his face. Water sounded good.

Derek came back with a glass and Stiles drank some, but didn’t have too much, since his stomach still felt painfully unsettled. He could feel that his slick had ruined the base of his boxers and his trousers.

“I think- I’m gonna take a shower, if that’s okay?” Stiles said. He didn’t know why he’d asked for Derek’s permission but it had fallen out of his mouth, wanting an alpha’s approval. Stiles squashed down a wave of self-loathing.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Derek said. Derek got to his feet, “I’ll- wait outside, if you want?”

Stiles could only nod. “Thanks,” he said.

“Just yell if you want me,” Derek said and Stiles managed to wait until Derek had left, closing the bathroom door behind him, before he started crying properly, pressing his hand tightly to his mouth to stop himself from making any noise. There was a lancing pain in his stomach and he felt disgusted with himself. This isn’t your fault, something in him said, but it felt like it was. Like if he was just been better able to control himself, or if he had made people like him more, then this wouldn’t have happened and Derek wouldn’t be stuck here, babysitting him.

Stiles dragged his sorry ass over towards the shower, carefully putting Derek’s jacket on the radiator before he yanked his shirt off roughly and peeled away his trousers and boxers with a whimper. He stilled, hoping that Derek hadn’t heard him, but there was no sound so he pulled off his socks and pulled himself into the shower, flicking it on and wincing at the cold spray.

Some first aid advice from somewhere told him not to shock his system with anything too cold so he got the water up to a lukewarm temperature and sat underneath it for several minutes before he could get up the energy to start soaping himself, and to clean the slick from his ass.

There was a knock on the bathroom door and Stiles turned the water off. “Yeah?” he said.

“I’m leaving some clothes outside the door if you want them,” Derek’s low voice said.

“Thanks,” Stiles said gratefully, hearing Derek’s footsteps move away again. Stiles turned the shower back on to wash himself thoroughly, avoiding touching his half-hard dick. He knew from experience that touching himself never took the edge off, it only made things worse, so he resisted the temptation and stepped out of the shower to get himself dry, feeling a little more human.

He fetched the clothes Derek had left outside the door and couldn’t stop himself from pressing his nose to them, catching Derek’s scent there amongst his own, and the laundry detergent. He flushed as he did it, knowing how wrong it was but he wasn’t quite able to stop himself. He dragged the clothes on and found a heat-pad in the cupboard under the sink to put in his underwear to catch the slick he was producing. Another stab of pain in his gut made him cry out before he could stop himself and he scrabbled back towards the toilet to throw up again, except there wasn’t a whole lot less and he was left with his eyes watering and acid burning his mouth.

“Stiles?” Derek’s voice was anxious at the door. “Are you decent? Can I come in?”

Stiles’ omega was pining for the comfort of an alpha that they were beginning to trust and Stiles couldn’t quite voice an assurance that he was fine. He didn’t feel fucking fine. “Yeah,” he said finally and Derek came straight in with a muttered, ‘fuck’.

“This can’t be normal,” Derek said, coming down to sit beside him. “Can I do something? Should I call for a heat-minder?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles breathed. Slick was coming out of his ass again and he still felt sick. “Maybe it will go away, right?” he said, unconvinced.

Derek was silent. “Maybe,” he said finally. There was quiet for a minute before Derek spoke again, “I wish we knew what was in your system.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said tiredly. “I didn’t think- anyone hated me enough- to do this.” He felt like crying again but swallowed it down and steeled himself. Fuck whoever did this. Fuck them.

“I doubt it was personal,” Derek said flatly. “Just straight-up bigotry against omegas. Probably jealous of how well you’ve been doing.”

Stiles laughed sourly, “What? Writing shitty articles about celebrities?” he glanced at Derek, remembering who he was. “Probably shouldn’t say that,” he added apologetically, as a wave of heat made him cringe.

“You’re being considered for promotion,” Derek said, sounding faintly amused. “And we always put newbies through writing the celeb pieces. Trial by fire kind of thing.”

Stiles laughed, “Well,” he said tightly. “Won’t be getting promoted now.”

“We’ll see about that,” Derek said and Stiles glanced up at him, seeing the irritated set of Derek’s eyebrows and struggling not to mewl in response to Derek’s apparent displeasure. Derek’s expression softened. “Hey. I just don’t want your career getting thrown away over some shithead fucking drugging you. It’s not fair. You’re a good writer, Stiles.”

“Didn’t realise- you even knew my name before this,” Stiles said. The praise settled him a little, even as he still felt like he was too goddamn hot and his stomach ached. He was stubbornly ignoring his stupid cock.

“I didn’t,” Derek said. “I had no idea you were called mee-chi-slov-something Stilinski.”

Stiles snorted, “Mieczyslaw,” he said.

“Mie-czi-sla?” Derek tried, not mocking.

“Pretty much,” Stiles said, sighing. It had been a long time since someone had said his real name.

“No, say it again, I want to get it,” Derek asked and Stiles obliged. “Mieczyslaw?” Derek said, getting it right and Stiles smiled tiredly and nodded. His name sounded nice in Derek’s rough voice.

“Mom used to call me Mischief,” he said, and then wondered why he’d shared that.

“Mm, that fits,” Derek said and Stiles poked Derek in the ribs in protest.

“I’m a model citizen,” he said weakly.

“Yeah, sure,” Derek said, gently teasing. “How’re you feeling?”

“Shit,” Stiles said honestly, before he could stop himself.

“Heats usually last twelve or so hours, right?” Derek said and Stiles nodded. “You want to sleep for a bit?”

“Okay,” Stiles said. He managed to stand on his own, though he didn’t mind Derek touching his shoulder to steady him. He headed through to the bedroom, switching the light on and Derek hovered in the doorway for a minute.

“You mind if I hang out on your couch?” Derek said, his hand flexing where it was holding the door frame and Stiles looked at him in confusion. “I don’t want to leave you here alone. I mean- I’m sure you’ll be fine but, just in case.”

“You don’t have to, Derek,” Stiles said, frowning. “I’m okay-”

“I just don’t like it.” Derek interrupted sharply and then winced. “Sorry. I’ll go if you want.”

“No,” Stiles said slowly. Derek had behaved perfectly but Stiles did have a lock on his bedroom door anyway, just in case. His omega was yelling at him to beg Derek to stay but he shoved it violently away, as he was used to doing. He and his omega didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. “It’s okay if you want to stay. You just- don’t have to.”

Stiles saw Derek’s shoulders sink down in apparent relief and he looked at the alpha in confusion, wondering why Derek cared so much about a near-stranger. Maybe Derek’s hormones, triggered by Stiles’ heat-scent, were confusing him as much as Stiles’ were. “Good,” Derek said. “Alright, I’ll be in the living room, then. Sleep well.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said weakly. “Thanks for everything. And if you get bored, I don’t mind if you go.” His omega minded very much.

“I won’t, but okay,” Derek said before he stepped out and closed the door. Stiles exhaled heavily and sank down onto his bed, feeling the wet heat-pad beneath him and pulling a face at the feeling. Gross.

He got up, wincing at the pain in his belly, locked his door, and changed his heat pad again before he turned out the light and sank into bed.

Derek’s scent lingered in the air and Stiles inhaled heavily as he closed his eyes, curling his legs up closer to his stomach to try to stop his abdomen hurting so much and it did help a little. His breathing slowed steadily and he fell asleep thinking about Derek’s scent and his warm arms keeping Stiles safe.

Links to:

Day 1 - Stabbed, Detroit Become Human

Day 2 - Bloody hands, Marvel Cinematic Universe

Day 3 - Insomnia, Harry Potter

Day 4 - “No, stop!”, Altered Carbon

Day 5 - Poisoned, Supernatural

Day 6 -  Betrayed, Detroit Become Human

Day 7 - Kidnapped, Supernatural

Day 8 - Fever, Yuuri!! on ice

Day 9 - Stranded, Detroit Become Human

Day 10 - Bruises, Marvel Cinematic Universe

Day 11 - Hypothermia, Supernatural

Day 12 - Electrocuted, Rise of the Guardians

Day 13 - “Stay.”, Marvel

Day 14 - Torture, Original Work

Day 15 - Manhandling, Teen Wolf

Day 16 - Bedridden, Harry Potter

[halfabreath]

Always Halfway to Go, Part III

Part I. Part II. The Tag. Read it on Ao3. 

Ever since Bitty moved in Sunday afternoons in the Haus have been sacred. Guaranteed brunch is the ultimate means of Haus bonding and Ransom knows that no matter how stressed out he is about his upcoming anatomy test that he still has to go downstairs and show his face. He’d hoped that getting up early to look at his study guide would help relax him enough to eat without guilt but it had only set him off instead.

Ransom’s just extracted himself from under his bed, where he’s been hiding for the past hour, and is halfway down the steps when he hears the commotion at the front door.

“Oh, good morning! Come in!” Bitty’s words carry through the Haus easily, bright and friendly.

“I really shouldn’t, Bittle.” Ransom stumbles on the steps when he recognizes Adam’s deep voice. He grabs onto the railing to steady himself, taking a moment to prepare. Adam is here, in the Haus.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” Bitty presses, using the no-nonsense tone he employs with the team.

“No, but I - “ Adam tries to protest, falling directly into Bitty’s trap.

“Then come in! I’d be remiss in my Southern Hospitality if I ever let someone turn down food.” Despite the buoyancy in Bitty’s voice there’s still no room for argument. When Ransom continues down the steps the scene comes into view: Bitty has the door thrown open and Adam is on the other side, shoulders curled in with his hands tucked in his pockets. Bitty might be a half foot shorter than Adam is but Ransom can tell he’s going to win this battle. As unprepared as Ransom had been to see Adam, he can’t leave him there looking so blatantly uncomfortable.

Ransom jumps the final few steps and lands right beside Bitty, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Bitty, I don’t wanna freak you out but I think I smell something burning.” He says, and Bitty bolts towards the kitchen with a worried yelp. Adam’s shoulders come down from around his ears. “You really should come in. It’s not going to be weird, I promise.” Ransom says before Adam can run back to his car.

“I don’t know, I’d have felt so weird if a random coach-like figure dropped in on one of my team breakfasts.” Adam frowns and crosses his arms, fingers tapping nervously along his bicep. Ransom can’t help but track the movement, and if his eyes linger on the shifting muscles, well. He’s only human, and it’s a nice bicep.

“Yeah, that would be strange, but you’re not a random guy. Besides, you dropped in on Hazeapalooza and it was fun, right?” Ransom says. He shifts his weight, moving to the side so he’s not blocking the threshold.

Adam worries his bottom lip with his teeth. It’s cute, even though he’s bigger, broader, and more bearded than Ransom will ever be. “Yeah, I’m just - “

Ransom cuts him off. “Seriously, bro, if you don’t come eat with us they’ll be disappointed.” It’s true - Adam’s almost a mythic figure, an actual professional hockey player who’s suddenly dropped into their lives. Ransom thinks they don’t know the half of it. "Besides,” he continues, waving Adam in. “Brunch is like, the least formal and most chill meal. Plus, Bitty made cinnamon rolls.”

“Fine, but only because I have to drop off tape.” Adam sounds resigned at best but Ransom knows he’ll feel more comfortable after he sees how much they all like having him around.

When Ransom and Holster step into the kitchen they’re greeted with a chorus of good mornings and one goddamn, look at these beauts. Ransom pushes Holster towards the seat next to Lardo and drops into the one right next to him. Separate conversations crop up as Jack asks him about his test schedule and he hears Lardo quietly talking to Holster about his weekend on his other side. Bitty and Shitty are engaged in a contest to see who can create the most aesthetically pleasing frosting pattern over their cinnamon roll.

It’s a gentle chaos. They talk with their mouths full and spill their coffee but soon everyone’s leaning back in their chairs, filled with dough, sugar, and spices.

Ransom’s just taken a picture of Bitty’s perfect cinnamon roll, because he always wins the food styling contests, and he’s adjusting the filter levels when Jack pipes up beside him. “Which, uh, thing are you putting that on? Instergram? Or is that the one hundred word limit thing?” Jack asks, mouth set in a confused frown. Shitty rolls his eyes fondly and Lardo smiles down at her coffee, but Adam and Bitty both look over at Jack in shock. Bitty begins a long, rambling tangent about the virtues of Twitter when a deeper voice cuts through.

“You don’t know what Instagram is?” Adam asks in horrified amazement. The team groans, having already been down this path a thousand times. “Jack, Betty White has an Instagram.”

Jack blinks. “Who’s that? Does she go here?” He turns to Ransom, which makes sense given that he’s the one charged with reminding Jack of who he knows and doesn’t know. Ransom, though, is distracted by the series of blink and you miss it expressions flittering over Adam’s face. There’s the shock, of course, then the wonderment that comes when he’s forced to contemplate just how much pop culture Jack doesn’t know, then Adam even looks angry for a hot second. He opens his mouth and closes it several times, trying to make sense of the situation he’s found himself in. Ransom pats him on the back; they’ve all been there.

“I need to sit down.” Holster finally says.

“You’re already sitting.” Jack helpfully points out in his cat-got-the-cream chirping voice. Holster levels him with a flat look, one Ransom’s seen him shoot at reporters asking stupid questions during post-game interviews.

“I need to sit again, Zimmermann.” Holster snaps, but there’s a lightness to it. It’s a nuanced annoyance, with a little bit of fondness and a whole lot of snark. Ransom loves it. Shitty cuts in with an anecdote about how Jack thought Kim Kardashian was one of the cheerleaders their freshman year. Ransom watches Holster’s expressions shift in bursts of disbelief and laughter. He’s one of them now.

“I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m so fucking fucked!”

The cry is slightly muffled by the thin walls of the Haus, but Adam can still make out every desperate syllable from his spot at the kitchen table. He and Jack have been going over tape for the last hour, occasionally debating drills and conditioning exercises but Justin’s cry has him staring up at the ceiling in concern. Jack, though, still has his eyes trained on the screen of his laptop, and Adam knows he’s not the most personable guy but he hadn’t expected him to be that cold. Jack’s nonchalance is the only reason Adam hasn’t bolted out of his chair and scrambled up the stairs, bad knee be damned.

“Are you gonna?” He asks, nodding his head in the general direction of the stairs. They’re the only ones in the house besides Justin and whatever’s going on sounds like it’s serious.

Jack just shakes his head, finally tearing his eyes away from the footage of Bitty’s assist at their last home game. “No, he doesn’t like anyone to see him when he studies. I tried, during his freshman year, but having someone there makes him more anxious.”

“I’m not freaked out, I’m anxious, I have anxiety.”

Justin’s words from their discussion after the first practice of the preseason ring in Adam’s ears and while he believes that Jack knows best, leaving Justin alone doesn’t sit well with him as they keep talking. He’s distracted, constantly glancing back and forth between the doorway and the screen until Jack closes his laptop with a sigh.

“Class,” he explains succinctly, giving Adam a quick farewell nod, and then he’s out the door. Adam’s alone in the Haus and he can’t help himself from going to check on his…what word should he use? They’ve decided to be friends when no one’s around, and as Adam walks through the Haus it’s painfully clear they’re alone. He takes his time on the steps, following through on the motions like his physical therapist told him to, and to his surprise he’s able to clear the first floor with no pain at all. He knocks on the attic door, a warning, before opening it slowly. He knows it’s probably creepy, hearing the door creak open and then uneven footsteps slowly coming up the stairs, but he can’t rush this.

When he arrives at the top of the steps he thinks that Justin has left. There’s no sign of him but his backpack is on the bed and there are books strewn across the floor, and just when Adam’s about to go back downstairs he catches a flash of movement from under the desk. He rounds the corner and sure enough, all six feet and two inches of Justin’s muscular frame is curled up under his desk. His flexibility is impressive but frankly worrying because that can’t be comfortable for him, and he’s not moving at all besides the shivers that jolt through his body intermittently. Holster gently raps his knuckles on the top of the desk, like he’s knocking on a door, and Justin doesn’t acknowledge him at all.

Adam has no fucking clue what to do. Justin clearly doesn’t want to be touched or bothered, but Adam can’t leave him here alone. Slowly, carefully, he eases himself down until he’s sitting across from Justin.

“Hey, uh, there isn’t enough room in the living room to do my stretches, so I’m just going to do them here if that’s all right?” Justin doesn’t speak but his eyes flicker over and Adam takes that as a good sign. He slowly works through all of his floor stretches, trying to take up as much time as possible. His excuse is flimsy, but every time he glances under the desk Justin’s shoulders seems a little less tense, and by the time Adam has finished he’s spread out as much as he can in the tiny space.

“You should do the figure four stretch.” Justin says suddenly. His voice is tight and strained but at least he’s speaking. Adam nods and moves into the familiar position. It looks strange and it feels less than comfortable but when he relaxes back and sits normally he actually feels pretty good.

“Thanks, man.” Adam stretches his legs out in front of him, carefully reaching forward to touch his toes now that his quads are loose.

Justin rolls out from under the desk and lays down, spreading out for the first time in God knows how long. Adam hesitates for a moment, then lays down next to him, staring up at the wooden ceiling.  

“I have an anatomy test tomorrow. I’m…Not great with tests.” Justin says, voice hoarse. When Adam looks over his brows are knitted together, his full lips pulled down in a pained frown. His muscles must be aching from the stretch after being so tense.

Adam bites his lip, then fills the silence. “I, uh. I heard you yelling.” He admits, eyes tracing over Justin’s pinched profile.

Justin doesn’t seem surprised. “What did I say?” He asks softly, resigned.

“You just said you were fucked? Like a lot?” Adam winces, hating how his voice rises in an unsure question. The last time he’d seen Justin so stressed he’d instinctively known what to do, what to say. Now, though, with their strange history and weight of the pull he feels towards the other man, he’s not sure how to help.

Justin sighs, covering his face with his hands. “Yeah, that sounds like me.” He sounds embarrassed and exhausted. Adam moves over in small, minuscule stages, shifting until their arms are pressed together. Justin’s hands fall to his sides, and Adam has to fight the urge to lace their fingers together. Justin’s quiet for a long moment before he speaks again. “It’s hard to find a place to study. I don’t like to be by myself because, well.” Justin waves his hand in the vague direction of the desk. “But I don’t like to be in public because,” he waves at the desk again. “The library’s too quiet, the kitchen’s too distracting - plus I’ll get fat from all the pie I’ll eat - and I can’t go to a coffee shop if I’m going to yell about getting fucked.”

“Come study at my place.” The words are out of his mouth before his better judgement can kick in. Justin’s looking over at him in surprise, which yeah, makes sense given how strict he’s been, but he can’t bear the thought of Justin spending another minute alone under his tiny desk. “I mean it.”

“I don’t know -”

“it’s perfect. You won’t be by yourself but you won’t be in public, my neighbors are loud as fuck so there’s always background noise, I won’t distract you because I’ll be studying too and I can’t cook for shit so there’s not going to be anything to eat, anyway.” Adam explains, addressing each of Justin’s concerns one by one. The solution is so clear to him now.

“What about the yelling? Won’t it weird your neighbors out?” Justin asks, sitting up. Adam sits up, too, turning to face  him. His leg is still stuck out awkwardly to the side and Justin’s curled up on his knees, but he looks thoughtful instead of terrified, and Adam can see that he’s almost convinced him.

“They hear weirder shit when I binge watch The Real Housewives.” Adam shrugs, nonchalant. It’s not a lie or an exaggeration of any kind. Those ladies are in some shit.

“What about…” Justin vaguely gestures between them. It’s astonishing how the slightest flick of his wrist can encapsulate all that’s been left unsaid.

Adam shrugs, about to mumble an excuse about how coaches are supposed to help student athletes thrive before deciding against it. This isn’t for Oluransi, #11, the core of his defensive line. This is for Justin, his friend. It’s good for you to be close to them, Murray had said. “Offer stands. You have my number - just text when you need a place to study.” He heaves himself up and offers Justin a hand, waving it in his face until he takes it and pulls himself up. “Seriously, anytime.”

“Thanks.” Justin says, almost shy. Adam’s suddenly aware that they’re still holding hands, and he gently pulls his away. “So…” Justin continues, expression shifting into a sly grin. “Like, how often do you watch The Real Housewives?”

Four days later Ransom finds himself tucked under the kitchen table at two thirty in the morning, eating a hot pocket he’d dug out from the very back of the freezer. Every once in awhile the ceiling creaks; Bitty’s still awake and if Ransom had any sense at all he’d go upstairs and sit on the clean floor of Bitty’s nice smelling room but instead he lingers beneath the table, sitting directly on the sticky patch that apparently was formed during a kegster Johnson’s sophomore year. He takes another bite of the hot pocket. It’s still cool in the middle but he eats it anyway, unable to loosen the grip he has on the table leg.

It’s a low point, that’s for damn sure, and midterms aren’t for another three weeks. He’s not going to make it to second semester if he keeps this up. Justin’s told himself that he needs to find a healthy way of dealing with his thing a million times, but now, tonight, with the top of his head pressed against the grimy bottom of the kitchen table and chilly marinara sauce coating his fingertips, Justin knows he has to make a change. Luckily, Adam’s already given him an opportunity, one he knows now he shouldn’t, should, no, shouldn’t, wait, should pass up. Justin sighs; it’s time to make a list.

He forces himself up to wash the sauce off his hands at the kitchen sink, wincing when his shorts stick to the linoleum floor. Justin immediately runs up to the attic to take them off. After he brushes the tomato aftertaste away and washes his face he curls up in bed with his phone and makes a new note. It’s painfully clear he has to do something, but is taking Adam up on his offer the right thing?

PROS:

I like him

He immediately cuts and copies it to the CONS column he creates below. He tries again.

PROS:

he knows how to help (citation: A- on anatomy test)

my GPA will thank me (i luv u bb)

no more screaming in the library (everyone wins)

I’ll survive fall semester (probably)

CONS:

I like him (fuck)

I’m not allowed to like him (double fuck)

this will make me like him more (triple combo fuck)

He stares down at his list, and the data speaks for itself. Four pros to three cons? The Pros have it. He closes the note and texts Adam.

Me: can i study at ur place 2morrow after practice

He winces when he sees the timestamp. Adam doesn’t reply before he falls asleep, but when he wakes up the next morning he finds a new message (and seventy seven Instagram notifications, but his outfit of the day yesterday was stellar and he regrets nothing).

Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: Sure, meet me by my car after.

Hours later, freshly showered after a long practice, Justin finds himself loitering in the parking lot next to Adam’s car as he waits for the other man to emerge. He worries the strap of his backpack between his fingers, twisting the fabric into tight rolls only to release it and begin again.

“How’d you know which car is mine?” Asks a deep voice just behind his shoulder. When he turns Adam’s standing on the other side of the car, a small smile on his face. He looks so good when he smiles.

Justin shrugs, matching Adam’s expression. “Buffalo plates,” he explains, opening the passenger side door to climb in. Adam’s apartment isn’t far from campus, and they pull in front of his building in minutes. It’s a classic Samwell apartment building, one of the many renovated town homes dotted around campus.

Adam’s on the first floor, and within moments Justin’s in his space. There’s painted over crown molding and the original hardwood floors creak beneath his feet. It somehow seems cozy and sparse at the same time. There’s a soft looking couch with blankets and a sweatshirt thrown over the back but just behind it is a mostly empty bookshelf. He recognizes some of the books - they’re all by sitcom writers or SNL celebrities - and there’s pile of pucks haphazardly stacked on the top shelf. He can’t make out the writing scrawled along the white tape that’s wrapped around the edges but he instantly recognizes them as Adam’s game mementos. The desk on the opposite wall is completely devoid of clutter, as is the coffee table. Meanwhile, the kitchen counters are crowded from daily use - a box of teabags is still open on the counter next to an honest to God kettle and there are dishes in the sink. It’s not that Adam’s neat, Justin realizes. He just doesn’t have many possessions. Adam gives him a quick tour that ends with him clearing a stack of mail and some assorted cups from the kitchen table as Justin sinks into one of the chairs and pulls out his textbook.

When he finally finishes the problem set an hour and a half later, Adam’s nowhere to be found. The apartment is quiet but for the occasional creaking of Adam’s upstairs neighbors moving around and the soft music that’s wafting over from Adam’s open laptop, still positioned across from him. There’s an empty bottle of water by his elbow he doesn’t remember drinking, but when he swallows his throat isn’t as dry as it usually is after a study session. He throws it in the recycling bin and stands, wincing when the movement tugs on his sore muscles. Adam had put the defensemen through the ringer that afternoon, pushing them through drill after drill with no remorse. It had been a relief, actually, to focus on anything besides the stress of school. He’d managed to sweat out the last bit of tension clinging to his back and neck and by the time practice had finished he’d felt almost like he hadn’t cowered under a table for the better part of an hour the night before.

Justin wanders through the apartment, pausing to glance at the stack of pucks on the bookshelf. #4, 1ST NHL GOAL, DETROIT, one reads. Justin turns away, feeling like he’s intruding on some private part of Adam’s life even though he’s seen the goal footage before. He turns down the hall, searching for the bathroom. Adam had said it was at the end of the hall to the right? Left? He’d been on the cusp of Study Mode during the tour earlier and hadn’t been paying that much attention. Justin picks one of the doors and turns the knob, brow furrowing in confusion when he steps inside.

It’s not a bathroom, that’s for sure. It’s probably meant to be an office or second bedroom, but it’s clear that Adam’s just using it for storage. A piano peeks out from the darkest shadows at the back of the room. There are cardboard boxes and large plastic containers everywhere, a thin layer of dust covering them. Only one box is open, and Justin can see a pop of Schooners blue and green peeking through the brown flaps of the box.

It’s none of his business. Adam’s lived here four months and still hasn’t unpacked, but it’s none of his business. Justin slips back into the hall and tries the other door, relieved to find the bathroom on the other side. He doesn’t intentionally snoop, but he can’t help but notice the frankly ridiculous amount of tooth-care products Adam has - he’s got three different widths of floss and at least four brands of toothpaste.

The kettle, the piano, the floss. Justin’s gotten to know more about Adam in the past two hours than he had in years of post game interviews and he desperately wants to know more.

When Justin steps back into the hall he hears the sound of the front door opening and closing. Plastic bags rustle as the lock turns, and when he arrives back in the open living room Adam’s there with carryout.

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind if I left, especially since I brought food.” He explains sheepishly, holding up the plastic bags like an offering.

“Nah, it’s cool. I’m fucking starving because someone made me do a bag skate at practice today.” Ransom says with mock annoyance, already beginning to clear the table.

Adam laughs and Justin can’t help joining in. “Your coach sounds like a dick. Reminds me of my water aerobics instructor.” He chirps. Justin rolls his eyes. He’s not that bad. He just knows what Adam is capable of.

“Really?” Justin asks, raising an eyebrow. He’s smiling, though, so it probably isn’t as effective as it should be. Adam just nods and sets the bags on the table.

“Definitely. This guy doesn’t let me get away with anything.” He says, handing Justin a container of fried rice. They trade chirps as they eventually migrate to the couch with beer and their food, carefully positioned on opposite ends as they watch the second half of a basketball game. Justin lingers until the final buzzer sounds and he officially doesn’t have an excuse to stay any longer.

Justin slings his backpack over his shoulder and follows Adam to the door, taking one step outside before turning around.  He’s unsure of how to say goodbye. For the first time that evening Justin feels like he’s on a date. He wants to step back inside and kiss the taste of beer off Adam’s lips - it’s not a new feeling, certainly, but the past few hours hadn’t felt like a date. Studying, greasy takeout, and watching basketball is what friends do, but this, the way they’re looking at each other, the pull he feels towards Adam, this feels like a date.

“Keep your teammates out of trouble this weekend.” Adam’s leaning against the door frame, white t-shirt stretched over his broad chest.

“I always do.” Justin shoots back.

Adam laughs, rich and deep. “That’s a lie.”

“Yeah.” Justin shrugs, smiling ruefully. He adjusts the strap on his backpack that’s twisted around, tugging on it idly. Adam reaches out, slipping his fingers under the fabric to straighten it out for him.

“Get back safe, Ransom.” He says fondly. It’s the first time Holster’s used his nickname unprompted, when it’s just them. Ransom beams up at him, something warm and bright unfurling in his chest.

“I will, Holster.” Ransom says. He thinks back to his CONS list. This will make me like him more, he’d written. As he walks back to the Haus he adds it to the PROS column.

Justin straps on his gear with tight, explosive movements, tugging the synthetic material with far more force than necessary. He’s been in a foul mood all day, ever since Adam stood him up for their regular meeting before water aerobics. He’d been worried sick when Adam hadn’t shown up to class, so distracted that he’d almost ended the routine before the cool-down stretches in his haste to find his friend. He’d even run over to Adam’s apartment and knocked on the door, lingering until the lost possible moment before he had to rush back to campus for class. He’d arrived late anyway, and to top it all off he’d received a team-wide e-mail from Adam containing the week’s practice schedule. An e-mail’s not a bad thing, in and of itself, but if Adam had the time and resources to send an e-mail then he had the time and resources to text Justin and let him know he’s okay.

He slams his helmet on and makes his way to the rink, letting his stick clang against the equipment and detritus left in the halls by his teammates. Adam’s already on the ice, talking to Jack before practice begins, but Justin bursts onto the ice and does a few quick laps, trying to burn off his anger before he has to speak to Adam in front of his teammates. Everyone knows they get along - Ransom is slowly becoming RansomandHolster - but he won’t be able to explain why he’s so angry.

Luckily, Justin doesn’t have to speak to Adam until the second hour of practice when the lines have separated. He’s standing next to Adam, watching Nursey and Dex do drills with Ollie and Wicks when he breaks.

“You didn’t come this morning.” Justin says suddenly. It’s the first thing he’s said to Adam all day, and the words are tight and angry.

Adam doesn’t react. He stands still with his arms crossed in front of his chest, looking out over the team as they skate. “I know.” He finally says, but he doesn’t look away.

Justin squeezes his stick tightly. “I went to your apartment.” He turns and Adam finally glances over at him, a quick flicker of blue before he turns his gaze back on the other defensemen.

He takes a deep breath. Justin waits for him to speak, mouth set in a grim line. “I know.” Adam exhales, letting out the breath in a quick huff.

Something boils in Justin’s gut. It’s too vulnerable to be anger and burns too hot to be anxiety and he realizes it’s disappointment and hurt melted together in a sticky, bubbling mess. When he was knocking on Adam’s door, worried sick that he’d fallen in the shower, Adam had been inside waiting for him to leave. Adam had let him wait, Adam hadn’t let him in, and Adam doesn’t seem to care about either of those things. “Then why didn’t you let me in?” Justin whispers harshly, demanding an answer. They don’t have much time but Justin doesn’t know when they’ll speak again, since Adam’s apparently content with abandoning him.

A muscle in Adam’s jaw twitches; he must be grinding his teeth. Good. “I couldn’t.” He ducks his head, offering no explanation.

Justin scoffs. “But you could take the time to send us a redundant fucking e-mail? C’mon, Adam.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s the softest Adam’s voice has ever been, the syllables so timid and tumultuous Justin can barely hear the words over the din of practice. When he glances over Adam’s staring down at the ice and for the first time that morning Justin actually looks at him. His beard is longer, bushier, unkempt. There are bags big enough to carry equipment in under his eyes, and when he adjusts his baseball cap Justin can see that his hair is unwashed and greasy. I couldn’t. It’s obvious he’s not doing well, now that Justin is finally looking, and he doesn’t understand how everyone around them is doing practice as usual when Adam’s so clearly in pain. He doesn’t understand how he hadn’t seen it and he swallows down the guilt before swinging his stick to gently bump it against Adam’s shoe. The disappointment and hurt cool quickly, transforming into sharp worry.

“Next time, text me.” He says, giving Adam a small smile when he looks up in surprise. “Not just that you won’t be there, but so I can help. I’ll sit outside your door and study until you can let me in.” He’d through it would at least make Adam smile, but he simply nods, apparently resigned to more days just like this one.

I couldn’t.

The words stay with him after he skates away for drills and conditioning, as he showers and changes after practice, when he’s sitting in his Public Health class hours later. He racks his memory, trying to figure out exactly when Adam had taken a turn. Two weeks ago he’d had Justin in hysterics before class with his impersonation of Linda. On the bus during their last roadie he’d watched Adam’s shoulders shake as he laughed quietly at an episode of Parks and Rec. Before practice last week Adam had mentioned going into Boston and planned on seeing where an episode of 30 Rock had been filmed before his appointment with a specialist.

The realization jolts him awake, out of the daze his professors’ droning voice always sends him into. The appointment must not have gone well and now Adam’s depressed because of it. It makes total sense and now he knows exactly what to do. He opens Excel and creates a new workbook: Adam’s Recovery and Road to Eventual Happiness Masterplan.

He can already fill in some of the categories: Frog Kick Mobility, sitcoms re-watched, Aerobic Endurance, Stride on Ice Speed, but he knows he’ll have to ask Adam directly about everything else. He feels confident in his progress after class, and it’s pure luck that has him bumping into his friend in front of Founders later that afternoon.

“Hey!” His voice sounds weird, too cheery, but Adam doesn’t seem to notice. He barely even looks up, actually, his hat still pulled down over his eyes.

“Hey,” Adam echoes, sounding absolutely exhausted. He manages to give Justin a small smile, but it comes off as more of a half-grimace. Justin can’t ask him directly about how he is when he’s clearly doing so poorly.

Justin bumps their shoulders together gently, making sure he doesn’t actually hit Adam too hard. He sways anyway, off balance until Justin reaches out to steady him. Adam doesn’t react. “I’m going to Annie’s; wanna come?” Adam looks like he’s about to protest, but Justin takes a few steps ahead of him to block his path. “I didn’t get to see you this morning.”

“I don’t know why you’d want to see me.” Justin can barely hear the mumbled string of syllables but he stands his ground.

“Dude, Holster, please. I’ll even buy your gross leaf water.” He bargains. Using Adam’s nickname is a gamble. It usually makes him duck his head, embarrassed, but Justin always manages to catch exactly when his eyes light up. Sometimes, though, it sends him backpedalling back into the carefully constructed professional zone he’s set up for himself. Today, it makes Adam’s shoulders droop as he gives in. It’s worse than the backpedalling.

“Fine.” Adam sighs in agreement. Justin moves and they walk side by side to Annie’s, the backs of their hands brushing occasionally. He wonders what would be so bad about taking Adam’s hand. Statistically speaking, there are very low odds of any negative consequences. Hall and Murray are both off campus and the team isn’t anywhere in sight. It’s all Justin can think about when they walk into Annie’s and when Adam holds the door for him. They’re standing in line, pressed together in the small shop, when Justin takes a chance. He trains his eyes on Adam’s face and carefully laces their fingers together.

Adam doesn’t react, at first, but after a long moment he squeezes his eyes shut, inhaling shakily, and tightens his grip on Justin’s hand. His fingertips are calloused but his palm is broad and the heat from his fingers seeps into Justin’s. They wait in line for a long time, their coats and bags hiding their clasped hands, saying nothing. Adam only lets go after they’ve ordered and paid, releasing Justin’s hand just before he turns away to find a table. He selects one in the corner and has one leg propped on an extra chair by the time Justin arrives with their drinks.

“Thanks,” Adam says, smiling for the first time that day. It’s small, just the slightest curve of Adam’s lips, but it’s real. Justin drops his bag into the chair across from him and settles beside him, his knees brushing against Adam’s good leg under the table. It feels intimate and he wants to take Adam’s hand again but he knows it’s an objectively bad idea. He hadn’t calculated the consequences of holding hands two separate times.

“Anytime,” he says, and means it. They sip their drinks in silence before he leans in and breaks it. “So how was Boston? Did you see where Tina Fey yelled at a tour guide?” Adam chuckles, low and throaty, and it’s the best thing Justin’s heard all day (and he found out he got a 94% on a test, so).

“Tracy Morgan, and yeah, I did. I even got to see Vichy - ” He cuts himself off with a laugh when he sees Justin’s confused expression. “Antoine Kerlovich, he played with me in Seattle but was traded to the Bruins right before the deadline last season.” Adam clarifies, and the new data makes Justin’s head spin. Maybe it wasn’t the appointment at all, but seeing an old friend? Being confronted with someone who still has what he’d lost? Before his train of thought can spiral too far, Adam’s leaning back in his chair with a soft smile ghosting over his lips. “It was good to see him. He’s trying to get me to visit him in St. Petersburg when he goes home, because his ‘grandmama makes best food, Holtzy, you like and eat and get big and strong like me.’” He’s actually grinning when he slips into the dramatic Russian accent, and Justin laughs with him, knowing that Adam’s got at least six inches and forty pounds on his former teammate. He quickly reverts back to his original hypothesis - visiting Kerlovich clearly put Adam in a better mood, and Justin can’t keep from asking his next question.

“And the specialist? Good news?” Adam’s face twists, and Justin’s about to call the whole thing off before he replies.

“Yeah, actually.” Adam picks at the lid of his cup, fidgeting with the plastic rim. His big hands dwarf the cardboard container but his movements are delicate and contained.

“Yeah?” Justin echoes. That’s the last thing he expected to hear. The data doesn’t support his hypothesis at all but the conclusion is the same: Adam is hurting, and Justin’s going to fix it.

“I’m, uh, doing really well. I have above average mobility. I’ll even be able to skate as soon as my physical therapist clears me.” Although Holster’s saying good things, his face has fallen yet again. Justin wants to take his hand again, to pull him in and hold him tight enough to banish that expression from his features forever, but they’re in public and not even together and all he can do lean in and hope his presence is somewhat comforting.

“You don’t look like a guy with above average mobility.” He says slowly. Adam looks up at him in surprise, like he can’t believe someone’s noticed he’s not himself. Justin aches because it’s not entirely unfounded; he’d only realized earlier that morning when Adam’s been back from Boston for at least four days. He spends so much of his time making sure that he doesn’t stare at Adam that he’d missed the signs right in front of his face.

“I feel like shit, Justin. I’m in pain, I can’t do any of the things I used to do and I’m supposed to think I’m doing great? This isn’t what great is supposed to feel like.” Adam’s voice his hollow, punched-out and exhausted. His shoulders are drooping towards the table and someone as large as he is shouldn’t look fragile, but he does.

“It’s going to get better.” Justin says weakly.

Adam gives him a flat look, too tired to be fully annoyed with his platitude. “Is it? No matter what I do or how much I improve I’m never going to get back to where I was. I’m going to plateau at some point and it’ll be all downhill from there.“

Justin doesn’t know what to say. There isn’t a formula for this, a professor didn’t tell him that he’d have to know what to do in this situation. He can’t ask Excel what to say to make his friend feel better. He glances around the room - no one he knows is there, and everyone from the team is usually in class right now - and cups his hand over Adam’s. Adam squeezes his eyes shut, just like before, but this time he pulls his hand away. He stands, moving faster than Justin’s ever seen him.

“I have to go.” Adam takes his tea and weaves through the tables. It takes Justin a second to process and then he’s up, grabbing his coffee as he follows as quickly as he can without accidentally knocking someone over. He catches up to Adam in seconds and takes him by the shoulder. Adam tries to shrug him off half-heartedly but Justin just tightens his grip. They’re alone in the quad, the space empty as usual during popular class times. They square off, both holding their Annie’s cups, mouths set in thin lines.

“I can’t let you help me with this.” Adam’s broad shoulders are hunched, drawn inward. Justin wants to push them back into place, wants to feel his muscles bunch and jump under his hands, wants the warmth of Adam’s skin to seep through his clothes and onto his palms and then he wants to shake some sense into this asshole.

Justin takes a step to close the gap between them, then another when Adam automatically moves backwards. “You can’t stop me.” He says, and it sounds menacing as fuck but he’s just trying to help.

Adam blinks, taken aback. “What?” He asks, brows narrowing. Justin advances again, determined to make Adam understand that he’s not going to back down easily.

“How are you going to stop me? I told you this morning. If you don’t let me in, I’ll wait. I’ll make sure you go to water aerobics. I’ll keep track of your workouts and we’ll make sure you get better. I’ll turn the full force of my anxiety fueled organizational skills on you, dude. I’ll fucking do it.” He punctuates the words by jabbing his finger into Adam’s chest, trying not to think about the hard muscle he finds there.

“Justin,” Adam says, a warning. He bats Justin’s hand away.

“You said we were friends. This is how I treat my friends.” Justin’s voice breaks but he doesn’t turn away. He holds Adam gaze and catches the motion of his hands jerking towards him, like Adam wants to reach out but decides against it at the last minute. He makes the decision for the both of them, stretching out his arm until his hand settles on Adam’s chest. Adam doesn’t move. Justin takes a small step forward and speaks into the hushed space between them.

“I’m going to help because I’ll go crazy if I don’t. I’ll fucking lose it. I need this and you need me and we both need us.” Justin knows he sounds desperate, but he can’t bring himself to care. He knows they look strange, huddled together in the quad, but he can’t bring himself to care about that, either. He cares about Adam, he realizes, the thought crystallizing with startling clarity. He’s been dealing with his crush for months now and Adam’s somehow become the closest friend he’s ever had, but he hadn’t understood the depth of his feelings until this second. It’s not a crush on his favorite player anymore; it’s something new, something small and little bit terrifying and wonderful and real and he can’t do a fucking thing about it.

Adam’s gazing down at him, looking more worn than Justin’s ever seen him. Justin’s hand rises and falls as Adam takes a deep breath and slowly lets it go. “There can’t be an us, not when I want to coach and you want to play. It’s not just that I could get fired, Justin.” At the sound of his name Justin’s hand closes around the fabric of Adam’s pullover, tightening into a fist. Their eyes are still locked but Adam raises his hand and brushes his fingers over the delicate tendons and sinews in Justin’s wrist. His fingers are still warm despite the fall chill and Justin loosens his grip, slumping forward. “I can’t,” Adam continues, slipping his hand under Justin’s to twine their fingers together again. “I can’t stand the thought of someone thinking that you’re first line because of how I feel about you. I don’t want your accomplishments to be fucked up because I’m involved, and I - we both need this team. I’m not going to let someone take hockey away from you.”

It’s not just about the sport, Justin knows. It’s not the skates or the stick or even the rink. It’s the team, the friendships, the community that they both would be lost without. Justin’s had Samwell Men’s Hockey for years but Adam’s only recently found them, and he can’t stomach the thought of Adam losing them so quickly. They both need the team.

Justin sucks in a breath; the New England fall air is cool in his lungs. It’s comforting, and it would feel like home if the air carried a sharper chill. “Whatever you’re doing, Adam, it’s not working. Can you at least think about it?” He asks softly, and Adam ducks his head. They’re so close, now, foreheads almost touching now that the two inches separating them have vanished.

“I’ll think about it.” Adam says, and Justin’s shoulders fall slack in relief. It’s not a yes but it’s not a no and that’s all Justin needs.

“All right.” He says, and Adam carefully untangles their fingers before turning to walk away. Justin watches him walk away, back straight against the strong wind, steps sure even on the wet grass. The distance between them multiplies again and again but Justin’s chest swells with hope.

He’ll think about it.

It’s Friday afternoon and Adam’s spent most of the day in a thick fog. He’d had an appointment with his physical therapist that morning, and he’d heard the news he’d been waiting for since June: he can finally skate again.

Instead of being relieved he’d been terrified and he’d wandered back to his apartment in a daze that had taken him hours to shake off. Now, though, he has to face the task he’s been putting off since he first moved to Samwell. He has an hour booked at Faber tomorrow morning but he doesn’t know where his skates are, other than the fact that they’re somewhere in the boxes he hasn’t been able to face yet.

Adam takes a fortifying breath and opens the door, gripping the handle far tighter than necessary. The room is brighter than he’d expected, light streaming in from the windows across from him. It’s a nice room; he should really use it for more than procrastination. Adam leaves the door open behind him - it feels important to have an escape route - and wanders over to the only open box.

He’d attempted to unpack everything once he’d graduated to walking without a cane a few weeks after he’d moved in but one look at the familiar jersey carefully folded at the top of the first box he’d opened had sent him reeling. He’d gone straight to bed, only leaving a day and half later to drag himself to a physical therapy appointment.

Today, he’s going to do everything he can to prevent that same outcome. He has the Hairspray soundtrack playing from his laptop, a ten hour playlist of his favorite episodes of various tv shows queued up just in case, and he knows for a fact his mother is going to call him tomorrow morning in case he winds up in bed for another few days. All he has to do is find the box with his skates. Simple enough.

Three hours later Adam’s sprawled on the hardwood floors, plastic lids and balls of clear packing tape strewn around him. The majority of the boxes have been opened, the contents piled around his prone form. He’s watching Tracy Jordan describe his hilariously traumatic past for the second time in a row, hoping that watching it again will be the kick in the ass he needs to at least sit up. His phone has been buzzing consistently for the past thirty minutes but rolling over to grab it seems like a gargantuan task, one he’s not prepared to face anytime soon.

“I once saw a baby give another baby a tattoo,” He quotes, still tracking along with the episode even though his eyes are closed. He lays there, quoting the rest of the episode on and off until there’s a sudden banging sound coming from the other side of his apartment. The shock of the sudden sound is enough to jolt him into a sitting position. It’s the door, he realizes suddenly, and it’s only the mental image of Justin standing on the other side that pulls him to his feet.

The knocking continues as he drags himself down the hall, breaking into familiar rhythmic bursts by the time he reaches the living room. When he finally reaches the door he’s had to suffer through four shave-and-a-haircuts but he manages to pull the door open before another can begin. He steps back in surprise when he sees who’s on the other side of the door.

Beth’s drawn up to her full height of five feet and four inches and she’s got a cardboard coffee cup in each hand. There’s a red spot on her forehead, and Adam realizes she’d been literally banging her head against the door instead of knocking with her hand. She glares up at him as she sweeps into the apartment, brushing past him easily. Beth hands him the two cups and toes off her shoes and by the time he realizes what he’s holding she’s on the other side of the room.

“What do I always say, Adam?” She asks, voice brusque. Beth walks around his apartment, inspecting each and every item in his living room. Adam lingers by the open door, trying to make sense of what’s going on.

“Gosh, Tabitha looks great today?” He tries.

“Not that, the other thing.” She stop in front of his bookshelf, running her fingertips over the titles to examine them quickly. She pulls one book out, then another, and the next thing Adam knows she’s rearranging the titles by subject and author. Adam uses his shoulder to close the door as he thinks.

“Do no harm, but take no shit?” He says before setting the cups down on his kitchen table. Beth nods and plucks his copy of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns) from the shelf, flipping through the pages idly before tucking it into her purse.

“There it is. This is me taking no shit.” She points at him with one hand, picking up one of his game pucks in the other. Beth examines it for a moment before setting it back, and quickly arranges the rest of the pucks into a stacked pyramid.

“Did someone give you shit?” Adam asks, no closer to making heads or tails of Beth’s cryptic hints as he watches her arrange his memories into a more aesthetically pleasing form.

“You did. You stood me up!” Beth points at him and he takes a step back, worried for his safety despite the fact that she’s sixty three and fifteen feet away from him.

“Beth, we didn’t have plans to meet today,” He says slowly, worried for the first time that she’s misplaced some information. She turns to face him, hands on her hips.

“Don’t you dare use that ‘I’m talking to an old lady’ voice on me, Birkholtz.” She snaps, and crosses the room much faster than he’d ever thought possible. Water aerobics is seriously working for her. “I’m sixty three years younger than you’ll ever be. You stood me up emotionally, and I will not have it.”

“I’m really, really lost, and I’m having the shittiest day, so can you please explain everything from the beginning? Slowly?” He pleads, sinking into Justin’s chair. Well - the chair he always uses when he comes over to study. It’s just a chair.

Beth eyes him warily. “I saw you and Justin on the quad yesterday. They occasionally let the librarians leave the library, you know.” His face falls and he gestures to the seat across from him, and takes a long sip of his tea in preparation.

The entire story pours out of him. He tells her everything, from seeing Justin at the first practice of the year to trying to find his skates earlier that morning, months of tension and pining and awkwardness and belonging all spilling out in a long, unruly narrative. He tries to explain gaining a team and what that means to him and spends far, far too much time describing Justin’s first goal of the season but he manages to tell her everything before he finishes his cup of tea. It’s cold by the time he takes his last sip and he drops the cup down on the table with a sigh, slouching in his chair. Beth’s been mostly silent, aside from appropriate laughter or oohing and ahhing, and she’s had both her hands wrapped around his since he explained Hazeapalooza.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Beth says, giving his hand a firm squeeze. “We’re going to hug for a very, very long time. Then I’m going to find your skates and you’re going to ask Justin to help you when you practice tomorrow. It’s okay to let him help you.” Adam opens his mouth to protest, mostly out of habit, but she raises one unimpressed eyebrow and he stops in his tracks.

“I’ll find my phone.” He agrees, and when they stand he has to hunch over so her arms can wrap around his shoulders but she rubs his back and holds him tight and he feels better than he has in days.

Justin’s in the dining hall when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He digs for it with one hand, the other occupied with a chicken tender, expecting a text from Bitty about Betsy’s slow decline or a snap from Wicky but his eyebrows raise in surprise when he sees the familiar string of emojis. He drops the tender and wipes the grease off his fingers before unlocking his phone.

Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: I need a water aerobics tutor but I don’t have Tabitha’s number. Know anyone who can help? Me: i might Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: Cool, thanks. Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: P.S. It’s technically on ice instead of in water. But they’re the same thing because #science. Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: P.P.S. It’s also not so much “aerobics” as “skating” but whatever. Me: ur cleared to skate?? Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: Yeah.

Justin’s about to respond when the little ellipses pops up; Adam’s typing. He waits but the three little dots flash up at him, appearing and disappearing in their coded cycle for what feels like hours until -

Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: Will you help me? Me: of course Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]: Faber, 8:30, tomorrow morning. Me: see u then Me: u do kno that ice and water have differences tho right. they have different molecular structures and shit Adam [Honey Pot Emoji][Arm Emoji][Sparkle Emoji]:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Me: why are u like this

They text on and off throughout the rest of the evening. Justin’s not sure why Adam’s suddenly onboard but he’s not going to fight it. He’s watched Adam’s carefully constructed professional boundaries come down in stages and at this pace, maybe someday soon they’ll -

Justin shakes the thought away. Adam needs someone to make sure he doesn’t fall and hurt himself again, not a fan-turned-water aerobics instructor-turned-friend who’s already 63.2397% in love with him.

It feels good to admit it to himself, even if it’s just something he mumbles to the empty bunk above him.

The next morning Justin meets Adam on the bench after running into Bitty and Jack in the locker room. He hadn’t realized they were still doing those checking practices but they were both smiling and Bitty hasn’t goat-fainted since early in the season. Justin can see the progress in the way Bitty sings under his breath as he puts his pads away and the soft upwards curve of Jack’s lips.

He takes a seat next to Adam, who’s bent over as he tightens his laces. Justin pretends not to notice his shaking hands.

“Pretty good morning for ice aerobics, don’t you think?” He asks, tone light as he sways gently to bump their shoulders together. Adam makes a little half-laugh, more of a quick burst of air than anything else.

“Good as any,” Adam replies, finally sitting up. He rubs his hand over his knee, a nervous habit Justin’s come to recognize. Justin pats his shoulder and stands, clearing the distance to the ice in one step. He glides a short distance and turns, then turns again, just getting accustomed to the feeling of ice beneath his blades. When he glances back at the bench Adam’s watching him. He’s smiling but he looks – not quite sad and not quite hopeful. Melancholic, Justin’s standardized test vocabulary reservoir supplies.

“Hey, man. You’ll be doing this in no time.” Justin knows his phrasing is a little off, but it’s worth it to see Adam’s eyebrows rise in surprise before he smiles. The expression is still tight around the edges and fades altogether when Adam stands and makes his way to the ice, but Justin’s proud he managed to relax Adam for at least a moment. He skates back over to the boards and offers Adam both his hands, his back facing the rink. Adam takes his hands in a too-tight grip and steps onto the ice, limbs stiff with tension. They glide back, both of them staring at Adam’s feet, until Justin stops them.

“How’s it feel?” Justin asks, absently running his thumbs along Adam’s knuckles in an attempt to relax him; his grip on Justin’s hands is painfully tight.

“Terrifying.” Adam says automatically. He bends his knees experimentally, eyebrows knitted together in a look of intense concentration. “Knee’s fine, though.” He adds. He lets out a long, relieved sigh and finally tears his eyes away from his feet. The anchors of his lips rise in a tiny, hopeful smile and Justin’s 63.237% rounds up to an even 65.000%.

It’s a long, painstaking hour. It takes Adam a while to get out of his own head and Justin’s on edge from start to finish, determined to keep him safe. There are a few close calls - Adam’s momentum carries him further than he expects more than once and he ends up in Justin’s arms - but halfway through the hour Adam finally begins to relax. Justin can see that it’s not his body that’s holding him back anymore, and he’ll keep as close as he can until Adam’s mind catches up.

They’re practicing stopping and Justin’s pressed up against Adam’s back, hands firmly on his hips to make sure he’s steady. Adam’s leading but Justin’s gently guiding him, helping his muscles remember what to do. They’ve been going back and forth, sending up small bursts of ice as they turn their skates to stop, when Adam turns suddenly, rotating in Justin’s arms. They’re pressed close together, chests touching, and Justin couldn’t look away if he tried.

“Hour’s up,” Adam says, cheeks pink above his neatly trimmed beard. His eyes are startlingly blue on the ice.

“Yeah,” Justin agrees, breathless. The immeasurable distance that always looms between them shrinks, disappearing with every breath.

Adam places a hand on his chest, mirroring exactly how they’d stood in the quad earlier that week. Instead of a fall wind and wet grass there’s an artificial breeze and hard ice but the distance between them shrinks again. Adam’s ducking his head, blue eyes level with Justin’s brown. The corners of Adam’s mouth twitch and then he’s suddenly moving backwards, having pushed himself back with the hand on Justin’s chest. The small smile become a full blown grin as he glides away and eventually turns to skate back to the bench without any assistance. Justin laughs, pride and joy bubbling up so fiercely it has to escape the confines of his ribcage in an uninhibited burst. The sound echoes around Faber, bouncing off the walls and ceiling until it fades, slipping beneath the hum of the rink.

65.000% jumps up to 66.000%, then 70.000%, then 74.000%, rising steadily with each beat of his heart. Later that evening, hours after they’d trudged off the ice, Justin can still feel the warm weight of Adam’s hand over his heart.

[hopeishappinessff]

Chapter 29

He got me a gift.

He actually got me a gift.

I wanted to smile. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to call him back to the house and thank him for going out of his way for me, but the guilt had already plagued me. The remorse for what I’d done was already in place and I couldn’t stop replaying the words that Destani had said to me in the kitchen just the night before. She was right… she was absolutely right. How could I be such a fool to lead one guy on, forging feelings that I really wasn’t even confident that I had? All while knowing exactly how deep my feelings ran for the other. I couldn’t bring myself to pry into the bag now, so I placed it on my dresser and exited my room with Trey’s gift in tow.

Hours later, Trey and everyone else had gone home for the night. Ms. Joyce clung to the thought that Chris would come back later in the evening and after everyone else had gone home, she remained… but her son never returned. My aunt eventually convinced her that she needed to go get some rest instead of sitting up and stressing herself over him.

When she did finally head home, I stayed downstairs for a while to help my aunt clean up the kitchen. Once we were done, I made my way upstairs to get ready for bed. I gathered up one of the new pajama sets I’d gotten from Destani for Christmas and headed into the restroom for a quick shower. Within fifteen minutes, I stood in front of my mirror brushing my wet curls up into a messy bun.

Just as I prepared to climb into bed, that little blue bag caught my eye again. Pulling it from the dresser, I plopped down on my bed and perched it in my lap. I stared at it, hoping to gain enough confidence to dip into it to discover just what Chris had indulged me with. Separating the flaps of the bag, I toyed with the stark white paper filling the top just as I heard a light tap against my door. I raised my gaze, almost sure that I was only hearing things, and stared at the edge of the door just as it began to creek open. The freckled face of a golden eyed Adonis emerged between the door and the frame and I nearly gasped at the reality that he’d actually decided to come back.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" He spoke softly as he stood slumped against the doorframe. “No… I was up.” I spoke slowly, utterly confused by why he’d come back and to speak to me of all people. He nodded and we both continued to stare stupidly at one another. Clearing his throat abruptly, he eased his way further into the room and stopped only a few feet past the door. Deciding not to continue to engage in an awkward stare down with him, I turned my attention to the bag in my lap and continued to fumble with the paper at the top.

“You haven’t opened it yet?” He asked quietly. I raised my gaze at the sound of his soft voice and shook my head in response. Sticking my hand down into the bag, I pulled out one of two boxes resting at the bottom of it. Chris continued to stand there, silently gazing on as I pried into the first box. I slipped the lid off and immediately froze… resting beautifully in the tiny gift box and glistening in the dim light of my bedroom was heart tag necklace. Wasting no time, I dove back into the bag and quickly reached for the second box. Pulling the lid from it, I slapped a hand over my mouth at the sight of the matching blue face watch.

I could feel the corners of my eyes tingling and I sniffled to suppress any looming emotions. Finally, I raised my gaze to Chris. He stood there, lips twisted to one side and a brow raised, with his eyes glued to the two small boxes in my hands. He kept his arms lowered at his sides and his hands tucked away in the pockets of his jacket and remained stock still near the door. “You like them?” He muttered “Yes. I mean… I… Chris, why…” I stammered.

“I was worried that you wouldn’t.” He interjected. I eyed him closely and wondered if he’d even opened my gift to him yet. In an almost cautious manner, he moved closer to me and took a seat at the furthest corner of my bed. “I didn’t mean for this to happen Hope.” He kept his voice hushed and low. “What do you mean?” I asked softly. With a sigh, he raised his tired eyes and quietly stared at me. I could see the stress in his face… the exhaustion in his demeanor… the dreariness in those ordinarily twinkling eyes. He wasn’t himself, I was sure of that. The giddy and bubbly Chris that I knew was gone and in his place was a weary young man who looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“This. All of this. Where we are right now… I didn’t mean for shit to turn out like this.” He explained pitifully. “What…" “No Hope, let me finish. For like the past month now, I’ve been holding back so much shit and I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep holding it all in,” He paused as he sat up straighter and slid down closer to me on the bed, “You know me and you know I speak my mind, always. But with you… I… I just could never bring myself to approach you with any of this.”

With no clue what he was even talking about, I perked up and made sure to give him my full attention. “What is it that keeps you going back to that nigga?” He blurted suddenly with not an ounce of humor on his face. I stared at him, waiting for him to smile, to laugh, anything to prove that he was only joking. But his somber expression remained and his brows began to furrow with frustration. “I… I don’t know Chris. Why are you bringing this up anyway? Are you really gonna let this whole thing with Trey and I be the downfall of our friendship?” “No Hope,” He huffed, “It’s just that… I don’t… I don’t understand why you would do what you did today.” “What exactly did I do that was so wrong today Chris? What am I doing so wrong that’s hurting you?”

“You told that nigga to come over here.” His tone was filled with bass and the rosy tint in his cheeks didn’t go unnoticed. “First of all, I didn’t tell him to do anything. I did invite him and he decided to come on his own. And second, even if I did invite him over, that’s my business… this is my house.” The fact that he had the audacity to sit in my face in my room and question who I let come over was quickly starting to get under my skin. “I’m not telling you who you can and can’t bring in here Sy.. I don’t even care. I just thought that shit today was stupid. You know how much you mean to me and I just didn’t think it was okay for you to flaunt him in my face like that...”

“No Chris, apparently I don’t know how much I mean to you. I don’t even know what you’re talking about right now.” I fussed. I was beginning to strain my voice trying to stay quiet and get my point across to him all at the same time. “If I knew that you didn’t like some girl that I was with, I wouldn’t come flaunt her all in your face… that shit is foul.” “Oh really Chris… really. Yet you sat right here in my house on Thanksgiving day flaunting crazy Gabby around, knowing that I despise the girl. And you walk around in the mall flaunting some girl you barely know just because she’s your neighbor… you’re making no sense right now!”

“Nobody was flaunting either one of those hoes anywhere, what the fuck! I told you the deal with me and Gabby and I had no fucking idea you would be in that store that day. Please don’t sit here and try to make me sound like the bad guy.” I was already shaking my head in disbelief with every word he uttered. It was the night of Christmas and I never would have imagined that I would be spending it arguing with someone who was supposed to be my best friend. I couldn’t take it anymore… I was over the conversation and I had no desire to continue to entertain his one-sided argument.

“Look, maybe you should just go...” I started, but as I’d assumed… he wasn’t hearing it. “I’m sorry Hope. I didn’t come here intending to argue with you and make you upset. I just really didn’t know how to take that shit today and it really pissed me off…” “Save it, please.” I stood from my seat on the bed and moved toward my bedroom door where I placed a hand firmly on the handle, “All this is, is an ongoing circle of nonsense. It’s never going to end with you Chris. You continue to snap on me when things don’t go your way and I’m really sick of that. Now, it is Christmas night and I don’t feel like dealing with this with you anymore.” I inched the door open and raised an inquisitive brow as he stared back at me. Without uttering a word, he rose from the bed and moved toward me.

“I don’t need you mad at me,” I stared at his perfectly shaped lips as he spoke and attempted to maintain my annoyed expression. But the way that divine aroma of his intruded my space and closed in on just about all my senses… I could almost instantly feel myself losing the battle to his presence. He edged closer to me and rested a hand on mine, which was still on the handle of the door. With little effort, he pushed it shut and quickly trapped me between his body and the back of the door. “I know, I made you mad and I'm sorry. I’m so sorry… now let me fix it…”

--

Rolling over onto my belly, I lazily tossed an arm to one side of the bed where it landed against warm, unfamiliar flesh. I wasn’t much of a heavy sleeper, so I was able to easily comprehend what was happening around me. Prying my eyes open, I blinked rapidly to adjust to the glare in the room. From the position that I lay on my stomach, I stared ahead and smirked at the sight of Chris who also slept peacefully on his stomach. He slept shirtless and like a baby with his right arm tucked comfortably beneath his pillow, his lips parted, and the most pleasant expression on his face.

Minutes passed and I continued to lay motionless, watching him sleep blissfully. The view was beautiful and though I knew I couldn’t get bored with watching him, I couldn’t help but reach over and poke him in his shoulder to wake him up. He slept like a rock so the tiny poke to his shoulder did no good. I was determined to get him up though and a sudden idea crossed my mind. Reaching my hand down under the covers, it roamed freely until I felt the side of his hardened abdomen and I quickly flicked my fingers rapidly to tickle him. He twitched and moved back out of my reach with his eyes still shut and a smile inching onto his face. Abruptly, he extended a hand forward and captured my wrist, pulling me toward him and twisting me around swiftly so that my back was against his chest.

“Go back to sleep Hope.” He mumbled, face buried in the mound of curls atop my head. “No, wake up.” I giggled, pushing my backside against him. Inhaling sharply through clenched teeth, he quickly wrapped his arms securely around my waist and pressed his hand against my belly, pushing against it to align my bottom half perfectly with his crotch. “Chris quit… move!” I whined. “Nah, take your silly ass back to sleep.” The hairs on my neck stood on end from the feeling of his lips brushing against my skin. I couldn’t deny the arousal even if I tried, so I gave in and allowed my entire body to tremble against his touch. He slid a hand beneath my pajama shirt and rested it against my stomach. I tensed at his touch, but he calmed me by rubbing his hand against my belly in the most soothing manner. As the minutes passed, he continued to caress me until he eventually lulled me back to sleep.

--

Hours later, I pried my eyes open and stared straight ahead at the window. My eyes were squinted in an effort to accommodate the radiance and I tossed a hand back behind me, expecting to feel Chris snuggled there. “Damn girl… I thought I slept like a rock!” I heard his voice, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell where he was. Sitting halfway up, I turned to face the bedroom door only to see him standing there, beaming widely with a steaming tray of breakfast and a tall glass of orange juice.

“Did you cook for me?” I asked, grimacing at the sound of my own voice. “Hell no,” He chuckled with a shake of his head, “Ms. Maddie cooked a little while ago before she left for work. I told her you were still asleep so she told me to warm up what she left and bring it to you whenever you woke up.” “Well thank you for taking instructions so well.” I said with a roll of my eyes. He laughed and delivered the tray to my lap then sat back and quietly watched as I began to scarf down the food. “What?” I mumbled, holding a piece of toast in one hand and a fork full of scrambled eggs in the other. He shook his head and continued to stare while I continued to ravish my plate. It didn’t take long for me to take the entire meal down, following up with half the glass of orange juice.

Once I felt nice and satisfied, I pushed the tray away from my lap and pulled the comforter off me, frowning the moment the cool air grazed my near naked body. With a sigh, I stood on completely unstable legs and took a wobbly step toward my bathroom. “You alright over there chicken legs?” He chuckled. “Shut up,” I grimaced, “I feel like I’ve been doing splits all day.” “Aw baby, I didn’t mean to cause you any discomfort last night...”

.........

He had my legs spread wide and his hands were positioned perfectly against the back of each thigh. My limbs were on fire, but the sensation surging throughout my entire body was enough for the pain not to matter. I’d never known my body to be as flexible as this moment allowed, but I didn’t argue… wherever he wanted me, I was willing to go.

His head rotated rhythmically between my thighs and I stared at the top of it with my mouth hanging open, fascinated by the wicked act. Eventually, I clamped my mouth shut and bit into my bottom lip, desperately fighting to stay as quiet as I could under the circumstances… it was well after midnight and my Aunt was tucked away just down the hall. However, I knew it was only a matter of time before Chris cracked under the forged silence.

“What I tell you about that shit?” He pulled away from my core with a loud, wet smack long enough to glare up at me. I shook my head furiously, hoping that would be good enough of a response, but he only continued to stare up at me as he dropped a hand in to replace his warm tongue and began to massage the sensitive bud of nerves roughly.

“Oh I ain’t made my point clear enough about that silent shit, huh? Alright… keep fuckin playing….” I squeezed my eyes shut and yanked one of my pillows down over my face at the sudden feeling of two of his lengthy digits easing into my entrance. I squealed relentlessly into the pillow and quaked against his sturdy hold. “Stop girl… you know I hate that shit.” He grunted, reaching up to snatch the pillow from my face.

His dominant demeanor had me leaking like a busted pipe. The way he worked his tongue in such deliberate motions and the feeling of his two fingers slow stroking like perfection coaxed me to my climax quicker than I had time to prepare and within seconds my eyes were shut and I nearly cried as I rode that wave to ecstasy.

.........

My mouth hung halfway open as I recounted our deeds from the night before. I could feel the warm blush forming in my cheeks and without second thought I bolted onward to the restroom, ignoring the aching in my legs as I went and the sound of him laughing behind me. And I remained in that space for nearly a full hour, even after I’d finished with my shower and readjusted my hair nearly six times. Knowing that I couldn’t possibly stay in the bathroom any longer, I edged closer to the door and slowly pried it open, peeping around the empty space of my bedroom before emerging completely.

Hastily, I moved to my underwear drawer and yanked on a pair of boyshorts beneath my oversized towel. Once I was sure my lower regions were completely covered, I quickly dressed in a coral crop top and a pair of my most comfortable dark gray leggings. Leaving my hair wild and free, I misted myself with a bit of body spray and finally exited my bedroom in search of something to fill my growling belly.

Moving past the den, I peeped in to see Chris planted on the couch with his attention glued to the television. I continued my journey on to the kitchen to retrieve a hot pocket and once I situated it within its protective sleeve, I slipped it into the microwave and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “She got that cute lil belly out for daddy, nice!” I flinched at the warmth of Chris’s breath against the side of my neck and his cool hands planted against my hips. “You scared me!” I exclaimed, turning to slap him against his chest.

He only smirked at my proclamation and maneuvered me around with ease so that he could rest his chin against the top of my head. “Sorry. What are you doing?” “Warming up a hot pocket.” I replied. He pulled his chin from the top of my head and I could feel him staring down at me “You alright?” “Yes… why?” “You eating like a damn horse.”

With a scoff, I pulled away from him at the sound of the microwave dinging, indicating that my food was nice and hot “Shut up. As if you don’t eat like a pregnant woman!” “Well, yeah… that’s normal. I’m a guy. Of course I eat like that. But your little ass… you just ate like an hour ago.” “Yes Chris, but that was breakfast… this, is lunch.” I stated matter of factly as I squeezed past him with my hot lunch and cold bottle of water in tow. I headed into the den, with him right behind me, and stationed myself comfortably on the couch in front of the TV.

I pulled the microwavable pouch off and used a fork to cut the hot pocket down the middle. The moment the two pieces were separated, Chris weaseled a hand over to my plate and I slapped it away “Unh-unh, you practically told me that I was fat in the kitchen and now you wanna eat my hot pocket… no.” “But I didn’t say you were fat though, I just said you eat a lot.” He argued as he continued to reach for one of the halves. “But that’s what you meant. Now leave me to my fatness and let me eat my hot pocket in peace.” I pushed him back away from my plate and scooped up one of the pieces.

Before I could take a good bite of the thing, Chris leaned forward and latched his lips onto the side of my neck. In that instant I dropped the hot pocket away from my mouth and gasped sharply. “I said I didn’t say you were fat.” He muttered with his lips pressed against my neck. Shutting my eyes, I focused on not moaning from the feeling of those pillowy soft lips against that one spot on my neck. Suddenly and without warning that feeling was gone and I snatched my eyes open to find him staring at me… as he chomped into one half of my hot pocket. “Chriiiiis!” I exclaimed. “Whaaat?” He mocked me and he went on devouring my food before my very eyes.

“Whatever, eat it while you have it because the next time you come over here I’m gonna tell my aunt to lock up all the food.” I fussed with a frown. “Yeah right, you love me too much to not let me eat.” He said, leaning forward to deliver a sweet peck to my cheek. Realizing what he was referring to, I reached over and rained a hard blow down on his arm. “Ouch girl, what you hitting me for?” He laughed as he rubbed dramatically at his wounded shoulder. “You… nasty.” I giggled.