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takerfoxx · 4 years

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IM Swiftly Descending Darkness, Chapter 8

Sorry this is coming late, but to be fair it’s longer than most, and I had a really busy weekend.

...

It was a nice night for a funeral.

It was a little past six in the evening, and the Sun had almost set. All day it had been bright and warm, with the sky being that perfect shade of blue that just beckoned everyone to come outdoors, the wind was gentle, and the air pleasantly balmy. And now that it was on its way out, it was leaving Gensokyo with an equally warm and pleasant evening.

Normally on days like that, the children would all be outside chasing each other across the field, napping in the shade of the trees, or roughhousing in the grass. Not on that day though. They were outside, yes, but they were instead gathered in the small copse of trees that they avoided at all other times.

It was there that those who had died in the orphanage were laid to rest, or at least those who had enough of their bodies recovered to allow for it.

Satoko stood in front of the freshly carved headstone, a tiered stone rectangle that reached up to her waist. In her hands was a small, black box. Haruna stood next to her left, with a paper lantern in her hands. Shion was at her right, holding a small bag tied with a piece of twine, which threaded through a pair of coins at the ends. Mokou was standing a little further back, Joshua next to her, little Akito in his arms.

As for the children, they were all present. All of those who had been taken by the spiders and those who had gone after them had woken up, and like Kohta, Rumia, and Haruko, none of them could recall anything about what had happened to them in the Bone Orchard. But something had happened to them, of that Mokou was certain. She had already sent word for the Hakurei Shrine Maiden to come, and until she arrived there was little they could do but watch and wait.

Personally, Satoko didn’t know how much she trusted Mokou’s judgment. After all, the woman was supposedly a centuries-old murderess. It wasn’t out of the question that she might be a little on the unstable side.

Still, there was something odd about them now. Now that they were all awake, they seemed so solemn, so quiet, even moreso then one would expect from traumatized children. The six of them were standing together, apart from the others. That had been at Mokou’s insistence. While Satoko understood the other woman’s concerns, she hated having to do that to them. The other children were whispering about them already.

At least they seemed normal now. Rumia and Keine were side-by-side, awkwardly shuffling their feet. Kana was also standing quietly, though every few seconds she started coughing. That was worrisome. She had been out the longest, and had felt the weakest upon waking up. According to Haruna, her slight frame had been damaged the most by the spiders’ venom, and she would be sick for some time. Kana had insisted that she was well enough to attend the funeral, but now Satoko was regretting not making her stay in at least. Haruko and Hayate were both softly weeping, mourning their friend. Kohta had his hand on Haruko’s shoulder, which was very kind of him, seeing how little they hadn’t gotten along before. Satoko wished that she had done more to curb the three girls’ meaner habits while Eiko was alive, but it was far too late for that now.

They waited, watching the Sun. It sank lower and lower, bleeding gold and orange into the horizon, its blood cleaning the sky away and allowing the stars to shine forth.

Finally it vanished fully, and night emerged. It was time.

Satoko took a deep breath, and she started singing. It was a song that her mother had taught her, who in turn had learned it from her mother, and so on. It was a song that was only sang by her family, when they failed in their duty to look after the small souls entrusted to their care. In other parts of Gensokyo, they sang other songs when laying their dead to rest. This one was theirs.

It was a song that thanked the gods and spirits for allowing them to look after the child during her time on Earth, and asked for forgiveness for not being up to the task. And it beseeched the river-guardian to bear the newly departed soul across, and for the Yamaxanadu to be kind.

When she was done singing, Satoko knelt down to place the box holding Eiko’s ashes in a small door set in the bottom of the headstone. Shion placed the bag she was holding right next to it, and the two slid the door shut. That done, Haruna lit the lantern she was holding and let it fly. It rose up higher and higher, to join the stars in the sky.

It was all completely symbolic of course. The bag was filled with stones and earth taken from the homestead grounds. By now Eiko’s soul would have already crossed the River Suzune, while the Shinigami that manned the ferry would have already been paid from the offerings the orphanage had made at various shrines over the years. But it was good to remind everyone that though Eiko was dead, she was alive and well somewhere else.

They watched the lantern sail higher and higher. It was good that the wind was so low, else it would probably be blown completely off course to get caught in a tree.

And then it burst into flames.

Haruko and Hayate both screamed as the burning scraps of paper rained down on them. So did some of the boys. Akito started crying. “Holy shit!” Rumia blurted out.

“What happened?” Haruhi cried. “Why did it do that?”

Mokou was already in motion. “Everyone back to the house!” she said. “Go on, go!”

“Wait, what just happened?” Kazuchika demanded. “Why’d it explode?”

“No clue, but we don’t want to wait around to find out. Move!”

Everyone hurried back to the house. The only sound came from Haruko, Hayate, and Akito, who were still softly crying. Satoko was deeply shaken. What had happened? Why had the lantern caught fire? Maybe Haruna had accidentally lit the balloon part with the matches.

(Her mouth finally fell open, and out crawled a fat-bodied black spider. It crawled up Eiko’s face, toward her eyes)

Or maybe it was something else, something much worse.

Then, as they were about halfway to the house, Dai leaned over to Yoshi and said in a loud whisper, “So…does that mean Eiko’s in Hell now?”

What happened next was comparable to a single thrown stone upsetting the balance of a the side of a hill to cause a rockslide. The moment the words were out of Dai’s mouth, a chorus of gasps went up and everyone spun around to stare at the boy. For his part, Dai immediately realized that his comment had been very unwise and his face turned red. However, before he could say anything in his defense, chaos erupted.

There was a strangled sound of pain, and then Haruko shrieked, “YOU LITTLE BEAST!�� before launching herself at him. She knocked the younger boy over and began pounding at his face with both fists.

Yuuki, Yoshi, and Hiro all ran to their friend’s defense. Hiro managed to wrap his arms around Haruko’s neck and pull her back, though that didn’t stop her from clawing at Dai while shrieking.

Then a hand grabbed a handful of Hiro’s hair, and a fist drove into his face.

The fist belonged to Kohta, who had begun charging almost at the same time as Haruko. Hiro released Haruko’s neck and stumbled back. This of course drew the attention of Yoshi and Yuuki, who both ran in to tackle Kohta.

They were stopped though, stopped by Rumia and Hayate, who grabbed a boy each and, in synchronization, shoved the two of them backward. That allowed Keine charge in with a running tackle of her own. She drove both of her shoulders into each of the boys, taking them both off their feet and sending them flying back into the gob smacked older kids.

Things might have erupted into an all-out brawl right then and there, but that was when the adults finally intervened.

“STOP IT!” Haruhi screamed. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?! STOP!” Haruna and Joshua took more direct action, putting their bodies between the two groups and walling them off while Shion quickly pulled Dai away from the crowd before anyone else took a swing.

“HEY!” Satoko shouted. She whistled loudly, shutting down the yelling and drawing everyone’s attention. “What’s wrong with all of you? We’re being attacked by Human and youkai alike and just got done burying one of our own, and now you’re fighting each other?”

Haruka pushed her way past Mr. Joshua. “He said Eiko was in Hell!” she screamed as she jabbed an accusatory finger at Dai.

“No, I didn’t!” Dai shouted back. “I just asked if she was there, I didn’t say she was!”

“That…not really better,” Shinji said.

“Hey, seriously dude. What the hell?” Tomohiro added.

“I didn’t mean it like that! I was just…well, her lantern caught fire-”

“It was an accident!” Hayate said.

“-and she was always been pretty mean-”

“Go to Hell!” Haruko snapped.

“She was!” Now that he was put on the spot, Dai was determined to not back down. “And so were you! The three of you picked on me and Yoshi and Hiro all the time!”

“Dai,” Haruna said. “Shut your fool mouth. Right now.”

“There’s a time and place for everything, son,” Mr. Joshua added, laying a gentle, but firm, hand on Dai’s shoulder. “And that was completely out of line.”

Dai looked like he had been betrayed. “But-”

“All right, enough of the bullshit,” Mokou growled as she pushed herself into the center of the rabble. “Look, you’re kids. And kids fight, kids get mean sometimes, it happens. That doesn’t mean you’re damned to Hell just because you’re still young and a jackass. Otherwise, Hell would be a fucking boarding school.

“And for your information, Dai, no. No, Eiko did not go to Hell. You know how this works. When you die, your soul heads to the River Suzune, where it’s picked up by the Shinigami. And if you can pay the Shinigami’s price, she’ll boat you across to be judged by the Yamaxanadu. And this house donates fairly regularly to at least three different shrines to cover that very price, right? So, Eiko is set there. And as for her being mean, you’re right! She was. But she was a kid, just like the rest of you. And sure, the Yamaxanadu has a reputation for being kind of a hardass, but she’s also got a soft spot for kids, and isn’t about to send one to Hell unless they were genuinely evil right out of the womb, which Eiko was not.”

Despite Mokou’s logical dissertation, many of the kids looked unconvinced, which included Eiko’s friend Hayate, which was interesting. “How do you know?” she demanded, tears in her eyes. “How do you know she won’t? You saw what happened to the lantern! Do you know her?”

“What, the Yamaxanadu?” Mokou shrugged. “Yeah, a little.”

“What,” Hayate said, visibly caught flatfooted. She wasn’t the only one. Even Satoko, who already knew a thing or two about Mokou’s past, was taken back by this. Yamaxanadu Eiki Shiki wasn’t someone one made acquaintances of.

“I mean, I’ve never actually met her,” Mokou clarified. “But before coming here I’ve been known to do odd jobs for people, and she’s needed a thing or two done in the mortal world that needed a mortal agent.”

Hayate stared dubiously at her. “What kind of things?”

“Hunting down escaped evil spirits, mostly.” Mokou said. “Actually, she sent her Shinigami after them, and her Shinigami hired the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, and the Hakurei Shrine Maiden hired me because I knew the area better than she did, and I got to talk to both of them about the boss, but that’s getting away from the point, which is regardless of her attitude, and regardless of what you all thought of each other, Eiko did not go to Hell. She’s at peace in the Netherworld right now, and you two will get to see her again someday. But it’s my job to make sure that day is a long time from now, so let’s all get something straight: we have actual enemies now, which means that of this moment, you are all on the same side. No more dumb bickering, fighting, trying to get each other in trouble, that sort of thing.” To Dai, she said, “And Dai. Seriously. Time and place for everything. You don’t have to like Eiko, but-” Then she seemed to catch sigh of something over Dai’s head, and her voice trailed off. “Uh…huh.”

A group of men were approaching, men that Rumia did not recognize. There was five of them, and they had an air of purpose and authority about them. However, they weren’t wearing the sort of robes she had seen on village elders or the uniforms commonly sported by guards. Rather, they all had on simple, heavy brown robes with long hoods, ones that were kept down.

The one in the lead was the shortest and the plumpest, of comparable shape to Gendou Sonozika, though he had no beard or hat, and his greying hair framed his head like the mane of one of the lions from one of Joshua’s stories.

Satoko was immediately on her guard. She knew those men. She had seen them before, during her trips to the Human Village. And she knew who they followed.

“Ah, good afternoon,” the leader said in a high, squeaky voice, using that fake pleasant tone that grown-ups used whenever they were going out of their way to be condescending. He looked around at the group. “Ah, but perhaps not so good. What’s this, a fight? Well, if you can’t even go for a midday walk without turning on each other, then I guess that…incident in the market is to be expected.”

If Satoko had been angry before, then this brought that rage to a froth. “Seiya Kirisame,” she said. “One of Nathaniel Skinner’s stooges, if I recall. What are you doing here? You are not welcome, especially not today.”

Seiya Kirisame’s smirk grew wider. “So unwelcoming. Are you this surly even at home?”

“We’re coming back from a funeral, if you must know,” Satoko said.

That took Kirisame off guard. “Oh, ah, I’m…sorry to hear that. Someone from one of the villages that you were…friendly with?”

“One of the children,” Satoko said coldly. She watched Kirisame’s face intently. Mokou and Joshua had both said that the spiders had spoke of taking instructions from a Human, a small, plump Human with a squeaky voice, and this one certainly fit the bill.

Sure enough, Kirisame’s smirk disappeared completely. “Oh,” he said again. All of his smug bravado was gone, and he seemed utterly unsure of how to continue. “I…my condolences. Was it…an illness, or…”

“No,” Mokou said as she strode forward and placed herself between the men and everyone else. “A youkai attack, actually. From the Youkai Forest.

The blood drained from Seiya’s face. “A…oh.”

“Spider youkai, to be specific,” Mokou said. Her tone was casual, almost conversational despite the horrid things she was discussing. “Seven of our children were taken. We managed to get six back, but they had already…started when we got there.”

“Spider youkai…” Kirisame whispered.

“Yeah,” Mokou said, staring down into the man’s eyes. “Four of them.”

Kirisame swallowed. “And…what did you do with…said spider youkai?”

Mokou shrugged. “Dealt with ‘em. With prejudice.”

“And they killed one of your children?”

Satoko stepped forward to stand next to Mokou. “Justify your presence, or leave,” she said.

Kirisame didn’t respond. He seemed to be quite beside himself, having lost his line of thought and was mentally fumbling around to find it again. Even the men who had come with him were glancing at one another in discomfort.

“Final warning,” Mokou hissed. “Speak, or get out.”

One of Kirisame’s companions nudged him with his foot, startling him. He swallowed again, cleared his throat noisily, and said reached for something in his robe. “W-Well, this…is awkward then,” he said, pulling out piece of paper. “I am very sorry to have to bring this to you on this sad day but…here.”

He held the paper out. Satoko snatched it from his fingers scanned its message. When she looked up again at the messenger, her dark eyes could have rivaled Mokou’s in burning rage.

“We’re being banned from the village market?” she said. This kicked up murmurs and gasps of surprise from the children and their caretakers. Haruna said nothing, though the fingers of her fists squeezed so hard that everyone could hear her knuckles pop. As for Mokou, she merely looked over to Satoko and the letter in her hand. Then, moving with slow deliberation, she turned her gaze directly toward Kirisame, her hawk-like focus conveying far more malice than words ever could have.

“It was Leader Sonozika’s decision!” Kirisame protested, his words coming out as terrified squeaks. “In light of what happened last week-”

“Bullshit!” snapped Haruko. “They were the ones that started it!”

“That’s not what witnesses say!” Kirisame yelled back. He might have kept yelling at her, but then the same man who had nudged him before placing a steadying hand on his shoulder, likely to remind him that getting into a shouting match with a child would not be to his benefit. Taking the hint, Kirisame stopped himself and took a deep breath. When he had regained some measure of composure, he ignored Haruko and turned his attention back to Mokou. “And…you. Fujiwara no Mokou, is it?”

Mokou arched an eyebrow.

“Regardless of who was initially at fault, you did insult Leader Sonozika and his guard when he was just trying to clear things up,” Kirisame said. Now that he had gotten to his reason for coming, which was no doubt well-rehearsed, he seemed to be regaining some of his confidence. And his slime. “To say nothing of your threats to Brother Nathaniel!”

“Oh, did I hurt their feelings?” Mokou said. “Then why are you here and they’re not? If they got a problem with what I said, then fine. They can come here and punch me in the face themselves.”

Visibly annoyed by being literally talked down to by a woman, Kirisame tried to straighten up to his full, unimpressive height. “They are very important men, and-”

“But they ain’t kings,” Haruna said as she joined her friends in the center. She was of a more comparable height to Kirisame, but was packed with considerably more visible muscle than he. “And you’re forgetting how this works. Gendou Sonozika heads up the Human Village, sure, and he’s got some measure of authority outside of it. But he don’t rule it. He can’t tell the other settlements how to run their business. And he can’t ban nobody from something he don’t run. That’s up to the other village elders.”

Despite the fact that he and his mostly silent associates outnumbered the women directly confronting him five-to-three, Kirisame’s nerve was fast slipping. “I…I think you’ll find that the village elders hold Master Sonozika in considerably higher esteem then you give them credit for!” he cried. “Enough that-”

Joshua walked up to the trio and took his place next to Haruna, arms folding and dark eyes calmly staring right into Kirisame’s.

“-er, that-”

Shion took the spot next to Satoko.

“-I’m sorry, is this-”

Haruhi inhaled deeply to calm her nerves, but she went over to stand next to Shion.

“-are you threatening us?” Kirisame sputtered. “I’ll have you know-”

“Andrew,” Joshua said.

The name being as unfamiliar as it was, everyone on Joshua’s side all looked over to him in bewilderment. However, one of the robed and previously still figures visibly winced.

“Andrew, I know that’s you,” Joshua said. “Come on, kid. Take that hood down.”

A pause, and then the figure reached up to lower his hood. Beneath it was a young white man with untidy hair the color of straw and a face full of freckles.

“Andrew, why are you with these men?” Joshua said. “Intimidating orphans and trying to cut them off from help. Come on, kid. You know this isn’t right.”

Andrew nervously licked his lips. “B-But Brother Nathaniel says that y-you’ve been consorting with demons! He says that you’ll taint us all!”

“Nathaniel is a sad, broken man,” Joshua said. “He sees devils in the candle smoke and hears Satan’s whispers in the wind. And he now works to doom children. If I recall, Christ had quite a few things to say about men like him.”

“But there are demons out there!” Andrew protested. “There’s youkai, and spirits, and…actual demons, and-”

“Enough!” Kirisame spat. “Brother Andrew, it is not your place to speak. Put you hood back up and shut up!”

“But-”

“Do it!”

Andrew looked shaken, but he did what he was told.

“I think we’ve heard enough from you,” Satoko said. “You’ve delivered your message. And since it seems that you’re intent on exiling us from the rest of the Human population, I guess that just leaves us with this plot of land within our fences. So that means that you’re trespassing. So get out.”

“Hey, wait,” Kirisame said. “You can’t just-”

Mokou took a step forward, opened her mouth, and exhaled a torrent of fire right into the dirt road right at Kirisame’s feet.

That finally got the desired effect, and the five of them quickly fled, practically tripping over each other in their desperation to get away. Two of them took to the sky immediately, and the others were quick to follow.

As for Satoko and her family, they were more than a little gobsmacked. After all, it was one thing to know that Mokou was talented with fire magic, but having her literally vomit up flames on command? Now that would take anyone by surprise.

Fortunately, young Shinji knew exactly what to say. “You can breathe fire?” he said to Mokou.

Nodding, Mokou coughed up a bit of smoke and said, “I don’t like doing it. Gives me a sore throat.”

“Still, you can breathe fire!” Shinji sounded genuinely hurt. “That is so cool! How come you never showed us?”

“Never needed to. And it gives me a sore throat, I just told you!”

“Enough,” Satoko said wearily. “Everyone back to the house. This day has been long enough as it is.”

…

Dinner was a quiet, sober affair, with very little actual eating and even less talking. With Mokou now on permanent defense duty, Shion and Haruhi had prepared it, putting together a simple meal of steamed rice and spinach. Joshua had tried to pitch in, but his lack of culinary skills soon became apparent, and the two women kindly, but firmly, suggested that he find some other way to make himself useful.

And that was the problem.

Joshua was the handyman. He fixed things that broke, he improved things that needed improving, and he helped teach whatever practical skills he could. Plus, he was always on hand if any of the children needed an understanding ear. Normally that gave him plenty with which to occupy his time, but now what they needed was far outside of his wheelhouse. Perhaps Satoko would let him reinforce the house, board up the windows, and strengthen the walls. He didn’t like the thought of turning their home into a fortress, but they had to be prepared for any eventuality.

For now though, everyone was going to be sleeping together in the main room downstairs. Joshua was given a sleeping mat, and he brought it down along with a pillow and blanket and a few select belongings, mainly a bag of toiletries, his Bible, and his old wallet, which now only contained pictures of his friends, both from this world and the one previous. As he spread his out in one corner, he noticed one boy in particular looking a little out of sorts.

Dai was sitting cross-legged on his own mat with his head bowed. Normally he would be up and running around with his friends, but even they seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder.

Wincing, Joshua went over to the boy and sat down next to him. “You all right, son?”

Without lifting his head, Dai lifted his left shoulder in a half-shrug.

Sighing, Joshua leaned back on his palms and stretched his legs out. “I guess we were a little hard on you. But you do understand why, right? Even if you didn’t like her, that wasn’t the-”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Dai muttered.

“Oh?”

Dai gathered up his legs under his chin and stared balefully out at the room. “I’ve just…you know, been thinking…”

“About?” Joshua prodded.

“The ones you brought back. You know, Kohta, Haruko, and the rest. The ones that didn’t die.”

Well, that was putting it bluntly. “What about them?”

“There’s something wrong with them, isn’t there?”

Joshua slowly breathed out. “Seems that way.”

“What is it?”

“I’m…not entirely sure myself,” Joshua admitted. “It seems that they picked up some kind of…” He winced. Even after all these years, some of the more occult aspects of Gensokyo still made him uncomfortable. “Well, the Youkai Forest has a lot of…”

“Dark magic?”

Joshua nodded. “A good a thing to call it as any. We’re not really sure what it is, but we’re keeping them separate until the Hakurei Shrine Maiden can come by and take a look at them and hopefully cure them.”

Dai still didn’t look at him, and Joshua wondered how much of that the boy understood. He was only eight, after all. Hell, Joshua himself had been in Gensokyo longer than Dai had been alive, and he barely understood any of it.

“So it’s like what they called us then?” Dai said at last.

“Who?”

“Those men. Youkai…taunted?”

“Tainted,” Joshua corrected as a sour feeling built in his stomach.

“Right. That’s what they are, right? They got taken by youkai, and now they’re youkai tainted.”

“Is that why you thought that maybe Eiko went to Hell?”

“That’s how it works, right?” Dai said with a shiver. “Youkai are evil, and everything they touch is evil, and evil people go Hell, so…”

“Dai, Dai, listen! That’s not how it works!”

“How do you know?” Dai said in an accusatory tone. “You have your own weird Outsider religion! You don’t understand any of our world.”

Defensive indignation welled up inside Joshua, hot and salty, and he bit down on his tongue to keep himself from taking the bait. Dai was just a child, a child who was feeling scared, confused, and alone. “I do,” he said, keeping his face and voice calm. “I do have my own faith. But I’ve lived in Gensokyo for a pretty long time. And I’ve done everything I can to learn how things work here.” He shifted his weight. “Look, Dai. Evil isn’t some kind of stain that you get on your clothes and can’t wash off. Evil is a choice, something people have to decide to be. Sometimes bad things happen, and you get angry. Sometimes you grow up being taught bad and hateful ideas. And sometimes you do get, well, smeared with something evil, like the kids upstairs did. But that doesn’t make you evil. Things that happen to you aren’t your fault. Things that you’re told by evil people aren’t your fault. It’s letting that evil get past the skin and worm its way into your heart that makes you evil. Those men that came here today? They weren’t born evil. They didn’t become evil because evil touched them. No, it was their choice to let fear and ignorance decide how they were going to think and believe, so that they now think that hurting us is the right thing to do. That’s what makes someone evil. Eiko wasn’t evil. She wasn’t very nice, and…yes, we should have done something about that, but she wasn’t evil. And the rest of the kids that went into the forest aren’t evil either. They got touched by something that we don’t understand, and we’re going to do everything we can to get it off them, but they’re not evil, they’re just kids that need help.” He patted Dai’s shoulder. “Same with you. Don’t listen to those brown-wearing idiots. They’re all fools.”

Dai frowned. He didn’t seem to be totally accepting what Joshua was telling him, but he wasn’t rejecting it outright either. That was fine. Sometimes it took a bit for lessons to take hold.

Then he asked that question. “What about Miss Mokou?”

It took a considerable amount of will to keep from wincing. “What about her?” Joshua said.

“Everyone’s saying that she’s something…bad. That she’s lived forever and killed a lot of people. Is she evil?”

Joshua slowly breathed out. That really was the real question, one that he had been grappling with ever since the spider’s nest, and especially since she had opened up to him about her past. “I…don’t really know,” he admitted at last. “Y-Yes, she’s a lot more than she seems to be. And yes, she’s…done a lot of bad things apparently. I don’t know if that makes her a bad person or just someone who fell to a bad place, but…” Sighing, he looked to the stairs, which led to where Mokou was currently sealing off the sick room for everyone’s protection. “Some things are so far beyond our understanding that it’s impossible for us to judge. Whatever she is, and whatever she’s done, I guess we’ll just have to leave that to the gods, yours and mine, to judge. But this much I do know: she is on our side. And if she is a monster, then I’ll take a monster like her than the ones in the Human Village any day.”

…

It was almost time for bed, but Noba felt sick.

He had been feeling sick for days, ever since he had gotten hurt at the market. Honestly, he really didn’t remember all that much about the incident. The last thing he could recall with certainty was the night before, when he, Shinji, Kazuchika, and Tomohiro had been discussing a rather lovely young woman they had seen working a stall the last time they had been there, and whether one of them would be able to work up the courage to go speak to her.

He had to piece together what had happened from what the others had told him. Apparently some of the local boys had been making passes to Haruko, Hayate, and Eiko, and he and his friends had taken exception to that and stepped in. And from there things had escalated until practically the whole market had devolved into an outright brawl, and Noba had taken the worst of the beatings.

On the one hand, he felt that he should be proud of himself for stepping in to defend his family. On the other, it was hard to feel good about any of it when his head would not stop aching, nor his stomach stop churning.

Just rest, the grown-ups had told him. Rest, and let yourself heal. Let us know if it hurts too much. In time it will get better.

Groaning, Noba leaned forward and grabbed onto his head.

Whatever was wrong with him, he was almost certain that it wasn’t something so simple as a knock to the head. He had taken knocks to the head before, including one when a bout of roughhousing with Tomohiro and left him dizzy for three days, and that hadn’t been anything like this. This felt like pressure was building deep inside him, like a teakettle without a faucet, while the air thickened around him. It was growing without and within, and constantly getting worse.

He fumbled around the stuff he had brought down for his medicine, which were simple herbal pills that Miss Shion had given him. The relief that they gave him was small, but it was better than nothing, and they did help him sleep.

Unfortunately, his search came up empty.

Noba stared in despair at his small pile of belongings. He had forgotten them. How had he forgotten them? His head hurt so much that one would think that they would be the first thing he would bring down with him! Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot!

Then he looked over to the stairs. Well, he supposed that he could just go up and get them now. They were keeping everyone downstairs just as a precaution, right? And he had just been up there to get his stuff. All he had to do was head back up the stairs, nip into the boy’s dorm, grab his medicine (he had probably just left them on the chest at the foot of his bed), and head back down again. It would take probably around three minutes.

Except something about heading back upstairs filled him with dread. Because that was where they were.

He still didn’t know what to make of the events of the last few days. A youkai attack, right in broad daylight? Nearly half of the other kids taken? Eiko Goto, one of the girls he had gotten hurt defending, now dead? And the others…

Something was wrong with them. Something was terribly wrong with them.

He had known that even before the grown-ups had told them. Just looking at them had made the ache in his head spike, and it only grew worse the closer he got to them. Beyond a shadow of doubt, they had brought something back with them, something evil.

Miss Mokou was guarding them now, which was good. There were whispers going around that Miss Mokou was something more than she seemed, something dark and deadly. That may be so, but as far as Noba was concerned, it was a good thing. They needed a little dark and deadly on their side, and she didn’t make his head hurt.

Still, heading upstairs would mean getting closer to those kids, and they just scared him.

Noba tried to lay down and sleep. He tried to ignore the pounding in his head, tried to think about something else, anything else.

A few minutes later he got up with a frustrated growl.

Tomohiro, Shinji, and Kazuchika, who had all been talking in a circle, looked at him. “Hey, where you going?” Kazuchika asked.

Noba nodded toward the stairs. “Forgot my medicine,” he mumbled. “Be right back.”

With that said, Noba started the ascent up the stairs.

He wasn’t sure if it was the pain inside his head throwing him off, but for some reason the climb seemed three times more difficult than it normally was. That was odd. He went up and down those stairs every day without thinking about it. Hell, he had just been up there to get his things. But now that everyone save for Miss Mokou and her wards were all downstairs, effectively making the second floor something of a quarantined zone, it did feel that the staircase had grown in length while the steps themselves shrank in size.

Noba’s mouth had gone dry. He tried to wet it, but had limited success. It was just nerves, he told himself. You were literally just up here, and had no trouble getting up and down! Still, by the time he had finally reached the second floor, he had broken out into a cold sweat.

As Noba stepped onto the second story, he shivered. Had someone left a window open? He was pretty sure they had made sure they were all shut tight and locked. He had even heard Mr. Joshua suggest boarding them up, though Miss Satoko had shot that down. He had a feeling that she would change her mind before too long.

Regardless, despite it still being midsummer, the air felt bitter cold, enough to make his breath steam.

The chill ought to be good for his aching head, and yet it now felt worse. Noba breathed deep, hoping that the cold air would numb the pain, but it did nothing.

The hallway stretched before him. Noba frowned. Apparently his mind was still playing tricks on him, because it seemed to be stretching quite a bit longer than it ought to be, like someone had gripped it at both ends and pulled it out like a piece of taffy.

Maybe he was coming down with something. Wouldn’t that just be fantastic, to get sick on top of everything else?

Wrapping his arms around him for warmth, Noba headed down the hall. As he went, his feelings of unease only continued to build.

There was just something wrong about the hall, something he couldn’t put his finger on. But the lines felt off, like entering a hall of framed picture that were all tilted. If he stopped and focused on something in particular, then it looked fine, but when he took in the whole of the hallway, it just looked weird.

There actually were a few framed pictures along the way, and Joshua stopped at one in particular. It had been taken about a year prior, roughly around summer solstice. It was a group shot of all the children currently living at the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home, with their adult caretakers standing behind them.

Despite how bad he felt, Noba couldn’t help but smile at the memory. Life had been pretty good back then: pleasant, simple, and worthwhile. There had been no monsters attacking from the forests, no awful people beating them up, and no horrible pounding in his skull. But now, everything had gone horribly wrong.

Then Noba frowned. Wait, there was something off about the photograph, something that had changed from the last time he had seen it. His eyes zeroed in on the dead girl Eiko, who was standing with her friends Haruko and Hayate. She was smiling, yes, but her smile wasn’t the small half-smirk she used to wear, oh no, her smile now was a wide and toothy grin, one that was way too wide and way too toothy, and that was because her lips were gone, taken clean off, leaving her with a skeleton’s smile. The rest of her face was dead too, the nose gone, likely bitten off and swallowed as an appetizer, and in place of two child’s eyes, Eiko had two empty, black pits in her face, just like her corpse.

Eaten. Her entire face was eaten off.

Noba’s shivering now had little to do with the cold. His gaze then slid from Eiko’s face to that of her friends. Both Haruko and Hayate still had their faces, their smiles untarnished, but not their eyes. But unlike Eiko, their eyes hadn’t been plucked out and the empty sockets photographed. Oh no, they had been burned right off of the photograph itself, like something had lit a match and pressed it to each of their eyes, leaving a black circle each time.

His eyes then shot to Kana’s. Black circles. Kohta? Black circles. Rumia? Black circles. Keine?

Noba swallowed. Keine’s eyes had also been burned out of the picture, but she also had something new, something that the other defiled children hadn’t been given. A pair of curving horns rose up from her head, like those of a ram or a bull All taken together, it made the sweet, slight girl’s visage downright demonic.

Noba didn’t want to see anymore. He wanted to stop staring at the photograph, to close his eyes and violently shake his head to clear it from the evil visions and open them again to find everything as it should be, with no horns, no fleshless faces, and no black circles.

He didn’t. Instead, he looked up, up at where the caretakers were standing in the back.

Miss Satoko looked fine, perfectly normal, with that tired, yet happy, smile she always wore when things were good. Likewise Miss Haruna’s lovably rough face was just as it should be. Miss Shion looked normal, as did Miss Haruhi.

Not Mr. Joshua though. Instead of the happy, white grin shining in his dark face he had worn that day, Joshua’s face wasn’t smiling at all. Instead, he was staring solemnly back at Noba, his eyes hollow and haunted, his face flushed with sweat. He looked like a man who had seen things and done things that he would be much happier forgetting, and who knew full well that he never would.

Noba swallowed. Then, though he didn’t want to, he looked over at Miss Mokou.

Miss Mokou had been standing a little bit away from the others, near the group without actually being a part of it. Even so, she had been smiling along with everyone else when the picture had been taken. She still was actually, but now her smile was wide and crazed, not the naked grin Eiko had, but the deranged smile of a madwoman. Her clothes had been simple and clean in the picture, just her shirt and her suspenders, but now her shirt was ragged and unbuttoned, hanging loose and smeared with something that might have been dirt, might have been blood. Her face was smeared with it too, caking her cheeks and around her crazed grin. One strap of her suspenders hung down, and her hands, formerly in her pockets, were now hanging at her sides, filthy fingers curled into claws.

The photograph was in black-and-white, but one thing now was not. Her eyes, wide with manic glee, were bright red.

Sweat was starting to sting Noba’s eyes, and he realized how long it had been since he had last blinked. He shut his eyes tight and swiped his hand down over his forehead and his face. He breathed in and out, trying to slow his panting down, trying to slow his heartrate, all the while silently and desperately crying out any gods that might be listening.

He opened his eyes.

They were normal again. Miss Mokou. Mr. Joshua. The rest of the kids. Everyone had on their normal faces wearing normal smiles, as it ought to be.

But that didn’t mean that the picture had been set right. Before there had been eighteen children and five adults. Now the picture was so packed with people that Noba couldn’t even begin to get a proper count. Standing with the kids that he knew were many, many new ones, ones that he didn’t recognize, ones that he had never seen before. And yet they were there, wearing the same uniforms as those who belonged.

Noba stared at them and they stared right back.

He breathed in and out. No, this was wrong, this was wrong! Why were there so many? Why were there so-

A hand came down on his shoulder.

Noba screamed and swung his fist. It impacted against a hard palm, which was attached to a strong hand, which was attached to…

To Noba’s chagrin, he was staring right at Miss Mokou.

“Sorry for scaring you,” she said, moving the fist she had caught away from herself. “But what are you doing up here? Upstairs is restricted now!”

Noba struggled to find his tongue. “M-Medicine,” he stuttered. “I forgot my-”

“Is that it?” Miss Mokou rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the love of…Hang on.”

Mokou walked down the hall to the nearby boy’s room (which was now perfectly straight and of normal length, because of course it was), and emerged a moment later with the bag of pills.

“Here,” she said, tossing it to him. “And don’t come up again. This place is quarantined for a reason.”

Noba’s fingers fumbled, and the bag dropped to the floor. He quickly picked it up. “Er, thanks.” He paused, and said, “Uh, M-Miss Mokou?”

“What?”

“The picture. It…”

The picture was completely normal. No deformities, no additional faces, everything was as it should be.

Miss Mokou glanced to it, and then at him. “Did it change?”

Noba hesitated, and then nodded.

“Did the place feel strange when you came up here?”

“Yes. Everything felt too long, and the air felt…thick.”

At this, Miss Mokou sighed. “Well, what do you expect?” She nodded to the sick room, which now had sealing charms all over the door. “I sealed those kids off for a reason!”

“They’re doing it?” Noba said in disbelief. “I mean, whatever it is that…changed them?”

“Obviously,” Miss Mokou said dryly. “Now, unless you’re planning on spending the night up here in the freaky funhouse, I suggest you swallow your medicine and stay downstairs!”

Noba numbly nodded. And then he turned and hurried away as fast as he could.

…

The day died, night fell, and the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home was left alone in the dark.

Now officially exiled, it now stood by itself, a tiny island refuge for those who dwelt within, facing oppression from its back and invasion from the front, left vulnerable to the wild beasts and evil spirits that roamed the plains and forests of the Wilds and the nefarious scheming of those who had isolated them in the first place. Already several of their number had been taken and dragged off into the darkness, and one had not come back. As for those who did, no one could say they had returned whole.

Mokou was afraid.

It was curious thing to feel again; she had not really known fear for a very long time, save for a scant few occasions over the centuries. And as one Eirin Yagokoro was not involved, she did not fear for herself. No matter what happened from here on out, she at least was guaranteed to come through alive and well.

No, what she feared for were the tiny, fragile lives entrusted into her care. Mokou was a powerful woman, perhaps too powerful. But her power was directed at self-preservation and wanton destruction. She could lay every single Human village, town, and settlement to waste within a few hours with relative ease. She could challenge such mighty creatures as Dragons or Demons and at least expect to make them sweat. Hell, she was pretty sure she could take on the great Yukari Yakumo and, if not exactly win, give her something to remember her by. But when it came to keeping these few children safe long enough for them to reach adulthood, then even with all her power, she did not feel that she was up to the task.

Not that she wasn’t going to give it her all. The ability to burn mortal and immortal alike to ashes might not be much use when she wasn’t even sure of the threat just yet, but her impossible durability meant that she at least could throw herself in its path when it revealed itself. To that end, she had appointed herself as the official guardian of the Black Circle Six, as she had taken to calling them. Rumia Yagami, Kohta Momoi, Keine Kamishirasawa, Haruko Kamijima, Hayate Maeda, and Kana Anaberal were back in the sick room, this time to stay until Miko Hakurei finally arrived. Their sleeping mats were arranged in a circle on the ground, their feet all facing the center, while Mokou sat in a chair near the window, arms folded as she watched over them. The chair was leaning back on it hind legs, courtesy of Mokou shoving her foot up against the cabinet. The door and window were both locked tight, charms had been stuck to the walls, and the wards protecting the orphanage grounds had all been replaced. And as for Mokou, she could go for days without sleep before she began to even think of getting tired. She had once hidden unmoving and unsleeping for a solid week in a corner of Eientei just so she could murder Kaguya Houraisan during her birthday party. If anything was to come for these kids from without or within, it was not going to catch her unawares.

A small wooden clock sat on the counter across from her, softly counting away the hours. Out in the hall, the big grandfather clock’s loud ticking could be heard, set in time with its smaller brother. Every now and then, Mokou’s eyes would flit from the children over to check the time. The night was steadily passing by.

Ten o’clock. Ten forty-five. Eleven seventeen.

So far, so good.

Eleven thirty-six. Twelve o’four. Twelve twenty-nine.

Kohta was snoring.

One eleven. One forty-one. Two o’clock. Two fourteen.

So far, so good.

Two twenty-two. Two thirty-eight. Two fifty-five.

And then the ticking…just stopped.

Mokou paused her rocking. Her eyes, as sharp in the dark as they were in the light, focused on the clock’s face. The hands were still moving, indicating that it was two after three, but the clock in the hall had simply stopped ticking.

Interesting.

Mokou took a quick assessment of herself, checking all of her sense. A moment later she determined that she was in fact still wide awake, and this was not the result of her drifting off into a dream. Whether or not that was a relief remained yet to be seen.

Carefully relaxing her foot, Mokou lowered her chair back onto all four legs. She sat with both feet planted on the ground, hands on her knees, ears straining.

The only sounds were the children’s gentle breathing, Kana’s rasps, the ambient sounds of the old house settling, and a far off owl hooting.

Then someone started knocking on the door. Loudly.

Mokou didn’t cry out in surprise, didn’t jump, didn’t even jerk, but she did sit up straighter, her eyes focused on the locked door as someone in the hallway slammed their fist against it over and over, banging as loud as they could.

“Who is it?” she said.

The banging stopped, but nobody answered.

Moving as smoothly as a cat, Mokou rose from her chair. On the floor, the six children were still lying asleep, the note of her their breathing having not changed at all. She tread around them, heading toward the door.

The door handle started to turn.

Mokou watched as it twisted first one way, and then the other, its old joints whining. However, it was still locked, so whoever it was that was trying to get in was unable to open the door. The knob than began rattling and shaking as the banging began again.

“Who. Is. It?” Mokou said loudly, not caring if she woke the children. If they could sleep through that racket, then they could sleep through her voice. Besides, she was pretty sure that she was going to want them awake for this.

This time the banging and rattling didn’t stop, but instead picked up in fervency. Mokou levitated a few centimeters into the air, turned her body fully around so that her face was close to the floor, and peered through the crack beneath the door.

There was nobody in the hallway beyond.

That didn’t stop the banging though, and what was more, it was starting to spread.

What sounded like several fists pounded at the walls. The sick room sat in a corner of the house, so two-thirds of the wall with the door also shared a wall with the room right over, Shion’s room to be specific, while the other wall bordered Haruhi’s room. And from the sound of it, both rooms were filled with people, all slamming their hands against the walls.

Mokou reached into her pocket and withdrew a spellcard.

And then the banging started happening against the other two walls, the ones that went outside.

Mokou whirled around. From the sound of it, the sick room was surrounded on all sides by people trying to get in. And they were on the top floor! Not that it would matter in a country full of people who could fly, but that handily ruled out anyone else from the house being the culprit.

Speaking of which, the six children in the room were still fast asleep!

Mokou glided over to the window and creaked open the shutters with one finger, just enough for her to peek out.

It was a nice, clear night out. And it was completely empty.

Almost as if they had sensed her looking out, the banging stopped.

Mokou opened the shutter fully. She of course wasn’t going to open the glass window itself, but she had enough of a field of view to survey most of the side of the house and the moonlit lawn below.

There wasn’t a single living soul to be seen.

Oh shit.

Mokou moved back from the window. Almost immediately the banging began once again, this time from all over! The cabinets were shaking from the force slamming against the walls, and the door knob was about ready to fly right off if it rattled any harder.

“Enough!” she shouted. “Reveal yourself!”

Again everything again fell silent.

And again it started up all over again!

Mokou had no idea what to do. She didn’t even know what was happening. Anything from the Forest of Magic would have been stopped by the new wards, and anything Human would have tripped the early warning spells. Whatever this was, it was new.

She wasn’t scared though. Supernatural threats were no stranger to her; hell, technically speaking she was one. But she would feel considerably better about her situation if she knew what she was dealing with.

Then, as she slowly rotated around, Mokou got her first real jolt.

The six children, who had all been sleeping soundly just a moment ago, were now all awake and sitting up, staring at each other.

Well, of course they would be awake! Nobody ought to be able to sleep through that racket! It was honestly more of a mystery why it had taken them so long to wake in the first place!

But they didn’t seem distressed like young children woken in the middle of the night by such a cacophony might have. They weren’t crying out, they weren’t asking what was wrong, they weren’t crying, they weren’t shouting, they weren’t looking around in confusion, they weren’t reacting at all.

They were just…sitting there, staring unblinking at one another. Kana had even stopped coughing.

Now Mokou felt actual fear.

The six children, some of which who had actively loathed one another earlier that same week, continued to stare. Then, as one, they all turned to look over their right shoulders at the walls.

“Enough!” they said with one voice. “Leave!”

And with that, the banging stopped, the knocking ceased, and the door knob lay still. And this time it stayed that way.

Over on the counter, the clock began once again to tick.

Mokou’s heart seized up. She had been right. If the kids’ fluid, synchronized movement hadn’t been a tipoff, the change in their voice more than confirmed it.

It had not been their voices coming out of their mouths. That voice had been colder than winter and deader than dry bones. If a coffin were to be extracted from beneath a sheet of ice, and the corpse within were to speak, it would have a voice like that.

And when it spoke, the things trying to get in had listened.

“Who are you?” she asked the entity she now shared the room with.

Again moving as one, the six children turned their heads to stare at her. Six pairs of dark, beady eyes bore into her own. And though it might have been a trick of the dark, she was pretty sure she saw a faint red light shimmering in those eyes.

Mokou tensed up, fully ready to fight.

Then Kana started coughing.

It was like a spell had been broken. The kids finally blinked their eyes, and then began looking around in confusion. “Uh…” Hayate said.

“Wait, what the hell?” Kohta added, scratching his head.

Mokou didn’t drop her guard.

“Miss Mokou?” Keine said. “What…just happened?”

It took some doing, but Mokou found her tongue. “You don’t remember?”

“I…” The tiny girl frowned. “I remember…I think I was dreaming. Dreaming about a deep, black pit. And…”

“Chains,” Kana said. “And quite a lot of them.”

Mokou had no idea whatsoever what to say to that.

And then, from somewhere else in the house, someone started to scream.

…

For what might have been the first time since she had realized that she had left her drab, anxious, and hopeless life back in what she now thought of as the Outside World for an actual world of magic, Melissa Garcia wanted to go home.

It was the strangest thing. Her old life had, in its strangely parallel way, mirrored her current circumstances, except everything had been drab and bleak instead of colorful and full of magic.

Like almost everyone at the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home, she had never known her parents. They had died when she had been very young, and she had grown up in a Catholic mission. It had been…unpleasant, to say the least. The rules had been strict, the punishments severe, the beds hard, the food unappetizing, and Melissa had expected to go through her childhood with her head down and her mouth shut so as not to attract any undue attention.

The one thing that brought her any happiness was stories. There was one nun, from faraway Ireland, who, when everyone else was asleep, would come into the children’s room and tell them the stories from her home, stories of fairies, of spirits, of leprechauns, and of monsters. Melissa always loved those stories, and the world they described seemed so much more lively and fun compared to hers! Unfortunately, one day the nun was caught and reprimanded, and the stories stopped. Melissa’s life became just a little more grey after that.

And then one day she had woken up to another day of grey hopelessness, of trying to just get by, of having nothing much to look forward to except for the vain hope that maybe she might one day work hard enough and save enough to live a life that was somewhere above tolerable, only to have those hopes dashed when she had gotten separated from the rest of her group during a trip to the nearby village. As she had searched for everyone else, she had attracted the attention of some local men, the unkindly sort with cruel faces and nasty smiles. They had called out to her, beckoning her to come over, that they would help her.

Instead, Melissa had ran.

And they followed.

Convinced that she was about to become another faceless victim found in a ditch, Melissa had gone this way and that, desperate to lose them while all too aware that they knew the village better than she. And then, at one point, she ducked through a long dark tunnel, one that seemed to stretch on and on, one without any light at the end.

And when she had come out the other end, she was in someplace else entirely, a small village of strangely built houses and strangely dressed people, ones who had been just as surprised to see her as she was to see them. However, unlike her, they had quickly figured out what had happened, and though they spoke strange words that she couldn’t understand and clearly couldn’t understand her either, they still managed to calm her down and communicate to her that she should follow them.

Melissa had, of course, been terrified. Where was she? How had she gotten there? Who were all these strange people, with their oddly shaped faces and unfamiliar clothes, who spoke to each other with an unfamiliar tongue? And most importantly, would they let her go back before it was noticed that she was gone? If Melissa had gone missing for too long, then she would be guaranteed a beating and several hours spent in the Othering Closet.

However, if she refused to do as these people said, then they would probably beat her themselves, so with no other choice she had followed them. They had taken her to one of the strange buildings made of wood and paper, into a strange room with strange furnishings, where the walls were made from paper, there were no chairs, and everyone sat on the floor at very low tables.

Once there, they had brought an old woman wearing a lovely black robe, and to Melissa’s utter shock, she began to speak to her in Spanish: stiff and halted Spanish, yes, but understandable Spanish nonetheless.

The woman had explained to Melissa that she was one of the few in the village who had taken the time to learn almost all of the majors languages of the Outside World, so it was her job to greet newcomers, and Melissa was the first newcomer that they had in the Human Village in several years.

Melissa had still be confused and terrified, so she had begged that woman to please send her back before she got into trouble. She would tell no one that she had been taken or how to get to the strange village, but they had to send her back.

In response, the woman had sadly shaken her head and clicked her tongue. And then she had explained to Melissa a few things that had changed her life forever.

Firstly, she was not going to go back. She couldn’t go back. She had been taken, fallen into something called a gap, which was kind of like a hole in a wall, but instead of connecting two rooms, gaps connected two worlds, and rarely lasted long.

Melissa, of course, had not understood at all. She knew the words, she knew what they meant, but the things being described to her were beyond her comprehension? Worlds? As if in, other countries? It had made no sense!

However, there was one thing she did understand, one thing about what they were telling her that her mind and heart had seized upon immediately.

Magic.

She was in a world of magic, a place of enchanted forests and cute fairies, a place where beasts talked and spells were sold on the street corner. And what was more, anyone that came to this magical country, one called “Gensokyo,” could also learn magic, to conjure up mysterious powers with her fingers and fly through the air like a bird.

Needless to say, Melissa was entirely too happy to discard any thought of going back, and while learning the language was difficult, she was perfectly fine with calling Gensokyo her home. After all, she was going to be able to fly!

But now she was seeing the dark side of her new home. Because say what you will of the place she left, but there were no monsters emerging from the forest to eat them. There were no curses that necessitated clearing entire floors of the house. There were no demons after her blood, no ghosts seeking to suck out her soul, no monsters other than cruel men, and Gensokyo had plenty of those too.

Now Melissa was scared. And she wanted to go home.

With those who had been recovered from the forest kept by themselves in the sick room, the rest of the children had all been brought into the main room at the foot of the stairs for the night, with all the grown-ups save for Miss Mokou sleeping with them. Under normal circumstances, it would be an exciting change from routine, but Melissa felt nothing but dread.

For one, it wasn’t a fun sleep-together, and everyone knew it. There was something very wrong with the kids being kept upstairs, something that the rest of them needed to be protected from. “It’s just a precaution,” Miss Shion had told them. “The Youkai Forest has all sorts of bad magics, and we want the Hakurei Shrine Maiden to take a look at them first to be safe.”

Well, Melissa might still be struggling with the language, but she knew when a grown-up was downplaying something bad. Something was wrong with them.

For another, her best friend Kana was among those being kept away. When she had been taken, Melissa had been scared stiff for her. Kana might be kind of…odd, and prone to saying the weirdest things even when Melissa fully understood her, but she was one of the few at the orphanage to not treat Melissa like an oddity. After all, Kana was kind of an outsider herself, so she had no problem spending time with the girl from the Outside World and not treating her like she was dumb just for having difficulties with Japanese, or weird because her skin was darker and her name unusual. Melissa had even taught her a few words in Spanish, and to her surprise Kana would actually use some of them from time to time. So of course she had been nothing but relieved when Kana had been rescued, only for that relief to turn to dread when she saw how weak and sickly Kana now looked. The bad magics were one thing; they probably had ways of dealing with those! But that dry, chest-rattling cough was the kind of bad that Kana had seen before and fully understood, even before coming to Gensokyo.

And finally, as she lay down on her sleeping mat and pulled the thin blanket up over shoulders, Melissa became intensely aware of a third problem: she was the only girl left.

Eiko was dead, and the Kana, Rumia, Haruko, and Hayate were all locked away. That just left her, the grown-ups, and lots and lots of boys.

She tried to ignore it. she tried to close her eyes and sleep. But Kazuchika’s mat wasn’t far from hers, and, well, she had been noticing him a lot lately, so sleeping in such close quarters was all sorts of uncomfortable in ways she really wasn’t ready for yet, with his short, pale hair and piercing white eyes and the way his shoulders seemed to get more broad and his arms more strong with every passing season.

And Noba wasn’t that far either. He wasn’t as handsome as Kazuchika, but there was a gentleness about him that Melissa found very appealing. Not weakness, no. Him rushing headlong into danger to defend the other girls was proof of that. But gentleness. And he still was pretty easy on the eyes. As for Shinji, he was kind of an ass, but a brave ass, one that always liked to show off for whoever was looking. And sure, Melissa had rolled her eyes along with everyone else, but on more than one occasion she had secretly appreciated some of his more physical feats, like when he had used his newly gained power of flight to stand on his head and do push-ups, which had caused his shirt to slip down, exposing his…

Groaning, Melissa turned over, away from the group. If the Hakurei Shrine Maiden would be so kind as to show up and return everything to normal, that would be just great!

She tried counting fairies, leaping over a fence. One. Two. Three. Four.

In time, her breathing slowed.

Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.

She began to relax.

Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one.

And the fairies were gone, but that didn’t stop the procession from leaping over the fence. Except now it wasn’t fairies, it was those spider people, the ones that had come for them, the ones that had taken her friends, the ones that had eaten Eiko alive. And now they were coming for her, long arms outstretched, scabby fingers grasping, mouths open like black pits ready to-

Melissa’s eyes snapped open as she let out a small gasp.

The room was darker, the lamps having been extinguished. That meant that she had been out a bit longer than her brief nightmare had made it feel. And goodness, it had left her heart racing! Melissa would rather stay up all night than return to that dream!

But even so, it was just a dream. Things were scary and stressful, so of course she would be having nightmares, anybody would. She was all right.

Sighing, Melissa shivered beneath her blanket and tried to relax. Despite it being midsummer, the night had gotten very cold. She turned over and pulled her blanket up further.

Or at least she tried to. The truth was, she only got a few centimeters before she was stopped. Frowning, she tried again to turn, but found that she couldn’t. She was stuck.

Now waking up a little more, Melissa tried again and again to roll over. It was like the covers had been tucked in too tightly around her, forming a sort of cocoon that prevented movement. But how was that possible? She only had the one blanket, and you couldn’t tuck in covers around a sleeping mat!

She wiggled her hand under the blanket. The fabric felt…different, no longer like the woven wool it had been. Instead, it was sticky.

And then she heard someone crying, a young girl weeping softly to herself.

Gritting her teeth, Melissa strained and pushed. She was unable to break free of whatever it was that encased her, but she at least managed to turn just enough to incline her head and get a good look at the room around her.

The whole room was blanketed in what looked like silky white sheets. They covered everything, from the walls to the stairs to the floor. Everyone sleeping on the ground, child and grown-up alike, was all wrapped snuggly in a white bundle, one tethered to the ground by more of the white sheets.

Melissa stared numbly at the scene, her scared and tired brain unable to make sense of what she saw. She had to still be dreaming, right? It was the only thing that made sense. Why would anyone cover the whole room with…

Suddenly, Melissa realized what she was seeing.

They were spiderwebs.

They were all covered with spiderwebs.

Melissa wasn’t the only one who had been woken up. Here and there she saw other kids trying to free themselves. Over in the corner, Mr. Joshua was struggling to sit up, but had only managed to elevate his shoulders. Miss Satoko was tugging and pulling at her restraints, but to little avail. Kazuchika was trashing as hard as he could in his attempts to free himself.

Noba, however, wasn’t fighting. Instead, he was staring upward, at the ceiling.

When Melissa saw this, she got a sinking feeling. That was where the crying was coming from.

Now Tomohiro had noticed where Noba was looking. He looked up as well, and his eyes went wide. Over in one corner, Miss Haruhi was making little whimpering sounds as she stared at the same thing they were.

Though she did not want to, Melissa looked up as well.

Eiko was there, handing upside-down from the ceiling by a glob of webbing to the bottom of the chandelier. Her whole body was encased in webs, her legs glued together and her arms stuck to her sides. Only her head was free, and her eyes were closed as she softly cried to herself.

“You…” she whispered. “You…you…you…”

Then her eyelids snapped open, revealing a pair of empty pits.

“You let them do this to me!” she cried. “You let them…them…”

For a moment it seemed as if she were about to vomit. Her mouth opened and closed without any words escaping, and her throat was heaving in and out.

Something was coming out. Something was forcing its way out from inside her mouth, something black and wriggling.

A massive spider emerged from Eiko’s mouth, a spindly horror larger than one of Mr. Joshua’s fists. It crawled out from between Eiko’s lips and walked up (down?) Eiko’s face to perch on her forehead.

But it wasn’t alone. More were pushing their way out, more than Eiko’s mouth would allow. There was a horrible crack, and her jaw was snapped out of its sockets. Her cheeks ripped open like paper, and a torrent of spiders poured out of her to spill down onto the horrorstruck captives below.

…

When Mokou heard those downstairs scream in terror, she found herself faced with an unenviable dilemma.

On the one hand, she knew that she ought to rush in to their defense. After all, now that the invaders were actually in the house, she was pretty much their first, second, and only line of defense. Even an especially armed and determined Human could wreak considerable damage before they were stopped.

But that would mean leaving the six under her care alone, which given what had just happened, was not something she was about to do. And to even if she could, she would have to exit through the front door, which could let in whatever it was that had been banging on the walls.

Damn it.

“Stay where you are!” Mokou called over her shoulder. “Don’t leave the room!” With that, she swiftly unlocked and opened the door just enough for her to squeeze out. Then she used her key to lock it again.

As expected, the hallway was empty, which told her what she needed to know about the invaders. Shaking her head, she bolted to the stairs and flew down enough to get a look.

Everyone was sitting up in their mats and screaming at something on the ceiling. Mokou thrust a hand out and ignited a ball of light over her palm.

“It’s me, it’s me!” she said. “What happened?”

“It’s Eiko!” Shinji wailed. “She was here!”

Shit! “Eiko. Okay. Where?”

Everyone pointed up to the ceiling. Mokou craned her neck to look, but saw nothing but the chandelier.

“She…She was there!” Yoshi cried. “I swear, she was right there, hanging from the ceiling!”

“And we were all covered with webs!” Keiichi added. “They were everywhere! I could barely move!”

Melissa had curled into a ball and was rocking back and forth, whispering non-stop to herself.

Mokou looked the scene over. Certainly all the children were in the same panicked state, which ruled out a simple nightmare. She glanced over to the other adults.

Whatever it was that the children had seen, they had seen it too. Haruna was holding a sobbing Haruhi in her arms while she stared blankly at the far wall. Shion was up and moving about the children, trying to do her best to console them. Joshua was sitting on his knees with his eyes closed, hands gripping his cross as he whispered to his god. And as for Satoko, she was holding little Akito in her arms, trying to soothe him as he squirmed and cried.

Mokou jogged down the stairs toward them. “Hey,” she said. When that failed to garner a response, she clapped her hands loudly together. “Hey!”

That got their attention. Satoko, Haruna, and Joshua all started, like they had been awakened from a trance.

“What happened?” Mokou demanded. “Tell me!”

Joshua’s mouth was moving, but he was having difficulty getting words out. “There…I-I woke up, and I heard crying, but wh-when I tried to-to-to get up…”

“Webs,” Haruna said in a hollow voice. “Everywhere. Covering everyone.”

Mokou glanced around. Well, these supposed webs were all gone now. “Continue.”

“I saw some of the children…” Joshua swallowed. “Well, they were awake, and staring up. At the ceiling. So I looked up too, and…”

“Eiko,” Satoko whispered, her arms tightening around Akito. “She was there, hanging from the chandelier.”

“Hanging? You mean, like by a rope? A noose?”

Satoko shook her head. “No. She was upside-down, and just covered with webs. She…She talked. She blamed me for letting her die. And then her mouth was just ripped open, and all these spiders poured down on us.”

“Her eyes were gone,” Haruhi said. Then, in a rising shriek, she repeated, “Her eyes were gone! She had no eyes!” Despite being near a breakdown herself, Haruna quickly shushed her before her panic set off the children.

Not that they needed the help, Mokou observed. It seemed that everyone was near hysterics. “Satoko. I need to talk to you in private.”

Satoko stared at her like she was speaking in an alien tongue.

“Please,” Mokou said. She held out a hand. “I need to ask you something.”

“What? Oh. Ah, okay.” Satoko handed Akito to Haruna and got up to follow.

Mokou led her into the hall that led to her kitchen. Once they had a measure of privacy, Mokou said, “Satoko, do you remember what happened to our wards?”

“Of course,” Satoko said with a shiver. “They were sabotaged, right? But you replaced them, didn’t you?”

“I did. With better ones. But all this has got me thinking about what happened to them in the first place.”

Satoko stared blankly at her. “What do you mean? Someone found them and destroyed them. It’s not like they were hidden.”

“No, but they weren’t torn up, they were burnt,” Mokou said. Her mind was racing back over the events of the last few days. More pieces to the jigsaw puzzle were coming to light, and she was not liking the picture they were forming. “Someone burned them. All of them, in one night. Doesn’t that sound like something we’d notice?” She paused for a moment to mentally examine the evidence, and then said, “I think they were destroyed by an overload spell.”

Satoko frowned. As she did not come from an especially magical background, that concept was unknown to her. “Explain.”

“Basically, what it does is use a ward network’s own connection against it,” Mokou told her. “It fires off a highly concentrated stream of magical energy that pushes a ward past its threshold, overloads the runes, and incinerates them. Then it moves onto the next ward in the line, and the next, and the next. Only thing is, this happens so fast that it would be done in less time than I’m taking to describe it, and it does it quietly. We’d have to be looking directly at the wards to notice something was wrong.”

Now Satoko got it. She might not be all that versed in combat magic, but she understood the basics, and what Mokou had explained to her drained the blood from her face. “But…something of that magnitude.”

“Yeah, it does take a lot of juice,” Mokou nodded. “And they’re extremely difficult. You have to be pretty proficient with magic to be able to pull one off. But there’s a couple more catches as well. First of all, they can’t be performed by a youkai without them risking tearing their own bodies apart. Permanently. Even magician youkai that used to be Human can’t do them. So whoever pulled this off had to be Human, and a powerful one at that.”

“Go on…”

“Secondly, even if you are a Human magician with enough knowledge to safely pull one of these off, you won’t be able to do it alone. You need a source of youkai magic at hand to channel into the wards. And that’s a one-way trip for the youkai, so they tend to be kind of unwilling.”

Satoko made a face. “You’re telling me that to sabotage our wards and leave the children vulnerable to attack, a Human captured and murdered a youkai?”

“If they used an overload spell,” Mokou said. “Which, okay, is just a theory, but it tracks, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Satoko said with a contemplative nod. “But what does that have to do with what we just saw?”

“Because an overload spell wouldn’t just go for the perimeter wards. It would take out every ward, charm, and protective rune in a five kilometer radius, provided that they were part of the same network.” Mokou stared hard into Satoko’s eyes. “Now, I want you to think really, really hard: are there any other kinds of wards or anything else of that nature that we didn’t think of? Maybe something in the house itself?”

That was the key. Until they had been sabotaged, the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home had been well-protected against supernatural threats of all kinds. No youkai could even step past the perimeter fence; not even fairies were able to fly past it. Hell, even Tewi needed a special charm Mokou had made for her in order to pass.

But not all dangerous magic came from without. Gensokyo was a country practically made from magic of all kinds, and it wasn’t just youkai they needed to fear.

The orphanage had existed for generations, providing a haven and a home for children who had lost their families, protecting them from the dangers that roamed the Wilds. But unfortunately, as the last week had proven, they couldn’t always protect them. Sometimes the dangers won, sometimes the monsters got through, or even sometimes fates as mundane but no less deadly as a bad fall, a summer illness, or an inhaled piece of food reared their ugly heads. Children died quite easily, and the orphanage had seen the deaths of many children over the decades.

Now, given the house’s age and the pain carried around by its inhabitants, it would make a prime breeding ground for ghosts, specters, poltergeists, and the like. Except it wasn’t. The house had never seen single haunting.

The reason for that was quite simple: the Yume family weren’t fools. When Satoko’s multiple-times-great-grandparents had turned the family farm into an orphanage, they would have foreseen the various dangers it needed to be protected from, both from without and within.

But the downside of that is that if those protections had existed for so long, they would have done their job so well that those that they protected would simply stop thinking about them. And if they were taken away, it might be some time before anyone even thought to check that they were still there, even after the monsters had gotten in.

Before, Mokou had chalked up any strange going-ons, such as the flaming lantern or any strange upstairs shenanigans, up to the curse that the Black Circle Six had brought with them. But now she felt that they had nothing to do with it at all.

“Oh, my gods,” Satoko whispered.

Mokou nodded grimly. “Yeah, I thought so. Where?”

“Th-The foundations,” Satoko stuttered. “The stones. They all had special runes engraved into them, so any negative spirit would, you know…not form.”

Mokou nodded again. “I’m willing to bet anything that those runes are now a scorched and blackened mess.”

Both women were now thinking down the same lines. Eiko’s death had been horrible. She had awoken weak and sick from spider venom to find herself in a dark and frightening place, surrounded on all sides by hideous monsters. And before she could even figure out where she was and why she was there, they had eaten her alive.

Such a painful and violent death would certainly leave a stamp. And in a place swimming with magic like the Youkai Forest, an aftereffect forming was practically an inevitability. From there, it would either fade away as its body rotted, or it would gain enough strength to continue on, joining the many dark spirits that wandered the forest, forever an echo of a dead girl’s pain and fear.

Except the body hadn’t stayed where it had died.

“It came back with the body,” Satoko said.

“Makes sense,” Mokou said. “The place where she died would be unfamiliar, and that nest got scorched pretty bad, disrupting any magical ties. So it would migrate to someplace she knew.”

“And with the wards down, it wouldn’t have gotten blocked out and broken apart,” Satoko continued. “And when we cremated her body…”

“That basically cut it loose.” Mokou looked toward the main room, where everyone was struggling to make sense of the fearsome apparition they had seen. “So, on top of everything else, we are now officially haunted.

…

Okay, full disclosure: I may have recently watched all of The Haunting of Hill House and read The Shining for the first time, and they may have both heavily influenced where this story is going. So yeah.

Until next time, everyone!

#The Touhou Project #touhou #rumia #Fujiwara no Mokou #mokou #fanfic #imperfect metamorphosis

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fiftyshadesgrl · 5 years

Text

He saved me/ part 4

Summary: reader is in a abusive relationship. When things take a turn for the worst she finds help in the winchesters.

Warning: there will be ssmut, violence, torture, abuse and language. If you triggered by any of this i suggest you not read.

Feed back is always appreciated.

A few hours later it was completely dark. Sam laid in the back seat as best he could with his headphones in sound asleep. Dean had ac/dc playing on the radio and i started singing along to my favorite song. 'You shook me all night long.' Dean looked over at me and smiled at my off key singing. Instead of poking fun at me he joined in.

After the song ended he spoke, "i didnt think you were a classic rock kind of girl."

"What kind of music did you think i liked?"

He shrugged, "that rap crap. Ya know bass blaring kinda stuff."

I laughed, "i like all kinds of music but you cant beat the classics."

"Hell yeah!" He fist bumped into the air. I couldnt hellp but smile. His carefree side was something for sure. My heart raced just by looking at him. His lips looked so soft and i wanted to kiss them. My eyes traveled down his body, i remembered his abs and chest so toned. My eyes rested on his crotch, from the outline i saw earlier he had to be huge.

"Darlin' if you dont stop looking at me that way..." he said in a raspy voice.

I whipped my head around so fast it made me dizzy. I shrank as close to the door as i could, keeping my eyes fixed on my hands. "Im so sorry. Please....i didnt..."

His hand grabbed mine and he intertwined our fingers. "Dont be sorry. I love the way you look at me, but right now youre in no condition to do what im wanting to do."

I blushed at his words, but felt a tinge of horror in my heart. "Why would you want me? Im a nobody, im worthless." I whispered.

"(Y/N) look at me." I kept my eyes on our hands. "Look. At. Me" he said more forcefully this time. I slowly turned my head and lifted my eyes to meet his. "Do not ever, and i mean ever let me hear those words come out of your mouth again. You are not worthless. You are somebody to me. Dont you ever second guess it again. Do you understand me?"

His eyes shown truth in his words. I have never had someone say that to me. I nodded in agreement but yet parkers words still sounded in my head.

'No man will ever want you after what ive done to you. You will disgust them. Just look at you, if i was any less of a man i would be disgusted. Youre fat and ugly. Your pussy isnt going to look or feel the same after this. No man will ever want to touch you again.'

"(Y/N)." Deans voice pulled me out of my thoughts. Our hands still twined together, i pulled away thinking parker was right. Dean was just being nice after what i went through. After i healed hed throw me to the curb just like everyone else did.

"You hungry? Im gonna fill up, theres a deli inside that makes subs. Want one?" Dean asked. I shook my head and turned towards the window before he could see the tears that slipped out from beneath my lashes.

He slowly got out of the car and finally i was in silence, except for sams light snoring. Dean is an amazing man, he could have any girl he wanted. He wont want a broken shell of a woman like me. I shouldve just let parker kill me. The world would be better off, dean and sam would be better off too. They wouldnt have to worry about taking care of me and have me be a burden to them.

Dean got back in the car a few minutes later holding three bags. "I figured since you liked pizza youd like this. They had pizza subs in there, i got you a drink too. I expect you to eat every bite. No arguments." He handed me the bag and i had to admit it smelled amazing. My stomach growled at the smell and he smiled and pointed to the bag.

I gave in and unwrapped it and took a bite. I havent had food this good since before i got with parker. I was lucky to have a can of cat food to eat even then i had to make it last a week, while parker on the other hand would fix himself whatever he wanted. He wanted me to lose weight.

The thoughts about me being over weight claimed my appetite and i put the sub back in the wrapper and placed it beside dean. "Thanks but im still full from earlier."

He pulled the car over on the side of the road, he turned to me quickly. "I know what youre thinking and dont do it. Eat it or i will force feed you right here right now."

Tears pooled in my eyes and he sighed, "look, im sorry im not trying to force you but you need to eat. If you dont youre not going to get better. Im just trying to take care of you." He grabbed my hand "(Y/N), what is keeping you from eating?"

I inhaled and the words just tumbled out. "Im fat, parker told me. I can see it myself. My stomach is to big, my thighs touch. Im ugly. I shouldnt eat so much. Parker only gave me a can of food a week."

Deans grip on the steering wheel tightend, i saw his knuckles turn white. "I swear that fucker is going to suffer for what hes done to you." I tried to pull my hand away but his grip tightend. "Dont pull away. I know its hard for you to realize this now but i am not parker. Youre beautiful and youre not fat. In my eyes youre the most beautiful woman i have ever seen. So no one elses opinion matters but mine."

I shook my head "dean youre just being nice because of everything that happened."

He rubbed his hand over his face in frustration, "no im not. Im telling you the truth. Now eat. We will sit here until you do." Just to prove his point he turned the key and the cars engine shut off. I sighed in defeat and started eating again.

He smiled seemingly pleased with himself. Soon we were back on the road. After i finished my sub i placed the wrapper in the bag and leaned my head over on the window. "Here." Dean said and i looked over towards him. He held his jacket out to me, i smiled "thank you." I waded it up and used it as a pillow. A pillow that smelled just like him. Soon enough i was asleep.

I woke up in a bed but this time it wasnt a hospital bed. It was softer and the covers were a bit scratchy but i was comfortable. The pillows smelled familiar, like dean. I looked around and only saw a dresser and a table with a lamp on it. I must be in his room at their house.

The door was open, i moved my leg to see if it still hurt. "Damn it!" The pain seared through my leg and i knew there was no way i could put weight on it. I sighed because i couldnt do anything for myself. I hated feeling helpless.

"You okay?" I heard deans rough voice from the doorway. I looked up and he was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. My god he looked good. I shook my head, "i hate this. I have to depend on you for everything. Im a burden to you and sam."

He walked over and kneeled beside the bed, "you are not a burden. I take care of you because i want to."

I smiled at his kind words. Ive been doing alot of smiling lately thanks to dean. Hes got such a wonderful soul and heart. He looks rough on the outside but hes really a very caring person.

"Thank you dean. I cant tell you how much i really appreciate what you and your brother done for me. I just wish i could help out in some way, but i cant do anything because of my leg." I placed my hand on his cheek and he actually leaned into my touch. I cant explain whats going on between my heart and dean but i liked it.

He looked up into my eyes with such adoration it hurt. What is it about him?

"I actually have a friend that can help you, if you want to." Dean said cautiously.

"How can they help me? Are they a doctor?"

He shook his head, "i know this is gonna sound strange. Cas...hes an angel. He can heal you in a matter of seconds and make everything go away."

I raised my eyebrow at him. He just waited patiently as i thought it over. Demons are real and i did pray that god gave me strength when i was with parker. So why cant angels be real? I looked into his eyes and nodded.

He let out a breath i didnt realize he was holding. He bent his head "cas, i need you."

I heard a big flutter of wings and there was a man standing in the doorway wearing a trenchcoat. Not the way i pictured an angel looking.

"Hello dean." Cas said in a raspy voice.

"Hey cas, this is (Y/N). She needs you to heal her." Dean said sitting on the edge of the bed beside me.

Cas walked over to me, "hello (Y/N). My name is castiel. All i will have to do is place my hand on your head."

"Thats it?" I asked.

Cas nodded and then i nodded and i shut my eyes. I felt his hand on my forehead and a warm sensation filled me. A few seconds later i felt amazing. I opened my eyes and dean was smiling at me.

"You look even more beautiful than before." He said touching my cheek. I leaned into his touch just as he did mine earlier. I looked up at cas he was standing there awkwardly.

"Thank you cas." I said shyly and he nodded. With a flutter he was gone. I looked around the room but he wasnt there.

"He does that alot." Dean said. "Now would you like to get a shower?"

I closed my eyes at the thought, "oh yes that would be amazing." I moaned, i felt dean shift on the bed. He was turned to the side with his eyes closed.

I put my hand on his shoulder, "dean?" He took a deep breath and turned towards me. He smiled and stood up and held out his hand.

I took it and stood up, and it felt amazing to be able to stand up and move without hurting. I chuckled and moved my leg and bent it. Im sure i had the most ridiculous smile on my face, but i was geniuenly thankful for everything.

"Everything feel alright?"

"Everything feels great. Thank you so much." Before i could stop myself i stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

He flinched a little and looked down at me. "Im so sorry...i didnt..im sorry." I said faster than i wanted to. I tried to turn away but he grabbed my wrist and turned me back to face him. He crashed his lips into mine and growled. His fingers tangled in my hair and pulled lightly. I bit his lower lip and moaned into his mouth.

I ran my hand up his flannel shirt and went to unbutton it when he grabbed my hands and pulled away from me. "No, i cant."

I backed away casting my eyes down to the floor, fiddling with the drawstring on my borrowed sweat pants. "No, im sorry. It was stupid of me to even think..."

He opened his mouth to speak but i just shook my head, "its okay dean you dont have to explain. I get it. Can you please show me where i can freshen up? I dont have any clothes so if its not to much trouble can i borrow these again?"

He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of shorts and a shirt. "You can wear anything of mine you want until we can get you some clothes."

I nodded and took the clothes from him. He walked me down the hallway to the bathroom and showed me where the towels and wash cloths were before shutting the door.

After a nice long hot shower i felt even better my hair wasnt all frizzy anymore, my black tresses were perfectly combed and straight. I hardly recognized myself in the mirror without the bruises and cuts.

I was in deans clothes and they were a little baggy on me but i was a curvy woman so it wasnt to bad. I walked out of the bathroom but had no idea where to go. The only place i actually knew was deans bedroom.

I walked down the hallway and passed more doors. They were all closed so i didnt dare to open them. After all this wasnt my house, i had no business snooping. I heard sam and dean talking on down the hall so i followed their voices.

I turned the corner into a big library of some sort. Sam sat at the table reading from a book dean sat in a arm chair across from him eating a sandwhich. He smiled at me and i couldnt help but giggle at his cheeks stuffed full with food. He was so cute.

"There she is. Feel better?" He said around the food in his mouth.

"Very much, thank you. Both of you." I said looking down. "I dont really know what to do around here. Ill try to be helpful while im here. I promise i will find a place soon and be out of your hair."

Sam looked up with a furrowed brow. "No one said you have to leave. Youre more than welcome here."

I nodded and smiled shyly at sam. He went back to whatever he was doing as i paced back and forth.

Dean walked up to me and grabbed my hands. "Hey, dont feel out of place here. If youre hungry get you something to eat. If youre bored sammy has plenty of books and we have netflix. I want you to make yourself at home."

Dean was tracing circles on my hand with his thumb, my breathing hitched and i could feel, something between us. Dean seemed to notice and let go of my hands.

"Sam, you got anything on where these demons are?" Dean asked sam.

Sam shrugged, "not a hundred percent sure at the moment. Parker is for sure the leader though. It seems like its a recruitment thing. Bobbys looking into it for us."

Dean throws his hands up, "now what?"

"We wait." Sam said impatiently.

@an-unhealthy-obsession

#dean x reader #dean winchester #deanwinchester #supernatural

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beckzorz · 5 years

Text

PREMONITIONS 2 (2/8)

or, Adventures in Pursuit of a Seven-Year-Old Seer

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Words: 1662 Summary: It’s been over a year since you met Bucky, and you couldn’t be happier. If only you could figure out why your precognitive niece is burying you in abstract crayon art… A/N: Happy new year!

Part 1

Your phone slips out of your hand and clatters on the ground at your feet. Blood rushes in your ears. You run to the front door, pull on your coat and boots, and yank open your door. Before you lock up, you remember your phone. You run back in and grab it. In another thirty seconds you’re in the street, trying to flag down a taxi. The freezing air stings your cheeks, your legs, but nothing compares to the terror flaring in your chest.

What the hell is happening? What was that call? Where is Gemma? Is Matt okay? What about Sarah?

Where is Gemma?

A taxi finally pulls over for you. You rattle off Matt’s address. “Hurry,” you add, voice catching. “It’s an emergency!”

The driver peels away from the curb. You can’t relax; you lean forward, breathing down your driver’s neck, not even buckled until he nervously asks you to sit back. Even then, you’re trembling, your blood pounding. You stuff your hands between your knees, but they’re shaking too.

Ten minutes never have never gone by by so slow.

The second he pulls up to Matt’s house, you open the door. You’re half out of the cab before you remember you need to pay. “Shit shit shit,” you mumble. Your purse is still hanging on its hook by the door back home.

You stare up at Gemma’s open window as you dig through your coat pockets. By some miracle, you find a twenty.

“Here, take it, keep the change,” you blurt, throwing the bill at the driver. You slam the car door shut and squeeze between the parked cars in front of Matt’s house.

The front door is unlocked. You burst inside, heart in your throat.

You freeze.

Half the stair runners are askew, and Gemma’s winter gear is strewn haphazardly across the living room. One of the couch pillows is in the kitchen doorway. You inch forward, barely breathing. The slow cooker is on the floor, and Sarah’s mulled cider is in a brown puddle across the floor, soaking into the pillow. A strangled sob escapes your throat.

You run upstairs to Gemma’s room. It’s empty, cold… The window is still open. Scribbled-upon papers litter the floor, covered in crayon and pen. Gemma’s bed isn’t made—but then again, it never is. You fall to your knees and press your hands to her bare sheets, willing them to reveal your niece. What’s happened to her? What’s happened to your brother?

In your pocket, your phone starts buzzing.

You flinch in surprise. Damn it, you should have called the cops by now! You pull your phone out and stare blankly at the screen before registering that it’s Bucky calling.

Thank god.

“Bucky!”

“Hey darlin’, how are y—”

“Matt and Gemma are missing!” you cry.

“What?”

You collapse onto Gemma’s bed. “Matt called and he said Gemma was missing and then someone else was there and the line went dead and now they’re gone and—”

“Woah, woah, hey, calm down,” Bucky interrupts. “Where are you?”

“Their house.” You sniff. “I haven’t even called the police, I just… ran over.”

“Okay. Okay.” Bucky is quiet for a moment, but you can hear his breathing accelerating. “I’m on my way there now. I’m going to call Steve, okay? If this is about what I think it’s about, we’ll be able to do more than the police. Okay?”

You bite your lip to keep your crying quiet. Instincts from the days before Bucky—most of your life, really—all want you to hang up and call the police. But Bucky’s not wrong. The Winter Soldier and Captain America have more resources at the arsenal than every police force in America. Probably.

“Y-yeah. Okay,” you tell him. “When will you be here?”

“Soon,” he says. “Where’s Sarah?”

“I—I don’t know. Her cider’s all over the kitchen floor…”

“Can you call her?”

“Um, okay. Yeah.” You sit up slowly. Your head is spinning, but you nod. “I can do that.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Bucky promises. “Call Sarah, and I’ll be there before you know it.” He pauses. “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay, darlin’. I promise.”

“Okay.”

You hang up. What else is there to say?

When you call Sarah’s phone, it rings from their bedroom next door. Your heart drops.

No one answers.

“Hello?” you call.

No one answers.

If Sarah is with her phone, why didn’t she answer it? Why would she ignore you?

She wouldn’t. She never has. The only options that come to mind are that she’s missing too—or she’s lying prone in her bedroom. Dead or unconscious.

You bolt to your feet and fly into the other bedroom.

An ounce of tension lifts from your shoulders. The bedroom’s empty; Sarah’s not here. At least she’s not dead—not that you can see. You still have no idea what’s going on, but at least you haven’t seen any dead bodies today.

“Darlin’?”

You jump. It’s Bucky. “Up here!”

Two sets of footsteps pound up the stairs. Two? You spin to face Bucky, who buries you in his arms without preamble. Over his shoulder, you see Steve going straight into Gemma’s room, his face drawn and focused. You close your eyes and let yourself relax into Bucky’s hold, burying your face in his chest.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. His metal hand is secure across your back; the other is on your neck, warm and grounding.

“Oh god, thank god you’re here,” you whisper. You pull back. There are wet spot on Bucky’s shirt, and you lift your hands to your cheeks in surprise. Oh. You’re crying.

Bucky brushes your tears away, his eyes soft but his mouth set. “We’re going to find them. And then we’re going to make sure nothing like this every happens again.”

Bucky and Steve go through the upstairs one room at a time. You hover along behind them, trying not to get in their way, but the house isn’t big and those two aren’t exactly small. Every other minute, you’re in their way. But they never send you away. Bucky’s focused on studying the rooms, looking for clues, but he says nothing.

When they move downstairs, you linger in Gemma’s room. You kneel at her bedside again, tracing the empty indent on her pillow. God, what’s happened to her? Your sweet niece, with her happy laugh and her stubborn determination and her ominous certainty—

You put your head against the spot where she sleeps, wishing you could close your eyes and hear her breathing, hear her heartbeat, hear anything that would reassure you she’s alive.

Downstairs, Steve and Bucky start to talk. You sit up and listen hard.

“This has to be about her powers,” Bucky says.

“I agree.” Steve sighs. “What’s the plan?”

“What’re you askin’ me for?”

“She’s your… dammit, I’ve never even been here before, Buck! You know these people.”

A thump—did Bucky punch something? You hope he didn’t leave a dent.

“Keep it together, Buck,” Steve hisses. “Your girl’s upstairs!”

Before Steve finishes, you can hear Bucky stomping up to you. By the time he reaches you, you’re sitting on Gemma’s bed, your hands between your knees. You can’t imagine what you look like, what with the crying and the terror, but Bucky doesn’t comment. All he does is kneel at your feet and take your hands in his. He stares up at you with tender concern.

“How are you doing?” he murmurs. You shake your head, unable to meet his eyes.

“I don’t know. I keep wishing her damn bed would tell me where she is.” You force a laugh. “Crazy, right?”

Bucky joins you on the bed and pulls you into his arms. “No,” he says. “Not crazy.” He settles his chin on your head. “I’m sorry to do this, but can you tell me about the phone call?”

You tell him as much as you can. The phone call, your harried trip over, your exploration of the abandoned house. He listens in silence.

“—and to think, I was going to have a nice night,” you finish with a sniff, thinking of the unlit candles and the pie no doubt setting off fire alarms in your oven and the new lingerie. What was all of that against your brother, his wife, your niece? “God. That sounds so selfish.”

“Trust me,” Bucky says, pulling back, “it’s not.” He kisses away the tears clinging to your cheeks, then tugs you back against him for a last, brief hug. When he pulls back, the dismay is clear on his face. “I don’t want to leave you. But I—we, Steve and me, need to get to the bottom of this.”

“I’ll be okay,” you say. You’re pretty sure it’s a lie, but what does that matter? “Go. Find them. Save them, and then come home safe.”

Bucky squeezed your hands. He studies your face, his blue eyes intent as if he were memorizing you. “Yes, ma’am.”

After Bucky and Steve leave, you call the police as instructed. It’s easier to tell the story this time. Or maybe you’re just numb.

Either way, you let them take your statement. You let them root around your brother’s empty house. You let them bring you out of Gemma’s room, downstairs, outsi—

“Wait,” you blurt.

You turn and rush back inside, back upstairs, and into Gemma’s room.

“This is a crime scene!” one of the officers says, running after you. She tries to grab your arm, but misses as you kneel on the floor and pick up a piece of paper.

Your heart pounds. It’s one of Gemma’s drawings. All the other pages on the floor are pictures of people, of animals, of houses or rocks or flowers. This one, though?

This one is abstract.

You stare at the paper clutched in your hands as the officer leads you back outside. Her lecture goes in one ear and out the other.

Gemma, you think, what are you trying to say?

Read Part 3 here!

#bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #winter soldier imagine #bucky barnes fic #the premonitions story #becca writes

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angrylizardjacket · 5 years

Text

ask your destiny to dance [17] {Roger Taylor}

[masterpost]

It takes Roger exactly two weeks to realise he doesn’t know Ash nearly as well as he thought he did. There’s a lot to glean about a person from their room, and what they say, but not everything, not even close to everything.

“So I guess you’re working tomorrow?” Roger asks, leaning against the bar as Ash polishes a glass. It comes as a surprise when she makes a face, shaking her head. “We’re going on a pub crawl, if you wanna come along then.”

Ash takes her time before answering, hanging up the glass and pulling another from the rack before she finally speaks.

“I can’t, I’m busy, sorry.” And she sounds... uncomfortable about it. Roger’s never known her to be uncomfortable about anything that didn’t relate to her home life, and she can see the moment he jumps to that conclusion. “I’m going to Paris in the afternoon,” she says quickly, and Roger’s taken aback, “I don’t get home until late; train times, you know?”

“A day trip to Paris?” He asks, and Maureen leans over to Ash with a small smile.

“Is that where you go on those Saturdays? That’s cute, Ash, little routine trips to France.” She flicks Ash with the end of her tea towel, to which Ash smiles despite herself, blushing and flicking Maureen back.

“Oi, I’m just going to Paris, nothing cute about it. I’m allowed to have hobbies, you know.” She argued back, and Maureen snickered, smiling fondly at the ginger before she tucked her tea towel into her back pocket and went back to cutting lime wedges. “I’m going to The Louvre.” Ash explained to Roger, cheeks still faintly pink.

“The Louvre?” There was a surprise in his voice that Ash had expected, and when she looks up at him, she still seems a bit defensive.

“There’s free entry once per month; first Saturday at six.” She pauses, and when his expression brightens, hers falls and she feels like she’s said too much.

“Do you go every month?” He sounds delighted at the prospect, and Ash wants to defend herself, but then he says, “you shouldn’t be catching the train so late, it’s dark even at six, love, you must get home at like midnight; just let me drive you.”

“Rog, you don’t need to do that,” but her grin is more relieved than anything else, the tension leaving her shoulders as she goes back to her work, “you guys are going out tomorrow, and besides, it’s not like I’ve never done it before.”

“I can get on the piss with them any time; this only happens once a month.” And the way his words make Ash smile, quietly pleased, he’s already pretty sure it’s going to be worth it.

Things between them have been... weird. Good weird, sure, but that doesn’t make them less weird. They haven’t really had time for an actual date yet, they just sort of show up at each other’s homes and watch TV and make out whenever they don’t have work or rehearsals of a night. It’s been good, it’s felt safe.

When Ash sits on the curb outside of her dorm, she feels nervous more than anything else. It’s not a feeling she’s used to; she’s never been nervous around Roger before; it takes her probably too long to realise how much she wants this to go well. When he shows up, just after midday, he’s beaming from the second hand station wagon that he’d gotten since recording the album. There’s a map in the passenger seat.

“I’ve driven there before, but not for a while, you’re going to have to direct me.” He advises as she buckles her seat belt, putting her sketchbook and thermos by her feet and unfolding the map.

It’s a long drive, just over five hours, and Ash is nervous for about three of them, which is only compounded by getting lost twice, and eventually Roger pulls over.

“You’ve been tense since I showed up; what’s wrong?” He asks, and Ash sighs heavily, picking up her thermos and pouring herself a small cup of tea.

“I don’t exactly go blabbing about the fact that I make semi-frequent trips to Paris, alright?” Ash admits, and she takes a sip of her drink, looking out through the windshield. Roger’s not sure what that means, how to respond, and after a minute, she adds, “Freddie doesn’t even really know.” And she finishes the tea, putting the thermos back, and Roger’s still quiet. When she finally looks at him, his expression is fondly amused.

“You’ve made me feel all special.” It’s far too genuine to be a joke, and Ash lets herself smile back, rolling her eyes at him.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” She warned, and Roger’s smile sharpened as he pulled back onto the road.

“Too late.” But he reaches over to rest his hand on her knee as she opens the map up again, and her heart grows warm, her anxiety easing. They turn up the radio for the rest of the trip; Ash hums along to the songs she only knows the tune of without too much hassle, yet somehow can’t seem to actually sing a note to save her life. She finishes butchering Elton’s Crocodile Rock at the top of her lungs, and Roger’s sides hurt from laughing, and she’s grinning in a way that means she knows exactly how terrible she is and how much it amuses Roger.

“I have other skills.” She says dismissively, grinning with her nose in the air as the radio host announces another song, and instead of answering, Roger sings along to the radio like he’d written the melody himself. “Showoff.” Ash laughed, and Roger’s eyes crease as he grins.

“I don’t have other skills, I gotta make use of this one.” He replied, lightly, and Ash’s expression softened.

“Oh shut it, you’ve got at least two other skills, probably.” She played along with his joke, watching him as he sings along to the rock song blaring from the radio, and it’s relaxed and easy, and she finds herself wondering why she’d been so worried just a few hours before.

They hit Paris at a quarter to six, and grab some fast food before heading to the gallery. There’s people everywhere, and the line isn’t exactly short to get in, more than a few of them are uni students like them, looking to get in for free, and Ash says hi to a few; the fact that she goes here enough to know other people who do this regularly to is still something that baffles Roger a little. He’s worried she’s getting nervous again when she takes his hand - they’re not the sort of people who hold hands - but when he looks at her, her eyes are shinning and bright as she looks up at the building; she’s excited.

Ash goes quiet in the gallery, looking around with wide-eyed reverence at the works around them. They move past the entrance slowly; Ash gazes at the works with their plaques memorised, while Roger reads them, fingers laced with hers.

“Oh, hello.” Voice reverential, Ash greets a statue at the end of the hall like an old friend, and introduces Roger as such. “This is the Venus de Milo, she’s almost two thousand years old, god, look at that marble work, imagine how sharp it would have looked back then,” and then it’s like she’s opened a floodgate, and she’s tugging him along, rambling along the way about each piece they pass, little facts not on the plaques, things she can cite from the top of her head. Above everything, she’s passionate, pulling out of his grip to clutch her hands to her chest and looking up at headless sculpture of what Roger thinks is an angel, and what Ash clarifies to be The Winged Victory of Samothrace.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Ash’s moon-eyed gaze was focused on the statue’s marble garments, but Roger’s only got eyes for her. When he doesn’t answer, she looks to him, catches the way he’s smiling at her, and she feels her cheeks heat up. “What?”

“You really love this stuff, don’t you?” It’s a sincere question, and it’s as if he can see her responses flit through her mind, sarcastic, dismissive, an eye roll, flippant, she passes them all, takes a moment to really look at him, taking her time to breathe in the whole situation before responding.

“More than anything.” It’s a sincere answer, and it catches him off-guard. Ash is many things, but unapologetically enthusiastic is not one Roger’s familiar with.

Turning on her heel, Ash leads further in to the gallery, but it’s finally hits him how much this means to her, this place, these works, bringing him here. They’d been together for barely a fortnight, but they both know it’s felt so much longer than that; she’d taken a gamble, bringing him, he has no doubt she’d have left him in London if she didn’t want him to come along, and something tightens in his chest.

He doesn’t dwell on it, he takes it in stride well enough, peppering her with questions along the way that she seems thrilled to answer. Tucking her arm into his, they make their way through the building, the babbling turning to banter easily as Roger provides his own commentary on each piece as they pass, which serves to make Ash laugh.

They get to a small painting on the top floor with a border that looks bigger than the picture itself, and Ash has gotten quiet again.

“Who’s this?” Roger asks, the two of them stepping close to get a closer look.

“The Lacemaker.” Ash sounds a little awed, and when he looks down at her, Roger sees how fondly she’s smiling at the little painting. “She’s my favourite.”

“’course she is, she’s like you.” Roger answers easily, and Ash makes a face, laughing a little self consciously.

“No she’s not, shut up.” She doesn’t sound like she believes him, a bit of a laugh in her words, but she’s resting her head against Roger’s shoulder and he wraps an arm around her.

“Same focus.” Roger muses, and when Ash looks to him, surprise and confusion on her face, he just grins. “When you sew, you’ve got the same look on your face, same focus.” He explains, and there’s something in Ash’s awed expression that he can’t place, and she pulls away from him too fast for him to really identify it.

She’s pretty sure she loves him.

It’s fucking terrifying.

She can’t look at him, stepping out of his grip as she feels tears well in her eyes as her emotions overwhelm her, not that it’s an uncommon occurrence, Ash has never set foot in an art gallery and not cried, but Roger didn’t need to know that. She’d really been doing well today, too. Usually she gets lost in the scope and detail of The Wedding at Cana, or even comes to obsess over the little details of The Lacemaker, but she’s also usually alone and can get away with it.

“That’s- Rog, that’s really sweet of you to say.” And he can hear in her voice that she’s trying not to believe him, that she can’t let herself believe him. And when she turns back, she’s wiping at her eyes, and he wants to try and comfort her, but she’s already walking past him briskly, leading to the next painting.

“There’s something I’ve... well, I’ve always wanted to try here.” He hears her say, voice firm as if she’s trying to move quickly past whatever the moment she’d just had was. She leads not to the painting, but to one of the weirdly low, backless sofas that are scattered around for people to view the paintings from. This one’s empty; Ash looks around for security, and seeing none, steps up onto it.

“And what’s that?” He asks with a smirk, the sofa giving her only about two inches of height on him. He doesn’t ask why she’d almost started crying, and for that she’s thankful. Instead, his hands come to rest on her hips, and he’s smiling at her in that way that sets her heart aflutter.

“Don’t ruin this.” She warns very quietly, amused smile on her lips, and Roger quirks an eyebrow.

“Ruin what?” He asks, shooting for innocent, a million different things running through his mind that could make her smile, but would definitely ruin the moment; he bites his tongue.

Ash cups his face in her hands, and she can’t help but laugh as she leans in to kiss him. It starts sweet and tender, her lips soft against his, but he wraps his arms around her, pulling her close and deepening the kiss. There’s people moving around them, most ignoring them, some stare, but neither of them seem to care. She tastes mostly like the tea she’d sculled in the car when they’d arrived, and she’s got a hand in his hair when he presses kisses from her jaw, trailing down her neck, and she laughs, a little giddy. He pulls back, if only to see her bright eyed and blushing.

“Let’s go home.” She says softly, and Roger’s never agreed to something so quickly, his heart elated to see Ash giggling and mischievous as they backtrack through the gallery, knowing that he and the art were the things that made her smile like that.

“I didn’t ruin it.” He sounds a little smug when he says it as they walk through the streets of Paris back to his car, and Ash glances at him out of the corner of her eye, snorting.

“I could see you holding yourself back from a one-liner about pinning masterpieces to walls or something like that; I appreciate your discretion.” She tells him, deadpan, and Roger gives her a self-satisfied grin.

“It certainly wasn’t easy.” He agrees, but she still reaches out and takes his hand. When they get to his car, he goes to head around to the driver’s side, but she pulls him back for a moment, pressing a kiss to his lips. After a moment, he’s got a hand on her hips, pressing her against the side of the car, and she sighs against his lips, her arms around his neck. Her legs slide open easily as she pulls him closer, letting him slide a knee between her thighs.

“Christ,” Roger breaks away from the kiss, murmuring the word against her neck as her nails graze his scalp.

“Thank you for today.” She whispers softly, and he can hear the smile in her words. He presses a kiss to her shoulder.

“Any time, love.” He steps back from her, enough to see her fond smile, and to give one in return, before he heads around to the driver’s side and they both get in the car.

It’s well past midnight by the time they get back, and Ash follows Roger up to his flat with a yawn, flinching as the door opens and Brian, Freddie, and John all greet them with a cheer, obviously taking a pit stop in the middle of their pub crawl.

“I was starting to sober up; the walk between the last pub and the next is directly smack bang in the middle of here.” Freddie claims with a surprising amount of confidence considering his words make no sense.

“No- this place is on the way to the next pub.” John corrects, and Ash has to giggle at the sight and sound of a drunk John Deacon. It never fails to amuse her, he’s surprisingly confident and well spoken.

“Yes! Deaky is right! You two can join us!” Freddie brandishes and subsequently spills on Brian, who’s sitting beside him.

“Go if you want, I’m knackered.” Ash yawns, giving Roger’s shoulder a nudge, moving past him to his room.

“Actually, I think I’m right, I’ve been driving for a while,” Roger says, making to follow Ash, only to hear Freddie boo loudly, and John call out after them.

“Where’d you guys go?” He asks, and Roger answers over his shoulder.

“Art gallery.” He answers, and he hears Ash snort from his bedroom.

“That’s... Rog, that’s surprisingly cute, didn’t know you had it in you.” Brian smiles at him, and Roger feels a little patronised by the pride in his flatmate’s voice. He flips Brian off, along with the rest of them, since John was grinning like the cat who got the cream and Freddie looked like he was three seconds away from actually ‘awe’ing.

“Did you kids have fun?” Freddie calls, sounding nothing so much like his own mother, wearing a shiteating grin, which only got wider as Roger told him to piss off, slamming the door once he got into his room.

Ash was standing by his bed, pulling off the shorts she’d been wearing all day, already wearing one of his shirts. Roger can hear the others on the other side of the door already laughing and talking about something else, all three of them trying to convince themselves to get up and move on to the next pub. She gives him an amused smile and Roger just rolls his eyes at his friends’ whole situation.

They don’t speak, though Ash’s yawn triggers one in Roger, and when he’s stripped down to his boxers, she’s waiting for him beneath the covers. When he kisses her, it’s a thank you for the day, and she hums a soft, contented noise against his lips. They’re too tired to even fool around, and Ash wraps her arm around him as he turns to lay on his side, pressing her chest to his back, pressing a kiss to his shoulder blade before they fall asleep.

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#roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #roger taylor x oc #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #bo rhap #borhap imagine #bohemian rhapsody imagine #queen #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #ask your destiny to dance fic #the angry lizard writes

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johnnysnostril · 5 years

Text

You’ve Always Been Mine

chapter 8

`nori

the next morning i woke up to soft kisses peppering my face. i groaned a little, feeling like i only had 2 seconds of sleep.

“wake up, sleepyhead.” i heard jooheon’s voice say. i slowly opened my eyes and he greeted me with his deep dimples. leaning down to kiss my forehead, he caressed my cheek. “i gotta get going- a driver will be here at 10am to pick you and misun up, okay?” he smiled warmly and tilted his head. “a driver? huh?” i questioned. “what time is it?” i asked in a sleepy tone. “its 5am- just go back to sleep, okay? i already set an alarm for you.” jooheon gently kissed my lips and whispered goodbye, before i shut my eyes- dozing off again.

` beep. beep. beep. beep. `

i reached my hand out and smacked the alarm clock, as i laid on my stomach. i was spread out on the bed with a pillow covering my head. as i sat up, i looked around, realizing i was still in jooheon’s dorm. i scrunched my eyebrows and rubbed my head, yawning.

where is misun?

stepping out into the living room, the quiet pierced my ears as i looked around. “misun?” i said calling out for my bestfriend.

“hi! good morning!”

misun swung shownu’s door open and smiled at me, as she stood in the doorway. “you look cute.” she said laughing. her hands were lost in shownu’s oversized sweater, which hit her at the knees. it was almost like a dress on her.

“no- i look like a mess.” i said shutting my eyes. “i was talking about the clothes you’re wearing. very boyfriend.” misun came over to give me a hug and squeezed me tightly. “why are you such a morning person- this is ridiculous.” i laughed.

“im just a happy person.” she admitted.

*knock. knock. knock.*

misun and i both looked towards the front door. we stood still for a moment then looked back at each other.

“we can’t answer that- we’re not supposed to be here.” i said whispering.

misun’s lips curved into a devilish smile then she slowly walked towards the door. “misun! don’t!” i reached out for her arm. instead of pulling her in my direction, she dragged me with her to the door before she flug it open. there stood a tall man, with a chauffeur get-up on.

“good morning- i’m here to pick you ladies up.” he said bowing.

so, that conversation with jooheon was real? i thought i was dreaming.

“where are we going?” misun said as she clapped her hands together. the gentleman smiled. “the details will be provided once we arrive at our destination.” i yawned once more and pushed my hair out of my face.

misun squealed and jumped up and down. “i gotta change.” she turned on her heels and started to make a beeline to shownu’s bedroom.

“miss? i was instructed to follow a tight schedule. you’re attire is already planned.” he smiled warmly.

“but, we need to brush our teeth and stuff. we have time for that right?” i asked in a sleepy tone.

he nodded and smiled. “i’ll wait here for you-“

misun and i followed the chauffeur out the back way of the building. as we turned the corner, a hummer limo was parked on the curb.

“okay- seriously. what’s up with all these limos?” i whispered.

scooting into the limo, misun giggled as we were greeted with mimosas. we both took a champagne glass and smiled at each other.

“what in the world do they have up their sleeves.” misun uttered before taking a drink.

i was wondering why they were doing all of this in the first place. jooheon knew that i didn't really care about all this flashiness. i was just fine, taking the train or even walking. misun- on the other hand- loved this type of lifestyle. it fit her more than it did me. she was made for this type of living.

as we pulled up to our destination, our limo door was opened for us- and we hopped out. “no- they didnt.” i said looking up at the building. “omg!! centro hair salon!” misun squealed and hooked her arm to mine. “i’ve always wanted to get my hair done here! come on!”

as misun dragged me into the salon, we were greeted by two hairstylist. we all bowed to one another- then misun and i were separated.

`jooheon

as the guys and i finished our radio interview, we filed outside to greet the fans

seeing monbebe’s warmed my heart and i was so grateful for them. as we packed ourself into the car, kihyun’s smile quickly faded. “you guys know you’re going to get caught right?” he said strapping on his seatbelt.

“oh, for the love of god. just shut up kihyun. why does it matter to you anyway?” wonho rolled his eyes and looked out the tinted window as the car started moving.

“because! they’re not thinking of the damage this could do to our career. we’ve worked too hard for two random girls to destroy what we have.” he said irritated.

“random?” i said turning around in my seat. “nori and misun are not random. and even if they were, you don’t get to speak on nori like that.”

“jooheon, i know you’re upset- but you don’t get to speak to kihyun that way.” hyungwon pulled his phone from out of his pocket and began texting.

“we’re not going to do this right now. everyone shut up.” shownu said as he rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. “kihyun, keep your mouth shut. misun and nori aren’t going anywhere- so you’ll just have to get used to the way things are.”

for the duration of the car ride, it was silent. i just wanted to be with nori. that’s all- i didn’t understand why this had to be so hard for us.

`nori

i glanced at myself in the mirror and smiled. my hair had never looked this good before. “i should take a picture for jooheon and tell him thank you.” i whispered to myself.

reaching in my back pocket, i groaned. one, i didn’t have on pants. i still had jooheon’s clothes on from last night. two, i didn’t have a phone.

“oh my gosh. your hair looks amazing!” misun said squealing. i turned to face her and smiled. “yours looks so much better.” i chuckled. her long locks were curled in loose waves, sunkissed with soft tones of caramel brown.

“ladies- if you’re just about ready.” the chauffeur approached us and extending his hand towards the exit. “don’t we have to pay?” misun said scrunching her eyebrows.

“the expenses were already taken care of, miss. misun.” he smiled warmly and bowed.

misun and i glanced at each other and chuckled.

as we jumped back into the limo, misun rested her head on my shoulder. “this has got to be a dream.” she voiced. i nodded my head. “this doesn’t feel real.”

as we pulled up to the next destination, i exhaled and shut my eyes. “this is too much. we can’t accept this.” misun covered her mouth and squealed. “no freakin waaay!”

`jooheon

pulling back up to the dorm, the boys got out while shownu and i stayed in our seats.

“you guys aren’t coming in?” minhyuk approached the passenger side door as shownu rolled down the window. “we’re meeting up with the girls. wonho, you’re in charge.” shownu lifted his brows and looked in his direction. “why can’t i be in charge for once?” changkyun stomped off toward the dorm and hyungwon followed, with kihyun behind. “make sure they don’t burn the place down.”

minhyuk laughed, nodded then made his way inside.

as we walked into the gucci store, the girls were nowhere to be found. but, we could definitely hear them.

“misun, no! i’m not putting these on. did you see these price tags?! they’re way too expensive to be taken off the hanger.”

i heard nori complain. i laughed a little. i knew she was going to be unhappy about this.

“will you just shut up and try the damn clothes on! don’t make me come in there and force you into them!”

shownu’s lips curved into a smile as misun’s voice rang throughout the store.

we walked over to the dressing room, where the curtains were closed. i rested against the wall and folded my arms across my chest. shownu took it upon himself to just walk in on misun, and she screamed.

“shownu?! what are you doing here?” she laughed.

“what?! shownu’s here?” nori said surprised. the curtains flung back and she darted out of the changing room, walking right past me. i softly chuckled and just watched her.

as shownu and misun waltz out, nori slapped shownu’s arm.

“what the hell is this? why would you have a chauffeur pick us up and take us to an expensive hair salon?! you had the nerve to actually make us come to the gucci store! are you insane?!”

nori continued to slap his arm as she spoke and i playfully rolled my eyes, before approaching her from behind and hugging her waist.

“it was my idea, nori.”

`nori

jooheon’s voice softly rang in my ear and i turned around. i was almost speechless for a minute.

“yeah, yell at him. this was his idea.” shownu laughed and pulled misun into a tight hug. “you look amazing in this dress.” he said picking her up and squeezing her. “now, let’s see what it looks like on the floor.” shownu chuckled and carried her back into the dressing room, shutting the curtains as she giggled.

jooheon stared down at me, smiling widely as he slid his hands into his pockets.

“you know i don’t need all this, jooheon.” i said pushing his chest.

he laughed and slightly stumbled.

“i mean, technically- people need clothes, so.” he playfully shrugged then looked me up and down. “unless you plan on being naked. i wouldn’t mind that.” his smile grew in size and he winked at me.

“shut up.” i rolled my eyes and bumped his shoulder as i walked past him, softly smiling.

#jooheon fanfic #monsta x #monsta x fanfic #monsta x soft hours #lee jooheon

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slugmanslime · 6 years

Text

I’ll Tell You What I Want! (Ch. 1)

hey guys its late im so SO tired but i sat down and wrote this bc its been on my mind all day tell me what you think im exhausted i love you all this is a fairytale AU, based loosely off of Rumpelstiltskin, so just bear that in mind

EDIT: I am reposting this because I changed a crucial point of the storyline and I think it is way better now.

Pairings: Bog King/Marianne, Dawn/Sunny Warnings: Eventual Infidelity, Violence, Possible Smut, Heartbreak, Bog is a bitter Magic Hoe Word Count: 2660 Chapter: 1 / ???

The kingdom of Hearthmark was sprawling, dotted with villages, markets, valleys and meadows as far as the eye can see. For a millenium, the Fallow family had ruled Hearthmark with a gentle and knowing hand, negotiating their way out of wars and arbitrating expansive treaties that brought harmony to the kingdom, and fruitful years of trade to the markets. Heathmark’s economy flourished, the kingdom expanded, and the people thrived under King Dagda and Queen Carmen’s rule. The citizens of Heathmark lived in harmony with each other, harvesting their plentiful crops as they kept each other company year in and year out as life was plentiful and plain and happy.

Bog hated plentiful and plain and happy.

Bog King, Bog of the Black Oak, sorcerer and heir to a legend, was one of the only denizen’s of the Dark Forest encompassed the perimeter of Hearthmark that acted as a natural border between the gentle people, the supernatural, and the burdens of warm and unrest roiling in other countries. The gloomy woods were filled with fascinating but often dangerous mythical creatures that would prefer not to be disturbed, Bog being one of them. Once upon a time, Bog’s parents were seen as useful to the kingdom, and his mother Griselda, along with him and his father, lived a comfortable life in service of the crown. But those years were long gone, as was his father, taken too soon by an illness that not even Griselda the Great could cure. Bog’s mother, a powerful witch with a secretly kind heart, was his only constant company now, something that he couldn’t help but appreciate and yet he loathed, especially at times such as this.

“Bog, deary, you realize that the winter solstice is tomorrow? You really oughta check the hens, you know how they despise the cold!” Griselda’s voice grated through his thoughts, stirring him away from the shelf of ingredients he was organizing. She herself was busy clucking around their little cottage, dusting and folding articles of light clothing away into an empty closet. She was busy preparing them for the coming winter storms, and had spent the past two weeks jarring vegetables, patching thick coats and pants, and ensuring that their chickens and goats were well prepared for the weather. Not to be left out, Bog was there to do her heavy lifting and any other menial task he could be cowed into. Heaving a great sigh, Bog gathered his coat and shrugged it on, snatching a basket from beside the doorway when a flurry of sudden knocks stopped the pair in their tracks. Bog paused and glanced over his shoulder to meet Griselda’s curious stare, before the knocking interrupted them once more, sounding increasingly urgent.

A visitor… in the Dark Forest? A visitor? Travelling through this kind of weather? These questions and more bounced around his head as he dropped the basket and opted for the enchanted staff he kept by the door for protection.

With his guard up, Bog unlatched the door, revealing the most petite, anxious, and beautiful young woman he had ever laid eyes on. Perhaps that was speaking too rashly, but then again, Bog didn't have much experience with the outside world. The young women dropped her fist to her side limply, clearly unsure of her intentions after being met with such an imposing figure. They engaged in a staring contest, challenging and questioning in the same moment. The young lady was obviously bundled against the cold but carried nothing with her but a small satchel, speaking to her confidence that she could make this trip a short one.

Removing the small cap she had donned for the trip, the visitor gazed at him with a look brimming with excitement tempered by uncertainty, causing him to quirk an unruly brow. A halo of chocolate curls framed her face in cute pixie licks, with searching hazel eyes framed in long lashes stabbing him straight through his chest with the intensity that they trained on him. The lovely stranger was dressed in finely tailored traveler’s clothes and thick boots absolutely caked with snow, speaking to her wealth and making the sorcerer even more curious about what she possibly thought to gain by making a dangerous trip out here.It was the dead of night now, and it had been snowing since dawn.

Bog swallowed thickly, forcing himself to read into a situation that he had seen one to many times. She was a lovely thing, and they were known to be skilled with magic. Why else would someone as fragile and important as herself journey to their home, unless it was with a request for their services? A scowl of disappointment colored his features and he regarded her in a manner that mirrored the chilly weather she had just traversed.

“Aye, traveller, don’ go knockin down me door now. Winter approaches swiftly. Ye must be lost, so far from the Hearth.” Tall and broad Bog leaned against his staff in the doorway, exuding contempt and trying to appear bored. His figure was lean from tending to their crops and livestock, and he towered over the petite woman shivering before him.

“Sir, please… I’m not lost, if you would tell me your name. I am Marianne Fallow… Crown Princess of Hearthmark. I come with an urgent request… please, hear me.” Having finally revealed herself, Marianne pressed her hands together against her chest breathlessly. She carried an aura with her, one of strength but innocence, as if she sought out the best in people. Her eyes were clear and bright, full of good intentions without the life experience to judge them. It nearly made Bog sick to his stomach. Before he could turn her away, his mother’s voice drifted from inside.

“Bog, who is it? Don’t just stand there, it’s cold as all get out, bring them inside!”

The already-exhausted sorcerer growled in frustration but after one last tense moment of silence, he took a step back and motion for her to enter. “Please, do come in.” Of course, while it might have been phrased nicely, the implorement was dripping with sarcasm. Marianne eyes flashed with something hot but she only warred with herself for a moment before schooling her expression into something polite and appreciative as she crept inside the cottage.

Griselda did a double take when she saw the princess and nearly tripped over herself trying to make introductions. The witch was tiny, withered with age, but that did nothing to curb her enthusiasm at having someone as pretty and tough as Marianne in her home. How hard it was to play matchmaker when her son insisted they hole themselves up out here in these god-forsaken woods! Grinning widely, she took Marianne’s hand and drew her closer to the fireplace as she drenched her in a torrent of conversation.

“Oh goodness me, deary, you must be frozen to the core a delicate little thing like you out in this cold! Come by the fire, let’s get you warmed up. Are you hungry deary, I’ve got a delicious stew on right now, it’ll be done here in just a few minutes. Where are you from, what brings you here at this time of year, oooh it must be something important, I know it! Haven’t you--”

“MAM. The lady can’t get a word in edgewise with all yer yammerin’. Let her speak, please.” Bog had taken residence against the door, his back pressed to it with slender arms crossed over his chest. The staff stood at his side like a loyal guard, ready for action at any moment. Dark ebony locks, a curious shade between tawny and black, curled upon his head like a crown of thorns while sharp blue eyes reminiscent of a clear sky in summer burned a hole through his (unwanted) guest. Marianne was bewitched for a moment, taken aback by just how young and… strong, this legendary sorcerer was. She took a deep breath to collect her thoughts, forcefully tearing her eyes away from his in an attempt to gather courage, and she spoke.

“Bog… as in Bog of the Black Oak?” Marianne had to ask without looking, lest she lose her train of thought again, and instead turned her eyes on his mother. “And his sorceress mother, Griselda the Great?”

They had very different reactions, with Bog hissing in disdain and Griselda preening under Marianne’s curiosity. Hoisting himself off of the door, Bog stalked between the two women over to the fire and crouched to add another log. Distrust drew his body taught, and it grated on his nerves to have his back to this stranger. With every word she spoke, his assumptions were proved right, and boy did that put him in a bad mood. He was so young when he left Hearthmark (relatively speaking) that he found it hard to remember what a sense of community felt like, what friendship and comradery felt like. Griselda was privy enough to her son’s attitude’s to know that he was upset, and she placed her other hand on his shoulder. Bog seemed to visibly relax, if only minutely, and Marianne watched the exchange quietly. This Bog man, he was not very similar to the stories she had heard as a child. The firelight softened the harsh edge of his cheekbones and jaw, making him look almost afraid. This couldn’t be the man so hungry for power that he was banished to the Dark Forest…

“I come to… request your services. Your feats are that of legend and I am humbled that you invited me into your home… Thank you very much for your kindness.” Marianne smiled softly, squeezing the hand that Griselda still held.

“My courage fails me, it seems. I have fallen in love with the man of my dreams, but I can’t seem to find my words when I’m around him, he is far too charming! Roland is a knight in service of my father, and is loved dearly by our subjects… myself included.” She took a moment and blushed very prettily as she looked for the proper words to convey her desire. “I would just hope that you might help me win his heart. Anything that you ask of me in return, you may have it.”

Griselda pondered Marianne’s request silently, glancing between the princess and her son, who was regarding the fire with a stony expression. The princess claimed to be in love, but it sounded more like infatuation to her. Not to mention… love potions were the reason that she and her son were here in the first place.

Bog clenched and unclenched his fists while the cogs in his brain turned. How could it be that a princess, especially one as lovely and forthcoming as her, could not win the love of someone, knight or not? Marianne was obviously kind if she would thank two strangers for keeping her warm even if they did it begrudgingly; she had to care a great deal for this knight as well if she was here, alone, in this weather. And yet, anything that they asked… in return for a love potion? A small but very bitter part of Bog’s heart thrummed at the thought, and paused to pick his words carefully before turning to the princess. The sorcerer stayed crouched, the shadows shifting on his face making him appear otherworldly and gaunt; Marianne’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of him.

“You said anything, princess, is that what ye meant?” His eyes bored into hers with almost hypnotic amounts of energy. Marianne felt a wave of unease course through her but she stood her ground, nodding when her words failed her.

“There is a potion that I can craft, somethin’ guaranteed to win this knight’s… affection. I will teach ye how to use it. When yer lover is exposed to it’s magic, it’s nigh impossible fer them to not fall in love with the first person they see.” Bog stood, the flames returning its previously hoarded light to the cottage. “However… everythin’ comes at a price, me lady.” A wicked grin lit up his features, sharpening his electric blue stare that seemed to paralyze and terrorize Marianne for a moment.

“By using this potion, the one person ye hold closest to yer heart will be stripped of their ability to find love. Oh, aye, they will love their family, their friends, but…” Bog’s smile faded, a haunted look of sadness brushing over his features. “When someone falls in love with them, they cannot requite it, no matter how much they might want to. They will be damned to a life of fleeting, meaningless romance, leaving a string of broken hearts behind them as they suffer from an emptiness they cannot name nor fight.”

His monologue made her heart squeeze and her blood run cold. Marianne was stunned that someone could request something so utterly heartless, but an image of Roland rose unbidden in her mind’s eye. Gods above, he was so perfect; his smile, his golden hair, the way that he carried himself with such pride and confidence. A perfect romance in exchange for a loveless life for the person she cared most about? How could Marianne agree to something so heinous? Selfish… that’s what this goal was. Marianne would be queen one day-- is this something that she could live with on top of the stressors of managing a kingdom.

There was only one person this could affect… She let out a shuddering sigh, dropping her head and cradling it with her hands. There was no way… Dawn was such a bubbly, gorgeous person. If it was the last thing that she did, Marianne would make sure that Dawn could find someone to spend her life with.

Bog could see her resolve faltering and aimed to encourage her previously line of thinking. Griselda was… quiet for once; he did not dwell on that fact for very long. “Marianne… ye love Roland, donch ye? Yah know that the two of ye can be so happy… if yah just say yes.” That almost made Griselda peep-- this was going too far! She knew that Bog had been hurt before but this was something truly terrible. She kept her mouth firmly shut, thinking hard about the situation. Yes… yes, she could remedy this. Love is a tricky game, but one that she knew how to play well.

Marianne steeled herself and lifted her head, standing with her back ramrod straight anf fists clenched at her side. “Let me make this clear… You will make me a love potion, one guaranteed to work on Roland. But once I use it… the one dearest to me will never find love again?” Her heart was in her throat, and speaking the words around it was painful.

“Aye, Princess, that’d be the gist. So… what say ye?” Bog stood directly before her, offering his hand for a pact.

Marianne studied him for a moment, trying to clear her mind and buy herself some time. Bog of the Black Oak was not very sociable, but had enough wits about him to keep his manners in company. He did not take kindly to strangers, but still opened his home to her. Bog was stiff and uncertain when near her, as if he was not used to being close to people, or having friendly conversations. He was very different from his mother, who was endearing and lively even in her old age. Despite having very little experience with magic, the princess had a sense of naive confidence that she could make this deal work to her advantage. She couldn’t admit to herself that she was afraid, but pressured, having come so far and being unwilling to leave empty handed.

Marianne calmly placed her gloved hand in his grip, squeezing as they shook.

Dawn, please forgive me. I promise to make this right.

“Bog of the Black Oak… we have a deal.”

#strange magic #bog king #marianne #griselda #butterfly bog #itywiw

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sunnysidewrites · 7 years

Text

Assassin!Seungcheol Pt 2 FINALE

THIS IS LONGER THAN WOLF!WONWOO BY 5 WORDS IM SCREAMING THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY LONGEST SCENARIO EVER!!!! bc i tagged her in part 1, im tagging @cheollies again bc she was one of the reasons why i was motivated ljdsfljdfl <3333 THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR WONDERFUL FEEDBACK IM SO SORRY ITS LATE!!! THIS IS A WILD RIDE AGAIN!! ENJOY THE FINALE MY CHILDREN!!!! <333333

warnings: some violence, references to part 1, my tears and anguish from completing this

Part 1 | Part 2 (Finale)

Two months.

That’s how long it had been since you had contacted him

You sighed as you stirred your coffee

Yep, you guessed it, in the same cafe that all the workers know you on a first name basis

Why do I keep coming back here? You glumly chided yourself, your cheek resting on your palm

You check your phone for the twentieth time that hour, wishing to have at least some notification about his whereabouts

Even if it’s something like “hey i’m safe and don’t look for me”

Bc all you need is just some validation that he’s okay,,,, but nothing. No texts, no calls, no “accidental” video calls, no “hey loser where are you” to check in where you are,,,, all you get is a black screen

Even though you practically have your lockscreen ingrained in your head from the amount of times you’ve seen it, you still can’t help but choke up a little

A blurry candid of seungcheol holding out his hand about to smear you with his ice cream mockingly stares back at you

You shake your head and get up your seat as you pack your things

You’re done. You’re done waiting. You gave him two whole freaking months, an entire 60 days. Sulking around waiting for someone to come back to you isn’t your forte.

And that will end today, you resolutely nod to yourself and start heading out the door.

“You what?!”

He sighs and holds his hand up, “Please. Don’t yell. It’s early.” He reaches his hand out for a biscuit

“How can you even nonchalantly eat breakfast right now??! Do you even understand what you’ve done?!” Joshua smacks his hand, dropping the biscuit

“Um hEY--”

“You made it this far without him suspecting anything, which is a major surprise and accomplishment. But it will bite you in the butt sooner or later, Cheols.” He briefly flinches at the name but Joshua is just prESSING the issue

“He’s gonna kill you. Not only you but probably her too. This is way too dangerous!”

“jOSHUA! Please! I know what I did, and I absolutely have no regrets.” He shakes his head, a faraway gaze in his eyes. “I’ve killed many people before, but I at least knew the gist of why I was. But she,,,, she’s just a pawn in my dad’s game,,, completely useless”

Joshua leans back in his chair and blinks slowly

“You love her. Don’t you,” he says more as a statement than an inquiry

He takes his silence as a definite answer and rubs his forehead. “Seungcheol…”

“Look, he’s been giving me regular jobs to do, you know the usual. He hasn’t caught on… yet… And he has much bigger things to worry about.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not keeping tabs!”

He sighs, ready to cut off the conversation. “We’re done here--”

And there he sees

He freezes, the only thing moving is his eyes on someone’s figure

You walk down the street taking in the bustling city view

Your eyes flicker to a table outside a store a few blocks ahead

You stop and squint your eyes. That wasn’t… was it?

You rub your eyes but by then the two people sitting there disappeared

You shake your head and continue walking, completely convinced you’re getting delirious by the second

You finally disappear out of sight and only then does seungcheol let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding

“Dude,,,, you have to tell her at some point”

“I know… I know.”

You barge and storm in the office with your arms folded

“I need to find someone.”

Your father looks up from his paperwork, his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose

“Y/N… can this wait?”

“I have been for two months and I’m sick of it. I need you to hire someone to help me find them”

“Sweetie, I’m really busy--”

“Dad….. Dad please. I have to. I need to.”

“....fine. I’ll have my assistant deal with it”

And you’re like yES OMG ILY THANKS POPS

He tells you to go to his assistant’s office a little ways down the hall where you’re greeted by the typical warm person

“Hello, Ms. Y/N, I haven’t seen you in a while!”

“Hi jeonghan!!! Look I really need you to find someone asap”

“Ah, yes, your father just notified me about that just now,,,, well I’ll do my best to search for someone in our team. Give me until the end of the day today?”

And you’re like oh my god he’s willing to put this fIRST :’)))))

“Omg that’s actually really fast,,, don’t you have more important things to do? I can wait a few days if that’s the case,,,,”

“No no! Ahah it’s fine you just hang on tight, I will definitely get back to you shortly!”

You’re like oH MY GOD YAY JEONGHAN U ARE SO NICE AND THE BEST NO ONE CAN COMPARE and you promptly hug him before leaving

“Yeah,,,, nice,,, that’s all I’ll ever be,” he wistfully smiles and lets out a small sigh

You come back to the office later that night and Jeonghan is like i found one of our best investigators/hackers!!!!

You’re like omg aju nICE

You and the woman walk to her “headquarters,” is what she calls them when it's just the room she works in lmao

The moment you both get settled you make it crystal clear

“Choi Seungcheol.”

And obviously you tell her a little more about him lmao

All you can see is her fingers flying over the keyboard and tons of files filling the screen

She spends a few more minutes digging but she’s like sorry babe none of them fit your description

And you’re like that can’t be right,,,,,

“Can you check the surveillance cameras? On streets and stuff?”

You tell her the date, time, and location of when you last saw him and she dives into another search party

“hmmm -- i foUND SOMETHING”

You see when he kisses you and you have to shield your eyes away from the impact,,,, your chest suddenly feels heavier

She senses this and gently places her hand on top of yours

“,,,,I’m sorry. We’ll find him”

She follows the cameras once he heads home and she’s like ok well looks like he’s staying in this beat up motel

She reviews cams even up to present day and still sees him leaving and entering the building and you’re like ok i’m sold and start to get up

She puts a hand on your arm and is like uh wait honey you aren’t going alone

“Well who else is gonna go??”

“Me. I was physically trained sufficiently enough for a bodyguard position, so don’t sweat”

She stands up and starts rummaging through her makeshift closet to pull out 2 bulletproof vests

You look at her stunned before breaking out in a grin

“I’m game.”

“You went back on my orders? Do you know what position you’re in?!” He barks

Seungcheol trains his eyes on the floor and numbly responds, “I didn’t think there was a reason to kill an innocent person who has no involvement in this business. It’s her father, no?”

His dad sighs and rubs his temples. “Son, you follow. I command. I guess you’ll just have to face the consequences for not obeying me, your own father… Tsk,” he distastefully clucks his tongue. “You actually thought I didn’t know this entire time. I knew you didn’t kill her that night of your romantic doings”

“I know,,, It just happened,,,, I had to do it to get her to trust me” stop lying to urself cheols smh we and mr choi all know ur whipped

“Just please leave her alone.”

His icy chuckle sends shivers down Seungcheol’s spine for the first time

“Ohoho,,, you thought you were the one in trouble?”

Seungcheol looks up at him with his eyes narrowed in confusion

And then they narrow in fury

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but I most certainly would.” does anyone get the reference lmao #tb to part 1

“What did you dO TO HER”

“Guess you’ll both find out. Shall we?”

“This,,,, is where he’s staying at?”

You look at the paint peeling off the sign “Stay Inn”

The hinges of the battered doors are about to come off

Two streetlamps flicker lazily, yellow light pathetically illuminating the parking lot

“The footage doesn’t lie,” she says as she takes a look around. “Room 114, let’s go”

You and her cautiously creep up in front of the door and then kick it wide open

“....No one’s here.” And you can’t help but feel a lil disappointed :((

Both of you are looking around his room for any sort of clues but it looks like any (less than) average hotel room with clothes scattered everywhere and plastic plates littered around the table

Eventually you both ditch the place and you’re about to call it a day when she abruptly stops you

“Wait. i heard something over there,” she subtly looks over at the other side of the street

You hold your breath as she discreetly scans around the area and then

“geT DOWN!” She pulls your arm down as she drops to the ground

Your ears are ringing from the gunshots from the one right next to you and the one on the other side

“We have to leave now!” She scrambles up and tries hiding behind parked vehicles on the curb as she pushes you to move

You’re able to run down only a couple of blocks when you see another group of men coming at you in the same direction

You look to your right and there’s also another group

She curses under her breath before pulling you to another direction, “this way!”

You have to weave through miscellaneous objects through alleys and garbage cans

You’re pushing your legs as fast as you can despite the growing burning sensation LOL I LOVE THAT ALBUM STAN TALENT STAN SF9

You’re about to collapse when someone tACKLES YOU FROM BEHIND

“Mmfdffmlfj!!!!” Your cries are muffled behind their hand

The last thing you remember is her voice calling your name

“Try again.” You can barely make out the words before the frigid water hits your face

You cough violently and open your eyes

“Ah, you’re finally awake.”

In the dimly lit room your eyes try to adjust to the dark shapes and what seems to be in some sort of empty abandoned building

The man gestures to someone to brighten up the place and only then do you take a good look at who’s in front of you

The infamous Mr. Choi staring back at you, the very man your father has talked about countless of times

“Bring him out,” he orders as he keeps his eyes locked with yours

You hear the heavy grunt of the metal door opening and you instantly hear a voice that you’ve spent this entire time searching for

“Let.. me… go!” He spits out as he attempts to wriggle out of the men’s grips

He looks up and it’s all that takes him to still again

Your disheveled wet hair sticking to the edges of your face, the top you bought in the mall that one day now drenched in water, the dismay in your eyes

His breath gets caught in his throat before he angrily turns to his father and fumes, “Why is she here? Why did you bring me?”

He chuckles and strides to you with every menacing step

“Didn’t I say you would both find out?” He traces your jaw and you have to use every fiber of your body to not vomit on his polished Prada leather dress shoes

Seungcheol grits his teeth and violently thrashes around in their grip around him

Your breathing gets heavier as his hand drifts down to your neck

“Would be a shame to end things here… wouldn’t it?” He laughs before whipping out a gun from his pocket

“But let’s just cut out the games. You were meant to die on that night, but my idiot of a son couldn’t do it.” He points the head right in front of you

“So i’ll do it in his stead. Any last words you wanna exchange?” He gestures to you and his son

You look around to find any way out but all the entrances are utterly blocked by his guards

You slowly turn around to the rustling noise

“Stop it, Seungcheol…. Don’t act like you care.”

He looks at you in bewilderment and scoffs, “Act? You think I’m acting? I nearly risked my life to save yours! And this is just,,,, acting?”

“You were supposed to kill me that night. And you didn’t. That was your biggest mistake. You should have just ended things, not like the pathetic way you did over the phone,” your voice slightly faltered.

“It wasn’t a mistake! I wanted you to get away from this, to get away from me! Why can’t you understand that?” He was in disbelief; he practically saved you!

“You’re right. It was a bigger mistake on my end that I believed I mattered for once in my life.” He softens his facial expressions when you look up at him with a dead stare. “Y/N….”

You numbly turn back at the gun pointed in front of you

“So? Aren’t you gonna do it?”

He laughs at your provocation and merely shrugs

“If you say so”

You hear him loading the gun and just when you anticipate a bullet firing, you hear one but from behind you

The entire building is in chaos and smoke and dirt fill your vision

“Seungcheol!” Joshua and Junhui along with a whole team invade the space

He only points towards you and yells over the noise to have them focus on your safety

They nod and send the team over to help you get out of the guards’ grip

Joshua, Junhui, and 2 others are staying back to help Seungcheol as the rest of the group rushes to your side

As he’s ducking with his arms over his head, he pulls out his gun and manages to skim Minghao’s arm

He curses and holds his wound together while shouting something to another member

Soonyoung kicks the gun out of Mr. Choi’s hands as Jihoon and Seungkwan lock his arms with handcuffs

Two people who quickly introduce themselves as Wonwoo and Mingyu are on both of your sides with their arms wrapped around your shoulders

They’re talking so quickly that all the coherent words you can hear are “get” “you” “safety” “right now”

“Seungcheol??” You look at both of them, but neither are meeting your gaze

“He told us to get you first. He’ll be fine,,, he has the rest of the guys there”

“But what if he’s hurt?!”

Wonwoo quickly looks back at his shoulder and sees a few of the guards running after them

“There’s no time! We have to go right now!”

You finally burst out into the open chilly night air and make a beeline for the waiting van parked outside

They push you in first and once Mingyu slides in he immediately slams the door shut. “fLOOR IT!!!”

Vernon slams on the gas pedal and you’re off

The entire car ride is silent save for the heavy breathing from the adrenaline pumping through everyone

Wonwoo, the closest one next to you, puts his hand reassuringly on your knee

“We’re taking you to our headquarters, which is essentially our hideout,,, you’ll be safe there, I promise”

Still staring out the window, you numbly nod as he slowly removes his hand

When you arrive there, you do what they told you to: cleanse, get dressed, and hold on tight as they find a way to contact her father

After a somewhat relaxing shower, you emerge from the bathroom wearing a baggy shirt underneath a hoodie up to mid-thigh and sweats that were left outside of the door when someone named Chan knocked on it earlier

You walk to the living room where everyone is gathered around a circle talking about different methods of communication with everyone

“Oh, Y/N,” Wonwoo gets up and jogs to you. “Feel free to get something from the kitchen to eat. You can hang around the front or the back, but it’s really dark and cold, so we don’t want anything more bad to happen”

You flicker your eyes from his face to the other 3 on the couches

They slightly wave to you with a small smile and continue their discussion

You nod and thank him before heading to the kitchen

You grab an ice cream bar and a bottle of water before heading out to the front

You sit on a bench and look up at the starry night sky

Just earlier this morning, you were resolute to find him

And now fast forward to the end of the day, you were with his coworkers at their hideout

As you finish up your dessert, you brush yourself off and take a look around the area

You go around to the back and see a picnic table with folding chairs all over the yard

As you approach the table, you see a few polaroids that seem to be too familiar

“Wait… this was when we went to the cafe….”

You flip over each picture and see scribbles of writing on them

“The ice cream wasn’t as sweet as her”

You flip over each picture and see more writing similar to the caption before and realize all of the pictures are of you

The last one you flip over is the last night you saw him

He took a picture of you talking to your cousin,,,, you slowly turn over the picture

“This could have been me…”

“There you go again.”

You quickly put down the picture and slowly turn towards the voice

Seungcheol, all battered and bruised, is standing just 10 feet away

Cuts and scrapes are all over his face and arms, his clothes ripped and dirtied

He slowly walks towards you and you can’t help but to lean against the table for support

“Do… what?”

He stops in front of you, his face only inches away from yours

“Being irresistible. We’re not even together yet and you’re already wearing my clothes?”

“What makes you think we’re going to get together? Do you always want to kill your potential girlfriends?”

He gently places his hand on your chin and turns your head to face him

“No. Do you always go on a spontaneous hunt for a guy and end up almost dying?”

“That’s not fair; I didn’t know you were caught up in this shady stuff!”

“....Are you gonna walk away from it? From me?” He looks at you, a hint of desperation and anxiety in his eyes. “That’s exactly why I told you to forget about me”

You place both of your hands on his face, caressing his cheeks. “If we’re gonna make this relationship work, we’re gonna have to go over some rules about secrets”

He lights up at the word “relationship” and you can’t help but smile at his childlike grin

“You gotta stop that too”

He’s like ??? what do you mean

“Being vulnerable.” And you both seal your promises with a lingering kiss that tastes like coffee ice cream

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demosthenes46-blog · 6 years

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The boy who owned the world NOVEMBER 26, 2017 · FRIENDS The boy who owned a world By Josh Maynard Intro April 2020 People are dying. 2/3s of the worlds population has succumbed to an unknown virus. All humans above age 19 are dead. Corpses lie still in their cribs. Elderly lie eternally asleep in their beds. It all started 3 days ago, the flash. Children are waking up from their coma. Milk is sour. No power. Mommy and daddy smell bad. This is the new beginning. Adults have desecrated the Earth. So, the virus only attacked fully developed brains. Chapter 1 0810 Hours “Everything is fucked man, so fucked!” Eric mumbled as he pulled his red flyers wagon down the street. He stopped at a street light and out of habit looked both ways. Warily he crossed the street. Gunshots can be heard in the distance. the familiar pops that would resemble fireworks brought only death. “Damn kids” he spat in the direction on south Freetown. Eric would be turning 15 this year. Like it mattered, he thought. No more birthday candles. They were too valuable. After a few brisk minutes he reached a partially looted liquor store. He silently laughed at the broken registers and lotto machines. Damn kids. Curiously he made his way down the aisle pulling cans off the shelves. First aid and medical supplies went into the wagon as well. Candy bars, ramen noodles, and even pet food all came off the shelf. He suddenly stopped. He stopped right in front of the huge beer cooler. Shrugging a “what the hell” he grabbed a few cases. Eric managed to haul over 100lbs of supplies back to his house. His dads truck still in the garage. His moms eco friendly hatchback was still in the driveway. After putting his wagon away he grabbed his .22 rifle and his fathers .38 special tucking it in his waist band. After grabbing some pretzels and 12 pack he made his way to the front porch. While sitting in the rocking chair he began to whistle one of his fathers favorite bands songs. Eric solemnly took out a pack of malboros and lit one. While exhaling a large cloud of smoke he screamed “FUCK THIS” taking a final swig of his beer, he threw the bottle into the street. Not shedding a single tear. 3 hours later Eric awoke to the sound of screaming. No, laughter? He lazily opened his eyes to see a few kids playing soccer in the middle of the street. A few boys and girls his age while toddlers watched from the curb. The twins were team captains. Obviously, Eric snorted. Grabbing another cigarette he made his way to the street. The automatic gates didn’t work so he used a manual gate next to his mother’s rose bushes. Earlier he had wrapped all of his bike chains around the gate to further secure it. If he at 10 years old knew how to pick a lock then he could count on other degenerates knew too. After undoing all the chains several kids noticed Eric. “Eric! Finally the master of disaster wakes up!” one of the twins piped up. It was Harry, the boy, all long flowing locks of fiery red hair. “What’s up fire crotch?!” Eric replied. Soon all the little ones crowded Eric squealing and hugging his legs. “We rescued a lot of kids today” Sara mentioned as he made her way through the small crowd. “While you were shut in your castle”. Sarah gave him a peck on his cheek. “We thought…..” her gaze fell low “We thought you were fish food man!” Harry exclaimed “But look at you! Smoking AND drinking. Wow. Hey wheres all the warm beer?” Eric put his thumb behind him “I put it in the pool”. At the mention of a pool the kids all stopped playing with the ball. “Well fuck this! Me first!” Harry yelled pushing past all the little ones “Take him hostage sis, hes all yours!” he screamed just as an army of children began to run behind him. Eric smiled, my little army, he thought. “So hot shot, what’s the plan?” he turned to see Sarah in white shorts and a yellow blouse. The wind was whipping her hair across her shouders. She and her twin brother were 16. Sarah and Eric swapped their V-cards together just that summer. “Well Darling” he said between puffs “I guess we take over the world” laughing he locked the gate and slid his arm around her waist. Together they made their way to the pool. “Don’t drink it all asshole!” Eric yelled as Harry grabbed his another beer. “Relax bro, ill go get you a whole store!” Harry replied. They both fell back in their lawn chairs laughing. “Is this the life or what?” Harry asked “Despite the fact I forgot we have no parents, its been alright” Harry whistled a somber tune. “Yeah, our dad was an ass so we put him in the county dump” Harry replied gleaming “ Fuck-em” he whispered as he took another swig. “So captain whats the plan? I mean, how do we live? Obviously we cant take care of all these little bastards” Harry mentioned while he waved his hand at the pool. The pool was filled with more then 50 screaming and laughing kids. They all had forgotten for the time being that they had awoken to dead parents days before. Eric smiled at Harry “I guess we can drop them off in the woods somewhere—OWWW” “Sarah punched Eric in the shoulder “Well? Do you have any ideas princess?” Eric said turning towards her. She was rubbing her temples while in deep thought. “We need them…” she finally said “We need an army” Harry began to laugh but quickly fell silently, no one else thought it was funny. “Your serious?” said Eric, she turned to him “ Its time babe. We’re taking over”. Eric lifted his beer and chugged the rest in one gulp, “Si vis pacem para bellum” he whispered. Chapter 2 A few months later Cars had now been parked to block the ends of the street. After Eric dispatched Harry to the local hardware store to get generators. The wall was being built. Tony was named head engineer. Tony was 13 and still in love with legos so to Eric it was a no brainer to charge him with building a wall. He now supervised 8-15 year olds as they cut and nailed new sections. Eric drove by in his Hummer. “Hey Tony the tiger, hows the progress?” he asked stepping out. Tony grimaced, “ Im not gunna lie Er, we are way behind. That last attack from the Baron’s set us back. We are now using fire retardant wood and aluminum roofing to cover the wood. At least the gate anyway. The vulneralbities are the alley’s and the sewers”. Eric was writing in his notebook. “ Anything else to report?” Tony looked sideways “Well, one of the new recruits is causing some trouble” At this Eric looked up “Trouble?” Tony sighed “She causing some dissention with the younger ones, he goes by Striker” Eric spat at the ground “Son of a bitch” he pulled out his radio “Base 1, this is golden eye over” his radio crackled “Golden eye we read you, what’s your 20? Over”. The kids had raided a police station armory and found radios with code books. “Find out who is in charge of our new guppies (recruits) and bring them all to the hall of justice, over.” Eric said “Roger wilco sir, over and out”. Eric kicked a rock “To the torture chamber we go”. He climbed behind the wheel of the truck and sped off grinding his cig mouth. “Attention on deck!” Lt Gaby screamed. “ At ease” Eric barked. The whole room sat at Eric’s command. “ Lt, give me the list of guppies” Gaby promptly handed over a list of this week’s workers. Striker was last on the list. “Guppie Striker?” Instantly a frail blonde girl stood. She was about his height with green eyes and a very extenuating bust. Shit, Eric thought, he assumed it was a male. “Seize her” 4 guards responded and cuffed her. “Bring her here” Eric commanded, the guards led her without protest to the front of the hall and sat her in the Truth Chair. “Guppies DISSMISSED!” Eric bellowed, Lt Gaby began to bark orders and led them back to work detail. As the last recruit left Eric told the guards to wait outside. “Id rather blow you then get raped” Striker spat in rebellion as he walked behind her. “Who do work for?” Eric simply asked ignoring her provoke, “What?” Eric slapped her hard “Argh, I don’t WORK for anyone you jackass!” Striker screamed. “Why all the bullshit on the wall then!? Your speech is a cancer” Eric retorted as he began to lose his cool. He stayed behind her “I was only talking shit!” She screamed, she smelled good Eric thought as he leaned into her ear “Liar liar pants on ….” He then proceeded to lift a can and pour precious gasoline all over her body “….Fire”. Pity, she smelled so nice. She was screaming and thrashing but chains held her down. He circled her and took out a cigarette, light it and inhaled. “Look ill do whatever you want ok? Ill do whatever you want, please!” she was crying hard now, it gave Eric a thrill to hear her beg. “Tell me, who…..do….you….work….for” He breathed out his smoke so thick she began to cough “Fine FUCK, FINE! Fuck! Ill tell you! But I cant go back there! Please! They will kill me!” She screamed as Eric lit another match. “Who will?” Eric whispered as he slowly circled her. “The fucking jackets!” this puzzled Eric. The Yellow Jacket football team, he thought. Shit. “Guards!” Eric sat down, hands in his lap patiently studying Strikers face. She looked like an animal caught in a trap. The gas worked every time. If she only knew it was a cup of gas poured in a gallon of water for the smell. He smiled as moments later the Hall’s door was filled with guards. “Put her in solitary” He nodded to Striker “Brig, bread and water 3 days. That’s it.” Just as he finished his command Sarah burst through the front double doors with her honor guard trialing her. Oh shit, thought Eric. Sarah walked right up to Striker and punched her in the throat. Striker, still tied in the chair, fell gasping for breath still attached to the Truth chair. “Why wasn’t I notified immediately? Shes a fucking spy?!” Eric looked like he was actually 15. He then looked her straight in the eye and told her the truth “I didn’t want to risk it over the radios” Sarah kicked Striker in the stomach “And that’s for soliciting yourself on my man bitch!”. Between gasps Striker managed a weak “Fuck you..” Sara scoffed and began to try and stomp her face but Eric quickly intervened. “Stop Sara!” She looked back at him incredulously “We need her!” He urgently whispered. “Shes from a new gang, that football team from Glenbard High? Yellow Jackets apparently. That school is a fortress! Fuck a wall. That place could be our capital! We are close to 800 strong and climbing everyday….we need to expand” Eric then lightly kicked the now unconscious girl on the ground. “Shes our golden goose” It took Sara a few seconds to contemplate this and then suddenly jumped on Eric “ Oh Darling this is why I love you!” She blurted in between kisses. “Ahem” a cloaked figure appeared in the Hall’s doorway. “Come now children, daddy’s home!” a familiar Harry swept off his cloak in a kingly manner. “Scary Harry! My man, how goes it?” Harry lit a cigar and dragged a huge toke. “Well, the campaign is going well, we brought an additional 76 guppies in. But even better are our raids. I put the preliminaries on your desk Governor, ill tell you this, we hit em hard” Sarah released her grip on Eric “How hard?” She breathed slowly. Harry took his time “Uhhh…about 10,000 gallons of fuel” Eric’s cigarette fell from his mouth. Sarah ran to her brother and picked him up in a excited embrace. “You little devil you! How!? A transport?” she set him down “Of course my horse! We were raiding the airport when our scouts spotted a few Baron’s guarding a jet and a truck. Our snipers took out the gurads and when we searched the plane. Nothing but this white powerdy stuff. Looks like coke?” “Celebration?” Harry asked his lifetime best friend. “Its time to kill the fatted calf” Eric said with a smile. It was going to be a very good day after all. “Governor! Eric wake up!” Eric opened one eye, it was Lt. Gaby. “Yeah yeah im awake, whats the matter?” Gaby gave him a report “Is this true?” Gaby nodded “Ever since Sparrow (Stanley) put out that radio signal our radar is picking up thousands of kids and vehicles alike”. Shit, he thought, too soon. “Get me my gun and hail Cmdr Sarah and Cmdr Harry NOW!” Gaby quickly saluted and ran barking orders. Within minutes Sarah and Harry had Alpha Teams swarming the banisters. “I want snipers on every fucking roof damn it!” Eric yelled into his throat mike “And someone bring me some coffee!” Eric reached in his pocket and sniffed some sugar, he was floored. “Gaby, get processing teams down there now!” Eric knew first hand what could happen if close to 2,000 kids got riot worthy. Processing teams pushed through the huge make shift camp. Gaby got a p.a. “Males on the left side of the street and females on the right” Medical teams were then dispatched to triage the new kids. “We cant let them all in Eric, there’s not enough supplies” Harry said as he looked at the huge crowd. Reports were coming in that thousands were being added. “Then we build more walls. Send out more raid parties.” Harry looked away in anger “You have no idea what its like out there do you Er? How many good guys and girls ive lost trying to feed these outsiders” He spat as he waved his hand over new guppie crowd. “You and Sarah are living in this fantasy….you CANT save the world.” Eric knew Harry was right. They couldn’t keep on taking in every new guppie that they found. They were already at max capacity. They needed to expand. And he knew just the place to annex. Now was his chance. “Sarah, call the council together and Gaby?” “Yes, capt?” “Make sure these migrants have bread and water. Keep em happy” Gaby then replied a few seconds later “ Uh sir, theres a leader here who calls himself Josiah, he would like a word” Sarah looked at him with conern but Harry volunteered “Ill go baby sit the prophet” Harry said laughing as he climbed down the banister. “He’s a tough SOB that one!” Eric said as he watched Harry entreat this leader to succumb to his world. They both entered the gates minutes later arm over each others shoulder. He was a red head. Damn irish, Eric thought as he chuckled. “Well, you have your army Darling, whats next?” Eric pulled another cigarette from his almost empty pack. “We are gunna take that fucking school” Chapter 3 “8 days later” *Eric and Harry are on a hill ½ mile from Redwood High. Eric has a spotters scope & Harry is staring down a Barret .50. Both are dressed in camo. Its been two says since last relocation. Eric cant stop smoking. He worried about his young sniper team. Most of his team consisted of teenagers trained on video games of violence and gore. Bravo and Alpha teams consisting of 5 guppies contained a comms, medic, assault, and sniper team were stationed in the North and Charlie and Delta were moving in from the East & West. An entire storm trooper army was stationed just outside the Yellow Jackers radar about 2 clicks south, about 2k strong in the FOB* “There he is…” Eric, alert and hyperviligant, whispered. “The queen bee himself, range?” Harry asked “400 yards” Eric whispered. “Fuck man I cant make that shot!” Harry said setting down his rifle. “This is way different then COD bro, we got wind and drop to factor in” Eric whipped out a compass and wind navigator and ran the numbers. “Shoot 8 inches to the left and 5 inches above your target” Eric said to Harry. “Seriously?” Harry spat incredoulous. “Dead serious, simple calculus my friend, x is always moving” Whispered Eric. He watched through his spotters lens as the Queen Bee drank some hot liquid on the roof. “All units prepare for execute, on my mark, fire fire fire……” Erics words were muffled by thunderous crack of lightning. “WEAPONS FREE!” Eric yelled into his throat mike. Infantry units on dirt bikes, ATV’s, and trucks with .50 came barreling from all units and entire buses full of grunts began to appear on the horizon. The siege lasted 45 min. Multiple units began to engage the Yellow Jackets on the 1-4 floors of the school. Tear gas and smoke filled the courtyards. The ill prepared YJ did not stand a chance against riot gear and gas. Many young militants fell in the first few minutes. Medics were dispatched to patch up the wounded. Enemies were captured and rounded up in a make shift camp. After the intial stages of the invasion, the battle was over. A white flag was shown from the Gym of the school which served as HQ. The Gym was full to the brim with over 1,500 kids. “Cease fire!” Harry commanded over his mike. “Infantry, secure the perimeter, Flood the tunnels and seal the gates. No one in or out. Process all citizens of the YJ colony and get medical teams to triage the survivors.” Eric barked into his mike. “Sniper teams, your on overwatch duty, if you see a weapon in the hands of the enemy, terminate them” CRACK Harry slumped over. His face hit the cold ground with a sickening thud. Everything happened in slow motion. Eric’s initial assement assumed his wound was fatal. Crawling over, he deduced that the round had grazed his ear and rendered him unconscious. “FUCK EVAC ON MY POSITION NOW! I need artillery on that roof now! Mobile units, put suppressive fire on those banisters! SOMEBODY PUT A FUCKING BIRD IN THE SKY!”

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soaimagines · 7 years

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All Night Long

Request: Imagine meeting Juice in a carpark at 3am and he’s worried about your safety and it makes you cry a bit because you feel like you have no one to call a friend anymore and Juice stays with you all day.

Hmm.

It wasn’t unusual for your best friend to turn up at your house unannounced. But usually you were home when she did. You parked your car in the driveway and hopped out, slinging your bag over your shoulder and bumping the door shut with your hip. Knowing her, she’d probably forgot to pay her power bill or buy groceries and was taking full advantage of your open door policy. You didn’t mind, because when your cupboards weren’t stocked, or your water was running cold you knew you could turn to her. You only hoped that she hadn’t woken up George. Your fiancé had had a late night at work on the night shift and you had slipped out as silently as you could when you left for work this morning. But the office had been quiet and your boss had decided to let you all go home early. You walked quickly to the front door, humming to yourself as you went and you swung the door shut behind you before dropping your bag to the floor. “You better not be eating my oreos!” You kicked off your shoes and walked into the lounge. Huh. No one was in there. You headed for the kitchen and when you saw that it was empty too you frowned and put your hands on your hips. And that was when you heard it. A moan. Coming from down the hall. You gulped and almost instantly felt sick to your stomach. With careful footsteps you crept down the hallway. “Mmmm!” You took another step. Another moan. Two more steps. “Fuck! Yes!” One more step. “George!” You stopped outside your bedroom door. With a shaking hand you turned the door knob slowly, careful not to make any noise. Another moan. You took a deep breath and threw the door open. It was almost comical, the way they jumped, their eyes open wide like a deer caught in headlights. Scrambling to grab at the sheets and cover their naked bodies. Their mouths bobbing open like fucking goldfish. Your fiancé, in bed with your best friend. Your best friend, in bed with your fiancé. Your fiancé. Your best friend. You want to deny the nightmare before you; it just had to be a nightmare, right? Not him. Not her. You had always thought you’d known what you would do in a situation like this. You thought you’d fly into a rage, pummel his chest with your fists, drag her out of your bed by her hair, scream until your throat was raw. But you didn’t do any of those things. You stood, frozen with shock, only able to stare. In the faint distance you hear George, stuttering his explanation. The cliche ‘its not what it looks like’ as he stands, clutching the pillow to his crotch as if you’d never seen his dick before. Now she was scrambling, wrapping the sheet around her naked body as she slid off the bed. You saw her lips, mouthing ‘it just sort of happened’ and ‘it doesn’t mean anything’ but you didn’t hear her. You didn’t hear him pleading with you. Your mind was racing but you still stood, unmoving. “We didn’t mean for this to happen!” We. We. We. Something snapped inside you and you slid the ring off your finger, throwing it in his face before clenching your fist and swinging it into his jaw. “Fuck you!” You screamed. “Fuck both of you!”

“Come on, (y/n). Cheer up.” “Cheer up?! Are you fucking kidding me Chelsea?” Your sister rolled her eyes and slammed another shot before forcing a glass into your hand. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just ya know, maybe its time to move on.” “Jesus christ.” You took the shot and gestured to the bartender for another round. “You do realise I was engaged, right? To be married?” “Look, I get its a shitty situation. He’s a scumbag and she’s a hoe. I get it. But you cant dwell on it forever.” “Its been a week.” “Thats six days too long, babe.” You both took a shot. “Plus, I never liked him anyway.” She shrugged. “You didn’t? “He wasn’t right for you. He wears crocs, (y/n). In public.” You laughed and took another shot before spinning on your stool and looking around the bar. “What am i gonna do?” “Get drunk. Fuck a stranger.” Chelsea shrugged. “Great advice, sis.” You rolled your eyes. “Really though, where do I go from here?” Your sister sighed and turned in her seat too and she leant back against the abr. “Honestly? I don’t know what you’re gonna do. But I know who Im gonna do.” She winked at you and slinked off her chair, walking confidently to the table at the back of the room, where three guys sat. You sighed and ordered another shot. For now, you were allowed to feel sorry for yourself.

“Your call has been redirected to a prerecorded voice messaging system. Please-“ You hit end and sighed. Why was it that no one ever answered the phone when you needed them too. It was the third number you’d tried. First, you’d tried Sarah, your friend. And then another friend, but she had sent you to voicemal. And then you’d tried Susan from work. God you didn’t even fucking like Susan, but you just needed someone to talk to. As much as you loved your sister, and her coping methods, you just needed to voice your thoughts. Nothing was making any sense anymore and no matter how much you drank you couldn’t wipe the memory of that day from replaying in your mind. You didn’t know which betrayal was worse. Absentmindedly you rubbed the spot on your finger where your ring used to sit. At least you hadn’t married him yet. Thats gotta be a positive, right? Silver lining or some shit. “Hurry up!” You looked up from your spot on the bathroom counter and sighed. You couldn’t hide in the bathroom of a bar forever. “Just a sec!” You splashed some water on your face and dabbed it dry wiht a paper towel before you headed back to the table. “(Y/n)! Where’d you go?!” You slid back into the booth next to your drunk sister, who threw her arms around you. The guys from earlier had been shouting drinks all night, and all though you didn’t mind their company, all you wanted was to hang out with your sister. Alone. “So, (y/n), tell me about yourself.” The guy in front of you smiled. TIm, you think his name was. “Id rather not.” You sighed. Chelsea nudged your arm and you rolled your eyes. “(Y/n) here just got out of a shitty relationship.” You frowned and the guys looked at you curiously. “He cheated on her.” Chelsea whispered, loudly. Vodka always did go straight to her head. “With her best friend!” You lifted the glass in front of you and downed it before slamming it down on the table. “Well you know what they say,” Tim said, a smirk on his face. You looked at him with raised eye brows, an unamused look on your face. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” You grimaced. “Im going home.” Chelsea grabbed your arm and tugged you back into your seat but you shook her off. “Are you coming?” Chelsea looked between you and the guys who were watching her expectantly. “Im gonna stay, sis. You should too!” “Suit yourself.” You turned your back and headed out of the club, trying- but failing to ignore the laughter coming from the table and tears stung at your eyes. For a moment you considered ordering another round of drinks and getting black out wasted. But everything in this bar was becoming too much; the Bon Jovi blasting through the speakers, the clinking of glasses, the raised voices battling to be heard over each other. You decided against it and headed for the door. The night air hit you and you tugged your jacket tighter around yourself. You walked to the carpark and sat down on the curb, pulling out your phone and dialled for a taxi. The operator told you there’d be an hour wait, and after trying the only other cab company in the area and being told the same thing, you sighed and booked it anyway. Why had your sister dragged you to the bar furthest from your motel?! It was too far to walk, and you didn’t really have the energy. Looks like you’d just have to wait.

“Shit.” You tried the lighter again, hoping desperately to see a flame but just like last time the lighter sparked before dying out. “Need a light?” You jumped and turned to look behind you. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just um.. I have a lighter,” The guy said, holding out an old zippo lighter and a warm smile on his face. “Thanks.” You flashed him a smile and took the lighter. Your hand met his and you couldn’t help but notice how warm they were. You lit your cigarette. It was your fifth smoke since you’d come outside but you always smoked like a prostitute when you were angry. or nervous. Or drunk, for that matter. “Are you waiting for someone?” He asked. You passed the lighter back to him and he shoved it deep into the pocket of his hoodie. “Cab.” You answered and took a long drive. “They said it’d be an hour. But that was well over an hour ago.” “Huh.” He sat down next to you. You turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself, I’ll wait with you.” “Its okay. I’ll be fine, really.” “I dont mind.” His smile was warm and he seemed genuine. You shrugged and he pulled his own pack of cigarettes out of his pockets. You looked at him and this time you really took him in. His mohawk, his tribal tattoos on either side, the plain black hoodie he wore. His warm brown eyes. You both sat in silence as you smoked, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. “Im (y/n).” He smiled warmly at you. “Juan Carlos.” You smiled back at him. “You really don’t need to wait with me, Im sure they wont be long.” “Its fine, really. Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be on these streets alone.” You blushed and looked away. The streetlights shone down on you, illuminating your features and Juice studied you the best he could without staring. Why did he even care? He didn’t know you. Why did some stranger seem to care more about you then your own friends and family. The emotions you’d been fighting to hold in all week suddenly washed over you and you turned away as a tear rolled down your cheek. Juice took once last drag of his cigarette before flicking the butt into the gutter. He heard a sniffle and noticed your shoulders slowly shaking. For a second he was alarmed. What had he done?! He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable but he couldn’t just ignore you crying. Fuck it, he thought. He didn’t speak. He just wrapped his arms around you and held you tightly. Which only seemed to make you cry harder and he rocked you slowly. “Fuck.” You laughed humourlessly and wiped your tears away. “Im sorry.” “Dont apologise.” You turned to him. His brown eyes were filled with worry and a sad smile was on his lips. He looked into your eyes. God, there was something so beautiful about eyes that have just cried. Glistening with unshed tears and wet lashes, like an open window into your soul. He was overwhelmed by the emotion you held in your eyes. Your face was almost blank, but when he looked into your eyes he felt every emotion that had washed over you. Your eyes betrayed you, letting him see all the pain you’d been fighting so hard to hold in. He rubbed your back gently before pulling away and rummaged through his pockets. You looked away, cursing yourself for breaking down in front of the cute Puerto Rican boy. When you looked back he had a joint in his hands and he gave you a sheepish grin. You laughed and he lit it, taking a long drag before offering it to you. “You smoke?” “Yeah,” You shrugged and took it between your fingers. “I mean, I haven’t in years. My fiancé hates it.” “Your engaged?” You blew out a long cloud before shaking your head. “Not any more.” He nodded slowly and silence fell between you once more, as you passed the joint back and forth. “Everythings so fucked up.” Juice stood, tossing the burnt out roach into the street. He held out his hand and you looked up at him with raised eyebrows. “Come on,” He smiled. “You can tell me everything over pancakes.” You smiled and bit your lip, checking the street to make sure your cab hadn’t finally arrived. It hadn’t, and you were strangely relieved. “Its 3am. Is anything even open?” He nodded. “Theres an all-night diner in the next street. They do this thing called the Juan Carlos special. Some genius invented it, its world famous. You really should try it.” You grinned and took hold of his warm hand and he pulled you up, that goddamned smile all over his face.

“Jesus.” You whispered under your breath as the waitress placed the food on your table. Two plates each loaded with a four inch stack of pancakes, two waffles, a jug of maple syrup, banana, whipped cream, and a shit ton of bacon. The ‘Juan Carlos Special’. Juice grinned and tucked in, stabbing into the pile of bacon with his fork. “You not hungry?” He asked with a mouthful of pancake. You laughed and shook your head. “I don’t know where to start.” “Bacon. Always start with bacon.” You picked up your fork and stabbed a piece of bacon, moaning when the flavour hit your tongue. Juice grinned across the table. “So, tell me everything.” “You really wanna know?” You sighed. He shrugged and lifted the jug or maple syrup and poured the whole thing onto his plate. “Only if you want to.” He waved a forkful of pancake in the air. “Look, I’m shit at giving advice. But sometimes it helps, ya know. Talking to a stranger. Outside perspective and all that.” “He fucked my best friend.” You blurted out. He paused, forkful of pancake hallway to his mouth. “Seriously?” You nodded. “Asshole.” And just like that you opened up. You told him everything. You told him about your best friend and how you’d met in kindergarten. You told him about your teenage years where you and her would get up to all kinds of mischeif. You told him about the first time you met your fiancé, about your relationship, about the proposal and moving in together. Everything. Right down to when you opened that door and saw her riding his dick. And he listened. Like, really listened. He hung off every word, asked you questions, interrupted you with mutters of ‘douchbag’ and ‘asshole’. “So my sister dragged me out tonight to try cheer me up but she ditched me for some random guys. And no one else answered their phones.” You sighed. “I just feel like I have no one.. ya know? Like Ive lost everything.” “Gimme your phone.” Juice said and pushed away his now empty plate. You raised an eyebrow. “You buy me pancakes and then rob me?” He chuckled and held out his hand. With a roll of your eyes you handed him your cell phone. His fingers went to work and you watched him. You didn’t even know this kid. And yet he was here for you; more than any of your friends had been. He had listened more than your own sister. He made you feel so.. comfortable. You looked away from him and eyed the diner. Its checkered floors, shiny red booths, CocaCola posters from the fifties framed on the walls. Neon lights hung in the window and near the back was an old jukebox playing some Meatloaf balled. He handed you back your phone and you glanced at the screen. New Contact. Juice. “Juice?” “My friends call me Juice.” He explained. You hit edit on the screen. “I prefer Juan, if you don’t mind?” His whole face lit up and he was thankful you were too busy looking at your screen to notice the blush creeping up his neck. “Whenever you need anything. Talk, or pancakes. Call me.” “Thank you, Juan. Really.” You smiled. “Anytime. So tell me, how do you feel about revenge?”

“Are you seriously breaking in?” You hissed. He shushed you and you glanced around nervously while he hovered over the lock. “Juan, seriously. Im not really keen on getting arrested.” He sniggered and pushed the door open before reaching inside and flicking the light switch. “Calm down, (y/n). You aint a crim just yet.” He pulled you inside and shut the door behind you. Your eyes widened as you took in the room; the pristine white walls, bob marley posters. Shelves stacked with different jars and bongs. And of course, that undeniable smell. “So you work here or something?” He shook his head and headed behind the counter. “Nah, I own it.” “Seriously? You own Clear Passages?” “Sorta.” He shurgged. “Twenty percent anyway.” You nodded and paced the store,your arms swinging by your sides as eyed the different strands on the shelves. Juice rummaged under the counter. “You sure you wanna do this?” He asked as he pulled out the container he had been searching for. You bit your lip and nodded. Juice searched your face for any uncertainty before nodding and sliding the container into his pocket. He turned and grabbed a sachet of the shelf behind him before heading out from behind the counter. “C’mon.” He grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the exit, flicking off the light as he went. You entered the street and he locked the door behind the two of you. “Its too far to walk, and I don’t have my car. The cabs-“ “I’ll take us.” Juice interrupted. “Okay.” You walked in silence, Juice leading the way. The streets were becoming quiet as the early hours of the morning rolled in and you shoved your hands deep into the pockets of your jacket. You neared a gas station and Juice pointed into the car park next door. “My rides the one in the corner, you can wait there if ya want?” He headed inside and you nodded, stopping at a vending machine and pressing the button for a can of coke. The can dropped and you reached inside and lifted it out. You cracked the lid open as you walked and took a sip. The car park was nearly empty and Juice had pointed to the corner. You lit a cigarette before perching on the hood of the sedan and leant back, studying the stars shining in the night sky. A few minutes later Juice left the store, plastic bag in his hand and you propped yourself up on your elbows as he neared. He sat on the hood next to you and took a sip of the coke you offered him. “Get everything?” He nodded. “His house or hers first?” “His. He works nights so he wont be home.” Juice nodded and leant back against the car and you both looked up at the stars. “Whose car is this?” You turned to him, your brows furrowed together. “You pointed to it.” He shook his head, an amused look in his eyes. “I pointed to that.” You looked where he pointed to the carpark next to you. The carpark occupied with a Harley Davidson Dyna. You slid off the car and glanced between the bike and Juice, who was now smirking at you. You walked around the bike and immediately noticed the fuel tank. More accurately, you noticed the M16 with the Grim Reaper scythe on a pole, and the words that made you freeze. ‘Sons Of Anarchy’. You turned back to him, eyes slightly wide. “Your in a gang?! Jesus, you don’t look like a biker.” “Firstly, we’re a club, not a gang. And what does a biker look like, exactly?” You shrugged. “I dunno. Your not even wearing any leather? And you don’t have a beard. Or a potbelly.” He chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint. I can grow a pretty great moustache, though.” You scrunched up your face and he laughed again before handing you his helmet. “This really not a problem?” He asked you as he swung his leg over. “Nope.” You answered as you bucked the strap beneath your chin. “Have you ever been on a bike before?” “Nope.” He grinned. “Hold on tight. And lean with me.” You took a deep breath and nodded before holding onto his shoulder and swinging your leg over the bike. You held onto his sides and he rolled his eyes before pulling your hands tighter around him. He kicked up his kickstand and started the bike. The engine rumbled beneath you and you squeezed him tightly. He turned and met your eye. “You okay?” You nodded. Slowly the bike began to move, and once he entered the street he turned the throttle, gaining speed. You gulped as he turned a corner but you leant with him like he had told you, despite wanting to lean in the opposite direction and he sped up, making your hair blow out beneath the helmet. Gradually you relaxed, your grip around his waist becoming looser and you sat up straight. The scenery rushed past you in a blur and a grin spread over your face. You had never felt more alive.

“Motherfucker.” He stopped walking and stood next to you, glancing in the direction you were glaring. “Whats wrong?” “Thats her car.” He saw the pain in your eyes as you looked at your best friends car, parked where you used to park yours; in the drive way of the house you had shared with your fiance. He grabbed your hand and gave it a squeeze. “Come on.” You nodded and moved forward, dropping his hand. Juice couldn’t help but smirk as he watched you creep across the street, your body hunched and your head glancing from side to side and he snorted as you army rolled behind a bush. He walked casually across the street and smirked as you hissed at him to hide. He knelt down next to you and you turned to him with wild eyes. “Do you want us to get caught?” You whispered angrily. “Jesus christ, we’re not breaking the law.” “Sorry, I forgot you were a gangster.” You rolled your eyes. “You probably don’t care if we go to jail.” He fought a laugh. “Its a club, not a gang. And its your house, (y/n). You have a key.” You nodded and pulled the hood of your jacket up and pulled it as low as it could go. “So whats the plan, Chief?” Juice whispered. “You start out here. I’ll head inside.” Juice nodded and watched as you crept to the front door, silently fumbling with the keys. Meanwhile he pulled the can of spray paint out of the bag and got to work. You pushed the door shut behind you, careful not to make any noise. You felt sick as you looked around the house. The moon was bright tonight and the room was dimly lit. After a while your eyes adjusted and you looked around the room. The photos of you and your fiancé were still littered over the mantel piece and everything looked just as you’d left it. Except the heels scattered next to the door, and the coat draped over the back of the sofa. You gulped and tip toed into the kitchen. Every Wednesday afternoon you had baked. Brownies, cakes, cookies. You had always liked baking and George had always loved tasting whatever you had cooked up. No matter what, there was always some fresh baking in your cupboards. Which was perfect, because you knew when George got home he would head to the cupboard and eat whatever baking he could find, without a second thought. You placed the container Juice had given you in the cupboard, smiling to yourself. George wouldn’t even notice that these brownies were.. special. Next you headed for the refrigerator. Your best friend staying here meant that you didn’t need to make two stops tonight. Every morning she had a big glass of orange juice. You pulled the carton out of the fridge and opened it carefully before dumping the powder in and shaking it gently, making sure it dissolved. It was only a laxative, completely natural, Juice had reassured you. You knew she had a big meeting tomorrow, and you smirked. Its a shame she would be glued to the toilet. You had just placed the carton back into the fridge when Juice entered the room. “You ready?” He whispered. “Almost.” You reached for the drawer and pulled out a large knife. You gave him a wink and grinned. His eyes went wide as he saw the wild look in your eyes and the smirk on your face and he grabbed your wrist. “Are you crazy?! Put it down.” “No.” “What are you gonna do?! Stab her?!” He hissed at you. You rolled your eyes and left the kitchen, Juice hot on your heels and you stopped when you reached the lounge. “Hold this.” You passed him the knife. “Why, you wanna get my prints on the murder weapon?!” You scoffed and tip toed over to the mantelpiece. Carefully you lifted the first frame. It was a photo of you and George on your first vacation together. You pulled the sleeve of your jacket over your hand and pressed your palm against the frame, silently shattering the glass. You placed the frame back on the mantel and repeated the process with the remaining frames. Juice watched you and when you were finished you walked back to him and grabbed the knife. He followed you through the front door and pulled it shut behind him. You locked the door and shoved the keys back in your pocket. “Whats the knife for?” He whispered. “This.” You walked across the driveway and stabbed the knife into the front tire of her car. The air hissed out and you pried the knife loose before stabbing each of the remaining three tires. Juice had crossed the street and you walked over and stood next to him. He draped an arm around your shoulder and you both looked at the house. Juice had done well with the spray paint and you smiled as you looked at the work he’d done. ‘Cheat’ was spray painted in large letters on the garage door. He’d written ‘homewrecker’ on the bonnet of your friends car and the walls of the house were littered with other profanities, and next to the front window of the house he had painted a large penis. “Nice touch, Picasso.” He bowed and you both laughed. “So what now?” “We wait a few hours and then I ring his work and make an anonymous tip about the staff using drugs. If he eats the brownies he’ll fail the drug test and lose his job.” You smirked. Sure, a part of you felt bad for what you’d done. But it was only a very small part of you, and you pushed those thoughts to the back of your mind. Slowly Juice pulled you away and you walked together in silence back to his bike were you’d left it further down your street. He passed you the helmet and you both hopped onto the bike. You pressed your cheek to his back as he rode through the night, the crisp air brushing over you and you closed your eyes. He smelled good, his cologne mixing with the faint smell of weed and the scent filled your lungs. You clung to him tightly, his warm body pressed against yours. You felt light, like all your baggage had finally been left behind you. Who knew all it would take was one night with a Puerto Rican biker boy. The bike slowed and you finally took in your surroundings. He had brought you to the water tower on the outskirts of town. “Come on, we gotta hurry.” He dragged you to the ladder and you shook your head. “No way. I ain’t climbing up there!” You crossed your arms over your chest. Juice rolled his eyes and tugged your elbow gently. “Trust me, it’ll be worth it.” His eyes were full of promise and pleading and you sighed. “Fine. But if i fall to my death please make sure they dress me in something cute. I don’t wanna be buried in these jeans.” And you started to climb. He didn’t know why you disliked those jeans so much. From where he was looking, they looked great on you. Although he was climbing the ladder beneath you, and honestly it wouldnt matter what you were wearing, this view made your ass look great. It only took a few minutes to reach the top and you stood shakily on the platform. “Holy shit.” You whispered. You could see everything from up here. The shining lights of all the houses in Charming and even Lodi. Everything was so small. Juice sat down, swinging his legs off the edge and resting his arms against the lower railing. You copied him and he pulled out another joint and lit it before offering it to you. Together you shared the joint and together you watched as the large glowing sphere of the sun rose slowly into the dull morning sky. It cast sunbeams in every direction as it illuminated the small town, like an arsonist setting the sky on fire. Below you in the trees birds began to chirp a background melody as the pure scattered light lit up every inch of the land below you. Your breath paused in your lungs and you wished time would stop. In this moment everything was forgotten. You forgot the heartbreak you’d endured, the betrayal. You forgot the boring motel room that was now your temporary home. You forgot that no one had been there for you when you needed them most. But the one thing you didn’t forget was Him. The first night you spent with Juan Carlos was a memory that would live on inside you forever.

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@i-want-to-be-watered-by-roger @danleto97

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