#if you have pale invisible lashes that you think make you look weird no they dont they make you look incredible

[arom-antix]

Happy birthday to the man, the myth, the legend, trophy husband of Yuuri Katsuki, Viktor Nikiforov!

[hauntedjpegcollection]

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wc: 2786 au: vampire au ch: benny, maran

“I was sixteen.” Benny flicks cigarette ash out the window as he leans against his desk, hunched close as the wind blows his curtains around. They’re the thick black out kind, because he sleeps during the day more often than not thanks to work.

“I mean.” He tilts his head back and forth, taking another drag on the cigarette while his other hand messes with his already disheveled pale hair. He holds that inhale in his chest for a moment and then finally blows smoke out the window. It’s not night time for once—this is rare. The sunlight is still low and soft, the world outside a dull and thin gray color. It’s early morning instead of night, about to be a full day in just a few hours. The sunlight is a pensive sort of yellow, watered down to nothing. It still hurts his sensitive eyes, but it was nice to see daylight. Remember he was human.

Benny grinds his cigarette butt into the windowsill and tosses it out. Then he slides it almost shut. He likes the little bit of breeze that the wind brings in, a cool spring sort of smell. Wet grass to mingle with the dark permanently smoky smell of his room.

“I th-think I must of known before I was sixteen, bu-but my first kiss that counted w-was with my best friend, Isaac.”

“Aw, Ben,” Maran’s voice is tinted with laughter, from where he lays on the bed. He’s on his stomach, pretending to read the messy hand drawn schematics that Benny had been working on before this impromptu morning visit. “That’s sweet, yeah? I love that.”

Maran had shown up, red around the eyes with a sniffling pink nose. He’d shown up with wet lashes, shown up with that smile he always had but so obviously forced—so blatantly fucking put on that Benny hadn’t known what to do for a moment. There had been a dislodging inside his chest, like something crumbling without structure to hold it up. He’d done the only thing he could think to do. Let him in and bring him to his room, where he’d happily let Maran distract himself.

Distract didn’t feel like the right word either, because he didn’t think Maran was using him that way. Sometimes, when someone as beautiful as Maran, it was impossible not to be anxious about that. People like Maran didn’t like people like Benny. He was unapproachable. He was weird and he was mean and he was unsightly, with vampire scars he’d gotten almost covered with enough tattoos. Benny wasn’t sure how someone like Maran could ever look his way and smile—so if he got his heart broken, that was a problem for future him to deal with.

Benny, right then and there, in his sweatpants and shitty tank top, was not turning Maran away.

He goes to the bed and pulls his notes from the younger man. Pretty brown eyes follow, up and up until they reach Benny, who folds and stuffs the schematics behind him on the desk. This is not the first time they’ve been here, in this room, in this exact position. Maran on the bed and Benny standing at the edge, waiting for some invisible hint of permission to join him. He thinks of Maran’s question, volleyed randomly during conversation. How did you know?

He wants to ask, too. But he knows that’s selfish, because he knows the answer. It’s not right, but—

“Was it me?” Benny cups a hand underneath Maran’s chin, tilting him up further and further. He can feel the other man swallow. He watches the bob in his throat. There’s a slight tension to his tendons, making his neck look pretty. Exposed and stretched—Benny can almost understand a vampire, presented with that. He wants to put his mouth there, to feel Maran’s pulse. He’s in some oversized shirt that slips low around the collar. In similarly too big jeans that have rips in the knees, waist band loose and lifted at his lower back to reveal a hint of his briefs.

A window of smooth, bronze skin sits there, as if waiting for a hand to stroke across his lower back.

“Not my first kiss,” Maran replies, laughing. His eyes are shiny with humor, either oblivious to Benny’s unrepentant consistent devouring gaze, or enjoying it. The feel of Maran’s warm breath, tickling across his fingers has Benny’s throat narrowing. “Sorry. Sara Dahlgren in primary got there first.”

“Bitch,” Benny jokes with a sideways sneer. “Didn’t mean your fir-first kiss ever—that’s not what you asked.” Maran’s cheeks flood. His eyes have cooled since whatever made him cry before (Benny hadn’t asked, because he knew Maran would talk if he really needed to) but now his face is red once more. His eyes are shiny again, with a different sort of gleam.

“Isaac was the f-first guy I kissed.” Benny slowly slides his cupped hand from under Maran’s chin to his cheek. His thumb draws a gentle circle over a defined cheekbone, then his whole hand moves to Maran’s hair. It’s grown out a bit more—he’ll need it cut soon. The texture is thicker and coarse, compared to Benny’s thin blond. He can picture it growing in tiny, coiled rings.

He moves onto the bed. His knees first and then slowly makes his way up onto it, pushing Maran back by the sheer intrusion of his body alone.

There’s a bit more shifting on the bed and then they’re both laying. Benny on his back, one hand comfortably folded behind his head. Maran, on his side, with an owlish gaze in the dim morning light. He has one of his freckly hands tucked under his cheek, creating a somewhat adorable curve that makes him look even more boyish. He is undeniably one of the most handsome people has ever met, but he also manages to capture an essence of innocence in moments like this. It makes Benny feel less aroused and more…protective. Hungry, not to kiss and bite and fuck and have and own, but something else. Something worrisome, like tenderness.

“Yeah, you were the first,” Maran finally says. His words come out slightly muffled because of his squished cheek. He’s smiling though, which is also slightly warped because of that. It is crooked and beautiful. Benny reaches out and touches fingertips to his lower lip, enjoying the sudden dilation in Maran’s pupils.

“That’s shit,” Benny laughs. “I’m a bastard, you d-deserve better.”

“Hey!” Maran propels himself forward, hands curling around Benny’s shoulders, body shifting over top of him. They erupt into a laughing argument about that, jostling together. Maran’s knee’s pin between his thighs, widening his legs until they sort of sit around the other’s hips. Benny has a suspicion he has no idea how good that feels, so he clamps his teeth together to stop a noise. Benny flops his hands above his head, defeated, surrendered and breathing heavier.

“Just adm-m-mit you have bad taste, Mar.”

“I think you taste pretty good.”

Clearly, his witty tongue gets the better of him there. Maran sits back slightly, his hands resting on Benny’s thighs. His cheeks turn an even darker shade of crimson, a wicked color that descends down his lovely throat. But he still smiles, because of course he does. Cheeky little fucking brat—shy sometimes and awkward occasionally. Unsure of himself sometimes, but always with that hint of cockiness, a smile that makes Benny feel like a caged animal straining on a leash right against the bars.

“I taste like cigarettes,” he argues.

“Sort of,” Maran admits, and his smile is bashful once more. “But it’s very—like, guy. Tasting. Manly?” He fumbles his hands together like he’s trying to talk himself through the description. One of Benny’s legs hooks a bit higher around Maran’s waist. His hands are still above his head, resting there. Maran’s eyes quickly go anywhere but him, scanning the messy room as if he can find something to help him. All he would find are wooden stakes and dirty clothes. “Girls taste like chapstick most of the time.”

“Well, I’m no fucking girl.”

“I can tell—you don’t use chapstick.” The quick, clever tease makes Benny snort and laugh, lick his lips on reflex. Maran’s eyes follow the movement. Ben does nothing more than shift a bit to get more comfortable, one knee still half bent, the other leg pulling Maran in closer. He fumbles a bit, hands sliding down sweatpants clad highs. He blinks his pretty brown eyes a few times and Benny realizes that all the times they’ve been together, these positions have always been reversed.

Benny likes topping. He likes being the dominant partner, even. He likes leading—guiding. Teaching. Corrupting. Telling someone what to do, and if he was being rougher about it, demanding. Sometimes, with a mean hand behind a neck and filthy whispers into their ear. But Benny also likes this. He likes being spread out slightly beneath another man, he likes the feeling of being looked at and he likes that Maran so obviously likes looking at him. It pets his ego, but it also makes him feel desired in a way that isn’t…nasty. Benny fingers curl and uncurl, above his head.

“Do you wanna touch me, Mar?”

The offer puts a visible hitch in Maran’s breathing. Benny slowly reaches to take the edge of his tank top and move it up over his stomach. He adjusts to get the fabric higher, until its sitting above his collarbone and then Benny returns his hand above his head. Maran’s eyes dart everywhere for a moment and then they quickly slide away. Then they stutter back and then away again. He laughs, nervously but doesn’t move or say anything else. It seems to get stuck in his chest, whatever he might be trying to articulate.

It reminds Benny of when Maran is right there, about to cum and quickly stuffs knuckles into his mouth to quiet himself. What he wouldn’t give to show Maran it’s okay to be noisy; that Benny wants to hear everything he’s going to moan or whimper, or just say. Anything at all.

“Y-You’re not gonna do anything wrong,” Benny laughs. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the pillow, lets himself relax. “I like being touched.”

A beat passes. Benny feels his heart speed up. Another beat and then—hands slowly slide around his waist. Benny sighs and relaxes into the warm sensation of dry palms on his skin. He doesn’t open his eyes yet, because he has a feeling it’s giving Maran confidence to explore. And he does explore; his hands notch a bit higher on Benny’s torso, cupping ribs in an intimate manner. A shiver passes up Ben’s spine at the sensation of thumbs drawing across his skin—tracing the edges of moth wings, he realizes, inked underneath his sternum.

As Maran sits forward, their hips slide together more and Benny takes advantage. He hooks his legs harder and forces their bodies closer.

“You’re so warm,” Maran mumbles quietly. A hand brushes downward once more. A finger taps underneath his belly button—a painful bruise heats inside him there and he cannot stop himself from blinking down. Maran is staring directly at the spider tattooed there. His eyes are lidded, heavy and hungry in a way Benny has not seen before. That naked desire has an effect on his entire body that is like grasping an electric fence.

Maran’s hands travel once more. Up again. One passes over Benny’s chest and he cannot help but let his head fall loose on the pillow and moan. It’s entirely unintentional, but that doesn’t mean he tries to quiet it. The blankets rustle as Maran presses in closer (that brings their lower halves closer once more, tangling them up in a way that could also make him moan). The hand on his chest cups his pectoral and with either confidence or intuition, Maran squeezes and makes inhale hard.

His eyes pop open, flit about the ceiling before landing on Maran. He seems half pleased and half fucking battered. The expression is so sweetly, adorably his boy that it makes Benny tilt and laugh. A hand lifts to wrap around Maran’s forearm, slide appreciatively up the curving swell of a darker bicep. He squeezes his own appreciation.

“Y-You’re surprised?”

“I wasn’t expecting that!”

“It feels good!” Benny’s laugh peters out softly. His hand doesn’t leave Maran’s arm. “F-Fuck off, you ha-have nice hands, Mar.”

“I do?” He lifts it off Benny’s chest, to glance down at his palm. With his free hand, Benny snatches it and returns it directly to his chest. To curve around his tattooed flesh, to hold and press against a now alert nipple. The brush against it makes Benny shiver and sigh pleasantly. Maran’s cheeks are bright again.

“It’s different,” he says. His hand curves harder, just enough to put tension on that sensitive nub. Benny closes his eyes once more, gives into the relaxing feeling of being teased and toyed and enjoyed. “Like, yeah? Obviously, yeah. Knew it’d be different—touching you, verses…touching—right? But. It’s not so different in other ways.”

“Guess you’re just a na-natural.” Benny’s voice sharpens on the last word when his nipple rolls between Maran’s index finger and thumb. “Or humans have sensitive nerve endings regardless of gender.”

“Alright, professor?”

“Oh, are you into that, baby? Want me to teach lessons—” Benny’s sentence cuts out with quick, excited gasp when he feels Maran’s mouth close around his pec. A warm tongue lavishes, pointed, making his hand scramble. He touches defined shoulders, a muscular back. Maran’s strength hides underneath his baggy clothing, but Benny’s fingers dig hard enough to bruise. That seems to make the mouth against him hungrier, kisses moving to his sternum and then up.

Maran kisses him then—and Benny can see why girls probably liked Maran so much. He kisses with an intensity that makes melting feel humanly possible. Like he’d pass straight through the mattress, seep through floorboards. His hands yank at Maran’s shirt, pushing it up and up until their kiss breaks apart long enough for the fabric to be thrown aside. Then they kiss again and Maran kisses him hard. Hand curled behind Benny’s neck, the other doing appreciative gropes down his chest. Benny has to pull away because he’s fucking dizzy, because Maran’s kissed him fucking lightheaded.

And Maran only presses kisses to his jaw then, to his neck. The blooming warmth is beautifully overwhelming.

“Jesus,” Benny pants, snatching Maran’s cheeks and yanking them to look at each other. “You’re killing me here, man.”

“Hm?” Maran hums instead of dignifying a reply, his lips crooked.

“Insatiable little fuck.” Benny punctuates each word with a shake of Maran’s head. The grin only goes wider and more crooked with each gesture. “Last time I give you the upper hand.” It’s a lie. Benny likes being on top…but sometimes he likes this too. He likes being consumed like this. Their chests slide together as Maran lays over top of him, between his legs. The position is so familiar that it’s hard for Benny to think. The momentary vision of Maran, wedged between his thighs, holding up his knees to keep them parted is enough to make Benny slap a hand over his on eyes.

“We could keep going.” The suggestion is sing song, right against his skin.

Instead of replying, Benny reaches out blindly to slap until he finds a wire. It’s a charger, connected to a mostly broken phone. He pulls the thin white wire until the phone dangles enough for him to read the time, even upside down. He shares a glance with Maran, who attempts innocence once more at the sight of how late (or early) it is. Wide eyed, hands on Benny’s chest, eyebrows raised. He plinks his lashes.

“Take off yo-your jeans,” Benny says. Maran’s eyes widen and he sits up quickly. When he shuffles off the bed and starts yanking at them, Benny rolls over and smacks at the light switch on the wall. The room goes only moderately dark, since morning has fully crept upon them and buttery light spills in from the window. Maran crosses to it, quickly snapping the black out curtains close.

When he slides back into the bed, Benny traps him with the blankets, cocooning him into a squirming mess. He presses a snarling kiss to Maran’s cheek, more laugh than anything else. The laughter quiets because of the kissing, but Benny doesn’t let it go much further than kissing and Maran ends up falling asleep swiftly.

[genderlesshades]

okokok so I know I meme on the radiance and the pale king a lot, but I'm also kinda going "god damn what a terrible situation to be in" at all parties. Mb its just cause I haven't read the lore in a hot minute, time span? I'm having 4 am thoughts don't mind me. This may not even make sense in the morning lmao. just enjoy the ramblings if ya want yall

anyways, To have an entire group of people completely abandon one god in favor of another in such a short timespan? well usually that happens cause of stuff like genocide or cultural genocide. And maybe I just happened to miss it, but I don't think that happened in hallownest. But maybe it did and maybe thats why radiance got so fuckin mad. Or maybe the moths just slowly drifted away towards PK, which can happen over generations. But it also sort of seems like. self destructive ig. Radi destroying the people of any neighboring kingdom because she's *furious* man. so upset, and angry, and lonely even. Like, imagine being a very powerful individual with a very loyal fan base only for some weird ass fork looking thing to steal that fan base away from you. Well, more like a kingdom but ig fanbase may be the online equivalent. But here comes some fuckoff weird fork lookin man, steals your look, steals your people, and then fucks off. AND. Also stole folk away from some other nearby local gods? the fucks up with that?? fuck you actually PK. I'm gonna idk, wipe out ur cities. that's pretty reasonable for a god's reaction right?

"hold on hades, she also targeted others who weren't aligned with PK. Why would radi target them? weren't they hurt by the PK's actions?" Yes great question invisible audience. But here's the thing, people don't react reasonably all the time. Radi basically lost everything. Her people started drifting away from her until there was one singular old moth left who still seemed to care about her still. And they were alone. Her and her singular moth follower were oh so painfully alone, with nothing but ghosts to keep them company.

So she lashes out. Ignoring the fact that causing a massive plague is generally extreme cause she's a god, we can still recognize that she is very deeply hurt, upset, and angry. And normal people when hurt, upset, and angry, don't usually think clearly. They tend to say things that hurt people, or sound agressive, or even be agressive. Some people may isolate even, though different people do different things. Radi's reaction was to lash out in a way that hurt anyone around them.

"ok, but what does this have to do with places like Greenpath or Deepnest?" GREAT question invisible audience. Sometimes people react to things that are associated with a certain topic with the same reaction as the certain topic. There are certain songs I disliked until I saw a really cool video go along with it, which made me like the song. The brain is weird like that, and likes to categorize things (even if we don't recognize it as categorizing). Add in a "me vs them" mentality and it only gets worse. That is likely what happened here. Radi gets pissed off at PK, and likely also at the white lady. Well, the white lady has control over greenpath now, unlike Unn, so fuck the greenpath too cause that's technically part of PK's domain. WELL he *also* has an alliance with the mantis tribe, and control over the mushroom tribe. So fuck them too.

Maybe Deepnest would have been safe if Herrah and PK didn't have their deal, but they did, and now Deepnest is terrible too for siding with PK. Maybe the hive or outer edges would have been safe, but the colluseum houses itself in a wyrm's body. And maybe at that point, radi was certain that it was her vs the world, so she *had* to protect herself/defend her honor.

"well didn't the PK deserve all that?" I mean, if you look at it from Radi's perspective sure! but what about PK's perspective? He starts up a pretty cool kingdom, has a lovely wife, is well loved by his subjects, and Radi's followers stsrt deciding to follow him. He can't control that, though he could certainly try to discourage it. He tried being friendly, though perhaps it is in his nature to want to consume all he can. To control as much as possible, to become the bigger enemy. Perhaps he and radi just fuckin. Poofed up at each other like chickens do and instead of anyone going "hey man, whats goin on? maybe we can figure this out with our words" they just keep poofing up at each other, mad at the other for different reasons.

So his people start getting sick with this religious disease caused by what's clearly a rival God. So he tries to figure out the source, and to find solutions with the least drastic measures. But it slowly builds to more and more desperate attempts until he discovers the void, something very opposite of what he and the radiance is. So he casts the children of him and WL into the void, and waits. Because *surely* this will work. a container to hold this fucker in. Trains up this container so they're really good at being a container. Well, the container is leaky and he doesn't realize until it's too late. The infection comes back, and he loses everything he once had, just like Radi did.

I think messing with the void might have led to his death, just like it does with Radi, just maybe less aggressively. Both were so desperate to try and maintain something that was never going to last, only to be consumed by what's nearly a literal definition of an end.

Maybe if they would've just talked, they would still be around with thriving communities. Maybe they would have been friends, or akin to siblings maybe. Perhaps PK and WL would have had children, and deepnest may have slowly crumbled apart from not having an heir of royal blood. Maybe Unn would regain their strength and join the other gods. Who knows what the possibilities could have been.

It's a shame, though, knowing such a connection could never happen.

[allandoflimbo]

Ashens (Part 24)

Summary: She falls in love with Bucky Barnes from the moment she sees him. Bucky, still in love with a woman from his past, hates Y/N and plans to make her life miserable. To both their dismay, they are assigned together to go undercover into The Capitol for six months. There, they develop a heartbreaking friend with benefits agreement. Dystopian.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 4,700

Rating: M for Mature, E for explicit. Enemies to lovers trope, sharing a bed trope, friends with benefits trope, temporarily unrequited love, heavy and angry sex, heavy on the angst, and very strong language.

Waging wars to shake the poet and the beat

I hope it's gonna make you notice

“…I’m in the military, sir…”

“…James, that’s my father, okay? If anything, let’s just be glad he didn’t kill you. He’s like that with everyone…And the soldier thing, he’s weird about that. I’m not sure why…”

Bucky lies awake in bed, fluffy pillow behind his head and one leg peeking out from the blankets, as random memories knack away at his brain in pulses. They weren’t new memories, but they were memories that he never looked at the way he was now.

He doesn’t know why now, he doesn’t know what triggered it, but they were clicking together.

After years of replaying the same moments in his head, there was a nagging feeling that was telling him that there was something not adding up.

He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s seeing things differently, if he’s feeling things differently.

Whatever it was, he knew there was something…off.

There was something off about Daisy’s story about her dad’s story, something was off about the way he was against Bucky fighting in the military, and her death was coinciding so much with his capture.

He doesn’t like the feeling in his stomach as he remembers.

When Bucky asked about her brother and what that whole commotion back at the club was she was blatantly honest with him.

“My father’s not a good guy. He’s been wanting some something from one of these performers that was suppose to be there last night, but turns out they weren’t even on the set list. He had lied about it, we don’t know where he is.”

Bucky raises a brow at this, “You do his dirty work for him?”

“No, I don’t like to get involved in that. It’s a dangerous lifestyle. I have to think about my future family. I was only there yesterday because my brother wanted to get me out of the house for once.”

Bucky isn’t too gleam on the fact that her family are borderline criminals and that she basically supports it, and for a fraction of a second he almost doesn’t buy it, but he decides to mention this later on, not wanting to ruin their moment.

Bucky shifts his leg as he continues to remember that conversation. Why was he not against it? Why did he never question the crimes? Was he that distracted by her?

Bucky smiles at her comment, but then his brows furrowed together in an adorable way that made Daisy giggle and bring her hand to his cheek, “What is it, James?”

What is it, James?

Bucky looks over to see you laying next to him, sat up with your back against the headboard reading some book with a beige cover.

You hadn’t taken notice of his self discomfort yet, emerged in your reading, tucking your bottom lip into your mouth.

Why was he remembering all of this now? Why was he feeling sick?

When they pulled away she slowly dragged her thumb across his plump bottom lip. He watched her like she was the most gorgeous and interesting thing on the planet.

“James?” He responded with a sound on confirmation and she continued, “do you think we are moving too fast?”

He grabbed her hand that was on his face and for a fraction of a moment she thought that that was it, they were over. This was clearly too unrealistic. But instead he brought her hand up over both his lips and he kissed her gingerly.

“Yes.” He whispered behind her hand, making sure he was making direct eye contact with her.

Her face dropped. “Yes?” Her voice was worried, cautious.  

He started trailing kisses down her hand, her wrist, her forearms. He leaned down and kissed the side of her neck making her groan.

It wasn’t that Daisy didn’t like being pampered but she wanted to take this very seriously. With a reluctant sigh - because what he was doing to her flesh just felt so good - she delicately removes her arm from Bucky’s grasp. He narrowed his eyes as she moved away towards the head board, suddenly wondering if maybe he said the wrong thing.

Her eyes trickled his features and down his perfect little nose.

“I knew it since the moment I laid my eyes on you. That’s how you know it’s real. This isn’t crazy, it’s ludicrous. But it works for us. I want to be with you.”

After his little speech Daisy looked him dead in the eye, not batting one lash.

“Then come have dinner with my family.”

Was it too fast? He had barely known her and she was asking him to meet her family. Criminals.

But why would she give away such dire information if it were true?

Bucky sat up slowly, as if if he were to move too quickly, the bed would collapse underneath him.

His eyes had a far away look in him, and he was as pale as he felt.

You feel him shift and your eyes flicker up to him.

You frown.

Her blue eyes glisten with gentle tears, probably thinking the same exact thing. None of it still feels real.

Her, she, doesn’t feel real.

They spent nearly every night together just talking about what Bucky would do when he came back home after camp. Things like how they would have to go see the stars on the back of an outskirts farmhouse, how they would have to go to every club in the city and laugh their night away, how he would take her to coney island with him and Steve and show her a “good time” on the ferris wheel, and how they would definitely have to meet her family.

“They’re great, you’ll love them.” She had said as they laid in bed together just hours before, merely cuddling with clothes on.

“Oh, come on doll, even your Dad?”

Daisy hesitated for a moment and her hand that was rubbing his chest stopped suddenly.

Bucky noted this and they met eyes.

Bucky feels his heart palpitate and he opens and closes his right hand, sitting up.

“Bucky, what’s wrong?” You ask softly, closing your book.

“Dad has been gone for four weeks and I don’t know why. Jimmy has gone with him- it’s just me and mother. I overheard her saying something about Germany but I’m not quite sure.. Or maybe it was something else. Though none of that matters to me, James- I want you. Please come home to me.”

For some reason, a chill ran down his back as he reread the words “something about Germany”.

Like an awful memory that has never happened, he sees a child in front of him. It was a little girl and she screamed in agony for mercy. She was getting strangled to death by his own hand, a silver glint caught his eye-

“James!”

“Bucky.”

Your voice pulls him out of his trance for just a moment.

He looks up to you, your eyes interlacing in a silent conversation of understanding.

He was revealing something to himself and you could tell that whatever that was it was leaving him overcome by feelings.

At the end of the day, he knows that he’s just insanely protective of Steve. Which is why his arm instinctively goes around him when Rogers almost gets hit by a speeding vehicle that abruptly stops to halt in front of them on the curb. With his mind far away, he hadn’t realized they were already standing on the sidewalk in front of one bright sign labeled Cotton Club.

Had Bucky known better, he would’ve had him on his left.

After that introduction, the two boys look over to the object that almost killed them.

It was pure black, the countless lights coming from the surrounding buildings and cars bouncing off its surface. The rain must’ve made it even shinier, the lights made a reflection so bright that it had everyone staring. Men looked in awe and a young paper boy, standing on the corner working over time, wondered if that would someday be his future.

With a look of disgust, Steve was repulsed by the obscurity of the man’s driving having nearly hit him. He wondered why people had no respect and he desperately wanted to punch his face in. Either that or give him a pep talk about general safety.

“What a twit.” He snarls, dusting off his small suspenders and kicking the invisible debris off his lapels.

Bucky’s face held something different. It explained why the woman staring had looked on in pure jealousy. He stared forward completely emotionless. He was neither annoyed at the fact that he almost just got run over and killed and nor in obsession over the Duesenberg J.

It was the beautiful goddess emerging from the passenger seat that caught his full attention.

On her left hand was a pearl and diamond bracelet and she used it to skim over the top of the priceless car door for leverage to push herself gracefully up from the leather seat. Her other hand was wrapped up in a prestige white glove. It held onto the hem of her silver sparkling gown, a long white cigar between her digits. Her gorgeous dress looked heavy, you could tell it was so properly made and expensive because it must’ve weighed as much as her petite self. The reason being that it hugged her body at just the perfect places, showing off her curves gracefully.

Her perfect blonde hair was pulled slick back by a diamond hair clip to the side in huge voluminous waves. The dress showed just enough back, the material dipping down towards the floor, the dip ending just above her bottom. The entire thing was held by two tiny silver straps on her shoulders.

In a sentimental Mood by Duke Ellington seemed to have played perfectly in sync with the exact moment she shut the door behind her. She looked up to read the sign, her perfect profile looking up in awe.

Bucky stands up from the bed, back rigid and face hard with anger.

No.

It couldn’t be.

He swallows thickly, gaze going towards you again.

He doesn’t know why he keeps looking at you.

Ironically, beneath his anger and betrayal, he also began to feel embarrassment.

He’s momentarily startled out of his trance when he feels a small hand grab his elbow.  He looks down and his eyes meet a small concerned Steve. Well, to be fairly honestly, he looked more pissed than concerned.

Bucky doesn’t feel the patience to deal with talking anything out, he’s too busy thinking about Daisy. But he feels like he should at least say something so he can get everyone off his back, “What is it?”

Steve looks at him likes he’s crazy and then manically gestures towards the entrance of the club, probably pointing to where Daisy just left through.

“Bucky, what the heck was that? Who was that? You know her?”

“I didn’t know her. No.” Bucky doesn’t realize he’s saying it out loud.

He’s shaking his head to himself, mumbling.

“Bucky, who are you talking to?” You’re growing even more concerned by the second now.

The silence was broken by his strong voice.

“You’re real.”

She smiles in a way that makes him smile too. It was contagious and bright. He caresses her skin one more time.

He felt her own hand come over his and she whispers, “I’m real.”

“Not real.”

You are more than concerned at this point.

“What are you talking about?”

“Maybe it was the fact that my body had finally developed into a women’s body. My breasts were now fully perked and my legs were long and porcelain gorgeous; all I knew was they figured I could be put to good use.”

He shook his head and Bucky blinked away heavy tears.“I-“

The pretty woman rolled her eyes and crossed her legs, revealing a long slit that ran up her dress. It was just enough skin for Bucky’s hand to get sweaty.

He waited until the perfect opportunity when the man had walked towards the direction of the stage, making his way into the back behind the curtain.

“It wasn’t real.”

“You do his dirty work for him?”

“It wasn’t real.”

“My father’s not a good guy.”

Bucky remembers them poking him with IV drops and then sticking his head in a blender. His owns screams fill his head. It was so painful.

“Reason unknown, ongoing investigation"

“I wasn’t going to let you keep her. She enticed you. She won you. It was always supposed to be you.”

“…blonde 21 year old was found shot…”

“Daisy,” he whispered. He traced her features with his hand, and just like that the fear escaped his eyes, and instead of scared he was now feeling complete love and he was ready because knew this is what he wanted forever. He wanted her, “Will you marry me?”

“…Her family has been under investigation after her father’s disappearance —…”

“But you jeopardized it, Soldat. It wasn’t real.”

The memories are sucked out of him like a vacuum and his dark eyes meet yours, again, across the bed.

You had never seen his pupils so blown before.

You were terrified.

Your eyes go down to his flesh hand that is twitching against his thigh.

“Bucky.” You say cautiously, one more time. It was almost like you were afraid to get closer to him.

“I—“ his voice was hoarse.

He looks away and clears his throat. He blinks away the heavy daze, allowing it all to sink in until it settles in his stomach in a surprising pool of acceptance.

He sees you again and for some reason he feels okay.

It scares him.

It scared him how you took something that had been bothering him for so long, away that quickly.

In that moment he knows.

“I remembered something.” Your eyebrows came together suddenly. Nearly moments ago he looked heartbroken but now he just looked shocked and angry.

“What did you remember? I thought you had your memories back. In Wakanda.”

“I-I did,” he squeaks out running a hand through his hair, “maybe I’m just remembering differently, or adding pieces together, I don’t know, I can’t tell. It has to be, because it makes sense. It makes so much sense now, and I can’t—and she—”

“Bucky you’re rambling,” he stops and you continue to look at each other. His face drops all traces of anger and it softens, “Talk to me, I’m right here.” You whisper.

Bucky looks down at you and nods. No hesitancy.

“Give me your hands.” You say, reaching for him. He doesn’t hold back from doing so, and once you have his hands in yours, you pull him up onto the bed so he’s kneeling on it next to you.

Bucky takes a few minutes to compose himself before he says it:

“I think Daisy and her family were Hydra.” He says it like he’s afraid of his own words.

As if every word in that phrase was a curse word.

Somehow, it relieves him.

His chest feels light, shoulders worn. He can breathe.

+ + +

“I should’ve known it was too fast. Too perfect,” you’re also stunned as he tells you everything, his hands still in yours, “but—but I don’t think she was always hydra. I think she wanted out when I was captured and they killed her for it.”

You don’t deny it, that hurts. Despite never knowing the girl and secretly holding envy for her, it pains you.

“Oh, Bucky.”

He shakes his head, eyebrows furrowing together.

“But it was a lie. She enticed me, she fucking—“ Bucky sucks in a deep breath, “she was trying to lure me in. There was nothing real about it.” He says the word like it’s venom on his lips.

You feel him rub his thumb over the back of your hand.

“You don’t know that -”

He shakes his head again, “She was Hydra!” He doesn’t say it angrily as much as he says it in a way to announce it to himself.

He needed to say it out loud. He needed to let it sink in.

You watch Bucky as he becomes completely numb, and somehow free, in front of you.

For some reason you expected more heartbreak from him for discovering something so horrible about a woman he claimed he loved so much, a woman he wanted to marry, but instead all you got from him was anger and acceptance.

Little did you know, Bucky was in the same boat as you.

Why wasn’t he as heat shattered as he’d expect?

“I-“ he’s speechless as he looks around, trying to find something, but he does’t know what.

You think you’re more shocked than him and you quickly grab his arm, bringing him against you for a tight hug.

He hugs you back immediately, hand running up your shoulder blade and onto the back of your hair.

Minutes pass by. Many minutes.

“It was all a lie,” he whispers still holding onto. you, “All of it. I really was alone. I thought I finally had someone, but—It wasn’t real.”

You don’t know what to say as you run your hand up the back of his head.

It’s not until you pull him in tighter that he realizes it.

It was you.

You were there reason this didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. His heart no longer wanted to be with someone who was long gone.

It wanted to stay here.

Here.

He never thought he would ever feel this way ever again, and he never thought he would trust this hard ever again.

Realizing truth relived him of buried pain, and he wanted you to keep holding him, to keep helping him go through this.

He says your name softly.

“Yes?”

“I want to talk about everything.”

You stiffen for a moment as you let his words sink in. You weren’t exactly sure what he was talking about.

“What are you talking about?” You ask.

“All of it. Everything that I did. I need to get it out, I can’t keep doing this, holding it in, keeping it inside —”

The euphoria through your blood is addicting.

“Tell me.”

He loved slow dancing.

He loved the Yankees.

He loved math and Howard Stark.

He went to the Stark Expo every year.

He loved The Hobbit and he loved jazz.

He loved New York City.

He loved Brooklyn the most.

He misses flat hats.

He loved telling jokes.

His mother died when he was young.

His sister was taken away from him.

He cried when he couldn’t see her.

His father died not too long after.

He never enlisted despite his love for the military.

He was drafted.  

He experienced World War II but on the enemy side.

He fought with Hitler’s and Hydra’s men.

He was loved by the KGB.

He loved Prague.

He trained the girls in the red room.

He remembers every young girl.

He was told to kill four kids on a mission once in Bucharest.

He was tormented, beaten raw, and kept in a concrete cell between cryo periods.

He was only occasionally fed, most years spent asleep.

He was treated like an animal. They tied him to the wall once in the cell, with a chain around his neck.

He was brain washed.

He was sexually assaulted by Hydra.

He doesn’t remember if he was raped, which could be his brain’s way of protecting himself from more trauma.

He reminds you that loved Howard Stark.

He killed Howard Stark.

He killed Maria Stark.

He was the one that stole the super soldier serum from the Stark’s and provided it to Hydra.

He was the fist of Hydra.

He killed many other good men. Over two dozen assassinations.

He killed JFK.

He never wanted to do any of it.

He remembers all of it.

They named him a hero on the Wall of Valor before S.H.I.E.L.D fell.

He was taken into Wakanda, freed of his trigger words.

He still loved New York City.

He was pardon him, despite everything.

They named him an Avenger.

He remembers it all.

You’re laying down facing each other and you continue to watch him as he tells you everything.

It’s one of the most surreal experiences of your life and you find yourself in total awe.  

This was the Bucky Barnes you had been longing to see. This was the man you knew was hidden beneath layers of hurt and anger.

You had seen it before he even told you.

The fact that he even trusted you enough to be this transparent with you is what makes you so happy.

His eyes brightened as he played with a string on the blanket between you.

“And Friends,” his voice is small and there’s a little smile on his mouth. Your heart swells as you watch it, “I love Friends.”

You bite your tongue as you smile.

Bucky stared at you, just as amazed at himself as he was at you. He couldn’t believe he told it all to you.

It was as if Daisy’s image had begun to dissolve and he was finally seeing clearly.

He didn’t hate you. He never hated you.

His fingers peak out slowly to take a hold of your pinky.

It was the opposite. He wanted you.

He feels himself breaking when you pull away from his touch. His smile falls.

“I’m proud of you,” you say quietly, sitting up again, “For finally talking about it.” You mean it, “Thank you.”

It takes him a few seconds to eventually look away and he turns onto his back. Bucky drapes an arm over his stomach, letting out a long breath of contentment.

He felt free.

To do what?

He looks over at you again as you pull your book back out.

This. This is what freedom got him. You.

But it you weren’t his. He clears his throat.

“How are things with your boyfriend?”

You don’t like talking about Pietro with Bucky.

“It’s fine,” you answer anyway, “We only had one date. And I got sick, so hopefully the next one will be better.”

Bucky swallows thickly. Why was he feeling like this? He should be happy for you. You wanted this. You deserved this.

“What do you plan to do when it’s time for us both to leave and go back?” He asks.

You don’t miss the way he mentions both of you to leave and your eyes quickly flicker to him.

“I don’t know yet,” you say hoarsely, filled with unexpected relief.

+ + +

Bucky doesn’t remember experiencing this kind of happiness since he was nineteen and him and Steve went to go see a baseball game after scoring a date with two pretty girls on the F train.

He’s happy.

Ashen peaks up at him from behind dark lashes, smiling so hard his eyes peak up at the side, turning them into thin slits. Bucky’s aren’t too far off as he mimics the boy’s laughter.

“Connect four?” Bucky asks, chuckling.

“Yeah, you’ve gotta try it. It’s so fun.” The Ashens says happily, pulling out the little game from underneath his bed. Bucky wants to ask him why he has it hidden, but he doesn’t. He just reminds him that they need to stay quiet, “plus, it’s the only game I have anyway. But it’s fun Mr. Bucky.”

“Haha, alright lets try it.” Bucky says.

They sit across from each other on the floor, setting up the little game and dividing their colored chips. Ashen’s goes first, dropping in a yellow one.

Bucky picks up a red one with his flesh hand and drops it right next to the yellow. They continue for a bit until Ashens notices Bucky isn’t connecting his colors.

“No, you have to try to get a straight line and connect it!” He laughs, “you suck at this."

“Oh, no! What did I do?” Bucky exclaims, laughing.

“You’re not very smart for an Avenger.” Ashens remarks.

“Okay,” Bucky points at him playfully, smiling, “That’s mean.”

“I’m sorry but it is true.”

“Cut me some slack.” Bucky says, smiling.

They play for a little longer until Ashens ends up beating him.

Bucky sticks his tongue out at the boy, but smiles. He eventually caught on to the game and let him win. But he doesn’t need to know that.

“Mr. Bucky,” Ashen says after he slides the game back under his head. He brings his legs up to his chest and hugs them, "Will you tell me now why you are here to save me?”

Bucky licks his lip and sighs. He looks out Ashens' high rise window and then back to him again. “Not yet.”

“Should I be afraid.”

“No. I won’t let anything happen you. I promise.”

Ashens doesn’t say anything as he lets his Mike Wazowski slippers hit each other.

“Do you have any kids? Like my age?”

The question surprises Bucky, and for a moment a feeling of longing hits him. “No. I don’t.”

“Aww okay.”

Bucky stares at Ashens little sad face and his heart breaks.

“I always wanted to, though,” Bucky whispers, “But that was years ago.”

“When you were in world war one?”

Bucky smiles.

“Two, not one, but yeah,” it’s not a lie, Bucky knows that if his loved would’ve went a different way, he would have definitely had kids. To know he could never go back to such simplicity broke his heart, “Something like that.”

There was something, that even so many months later, still bothered Bucky. It was something so small, and it probably didn’t really affect you as much as it affected him, but it was something you said to him.

It was one of your many fights and the way you had spatted at him about buying you plan B after you had sex.

He didn’t want to burden you. What you two had done had been irresponsible. An atmosphere like this was no place and time for an unwanted baby.

You weren’t ready for one, let alone his.

At the time, it wasn’t that he wouldn’t want the baby, if you were to have gotten pregnant, he would have loved that child with everything. He was thinking about you.

He hated to think that he gave you that pill as a gesture to say that he wanted nothing to do with you.

If so, you were wrong.

He wanted you to be happy, just smart.

He cared about you.

And now, possibly more.

As he continues to watch Ashens giggling over his slippers, that feeling of longing washes over Bucky again.

He knows he needs to tell you.

+ + +

You still weren’t feeling well. Maybe it was your nerves. The end of the mission was getting closer by each day and you never expected you’d have to leave with a little kid. You still hadn’t met Ashens, but Bucky says he’s a delight.

Ashens has changed him. You took notice immediately and it made you happy. This whole experience would be good for him.

After Bucky had poured out his heart to you, you knew you needed to get away again. That was the dance now. You get pulled, you take a step back. You couldn’t let yourself go there anymore, no matter how hard it was.

Pietro would be the driving force to help you.

You just wish Bucky would stop doing things that he probably realized he wasn’t even doing. The way he touches your face and your hand, or some times the way he looks at you, was not appropriate for two fuck buddies who stopped…fucking.

You were still convinced that he wanted you two to go your separate ways at the end of this mission. Him indirectly saying he was going to walk out with you made you happy, it could’ve been Ashens that helped him have a change of heart, whatever it was, this thing between you had to dissolve anyway.

You couldn’t keep doing that to himself, even when he would blur your lines.

You really wished he would stop doing that.

That night you after the ball, you were almost sure that he was developing feelings for you - finally - it’s why you tried to get him to finally tell you why the kiss bothered him.

Bucky never told you the truth, and you were too tired to keep digging.

You were glad that was the last time.

It was over. All of it was over.

Your stomach churns again and you decide to make yourself some tea and head to bed.

@snakeeatery17 @utterlyhopeful-fics , @marvelfan1017, @iheartsebastianstan , @annathesillyfriend , @redhairedfeistynerd, @perksofbeingabookworm, @amyrose051, @meegggoooo, @morganclaire4 , @captainchrisstan, @bxndys , @shoesonpointe ,  @writerwrites, @rainbowkisses31, @lindatreb , @littlemissner98 , @dezzylou24, @ayeitslelee , @hardygal69 ,  @emmabarnes , @redbarn1995@thequeenreaders@ilovemysupersoldiers@maximumplaidzonknerd@ceapa-mica @s-trawberryv-eins@buckysknifecollections@sobangie@lindatreb@theseuscmander@nervous-plant @wildmoonflower @aya-fay@appreciating-fanfics@kaitlynisinfinite@justreadingfics@kaitieskidmore1 @mrsdancing​ @everythingiloveandcherish @shinykoalacat​ @dragongirl31 @kaitlynisinfinite​ @alwaysclassyeagle

[snapefiction]

#5. Memories - Snapemas Challenge

A/N: Day 5 of #Snapemas! I´m late but(!!!) It's still the 5th of December. I didn't proof read this one but I will tomorrow. Enjoy! :)

Idea from @deepperplexity ´s Writing Challenge ! Check her Writings and the other Snapemas posts out! :)

❤️ Please remember that English isn’t my native language and that my Writings will include Mistakes and maybe weird formed sentences. ❤️ 

Pairing: Severus Snape x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, mention of abuse

Word count: 2907

Y/N - Your Name, Y/L/N - Your last name, Y/H/C - your Hair colour 

#5. Memories

Walking down the corridor leading from the libary towards the Great hall you didn't expect to meet anyone. It was in the middle of the night and if you wouldn't have felt asleep while studying some new books you would have been already at your chambers. Trying to find the way without any light you fell over your feet twice. You tried to be respectful to the Paintings but your niceties would break your neck if you wouldn't finally turn on your wand. The reason why you studied until you fell asleep was quiet simple. Severus Snape, the Potions Master, the Man you fell in love with a few weeks ago asked you if you'd like to have Dinner with him. Of course you said yes but regretted it moments after. What if he wanted to talk about Potions? It's been three years since you've been a student yourself and he teached it for more than 8 years now. You'd totally embarrass yourself in front of him. That's why you did some panic studying after your working day. 

Reaching your chambers you quick laid down on your bed. Your head still hummed from reading about different stirring ways, ingredient preparation and correct ways to storage potions. Not being sure how much you'd remember tomorrow evening you still felt prepared and way more secure than you did a few years ago. Using a spell you invented for brushing your teeth in bed you quickly felt asleep a few moments after. Oh, magic could safe so much time of your life. You loved it.

Waking up in the Moning you instantly felt nervous. Today was the day. Around 8pm he'd pick you up at your chambers and walk you down to his where you'd eat and talk. You knew that there was no polite way out now and even if you still had the chance you wouldn't want to take it. When you First met him around a month ago at a staff meeting where Headmaster Dumbledore introduced you to the other Professors you fell in love with him. Yes, he didn't even cared about someone new joining their staff and yes he didn't even said welcome or anything at all but you still felt attached to him. He just simply wouldn't lie to be polite or to make people happy. That's it. His honesty was so refreshing fascinating that you couldn't help it but develope a thing for him. Not to mention his intelligence. He wasn't just bookmark but also life smart. Whenever you had a question about anything he'd always know the answer. He even knew a lot about Mugglestudies which impressed you a lot. Also Severus was a truly handsome man. His hooked nose may repel other people's likings but you really loved it. His whole face- the whole man was so beautiful- you couldn't stop thinking about him. Yes, he was a few years older than you are but that's the least thing that could scare you away from such an interesting human being like he was. 

The time wouldn't pass. You tried everything. In class you gave everything to distract yourself from looking towards the clock hanging on the wall, you tried to organise all your papers from your desk and clean the classroom in your break and tried to think about everything but tonight. But still the clock hasn't moved as fast as you wanted it to. Getting more and more fussy your day became a real torture. You couldn't even finish your breakfast because you got too nervous and excited that your stomach rejected to digest anything. So you gave in to let your mind wander to your black haired date and about everything you still wanted to do until you'd meet him later. As you thought about which dress you should wear you almost misspelled ,Bowtruckle' while writing on the chalkboard. It was easy to see that only the thought about him could get you out of your tracks.

Finally reaching the end of your class you almost ran to your chambers. Severus would pick you up in less than two hours and you still had to shower, pick out your outfit and rethink your whole life.

Standing on front of her door only do he could wait a few seconds until the clock hit exactly 8pm he heard her fast steps crossing the room over and over again. His palms became sweaty and his mouth dry. Was he really going on a date? Could he just go out and date someone after everything he went through with Lily? After her death he swore to himself that he could never love again but- She opened her wooden creaky door. Allowing him to look at her. Her YHC Hair was laying in curls over her shoulders. Her eyelids had a golden shimmer on them and her lashes looked as beautiful and long as always. Nervously she flattened her skirt with her hands. Her Pullover carefully tucked in at the edges. He couldn't help but smile. ,,Are you ready?" Holding out his arm he waited for her to link in which she quickly accepted. Closing her door they slowly started to walk to his chambers.

The evening went by quickly. Too quickly for your liking. After you reached his chambers, he soon served dinner. Your favorite food- and it was even more delicious than you have ever tasted it before. Afterwards you sat down on his couch, he asked you questions and you answered. At first it felt a little bit forced but as soon as he reassured you with a small smile you felt the well known warmth in your heart again. He admitted that he didn't like to talk about himself which you accepted quickly. Yes, you were curious but you didn't want to push anything. After the two of you lit the cabin and he sat next to you so you could drink some fire whiskey together you knew that he wasn't a very vocal but rather physical man. Everything he couldn't say with words displayed he by laying his hand on your knee or as you put your head on his shoulder he played with your hair. His Cologne and the smell of Lavender set in your nose. Pulling up your knees on the couch as your head slowly moved on his chest he just smiled and pulled you closer. It felt like you knew him since forever and not only since a few months. Happily you had to watch out to not fall asleep on him but stay awake and remember this closeness as long as possible.

An year later..

After knocking on Severus Door you quickly hide besides the doorframe. Trying to hold back your laughter you hoped he would open up soon. The coldness of the Dungeons was almost unbearable. As the door opened and he waited for a second you quickly jumped in front of him. Huffing at your silliness he tried to hold back his smile. You didn't mind if he'd try to hold up his facade knowing how soft he was at heart.

As you pressed a small peck on his lips and slid inside you had to try hard to hide the package behind your back. ,,Sooo- what's your plan for tonight?" After he closed the door and sat down on his desk again he shrugged his shoulders. ,,I actually don't have 'a plan'." Following him you felt like he was playing tricks on you. ,,Oh come on. It's Christmas! Everyone has a plan for Christmas!" Setting the package aside you hugged him from behind. ,,Well, Christmas is just another Day as every else." Gasping you let go. ,,Severus Snape, don't you dare to tell me that you don't celebrate Christmas!" Laying his book aside knowing you obviously had other things in mind he got up. ,,If you want to celebrate it then-" Chuckling you took his hand in yours. ,,Oh boy, who broke your heart that you never celebrate anything." His benevolent Smile faded and his monotone face returned after you finished your sentence. His rosy face turned pale as snow again and you knew it was something you said that had hurt him. Turning away he silently walked towards his kitchen.

Your heart beat so hard against your rip cage that you feared it could stop beating out of fear. ,,Sev-" It was so quiet you could've heard a bug crawling if there was one. A few seconds long you tried to understand the situation before you dared to follow him. Carefully you watched each step so you wouldn't cross an invisible line laying on the ground around him. His figure was leaning on his hand which pressed against the surface of the table. His head hung low and his hair seemed darker as it covered his face. ,,I-I didn't try to hurt you. I'm sorry.. C-Can I do something for you? Do you want a tea ?" Slowly like he could bite you let your hand rest on his back and his tension eased and he let your movements happen. Your arms made their way up to his chest so you could hug him from the side. ,,We don't need to celebrate if you don't want to. We can do anything you want to."

The words slowly swept into his skin. He couldn't explain his sudden pain besides the fact that all his most painful memories seemed to haunt him down. Her Arms slowly hugged him. It eased his pain a bit but still he felt like he could break apart any second. Telling her how much tension would build up in him whenever the 24th December got closer made him fear that he could scare her away with all his worries. One day, he was sure about that, all his worries and sins would eat him up. Besides her he had no one he could talk to and be completely honest. As her hand touched his face he got pulled away from his draining thoughts. She wiped over his cheeks and cleared his face from tears. He didn't notice how his eyes began to water. His tension could make him completely blind. ,,Do you want to be alone?" ,,No, no." Clearing his voice from the hoarseness that had been laying on it he laid an arm around her. ,,Just one moment and- and I can make dinner."

You watched him placing a small kiss on your head before he used his wand to conjure everything he needs on the counter. Without saying a word you took another knife out of one of his cupboards and started to help him. Chop, chop, chop. The knives hitted the cutting boards. Sighing you looked over to him. His Figure was still crouched down. ,,If you.. if you want to talk- and I know that it´s not easy for you-“ he let down the Knife to put the Veggies he just cute in a bowl. ,,I would talk to you if I knew how to say it in sentences.“ Adding your Veggies you gave him a small smile. ,,You can drop words and I can try to build sentences out of it. Or anything that works for you is fine as long as you can get some weight off your chest.“

It took some minutes of silence but he could felt how consistent you cared he knew he could talk to you about it. He started to open up. Page by page he read you his story. The Both of you now moved over to his couch where he pulled you close to him. Then he started feeling you about how he only celebrated Christmas at the Evans House, how much he loved Lily until he met you and how much it hit him when she died, how confused he got when he met you and how much he feels unworthy of Love. You knew that he didn’t wanted to talk about it he wanted to tell about it. He needed to get it off his mind.

,,In my unimportant opinion i think that you deserve only the best. It’s okay to grief, dear.“ Severus hand continued to let his hand stride through your hair. ,,It’s important to think about Memories that worth a lot for us. It made you who you are and makes you from day to day. Even the sad Memories are important.“ You thought about everything he told you. About his abusive Father, his love to Lily, his broken self. It made him to who he is.

,,It´s not like that that I think about her everyday. Just.. from time to time - or special occasions like Christmas or her birthday, Harrys Birthday…- that’s when I get so vulnerable. But I also think about you a lot. How happy you were when I asked you out on our first date.“ Laughing you remembered how you studied the night before the date just so you could impress him with simple potion facts he surely already knew. ,,I had to drink Felix Felicius to ask you out. Merlin, I was so nervous.“ He stated and you quickly sat up straight so you could look up at him. ,,Really?“ Surprised about what he just told you you started to chuckle. If he only knew how you couldn’t sleep all night after he asked you out or how you stayed up all night after the two of you have had their first kiss. If he only knew. Blushing you connected your lips. A strange smell pulled you out of your kiss. ,,What is this?“ His eyes widened quickly. ,,Fuck, the Dinner!“

Luckily he could save your Dinner and it wasn’t completely burned. Of course, thanks to his cooking skills it was still more than just delicious. You ate so much, your stomach strikes against any more food. Nothing would fit anymore. ,,Wait!“ You stopped him in his Tracks before he could attempt to drink his Wine. ,,I got you something.“ Running over to his desk you quickly  grabbed it and solemnly gave it to him. Confused his fingers began to unwrap the small package. Only to reveal a scarf. ,,I noticed how yours had some small holes and I knitted you a new one.“ Holding it up and laying it around his neck he presented you a big smile. ,,I love it.“ He said and looked over the little green details you added. ,,Thank you, Y/N.“ Again he kissed your lips thankful for the emotional closeness you two had.

A few years later...

Getting up you had to hold your Belly. The baby was kicking you again and despite that you loved being pregnant you finally couldn’t await the birth of your little baby girl. Passing the Christmas tree you stepped into the kitchen. ,,I’m sorry to bother you, love, but your daughter demands food.“ As Severus took the lasagna out of the oven he just send you a small laughter. ,,Like Mother like Daughter.“ He said before placing it on the kitchen Table before laying his Hands on your Stomach. ,,Oh, shut it. It’s not my fault that you’re a great Cook.“ Looking over to your plate you noticed a nicely wrapped Present. ,,Is this for me?“ Severus nodded as he pulled your chair out so you could sit down. ,,Kind of. Have a look.“  Unwrapping it you saw a little jar with something floating in it. With a quizzed look you tried to solve this little mystery in front of you. ,,It’s my Memory from our first date. I wanted to collect all my memories for our daughter. The next one could be her Birth or everything important with an meaning. And one day she can look at them.“ Slighty shy about his idea he hid his face behind his cup of water. ,,That´s- That’s so beautiful, I’m sure she will love it. I love the idea as well.“ Proud of his little family he took your plate to finally statisfy your hunger.

Four Years later.

,,Daddy, what’s this?“ The raven haired girl walked over to your Husband holding your little Son. ,,I give you one every time something big happens in our life i´ll take my memory and give you and Elliot one.“ Nodding she cuddled next to her father. ,,And what’s this one about?“ He kissed her small head and waited a second before explaining. ,,Well, this One is about Elliot Birth but I gave you another one about Mummy’s and Daddy’s Wedding as well. Maybe you can find it under aaaalll your presents.“ He smiled as he could see her instant motivation to open the rest of the gifts. ,,I love you, my dear.“ Slowly you gave Severus a kiss before you laid Elliot into his baby bed standing next to the Couch so he could continue sleeping and you cuddle next to your Husband. ,,I love you too. Merry Christmas, my love. Those are the best Memories.“ You could only agree with him when you leaned back and watched your young daughter unwrap her new doll. ,,Darling, can you give this one to Daddy please?“ Quickly she grabbed the Present you just pointed at only so he could open it up. ,,An Memory?“ Now he looked surprised. ,,Of our first Christmas together and how we kissed all night long after we let the Dinner burn.“ Laughing the both of you continued your Christmas Party knowing that there were a lot more Memories to come.

Taglist: @deepperplexity , @monstreviolet , @wow-life-love4

Let me know if you want to be added in my Taglist. :)

[mybiasisexo]

Trust

Genre: Angst | Highschool!au

Pairing: Kyungsoo x OC

Length: 1.8k

Warning: Unfinished | OC

Summary: Kyungsoo keeps to himself, but that all might change when the most popular girl in school, who just so happens to be his neighbor, decides to set her sights on him.

Author’s Note: This is an idea I came up with waaaay back in like 2015 I think. I wrote all this and then forgot about it. Idk if I’ll ever get back to it or not. The plot, ngl, was wild, like fucking crazy haha. But it fit Kyungsoo a lot I think.

MASTERLIST

credit

She was doing it again.

As hard as I tried to ignore her, I couldn’t help but know.

She was staring at me.

Park Sooyoung, the most popular girl in school, was staring at me, Do Kyungsoo, the most invisible person in my class.

Most guys would be flattered by the gesture, but I just wished she would stop. I sink lower into my chair and hold my textbook over my face, hiding it from her view.

I could still feel her stare.

The bell rang, and I was instantly out of my seat. I slung my backpack over a shoulder and spared a glance at the bold girl. Our eyes locked briefly and I cringed internally, pretending it never happened and practically ran out of the school.

When I got to the front, I sighed and leaned against the brick of the building, waiting for my brother to pull up. I was just scrolling down my blog when a burst of sound pulled my attention. I lifted my head and spotted Sooyoung saying her farewells to her minions and heading over to a shiny red mustang, an older man was in the driver’s seat, his shades blocking his face.

Figures. Sooyoung was notorious for her hookups. It was no surprise to me she would try to get an older man—and a rich one at that.

I lifted an eyebrow as I watched the man rev the engine, a cocky grin on his lips. Sooyoung laughed ecstatically and hooted as her friends squealed and they peeled off.

A loud honk straight ahead of me caused me to jump and I felt my face redden as I saw my brother waiting for me. He gestured for me to hurry and I jerkily fumbled to the passenger seat.

The car ride was silent. I’m ashamed to have had Sooyoung catch my attention, no matter how brief. She was not worth my time in the slightest and I was unimpressed with her in every way possible.

“Did you see that mustang in the lot?” My brother, Seungsoo, asked me. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Yeah,” I said quietly with a slight nod.

“It was nice. The person who owns it must have money to blow.”

“He must,” I agreed, whipping my phone back out and opening the app to my blog.

I could see my brother glancing at my phone and me quickly, “back on your blog?”

“Yeah,” I repeated myself, my attention not really on my sibling.

“That’s…cool…”

I repressed another sigh. My brother didn’t understand me, and I didn’t really care enough to try to let him. He pitied me somewhat, making himself believe my isolation was not of my own doing. He wished I had more friends.

He cared, I had to give him that. He was a good older brother to have.

He drove up the driveway and parked the car, leaving it idling. He spun to me as I realized our location and began to gather my stuff.

“I have to work tonight, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Tell the parents for me?”

“Will do.”

Seungsoo saluted me off and sped away from our house. My eyes flickered to the pale blue two story building beside my own off white home and sighed again, dragging my bag behind me like a dead dog.

The first thing I noticed once I entered my home was the smell. My mother was in the kitchen, humming to herself. I stood near the entrance, just watching her for a minute. Her back was turned to me and she didn’t notice me once she turned around to the sink, washing her hands briefly.

After I realized she wasn’t going to notice me anytime soon, I slowly climbed the stairs.

I saw my father’s office door was cracked open, so I poked my head inside, knocking gently against the soft wood.

My father was glaring at his computer screen before I caught his attention.

“Kyungsoo,” he greeted with a nod. I bowed and once I straightened, cleared my throat.

“Just letting you know I’m home,” I mumbled, letting my eyes take in the lighting of the room. It was too bright.

My father nodded quickly and returned to his computer.

“I…uh,” I gulped and cleared my throat again. It kept trying to close on me. “Seungsoo hyung has a late shift tonight at the restaurant. He told me to tell you, so…”

I peeked at my father through my lashes as he made a disapproving noise from the back of his throat, “that’s unfortunate. Your mother was looking forward to seeing him… When is your next shift?”

“Tomorrow at five,” I informed quickly.

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“You’re welcome,” I bowed nearly ninety degrees and quickly departed from his presence, my job done.

I retired to my bedroom, throwing my bag into the corner and myself on top my bed.

My fingers started pulling at strands of my hair without my permission and I bit my lip hard enough to keep my scream from escaping.

I strongly disliked my parents.

~*~

The incessant ringing of my alarm interrupted my dreamless sleep. I groaned and blindly reached for the device, finally hitting the snooze button. I rolled around so that I was lying on my back and blinked blankly at my ceiling.

It was cold.

A lot colder than it was yesterday, and I was both overjoyed and highly annoyed.

I loved autumn. It was my favorite holiday, but I dreaded the winter, and you couldn’t have one without the other it seemed.

My alarm went off again and I rolled back on my stomach just so I could bury my head into my pillow and scream.

By lunchtime, I had yawned around seventy times since my alarm first went off. I got plenty of sleep, but I was exhausted.

Hongbin, who was sitting directly in front of me watched as I blinked and struggled with keeping my eyes open.

“You okay?” He asked.

I focused on his voice and nodded, “yeah. Just tired.”

“It’s probably the weather,” Sanghyuk, who was sitting beside me, rationalized on my behalf.

“Yeah, it’s really cold today, isn’t it?” Hakyeon agreed, shivering for emphasis.

“I like it!” Another guy at my table, Jaehwan—although he preferred to be called Ken for some odd reason—yelled. He threw his beanie on the table and the guy sitting on the other side of me, Wonsik, snatched it up, putting it on top his close shaven head.

These were the closest things to friends I had—although the term ‘acquaintances’ didn’t even really cover what we were. We really only ate lunch together, and sat beside one another in any classes we shared. There was another guy, Taekwoon, who hung out with us occasionally, but he hated areas that were too crowded and chose to eat his lunch alone in his car.

I had no reason to judge him on that.

“I like the cold,” I countered, staring at my rice.

“Isn’t it the best?” Ken urged, excited I was talking.

“I like when it’s chilly, the chilly autumn breeze. You can feel it in your bones, but the sun is still there to reassure you warmth still exists.”

Wonsik grinned, “I like that. Sanghyuk, give me a beat!”

The youngest of us started beat boxing terribly and Woonsik immediately started rapping about the weather. Ken began singing exactly what I had just said, word from word, during Wonsik’s verse.

I shook my head and allowed myself to grin at them.

Hongbin lightly kicked my shin, and when I looked up at him, he grinned knowingly, lifting his eyebrows up to let me know he understood.

That was why I still ate lunch with this odd group.

The rest of school passed by in a blur.

My locker closed with a bang and Sooyoung was on the other side, eyes wide and centered on me.

I jumped as I saw her, my heart racing as I noticed her. “Hi,” she nearly whispered, a knowing grin gracing her lips.

I glanced around the hall even though, at such a close proximity, there was no denying who she was looking and talking to.

“Hi?” I swung my backpack over a shoulder and spun around, heading out to the front of the campus to get picked up.

“So… are we going to talk about the other day?”

I cringed. So she didn’t forget. That explained the stares.

“What about the other day?” I played off. I didn’t want to talk about it. It was a lapse of judgment, my darkest moment of seduction.

“Well… I thought you had fun and… well, I did too. I was wondering if we could do it again sometime, maybe….”

Her sentence carried as I spun around to glare at her. I wasn’t the tallest person, and she wasn’t the shortest, her head stopped at my nose and it was hard being intimidating at this angle. I felt like a Chihuahua.

“Nothing happened that day, Sooyoung, and even if something did it was unintentional, an accident. One I’m not willing to repeat. Understand?”

Her eyes fluttered when I said her name and she seemed to drift off afterwards, not comprehending anything after.

I gazed at her apprehensively in silence waiting for her reply, but when she remained silent I lifted an eyebrow, “Sooyoung?”

“Yes?” She asked immediately, blinking quickly in an attempt to seem focused.

I sighed and decided I was done with the conversation.

“Kyungsoo!” She called after me and I tried to ignore the weird twist in my stomach hearing my name come out of her mouth. Images of our day together came to the surface without my consent.

I was going to throw up.

My hand was wrapped so tightly around the strap of my backpack I was sure my knuckles were white, I also had a feeling Seungsoo was already waiting for me. That being said, I slowed down enough to let Sooyoung know I was listening to give her time to catch up.

She did and fell instep with me, “you can say whatever you want, Kyungsoo, but I know what happened wasn’t something you could forget, let alone regret.”

“You don’t know me very well,” I informed her with a frown.

She shrugged, “and you don’t know me very well either, or you would know I’m not one for giving up on a conquest.”

“Me? A conquest?”

She laughed darkly and my stomach twisted again. She took ahold of the strap of my bag that dangled behind me and yanked it hard enough for me to fall back a bit. She used my second of falling to redirect my momentum so that I caught myself pressed closely against her. Her lips grazed my ear and her breath stung, “you underestimate yourself, Kyungsoo. Just tell me you’re flattered and you’ll see me tomorrow.”

She pushed me away just as quickly and I barely regained my balance as she strutted ahead of me. Her skirt rolled up so that her ass nearly poked out. I gulped as I watched her walk away, confused and, to be honest, terrified of the girl.

What had I just gotten myself into?

[mcrflashfic]

Side Effects

Living in the Zones will change you. Literally.

Author: @justlookatthewheat

Content Warnings: Body Horror

Word Count: 2,999

Party Poison wasn't about to claim any kind of expertise on radiation poisoning, but he was at a loss for any other explanation as to why he woke up looking like a fucking Maraschino cherry.

His first thought was - well, his first thought was what the fuck is on my head as he walked past the diner windows on his way to take a piss. His second thought, then, was where the fuck did Ghoul get hair dye? Because this was for sure a Ghoul prank. But then that didn't make sense either, really. Party's hair had been black. He would have definitely noticed someone bleaching his entire head and slapping dye over top, unless he'd been, like, gonna-meet-the-Phoenix-Witch frying, which he knew he hadn't. (Even if he had, his hair would still smell like peroxide. Also, he'd be face first heaving into a bush right now, probably.) It took several minutes of staring at his reflection and pulling strands of his own hair out to inspect them up close before he started entertaining the possibility that he'd mutated overnight, though. And he didn't believe it until he wasted a whole bottle of water and some of the soap they'd salvaged from the diner’s dishwasher on trying to wash it out.

The sand wasn't even pink when he finished rinsing. Neither were his hands. He bent to peer into one of the side mirrors on the Trans Am - to his alarm, his eyebrows, lashes, and three-day stubble were all the same Pantone 485 C color as the hair on his scalp.

"How do you even remember the Pantone color names?" Kobra asked him, exasperated, like Party had fabricated this situation specifically to piss him off, at the exact same moment a totally fascinated Ghoul said "Does the carpet match the drapes?"

Kobra glared at Ghoul so hard Party thought he would sprain something. "Stop talking, or I'm filling your boots with dead spiders while you sleep."

Party'd gone to show the other three as soon as he realized how much the whole thing was pegging the weird meter. So far, they were handling it about as well as he'd expected, which was not at all. He sat on a chair in the middle of the diner floor while they crowded him and talked over each other asking questions.

"It's scientifically relevant. Like, is it all of his hair, or just the hair on his head?" Ghoul grabbed Party's arm and yanked it close, squinting at his peach fuzz; annoyed, Party ripped it back again and folded both arms tight over his chest.

"Yes, it's everywhere. Stop manhandling me, fucker."

Jet had been inspecting his hair with the back of a polished saucepan throughout the debate - probably checking to make sure whatever it was wasn't happening to him - and he finally put it down to join the discussion again. "It's weird that it's just you who's affected. I mean, we're all getting exposed to radiation, right? So why's Poison the only one in Technicolor?"

"And all at once," Kobra added, frowning. He leaned in closer to peer at the top of Party's head. "It'd make more sense as a mutation if it was just the roots."

Ghoul snickered. "Too bad you didn't snag 'Cherry Bomb' for your Killjoy name, Poison. Think of the thematic relevance it'd have now."

"Hilarious." Party rolled his eyes and dragged both hands through his new, inexplicably red locks. "Seriously, you guys. If it's radiation, where do the mutations end? Like, am I gonna get psionic fire powers next?"

The effect was not what Party was going for. All three of them instantly lit up with excitement - even Kobra broke his signature scowl to gasp out a "Holy shit, what if you did, though?"

Party dropped his head into his palms with a groan.

---------------------------------

Ghoul was next. Party was actually the one to discover it, while the two were picking their way through a dusty warehouse on the far edge of Zone 5 a couple weeks after the Hair Incident. It was oppressively hot inside despite the dim and the amount of space. They both had been stripping off layers as they sweated through them; finally, Ghoul tore off his t-shirt in a fit of heat-induced pique, chucking it in a heap on the cluttered floor, and Party gasped.

"Oh my God, Ghoul, your tattoos," he said, too loud in the empty warehouse - his voice echoed, and Ghoul nearly dropped his gun in alarm.

"What? What's wrong with them?" he asked, tinged with panic, and looked down wide-eyed at his torso. "Oh, Jesus fuck."

It was like something out of Harry Potter. Party gaped at Ghoul's skin in wonder - his tattoos were moving. Some flashed like neon; some, like the swallows across his hips, moved like their living counterparts. The grenade on his chest exploded and reconstituted on a loop. All the stars glittered; pieces in script flowed as though being traced in real time by an invisible calligrapher. Party couldn't help himself but reach out and touch one of them. It rippled gently beneath his fingertips.

"That is so fucking creepy," he said, hushed with awe, and watched the letters vanish before wisping, smoke-like, back into place. "Can you feel them?"

Ghoul shook his head fiercely, face pale. His eyes were so big Party could see white all the way around his irises. "No, I - I didn't even - oh shit, oh dude, look at my fucking hands," and he held them up so Party could see them, and he watched with a sort of horrified fascination as the letters swirled around Ghoul's fingers like stripes around a barbershop pole. "Is this fucking permanent? Party, what if it's permanent? They're all - it's all of them, oh my God," he babbled, high and strained, and clutched at Party's shoulders in distress. Party gave him a hug because he couldn't think of anything else to do, and Ghoul shuddered, and clung back.

Jet took it almost as poorly, once they'd gathered what they needed out of the warehouse and returned to base. He clamped both hands over his mouth the instant Ghoul rolled up his sleeves and reeled backward. "Abso-fucking-lutely not. Ghoul, what the fuck?"

"Dude, if I knew, it wouldn't be happening," Ghoul snapped. Kobra came closer, studying Ghoul's ink with his brows drawn together. He dragged his fingertip over the Our Lady tattoo on Ghoul's forearm.

"Party's radiation theory is looking plausible here," he said, sounding thoughtful, and glanced up to meet Party's eye. "I mean, I can't think of anything else that would cause this."

"Are we all gonna end up with freaky shit, then? Is it gonna get worse? Cause there is a big fuckin' difference between sprouting unnatural hair and living tattoos," Jet said, looking pointedly away from Ghoul. "Oh god, what if my hair turns into snakes or something?"

Kobra snorted, straightening up. "If anyone's getting a snake-themed mutation, it'll be me. Maybe I'll get fangs."

---------------------------------

He was almost right. It was significantly more disturbing than simple fangs, but it was definitely snake-themed. They were mid-clap when it happened and shit was already chaotic; Party was struggling to clear dust from his eyes with his shoulder when he heard a sickening crunch and then Jet shrieking Kobra's name. Heart in his mouth, Party whirled around with his gun raised, fearing the worst - but all he saw was Kobra, helmet on, going after a Drac down a wash. He glanced at Jet in confusion, and fired a slug at a Drac over his shoulder.

"What the hell was that sound?" he shouted.

Jet, looking like he'd seen a literal ghost, didn't answer him, just stared after Kobra in stock-still terror until Party ran over and yanked him down behind a rock embankment for cover.

"Fuck, Jet, get it together or you're gonna get dusted," Party huffed out, and shot back to his feet to fire off a couple rounds before ducking back down. "What happened?"

"That - he's not - Party, Kobra didn't bring his helmet on this raid," said Jet, and dug his fingers into Party's bicep. They locked eyes, Jet's wide and scared. "That's not his helmet. That's his fucking head."

Party blinked back at him, lost. "What? That doesn't - "

"CAN I GET SOME FUCKING HELP HERE, GUYS?" Ghoul's voice yelled then, and Party cursed before scrambling up behind the embankment, Jet on his heels. They helped Ghoul shake the couple Dracs that had ganged up on him, and then Kobra came running back up the dry creek, splattered with Drac blood. Back to back to back to back, they assumed their usual end-of-firefight position, Party and Ghoul checking north and south with Kobra and Jet looking east and west, guns drawn. Once everyone gave an all clear, they re-holstered and took a second to decompress. Ghoul wiped his face with the bandana tied around his neck, his tattoos whirling dizzily across his skin.

"Okay, so, what the fuck happened back there? I looked up and everyone was gone," he complained to the group, glaring at each of them in turn. "Didn't we talk about keeping eyes on each other the whole time during these things?"

"Sorry, Ghoul, there was sort of a - " Party started to say, looking up from adjusting his gloves, but he stopped short when he laid eyes on Kobra and Kobra's helmet suddenly deflated and disappeared into his collar with that same crunching noise he'd heard before.

"...What?" said Kobra, glancing between the three of them, puzzled. Party could feel the frozen shock on his face, but couldn't articulate any words; Ghoul heaved a dry retch and pressed his hands over his mouth, while Jet gestured frantically at Kobra while looking to Party.

"That! That's what fucking happened, except the other way! I told you it wasn't his helmet!"

Kobra touched his hand to his face, still looking confused. "Yeah, I didn't bring it cause we were in the Trans Am. Why are you guys freaking out?"

Party, acting on a hunch, quick drew his gun on Kobra and lunged, but didn't fire - Kobra leapt backward with a yelp, and sure enough, his helmet formed over his head with that same awful sound. Party shoved his gun back into the holster and grabbed Kobra by the wrist, dragging him toward the Trans Am. He pushed him in front of the side mirror. "Kobra, look."

He did. "What the fuck," he said, muffled.

Party laid a hand on his shoulder. "Dude. It's a cobra hood. The radiation made you grow a fucking cobra hood."

---------------------------------

By the time it was Jet's turn, the Fab Four were in full-on Buffy research mode to figure out what the hell was going on, and more importantly, if there was anything they could do to stop it. Dr. D didn't know anything but promised to put out feelers for them; they talked to other Killjoys at raves and underground gigs; they stripped tech off Drac bodies and raided Better Living outposts and scoured the airwaves for any stray bits of information. Meanwhile, their individual mutations got weirder. Party's hair color changed, first from day to day, then hour to hour, until it seemed like it varied with each breath. Ghoul's tattoos started multiplying of their own accord. The older ones resharpened, ink drawing up through the layers of skin - their motion, they learned by way of careful note taking, was dependent on his body temperature, faster when he was warm and slower when he was cold. Kobra didn't grow fangs or start sibilating, but he did figure out how to pop out the cobra-hood-helmet thing on command instead of just whenever he felt threatened.

"You know how with the summer monsoons, you can watch the rain sweep over the desert in a sheet until it finally gets to you?" Jet said to Party one day when it was just the two of them on watch. They were parked on top of the Vista de Nada Plano outcrop in Zone Six, waiting to intercept a Drac patrol coming from the east. "That's how I feel about this fucking mutation thing. I just wanna get it over with."

Party glanced over at Jet from the landscape sketch he'd been doing out of sheer boredom. Jet's jaw was clenched, gun in his lap, and he kept trailing his thumb up and down the barrel as he stared out over the scrub wastes. "It's not so bad being a mutant," he said, opting for levity. It only kind of worked; Jet snorted, but didn't smile.

"Easy for you to say. You got the Rainbow-Brite mutation. Kobra sprouted snake anatomy. That's like Storm telling Rogue to cheer up and embrace her power."

Hard to argue with that. Party shrugged, and tapped the end of his pencil against his sketchpad. "Maybe you'll get a softball one, too."

Jet ran his tongue over his teeth. "Yeah, maybe." He knocked his aviators up the bridge of his nose with his knuckle, and then suddenly sat up stock straight, clutching his gun with both hands. "Start the car."

"Huh? Why?" Party looked around, twisting in his seat to check behind them, too - no sign of danger, no dust from vehicles, just the rocks and larrea bushes.

"There's an Exterminator coming up the back side. They've got Dracs with them," said Jet, already shifting into shooting position in the passenger seat; Party cursed, and fumbled to get the keys back in the ignition.

"Fuck, I can't see anything - how do you know that? Where'd you spot them?" The Trans Am roared to life, and Party gunned it down the front side of the outcrop, keeping an eye on the rearview while he dug his gun out of its holster and passed it to Jet.

"I...didn't," said Jet, sounding surprised, and Party cut a glance at him; Jet was staring straight out the windshield, guns in both hands, aimed at the roof. "I just got a feeling."

A ray gun blast whizzed past the driver's side window and glanced off the side mirror. Party jumped, and looked back to the rearview; sure enough, an Exterminator car rose up over the hill behind them, with a Drac hanging out the back window. "Hell of a feeling," he said, and barked out a laugh. "Holy shit, are you psychic now?"

Jet, cranking the passenger window down, shot him a grin before he turned around in the seat. "I guess I'll let you know!"

---------------------------------

It was another couple months before other Killjoy cliques and Zone dwellers started complaining of their own mutations. They ranged from the superficial and mundane Party-esque changes all the way to the X-men level shit Jet and Kobra got. Only two factors were consistent across the board - everyone who got them had been living out in the Zones for at least three months, and they’d all had some kind of clap with Dracs. The major breakthrough came from Kobra, who’d appointed himself lead researcher, when he figured out there was a positive correlation between the severity of the mutation and how many Dracs you’d killed - i.e., the higher your body count, the crazier your mutation.

“I don’t know exactly what it is about killing them that’s causing this, though,” he admitted, after coming to the rest of them with the data.

“I bet it’s the masks,” said Ghoul. “Who knows what kinda freaky shit powers those things? They wipe your fuckin’ soul!”

“Yeah, but you don’t always destroy their masks when you kill them,” Jet pointed out, rubbing his exposed eye. The psychic thing only worked, they’d learned, when Jet’s regular vision was dimmed - he thought it was super annoying to wear sunglasses all the time, so he’d taken to wearing an eyepatch. It worked, and it was totally awesome. Party had sewed him a little star pattern for it. “It’s gotta be something you’re exposed to every time.”

Party frowned, thinking back to all the claps they’d been in since they got out to the Zones. Was there anything that happened every single time? Did he get near one of them every time? Definitely not. The closest he got to actually touching Dracs was standing too close when they got hit by slugs and bled on him.

Wait. Was that -

“Holy shit,” he said out loud, and the other three all looked at him. “Is it - is it their blood? Like, touching it?”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Ghoul moaned instantly, covering his face with both hands. “Ugh, Party, that’s fucking disgusting, and the awful thing is I think you’re fucking right.”

Better Living themselves spared them the world’s most vile follow-up experiment by confirming their suspicions in a radio broadcast Dr. D picked up and recorded. Not in as many words - as usual, there was some jargon they didn’t know how to parse, and it was all in Japanese - but definitely something about how exposure to Drac blood could poison you. Of course, that concept set the collective Zone-dwelling imagination on fire; a nuclear answer to the age old question of what drinking vampire blood will do to a mortal, which apparently was superpowers. News hit the zine syndicate, and before the Fab Four could warn anyone that the mutations would absolutely get weirder the more you exposed yourself, the latest Killjoy craze was chugging Drac blood to see what kind of crazy shit would happen to you.

Which turned out to be: a painful physical ordeal in the vein of ayahuasca consumption, first of all. Once you got past the delirium tremors and projectile vomiting, though, it wasn’t all bad. And sometimes, if you were really lucky, at the end of it you sprouted wings or could blow shit up with your mind or talk to dead people.

Party never did have normal hair again.

[moonb-eam]

hey, i don’t know if you recognize me, but i‘m that girl that always writes these novels in your comment sections on ao3, and i was wondering if you could answer 7 and 12 from these 40 questions you just posted? ♥️♥️🌒

oh my gosh ella hello!!! of course i recognize you ahhh how are you my love?? ✨ thank you so much for the questions!

fic writer asks

7. share a snippet from one of your favourite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it

i think one of my personal favourite stories i’ve published is la lune et le soleil, because i’m proud of how it’s written, but i also wrote it while sitting in a park one afternoon, until the sun started to go down, and also it’s for janice, who i love with my whole heart, but this is all a tangent, and i’ll just say i’m very fond of the ending of the fic. i like the atmosphere it evokes, this little twilight scene, and to me it felt perfect for the story. when i wrote those final two lines, i had the biggest smile on my face:

Eliott smiles and points up, up, and they both look skywards, and there’s the moon and there’s the sun, and wait, there’s the moon and there’s the sun looking back at them.

And while yes, it might be nice to be a creature of the sky, to rule in a world of stars and meteors and impossible colour and light, to be a moon and a sun and to be adored by so many, to live within song and story and painting, there’s also something to be said for being a creature of the earth, the sort of creature that can reach out for another, and have fingers reaching back, entwined, clasped, together, together.

Eliott and Lucas walk under the twilight sky hand in hand, laughing together and in love, so in love, and isn’t that the best part of being human?

Lucas rises on his toes and kisses Eliott on the cheek, his mouth lingering there to giggle into Eliott’s ear, to whisper, hi sunshine, but he’s not done, and the moon and sun themselves strain to listen, lingering far too long on their horizons, to hear Lucas whisper, I love you.

Eliott whispers it back, I love you, and kisses Lucas’s forehead.

The moon, light as a feather, rises.

The sun sighs, blushes, and sets.

☀️🌙

12. is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

if this is referring to an episode of skam france then YES absolutely!! le premier is endlessly inspiring to me - there’s just something in it that touches me so deeply, the anticipation before the kiss, the exhilaration of the little dance they do with the flashlight, all of it leading to that kiss in the rain??? to me, it’s like…jubilant youth and nostalgia and love and wonder all in one episode and i just adore it.

40. write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one)

hmmmm okay okay

a very, very minimally alternate ending to sk8ter boi (chapter three), under the cut

They take a spill a few minutes later, both of them hitting the pavement. It’s not too bad, they weren’t going too fast, but Lucas scrapes his elbow and Eliott scrapes his hand and his knee, and they both laugh about it as they right themselves brushing dirt off of their jeans, nursing their wounds with exaggerated pouts, and still reaching for each other’s hands when they begin to walk the rest of the way, Eliott’s board tucked securely under his arm.

“I have band-aids at my place,” Eliott tells him. “I can patch you up.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise,” Lucas says with a sigh.

Eliott makes a face. “Are you implying that I’m not graceful?”

“I’m implying that you ride a death trap for fun. Also yeah, are you kidding me? You have the legs and the coordination of a baby horse.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is foal,” Eliott says icily, his face is thrown into long shadow as they pass underneath a streetlight. He makes a show of dropping Lucas’ hand. “And if I’m not mistaken, I used to see you checking my legs out at the skatepark.”

Lucas blushes, but he shrugs, wincing when the motion pulls at the skin around his elbow. “Whatever.”

“Ohhh, no comeback, huh?” Eliott’s voice lowers to a whisper for an invisible audience. “It’s because it’s true.”

Lucas snorts, gently punching Eliott in the side and ducking down when he aims a swipe at his head.

“You say that when you used to always check out my ass at school. It was so obvious.”

“Used to?” Eliott leers at him and Lucas groans, batting him away and grinning when Eliott grips onto his hand, tugging it upwards so he can press a kiss to his knuckles.

“You’re hot,” Eliott says solemnly into his knuckles, and Lucas nods.

“I know.”

“Lucas. You’re supposed to say it back.”

“Eliott. You’re…” He squints at Eliott, who’s still pressing his lips to Lucas’ knuckles and it occurs to Lucas that they’ve stopped walking, on the edge of a small park, caught in the pale darkness between two streetlights. Lucas almost can’t see Eliott’s eyes like this, but he can feel them, a touch as tangible as soft lips to tender skin.

The longer they stand there, the more words Lucas thinks of. You’re hot. You’re really, really hot. You’re sexy. You’re weird. You’re beautiful. You’re a dork. You’re so funny. You’re annoying. You’re the sweetest. You’re amazing. You’re my favourite person.

“You’re okay,” Lucas says, but his voice is low and the words are heavy under the weight of what’s unsaid.

Eliott smiles at him like he can hear the rest of it on the gentle wind.

“Do you…” he says slowly, lowering Lucas’ hand but keeping their fingers linked together, “know the song ‘First Day of my Life’?”

Lucas’ brows furrow together. “No.” His eyes dance across the outline of Eliott’s face curiously. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t…” Lucas shrugs again. He gets the feeling he’s missing something important, and it makes him nervous. “Why?”

“Nah, it’s nothing. You should just…look it up sometime.”

Lucas squints at him again. “Why?” He draws the question out, long and teasing enough that Eliott laughs, turning forwards again and tugging Lucas along, brining them into another faerie’s ring of artificial light.

“Because it’s the song.” Eliott says on a giggle, and it takes Lucas a second, but when he gets it, he stops them again.

“The song? Like the song? The one you posted about me?”

“Yeah.”

They’re grinning at each other, Lucas with a rush of excitement, bouncing onto his toes, Eliott with a touch of bashfulness, rocking back onto his heels.

Lucas takes a step closer to him. “How does it go?”

“Oh. Well, I mean, I can play it on my phone-”

Lucas shakes his head. “Can you sing it?”

Eliott’s eyes widen. He lets out a disbelieving laugh. “No fucking way.”

“Please.”

“Nope.”

“Please.”

Eliott sighs, rolling his head back onto his neck.

“Those fucking eyes,” he groans, and Lucas giggles, taking another step closer.

“Please, Eliott?” He asks quietly. He bats his lashes slowly, the streetlight casting long shadows across his cheekbones. “For me?”

“Stop.” Eliott laughs. “As if you don’t already know I’d do anything for you.”

Lucas’ smile falls, just a little, and his free hand smoothes Eliott’s hair back from his forehead. “I’d like to hear it.” He says softly. “I mean it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, since you brought it up.”

“Fine.” Eliott shakes his head a little, eyes drifting down to Lucas’ lips, then back up. “Fine, okay.” He takes a small step back, Lucas’ hand falling to his shoulder as he bobs his head from side to side trying to pick up an internal melody.

“Okay, it goes something like, ‘this is the first day of my life…’”

Eliott doesn’t make it very far into the song without laughing, fudging the melody and forgetting the words, but Lucas stays silent, smiling and swaying them on the spot, and if anyone were to see them, a passerby taking their dog for a late night walk, a melancholic insomniac leaning out of their bedroom window for a cigarette, a poet watching from the fire escape, they would see two scraped-up boys slow dancing on the sidewalk, and they would hear, very, very faintly,

so if you want to be with me, with these things there’s no telling, we’ll just have to wait and see, but i’d rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery

besides maybe this time it’s different, i mean, i really think you like me

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “From Above”

She fell from the sky. Literally. The Joker has no idea who Y/N is, but one thing's for sure: after the encounter his life will never be the same.

The loud splashing sound makes The Joker open his eyes only to see the pool water flooding the terrace, almost reaching the lounge chair he dozed off on.

“What the hell?...” he gets on his elbow, confused after being abruptly woken up.

The waves are starting to calm down a bit and J finally gets up from his spot, curious and intrigued about the shape he’s discerning on the bottom of the pool: there’s actually someone curled up in a ball, most likely a woman.

The protective, translucent barrier surrounding your body is already disintegrated by the time The Joker dives under the water to get you out. In a few seconds you are placed on the same chair he rested earlier, The King of Gotham increasingly pissed that the security downstairs didn’t do their job properly.

“Hey, hey!” he taps your shoulder, puzzled by the white, skin tight outfit you’re dressed with: every time he touches it there are small electrical charges following the complicated pattern of your outfit.

You faintly moan, slowly coming to your senses.

“Hey, wake up!” J insists while wondering if you’re one of the “fliers”, a term used for people thrown from planes: either they know too much or have to disappear for good. Mobsters would frequently use aircrafts in order to get rid of unwanted cargo; a little push at high altitude and the corpse would be found splattered all over the ground and often unidentifiable. Did that happened to you? Were you maybe lucky enough to have escape death by landing in his pool?...

The Joker grabs his cell from the tiny table by his deckchair, instantly yelling as soon as Frost picks up:

“Are you guys napping??? What am I paying you for, huh?? How did she sneak in?!!”

“Who sir?” the henchman replies, totally alert now that the boss seems in a very bad mood.

“The woman in the white outfit! How did she pass by unnoticed?! Or did you just let her in The Penthouse to see if I’m amused by your stunt?”

“Sir,” the goon defends himself and the team. “We patrolled the perimeter and I can tell without a doubt that we didn’t see a soul. We would contact you before sending someone to The Penthouse; we know the rules.”

“Do ya’???!!�� J yells so loud you open your eyes. “Never mind!” he shrieks seeing the woman’s reaction. “I’ll take care of it!” he hangs up and throws the phone back on the table.

“You!” he pokes your waist, annoyed. “How did you get in here, hm? Who sent you?” the interrogation continues. “Where did you come from?”

He watches you direct your arm towards the night sky, your index finger pointing at the stars.

“Were you thrown from a jet?” he slams you against the cushions when you try to lift your head. “Answer me!” The Joker violently yanks at your hand.

You just glare at him, analyzing the strange man shouting things you don’t care about and it makes you happy.

“Oh!” you exclaim and he doesn’t have time to dodge when your arms go around his neck; the embrace is so unexpected it takes moments to recollect.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” J snaps out of it and shoves you away. “Don’t touch me!”

You frown and pout, upset he didn’t recognize you: how could he anyway? It’s been so many years and it appears life hasn’t been kind to him to begin with. The logic realization makes you smile and The Clown lets you touch his face simply because he plans to break your fingers for the transgression. You keep caressing his face and your fingers are still intact, but he’s going to snap them soon. Probably…

“Who are you?” The Joker growls, mad at himself for showing weakness: he didn’t hurt you yet and he sure feels the urge to shred you to pieces.

“Who’s that Mister J?!” Kira sulks and walks outside on the patio, jealous the man she spent the evening with has somebody else over. She heard the commotion from the master bedroom and since her partner wasn’t in bed she went searching for him. Only to find The Joker with another girl, apparently engaged in some kind of foreplay. Or at least that’s what she believes.

“I have no clue,” he snarls while distancing himself from the weird creature that landed in his life out of nowhere.

“Don’t lie Mister J,” Kira speculates on The Clown’s capability of twisting the truth all the time. “Is she your new toy?” the envious woman inquires.

“No,” and the simple reply is not even taken into consideration.

“It’s fine, I can work with that…You could have us both in the same time…” she seductively bites her lip since this is the only solution separating her from being chased out of the premises. “Just let me stay…yes?”

“Stop talking and go to sleep!!!” he lashes out because he’s fed up with the blabbermouth: J has more important matters to attend than a resentful, casual escapade.

“Is she a dominatrix or something? I could get a latex suit for you also if you’re into that,” she continues to gamble on his patience when in fact he definitely had enough.

“GET. YOUR.ASS. inside,” he mutters through his clenched jaw, “or I’ll make you!”

He is definitely angry and Kira halts her tirade, aware she’s walking on pins and needles.

“Hey, where are you going?!” The King of Gotham inquires when you suddenly jump of the seat before he can pin you down. You run by Kira and barge in, your wet hair dripping all over the expensive rugs in the Penthouse.

“What is she doing?” the lady asks a worked up Joker rushing after you.  

You keep on running around the huge living room, touching and marveling at all the extravagant decorations scattered around the place.

“Oh!!!” you keep on exclaiming and the odd behavior makes The Joker forget his temper and watch the scene with a painful grimace.

Out of the blue, a deafening noise shakes the Penthouse; a few windows crack and car alarms start blaring on the streets nearby.

Already? you think and stomp towards The Joker, grab his hand and drag him outdoors again.

“Let go!” he slaps your arm when your white outfit glows with such intensity he has to squint his eyes: your free hand reaches for the sky and he instinctively looks up; there’s something enormous shining above Gotham with lights rhythmically pulsating each time you take another step.

“Mister J, w-what is that?” Kira gestures at the eerie apparition and shrugs in fear when the pool water is ascending towards the invisible force acting like a magnet for the strong beam of incandescence illuminating the atmosphere.

Although it’s not necessary, you cling to the man you came for because he must be paralyzed by now: the flash always has this effect on first timers.

“Don’t be scared!” you reassure J, “I’m here to save you!” it’s the last sentence he discerns as both bodies float in the air towards the ship meant to get you out of there before it’s too late. “Don’t faint!” you try to keep him conscious but The Joker blacks out immediately, not used to the advanced technology he is privileged to experience.

**************

He groans in his dream, continuing to gaze at the transparent panels depicting stars and darkness steadily moving in the vast space. Maybe if he closes his eyes really tight and reopens them, he’ll be able to wake up from the bizarre hallucination.

Nope, it didn’t work.

“I’m in a padded cell at Arkham…I’m in a padded cell at Arkham…” he deeply inhales, repeating the words meant to aid him recover from the sluggish state he’s in. J manages to bring his fingers close to his face, not even noticing the tattoos on his hand are gone: the shimmering white attire he’s dressed with sticks out, adding to his astonishment. “Shit,” The Joker reprises his words, believing his brain is playing tricks on him: “I’m in a padded cell at Arkham…”

“You’re not in a padded cell at Arkham,” the woman’s firm yet calming tone informs and he turns his head instead of just looking up at the translucent ceiling: the sluggish state he’s in is starting to diminish, panic taking over.

“Where am I?” J mutters, his erratic breathing escalating the more he remembers about what occurred yesterday, unaware it was six days ago.

“Please calm down,” you smile and he attempts to stand up without success. “I know how it feels, I’ve been there before. Just take deep breaths and exhale, OK? You were in The Inc.Ubator for days but the process finally ended.”

“The…the what?” The Joker pants and you have to distract him otherwise he will hyperventilate shortly and it won’t help the situation.

“The Inc.Ubator fixes everything that’s wrong with someone at molecular level,” you press on his chest to assess his irregular heartbeat. “Do you sense a certain clarity in your thoughts? Like, they are not scrambled and distorted?”

J has no idea about the involved circumstances that lead to his redemption, but he’s about to find out.  

“I’m not sure,” he justly concludes. “I think I completely lost my mind and I’m delirious.”

You chuckle at his affirmation since that’s what you thought also when you were saved by THEM 23 years ago.

“You didn’t lose your mind, I can assure you of the opposite: it’s fixed now. I’m sorry about the tattoos, teeth and hair though.The Inc.Ubator reads them as anomalies that shouldn’t be there: it follows biological imprints stored in its memory for each species, removing and repairing stuff that shouldn’t be there. Wanna see?” you offer to help him up and once on his feet you guide the dumbfounded Joker to one of the panels that reflects back as a mirror as soon as you draw a circle on its surface.

“Oh my God!” he covers his mouth in disbelief at the unusual sight: he has no more green hair, pale skin or tattoos; he looks exactly how he is supposed to look like without the Ace Chemicals incident. NORMAL.

“What did you do to me?” he fakely grins only to see white teeth instead of his silver ones.

“Not me, The Inc.Ubator; it’s an honor to be chosen as survivor of a dying world,” you draw the circle and the screen transforms back into the clear panel granting the two humans a visual of what is going outside the interstellar vessel.

“That’s Earth,” you point at a humongous cloud of debris in the distance. “What’s left of it…” Y/N’s voice dims at the visual. “The core had a surge in temperature and the globe imploded right before I took you. No warning for the people, nothing to stop it.  But THEY saved us from that…”

The Joker has a hard time comprehending the insane concepts thrown at him, yet he finds the strength to utter:

“Who’s THEY?”

“Enhanced beings traveling around the Universe and collecting mementos of extinct planets. THEY can’t intervene, their laws forbid it,” you pause to sniffle. “THEY predict when catastrophe will strike and  rescue a few samples before annihilation.”

J nervously digs his nails in your suit, unsettled by the news:

“So you’re one of them?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I’m from Earth, part of the First Wave they saved several years ago.”

“Why was I selected?” the former Clown Prince of Crime demands an explanation and he’s enlightened with the answer.

“Now that your mind was gifted back to you, do you recall the orphanage?”

His sudden silence confirms he does.

“Do you remember the mute little girl you used to play with?”

His eyes get big and you continue:

“You never made fun of me and my disability like so many other kids did,” you sadly recollect. “You always shared the sweets you stole from the kitchen and protected me from the boys that used to tease me. You didn’t know sign language but we understood each other, didn’t we?” your eyes get teary at the emotional past.

“… … Y/N?... “ J articulates the name he didn’t say since he was a child.

You nod a yes and provide more details to the stunned man standing next to you:

“I’m sure you also remember I disappeared. I didn’t. I was simply taken by THEM and brought here where The Inc.Ubator mended my handicap: that’s why I can talk. When THEY decided to save a few more before the disaster, I was urged to pick someone: the young boy that was so kind to me was the only one that stood out from my old existence. Thanks to their technology I was able to track you down and come get you,” you start sobbing and intertwine his fingers with yours. “I’m glad I had the chance to return the favor my dear friend,” you bury your face in his shoulder, incapable of letting go.

And the changed Joker squeezes you closer to him, shocked at the craziness that followed the first encounter with the lost and forgotten childhood friend. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but one thing’s for sure: his life will never be the same.

Also read: Masterlist

diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

You can also follow me on Wattpad and AO3 under the same blog name: DiYunho

[pynkhues]

please say there will be an up[date on cross your fingers today pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ah, sorry, anon! It’s close, but I’ve got a work-writing deadline that has to take precedence today unfortunately so that I can like, pay my rent, haha. I’ve got the weekend free except for a couple of errands though, so I should get Chapter 6 of CYF done sometime then. :-) 

You can have the opening scene of the chapter though! Hope it tides you over!

“You gonna hold it like that? Like you from the hood?” he’s almost laughing as he says it, voice ringing out behind her, amused, and Beth can feel the heat build in her cheeks despite the nip in the air, feel herself uncertainly changing the angle of the gun, trying to hold it the way she’s seen him do it too many times before.

She tries it again, the gun heavy, leaving her hand clammy from where she holds it, from where she keeps adjusting her grip, and she looks over at him, as if to ask like this? but the words die on her tongue. He’s grinning at her, a smile that could cut glass, like this is entertaining for him, and something inside of her just snaps.

With a huff, she throws the unloaded gun to the grass at his feet.

“If watching me try to - - to - -” and she lowers her voice, despite herself. “Shoot somebody is so funny to you, maybe you should just do it yourself.”

He’s a few feet away from her, but it feels so much closer in the darker reaches of her yard, the yawning stretch of night holding them both in it’s maw, and if it weren’t for the dulcet thrum of his voice or the cedar smell of his cologne, she thinks his black shirt, black jeans, black hair, would make him near invisible. As it is, Beth is sure she’s the opposite – pale enough to be almost luminous, like the glean of Emma’s nightlight back in the house.

“Told you, darlin’, it’s your mess, you gotta clean it up.”

“You did,” she agrees, voice higher pitched than she intends, something close to a whine. “You also told me you were going to teach me, and I don’t think that just giving me this thing and then making fun of me is exactly a - - a conducive educational method.”

She can’t help the way her chest is heaving, breathless with frustration and embarrassment and the ongoing, ebbing horror of what it is he’s asking of her, and god, she doesn’t even like Boomer, doesn’t think the world would miss him, but still, this is. She blinks, feels tears wetting her lashes, and tries to will them away as Rio gives her that same amused look right back (although if she didn’t know any better, she’d swear its edge was gone).

Striding across the grass, Rio’s gaze stays with her as he moves to pick the gun up, wiping down the handle of the evening’s dew, checking it for any damage. When he finds none, he steps closer again, grabbing her wrist, pulling her a little towards him.

“C’mon,” he says. “You got this.”

He moves his hand down her wrist, cupping the back of her hand instead, his fingers warm, calloused as they smooth across her knuckles, his thumb moving down between her own and her forefinger, finding her palm. Beth’s breath hitches, watching his large hand swallow her own, his touch making her tremble despite herself, and she looks at him and his face is open, and then he’s pushing the hilt of that pearl handled gun into her hand, and she looks down again only - -

Only now it’s golden.

Now it’s his.

Now the grass beneath her feet is hardwood floors, her garden changed for his empty loft, and he’s leaning in darkly, his gaze dragging over hers, and her cheeks are wet and her breath is coming in sharp and Turner’s on the floor behind her, his face bruised, his eyes wild and Beth’s cheeks are wet with tears and she’s stumbling back and Rio’s there still, but he’s different, and he says:

“Just like we practiced.”

And - - and Beth wakes up gasping, her hands shaking, her cheeks wet in this reality too, and she’s somehow managed to throw her bedsheets off, has writhed to the very edge of the mattress, and she’s still trying to catch her breath when the door knocks.

“Beth. You okay in there?” a voice asks through the closed door, and Beth scrubs furiously at her face.

“I’m fine, Dean, just a bit of a weird dream.”

Or not a dream, she thinks, still catching herself. Two memories, knitted together like Frankenstein’s monster, and the thought alone makes her shiver. Before she even realises she’s doing it, one of her hands is coming up to cup the back of the other, her fingers stroking the back of her own knuckles, but her hand is too small, her touch too soft and just - -

God.

What is she doing?

She quickly moves her hands, bringing one up to slip into the neck of her pyjama shirt, rubbing at her freckled chest, willing her heart to slow.

“Can I - - I mean. Can I come in?”

Beth blinks over at her still closed bedroom door, and leans down to grab the blankets, pulling them back up as if might hide her scattered self.

“Sure,” she calls, and the door cracks open, Dean stepping in, already dressed in a suit for the day.

“You slept in,” he says, squinting a little, and Beth clears her throat, nodding. After Rio had left the restaurant last night, Beth had gone home, only stopping long enough to get a bottle of bourbon on her way. She’d spent the night furiously crocheting scarves and hats for the weekend’s markets, turning over every single word that he’d said, and it had only been as she had knocked on the door of sleep that she’d thought of Tom, and been startled back awake by her own blistering shame.

With a groan, Beth rubs her face, trying to collect herself as Dean rocks his weight forwards, a little closer towards the bed.  

“You sure you’re okay?”

And she looks at him, her mouth open, and she realises that her lips are sore, knows that if she touches them they’ll be swollen from where she’s bitten them in her sleep. She nods again, tries to smile, and Dean looks like he doesn’t quite believe it, but he continues all the same.

“Well, I’m ready whenever you are. Alan wants me at the realty office by 8.30 though, so if we’re going to do it this morning, we need to do it soon.”

And right, Beth thinks, organising her thoughts. They were - are - going to tell the kids about Dean moving this morning. So that Dean can start moving his things out. Beth nods again, sliding to the edge of the bed to get up.

“Just let me shower, and I’ll be ready.”

Then it’s Dean nodding, staring at her, like he wants to say something else, but in the end he just leaves, and Beth sucks in a breath, slipping her hand into the top of her pyjama shirt again, feeling her thrumming heart. She gets to her feet, moving over to her jewellery box before she can help herself, and flinging it open.

They’re still there of course, those two bullets she’d shot into his chest, nestled amongst her rings where he’d put the first one, where she’d added the second.

She scowls to herself, and slams the lid shut.

[beautifulandbleeding]

Exposure Therapy

Kostya fidgeted with the button at the end of his sleeve and shifted from one foot to the other. El caught Kostya looking at the table that had somehow become his spot in the month since El found him. It was still weird to think about, like a child bringing back a piece roadkill and giving it a home.

“I don’t… I don’t think that we have to do this,” Kostya was saying, awkwardly and stilted. “I’m sorry about before.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” El said. “I want to help you. This will help you.”

Kostya looked at him, for the first time since El suggested that he try exposure therapy. It was about time that Kostya put this behind him. Of course, El was a jeweller, not a therapist, and what he planned to do to Kostya was something that no good doctor would sanction. Kostya would hate it, but El couldn’t say that that wasn’t part of the appeal. There was something special about the light in Kostya’s eyes, and when he was uncomfortable like this it was so sharp that El swore that it had a taste.

“Can we think about it?” Kostya asked quietly.

“You could tell me what’s wrong.”

It didn’t look like he would answer, or move, but after a few moments’ deliberation, he eventually said, “I’m squeamish. I don’t like, you know, blood.”

“You don’t like blood,” El repeated.

Kostya shook his head.

“But that isn’t all of it, is it?”

“El…” Kostya was just this side of begging, and El half wanted to let him. He wanted to see what Kostya would ask.

For almost a month now Kostya had stayed with him. It wasn’t something that they’d agreed to, nor was it something that they even talked about. El had brought Kostya home and then never asked him to leave, and from what El could gather Kostya had nowhere to go. In that time, Kostya mostly seemed content and occasionally worried. If he was ever upset, El didn’t know about it, but if he was afraid it radiated off him so thickly that El thought he should be able to bury his hands in it.

As far as things went El didn’t think that he could ask for someone better to live with. There were reasons why El was interested in Kostya, of course, but El didn’t know whether he’d care about Kostya at all if he irritated him. He was quiet at night, barely taking up any space; he did most of what El asked. Give him a well-stocked kitchen (or even a barely-stocked kitchen) and he’d make something nice. He took care of most basic housekeeping, and reasonably took it upon himself to carry out tasks that El had fallen behind with: things that El meant to take care of himself but never gotten around to, like organising his cupboards and arranging his bookshelf in a reasonable order, polishing the silver and deep-cleaning the carpet. Kostya even dusted. When El had asked him about it, Kostya had simply shrugged awkwardly in that we way that he made a lot of gestures, like it was more a habit than just anything genuine, and he’d said that it was the least that he could do.

Kostya sat tersely at the table over dinner, silent unless spoken to. In the evenings while El read or worked, Kostya had made a habit of sitting somewhere in the room—sometimes on the ground, leaning against El’s leg while he watched TV; sometimes on the sofa with him, with a book of his own. A few times Kostya had fallen asleep, only to start awake with a gasp, clutching his chest and shaking, and when he did he’d apologise desperately to El as if he’d done something terrible.

But those moments died quickly. It was never long before Kostya’s silence took over, like a shroud of distance that he wrapped around himself. El thought of it like a challenge. There was nothing about the way that he met Kostya that was normal, and nothing about Kostya himself that El could reasonably expect to see in anyone else. It felt inevitable that he become obsessed with him.

“Listen,” El said carefully. “I’ve given you your options. Either tell me what it is that you’re sitting on, or let me help you get over this.”

Kostya closed his eyes. El thought that he’d refuse again, but finally nodded. It was a rough gesture that twisted something in El’s stomach, because who would willingly let something happen that they were so afraid of? Kostya’s fear fascinated him, but not as much as… this.

“Fine,” Kostya said softly. “Whatever you want.”

“As I said. Take off your shirt.”

Kostya’s hands jerkily reached for the bottom button, and with a disjointed kind of grace he worked his way up to the top. He slipped out of his shirt, leaving just a plain grey t-shirt on underneath. Around his neck lay a ring of darker skin, like the scars from chafing. That was something else about Kostya that El wondered about—that scar, and all the others.

El wouldn’t say that Kostya was covered in scars, but there were enough there that El had noticed. What looked like little burn marks decorated the backs of his hands, and a number of scars were lashed across his arms. If he’d happened to see Kostya on the street, he’d have assumed self-harm, but upon closer inspection El noticed that angles of some of them didn’t look easy to reach without help.

But the mark that interested El most lay in the crook of his left arm. It looked like a burn, or a brand. The symbol was distinct, but not anything that El recognised. At first El had wondered if it wasn’t some kind of Celtic knot, but over the years a number of people had commissioned him for that kind of thing and this was something else. He was sure of it.

Nothing about Kostya is ever easy, is it?

El wouldn’t be interested if Kostya was.

He watched as Kostya pulled the grey t-shirt over his head, revealing yet more scars. And then there was the absence of a scar over his heart from that wound that had killed him. El had to admire Volodya’s work, with that.

“All right,” El said, gesturing to the seat opposite him. “Sit down.”

Kostya obeyed.

“Give me your arm.”

Dread all but emanated from Kostya, but he held out his arm. El wrapped his fingers around Kostya’s delicate wrist and turned it over. He considered asking for the arm with the brand, but looked back to Kostya and reconsidered. The mark was special. It had been clear to El for a while that everything he wanted from Kostya would have to be taken, as Kostya wouldn’t offer up anything willingly, but there was such thing as forcing a matter too quickly. Until he had a better idea of just who it was that he was dealing with, he’d wait.

It surprised El that Kostya was so warm to the touch. He was pale; delicate like thinly sculpted ice. When El first found him he’d been dead, freezing to the touch.

El withdrew his favourite knife, a gift from his sister back when they were teenagers. She’d happened to see it the last time that she visited, and been delighted that El still had it. El opened it one-handed, then rested the blade over the back of Kostya’s forearm. He felt Kostya tense and tightened his own hold on his wrist, so that he couldn’t pull back at the last moment.

“You know,” El said conversationally, “if you tell me how you died I won’t do this to you. I think that’s fair, don’t you? Let me help you face your fear, or face up to whatever happened to you.”

Kostya squeezed his eyes shut before stilling his face.

 “I don’t remember,” Kostya said evenly. There were times that El was grateful for his gift of really seeing people as they were. Now was one of those times, because Kostya was stoic and he knew how to brace himself, but El saw his fear move under his skin as if it was alive.

Wordlessly, El pressed the blade hard against his arm and drew it in a straight, horizontal line. Blood welled up at the surface, bright red against his paleness. Kostya didn’t make a sound. Instead, a heavy silence fell across him. El drew another two cuts parallel to the first, one above and one below, each deep enough to bleed but still not deep enough to reach down to the layer of fat under the skin—no deeper than how some of those other cuts would have had to be, to scar like they had.

El looked away from the cut back to his face, to find that Kostya had tilted his head back and now stared at the wall behind El.

“Kostya,” he said, and Kostya grunted in response.

“Kost-ya,” he repeated.

Kostya lowered his gaze just a bit, to meet El’s eyes. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He closed his eyes.

“Look,” El said, nodding to the lines of red, to the blood on his arm. “Just look at it.”

“I can’t,” Kostya said quietly.

“Yes, you can.”

El took the knife back to Kostya’s arm and drew a sharp line through the skin, this time not taking his gaze away from Kostya’s face. His expression was set, hard and unyielding in his focus except for his eyes.

Volodya speculated freely about his power, what he called the internal dynamics of death, when he was in the right mood. Death was the constant unknown in everyone’s life, Volodya’s included, for although he could bring back the dead he could never really understand what it was like to be on the other side of that invisible, dividing line. Introspection about that kind of thing was expected, just as it was expected that he share his theories with El: what El could do was nowhere near as impressive as Volodya, but he was the only person that had a chance of understanding him.

But El himself was nowhere near so introspective. As far as he was concerned, it was pretty simple. What he thought of as a person’s interior depth was covered by surface thoughts and immediate reactions, but in certain circumstances that depth shined through the surface—when someone was in the throes of grief, or when they looked to someone with sheer, unmitigated joy. El could just see that depth whenever he chose to look.

In Kostya’s eyes El saw a deep pain and betrayal. The mitigating surface of Kostya’s fears and desires hadn’t just faded against the intensity of whatever lay within his interior—it had been wrought open, and lay exposed like two wounds carved into his face.

El brought the knife down again, deeper this time.

“Look at your arm,” he said. “You aren’t doing yourself any favours, you know.”

“I can’t,” Kostya said, and this time visibly winced when El sliced through his skin again.

“Look.”

“El, please.” A hint of panic in his voice, that same edge that bordered on begging.

“You have to get over this, Kostya,” El said, and for just a moment El saw that gold light deep in Kostya’s eyes that he’d never seen in anyone else. It was faded, and unlike the day that he’d first seen Kostya it was focused into a single point within him. The room was practically shot through with it, although it receded quickly.

“I can’t.”

El sighed, burying his thumb in the pit of Kostya’s wrist. That earned a grimace as well, and a turn of his arm as though to pull away, but El held him still. By now blood ran freely down Kostya’s arm, warm where it touched El’s hand.

“Will you at least tell me why?”

Kostya dropped his gaze, and then he froze. He stilled so completely and instantly that the thought struck El quite suddenly that he was dead; that he’d just undone all of Volodya’s work. A moment later Kostya leaped up from the table, wrenching his arm away from El so quickly that he was able to pull it free. He backed away as if he could escape the arm itself. Kostya’s breaths came hard and fast, and then he stared up at the ceiling and screamed.

By the time El reached him Kostya was knelt on the ground, gripping his hair in his unbloodied hand, screaming and screaming. It wasn’t pain or even just that distressed noise that people made sometimes when they didn’t know what else to do. He was afraid, so afraid that for a moment El couldn’t move. His fear was real and tangible, like a physical presence in the room that El could touch, and for a moment El was certain that he should be afraid, too.

But the moment passed so quickly that El could barely believe that it happened.

He strode two steps over to Kostya and grabbed his wrist, trying to yank Kostya’s hand away from his face. Kostya simply turned away from him, tucking himself against the wall and heaving. The screaming stopped, breaking off into a sob. Something between guilt and pity twisted in El, but he found that he didn’t want Kostya to stop.

“I’m sorry,” Kostya gasped. “I can’t do this again—look, I tried. But I can’t do it again.”

“Shh,” El said, crouching next to the shaking form on his floor. He lay a hand on the back of Kostya’s neck and rubbed his thumb in a circle. “You’re fine, Kostya.”

“I can’t.”

“You already did,” El said. When Kostya shook again, tucking his face against his unbloodied hand, El grabbed him by the shoulder and turned Kostya to face him. “You’ve done enough for now, Kostya. Look at me. I won’t do any more tonight.”

Kostya looked to El again, his eyes wide. There was absolutely no recognition there, but then something changed. It was like watching Kostya snap back into focus. His whole body sagged, and he leaned against the wall.

“Oh, thank God,” he said, with almost a laugh. “Thank God.”

[calamitynight]

Yosano x Dazai | smut

A/N: I for some reason felt like writing something with this pairing. Ik it's not one of the big talked about ships, it's a rare pair actually, but I think if they actually spoke with one another, they would get along well...anyway this ended up becoming a smut and my first smut at that. I think it came out really well. So I'm nervous, but quite proud of myself, I guess. I can't come up with a title for it. No matter how hard I try and I really want to upload it onto my AO3 and FF...so if anyone has any recommendations for a title please totally comment. If not, I'll eventually figure it out. ANYWAY!...I hope you guys like this...

Words: 4k

Dazai walked into a dim lighted office. He was surprised to see that the building was not empty at such a late hour. He walked over to his coworker that was slouched down onto her desk. Mountains of paperwork resided on each sides of her. He watched quietly as she rapidly wrote on the pages. He could barely make out what the words were saying. She had the script capability that assured you, she is indeed a doctor. He soon leaned in close to her ear and whispered.

"Yosano san"

She moved with great speed, making him lose his balance. Yosano had him pinned down onto the desk behind her. Her fingers wrapped around his throat and the others held a scalpel against his skin. Dazai let out a smug smirk as he watched her eyes open with realization. She let go of him and slammed her scalpel down on the table. She brushed herself off and regained her composure.

"You're completely insane to creep up on someone like this. Still, I apologize"

"You really have it in you. I never get to team up with you, that sure was thrilling" he responded in his giddy tone. He could have moved whenever he wanted to, but he didn't see the fun in that.

"What are you doing here so late at night?" She asked as she sat back down.

"I came to retrieve a book I left behind today" Yosano had rolled herself back toward her desk. She responded with a short hum and processed with her work. "Do you work this late often?"

"Occasionally, I am not a fan of Kunikida's scoldings in the morning. So I get as much as I can done" she looked down to peak at the tittle of the book Dazai was holding. "Poisonous plants, huh-"

"I was thinking about mixing some of these into my tea tonight" he sounded so happy, she just couldn't understand.

"Death by poison, congratulations"

"This might be it. Guess you will know if I don't come in tomorrow"

"You rarely come in as it is" Yosano shot back and he chuckled.

"That is true. See you around, Doctor"

He made it towards the door, his palm grazing the knob before being stopped.

"Wait" she called out. He turned slightly to look at her from the corner of his eyes. She had rolled herself around. He could see her fully underneath the one dim light. "How about we have a drink, before you finally off yourself" she leaned into her desk to take out an unopened bottle of wine with two glasses.

"I suppose, one last drink wouldn't hurt"

He sat on the chair beside her and rolled himself around to face her completely. Handing him a glass she opened the bottle and filled it with ease. "What was the occasion for this bottle suppose to have been?" He asked, never taking his eyes off of her.

"There was none. Sometimes we run out of drinks when we host parties, that's all"

"I always tend to forget how much you adore drinking"

"It's greatly needed sometimes"

He took a sip out of his drink, but still kept his eyes on her. He watched as she softly twirled the glass in her fingers. She stared deeply into the red colored wine. He had clearly guessed that something was weighing on her mind. He just couldn't understand why it was him she had chosen to be around.

"What are you thinking?" He finally asked. It bothered him how he couldn't figure it out.

She looked up at him, she acknowledge his question, it took her some time to answer. She turned up the glass and drank all her wine. Setting the cup down on the desk beside her, away from her work, she sighed.

"Ironically..." she took a pause. "- Suicide"

"Yosano san!" She was taken aback suddenly by Dazai's actions. He had lounged towards her from his seat. His hands gripped on both her arm rest. Their faces were inches apart. "If you're thinking about that, don't do it alone. We could have the most beautiful double suicide together. Of course! this is why you wanted to be alone with me. This drink truly is a celebration" she let out a scuff before busting out into laughter.

The historia has completely taken over her. He dropped his body back down onto his seat as he watched her. She appeared happy, if she were thinking about that, he wondered why? She gleamed as she laughed, tears ran down her face and she whipped them away. She started catching her breath, soon she opened her eyes.

"You are an idiot, honestly" she laughed a little more. "That is not what I meant at all. Still, I'm not surprised in the least with your thought process"

"Then what exactly do you mean by thinking of suicide?" She picked up the wine bottle and tipped it over. She took a big gulp out of it. "No point of the glass, I see"

"There was this job, before the agency..." she drunk again. "I'm sorry, there was this man. I was suppose to save him. I promised him that I would save him, but I didn't make it" Dazai took the bottle as she tried to tip it one more time. "It's hard to sleep at night, sometimes he haunts me. So I come here and I drown myself in work"

"That explains it. You have months of work finished already" he took a sip of the bottle himself. "What happened to him?"

"Turns out I can't save people who want to die-he committed suicide, hanging- he died before I could get to him. I was too late"

"This man, was he a lover? Was he someone precious?"

"He was-my dear friend"

He could see the pain in her eyes. Those words pulled a cord inside of him. Before he knew it he was thinking of his old dear friend too. It may be different lives, but they shared the same sorrow. He never believed something like this could be possible.

"We're the same, you and I" Dazai commented.

"No one knows anything about your life. It's hard to believe that we are in any form equals"

"We all have our dark pass we wish not to speak of. I have lost a dear friend too. I too was too late to save him. I think of him often, but I don't associate him with any form of hauntings"

"Is that why you want to die so badly?"

"Is that why you're always drinking?"

"Ha!- got me there"

Dazai trace his eyes along her body as she threw herself back onto the desk. Her shirt was unbuttoned and he could see the beginning lace of her black bra. Her tie laid on top of her chest, as she unfastened it earlier. Her skin glowed from its pale color, it possessed porcelain smoothness. She breathed softly and he watched as her chest calmly arose up and down. He had never had the pleasure to see her in the act of healing someone. He recalled all the stories he has been told about her. The way she seductively took off her shirt. The way her lips curled into a smile and she chuckled as she cut everyone open. The image of that seemed to truly get him excited. He moved his sight down towards her legs as they crossed on top one another. She always wore a long knee length skirt, but he could only invision the legs she hid underneath. Her black tights wrapped around her legs perfectly. Leaving only a small stretch to show off her skin. The red heels she wore with such a plain elegant outfit showcased a side of her he for some reason wanted to discover. He never bothered to learn much about the agencies Doctor. She was a friend to him and the others, but she couldn't heal him, so there were never any motives to get close to her. She was a beautiful and dangerous woman; Yet she was vulnerable and weak in her own way. He wondered how this night ended up like this. It began with an exciting encountered and twisted into a pit of sorrowful recollections. He looked back up towards her face. Her cheeks had turned red from the warm alcohol. Her neck was long as she stretched it out. Hair softly falling off her shoulders. The lashes of her eyes held a glisten to them, she must have let out a small tear. Her lips were a tint of pink. The sight of her was graceful and he wondered why he never noticed before.

"Forgive me, I've kept you from your plans"

"I appear to be having fun right here and now" Dazai questioned, but it was a true statement. "I talk about how much I wish to die every day, does that bother you?"

"I've grown accustomed to the weirdness of the people who walk past that door. In times like these your words aren't the most comforting, truth be told" she unbutton her shirt a little more and began to fan herself. The alcohol was finally setting within her. "If there was a way to make you want to live for at least one more day, would you consider it?"

"Depends, what are you offering?"

"I wish to know more about you, before you're gone from this world. I want to unlock the mysteries that are Osamu Dazai"

"Why the sudden interest?"

"You said that you and I are alike. I would like to know in which way" she stood up from her seat and walked towards him. She soon caught him off guard as she straddled him. "I'll give you the one pleasure there is in this world, one that can only be attained between two people. Perhaps that'll make you stay just a little while longer"

He gave her a smirk. The smirk of amusement and his eyes stared at her in agreement. She leaned down closing the space between them. She waited for any sign of rejection, but he didn't give her one. Their lips soon pressed against each others. It was a full open mouth kiss. Passionate and seductive, he could taste the mixture of sweet and bitter cherry wine on her tongue. The way she clinged onto him reflected how starved she was for this. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and she grind herself softly against him. She tasted delicious and he couldn't resist the temptation that was above him. The friction was beginning to get a reaction from him. It turned her on, he felt the vibrations go down his throat as she let out a moan. She was a beautiful woman, an older and more experienced woman. These thoughts alone made him want to hear her even more. What kind of sounds would she make for him. What kind of screams could he make her release. She moved her hands underneath his jacket and took it off. They soon grabbed a hold of his bolo tie. The sound of it echoed as it hit the floor and she began to unbutton his shirt. He pulled her tie off from around her neck. Holding it in one hand, he grabbed a hold of her wrist with the other. She pulled away and looked at him. Her eyes were blurred from the excitement. He smirked once again and tied her wrist up with her tie.

"I dont want you getting too ahead of yourself" he commented as he looked at her full revealed cleavage.

She let out a chuckle. "Then please, lead the way" she shoved him fully back against the chair for him to get a better view.

He let go of his grab on her wrist and softly planted his hands on her waist. Her shirt unraveled from behind as he gripped and untucked it from her skirt. His imagination has been driving him crazy since the beginning. As his cold hands landed onto her warm soft bare back, he knew he wouldn't be able to control himself much longer. Dazai slid his hand straight up her back and she trembled underneath his touch. He felt the goosebumps form on her skin and the shiver vibrations on his crotch. He slid them to the front and began to unbutton her shirt one by one. He began with the bottom button and worked himself up. As he watched the last button come out of its hole he noticed this view was not enough. He wanted, no he needed her spread out, he needed a more open view. Landing his palms on her thighs he gripped them and carried her up. She threw her arms around his shoulders in surprise. She felt light as he carried her. She wrapped her legs around him, which made him twitch. He was considerate enough of her work and moved her towards another table. Surely only one table was unoccupied from any type of work and that would be his. He dropped her off on top of it and watched her lay down. This was it, as she threw her hands over her head everything was now in hindsight. Her shirt opened and revealed her black laced bra. The choosing of her under clothing made him think she was waiting on something like this to happen. Grabbing a hold of her knees he spread her legs open. Even underneath her tights he could see her matching panties. Pushing himself in between her legs he leaned down to kiss her. She sucked him in immediately, she was hungry and couldn't wait any longer. He began to trail himself down from her chin to her neck. She ran her fingers through her hair and her heavy breathing began. That wasn't enough, not for him. Grabbing the middle of her bra he pulled it up. Her breast softly fell out of the cups. He moved his lips down towards her pink colored nipples. He bit gently and listened to every reaction he received. He sucked and licked until he felt them rise. Moving his hand down towards the inside of her skirt he grabbed a hold of her inner tigh. Yosano let out a moan when he unexpectedly pinched her. Soon leading to him ripping the fabric of her tights. Dazai began to rub his finger on her labia from the thinnest of her panties. It amazes him how wet she's gotten from such little contact. Thrusting herself upward Yosano proclaimed she couldn't wait any longer.

"Someone is quite inpatient"

"Come now, being teased by a man younger than me" he pinched and rubbed at her clit. She shivered and moan. "Sleeping with me must be a dream-You're surely taking advantage of"

"I'm a man that enjoys the pleasures in life. I want to view every part of you"

Yosano covered her red shaded face from embarrassment. He snickered as he began to plant kisses down her body. He rubbed and teased at her clit as she shivered from his touch. He inserted the first finger. She jolted up and her moans let out louder. That's it, indulge him inside of this room with your sounds. That was what Dazai wanted. Her walls clench on his finger as he thrusts in and out of her. Licking and biting on her inner thigh, the once hidden legs now belonged to him. As he inserted the second finger he slipped his tongue on her clitoris. With no hesitation she grabbed at his hair. She melted from the movements of his tongue. He could feel her toes curling as her legs rested over his shoulders. She was getting louder and louder, so his fingers penetrated her faster. That was until she covered her mouth. He stopped once he heard the muffled sounds of her moans. Causing her to whimper and look down at him.

"D-Dazai" she called out with a pant. Her chest elevating up and down with rapid speed. His brown eyes had a darker tint shes never seen before. A switch of dominance had turned active on the man before her.

"Don't cover your mouth. I want to hear every sound"

"What if someone hears us"

"We're all alone here" he slowly pushed his fingers in. "I want to hear the sounds as I take over your body" he went in further. With a whimper she nodded her head in agreement. His lips curled up in a smile. "That's it, wouldn't want to keep our good doctor unsatisfied"

Yosano tightly wrapped her legs around him as he went back down on her. Her body arched itself as it prepared for its release. She let out a sound of total satisfaction. Dazai took all of it in, every last bit of her. He pulled himself up, bridging on top of her body. The red color of her cheeks and chest, he could feel the heat emitting from her. He couldn't help but grin at her. In a slow motion he decided to untie her. Her hands quickly grabbed a hold of his pants. The sound of his zipper being pulled down was all he needed. As his pants fell down she took in the size of his bulge into her hands. Her eyes came back at him as she began to play with him. The sensation made him whimper, he had held back for too long. She pulled him out, showcasing her joy with his size. She began to stroke him, but she was holding back as she began with the thumb and index finger. It wasn't enough so he pushed himself forward. Yosano smirked, was it her time to tease him? That wouldn't do, but he let her continue. Slowly adding more pressure with the addition of her other fingers she stroke with a faster pace. She hit every nerve of his soft spots. She toyed with him with the knowledge she controlled. He felt himself about to give out. He felt himself becoming weak to her touch. Dazai grabbed her hand and pinned her down. He breathed heavily as he stared at her. The satisfaction was radiant on her face.

"Heh- you damn doctor"

Now standing straight before her, she licked her lips of the thought of him inside her. He pulled off her ripped tights and her panties came off with them. His eyes lingered on her for a couple seconds. He was falling victim to a witch doctors body. Taking himself into his hand he put himself in position. His tip barely touched her vulva before she let out her begging moans. He pushed through and entered her, she arched up once more. Letting go of her hands he slammed his down above her shoulders and beside her head. He began to move slowly, pleasure filling both of their expressions. Wrapping her arms around him, she clinged on to him. As she moaned into his ear he thrust faster into her. She pulled at the back of his shirt, tugged at it as he penetrated her. It began to slip down his shoulders and the cool breeze caused him to shiver. Her fingers found their way underneath his bandages, she felt him grow inside her as her nails dug into his skin. He accelerated from the sensation of brief pain. Yosano smirked and chuckled at the knowledge, it was nothing to be amazed about. Shoving her face into his neck she used her teeth to losen his bandage. He slowed down a bit, but processed as she began to leave bites on him. The harder she bite, the harder he thrusted. The room filled with moans from the both of them. Sweat dripped from their faces as they stared into each others eyes. This was a paring that no one could ever see happen, but it was a paring made for each other. Dazai was too zoned in with the feeling of pleasure. He felt himself on the brink, but was brought back as his bandages slid from his shoulders. He pushed the both of them down towards the desk. Pulling out of her, she whimpered once more. Without warning he flipped her around, she let out a moaning scream as he slipped back into her from behind. Her hands gripped at the edges of his desk. The creaking of the desk left behind scratch marks on the wooden floor. She pushed herself back up against his chest. She panted as her lips pressed against his. One arm wrapped around his neck, holding him towards her. She moaned into him, he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Yo-sano-san" he tightened against her as her walls clenched one last time. He dug his face into her neck as she released one last screaming moan.

Her body dropped onto the desk, moans were exchanged by her deep breathing. He pulled out of her slowly, his warm semen following suit. He watched her privates pulse and a satisfied smirk stained his lips. Pushing her body up and away from the desk, her skirt fell, covering her legs. He watched as she pulled her bra back down in place and her shirt laid perfectly on her shoulders. Her tie went into her pocket, and she bent down to retrieve her underwear and torn off tights. Dazai followed behind her as he pulled his pants up and fixed his shirt. Some of his bandages fell lose from his skin. He cleared his throat as Yosano began to walk towards her desk. Grabbing her wine bottle and cups, she put them back into their hiding spot.

"So, do you accept my offer?" Her voice was now calm and collected, but he could no longer imagine anything else than her broken underneath him. She pressed his hard covered book against his chest. "It's your choice"

He couldn't believe such a trivial thing could make him stray away from what he wanted most. At this moment he was feeling more alive than usual. He had learned much from the doctor out of this act of intimacy. She smiled at him as she began to walk to the door. That smile was sly and brilliant.

"Lock up behind me, will you?" Opening the door wide, she slipped right out.

Without hesitation Dazai dumped his book in her bin, soon following Yosano out the door.

Extended ending:

"Looks like you didn't manage to kill yourself this time, Dazai" Kunikida spoke as he took off Dazai's headphones. "You're even here early, must be the end of the world"

"I guess so, I slept pretty well last night" he smiled widely.

"Dazai san, I found your book in Yosano's trash bin" Atsushi put the book down before him.

"Thank you, Atsushi. Speaking of our dear doctor, is she here yet?"

"She's in the infirmary"

"Great!" Jumping up with glee he headed to the infirmary. He watched her as she organized everything in complete silence. She didn't feel his presence and a part of him wanted her to feel more than just that. As she finished wrapping up, she jumped once she saw him. "Good morning, Yosano san"

"Ha, looks like you didn't go along with it"

"Did you expect me to?" He pouted.

"There's no telling with you, but this is still just as good"

"I'm here quite early, how about a little pick me up?" He slowly began to close the door, but was stopped as she grabbed a hold of it. Smiling up at him, with a pity stare, he knew the meaning of her expression.

"I'm sorry, but I have a lot of work to get done"

"It's early in the morning, how much work could you possibly have?"

"I would like to inform you that most of us do work when we're here" she chuckled at his defeated behavior. "Besides today is-"

"AKIKOOO-" Ranpo could be heard calling out for her. "Akiko where are you!? I'm already out of snacks!"

"It's grocery day, so I can't be slacking off or else our dear Ranpo will die" she walked out, leaving Dazai alone in her infirmary. After a couple seconds he heard the sound of her heals walk back to the door way. "I wouldn't mind some help. Care for a little adventure?" She smirked connivingly as she walked out once again, with Dazai joyfully behind her.

A/N: I added an extended ending cause I feel like I could do more stuff with them :p

[builder051]

Hildur and Pierce part 1 (OC fic)

I’m working on a couple more installments to fully introduce these guys.  Their character descriptions are a few posts back (with PICTURES!)

This is not emeto, but it’s totally set up to feel like it is.  More about anxiety.

Hildur leans on the soap-streaked basin and sighs at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.  A stall bangs open behind her, and footsteps echo against the tiled floor and walls.  Another sink in the long bank flips on, and Hildur hopes the person using it is too engrossed in their own thoughts to give her a look.

Her lips are white, tinged almost ice blue.  Her skin is the color of milk.  As she watches, Hildur’s hair, curling limply around her shoulders, shifts from tow-headed blonde to pure snow.  It’s mortifying, and it ratchets up the throb between her light teal eyes and the tremor in her pale hands.  Calm down, she berates herself.

Why did she think she could handle this?  The commute to the university is hard enough, almost an hour on the hot, slow, exhaust-spewing bus.  Then there’s the class she chose.  Over a thousand dollars out of pocket to enroll in one semester of advanced painting where she can relax, have fun, and broaden her portfolio to strengthen her resume.  Or not.  Hildur hasn’t approached any of the goals in the first three of the sixteen scheduled classes.  And now she’s in the bathroom, not participating in the fourth.

It’s not getting any better the longer she stands there.  She needs to get out of the uncomfortably humid toilet, off campus, and get home where she can safely vanish.  The problem, though, is that all her stuff, her coat, her messenger bag, her paints, her barely-started still life, is still in the classroom.  And Hildur’s not sure she can make it down the hall without something horrible happening.

She has to, though, because she can’t keep doing this.  The heavy bathroom door creaks open, and someone clanks into a stall.  Hildur can’t still be here when that person finishes up.  It’s weird. Invites questions, like are you ok?  To which she’d love to answer why would I tell you?

Hildur takes two deep, measured breaths.  Her heartrate slows by a couple of BPM, and her lips look closer to white than blue.  She crosses her arms over her chest and squeezes her own shoulders, and a glint of pale straw gold infuses her hair.  She looks marginally human.  She can do this.  She can hold herself here for a few minutes.  She has to be strong enough for that.

Hildur wraps both sides of her open-front sweater across her chest and tucks her fingers into her armpits as she steps down the hall to the classroom.  She lets her hair curtain over her eyes as she manages the door, holding the polished handle until it closes so it doesn’t slam.  There are probably a few students staring, but Hildur doesn’t look.  She trusts that her coloring is close to what it was when she left.  No one should have reason to suspect anything’s up, except that maybe she’s sick.

Hildur’s easel and basic sketch of a painting are near the back of the room.  She immediately descends on her station and starts putting everything within reach into her crumpled canvas messenger bag.  It doesn’t matter if brushes aren’t clean, they can be dumped into a Ziploc bag and worked on later.  Hildur pauses to screw the cap on a tube of ocher yellow, her fingertips trembling and shifting white to ivory in the same rhythm.

“Hildur?”  The skinny grey-haired, soft-spoken instructor, Peabody, is standing on the other side of the rickety station.

“I have to go,” Hildur whispers, not meeting the teacher’s eyes. She imagines they’re concerned behind his dark-rimmed glasses.

“Is everything ok?”  Not the exact phrasing, but there’s that question again.

“Hm.”  The cap of the paint won’t line up with the threading.

“You’re not feeling well,” Peabody quietly asserts.  It’s a reasonable assumption.  She’s really not, and considering the way she bolted out of class…  Why wouldn’t he think that?

Hildur stays quiet.  The instructor’s hands are coming toward her, pulling the ocher yellow from her lax, sweaty grip and screwing the cap on.  Light moves around Hildur’s eyes as her lashes flash through transparent to non-existent and finally back to neon blonde.  Her breath hitches.

“Think you’re ok to get home?”  Peabody hands her the closed tube of paint.

Hildur nods, still looking down.  She dumps the ocher yellow into her bag along with the scarlet and cerulean and bag of soiled brushes.

“You can come in and work during any of my other painting classes.”

It can’t have been more than half a minute, but the conversation’s already gone on too long. Hildur picks up her bag, and she can see through her fingernails.  The flesh beneath is the cloudy, not-quite opaque color of saltwater.  She takes a deep breath.  Swallows the impending rush of tears.

“Have a good night.  Feel better,” Peabody says.  Hildur’s already out the door.

By the time she reaches the bus stop, she realizes she left her coat back in the classroom.  It’s nearing frigid outside, but the hood on her sweater will have to do.  There’s no way she’ll turn back, especially now that she’s let loose enough to almost relax and ride out the panic attack. Hildur sits on the bench alone, looking down and watching the ends of her hair shift white-blonde to white to silver to gone to white to platinum.

Breathe.

You’re fine.

Stop worrying.

See, you’re fine.

When the bus huffs up to the sidewalk, Hildur tucks her hair into her hood and readies her public transit card.  She mounts the vibrating steps and becomes acutely aware of someone sprinting up to the vehicle behind her.  The soft gust of cold air and hitchy breathing makes Hildur bristle.  The red of the plastic card in her hand is shining through her skin.

“Come on, you’re letting the heat out,” the bus driver complains.

Hildur rushes the last two steps and jams her transit pass into the fare machine at the driver’s shoulder.  The touch-screen flashes for her to confirm she wants to use one of her pre-paid student fares.

Don’t think about it.

The machine doesn’t register when Hildur’s finger presses against the flashing yes.  It’s not surprising, but annoying.  And it unleashes the ridiculously unhelpful, inevitable stream of oh shit, come on, come on…

Deep breath.  Swipe hand over opposite elbow. Adjust hood.  Deep breath.  Try again.  Hildur presses the touch screen again.  It still doesn’t take.  She rests her finger over the designated area while she exhales, willing shell pink into her fingernail.  Hildur closes her eyes.  The machine finally beeps, and she removes her card and hurries to an empty seat as a clammy sweat of relief breaks out over her brow.

She sits nearer to the window and leaves her bag half in her lap and half in the aisle seat.  The maneuver is meant to look careless, but it’s a deliberate move to keep the second seat empty at all costs.  Hildur’s not a fan of close contact.  Especially today.

As soon as the bus pulls away from the curb, she turns her head into the window, her forehead lightly resting on the glass though her thin bangs.  Hildur feels both safe and exposed simultaneously.  She’s covered herself as well as she can and hidden her face.  Most people will be preoccupied with their commutes or books or mobile phones and not watching her.  Except for the people who take advantage of public discomfort and watch how others behave in such tight confines.  And then probably write books about them.

It’s over 10 stops to Hildur’s apartment.  She reminds herself again that she has time.  She’s fine. Breathe.  Calm down.  There’s almost time to take a nap.

And that’s what she pretends she’s doing, cuddled into the window, her breath fogging on the glass.  A muted stream of poppy hip-hop music floats back from the front of the bus, sounding pepped up and seasonally inappropriate.  Flo Rida or Pitbull, probably.  Something distinctly coastal.  A loose piece of Hildur’s hair starts to take on a sunkissed glow.

Then, all of the sudden, out of nowhere, Hildur’s phone starts ringing, and it’s loud.  It’s a generic iPhone ringtone, but she knows it’s hers.  Her bag is vibrating.  Panic leaches into every cell of Hildur’s body.  It’s embarrassing to have the whole bus’s attention centered on her, and it’s not like she can reach into her messenger bag and answer the thing.  Hildur can tell without moving her head that she’s gone.  She can’t see her nose or her eyelashes, and her face-framing curls are hidden from view.  As surreptitiously as possible, she gathers the cuffs of her sweater over her hands so the ends of the sleeves don’t appear empty.  And all the while, the phone keeps ringing.

It’s torture.  Hildur can’t stop seeing it from everyone else’s point of view.  From their perspective, she was sleeping.  But then she was moving, shifting into the window to hide her invisible face and hands as soon as the phone rang.  Most people dig out their phones and reject calls when they don’t want to talk.  They must think her a jerk.  Or maybe an idiot.  There’s probably, oh, twenty minutes or so left in the ride home.  Hildur puts on the mental countdown clock and wills herself into existence again.

She tries to remember the words to the only Flo Rida song she knows.

Blow my whistle baby, whistle baby, something something something?

You just put your lips together and you come real close.

Something whistle baby…

Here we go?

Then some kind of whistling sound that doesn’t actually sound like a person whistling.  Maybe an instrument, like a flute.  Or an electronic representation of one?  Or maybe someone playing the flute, then the track electronically edited to remove breaths.  Like a photograph retouched to get rid of a blemish or a stray hair.

Hildur doesn’t like the idea of editing.  Maybe that’s why she’s an artist and not something else like a writer.  If the spot of mold on a piece of fruit or a birthmark on a person’s face isn’t warranted for the canvas, she can just delete it before she even starts.  Fill in that spot with a different color or texture that’s more aesthetically pleasing, and then show the subjects the best versions of themselves in the finished product.  Assuming the subjects are not pieces of fruit.

But then, even better, is the method of just accepting things as they are.  Giving in to the fact that there’s no autotune in drawing, no erasers when it comes to watercolor.  Hildur and every artist she knows still struggles with it, but who doesn’t dream of handing the portrait subject an image, complete with every bad thing, every wrinkle and mole, and still show the subject the best of themselves?  Hildur tries, every time.  She just has trouble getting around the fact that if she did the same and painted the worst of herself, she’d have literally nothing to show.

She entwines her sweater-mitted hands in her lap and minutely shifts the fabric so she can see if she’s starting to materialize again.  It’s a huge relief that she is, though the back of Hildur’s hands are the color of tissue paper with a beach-glass map of networking veins.  Her hair starts to come back into her peripheral vision, light as the fur on an arctic fox.  From an outsider’s perspective, she probably looks like an ancient dying vampire.

Not her best look for sure, but at least Hildur has a body as she stands up and trembles down the aisle when the bus shudders to a stop at the top of her block.  Her hood’s still up, and enough people have entered and exited the vehicle since she got on that few of them are likely to discern a change in her complexion.  The thought gives her the most miniscule glimmer of confidence, which turns back to anxiety as she wishes her hair would hold off flooding with tow-headed blondness until she gets off the damn bus.

From the corner it’s a two minute walk to her apartment.  Once through the front door, Hildur dumps her bag, kicks off her shoes, and heads straight to the bedroom.  She collapses face first into her pillows, relishing the fact that she lives alone and hating herself for everything that’s happened.  She lets tears fall for a while and knows she’s flickering through shades of pale, but she’s soothed that no one will see.  Which ensures she stays fully visible.

A couple of hours pass before Hildur’s cried herself a new kind of headache.  She stumbles drunkenly away from her bed and out into living room.  She has soiled paintbrushes in her bag, and they’ll be ruined if she leaves them much longer.  Sandy blonde hair falls in front of her face as she rummages for the Ziploc.  Hildur paws past sketchpads and paint tubes before she locates the brushes at the bottom of the canvas messenger bag, along with the other small, heavy objects like her wallet and phone.

She hasn’t so much as glanced at her phone since it rang on the bus earlier.  She unlocks it and sets the voicemail to play, then tucks the device between her ear and shoulder as she takes the brushes into the bathroom and opens the cabinet to retrieve her cleaning supplies.

“Hi, Hildur, this is Pierce.  Pierce Peabody, your painting instructor.  I, um.  I got your number from your student contact info.  I hope this isn’t weird.  But, um.  Anyway.  You, um, left your coat in class today, and I just wanted to let you know I have it, so you can get it next class.  Or at a makeup class, if you want to come make up what you missed.  And uh.  I hope you’re ok.  You, um, looked like you really didn’t feel good.  And, um, I know you live pretty far from campus, so I hope you made it home ok.  If you need anything, like, I don’t know, saltines or something.  Or I could bring your coat.  If you need it.  Ok.  I’m sorry, this is, just.  Um.  I hope you feel better.  You can call me.  If you want.  Ok.  Um.  Ok bye.”

It’s completely unexpected.  She doesn’t know what to make of it.  Her heart is throbbing in her chest, and the next breath is shallower than the last.  Hildur’s got about 10 years on the average college student, but Peabody’s still got to have at least 10 more on her.  What’s he doing?

Hildur catches her own eye in the mirror as she arranges her brushes on a towel.  She’s surprised she has a visible reflection at all, let alone one that’s still holding on to color.  She’s paled, but her hair has faded to a flaxen glow and there’s a trace of warmth in her porcelain skin.

How odd that certain things add to and take away anxiety in the human body.  Even in a body as extraordinary as hers.

[gaysparklepires]

15. Pressure

It was spring break in Forks again. When I woke up on Monday morning, I lay in bed for a few seconds absorbing that. Last spring break, I’d been hunted by a vampire, too. I hoped this wasn’t some kind of tradition forming.

Already I was falling into the pattern of things in La Push. I’d spent Sunday mostly on the beach, while Charlie hung out with Billy at the Blacks’ house. I was supposed to be with Jacob, but Jacob had other things to do, so I wandered alone, keeping the secret from Charlie.

When Jacob dropped in to check on me, he apologized for ditching me so much. He told me his schedule wasn’t always this crazy, but until Victoria was stopped, the wolves were on red alert.

When we walked along the beach now, we always held hands.

This made me think about what Jared had said, about Jacob involving his “boyfriend.” I supposed that was exactly what it looked like from the outside. Yet, the truth was I didn’t know what Jacob and I were. We were friends—best friends. I trusted him implicitly, and I adored Jacob. He meant so much to me, he had been so important in my healing process, and he accepted me for who I was—broken heart, and all. Did I mind that we looked like a couple from the outside? Even if it wasn’t really true? I knew Jacob would have loved for things to be what they appeared. Either way, his hand felt nice as it warmed mine, and I didn’t protest.

I worked Tuesday afternoon—Jacob followed me on his bike to make sure I arrived safely—and Mike noticed.

“Are you dating that kid from La Push?” He asked, poorly disguising the resentment in his tone.

I shrugged. “Not in the technical sense of the word, I guess. I do spend most of my time with Jacob, though. He’s my best friend.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Don’t kid yourself, Beau. The guy’s head over heels for you.”

“I know,” I sighed. “Life is complicated.”

“And life is cruel,” Mike said under his breath.

I supposed that was an easy assumption to make, too.

That night, Sam and Emily joined Charlie and me for dessert at Billy’s house. Emily brought a cake that would have won over a harder man than Charlie. I could see, as the conversation flowed naturally through a range of casual subjects, that any worries Charlie might have harbored about gangs in La Push were being dissolved.

Jake and I skipped out early, to get some privacy. We went out to his garage and sat in the Rabbit. Jacob leaned his head back, his face drawn with exhaustion.

“You need some sleep, Jake.” I ran my hand through his hair.

“I’ll get around to it.”

He reached up and took my hand in his. His skin was blazing on mine.

“Is that one of those wolf things?” I asked him. “The heat, I mean.”

“Yeah. We run a little warmer than the normal people. About one-oh-eight, one-oh-nine. I never get cold anymore. I could stand like this”—he gestured to his bare torso—“in a snowstorm and it wouldn’t bother me. The flakes would turn to rain where I stood.”

“And you all heal fast—that’s a wolf thing, too?”

“Yeah, wanna see? It’s pretty cool.” His eyes flipped open and he grinned. He reached around me to the glove compartment and dug around for a minute. His hand came out with a pocketknife.

“No, I do not want to see!” I practically shouted as soon as I realized what he was thinking. “Put that away!”

Jacob chuckled, but shoved the knife back where it belonged. “Fine. It’s a good thing we heal, though. You can’t go see just any doctor when you’re running a temperature that should mean you’re dead.”

“No, I guess not.” I thought about that for a minute. “…And being so big—that’s part of it? Is that why you’re all worried about Quil?”

“That and the fact that Quil’s grandfather says the kid could fry an egg on his forehead.” Jacob’s face turned hopeless. “It won’t be long now. There’s no exact age… it just builds and builds and then suddenly—“ He broke off, and it was a moment before he could speak again. “Sometimes, if you get really upset or something, that can trigger it early. But I wasn’t upset about anything—I was happy.” He laughed bitterly. “Because of you, mostly. That’s why it didn’t happen to me sooner. Instead it just kept on building inside of me—I was like a time bomb. You know what set me off? I got back from that movie and Billy said I looked weird. That was all, but I just snapped. And then I—I exploded. I almost ripped his face off—my own father!” He shuddered, and his face paled.

“Is it really bad, Jake?” I asked anxiously, wishing I had some way to help him. “Are you miserable?”

“No, I’m not miserable,” he told me. “Not anymore. Not now that you know. That was hard, before.” He leaned over so that his cheek was resting on top of my head. I instinctively moved into his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist.

He was quiet for a moment, and just held me gently. I wondered what he was thinking about.

“What’s the hardest part?” I whispered, still wishing I could help.

“The hardest part is feeling… out of control,” he said slowly. “Feeling like I can’t be sure of myself—like maybe you shouldn’t be around me, like maybe nobody should. Like I’m a monster who might hurt somebody. You’ve seen Emily. Sam lost control of his temper for just one second… and she was standing too close. And now there’s nothing he can ever do to put it right again. I hear his thoughts—I know what that feels like…

“Who wants to be a nightmare, a monster?

“And then, the way it comes so easily to me, the way I’m better at it than the rest of them—does that make me even less human than Embry or Sam?”

“No, it makes you more awesome.” I tried to smile, but it was hard.

I still felt a soft chuckle rumble in his chest. “Thanks, Beau.” He sighed deeply after a moment. “Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m losing myself.”

“Is it hard? To find yourself again?”

“At first,” he said. “It takes some practice to phase back and forth. But it’s easier for me.”

“Why?” I wondered.

“Because Ephraim Black was my father’s grandfather, and Quil Ateara was my mother’s grandfather.”

“Quil?” I asked in confusion.

“His great-grandfather,” Jacob clarified. “The Quil you know is my second cousin.”

“But why does it matter who your great-grandfathers are?”

“Because Ephraim and Quil were in the last pack. Levi Uley was the third. It’s in my blood on both sides. I never had a chance. Like Quil doesn’t have a chance.”

His expression was bleak.

“What’s the very best part?” I asked, hoping to cheer him up.

“The best part,” he said, suddenly smiling again, “is the speed.”

“Better than our motorcycles?”

He nodded, enthusiastic. “There’s no comparison.”

“How fast can you…?”

“Run?” he finished my question. “Fast enough. What can I measure it by? We caught… what was his name? Laurent? I imagine that means more to you than it would to someone else.”

It did mean something to me. I couldn’t imagine that—the wolves running faster than a vampire. When the Cullens ran, they all but turned invisible with speed.

“So, tell me something I don’t know,” he said. “Something about vampires. How did you stand it, being around them? Didn’t it creep you out?”

“No,” I leaned back to look at his face, “I guess it didn’t.”

Something about my tone made him thoughtful for a moment. He took my hand in his again.

“Say, why’d your bloodsucker kill that James, anyway?” he asked suddenly.

“James was trying to kill me—it was like a game for him. He lost. Do you remember last spring when I was in the hospital down in Phoenix?”

Jacob sucked in a breath. “He got that close?”

“He got very, very close.” I stroked my scar. Jacob noticed, because he held the hand I moved.

“What’s that?” He traded hands, examining my right. “This is your funny scar, the cold one.” He looked at it closer, with new eyes, and gasped.

“Yes, it’s what you think it is,” I said. “James bit me.”

His eyes bulged, and his face turned a strange, sallow color under the russet surface. He looked like he was about to be sick.

“But if he bit you…? Shouldn’t you be…?” He choked.

“Edward saved me twice,” I whispered. “He sucked the venom out—you know, like with a rattlesnake.” I twitched as the pain lashed around the edges of the hole.

But I wasn’t the only one twitching. I could feel Jacob’s whole body trembling next to mine. Even the car shook.

“Careful, Jake. Easy.” I put my hands on either side of his face. “Calm down, ok?”

“Yeah,” he panted. “Calm.” He looked straight into my eyes and took a few deep breaths. After a moment, only his hands were shaking.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, almost. Tell me something else. Give me something else to think about.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know.” He had his eyes closed now, concentrating. “The extra stuff I guess. Did any of the other Cullens have… extra talents? Like the mind reading?”

I hesitated a second. This felt like a question he would ask of his spy, not his friend. But what was the point of hiding what I knew? It didn’t matter now, and it would help him control himself.

“Jaspar could… sort of control the emotions or the people around him. Not in a bad way, just to calm someone down, that kind of thing. It would probably help Paul a lot,” I added, teasing gently. “And then Alice could see things that were going to happen. The future, you know, but not absolutely. The things she saw would change when someone changed the path they were on….”

Like how she’d seen my dying… and she’d seen me becoming one of them. Two things that had not happened. It almost seemed like so long ago now, being here with Jacob, it almost seemed like a whole different life. Almost, but not quite. For all the progress I had made, a part of me still ached if I thought too deeply about my old life with Edward and his family. A part of me—my heart, probably—was still cracked, still a little broken. The breaks hadn’t been enough to shatter me, but enough to still make me hurt.

“You’re sad.” Jacob’s hand reached up and stroked my cheek.

“How can you tell?” I asked, somewhat surprised. I thought I was keeping my emotions in check, at least outwardly.

“I can always tell with you,” He wrapped his big arms around me. “I know you, Beau.” He pulled me closer to him. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s hard to think about them too much,” I confessed. “It hurts. It’s like… It’s like tapping on a bone that hasn’t completely healed after a break… does that make sense?” It was surprising how much I could tell Jacob now. We had no more secrets.

He smoothed my hair. “It’s okay, Beau, it’s okay. I won’t bring it up again. I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine.” I breathed. “It happens. I’m just trying to heal, I guess.” I relaxed into his arms. “But sometimes I worry that if I have one more break… That I’ll just fall apart.”

“We’re a pretty messed-up pair, aren’t we?” Jacob said. “Neither one of us can hold our shape together right.”

“Messed up, that’s us,” I agreed.

“At least we have each other,” he said, clearly comforted by the thought.

I was comforted, too. “At least there’s that,” I smiled a little.

And when we were together, it was fine. But Jacob had a horrible, dangerous job he felt compelled to do, and so I was often alone, stuck in La Push for safety, with nothing to do to keep my mind off any worries.

I thought about inviting Jessica or Angela to come spend time with me on the beach, but the thought of putting them in danger made me feel sick to my stomach. A phone call was all I could bring myself to do. I pulled out my phone and sent Jessica a text.

           Hey, you up for a phone call? –Beau

 I waited for her response, sitting on the porch of Billy’s house. I felt awkward taking up space inside, and Billy wasn’t one for much conversation so I preferred spending time outside. I didn’t feel like sitting in the long, awkward silence with him.

My phone rang suddenly. The sound of it startled me—I wasn’t use to it going off much these days.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Beauregard Swan,” Jessica’s voice sounded vaguely annoyed. “long time.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, Jess.”

“Oh, shut up,” I could hear her smirk over the phone. “I’m teasing you. To be honest, I was getting worried about you. If I didn’t know for a fact that you were spending time with your friend, Jacob, I would have been seriously worried!”

“Jacob’s been great.” I admitted. “He’s kept me… above water, I guess.”

“I’m glad, Beau.” She sounded genuine.

“But, that’s not really an excuse for not talking to you much lately.”

“Oh, Beau,” she sighed, “I mean, I totally appreciate that—like, it’s really sweet of you to say…” She paused. “But I still see you at school, and a few texts here and there. I’m good, Beau. Don’t worry about it!”

“Thank you, Jess,” I felt a bit of a lump in my throat. “I mean it.”

“If you’re doing good, if you’re still doing okay then that’s all that really matters. I know it’s been hard.”

“Yeah, it has.” I sighed.

“But Jacob’s been helping?”

“So much.” I smiled, thinking about him.

“Oh, yeah?” I could hear the amusement in her voice. “That’s very nice to hear.”

“Knock it off, Stanley.” I smirked.

“Come on, Swan,” she laughed. “You’ve been spending all your time with him, and I can hear it in your voice when you talk about him.”

“What in my voice?”

She laughed. “Tell me when you figure it out, and we can talk about it then.”

I was confused, I wasn’t sure what she meant. Did my voice change that much when I talked about Jacob? Was it so noticeable?

Jessica and I talked for about an hour. She gracefully changed the subject from me and Jacob to the various gossip going around at school, catching me up on everything I had missed. Angela and Ben had gone on a few dates, Lauren and Tyler. Logan was as awful as ever. It all felt so mundane, so everyday… so normal.

After we said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone, I was immediately overwhelmed by the feeling of loneliness. I promised myself I would spend more time with Jessica, Angela and all my friends at school when everything was sorted out.

I tried hanging out at Emily’s place Wednesday afternoon, for a change. It was kind of kind of nice. Emily was a cheerful person who never sat still. I drifted behind her while she flitted around her little house and yard, scrubbing at the spotless floor, pulling a tiny weed, fixing a broken hinge, tugging a string of wool through an ancient loom, and always cooking, too. She complained lightly about the increase in the boys’ appetites from all their extra running, but it was easy to see she didn’t mind taking care of them.

“It’s nice,” she said suddenly. “Having someone who worries as much as I do.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I feel like they don’t worry enough.”

“They don’t.” She shrugged. “But that’s boys for you, I suppose.”

“I know they’re confident, but still…”

“You don’t need to tell me,” she sighed. “But that’s what I signed up for, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” I nodded solemnly. “Me too.”

“Did you?”

I was surprised by her question.

When I didn’t speak, she continued, her face solemn. “Yes, you’re here. But is this a life you could commit to?” her scarred hand twitched slightly and I was unsure if it was a conscious movement or not. “It’s a lot of worrying, and a lot of danger.”

I thought about her question for a long minute. “I’d be a hypocrite if I said the danger was a deal breaker, wouldn’t I?”

I could see the hint of a smile on the un-scarred corner of her mouth.

“I guess we’re both part of the pack, in our own ways.” I shrugged.

“You’re an interesting person, Beau.” Emily smiled at me, and I smiled back.

Sam showed up then to check in. I only stayed long enough to hear if Jacob was fine and if there was any news, and then I excused myself. I wanted to give them a moment alone. I knew that every brief moment they had was precious, and they didn’t need me hanging around.

I decided to go wander the beach, pacing the length of the rocky crescent back and forth, again and again.

Alone time wasn’t good for me. Thanks to the new honesty with Jacob, I’d been talking and thinking about the Cullens way too much and it was still—still, even after all this time—too soon to give them that. No matter how I tried to distract myself—and I had plenty to think of: I was honestly and desperately worried about Jacob and his wolf-brothers, I was terrified for Charlie and the others who thought they were hunting animals, I was getting in deeper and deeper with Jacob without ever having consciously decided to progress in that direction—none of these very real, very deserving of thought, very pressing concerns could take my mind entirely off the pain I felt in my heart and I hated it. I wondered if maybe almost losing Jacob before we had made up had set me back. Maybe in my panic of losing him I had let myself slip back into old habits and old heartbreaks. I was beyond frustrated with myself, beyond angry with my heart. I sat down on a patch of semidry rocks and hugged my knees close to my chest.

Jacob found me like that, and I could tell from his expression that he knew how upset I was.

“Sorry,” he said right away. He pulled me up from the ground and wrapped both arms around my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until then. His warmth made me shudder, but I was grateful for it.

“I’m ruining your spring break,” Jacob accused himself as we walked back up the beach.

“No, you’re not. I didn’t have any plans. I don’t think I like spring breaks, anyway.”

“I’ll take tomorrow morning off. The others can run without me. We’ll do something fun.”

The word seemed almost out of place in my life right now. “Fun?”

“Fun is exactly what you need. Hmm…” he gazed out across the heaving gray waves, deliberating. As his eyes scanned the horizon, he had a flash of inspiration.

“Got it!” he crowed. “Another promise to keep.”

“What are you talking about?”

He let go of my hand and pointed toward the southern edge of the beach, where the flat, rocky half-moon dead-ended against the sheer sea cliffs. I stared, uncomprehending.

“Didn’t I promised to take you cliff diving?”

I shivered.

“Yeah, it’ll be pretty cold—not as cold as it is today. Can you feel the weather changing? The pressure? It will be warmer tomorrow. You up for it?”

The dark water did not look inviting, and, from this angle, the cliffs looked even higher than before.

But a small part of me was thrilled by the idea. The idea that, for as helpless and not in control of my life as I felt, I could grapple it all head on; I could be brave, and adventurous. I could step outside of my normal limitations of comfort and do something so insane as hurl myself from a cliff into the dark waters below. Why not do it? I had wanted to once and I was tired of being afraid all the time. I wanted to be brave.

“Okay, sure. I’m up for it.”

“It’s a date,” Jake smiled, and draped his arm around my shoulders.

“A date,” I repeated. “Now, let’s go get you some sleep.” I didn’t like the way the circles under his eyes were beginning to look permanently etched into his skin.

 I woke early the next morning and snuck a change of clothes out to the truck. I had a feeling that Charlie would approve of today’s plan just about as much as he would approve of the motorcycle.

           The idea of a distraction from all my worries had me almost excited. Maybe it would be fun. A date with Jacob. I felt the strangest sense of excitement in the pit of my stomach; a thrill, almost. I realized I was looking forward to the idea of a date with Jacob. As soon as I named the emotion as excitement, I felt a strange twinge of guilt. Guilt for my excitement, guilt because I was willing to acknowledge our day together as an actual date. I couldn’t understand why I felt that way. I was unattached to anyone, I had every right to go on a date with a boy. So why did I suddenly now feel like it was a breach in trust? A horrible thing? Jake could say what he wanted about us being a messed-up pair—I was the one who was truly messed up. I made the werewolf seem downright normal.

I expected Jacob to meet me out front, the way he usually did when my noisy truck announced my arrival. When he didn’t, I guessed that he might still be sleeping. I would wait—let him get as much rest as he could. He needed his sleep, and that would give the day time to warm a bit more. Jake had been right about the weather, though; it had changed in the night. A thick layer of clouds pressed heavily on the atmosphere now, making it almost sultry; it was warm and close under the gray blanket. I left my sweater in the truck.

I knocked quietly on the door.

“C’mon in, Beau,” Billy said.

He was at the kitchen table, eating cold cereal.

“Jake sleeping?”

“Er, no.” He set his spoon down, and his eyebrows pulled together.

“What happened?” I felt my stomach drop. I could tell from his expression that something had happened.

“Embry, Jared, and Paul crossed a fresh trail early this morning. Sam and Jake took off to help. Sam was hopeful—the redhead’s hedged himself in beside the mountains. Sam thinks they have a good chance to finish this.”

“Oh, no, Billy,” I whispered. “Oh, no.”

He chuckled, deep and low. “Do you really like La Push so well that you want to extend your sentence here?”

“Don’t make jokes, Billy. This is too scary for that.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, still complacent. His ancient eyes were impossible to read. “This one’s tricky.”

I bit my lip.

“It’s not as dangerous for them as you think it is. Sam knows what he’s doing. You’re the one that you should worry about. The vampire doesn’t want to fight them. He’s just trying to find a way around them… to you.”

“How does Sam know what he’s doing?” I demanded, brushing aside his concern for me. “They’ve only killed just the one vampire—that could have been luck.”

“We take what we do very seriously, Beau. Nothing’s been forgotten. Everything they need to know has been passed down from father to son for generations.”

That didn’t comfort me the way he had intended it to. The memory of Victor, wild catlike, lethal, was too strong in my head. If he couldn’t get around the wolves, he would eventually try to go through them. I felt the panic rising in my chest.

Billy went back to his breakfast; I sat down on the sofa and flipped aimlessly through the TV channels. That didn’t last long. I tried to steady my breathing, but the small room was making me feel claustrophobic. I needed to see the outside.

“I’ll be at the beach,” I told Billy abruptly, and hurried out the door.

Being outside didn’t help as much as I’d hoped. The clouds pushing down with an invisible weight that kept the claustrophobia from easing. The forest seemed strangely vacant as I walked toward the beach. I didn’t see any animals—no birds, no squirrels. I couldn’t hear any birds, either. The silence was eerie; there wasn’t even the sound of wind in the trees.

I knew it was all just a product of the weather, but it still added to the threat of a rising panic attack. The heavy, warm pressure of the atmosphere was perceptible even to my average human sense, and it hinted at something major in the storm department. A glance at the sky backed this up; the clouds were churning sluggishly despite the lack of breeze on the ground. The closest grounds were a smoky gray, but between the cracks I could see another layer that was a gruesome purple color. The skies had a ferocious plan in store for today. The animals must be bunkering down.

As soon as I reached the beach, I wished I hadn’t come—I’d already had enough of this place. I’d been here almost every day, wandering alone. Was it so much different from my nightmares? But where else to go? I trudged down to the driftwood tree, and sat at the end so that I could lean against the tangled roots. I stared up at the angry sky, fighting my uneven breaths. I waited for the first drops to break the unbearable stillness.

I tried not to think about the danger Jacob and his friends were in. Because nothing could happen to Jacob. The thought was unendurable. I’d lost too much already—would fate take one of the best things to happen to me since having my heart broken? That seemed unfair, out of balance. But maybe I’d violated some unknown rule, crossed some line that had condemned me. I was reminded of the guilt I felt that morning. Maybe this was my punishment. Maybe it was wrong to be so involved with myths and legends. Maybe…

No. Nothing would happen to Jacob. I had to believe that or I wouldn’t be able to function.

“Argh!”  I groaned, and jumped off the log. I couldn’t sit still; it was worse pacing.

Why today did my heart decide to remind me of those cracks? The breaks that hadn’t fully healed. Was it because I dared to be try and truly be happy again? Was it because I was at risk of completely moving on? Jacob wasn’t here to take my mind off the cracks, and they ached with every breath.

The waves picked up as I paced, beginning to crash against the rocks, but there was still no wind. I felt pinned down by the pressure of the storm. Everything swirled around me, but it was perfectly still where I stood. The air had a faint electric charge—I could feel the static in my hair.

Farther out, the waves were angrier than they were along the shore. I could see them battering against the line of the cliffs, spraying big white clouds of sea foam into the sky. There was still no movement in the air, though the clouds roiled more quickly now. It was eerie looking—like the clouds were moving by their own will. I shivered, though I knew it was just a trick of the pressure.

The cliffs were a black knife edge against the livid sky. Staring at them, I remembered the day Jacob had told me about Sam and his “gang.” I thought of the boys—the werewolves—throwing themselves into the empty air. The image of the falling, spiraling figures was still vivid in my mind. I imagined the utter freedom of the fall… What I wouldn’t give feel that freedom, to be so carefree, to not feel the mounting panic in my chest.

There had to be some way to calm myself. Some way to free myself of this pain. It was growing more and more intolerable by the second. I glared at the cliffs and the crashing waves.

Before I realized it, I was sprinting back along the beach to my truck.

Jacob had promised me cliff diving. He had promised me a date. I so desperately needed that distraction—needed it even worse because Jacob was out risking his life for me. If it weren’t for me, Victor would not be killing people here. The wolves would not be running. Jacob would be safe. If anything happened to Jacob, it would be my fault. That realization stabbed deep. The cracks in my heart flared anew. The panic was nearly unavoidable.

I was in my truck, driving as fast as it could handle. I wasn’t even sure where I was going. I couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t have another breakdown. The storm was moving in quickly now. How fitting it was. The brewing storm seemed to match the storm inside of my body. Churning, building, and threatening to explode. I shouldn’t have been driving. I was in no state. I slammed the breaks and skidded to a stop just off the road. I collapsed into the steering wheel. My breathing erratic.

When I looked up, I realized I had driven to the cliffs. I felt an irresistible pull. What was I doing? I sighed—or, rather, tried to sigh; it came out more of a whimper. I would wait here at the cliffs for Jacob. That’s what I would do. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to call Billy and leave a message for Jake. I was having a hard time focusing. The world was starting to minutely shift before my eyes. I was dizzy, and I needed to get out of my truck.

The wind was finally beginning to touch me, the clouds pressing closer to the ground. I realized I was trudging along the path towards the cliff’s edge. Jacob would find me here, and everything would be fine. I had called Billy, hadn’t I? I couldn’t remember but my phone wasn’t in my pocket anymore.  Just as I reached the place where the dirt path fanned out into the stone precipice, the first drops broke through and splattered on my face.

Why now? Had I been pushing down all these emotions? This panic? Maybe Victor’s dangerous proximity had triggered this. The thoughts flew through my head at dangerous speeds. I thought of my friends, my poor friends who had been so patient. Especially Jessica and Angela. I thought of the pack, out running to protect everyone and putting themselves in danger. I thought of Charlie who was so worried about me since my last breakdown, Charlie who cared so much about me. I thought of Jacob. Sweet, warm, wonderful Jacob who was out running with his brothers to protect me. Risking his life, running on no sleep. Yes, it was his duty as a member of the pack but I knew the truth, he was running for me. The panic was verging on hysteria now.

And all this, all this danger, was all because of the Cullens. If they had never come to Forks, then maybe the La Push boys wouldn’t have become a part of the pack. They could all be normal boys, chasing girls, going to school, whatever it was they had wanted before their lives were decided for them. Poor Sam would be happy with sweet Emily and she wouldn’t wear the scars of his momentary failure. Maybe I would have learned to be content with Forks and my friends at school on my own. Charlie wouldn’t have had to go through the heartbreak of nearly losing me in Phoenix or watch me fall apart.

The wind blew stronger now, whipping the rain into eddies around me.

And there it was. If I had never met Edward Cullen maybe, just maybe, I would have had a normal life. Maybe I wouldn’t have had my heart broken. Or, at least, not broken so very severely. How could I have been so foolish as to let him have so much power over me? How could I have let him break me so completely? It destroyed me, even now after all this time, that he could do that to me. I dared to think that maybe—if things had been different—I would have ended up with some sweet, kind, normal boy.

I had wandered close to the edge of the cliff now; my eyes had been locked on the horizon but now I glanced down at the empty space in front of me. My toes were barely caressing the edge of the rocks. I thought of the freedom I had been so excited for this morning. The careless joy of diving from the cliffs with Jacob.

Jacob. Maybe I could have been happy with… I drew in a deep breath and held it.

“Beau.”

My eyes flew open and I stumbled back away from the cliff edge. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Everything came crashing back to reality. The panic subsided, my breathing became more regular.

No. I didn’t answer out loud. I couldn’t acknowledge that voice. That horrible, torturing illusion of a voice. He sounded so real, so close. Every memory I had tried so hard to let go of his voice—the velvet texture and the musical intonations—came flooding to the surface.

“Beau, stay back from the edge,” he pleaded.

Why? I asked the voice. Why can’t I be careless? Why can’t I be free of you?

“Please, Beau.”

No, he didn’t get to tell me what to do anymore. He didn’t get to hold such power over me—not anymore. I was going to be free of him. I would be free of Edward Cullen. I looked back at the cliff edge. Freedom, carelessness.

“Don’t do this,” the voice pleaded.

Why not? I need to be done with this. I mentally sighed in response.

“Please. For me.”

Edward didn’t get to ask anything of me. Not even the memory of him. Especially not the memory of him.

I took a defiant step toward the cliff. I had to be crazy, but I couldn’t help but think that taking that dive represented something. Represented me letting go of everything. It represented me being truly, unabashedly brave.

“No, Beau!” his voice was angry now, a tinge of desperation in the tone.

“You wanted me to be human,” I reminded him. “Well, watch me.”

I would be brave and I would be free. I would be free of the fear, I would be free of the anxiety, but most of all—and most importantly—I would be free of Edward Cullen.

I took a deep breath.

And I flung myself off the cliff.

I let out a loud cry of shock as the exhilaration of what I was doing rushed through me. The wind resisted, trying vainly to fight the unconquerable gravity, pushing against me and twirling me in spirals like a rocket crashing to the earth.

Yes! The word echoed through my head as I sliced through the surface of the water. It was icy, colder than I’d feared, and yet the chill only added to my high.

I was proud of myself as I plunged deeper into the freezing black water. I hadn’t had one moment of terror—just pure adrenaline. Really, the fall wasn’t scary at all. It was cleansing.

I surfaced and gasped in air. I looked up at the cliff that, only moments before, I had been on top of. It was taller than I had thought. I felt a bit of guilt then; it had been stupid of me to jump from so high. I was so wrapped up in my head that I hadn’t even realized it.

I only had the briefest of moments to consider the dangers of such a high jump before I was suddenly back under the dark water. A wave had crashed into me with all the force and anger of the storm.

And then the current caught me.

I’d been so preoccupied by my thoughts, my anxiety, that I hadn’t even considered the danger of the dark water waiting below.

It felt like the waves were fighting over me, jerking me back and forth between them as if determined to share by pulling me into halves. I knew the right way to avoid a riptide: swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling for the shore. But the knowledge did me little good when I didn’t know which way the shore was.

I couldn’t even tell which way the surface was.

The angry water was black in every direction; there was no brightness to direct me upward. Gravity was all-powerful when it competed with the air, but it had nothing on the waves—I couldn’t feel a downward pull, a sinking in any direction. Just the battering of the current that flung me round and round like a rag doll.

I fought to keep my breath in, to keep my lips locked around my last store of oxygen.

It didn’t help that my delusion of Edward was there. Of course, he would be there, if I was dying. Ironic, almost, since that was whole reason he left me. I was surprised by how sure that knowledge was. I was going to drown. I was drowning.

“Keep swimming!” Edward begged urgently in my head.

This was cruel. Did I really, deep down, hate myself so much that I’d conjure some phantom version of Edward to feign care for me in my last moments?

“Stop that!” he ordered. “Don’t you dare give up!”

The cold of the water was numbing my arms and legs. I didn’t feel the buffeting so much as before. It was more of just a dizziness now, a helpless spinning in the water.

But I wouldn’t die here, not like this. I forced my arms to continue reaching, my legs to kick harder, though every second I was facing a new direction. It couldn’t be doing any good.

“Fight!” he yelled. “Damn it, Beau, keep fighting.”

I’m trying, dammit. Just leave me alone.

I felt myself fading. I couldn’t fight much longer. How stupid was I? How could I have been so selfish. I’d survived a vampire attack—vampire venom! Now I was going to drown because I had to prove something to myself. Idiot.

I thought briefly of the clichés, about how you were supposed to see your life flash before your eyes. It was so much more heartbreaking than that.

I saw everyone I loved. I saw Jessica and Angela, my sweet friends. I saw my mom, crying over me. Charlie, broken and destroyed by this. I saw Jacob—my Jacob—sweet, laughing, holding his hand out to me.

I saw him, and I knew it was the end. It was so clear, so much more defined than any memory. My subconscious had stored Edward away in exact detail. A mental representation of everything I hadn’t let go of. I could see his handsome face as if he were really there; the exact shade of his icy skin, the shape of his lips, the line of his jaw, the gold glinting in his eyes.

“Beau…”

My ears flooded with the freezing water, but his voice was clearer than ever. If nothing else, in this final moment, I would let him go. I would truly be free of him and make my peace with everything that had happened. Even as my lungs burned for more air and my legs cramped in the icy cold, I felt a strange sense of ease.

The current won at that moment, shoving me abruptly against something hard, a rock, invisible in the gloom. It hit me solidly across the chest, slamming into me like an iron bar, and the breath whooshed out of my lungs, escaping in a thick cloud of silver bubbles. Water flooded down my throat, choking and burning. The iron bar seemed to be dragging me, pulling me down, deeper into the dark, ocean floor.

Goodbye, Edward, was my last thought.

[sunsetowns]

🌿 || oh, little love, but your heart is leaking, your facade is cracking.... don’t you see? can’t you see? black liquid is pouring

“Shit. Don’t tell me I fucked up again.”

“You didn’t mess up again.”

A quiet groan at the words, and Micah stepped to the side, opening his door wider to let Quinn gently step inside. It seemed, Quinn hummed thoughtfully, that the two boys dear in her life kept getting tangled up in predicaments she could see thread along their lives. Not even the end of the month and she had already visited them both on pure whim, on pure advice the candles in her home flickered to her in a whisper.

Of course… she sat down neatly on Micah’s couch, her eyes trained on his every moment as he tried to tidy up his place (his plants and flowers, really--- he tucked them all into another side of the room as if telling them there was company over, he would pay attention to them afterwards) her visits were also laced with her own worry. But still, patiently she awaited as he sorted out the stirring she could see beginning in his life. Oh, my dear… she wanted to take hold of his face in her hands and sigh, your vines are tangling around your soul.

A minute let itself pass by. And then two. From underneath pale lashes, Quinn let her eyes roam around the living area, her lashes brushing against equally pale toned cheeks with every slow blink she took, with every bitter wave she felt brush against her. It wasn’t that the atmosphere of Micah’s home was unpleasant, no. She loved the home of the boy where it always felt like the sun was setting and honey dripped from every furniture in his place. It was warm, it smelled sweet, it was a mess of pots with dirt and soil overflowing in some and staining at the floor; it was just so unbelievably Micah. But it was also something more…

Quinn let her hands fold on her lap, she let them unfold and play with the lace of her long skirt, she folded them once more--- it was impeccable, the darkness she could also feel crawling through the floorboards and settling into the shadows of Micah’s honey, forest tinted home. There was something tragically beautiful about it, almost like the leaves dying slowly and falling off an oak tree preparing itself for the long winter. And yet, eyes drained from the brightest colors that made a hue of blue bright glanced back to where Micah was dusting his hands off, the most tragically beautiful part about it all was how well Micah belonged.

“Sorry, ‘bout that Quinn. Had some plants fall from the table like two days ago and have been meaning to clean the mess up.” Micah rubbed the back of his neck in thought and Quinn pretended not to notice the contrast of purple tucked against the sandy toned skin of his neck as he took a seat next to her. It was a habit for them whenever Quinn would stop by for a visit, she’d settle herself on his couch while he paced around forming any thoughts he had in mind, and when he was ready he would sit next to her and offer her his palm, just like always, just like now.

She hummed quietly (just like always) and traced the lines engraved on his skin with a gentle finger tip, and Micah would focus on her touch, his eyes following the path her finger would take (unlike now). A glance upwards, his eyes were out of focus, staring at everything and yet at nothing all at the same time.

“I don’t need to read your palm to know you are troubled, my dear.” She settled his hand down against her lap, tucking it away between her own two hands. “Tell me, Sunflower,” all these years and the pet name still felt very wrong, “what is it?”

Silence. Micah wasn’t one to weigh in his worries of the world, Quinn knew this, but it was also very hard to put in your own two cents of suffering when you also carried on without a care to it all. So, to be asked now what was wrong, what was on Micah’s mind? This act was unheard of, this act was a break in the unspoken traditions they had set over time to their visits of one another’s home.

“Do you think I’m a hypocrite?” The words make Quinn blink and falter in her gentle petting of Micah’s hand still held in her own. Without awaiting an answer, Micah carries on, “I think I am. I did… something off, something not like me, Quinn.”

She waits for him to carry on, for him to voice all the thoughts he spent his time pacing around when she first arrived gathering. But then, quietly…

“Did you know Asya would fuck around?”

“Micah.”

“Sorry.”

A quiet groan and he let himself slump against his couch, head falling back to stare at the textured ceiling of his home. If he looked well enough, Micah gave his head a small tilt, he could find about twenty different shapes all potential of a painting staring back down at him. Twenty paintings that could crash down against me, he gave a thought, twenty paintings that could possibly be the reason for this damn weight nestled here.

His free hand, the one not being held by Quinn (and in extension grounding him) placed itself on top of his chest, unconsciously gripping at the fabric of his shirt as if it would ground him down to earth more. Quinn gently hummed, tracing the back of his hand as if she didn’t see the way turmoil would slither around him. Micah was the one always down to earth, a funny truth that would make Quinn laugh some other time knowing her friend’s favorite pastime, so to see him with clouds dusting at his shoulders was a rare sight she felt she would see more of. In the quietest voice, a level of a whisper Quinn would be the one to speak in, Micah whispered into the room:

“What does it mean when I ruin the chances of someone and hook up with them right after. It’s guilt, right? That’s the reason there’s this weight.”

She doesn’t need to ask to know the weight is the one he feels on his chest, right underneath the closed fist of his hand, right underneath the invisible thing he was trying to tear out. Her hand, her small hand petting his rises up to rest against the one on his chest, and her eyes gleam in something unspoken and unknown yet to both of them.

“I was so fucking out of it, Quinn. It felt…” His eyes briefly glance at her before strictly focusing on his ceiling again, “it just felt good at the moment. To be told what I did, to not think about my actions as if it was some sick sort of roleplay instead of the truth.” Micah’s leg shook, making the entire couch vibrate underneath them, “He told me it was jealousy.”

Quinn didn’t ask who, she felt as if confirming the name would send a wave of distaste down his spine for they were opposites, the one with no name and her. Surely after her departure from Micah’s home, he would be commented on the essence her presence of life and light would leave behind. Not that it would last, Quinn noted the mark placed solidly on Micah, light didn’t seem to last in a place where dark shadows blended nicely in this sunset home.

“And I hate it. I hate how it keeps replaying in my mind cause the fuck do I have to be jealous about? So what if the guy could have ended up settling down somewhere if I didn’t butt my head in. That ain’t mean I feel anything against it, y’know? But fuck, I dunno Quinn, something ‘bout it just felt so wrong. Felt some type of weird to think about being in the same room as the guy I get down on my knees for and the sweetest guy in the damn world. I still did it though, I still fucked up and fucked him in the span of not even one day, what a hypocrite.”

Ah, Quinn brought her hand back down to the one placed on her lap and went back to gently petting it, an answer to his own earlier question, so Quinn didn’t speak. She let him voice out everything--- though her interest did spike at the mention of the boy with blue skies again through the mouth of another. How peculiar his sudden increase of appearance was in their lives, perhaps she should tangle his thread with her own as well.

“Don’t tell me I fucked up again.” His greeting to her when he opened the door shot back at her through a different meaning, one not in reference to missing a previous appointment set between the two of them.

“I believe that is for you to resolve yourself,” Quinn answered back.

Micah’s lips drew into a thin line as he sat up straight, no longer facing the ceiling and feeling as if he had just confessed in some dark booth hidden within sacred grounds he most likely wasn’t allowed to step on anymore for worshiping the devil. She had a point, he knew she had a point, this was something that he would have to sort out through time within himself. There was no other way, it felt, and fuck it all he was going to get rid of this guilt (not jealousy, he hissed at himself) one way or another.

“I think I’m going to steer Sylvs towards Nameless.” His lack of name, Quinn tilted her head to the side, it slipped from between Micah’s lips so easily as if second nature to speak. “He thinks Sylv can never be into him, but I dunno. Sylv talked real smack about the guy he is into and a guy can only wait so long, y’know? Plus it ain’t like Nameless is, fuck how to explain it, shitty company. The guy keeps you entertained and on your toes, maybe I can just observe how those two hang ‘round each other before asking Sylvee how come he never notices the way he acts around Nameless, the way they both act around each other.”

“Hmm…” Quinn didn’t comment, the thoughts in her head following the threads of life and the hypothetical future Micah was speaking of to her.

“Shit, I guess to do that first I got to see exactly how the guy acts around Sylvee. I never paid attention to that before, guess that’s why it also caught me off guard when I found out there was some stuff going between them. The guy is like the damn locked spell book my ma would hide under her bed…” A comment more to himself then Quinn. And again, though worded differently:

“Tell me I won’t fuck up.”

“Do you wish for me to tell you the truth, or do you wish for me to let you learn it yourself.” It wasn’t a question with options for Micah to choose from, and he knew that.

“Only lady I’ll give my heart to.” Micah grinned, slipping his hand out from beneath Quinn’s and this time being the one to take hold of hers in a thankful grip, his lips placing one chaste kiss to her cheek. He understood the answer to his prayer, her soft way of telling him to sort this shit out himself and solve it, no one was going to do it for him or make whatever solution he wanted to work out itself.

“I’m sorry I keep bailing on you though, Quinn.”

“You broke your rule of kissing and not telling.” A soft smile, one that repeatedly stabbed Micah’s heart once years ago. “I believe we are even, a soft reset, if you will.”

“So back to no more talking about my sex life, noted.”

“Does one count it as such when the menu is one's repeated company.”

Micah blinked, a laugh of pure disbelief echoing against his home in utter amusement. “Holy shit, Quinn. Are you calling me out for my flings? I don’t even know what you’re talking about, you act as if it’s all the damn time.”

Another small smile, one that spoke another language that Quinn only hoped Micah would find out in the tenderest way possible. With time, she had to remind herself, he would notice the mark placed on the center of his brows, the mark that steered others away and spread all throughout his body through acid kisses from the one with the slaughtered heart.

“Very well, dearest. I believe I must head on my way now.” A glance, an unspoken ‘Will you be alright?’

“Yeah, I gotta finish up this batch of bad boys too. Swore I’d have them ready, maybe I can drop by the herb shop later. Never noticed how it’s a place he keeps steering back to… Must be cause of Sylvs.” A hand placed gently on her back as he walked with her towards the front door, a shaky and uncertain ‘Don’t worry ‘bout me, I’ll get my shit figured out. They’re my feelings, I should know how they work.’

And with one last look cast over her shoulder, with one last wave shared between the two as she walked off from his place, Micah let the door shut leaving him alone once more--- instinctively his eyes glanced to the spot on the ground by his couch, the spot where his table had been kicked back and plants had been knocked over, an event he didn’t notice while he was being drowned in kisses he still felt heat up his body. Again, his hand rubs at the back of his neck in thought, he had this shit sorted. He would figure it all out.

You don’t know what it’s like to truly want someone…

A crown of yellow hyacinths bloom on the crown of his head, and as fast as they come, the petals fall and gently trail behind him and onto the floorboards as he resumes the tending to his mess. And again, for the final time...

“I won’t fuck it up.”

[5hfanfiction]

Can You Still Love Me? - Chapter 2: Crushed

2010 - Freshman Year

It was the start of final term of freshman year and Camila Cabello was left with yet another hour of alone time to once again reassess her lack of worth and inability to make friends. She had become content in her loneliness, and only ever held a conversation with another student when she was forced to do group projects. Rather than sitting at a lunch table alone, she spent her lunchtimes in the toilets putting her artistic talents to good use; she may not have been able to do much with a pencil, but hand her a piece of wood and a knife and she could whittle and carve anything her heart desired.

So naturally, carving designs into the wooden stalls had become the norm for the forgotten girl. What had begun as a small pattern now spanned artistically across the cubicle walls, deleting the stupid graffiti that was scrawled in black and red markers and replacing it with wooden swirls. It had now gotten to the point where there was practically no room left for her to continue the extensive design that surrounded her; it was time for her to move on to the next cubicle. Camila had just completed the entire design and was leaving the bathroom to make her way slowly to the next class, when a vaguely familiar green-eyed girl suddenly showed up in front of her with an unfamiliar girl in tow.

Lauren Jauregui had been given the task of escorting the new freshman around the school, but was in sophomore year, making it difficult to coordinate her classes with the new student. She therefore came to the conclusion that it would be a better idea if a fellow freshman would be able to show the girl around rather than herself. Unbeknownst to Camila, Lauren had observed the younger girl enter the bathroom almost every lunch hour throughout the year and had desperately wanted to help the girl make her first friend at the school. She had tried to approach the young Latina herself a few times, but was either distracted by a friend or had scared the girl off before she even got a chance to open her mouth. This time Lauren was determined to ensure that it was going to be different, after all, now she had a valid excuse to make conversation with the shorter brunette. As predicted, the younger girl had locked herself away from the world for yet another hour, and as good timing would have it she appeared from behind the door of her enclosure just as Lauren arrived.

The chocolate-eyed Latina quickly transitioned from shocked to flustered in a matter of seconds as she spotted the two girls bee-lining towards her in a speedy manner. After briefly meeting Lauren’s eyes, she was almost ready to flee the scene already scouring for potential escape routes. Lauren, thinking fast, made a move to bar the girl’s escape with her body in an attempt to keep her attention. Unfortunately, with Camila not being the most coordinated person on the planet, she managed to trip over Lauren’s foot and smack her face into the older girl’s outstretched arm. Luckily Lauren’s reflexes were somewhat better than Camila’s own, and she quickly spun herself around hooking her other arm around the smaller girl’s torso to keep them from both falling. She deftly used their momentum to spin them around in an interlocked dance, her weight counterbalancing that of the younger girl’s, and pulled Camila safely into her chest as their momentum stopped.

Lauren could feel the frantic heartbeat of the smaller girl against her own chest and relished in the warm feeling that the stolen embrace evoked in her. She hadn’t realised that Camila had tightly gripped onto her shirt-front until she felt the material slacken as the wide-eyed girl released her iron grip.

“I – uh… Sorry.” She said rubbing the back of her neck nervously as the younger girl watched her wordlessly. “You’re Camila right?”

She was still met with a stunned silence as the Latina freshman staring steadily at the floor with her cheeks flushed a brilliant red.

“Well, um, I’m Lauren. Uh, Lauren Jauregui that is… I’m one of the sophomores.” She paused for a moment to hastily offer her hand and a nervous smile. Camila’s eyes slowly traveled to the offered hand, before shooting up to meet Lauren’s and quickly back down. She was wringing her hands nervously as Lauren’s hand awkwardly hung between them. It felt as though they were a millions of miles apart rather than a mere two feet.

Lauren’s hand eventually dropped, her disappoint and rejection evident in her features. Her hope momentarily flared back up when the girl opened her mouth, yet it was just as quickly dashed as the words refused to leave her silent lips. Camila’s mouth continued to open and shut like a guppy, yet remained voiceless as Lauren’s attention was sudden diverted to the taller blonde transfer student still standing there awkwardly. Much to her growing embarrassment, the new girl, Dinah Jane Hansen, was watching her failed interaction with Camila with a certain curiosity that was evident from the gleam in her eye. Lauren’s brain tried to get back on track, she was supposed to be helping both girls find friendship in one another, not standing there red-cheeked and flustered trying to salvage her pride.

Camila meanwhile was absolutely mortified that she had ended up in the green-eyed girl’s admittedly warm arms. To add to that, as soon as she saw those emerald eyes blazing with concern and heard that sensual mouth form her name, Camila was reduced to a silently babbling puddle. She was rooted to the spot as Lauren offered her hand out, unable to coerce her body out of “shut down mode” after it had short-circuited due to Lauren’s intimidating presence. She loathed that she was so debilitatingly shy, especially when it came to the incredible, gorgeous girl currently standing before her.

Lauren had turned back to the other girl and they exchanged a few words while Camila’s mind struggled to catch up. They stopped their flow of chatter and the other girl stepped forward toward the flustered and confused Camila.

“Hey Camila right? I’m Dinah Jane, everyone just calls me DJ though. It’s my first day here and because Lauren doesn’t have any of my classes she was hoping – well we kinda both were – that you’d maybe hang for a bit and show me around?” She offered Camila a friendly smile and an adorably dorky wave.

Camila shrunk slightly before returning a small timid smile of her own. Her eyes quickly fluttered toward Lauren, who was watching her with her own small hopeful smile, before instantly snapping away again to stare steadfastly at her own hands. She gave Dinah an imperceptible nod, cursing her inability to act like a normal functioning human. Both girls beamed broadly sharing a look, before focusing back on Camila.

“H-how… How d-do you know who I'm– who I am?” she almost whispered, glancing up at Lauren again, before deciding that it was safer not to focus on her face. She stared at the older girl’s chest before realising to her intense horror, that it seemed as though she were checking her out.

Lauren chuckled lightly, noticing the movement of the young girl’s brown-eyes.

“Maybe you’re not as invisible as you think.”

Camila braved another timid peek up at the older girl; brown eyes slowly meeting green.

Instead of instantly glancing away, she found that she was completely enarmoured with the different shades of green dancing around the pupil of her eye. Camila felt as though she were lost in a rainforest – she could practically feel the warmth of the sun poking through the trees, the mottled leaves appearing iridescent in the light – as she was encapsulated in Lauren’s eyes.

“You– you noticed me?” She stuttered feebly.

“Everyday.” As she responded, their eyes still locked.

“O-oh,” she mumbled dejectedly, her eyes falling away along with her face. Lauren must have thought that she was an absolute worthless loser and took pity on her. Maybe this was some kind of cruel prank where they would humiliate her and tease her about how weird she was. Camila liked to think that Lauren was a nice person, but she had seen those television shows and she knew what often happened to outcasts like herself.

She cast a brief glance over the sophomore girl and couldn’t help but appreciate her stunning beauty. Dark wavy tresses and long lashes framing her pale face and causing her eyes to pop, smooth alabaster skin covered the curves that were beginning to form, bleached white buck teeth that Camila couldn’t help but find adorable which were hidden behind rosy red lips.  Any hope that she still clung to for them to be anything more than strangers instantly died at that moment. Lauren sensed the girl’s self-deprecating mood and bent down to meet Camila’s face through the waterfall of brown waves. “And that’s why I want you to be a little less alone…I want you to be happy,” Lauren said quickly.

“Happy?” she mused softly.

“Yeah, you know with friends and movies and sleepovers and– and parties? Do you think that people haven’t noticed the awesome designs in the bathroom? They’re amazing Camz. Someone with that much beauty in their mind should have people to share it with,” Lauren babbled with a conviction that sent Camila’s chest aflutter. Apprehensively her head slowly lifted. Her heart jumped into her throat as she noticed their sudden proximity.

“Camz…” she mumbled softly, her eyes raising once again to meet the two emeralds. “You called me…Camz?”

“I– I’m sorry Cam– I mean Camil– uh… Camila.” Lauren words stumbled over themselves as the smaller girl moved even closer. A frown wrinkled the smaller girl’s brow.

“I’ve kind of never had a nickname before…” She appeared to be calculating something in her head as Lauren watched on in an anxious impatience.

Camila’s face suddenly broke out into a brilliant smile, leaving Lauren completely dazzled.

“I like it.” Camila’s proclamation forced a smile to break out on Lauren’s own face. In their shared moment of mutual appreciation the two girls were unaware that they had drifted closer, now only a hair-breadth away. Floating back into consciousness, Lauren could practically feel the hot breath of the other girl brush across her cheek. She surreptitiously noted the amazing smell of banana, cinnamon and vanilla that seemed to roll off of the other girl. The scent mixed with the girl’s Latina beauty seemed to intrigue her and bewitch her every sense. It seemed as though each were slowly inching forward unconsciously.

They were barely a couple of inches apart and suddenly all Lauren could imagine was the feel of those soft lips on her own. The warm taste of cinnamon on her lips and the sound of that raspy voice forming a delicious moan. The distance between their lips was quickly becoming far too much for her to handle. Just as she was about to move in, their moment was broken by the bell. From the shock of the sound and the close proximity of the two girls, it was without much surprise that Camila’s forehead connected with Lauren’s painfully.

“Sorry! I-I’m SO sorry!” Camila rushed to apologise. Holding her own head, she examined Lauren’s. “Oh no! I’m such an idiot! It’s bruising already. Do you feel concussed? Or dizzy? I’m so – ”

“Camila, if you apologise one more time I swear!” she laughed.

“S-sor… Um… Y-your head. Does it… Does it hurt?”

“Yep.” Camila opened her mouth to once again apologise but Lauren waved it shut. “I’ll survive. What is it with you and apologising anyway? Don’t get me wrong, it’s kinda adorable. But not everything is your fault.”

“I– ”

“Don’t even think about apologising!”

Camila shrugged, shoulders slumped and eyes downcast.

“Look at me.” Lauren said gently lifting Camila’s chin up so they could face each other. “Just because nobody is smart enough or worthy enough to give you their time, does not mean that you are any lesser or less worthy for it. It just means that most people are dumb. Talk to Dinah. Maybe she might surprise you… And maybe you might just surprise yourself.”

Lauren sincerely meant every word and hoped the younger girl would believe even just the tiniest part of it, while Camila swallowed Lauren’s every word and dedicated a chamber for them in her heart.

“Friends?” Camila asked quietly, offering her clammy hand after trying to wipe away the sweat coating it.

“Friends.” Lauren stated, grasping her hand in her own and finding that she was reluctant to let go. She parted ways leaving Camila and Dinah alone together amidst the sea of bustling students.

“What was that?” Dinah asked in a suggestive tone.

“What?” Camila asked, voice sounding as far away as her mind.

“You two totally had… like… wow!” Camila looked at her, head slight cocked and a question burning in her eyes. “Like you guys had full on chemistry!”

“We, uh, h-ha-have…chemistry?” Camila babbled still in a daze.

“Uhhh, yeah!!!” Dinah exclaimed. Camila’s cheek brightened along with her heart. “The amount of moments you guys both had in the span of 5 minutes. I wish I had that many with my imaginary boyfriend! Girl looked like she moving in for the kill.”

“No way. Lauren and I… I’ve never… We’ve never… That was the first time we’ve ever spoken.” He cheeks had reached a whole new shade of red altogether.

“Oh my GOD! You so have it bad for her!” Dinah suddenly exclaimed, which would have made Camila jump if she weren’t in a completely different universe. “Like are you even seeing me right now?!”

Dinah waved her hand in front of Camila’s eyes.“Helloooo. Earth to Camila!”

“Yes! I mean NO!” Camila’s eyes widened. “I mean I can’t love Lauren. Shit! I mean I don’t like Lauren. No. It–we–she… Nothing.”

Dinah just returned a hard stare, the laughter hidden in her knowing smirk and the quirk of her eyebrow. Camila felt an overwhelming panic as it sunk in that this girl – this random person – knew her deepest secret.

“Please…” She begged. “PLEASE don’t tell anyone! Please!”

“Don’t worry Camila, you and I, we were meant to be friends. You’re little crush is safe with me! Besides,” she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “You’re green-eyed friend seemed to be pretty getting cosy with you. If you know what I mean!” She winked and lightly nudged Camila with her elbow.

“She was?”

“Mila, trust me. Your girl, DJ here, knows these things!” Camila’s uneasy look suddenly transformed into a smile as she thought about Lauren returning her feelings. Camila had once again retreated into her fantasy world as Dinah rolled her eyes at the shorter girl. “So smitten!” She muttered, before Camila sent her arm Dinah’s way as they both trudged together to the next class.

Neither Lauren or Camila were to know back then just how important that the day would be to Camila’s entire self-perception, and that their encounter would become the catalyst that forever intertwined their lives. Especially considering Camila and Lauren would not to interact again until her junior year, despite the endless fawning that would be done by Camila over her new first crush.