#i'm sorry for venting on main but like. i just. mm.

[reikoknshii]

🩸 Scarlet...Milk? 🥛(pt.2)

[This was heavily requested 😭 but i love y'all and have this ❤]

(Words: 1.3k)

"I'm watching you....."

Was written in the note, you stumbled back as you look ahead of the building that leads to the metal doors. The bloody doppelganger staring at you before disappearing in the blink of an eye.

You're being stalked...

Out of fear you rushed to your apartment after closing the main gates of the building.

'would that mean that doppelganger will be aggressive?..'

You think as you paced around in front of your apartment, it was the second floor apartment near Nacha's room. You sat down on your doorstep frustrated and nervous, if you messed up he will kill Francis...not only Francis, mostly anyone in the building-

"Y/n?" A soft and gentle tone asked as you turn your head to see Nacha's peeking out of her apartment room. "Miss Nacha- did i disturb you?"

"No, not at all..i just heard you groaning and pacing around, you seem down in the slumps"

"Ah..well, is it okay?-"

"I dont mind, come in we can talk about it"

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚

"Thats why...." You said softly explaining the whole incident that had happened as you averted your eyes to someplace , while Nacha takes in all the information. "I don't really get this doppelganger thing, but you seem like a lovely and kind person Y/n.."

"We appreciate you and your doorman duties, remember to take care of yourself whenever" Nacha said as she smiled at You, your venting didn't include your growing admiration for the milkman because well...

From what you know Nacha is Francis ex-wife and its hella awkward to tell her you had a crush on her ex-husband.

"Your muffins are good-" You said breaking away from the topic as you took a bite from the blueberry muffin she offered earlier when you entered her house.

"Why thank you, i baked them with Anastacha" Nacha said happily as she went to the fridge. "would you like some milk? I bought this, funny looking thing-" Nacha said as she pulled out a red bottle of...'Scarlet milk'

You choked on your muffin and soon recovered, you immediately rushed to Nacha and grabbed the bottle.

"Dont"

"D-dont?" Nacha asked confused as you took the bottle and examine it. "its a bottle of blood, where do you get this-"

"It was left by the main gates-"

"Nacha...I'm not crazy, do not..receive the scarlet milk next time" Nacha eyes were wide as she nodded to your statement. "Y/n perhaps you should get an eye shut for tonight? Y-you seem shaken-"

"I'm..." You inhaled as you let go of her shoulders. "Maybe i should" you said sorry as you made your way out of Nacha's apartment room.

"Sweet dreams, Y/n" Nacha said as you closed the door gently.

You stared at the bottle of blood on your hands as your eyebrows furrowed at it. "I'm not delusional..." you said to yourself as you threw away the Scarlet milk into the trash bin.

You went into your apartment for some sleep.

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚

You didn't manage to sleep at all, you keep hearing voices at night telling you to let them in.

'Y/n..'

Go away..

'Y/n!'

"GO AWAY!" you screamed as you stood up from your bed, it was 5:30 am in the morning.

"Y/n?" A familiar voice asked outside of your apartment door. "Francis?" You asked softly as you stood up from your bed.

You opened your door to see the Milkman all in his glory and uniform. "You alright? You screamed and i heard it from outside" he said as he stared at you with his tired eyes.

"Y-yeah..yeah I'm alright"

"You look..frightened" He stated as he noticed it from your appearance. "I'm fine Francis"

"Just a nightmare.."

"You hear them too?" Your eyes went wide as you stared at him. "What?"

"...mm..nevermind, maybe you should get ready..Ill head to work now, the milk dont deliver themselves" he muttered as he went ahead to the elevator.

"S-see you..." You were filled with mixed emotions, what does he mean 'you hear them too?' .

Is that why he's sleep deprived? At least you're not alone...

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚

You started another day of your shift as you opened the metal covers. "Dont let this be weirder than usual" you muttered to yourself as you turn to the gates to see the yellowish eyes.

You dropped your keys and rubbed your eyes , wondering if you're seeing it right.

The eyes were gone...

"There's nothing..nothing at all-" you said to yourself to reassure, and went to your office.

...

The day went weirder, doppelgangers are trying to get in more frequently than usual. It was stressing, doppelgangers get angrier each time they're caught and you feared for your life and the apartments residents life.

"I'm okay.."

'I'm okay' you said to yourself as you keep going, you feel like breaking down. One wrong decision all blame will be pointed at you, and you alone..

"Mmm...Hello" Francis said tired as usual entering the hall in front of your office.

"Francis-" you said as he showed you his papers. "You alright Y/n?"

"J-just...overwhelmed" you answered as you checked his information.

"Mm...take a rest after this"

"I-i should..." You said softly as you opened the metal door for him to get in.

"Mm...Hello"

What...

Your eyes went wide as you stared at the second Francis. "You're a doppelganger-"

"What...?"

"Stop playing with me!" You said frustrated and angry. "Y/n you need to calm down...i just got off from my delivery shift"

Oh no..

Oh noo..

"Francis?!" You cursed under your breath and let him in your office. "Whats happening-" the milkman asked confused and exhausted from work.

"Stay in here- dont leave" you said as you grab your walkie talkie. "Press the emergency button and call D.D.D. when i page you through this" you explained as you hand him the spare device.

"Okay.."

"Please...be safe" you said as you closed the metal covers and door on your way out of the office, you went in the apartments and hit the emergency button to immediately alert the residents to close their rooms.

"You're no fun at all..." Said the doppelganger by the end of the hallway holding the tray of Scarlet milk.

"And you're a threat" you said as you pulled out your gun that was given to you by the D.D.D. services. He rushed to you as he tackled you down on the ground, bottles of Scarlet milk shattered on the way he dropped it near you staining both of your uniform and his.

"I told you ill get back at you" he said hungrily as his tongue licked your face. You kicked his stomach and crawled to the direction where you dropped it, but he stepped on your hand and laughed at you.

"No one would remember you" he started as he presses his foot on your hand making you scream in pain. "They'll see you as a crazy security that let in a threat"

"Oh yeah?" You managed to blurt out. "That doesn't matter, i bite" you said as you bit into his ankle Making him step back and let out a frustrated groan.

"FRANCIS-" you page into your walkie talkie. "CALL D.D.D. NOW--"

You grabbed the gun but the doppelganger kicked you to the nearest wall. "You protect their lives but who will protect you?"

He walked to you with one of the Scarlet milk. "No one.." He grabbed your face as he smiled, his eyes were empty as he forced the bloody bottle into your mouth.

You pulled the trigger of your gun thats pointed on his shoulder and shot him.

He screeched in pain as his face start to distort into a monster form of creature that you fear to see. His form rapidly changing as he charged back at you only for you to shoot him twice on his head.

He fall down on the floor, his blood and yours everywhere on the hallway of the 1st floor.

Your eyes were heavy and your head hurts, soon enough you passed out...

[violexides]

after attempting to make 4 different posts illustrating my newfound psychological issues posting things from my fandoms onto tumblr and then deleting all of them immediately i think i’m going to just take a break or something

[ghost-in-the-hella]

From the prompt batch: 6. "I'm proud of you, we all are..." (Chloe and Max)

I hope you like really fucking sad fanfic, because this immediately got really fucking sad from the second I thought of the idea for it and only got sadder from there.

Content Warnings for: non-descriptive references to suicide/suicidal ideation, negative self-talk, PTSD, references to past physical and mental abuse, and implied anti-queerness.

---

It takes Max twenty minutes to realize that Chloe’s left the celebration and twenty seconds after that for her to realize where she’s gone. She makes her excuses to her family and friends - just a minute, be right back, gotta run to the bathroom, gotta check my makeup, gotta check on Chloe, thanks for coming, thanks so much, seriously Mom I’ll be right back - and starts walking across campus toward the art building. She turns on her phone as she walks and scrolls through the text messages that have come in since the graduation ceremony. There it is, buried under a stream of congratulatory texts:

Chloe: g2g

Chloe: sorry

Max pockets her phone and stares up at the art building. She can’t see Chloe from the ground - that’s kind of the main point of a secret hiding place - but if she squints she can just make out a thin trail of cigarette smoke curling up from the rooftop. She feels a small wave of relief wash over her. Chloe’s been a lot better lately about opening up to Max when she needs help, but sometimes when she suddenly goes missing Max still worries. If she’s hiding on the rooftop and smoking a cigarette, it means she’s still here.

It’s weird to walk through the art building and have it be empty. There’s always people around, normally: working in studios, hanging artwork in critique rooms, building sculptures in hallways, sleeping on the paint-stained couches that sag in odd corners of the building. Her key card still works for the studios, luckily; it’ll probably be deactivated in a few days, once she’s got all of her stuff moved out. The undergraduate studios - a series of loosely connected cubicles formed by moveable white walls - have mostly been cleaned out or at least packed up. Chloe’s studio, all the way in the back corner, is still a mess; the boxes they brought in to pack up their supplies are still empty and scattered around. Max slips into the odd space they found the semester Chloe got her studio, a gap between the moveable wall and the actual wall, where there’s a door that’s supposed to be kept locked but that Chloe figured out quickly how to jimmy open.

Max hated the rooftop hideout for the first few weeks after Chloe showed it to her. Too many bad memories. Even though the spot is nestled between bulky vents and Max would have to climb up on top of them to look down over the campus, just the act of climbing up stairs to a rooftop made Max’s chest close in on itself. Even after Chloe made it into a home away from the dorms for them both, a special place for them to get away from the pressures of school and life, Max couldn’t go up there if it was raining. Rain makes it too easy to remember another rooftop, another time, another girl who wanted so badly to escape.

But it isn’t raining today, and Max has to admit that after nearly a year of hanging out up there it really bears no resemblance to the roof at Blackwell. Every spot that Chloe can reach - and with her long limbs she can reach quite a lot - is covered with her graffiti, spotted here and there with the marks that Chloe nudged Max into making herself (“C’mon, Max, nobody’s gonna see it; I bet no one even remembers this place exists!”). The rooftop is littered with cigarette butts (“The world is not your ashtray, Chloe!”) and food wrappers (“There’s a trash can in the studios!” “Yeah, but there’s not one on the roof, Max.”). 

And, of course, there’s Chloe herself. She’s swaddled in the blanket she normally keeps in her studio and stretched out on her back between vents, smoking a cigarette as she watches the clouds. It looks like she’s been using her mortarboard as an ashtray and her wadded up gown as a pillow. She glances over at Max as Max pushes through the roof door, and her eyes are bloodshot and watery. It doesn’t smell like pot up here (for a change), though, and Max’s suspicions are confirmed when Chloe quickly looks away and discreetly wipes at the corner of her eye with one hand.

“Hey,” Max says gently, closing the door behind her. She sits down next to Chloe, leaning her back against one of the protruding vents. It’s weirdly quiet with the art building shut down for the summer; usually the vents are pumping out all kinds of sounds and smells that are probably as bad for Chloe as smoking. 

“Hey,” Chloe replies, her voice soft and slightly hoarse. “Sorry I bailed, I just--” She waves her hand around abstractly, sending flecks of ash tumbling down onto her shirt. 

Max nods thoughtfully. “It’s pretty overwhelming, isn’t it?”

“Like… If someone says ‘congratulations’ to me one more fucking time, I don’t know, I just feel like I might… might explode or something, you know?”

Max furrows her brows but doesn’t say anything. She tugs at the edge of the blanket until Chloe releases enough of it for Max to join her under it. She presses the side of her leg against Chloe’s, solid and reassuring, and she waits for Chloe to go on in her own time.

“It’s just… I don’t know. I expected it to feel different.” Chloe shrugs helplessly. “I expected to feel, I dunno, vindicated or something. Like, nobody thought I could do it; haha, showed you motherfuckers. But it just…” She sighs. “It feels hollow.”

“I knew you could do it,” Max says quietly. She doesn’t want to interrupt, but she also can never bear to let Chloe’s negative self-talk stand.

“Yeah… But everybody else down there, congratulating us and saying how proud they are and all of that crap… I mean, I’m sure they mean it for you; I’m fucking proud as hell of you, too, but--”

“I’m proud of you, we all are…”

Chloe finally stops cloud gazing and gives Max a dubious look. “Your parents are proud of me?”

“I-- Of course they are.” The words are sour in Max’s mouth, and she blushes under Chloe’s scrutinizing gaze. “They know how important you are to me,” she insists. That, at least, must be true: she’s told them enough times over the years, planting the knowledge as firmly into their minds as possible. They still don’t understand what Max sees in her, it’s true, and they still don’t really approve, but certainly they know that Chloe is in their daughter’s life and she’s not going anywhere if Max has anything to say about it. 

“Mm. Not really the same thing, though, is it?” Chloe flicks ashes into her mortarboard, keeping her eyes trained on Max’s. “And what about the rest of your family? Your grandparents? Your aunt and uncle? Your cousins? You think they’re all proud of me?”

Max loves her family, but she’s not as oblivious as she used to be. Even in the dream-like haze of graduation, she still noticed the glances her extended family - and her immediate family - leveled at Chloe when Max introduced her as her girlfriend. Her grandmother looked like she was taking a swig of soured milk when Chloe shook her hand. Her uncle seemed fine on the surface, but she overheard him making some pretty offensive comments behind their backs. From the look on Chloe’s face, none of this went unnoticed by her. Max decides to switch tactics. “Our friends are proud of you. And I’m proud of you.” 

Max reaches across the short distance between them and laces her fingers with Chloe’s. That nudges a small smile out of Chloe that feels like a huge accomplishment. The smile fades, though, and Chloe clears her throat. She crushes out what little is left of her cigarette and leaves it on the rooftop. “I, uh. I got a text from David earlier. Guess he was actually paying attention when I told him about graduating.”

“Oh,” Max says as neutrally as possible. David is always uncertain ground.

“Yeah. He, uh, he says he’s proud of me.” Chloe makes a sound halfway between a snort and a sob. “Like I give a fuck what he thinks, but still.” She starts picking at her already raw cuticles, and Max gives her hand a squeeze. “Like… he made my teen years a fucking nightmare. He treated me like shit and made me feel bad about myself, and he hit me a couple times, but he made my mom happy, you know?”

“That doesn’t excuse the way he treated you.”

“Yeah, I know, but… He does care, in his own fucked up way…”

“He does,” Max agrees. “But that still doesn’t excuse the way he treated you.”

 Chloe nods. “It’s just… He’s kind of all I’ve got left.” Her voice twists and she has to clear her throat before she can speak again. Max squeezes her hand again. “My dad always believed in me. He wouldn’t be surprised at all, y’know? He’d maybe be surprised I studied art instead of science, but I know he wouldn’t be disappointed. And he’d be proud as fuck. And my mom…” Chloe’s voice breaks again, and Max’s heart breaks a little with it. “My mom would’ve been surprised, probably. Ever since Dad died, I think she kinda gave up on me making anything out of myself. David didn’t really help with that, I guess. Fuck, I didn’t really help with that. But she still would’ve been proud, I think.”

“She would,” Max assures her. “She definitely would.”

“And Rachel…” Chloe mops at her eyes. “She should’ve been here!” she explodes suddenly. “She should’ve been right there with us, getting her diploma and-and-and fucking hogging all the cameras and charming everybody’s parents’ socks off because that was just-- it was just the way she was; it was just Rachel; and it isn’t-- it isn’t--”

Max slides closer to Chloe and puts her arms around her, letting Chloe sob into her shoulder. 

She doesn’t disagree. Rachel should’ve been there.

Kate should’ve been there, too. And Warren, and Dana, and Juliet, and Alyssa, and Daniel, and, hell, Victoria, Taylor, Courtney, Brooke, Stella, Evan, fucking everybody. They all deserved this. To finish high school, finish college, live their lives. She can’t say that out loud, though, not with Chloe already feeling this way. It wouldn’t make either of them feel any better, and it wouldn’t bring any of them back, so there’s no point in saying it. There’s only one way to bring any of the back, and Max won’t do it. She can’t. 

“It isn’t fair,” Chloe whispers into the crook of Max’s neck. “It isn’t fair.”

Max buries her face in Chloe’s hair. She smells like cheap hair dye and the cologne she put on this morning because “It’s a fancy occasion, Max!” and the cigarette she just smoked. Max breathes her in. “It isn’t fair,” she agrees. “But you deserve this, too. And I’m so, so proud of you.”

Max’s phone buzzes in her pocket. Her family is probably wondering where she’s gotten to. They want to take her out for dinner to celebrate. Give her more congratulations, ask more questions about what her plans are now, scold her for not calling or visiting more often. Chloe sinks against Max’s shoulder, her sobbing fading into sniffles. Max kisses the top of her head and holds her tighter. She settles into the blankets and gazes up at the clouds, stroking Chloe’s hair.

Everything else can wait.

[violexides]

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